Features

ThaFormula.com - First off I got to say that it's nice to see that you guys are still doing it ten years later…

Evil Dee - The only thing which I tell cats is the industry right now, uh I'm not happy with the industry because of the music that's coming out. It's like back in the day it was all about your shit being hard and you having soul. Now it's just…cats is just puttin' out like, I don't know what to call it. It's like robotic music I guess. Hip-Hop to me is your arms folded and the ice grill. Hard shit. I don't know what happened man.

ThaFormula.com - Well if you check our site man you know how we feel about things…

Evil Dee - I check the site man. I don't know if I told you the story? Okay this is the funniest thing 'cause I'm always on my computer and I don't know how but I ended up on ThaFormula so I was looking at the stories there and there was so many stories that I wanted to read but I had to like break out of my house within like a half an hour. So what I did was I printed all the stories I wanted to read, stapled it together and just like jumped on the train and went to the city. So I'm sitting on the train reading the joints and this dude was asking me about some music stuff and he was like "yo what's that a blueprint for a new magazine?" and I was like "nah its this thing called ThaFormula.com," but the ill thing about the stories was, questions that I wanted to ask cats, y'all asked them for me. So that's why I always peep the site once in a while to see what's going on over there. So the site is definitely hot.

ThaFormula.com - Just to know that we got your respect Dee is what it's all about…

Evil Dee - I'm a fan of the site man.

ThaFormula.com - Well you know we just understand what's happening right now in Hip-Hop and how fucked up it is…

Evil Dee - It is, and its like people ask me all the time. They're like "damn man you can do all that, uh you know all that shit that they are doing now like all the simple beats and all that…" I can do that with my eyes closed, but my whole thing is what do I want? Do I want the quick payday, that stardom, or the respect? I want the respect, so I'm always gonna be the cat that digs. The cat that has that sample that you never heard or even flip something that you didn't hear before. But my stuff got to have bass in it, it's got to have hard snares. I can't bow down to the stuff now. It ain't even about keyboard playin' 'cause I play keyboard. I play keys on my records but at least it has soul. At least you're not hearing no bullshit.

ThaFormula.com - I always mention that to people man. Public Enemy said it right when they did "Who Stole the Soul?"

Evil Dee - It's funny 'cause right now if you listen to radio from the artists, the DJ's, the MC's, the record labels…I mean listen to the DJ's on radio, everybody is playing the same records. Everybody is playing Chingy, 50, Jay-Z, and Nas. Just the same records. What happened when cats had different identities? You go to a party and you're hearing the same records at the party that you heard on the radio going to the party!

ThaFormula.com - Now I got to talk to you about the mixtape problem happening now. You being in New York where all the dopest producers came from, what happened, and why the hell did every DJ start screaming on CD's?

Evil Dee - First I'ma tell you my history with the mixtape thing. I was making mixtapes since '88 or '89. Now my thing uh I'ma tell you why I started talking on my mixtapes. What happened was I used to do parties and I would you know make my tapes at the parties. What happened was I would sell my tapes and I went to the park once and this guy was playing my tape. So you know how you hear your joint and you go "yo who made that?" he was like "I made that," and I sat there and heard like three mixes I did and I'm like "no I made that!" He was like "prove it." I couldn't prove it so I decided that on my tapes I would just be like "Evil Dee is on the mix, come on kick it," and that's how that whole thing started. Now ok with like myself, I did my i.d. on my tape I do it once, I don't shout out nobody who you don't know. Now what happened was, you had S&S, Ron G, Doo Wop, and other cats come out and what they would do is like, S&S took it to another level where instead of being on some "It's S&S in full effect," he was just "YAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYYAYAYA" So S&S was the first cat I heard yelling on his tapes. S&S was also one of the first cats that I seen take it from skills to exclusives. I used to make my mixtape to show that I was nice as a DJ. Fuck an exclusive. Any idiot can make an exclusive mixtape. My mother can make an excusive mixtape. I'm not saying she's an idiot, but you know. The whole thing with the mixtape is it was to show the DJ's skills. What happened was it went from that to exclusives and then DJ Clue was the first person that I seen put it on a CD. So Clue took it to the digital revolution.

