By Chuck "Jigsaw" Creekmur
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AllHipHop.com: Where do you rank yourself in terms of lyricists. I always had you in the Top Five, Top 10 easily…
Redman: I'm in the Top Five. I don't brag on myself. It depends. Even y'all [AllHipHop.com] muthaf***as, you gotta ask yourself, "What the f**k is the qualities of being a lyricist?" Now, how many hot songs you can get played on the radio, no, no - besides that. How about the ones that don't get the play on the radio? It’s about who can still bang after all these years and still got it. Who can just walk in the party [and rock it]. I might not got the radio play, but when it comes to consistency, you gotta put me up there. We know the Jay-Z's and Biggies. Biggie will always be there, but that s**t gotta broaden from the Top Three. Y'all gotta stop being stingy.
AllHipHop.com: You produced your second album, Dare Iz A Darkside, are you still doing beats?
Redman: A little bit.
AllHipHop.com: Just a little bit? I heard you do ghost producing.
Redman: [Pauses, laughs] On what? I don't think I did...uh nah.
AllHipHop.com: Why haven't you been doing more production?
Redman: I don't have enough time. But when I finish [this album], when I start working my artists and s**t, I'ma be banging out on these MP's and this Motif.
AllHipHop.com: With the album, who is on production?
Redman: Erick Sermon, Rockwilder. My new crew is called the Gillahouse Nuthouse and we did like three on here. I produced one and one of my n***as co-produced it. Scott Storch did one for me.
AllHipHop.com: Now, I noticed that you are becoming more business minded with a lot of the things you do.
Redman: You know how you always have passions for a few things in life. Like you might wanna learn to play the piano or you might wanna learn to play the drums. I want to learn to play the piano, I want to learn to play guitar. I was always a sneaker head and that's why I'm opening a store in Staten Island. We gonna get some assistance from Nike and that's a blessing as well. Besides that, I was always into women's shoes. And that's my next move - designing women's shoes. I buy my woman's shoes and she gets complimented on them constantly. And plus, I always been a fan of women's feet. I love them feet. Why wouldn't I want to design a shoe? And say, "Yeah, them's my shoes and they look sexy." I just want to see a woman's fine ass feet in my shoe. I'm not even looking at it from a money aspect I just want to see a woman's fine ass feet in my shoe. Like "Yeah, I designed that. Don't they feel comfortable?" And that's just being grown about stuff.
AllHipHop.com: You keep talking this grown stuff!
Redman: This Hip-Hop stuff ain't gonna take care of you all your life. If you depending on that, it’s a wrap.
AllHipHop.com: Are you thinking about retiring?
Redman: Not far as music, but it’s gonna be a day when I give up the mic. That's when I get my Gillahouse [crew] going so I can do albums like Dr. Dre. I wanna do that in the next couple of years.
AllHipHop.com: How have you evolved as a person?
Redman: My career has moved like this [steadily up]. I've been blessed for that. I guess, being in tune with reality, I'm still here. I ain't gotta be super big to be cool with my people. I got more responsibility now. My responsibility then [coming up] was smoking weed, but when I had my first kid, I said. "I gotta pace myself." I think I did pretty good.
AllHipHop.com: Now, the last album was shaky.
Redman: It was in and out, because I was in and out. I was doing that movie and I was getting that gwap over here. I wasn't focused on the album. That album still sold 700,000 records. I even turned down two tours. I f**ked up on my part, but I still sold 700,000 with on video and no radio play.
AllHipHop.com: Do you feel like the movies and acting took away from the musical side of you?
Redman: No, not at all. I air the mic out tremendously now.
AllHipHop.com: We used to fear you back in the day. You had bloody hands on your first album and stuff like PPV fights...
Redman: I was young. I was smoking all kinds of stuff back then. I'm grown now. I can't be up there at 30, even 28, fighting. If you bout that business, you don't have to fight.
AllHipHop.com: You still had the song "Rush The Security," and that's not exactly screaming maturity.
Redman: That was just like, what the club is. That didn't have anything to do with business. Security - they be too bulky.
AllHipHop.com: Is the "Headbanger" hotter than "The Symphony," the song that featured the Juice Crew All-Stars?
Redman: I don't know, man. I can't say on that one. I had to think on that one.
AllHipHop.com: With all the stuff that went on with EPMD, can you tell us anything we don't know?
Redman: No, not really. You heard it all. The only that I say is that I never got my chance to shine. Everybody was having fun and s**t - EPMD and Das EfX - and everybody started fighting when it was time for Redman to drop. I ain't get the Hit Squad. Besides that, you live and you learn. It’s grown-up time.
MC Serch: Back to the Grill
By Lakeia Brown
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Hip-Hop culture is definitely something Serch knows well. The Jewish MC released four albums in his career and executive produced Nas’ first album, the critically acclaimed Illmatic. But there’s more to Serch than just his past, there’s his future. Next month, he will release a new project, Many Young Lives Ago: The 1994 Sessions, which features never released tracks that he found in his basement.
AllHipHop.com sat down with the legend to learn which contestants most resembled a young Serch, why he has no interest in working with Nas, and why an album recorded in the ‘90s still has relevance and resonance today.
AllHipHop.com: You are coming out with a new album yourself. Can you tell me about your project, Many Young Lives Ago: The 1994 Sessions?
