Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan warlord has extended his "help" to the U.S. on the conditional basis of the American troops planning to exit the country.
"We are ready to help with the United States and ... other coalition forces if foreign troops announce the time frame for the pulling out their troops from Afghanistan," said Hekmatyar, who is also the former prime minister and leader of a militant pro-Taliban group.
"I am sure Afghans will fight U.S. forces and will continue Jihad against them like they fought against Russia before if they don't leave the country," he added.
What is referred to as the Soviet's Vietnam took place in 1979 when Russia invaded Afghanistan, the war lasted until 1989.
While Hekmatyer was unclear on how he plans to "help," officials believe the group would likely stop attacks against coalition forces, discontinue the recruitment of members and cease the intimidation of local citizens.
The militant leader is known by the Pentagon as one of Afghanistan's most influential military powers. Hekmatyer was also the recipient of $600 million in U.S. aid during the war against the Soviets.
Hekmatyer's "help" offerings comes during a series of British and U.S. attacks on the country's Southern Helmand province. More than 13,000 NATO members are fighting in Helmand.
The forces are making an attempt to gain and control the dangerous region ahead of elections this month.
Before the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan. Though the Islamic fundamentalist group all but toppled shortly after the attacks, the remaining leaders escaped to the Afghan countryside and Pakistan.
The Obama administration has shifted its focus from Iraq and moved about 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
Time is counting down as Jay-Z prepares to release The Blueprint III on September 11th. Fueled by the singles “D.O.A” and “Run This Town,” HipHopWired recently spoke with producer No I.D. about his involvement with the project. No I.D. stated,
“I'm on about 6 tracks and the original concept for the album came when me and Kanye were in New Orleans last summer. He was like why don't you come and work on this Jay album with me and we can do a couple of tracks. And we never really did stuff like that before so I was like O.K. And our synergy was so good off the top that I told him, “Hey man, I don't have an ego. Let's do like Dre and Mel-Man would do and let's do (more...)
Although swords were drawn and strikes were made, the forces have decided to put their guns down, metaphorically speaking, as Raekwon has confirmed his wish to put an end to their on-going beef.
Recently, the Chef stated that he was ready to finally put the nail in the coffin and withdraw from the current issue with the Jersey rapper that seemed to escalate and was heading for the worse after an associate of Raekwon allegedly struck Budden and left him with an ice pack and his arm in a sling.
Through a discussion with Charlamagne on radio station 100.3 The Beat in Philadelphia, the Wu Tang member elaborated his reasons for stepping away from the war:
"My thing is this, it's like, enough is enough. You know what I mean? Enough is enough. I'm on the road swallowing a lot you know, 'cause I'm a business man. I'm really trying to escape that negativity world. Because at the end of the day I'ma lose.”
Budden, who had issued a challenge for the two to (more...)
A Friday afternoon in Miami rang off abruptly as the sound of bullets left a man dead. Sam Ferguson, President of Don Diva Magazine was the victim as shots were fired upon his car while he was driving.
Ferguson, 47, was driving north near Griffin Road when bullets rang off onto his vehicle. He then crashed his car into the highway median, where he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities are currently on the search for suspects connected with the crime as their only clue has lead them on the hunt for a black car with clear tail-light lenses. This, however, is the only trail as there are no suspects in (more...)
19-year-old Albert Walker Mondane has decided to end the search as he has turned himself into authorities in connection with the shootings that occurred last month at Texas Southern University. The event, which took place on July 22, was meant to pay homage to Houston-rapper Trae therefore it was known as Trae Day.
According to Houston Police Department spokesman Kese Smith, Mondane, also known as "A-Walk," surrendered to authorities last Friday. He has been charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and now resides in the Houston city jail with a bail amounted at $30,000.
Although captured, police have stated that he is only one of (more...)
Bow Wow is officially barking with the big dogs as he announced via his Twitter page that he has joined the ranks of Cash Money and is now signed to the label. Bow Weezy stated via twitter:
"its official BOW WOW IS A CASH MONEY MILLIONAIRE. SHOUT TO STUNNA FOR BELIEVING IN ME AND GIVN ME A CHANCE SHOUT OUT 2 WAYNE FOR LETN ME WALK ON BOARD! AND MY YM FAMILY AND CASH MONEY FAMILY LBW/CASHMONEY/YOUNGMONEY BOW WOW WAYNE AND DRAKE? WHO GOT STOP THAT TRIO! GNR LETS GO ITS SHOWTIME!"
After the shocking announcement, Bow Wow then hit the net on (more...)
Being a minority is challenging. Having to learn how to articulate your perspective in a way that the mainstream understands – balancing that with not caring what anyone thinks – can be draining. But for Khalil Ismail, an African-American rapper from Baltimore, born to Islamic proselytes, being all the way outside the box is the only way to survive.
HipHopWired: On “Hip Hop,” one of your lead singles from your new album The Calm Before the Storm, you go in on our beloved genre saying: “It's you who got the power/it's you who got the fame... See now you got the money, so no excuse remains/You say the ‘hood is evil, why don't you help it change?/You say they hurt your mommy, but you defile her name.” What is that about?
Khalil Ismail: Ever since I can remember, I was sitting listening for some Hip-Hop lyrics. Rhyming always piqued my interest, so Hip-Hop always captivated me. The KRS Ones and Commons made want to get the knowledge, Biggies and Pacs made you want your guns cocked... Back then I felt like it was more balance. [The song “Hip Hop”] It's just saying everybody listens to you [Hip-Hop], now you have everybody's ear, we've gone through the stage of glorifying what you've been through, now what you gon' do next?
HipHopWired: So basically taking issue with the mainstream. Do you think the mainstream has the potential to shift focus, or is it by definition a place of materialism and misogyny?
Khalil Ismail: Not only do I think it has the potential to shift focus, I think it has to at some point. In the ‘90s it was Lauryn Hill. She was a mainstream artist that everybody listened to, that for the most part everybody loved. Bob Marley was a mainstream artist. These things tend to go in cycles.
HipHopWired: Both of those artists definitely did not shy from singing about God-related things. Similarly, you reference your faith in Allah on almost every track of The Calm Before the Storm. What is “the storm,” is it something religious?
Khalil Ismail: There's basically a storm moving in all of our lives depending on where we are, and it doesn't matter who we are, we all have that storm coming. If you're a superstar and you already have a lot of money, you know, it could be the recession, it could be you losing all of your money and then what are you going to do? If you are comfortable in your house, then it could be the next natural disaster. The storm could be you dying. And so the message [of the album] is, because we all inevitably face change in our life as we know it right now, have we thought about it, and mentally and spiritually are we prepared for that change?
HipHopWired: Speaking of change, you wrote your race relations song “Wake Up” around the time of President Obama's nomination. Since then, Obama's been in office and you've been on a nationwide tour; do you think we live in a post-racial America?
Khalil Ismail: I definitely don't think it's a post-racial America... In a song like “Wake Up,” what I realize is that – [and] people who have spent anytime around other races and different countries and things – this is not an African American versus White American thing alone, this is light-skinned Puerto Rican versus darker skinned Puerto Rican. This is something obviously inherent in human beings that unless it's pinpointed and fought against, it's going to happen.
HipHopWired: You've done some relationship building of your own. You performed in London at the Global Peace and Unity Conference where you met South African singer Zain Bhikha and the two of you appear in the video for “Freedom Will Come [Palestine]” featuring Abdul Malik and L Debois. Do you think peace can be achieved in the Middle East?
Khalil Ismail: Honestly, I don't know. If there's a fair division in the property, possibly. But I mean, you gotta think about that this is something that's been going on for probably 1000 years now. So really at this point only inspiration from God can bring peace to that area, but in the meantime, when you see an injustice, as a Muslim especially, if someone asks you to help out... [That video] that's just my little way of helping to bring light to the issue.
HipHopWired: Do you feel like your music helps to debunk common perceptions of Hip-Hop and Islam?
Khalil Ismail: Yeah, definitely, I mean, I've had many people tell me before, especially older people, that they really didn't like Hip-Hop and they didn't realize Hip-Hop could sound like that... On the Islam tip, I wouldn't say so much it's debunking perceptions. I will say that I have had a number of actual Christian preachers tell me that they really like my album and I've actually heard one played some of my tracks in his church.
HipHopWired: Diplomatic relations.
Khalil Ismail: Yeah.
HipHopWired: The music industry has for a while now been experiencing a decline in sales, what gives you the courage to not go the mainstream route?
Khalil Ismail: Probably faith in God, one. Whether they tend to be spiritual people or not, I get too much positive feedback. It's harder now for the person that's coming up and trying to get into the industry and they don't have a connect or someone to mold them like a Lil' Wayne and Drake situation. Unless you have that type of connection, I would say it's even harder if you don't stand out in terms of your content. We're now in the industry where your name is less and the way that the industry uses you is such that if you go down, if the next ‘Young Dro' goes down, they'll get the next ‘Young Dre' and really the song won't change. That's the difference between the industry of today and yesterday, like if you took a Tupac song and say, if Snoop or another mainstream artist did it, it wouldn't sound the same.
Hear Khalil Ismail's The Calm Before the Storm free at KhalilMusic.com.
Joell Ortiz, Royce Da 5'9, Crooked I and Joe Budden are all established as being lyrical monsters, but as individual artists they haven't been able to showcase the talent that is clearly evident. As a result, the four have decided to join forces and become the four-headed monster known as Slaughterhouse. As a single entity, the group has proven that they are not to be taken lightly and labels missed out on what they have to deliver. With the release of their self-titled album on August 11, HipHopWired.com was able to catch up with 3/4's of the group to discuss bringing back the art of lyricism, going against the grain and choosing not to live by the industry's standards and how being fans of the art has kept them in it even with the problems they have faced. This is Slaughterhouse.
HipHopWired: What revolution are you trying to bring in? Crooked said there are too many Indians and not enough chiefs?
Royce: People are following now. I got a lot of people paying attention to me now because I stand next to these guys. I think it's just the whole movement that they're looking at now and I think that is going to reflect on our solo projects too because every release is going to be like another release with Slaughterhouse.
Ortiz: I think the fans of true Hip-Hop are following what they want to follow, which is us. I think aspiring artists and the ones that are fairly new will be following the non-followers because that's what we are. We're not textbook and we don't play by the rules that everybody else plays by. We just do what the fu&% we do and have fun doing it.
Budden: I don't know and I don't care. I know if we do one thing, it will take care of several other things. I know if we keep the focus and worry about making great records, being the great lyricists that we are and meshing together as a group, that will take care of everything else. This genre is a package-riding genre so I could have told you when we formed Slaughterhouse that you would see knock-offs and ni**as trying to emulate something. On one hand I want to diss them all and on the other hand I'm flattered and it's a compliment.
HipHopWired: Clearly, you guys have the lyrical ability to be given the title MC. Can you define a rapper and an MC?
Royce: Well, I don't think that people expect as much from a rapper. An MC is basically everything that Slaughterhouse is doing. There's a lot of sh*& that gets put out today, in today's climate, which DJs support because they don't expect anything. They say things like, “We bangin this sh&* right now and this is poppin,” because the sh%^ got a dance attached to it or they swaggin it out or whatever they're doing. I like some of that sh&% too though because I don't expect them to do what I expect Joell Ortiz to do. It's not even because I'm biased towards one way or another, it's just some people were put into the game to do certain things and others were put in to do other things. The MC is put on more of a lyrical pedestal and more is expected of them. The rapper is just expected to make songs.
Ortiz: I agree with Royce, but I do feel like the MC and the rapper are the same thing. The MC is just the rapper on crack. It's like basketball where you got the ni**as that are role playing in the fact that they're cool, they made the squad and they got a deal. They might look like something and sound like something, but they're not all-stars every year. With an MC, you're excited…cause you know that at any given time, he can take over the game. Rappers are just rappers and they're cool. A rapper might have a hot verse just like a basketball player might have 25, but he only averages 12. When you're dealing with MCs, they're doing 30 and 10 every night. MCs are all-stars and rappers are role players.
HipHopWired: In the art of competition do you think any group can stand bar for bar and leave the Slaughterhouse alive?
Slaughterhouse: No, not at all. You would be nowhere close to being alive…mutilated, demolished, and unidentified.
HipHopWired: With tracks such as “Cuckoo” and “Fight Klub” where you step away from the general format, do you believe that madness on a track can establish a new order?
Royce: I think that we definitely wanted to make an album. I think people expected us to come together and do a collage of bullsh$%. When you go in to do an album, it's different from a mixtape or leaking some sh&^ to the net. There can be no rules on some songs, but at the end of the day we are all songwriters. It's not like we just started fu%$ing around. We approached it the way that we approach our own sh%$ except as a group. “Cuckoo” is just a different kind of beat. We all thought that the sh&% was cuckoo, which was one of the first words that got thrown into the air when the beat came on. We were just doing it track for track and whatever mind frame that beat put us in, that's what we did.
Ortiz: This is the fu$^ing Slaughterhouse. Ain't nothing textbook about us. We're dealing with four muthafu&%ing scientists when it comes to music so it's whatever the fu%& we come up with and whatever the vibe sound like. We aren't aiming anything at the radio and we're not sitting down saying this is what we have to do. We feel the beats out, we write the records and they come out the way that they come out. When "Cuckoo" came out and the sounds were all over the place and the bass was booming and just sounding crazy, we came out with the content and we let it fly and that was just it.
HipHopWired: Do any of you have a particular standout record for the album?
Budden: Nah, I like ‘em all equally. They're so different and this is such a new experience and I was just learning and watching and observing so I don't have a song that I like more so than any other song. I like them all for different reasons.
Ortiz: Same here. Every time I listen to the album, I get a new favorite song depending on how the fu&% I feel. It's just a great album, man. I always answer that question as a fan and I just think it's a really dope album and there are going to be a bunch of favorites. I look at the Twitter and Web site comments and every 1 of the 15 songs has been somebody's favorite song. It's one of those albums and it gets better with every listen.
HipHopWired: What's a studio session like? Have any of y'all ever had to go back over your verse after hearing everybody else?
Royce: I re-write when I really don't like the way my verse came out, for me. I don't really pit my verses against their verses. That's too much to put on yourself mentally. When you try to create, you need to have your mind as free as possible. You can't create properly going into the studio with concern and that's all I would be every time is concerned like you hope your verse is going to be better, but sh%& everybody catches it if they're in that zone. With me, I change my verses for my own sh*^. I might live with it for awhile and be like Imma change this and change that. I do that the same way in the group. I don't change it because I think that someone's verse is better because when a ni**a is gonna shine on the song he is just gonna shine.
Ortiz: I don't think none of us sit there and stress ourselves out worrying if someone is going to get us on this beat or feel like you should have went at the record that way and lost. We just make records and that's just it. We're all dope so if somebody edges someone out they're not going to body them in the eyes of the fan. We don't stress each other out, but we have friendly sh@% like, ‘Oh, you caught that one.' Nobody is re-writing because of somebody else's verse. The re-writing process is just to better the song and that's it.
HipHopWired: Do y'all feel as though some things need to be ushered in and others need to be booted the fu%$ out in Hip-Hop?
Ortiz: I don't think anything needs to be ushered in or kicked out. Hip-Hop is Hip-Hop and we are already dope, but we sound even doper when ni**as are wack so we need wack ni**as to be honest with you. I don't want to take food out of nobody's mouth because of what they talk about. They have their own audience and we have ours. They know not to come into our realm and we damn sure don't do what they do. Slaughterhouse is about to do what we do whether people come in or they exit so we don't really pay attention to what's going on because that's just not what we do. We make our music, stay in our lane, which is any fu&%ing lane we decide to pick, and we dominate it. That's it.
Royce: I don't think the Auto-Tune or nothing like that needs to be completely booted. I think all of that sh*^ is Hip-Hop, but I think it could be a lot better and move forward a lot more positively if it was more of a balance. What happens a lot in Hip-Hop is they take one thing and they over-saturate the game with it and I think that's all Jay-Z was saying. I don't think he was just saying get rid of Auto-Tune or dissing Kanye because that's his man. I think he likes when Kanye does it and the other people that are successful with it. It's just all these other people that say that this is the key to success so let's all do it and even do it the exact same way that these ni**as are doing it and then it starts to get competitive and its all that the new breed of people hear and they think that's what Hip-Hop is. It kind of drowns out other avenues in Hip-Hop. I think we can have more balance without getting rid of anything and without ushering anything in because all of the elements are there, but certain elements just get drowned out with bullsh&%.
Budden: I'mma keep mine short and sweet. I think the whimsical fan needs to be ushered out and artist development needs to be ushered back in.
HipHopWired: We spoke with Sheek Louch and he said that the brotherhood between him Jada and P have helped them maintain as a group? Do you agree that a relationship outside of the music is necessary before business can even happen?
Budden: If there was no relationship outside of the music then I don't think that there would be a relationship, period. I wanted to make something evolve with four guys who I got along with, who I would be able to be away from home for months at a time with, who I could speak to with any type of problem, not just music. As far as that goes, I don't think there would have been any business involving Joe Budden without there being a strong bond and union and brotherhood. All those things are extremely important.
HipHopWired: Since you have all been through your own trials, and Crooked released a song titled “If You Ever Hear Me,” was there ever a point where you were like fu#^ it, “I'm done with the rap sh@%?”
Budden: I know I was like that about 4 or 5 years ago when I was sitting at Def Jam just collecting dust. I felt like the music was getting better and my ability was getting better, but I didn't have the outlet to actually release the music so it got frustrating for me. But quitters never win and I have gotten over way worse so I had to keep pushing.
Royce: With me, there were times in my career where I know people thought that I should quit and be ready to throw in the towel, but in my own mind I think I'm kind of fu$@ed up because it was like I was invisible at those times, but around those times you couldn't tell me that I was nobody. Maybe I'm just strong or ego-driven, but whatever I am, whether that be a good thing or a bad thing, it helped me to get to this point and rebuild. It kind of helped to revive everything in my career and helped turn everything around.
Ortiz: Yeah, that's sounds like me about ten to twenty times a year. I get those days man, you know what I'm saying? The artists life has its up and downs, the good news and bad news, what you could have did, what you shouldn't have said. There's just a whole bunch of sh&% that makes you get tired. All of that sh&% is a bluff because I don't think any of my group members, my friends, could quit if we wanted to. We love this sh$% too much. So, it's just an emotion for a moment and then we snap out of it and then we tear into ni**as again.
HipHopWired: With the release of The Revival EP and The Escape Route EP, when should we be expecting a release from you Joell?
Ortiz: I really don't know yet. If it had to go in tomorrow, it could. Nothing will be sporadic when dealing with anything Slaughterhouse. It will all be in sequence; it will all be timed. We're not one of those groups to just put things out and it's all going to be thought out and planned and we're going to make sure that in 2010, people are going to be talking about us.
HipHipWired: Joell, you stated that above all else you guys are fans of music. Is it that mentality which helps to separate y'all from the rest of the rappers out there now and stand above them?
Ortiz: I think we stand above everyone else because we're better than everyone else. Not to sound conceited or anything, but I just think that we're iller than everybody else. I do think that us being fans of one another is kind of ill. Prior to me meeting Royce, “Boom” definitely was one of my favorite records ever and I enjoyed performing that sh%$ with him. “Jumpoff” has been destroying ni**as forever and Crooked, I just got wind of him, but I became an instant fan of him. I think that everyone in the studio is a fan of one another. Not only are we putting verses and songs together, but we're also in awe of the way that we are collaborating. I think that us being fans of each other is helping us out, but we're just naturally better than ni**as and we just let the music talk.
With all the buzz surrounding new artists in Hip-Hop these days, Hip-Hop Wired got a chance to sit down with Chuck Inglish, one half of The Cool Kids, to talk about Hipsters, the Midwest and the changing of the guard in rap music.
HipHopWired: Talk to us about the Hipster movement in Hip-Hop, do you even feel like there still is a Hipster movement.
Chuck Inglish: That was like the swine flu yo, it didn't really exist. It's like sometimes people don't understand young Black people doing sh&% in a different way, they can't just let it be, they gotta give it a name. So instead of just being rap ni**as, we gotta be Hipsters cause we don't dress like everybody else.
HipHopWired: So where does your unique retro style come from?
Chuck Inglish: We didn't come up like that, we came up like everybody else. There ain't nothing new under the sun so you ain't gonna start nothing. Every place you go there's gonna be somebody that dresses like you or thinks like you and you just can't escape that. Me and Mikey got real tired of feeling like you gotta look one way to do this sh%$. As far as the Hipster thing, that's something they made up. You can flip your rapping and people would give it another name so you not gone dodge that. So I wouldn't short come everybody's achievements by saying that we were a part of some movement, cause those sh&$s stop. Know what I mean, this ain't something that's about to stop, I'mma do this as long as I can.
HipHopWired: So you don't think it's fair to put all the new rappers in groups like that? Like how they used to put you all in the same group as The Pack when “Vans” was out?
Chuck Inglish: Yeah that's some 2006 sh&t. Not saying the Pack is 2006 sh$t, but asking us about stuff like we all alike. That's when they started to pop, Lupe started to pop and sh$t just started looking different, and then Kanye came and started doing his thing and it showed others if this works then my Shyte'll work. Like it can happen. And with all that stuff we've been in here for a while. So its like that part has came and passed…about what do we describe ourselves as, we're just in it for the love of rap.
HipHopWired: So what makes this time so much different from previous generations in rap?
Chuck Inglish: A lot of us new cats, we rap babies. This is all we've listened to since we were born so it's kinda embedded in us, I know nothing else. That's why when you said that Hipster Shyte, anybody who feels like we do, you like, “Awww man, not that again.”
HipHopWired: What do you think about the Hip-Hop scene in Chicago and the music that is coming out of the Midwest in general?
