Crooked I intervju

Her har du et riktig så langt og fint intervju med Long Beach tøffingen..






Long Beach rapper Crooked I was first heard by rap fans on the 1997 West Coast underground release The 19th Street Compilation and since then has been tearing up microphones and recording booths from L.A. to New York. This pure-rap thoroughbred ended up taking his skills to the controversial and feared rap mogul, Suge Knight, in hopes of taking the Death Row label to new heights after the loss of its major rap stars. Some call it a huge mistake that put the talented rapper on a long detour to his hopes and dreams. Nevertheless, Crooked I took his career in to his own hands and after four years of service to the Death Row label and after a long court battle, won the freedom of joining up with up-start West Coast label, Treacherous Records.

Was that a mistake too? ******* caught up with Kingpin the Crooked Individual (dubbed Crooked I by his older brother) to hear his side of the story about these things. We not only discuss that, but everything else about Crooked I that you should know about – from his start all of the way to the 52 week Hip-Hop Weekly series that he unleashed upon the Internet. Oh yeah – we didn’t leave out the Snoop Dogg situation. It’s well known that the two don’t see eye to eye, so we gave Crooked the chance to speak his peace about it. Crooked also gives us his thoughts on seeing the infamous pictures of his former boss being laid out on that Hollywood sidewalk. Enjoy the read.


*******: It seems like you were born to be a rhymer. At what age did you discover that you actually had this gift?

Crooked I: My mother used to write R & B songs and poetry. I started writing poetry at age five and she put together a little book of my poems. My mom used to encourage me a lot and that is one of the important things in my career because when I told her that I wanted to rap, she went out and bought albums from artists like Run-DMC and let me hear them at a young age.

I would write about me and my family riding the bus, stuff like that. I had one where I talked about being in kindergarten. I can remember it like it was yesterday. My mom kept books of those writings and would always show them to me when I was growing up like, “Remember you wrote this two years ago?” I was talking about the average kid stuff; Hot Wheels and Match Box.

We had a little game that we played in Kindergarten called the Rhyming Game. I liked it so much that when I went home I started making my own rhymes. I believe I was born for this. When [my mother] was pregnant with me, she was in the recording booth singing.


*******: When did you start developing the rhyme skill that we know from today’s Crooked I?

Crooked I: At eight years old I wrote a song called “Microphone Controller.” That’s when I knew that this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. My mother and her twin sister took me to the studio and I recorded it. [Crooked I raps part of the song: The rhyme is my hammer. The beat is the nail – I’m driving it in to your rhythm cell.] That was the rhymes from that song when I was eight. I was a B-Boy with a Kangol. I only wore suede Puma’s and shell-toe Adidas. When I was in the 3rd grade, 4th grade and 5th grade – I was rapping and everybody knew it. They were like, “There goes Crooked. He raps.” I was around Hip-Hop at such a young age that I feel that I am part of the Old School mentality of Hip-Hop even though I am not as old as the founders. I feel like I am a part of it because I was serious about it back when people thought that rap was just a trend.



*******: What were the Crooked I teenage years like?

Crooked I: At the teenage years, I was just being a student of Hip-Hop. I was listening to everybody and absorbing as much as I could. I made it a point to listen and learn from the greats. I looked at every MC as my tutor – Rakim, Kool G Rap, KRS-One, Chuck D, Ice T, Ice Cube, and Scarface. During my teenage years, I was figuring out where I wanted to fit in amongst the greats.

I also moved around a lot. When I was young my family was below the poverty line. Sometimes we would be homeless, living in our car or living at shelters. We moved around a lot to different cities and I used to hate being the new kid on the block. Now that I look back on it though, it’s probably the reason why so many people in different cities feel me. I can relate to a lot of different ways of living and I can adapt to different cultures. Traveling a lot added to my style.

*******: At what age did you start shopping yourself to labels? Or felt that you were far enough along to get a manager to help you with your career?

Crooked I: When I was 14 I got a manager. I was going around rapping at shows and little contests. I kind of fell though because my family was poor and I realized that I needed to go out and get money for us. I had to focus on grinding and helping my mom pay the bills. You shouldn’t be thinking about that kind of stuff when you are 14 but I didn’t have much of a choice. I still kept a passion for music but I put the career in the back seat and I put hustlin’ in the front seat. I hung out with a lot of O.G.’s because I was the only dude my age out on the block real heavy.

