EDO.G

This is an interview between Hugz Boss and EDO.G. The interview was conducted on April 20th, 2000. EDO.G is a former b-boy and well known long time underground emcee, who is most well known for his debut LP 'Life Of A Kid In The Ghetto.' He's been putting out dope material since 1991 and he should put out a new LP featuring amongst others, Premier and Pete Rock, around August of 2000. It seems these days, Hip Hop has become more commercially accepted and it’s "cool" to be a fan/involved in it. Is this a good or bad thing considering the emcees that are recognized the most in the media, tend not to be the ones with the most skill. Um, I think it’s a good thing at the same time because it...I mean even though, it’s like that with all forms of music. You’ve always got the underground people who are, you know, who are making the music for the heads that wanna hear the real stuff, you know what I mean ? So, you’ve got that line man where, if Hip Hop to me, you know, didn’t get as big as it did...You know it’s putting food on many more people’s plates than it ever has at any time, so right now is a good time. I mean if you can make a hot single or a hot album or whatever and get that hit, you know it can take you to places you never imagined you would be. Yeah...so, who and what are you checking at the moment ? So, what artists are you searching for and playing and shit..? Um, let me see...what shit am I fucking with ? Ah man...that’s a tough one right there man, ‘cause I don’t really, like me personally, I’m not like an average buyer of music myself. If I don’t get it for free, I very rarely buy it, I mean, I actually, to be honest with you, I buy more rn’b stuff than I do Hip Hop Oh yeah ? The last Hip Hop album I just bought was The LOX Ah, what did you think of that ? I loved it, I mean it’s a nice album. I don’t like all of the production. But I mean, I do like a couple of the Swizz joints, I definitely like the Timbaland joint and the Primo joint. So those songs right there, they stuck out. The LOX album...I love the way they rhyme, period. I thought it was okay, Jadakiss has definitely got skills Jadakiss, I mean, I feel all of them, all of them on the level of they keep it street with their lyrics and they could do it you know and they could actually go both ways with it man, so I really feel those dudes, you know what I’m sayin’... Yeah, so before emceeing, you were a b-boy, right ? Yeah Are you still actively involved in the scene at all ? Yeah, I mean actually I just about maybe three weeks ago, we was just, they had, uh, this breakdance battle up here between this crew called The Floorlords and....I forgot the name of the other group, they were some other breakdancing b-boy crew from out here. And I mean, it just brought back a lotta, lotta old memories man; with the DJ’s cuttin’ all the old breaks and everybody gettin’ busy and then, you know...a lot of those, like the group The Floorlords, they had another younger generation of Floorlords which are their kids and their nieces and nephews that are breakdancing, so, the tradition is going on, and it’s living. So, when it comes to stuff like that I’m always there man. That’s where my heart is, you know what I’m sayin’? Yeah, that’s dope. So, where have the Bulldogs gone? Um, I mean last year we heard a track from them last year and they were on some gangsta type shit... I mean you gotta understand man, they never really got to uh, speak their piece. At least not on none of my records because at the time, they weren’t, you know, lyrically ready to represent. And I don’t want to be on a track where I’m sounding the best, if I’m puttin’ my boys on a track, I want them soundin’ better than me. I mean that’s the whole purpose of putting someone on because they are at either the same level that you’re on or at a higher level. And, like, god rest the dead, my man Scientifik, he was like the core of when we had our whole thing going, he was the next one in line to actually, you know, keep it going for our whole crew. And, you know, he passed away. But, I mean, the Bulldogs, I mean, they’re, it wasn’t really on some gangsta shit, I couldn’t really consider it gangsta. I would consider it more of the LOX or Jay-Z or somebody to that effect rather than being more gangsta man. Or Dre or somebody, I’m just feeling that they was just expressin’ themselves, you know what I’m sayin’ ? Because people gotta understand, people go through all different types of things and it will definitely show up in your music. If you’re in a messed up predicament then that’s gonna come out in your music. You know because you write from what’s inside of you. What about ‘Roxburry 02119’ was a good follow up to such a classic that was 'Life Of A Kid In The Ghetto' or do you prefer your first ? I mean the first album, everybody just like with the music business in general, I mean when you have like a Naughty By Nature or I mean any of these groups, your first album is always when you’re at your pinnacle to me. I mean people can make albums and their second album can be better than their first one, but I mean if you come right out and you shoot right out from the top, on your first thing, it’s really hard to duplicate that kind of success and that kind of hunger. You know what I mean ? Because you’re at a different point in time when you’re making that and so, I mean, yeah, I think ‘Roxbury’ was a definite good follow up to the first one, I feel if it