DX: Have you ever witnessed an older artist or more established artist kind of brush aside or look down on less established artists in doing shows or on tours?
Steele: We could so a documentary about that shit, man.
Tek: Our motto is if you ain't breaking bread with niggas, fuck you. We been doing this for years and it was only right for us coming from the hood to come back and put our peoples on. If we see a nigga got that selfish mentality, we know to stay far away from that.

DX: You two came into the game as part of the Boot Camp Click. Over time peoples goals and motives can change. How is the relationship within the camp?
Tek: The relationship is still strong. Duck Down still here. Bucktown still here. We still rock with Da Beatminerz even though they don’t have any tracks on this album. Still rock with Buckshot, still rock with 5 Fab. Just did the video with all types of crazy cameos. It’s family first with us and we keep ours tight.

DX: With all the emcees coming out of Brooklyn during the early to mid 90’s a few people were looking for a unified Brooklyn album. Do you think something like that could happen today?
Tek: That shit would never happen. It’s too many nooks and crannies of projects and hoods with talented emcees. Then you got the egos of dudes who just know that they’re nice or dudes who feel like they are the “hierarchy” and won’t come fuck with this underground, hood emcee. The closest we ever came to that was The Crooklyn Dodgers and you didn’t even get a whole album out of that.
Steele: You still got to hope for the best. And there’s so much going on out there and dudes got so much to say. But, you have these dudes that feel like they can only do joints with platinum artists. Unless it’s that rare occasion where they make a personal choice and go against the grain. Sometimes those are the hottest joints. When you hear it and it’s like, “Oh shit, son did a joint with them?” We’re all fans of this shit. Dope collaborations help keep this shit moving, man. But that’s what we’re all about anyway. We respect anybody who’s doing there thing. We’ll rock with a dude like Joell Ortiz. Son gets busy. We don’t have to think twice about it. If we’re men of respect and you‘re good at what we’re both doing then the exchange is already made. We link up and see if we can get it going. It’s not going to be, “So what y'all using it for? Word, I need like three points on the album.” It’s like duke, where are you from? It’s like , "Aight son, nevermind." We don’t even deal with that. Me and my partner are some of the best. When we see dudes still in the street doing there thing we get that respect and love. When Tek talks about knowing [Notorious] B.I.G. and 'Pac dudes know that’s real story. We try to stick to the truth as 99.9% of the time. And these other cats [laughs] I mean if it happened it happened.

DX: What is Smif-N-Wessun’s process when creating music?
Tek: We just get in there and do what we do. We just stick to the script. Like if it’s raining outside, we throw the hoodie on. Whatever it is when we the engineer drop the beat that’s what it is. We respect each other as artists so we’ll vibe and throw shit back and forth but, at the same time, we’re still fans. So we get our pens, paper and whatever other “ingredients” we need and make it happen.

DX: Smif-N-Wessun has played a big part in New York's Hip Hop scene and in Hip Hop in general. Do you two feel like you’re recognized for what you’ve done in the game?
Tek: They’re not going to take notice of all that until either we lay hands on one of them or something tragic happens to one of us. They’ll never give niggas their proper, propers.  We been in mad peoples' homes, talked to their kids. People that are now lawyers, doctors, executives right now grew up on us. They ain’t going to give us that proper. That’s why we’re doing this right now. We got to document this. Like, it’s there, but everybody can’t get to Wikipedia.
Steele: We’re going to get it. We got more coming in ’08. Duck down is bringing that new Boot Camp album, new Buckshot & 9th Wonder album, Sean Price & Black Milk. The most high keeps coming with these different characters and we keep meshing and creating these new formulas. We got a bunch of things going on in ’08 but the Smif-N-Wessun album, that’s the baby right there.

DX: Even though Smif-N-Wessun has never had that crossover success you’re still in the game doing shows and making music. What is it that keeps you going?
Tek: The support. We get support from fans, people in the street, our own babies. We got comrades that been in jail since we were in high school that’s coming home after their bid saying “Yo, I was knocking ya’ll tape during my whole bid.” I know lawyers out there that will be rocking with Smif-N-Wessun until it’s over. Everyday is a new found hunger for this.
Steele: Hip Hop is a powerful thing, man. The word is truly mighty. Think about the power your words have.  Not trying to go left with it but the homie Nas is trying to put out an album titled Nigga.  You think about the boy [Hakeem] Jeffries petitioning Universal over it. Hip Hop is powerful and it’s reaching a lot of people, more than ever. A lot of people are tuning in right now. The impact is amazing. It’s getting on them planes, getting in that big ass 747 flying for 14 hours, going places to do these shows…hoping you land safe. [laughs] As long as we’re doing what’s in our hearts, and doing that to the best of our ability, we’re good. We feel like it’s our responsibility to the people who kept us going in this thing for this long. They’re everything. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.