DX: I always wanted to ask you this question. October 1998, Heaven’z Movie comes out, Bizzy’s first solo album. Thug Mentality comes out April 1999. So there’s about six months between Bizzy’s solo album and then your solo album. On Bizzy’s album he drops a line, “Better act a little bit feminine / Take the fatigues off / fu*k the club / Even the six / It’s hellish” [“(The Roof) Is On Fire”]. He was referring to Gangsta Boo from Three 6 Mafia. On your album you did a collaboration with Gangsta Boo and E-40 on “We Starvin.’” What was the relationship like between you and Three 6 at that point in time? It’s an interesting dichotomy between those two projects.
Krayzie Bone: The whole beef with Three 6, that was something I really never even understood. What was the beef about? From what I hear, it all started when we was reading fan mail back in the day. We went to the office at Ruthless Records and opened up the fan mail. Back then we was tripping off getting fan mail. I had read it and some chick from Memphis was telling me, “There’s this group out here. They made an album that’s on the radio and they dissin’ y’all, saying that y’all stole they style.” I was like, “For real? Who is these dudes?” And she was like, “They call themselves Three 6 Mafia.” So we heard about it, and one time we had a show in Memphis. And we was getting ready to walk into the show and we heard somebody scream out, “Thuggish ruggish bustas!” We turned around, and we was like “What?” We ready to run down there. Our security was telling us, “Y’all getting ready to go on stage and do a show and get paid. They in the parking lot. Let’s keep going and get this money.” I really didn’t understand what the beef was until I talked to somebody on the phone one day. It was a conference call with Relativity Records or Live Records or something. And they was like, “We just want y’all know to know it ain’t no beef, it ain’t no nothing.” All that stuff was stupid. We was young. Everybody was young. I was like, “Cool,” because I wasn’t really trippin’ anyway. So when the opportunity came to work with Gangsta Boo, I was like, “Man, let’s make it happen. Let’s squash some of this beef that’s out there. Let’s do this. It’s about business, for real.”
DX: Was that a hard decision on her end? In the verse it seems like she’s alluding to problems with Three 6.
Krayzie Bone: I’m not sure if that had a part to play in it. It could have, maybe it didn’t. I listened to the verse and took it like that too. It is what it is. I could be wrong, like I said.
DX: It’s always interesting too, especially now that we get to see emcees as adults. Everybody in Hip Hop was a kid when they started, and now they’re being adults and being responsible about their decisions.
Krayzie Bone: Even when I talked to Twista for the first time, I was like, “What was we beefin’ over? Who rapped the fastest?” That’s the dumbest sh*t I ever heard in my life. So what who rapped the fastest? Fans loved both of us, so whatever, let’s get this money together.
DX: Where were you the first time you heard Do or Die and Twista’s response to The Art of War? [Do Or Die] dropped a song called
Krayzie Bone: It actually took me a long time to listen to it because everybody was telling me, “You heard the song? You heard the song?“ I actually wasn’t gonna listen to it until I was in Cleveland, in the hood, and one of my dudes brought it to the hood, like, “Check this out”—just tryna feud, tryna instigate. I heard it and I was like, “Damn, I never been called so many bi*ches in my life.” They was going hard on us. I was like, “Man, they going hard.” I wasn’t really trippin’ at that point. I said a lot of little slick stuff in my rhymes throughout that time period too. I was gettin’ back at ‘em too.
DX: With the Internet, the way people participate with Hip Hop has evolved a bit. You used to have to go get some spray paint and work on your tag, or make sure your helicopter wasn’t off beat, or rhyme in cyphers. That’s just how people historically participated in Hip Hop. Have you noticed a difference as your career has reached this level of longevity and the way you interact with your fans? Is it the same way? Do you feel that people interact with Hip Hop in the same way that they originally did?
Krayzie Bone: Lately, you been hearing a lot of complaints about the way Hip Hop is going and stuff like that. But that’s just what I said: Hip Hop is big. I think it has more fans than it did back then because Hip Hop has integrated with other genres of music. Once it becomes intertwined like that, it’s going to go to other levels. People might not like it but that’s why it’s different.
To me there are different categories of Hip Hop. If you like what’s on the radio now, then that’s your category. If you like more what came out in the Tupac, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Biggie era, then there’s music out there like that. There’s just certain categories.
DX: What’s a line or verse of yours that you’ve been rapping forever but you still tend to stumble over it on stage when you’re performing it?
Krayzie Bone: I know it’s something ‘cause I always do it. I always have to do the remix of the “Notorious Thugs,” the one I did with Twista. That whole verse, every time I say it…I tried to play it back and listen to it one time, and I didn’t even remember what I said. I was like, “Man, this is crazy.” My own verse, I’m like, “I don’t even know what I said.” It’s crazy.
DX: See, that’s how fans feel when we listen to Bizzy’s verse on “Mo’ Murda,” for example.
Krayzie Bone: I still don’t understand with Bizzy. Outta the whole group, he’s the one. There’s about 30% of his stuff I don’t understand what he’s saying. No lie.