would have got released earlier, when it was supposed to, I mean they held it back almost a year and a half before it came out. So, a lot of the songs there were a little dated and you know, we just had difficulties with the label. I can’t blame, I mean a lot of people blame shit on their labels, I can’t do it like that, you know it’s just it didn’t come out at the particular time it was supposed to. I feel if it did, it would have definitely been more successful than it was but we got a lot of success overseas off of it. So, I mean sometimes it benefits you in different ways, you know, I mean a lot of people in the States didn’t have it, but we tore it more overseas, off of the second album than we did off of the first album. There were songs off of that album that they were playing over there that were number one on their charts. So, it’s just different things man and you’ve got to look at it bigger than just your hood. I look at it as a global thing, you know what I mean ? Yeah, so do you still get a lot of feedback on that album today? Um, yeah, I mean I actually work for a distribution record company out here now called Landspeed and we still sell, haha, tonnes of them, you know, we still sell the first album, still selling the singles, the second album, so I mean, it still moves. People still, you know appreciate that but I just can’t wait to really come with this new stuff that we’re coming with this year and let people know where I’m at in my life. 'Be A Father To Your Child' was a very strong track for its time with a take on social commentary that hadn't been seen in hip hop especially in the early 90's when west coast gangsta rap was in its prime. Did you catch a lot of flack (Interrupts) I caught no flack You didn’t ? The only flack I caught was from people who weren’t taking care of their babies. Those were the only people that would give me flack. Haha, the people who weren’t doing the right thing. Nowadays I can really say that I did make a big impact on a lot of black brothers because nowadays it’s very cool to take care of your baby. But I mean, as opposed to, you know, nine years ago, when it was...."You’re pregnant?" "Oh no, that’s not my baby"...you know what I mean, so its a whole different outlook on how black men look at it now. Now black mean want to be responsible, they want to be fathers, they want to be there for their children as opposed to before the song came out, it was cool to disrespect because of all the gangsta-ism and shit that was going on, it was cool to disrespect and say, you know, "Fuck the woman" and "Fuck the kid," whatever. But nowadays, it’s totally different, so I know I made a definite big impact on you know, a lot of black men in America and basically around the world. We've heard you on the odd indie 12" and seen you in videos for artists like Big Shug over the years but what else have you been up to? Just recording man, we’re putting out a lot of independent stuff on independent compilations and various compilations, just basically keeping the name out, you know what I mean, we didn’t have anything where we was signed to anybody so specifically that we had somewhere where we could come up with a full length album, but now, you know we’re signed to this label Ground Control out of San Francisco. And, you know, everything is moving now, now we’ll be hitting everybody in the head with the full length and with everything that comes along with that man, and now we’re on the move to prepare to really bring it, bring it to everybody in the whole. As opposed to just doing this compilation or this single and this whoopedy-whoop. I think a person has to do that to keep your name out, or people will forget. At that particular time, I just had to take what I could and run so people could remember and know that I’m still here and not going anywhere, this is my life, this is what I’m doing. So, you’re signed to Ground Control now ? Because I spoke to Metro Concepts recently and they said you were negotiating a deal... Yeah So that’s for certain ? Yeah. It’s pretty much settled, we’re signed, and you know everything is moving. I got a joint with uh, Primo, a joint with Guru, Pete Rock, Teamsters, a lot of local people from Boston. We’re just putting it all together now and getting it right so everything will be moving, we should have the single out by the summer, and we should have the album out by the end of the summer. Probably August. Speaking of your album, over the past couple of months, tha-real.com has got its hands on a few exclusives from you. A track with Pete Rock, a track with Primo we believe and some others, but, because Metro Concepts were afraid of bootlegging - even though we put it up in a non decodable format, we had to take them down. I can understand why they’re on edge about it though. Anyway, that relates directly to the scare going on with mp3’s, and how labels and artists are scared of the material getting into mp3 and bootlegging occurring. How do you feel about this whole situation ? Yeah, I know, and there’s the thing about it, I mean, the whole thing with the net is it’s all good man. But, you know, we wanna be the ones to leak it, we don’t want you leaking it before we leak it, know what I mean, if we work something out with you where you could be the first one to leak it to everybody it’s all good man. But when you know, you take something and put it on the net, then that screws up the anticipation of letting