People don’t know what it encompasses to go after your dream. They’ll be whining, “I got a MySpace page. I got my songs up, and I’ve got a lot of friends on here.” It’s like, “Shut the fuck up!” It’s a lot more involved in that quest. If you think that all you need is a few pictures and to press up a little cheesy ass CD and you’ll be a rap star...it’s so much sacrifice that comes with it. It was crazy.

I met with everybody. I was with Puffy drinking wine, listening to my records watching Making the Band. I’m like, “You ain’t gonna ‘Making the Band’ me, nigga. You won’t have me running for no cheesecake!” He’s listening to my records like, “Oh yeah, playboy. I like that one.” Looking back, that shit was like a movie. I met so many people. Dame Dash is the big homie—much love to Dame Dash and Clark Kent. We were in a meeting with Clive Davis and this nigga was falling asleep. He’d nod off and then pop back up like, “Oh yeah, that’s hot,” then he’d fall right back to sleep again. But, even that was a blessing. I met a lot of great people like Jermaine Dupri [click to read] and Sylvia Rhone. I made a lot of great relationships with people who I still consider friends to this day.

DX: I heard Dre told you he would make you an offer you couldn’t refuse.
BL: Yeah. They had the homeboy [Aftermath A&R] Angelo [Sanders] out there watching my every move and shit. It’s a small world and they knew what was going on. It was like, “Yo, this nigga’s gonna try and get a meal ticket out of us.” After that they told me to come on home. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and it was a done deal.

DX: And that offer is what helped fund so many of these high-quality mixtapes?
BL: Thank you, man. That’s what it’s about. It’s a blessing to be in this position, and for people to feel it and dig what I’m doing. I’ve got to give them my all.

DX: You’ve been signed for a while now, and people like Rakim, Eve and Joell Ortiz are no longer on Aftermath. How much patience does it take to be on this label?
BL: You know what I told Dre when we first had the meeting? He told me I might have to wait awhile because of 50 and Em. I said, “Nigga, I can watch paint dry in the rain.” That’s how patient you have to be. It takes unimaginable patience and faith. You have to have people that are dedicated and believe in you. That only comes from family, people who are like your family and friends.

Thankfully, for me, I’ve always had my mother and my brother in my life. My father was in my life, even if at a distance, when he left. I had that family unit and true friends who believed in this shit. The believed even when they were saying, “I don’t know, but if this what my baby say he wanna do, then this is what we gonna do.” You gotta have those elements, a serious work ethic, and you’ve got to be fearless. You just have to know it in your heart.

DX: Knowing that you had to wait, was it part of your original strategy to drop a mixtape every so often and keep your name buzzing?
BL: Nah, it just happened. That’s from having access to $5 and $10 million studios, a huge-ass budget and working like a motherfucker. Why just stack records for this album and have shit in the archives? Aftermath is known for just having shit in the vaults. To this day, there are shelves of shit in Dre’s vault that are just ridiculous. There’s so much stuff from 2001 and different stuff that didn’t make Em’s album. There’s crazy records for new artists who Dre did beats for that are just sitting there. I was like, “Fuck that. I’m putting shit out.”

DX: It’s been crazy with the mixtapes. Seeing you on the cover of “Nigger Noize” wearing a KKK robe with an iced-out watch, you can’t help but laugh.
BL: That was the goal. We just wanted to take what people have feared for hundreds of years, something with negative feelings and show how bullshit racism and the [Klu Klux] Klan is. These niggas is clowns. I rocked that shit and made it funny and fresh. That shit don’t faze us. That shit is over with. You’re still cutting up bed sheets that you should be fuckin’ on, and using gas that’s $5 a gallon to burn crosses, and you call yourself a Christian? You’re burning churches and running around fucking with people? Nigga please!

That’s what it’s all about. Fuck that shit. Laugh at that shit. Take all that negative shit and make it something positive and fresh. All they’re gonna call our music is nigger noise anyway, so I said, “Fuck y’all. That’s what it is.”

DX: I think there are still a lot of people who will look at that and think because the west isn’t overtly racist, like the south, that there’s no reason for that message.
BL: I know. How do they think that when it’s one of the most racist places? The difference between racism here and racism in the south, or in Boston, is that they hide it. People are conservative with their racism here. A fox is the worst thing to fuck with, because at least a wolf will say, “I’m gonna eat you, motherfucker.” But, a fox will be clever with the way that they do shit. People out here will hate your fucking guts, and act like it’s cool. They’ll gladly take your money, but if you try to date their daughter, they’ll have a fucking heart attack. If they saw you hurt in the street and in need of medical attention, they’d keep walking like, “Fuck you.” The flip side of that is there are a lot of beautiful people out here who just look at others as either good or bad people. Continued on page 4 »