ThaFormula.com - So where does Funk Flex fit in this situation?

Evil Dee - Funkmaster Flex was always a party DJ. Back in the day, you would always see Flex rippin' up the party and Flex was always playing party records. So one thing I do tell people is you can't get mad at Flex and say he plays wack records. No, Flex always plays party records and that's what he did yesterday, that's what he's doing today, and that's what he's going to be doing tomorrow. Flex was never on the new underground, no, he was the new party record and that's all he plays is party music. He's not the best DJ in the world but he's a good business man. A lot of DJ's can look at Flex and learn from him 'cause his business is up to par. DJ wise as skills I think now Flex is a little lazy, but that's just skills but nowadays skills don't really matter. It matters to me but you know. I don't have a bad word to say about Flex 'cause he hasn't given me a reason to say a bad word about him. He is a good business man. Flex took the DJ thing from just being a DJ to being a star.

ThaFormula.com - Do you feel that you get shown a lot of love by the magazines, TV, and Radio?

Evil Dee - No we don't. I'ma be real about that because magazines when they talk about groups of the 90's, they don't mention Black Moon. What it is is, sometimes you got to bumrush the situation. Come on B, me, Buck 5FT, my brother Mr. Walt, and Dru Ha? We helped bring East Coast Hip-Hop when people were saying East Coast Hip-Hop is dead. Now we didn't have the commercial success of everybody else nor do I care about it, but I do care about respect. I just want to be respected.

ThaFormula.com - Lets go back to the first album "Enta Da Stage." When that dropped everything seemed good with Boot Camp. You had Smif-N-Wessun, Heltah, OGC, and everything just seemed like it was perfect. But something happened a little after that where a lot of people felt Boot Camp fell off for a while. Do you agree with that?

Evil Dee - I'll tell you what happened. Every family goes through their differences. Like me and Mr. Walt were actually brothers and we don't wake up everyday and agree and that's what happened with Beatminerz and Boot Camp. What happened was I see one vision and Buck Shot sees another vision. Sometimes what happens is you have to separate to grow closer and its like they wanted their beats to go one way, and I wanted to do it another way. Me, I'm that diehard Hip-Hop cat.

ThaFormula.com - Well I got to be real and say the heads knew exactly when you stopped doing the beats for a while…

Evil Dee - What happened was I would say around '96 it became a point where I felt Beatminerz wasn't being respected and I was like "you know what I'm not being respected here." Here I am working with other people like the Roots, D'angelo, De La, Mos Def, Talib and all of them and these cats are treating me more like family then my family. So you know I just felt maybe I needed to chill. Maybe I need to focus on Evil Dee right now and I sat back. But within all that time I was doing radio, I started my DJ tour and I started my label Pandemonium Records. What happened was at the end of the day me and the crew sat down and it was like we just had to sit down and clear up all our differences. But one thing I will say is that they wanted to experiment and do different things and I respect that because its like eating the same cereal everyday. After a while you're gonna be like "damn these Corn Flakes are hot but I want some Special K's today," or "I want some Fruity Pebbles." Then after a while you're gonna eat the Special K and eat the Fruity Pebbles then you're gonna go "yo this is dope but you know what? I wanna go back to the joint that I originated with cause you know that was hot and that brings back my memories."

ThaFormula.com - It would have been incredible if you guys would have stayed together that whole time…

Evil Dee - If we would have stuck together, Black Moon would have been on our 9th to 10th album right now.

ThaFormula.com - What do you consider to be your greatest production work?

Evil Dee - You know one of the best songs I've done is "Shit Is Real" on "Enta Da Stage," where I took the samples to each record and I tuned it so that musically they sound correct together.

ThaFormula.com - You know one track that a lot of people never heard because the album itself was terrible, was the track you did on the last "Naughty By Nature" LP? That beat you laced them with was bangin'...