I had to hang around people a lot older than me and they gave me a lot of game. Now that I think back, the things I learned then helped me with the music business today. Around the age of 17, I picked my rap career back up and went independent. I started using the money that I was making on the street to go to the studio and make demos. I started an independent company with a couple of NFL players who were older homies of mine. We started an independent company on the East Side of Long Beach called Muscle Records. That’s when I started to realize that I could put out stuff independently and make money.

*******: Were you still in High School at the time or did you drop out?

Crooked I: I dropped out. The thing is I’m pro-education, but when you are real young, you are too young to get a job and odd-jobs aren’t always going to come. My family was so below the poverty line that I couldn’t take it anymore – I had to do something. I don’t even want a kid to think that it is cool to drop out of school. I was young and at the time it was something that I felt that I had to do. Since I was out there on the street, I tried to turn my illegal program in to legal – by rap. We started the independent label and it started working for me. I then landed my first label deal with Nu Trybe/Virgin while I was still 17 years old.

*******: So what happened with the Virgin Records deal?

Crooked I: Virgin Records was my first dealings with the music industry on a corporate level. At that time The Luniz were over there and their “I Got 5 On It” song was a big hit. Scarface had a group over there called The Face Mob with Devin The Dude and all of them dudes in it. Benzino was also over there with The Almighty RSO. To be around those type of people at 17 and soaking up game was good for me. Everything was going good for a while – I even recorded an album.

My big homeboy Big C-Style had a production company and we went in together on the Nu Trybe deal. I had Snoop Dogg, Daz, Kurupt, Tray Dee, Nate Dogg; all featured on my album. At the time, Long Beach was on fire so I could do no wrong in the industry because of The Chronic album, Doggystyle album and the Dogg Pound album; Long Beach was in the building. It gave people the feeling that Long Beach was a city full of talent and a lot of artists were getting deals. One day the people from the label came in and said, “Look. We are about to get rid of the whole Urban department.” Whatever plans they had weren’t working or being executed correctly on the top floor of the building – so they got rid of the whole thing. I was stuck back on the block without a deal. So I just went back to being independent.

*******: What did you do with the album that you recorded on Virgin?

Crooked I: Nothing [laughs].

*******: So it still exists and it’s never been heard?

Crooked I: It exists and it’s never really been heard. I have some songs and Big C-Style has some songs. One day I am going to put those songs out. It will be the Life and Times of Crooked I. And even back then at that stage my sword was sharp! I recorded that album around the same time that Big C-Style dropped the 19th Street Compilation. My sword was still sharp back then and that’s one thing that I can say proudly. When it comes to consistency, I keep my skill level where it needs to be. Even though I’ve changed and evolved since then, I’ve always been on point.

*******: Losing that Virgin deal must have been real discouraging for you, especially it being for your first deal.

Crooked I: I was discouraged after the Virgin Records deal blew up but one thing I’ve trained myself to do is to always turn a negative situation in to a positive one. Another thing that I’ve trained myself to believe is that I cannot fail – no matter what. I went back to being independent and I made so much money. I was making more on the independent scene than when I was getting paid from the major label.

*******: This is just by selling mixtapes or what?

Crooked I: Selling mixtapes, selling verses, ghost-writing, and working out of town. I went out of town a lot. There’s a lot of out of town independent labels that we may never hear of but they’ve got street dudes that are ballin’ or people that are superstars locally. I started aligning myself with those kind of dudes – from California to New York to the South. I was coming home with money hand-over-fist. It was like the dope game. You go out of town for two or three months then you come back and buy a convertible Benz. I made a lot of money and a lot of contacts – people that I still deal with today.

*******: When did Death Row Records and Suge Knight come in to the picture?

Crooked I: Death Row and Suge Knight came in to the picture one day while I was out at my condo in Long Beach. I got a knock on the door and looked out of the peep-hole and standing there was Big C-Style and Daz Dillinger. They were like, “Yo. We know that you are doing your independent thing but Suge wants to holler at you. We want to take you over to Death Row and get a record deal with our sub-label Dogg Pound Records. We want you to be the first artist to come out from it. It’s going to be distributed through Death Row. What do you think?” I told them, “If that’s what you all want to do, then let’s go over there and see him.”

