Я вчера с грустью почитал то, что писали коллеги в теме о Продиджи; в частности, о том, как он написал много правдивого о современной рэп-сцене
Говна старички много в той теме излили.
5 дней назад Кормега дал очередное интересное интервью (если честно, он, по-моему, последний человек, который интересно излагает, черт побери).
Spark Your Brain.
How’s your new album coming?
Oh, man. It’s going to be’I don’t even want to use the term because it’s so overused and all that, but you know how people say it’s going to be their best album’
This is going to be my best album because if you listen to any of the songs that I’ve done recently in the last year or two, there’s one thing that I’ve been working on is delivery, the way to deliver as opposed to just being a dope lyricist. I’ve been trying to focus on my delivery. Everything is meeting perfectly, like the lyrics with the flow with the delivery on this album more opposed to my other albums. And the production is crazy. As you know I got Premier. The first song to make the new album is ‘Dirty Game’. That’s been leaking for the last year and a half or whatever you want to call it. I got a surprise for niggas’ asses. I did a remix for ‘Dirty Game’. Since that’s one of the significant records on my album, I just did a remix with me, Prodigy and Styles P. I got some shit.
It doesn’t sound like you’re holding back on this album.
And that’s just a remix. That song is just to bring attention back to the album and to bring attention that ‘Mega is coming. That wasn’t specifically for the album. That was a commercial for the album. And
then we got ‘Fresh’ which everybody knows about with Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Grand Puba, PMD and Red Alert on the intro and the outro. And then I got production from Primo, Pete Rock, D.R. Period, Nottz, Ayatollah, E Mill and Fame. I’m going hard with this one. It’s going to be real interesting.
When you say this is going to be your best album, that’s a big statement to make considering you also made The Realness and The True Meaning.
I know. It takes a lot of balls for me to say that after I made The Realness and things like that. I’ll give you the perfect example. When I did this album, it’s like I sparred with myself. What I did is I took the intro from The Realness and I tried to make a better intro. I tried to take every moment and make a moment that was better than that. There are certain songs that are classics that you can’t recreate, but the moods are recreated. Like ‘The Saga’, some of the people say that’s the best song I ever made. I got a song like that that I haven’t even titled yet. It’s produced by Lil’ Fame. That’s all I can tell you. That song is going to be just as powerful as ‘The Saga’, if not more. And the song with KRS-One, that’s a tribute record. I’m just glad to be a part of that.
And then I got a record produced by Pete Rock where I’m talking about the ups and downs of friendship. It’s like ‘R U My Nigga’ and ‘Love Is Love’ combined. You’ll see. I guarantee you, this is my best album.
You released Who Am I, a compilation album and DVD, this past fall. How did the project do for you?
I pressed up 20,000 DVDs for Who Am I because the DVD market is a new realm for me. I never did a DVD. I would say there’s 2,000 left so I would say that we did pretty good with that. The process of making the DVD was so strenuous. It could have been done quicker but the guy that was doing the filming, he does so many other projects and he was stacking my projects to do the other projects. I felt that was unprofessional at times, but it is what it is. The overall reaction to the DVD was a good response and the soundtrack for it allowed me to get exposure for other artists. You got people like my man Bagz who’s a new artist. And then you have the song with me, Nature and AZ. That’s just to let the people know what could have been because I had never done a song with Nature. That was just to show people what could have been. That soundtrack was a good experience for me. I just wanted to put that out there. And the song ‘Sleep Well’ did amazingly well. The Heatmakerz did the beat. I just did it to do it. I didn’t think it would get that response .That song was No. 1 on college radio and No. 1 in Canada. That was charting crazily and it might still be charting. Certain songs on that soundtrack got a better reaction than I expected and the DVD, it got a better reaction than I expected.
The DVD was really the first time fans got to see you up close and personal.
