N:
When did you start getting into the hip hop side of things?
C: I was already into rap by then. I heard Run rapping in December 1983. I was in Louisiana visiting my Grandmother and a friend of mine, his dad had a house next door to hers. He gave me Run for Thanksgiving. I fell in love with Run and from then on I knew I was gonna fukk with [rap], in some way shape or form. Not to get no money, I was just intrigued, I liked it, I wanted to be a part of what was going on in the movement. So from that day on I was buying records in that genre. And I was trying to study where they was coming from up there in the East with this new thing called rap. I had heard rap songs, Kurtis Blow and shyt like that, but nothing had an impact on me that made me want to do it like [when] I heard Run.
N: On that note, how’d the joint with G Rap and Kane come about?
C: I used to want to be Big Daddy Kane. We used to idolize Kool G rap and the Juice Crew All Stars. We were raised up on original East Coast rap music, just like everybody else was. They were people that we respect and look up to as OGs in the game. I felt like I wanted to make a song with them people before my career was over and this is the time to do it. Marley Marl is the original motherfukker that put the 808 in a record and made it go boom. He’s the original dun dada with this beat making shyt. Make no mistake, he’s the truth. It just so happens that my manager was real close with him and I got the opportunity to meet Marley Marl and he sent me some beats. I was sitting around listening to ‘em and he had a couple of remakes of some old shyt on there and it just all came together. It’s one of the last songs of the album that came together. That’s just paying homage to the foundation of this shyt. When I see Kool DJ Red Alert in New York, I bow down to him. I never got a chance to meet Kool Herc, but when I do meet him I want an autograph. These motherfukkers is the real OGs of this shyt. And I got a lot of respect for them. It was a pleasure and an honor to do a song with those guys. We reaching back and bringing some history up so these youngsters gonna see what’s going on. If you don’t know where you came from how the fukk you gonna know where you going?
N: I feel like a lot of the New York heads aren’t even putting the legends on their records these days.
C: It’s ironic that some boys from Texas had to be the ones to reach back and grab Marley Marl and grab Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap and put them on in ’07. Ain’t that some shyt? Seems kind of odd that some motherfukkers from Texas had done that. But back then, nobody was trippin’ on where a motherfukker was from. Remember Rakim said “it ain’t where you from, it’s where you at?” That’s the era I come from. I’m an 80’s baby. All these new young motherfukkers is the ones tripping on where a motherfukker from or what coast the music come from or all this little ho ass shyt. nikkas say they got beef but it look like pork to me.
N: What do you think causes that divide in hip hop?
C: What causes a motherfukker to just straight up be a hater on these streets? What causes a motherfukker that you went to school with your whole life to want to shoot you and rob you? Jealous, envy, greed, wicked men, deceitful hearts, females with penises. bytch ass nikkas is what causes this shyt. I remember a time when being a rapper was the thing to be, a rapper was an upstanding citizen, a cool cat. You had to be a cool motherfukker to rap. You had to be a cool motherfukker to wear that dookie rope chain and come around. You remember the pictures of Eric B & Rakim? Them nikkas was cool motherfukkers. You had to be to get on a record. Just to touch the microphone you had to be a cold motherfukker. Now a person say “rapper” they think of a fugazi motherfukker, a fraud. A motherfukker that lies and talks about shyt he ain’t never done. We done let so many fake motherfukkers come into this game and have embraced so much fraud shyt and have gave awards and put crowns on so many p*ssy motherfukkers that to be a rapper now it ain’t even the thing to be. A rapper ain’t no upstanding citizen, a nikka gotta check your credibility. Back then, by the time you saw a rapper on a record, he already had paid his dues in the street. That motherfukker had already been tested or he wouldn’t even bubble to the top. Now it seems like the buster nikkas get on earlier than the real nikkas do. And that’s why there’s so much hate and envy in the game. Any time you put p*ssy into the equation you gonna have a p*ssy ass environment and a fukked up system of doing things. That’s why I see there’s so much division. Let me tell you something man, I don’t hear certain motherfukkers tripping off coasts man. If nikkas having money I don’t hear them dissing the south. I was just on the phone with Cam’ron. Cam’ron ain’t trippin on the south. Cam’ron’s opening up a record company in the south. I don’t hear him complaining. I don’t hear Jay-Z on his record dissing the south. I don’t hear Fat Joe dissing the south, in fact I see Fat Joe embracing our sound. I don’t hear Scarface on records talking shyt about the west coast. I don’t hear real nikkas on the west coast like WC or Ice Cube dissing the east or the south. It be p*ssy motherfukkers with this bullshyt. They keep saying “You nikkas fukking up hip hop.” Man let me tell you something, everytime a man spit a rap, don’t make them records hip hop records, we making country rap tunes down here. And everybody want to be mad at D4L and Dem Franchize Boys. Guess what man? What’s the difference between them records and [Rappin’ Duke’s] “Da Ha Da Ha”?
CB » RIP Pimp C – Interview Pt. 3