ThaFormula.com - I don't even know about that anymore Muggs, because now the underground seems to have taken a turn to where a lot people consider this stuff where these dudes are rappin' about flying on rockets at super-scientifical speeds and just all this nerd shit...
DJ Muggs - Yeah, it's nerd rap and I'm not into none of that nerd rap. The only shit I'm feelin' right now is 50 and Em. Like I heard music Em has done that you ain't even heard yet that's retarded. Eminem is comin' on hardcore beats and rhymes. 50 cent has just raised this game to a whole new level now. He's bringing it hardcore again. Everything he talks about, is what Cypress talked about in 1990. It's the same shit. It's all about guns and gang bangin'. He's just doing it now in a time where everybody is putting R&B singers on their music and he ain't. Those groups I'm feelin'. I just heard a bunch of new shit over at Dre's studio that's bangin'. It's like whoa! So there is some good shit comin' out and there is a lot of trash coming out. As far as that other shit, I'm not feelin' none of that nerd shit. Underground shit, I like Mobb Deep. I like Ghostface 2 albums ago. Those are the underground records I like.
ThaFormula.com - How did this shit in the underground happen?
DJ Muggs - These underground kids and this is just 1 part of the underground. These kids are just middle class kids man. They're nerd kids so this is the shit they can relate to. It's the shit they can get into and I guess that's their thing man. It's like when Hip-Hop was early, Hip-Hop wasn't about killin' muthafuckas yet. It was just all about rhymin' and the same rhymes you're talkin' about, super scientifical and all that. I think its just getting back to the basics and the simplicity of it all. I think a lot of it is trash, but something is gonna kick in man. There's gonna be something to come out in a minute that's just gonna flip the game up and it always does, cause its been proven throughout history so its just a matter time. The last big group to come out and flip it a while ago was Wu, and then the next muthafuckas to come out is Em and 50, and its gonna be somebody else next to pass that torch.




ThaFormula.com - Now I could be wrong about this but I always felt that before Rza did his thing, you were really the one who set off that dirty, grimy, hardcore sound that Wu did.
DJ Muggs - Oh, I did do it before RZA did it.
ThaFormula.com - Yeah, I would get into arguments with kids about that. I always felt that you set it off first and basically others followed.
DJ Muggs - Yeah, he just had different MC's. Oh for sure you can look at somebody like that. You could even look at Mobb Deep's style of production and you can even take it a step further. Look how they took the whole "Black Sunday" album. "Black Sunday" gave birth to horror core Hip-Hop. It gave birth to the Gravediggaz. We invented a whole style of rap. Who came out at that time? The Flatlinerz too. That's all off of the "Black Sunday" imagery. Coming out with that dark, gothic, Black Sabbath imagery and these groups were like, "oh lets do that shit." So, boom, boom, boom. If you want to get blatant, on the last Wu album, the single RZA put out.
ThaFormula.com - "The Jump Off" beat right?
DJ Muggs - It was just, uh, It was my beat. Straight the fuck up. You know on the first album Cypress brought the weed into the Hip-Hop game. Cypress brought the darkness back into the game. The put your hoodie on, the put your Timb boots on Hip-Hop, and you know we brought the East Coast ghetto vibe back into the game and then B-Real brought the afro back into the game. We just brought all these things. We brought making hardcore records cool again. Second album, boom we brought touring with rock groups. We opened that door a lot more. The Beastie Boys were doing it a little, but we opened it up to where it was like everybody go tour with a rock group now, its good and we brought that imagery that just set off that whole horror-core shit. The next record we come out and I brought a whole 'nother side into the game. I brought the whole samplin' Indian records and sitars that muthafuckers are barely doing now. This is about 8 to 9 years before muthafuckas start doing it. I was already into the sitars and shit like that. Then we stepped back and moved my way into the Soul Assassin record. Right around that time I was kind of done with Cypress at that time. I felt Cypress reached its peek with "Temples of Boom" and I felt that it was done. After "Temple," I figured it was done. It becomes too easy so you go and you don't even try as much. It's like playing a little kids baseball team. Grown men playing little kids. Its just like you beat 'em and then its like why even go to the park and play again, its too easy. This is just with Cypress I'm talkin' about. It just became easy for us, but it's a group and I told them I'd roll until the wheels fall off. So what you all want to rap on, boom, I'll do this shit, dadadada. You can't do the same thing over cause people get tired of that. 'Cause you know what happens, "oh he's doing the same shit." I can go back and do that though. See what I needed to do is go reinvent new sounds and new styles for myself. I can always tap into that style forever. I'll bring it back when its time. When its time and when the game is open for it and I find the right MC and they wanna come out like that then cool. But MC's don't wanna come out like that no more.