ThaFormula.com - How did the "20,000 Leagues" album do?

Rasco - It didn't do what I expected man, and that's what really started to get me baffled really to tell you the truth. Because Cali Agents did really well. Based on Nu Gruv and their money and man power they have over there to scan 25,000 records, which means you probably did like 30,000.

ThaFormula.com - So is that what you guys sold off of the Cali Agents LP?

Rasco - Yeah, well we did like I believe 35,000 here and we did another 15,000 or 20,000 overseas. So I'm thinkin' on the heels of that, I'm on there and Asia has got a solo song on there. We got Cali Agents tracks that's never been released. I had Saafir on there, Phil Da Agony, Zion I and it was just, uh, I think it was more so the compilation what I really tried to do. I made it "Rasco Presents" because I wanted to make it easier for people to find. So when I would go to the store man, they would look it up in the computer and they could not find it. They didn't know what it was under cause you know how the various artists section is in stores. I just thought that it was gonna do a lot better. We all thought that, and it was just hard to find. First of all the promotion of it was not as big, I don't know what the hell happened man. It was the craziest shit man. I could not believe it. Right there is when I really started to get a little worried. I was like "things are really starting to change man." You used to be able come out with a compilation and that would be the thing people would be talkin' about. Everybody would get a taste of a lot of different things and it basically scared me off from making a "Volume 2" and putting that out.

ThaFormula.com - When you do a compilation like that, how does the money work with so many artists?

Rasco - Well basically with that album I probably spent about $40,000 doing it. What I will do is, basically I'll buy the track from you. In this game basically at this level the back end of these records, you ain't sellin' enough of these records to get any back end. So basically the way I set it up is if I ever do a track with somebody, they will say, "well what will you charge me for a song?" and I'll be like "well, I'll charge you $2,000 for a song and then that's the end of it." I'll get $2,000 to do your song, turn the DAT in, and now the song is yours. So if you end up making $100,000 dollars off of that one song then I just lost out. But the chances of that happening are slim and none. So basically what I did with all the artists was I got together with them and said "ok whatever your gonna charge me for the track, I'm just gonna buy the track from you." So they were like cool and charged me from $2,000 to $2,500 depending on who it was and that's basically how I did it. Then on the back end everything that I put into it and all of that stuff because now I'm like $40,000 dollars in the hole, so you know now you gotta look at making all that money back. It's tough man and basically I just broke even on that project, but it's better then losing and now I got something else under my belt and people are learning about my label. So if I spent $40,000 doin' a record and I end up getting the $40,000 back, it's just like at least I'm back where I started, and I can take this money and put it into something else. But it's crazy though man.

ThaFormula.com - Do you think the file sharing programs have had a deep impact on things?

Rasco - Maybe man. I mean I'm sure it has to some extent because if it didn't all these big name people wouldn't be like "Hey yo! Your killing me over here." But I don't even really know where I stand on that man because I can understand the people getting upset at that. I think for independent artists it helps you and it hurts you. In the sense that if your Dr. Dre and your selling 5 million copies of an album, and you're worrying about missing out on another 100,000 to 200,000 records, you have the money to really say "okay they are killing me over here." I could have this much money but I'm still selling a gang of records. People still go out and buy the CD, so your not really hurting like say I would be. Say for instance if 30,000 people got my album off of Napster, and I ended up only scanning 3,000 records at the store, then I'm like "oh shit you guys killed me." So I just think some people have room to play with, and those bigger groups definitely have room to play. I just think it helps a lot of people to let them know that your stuff is out there and people can hear different stuff and you can hear stuff that you normally wouldn't get at the store. But at the same time I think they have to do something to help the artist out.

ThaFormula.com - When you are recording your album for over a year, what do you or the average artist do to get by during that time period?

Rasco - As far as I'm concerned I just try to do different things to make money. It's like basically you livin' off of your advance and if you do it right you won't have to use your whole advance to make the album, so basically say for instance on this album if I get like $75,000. I won't use all of that to make the record. I'll use probably $35,000, and the other $45,000 you just bank it and live off of that until your album comes out. But me, I like to do a lot of different stuff kind of back to back, 6 months of kind of staggering. Like the Cali Agents money is basically what I have been livin' off of.

