thaFormula.com - It's good to see you out man…

Freekey Zekey - It's good to see me out too.

thaFormula.com - What was the first thing on your mind when you walked out of that prison man?

Freekey Zekey - You're in shock man. There is nothing on your mind man. It's unbelievable. It's a fantasy reality right there.

thaFormula.com - How important is it to have a strong group of people behind you when entering this industry either as a solo artist or as a group?

Freekey Zekey - In all aspects you've got to have a good surrounding. If you're a solo artist the people that back you have to know major people so, and when you're a group its the same difference 'cause we started out as a solo. Camron started off as a solo artist but he brought us along. We were part of his package but we didn't sign with somebody at that time. Once we came of age and people started understanding who we were as far as a group as far as the Diplomats was concerned, we still went through problems. But we were fortunate enough that we knew strong people. Dame made it possible for us to sign Diplomat Records. Because we were all over Cam(ron), every single Cam album that came out, it was either myself Jim (Jones) or Camron on it, every single solitary album. So for somebody not to give us a deal when we asked for a Diplomat deal, it was kind of ludicrous, but that's what happened. But we were fortunate enough to know the right people so just to answer your question in a whole yes it's very important who you know. Whether it's in a group or if you're solo.

thaFormula.com - It seems like in the beginning no one seemed to take you guys seriously, why do you think that was?

Freekey Zekey - I think that people fear the unknown. They fear the chance. It's like "alright we got our hands on Cam, I know Juelz (Santana), Jim, and Zeke are around and do what they do but I'm not too sure if they could jump out and become solo artists themselves." It's basically the lack of faith because people in this business deal on a sure thing, not on a wish because of the fact of failing in this industry. If you fail it's basically a wrap. It doesn't matter if you've been an artist for a hundred years. That hundred and first year, if you come out with a song that's wack, everybody thinks your wack. They forgot about the hundred years you just put in. There is no loyalty and love in this industry right here.

thaFormula.com - As President of Dipset, what specifically is your role?

Freekey Zekey - Basically the knowledge of the fact that I have artists and have to basically maintain them and keep them afloat and whatever they need I provide for them, just to summarize all the details. I'm so focused on that situation that some days I'm up from 6 in the morning 'til 7 that next morning. The business aspect of the situation is a 24 hour 7 day a week job thinking about how can I make my artists better. What did I mess up on the last time? What were the problems or what went so well that we need to keep up and trickle it down onto the next artist?

thaFormula.com - What do you say to the people out there who feel that all rappers do is live the fabulous life, smoke weed, hang in the studio and do nothing? Do people not realize how much work you guys do behind the scenes to get in the position you're in?

Freekey Zekey - People do not understand 100 percent. They have no idea, no clue, they are just so far out of reach and touch of what we do that it's just so crazy sometimes because they don't understand. Politicians smoke weed too man. You can't just limit us to being smoke-a-holics, like we are the only people on earth that do it. Yeah we do smoke and we do stay up late hours, almost days in a row to make one 3 minute song perfect. They have to get over their frustrations, to make their life feel better or to take some of the words that we got and formulate into their life and become a better man or woman in their struggle to reach the top. They can't even fathom the thought that that's what we are doing. We are actually altering people's lives, because sometimes some words that are said are words that the world ends up saying. There is some fashion that artists bring out for the fans to see and that's the fashion that the whole world starts to pick up on.

thaFormula.com - At a time when the South was running things for so many years, you guys kept rising while others didn't do so well, why do you think that is?

Freekey Zekey - Just staying in our own lane and not looking off to different sides and wondering what the next people are doing and staying true to ourselves and understanding if we don't speak what's coming from our hearts and what's coming from past, our past meaning coming from our major uncles that was popping in the streets. Our aunts, our grandmothers, to our fathers, mothers, cousins to basically ourselves, we won't get anywhere. When we rhyme, we don't look at something and then try and rhyme about that. Jim might do a song about something that happened to me before, which is so very true. Cam might to a song about Jim and within our circle we got people that live the street life so we bring in reality that we know into wax. Once we spit that to the world people listening are like "my man so and so is like that," and "my man so and so is like that." I say we are like the old sitcom Good Times. 'Cause here it is a family that was from the projects going through life struggles and then once they aired it the whole world was like "oh shit this is like me." I formulate that with Diplomat records.

thaFormula.com - Daz Dillinger recently said that he felt slavery was back in effect after the harassment of Snoop, the Kramer situation, and other things, what are your thoughts on that?

