IndieSent Exposure Presents:IndieNews
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Addicted to Noise Presents:
Part 2
Premier: Yup. And I was actually hangin' out with a friend on Valentine's Day late that night. By that time it was the 15th, and everybody was just callin' and callin' to see i
f it was true, and I was like, "Well, that's probably a rumor." So I called Lord Finesse and his girl was like, "Naw, Finesse is asleep." So I was like, "If Finesse is asleep, then it's not true." And I said, "I heard L got killed." She said, "It's true. He just came back and saw the body." I was like, "Aw, man." I just freaked out for a minute. I didn't grow up with L or nothing but it felt like we knew him that long. It was the same way with Big. It just affected me, and on top of that, it takes another good MC out of the game that needs to be here to school the ones that ... he's another one that should be in one of those top spots, the way we feel we deserve to be in one of the top spots. Luckily, he did a lot of material that's about to drop. They're going to put out an album and everything. And so, we were actually recording "Full Clip" that week. We had already set the date to record it. So being that that happened, we just said we'd tag it at the beginning of the record. As a matter of fact, we had recorded the album but we hadn't mixed it yet. So I put it at the top. Luckily, the record is doing good on the street, because every day, no matter where I am at, I always hear people cuttin' the beginning all the time. So it serves its purpose. He contributed to our album getting done correctly and to our video coming off right. We're definitely going to miss him. But he's got a lot of material that's about to drop on the DITC album and his own album. So you'll be hearing him a lot. A lot of people don't even know who he is.
Guru: That saddens me, too. It's like, he lost his life before he really blew.
Premier: Damon Dash was about to sign him to Roc-a-Fella through his Flamboyant label. So that shows you that if Roc-a-Fella is taking over, they're selling 4-5 million albums, that lets you know that they recognize that he's talent, too, and he deserved to be there. That was without him getting any radio play, any sales or anything. It's just on the street.
Addicted To Noise: Is there any lyrical reference to him in the song itself?
Guru: No, not in the song. But that whole thing, and Freaky Tah, for me as an MC, especially because around that time I had been robbed for a watch by four guys at gunpoint wearing masks, that made me reassess a lot of things. My life was spared and theirs weren't. It's hard to figure things out. I just know that I got a lot I got to do.
Addicted To Noise: Has it changed the way you perceive hip-hop? When you look at it from when you started in the late 1980s and look at it now ...
Guru: It makes the chip on my shoulder bigger. All of us black men have the right to have a chip on our shoulder. My occupation has hazards that come with it that don't come with a lot of other jobs. I take it real seriously. So if somebody's coming at me with a vibe that they're not taking it real seriously, then I'm going the other way. I'm not really going to have time to be kickin' it with you, because, obviously, you don't understand. It's not to be joked with. This is serious.
Addicted To Noise: Does it make you more guarded?
Guru: Sure. It does. I wouldn't want to put myself in the positions that I put myself in in the past. It made me feel lucky, very fortunate to have my life.
Addicted To Noise [to Premier]: Would you say you mirror his sentiment? Would you say that in the wake of what happened you feel yourself more guarded?
Premier: I've always been like that anyway, because the only time I really let my shield down is when I'm at home with family and just chillin' with my peoples that I quote-unquote call "my family." So being with my friends that I hang with, or being with my family ó mom, my sisters, my nieces and nephews. I think all people put their guard up when they go out into the world. I've always been a low-key kind of person. The music industry puts you in the spotlight. In a way, it's kind of unavoidable, because if you stay too low-key, they'll come out of the woodworks and dig up what you're all about and try to figure you out. At the same time, if you're out there too much, I think people get tired of you and don't want to deal with you anymore. You kind of have to know how to balance that along with just your regular life. Sometimes, people fail to realize that even though we belong to you on a fan level, we don't belong to you as far as when it comes to just my life, just living my regular life. There's times I have to set the music aside and the whole career and just live life. We get sick and everything, too, just like everybody else.
Addicted To Noise: Is that hard sometimes?
Premier: Yeah, it's hard sometimes depending on what mood I'm in.I'm moody. I'm very moody. There's times I don't want to be bothered. But not because I'm too big or too out there. It's just I'm not in that mood. If there's things I need to get taken care of ... [changes direction in mid-sentence] nine times out of 10, I'm going to run into somebody who's going to say, "Yo, wassup?" You get people that get loud and they want to ... the autograph part and stuff, I love. I love all that stuff. But some people just go to the extreme of not knowing how to be short and brief and just keep it movin'. But it ís part of the territory. It's unavoidable at the end of the day, but there's ways you can work around it. You just learn from dealing with it.
Addicted To Noise [to Guru]: You had mentioned before that "Full Clip" in some ways is an anonymous battle rap. Do you ever see a day when we may be able to get back to that? Because you had said in the wake of Tupac and Biggie that some of that ó the Roxanne Shante, the Kool Moe Dee, Cool J, those type of things ó have sort of gone by the wayside. Might you see that sort of sense of fun?
Guru: It depends on the artist. Certain artists can do it.
Premier: LL did it.
Guru: LL and Canibus. But they had the right attitude. Both of them. As far as that goes. But it depends on the individual.
Addicted To Noise: The package on the advance had promised a second new track. I'm just wondering if that is the case.
Guru: There's actually two more.
Addicted To Noise: Two more?
Guru: And there's a dope intro at the Big L tribute (March 5). The album starts with the Big L tribute.
Premier: That was a live show we did with DITC, which featured Diamond D, Fat Joe, Show Biz, AG, Lord Finesse, OC. Brand Nubians did a cut. [Big] Pun[isher] didn't come. It was so ill, because Mr. Cheeks from the Lost Boyz was there, wanted to do a tribute and there was really no time for him to perform. It's so ill, that right after that, his brother got taken. Because him and L did stuff together on L's upcoming work. And they did a record together on OC's record of "Dangerous." The intro's really hot. And we've got "Discipline," which features Total."
CONTINUE >>
