GrippinGrain

You know the man by now it’s Killer Mike and he’s still killing shit down here in the south with his lyrics for a minute now, but where’s the album? So SOHH.com catches up with the man recently signed to the new Purple Ribbon Entertainment to see what’s up and what’s going down in the near future, check it out.

In the video for his first single, 2003’s “Akshon (Yeah!),” Killer Mike was running through walls like a Black Rhino. Who would have known that his promising career would play out in the same fashion. His debut album, Monster, went Gold but its maximum potential wasn’t reached due to the Sony/BMG merger ridding key people in his promotional scheme.

This year his sophomore effort, Ghetto Extraordinary, was supposed to prove to the world that Killer is a top-tier lyricist – and not Outkast’s homeboy. But its fall release date has come and gone, and nothing is on the shelves. God forbid the album doesn’t come out, because if that happens it will perhaps dethrone Cormega’s The Testament as best rap album to never be released.

However, as a part of Big Boi’s Purple Ribbon Entertainment, things are looking up as Mike is featured throughout the Got Purp Vol. 2 compilation. Maybe now some doors will finally open for Mike so that he won’t have to knock any more walls down.

In this SOHH.com exclusive, “Killa Kill from Adamsville” speaks on everything from his record label frustrations to the American educational system and the late C. Delores Tucker.

SOHH.com: What’s going on with Ghetto Extraordinary? You shot a video for “My Chrome,” and the song landed on the radio a couple times. I even saw advertisements for a September release. What happened?

Killer Mike: Basically it’s a great album and I’m not gonna allow it to just come out and be off radar. So, its not coming out in the fall was a mutual decision between me and Big Boi. It’s like Pimp C said, “When we get the business straight, it will come out.” That’s as honest as I can be with fans. I put in two years of my life on this record and I think it’s a great record. Its got Juvenile, Bun B, T.I., Chamillionare, 8 Ball & MJG, Jagged Edge, Triple 6 Mafia and Outkast on it. So, I can’t just throw that out on any given Tuesday and allow it to do sh!tty. It will come out when the time is right. So until then check out the Killer mixtape, Dat Crack Vol. 1, the Killer Part 2: the Killer Instinct, coming out. I’ma continue to put out music but I’m not gonna let my baby go out there and get sh!tted on.

SOHH.com: What exactly happened?

Killer Mike: It ain’t no exactly happened, everything ain’t right yet. Regardless of what the record company does or don’t do. If it was 50 fans walking in a record store everyday saying, “We want it;” it’ll be out and it will be out right. But that ain’t happening. I’ll take responsibility for getting the street buzz up myself. I’m a black man, I can’t sit around and blame white companies for what the fuck ain’t happen. I just gotta get out here and grind.

SOHH.com: You are obviously not the first rapper to have to go through label mishaps that result in having to sit on an album. But until the recent mixtape explosion, a lot of rappers would get disenchanted and say, “Fuck it. No one gets any music.” Why aren’t you having the same approach?

Killer Mike: I rap. That’s what I feel I was put here to do. I’m not gonna stop rapping. I was rapping everyday before I had a record deal and I’ll rap when times are bad with a record deal. I rap, that’s all I know and that’s what I do. Streets gonna hear more music from me. I know it’s a lot going on and a lot of music out there but I’ma make sure my lane is carved. I don’t feel like no one else grabs the mic and spits truth like or spits harder than me so who am I to deny my fans that? Based on what I do have. To all my fans, I appreciate everything, I’m good. I’m in the process of setting up a website so you can get my music direct. This situation ain’t doing nothing but forcing me to become a better businessman. I appreciate you for staying down.

SOHH.com: Tell us about the importance of this album, it sounds reminiscent of some early 90’s Ice Cube.

Killer Mike: Funny you say that because I got Ice Cube on the “Bad Day, Worse Day” remix. The song addresses what’s going on in Hip Hop and what happened in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina hit. And just to let people know that I’m a stand up guy all around, I had a line in the song that said “C. Delores Tucker, Fuck her, and Bill O’Reilly.” I just want to let people know in all the hoopla about people getting taken off the streets and all the hoopla about, God bless the dead, Rosa Parks, our civil rights leader dying, C. Delores died a week before her. I have to tip my hat to her, I ain’t believe or agree with everything she said but that woman in that turban was a hell of a fighter so I tip my hat to her. And I ain’t changing the line in my song.

SOHH.com: We were going to ask about that. For instance when you hear songs like Biggie’s “Juicy” on the radio, the “blow up like the World Trade” line is removed. So why not remove the Tucker reference?

