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8/23/2006 What's up? I'm good. Are you ready for 4:21 to drop? Let's go! Are you happy with how the album came out? I'm very happy. Erick Sermon is one of my newest best fucking friends right now. Why's that? Because this is the first time I ever got to work with him that much and he's real hands-on in the studio. That's what a producer should be. Did you learn a lot working with him? Of course. Erick comes from an MC perspective. It's like when an actor becomes a director, he knows how to direct actors. Your album with Redman, