50 Cent Interviews Talib XXL Aug 2003
XXL August 2003 pgs 102-108
What Happens when hip-hop’s real bad boy hooks up with the game’s most righteous voice? Thugs and backpacker’s unite: 50 Cent has the questions, Talib Kweli has the answers
As the guest editor of XXL’s 50th issue, 50 Cent was eager to experience life on the other side of the microphone- to ask the questions instead of answering them, his big chance to be a music journalist rather than a rap superstar. (We offered to trade salaries for a month, too. But he turned us down.) His choice of interview subject surprised us: Brooklyn MC Talib Kweli. We shouldn’t have been so surprised, really. After all, G-Unit has remade two of the so called “conscious” rapper’s tracks, “The Blast” and “Get By.” On June 2- while Talib was vacationing in the Trinidadian sun and 50 was home in NYC, preparing for the following days Hot 97 Summer Jam- the two connected for the first time ever, over the phone. We taped it, so you get to listen in.
50: I wanted to interview you because I am a fan of yours.
Talib: I want to say off the top that it’s an honor and a pleasure. You changing the game, you killing them. I’m definitely a fan. This interview means a lot to me.
50: I have a question I wanted to start off with. I wanted to ask you about Reflection Eternal. There’s a difference between Reflection Eternal and Quality, can you explain?
Talib: My mind-set behind Reflection Eternal was like, me and Hi-Tek we felt we had something to prove. I wanted to prove myself with the lyrics and he wanted to prove himself with the beats. So a lot of the subject matter on the album was straightforward like that. Like, this is who we are. Even the breakthrough single basically meant, this is my name and how you say it. And then when I was recording Quality…It wasn’t my choice to record Quality. Hi-Tek was recording something else, and Mos Def was working on movies. And I found myself waiting on nikkas rather than being in control of my own shyt. So I was like, “I gotta get my own project out there.” And I worked with my favorite producers at the time, Scratch and Kanye West.
50: The difference on this new one, “Get By,” is incredible. I think that is going to be a huge hit record for you, man.
Talib: Right. See with me Rawkus was in a transition period and there was no money coming. So I set up my own tour, and started going over Kanye’s crib and really taking my lead from people like you- ‘cause at that time your buzz was just in New York with the mixtape shyt. I was just seeing how you and a couple of other people were just killing the mixtape game, and I was gonna put out my own album. And that’s when I recorded “Good to You” and “Get By” with Kanye. Those were at his crib in New Jersey. I was just frustrated, so I wanted to make some more music, and those ended up being the ones people felt the most.
50: People consider you “conscious” rap. If they put the labels on us, they gonna consider me “gangsta” rap. Is there a difference to you?
Talib: I feel a couple of ways about it. “Conscious” means being honest about your craft and honest about your experiences. If you awake, you conscious, you conscious about what’s going on. You make decisions and you make choices that run your life. How do we define if somebody is a “conscious” artist or a “gangsta” artist? It’s not something that artists or people who are fans of the music came up with. It’s something that the media and the corporations came up with to sell it. And the problem with it is there might be fans who might benefit from hearing a “Many Men” or hearing something that 50 got on his album. Life the fans who be like, “He gangsta,” or “He commercial now, he sold such and such records.” And it’s the same with me. Like a fan of 50 might not check for me because they might be like, “Oh he’s a conscious rapper and I ain’t on that conscious shyt, so obviously he ain’t got nothing to offer me.” Like, “Whatever he has to say has to be geared to me,” and that’s a huge problem. That limits the artists and that limits the audience, so we cant really participate in that. In the beginning of my career, the first thing that people used to ask me was, “What you think of Puffy? What you think of Jay-Z?” As if I had a relationship with these nikkas or something like that. I ain’t know none of these nikkas. You know what I’m saying? I though of them like any music fan would, but people wanted me to justify what they was doing. People always come to me and ask me what I think about the war, when 50 Cent might have a valid opinion of what he things about the war.
50: That’s real. I mean, for the record, I would like to be considered a conscious rapper. I know what I’m saying when I’m saying it. It’s just that I’m saying it because that’s what it is. That’s the situation.
Talib: And you deal with the responsibilities and the consequences.
50: I’m jealous of that. I would like people to think that I am conscious. I think people think I’m crazy instead of conscious. ‘Cause when I get into a conversation with them, when I go to business meetings, I have to smile more to make people feel a little more comfortable. In some meetings I go to, I take my vest off before I go into the room. But the reality of it is, to be comfortable- with the lifestyle that I come from- I need that on. I should have that vest on. That vest could have saved Tupac’s life in that car, or it could have saved Biggie’s life in that car.
Talib: Word is bond. I’m a fan of everybody who doing it and who making it. But I notice that when a lot of artists get on, they stop paying attention to what other nikkas is doing.
50: Oh yeah!
Talib: I try to read every article, especially if I like what somebody’s music is coming with. And the first thing I notice when I read articles about you, 50, is the interviewer- whether its from Time magazine or Entertainment Weekly or a hip-hop publication- is always talking about, “Oh he smiles. He’s a nice guy.” As if they are completely shocked.
50: Yeah, like they think I’m suppose to be crazy. And, like, you can go on certain shows, like Jimmy Kimmel and Saturday Night Live and the joke’s automatically suppose to be on you, because you supposed to be so thugged-out from your experiences and so hard that you can’t have a sense of humor.
Talib: I feel you, I feel what you are saying.
50: Hey, the remix to “Get By” has Jay and Busta on it.
Talib: Yea, but I heard your remix, too.
50: Yeah, we should’ve did that . I was going the other way, though. I didn’t know how you would feel about that. I wanted to know how you feel about the mixtape scene. That’s where I got my start at. I feel like that’s the largest form of promotion right now. Do you?
Talib: I agree. I never had no issues with mixtapes. When the labels first started trying to shut down mixtapes- with Kid Capri and all them, Ron G. back in the days, I never understood that. As a musician, I never understood the idea that you would want to shut someone down for doing that shyt. That’s the essence of what we do. I’m in Trinidad right now. And the way that *****s do it down here on the radio, hip-hop is becoming more like dancehall. Whatever new hot rhythm comes out, *****s get it and hop on it. There’s positives and negatives to that, but the positives is that it’s exciting and its becoming more competitive. It’s making *****s step they game up. I think it’s dope. It made me step my shyt up like, “OK, I can’t slack now.”