Killer Mike: Naw, don’t change my sh!t. Just cause she dead, she dead. I didn’t agree with her when she was living. I respect everything she did on behalf of black people, in particular black women. But I meant what I said like I said it. Either don’t change or cut my sh!t out or don’t play my song.

SOHH.com: You’ve garnered a reputation of telling the truth and speaking out on certain issues through your music. We don’t get that in Hip Hop as much as we used to. Why does it seem like some rappers are scared to use their music to make bold declarations about today’s society? Or bold declarations period.

Killer Mike: Yeah, everybody didn’t make a song about the Katrina situation. Everybody ain’t talking about cops shooting folks in broad daylight. I don’t know what inspires fear in another man. But I can honestly say that a lot of the sh!t I write, I’m scared that I write it. I’m scared when I rap it. But I can’t spend my life living in fear. The key to revolution ain’t picking up guns and killing. The key to revolution ain’t bombing sh!t. The key to revolution is just having the courage to speak truth to power. And I feel like that’s my talent. I been sh!tted on for it, I been tossed aside for it. I been treated badly for it. But that’s all I know how to do, tell the truth when its asked of me. That’s what I do in my raps. I’m not gonna tell you about my times in the trap if I don’t tell you about addiction and what I saw it do to my family. I’m not gonna tell you about getting money and not tell you about how the government trying to take money from you. I’m not gonna tell you about I’m cool, I’m a rapper, I got security and not tell you that the cops out here killing kids. As a black man in America I don’t care how much money I get, the reality is if I’m rolling down the street in a new Charger I’m subject to getting pulled over. That’s the reality of the situation, if I don’t spit that truth for a larger group of people than me, then to me, I’m a coward. I’d rather die broke than die a coward.

SOHH.com: Right now, artists are making a good bit of money from Hip Hop. As a result some would say that artists aren’t as hungry or truthful as they once were. Do you think the money fucks up the truth in the game?

Killer Mike: I don’t think money fucked it up. I think the fear of not having money [did it]. People don’t [rap] for money they do it for fear of being poor again. Once you done made it out of poverty, there’s an extreme fear in going back. A lot of people fear the IRS more than they fear God. At the end of the day the IRS can strip you of everything you got, but sh!t, after you die you still got to go somewhere else. At the end of the day I want to be able to just look at dude and be like ‘look man if nothing else I told the truth.’ So, my fear don’t lay in man. The same people that you afraid of are the same people who pay you to keep you under control. Like, if a gnat walked up to their plate and took a crumb off their plate and started walking across the table, they can’t command that gnat to come back. So who am I as a man to let them command me on what to do and what not to do. I don’t do this for endorsement, I do it just to put it out there for the people to have jamming music and to get my homeboys and those single mamas out there working and grinding, just to give them a ray of hope and opportunity. I feel if I can’t do that, why rap? With me it’s different. I don’t blame none of these dudes [for taking money]. If you give me $50 Million who knows? I might start thinking differently. But right now, I’m just on my grind. If other ni99as want to sell out for money, that’s they thing, do it. But retribution comes. Remember Cuba ni99a, that’s all I got to say, remember Cuba.

SOHH.com: Where did you inherit your honesty from?

Killer Mike: I was blessed to have a lot of honest ni99as around me so I’m able to be honest. I like diamonds, women, champagne, partying and the fact I got a nice home and nice cars. But there’s some pain that comes with this sh!t. I ain’t complaining though. But when I first chose to get in the dope game I went to a relative like: ‘you gonna give me this sh!t or I’ma get this sh!t from someone else and get in the game. They chose to be my connect instead of seeing me up under another ni99a who was gonna show me the game wrong. I went to my mother, and told her: you know how to cook dope, I need to learn how to cook dope, you gonna show me or I’ma learn it from somebody else. The same way she taught me how to cook lima beans she taught me how to cook rocks. That don’t make her a bad mama. That’s just saying she don’t want her son to endure fucking with faggot ni99as out here getting jipped and clipped. She gave me all the information.

SOHH.com: Your street side is well documented but you attended Morehouse College at one point of your life. In saying that, there was a time when heads actually learned something from the music we listen to. Now, it seems to be mostly, if not all, entertainment. Why is that?

