thaFormula.com - Okay let's get into what you feel in your eyes is happening in Hip-Hop right now? 

DJ Muggs - I love Hip-Hop man. There's a lot of things going on and some I don't care for but I think artists like Eminem and 50 cent is bringing a freshness to the game. They doing bangin' ass Hip-Hop albums. You don't hear R&B singers on them and they ain't R&B'd out and they ain't "girled" out and is just hardcore raw shit man. Just steppin' the game up to a whole other level and I really like where they are comin' from. That's just one of the branches of Hip-Hop now. We have so many branches now and it isn't just one branch no more and Hip-Hop isn't supposed to be one way no more. It isn't just this and that ain't real Hip-Hop no more. It's just a lot of things going on man, and a lot of muthafuckas wanna sit there and play some arm chair critic and diss everybody and sit back and talk about how everybody is wack, but we need everything that is going on in Hip-Hop man. You need artists like Jay-Z cause then it makes groups like Dilated Peoples just shine even harder. Without Jay-Z, Dilated wouldn't be able to shine as hard. They wouldn't be able to be as special.

thaFormula.com - Yeah, but look at your last Soul Assassins LP, it dropped during a time when real artists were being completely slept on. That album was slept on along with so many more albums and shit like this just keeps happening to the realest artists.

DJ Muggs - That's just part of the game though man. I understood that going into the project. I knew it was an underground project. I knew it wasn't in the status quo of what urban radio wanted at that moment, so those are just the chances you take when your willing to be that kind of an artist and go out on a limb and twist things up.

thaFormula.com - I always give you you're props though Muggs, for trying even though we both know the situation…

DJ Muggs - This muthafucka is a monster. Muthafuckas created a Hip-Hop monster. I was in the game when you could go to New York and fly back to L.A. and it was separate. They was laughin' at gang bangin', they was laughin' at white t-shirts and khakis in New York. Now it has become this worldwide phenomenon so when you have that worldwide phenomenon things are gonna get watered down a little bit. What's beautiful about that is you got that whole independent scene that sprung up again out of it and artists is doing their own thing and not trying to do what the labels are doing. Just saying "fuck it" we'll put our independent shit out since this is how the game started when you had first Priority, you had Tommy boy, Def Jam, Wild Pitch, and everybody was just droppin' 12" singles man. That's what the game was about and in some way its coming back to that for some artists. The game is going in a variety of different ways man. I just get tired of everybody conforming to one thing. I'm not into R&B/Hip-Hop man. If I want to hear R&B, I'll put on a Al Green record, a Marvin Gaye record, a Barry White record and get some real R&B. I love my Hip-Hop hardcore and bangin'. I'm not into this R&B shit!

thaFormula.com - On the first Cypress album, the sound was straight grimy and hard-core, does it ever upset you that you can't do that for a Cypress album now in 2003? Because you know its not gonna go double platinum and these idiots out here ain't gonna understand or appreciate what your givin' them?

DJ Muggs - Well, there is 2 answers to that question and yeah in a sense I want to make a grimy, grimy record but people wont get it right now. You know I went and did it anyway on this last Soul Assassins album. I like records that sound like they were made in my basement on an 8 track. I just like that feel of Hip-Hop records before they got into these big polished studios so you know. I'll still go out and make my records like that, but with Cypress its like I don't think we can make records like that no more just because of the fact that its time to move on from that. We did it. That was great for the moment, but its time to move on, progress and you know there is an old sayin', "Those who cease to change, cease to exist." It's just the law of nature you know what I mean?

thaFormula.com - What made you guys get more into the rock/rap shit? I mean you obviously went a lot more into that on your last album?