Freekey Zekey - It's evident it never left no way no how. Look at the Sean Bell incident. They just took the words off of the sign but its still there. Like telling people they can't drink here. We will let them drink but if they act a little bit out of line now uh, but not even just Black people man. I mean everybody is prejudice. Black people is prejudice too so we got to really stop this shit' 'cause we're getting nowhere. It is what it is, but Daz is over 1000 percent correct.

thaFormula.com - If rapping about what we are talking about right now sold crazy records, do you think that most rappers would be on that tip now instead of just the get money tip?

Freekey Zekey - To be honest with you, nah. That's not what sells man. At the end of the day who is at the top of the chain may be a white dude, so he's not trying to hear all that. Plus Talib Kweli, Mos Def and all of these people, they preach and talk about that. Like back in the day the Jungle Brothers man, everybody tried to pitch that movement but for some reason we lost that 60's vibe. We lost that fight the power, let freedom ring vibe. I think we were beginning to get to smart so they set out another trap and that was "give them money." "Let them get money, show them a different pattern, let's brain wash them, they buggin' right now, they are starting to know everything in the government, they are starting to understand everything we doing." "We wildin', we slippin', aight give them a hundred million, tell them that that's how it is, show them that you get women with this, show them that you get chains with this, show them that you could live the lavish life and smoke weed and drink and whatever and do your choice of drugs so your mind can get clouded." We were getting too smart for them in a sense…now you got me on my political side man.

thaFormula.com - For someone that was recently in prison, how is the racial situation at the moment?

Freekey Zekey - I was in North Carolina man! Hell yeah it's still bad. They still "Boy" you. "Boy! get over there." They tell you, "your so far up here in the mountains with us rednecks, and accidents are prone to happen that will not keep you alive so boy get out of my way and this and that." Some Black people also, they house niggaz too. They really don't give a fuck which is crazy.

thaFormula.com - What was harder for you to deal with man, doing the time or dealing with shit like that?

Freekey Zekey - Neither really. What hurts me is the lack of unity once something like that is said. Because one cell block may hold 70 people or 80 people to one C.O. (Correction Officer), now you have maybe 5 blocks of these people. 80 times 5 is 400. You got 400 people to 5 CO's and they callin' you "boy" and "get over here." Where's the whole "hold the fuck up nigga, who you think you talking to line at?" That's what really hurts because some people are stuck in their ways, life is gonna be the way it is. Like the U.S. was built on violence and destruction. Everywhere it's conquer and destroy and that's why they are in Iraq now 'cause they want everything. So that's what this world is built on.

thaFormula.com - If there was no money in Hip-Hop would Dipset still be doing music?

Freekey Zekey - Yeah. I'ma tell you this man, I think we would find a way to make to make some money. But if there was no way or no how, we would still be doing Hip-Hop because we would be caking up somewhere else. So that would be our little hobby to rhyme or whatever. Because there is no way in the heavens Diplomats would just stay dormant because our minds run too fast. Our minds are always spinning. There is a dollar to be made because food needs to be put on the table for our kids and ourselves, but we would still rhyme 'cause we love to rhyme. When we're all in the car in full conversation somebody might say something "slick like Peter Pan," Jim might jump up and say something like "I feed 'em grams" and Juelz like "we the man," Killa (Camron) might say "cock back the nine and bleed 'em bam." Next thing you know it's a song. So yeah, I don't know about everybody though. People are so stuck on the dollar.

thaFormula.com - Would you say looking back has the time you put in the joint changed your life for the better or the worse as far as who you were before you went in compared to who you are now?

Freekey Zekey - That is a bugged out thing to say. It was the best thing to happen to me because of the way I was living, the life I was thinking I needed to live by. It taught me to be real mature, have a lot of patience, think before I react, it just gave me a whole lot of thought of what I need to do for myself before I could even think about helping somebody else in life. It may sound crazy, but that was the best thing to happen to me.

thaFormula.com - I remember reading how Biggie wanted to sign Cam, do you ever think about what would have happened?

Freekey Zekey - Yeah man, Biggie was a good dude and he was nasty so us and him, oh man! I can't say where we would be but we would have took it to an extreme level.

thaFormula.com - Do you think Jay-Z would still be in the position he is now if that would have went down?

Freekey Zekey - This is all hypothetically speaking cause we honestly don't really know but the way that man Biggie was, and the way Cam would have been excelling, I feel that Jay would have had a name but it wouldn't be in that category that people put him in now. Man if Biggie and Pac were poppin' right now, come on man? Matter of fact, half the industry now wouldn't be in their position. (Big) Pun too, Pun was something to be reckoned with. Unfortunately this is the turn of life. But yeah man, uh Trump would have been in my house right now man chillin'.

thaFormula.com - At this point in time in the industry, do you feel its best for a new artist to try and go the Indy route or shoot for a major?

