Young Bleed (with
C-Loc and Paul)
Interview by Black Dog Bone
From Murder Dog Vol 5 #2
I've heard a lot about New Orleans Rap, but the only Rap I've really heard coming from Baton Rouge is C-Loc.
That's basically it, just us. We're like the base for Baton Rouge Rap. In '94, that's when C-Loc started his company, he was doin his own thing and I was doin my thing lyrically. He had put out two solo albums, and The Concentration Camp compilation, that's like his third. I was featured on all three of those.
C-Loc and you were the first people in Baton Rouge to start doing things with Rap? What else is going on in Baton Rouge?
Basically we burst a whole new generation. It's like everybody came after us, it's just evolving. It's like a trend, everybody's gettin on the trend right now, and we the trend setters.
This is your first solo album, and C-Loc had three. Which of your albums sold the best?
C-Loc's last one.
Would you say Baton Rouge Rap is similar to any other Rap coming from the South?
It's a whole different thing. New Orleans is mostly dance music. Texas is real slow music. Baton Rouge is up tempo, but it's not club. It's not dance music, but it's up tempo. Baton Rouge artists concentrate on skills more than like a Houston rapper or a New Orleans rappers would. They concentrate on lyrics a little more. I'd say that the East Coast is maybe more jazzy. The West Coast sound maybe like a party sound. The South is kinda like a Blues sound. It's more of a Blues sound.
Would you say that your sound is different from No Limit artists?
Yeah. No Limit artists are more hardcore. We focus on skills a little more.
Was that through Master P that you got signed to Priority?
"How Ya Do Dat" blew up. It was on the Bout It Bout It soundtrack. I guess you could say through Master P, and it came from a hit. If it wasn't for the hit it wouldn't have happened, cause I don't think Master P would've even bothered to be bothered with it.
A lot of people have been talking about the Young Bleed album, My Balls And My Word. Can you talk about the album? Who did the production?
C-Loc did some production on it and this new guy I been workin with by the name of Nathan "Happy" Perez--he produced a couple songs on it. Two songs came from Beats By The Pound from No Limit. That's basically it.
Are you happy with the album?
I'm lovin it from top to bottom. The album shipped 270,000 before it even came out.
As artists how are you and C-Loc different?
We the same but we different. We outa the same camp, and Nathan Perez produces for both of us. He has his own sound. He's from Houston, Texas.
Hip Hop first came out from the East Coast, then we saw a lot coming out of California, and now it's the South.
Exactly. It just went counter-clockwise. The hands on the clock hit the East, hit the West, hit the South.
Is the South getting the props that it should get?
I feel like we're just now getting our props. Slowly but surely it's gonna happen.
I was looking at The Source Magazine's top 100 albums--it's 80% East Coast Hip Hop with a little from the West Coast, hardly much from the South. TRU sold double platinum, Eightball & MJG have gone gold.
I feel you, I know what you're talkin about. I think things will change, that's how the world evolves. I feel like as an artist every dog has his day eventually.
Everybody's tryin to get paid. It's not about the fame, it's about money. We into this to make money, we ain't trippin on the fame. TRU doesn't need to be on the list, they still got paid.
But fame and money go hand in hand. You don't want to go double platinum and stop if you might go triple platinum. You want to sell in Japan, in Africa, everywhere.
Every man for himself. New York got a certain way of thinking and they might not like certain shit. It's like E-40 makes good music on the West Coast, P make good music on the Gulf Coast. It must be a personal thing or why isn't it there? Their records is sellin. You be the judge. That's one man's opinion, somebody who wrote it.
Maybe one man writes it, but how many people read and believe it? The Source is a very influential magazine.
I'm upset that the Gulf Coast hadn't been mentioned on their list and I'm gonna look into that in the future, but right now there's nothing we can do about it. I'm very upset, I'm appalled at it. Master P should definitely have been on that list, right now I don't know what we can do about it, but I know that the Gulf Coast is comin up. We do look to be on this list and every other list in the future. It's a situation like this: if you look back into the Civil Rights movement it took people to sit in at the counters and not ride in the back of the bus to get to where we are in 1998. If you use that same parallel to the Rap game, a cat like Master P is puttin it down for the South. Ten years from now there's gonna be more Young Bleeds and more C-Loc's and more No Limit Records and they will be noticed. Until that happens and until somebody like Master P kicks the door down--much like Cube broke the door down and Eazy E broke the door down for the West Coast to get the nod--until then we ain't gonna get our props. It started in the East obviously that's where the most attention's gonna go. As you see as time goes on different people are comin up, and what the East and sometimes the West Coast don't know is that cats like Master P and Young Bleed represent more of the country than a New York cat or somebody livin in Oakland. A cat in Kansas City talks just like Bleed or P, and a cat in Cleveland talks more like P than a cat comin out of Brooklyn or San Diego. That's the point that I want to say about that.