Exactly. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine and he said somebody that works at his job just saw the DVD and they said that they hate another rapper now due to the stuff they learned from the DVD. A lot of people said that the DVD shows that I’m a real dude. That wasn’t my goal, to show that I’m real. Real is not necessarily about being street. That doesn’t make you real or mean that you’re real. You can go to school, go to work every day and take care of your kids. That’s being real. There’s different aspects of being real. I wanted to do the DVD because it was different and I wanted to show the people who I was because there are so many misconceptions about me and I wanted people to see. A long time ago, when I had differences with a particular rapper, he said on a song, ‘Where you be at’’ That line right there was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ That DVD was to show that I’m in the ‘hoods everywhere. Not only was it showing the street shit, it was also showing that I care about people. Me going to the hospital to visit people who were paralyzed, that was something that I wanted to do. And me taking the whole community to Great Adventure, that wasn’t on the DVD but it was something that everyone talked about. I could have filmed it but I didn’t need to. I just wanted to show people that this was my life and this was what I do. I’m not the mad rapper. I’m not a disgruntled rapper. I’m doing better than some people. I have vehicles. I have jewelry. I have all of that shit. If you look at my album covers, you’ll notice that I don’t have jewelry on my covers. On The Realness I just had a watch on. On The Realness, I just had a hoody on because I was taking it back. But people take that to mean that I’m broke. You can see me playing Playstation with my man with a gold bracelet on. I wanted people to get their own sight of me so they could make their own perception of who I am. That was real important to me.
You released two compilations in the last four years, but it’s been six years since your last album
(interrupts) I did Legal Hustle because I wanted to showcase some of the artists on my label, so I made Legal Hustle. I thought that was a pretty good compilation. I’m going to make a part two, but right now, the most important thing is for me to make a Cormega album. See, all people aren’t like you, Brian. Some people know their shit and there are some people who reviewed the Legal Hustle album or Who Am I like it was a Cormega album and they were complaining about too many guest appearances and not enough ‘Mega. It’s not a Cormega album! It’s ‘Cormega Presents’. You’re one of the few people that I speak to that really knows their shit. There’s a handful of people who really know their shit. It’s hard for a lot of people to get exposure right now and it’s hard for a lot of people to get fans. Legal Hustle had Maino on there. That was the first time a lot of people heard Maino. I had Lake, Dona, Large Professor’I tried to mix the new with the people who people knew about. That’s what those projects were for.
You must feel that your fans want the Cormega album now.
Exactly. Like I said, you’re one of the few who knows their shit. The average motherfuckers, some people I speak to on the phone, they don’t even know when the last Cormega album came out. You’re exactly right. It’s been six years since a Cormega album came out and it’s going to come out in the early summer. I’m just putting the final touches on it. And I just recently started working with Khrysis. I’m trying to sneak him on there too. This is going to be it. Watch. We’ll have a follow-up conversation. You know how you have part one and part two’s’ You can do a part two about the album. Just watch about what I told you about the album. Watch.
I’m supremely confident about this.
You may have just raised expectations again.
It’s all good. At the end of the day, man, think about the word ‘fan’, they couldn’t have picked a better word. A ‘fan’ is a thing that keeps you cool. Fans are the most important people in any entertainer’s life. I speak to my fans frequently on my site and I take heed to what they say even if I don’t go on every day. Like I said, the song ‘Sleep Well’, that’s what I would call a play rhyme. I was freestyling. I wasn’t even going hard. And the rhyme I used on the AZ song, people are saying I killed that. I’m going to be honest with you. That was my Plan B rap. If people was loving that shit, imagine the album. You’ll see. I’m going to play you some shit in the next month or so. I’ll get up with you and I’ll play you some shit. I’m telling you, you’re going to see. This is the one.
You were also helping a friend put together QB compilation that Havoc was involved in. How’s that coming?
I was letting somebody handle it. The guy that was handling it, he went down South and I haven't heard from him since. I said, ‘Fuck it’ and I’m going to handle it myself.
I got contributions from everybody. Everybody wants to be a part of it. Only one rapper said he was too busy to do it because he was finishing his album.
Everybody knows who that rapper is. Everybody wants to be a part of it. I’m trying to have that for the summer too. If worst comes to worst, I’ll put that before my album and come out the month after or two months after, but that’s definitely coming.
I got a song that I wanted to get to HipHopGame. It’s just something real different.
I got a song that has damn-near every different crew represented on it. There’s the Bravehearts, Mobb Deep, Infamous Mobb, Wild Gremlinz’I got a song that has Grand Wizard on it, Mike Delorean, Prodigy’There’s mad different dudes from different crews. I wanted the fans to draft the players from Queensbridge that can be on the team. That’s one of the ideas. I’ll probably get you that song within the next couple of weeks.
Some samples that you’ve used on your past albums have been reused by other artists. Do you ever take that personally?
