HalftimeOnline: How was the tour in general?

O.C.: I’ve never been on a tour like that before so those 42 cities I wasn’t turning down, plus I was getting paid for it. They was just on some yo we can’t pay you too much because this is just a promotion but say we give you a $1,000 a night. I’m like hold up. A $1,000 times how many days just to go onstage for 45 minutes. I can run through that quick. They was like we don’t want to insult you and I’m like ya’ll are bugging. I get to come out here and open up a new market and get paid for it. I’ve sold a 100,000 without hitting these markets ever in my life so what am I going to sell now. It was a good business move for me to do it. The record is out and it’s big in Japan right now. That’s through their connections. I’m just doing a lot of things. I’ve been touring since the summer, I’ll be back for Christmas and then I’m going overseas. I’m working on the next record now it’s not a game. Smoke and Mirrors is out now it’s cool. It’s decent but I’m working on the next record that will be done by March or April with a single before June.

HalftimeOnline: Do you have a name for that yet?

O.C.: Nope. I don’t even have a name for it but it’s just like I’ve been putting out records two and three years apart and for people to even want to hear something is a privilege for me. I don’t care about being pegged as a new artist by these young cats that’s better for me. That means I have a chance to sell a lot of records now. Then I get to show them what the art of emceeing is about.

HalftimeOnline: A lot of cats are slept on in your crew. We’re big fans of Big L. Where do you think he would be in his career right now?

O.C.: Well, L was like Joe in the sense that he wasn’t looking for commercial stardom it was looking for him. He was gonna be a star. L was gonna sell records like Jay and them. That’s where his thing was. That was inevitable for him. As far as my crew people don’t even realize that production wise we are behind some of the biggest records in hip hop. Diamond on the Fugees album title track, The Score. That shit sold 17 million worldwide. Finesse on Pun’s album and Biggies record. Buck did A Story to Tell on Big’s record, he’s on Jay’s records. Finesse is on the Chronic 2001, Buck is on Game’s record and G-Unit’s record now. My crew got history. Maybe one day they’ll get us all together and do a Barbara Walters type interview and ask us what’s your credit to the hip hop game or some stupid shit like that and dude’s are gonna run down their resume. I’m running this off the top of my head. Show did Sound of Da Police. Show really introduced Pun with Firewater. That’s a lot of records man. We’ve been sampled a zillion times. I’ve seen statements off of Show’s mechanicals where it’s like oh word Jay sampled this? On Takeover matter of fact. That lame shit and something else is from Sound of Da Police.

Dude’s don’t even know. They think we are has beens, washed up and outta here. When they do that I just say Buckwild. He keeps us in the loop on the up to date groups. So it’s like what ya’ll trying to say? People be like oh but you don’t do beats. I’m like me and AG don’t do beats but Lloyd Banks is guilty by association from being down with 50, so I’m guilty for being down with Buckwild, Show and Diamond for producing these records. If they produced it then I produced it. I’m down with Diggin in the Crates. That’s what D.I.T.C. does. You don’t just mention the beat dudes you mention everybody. There’s also a lot of stuff that’s under the radar. My catalog alone is crazy. I did over 200 records easy and people don’t believe that. I’ve done a lot of nondescript 16s from here to overseas in Istanbul. I’ve done a lot of 16s and I’ve done a lot of songs for people. I forget them. I ain’t gonna lie I took money for a lot of records that I knew would never make it over here. I heard Poland is one of the most racist countries on the planet and they love me out there. I don’t even believe that. Any place that you can name off top I’ve been there and people know me. [These foreign] people be like Rakim and I be like yea I like Rakim, but they be like no we compare you to him. I’m like woah that’s a compliment. Flattery is dope it makes me breathe another day to do the music. People comparing me to Ra that’s crazy. This is why I do it. I do it for the love first and money second because money comes and goes. You gotta eat, pay your bills and take care of your family. Nobody does it like I’m broke but I love you hip hop. You have to do it for the love and the money and all that other stuff will come if the love is shining through. I’ll always eat off of this as long as I want but then I have a reality in my mind where I’m not trying to do this when I’m 40 or 45. That’s why I’m putting in my work now for the next couple of years and looking for people to sign like somebody did for me. I’m not selfish. I want to see some younger cats come up and hopefully they love it and put in the work like I put in the work. Hopefully they won’t have to put in crazy hard work because I made it easier for them. That’s my job at the end of the day to pass on something that was passed on to me and that’s a chance.

HalftimeOnline: Is there a way people can reach out to you about that or is it something you’re doing more on the low?

O.C.: If I give everybody my email address that would be crazy. You know everybody is trying to come up at the end of the day like yo I do beats or I rhyme. I want to find him/her without looking. I want to bump into them accidentally. I want to catch them walking into a smoky club on some Count Basie shit. [Like I’ll say] I don’t want to go to the ass shaking club I want to go here tonight and for some reason the new Chaka Kahn is in there singing that night. That’s how I want to discover somebody. I don’t want to discover them because everybody and their mother is bringing me artists thinking they’re gonna get signed. That’s not how I got my way and that’s not how I’m gonna do it for someone else because maybe I got juice. You don’t learn anything like that.

HalftimeOnline: How did you hook up with Serch anyway?

O.C.: On that Source tour. He was doing that wack ass solo record. I know ya’ll remember that shit. He knows. That’s my dude so I can say that. It was actually a gift and a curse because that was the introduction for me and Nas. He had Nas on Back to the Grill Again and I was on the remix. That was the video he had and he birthed something out of that. He birthed me and he birthed Nas on that album. He found me on that tour. He didn’t give me anything. I had to do demos. I did a demo with Serch and shit was wack at first. Then I kept in contact with Buck after the tour and he was like yo I got some joints. For some reason them shits matched and everything that we demoed was on Word..Life except for Time’s Up. Time’s Up was a Pharoahe record.

HalftimeOnline: Yea I read about that. You said it took mad long to write it.

O.C.: Yea, a year or two. That record is mad awkward. It’s really hard to rhyme to that’s why it sounds different from everything else on the album. It’s a real awkward record and it used to be frustrating that’s why it has no chorus. I had to go back and add the Slick Rick to it. It was only two verses because it was hard to rhyme to.

HalftimeOnline: How would you rank all of your albums?

O.C.: I would say my first album would come first just for the simple fact that it debuted who I am. I would put Bon Apetite second and Jewelz third. Jewelz would have been the stamp going out into the new millennium. When I used to go to shows people used to look at my crew like where’s O.C. and I used to be there draped in jewelry and gold fronts. People thought I was a backpacker for some reason. I don’t know why cuz everything I was talking on my record was street shit. Not street shit on some gun shit just on some true life shit. People used to be mad that I had on jewelry. I used to have to put people in their place or my crew would have to put people in their place. They’d be like we thought you was taller or some dumb shit. I’m like listen man do you got the other half of the money before I go onstage? Cut through the bullshit. Then I started seeing that when you sell less than the standard records in the industry you’re considered underground. If you sell half a million you’re reaching that commercial status. If you go back in the history to EPMD they was yelling keep the crossover but them motherfuckers was selling damn near a million records every time and that wasn’t hood people buying their records after a certain point. They probably had to laugh at that shit later like we almost selling a million records telling niggas to keep the crossover. After 500,000 that means white boys are buying your stuff. That’s my point. People always thought one way of me and maybe that’s why in a lot of instances that I didn’t sell records to that point. People was like well is he gangsta, street or a Del the Funky Homosapien type? People were confused because they never saw me. That’s where the video started fucking people up. That shit really messed things up. Videos messed up the MC. People expect a video now.

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