Evil Dee - It's just bananas man. The way that Hip-Hop is now if your not that mainstream cat you don't get that exposure. That's why with this new Black Moon album the mission is to go against the grain. I'm not making a radio record. I'm not gonna kill myself to make a record to please radio. I'm gonna make a record to please the heads. At the end of the day if I sell 20 copies, those 20 people will respect what I've done cause I'm tired of "oh you gotta make your radio single, you gotta make this," cause I never was one to make a radio single. The funniest thing with the Hip-Hop thing is that all the big producers, like I've met Swizz Beats, I've met Kanye West, Neptunes…I'll tell you like this like breaking down producers, I respect the Neptunes. Why? Because they are doing something that nobody was doing even when they started. Now I'ma tell you what the problem is. The problems isn't the Neptunes, Kayne West, or the Trackmasters or whoever, the problems are the A&R's 'cause the A&R's are on some real "oh well this guy he has a hit so I want him to recreate his hit for my artist." It's not about who's got the dopest beat, its about who's got the hit. So I could come in there and I could smash all of them with beats but at the end of the day being that I don't have a platinum track record, they are gonna be like "we're gonna mess with Kanye West 'cause he's with Jay-Z, he did the last Jay-Z joint." And that's one of the things that's messing up Hip-Hop right now. It's like we all was innovators, now we're followers.

ThaFormula.com - One of the reasons why I felt Hip-Hop is barely hangin' on is because back in the day the underground set the trends as far as what was to come, but now you got the underground artists biting the wack mainstream artists wack styles...

Evil Dee - Exactly, and that's the thing that I'm saying and like I'm saying I respect the Neptunes. I spoke to Pharell, like I didn't see him, he seen me. He came to me and said, "yo I love your work," and to me I was like "wow here's this guy that don't have to tell me shit," but he's like he loves my work? Now being that right now they are making the hits, that doesn't make me come home and say "ok I need a Triton keyboard." No, it makes me come home and say "ok I'm gonna create my shit, my kicks and my snares are gonna be hard, and I'm gonna have base on my record," and what happens is like I said, a lot of people are playing follow the leader. I'm gonna do what I do.

ThaFormula.com - You know what really amazes me is how many underground artists are trying to do radio type music. I mean I've always been used to wack rappers in the mainstream biting each other, but to see so many talented MC's yellin' "bounce with me" and imitating those wack ass keyboard type beats is just ridiculous...

Evil Dee - I'ma tell you why too. 'Cause at the end of the day every underground artist that wants to make a record or that tries to make a record, at the end of the day they wanna be that person. They wanna be the Jay-Z, they wanna be the Nelly, they wanna be the Snoop or the Dr. Dre. A lot of underground cats claim the title "underground" because they're not selling so they are like, "oh the reason I ain't sellin' muthafucka is cause I'm underground!" That's why a lot of people claim underground 'cause its underground artists out here that are unsigned that I respect and they gave me their demo on some "yo Evil Dee, I want you to tell me what you think about this" shit. I listen to the demo and it's like I'm hearin', "go to the club, check me out, walk inside the club, check me out." Everybody gets to that point where it's like, "I wanna be the popular one, I wanna be it." I don't wanna be it. I know some people that are signed that are some of the best lyricists but they will not kick that shit, they will kick that corny shit and I'm like "yo b, your in the spotlight right now, once you come out on a record one way you cant turn the clock back, you cant say, 'nah I'm just playing yo, this is how I really rhyme,' no one wants to hear that." Like there is stuff that I can't do with my group so that's why I take it upon myself to work with Wordsworth and to work with Rise, Jean Grae, Apani. 'Cause it's like certain beats that I will make that are crazy, Buck will be like "its not for me."

ThaFormula.com - Do you feel that if you dropped a dope ass hardcore Hip-Hop album independently, don't you feel that you could live off of this shit?

Evil Dee - Of course, but you know what it is, it's like I said, a lot of people cater to DJ's. They cater to "damn I wanna hear my shit on the 7 o'clock bomb! I want when Flex comes on he drops like 80 bombs on my hit." But I tell cats at the same time you can be Hip-Hop and you can fool commercial cats. I did that with "2 Turntables and a Mic" so at the end of the day "Heartbeat" is a Hip-Hop classic. The record "Heartbeat" was not broken on radio, it was broken on the streets in block parties so me taking heartbeat and cutting it up on a record is Hip-Hop. So when we did "2 Turntables and a Mic," we was talkin' about 2 turntables and a mic and then when people heard the third verse that's when they really put it in perspective 'cause the third verse started off, "commercial rap gets the gun clap" and Black Moon successfully took that record with Buckshot saying that blatantly on that record and it got added to commercial radio and crossover radio. Hip-Hop is about 2 turntables and a mix. It's about a DJ and a MC. A lot of people forget that too. That's why Hip-Hop is going the way it is now. Hip-Hop is not about a singing dog, or a funky fresh keyboard, its about a DJ and a MC.

