With Nature all I heard was Cormega seen Nature at the video shoot and knocked him out.

Cormega: The niggas in the street love me and the geeks that love Nas hate me. At the same time ya’ll don’t understand the world I’m from and my code of honor. I don’t be telling everybody my story some niggas come up to me like I heard you was getting money and such and such. A motherfucker came up to me like yo my man said you knocked him out in jail. I was laughing cuz I’m like I wouldn’t even tell nobody if someone knocked me out in jail. I used to box and one of the niggas I knocked out told somebody. Niggas talk about me so they build up my mystique that’s how you know my credibility is real. The industry niggas are scared of that shit but the street niggas they love it. America has always been fascinated with the bad guy that’s probably why I’m still here. I’m not just living off my bad guy image cuz at the end of the day nobody wants to be bad forever. Even Darth Vader told Luke aight I’ma chill now.

Hahaha

Cormega: Nobody wants to be bad forever so its like I know what I’ve done and I know what I’m capable of on streets but I’m not proud of all of that. If I can change certain shit in my life I would. Like when I got shot I wasn’t like ‘Yea I’m a real nigga!!’ I was like damn that shit hurts. Or when I was in jail I wasn’t like yea I’m gonna do this five years nigga what! I wanted to come home so when I listen to these rap niggas its like they fucking clowns. I know niggas is fake. Ain’t too many niggas on my level. The only nigga that I can vouch for that been through the pen and the struggle like me is Lake. Other rappers been in jail but they was ass in jail or they been in the street. If you were a crackhead in the street that don’t mean you went through the struggle. You were smoking, you wasn’t hustling from police or having shootouts on the block. I see niggas that’s crackheads talking but I don’t blow them up I let them do them. You got some rappers that niggas be thinking they gangstas and I be like oh my fucking god but I don’t say nothing. I’m not gonna knock your hustle. I know what I am and what I’m capable of but that’s not about nothing. I told my man just recently, he’s a live nigga, I said being live only serves a purpose in the streets. I said you think Bill Gates gives a fuck who’s live? It’s the pussy niggas with the Maybach, so that live shit really ain’t adding up to much. Be live but apply that shit in another way. Another thing about being live or having power is having power is responsibility. When niggas respect you they respect how you move and what you are capable of doing and they follow what you do. I know that I set an example so I don’t want niggas following my steps. I don’t want anybody to go do the things that I did cuz for real at times I didn’t even think I was gonna make it. I was hoping I didn’t get killed. I don’t want nobody to try to live my life. A lot of rappers in the industry that’s live they know I know. I be listening to niggas talking about they tough but I did shows with rappers on Riker’s Island and niggas didn’t even want to wear their jewelry. I had to tell niggas yo you can wear your jewelry on Riker’s Island. I been through it, lived it but at the end of the day what does that all mean. Especially in rap because if you a live nigga and a tough guy but you suck at the end of the day you a tough nigga who sucks. That’s not my legacy I want them to say son was nice. I don’t want them to remember me from the streets.

I’ve noticed mad heads are getting serious with this mixtape shit right now. Practically every artist has one. Do you think this is the beginning of the pendulum swinging back into the artist’s favor where they have more creative control with the music they put out?

Cormega: Let me tell you something niggas will never give me my props but do you know I’m the first nigga who did that. I put out a best of mixtape when I was on the shelf at Def Jam to test the waters and see how people felt about me. Nobody had no ‘best of’ out with no record out or that was new. I had one called “Montana Way” and that was old. I had another one that was so old you could go to the XXL archives because they did a write up on the bitch in around ‘99 and by then it was old and that wasn’t even my first one. So how long have I been making ‘best ofs’ and that’s why I laugh at niggas. After 50 put his shit out everybody thought that was the formula but everybody don’t feel everybody the way they feel 50. 50’s career is also the perfect storm because everything perfect that could happen for an artist happened for that nigga at the same time. When he wasn’t down with Eminem his shit wasn’t selling like that. When he put out his ‘best of’ it was doing decent numbers, then he got down with Eminem, now he’s down with Dre, he’s got street credibility, he had a lot to talk about and I gotta give him his props the nigga work ethic is crazy. Now you got corny ass niggas trying to make mixtapes now.

Even if there are corny niggas doing it, do you think overall it’s a positive?

Cormega: It is positive because nowadays the game is so fucked up I feel sorry for new niggas. I can get my shit played because I can give it to certain DJs that I have a rapport and a little history with. But say my name is MC Cool and I want you to play my shit on your tape, these motherfuckers is charging niggas to get on a mixtape!!

Damn, how you gonna charge someone to get on your mix joint!?

Cormega: That’s why I feel bad for new niggas because the average new nigga don’t got money so how he gonna pay you to get on the mixtape. Even if he do pay you what is he gonna be # 31 on the outro. So being able to do your own mixtape is a good way to get heard. The first mixtape I did, I did it so long ago by the time I was on the Survival of the Illest tour with Def Jam and niggas was coming up to me in other states. I’m gonna keep it real with you when I first went to Chicago for that Survival of the Illest tour to do my first show I was scared to perform. I’m not afraid to admit my weaknesses. I was scared to perform. I never had no record out, but by the time I got there niggas was like I got your album and I’m like what the fuck and it was “Montana Way.” They knew the words and everything. I ended up ripping that tour just as much as anybody else. It was me DMX, Redman, Keith Murray that shit was dope.

What artists are you actually feeling right now?

Cormega: Everybody rhymes the same. On mixtapes do 60% of the niggas sound like Jay-Z or is it just me? Niggas is on Jay-Z dick so hard they even try the whisper style. You got niggas that ain’t even from Brooklyn and everyone want to rap like Jay-Z and is a punchline rapper. I got so many of this, my earrings look like these, my wrist look like this and when I stop at the light my rims keep moving. Okay you just did a free advertisement for Jacob and the Sprewell Factory but what’s for the mind. I like Scarface, I like Lauryn Hill I wish she would come back, I might as well like Jay-Z cuz everybody else rap like him.

Haha

Cormega: I respect Nas as an artist. Nas ain’t as ill as he used to be but he’s still one of the best so that tells you that he’s ill. I think Havoc stepped his game up crazy. He got to be most improved.

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Posted by Halftime on Monday, March 1st, 2004 and is filed under SICKWIDIT, SPOTLIGHT.