During this time Suge was still incarcerated so I went to visit him in the penitentiary. When I got there he told me, “What do you want to do?” And my reply was, “Get money.” I told him that I wanted to make music that changes the world and he was like, “Lets do it.” I took a lot of trips up there to see him as we negotiated the terms. It’s kind of weird negotiating a contract in the Pen. It was a trip negotiating a record deal inside of a prison on a napkin. We came to an agreement and I signed with him.

Then Daz fell out with Suge and wanted me to leave the label with him. I asked Daz what kind of alternative that he had for me and he had nothing. He just wanted me to leave with him because he was mad at Suge. In my opinion, he was being mad over something that was very petty. I thought that they could work it out because it wasn’t anything too major. All Suge had told [Daz] was that he should just concentrate on production for the time being to keep his producer’s name solid, put the rapping on the back seat, then come back to the rap. Suge felt that he could take over the production game because Daz was hot on the beats but Daz got mad at that because he wanted to rap more than produce. They got in to an argument and one word led to another. Daz got up from the visitor’s table because at this time Suge was having contact visits. He left and I was coming in for my turn just right after their argument.

When I came in Suge was like, “What? Are you going to ride with these motherf**kers? Or are you going to ride with me?” I was like, “What the f**k are you talking about?” He then told me what happened. I told him that I had to go back and hear their side of the story because I came into the door with them. I’m from Long Beach and I am loyal to the people that brought me to the table. I spoke to Daz and Big C-Style and heard two different stories. Daz was like, “F**k them! We are out of there and you shouldn’t be there either!” Big C-Style told me honestly that he thought that I should stay because they didn’t have anything popping for them right now and he knew that I was paying my mother’s rent and taking care of my brothers. He knew that I was the main provider for my family, so he looked at it from that point of view. I asked him if he had an alternative or anybody else that they can take my project to and he said, No. So I made the decision to stay.

*******: Death Row had lost a lot of their power at that point. Dre and Snoop left, and 2Pac died. Why deal with this company in the first place if they are no longer a strong force?

Crooked I: Every situation that I have ever been in, I have been the underdog. So I told myself that this might be an underdog company right now, but if I work hard, I can bring it back to greatness. I have faith in myself. I felt that I could restore this company and that I had the talent, drive and work ethic to do it. Also in 1999, there were no companies giving out deals to the West Coast. If you didn’t already have a deal, you could forget about it. Not only did Pac’s passing effect Death Row but the whole West Coast industry. People were waiting on The Chronic 2001 to see if it was going to bump the numbers back up. A lot of record execs were waiting to see if Dr. Dre was going to change the climate here so they could pull out their ink pens again and start signing people. People have always asked me why I did that [sign with Death Row]? If I had to do it again, I would do the same thing again.

The reason why I would do the same thing again is because my career is bigger than me. It’s not just about me. It’s about the people that I love and take care of. I’ve never looked it as if my career wasn’t going according to the way that “I” wanted, that it wasn’t going down.


*******: No regrets even after learning that you were working for a blackballed company?

Crooked I: No regrets. I made a conscious decision. When you think about something and you weigh the pro’s and con’s, you have less regrets. If you just make a spontaneous decision that crashes you into a brick wall, then you’ve got regrets. I thought about it clearly. The company was blackballed but here is something that I got out of it; I was the last person signed to Death Row. Suge had enough of an ear to know to bring Snoop, Dre and 2Pac to the label. I had that same person with that same ear saying that Crooked I is the best on the West Coast. That made a lot of people pay attention to me. I was able to meet a lot of moguls in the game.

When Suge got out of prison, even though he was blackballed, you couldn’t ignore his legacy. I was able to sit down and talk face to face with Lyor Cohen while with Suge. He took me everywhere with him. I was able to talk to Kevin Liles, Russell Simmons and L.A. Reid. That’s valuable game that a young artist can soak up and you can’t put a price on that. So in that aspect I went through Hip-Hop Industry 101 class. But there is of course the downside of being on a blackballed label because of the actions of one man. I mean, Suge is straight because he’s a multi-millionaire. However, we the artists can’t get money the way we want and can’t advance our careers the way we are trying to.