Killer Mike: I think Hip-Hop is edutainment, I think it’s the only American music that has ever…virtually every rapper has had a song of social redemption. Every rapper has had a song speaking on a political ill. Whether you talk about me, David Banner, Eminem, Jeezy, 50 Cent, Jay-Z and a host of others. Everybody put something in. You can’t be a Black man and not be political. You can’t be a Black woman and not be political because everything that happens around us in the world of politics and social issues hits us, usually first. Whether its high gas prices, welfare reform or Rockefeller drug laws. I think the opportunity to speak is there and we need to take it every chance we get.

SOHH.com: Can you talk about your college experience?

Killer Mike: I went to Morehouse because my homeroom teacher in high school told me that I couldn’t. He said a kid coming from Adamsville can’t do it. He said: “It’s not the type of school for you. Dr. King went there, Benjamin E. Mays made that school.” So I said fuck you, I’ma show you. And I got in there. It was off a hundred dollar bet. I got accepted a week before school started. I went in and did my first year and decided I really wanted to do music. sh!t, I had a full scholarship to Morris Brown but I turned that down to do Morehouse.

SOHH.com: There are a number of rappers who have sought higher education but don’t really talk about that part of their lives. Not sure if it’s because they aren’t being asked or what. You have any thoughts on that?

Killer Mike: Just because you a street ni99a don’t mean you have to be a stupid ni99a. Ain’t sh!t cool about being stupid. I just saw 5 hours of stupidity watching these hood DVDs with ni99as putting guns and money on the screen and naming their street. That ain’t gangsta that’s stupid. I was taught by older cats, make money quietly don’t put bling in the face of those who ain’t got it. When people talk to me they see the intelligence and understand that I am from the streets.

All these DJs that’s taking over music and marketing departments, these cats are college-educated cats. These cats know how to sell to specific audiences, these mutha fuckas ain’t stupid. These the ones that got off the block and did something. Why shouldn’t you go to school? It gives you four more years to decide what you want to do, it keeps you off the block. And the whole time I went to Morehouse I sold weed[laughs]. So I ain’t never have to worry about going to jail cause the police ain’t running up on campus to lock ni99as up. They just trying to get high and go to class, that is the safest trap I ever had.

SOHH.com: Do you see a time when an education will be marketed the same way as street credibility? Do you think cats will come out talking about how educated they are as opposed to what they did in the streets?

Killer Mike: I don’t know about other ni99as. But the same sh!t that’s happening in the streets is happening in college. I just see myself as a bridge between what you would call the talented tenth and the regular street dude. A lot of ni99as don’t do it because they don’t see it as an image that’s sells. But if you look at the ni99as who are doing well when you hear them in the interview they are well spoken and you can tell they put a lot of thought in they sh!t even if they never went to school or dropped out. Listening to Jay, Big Boi, Dre, 50, you looking at people who acquired a certain amount of knowledge and used it to the benefit of their business. Who don’t want to better themselves? All these ni99as hustling, I hope it ain’t just to shine. Me, I got to get my kids college funds right. Real gangsters kids go to school. John Gotti daughter went to school and became a columnist.

And I don’t want my kids going to public school. I’m a product of public school. That’s not to say the kids ain’t good and the teachers ain’t trying, that just mean it’s overcrowded so the kids are undereducated.

But sh!t, back to the question. It worked for Kanye. He woke up a sleeping audience, the black intellectual and the black bourgeoisie. My mom is not a teacher, my father was not an activist. My father is blue-collar guy who had to work and take care of his family so he couldn’t get his proper shot at college. My mother did JUCO, she was a beautiful florist, got into hustling and fell prey to addiction. At the end of the day I’m the redemption for all the struggle they went through. I’m glad I went to college and I plan to finish. A street ni99a who can make it out the neighborhood I made it out of and go to a prestigious university like Morehouse, which is only three exits down from me is a significant change in my family’s life. That inspired my little sister to go to Dillard University and get a degree in accounting and work with me. I’ma be an inspiration. I’m not gonna be that ni99a telling you ‘after you leave the block, 5 years from now, I’ma be here.’ Fuck that. When you come back I’ma own a building or two. I’m not gonna be standing here doing the same sh!t. Any ni99a that says ‘I’m staying in the hood’ is a mutha fucking liar, he only looking out for him and his people, he not looking out for ya’ll.’

SOHH.com: Besides getting your own career straight you have also started your own label and crew, Grind Time. Talk about that.

