Halftime: Hahaha

Deck: We gotta be Hurricane Glen real quick and floor them motherfuckers. We gotta floor these niggas who think they are on top right now.

Halftime (Marcus): The thing that got niggas was the samples ya’ll used. I think ya’ll should just go back to that same crate you were using before. Cats saying we went to Argentina to explore a new instrument and put it on the album, nah man just go ahead do what made ya’ll hot. That’s the same thing I told AZ, he shouldn’t have did that one song with the south flow, he been doing him.

Deck: I ain’t been feeling son personally and I’m a fan of his. He put out like three albums in a row that bombed. I got a gold album and one that sold 100K on Koch records. We weren’t trying to sell a million, we were trying to hustle and get our name back in the mix. I’m doing this album now “Return of the Rebel.” I’m gonna have Rza produce and all that but I want to wait until after we do a Clan album and then drop it. It makes more sense. I also got an album I want to do with DJ Muggs from Cypress Hill and I’m gonna drop that first before anything.

Halftime (Jbutters): You mentioned your solo joints. Reflecting on all of the label issues and push backs that you have dealt with what has been your overall experience of putting out your solo projects?

Deck: From my experience that shit is a nightmare man. My first album came out on Loud Records when niggas was in the mix and on top of everything. I got the deal in ‘97 but the album didn’t come out until ‘99. It got pushed back a long time cuz this nigga album was coming out or that nigga’s album was coming out, or money is short because they signed this act or didn’t recoup off of this act. It was different excuses so when the album finally came out it lost the buzz but it still managed to go gold. That was “Uncontrolled Substance.” So the whole two-year hiatus of having a deal and not being able to put a record out fucks with you. Then its like even when I got the record out I didn’t get the push from them because the record was old. I got the half ass push where they give me enough to make their money back and make a lil profit but leave me still clinging. It just so happens it sold over 400K copies so I managed to make some money off of the shit. That’s good for a first album. On the second album I had no push no nothing. I went in there to try and keep my name alive. I didn’t expect a gigantic response to the shit but even selling six figures is good. Some people ain’t even make it to six figures and AZ is one of them. I ain’t trying to shit on my brother like that but I’m being realistic. The next time though we have platinum thoughts so whether or not the music matches is what we have to make happen.

Halftime (Jbutters): I was reading that with the egos it was surprising you even came together the first time. Now with all of you having solo careers and families I would think to come back together would be impossible because you’ve grown apart so much. Do you feel that’s true or that the experience has somehow brought you closer together?

Deck: It’s kinda like both. The further you grow apart the more you realize you need to be a little bit closer. The further we went out into our own individual projects and lives and you lose touch with a nigga you realize you need to be in touch. Not only could something happen to your brother, but your wavelength ain’t the same when you out in the jungle by yourself. You may be thinking about the grenade and your brother might be thinking about the handgun. You need that extra opinion sometimes. At times you miss niggas. You go from practically sleeping on top of each other and drooling on each other to like yo I ain’t seen you in like six months damn you grew your beard back? When you see a nigga its always good. I don’t care what you’ve been mad about it’s like I’m glad you still here. I be easy. Niggas see me out I’m in Wal-Mart, K-Mart, everywhere by myself or with my girl just living. I don’t carry myself in that fashion. I ain’t a flashy nigga. Nigga like me have twelve million I’m buying an apartment complex. I don’t need seventeen cars on MTV Cribs, I’m trying to get long money. That’s how schools get named after you in the hood. The first 100K I get for 2005 I’m donating that to schools in my hood for books and desks and it ain’t even a publicity stunt.

I don’t want to be that famous nigga talking about he is modeling Prada and all that Emmy awards shit with Joan Rivers all in your face. Some niggas live for that shit. I live for empowerment not power. Empowerment is the drive to uplift the struggle to get the power. Power could be handed to you. Michael Corleone became the Don because his pops handed it to him. He didn’t go out and put the work in like some other niggas who felt they should have gotten the job. That shit applies to other things likes politics and all that. You see how Bush gangstered the election from Al Gore when he first got in. Now they trying to gangster (ed. They succeeded) this Kerry nigga by painting a picture that he is an idiot. But niggas don’t want Bush in there so bad that they will vote for this dude. I ain’t fucking with the shit period. I’m registered to vote and everything but I don’t give a fuck because its not intended for us. We are the bottom of the food chain when it comes to politics. They just need us to vote for them because we outnumber a lot of motherfuckers. That’s all we good for ‘vote nigga’ and what’s bad is they are using us to do it. They got rappers and celebrities using us to get the black vote for the fucking white politician. Let me see you do that same drive when Sharpton was running. Sharpton ran for what a hot two months? He didn’t get no support.

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Posted by Halftime on Monday, November 22nd, 2004 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.