I just laugh at that shit. A lot of my beats, a lot of producers use. But you know one thing, see, the thing about being in the underground is you’re not that exposed. The producers, they take advantage of that shit because only certain people heard it. Then they say they’re going to flip it their way and people are going to hear it. That shit happened to me at least 10 times. I look at it like I’m flattered by it. I take it as a compliment. But there’s one producer that took so many of my same beats that he might as well give me a beat or he might as well work with me because we obviously have the same tastes. But he’s cool. It is what it is.
The same sample used on ‘A Thin Line’ was used for Fat Joe’s ‘Damn’. Whose version do you like better?
I mean, you know I’m going to like mine’s better because it’s me. But Fat Joe did his thing. I don’t know if Fat Joe picks his own beats or whatever, but lately, he’s been picking some hot beats. You know what the crazy thing about that original beat is’ Joe coulda had that beat because you know who did it’ Buckwild! Buckwild is down with D.I.T.C. and so is Joe!
Some rappers that are in the spotlight, all they gotta do is stay with their home team. You have Scott Storch and all these dudes that are hot now. Of course you want to go to them for sales, but
why not get a beat from Buckwild’ Why not get a beat from Primo’ Why did Jay-Z stop getting beats from Ski’ Was it something personal’ If it was something personal, then it’s different, but why did you stop getting beats from a guy who helped you on Reasonable Doubt’ Why doesn’t Large Professor get more work’ These are questions that you could never come up with a good explanation for. If you look at the body of work that these guys are still doing’Game had no problem getting beats from Buckwild and Game had one of the top-selling albums a few years ago.
New York is the crybaby state. That’s what I hate about New York. We’ll have something, fuck it up and then cry when somebody else shines with it. It’s like when you have a girl and you treat her bad and now she has a new boyfriend and she’s looking pretty and now you wanna hate or you wanna get back with her. New York, we had Primo. We had Buckwild. We had the sales. We had everything, but we did not respect it. I can’t say ‘we’ as in ‘me’ because I was never big like that, but a lot of the big artists, they abandoned the sound.
I don’t know why niggas stopped going to Primo. What’s the pop star that Primo did shit for and helped her career come back’ Christina Aguilera. She can go to him and it doesn’t make sense how Alicia Keys has to bring Easy Mo Bee back. It doesn’t make sense. Artists over here, they’re doing that fucked up hip-hop and then they want to cry about the South.
Niggas want to say hip-hop is dead. How the fuck is it dead if it’s still paying your rent’ If it’s still paying your bills’ If it’s still paying the financing on your car’ Hip-hop is a culture and hip-hop is that shit that make s you want to rewind that. Hip-hop is that shit that made you want to go and get those sneakers. Hip-hop is that shit that made you think Rakim was dope. We abandoned that! So the same people that say hip-hop is dead, they’re the same ones that don’t return calls from the Large Professors, the Primos and the Pete Rocks.
All of the artists that are on top of New York, they’re full of shit, a lot of them, because if they would have kept on doing what they was doing, they would have been fine because the world follows New York. We set the standards and everybody follows it. Now rap has been reduced to how much money you got. There’s money everywhere, so now everybody could rap. You could be the wackest motherfucker, but now you got a video with a car in it and now everybody fucks with you. That’s what hip-hop’s been reduced to.
Has the younger generation of New York rappers adopted the crybaby mentaitliy?
I definitely think they have the crybaby mentality, but they weren’t mentored right. There’s nobody telling them how to do it and this is what you do and how to make records. There’s a respect thing that’s missing between the younger and the older generation.
Let me give you an example. Soulja Boy. Yo, anybody over 30 that’s dissing Soulja Boy, you’re a fucking clown! Out the gate, what’s his name’ Soulja Boy! He’s a kid. Let him have some fun. He’s not saying he’s better than Rakim. He’s not saying he’s better than KRS-One. He’s a kid. Let him have some fun. He’s 16 years-old. If you’re in your 30s and you’re commenting on Soulja Boy as a rapper, you’re clowning yourself because you’re supposed to overlook that. He's a kid. When we were coming up, TLC was coming out and that wasn’t the standard R&B group. It was different.
Soulja Boy represents that young era and he’s from down South. Let him have his fun. He doesn’t affect me because he’s not from my generation. We have to close that gap of understanding between the younger and the older and at the same time, the younger dudes have to stop looking for excuse. The younger dudes are saying the older dudes are taking the light but that’s not true. They’re not signing artists! The only artists over 30 that are shining and have the power to sign people are Jay-Z and 50 Cent. Everybody else is getting signed by Interscope or Def Jam or other labels.