Chuck Inglish: It's good but I feel like that old school Shyte was regional. I know everybody says where they're from but the music resonates in a different way. It's so many different sounds in Chicago you would think it was all country know what I mean so it's really hard to say the Chicago sound. There are several sounds in Detroit, that's where I'm from so you know you got whole different sounds of music in Detroit. Especially in Black music; even in St. Louis, all the Midwest cities, we have a bunch of different sounds, so people gotta figure out what to call it cause it's no longer regional. Like Cali has a bunch of sounds, its just a new generation. We've listened to everything, so its hard to have this one style, because when people have new styles they didn't have anything prior to that. Like they didn't have Bone Thugs so they had to be the Bone Thugs themselves.
HipHopWired: So it's like being Lebron James of your music.
Chuck Inglish: Yeah man it's just different, just something completely new, the old Shyte is over with. It ain't over with but it ain't the same no more. 20 is the new 20 now. I know it's hard for some of these older folks to accept; I'm turning 25 this year. I'm in my mid 20's you know, we gotta grow up and own our sh&t.
HipHopWired: I'm right there with you being 24.
Chuck Inglish: So you know how it feels when you are trying to convince people to let you have your Shyte now. Let me have my space to do me, and I don't want your advice, I want to do it my way.
HipHopWired: Speaking of doing it your way, when can we expect a new Cool Kids album?
Chuck Inglish: We just had our mixtape come out, we got a counter on our website, its over 160,000 downloads and spread around pretty fast. Our whole album is a whole series and sh%t, we got a mixtape for it, its gonna be some new sh&t, like we gone have previews, like movies have previews, but its music and not videos. We got the mixtape called Gone Fishing, which is on our website, and then our album comes out this fall called, When Fish Ride Bicycles, and then two weeks after that I'm going to drop a post album mixtape called the Tackle Box.
HipHopWired: So it's a multiple part project?
Chuck Inglish: Yeah, just trying to give people something different and not just drop an album and the next week start talking about the next album. We want to give people an entire project so you can remember that whole series of music that came out at that time. We're just having fun with it, I've never had more fun making music and the more we go along, the more me and Mikey kinda figure out what we're good at and it just gets better. We don't want to be the best, we just want to be the best at what we do.
HipHopWired: How did you guys hook up with Don Cannon for the mixtape?
Chuck Inglish: Cannon's the homie. We met and realized that all of us were a lot alike and we was all into the same sh&t and we had a mixtape before but it was more like an EP but there's something about giving away music for free right now that I'm really into. It gives people a chance to put faith back into music again instead of being burned like we've all been burned. Spend $19.00 on some Shyte and get 3 good a*s songs, get outta here bum. Now I feel like the same way, you gotta have music that ain't the same Shyte. Like I'd be mad if like these playoffs were going on and I didn't have any music out, people are gonna listen to music and remember how this summer was.
HipHopWired: And you guys are doing the album independent right?
Chuck Inglish: Yeah we in a situation we trying to fight through, but regardless to that it will be coming through our label.
HipHopWired: And what are the advantages to doing it independent?
Chuck Inglish: Cause man, we ain't gonna make any money through the label. Like I said man, I live for my sh&t, I'm not about to give it to nobody and the machine just gets you there faster. If you are willing to do the work and willing to make sure every album is better than the last album, and every show is better than the last show. Within a couple years you gonna be making more money than they can pay you. So why would you screw yourself over by having somebody tell you what you have to do? The last thing I want is to have somebody telling me what kind of music to make when you don't make music. What the f&%k you gonna tell me to make? How do you know anything? That's just the attitude I have and I don't like being that type of person but if I ain't around those people then nobody can say I have that attitude.
The worst thing you can do is criticize something you don't do or be in the business of something you don't care about; there are a lot of people in this industry that don't even like music, they just like the money. I only need money to eat. That's how much I'm into this sh&t. I don't buy nothing. I make enough to do whatever the hell I want, but I don't. I just buy keyboards, some shoes and groceries. I might rent a car when I gotta go somewhere. I never bought jewelry, I feel like I'm not here for that, I'm here for what we started. And what's the label going to do that we can't do for ourselves? We toured the world twice and paid for our own videos.
HipHopWired: Are you doing any outside production that we should keep an ear out for?
Chuck Inglish: Yeah I actually just hit Wale about some stuff. Me and production, that's my thing, I got into rapping late. I've always liked words though. Like being able to be the one on your own beats makes a lot of sense so that's how I kinda came about, I knew how I wanted to sound so I just got good at how to do it and ran with it, so now its my new favorite thing. I been such a fan of it my whole life so it was bound to happen. Like I was the biggest rap fan ever, and listened to everybody's production and lyrics and then you just start to make up your own.
