but i dont think he could pull anything out of us musically magical.
if anything he'd probably RHCP us and turn us AC.
ABSOLutely NOTHING against post 91 Red Hot---i enjoy and love "scar tissue" and "californication" but all too often i hear die hard chili peppers fans (their okayplayers) bitching about how adult contemporary they are. even an idiot myself checks out freaky styley and says "wow, rubin turning them down a bit was the right move"--

but let's face it.

there is a double standard in the industry. and i RARELY seen a situation in which the carpet layers/guinea pigs get to the other side unscathed (usually the first to WALK on the laid out carpet makes it in hip hop--NOT the carpenter who made the blueprint)

how would okayplayers feel is we just "went regular"

mind you that was the tipping point album.

if people can separate the disdain for the "perception" of what our motives are

(i believe THAT is the fuel that sparked the perception of The Tipping Point being the "rotten apple of the 9" (as one player put it to me)--in other words the judgement/hate we received was based on the perception of us about to cash in and sell out. cause to this day i believe that if ANY OTHER artist be it Luda/50/etc did "Don't Say Nothin"--then it woulda made it through the system

and i heard it all "the chorus aint make no sense etc etc etc"

but the chorus is what kept that shit avant guard.

i mean yall remembered that shit the SECOND you heard it. we thought it was funny and clever and effective.

but again this proves "perception is reality" and it was crystal clear that our core fan base will be none too accepting of the group if we were to just dumb it down a lil (i dont even consider TTP a dumb down--but since it was "seen" that way thus it became it.

and clearly this is all that rubin will do:


make us acceptable to the masses.

TTP was the album that we worked overtime to make sure that the chorus were real chorus and that the songs had song structure (well....im still tryna figure out what the fuck money was saying in "Guns Are Drawn" lol)---

so it is a Black Eye Pead gamble.

you either GO ALL THE WAY--

or you stick with what you know

the days of middle grounding it are over. we had some nice attempts at radio for GT but that woulda just disrupted the flow and sound of the record....and knowing that "records" are on their last breath (i believe the system of itune subscription is the future in which you just go on a label website and get "subsciptions" to artists who may/not release 20-30 songs a year as opposed to an Album.

so i won't lie to you and tell you that this next record is pretty much a russian roulette.

we need major label funds to survive (that money is what is sustaining us to do some high level shit like pay for all those guests at RCMH so the ol "start your own label etc talk is stuff i heard before but the bottom line is i need a label to fund us at least 2-3 million just to make a project work (tfa was 2 million, im too ashamed to tell you what our GT budget was--but believe you me....our DYWM budget was TWICE as much and that is some sad shit--and the underfunding shit is how def jam can justify with keeping us on the label:

make us money?

we'll give you a hov budget.


but use a hov budget to make yall numbers?


no label.


this is some backwards slave master shit i know.....but i swear im in a position in which im walking across a tight rope hanging from the empire state building with grease on my shoes in the wind.

we just have to make baby steps and figure this out as we go along. there is NO templet for what we are doing. all the mfdoom/def jux/etc stuff is content with its 70,000 status.

we are more stuck in the tv on the radio/yeah yeah yeahs hole 200+ crew

to get them numbers means we need a video shown.


mtv2 USED to be our friend. but now that MTV is so done with regular videos those "regulars" got transfered to MY OLD HOME (mtv2)

so now we (the mtv2ers) got moved to MTVU---really a station that only gets seen (thank god) by college students (that is where you can see the "dont feel right" video 7-10 times a day btw) even my video blogs are damn near a substitute for our lack of presence on the air. but 9 time outta 10 if a youtuber goes to my blogs....then pretty much they know how to download my record without paying.


just bear with us. i dont see this much more different then us struggling to make it all the other 9 times we made records.

this is a prison/tsunami that can be escaped. and as an addict of prison break--if there is a will....there is a way.

this aint no time for us to be patting ourselves on the back for being the only relevant rap group allowed to survive this long on a major.


i say take baby steps.


image wise i think we are in a good place with the political angle.

we'll lighten up and throw some lyrical shits in there so riq can bust his nuts. this time we'll make sure the music is in a place that will enable riq to do more inflections with his voice (the reason naysayers didn't feel riq on GT--the sly stone/riot going on delivery was over the head/dry/and a hard reference to catch and "inflections" are what make them stick (a good example is snoop damn near singing "aint nothing but a g thing "baby"...to loc'd up g's going "crazy" def jam aint a label that "paid may"...lol you get it)

we will work on stronger songs

we will dabble in the experiments more

we will make sure the songs BANG!!!! too

really when i talk about outside producers working with us in interviews...

its really just for the press angle....

unless you are with us with us (as producer)....i dont think a "producer" will have the answer per se. basically its just leasing a name.

but since we on the subject tell us something:


wil i am
dre
rick rubin


you lesson heads write me what you think they would pull outta us.

and let me interject right now before yall get started


this is RAP music

dont be all naive and say "oh yall coulda did "gin and juice" and won.

image STILL rules in hip hop (let's not forget "gangster", "on trail for murder", "nwa legacy") had just as much if not MORE to do with snoops success as opposed to him having a golden voice and the right hook and mix.


you really need to figure out what endearing image a bunch of near 40s can pull off in this genre.


thoughts?