INTERVIEW: Casanova 2X Describes How Chris Brown Pushes Him To Be Great
Originally posted on HipHopDX 7/9/2017
It’s not every day you can turn on a Hip Hop record and feel an authenticity once reserved for the genre. For Flatbush MC Casanova 2X, that’s not an issue. Having served three separate stints in the New York prison system for everything from selling drugs to assault with a deadly weapon, the Brooklyn Knight’s music oozes reality. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his journey is that Casanova has only been rapping for a year and has a deal with Memphis Bleek’s Warehouse Music Group imprint. Cas recently stopped by the DXHQ to talk shop with the #DXLive team about the lack of authenticity in Hip Hop, his journey to get where he is now, and how Chris Brown pushes him to be a better artist.
Unlike most, Cas never thought about being a rapper. It’s something that fell into his lap. “You hear ‘Boom boom boom’ everybody getting shot but really dudes not shooting nobody,” Cas exclaims. “I can say I shot people because I went to jail for it but these dudes that are rapping these days are really not what they say they are,” Cas exclaims. “It’s music. I never really wanted to be fake but I guess after I went through what I went through I had a story to tell. I been around a lot of rappers and I was like, ‘I can do that.’ Once you go to the studio with somebody and see how they come up with something it’s like, ‘hold on let me try it myself.’ That’s how it happened.”
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INTERVIEW: Bizzy Bone Talks Why He Refuses To Watch Both 2Pac & Biggie Biopics
Originally posted on HipHopDX 6/28/2017
While the 90s were being dominated by the boom-bap of the East Coast and the G-funk gangsta rap of the West Coast, there was a different sound independent of both coasts brewing in the Midwest. Chicago introduced the rapid-fire flow to the game in 1992 with Twista and Crucial Conflict opted for more style than speed in 1993; but in 1994, an unknown quintet from Cleveland would catch the ear of Eazy-E and marry the rapid-fire flow and style together in perfect harmony. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony has been a pillar of the genre for more than two decades. Just two days after the 23rd anniversary of one of the most important albums to come out of the Midwest, Creepin on ah Come Up, group members Bizzy Bone and Krayzie Bone released their collaborative album New Waves under the moniker Bone Thugs. Bizzy Bone recently stopped by DXHQ to talk with the #DXLive team about the album, his son carrying his torch, and his memories of 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G.
On a recent episode of #DXLive, the team debuted a new single and video “Bizzy’s In The House” from Bizzy Bone’s son Lil Bizzy. “He’s been musically inclined since he was a baby,” Bizzy Bone said. “I never had to rock him to sleep. We’d put him on the couch and he’d just rock himself to sleep mumbling words, mumbling rap music. Anything that would come on he would mumble it and emulate it, especially my stuff of course – and his uncles, Bone Thugs. He was born to do this. It’s just good to see him carry on a legacy that I’m still cherishing as we speak.”
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INTERVIEW: MC Eiht Reveals Origins Of Shelved Movie Opposite Bernie Mac & Lisa Raye
Originally posted on HipHopDX 6/27/2017
Perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of MC Eiht’s career is that we never saw him in a major role on the big screen after his standout performance in Menace II Societyas the cap-pillin’ South Central native, A-Wax. While the Compton MC explains his lack of interest in Hollywood, he divulges of a potential Blackbuster hit that was seized by the feds before it could ever see the light of day.
“I’ve never really actually went after movie roles,” Eiht explained during a recent episode of #DXLive.” [If] somebody felt that I was fit for a part or do good in a particular situation then I would usually just let them come and ask me if I wanna get down. As far as like getting an agent and going after movie roles, I never got into that. I was strictly emceeing. That was my thing. A lot of times when you get into the Hollywood thing, you gotta conform to somebody you really don’t want to be or they try to change you into something. I just felt that trying to keep my own authentic direction with music that I wouldn’t go after roles. It’s not like people didn’t call me but a lot of stuff was comedy shit, a lot of stuff was Uncle Tom shit so I just backed away from it. I did Menace II Society and then that came with Thicker Than Water and then I had a little role in the Freeway Rick story. Just little bullshit. Who Made The Potato Salad, I did a little role. Then I shot a movie in Chicago that was called Reasons but it was government, political drug shit so they seized the movie and it never came out. We shot this movie maybe 15 years ago. Bernie Mac was in it. Lisa Raye was in it. It was a drug movie. A dude called Nathaniel Hill; he was a pretty big drug dealer and he basically made a movie about it. They seized the movie because he basically told the story of how he came up. He was on a worldwide run, they extradited him from Africa. We shot it in Chicago. It took us maybe four months to shoot it. Real big movie. Spike Lee’s producer [Monty Ross] directed it. It was gon’ be a big, large movie. I played the lead role. It was a real neighborhood pic but it was governments and indictments and courts and all that; followings and grand jury’s so they basically seized the movie.”
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ALBUM REVIEW: No Oomph In Big Boi’s “Boomiverse”
Originally posted on HipHopDX 6/26/2017
For a legend that helped usher in an entire city and region to prominence, Big Boi is comfortably perched within the lexicon of Hip Hop icons. There’s no denying Daddy Fat Sax’s dominance and confidence throughout his career. Unfortunately, the ATLien’s solo game hasn’t paralleled his tenure within the mighty Outkast and his fourth (if you rightfully count the Grammy Award-winning Speakerboxxx) solo effort in Boomiverse isn’t going to change that.
Sonically, Boomiverse traverses through a landscape of overused synths to force a cosmic, universal theme devoid of the “boom” the title alludes to. What should have been a blockbuster affair with all-star Hip Hop production courtesy of Organized Noize, DJ’s Dahi and DJ Khalil, Scott Storch, and Mannie Fresh largely comes up short in an attempt to incorporate too many musical genres into one singular product. The finished result is a clusterfuck of inconsistent harmonies, which will surely bring out the Nick Young puzzled faces.
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