CONCRETE Magazine - Nashville #41 by CONCRETE Magazine

concrete615.com 6-8 .............. Malice of the Clips 10 ...................... Jackie Chain 12 ....................... Ice Cold Jay 14 ................... Msuic Reviews 18 ........................Whip Game 20 ..............Sonny The Undadog 22 ........................... Fat Head 24 ......... Producer: Sonny Digital 26 .......................... DJ Breezy 28 .........Graffiti Profile: 42 Mafia 30 ......... Nashville 10: Jacqueen

SUMMER HEAT 2011

Published by: CONCRETE Marketing Ad Executives: Bryan Deese, Capo Art Director: Rex2 Cover & Nash10 Photography: Tavell Brown

CONCRETE Magazine PO Box 239, Madison, TN 37116 concretebryan@gmail.com © CONCRETE Magazine 2011

CONCRETE: It’s been a minute since we’ve had an album from the Clipse and a lot of things have changed. Can we expect a new Clipse album? Malice: Yeah. Definitely. I would say look for a new Clipse album for sure. CONCRETE: Do you guys have a time line on that? Malice: Well right now we’re working on the mixtape Long Live the King. We’re going to start that, and Pusha T just released his mixtape Fear of God God. Right now I’m just pushing my book Wretched, Pitiful, Poor, Blind and Naked Naked. CONCRETE: The book is about your life over the last ten (or so) years. What happened that made you want to really focus on writing this book? Malice: Well the book really didn’t come about until after I had my experience. I had a life changing revelation where a few different scenarios and circumstances happened in my life back to back, and they were just things that I really could not deny. I had to pay attention to them. It really tells a lot of torment, pain, anguish and suffering. When I got to a place where I was able to talk about these things that’s when the book came about. CONCRETE: How much time do you think passed between that revelation to the point where you actually ready to write it down? Malice: It was September 18, 2008. The beginning of the new year in January is when I started to write the book. CONCRETE: There was a lot going on in your life 2008-09, including Federal indictments on your former manager. How did those events play into this book? Malice: There were a lot of things that were going on with me at that time, and one major thing is definitely the arrest of our comrades and management. Our friends that we have been around and have toured the world with us, the people that we spent a lot of time together. When I seen them get arrested, that definitely was a wakeup call. That definitely put it in perspective. When I think about the things that we talked about on the albums ... continued on pg 8

and when I see that it came full circle right back to where it started from, and like I said our homies get arrested, there’s no way that I can continue saying the things that I use to say or rap. I can only imagine how many other people or fans listening have been affected by some of the stuff that I was saying or whatever. But I also want to say that none of that is in the book. Something very crazy happened to me in the book. CONCRETE: You’ve been a writer, but it’s been writing raps compared to a book. What was this experience like for you? Malice: My man John Spruill, just a homie that I’ve known from junior high. Actually we’ve got to call him Dr. John Spruill, because he just got his doctorate. He’s definitely been my support. He helped me edit the book. As we were going through the book, he was the one that was right there for me and we were bouncing ideas back and forth off of each other. I just couldn’t have done it without him. The book is definitely my words coming from me straight to the readers and that’s what it is man. I’ve never written before, but I had a story to tell. And, I write so that was no problem. CONCRETE: With the change that has taken place in your life and the return of faith and Christianity, how has that changed you as an artist? Malice: I don’t think it will be too far off of how I always come lyrically. As far as giving that positive light, that’s always been something I’ve done, but now you’re not going have to wonder about what side of the fence I’m on. Sometimes it seems like I’m glorifying it, or am I denouncing it like, ‘what are you doing?’ Well I’m definitely denouncing, not bringing glory to anything like that. Your definitely going to know where I stand, make no mistake. CONCRETE: What’s the dynamic of the Clipse now that you guys are in the studio working on this mixtape? How’s the dynamic with Pusha T? Malice: I think it’s the same that its always been. I don’t worry about what Pusha does and he don’t really worry about what I do. We together are the Clipse. Some people are down for the party, some people are down for the thinking aspect, and we cater to both audiences. I think that’s one of the things our fans really love about the Clipse. I don’t have to base my style around what Pusha is doing, and he doesn’t base his style around what I’m doing. We’re brothers. We’re not twins, but we are brothers. Malice’s book: Wretched, Pitiful, Poor, Blind and Naked available at Amazon.com @Malice757

