thaFormula.com - I remember the last time we spoke you had told me that you felt Cypress Hill had peaked at Temples of Boom…

DJ Muggs - Yeah I did, as far as with what I wanted to do with it. I just did it for economical reasons after that, which is cool 'cause that's what this is all about. We all do shit to eat, but I also do shit for art to. You gotta understand too that the record becomes something you can't control. It becomes this monster homie. It becomes so fucking big that you don't even know how big it is and you have so many fucking hands in it so it isn't just three kids in charge of it no more. It's labels, the managers, the lawyers, so it becomes different pressures put on you and different people in control of your project in certain ways so that was the pressures put on Cypress. So there was some creative things you know that we might have agreed upon. Everybody had different creative ideas because you grow as an artist. Your not gonna always stay the same so over the course of 15 years I might grow this way, Sen (Dog) might grow this way, and B (Real) might grow this way, so its perfectly natural, there is nothing wrong with it. It's like being married to somebody, you're gonna grow differently and sometimes you grow together. But when you have a band that's 3 or 4 people and you're all creative artists and y'all wanna get out what you have inside you creatively, you know after a bunch of years your gonna have different views on things, which is cool but we have always tried to come back and keep Cypress what it is, but you know it grows into some other shit. You don't even imagine what it grows into after a while.

thaFormula.com - Were you happy with how the last Cypress LP "'Till Death Do Us Part" turned out?

DJ Muggs - I was happy with like 80 percent of it. There was a couple of songs I didn't care for. Like I had a couple of ideas what the song was supposed to be and the fellas had a couple of ideas of what they wanted to put on top of the songs so that's what it was. But when you're in a band you got to give and take. What really ruined the record was that when I turned the record in, I specifically did everything for a reason with the record. I did a song with Tego Calderon. "Latin Thugs" was supposed to be our first single. When I walked into the meetings, I brought Time Magazine in there. I brought the demographics to show them that Latinos are now the number one minority in America. They had surpassed African Americans back then. So I walked in and said "Latin Thugs" is our first single. They go "no we need something more commercial." I'm trippin' but I had this reggae beat that was supposed to be called "The Guns of L.A., but B-Real wrote "What's Your Name, What's Your Number?" instead on top of the song. Because it comes from a sample by The Clash called "The Guns of Brixton," I wanted it to be like some reggae/Hip-Hop like KRS, BDP reggae type shit, but "The Guns of L.A." he wrote was a different song. The song was bangin' but it just didn't fit the Cypress Hill mystique I didn't feel. The label loved it and ran with it. I told them "Latin Thugs" is the single. Tego Calderon did not break yet. The whole Reggaeton did not break yet. I knew it was there and it was big but it just didn't crack yet. I also did a dancehall song with Damien Marley so we was about a year ahead of our time with the record because a year later Reggaeton hits real big, Damien Marley becomes one of the biggest Reggae artists and then a year later Tego Calderon hits real big and Latin Hip-Hop explodes. So I was trying to show them my vision for the record. The problem is I see the future when I make music and I'm very visual in music. But when I'm dealing with people at a label who only see today and what's going on now and don't see what the next trend is before the trend is there, that's the frustrating part.

thaFormula.com - When you saw all this happening man, how did it feel?

DJ Muggs - Man it get frustrating man, 'cause you pour your heart into a record and then the label doesn't see the vision and then when the record comes out they pull back on it and then start making excuses and then you start seeing everything unfold, like the plans I had for the record. Society and pop culture started opening up just the way I seen it opening up. So the record did good but it didn't do great. The worst part is I had four singles for the record that could have just blown up. I had it all planned out and mapped out for them and they did not go to my plan.

thaFormula.com - And when the record doesn't do what it should have done...

DJ Muggs - It's our fault. The group is over and the shit is man, that I have been in control of everyone of my records. This is the first time that Columbia records wanted to take control of it and then they just stopped answering the calls and stopped doing everything and just pulled back and said "oh the shit didn't blow up." That ain't the case though. They don't know what's going on with us because they are in New York and they don't know that things move different out here. We have a disadvantage being West Coast Hip-Hop period because we don't have a black college circuit like the south where you can tour all the black colleges. We don't have a strip club circuit like they do down there where you can just hit all the strip clubs and push your records through that. All the entertainment and all the media is out of New York. All the magazines, Source, XXL, Scratch, MTV and Rap City are out of New York. So if we got something poppin' like Cypress doing a Smokeout (concert) and having 60,000 people there, nobody in New York knows how big our impact is on this culture because all the media is out there and everything is in the East. Just Hip-Hop period in our culture out here is at a disadvantage and then another thing where we're at a disadvantage is nobody clicks up because of the gangs. If your a blood rapper, crips ain't listening to your shit and if your an ese, the blacks ain't listening to your shit, and other eses might not and all this other shit. So unless you get big and (Doctor) Dre cosigns then all of a sudden everyone will listen to you because its cool. But that's another disadvantage in the West Coast.

thaFormula.com - So what's the status with the group right now?