How did your connection with Master P come about?
The P situation came about because me and P had been friends for a while before he really blew up like he is now. Me and Young Bleed had been together for a long time, since we were little. I was hookin up with P doin compilations, soundtracks and stuff. Bleed had a hit and I knew it was a hit, and I knew P was in a position where he could use a hit and we were in a position where we could use the exposure. We just got together and co-op-ed and did our thing, and that's how "How Ya Do Dat" blew up.
Sometimes an artist comes up with a big hit, but the album is a disappointment. Do you think Young Bleed's album will stand up to that hit?
I think it's got at least 4 or 5 more singles on this album that'll stand up to "How You Do That".
A few years ago you could start an independent label and sell a lot of records even if you didn't have a video or you didn't have a big budget. Now it seems like you need to have a video and major promotion to break through.
Down South that's one place you can still break a song or break a record with just street promotion. You can still do it Down South. I know a lot of people come out with videos and radio, TV commercials and all this, but you not gonna see them in the clubs every night doin promotional shows--they don't do that cause they figure the video is gonna sell their record. That's the only way for you to get hear over them. You have to get out and just be seen and do the clubs thang and do the giveaways and stuff like that.
You think that because of videos and TV commercials people aren't gettin out and doing the groundwork?
No, no they're not. When you see an artist on the TV and radio you're not seein no street promotions, no posters out, you not seein nothing no more. All you seein is video and radio, that's it.
But in the South?
It's still the same in the South. All the local labels in the South get out, they do giveaways, they tack up posters, they go to clubs--they'll do a show every night just to get the record promoted.
What made you want to start making music?
Me growin up, it wasn't a lot of people who believed it was possible to get this far in this. But as I got off into it, I guess they got a lot more confident once they saw me making progress. Pretty much everybody was on my team, but they didn't want me to waste my time and blow my future messin around with the music thing.
How did you survive all these years as an independent?
I didn't have the budget to compete with a major so I just got out and hit the streets. I did something the majors wasn't doin, being seen and bein heard. A lot of people as far as Gangsta Rap and underground Rap is concerned, people don't listen to the radio or watch television. We don't listen to the radio or watch television. We don't have time. All we do is party and go to clubs. So you have to be there. They could show your video a thousand times a day, they ain't gonna see it. I was out there in the clubs and on the streets, that's how I broke through.
Interview by Black Dog Bone
From Murder Dog Vol 5 #2
I've heard a lot about New Orleans Rap, but the only Rap I've really heard coming from Baton Rouge is C-Loc.
That's basically it, just us. We're like the base for Baton Rouge Rap. In '94, that's when C-Loc started his company, he was doin his own thing and I was doin my thing lyrically. He had put out two solo albums, and The Concentration Camp compilation, that's like his third. I was featured on all three of those.
C-Loc and you were the first people in Baton Rouge to start doing things with Rap? What else is going on in Baton Rouge?
Basically we burst a whole new generation. It's like everybody came after us, it's just evolving. It's like a trend, everybody's gettin on the trend right now, and we the trend setters.
This is your first solo album, and C-Loc had three. Which of your albums sold the best?
C-Loc's last one.
Would you say Baton Rouge Rap is similar to any other Rap coming from the South?
It's a whole different thing. New Orleans is mostly dance music. Texas is real slow music. Baton Rouge is up tempo, but it's not club. It's not dance music, but it's up tempo. Baton Rouge artists concentrate on skills more than like a Houston rapper or a New Orleans rappers would. They concentrate on lyrics a little more. I'd say that the East Coast is maybe more jazzy. The West Coast sound maybe like a party sound. The South is kinda like a Blues sound. It's more of a Blues sound.
Would you say that your sound is different from No Limit artists?
Yeah. No Limit artists are more hardcore. We focus on skills a little more.
Was that through Master P that you got signed to Priority?
"How Ya Do Dat" blew up. It was on the Bout It Bout It soundtrack. I guess you could say through Master P, and it came from a hit. If it wasn't for the hit it wouldn't have happened, cause I don't think Master P would've even bothered to be bothered with it.
A lot of people have been talking about the Young Bleed album, My Balls And My Word. Can you talk about the album? Who did the production?
C-Loc did some production on it and this new guy I been workin with by the name of Nathan "Happy" Perez--he produced a couple songs on it. Two songs came from Beats By The Pound from No Limit. That's basically it.
Are you happy with the album?
I'm lovin it from top to bottom. The album shipped 270,000 before it even came out.
As artists how are you and C-Loc different?
We the same but we different. We outa the same camp, and Nathan Perez produces for both of us. He has his own sound. He's from Houston, Texas.
Hip Hop first came out from the East Coast, then we saw a lot coming out of California, and now it's the South.