DJ Muggs - Well we had tapped into that earlier on the "Judgment Night" soundtrack. We were out there touring with a lot of groups and I was always trying to keep the lid on Cypress. I didn't want Cypress to do anything outside of Hip-Hop, but B-Real and Sen really wanted to do Rock records and I didn't. So all this rap rock shit started kickin' in and I'm like, "You know what, I'm gonna make a record just for these muthafuckas just to shut them the fuck up." I'm not talkin' about B-Real and Sen, but these rock/rap muthafuckas and let them know not to take themselves so seriously because that shit ain't hard to do. I think you could be a half ass MC and sound good on rock records, but that same MC won't sound good over Hip-Hop. So I went and did "Rap Superstar" just to fuckin' smack them in the face with it and then threw 3 or 4 more songs on the album because my boys wanted that and Cypress as a unit was trying to grow. It was growing bigger than Hip-Hop. It was becoming more then just a Hip-Hop band. So I had to let it grow man, I had to let it go where it was gonna go and what the other members of the band wanted to let it go to. So I let it go and I think it got a little out of hand on the last record. I didn't even like the last album at all. We threw the last album together and nobody was into it. It was rushed and it came out a week after 9/11.

thaFormula.com - I'm not gonna lie Muggs, I miss the old Cypress. I thought "Temples of Boom" was your finest work production wise. It was hard, but very clean production and without a doubt on some next level shit...

DJ Muggs - Well see I can still do that production right now. I got all the sounds. I got the drum machines. I can still do that, but to me it's boring. I did it. I need to reinvent, explore just as myself as an artist. Now when I find the right MC that's down to work on a record and do a sound like that, then I plan on doing a whole project like that again.

thaFormula.com - That's one of the problems I've been seeing a lot in Hip-Hop, I notice that it's usually the MC that wants to do something else...

DJ Muggs - Right and you know I got to give these guys what fits them now and what keeps, uh, see the trick with Cypress is they are different then they were back then. It's like I got to keep that Cypress spirit or bring a new sound to the game and keep trying to reinvent the sound for Cypress. I'll tell you on this album, there is gonna be no rock. Right now in the plans, we started the album already and there is no rock on it cause I think its time to say, "okay we did it cool, get the fuck out that game and move on."

thaFormula.com - I mean I know that what you are capable of Muggs, and I know that you probably got a ton of dope beats that were never used. I remember when you first started doing your shit with the first Cypress album, a lot of producers and groups bit your whole shit...

DJ Muggs - Yeah, also you got to understand another thing. Nobody wants beats like that. I got to give muthafuckas beats like that and they don't want them. I come by the studio and I play em and they don't want them. So at some point you got to tell yourself well I need to move on or otherwise I'ma be stuck in this place. I'm gonna be that ol' mad guy sayin', "oh Hip-Hop ain't what it used to be, oh this shit is changed, this shit is wack now." I don't wanna be the old mad guy. Like I said, its survival of the fittest.

thaFormula.com - When did Hip-Hop become survival of the fittest?

DJ Muggs - Always has been, since day 1. Those who cease to change, cease to exist. It's the law of nature. You got to constantly change and evolve your styles.

thaFormula.com - What's that new mixtape you got out all about Muggs? What is on that?

DJ Muggs - It's just some shit we put out man. A bunch of unreleased music. Some shit I did with Snoop, Jayo Felony, and Rasco. Shit I did with Big Noyd. Some other tracks I did unreleased and some brand new shit. Eminem did a track for me with 50 cent on there. There's exclusives from a lot of people nobody has heard. I been making mix tapes since day 1. I just kept them on the low and gave them to the homies man. When I released this "Dust" album, I wanted to make sure I put out stuff to feed the Hip-Hop kids too. I didn't just wanna drop an album that was so left field that it would confuse people on where the fuck my head was so I made sure this album came out at the same time so all the Hip-Hop kids would have something to feed them.

thaFormula.com - What exactly is the "Dust" album all about Muggs?

DJ Muggs - "Dust" is like a combination of Black Sabbath meets Sade. It's all female vocals like Sade over some hard ass…like picture the interludes on the Cypress Albums. Those real slow interlude tracks with a singer on them.

thaFormula.com - When you give these MC's these beats and they don't want that style anymore, does that ever confuse you a little?