I also went through hell on that label as far as police. Being on Death Row means that you are going to be targeted and get pulled over. Your cars are marked, your homes are marked and where you go to the studio is marked.

*******: For a moment it looked like you were going to blow up; you and Suge were on The Jimmy Kimmel Show and people were talking about your Death Row release, Say Hi To The Bad Guy.

Crooked I: From an insider’s point of view I am going to tell you what it was. Suge is a competitive guy. Koch was a different company back then. When 50 Cent said that it was an artists graveyard – that’s how a lot of executives looked at Koch. I never looked at Koch like that. I always thought that Koch was great because you are getting five to six dollars an album. But a lot of people were looking at Koch like that back then. Suge was used to selling six to seven million records at a time. It would have been hard for him to match his level of sales on Koch – which was his distribution channel when he got out of jail.

So once he figured that out, he decided that he needed to put the Crooked I project on a different label to be distributed by a major – or else people were going to think that he lost it as an executive. If Crooked I does 400,000 on Koch, I am celebrating, but for a dude that sells six to seven million records at time that doesn’t look good. To the fan that doesn’t understand that we are making five to six dollars an album, it looks like we fell off. Suge didn’t want to chance it. He started to look for different homes for my record, but it was clear that nobody was going to f**k with him. Once that became very clear, I started to plan my exit strategy.

*******: You had to tell Suge Knight that you were leaving. How did that meeting go?

Crooked I: What happened was he violated his parole and went back in. I went to visit him numerous times when he was in Chino and other spots. When I was planning to leave, some of the staff members knew already. When they found that out, they didn’t want me to visit Suge and they were the ones responsible for setting up the visits. They set up the visits and Suge ok’s who is going to see him. They would never set up the visits and kept giving me the run-around. So one day I asked just to have a phone call with Suge and they finally got me on the phone with him. I told him that I wanted to leave and it was a business decision.

I had a four year contract and it was up – and I didn’t want to extend it. There were no hard feelings and I told him that – it was just time for me to bounce out. He was like, “Ok. Cool. Follow your heart.”

*******: So he was initially cool with it?

Crooked I: That’s what he said. I ended up following my heart and left, was about to release an independent joint when I received a cease and desist letter from Death Row Records. That meant we had to go to court and they weren’t going to allow me to just do my thing. It shocked me because I was loyal for four years. Plus I went through a lot on that label. I was in beefs – not with rappers – but I’m talking about street beefs due to my affiliation with Suge. For him to know that I’ve been one hundred percent thorough and to put my project on hold for four years, he should have just given me his blessings at that time. I can see why he didn’t want me to leave on one hand because I am walking in the studio and knocking records like 2Pac. I could do four or five songs in a day. That’s something valuable in an artist that he didn’t want to lose. So we had to go to court and once again my album was on hold. It took me 12 months to get free.

*******: Did you have any conversations with Suge asking why this has to be resolved in court?

Crooked I: No. At that point I had cut off all communication. I felt that there was nothing that I could say to sway him. I worked through my lawyer. It cost me $60,000 and 12 months to fight him. That kind of money hit me in the gut. At the end it was worth it because nobody from Death Row can lay claim to me and my work. Before the ruling, all it took was somebody from Death Row to call a place like Universal and say, “Don’t deal with Crooked. He’s still with Death Row,” and they wouldn’t touch me. With the ruling I now had the paperwork that stated that I had an injunction against any claim by Death Row stating that I owed them projects. I was happy that I got out of there and I went straight back to work.

*******: How have your post-court dealings with Suge been? Have you seen him at all?

Crooked I: Yeah, I saw him on Sunset Blvd. and pulled my car over to see where his head was at. There was one another person with me and he had seven or eight dudes with him. I approached him and asked him, “What’s good? Are there problems between us over the court issue?” We spoke on some man-to-man sh*t. He expressed a few things to me that he was disappointed about and I did the same. We shook hands like men and I bounced out.

