thaFormula.com – Just to get into a couple of your early signings from the Loud days, how did you come across Big Pun?

Steve Rifkind - I was actually in Chicago with Quincy Jones and I got a phone call from a guy by the name of Mickey Benton and he set the meeting up with me and (Fat) Joe.  I knew who Joe was but we didn’t know each other at the time and when Joe came up to the office but I fell in love with Joe's energy and we literally did the deal pretty much on the spot.  

thaFormula.com - Did you ever imagine that Pun would become so respected and loved by the people?

Steve Rifkind - Well besides Joe's energy, and like I said I knew who Joe was but we never met before, but Joe came in and through his enthusiasm and his sincerity you could see in his eyes how passionate he was about Pun.  I remember we set up another meeting at 11:00am one day and my head of A&R who would always usually walk into my office around 1:00 or 2:00pm walks into my office around 10:30am and I’m like “what are you doing here so early?” He said, “its because we are meeting Pun today.”  From then, that’s when I knew from the get go that whoever Big Punisher was at the time and I hadn’t even met Pun, that this kid would be a star.

thaFormula.com - And when you actually got a chance to meet and hear Pun what did you think?

Steve Rifkind -  I lost my mind.  So between the head of A&R, Joe, and Pun I knew we had a superstar on our hands from the get go.

thaFormula.com - How did Mobb Deep come into Loud Records?

Steve Rifkind - It was brought in through a few people.  They were still signed to Island at the time when we met them.  One of my promotion people knew their old manager and then one of my A&R guys also brought it up.  We reached out to their manager and then when Hav (Havoc) and P (Prodigy) first walked into the room they just had a charisma about them that was incredible.

thaFormula.com - When you started Loud did you have a vision of what you wanted Loud to be?

Steve Rifkind - What people don't realize is that Loud was a spin off of the promotion company.  We were working so many records at that time and just going into corporate America, it was just hand in hand.  I never really wanted to have a record company.

thaFormula.com - When it did happen, did you have a certain vision for the label?

Steve Rifkind - I mean me personally, I was more on the promotional side of things.  I had the final say on who to sign and who not to sign, but I really went to my A&R people.  They passed on Jay-Z and they also passed on Eminem.  So it's something that you know ‘til this day I don't know why they passed or why they didn't pass.  Me and Dame (Damon Dash) have a long history together as friends and I wanted to do the deal, but these guys were gonna be making the records.  So between Jay(Z)’s lyrical skills and Dames marketing and promotions it could have been incredible.

thaFormula.com - As Loud was getting bigger and growing, did it start to get to the point where things were getting out of control?

Steve Rifkind - Yeah, I mean we lost the love and the fun of it.  It became a business.  When we went from 30 employees to 120 employees is when we took over Relativity.

thaFormula.com - So what actually happened to Loud Steve?

Steve Rifkind - It just became a real major corporate company and the problem was Sony wasn't giving us the authority to do still do what we had to do.  Also we had to hit quarterly numbers instead of setting up the record properly which nobody to this day could do better then us.  I mean look what we have done with Akon, look what we have done with David Banner.

thaFormula.com - And when all this was going down how were you feeling about the whole situation?

Steve Rifkind - I hated it.  I tried quitting, but I had a contract.

thaFormula.com - Now you have SRC with Akon, David Banner, etc.  You recently added Pharoahe Monch to the label, how do you market someone like Pharoahe to the mainstream with the way the system is set up today?

Steve Rifkind - Pharoahe is just gonna speak for himself just because his lyrics are incredible and his album is incredible. We’re gonna roll it out and we’re just gonna keep doing what we do.  If you don't know how to market an act, then you shouldn't be in the music business. When you sign someone, you should already have a plan in place.

thaFormula.com - When all these companies and major labels started merging together into one, how did you view that whole situation?

Steve Rifkind - I think it sucks, but now there are great people out of jobs and I think now only the strongest are gonna survive and I think creativity is gonna come to the table.

thaFormula.com - The Terror Squad single "Lean Back" was a huge number 1 hit, why didn't the albums sales follow such a big hit like that?

Steve Rifkind - A few things.  People didn't know if it was a Joe record or a Terror Squad record and compilations weren't selling.  But the biggest factor was that that's when the decline really started coming in with the downloading and the labels at that time we didn't know what the fuck to do to stop the bleeding.

thaFormula.com - At this point in time have you yourself learned what to do and do you have an understanding now of how things work?

Steve Rifkind - Nah, I mean I have an understanding of marketing.  Do I fully take advantage of the internet? No.  But there are people there and I know it's probably the best promotion vehicle out there and I understand now about ring tones and everything else like that.  Bit I didn't grow up on a computer, so this is taking me a minute or two to really take full advantage of it.

thaFormula.com - Now when you look at Myspace and the amount of artists on there, do you see this as a good thing?

Steve Rifkind - The problem with Myspace is it’s not targeted.  I believe in the whole networking process and I think Myspace can be an incredible situation.  We just started a company called www.loud.com.  Now if you go on there, that's a Hip-Hop Myspace.  It's straight targeted and there is not gonna be another site that can even touch this and we are running a contest with it where the winner gets $100,000 and a record deal.

thaFormula.com - So what brought on the whole Wu-Tang signing now in 2007 Steve and how do you market that today?

Steve Rifkind - It was just me and RZA talking.  It's closure for all of us.  One last tour, one last go around ‘cause we started together.  We are gonna let the music speak for itself.  It's gonna be a straight Hip-Hop album. 

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