DJ Muggs - Not me, nah. I know what I gotta do. They might be confused but I know what I got to do. With the "Dust" album I just felt like doing something different for a minute with no boundaries on it. Sometimes I feel like using live drums that day. I can't put it on a Hip-Hop track because now it becomes a rock/rap track so with this album I was limitless. I could do whatever I want. I had 20 piece choirs on there and all kind of things like that. Which is creative freedom. I respect someone like Rick Rubin a lot who made great Hip-Hop albums and ventured out of Hip-Hop and went on to do great records in other genres of music and that's always how I see myself as just an artist and a producer. You know I consider myself more than just a Hip-Hop producer and especially an underground Hip-Hop producer. I'm a musician and a producer period so I like to test myself and step into other genres of music and try other things. It keeps me moving man.

thaFormula.com - What do you feel was your best Cypress album or your best work production wise?

DJ Muggs - I like probably the first 3 albums and then I like some of the work on different ones.

thaFormula.com - The second album "Black Sunday" was rushed right?

DJ Muggs - Yeah, the second album was real rushed.

thaFormula.com - What would the album had been like if you would have had the time to do it how you wanted it?

DJ Muggs - Yeah, I don't know what the album would have sounded like. I know I had beats for it that I gave to Ice Cube and House of pain before that album. "Jump Around" from House of Pain and "Tear this Muthafucka Up" and "Check Yo Self" from Ice Cube, all those beats were for Cypress but I gave them away.

thaFormula.com - Wow! That would have been a whole different album all right, those were some good times man...

DJ Muggs - Times are getting' better now. I don't live in the past man. You gotta move on. You cant sit there and you know I'm tellin' you man all these kids who wanna sit back and talk about how things used to be and never move man, are gonna stay in the past. They ain't gonna move on. There gonna be dead. Your gonna be like, "what ever happened to so and so? He's still reminiscin' about the past and how things used to be." That's cute man, but muthafuckas got to move on. That's why they wanna be in this game like a Dr. Dre or Erick Sermon or like myself and stay in the game and be around for years and not just be in the game, but be relevant. There is an art to that. There is a science to that.

thaFormula.com - But do you honestly feel that the music now is just as good as it was in the 80's and early 90's?

DJ Muggs - It's different. There are some artists that I'm feelin' that's just as dope, but overall, nah the music ain't the same, The whole vibe of Hip-Hop has changed man. But that's with the growth. Either Hip-Hop didn't grow, or it stayed where it was and it didn't get on radio and all over every commercial and the money wasn't opening up the doors for people to make the money they were making, it could have stayed underground. The whole culture could have stayed underground and it could have faded out, but you know you get to a crossroads and its like, "is this shit gonna grow and become a pop phenomenon?" and that's basically what Hip-Hop is right now. See Hip-Hop became everything it despised. Hip-Hop was the urban punk rock and everything Hip-Hop despised and everything Hip-Hop was against, it has become. Now before you were wack if you sounded like anybody, you were wack if you looked like anybody. You was wack and you were a biter if you used anybody's terminology or even did something that they did on stage or you wore the same hat as them. If you wore a clock like Flava Flav, you were wack. You were a biter. Now since it's a formulated music like pop music is, it's about, "oh there's this formula, this is what you should sound like now." This is what people are wearing now and this is the look now and so everybody is flowin' with that. But it is pop music now. Hip-Hop has become pop music.

thaFormula.com - I hear you Muggs, and you know I'm not trying to be that mad critic sittin' on that chair, but I'm sayin' the fact that its pop now, and the fact that the music has been fucked up like that...

DJ Muggs - It ain't fucked up, it's changing and that's one thing and you still got the shit you wanna listen to. You still got your underground records if you wanna hear it right?

thaFormula.com - I don't even know about that anymore Muggs, because now the underground seems to have taken a turn to where a lot people consider this stuff where these dudes are rappin' about flying on rockets at super-scientifical speeds and just all this nerd shit...

