O.C.: I’m like what are you talking about? I have creative control over every record that I make. As far as me being signed to a slabel not a label. What they do with the record be out of my hands at the end of the day. Like my man Lamont always says, you got Anthony Hamilton on Jive but he’s not R. Kelly. Anthony Hamilton is dope but they aren’t going to give him the same attention that they give R. Kelly. Time and time again I tell people I’ve always had creative control. Did you listen to the first record or anything that I did? What do you have in front of you that you don’t know what you’re talking about?

HalftimeOnline: Word and going off on the label thing you mentioned. What was the situation at Wild Pitch? It’s like they ruined every album. It’s crazy cuz they had Main Source, they had everybody on there but the records never got out and you can’t even find them. What were those guys doing up there?

O.C.: I don’t know. I can’t even shit on Serch cuz he was vice president when he signed me over there. He had the Serchlite Music thing with me and Nas. He did what he could and I understand now because that wasn’t his label. That was Stu’s label. I had Ice Cube ready to shoot a video for my first record but they didn’t want to pay like fifty grand or something like that. I was neck and neck with Flava in Ya Ear. Time’s Up was an underground hit. I was doing a lot shows with Bad Boy. Me and Craig had a lot of showcases and paid shows together but he kinda said see you later as far as his record taking off. I was still on the underground. I think what the label puts into you is what you’ll get out of it. These days I don’t even expect them to do anything for us. We are self contained, so they don’t have to. Give me the money and we’ll make it happen.

Jbutters: Go ahead Marcus I know you’re waiting.

Marcus: Yea, yo I just want to tell cats why I’m mad. I’m mad for one because you’re underrated. How can no one ever say anything about Creative Control when that flow was sick. I’m mad because people claim to be so into hip hop and nobody mentions anything about O.C. Cat’s 35 and under and half of em don’t even know who O.C. is. Then, I’m mad because I’m looking for Word..Life and it’s not on the shelves. I can’t find it nowhere. Then when I looked it up on Amazon.com one day someone was selling it for $97.98. I’m pissed off also because on the radio when cats do flashbacks not one O.C. song is played.

O.C.: Hold up though before you finish being mad if you got an HMV or a Tower near you I put the album back out myself and they should be in those stores. We put out Word…Life and Jewelz and we’re about to put Bon Apetite back in the stores now. If I’m not mistaken they are running a special right now. We’ll have it here soon but I got the DVD with Word..Life over in Japan, but the regular album should be in stores.

Jbutters: Not to throw Marcus off his rant but what’s on the DVD?

O.C.: Yo, honestly I don’t even know, for real.

HalftimeOnline: Haha

O.C.: Lamont (O.C’s manager) is just a maniac when it comes to working. I don’t even have to worry about anything. He just tells me this is what’s happening and I’m like oh word? He’s a workaholic so I don’t worry about the business side unless I want to inquiry about something or we have a meeting. Other than that I just let him handle the business and I just do the records. It’s comfortable like that for me. I can trust him like that. Aiight, now that we done with that finish telling them why you’re mad.

Marcus: I’m mad because they had a show called Rap Attack and played AZ, Jay-Z, and Illmatic cuts but nothing by O.C. I’m like what the hell is going on. That just really frustrates me and lets me know people go for wackness.

O.C.: That or what’s common for them to get they hands on. Illmatic is something you can find anywhere. Sony always got behind Nas. It was Columbia first. I’m happy for homey. He represents what I do on a bigger scale as far as record sales. If I sold records like that it’d be in the same sense as what Nas sells or what his follwing is. It’s funny because it was L’s first time in Japan but with my following over there you would have thought that I sold a million records duke. I get people 21 and under walking up to me like O.C, D.I.T.C. I be like yo L this kid had to be 9 or 11 when he picked up my record. It’s bugged out but I’m a star over there. I hate to use that word but that’s what it is. My whole crew is stars over there. It’s funny to be home and be from New York and not get the love that I get from everywhere else. It doesn’t bother me anymore. It did for a long time but I’m at peace with myself about that now. Like I said the chosen one, they’ll dig up my bones one day, throw em around a shrine and try to rebuke my spirit. That’s how I feel. Any of these cats you mention when they see me they know what’s up. I don’t care how many records they sell. I’m from that era. I’m from that school of emceeing. When you mention Nas, Jay-Z, and Biggie I come from that right there. So as long as I know it in my heart I don’t care what nobody else says.

HalftimeOnline: It’s like this when I was in 12th grade I was bumping Illmatic and Word..Life. Do you think Illmatic overshadowed Word..Life and that’s why it didn’t get as big as it could have? When I did some research a lot of people were comparing Illmatic to Word..Life.

O.C.: That’s crazy. The only way I would switch that around is to say Word..Life was compared to Illmatic because he sold more than me. He had a bigger machine. He was signed straight Columbia while I was signed to Wild Pitch / EMI. EMI was looking at Wild Pitch like ya’ll always have good records but you don’t know what to do with them, so are we gonna really help you do what you are supposed to do we don’t know. When the record came out I think Arrested Development was on their second album at EMI and they kinda shitted on me for them and their record flopped. My record was buzzing crazy and I only had two videos. Throughout my whole career I’ve had like three videos besides the ones like Crooklyn Dodgers. I’ve never really had videos, I’ve always buzzed off the word of mouth thing. So EMI was like what’s up with this and Wild Pitch was like oh we’ll do it and they said oh you don’t need any help so fuck ya’ll and they backed up off me. The comparison in that sense is that Columbia was behind Nas. It also helps when you have a big ass buzz before you drop a record and he was proclaimed as the second coming to Rakim. That’s not a bad promotion broom to ride. I was happy for everything but I was like damn I’m that same type of caliber of emcee so this is gonna happen to me. Guess what it ain’t happen. I put in the same work. I’ve been on the Bobbito’s and Stretch’s, I’ve put down hours of emceeing and at the end of the day it was like a slap in the face to me. So I got real disgruntled at one point, probably after the second album. I was just like fuck it whatever happens, happens. That’s where, in my mind, I started going downhill as far as my emotions, but I’m back.

HalftimeOnline: You mentioned Jewelz earlier and I remember when that dropped the lead single Far from Yours was all over radio. I remember a lot of people thinking you went soft and that the whole album was gonna be R&B. Do you think that move to put out that single, which got you some commercial airplay, changed what type of impact you could have done with that second album?

O.C.: Yea. I know how to make records and I know that wasn’t a formatted record to be in rotation at a commercial radio station. First of all the chorus is too long. If you really listen to that record the chorus is too long and too complicated. People on radio want something they can pick up. If you say endroom – endroom and they can understand it and its simple then it could be a commercial record. That wasn’t a commercial record. It’s something that everyone is doing now. Everybody is harmonizing now but I’ve been harmonizing since the first record. Creative Control is harmonizing, on Point of Viewz I’m harmonizing. People was like it’s a sellout record but it’s too long for it to be one of those records. If I wanted to make a record like that it’s not a problem for me but that’s not where my heart is at. I could have been sold out. That’s a funny word right there. People say pop but it’s only an abbreviation of popular and who doesn’t want to be popular but at what cost. I’m a human being so it crossed my mind a lot of times to be like you know what I’m gonna do some Father MC record and then I was like if I do that right there, there is no coming back from that.

HalftimeOnline: Hahah!

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Posted by Jbutters on Monday, May 15th, 2006 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.