Project Born
Interview by David Friedman
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1
Tell me about the song you recorded with Bizarre from D12.
Polk: The one with Bizarre is called ‘I Ain’t Famous.’ That’s a nice
song. We’re just talking about us feeling like we ain’t no celebrities,
but we get a lot of recognition, a lot of love from fans 
around the country.
Bizarre’s crazy. He’s doing his thing on there. It’s normal Bizarre.
Actually, we met him on the Toxic Terror Tour with Twiztid. We became
cool. He liked our music and we always liked D12 and what they did. So
we just hooked up from there and made it happen.
Nitty: Bizarre is crazy. He’s cool as hell. Bizarre is down to earth
— you know, straight cool. You get what you get. It ain’t no superstar
attitude. Bizarre is just straight cool as shit.
You recorded a song with Insane Clown Posse? What’s that one called?
Polk: That one’s called ‘Fuk Wit Me.’ Basically it’s representing each
other. What ICP’s saying on their end is when they’re rolling with PJB,
don’t fuck with us; and when we’re rolling with ICP, don’t fuck with
us. That’s a good song. They came good on that, man. We sent them a track
and made it happen. When you hear it, it just bangs out. It came out
perfect.
How did you end up reconnecting up with ICP?
Polk: It was from last year’s Gathering. They hit us online and got with
us. So we did the Gathering and when we got home, I hit them up. I hit
up Nathan Extra and I was like, ‘We want to do a track with them because
a lot of our fans and their fans want to hear a sequel to ‘The Graveyard’
— another track with us.’ We shot them an offer as far as money-wise
and they came back and said, ‘We don’t even want it. It’s family. We’ll
do it for nothing.’
Did Esham appear on "Born Dead 2" free of charge too?
Polk: No. Esham was more like I got in touch with his manager and got
with him and hit him up, took care of him, paid him. The song is called
‘Let’s Ride.’ It’s basically talking about the radio isn’t giving us
no play. We’re the underground. We don’t get radio play. We don’t get
none of that. But it don’t matter because we still do our thing. People
who support the underground ride with us.
Nitty: Esham is Esham. We called and it’s like, ‘Let’s do this, do that.’
He actually brought it back to us in Flint. He came to Flint and hung
out for a while.
ICP and Esham were featured on the original "Born Dead" EP
in 1995. It’s cool that you’re still working with them now — 13 years
later.
Polk: It was cool. At first when we were working on it, we weren’t going
to do it. But then we got more demand and demand and demand about doing
it and putting them on there. So we were like, ‘We’ve gotta give the
fans what they want.’ The fans are always good whenever we kick it with
them. They’re good people.
Nitty: Our main focus was to make sure we got them. Those were the two
main people that we wanted to work with.
Who else is on "Born Dead 2?"
Polk: We’ve got Mars. We’ve got Scum. We’ve got my homeboy B-Cide out
of Utica, New York. Man, we’ve got Deville out of New Jersey, Hellhouse
Entertainment out of St. Louis, Insane D from Wisconsin, my homies here
from Flint — Project Cobe and Lil Jay. Man, we’ve got a lot of people.
We’ve got Frantik Mindz, White Noize. But it’s an underground album.
It represents the underground — what the underground is about. The majority
of them are major underground hitters on there, whether they’ve got big
names or not. They’re all on the come up.
Nitty: We got to work with a lot of younger underground cats that’s up
and coming. I believe that everybody that made it on our album are gonna
be great. You’re gonna love them.
How did all of these collaborations come about? I’ve never heard of many
of your guests, but you speak highly of them. Did they come to you asking
to be on the album?
Polk: No. It was us. We reached out. We were like, ‘OK, we’re gonna reach
out to the people, the underground cats that are on the come up, and
get them on there.’ We’ve got this song called ‘Get Ya Wicked On’ and
we’ve got Mars and my homeboy B-Cide on there. It’s a crazy track. When
you hear it, you’re gonna love it. Then we’ve got the song ‘Underground
Music.’ See people heard ‘Underground Music.’ That’s one of the songs
that got leaked. But we got the remix with Scum, Insane D, Daville, Hellhouse
(Nuttinxnyce and Demonic), Trajik, G-Beanz. The song it 8 minutes and
50 seconds. It’s the last song on the album, but it’s crazy, man.
Nitty: Everybody always goes and gets ICP and Esham and Tech N9ne and
everybody looks for all of them. But you’ve gotta pass the torch to somebody.
If this shit’s gonna live forever, there’s somebody to pass the torch
to. A gang of them came and represented for us, man. Big ups to everyone
who came and performed on our album. They did a damn good job, I’ll give
them that. It’s in good hands after we go.
How did Project Born hear of all these underground rappers?
Polk: Actually, I met my man B-Cide in Pennsylvania. We did a show in
Pennsylvania in June. We kicked it. And then Scum booked us two years
ago and brought us out to Denver to do a show. Hellhouse, they did the
same thing, brought us out to St. Louis to do a show. Insane D did the
same thing, brought us out to Wisconsin to do a show. That’s how we met
most of them. Deville, I met him online talking to him somehow. I kicked
it with him at the Gathering. That’s what we’re about, kicking it and
meeting underground artists on the come up, you know?
When did Project Born start seriously playing shows again outside of
Michigan? You hadn’t been playing shows like that in years. What was
the turning point?
Polk: A few years ago — actually, when we started taking our business
into our own hands. Before, we always had people running it that weren’t
running it right. So ever since we got the business in our own hands,
running our own business — calling all the shots, setting up the shows,
getting in the trucks, going to these different states — everything’s
running like clockwork. So that’s the good thing about it. That’s one
thing I want to say to the upcoming artists — I want to let them know
to put their own career in their own hands. Don’t let nobody decide your
career for you. If you’re on the hustle and on the grind, it’s hard.
But I just want all the underground artists and everybody that’s coming
up to know, if you’ve got your label, print your CDs and get out here
and work. Hit different cities with posters and fliers, sell your CDs
— because that’s how you get it. Ain’t nobody else gonna come and give
it to you.
Which albums from your back catalog are available for fans to buy from
www.MySpace.com/ProjectBorn1 and at shows?
Nitty: You can get the ‘Once Upon A Time In The Projects’ album, ‘Jack
The Reaper,’ ‘The Rent Is Due.’ We’re out of ‘Ghetto Celebs.’ And we
usually have some mixtapes.
Other than promoting this new album, what are you working on?
Polk: Actually, besides our album we’ve got an album called ‘The Born
Supremacy,’ which is coming out in July 2009. And we’ve got a compilation
we’re putting out with all the underground people that are representing
for us. We want to tell all our fans that we appreciate their support
and be looking forward to us coming to their city real soon.
I heard that touring with Twiztid helped you to reconnect with many of
your fans who are Juggalos.
Polk: That brought a lot of good. That right there was a blessing for
Violent J and Psychopathic to hit us up and get us on the tour. We want
to thank them 100 percent because that was love. We got back in touch
with a lot of our fans that were wondering, ‘Man, I was wondering where
y’all were at.’ That was a blessing from ICP, Twiztid, the whole Psychopathic
family.
Nitty: The Toxic Terror Tour, it really helped us reconnect and connect
with some people who hadn’t really heard about us. It really got everyone
familiar with who we are and how we get down. They got to see us live
and it was like, ‘Oh, that’s Project Born.’ And we got a good response.
People out West, they get wild!
What was it like for you as artists to go on a full-on tour like that
with Twiztid?
Nitty: It was great, for all the work we put in, to make it all the way
through. I mean, we went through a lot of stuff to get from Flint to
Cleveland and then all the way around. We experienced a lot. We went
through a lot. But the experience was great. It was just as good for
me as it was for the fans because it was like I was a fan of them. I
got out there and we would meet everybody. It was great.