DJ Muggs - Yeah, it's nerd rap and I'm not into none of that nerd rap. The only shit I'm feelin' right now is 50 and Em. Like I heard music Em has done that you ain't even heard yet that's retarded. Eminem is comin' on hardcore beats and rhymes. 50 cent has just raised this game to a whole new level now. He's bringing it hardcore again. Everything he talks about, is what Cypress talked about in 1990. It's the same shit. It's all about guns and gang bangin'. He's just doing it now in a time where everybody is putting R&B singers on their music and he ain't. Those groups I'm feelin'. I just heard a bunch of new shit over at Dre's studio that's bangin'. It's like whoa! So there is some good shit comin' out and there is a lot of trash coming out. As far as that other shit, I'm not feelin' none of that nerd shit. Underground shit, I like Mobb Deep. I like Ghostface 2 albums ago. Those are the underground records I like.

thaFormula.com - How did this shit in the underground happen?

DJ Muggs - These underground kids and this is just 1 part of the underground. These kids are just middle class kids man. They're nerd kids so this is the shit they can relate to. It's the shit they can get into and I guess that's their thing man. It's like when Hip-Hop was early, Hip-Hop wasn't about killin' muthafuckas yet. It was just all about rhymin' and the same rhymes you're talkin' about, super scientifical and all that. I think its just getting back to the basics and the simplicity of it all. I think a lot of it is trash, but something is gonna kick in man. There's gonna be something to come out in a minute that's just gonna flip the game up and it always does, cause its been proven throughout history so its just a matter time. The last big group to come out and flip it a while ago was Wu, and then the next muthafuckas to come out is Em and 50, and its gonna be somebody else next to pass that torch.

thaFormula.com - Now I always felt that you never got the props that you deserve as a beatmaker and have always been overlooked when people talk about top producers in the game. Do you feel the same way?

DJ Muggs - Oh hell yeah and the reason being is because I never went outside of the group and just did a lot of songs on different peoples albums. I stayed within my group and toured and toured and came back and did my shit. So I always had enough work where I never even had to really step out to make dough to do anybody else's shit. Now if I was on everybody's album. If I went that route and said, "ok let me get a beat on everybody's album," I think that's what people are looking at these days as far as getting your daps as a producer, but I just didn't choose to go that angle at that time. 'Cause I'm not into that. If I'm gonna sell some weed, I'm not gonna sell it on the corner with 30 muthafuckas all trying to sell a nickel bag on the same corner and that's what its like trying to slang beats sometimes in New York, niggaz is rippin' your beats off. There's 30 muthafuckas in there trying to sell the same fuckin' beats. So I'm cool with my shit man. If muthafuckas wanna come to me, here I am. I stepped out and did you know Goodie Mob, KRS, and do a bunch of shit still. It's like somebody like me and you might see somebody like a Havoc. It's the same thing. He might have did 2 or 3 tracks on somebody else's album but he does all Mobb Deeps'. He's another great producer who is overlooked and the reason being is we just never went out to, uh, the career choices we made were never to try and get on everybody else's records. 'Cause half of them producers that are on everybody's album really never had to, uh, they never even done nothin' classic yet. They just happen to have a good song on everybody's album and that's just because most of the other songs on the album are shit anyway.

thaFormula.com - Do you realize cause I have how many people have bit your style since you started?

DJ Muggs - Oh yeah! To death and its still going on.

thaFormula.com - Now I could be wrong about this but I always felt that before Rza did his thing, you were really the one who set off that dirty, grimy, hardcore sound that Wu did.

DJ Muggs - Oh, I did do it before RZA did it.

thaFormula.com - Yeah, I would get into arguments with kids about that. I always felt that you set it off first and basically others followed.