HipHopWired: Who is your favorite rapper of all time?
Chuck Inglish: Probably Rae and Ghost. Uh it's like I had pairs, and then I was huge into the west coast like the Dogg Pound and Snoop, Mack 10, I grew up on all that. I liked all that. Then I remember riding to this summer camp in 93' and I was like 9, that was when I heard Outkast for the first time. It was on from then on.
HipHopWired: How do you feel about other current rappers right now?
Chuck Inglish: It's the new school, that's what it is right now. We the grown ups now. So it's only appropriate to see things happening like this. It's gonna be interesting to see how things play out the next few years, it may be something you never seen before like LeBron James. I'm for everybody as long as they keep an honest love for this thing and don't' start abusing it, and we see what happens when you do that, and money becomes the reason for doing it. It's lights out, when your focus shifts to other sh^t, your music will turn to sh%t. You can't do both. You can't be more creative when you worry about sh%t that makes you not creative. You can't be creative and not have that be your focus in my opinion.
HipHopWired: What about a Kanye West or a Pharrell with their creative fashion outlets?
Chuck Inglish: Well that depends, for me, I like wearing clothes; I don't care about making clothes. I just know that I'm really good at one thing and when I start doing other sh%t I just become kinda good at it. I just feel like I don't need a new challenge in something else, it's so much for me to do in music I don't think I can get bored with it. Like I said I'm young, I don't know how I'm gonna feel when I'm 34. I may tell you a different story. But right now all I want to do is make music. Cool Kids sh&t.
I don't want to hear another persons come back joint. Kids I hang out with don't want to hear that sh#t; if your goal was to make your money then make your money and be the f&%k out. Quit taking money out the new ni**as mouth. It's still some albums that's out from some artists that you know are gonna do this forever, but its some other artists that just play the game where they got this, and then a new this, and a new this and then they got a new girlfriend and now they got a new album now they got a new movie. Make up your mother-f&^king mind. You don't see old hoopers coming back and taking roster spots from new ni**as. If your time is over let it be done. And I'm just talking in general, I know a lot of young cats that feel like that, it's like you try to get your music out and its just too many people putting out sh^t and you know they don't have a love for it.
And really I'm not complaining about sh$t. I'm happy with where we are and I understand how we are gonna do our Shyte. I just hope everybody else finds out the best way to do their sh^t to make it a new situation that they talk about 20 years from now. When things weren't looking good these young guys came out of their own hands and made something new in this industry. That's what I feel about all the new guys, everybody has their own sound. Wale got his Shyte; you know what a Wale song is. Cudi got his sh&t, we got our Shyte. Drake's got his sh&t, Asher, Currency… You gotta have your own thing to last right now. You gotta be original, so now we gotta take original music and find an original way to deliver it to the people.
When Dwayne Betts was 16-years-old he was an average extraordinary teenager, made the dean's list every semester, talked “trash” with his friends, played basketball, occasionally skipped class. Then one day, he and some folks went to a mall. He had a gun – the first time he ever held one. They carjacked a man and the joy ride took him on a journey to an 8-year bid in an adult penitentiary. Now, in his twenties and less than five years since his release, Dwayne is an award-winning poet, author, a husband, a father, and a spokesperson for Campaign for Youth Justice. He talked to HipHopWired.com about coming of age in the system.
HipHopWired: Congratulations on your first book, “A Question of Freedom.” What makes your story different from other prison tales?
Dwayne Betts: I think my story was unique because I was incarcerated at 16, I was certified as an adult, tried in an adult court, sent to prison with adults. My formative years were spent in prison. Because prison formed this huge chunk of my life, I wanted people to read the book and really have to deal with prison and not have to deal with what might've happened before prison and with the success afterwards. In interviews and on TV I get to talk about graduating from the University of Maryland, being a husband, being a father, and I get to talk about working in the community. So when people read the book, they'll see that what's in the book is what prepared me to do the things that I'm doing now.
HipHopWired: What was it like being a young man in an adult prison?
Dwayne Betts: It was interesting. It was different. Prison is probably not the most violent place in the world, but it's one of the most...
HipHopWired: Where would be more violent?
Dwayne Betts: Iraq. Afghanistan. See in prison the idea of violence is ever present, but death is not ever present. People die and it's on your mind, but the truth is, you see people live 20 and 30 years in prison. It might be a terrible life that they live... that's what I wanted to convey, the violence, the humanity that's buried underneath the violence. A lot of people talk about prison and they don't talk about the humanity that's underneath the violence. Because they don't talk about the humanity, the recidivism rates could be so high without us really saying, ‘Why is this going on?' But if you recognize the inherent humanity and people could see sort of the beautiful ugly of prison then it'll be easier to do some things policy-wise and in our own personal behavior to help people transition from criminal acts to upright behavior.