DJ Muggs - Everybody is on hiatus right now. Everybody is doing different projects. I know Sen did a record with his brother, B-Real is doing something and I'm doing a record called creased "Khaki's" right know with DJ Skee. It's a Soul Assassins edition. We're doing two Soul Assassins records right now. Instead of doing Soul Assassins 3, we're doing one that's called "Underworld" which is just all underground MC's and were doing one called "Creased Khaki's" which brings all the influence that Los Angeles culture has brought all over the world. It's just some street gangster L.A. shit.

thaFormula.com - So after the last Cypress album did what it did, how long after did the Angeles Records idea come about?

DJ Muggs - Well me and Chace Infinite are partners in the label and we were thinking of doing a few things here and there. I had a bunch of offers for labels all the time throughout the years but I just never had time to do the shit. Then I said "we're gonna take a year break from Cypress" because that was our last album. We turned it in and we were done and they had an option on a "Greatest Hits" album so they just put the "Greatest Hits" album out without anyone involved in it. So during that year I said "I wanna start doing some new shit."

thaFormula.com - What was the biggest problems you faced starting Angeles Records man?

DJ Muggs - Its hard doing an Independent label man because there is no money. You don't have no money to work. First of all, we got with a distributor so early in the game before they even had their infrastructure set. So when we got in the game we realized we didn't have a tester product. We didn't have a product to put through the system to see what the holes in their system was. So when I put the Gza project out, we noticed there was a lot of holes in the system so we were here all day trying to patch holes and not being able to do what we needed to do to push the record. Because they couldn't get the records in mom and pop stores. They had a problem getting them in Fat Beats. They were good at getting them in Wal-Mart. So we started noticing the holes in that and then the big labels have so much money its hard to compete with them. Source Magazine ads for independents used to be $2500. Now they are like $10,000 to $12,000 because the majors are paying $20,000 for ads. It's making it so much harder for the small business man to compete, and then you got to radio and they are paying so much money for this, you got to pay more. They're paying so much for that, you've got to pay more. Then we don't have the outlets like "The Box" anymore and when Viacom bought BET they bought "The Box." They have MTV, they own VH-1. When Viacom bought BET, that was the last outlet that would play and just take chances on music. Once Viacom bought it they sent out a press release that said we ain't playing nothing that ain't charting no more. So if the record ain't charting, BET ain't playing it. So now MTV, when they cut "Yo! MTV Raps" loose, they bought BET so that became kind of like the new "Yo! MTV Raps" and there is no outlet for the music now. Now we got Youtube and all that but now its so saturated that there is a million videos and there ain't enough time in the day to go watch everything. We just keep it rolling and take it punk rock guerilla style man.

thaFormula.com - Do you think you underestimated what a major actually does for an artist?

DJ Muggs - They do a lot for you. But what it is with a major and what I have realized at this point is they're good, they got a big fucking machine but the thing is you got to go in there as an artist and when you get your budget you have to put some of your budget away and not go spend it on a house and take $100,000 and do your own marketing and promotion. Don't blame them for what they are not doing like everybody does and go and facilitate what they are not facilitating. What helped us a lot when we first signed is we signed to Ruff House which was through Columbia and Columbia had Def Jam so Columbia knew what to do through Def Jam or with Ruff House. When we were with Ruff House, Columbia did what they did, but they weren't good on a street level, but that's why Ruff House was there. Ruff House facilitated all the college radio, they had all their own street teams, they had all their own shit. So we were cool. Once Ruff House left, we lost this whole base of street teams, college radio promotion and all this shit. So if your not thorough with somebody like that, I would say if your an artist at a major take $100,000, go hire your own independent street teams. Go hire your own independent college radio, do your own little independent thing on the side and help push your own shit because they can't do it all, and as an independent our only problem here is that we have all the skills, we have all the talent, its just sometimes were lacking funds. That's the only problem with being in the independent business.

thaFormula.com - So how has it been from when you started the label up to now?

DJ Muggs - It's a grind homie, but the Soul Assassins corporation isn't just Angeles Records. We're a multimedia company. We're diversified. We have Angeles Records, we own "The Smokeout Tour," we're bringing back The Unity Festival, we're in the street wear business, we're big in the real estate market, and we have production companies. We have Cypress and so many different things and they all go hand in hand. The music business isn't just the bottom line no more because the music business as a whole is down. We're gonna have to ride it out the next three or four years until they get a grip on this technology and all this bootleggin' and they will homie, it's the wild west so in a minute they're gonna have a grip on all of it, but it's gonna be a few more years. So we don't look at ourselves as "we just make music and that's our bottom line." I'm an entertainment company and I'm a young entrepreneur so everything I do has to do with each other. Our thing is just controlling the whole multimedia and just controlling our whole infrastructure because in a minute there is only a few motherfuckers pushing real hard out here and building an infrastructure coming up and were all tied together right now.

thaFormula.com - What's the key to being independent in your eyes?