DJ Muggs - Yeah, he just had different MC's. Oh for sure you can look at somebody like that. You could even look at Mobb Deep's style of production and you can even take it a step further. Look how they took the whole "Black Sunday" album. "Black Sunday" gave birth to horror core Hip-Hop. It gave birth to the Gravediggaz. We invented a whole style of rap. Who came out at that time? The Flatlinerz too. That's all off of the "Black Sunday" imagery. Coming out with that dark, gothic, Black Sabbath imagery and these groups were like, "oh lets do that shit." So, boom, boom, boom. If you want to get blatant, on the last Wu album, the single RZA put out.

thaFormula.com - "The Jump Off" beat right?

DJ Muggs - It was just, uh, It was my beat. Straight the fuck up. You know on the first album Cypress brought the weed into the Hip-Hop game. Cypress brought the darkness back into the game. The put your hoodie on, the put your Timb boots on Hip-Hop, and you know we brought the East Coast ghetto vibe back into the game and then B-Real brought the afro back into the game. We just brought all these things. We brought making hardcore records cool again. Second album, boom we brought touring with rock groups. We opened that door a lot more. The Beastie Boys were doing it a little, but we opened it up to where it was like everybody go tour with a rock group now, its good and we brought that imagery that just set off that whole horror-core shit. The next record we come out and I brought a whole 'nother side into the game. I brought the whole samplin' Indian records and sitars that muthafuckers are barely doing now. This is about 8 to 9 years before muthafuckas start doing it. I was already into the sitars and shit like that. Then we stepped back and moved my way into the Soul Assassin record. Right around that time I was kind of done with Cypress at that time. I felt Cypress reached its peek with "Temples of Boom" and I felt that it was done. After "Temple," I figured it was done. It becomes too easy so you go and you don't even try as much. It's like playing a little kids baseball team. Grown men playing little kids. Its just like you beat 'em and then its like why even go to the park and play again, its too easy. This is just with Cypress I'm talkin' about. It just became easy for us, but it's a group and I told them I'd roll until the wheels fall off. So what you all want to rap on, boom, I'll do this shit, dadadada. You can't do the same thing over cause people get tired of that. 'Cause you know what happens, "oh he's doing the same shit." I can go back and do that though. See what I needed to do is go reinvent new sounds and new styles for myself. I can always tap into that style forever. I'll bring it back when its time. When its time and when the game is open for it and I find the right MC and they wanna come out like that then cool. But MC's don't wanna come out like that no more.

thaFormula.com - Does it frustrate you at the pathetic level that a lot of these MC's are at?

DJ Muggs - Some are and some are great. It's just the music they pick. They can't pick beats. You know I don't like the beats Jay-Z picks. I like a couple of joints on his album, but I think he's an incredible lyricist.

thaFormula.com - Do you think it's the MC or are the labels too involved in the beat selections?

DJ Muggs - It's the nature of the game. It's how you make money. You make these records that get on the radio, you make your money. That's where the money is man, you get video. See the game is so different then it used to be man. MTV would just break new wax no matter what. BET would play records just because they were dope. Now MTV won't play your record, BET won't play your record unless its charting. Unless it's a charted single nobody will play it. Now where's your outlet to break new music? BET ain't gonna do it, MTV ain't gonna do it and the radio ain't gonna play your shit. So where's your outlet to the music. People gotta conform cause that's what the labels want and artists are conforming.

thaFormula.com - When you made the first Cypress album was it to make money or was it to make an album for the streets?

DJ Muggs - Both. I was broke. I'm ready to eat. At the time I thought we were just gonna sell about 300,000 copies cause every group I liked at that time was doing about 300 to 350,000. So that's what I figured and I figured wrong.

thaFormula.com - Another nice group that you brought out Muggs, was Funk Doobiest...

DJ Muggs - Well I had a vision for Funkdoobiest. They was the jesters. They were the clowns of Soul Assassins. I had them all in the cartoon shit. I had it all real funny. They had the sense of humor that Eminem does, but they flipped. You know they came out, made a little bit of money. Came out on their second album and they didn't want to be funny no more. He wanted to be like Nas and hold Hennessey and be all cool and be a pimp daddy and talk like some Nas shit and it just don't work for you man. So I'm like, "you wanna come out like that, you sure you don't wanna listen? All right, peace I'm done with you." That's when I cut him loose.

thaFormula.com - So you actually cut it off with them?