DX: He needs a certified Rap Genius account.
Krayzie Bone: Exactly. He been going so fast, I’m like, “Man. That’s crazy.”
http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2130/title.krayzie-bone-says-fan-mail-sparked-three-6-mafia-beef
Krayzie Bone: The whole beef with Three 6, that was something I really never even understood. What was the beef about? From what I hear, it all started when we was reading fan mail back in the day. We went to the office at Ruthless Records and opened up the fan mail. Back then we was tripping off getting fan mail. I had read it and some chick from Memphis was telling me, “There’s this group out here. They made an album that’s on the radio and they dissin’ y’all, saying that y’all stole they style.” I was like, “For real? Who is these dudes?” And she was like, “They call themselves Three 6 Mafia.” So we heard about it, and one time we had a show in Memphis. And we was getting ready to walk into the show and we heard somebody scream out, “Thuggish ruggish bustas!” We turned around, and we was like “What?” We ready to run down there. Our security was telling us, “Y’all getting ready to go on stage and do a show and get paid. They in the parking lot. Let’s keep going and get this money.” I really didn’t understand what the beef was until I talked to somebody on the phone one day. It was a conference call with Relativity Records or Live Records or something. And they was like, “We just want y’all know to know it ain’t no beef, it ain’t no nothing.” All that stuff was stupid. We was young. Everybody was young. I was like, “Cool,” because I wasn’t really trippin’ anyway. So when the opportunity came to work with Gangsta Boo, I was like, “Man, let’s make it happen. Let’s squash some of this beef that’s out there. Let’s do this. It’s about business, for real.”
DX: Was that a hard decision on her end? In the verse it seems like she’s alluding to problems with Three 6.
Krayzie Bone: I’m not sure if that had a part to play in it. It could have, maybe it didn’t. I listened to the verse and took it like that too. It is what it is. I could be wrong, like I said.
DX: It’s always interesting too, especially now that we get to see emcees as adults. Everybody in Hip Hop was a kid when they started, and now they’re being adults and being responsible about their decisions.
Krayzie Bone: Even when I talked to Twista for the first time, I was like, “What was we beefin’ over? Who rapped the fastest?” That’s the dumbest sh*t I ever heard in my life. So what who rapped the fastest? Fans loved both of us, so whatever, let’s get this money together.
DX: Where were you the first time you heard Do or Die and Twista’s response to The Art of War? [Do Or Die] dropped a song called
Krayzie Bone: It actually took me a long time to listen to it because everybody was telling me, “You heard the song? You heard the song?“ I actually wasn’t gonna listen to it until I was in Cleveland, in the hood, and one of my dudes brought it to the hood, like, “Check this out”—just tryna feud, tryna instigate. I heard it and I was like, “Damn, I never been called so many bi*ches in my life.” They was going hard on us. I was like, “Man, they going hard.” I wasn’t really trippin’ at that point. I said a lot of little slick stuff in my rhymes throughout that time period too. I was gettin’ back at ‘em too.
DX: With the Internet, the way people participate with Hip Hop has evolved a bit. You used to have to go get some spray paint and work on your tag, or make sure your helicopter wasn’t off beat, or rhyme in cyphers. That’s just how people historically participated in Hip Hop. Have you noticed a difference as your career has reached this level of longevity and the way you interact with your fans? Is it the same way? Do you feel that people interact with Hip Hop in the same way that they originally did?
Krayzie Bone: Lately, you been hearing a lot of complaints about the way Hip Hop is going and stuff like that. But that’s just what I said: Hip Hop is big. I think it has more fans than it did back then because Hip Hop has integrated with other genres of music. Once it becomes intertwined like that, it’s going to go to other levels. People might not like it but that’s why it’s different.
To me there are different categories of Hip Hop. If you like what’s on the radio now, then that’s your category. If you like more what came out in the Tupac, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Biggie era, then there’s music out there like that. There’s just certain categories.
DX: What’s a line or verse of yours that you’ve been rapping forever but you still tend to stumble over it on stage when you’re performing it?
Krayzie Bone: I know it’s something ‘cause I always do it. I always have to do the remix of the “Notorious Thugs,” the one I did with Twista. That whole verse, every time I say it…I tried to play it back and listen to it one time, and I didn’t even remember what I said. I was like, “Man, this is crazy.” My own verse, I’m like, “I don’t even know what I said.” It’s crazy.
DX: See, that’s how fans feel when we listen to Bizzy’s verse on “Mo’ Murda,” for example.
Krayzie Bone: I still don’t understand with Bizzy. Outta the whole group, he’s the one. There’s about 30% of his stuff I don’t understand what he’s saying. No lie.
DX: He needs a certified Rap Genius account.
Krayzie Bone: Exactly. He been going so fast, I’m like, “Man. That’s crazy.”
http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2130/title.krayzie-bone-says-fan-mail-sparked-three-6-mafia-beef