ThaFormula.com - In your eyes who is the backbone of Hip-Hop? The MC or the DJ/producer?

Evil Dee - It's the DJ cause the MC wrote to the music. He comes forth with the music then the MC comes forth with the rhyme. What it is is the industry tried to kill the DJ like back in the days you would hear of a group like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. You would hear Eric B. and Rakim. What happened was the industry said "hold up, I understand you have this that and the third, but when we do our R&B records or our rock records we have the main person in the group." So what they did was they looked and said "when you get the records who do you hear? The MC." So they tried to put the MC in the front. That's when you got LL Cool J and nobody knew who Cut Creator was. Then it went to Slick Rick. Who's his DJ? Vance Wright, but no one knows that. The industry was like "the MC is the lead singer so we gonna put the MC up front." Then you started getting people like a lot of the MC's that are out now who claim they are "real" Hip-Hop but don't have a DJ, so it's crazy man. When we started really putting it on records and putting it down that's when the music really changed.

ThaFormula.com - Now then where does Master P fit in to all this?

Evil Dee - Master P to me was never a good MC. Master P was more of a business man. Master P was the man that started the 2 page ads, the No Limit city bus. Master P is just a smart business man. I'm gonna tell you like this, what happened was I was on Hot 97 in New York at the time and I went down to the "How Can I Be Down" summit and Master P had his bus out there and I found it so amazing that this man bought a city bus and made it into a No Limit bus. I thought it was so dope of him to be out there himself promoting his shit. So when I came on radio that week I was the first cat to play Master P on the air. From there that shit just went bananas and its like after a while I was like "ok the first joint I played was alright but after that it just went haywire." The whole thing is cats come with one or two dope records, then its a wrap. He took it and made it into a gimmick and from then on Hip-Hop cats should have been like "okay look, Hip-Hop is not about a gimmick it's about skills so we got to shut this down." But of course that didn't happen. So I would give him respect for business but then when I look at it I'm like Master P is also a biter 'cause what happened is when Cash Money came out he started sounding like Cash Money, when Bow Wow came out he put his son on Lil' Romeo. So when people started realizing what's going on, he became a biter. But at the end of the day I still give him respect as a business man.

ThaFormula.com - Yeah, but what he did for the music though...

Evil Dee - Yeah, but at the same time one thing I will always say about Hip-Hop is us as real Hip-Hop heads, instead of sittin' there and taking things with a grain of salt, we have to start speaking up. If you listening to the radio and the radio was wack…yo b if you get 200 people to picket the radio stations they have to take that into consideration 'cause that's 200 people outside of the street really making your business look bad. So at the end of the day cats gotta stand up for their rights man. Everybody has the talk and will say "yo I don't like this, I don't like that, fuck this fuck that," but nobody will take action. Me myself, I'm the type of person where if I don't like Hip-Hop records I'm gonna make Hip-Hop records that I do like. With this production thing, I'm what you call the producers producer 'cause every time I meet a producer that's hot in the game he goes "yo your work influenced me to do blah, blah, blah," and I feel good about that and then I'll meet cats that go "yo your shit is hot but how come it's not getting played and this that and the third." I'm like because the cats that respect my stuff they don't take the steps to get it played. They don't call radio and request it. They don't call 106 and Park and be like "yo I wanna see the new Black Moon video!" They sit there and just go "ah man, ah man." That's why right now Hip-Hop is in the state that it is 'cause no one is fighting for it and at the end of the day there is gonna be a time when your not gonna hear Hip-Hop on the radio and your not gonna have Hip-Hop on TV. Hip-Hop is not gonna be around for you and when them days come, I'M OUTTA HERE!!!

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