A member of one of rap’s most respected and enduring groups, The L.O.X., Sheek Louch could fall back, survey the imitators, and enjoy his legacy. But experience in the rap game and the pursuit of a solo career has only made him hungrier.

After a personal introduction as a solo artist, Walk Witt Me, Sheek incorporated much more of the industry on his sophomore release, After Taxes. On his newest album Silverback Gorilla, dropping March 18th, Sheek has features from Bun B, Fat Joe, The Game, DJ Unk, Jim Jones, Hell Rell, protégé Bully, and his L.O.X. family.

Excited about the production, conceptual range and growth on the album, Sheek combines the enthusiasm of a new jack with the outlook of a seasoned veteran. While discussing major labels, disgruntled artists, the music grind, and the impact of The L.O.X., Sheek still gives it to you point blank.

HipHopDX: Walk Witt Me seemed like a more personal album, you didn’t have any features besides D-Block, and then on After Taxes you brought in a lot more of the industry as far as concepts and features. Where is Silverback Gorilla going to be compared to those first two albums?
Sheek Louch: You're right about that, Walk Witt Me was the breaking out of, “Let me show people I can do that too, besides the group.” Then I felt like everything you just said , with After Taxes. This one, I’m more grown- I’m older now, been through more, touched on more topics, experimented with different songs. Like for example, my lead single, “Good Love,” that’s not usually my style of a song that I would do. But Red Spyda brought the track to me and he was like “Yo Sheek, if you bang this out, you out of here.” It had the feel to me of that Erick Sermon record “(Just Like) Music,” when he had Marvin Gaye coming in. I said “This is hot, everybody loves that Betty Wright,” so it’s just different.

DX: You have a lot of non-New York features on the album, how did you choose them?
S: These are people like I respect. Fat Joe, I like his growth, I like that he’s still in the game grinding. Just when you count Joe out, he’ll come with a “Lean Back” or Top 10 record. Bun B is definitely a legend in this game, just like myself I feel. And [DJ] Unk, I liked his grind, and it wasn’t just because he’s on Koch as well. He came to me with these tracks. Like a lot of people that I dealt with are people that I speak to anyway. Like [Fat Joe] could call me like, "Yo, Louch I got this video, come and fly down man, I got you,” it’s like that with us. Even though Ghostface ain’t on this album, that’s another brother that I speak to on the regular, it’s not even about music.

DX: It seems like whenever you have an album you have a song that talks about your experience in the game and is personal, is there going to be a song like that on Silverback Gorilla?
S: Honestly I think, “Don’t be Them,” that’s the one for me. I’m explaining to all these people, talking about my experience on the road, off the road. And for the youth that’s looking at us thinking we “superstars” or whatever, we ain’t. We working, we grinding like any other person that’s grinding. And I’m saying “Don’t be Jada, don’t be 'Kiss, don’t be Sheek, don’t be Lox, don’t be Kim, don’t be Fox, don’t be them. Don’t be Bush, please not him.” You gotta hear it, it’s crazy.

DX: Do you feel like there are a lot of L.O.X. imitators out there?
S: I hear it in their flows, definitely. I don’t think they’re running around trying to be the L.O.X., but you can tell our whole style of rapping grew on a lot of this industry. We don’t really do gimmicks, that ain’t us. So as far as doing a gimmick to be us, we don’t really got gimmicks with us. It’s just our whole style that we brought to the table.

DX: You didn’t really have any solo plans in the beginning, and now it seems like you’re going hard with the solo career, would you say you’ve become hungrier?
S: Hell yeah. I’m more than hungry, I’m starving. Once I got a taste of it, the blood and all that… ‘Cause I was content with just doing the L.O.X. projects, then we slowed up on the L.O.X. projects, everybody was doing their own thing, and then I got into it a little more. But yeah, it’s fun man. I’m not doing construction, I’m not coming home from coal mines and all that, I’m using my brain and I’m putting my pen to the paper. And I got a track going, and a chance to travel and bring my boys off the block and do what I got to do, I love it. And to be in the game this long and walk on stage, and the crowd still yelling your name and loving everything you’re doing is retarded. To be relevant right now, that’s a dope thing. To reinvent yourself as D-Block, as "the silverback," after all this time, nahmean? Continued on page 2 »