CONCRETE: Can you tell us about your up coming project? Jackie Chain: It’s my debut album off of Universal Motown. The name of the album is Ain’t Slept In Weeks. We’re almost complete with it now. We got the ﬁrst single “Yeah That’s Me” produced by Big Krit and featuring Big Krit, also my homie Yelawolf a fellow Alabama rapper. Kid Kudi, Bun B, and some others are on the album, but it’s going to represent what I’m about and the fans are going be pleased with the results. CONCRETE: What cities did you hit on the tour you just completed? Jackie Chain: It was crazy. I just did 27 dates with Big Krit and Freddy Gibbs and we toured all over the east coast. Then I went and did a West Coast run by myself. That was my ﬁrst tour I’ve ever headlined. It’s different when you’re opening up for some one, the fans are there to see somebody else. I went from doing a 15 minute opening act to a 45 minute to an hour show. Whether it was a hundred people or a thousand people, the fact that they were there to see me was a good feeling. To do shows in places like Seattle, Portland and San Francisco were I didn’t even think on person listened to me. So to do a venue out there and pack it out and really get a lot of love, it really opened my eyes to how far this hip-hop reaches people. CONCRETE: What challenges did you face, not only coming out of Huntsville, but being a half white half asian rapper. Jackie Chain: You know I think back in the day it was more about where you were from. Like if you weren’t from Atlanta, New York or L.A. it was harder. But I think in the past few years hip-hop has really grown as to where it doesn’t really matter where you’re from. I mean you got Big Krit from Mississippi, Freddy Gibbs from Gary, Indiana. It’s not about where you’re from any more. So as far as being from Alabama, I never saw that as a challenge. The fact that I’m half Korean, half white in this game I feel like it helps me. Cause, I never rap about being white or Korean. I just rap about what I know and it touches more people that way. But the fact I am half white and half Korean opens doors up to more genres, to be accepted by both the Asians and the whites and still be excepted by the dope boys and the hood cause thats what I rap about. So, I never looked at it negatively. It was a plus in my eyes.

CONCRETE: How did Ice Cold Jay come about, and what projects have you released until now? Ice Cold Jay: Well Ice Cold Jay came about cause I hurt my knee and couldn’t go to Spain. I was in Oklahoma City at the time training after playing a year in Poland with a professional Euro basketball Team. I came to Nashville and decided to introduce myself to the city. I did a few shows, I linked up with Blaze and came up with a single called “My Life Is Like a Movie”. We shot a video for it. I spent over $5,000 on that video. I had real movie directors out there, and I was still learning the game. The “Life Is Like a Movie” came out and didn’t meet my standards, so I went back to the drawing board. After that I got with two producers that I think are awesome Mattic Lee and OG and followed up with another mixtape Certified For A Reason which got great response. So after finishing that we started pushing singles for my first album Pre Heat Heat. The first single off that is “Got That Onion.” CONCRETE: What can we expect from this new project The Pre Heat Heat? Ice Cold Jay: The Pre Heat is getting crazy response. We took “Got that Onion” to Magic City and they played it for 8 minutes straight first time hearing it. We took the same song to Dallas Club Onyx and they put it in rotation the same night and played three times. These people don’t have to do this. CONCRETE: What other videos are coming? Ice Cold Jay: Well we have “Got That Onion” which has got over 5k views in three weeks. We haven’t dropped “Infidelity” yet but we have shot the video for it and thats featuring Camrin, Candace and Anais three beautiful women. We will drop that here in the next few weeks on IceColdJay.com. shout out to Joerilla for shooting the videos. CONCRETE: Anything else you want add? Ice Cold Jay: Yeah. I don’t want to spill the beans just yet but we got an offer from a major label to do a 53 day tour coming up in september. But I don’t want to give out to much details on that. Besides that hit Icecoldjay.com sign up, get exclusive links to my songs my videos, become a member of the street team and support the movement. And honestly people don’t know that I have played ball in over nine countries and at least 36 states.The first time I went overseas I was 15 we one a gold medal for a team representing the USA. There ain’t a lot that I haven’t seen but the music was always my passion. Soon as I got the opportunity to pursue it I jumped on it and haven’t looked back.