*******: At least you guys were able to deal face to face.

Crooked I: That’s the reason why I think that a lot of these other artists have a problem with him in the past. They didn’t want to take the man approach with it. They wanted to hide behind a bunch of security guards and talk s**t – instead of dealing man to man and talking everything out. I think that a lot of people that left Death Row in the past are scared to do that – and that’s why there are bad terms.

*******: How surprised were you at the pictures that surfaced of Suge laid out on the floor?

Crooked I: It took me by surprise – a couple of things took me by surprise actually. The first being that he had an altercation at a club where there are cameras all around, especially after getting caught up like that in Las Vegas with Pac. That was one of the things that surprised me because I know that he’s at the level to where he doesn’t have to be in the trenches like that if he has a problem with somebody. To see him laid out like that too was very surprising because somebody must have got him with a good one!
When I saw the pictures, I was like, “Wait a minute” because you know how people doctor pictures with Photoshop. Me being formally affiliated with Death Row, people started calling me, even though I haven’t spoken to Suge in two years since I saw him on Sunset. Those things can happen to anybody that’s out there – and he’s out there. That dude is not at the house. He’s in the clubs, restaurants, malls, pumping gas by himself. He’s very visible and doing a lot of things. Those things can happen to anybody and we are now in the YouTube and TMZ era, so you just have to watch how you move.


*******: : Do situations ever get sticky for you being here in the wild West? Do people try to test Crooked I?

Crooked I: I used to get tested a lot when I was on Death Row. I don’t get tested a lot right now though. Back on Death Row it happened quite a bit. I remember one time some dudes followed me through the mall, so I led them in to a trap. Once I led them in to a trap, I turned around. They thought that they had me trapped but I took them to a part in Robinsons/Mays where there were no cameras. Once there were no cameras, I showed them why I had them there. They backed up and were like, “Yo. Please, please.” Ever since I’ve been over here at Treacherous Records, I don’t get in to fights. People walk up to me and get to know me for who I am before they decide to make a judgment on me. On Death Row, they had a pre-judgment in their minds already. Right now, it’s all good.

*******: There is another legendary figure in and out of your life by the name of Snoop Dogg. It’s common knowledge that you guys don’t see eye to eye. Care to give us the run down?

Crooked I: Even when he used that crumbs on the table line from “Pimp Slapp’d”, I didn’t really go at him. By the time I dropped the “Quit Snitching” diss at him, he had already thrown two shots at me. He was saying s**t to people that we know mutually and then he comes out with a mixtape and mentions me by name–twice in a bad way. So I pulled his coat-tail because he went on KCOP Channel 13 snitching. They had the footage right there on the news. He was trying to talk his way out of a small weed charge and they started asking him questions that didn’t have anything to do with the weed. They were trying to implicate people and he told on those people. It was live on the news. To me, that was something that there is no excuse for. So I told him in that song to quit snitching.

*******: Have you two had any personal conversations to try and settle your differences?

Crooked I: I saw him at Russell Simmons Hip-Hop Summit at USC. He came back there and I was by myself. He shook my hand and was like, “It’s all good. How are you doing?” So I thought that everything was cool. Then I saw him again at the West Coast Conference in 2005. I thought that maybe this dude had got passed all of the bulls**t. So I went to the conference with the hope that he was trying to unite the West Coast. I stood front and center of the stage with Spider Loc and he saw me there. Snoop was sitting next to The Game and Game even shouted me out. The Dogg Pound was also on the panel. Then they went out of the back door before we could even start talking. After they all said what they wanted to say, they all left!

They promoted the concert and spoke about The Dogg Pound reunion. Snoop showed his new shoe The Doggy Biscuit. Then he went out the back door and nobody was able to talk to him about past problems or issues. None of that was covered, so to me, the conference was bulls**t. It wasn’t really meant for West Coast unity. It was just to promote a concert, a brand new shoe and to announce that Daz and Kurupt had settled their beef.