people hear it, we don’t want you to let somebody else hear it before we let somebody else hear it. Yeah, I understand the situation, but we’re just trying to help you, get you more well known as best we can. No, I mean, it’s all good, it definitely helps, but I mean, like I said, we don’t want somebody doing it before we do it. Yeah.... You know what I’m saying, we don’t wanna be hearing "Oh yeah, I heard ya shit on the net" you know what I mean ? And, we know damn well that it’s not supposed to, you know, be on there yet. When we’re ready, we’ll definitely give you guys some exclusive shit, you can play it and people can get a chance to hear some of the shit that we’re doing man, but we just don’t like to, have that shit out there before we do anything. Yeah, well, anyway, I definitely gotta give you props on those joints that we put up though, ‘Saying Something’ and the one with Pete Rock, it’s some dope shit man. Thank you, I appreciate that man, you know, it’s good to have people hear something and really say, you know "Damn, I like that man." There was quite a reaction when we took it down, a lot of people emailed us asking why...and if we could put it back up, so we got heads noticing... Yeah, that’s beautiful man, that’s a beautiful thing man. And when we come we’re gonna be doing another song with Primo and Common on it, we’re just man, the album is gonna be real right man. I still don’t have a title for it man, but it’s gonna be real right when we get it all together, we should have the whole shit together. We’ll have it done in about another month and a half, you know... So, when do you reckon it will drop ? It should drop by August, and once, I say by next week, all of the paperwork will be done and then, you know, we can project a date from there, and you know, we gonna have everything up and running and like from there we’ll go from there. Industry rule number 4080 - record company people are shady how true does that ring for you? Um, I mean, you can’t, you really can’t knock labels for doing what they’re doing I mean I can’t knock ‘em, especially right now with the independent market being so big, you know, I mean, if record companies aren’t feeling you, or you can’t get a deal. I tell a lot of these younger artists, put it out yourself. That’s the way to get business sassy and know exactly how this business works. You know what I mean ? That way, you’ll have a better idea. And, if you sell 100,000 records on your own a label will offer you about 10 million. You know what I mean ? Yeah... So, there’s no way you can loose with putting it out yourself. If you don’t sell anything. Fine. Then obviously it didn’t appeal to work out, and you can keep doing it. I mean, right now, to me, with all of the black labels, I mean, honestly, we’re making this whole industry go around. Hip Hop in general is making the whole industry, now you have the rap-rock and you have all of these other bands; Limp Bizkit and Korn and all of them and I like all of that sort of stuff, you know, I like it, it’s good music at the same time, but it’s all revolving around Hip Hop. Hip Hop is what’s making, you know, this whole thing go around now. So, I mean, I can’t knock the labels, the labels been doing what they been doing for years. If you know the business then you shouldn’t have a problem with that. You can start your own label, you can be a Cash Money, you can be a No Limit, you can be a Roc-A-Fella, Bad Boy, a Def Jam. Look at Def Jam, they’ve stood the test of time, even though I know Russell probably doesn’t own the whole label anymore but I mean, you know what I mean ? It’s...Russell proved it from way back in the days. You can start your own shit, know what I mean ? And do it yourself. So...who are sorts of artists that you would like to work with at the moment? Um, probably the Wu. Yeah, I’d say the Wu. I mean I fulfilled my dreams with working with Pete Rock and working with Primo. You know, Premier was like the number one person for like everybody to work with, you know what I mean...So I could work with him, whoopedy-whoop, you know what I’m sayin’ ? Probably the Wu man, I’d definitely like to work with them man, and Dr. Dre. Oh yeah.. You know what I mean, haha, if you really wanna do it, Dr. Dre would be one of the ultimate producers, heh, nahmean ? So.. I’ve been trying to catch up with him for a while, but he’s a damned hard person to get a hold of. He comes out briefly near a big release, then disappears and is hell to get a hold of. Yeah, and that’s beautiful because he doesn’t have to do it. I mean, this, with you, is something I wanted to do, but Dr. Dre, he doesn’t have to do shit, and you’ll still be seeking him even if he said "No." Know what I mean ? Still try to get him. And that’s just the way it works. Hear about the new Wu LP supposedly dropping in the Summer ? No, I haven’t, I’ve actually got a show with Redman and Method Man, Saturday (April 21st). Oh yeah. Along with CappaDonna, yeah. That’d be pretty dope. Opening up for them, yeah, it’s a venue about three thousand, should be pretty dope. After this man, I’m gonna go into the booth with some of my boys. And this is another project we working on called ‘The Last Word,’ it’s a group thing that I’m doing with two other people; D-Leary and Sunny Loco, so..be on the look out for that too, that’s somethin’. Other than the EDO.G project, you know what I’m sayin’ ?

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