Jelly Roll - Gamblin On a White Boy, Vol. 4

Antioch rider Jelly Roll dropped his much anticipated mixtape, Gambiln’ On A White Boy Volume 4. This joint is a classic! It’s everything you want from Jelly Roll right now. It’s Southern, hard and real. “Revolver” produced by Coop, features DJ Paul (Three-6) and Don Trip (Interscope) and is a real heater. Haystak is on the tracks “Where Was You” and “Ohh Lord” a prayer to God to be a better man and protection from evil. “Criminal Mind” is a reﬂective tale about hustling, catching cases and the tole it takes on the family. “1st - 5th” has a New Orleans, bounce feel and Jelly rips right through it. He closes the mix with “Papers and Lines” a real talk autobiographical tale. Jelly proves, “This rap shit is easy. You just got to tell the truth.”

Coop - Take Off On ‘Em

Coop is a Nashville based producer who’s been working with the area’s top artists including Starlito, Young Buck, DJ Paul, Don Trip, Jelly Roll, Paper and many others. This mix is a collection of some of Coop’s most recognizable tracks. The mix starts super hard with “Already Dead” by Chamillionaire – It’s the same track Cham used to open his latest mix. After putting in work for years, Coop has earned his place as one of Nashville’s top producers. When you hear this mix you realize just how serious he is. Be looking for some major production credits from Coop.

Ice Cold Jay - PreHeat

Ice Cold Jay has been circulating his new EP PreHeat and its lead single “Got That Onion” something heavy. This seven song project shows the hard work Jay has been putting in with producers Matic Lee and OG. Matic produced four tracks and appeared on “Onion”, while OG produced two and did the hook for “Onion”. Ice Cold Jay is about his hustle and the ladies. Every track is about both. This is a very polished project, songs are well conceived and have a full sound. Jay has a powerful presence on the mic and his lyrics are thoughtful and street smart. He smashed this one.

Open Mic - For The Rebels

Open Mic is one of Nashville’s new generation of MCs that’s putting on for the higher educated and consciences. His style and the beats used harken back to classic 90s hip-hop. This TSU student is nice with it! His track “Rock & Roll” is four minutes of straight lyrics and metaphors, no hook needed. Mic’s bars are full of complex ideas and rhymes, “long winded metaphors gotta let ‘em breath in.” The production sounds like all J Dilla, but no credits are given. Regardless the formula works. This mix shows how intelligent and creative rap can be. Open Mic is leading a rap revival, and he’s “coming for your spot like a bleach pen.”

tquthehurrica - Hurricane Season: Generation Xtc “Party Era”

There’s no spacing in his name or the titles of the songs, and there’s no space to pause on this crunk party album. It starts off jumping with the club track “drunkNhere” and then ﬂow’s into a song for the female smokers “hydroperfume.” Tqu is not just about getting wasted, he’s a hustler’s hustler. The song “itgoesdown” really drives that point home. His raspy delivery is on some grown man stuff, so is his appreciation for milfs (“Might show up looking clean with your momma”). The track “dogthatcat” is a slowed down disco-house beat, that tqu smashes. Other tracks focused on the ladies is “40+” and “talkdirtytome.” All said, it’s a great party record.