Then he did an internet interview and went at me again. It really let me know that I was an important person to his life, because the interviewer only asked him one question about me. That question was if he would do a song with Crooked I? He went in for five minutes spewing negativity about me. That just let me know that I am on this dude’s mind. He said things about me that weren’t true and he tried to bait me to diss Bad Azz, RBX and other rappers. He could have just answered the question, “No. I am not doing a song with him.” Instead, he spews all of this craziness about me. I’m that much of a threat to the dude. I don’t even have a record out and he’s worried about me. He also had some slick words for artists like Bishop Lamont and Spider Loc.

Then he dissed his own artists! He once said that Dr. Dre only deals with artists that are 100 percent ready to go and that his own artists are like at 30 percent! He’s saying that his artists are only 30 percent of a star. He sh*t on me, other West Coast artists and his own artists.

*******: And since then there has been not real conversation between you two?

Crooked I: There has been no conversation between me and him since then. I reached out a few times because I knew a few people on his security team. I tried to reach to get a sit down, so we can talk man to man and to find out what is his real problem with me. He doesn’t have any real grounds to have a problem with me. He never got back so I feel that he doesn’t want to talk. I’m at the point now where if he wants to ever settle this, he has to come to me. He has to come to me and make a public statement against the statements that he made. If he doesn’t do that, then it’s see you when I see you.

*******: Ultimately, you are willing to settle all of this, if you can?

Crooked I: I’m always willing to settle things. That’s what you are supposed to do. A real person from the streets ain’t trying to run into the beefs. They try to settle it and if it’s the last thing they got to resort to, then they do what they got to do. These fake people from the streets act like they are running to every little beef. You’ve got to run in with your eyes opened.

These are the terms; Snoop Dogg has to say, “Crooked I, my bad, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said that s**t about you. You never said anything about me. I don’t know what I was thinking – my bad.” He has to say those things to me first. Then [he] has to go out in public like he went out in public and spoke negatively about me, and retract those statements. If he doesn’t do those two things then we will never settle it, because I reached out to him already and I took the high road. So now if he doesn’t do that, it won’t be settled. I don’t have any rap beef with him, because nobody wants to see me and Snoop Dogg battle each other. Everybody knows that he can’t rap better than me.

*******: What do you think is causing all of this on his part about you, if you have to guess?

Crooked I: Snoop Doggy Dogg, sat in a cipher with me in Long Beach at my studio. He grabbed my homeboy Big C-Style and said, “If you want to do something in this industry, you have to do something with Crooked I. Because Crooked I is the dopest rapper I have heard in a long time.” This is what Snoop said and that’s what made me and Big C-Style start riding with each other. So for a dude to turn around and say that I don’t belong on the court and that I am not better than this guy or that guy, now you sound funny Snoop Dogg! You are the same Snoop Dogg that was at the Sound Castle studio when we were recording the 19th Street Compilation who said, “Get out of the booth and let Crooked I go in there because you guys keep f**king up and he’s the only one that can go in there and do the song right.”

This is the same Snoop Dogg that now says that he never liked me – so you’ve got a motive behind the lying. What is it? Are you afraid that I am going to take Long Beach? My whole thing is, Long Beach is big enough for all of the citizens that live in it. He doesn’t have to fear that. He’s already a legend with a legacy and nobody can say they put Long Beach on the map before him. So why are you so afraid of me being the new boss of the city? That’s a question that you need to ask him. The only thing that I can see is causing this is fear.

*******: So what’s going on with you being on the Treacherous Records label for the past three years? Because we are still waiting for the album...

Crooked I: When I signed to Treacherous, we didn’t have a bunch of contracts that were like 50 pages long. It was a three or four page agreement and it’s in layman’s terms that say, “If you do this, then we will do that.” I like that because in the tradition of Hollywood and all of these record companies, they have contracts that will tie you up in the long run. They are going to run circles around you with all of the words that they are using. Then your attorney might be a friend of the person who wrote the contract – so you still can get stuck. It was refreshing to walk in the building and sign a three page contract which stated everything that you needed to know and move forward.

