ThaFormula.com - First, let's get into your first solo album, "The LP". What exactly went down with that project?

Xtra P - Well basically all it was is that Geffen records is a big money label and they picked me up from Wild Pitch records who I was recording with at the time. Geffen records off of the street buzz that I had, they always were hearing Large Professor this, and Large Professor that. So they said "ok, we're gonna sign him."  But I don't think they really knew who they were getting' or what they were getting. Once they signed me and they started hearing I was coming with the rugged stuff, uh, see they were a big rock label, so for them to understand underground hip-hop is like almost impossible.  Eventually it just deteriorated to the point where they didn't understand what I was doing, I didn't understand what they were doing and we just had to keep it moving.

ThaFormula.com - So when did you begin to realize that your album wasn't gonna drop?

Xtra P - I kind of realized it a little bit after the second single, after "I Just Wanna Chill" dropped and we did the video.  Because they're a company that responds from radio and all of the typical places. They don't know how to really make a record or how to bring a record to the right arenas, so once I saw that "I Just Wanna Chill" wasn't pickin' up, I kind of braced myself knowing that these guys is gonna get shaky like new knees.

ThaFormula.com - What went down after you got released from Geffen?

Xtra P - It was like the end of '97 or something like that and really, I'm hip-hop before a Geffen records. Before a Wild Pitch records, I'm hip-hop.  So you know, I just went back doing my normal thing, making beats, writing rhymes and just getting my beats out and you know going diggin' and all of that shit.  So I was just like, "yo, I'm gonna proceed with the plan cause they don't determine what hip-hop is to me."  I'm more hip-hop than that label altogether.  You know that was my standpoint, so I just held it down and just kept doing my beats and writing my rhymes and getting' love from my hip-hop dudes that was checkin' for me at the them times.  Non-Phixion, Cormega, Busta Rhymes, Nas, and you now a few other people in between at the time.  I got love from hip-hop.  I didn't need it from the corporate industrialized hip-hop industry.

ThaFormula.com - Did Geffen at least tell you, 'here take your album" or did they keep the album?

Xtra P - Nah, actually they kept the album because they did put their cash in it, so I wasn't bitter towards that 'cause I knew I could just keep it movin' and make some more. I'm not really into the business end of this. I mean it's good to be into it, but I think once you start getting into the business end of it, it kind of dilutes what you puttin' into the beats and the rhymes and stuff like that. I think that for a minute I started going up that alley 'cause I started talking about label problems and things like that. After a while I had to step back and just say, "aight let me get back to my love for the music and just bless the heads off with some raw shit."

ThaFormula.com - One thing I got from your new album is that you proved that hip-hop was better in the early 90's then today because your album has that gritty old school feel.  Straight hip-hop!

Xtra P - No doubt.  It's all a zone that you're in.  I really don't try to take in a lot of this mechanical rap that's going on right now, so that just keeps me in my zone.  I do open up to a little bit of it you know like some of the new dudes coming out.  Definitely I always stay in tune, but you gotta stay in your own zone in this because you can become industrialized or you can just get taken away with a fad.  I seen mad fads come and go in hip-hop, so you gotta kind of start determining or judging what's a fad and what's not, and all the stuff that is monumental you know, hold it down and then let them fads keep flyin' away. Then you take what's monumental out of everything, word!

ThaFormula.com - I asked this question to MC Serch recently.  The last episode of "Yo! MTV Raps" had you and pretty much every future legend of hip-hop in one cipher.  How do you look back at that episode as far as what that day represented to you?

Xtra P - It marked the end of an era to me because a lot of those artists that were there were big at one time, maybe then they weren't or whatever and I wasn't big and I'm still in there somewhere mysteriously.  When I look back at it. it's just like wow! You lookin' at Rakim, Chubb Rock, Krs-1. It was definitely a real event, especially for MTV because now your dealing with more of a corporate thing again where that was their last show for MTV raps.  It's just a lot of different mixtures of feelings with that man.  It's crazy man.

ThaFormula.com - Do you think that was MTV's way of shutting down real hip-hop?

Xtra P - Yeah, I mean for their show.  A lot of people try to put limits or a lot of people think that they're the only outlet for hip-hop and they think that once they shut their show down, that hip hop is gonna shut down.  Hip-hop is gonna stay strong man.  It's gotten to the point where when CNN news put their headlines up, and have hip-hop slang in there.  They got the president gets "jiggy with it."  We got sportscasters using hip-hop slang and things like that, so when you get these little shows, they wanna shut it down and abandon hip-hop.  That's when like 5 other people just jump on to it because it's like slowly still growing.

ThaFormula.com - Sometimes I just trip on how the radio, TV, and even the press have tried to just throw away the real hip-hop like it never existed or like the shit was done hundreds of years ago?

Xtra P - Yo, it's a conspiracy man and all it is, is just people that don't understand the real core of hip-hop and they only want people to understand what they understand hip-hop to be.  I mean that's kind of mixed up what I'm sayin', but it's all about people's understanding of what hip-hop is.  That's why they get a person like Kay Slay, who's coming through hard right now because he's an official in hip-hop.  He's been in hip-hop since day one, so it's like these people when they don't understand it, they short circuit and they feel left out. They feel like they're investing their money into something that they don't understand, so then they wanna shut it down.