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CONCRETE: A little background information. Are you originally from the MidWest? Sonny the Undadog: I’m originally from, I like to say America. The reason why I say America is because of Willie Lynch really. I don’t like to get caught up in things that separate us from each other. I’d rather have us as a human race being closer. All the things that separate us people are like, “I rep this state. I rep this city.” That’s a separator. That’s one thing they use to use to separate us from each other. And by us I don’t mean black people, I mean all people in general. So I try not to use the separator, so I tell everybody im from America. I represent America as a whole, the good, the bad and the ugly. CONCRETE: Your mixtape For The Fans, can you tell us about it? Who did you work with on it? Sonny the Undadog: That project came about, we had just started Phoenix Room. It’s my buddy Ounze, me Sonny the Underdog, Wise, another associate Hecto, and Drum Major who is my producer. We started the Phoenix Room Music Group and we decided that I would be the upfront artist. So we started working on mixtapes and I was trying to come up with a title, and I was like, ‘Well what better than For the Fans.’ I know that people have done For the Fans before, but as my introduction I wanted people to know I do it for you. If you didn’t exist there’d be no point to what I’m doing. The people that I worked on there, like I said The Drum Major produced two or three tracks. I got B Hooks from Detroit produced two tracks. Igot Young Buck on the mixtape. Other than that, the other features on the mixtape are from within the camp Ounze, Hecto. CONCRETE: How has the mixtape been going so far? How has it been received and how has the push been going? Sonny the Undadog: It’s been received real good. I haven’t got too much hate yet. I’m waiting for that person who says, “Oh that’s whack.” I guess that’s a good thing you know. I mean everybody loves it. CONCRETE: What are you guys working on now? Sonny the Undadog: Im working on another mixtape called I Was Just Bored and an album called The Whole World Is My Stage. Right now at the same time, I’m doing both. CONCRETE: Any last words or shout outs? Sonny the Undadog: I want to shout out everybody on the grind who is trying to follow their dreams. I want to shout out Phoenix Room Music Group of course, Ounze, Hecto, Wise, Drum Major, Rye Tie.

CONCRETE: You won the CONCRETE free style battle and you smoked everyone. With freestyling speciﬁcally, what have you done around town over the years? Fat Head: Basically what started the whole deal was when I was about 10 or 11 years old I was already kind of rapping. More like funny stuff, but then I started doing freestyling at parties and events. And as I seen the crowd was reacting, it’s something I fell into. Big Wood he carried me to The Cantina when I was like 14 or 15 years old and there was a cypher blaze. My man Blitz was running down there in The Cantina, and after I had got in there and started doing freestyling it was something that I found was a natural calling for me, on top of a outlet of stress as far as like you know dealing with life in general. Freestyling was an outlet for me. It was a way for me to be able to generate my problems on top of getting a reputation for what I do as far as music goes. CONCRETE: You’ve got a label called Down and Out Cartel. Break down the label, and talk about what your camp is about? Fat Head: Me and Big Wood, we really wanted to be able to establish a music buzz here in Nashville on top of being able to get on like every other artist wants too. With Down and Out Cartel it was more like we understood from a business aspect that if we want something in full we needed to establish our own record label and establish our own business in order to be able to manage that instead of having somebody in our pockets. We put the record label together for me and him to build on at least up to the point that we could get to be able to sign an artist or put fronts out as far as our business goes for any other music or anything music involved. We wanted to have a legit out so to say from transition from streets to music. CONCRETE: How long have you guys been pushing under Down and Out Cartel? Fat Head: Down and Out Cartel ofﬁcially came together in 2004 but we’ve been raping together going on 16 years now. We started in 2004 and got real serious about it and have been pumping it since then up into current. CONCRETE: Any last words, shout outs, or anything like that? Fat Head: Let me get a shout out to my record label Down and Out Cartel, a shout out to all our DOC fans out there and the support and love they show, Big Smo, Enemy Lines, Kinfolk Strong, BDub he is a free man. And a shout out to everybody in the city.