Exactly. It just went counter-clockwise. The hands on the clock hit the East, hit the West, hit the South.
Is the South getting the props that it should get?
I feel like we're just now getting our props. Slowly but surely it's gonna happen.
I was looking at The Source Magazine's top 100 albums--it's 80% East Coast Hip Hop with a little from the West Coast, hardly much from the South. TRU sold double platinum, Eightball & MJG have gone gold.
I feel you, I know what you're talkin about. I think things will change, that's how the world evolves. I feel like as an artist every dog has his day eventually.
Everybody's tryin to get paid. It's not about the fame, it's about money. We into this to make money, we ain't trippin on the fame. TRU doesn't need to be on the list, they still got paid.
But fame and money go hand in hand. You don't want to go double platinum and stop if you might go triple platinum. You want to sell in Japan, in Africa, everywhere.
Every man for himself. New York got a certain way of thinking and they might not like certain shit. It's like E-40 makes good music on the West Coast, P make good music on the Gulf Coast. It must be a personal thing or why isn't it there? Their records is sellin. You be the judge. That's one man's opinion, somebody who wrote it.
Maybe one man writes it, but how many people read and believe it? The Source is a very influential magazine.
I'm upset that the Gulf Coast hadn't been mentioned on their list and I'm gonna look into that in the future, but right now there's nothing we can do about it. I'm very upset, I'm appalled at it. Master P should definitely have been on that list, right now I don't know what we can do about it, but I know that the Gulf Coast is comin up. We do look to be on this list and every other list in the future. It's a situation like this: if you look back into the Civil Rights movement it took people to sit in at the counters and not ride in the back of the bus to get to where we are in 1998. If you use that same parallel to the Rap game, a cat like Master P is puttin it down for the South. Ten years from now there's gonna be more Young Bleeds and more C-Loc's and more No Limit Records and they will be noticed. Until that happens and until somebody like Master P kicks the door down--much like Cube broke the door down and Eazy E broke the door down for the West Coast to get the nod--until then we ain't gonna get our props. It started in the East obviously that's where the most attention's gonna go. As you see as time goes on different people are comin up, and what the East and sometimes the West Coast don't know is that cats like Master P and Young Bleed represent more of the country than a New York cat or somebody livin in Oakland. A cat in Kansas City talks just like Bleed or P, and a cat in Cleveland talks more like P than a cat comin out of Brooklyn or San Diego. That's the point that I want to say about that.
How did your connection with Master P come about?
The P situation came about because me and P had been friends for a while before he really blew up like he is now. Me and Young Bleed had been together for a long time, since we were little. I was hookin up with P doin compilations, soundtracks and stuff. Bleed had a hit and I knew it was a hit, and I knew P was in a position where he could use a hit and we were in a position where we could use the exposure. We just got together and co-op-ed and did our thing, and that's how "How Ya Do Dat" blew up.
Sometimes an artist comes up with a big hit, but the album is a disappointment. Do you think Young Bleed's album will stand up to that hit?
I think it's got at least 4 or 5 more singles on this album that'll stand up to "How You Do That".
A few years ago you could start an independent label and sell a lot of records even if you didn't have a video or you didn't have a big budget. Now it seems like you need to have a video and major promotion to break through.
Down South that's one place you can still break a song or break a record with just street promotion. You can still do it Down South. I know a lot of people come out with videos and radio, TV commercials and all this, but you not gonna see them in the clubs every night doin promotional shows--they don't do that cause they figure the video is gonna sell their record. That's the only way for you to get hear over them. You have to get out and just be seen and do the clubs thang and do the giveaways and stuff like that.
You think that because of videos and TV commercials people aren't gettin out and doing the groundwork?
No, no they're not. When you see an artist on the TV and radio you're not seein no street promotions, no posters out, you not seein nothing no more. All you seein is video and radio, that's it.
But in the South?
It's still the same in the South. All the local labels in the South get out, they do giveaways, they tack up posters, they go to clubs--they'll do a show every night just to get the record promoted.
What made you want to start making music?
Me growin up, it wasn't a lot of people who believed it was possible to get this far in this. But as I got off into it, I guess they got a lot more confident once they saw me making progress. Pretty much everybody was on my team, but they didn't want me to waste my time and blow my future messin around with the music thing.
How did you survive all these years as an independent?
I didn't have the budget to compete with a major so I just got out and hit the streets. I did something the majors wasn't doin, being seen and bein heard. A lot of people as far as Gangsta Rap and underground Rap is concerned, people don't listen to the radio or watch television. We don't listen to the radio or watch television. We don't have time. All we do is party and go to clubs. So you have to be there. They could show your video a thousand times a day, they ain't gonna see it. I was out there in the clubs and on the streets, that's how I broke through.