Freekey Zekey - It depends on your money on an independent label. If your money game ain't up, your best bet is not to go Indy, or if your money game ain't all the way up but your name is all the way up then I would go Indy. Other than that, you better just do what you got to do to get on, because it's a cold, cold world out here man. Ice tray, ice cold. It depends on your status when it comes to the Indy scene because of what they hit you with when you sign to an Indy. Sometimes if you don't got your talk game up they don't give you no advance. They don't give you what you would get on a major label, that's the difference. You've got to do your own album and then at the end when you sign and you finish the album, that's when you get a little bit of your money, but you gotta recoup. Now if you don't recoup, they just basically take the advance back 'cause you didn't sell no albums, so it's a gamble.

thaFormula.com - What is the first thing you need to do when trying to get your business right and are ready to talk to these labels?

Freekey Zekey - Definitely a lawyer and someone who is in the game who you will know will be genuine with you. Someone who has been in the game for a minute and he's gonna be like "listen, that nigga is buggin' 'cause the last time we tried to do that with our album, we did that and we just got straight railroaded." So it's good to have a friend of yours that knows what he is doing, 'cause he's gonna give it to you all the way live.

thaFormula.com - How is it that just 2 weeks after getting out of prison you locked yourself down a million dollar label deal man?

Freekey Zekey - That came from a lot of hard jail work. Working from the inside, making myself a presence from the outside. Just to name a few things I did from inside of jail myself. Not with Cam, Jim or Juelz. I set up my Myspace, I found me a PR with Dove (www.tygereye.net), and I ended up dong a lot of interviews myself before Dove got herself situated with me. I did this major newspaper in North Carolina and they gave me not the front cover, but the cover of the entertainment joint. All of these things were in jail without Cam acknowledging it or Jim or Juelz, but once they see it they were like "oh shit, what the hell." Asylum was like "hold up you mean to tell me this man did all this inside of jail? He's phenomenal." They already know if he can do that in there, imagine with the help of Jim, Cam, Juelz and the rest of the Diplomats and Asylum. So they couldn't wait. So that's what brought me to the multi million dollar deal.

thaFormula.com - So for you, why choose the independent route?

Freekey Zekey - For the fact that you get 80/20 after you recoup. You don't get 20 you get the 80. Plus we are in a position now that once we breathe on a mic it's on and poppin'. Once my album drops and I pop it's gonna be like "wow they gonna make so much money, and so will I" and we will both just be hella millionaires and the next deal will be crazy.

thaFormula.com - What direction you gonna take with the music on your album?

Freekey Zekey - There is a lot of things that I matured on and took into consideration, so of course my life will be very involved with my album and that comes with a lot of different categories. Battered women, being raised with a crack head father, just partying, being on the block doing nothing, fights, so I think it's well rounded. That's exactly what my life is.

thaFormula.com - So as far as being independent goes, you still have to recoup even on an Indy label right?

Freekey Zekey - First and foremost. Ain't none of that "here you go, you didn't do good, you did 20,000 but you got 7 dollars a record so now you got 160,000," nah hell no! If you don't recoup, put in that work, put your name out there to make you that dude, whatever you spent on your video, your samples, or anything you spent on, they take it out of whatever they were supposed to give you. Say it took you 150,000 to complete everything, samples videos, everything and you only make 100,000 of your album sales, the artist doesn't get that and its over and that's that.

thaFormula.com - What's the most important rule to live by in the music industry?

Freekey Zekey - The most important rule is stay on your job. Be at the office, be at the marketing stuff, be wherever your manager is, be at the production stuff, be everywhere, be at the CEO's desk. Anything and everything that you need to do, you need to stay on your job with it. Ask them what's going on, let them tell you about your own life then go from there like "y'all buggin, you need to do this" or "that's cool but that one little part isn't." Stay on your job because if you don't your going down kid.

thaFormula.com - So when are you looking for your album to drop?

Freekey Zekey - I'm leaning more for March or April and of course the Diplomats are gonna be on there, and I'ma have some features. I'm the type of dude that will be like "oh I need Jeezy on this joint." I'll fly down there for that. I'm messin' with all rappers man, but if they are hot now too man. Hold on, I'm into "we got to win," I'm not into "we got to spark an old flame, I think we can do this one again." I'm not trying to wake him up, get the liquor bottle off of him and say "let's go," nah. If you're not being productive and movin' like I'm movin', then there is no reason for me to even get into the type of lane you in.

feedback: info@thaformula.com

Be  sure to join the over 600,000 Industry Heads that have signed up to our exclusive mailing list!!  Click here to join and receive exclusive interviews only available to members. Leave contact info ( name, email address, city, state, and country) at info@thaformula.com.