You can’t blame the artists. Blame the labels. They care about what’s going to sell. You can’t blame Jay-Z or say that Jay-Z needs to retire because he’s not letting anybody shine. Unless you’re on his label, you can have a gripe, but you can’t blame the older rappers that are here. All you can do is study them and add it to yourself to make your shit stronger.
I liken rap to the NBA. Lebron didn’t come into the league complaining about Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson. He gave them respect. Dwight Howard came into the dunk contest and took his respect. When Rakim came into the game, Melle Mel and them were still out and he wasn’t complaining about them. He came in and he took the game.
There’s no young rapper out that’s ready to take the game because they wouldn’t be complaining. And the ones that are doing their thing, they’re not complaining. You never hear Juelz Santana complaining or T.I. complaining. It’s only the ones that are young that are looking for excuses. Stop rapping like Jay-Z! They all complain about Jay-Z and they all rap about the same thing. Get your own style and get your own movement and then you can’t complain. I didn’t complain. I did it my own way. We have to have respect and understanding. The younger dudes need to evaluate the older dudes.
Mike Tyson used to study the older boxers. Kobe Bryant used to study Michael Jordan. They respected their elders. If the younger dudes had more respect, everything would be fine.
GZA made a lot of noise for criticizing Soulja Boy. Was that a bad move on his part?
GZA, I respect GZA tremendously, but I don’t think GZA had to even speak on Soulja Boy. At the end of the day, you’ve accomplished so much. It’s like Chris Brown. When Chris Brown first came out, I didn’t like the dude. I’m not 16. But I like the dude now. He’s someone I respect. But GZA has accomplished so much.
There’s other ways that he could have went about it. Somebody like Soulja Boy, he would have listened to GZA if he would have sat him down and gave him some jewels. Who wouldn’t listen to Wu-Tang’ But when you open the door with just a straight slap in the face to the artist, they’re going to rebel and they’re going to go against you. You’re causing a divide amongst the artists and the fans and you’re going to look like you’re a mad dude. Don’t give the younger people a chance to hate on you. Give them a chance to understand you. My daughter likes Soulja Boy.
You have to also understand that not everybody is a serious rapper. Rakim made his serious raps, but he also made ‘I Know You Got Soul’ that you could dance to. We had Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and Native Tongues. We had different varieties of rap and we don’t have that no more. I’m not going to diss artists no more because they’re not from my world and they’re not from my realm. I can’t understand it and that’s not me. Somebody that’s 16 or 17, their movement is different the same way people used to diss breakdancing when it first came out.
We weren’t trying to hear that. We have to be open-minded and understand that Soulja Boy is a fucking kid. If Soulja Boy was 32 or 35 or 30 making a song that he’s making, then I would say that that nigga’s a clown. But he’s 16! You can’t criticize it! Let the youth be a youth. Left Eye was wearing a condom when she came out. I don’t think Diana Ross would have done that, but let the kids be kids. When Humpty Hump came out, we liked that, but that was a joke. We have to be open-minded. The people that really aren’t showing love are the people in power with the signing power. They’re signing the artists.
There’s only three artists with the ability to sign people ‘ Eminem and Dre, and they don’t count because they’re not from New York, so
in New York, you just have Jay-Z and 50. You can hate on 50, but guess what’ You have some pure hip-hop people who hate on 50, but how can you hate on a nigga that signed Mobb Deep and M.O.P. when labels were fronting on them’ 50 came with the regular hip-hop and the true hip-hop. He signed M.O.P! And then he signed Mobb Deep! And then he tried to sign Mase. And he still tried to sign new people. These label people sit at tables at meetings all day and they think about how much a guy can sell. That’s what it is. But artists from down South, they go to these same labels and they get deals. That’s who you need to be mad at ‘ the labels.
Where do you see the labels going as the game continues to go digital?
The labels are already folding. A lot of labels are merging with other labels and even a lot of indie labels are already folding. What they’re trying to do now is they’re trying to take people’s digital rights. If you sign a recording contract right now, they’re going to own you digitally. The thing about labels is they find a way to adapt. They find a way to adapt to everything. There’s those books artists can get to read about how to get ahead in the music industry, there’s a ton of new books! Labels always find a way to adapt. If you sign a record deal March 1, you’re signing a record deal where they own you digitally also. They’re able to own you digitally and on vinyl and CD, et cetera, et cetera. That’s what the labels are doing. They have to do that because going digital, there’s less loss. There’s less money to recoup. All you have to do is upload the music and you’re good. When you’re physically manufacturing, you have to pay for it and there’s a chance of you getting returns and then you have to pay for shipping. There’s a lot of costs associated with that that artists don’t know about if they’re not up on their shit. You can’t lose going digital. That’s what the labels are going to do.