We were about to put out the album, Boss Music. We had the single, “Boom Boom Clap”, going for our street buzz and video lead single. That’s when Death Row hit us with the Cease and Desist letter. It took a year to fight that. So think of this; it took me six months to get an album that I am comfortable with. It took three months to put out a couple of street songs – so that’s nine months right there. Then you turn around and fight someone for 12 months and you’ve lost two years. After that, we used 2007 to rebuild.
If you ask me, I think we did good rebuilding on the West Coast in 2007. When I go to the East Coast and the South, they knew all about Treacherous and what we are doing. It was a rebuilding process. We have no lawsuit to stop us, we are in an independent position, we are putting out this new record, we are doing things to get attention in the media – and here I am talking to you right now! I think we are in a good position.

*******: You had an incredible run with 52 weeks of freestyles with your Hip-Hop Weekly series. Did you know that you were going to do 52 weeks when you started?

Crooked I: I didn’t. I thought that if I did this for like three months, then people would feel me. When I got to 10 weeks, I started to see that people loved it. On the flipside, there were naysayers saying that I couldn’t go to 15 and that I would run out of rhymes. Then I got to week 20 and even more naysayers came out. I love proving them wrong so I did it to week 40. Then I said, “Naw. I am going to 52. I’m going hard with this.” I went a whole year because I’ve never seen anybody give a whole year of free downloads to the fans with quality music. Quality rhymes every single time from 1 to 52. I didn’t fall off.
Plus I took requests from people on Myspace to see what beats they wanted to hear me rock on. I did shout outs and got the fans involved with the series. So the series was more interactive with fans than any other thing in the history of Hip-Hop, so far. It was like a drive-thru request, “Can you rap over a 2Pac beat and shout me out? I’m over here in Germany.” Boom – next week on Wednesday, you hear yourself being shouted out and it’s on a 2Pac beat. How many times can people tell a rapper, “I want to hear you do this or that” and see it really happen?

*******: Now that the Hip-Hop Weekly’s are out of the way, you announced that you were going to drop a song with Akon. When is that coming?

Crooked I: By the time you read this, it should be available. The song is called “Dream Big.” The reason why that’s the title because there is a recession out here. Gas prices are high as f**k and food prices are up 17 percent. The nation is struggling right now. The working people are struggling to pay their bills. The people that are living like how I grew up, they don’t have a lot of hope. We’ve got to hold on to our dreams. We’ve got to dream big no matter what. No matter who says that we can’t make it, we can if we believe we can. That’s what kind of song it is. It’s not really about doing a certain type of dance or going in the club. It’s still a hot track – don’t get me wrong – but the message is something that I think we need to start pushing out there a little more.

*******: Since you are dropping the single, do you now have an idea when the album is finally going to drop?

Crooked I: When it comes to these release dates, you have to make sure that the market is ready for you. We are an independent company, so we don’t know. We’ve got to push this single as hard as we can. We need all of our supporters online to get behind this and push this. When it gets to a certain level, then I can say that we need to drop this album.

*******: You have many supporters but you also have people that criticize you for not releasing your album yet. What do you have to say to them?

Crooked I: I understand it but I also know that they don’t understand the business fully. They think that I am trying to get some gazillion dollar deal and that’s why I am holding out. Some of my fans are frustrated because they are telling people that Crooked I is the best rapper in the world and they have people telling them, “No he’s not, because he hasn’t sold as many records as this rapper.” So it makes it frustrating for them. It’s like trading baseball cards. They can’t put their money on Crooked because he hasn’t done some of the other things that it takes to be called one of the greats. So they get mad and go online and say, “Man! Just drop the f**king album already!”

To that person this is what I say; What if I just drop the album to make you happy? And since it wasn’t set up correctly, it only sold 10 copies. Now you really can’t say that Crooked I is the best rapper in the world. Because the critics will say, “That dude didn’t even go wood.” There is a flip-side to everything and you’ve got to set things up properly. Plus, I am on the West Coast. A lot of the industry has to be re-introduced to people who want to make good music out here and not wanna-be thugs who want to f**k up the industry.

For everybody who is saying that about me and the album, I think they should be happy because 53 weeks of free music is better than buying an album to me. And I say 53 weeks because some of those weeks I had a 18 ½, 51 ½ and a 52 ½. When somebody still complains after they received a whole year of free stuff, then I am in a good position because they are mad that they can’t pay for something.



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Crooked I - Still Tha Row