DJ Muggs - The key to being independent is you just got to put more volume of records out. You just can't put a record out a year and have an independent label. You've got to put 6 to 8 records out a year and you can do 30 to 40,000 a record, but you gotta put that volume out. You just can't put one record out a year 'cause you're not gonna be able to cover your overhead. But we're an entertainment entity. Music is just one part of our business and it's probably 20 percent of my overall thing. So I do it as an art still and I do what I want to do, so it isn't my bottom line. Whatever happens in the music game, it ain't gonna affect me.

thaFormula.com - How is the Mitchy Slick project doing for you guys man?

DJ Muggs - We just started it. See when your independent, it isn't about your first week or your first 6 weeks, you have a whole year to push a new record. We just did 2 new videos. We've got a big mixtape coming out with a big a big East Coast mixtape cat, another big mixtape coming out here. He's coming out on the new "Creased Khaki's album I'm doing, so you know the push don't stop on Mitch.

thaFormula.com - So for Angeles, what do you have dropping next?

DJ Muggs - Right now we have the "Black & Brown Underground" album which is Self Scientific and Sick Symphonies together. The new Self Scientific. The "Soul Assassins Underworld" record. Soul Assassins "Creased Khaki's." Skinhead Rob & Damu from San Diego. Those are our next five releases coming out at the top of the year. Oh and we're doing the remixed "DJ Muggs Vs. Gza" album with the DVD of the world tour we did. The whole album is remixed with two new songs.

thaFormula.com - Were all the beats you did on the GZA & Muggs album new beats?

DJ Muggs - Yeah, but I think but of them were old. The thing about it is that I found a DAT of old shit and me and Gza were just going through samples. I have samples man that I haven't even made the beats for yet. Some of the samples are like three or four years old but they are bangin'. If something is bangin' it never gets old and that's what I mean by standing the test of time. I've got samples that I haven't made beats out of yet because I'm waiting for the right fool to do them with. So those beats were done and me and Gza was just like "oh listen to this, listen to this," 'cause I know what he likes and we was playing some shit. I was going through one DAT and you know how you forward some shit like "oh that ones wack," and I went to forward one and he was like "nah go back." I was like "nah that shit is old." He said "nah I like that I wanna rap over that." So I said "fuck it go ahead homie, if that's what you want to bust on." He has a certain style of the way he likes his shit. Some of the songs I wanted to put changes in them and put breaks, but he was like "nah just leave it simple." So it's just a certain feel and style, I was really pleased with that record.

thaFormula.com - How do you feel about that type of production you do?

DJ Muggs - I can do that all day with my eyes closed. It's so simple to me. I can do it, I just have to have the right MC's that work with it though, that's all it is. It's finding the right people that inspire me to do the right thing. See when I work with you, your personality is gonna make me do a certain kind of music. My job as a producer is to bring out the best in you and what you're about. That music won't work with certain artists. When I'm making a record with Gza, we're playing chess everyday. The grandmaster in chess, everything starts coming together. The whole ideas were coming as we were making the record. See I work with you, I'm gonna make music that's gonna fit you and your imaging is gonna look like you, and everything is gonna look like you. So it's just finding the next muthafucka.

thaFormula.com - Explain the major reason behind bringing back Bigga B's Unity Festival?

DJ Muggs - Bigga B was one of my good homies, he worked for me for 3 years. He executive produced the first Soul Assassins record, he introduced me to Mobb Deep, he worked for Mobb Deep and all them. I knew Rza, but he got Rza in the studio for me. He introduced me to LA the Darkman, he helped me piece together a lot of that Soul Assassins record. He introduced me to Chace, who is his little cousin. Then I built a relation ship with Mobb Deep and Alchemist was my little homie and I brought Alchemist around Mobb Deep. So Bigga B was really influential for all the shit happening. So we were sittin' back and decided to bring back Unity. It was just like "let's have an outlet for all these young artists that we are feeling," cause some of these promoters get a little funny about letting muthafuckas play. They will use you one day when you should be on a show. So it was like, "let's do it ourselves, let's create a movement in LA." Because L.A. doesn't have a movement. You have a movement of Aftermath which I consider like Wal-mart. They are so fucking big homie that they just gobble up anything that's under them. Anything that's good out here Aftermath just gobbles it up, which is cool cause that's business. But our thing is there is a whole 'nother world out here. So we're gonna bring something back and gonna create a movement in L.A. and we've got to take it upon ourselves through all of our connections and all of our experience to help bring another life to L.A.. It has life but let's bring another outlet for these artists and let's make it thrive.

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