Are you making more of a push online as well?
Online is a blessing and a curse. The thing I love about being online is that tens of thousands of people can see your shit. The thing I hate about online is that the audience is the most hypocritical audience out there. They’ll criticize you and then go and download your shit. It’s a lot of people talking but they’re not showing action. All of the artists they’re praising, they’re not supporting. The online is a good way to market, but you have to find ways to make people want to buy your music. You have to give people more of an incentive to buy your music. I was talking to a guy one day who’s in the music industry and he was saying how it was hard to compete with free. It was deep what he was saying because so many people are downloading now and that’s affecting sales.
HipHopGame is built because you can go there and it’s like a virtual mixtape. You can go on there and see what artists are on there. But other sites have links where you can download the whole album. That sucks. That’s disrespectful. How can you support something when you’re stealing it’ They say people aren’t spending money, but there are video games that are coming out and breaking sales records. This is the same demographic! They’re going to buy the video games but they’re not going to buy the artists that they love. That’s what’s fucked up about it. I love the internet but I’m not a true believer in it anymore. They have to make me believe.
A lot of fans on the internet aren’t real fans to me because if you were a real fan, you would understand that this is how artists eat. And if you’re not supporting good music, that’s fucked up. I look to the internet, but there’s other avenues that I want to travel also. I’m one of the first artists who marketed himself on the internet. I understand the seriousness of it but I’m upset by the lack of respect at the art form that’s shown by the fans.
Do you like artists putting music up for free download?
Hell no. Why would you do that? Does Nike give out free Nikes? Does Sony give out free Playstations?I look at artists and I say, ‘What’s the significance in doing that’? What’s the significance to putting it out? Is it to make yourself hot? You’ll always have cynical people saying the free album was better. Don’t give people a reason to have an excuse. My thing is, give people snippets. I’m not a believer in shit like that. I’m not into that type of shit. I’ve leaked songs before and I would put a mixtape out digitally before I would just give it out. At the end of the day, what are you benefiting from’ The sales don’t respect the work the artist put in. If you got your own studio, that’s different. But what about the artists who don’t have a studio’ Now you have to use your gas to drive to the studio and pay for the studio time so you can give a free CD out to the consumer who might not even buy your shit. I would rather make a dope-ass record then make a dope-ass record and leak it. I would rather give out old shit. Say I take 10 Cormega songs that I been had and I leak them on a mixtape, that’s different. But I’m not going to go create 10 new songs and give it away for free and bust my ass and then have people not buy my album.
Speaking of Clinton, who do you like as far as the presidential candidates are concerned?
I don’t know. I have to really sit back and analyze. I like Hillary. You know what’ I think Hillary and Obama should just join together and one of them be the president and one of them be the vice president. I’m not sold on anybody. One thing about politics is I think it’s predetermined anyway. I think in politics, the president is just a face figure. Just like in business. There are certain people at labels who may have positions like the president but there are other people who have more power and when shit goes wrong they have to do it. It’s all a script. We all know that. There’s a script you have to follow. Whatever happens, whatever. I don’t care about that shit no more. I don’t believe in that shit no more. The last time I was excited about voting in a presidential race was when Bush was running for the first time and I saw how America wanted Al Gore to win and all that funny shit happened with his brother Jeb and all that, I haven’t cared about politics no more.
What’s the next move for Cormega?
The next move for me right now is that I just want to focus on finishing this album and getting this tour together, this Queensbridge tour, the compilation and this album. And then after that I just have to focus on what I’m going to do. I have these artists I’m developing right now and there are ventures outside of rap that I’m trying to get into. I’m also trying to get a position at a label because they need fresh blood in there and people who have new ideas and people that are willing to balance it out. I can be a mediator between the youth and the old philosophy. That’s one of the things that I’m trying to do. I was looking at one label but I didn’t want that position. That’s one of the things that I need to do. I need to get a position and then see what I’m going to do next. I’m talking to somebody about doing a movie. That’s what I’m looking at right now.
И действительно.. Примо говорил, что рад работать с Насом, но Нас ему не звонит..
Учись!
, ибо кармегу я неслушаю, хз.
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