Do you feel like from the first show of the Twiztid tour to the final
show, Project Born became even better on stage?
Polk: Yeah. Because, you know what, it was crazy — we did Cleveland the
first night. We ain’t never been on a tour. We’ve been to different states
doing a show here, doing a show there, but never a set tour. So when
we did Cleveland, it was like, man, people started coming up to us. All
the Juggalos would be pulling up. All the way to the last show, we started
getting better and better as the shows would go on. We were going to
spots we never thought about going to — Idaho, Portland — all of these
spots we’d never been to and never even came to mind to book. We never
even knew if we had a fan base there. But all 34 cities that we went
to was nothing but love. They knew about Project Born and had love for
Project Born, buying our merchandise, showing us love on the stage. They
welcomed us into their towns with open arms. And much love to the Juggalos.
Did you run into a lot of booking agents and promoters on the Twiztid
tour who were interested in bringing Project Born back to their clubs?
Polk: Yeah, exactly. Some of the promoters on the Toxic Terror Tour,
they were getting with us about, ‘We want you all back.’ We’re setting
up our own shows right now. We were in talks with Esham and Dayton Family
about putting a tour together, but that didn’t seem to go right, so we’re
just working on it on our own. We’ve been to Utica, New York; Scranton,
Pennsylvania; Indianapolis, Indiana, and quite a few more than that.
Nitty: We had promoters that did want to make things happen, so we ended
up keeping our promoters list so we could call back and get back to some
of the spots that we did. We got the vibe from everybody — from the promoters
on down — that was good.
How have you been drawing in these cities where you’re headlining?
Nitty: They’ve been good. The response, the fans have been coming out.
They’ve been showing mad love. We’ve gotta throw a big up to the Juggalos.
They’re coming out big time.
Polk: It wasn’t like the Toxic Terror Tour. But I look at it like this
— whether we get 40, 50, 80 people, the next time we go we’re gonna double
that. You hear the stories of Strange Music and Psychopathic. They started
out doing shows with 30 people in the crowd. Then, up to now, it’s (thousands).
We’re gonna keep on until they get it and they know when Project Born’s
coming to town, be there.
Do you have any interesting stories from your days on the Toxic Terror
Tour with Twiztid?
Nitty: There are so many stories. It’s not even one. When you’re with
Pint, period, you’re gonna get a lot of stories. There are so many behind
the scenes stories — you had to be there because it was just funny the
whole ride. They just acted a fool. You just had to be here. We had a
good time. It was funny at times and it got crazy at times.
Polk: Oh, man, we’ve got a lot of them! You know what they say, whatever
happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? What happens on the Toxic Terror Tour...
But, no, there’s a lot of interesting stories from that tour. We got
a lot of things on camera. And there’s a lot of things the fans did.
A fan in Ohio, his name’s Big Juice, I met him. He had this big hatchet
man that’s made out of steel. At the last show in Columbus, it was on
a big chain. The hatchet man was so heavy and he gave it to me. I’ve
still got that to this day. He just wanted me to wear it on stage when
we performed. Dave, this thing weighed like 10 pounds — at least. There
were a lot of crazy things that happened in the hotel rooms, on the road.
Our transmission cracked on us. I want to shout Tha Jokaz out in New
Mexico. It broke down in this small town in Texas. And they gave us a
ride to Odessa, Texas, like 30 minutes away, then took us to Oklahoma,
then took us to New Mexico — because our truck was being fixed. It was
crazy.
You’ve been really involved with Project Born’s MySpace page — www.MySpace.com/ProjectBorn1.
Tell me about the response you’ve got on MySpace because you didn’t have
that as a tool to use to promote previous albums.
Polk: We had a MySpace page in 2006. Pint’s little sister had set us
up a page — the same page that we’ve got. But we never thought nothing
about MySpace. Then we started hearing about this MySpace and said, ‘We’ve
gotta look into it.’ So we had homeboy E-Dubb hook it up. Our page had
been up for a while. We never had songs on it, nothing on it recently).