HipHopWired: Can you articulate for me what the humanity is in prison?
Dwayne Betts: I went to prison at 16, 5'6', a hundred and twenty-five pounds and I never once had anybody try to take something from me. A lot of that was because it was always other men around me who sort of took me under their wing. I remember once, I was in solitary confinement and across from me was a guy that grew up near where I live, I didn't know him growing up, but we knew a lot of the same people. We didn't have that much money at the time, so we had like one soup and a packet of cookies between us and we split it in half. And because we were in solitary confinement we had to rig a pulley system to slide the cookies from one cell to the next, and get a trustee to pass one half the soup. We weren't brothers, we don't even talk to each other to this day and I don't think either one of us expected for us to be talking five or ten years from now, but it's a matter of principal and I think that a lot of people don't recognize to the extent that principal exists.
HipHopWired: That's not only an example of humanity, but ingenuity.
Dwayne Betts: I'll give you one other story. I knew a guy who had never been to college, this guy had his GED or something, right, he made a walkman that could record from two walkman circuit boards and neither one of them had the record button, so he had to write the schematics. He had to envision something that he never saw on paper, put it on paper, get the transistors and all the things that he needed. He also was brilliant enough to recognize that you could use headphones as a microphone and he made a device that could record music, conversations, or whatever. He was recording mixtapes from the rec yard, I mean, some of the illest rappers I ever heard.
HipHopWired: How long were you locked up?
Dwayne Betts: 8 years, 3, 4 months. Long enough to know I don't want to go back.
HipHopWired: Was your sentence fair?
Dwayne Betts: Nah. Sentences aren't meant to be fair, though. I mean, my judge told me, ‘I'm under no illusion that sending you to prison will help, but you could get something out of it if you want.' So if sending me to prison won't help me, how will it help society? Because at the bottom of this we're talking about public safety and I was 16 when I went to prison. I saw people get robbed, people get raped, get molested, people just getting abused in a way that they became other than what they wanted to be without even knowing it and judges and lawyers know it just as well as I do. And who is more susceptible to this, an adult or a child?
Well, I know grown men who couldn't handle the pressures, so to send a child to prison is preposterous to me. It's not about the amount of time I spent in prison, it's not about the idea that I couldn't go home, it's about the place that I was sent, the lack of treatment that was there, and the lack of vision on the part of the justice system to believe that I could be more than what I displayed in that 30 seconds. My thing is, if you went to a job that had that high a failure rate it would go out of business. But the juvenile justice system and the prison system they had the highest failure rate of anything I've ever seen, but it's not ever at the risk of going out of business.
HipHopWired: America has the highest population of incarcerated people in the world, why do you think that's so if the system is such a failure?
Dwayne Betts: Even though it's failing the way that it is, the public usually isn't aware of its failing. Most of the people that read this article won't know that juveniles get certified and transferred to adult court on a regular basis. Most of them don't even know to the extent in which the system is making young people worse to when they come out from when they go in. And more importantly, most of the people won't be aware about how the education system ties into the failures of the young people. When society start saying that we all should be devastated because our prison rates are this high and it's not solely the responsibility of the person who committed this crime, but it's a problem that we have in a society in which crime is so prevalent, then things will change.
HipHopWired: How does education tie into more than 200,000 young people being sent to adult courts each year?
Dwayne Betts: Like the public school system, I mean you're expecting when you send your child to school [that] they graduate. But like in Detroit or D.C., you see schools with 30% graduation rates. A lot of people I met a prison didn't graduate from high school or graduated and still were functionally illiterate. I mean they aren't prepared to enter the workforce if they weren't committing crimes.
HipHopWired: What is freedom?
Dwayne Betts: Freedom is the ability to have a vision that something is possible. Freedom existed in prison. I mean simple stuff, like right now I have a vision of getting a good night's sleep tonight. You can't be happy if you can't have a vision of having what you want in your life and believing that you can get what you need, and I think that's the beginning of freedom. I started writing the “Question of Freedom” the essay in prison trying to figure out what it means to be free and I kept going and I just was fortunate enough to be able to turn it into a book where I got to pursue some of the questions revolving around freedom and incarceration more in depth. Ultimately, the book is not about prison, but it's about living.
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