Het interview is afgelegd in de backstage ruimte van de Effenaar, Cage was ook aanwezig maar was wat aan het taggen en chips aan het eten en was er niet echt helemaal bij. Dank aan de organisatie van de Effenaar voor het regelen van het interview.
What kind of music do you listen yourself?
Copywrite: Mostly hiphop, I basically listen to anything I like. If there is some r&b that I like now, there used to not to be a lot that I like. I like Timbaland a lot so, when ussualy he does a song and some Neptune shit, I listen to it. Just anything I think that is hot.
There are lot of people talking about their views about underground, what is your view about underground hiphop?
Copywrite: I think there was a real point where underground hiphop was in cutting edge, like back in 1996 and 1997. Now it is really flooded with just a lotta, I don’t know, It’s not a lot hot shit out there. I find myself listening mainstream shit these days, honestly. Whenever I tell somebody that is not my friend, somebody I don’t know that well they’re like: What? They don’t see how I listen to mostly mainstream things.
Which labels do you like, besides Eastern Conference?
Copywrite: I like Rockafella, they’re doing their thing, they just picked up. Other than that it’s not a whole lotta, complete labels with rosters that I’m crazy about.
What about Def Jux?
Copywrite: Ow, Def Jux, yeah no doubt, those are my boys. And that’s family right there, that is Weathermen right there too. Yeah, definetly, Def Jux holding it down for sure.
In what points does the underground scene in the states differ to the scene elsewhere?
Copywrite: People out here they appericiate it more cause it’s not everyday that you see a certain group come out here. Whereas in NY you have groups they live out there, so you can see a show 3 or 4 times a month. I mean people are kind of more responsive out here. And we is incredible 🙂
Where are you headed at in the future?
Copywrite: If I’m able to live of this and chill out on this and keep putting out the stuff that I like, I’m fine with that.
Hiphop is in constant motion, there are a lot of things happening. Which things in hiphop have a positive influence for the future of hiphop?
Copywrite: I don’t know if I’d say that anything really has that I can point out. I mean of course the death of Biggie and Tupac probably had a positive influence that would make you wake up. But even after that people wake up for a while and go back to their old ways.
I recently checked Cannibal Ox’s show in the Netherlands. They sketch a scene/world that is getting “frosty”. What are your thoughts about that?
Copywrite:There is a lot of crap out there and there is a lot of good stuff out there. It all depends on what you listen to and what you are trying to get out of it.
How would you react on the following things?
Studio or on stage?
Copywrite:Stage is fun, but the studio is more like seriously get everything right. I think that is more fun. Then afterwards you listen to the song over and over. You can only watch a show for so many times. There are parts of albums that are left out on the show.
MTV
Copywrite: I watch it, I find myself watching a lotta of MTV. I grew up on MTV, watched since I was six.
Copywrite: Everybody reading this go to www.mhzsite.com and peace man, thnx.
Door omstandigheden kon ik de Smutpeddlers pas na Copywrite spreken.
So what is coming up?
Mr Eon: Basicly we have coming up Copywrite’s album the High Exaulted coming out on June 7e, then we have Cage’s album called Movies For the Blind coming up in Juli with guest appearances of Copywrite and Eon.
Mighty Mi: We made the mistake with Eastern Conference Allstars part 2 of having to many guests and thinking that having all these guests would lead to bigger sales. When in reality we should have just all the Eastern Conference family because nobody can really fuck with it. Instead of having a Charlie Tuna song we rather have a Tame One song. We really learned the hard way by having guest appearances that don’t really matter in the underground.
Being an artist and bussines man?
Mr Eon: It’s like wearing a lot of different hats, you going on stage do you’re shit. You got deal with you’re pasports being xeroxed and signing documents to get paid. So it’s kinda trough experience, me and Ma been doing it for a while and it works.
Still involved with Rawkus?
Mr Eon: We don’t do anything with Rawkus anymore, it’s been a while since the Porn Again album. We put out the E.C. Allstars II independently as wel as the Air Force One, so we went our separate ways because they were going in a more commercial direction and we wanted to keep our shit the way we wanted it.
Underground?
