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ThaFormula.Com - How did you and Howie Tee get together?   

Special Ed - Howie Tee grew up in tha same neighborhood as me. He lived across tha street from my cousin on my mothers side.  We used to go over there all tha time and I used to watch them DJ & get down with tha mc's in tha backyard.  They always had a setup in tha garage.  It was Howie Tee, Count Disco, & CD3.  I grew up watching them so naturally when it came time for me to do my thing, Howie had already been successful with tha Real Roxanne & UTFO.  He also had done some work with Full Force.  So I went directly to him with my skills. 

ThaFormula.Com - Was tha first stuff you two recorded together tha debut album or did it take a while for you guys to find that chemistry?

Special Ed - Nah, that was tha first stuff man.  Tha first rhymes I dropped was tha first record we put out.  We just started recording and got tha deal with Profile.  

ThaFormula.Com - Why do you think that your skills at 16 years old were just miles above what an mc of 16 years old would be today?

Special Ed - Maybe tha mental angle of tha world of tha time. Everything now is kind of repetitive, monotonous, and no real originality.  It's like remixes.

ThaFormula.Com - Do you consider your first album "Youngest In Charge" your best work or was that more of an introduction to Ed to you?

Special Ed - I think it set a precedent for tha quality or level of work of rhymin' skills that you should possess when trying to rap.  If a little young dude like me could spit like that, you gotta come better.  

ThaFormula.Com - Now after your first album, you had tha option of blowing up even more by just making a second album of straight radio tracks...

Special Ed - I don't do this for tha radio.  I do this because it's what I love to do.  I make music in my own silent fashion.  I think that people appreciate what I do, but I don't change myself in order to conform to what tha radio may want.  That first album was big.  Everywhere I went I gotta alot of love & people knew tha songs.  It surprised me.  

ThaFormula.Com - Did you like how your sophomore album "Legal" came out?

Special Ed - I liked tha album, I just didn't like tha way they tried to take over my whole persona and my likeness.  They kind of imaged me in their own way.  I didn't appreciate that part of it, but tha music I liked. 

ThaFormula.Com - So that's why tha album cover was so different from tha first?

Special Ed - Yep.  I was protesting tha album cover because it was a gay looking album cover.  I  told tha dude I didn't want that.  I was against it 100%, but they told me that it was to late.  I was probably in tha middle of a joke, laughing in tha session and they caught that picture.  So that's tha way they tried to swing it.   

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah cause tha first album cover had a nice hip-hop feel to it...

Special Ed - Right, they switched it up man.  It was a little tight jeans wearing white guy.  Ain't nothing wrong with white guys, but he was a geeky one.  He used to wear his pants tight and all that, so I guess he wanted to market me like a fun loving fruitful youth.

ThaFormula.Com - Did you also sign a bad deal at that time like most artists of that era?

Special Ed - My record deal was crap.  

ThaFormula.Com - It's wack that most of tha legendary icons of this hip-hop shit never got their due financially?

Special Ed - What happened is that we had to sacrifice so that others might live.  We had to accept what would allow us to be put out there and marketed properly.  Run DMC, tha biggest rap group in history was jerked around by a record label.  So this is tha price we had to pay so that G-Unit can come along with 50 Cent and they can make astronomical types of money.  We grinded and sacrificed and raised tha bar and tha level of awareness and love for tha culture.  So now they have to pay for it.   

ThaFormula.Com - After your second album "Legal" you seem to have disappeared for five years.  What happened?

Special Ed - After "Legal", I started to educate myself on what was actually taking place.  They tried to basically sign me up for my whole life on tha low with options and all kinds of shit.  So as I'm learning, I'm like hell no!  So we went through renegotiations, a lawsuit, and all kinds of shit I did to try and get out of that contract.  Ultimately, it was just a reduced sentence and I owed them two more albums.  I gave them "Revelations" and then tha key was they had to be fair with me.  So tha budget for tha last album had to be reasonable.  They couldn't swallow that.  They had never given an artist a budget of that proportion.  So they opted to let me go because they didn't want to pay for that next budget.  As soon as that happened is when tha whole merger with Arista took place.  So I got out of it just in time.