CONCRETE: Where are you from? Sonny Digital: I was born in Michigan but raised in Atlanta. CONCRETE: What part of Atlanta did you grow up in? What high school, neighborhood and stuff? Sonny Digital: Um well I stayed in Gwinnett for a long time and then uh I went to North cross high school then I moved down to the city for a couple of years too that’s where I been at probably from the beginning of high school. I went to school in Gwinnett for a lil bit for I had stayed in Atlanta then I had came back out here to the city then went to school at Grady for a lil bit but I mean I really can’t say where im from because I’ve been bouncing around everywhere. CONCRETE: You produced the hit “Racks” by YC. How did you link with YC and create that song? Sonny Digital: Well I still mess with Gorilla Zoe that’s my partner, so we be at the Block Studio and Chris use to be up at Block too. When I use to be with Zoe and Chris be up there sometimes (Chris) would ask me to send him beats and everything. For a couple weeks I just blew him off, but then I handed him some beats. Later on down the road like Feburary 2010 I sent him some beats. Then around September or November he had came to me and showed me the song. That’s when I had heard from Future the first time. When he showed me the song it only had Future’s part in it, and after that I went to the studio and actually got to meet Future. I think that’s when they were finishing up the song and this is all where it came from. That’s when I first heard it, the actually song. CONCRETE: How many beats did you think you had given him before the one that became “Racks”? Sonny Digital: About 7, but honestly I don’t think he picked the beat. I think Future picked the beat. I think it was about seven though. Because, if he (YC) would have actually liked the beat, like how they using it now, I think he would have been done picked the beat and been done told me instead of taking that long to actually letting me know that he did. So I think that they went back. They was probably in the studio and didn’t have any beats and everything and then went back through the email. Future probably picked that beat out through e-mail. Then after that laid the hook on it and that was that.

CONCRETE: Where are you from? DJ Breezy: I’m from Memphis Tennessee. CONCRETE: How did you make your way to Nashville? DJ Breezy: School. I went to school at MTSU. I graduated high school in 2003 from Payne in Memphis, TN then went to MTSU. CONCRETE: You’ve been doing an event for two years Taste Makers. Talk about that event. Where did it come from? Where is it now? What are your goals for it? DJ Breezy: Well when I was in school I teamed up with a guy named, Gary Whitlow who is my business partner. We formed G2 together. He approached me and said he wanted to start some events in the summer, and he wanted to link up with me to do them. But back to Taste Makers, once he graduated, I was getting up into the upper class status and a lot of our crowds that partied with us when we had started, graduated and a lot had stayed in Nashville and different parts of Middle Tennessee. We couldn’t really keep doing the college thing, so that’s when we came up with a monthly event Taste Makers. Our approach with Taste Makers, we wanted to kind of take it in a different direction from what was going on in the city. We wanted to stay away from the clubs and all that with this event, just something a little different than what people were kind of use too. We started out at Indigo on West End, on the roof top. It started out as a roof top party. It was supposed to be a day time party, like a 5-11 type thing. Between now and then we’ve been to various locations. We do it once a month, its ever third Friday and it’s grown into something pretty big. CONCRETE: What’s next for DJ Breezy? DJ Breezy: I’m kind of getting back into that mode where I want to focus on DJ Breezy. I’m working on a couple of mixtape projects. I’m working on a project with Phatkaps. I have an artist that I’m working and his name is Pat 247. He’s from Georgia but he stays in Memphis, and he went to school at MTSU. And I’m also starting the Night Riders mixtape series back up. So those are some of the things I’m working with on the mixtape level. I’m thinking now that I want to go ahead to pursue and maybe becoming a mix show DJ on some radio stations. So I’ve been working on a couple of mixes and I’ve actually been talking to a couple of program directors about getting on some stations. So hopefully that will work out. I’m just going to do this and wherever it will take me.

photos courtesy of: Memphis or Die, Ask-42, Rasm-CSK, Verse42,AM7, Zew-42