DX: In the last four years, G-Unit has grown to mean a label, a vision, a clothing line. How much of this album from the three of you has been about taking it back to the core of G-Unit, what it meant on mixtapes back in 2002 and 2003?
Lloyd Banks: I feel there’s a real urgency. The mixtapes are actually what gave me my career, to grab 50’s attention to begin with. I was doing local mixtapes, and always knew the importance…that’s what put me in position to be with 50. When I got into his movement, I went from the point of putting out a new record, and it would say “new 50 Cent.” I went from those stages to the stage where I won “Mixtape Artist of the Year,” the year after 50 won it. [G-Unit] took [that award] home in 2003 and 2004, which was a great achievement. Rest in peace to Justo – the guy who was behind everything.

The mixtape market is important. I treat that plaque just as important as another award I’ve received – just because it’s a direct link to the street; the street [that] put us there. There was a point where we didn’t have no major deal, and freestyles from the mixtape, people would call into the radio, Hot 97, demanding to hear that freestyle. Why? Because it was free.

DX: You mean because they knew it, from being almost free in the street?
LB: Because for anywhere from five dollars to two-for-five – they even had a dollar spot on Jamaica Avenue. The access was just so easy; you could get your hands on one en route to school or en route to work. We fell back on the mixtape market a little bit. Everybody gets to the situation where you [meet with] the big execs and everything, and they pitch you bigger ideas. They don’t understand the significance or the importance of what put you there, which is the mixtapes. They feel like the mixtapes are giving away free stuff [which could] make finances for them. If you hang around big money, you start to want more money, and you start to take heed to those conversations, because they’re here for a reason. But everybody’s formula doesn’t work for everybody. I think that in our absence, people look at the era and how it changed. It went from baggy pants and hoodies and Timbs to tight pants, funny looking shoes and glitter belts. I think the game right now is in desperate need of aggressive content – not just what they consider gangsta rap. You don’t wake up in a good mood everyday. You might get into an argument with your girl. You might not want to hear an “I Love You” song; you might want to hear “Fuck That Bitch,” and we deliver both things. That’s what’s important right now. That’s why the industry has taken onto the Revenge of the Bodysnatchers [click to listen] and Elephant In The Sand [click to listen]. It’s a breath of fresh air – even for me and Yayo, because we started off with this [music]. It’s funny. God works in mysterious ways, ‘cause it’s right back [G-Unit being] me, 50 and Yayo. Just like a basketball player might start in the park and go to the NBA…every so often, you’ve got to go back to the park.

DX: Making the first album, Beg For Mercy, there was talk that you guys were never in the studio with each other. With these mixtapes, from the choruses to the sequencing, it sounds as if you made them together. How imperative was that to the craft and to bringing you three closer together?
LB: I’ma tell you why it was chopped up like that on Beg For Mercy [click to read album lyrics] we had several tour buses. That was along the course of the Rock The Mic Tour. We would fight to get into the booth. Whether we stopped at a food stop – a food stop might take an hour ‘cause there’s 40 some people with us. I’d go in and record, Buck would go in and record, 50’d go in and record – and I was recording The Hunger For More at the same time. Buck was recording Straight Outta Cashville. Fif was coming with a majority of the ideas for Beg For Mercy, because he had so many ideas left over from Get Rich Or Die Tryin’. You have your whole life to make your first album, but only 16 cuts make it, so the rest of those cuts turn over to the next project.
50: Everything was mobile. We had to multi-task and everything. It's like that again now too.

DX: As I waited here today, I heard “Rider Part 2” [click here to listen] three times in the last hour on Hot 97, that’s not even an official record…
50: “Rider Part 2,” I wouldn’t have made that record that way that it is if I knew I had to make it for the radio, ‘cause I wouldn’t have been having as much fun as I do when I’m making the mixtape. That’s why you hear “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” [imitating the chorus]. That’s me playing. I do it [because] it feels good. I never escaped the real important part of Hip Hop culture and that’s being able to maintain being a fan. Continued on page 3 »