ThaFormula.com - That seemed to have been a big success for you guys?

Rasco - Yeah it was cool. It was definitely the thing to do. Who knows? Maybe people only wanna hear me and Asia together. You never know. If that starts to be the case then you know maybe you just gotta bite the bullet and become a group.

ThaFormula.com - I'm surprised that you guys never got approached for a major deal?

Rasco - Not yet man. It's kind of like they know about you but they won't come seek you. It's almost like you have to go in there and then they go "uh, ok let's look at your soundscan and see what you did." Then if they see you scanned 35,000 they are gonna go, "oh ok, these guys got something." I mean Asia had a buzz out there. But they had to go into the labels and be like "hey yo, we got Planet Asia, he's done that, he's done this…" So basically you gotta go and kind of seek them unless you get lucky and somebody sees you or something like that. That's basically what I see from it. But the main thing as far as livin off of these different things is you just have to do different shit in between time, and do a single here and do this there. Plus I have my own label and I have a distribution deal so there is advances that come from that, but I have to pay artists with that money.

ThaFormula.com - Now how was the show last night. Were you surprised at the turnout?

Rasco - Last night I was shocked! I was shocked but I wasn't shocked. I was hoping for the best, but I knew once it was just kind of like hmmm? I was looking in there and I said "whew! this is going to be ugly!"

ThaFormula.com - Yeah the shows lately have been pretty slow. What are your thoughts when a group like M.O.P. does a collabo track with a group like L.F.O?

Rasco - From a fans perspective I can see somebody getting upset about M.O.P. doing a record with LFO. But from an artists perspective, I'm looking at it like "ok, I have a daughter", and all of that stuff starts to play in your head. Your like, "ok I have been rappin' now for like 6 years, when am I gonna be able to live comfortably and have something for my family?" "When is that gonna happen?" If it's never coming and that opportunity presents itself, it's like boom.

ThaFormula.com - I heard you did a track with Peter Gabriel?

Rasco - Yeah, I did some shit with him not too long ago, like last year on his project, and I could get with what he wanted me to do. My mom was telling me "you better work with him regardless, you better work with him because he's a legend." I'm like yeah I wanna work with him, but I just wanna make sure that it's something that I can do. It's not something that I'm gonna spend three weeks trying to figure out how I'm gonna rhyme over this beat. He wanted me to narrate it more then rhyme. I put it into a rhyme but narrated it. I didn't really just come out full-fledged rap, but it was still good to meet him and to work with him and shit. It was cool because I never thought that I would be doing that type of shit or being on a soundtrack or in a movie. So some of these opportunities man, you just have to take them. If you big you have to pick and choose and try to be a little more creative with your choices man.

ThaFormula.com - What's the deal with this duets album you got coming out?

Rasco - Right now to be on there, the people that I have talked to are…of course me and Asia gonna do something, and then I talked to Dilated, they wanna do something. Still trying to get the Liks. I got Slum Village on board, Bahamadia is doing something, Souls of Mischief, Casual and I'll probably do something with Vakill.

ThaFormula.com - Have you worked on any of that yet?

Rasco - No, I haven't worked on any of that yet. I'm just basically still trying to get this thing out of the way and do some promotion on the record and then go ahead and jump into that next project. So that's basically what i got going next, unless Asia decides that he wants to start working on another Cali Agents album.

ThaFormula.com - How is it going with a new Cali Agents album, or what are you and Asia talkin' about?

Rasco - Basically, right now he was talkin' about when I get done with my album and he gets done with his, we should start working on another album. Basically what were gonna do is just start getting beats from people and this time around depending on what label we with, we will probably try to get some beats from Pete Rock or something like that. Make it a little but bigger. This time around we have to make it bigger. The first time around it was more about him and I getting together to do an album, and getting our boys together to do tracks for us. This time around we are proboably gonna have more guest appearances on there. Maybe get Xzibit or somebody like that. You know, get some different people on there to try and make it bigger and broaden it out. To me that's basically what it's about, growing and building your fan base.

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