Now we see it as one of the best tools that could happen for an artist
that’s on the come up.
Nitty: MySpace, it helps a lot, especially when you’re doing music, because
it gives a chance for people to get to hear you that probably never even
would get to hear you if we didn’t have it. I think it’s great for musicians
in general. I go on there every now and then to check everything, answer
messages and stuff, even though I’m not a computer person.
How do you plan to promote "Born Dead 2?"
Polk: We’ve got distribution through BCD Music Group and we’ve got thousands
of posters and fliers. We’ve got the Juggalo News ads, the Faygoluvers.net
ads. Of course, we’ve got the Murder Dog ad coming. We’ve got promo T-shirts
coming. That’s basically what you can do to get it out there. It’s just
word of mouth and staying online and hitting people. We’ve got the street
team. We’ve got over 90 people for that.
Nitty: We’re trying to hit the road. We’re trying to get a lot more shows
booked for it. We’re gonna hit the road probably a lot — really just
get out and travel and try to get it banged out that way. We’re not just
gonna put it out there and hope that it sells. We’re gonna really hit
the cities and politick.
Do you have any political songs on "Born Dead 2?"
Polk: We didn’t do that on this one because it wasn’t fit for this one.
We’ve got a song on there called ‘Lonely Road.’ It’s not political, but
it’s basically talking about the homies that we lost to prisons and people
we lost to death. That’s one of the softer songs. My brother, Victor
Polk, he’s been in lockdown since ’93. My homey Project Ray and a couple
more.
Nitty: The song ‘Lonely Road,’ to me, when I first heard the beat, it
really hit home and I was like, ‘We’ve really got to have that.’ I didn’t
even rap on there. It was Pint and Polk and they actually took it to
a deep level of a lot of things in their lives that affected them that
really bothered them at the time. ‘Lonely Road’ is a song that really
speaks for itself. They go through things in their lives that made them
feel a certain way. So that song came out perfect for them.
I like your old-school album, "Crap Or Natural," which a lot
of fans haven’t heard. There’s a song on there called "Strugglin" and
it sounds like "Lonely Road" ties in to that. Do the struggles
make you stronger? Do they sometimes almost tear you apart?
Polk: Yeah. It’s crazy. Being here in Flint, you see so much bad that
it can’t do nothing but make you want to do good and be strong to get
out there. And then your kids — you’re looking at them every day and
you want to do it for them. And seeing your homeboys in prison or dead,
you know that you don’t want to be like that. So we get out there and
do something positive and give back.
Nitty: Definitely it makes you stronger. Sometimes it makes you want
to quit. You get so many feelings when things happen. We always persevere.
We always come through. We always adjust and come out. That’s what we
do. There’s nothing you can put us through that we haven’t been through
before, that we don’t know how to adjust to. So that makes us better.
Are there other songs you’d like to talk about?
Polk: Yeah, we’ve actually got this song on there called ‘This Is For
Tha?’ It’s the first song on the album actually and it’s representing
everybody — the gangstas, the killas, the Crips, the Bloods. When we
were in Hollywood and we did that song, we got a big response from it.
We’re getting a lot of love from it.
Nitty: I like the song ‘I Am The Beast.’ On the song, it’s kind of like
how we wrote it — how underground people like us, what people don’t understand
is what they fear as far as us being beasts. We’re kind of out of the
ordinary and we’re like the beast. People are scared of what they don’t
understand and we bring a lot of things that people don’t understand.
I jump into a lot of issues from things that happened in the world. And
I like ‘Project Nigga.’ That’s one of the ones that I initially was gonna
do for my solo album, but then we ended up deciding to put it on the
album. It tells about from pride in the projects to living large — from
where you started to the middle phase in your life to where you’re going.
I did the verse for it and then Pint and Polk added some verses on. I
love the whole album.