Killer Mike: Grind Time is the hottest ni99as coming out of Atlanta. The slickest patterns and the dopest voices. SL Jones, Sharpshooter, Nickelplated Nario, Young Pill, Jackpot and Big Slim. I’m always a step ahead of other rappers because I don’t want nothing but dope rappers around me. It’s too many rappers that’s dope and got average ass ni99as around them. If you not sparring with other ni99as that’s in the NBA and you only playing against [popular Atlanta hoop court] Run and Shoot ass ni99as you gonna be a Run and Shoot ass player. I want to play for the 1996 [Chicago] Bulls and that’s how I feel about Grind Time. Any ni99a in this collective can catch me slipping on any day.

SOHH.com: Why look out for people and put them on, when you yourself have a lot left to accomplish? You could have taken the selfish route.

Killer Mike: Right now what I’m hearing is a bunch of mutha fuckas who can half rap over great Southern beats lucking up. So why wouldn’t I want Jones to get his shine? All these other ni99as running around throwing up flags and repping where they from. Jones is from Little Rock, Arkansas. I want him to put his city on the map.

SOHH.com: Speaking of maps. On the album you have a song called “Going To Ghana” you use a lot African references, talk about the inspiration behind that song.

Killer Mike: The mistake we make in this sh!t. You got to do this sh!t like a Mormon. You can’t be a TV evangelist telling people to come to your church. You got to knock on doors like a Jehovah’s Witness. So my sh!t was, when I did the song Andre 3000 [the song's producer] was like ‘I think you are better than that.’ But I told him it ain’t about me, it’s about inspiring ni99as who always hear rappers talking about “I took a trip to Aruba, Cancun, Hawaii. That sh!t fine and cool, I been there, the South of France, Europe and all that, but the place I felt most comfortable in my world travels was Jamaica. I woke up smoking good, drinking good, seeing people who look like me and being greeted with love. After all that fancy sh!t get talked about the fact remains that you ain’t from those places, they don’t look like you. I remember walking into the Louis Vutton shop overseas with Big Boi who has sold 50 million records and he’s getting looked at like a teenage waking in the mall at Phipps Plaza. They sent security over to watch us so we start laughing and sent them back the fuck over there. See, that’s what they think of you. I want to tell ni99as in the hood we Africans everywhere we go.

We like to wear gold because kings wore it in Ghana. We like girls with them bodies and slanted eyes because it comes from there. Don’t be afraid to go back to where you from. Go back to Africa and try to get diamonds yourself, stop paying the middle of the mall ass ni99as. When Luda got back from South Africa [after shooting the video for "Pimpin All Over the World] he told me, yo, you got to go, it ain’t nothing like people think. He was the first artist to shoot a video there. That’s significant, fuck shooting a video in Miami. Ooh, wow, you went to Miami beach, I been doing that sh!t since I was 8. It ain’t about being condescending towards a ni99a who did it, that’s the first step. But I said in my rhyme “I got to leave my hood and skip the suburbs/take my words to Johannesburg.” It ain’t enough to get out your city and move to the ‘burbs. It’s a bigger world out there.

SOHH.com: You spoke on being a businessman earlier. You’ve let your feelings be known on rapper endorsement deals as of late, most notably how you don’t have one. Truthfully, why don’t you think you have any endorsements?

Killer Mike: I mean my name is Killer [laughs]. I don’t know that’s not my question to answer. I’m well spoken, probably better spoken than most people. I’m young, I’m fly, I think I’m cute [smiles]. I don’t know. But ultimately, I didn’t start rapping for endorsements, I started to entertain people and make money entertaining people. Even more than getting an endorsement deal, I’d just like to be on tour for three years. If God blesses me with an album to keep me on tour for three years I’m blessed and I’ll never need a endorsement, I’ll buy whatever I like whenever I want. But I think Hip Hop needs to start taking the skateboarders approach. If you look at skaters and BMXers they got sh!tted on by cops and a lot of shoe companies and what they did was go out and created their own industry. I think we can learn from them and punk rock and start doing our own tours and our own merchandising. I’ll just have to travel the road less traveled and the road I’m traveling is the same road that Outkast traveled early on, the same road that 8ball & MJG, UGK and a lot of our southern pioneers have had to travel. Luke, J Prince, Tony Draper. So, if that’s the road I’m destined to walk then I’m honored to be able to walk it. I just pray that someone gives me a cup of water on the way.

SOHH.com: Is there anything else that you want to share that I didn’t ask you? Any advice, parting words?

Killer Mike: When I started making a little money, instead of buying jewelry I bought my own equipment. MACKIE saw and heard what we were making with their old sh!t, so they gave him the best new equipment. Whatever you can do for self, do for self, ‘a black man can.’ If you buy a house make sure you build a studio so your crew ain’t got to get raped for studio time by the company.

Source: SOHH.com