ThaFormula.Com - How did you approach "Revelations" seeing that it was 5 years since "Legal" and hip-hop had now moved into tha gangsta rap era?

Special Ed - My thoughts were, I worked all this time to keep my shit clean.  Because I'm from tha streets so I tried to stay away from tha term gangsta and hoodlum as people used to refer to us on tha streets.  So I didn't want that shit involved in my music.  So in a way Profile did kind of mold me to censor myself so that I don't get carried away.  When I first started, I was just rhymin' on tha streets.  So I was cursing alot and talking about explicit stuff.  I was a kid so I had every right to express myself, but I didn't really have tha knowledge to understand maybe tha major effect it may have on children and setting a bad example.  If you out there and you doing this, you are setting an example, no matter who you are.  Cause you are reaching a wide audience and children tend to follow who they idolize.  

ThaFormula.Com - So you ain't down with those that say they ain't no role model or people need to take care of their own kids?

Special Ed - For one thing, I ain't down with nobody.  Whoever is down with me, that's who I'm down with.  But I ain't in no click, I ain't in no gang.  I do me.  My family came from a hard struggle from Jamaica to this country.  So I ain't come to this country to be made a fool of or taken for some kind of joke.  Life is very serious.  

ThaFormula.Com - In hip-hop, not rolling with a certain crew or artist seems to be a very serious problem...

Special Ed - I'm changing that shit.  I'm down with everybody.  I notice that everybody got to be down with a click or whatever, but I'm a man and I can stand on my own two feet.  As far as music, I can make music that people love.  I don't need a bunch of people jumping up behind me or waving guns for me unless we are in tha streets.  This music is not for that and people got to understand that.  You got to separate that shit from this music because when you get kids caught up in it, it turns dangerous.  I blend with everybody. I do songs with Snoop and tha Dogg Pound.  I do songs with Rampage from Flipmode & my homies Abstract from Chi-Town.  I do records with everybody and anybody.  I've done records with Kurupt and his little brother Roscoe who is on my album.  I do reggae joints.  I've done songs with Bounty Killer.  I was tha first artist to collaborate with Bounty Killer before he turned into some kind of pop dude.  I put him in 1995 on my album "Revelations."  I got up myself and went to Jamaica to King Jammies studio with a pocket full of doe and paid him as a Jamaican artist.  I would call him regional at tha time because only tha ghetto and tha West Indians in tha hood in tha States knew about Bounty at tha time.  I did this before most people even knew who he was, so that's where I come from with it.  I work with everybody.  I go anywhere and walk down any street.

ThaFormula.Com - It seemed like most people thought that you had completely flipped your image with "Revelations."  Do you think that tha "Legal" album cover kind of messed things up for you when "Revelations" dropped?

Special Ed - Cover wise it fucked me up so I know it had to fuck other people up.  That wasn't me.  I never dressed like that a day in my life.  I never posed like that for no camera.  When tha pictures is flashing ten flicks a minute, you catch all kinds of shit.  On "Revelations" I was just airing out some things and fulfilling my obligation to Profile records.

ThaFormula.Com - Do you think that "Revelations" was received well or did you feel there was a backlash to tha cover and how you were coming?

Special Ed - That album got caught up in tha buy out and it got shelved along with DJ Quik, Run DMC, and anybody else that was on Profile waiting to come out.

ThaFormula.Com - After that you appeared again on The Crooklyn Dodgers joint.  How did that track come about?

Special Ed - Spike Lee was doing tha movie and I think Q-Tip had called me.  He told me that they were doing this movie about Brooklyn and they want you on it.  So I said Hell yeah, you ain't got to ask me twice.  So they did it.

