This writer’s phone interview with Pacific Division was the first time interacting with them, but a bystander would think that he knew the Los Angeles rap group for years. Answers to questions are interspersed between references to obscure basketball players (“Shout out to Rik Smits, I see you! Detlef Schrempf, Chris Mullin!”), shout outs to old school actor/athletes (“Carl Weathers was one of our biggest influences,” Like flatly quips), and side-splitting descriptions of themselves (“Niggas who wear diamond earrings and live in apartments. Niggas who spend they last $5 on a beer, and not get no food.”).

But Pac Div’s resume and skill set is nothing to laugh about. The trio of Like, Mibbs and BeYoung have been putting in work on efforts like their heavily-praised Sealed For Freshness blend tape, and their combination of old school awareness and new school sensibilities have garnered praise by everyone from The Roots’ ?uestlove to Pharrell. An interview with DXNext delves into their come-up, their strategy and their future.

On Getting Started: "We got started back in 2000," says Like. "We all went to the same high school and we played basketball, but we also rapped, so it was a marriage, man. Pause. It was a marriage in that we all shared common interests in hoops and Hip Hop music. Coming from the west, our similarities in taste in music was different from what was around us, so that made it even more special. The first time we connected, it was like it was already meant to happen. We just started making fly shit. Well we thought it was fly then, but you know how you go back years later and you’re like, 'Man, that was real wack.' We had our growth process. At first it was a gang of members, like a Wu-Tang, nine or 10 members. … We started recording at the homie’s house, and it was cool, but we started to look into it as big plans, so we had to downsize the crew. From nine to four, then four to three, and here are the three of us now, holding onto it."

On Musical Tastes Within The Group: "One time we were at a high school basketball game, sitting in the bleachers waiting for the game to start," remembers Be.Young. "Like and Mibbs are brothers, they were like, 'What you listening to? What’s in your CD player?' I’m like, 'I’ve got some Ghostface in here.”'They were kind surprised to see I had Ghostface in my CD player. I had “Camay” in there; I didn’t even have the whole album, I had “Camay” the single. “Daytona 500” was on the b-side! From then on, we just had a lot of similarities with the music. We were just into the same type of thing." "BeYoung has an older brother that put him onto a lot of stuff, like east coast rap, rap all across America, like down south, OutKast and stuff," says Mibbs. "We would all share the same interests, and as lyricists, we grew up listening to people like Wu-Tang, Nas, Jay-Z, Redman, Ras Kass, a gang of lyricists. We figured that was the true art of the music, and we felt like making the group, we all feel the same way about keeping the art alive, and that’s how we came about. We kept true to ourselves. But we’re still us at the same time." "Basically, we had two older cousins from different sides of the family," begins Like. "And one of them was into west coast gangsta rap, during the time when gangsta rap was running shit. He always put us on to Kurupt, to Daz, Dogg Pound and shit, and that was fly. DJ Quik, we were into all that real heavy. Then we had another cousin that we looked up to a little more, and he was kind of on the wealthy side, so his musical tastes were a little more different…more lyrical, and it was Ras Kass, maybe The Roots, it was OutKast. He had a wider spectrum of music that wasn’t just one coast. We were more intrigued by that, because that wasn’t what we were used to hearing. It just seemed right to us, that’s what we wanted to get into. It was kind of setting a statement, because nobody else around us was doing that, and we like to stand out, naturally and when we’re just doing our thing. When we’re doing it now, it’s good, ‘cause a lot of fools don’t expect us to do that. A lot of east coast cats will hear us, and they’re like, 'Damn, what you know about that?' If we were to take a quiz or a test, we’d probably ace it more than east coast cats, based on our music background or whatever. From Hip Hop from everywhere—east, south, north, whatever. We just like this that’s fresh.

On Old School Appreciation: Be.Young: "What it is that we talk that influence from back then, but you’ve got to be observant to what’s going on in the whole music world and the whole culture that’s rap music. You’ve got to keep your ears and your eyes open to see what’s going on; you’ve got to stay in touch to what the kids are into, just what everybody’s digging at the time. All the great artists can change with the times and adjust. We take that influence, and we make it what’s going on right now, we just adjust it and put our own spin on it. 'Cause we feel like we’re the only ones doing it like this." Like: "Plus, we study rhyme patterns. We know what a relevant rhyme pattern and an outdated rhyme pattern, if you follow what I’m saying. We’re not going to get on Gang Starr and rap exactly like Guru. We keep it current, and we know when to fall back on multi-syllables sometimes, we know when to kick it hard with multi-syllables. A pointer is, this just goes in rap period, if you know how to ride a beat with your flow and it sounds current, then that’s all good, you’re going to win. If you don’t understand that, then what you’re going to get is a lot of shit that don’t sound right. It might be a tight beat that you’re rapping over, but if you have an old school flow, then we don’t really thinkin you’re going to win. That’s just our perception." Continued on page 2 »