Mighty Mi: Underground these days is just, at least back in America, over here it is different, because over here everybody respects underground and you can come over here and tour and stuff like that. But back in Amerika underground basically is a bunch of disgruntled, broke artists who see other people make it on tv. Criticize them and hate on them but we’ve really learned to appreciate everything. We don’t hate on like Jay Z and those type of people but a lot of underground cats in NY would be just like: “Fuck that, that shit sucks! That shit sucks! It’s just mainstream.” When you have a hiphop background like all the Eastern Conference mcs do, you just appreciate real talent. Whereas, a bunch of newschool underground people who tottaly going in one direction whereas we’ve been the underground group for six or seven years. We’re older than a lot of the new cats who are like 16-20 and they’re just like completely new jacks and don’t even know they’re history or anything.
What you think of Eminem? He used to be an underground cat, sort a say, but nowadays he is cashing in with Dr Dre.
Mighty Mi: Well, you can’t really doubt his talent cause he is talented. But once you get to that certain level, like the pressure on him to do the real goofy single with the huge video. He is trying to maintain that MTV status. It really seems MTV has made him and he made MTV. His recordlabel doesn’t put million of dollars behind him because MTV does it for him.
Why did you call your album Air Force One?
Mr Eon: If you have seen the cover, the cover has multiple sneakers on it: classic shit, hard to get shit, mainly Mighty Mi’s collection. Basically Air Force One is the name of a Nike sneaker.
What is Eastern Conference about?
Mr Eon: We’ve got a lot of different types of cats on EC.We just draw a message to have ill mcs over ill beats, different styles and different shit being talked about. It’s kinda them over it: dope lyrics and dope beats.
What kind of music do you listen you’re self?
Mr Eon: I listen to some hiphop underground shit, I listen more to classics and soul classics and shit like that. I like Pharaoh Monch, Kool Keith besides that it’s the artists of my label and my co-workers.
Which things will have a positive influence on hiphop for the future?
Mr Eon: In Amerika hiphop is completely commercialized, it’s all about the right combinations of producers and people and whoever is the most marketable. It’s not really based on hiphop fundamental things that you would think about. How it changes is who the big labels want to put they’re money in really.
So record labels could be called positive things within hiphop?
Mr Eon: Yeah, if that is what you’re into. It is positive to us and stuff. On worldwide scale were a blip on the radar.
Studio or on stage?
Mighty Mi: I like on stage the best, there is no feeling like people knowing the beats that you make and the lyrics. Studio is what you do it all for but on stage you reek the benefits of everything. It’s like you finally see the pleasure bringing to people. The studio is the work and live is like the recess.
You did a lot of dj work in the states, how tiring is it.
Mighty Mi: Not really, this is pretty much the longest tour we’ve ever done, a month. It’s almost getting a job. But when you have live crowds like tonight in Eindhoven it makes it all worth it. But there is nothing worse than doing a bad show then it really is like a job.
MTV
Mr Eon: It’s a medium for shit that they select, it’s not like we can make a video and go on MTV. We had Bboy Document at first, but that was politics to get on there and it had other people on it. The videos that we we’re making that we put out on or own dvd coming out in June. We make different kind of videos not for MTV.
How is the Eastern Conference label doing?
Mr Eon: We’re not doing so well, if you have any money to give us. No, I’m short on money to at the moment :).
Mighty Mi: We have 3.000 more dollars in the bank than all the other underground labels do, haha.
What was the deal with the Acknowledge dis by Masta Ace?
Mighty Mi: Fuck Masta Ace!! He is a played out fucking over the hill little bitch!! :).
It was a big misunderstanding?
Mr Eon: They had some of their people in the crowd that seemed to be tone deaf or something and couldn’t really hear what was going on. Appearantly they thought that Cage had dissed him when he only was reciting his lyrics from Suicidal Failure which is on the album. So Mighty Mi called him up, played him, played it, played him. :). Forget it :). He played the record for him and he saw that he was mistaken. He went on the radio and shit and called us up and was very apologetic.
Copywrite: The whole controverse is cleared up on the Cage album.
Watch out for Copywrite’s High Exaulted, Cage’s Movies For the Blind.
Meer info:
http://www.easternconferencerecords.com
http://www.cagekennylz.com
http://www.mhzsite.com
