| What do you have planned for the
solo album? |
| Wildchild: I'm like in the finishing
stages of it right now, and I'm trying to bring the heat.
I got Madlib on half the beats, Oh No (Madlib's brother)
is doing the other half. I got Babu of Dilated Peoples
doing a track for me, DJ Rhettmatic from the Beat Junkies
and my man Kan Kick, who's also from the 805 area, will
do a track for me. As for the futures that are pretty
much confirmed: I got Supernatural, Aceyalone will get
down on a track with me, Evidence, Percee, and I will
try to get a reunited Likwit crew song too. That's still
in the woodwerks though. But I wanna make that happen.
Apart from that, I wanna hold down the rest of the album
myself. But you never know, I might throw another couple
of surprises up in there. Like my man Romes is going to
bust a verse on there too. |
| Will you change the formula on your
solo album? |
| Wildchild: Yeah,
I'ma hit every angle. Every side is going to get attacked.
I'm gonna have concepts, freestyle joints, party joints,
club joints, and at the same time still keeping it universal.
And make it all banging. |
| Do you get impatient
to get something new out? |
Wilchild: Naw,
we're still patient. We are trying to make this a life
though man. It's not easy yo. We're just trying to get
different projects out. Throughout the year. And that's
why we should have stayed persistent and come with another
album, and be already working on a third. But we just
wanna make sure that everything is right. Cause at one
point, we were in the midst of shopping labels and stuff,
but at the same time we wanna make sure that everything
is still cool with Stones Throw. We still wanna hold it
down with them, and see what doors may open from there.
DJ Romes: If we were impatient, the shit would
have been out last year. |
| So then you enjoy
that nothing new is out? |
DJ Romes: Yeah,
we're just relaxing, enjoying ourselves I guess (laugh).
Wildchild: I mean we are in the mood that we wanna
put something new out, but we wanna do it right. That's
the only thing. |
| So the newest release
of you two guys must be the Battle Break record, that
you, Romes, released last year. |
DJ Romes: Yeah.
Well, we also did a "Questions" remix on a 45.
Wildchild: That's pretty much the last thing that
we did. But Madlib did a couple of stuff. |
| Romes, since you did
this breakbeat records, so does that mean that you will
do more production on the new stuff? |
| DJ Romes: Naw.
Madlib is too tight. So I'm not going to do any production.
All the production I do is just breaks. |
| So what's your fascination
with break records. Like on the Stones Throw records website,
there's this piece on you and break records, that makes
you sound like a collector. |
| DJ Romes: I mean,
I don't really collect breakbeat records. I get what I
like. I of course collect records though. So it's kinda
like: I collect whatever I like. Stones Throw got lucky
with the Duck Breaks, Super Duck, Super Duper Duck. Those
have been really successful. But that market is also kinda
dying down. |
| Do you sometimes feel
a little overshadowed by the recognition that Madlib receives?
Or are you just happy that one of you is so successful? |
Wildchild: You
know Madlib is just doing his thing. I think he should
have been doing all of this when we first got started.
But it's barely hitting him now. You know, everything
that helps Madlib, at the same time it helps all of us.
You know, Romes, me, myself and Madlib, it's all family.
DJ Romes: It definitely helps all of us. Whatever
we do: If he blows up, or Wildchild goes commercial, goes
pop (smiles). |
| Do you have any kind
of influence, or do you even wanna have any kind of influence
on Madlib's music? |
| Wildchild: Well,
what he's doing for us, is more musical, but still has
that boom bap. We're always going to keep it raw. But
we obviously gonna progress music wise. |
| You did the "Da
Packumentary". What can you say about that video? |
| Wildchild: I put
it all together, directed it. It contains a lot of show
footage from overseas and the US. We got some underground
videos that we put together ourselves, and a couple of
new songs that aren't actually released. We got the Lootpack
"Whenimondamic" video on there. A couple of
unreleased Quasimoto videos of tracks from the album are
on there. That shit came out last year though, so people
should have it. But I don't really know how many we pressed
up and how many markets were hit up, so we definitely
wanna make sure that everybody's hip to that. |
| Is doing rap right
now, still as much fun as it was when you were banging
on the table in high school? |
Wildchild: It's
always going to be fun, it's just that everybody's got
family now, everybody's grown up. At this point we still
try to change the industry, and still not let the industry
change us.
DJ Romes: It is still fun. If it weren't we wouldn't
still be doing it. |
| Do you get flashbacks
when you record or perform? |
| DJ Romes: I mean,
it still feels like it did years ago. Like when we were
on tour with Phife, when he did all his old stuff, the
crowd just got super wild, so that means that hip hop
is still alive. We are just like the new generation. And
hopefully keep it going. You know a lot of people are
saying that hip hop is dying, but it's not to me. When
you throw on a dope hip hop record, everyone is going
crazy and that ain't dead to me. That's still alive and
kickin'. |
| I came through Oxnard
last year, and surrounding Oxnard, there are a lot of
fields. Now the very first Rave's were done in the middle
of fields. Wouldn't it be dope to do a hip hop festival,
somewhere in the fields? |
Wildchild: Yeah,
but where we are at, the area out there, is not too hip
on doing these big kind of raves like that.
DJ Romes: I think all that really prevents it is
that we have a gang problem. We have a big gang problem
there. So we can't really do much. Like there's this pretty
big hip hop club, and all the youngsters, the new generation,
you know, like people in sixth grade, through high school,
because it's all ages, they all go there. And they are
keeping hip hop alive. But there's not really anything
for the older generation. Oxnard is more gang members
and stuff.
Wildchild: It's almost like LA to some extend,
if you think about it. The radio station is not playing
too much hip hop. We only got a tight hip hop show at
night. And it wasn't always like that.
DJ Romes: But all radio is, it's just business.
And records labels started buying each other out. That
just made it harder for us independents. But at the same
time we have a lot of independent labels coming up. So
in a way, it's balancing. We're in a way just fighting
against the system. |
| So how come that you
have gangs in Oxnard? |
| » continue to
part 2 |
