New album, old battles, you know how it goes. Link
Dubcnn: So the album is finished and ready for the world to hear…
Yes sir!
Dubcnn: I talk to so many people within the hip-hop community and, you know, people always have their top favorite emcee debates…so many people list you as one of their top favorite emcees of all time. The respect you have for your mic skills is unprecedented.
I appreciate that and believe me when I tell you, I don’t know how the other people who are on those lists or who are revered in those kinds of ways feel about it, but to me, it’s overwhelming. It’s like, how has some kid in South Africa been exposed to my work like that and put me in his top five emcee he’s ever heard in his lifetime — or all the way in Australia? In many ways, I still think of myself as that same kid from Jersey who just wanted to get on.
Dubcnn: Speaking of Jersey, you are from East Orange, correct?
Yes sir!
Dubcnn: Did you ever run around with the Naughty by Nature crew?
We were actually rivals in high school… They were called The New Style back then and they were the crew to beat. Not to disrespect anybody or anything, but my rhyming and technique was way more advanced than a lot of people had heard, so it wasn’t hard for me to do what I had to do lyrically. As far as the whole performance thing goes, they had all kinds of like suits and dancers and I just went out there and tore ass out the frame. That was my thing, but they paved the ways, in many ways for the Jersey movement. Treach and I have done movies together and we are cool as hell now. But it’s great to be part of that Jersey scene initially. You had so many great artists from within a five-block radius.