ThaFormula.com - How have you managed to maintain in that straight raw hip-hop mode all these years?

Xtra P - Well there are a lot of jewels that have been put out here for us like the movie Wild Style.  A lot of hip-hop albums that have come out before.  Eric B & Rakim, C.L. Smooth, Public Enemy and then you have albums that came out that were fads.  It goes back to what I was saying that if you know what's monumental and you hold on to it, then when you put it all together as a collection, then you'll say "wow." If radio is not playing the right shit then you'll be able to go back to your monumental collection and just stay in your zone man because hip-hop is hip-hop and we are into the art of digging.  We dig, so that means we go back and we dig for beats, records, and now being 10,15,20 years deep in this, we can dig back even into old hip-hop now and just stay in our zone.

ThaFormula.com - How do you feel about a lot of these bandwagon jumpin' keyboard producers doin' all this wack ass shit?

Xtra P - Yeah, definitely. I be callin' them fake Mozarts.  They just get a keyboard then all of a sudden their producers. Yo, but honestly some of it is good.  Some of it when I listen to it, I'll be like "yo that shit is kind of bangin," but I would say like 85% of the shit is like you can hear it's some beginner shit and they actually trying to pass it as real hip-hop.  But you can't turn our back on it.  You gotta understand it and just know how to rock it with the traditional hip-hop flava you know, and a lot of them don't.  They just try to take it into a R&B zone that years from now is just gonna be another fad.

ThaFormula.com - Are you disappointed at all at the amount of hip-hop legends or OG's that have fallen off or sold out?

Xtra P - Yeah, but what I'm more disappointed in, is that we don't take care of one another man.  I have always been into nurturing the new school coming in.  The new guys coming up.  That's why people to this day say, "wow he brought Nas into the game," or "wow he brought Akinyele into the game," or he brought this producer into the game.  It's like we not showing each other love how we supposed to, and that legacy even continues to this day.

ThaFormula.com - I gotta say that you have made all the true heads proud with this new album by representing hip-hop the way it's supposed to be represented?

Xtra P - No doubt.  I get a lot of people saying that and some people just don't understand that all I'm trying to do with this album really is just solidify what hip-hop really is.  I'm not really trying to take it any place new.  I'm not trying to experiment or anything.  I'm just trying to solidify that when you listen to this, make no mistake about it, this is hip hop!  This is not an R&B sing songy hook or whatever.  This album has times where it's more cool then hard, or more hard then cool, but those are all aspects of hip-hop to this day, and I could represent all of them.

ThaFormula.com - Did you guys think you had a classic track on your hands with "Live at the Bar-B-Q"?

Xtra P - I kind of felt it, but you don't want to stick your chest out too early and too much, but definitely.  You don't go in the studio like you making duds.  You go in the studio like, "yo this is a banga right here," but you just won't verbalize that, but you'll try and put your all into making a banga.  Definitely, when we were doing "Live at the Bar-B-Q," we felt like we had that fire right there.

ThaFormula.com - Back to the first Main Source LP, how long did that album take you guys to make?

Xtra P - That LP, uh we started I think in July and ended in December of '90, so word, yeah cause I remember the last track that we did on that album was "Live at the Bar-B-Q" and we handed it in like December.

ThaFormula.com - I've always wondered who handled the production on that first album.  Was it just you or was it the whole crew who worked on the production for "Breaking Atoms?"

Xtra P - It was the whole crew I would say with scratches and the whole choreography of it. As far as choppin' and what loops that I wanted to rhyme over and stuff like that, mainly that was me cause I knew what I wanted to rhyme over. I was just becoming crazy with chopping those records up.  I'd be like, "wow let's chop this record up" and sometimes K-Cut would have a skeleton of a beat that I would say "alright let's throw this under there and let's throw that," but definitely I couldn't of did it without those dudes because they definitely played their part.

ThaFormula.com - Now for heads out there like myself who don't remember anymore. I was hoping you could explain to us what exactly lead to the break up of Main Source?

Xtra P - What happened to Main Source was that K-Cut and Sir Scratch the 2 DJ's, their mother was our manager so I'll just let you take it from there man.  It's like she's the manager and the money's going to their house to her, and then she's distributing it however she wants to.  At times I might not be as much as a priority as they were or are.  So that was just disastrous man.  I should have seen that coming man.  Like Big said, "Money and family don't mix," so definitely like that man.  I mean it definitely wasn't about money, but when your out here and you done this incredible job chopping all these records up, and you see other people who haven't done even half of a spec of what you done and they're living, and they're chillin', and they're coming to you and they're saying, "man that's an incredible job that you did" and "Yo, that's the dopest album, you all should be gold." I was young at that time so I was more impressionable then I am now, so it was like, "yeah, really, really?" Then the money wasn't coming like that and then I found out later that the money was coming like that, but it just wasn't coming to me (laughs).  That's crazy.

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