DX: The School Daze influenced intro and outro were added to the March on Washington version of “The N Word Song“. Why did you guys pick that scene with Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishbourne?
DJ Victorious: I was watching Youtube for things, I was looking for a Boyz n the Hood sample. I put in Spike Lee and Lawrence Fishbourne and School Daze came up with that scene popped up. I called Sha and told him about it and he was watching School Daze and we were in sync. The song pretty much is told in the perspective of the Samuel Jackson character.
Sha Stimuli: When we are performing it we get a really good response. An actual video is coming out soon. I saw a Boondocks video with it on Youtube. I like it when my work inspires people to put in some work as well. But a real video is coming soon.

DX: You’ve been a free agent for a while now. How has the experience of being on a label changed your perspective on the game?
Sha Stimuli: First, starting off, you'll do anything to try to get to try to get to that point. To have the label status and having the machine behind you... to have people's nine-to-five getting paid to do your promo and marketing. To have that for one year, it was crazy for me. I got them to believe in me and everybody was going hard pushing for the record and to start to see you become the star. Although I knew Virgin wasn’t one of the most powerful machines in Hip Hop, I knew it was better and stronger than what I had done to that point. Now taking a step back I’ve refocused my game. At that point I was Stimuli, I was trying to make me hot and get it popping, becoming the next big artist. I didn’t lose sight on how I started, but I wasn’t that focused on the goal I was trying to reach. When you’re in that major machine, the main goal is to sell records because they have to get their money back. Everything else takes a backseat. You got A&R’s telling you have got to put this record out or your thinking about how I am going to get hot. I feel like now I am at a place right now were I am refocused on getting jobs for my people and touching lives to put me out there for years and years. It’s not about Hip Hop right now. I feel like I am hungry again, I’m starving, but not for a deal, but to be heard.

DX: It seems you’re using the internet as a real tool to promote yourself and your music. Some of the older artists and deejays seem to think the technology is ruining the game. What do you think the internet’s place in the game?
DJ Victorious: The Internet is a good way, the only way to get music out to hundreds of thousands of people right away. It couldn’t be a bad thing. Its only when you think there is one way to eat off the music. If you get people to download 100,000 people to download for free, you can tour the country or the world with that. So really its not stopping anything. It isn’t like Sha had anything to sale in the stores, so it’s not fucking with him. He’s coming into the game through that.
Sha Stimuli: The Internet is open for any artist to have the world at their fingertips. I used to have cassette tapes to hear what I was working with in the studio, back when Pro Tools was just used to master your recordings. When I first my grind, I didn’t have it. Even when I saw other websites when they first started, I had no idea how to get my music on it. Now I can hit up HipHopDX and if they like it, now the world can hear it. That’s a blessing. I have a producer from France and he can send me a track online. I don’t even know what he’s saying.

DX: It allows the venues to get pushed back deeper into the world and get money that way.
DJ Victorious: Sales are down, but it’s like how game started. EPMD took 30 days to go gold, and that was a big deal. Now if you go gold, it's [worthy of] congratulations, you did pretty good. It’s the saying like, what goes up must come down. Like when Hip Hop first started, they were mad at the Sugar Hill Gang. They were saying that it shouldn’t be on vinyl, it should be in the club, the parties, and the rooftops. They said it was commercial then. When CDs first came out, I was mad a CDs, then I saw other ways. The money is out there. We're in New York, there is always someone making money. What we have to do is find a way, whether it be from clothing endorsements, writing rhymes, but someone has the money.

DX: Considering your exposure to Hip Hop, it isn’t a stretch to call you both students of the game. Where and how do you see Hip-Hop in 2008 ?
DJ Victorious: I predict Hip Hop will be Sha Stimuli…
Sha Stimuli: To try to predict the next stage in Hip Hop is kind of tough. Musically, I am a fan of Soul music. I do a lot of stuff that sounds like it came from somebody who cared about what they were doing. That is not a popular sound right now. What I would love to see is the diversity of the game come back, where you had everyone doing what they did, it wasn’t a follow the leader type of thing. Nowadays you have Rick Ross come out with a hustler record, and 18 people follow. Everyone is afraid to be themselves, and is just trying to make money.
DJ Victorious: It’s all about the quick buck.
Sha Stimuli: I feel like there is no quick buck in what I do. If I go to a label, they are going to put me under the microscope to see if I am going to sell records. They want to know if I sound like what the radio sounds like. I feel like it puts the artist in a position of trying to match what is out there. Hopefully, not the radio, but the fan, can demand variety.
DJ Victorious: It seems like dudes are running out of things to say. I don’t know how because there is so much out there. They are running out of things to sample, running out of drum patterns to break. Continued on page 3 »