DJ Muggs - Yeah, you know I went in to do the second album, but I'd be like call Son to do vocals he's upstairs in the studio. They would be like, "oh Son left and he didn't tell nobody." He would just disappear out the studio. So I was like, "oh you don't want to take your album serious man, well I ain't got time for this shit man."

thaFormula.com - Yeah at one point the Soul Assassins crew was getting' real large Muggs as far as groups and talent with Cypress, Funk Doobiest, House of Pain, Black Havana, Alchemist, etc?

DJ Muggs - Times change though man. You know everybody wants things to be how they were but you even look now at 1991 all the groups that were out. I'm looking at this thing the other day at the top 50 we was on and out of all the shit that was on there. Scarface is still around, Latifah is still around but I don't think you could really call her a rapper no more. Ice Cube is still around but he don't really make records like he used to and that's it. Everybody else is gone from that list dog. I'm talkin', there's A Tribe Called Quest on there, MC Lyte, Chubb Rock, Nice & Smooth, Black Sheep, Brand Nubian, and it's like where's all that shit at? It's hard to stay together when you're a group man. After a couple of albums it's hard to stay together. 'Cause things change man, just naturally. A lot of times what brings the people together is cause they wanna make a record and be successful and change music, then you do it and its like, "now what's our goal? Oh, our goal is to make money now man cause now we bought some houses and cars and we got to pay these fuckin' payments now." It's just the way shit happens. Some people get caught up in it, some people, but they still understand why they are in it and they can pull themselves out of it and then some muthafuckas get lost.

thaFormula.com - I remember first hearin' about you when Mellow Man Ace dropped his first album and had that track "Hypest from Cypress" and I had already heard from a lot of cats that you guys were about to bring some dope shit. When I received an advance copy of the album, I remember playing it for a gang of people and they weren't feelin' it cause it was to different from what was out. Did you guys get that response a lot when you came out?

DJ Muggs - Yeah, see people didn't get it yet cause it was so radically different. A lot of times things are so radical like that that it takes people a minute to get used to it. Also, at that time, it was the time of the nasal voice. You had Q-Tip, you had Derek X, you had Ad Rock and it was like the time for that voice. Now it's like the deep voice time. Everybody got a deep voice from Ja Rule to Xzibit to DMX. I don't know if it's just the time for the voice in the period of Hip-Hop.

thaFormula.com - Why do you think Cypress never really gets the props they deserve for all that you guys brought to the game?

DJ Muggs - I don't know. It could be skin color.

thaFormula.com - No doubt, I've thought about that and feel that has been a big part of it. 'Cause I see Dre getting the credit for bringing the weed in with "The Chronic" even though the Cypress album set it all off and even had you guys as the first Hip-Hop act on High Times magazine. Also beatwise you set off a lot of styles man...

DJ Muggs - I mean you go to that first Chronic album and listen to it and listen to some of them basslines, they sound like Cypress baselines. You can go check it out right now. Just deep grimy basslines. Even basslines like Deep Cover, just stand up basslines. We was rockin' fuckin' standard basslines on everything so muthafuckas jumped on that for a minute. Even shit like "Poppa Large." When Ultra did "Poppa Large" that was a straight Cypress track too.

thaFormula.com - Well I tell a lot of people that it takes a lot of talent to be able to go into the studio and drop a double platinum Cypress album for the masses, then go straight back into the underground and drop a hardcore Hip-Hop LP for heads all at once, and you're one of the few that have ever done that?

