DX: You guys began as New Style, a group signed to MCA. The first Naughty album had Lakim Shabazz, Queen Latifah and Apache. Look at what you’re doing now. To what extent would you say Naughty By Nature carried Hip Hop from its place in the ‘80s to its place today in the ‘00s?
Vin Rock: Hmmm. After Run-DMC and Salt N’ Pepa, I think Naughty By Nature helped put the final stamp in Hip Hop being mainstream and getting this Hip Hop music out to the suburbs. I think we put the final stamp on it, and then the Death Row [Records] era came right after that.

DX: I’m glad you mentioned that. You guys did one of my favorite Eazy-E records in “Only If You Want It.” Besides Ice Cube working with The Bomb Squad, bi-coastal collaborations were rare in those days. How did that happen?
Vin Rock: Right! We hooked up with Eazy…I guess “O.P.P.” had come out, and Eazy was just goin’ through that stuff with [Dr.] Dre and them, so he kinda reached out to us to work with him. We got the tail-end of what was going on. We knew there was a transition. Eazy told us about Suge [Knight] and the Death Row situation. He was like, “They came and kinda tried to strong-arm me, but I know the core and the basis of where this guy is comin’ from, and in the end, it won’t pan out.” I remember Eazy to this day, ‘cause he came to my house. We were both into properties. He showed me his properties in L.A.; we showed him our properties out here in Jersey. Even, right now, I still live in the same house that Eazy came to visit. When I think back about Eazy, I’m like, “God, this guy was right here in this house!” He definitely was a marketing genius. Even I picked his brain about merchandising. At N.W.A. they had all that merchandising and the pull-out sleeves. “Eazy, how are you doing that?” Basically, he was using a licensing company. I took it a step further. Shit, we were already printing stuff and we’re selling it off the block. We have the inventory and don’t need those guys, we just got Tommy Boy [Records] to let us put the inserts in the album cover. Eazy definitely put us up on game.

DX: It’s always been said that you guys had the biggest entourage in Hip Hop. You guys and Hammer, and his folks were on payroll. To what extent were those people who were so much a part of your life in ’92, ’93, are they still in your life today?
Vin Rock: First off, we’re all from East Orange, New Jersey. We all met together at East Orange High School for a talent show initially. It was those people who supported us. It was those people who gave us that first round of applause as The New Style that made us want to believe more in ourselves and say, “Hey, we could do it.” And it was the same people, after that talent show – we used to perform at Club 88, and those people would come [and help us win the competition]. It was then that we took it over New York and tried to make it bigger. To this day, we’re still in East Orange around the same people. Same people! It’s one big family out here – minus the homies that went to jail or got murdered.

DX: You and Queen Latifah are often left out of the discussion about your state’s musical contributions, despite having unrivaled impact. How do you feel about New Jersey Hip Hop today?
Vin Rock: I think Jersey has always been a step-child. It takes groups like us or Redman or Queen Latifah [click to read] to kinda do for Jersey what Jermaine Dupri [click to read] and OutKast have been able to do for Atlanta. There’s always been a scene here. We’ve always been the [sixth] borough. Jersey has been up on Hip Hop since its inception. One of the biggest Hip Hop labels was Sugar Hill Records, and that’s where you get “The Message” and “Rapper’s Delight” from. All of that is Jersey. Right now, since Naughty hasn’t been as consistent, Jersey has a Hip Hop scene. There’s a lot of talent out here. As a matter of fact, Treach is working on a project called Garden State Great. It’s starting with some guys from Newark working with Treach, but we’re gonna move it around the whole state of Jersey and use that as an umbrella brand.

DX: Tell us about the new album, and where Naughty is meeting us this time on new material…
Vin Rock: We’re just working. We took it back; there’s nobody in the studio but me, Kay Gee and Treach and the engineer – four people in the studio at all times. First of all, for Kay Gee, his progression as a producer… he worked on all the R&B albums, Next, Jahiem, Zhane. His musicianship and his production-skills have blossomed to a whole different level, which is why it was unfortunate that we had to do the iiconz [click to read] album without him, but you know…the classic internal beef. You have to move forward. Basically, it was left to me and my guy Bryan Leach at TVT [Records] to work with these different producers to come up with the material. Continued on page 4 »