ThaFormula.Com - How did it come about that it was gonna be you Ace, & Buckshot though?

Special Ed - I guess that's who they wanted to reach out to.  We all kind of laid it in tha same vocal booth.  We had one big room with 3 mics set up & we just hit it, one after tha other.  It was just going round and round.  We all professionals & we had been doing it for a while, so it was natural. 

ThaFormula.Com - That track led to alot of people asking why there never was a Crooklyn Dodgers album.  Did you guys talk about it?

Special Ed - We talked about it and thought about it but somewhere along tha line I guess there was always a glitch in tha Matrix.  

ThaFormula.Com - Did you guys ever record anything else together or was that tha only thing ever recorded?

Special Ed - That's tha only thing we recorded.  But me & Ace is cool.  I used to see him all tha time and actually Buckshot and tha whole Boot Camp click used to use my studio.  All tha first Smif N' Wessun, OGC, and Heltah Skeltah was done in my studio.  So we was tight, but we wasn't really stressing tha project because we all had our own careers and secondly, nobody ever came up with a budget for us.

ThaFormula.Com - So now you are back again nine years later.  What happened in between those nine years?

Special Ed - I been doing me.  I been producing music.  I have my own studio.  I been doing my thing.  I have other businesses that I deal in and I'm just a legal straight up business man.  I planned on coming back when my situation was right.  Now my situation is right.

ThaFormula.Com - Did you ever do any writing for Snoop's label?

Special Ed - Nah, I actually appeared on one of his albums.  I never really wrote for anybody because I got turned off with that early in tha game.  Before my first album came out, I wrote some stuff for tha Real Roxanne.  Tha label over there was another independent label that jerked everybody and they never paid me.   I never got a payment, royalty, or residuals  for writing it.  So I was just like, fuck writing for other people.  Now I see alot of ghost writing going on and alot of checks getting cut.  So if y'all need a writer, holla at ya' boy. 

ThaFormula.Com - Whatever happened to Little Shawn?

Special Ed - Little Shawn actually took a vacation for a while and he recently came back home.  He's doing really well.  At first I know he came out and started a little controversy, but I heard some of his recent work and I think it's phenomenal.  He's doing what you would call a cross between rap and gospel.  I wish him tha best.  This industry will do with you what it will, so you kind of have to gear yourself up for that and do tha best you can. 

ThaFormula.Com - What made you reconnect with Howie Tee for this new album?

Special Ed - I always worked with Howie Tee because he's tha one who put me on in a sense because I didn't have a connection or a way in tha game.  He found me a way and he produced me some classics songs in hip-hop.  I will never forget that and I will never go out and hire tha hot producer of tha moment.  I ain't into that shit cause tha heat is only created by tha media.  

ThaFormula.Com - Tha first time it was a five year layoff for you.  This time around it has been nine years since your last album.  Was it a little difficult recording this new album seeing how hip-hop has changed dramatically since then?

Special Ed - Oh hell no!  Let me explain something to you.  All tha shit that they are doing now is basically shit I been doing.  Tha shit I was spittin' in 1988, they spittin' now still to this day.  So basically I'm just moving forward even further ahead of my time.  I'm about to teach them something different.  You ain't got to follow this or follow that.  I'm giving them an option.  I feel like I'm gonna win because hip-hop now is so repetitive and my shit is so refreshing.  People should expect some new groundbreaking, innovative sound waves.  Shit you ain't heard.  Tha first single is called "Special" featuring Teddy Pendergrass.  

ThaFormula.Com - So tha new album is entitled "Still Got It Made" and for those that wanna know, why did you choose that title?

Special Ed - Basically that's tha way I look at it.  I still got it made and I got to let dudes know cause alot of dudes always be coming up to me asking what happened.  But ain't nothing happen.  I'm good.  I still own shit, buy & sell shit, produce, & more.  So I'm cool and I just got to let everybody know that I still got it made.  

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