MC Serch: I found these masters literally in a box in my basement last year. And I took them out and started remastering them really for my own head, to hear them. These weren’t necessarily songs that were per se going to be on my album as much as they were songs that I was recording for that album. I always recorded a bunch of songs and then cherry picked which songs I was going to do. After listening to them and mixing them down, and taking like eight or nine months to sit with them and chill with them, I felt like they were a pretty good representation of who I was back in ‘94 as a 25 year-old MC who was really about to go on a whole different level. You know I was executive producing Nas’ [Illmatic] album, working on O.C.’s Word...Life album, I was about to be dad for the first time, I was where I wanted to be in a lot of ways. It was interesting to listen to that guy, that MC from ‘94 and relate to who he is now.
AllHipHop.com: If it’s just the MC you were in ’94, is it still relevant now?
MC Serch: I think the only reason it’s relevant is if you miss ‘94. If you’re one of those guys that really love early East Coast Hip-Hop, then I think it has extreme relevance. I think if you’re a person that holds the flame a little bit for 3rd Bass or are a “bass head” that stays on thirdbass.net, then I think it’s important for you. But is it important for a Yung Joc kid? No. Is it important for a fan who likes Jeezy? No. I don’t really expect them to get it or want to get it nor do I care if they get it. This is really an introspective record, something that Hip-Hop doesn’t do.
AllHipHop.com: Most of the album was recorded in ‘94, the same year as Illmatic and Word...Life, two classic projects you were heavily involved in. Can you put your album in the context of these two?
MC Serch: Not even in comparison. Illmatic was just brilliant. It was an MC who didn’t even know what his full potential was. O.C.’s album was just a guy who was trying to find himself and focus. I was in a different place. I didn’t feel like I had a lot to prove. I was in the lab because I loved being in the lab. I made the majority of my album in my studio in Long Beach, Long Island with my partners and friends. We would just bounce records and baselines and just flow and not really think about the implications of it. Nas and O.C. had a determination and drive to make an album.
AllHipHop.com: What are your thoughts on Hip Hop Is Dead? Will you and Nas ever work again amidst the “Where Are They Now” hype?
MC Serch: I love Hip Hop is Dead. And no, I don’t really see us working together anytime in the near future. He has a different agenda than mine. I have a different agenda. I don’t really see us collabing anytime soon. And I don't really have an interest to be honest with you...and it’s not a negative thing. But it’s not about making music for me anymore. If I feel the urge…like I did a mixtape in Detroit, I did another with Raw Collection. Every now and then I’ll pop my head up and do a 16 hear or a 16 there, but it’s not really about making records anymore. It’s about being raising my children, being a good father, a good husband. I have other priorities. It’s just not about making music but battling is a different story. I’ll take a dude’s head off to this day.
AllHipHop.com: When you look at the success of MF Doom, Non Phixion and others, what role do you think you personally played in laying the foundation for New York’s underground movement?
MC Serch: I think in terms of Non Phixion, I helped get them a studio, an opportunity for them to build their sound…give them a place where they could go every day to make music. I built the studio that they used up until five years ago with my bare hands. I structured their first deal so that they would have freedom to be their own artist because I knew early on that their path was going to paved by themselves. Nobody was going to come out of the box and say, “This is what Hip-Hop should be and this is the the next wave is.” They built their fan base. To me, they’re the Ramones of Hip-Hop. I don’t know if I had much to do with Doom. We haven’t talked in like 12 years. I don’t think I can take any possible role...that’s really him and his love for rhyming and making music and being an MC and just pushing the envelope. The only thing I can say is that I got him his first deal in 1989 and gave him the opportunity to be heard.
AllHipHop.com: In 2000, 3rd Bass briefly united, is that still in effect?
MC Serch: Yes, those songs are also on this album.
AllHipHop.com: What was that like after eight years of diss records and hiatus and all of that stuff?
MC Serch: It was good. It was a lot of fun. I didn’t really diss [Pete Nice] on my album, P had a couple of things to say about me on “Rat Bastard,” but I didn’t really care. I had already proven myself. Anything he said, I deflected. I deflected with my moves, whether doing marketing and promotion with Echo, and building that brand, the Serchlight brand and building Nas and O.C. and Non Phixion. So at that point I was like, “Come on man, let’s just get in the studio and make music. Let’s just have some fun and make some records.” And it wounded up really good. We had fun in the studio being at D&D [Studios] and recording. But unfortunately we were at a point in our careers and our lives where we couldn’t commit the time to making an album anymore. But it was definitely special for that month, month and a half that we were in the studio. But it just made us realize that unfortunately we were in a different place, we just could not make that record.
AllHipHop.com: Million dollar Question: Was “Back to the Grill Again” inspired by Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ”?
MC Serch: I honestly believe that any posse cut that came after “Live at the BBQ” was just trying to be “Live at the BBQ.” “Live at the BBQ,” with the exception of maybe [A Tribe Called Quest’s] “Scenario” and maybe one other record is probably the greatest posse cut in Hip-Hop history, period.
Two Kings Dinner and Party: Jay-Z and LeBron James
Picture Provided By Courtesy of Johnny Nunez
Jay-Z, “king of entertainment” and LeBron James, “king of sports” took the TAO Restaurant and Nightclub at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas on Saturday during All-Star Weekend. Sprite, Motorola and Bud Select sponsored this exclusive event and AllHipHop gives you a tour through the Two Kings event along with the A Class celebrities that came to dine with the kings!