DJ Muggs - Well the thing is, I have been able to make records on my own terms and have success. I made my first records the way I wanted to and how I wanted to and they were successful so that kind of just gives you freedom and room to do exactly what you want. If I didn't have success for 2 or 3 records, maybe nobody would have listened to me no more and they wouldn't have wanted to fuck with me. Then I would have had to conform my whole style into trying to make a living out of this and that would have been my whole objective, but I didn't have to go out like that. When you make money you got freedom to still make your choices and do what you want cause I could have easily made the first or the second Soul Assassins album a very big record. You know I could have had stamp on this like a Roc-A-Fella or a No Limit right now if I wanted to go in that direction with the album, but I chose not to, but next album we might though. We might just have to come and put a stamp in this fuckin' game and let muthafuckas know "bam, look this is how its going." Then just flip it on them right there and just take over what's going on and just flip the whole style and sound on them.

thaFormula.com - How come you never did a song with Dilated man?

DJ Muggs - I just did a song with them 2 days ago.

thaFormula.com - It was with your second Soul Assassins LP that I realized things were changing in Hip-Hop. That Kool G Rap track and GZA track were ridiculous and you seem to have got no props at all. I would read reviews for some fruity wack album and they would talk about how dope it was and then I would see them talk about how bad yours was. That's when I really started seeing the hardcore shit being shut down...

DJ Muggs - Yeah, I don't know what muthafuckas are listening to no more. They want you to sound like everybody else. If you don't sound like this and this, your wack now. I'm like, "I'm cool man, whatever." But this year it's time to take the Soul Assassins out of the underground and just really take it to that next level.

thaFormula.com - So who is the Soul Assassins now Muggs?

DJ Muggs - It's not only a rap outfit, It's about 100 muthafuckas. Just artists. Cartoon does tattoos, Scanners does videos and takes pictures. I got my homeboy who runs a car shop. He does all our cars. He does all our rims and our systems. We're just a bunch of artists and then we have all our soldiers in the streets still on the block gang bangin' and shit. That's a whole other part of the click. Then we have the music people. Me, Alchemist, Cypress, Self Scientific, Everlast and muthafuckas like that.

thaFormula.com - Now a lot of people think that Ice Cube won that battle you guys were havin' with Cube on wax. That's because they never actually heard the white label you guys dropped that pretty much crushed him...

DJ Muggs - Oh word. Yeah Ice Cube heard the white label and called us up and apologized like the next day. Ice Cube jumped on our dick so hard when we came out man, even that pipe on the "Predator" album cover. That's my pipe. Ice Cube didn't smoke weed. I had that pipe in the studio and he was like, "hey yo, let me buy that." I'm like man you can have it; it's just a pipe. Next thing I look and it's on his album cover.

thaFormula.com - So that was your pipe on the album cover?

DJ Muggs - That's my pipe and he wanted another 2 beats from me and I'm like I'm cool. I'm just giving you these. There was 2 beats more he wanted. There was "Cock the Hammer" and I can't remember the other cause it was such a long time ago. Matter a fact I did a song called "Who's the Man" with Ice Cube over the "Cock the Hammer" beat. I probably have it somewhere in the vaults.

thaFormula.com - Also a lot of people that talk about Cube winning don't even know what went down when Cube got beat down, had his chain snatched, and then B-Real was sporting it (the West Side Connection chain) at a show…

DJ Muggs - Yeah man, when homeboy got beat up and got his chain took. That did happen, and see it's muthafuckas that don't know trying to act like they know. If muthafuckas would just shut the fuck up and say, "well I don't know." See I hate the little Hip-Hop gossip, muthafuckas that wanna sit back and talk about muthafuckas but they ain't doing a god damn thing themselves. It's hard to really judge a muthfucka makin' records, unless you go out and you tour for 2 years, you make records, you sell a lot of records, you tour for 2 more years, you do interviews, magazines, tour for 2 more years. Do all that shit!! Have problems at the house, be arguin' with your girlfriend but have to go on tour for a month while your arguin' and then have to come home and go in the studio and bang records out. When muthafuckas can do all that then they can actually comment on this shit. Otherwise it's like that muthafucka who never played a football game sittin' there givin' commentary sayin' he should have did this and this. Muthafucka you never played football in your life, and you're talkin' shit about football players?

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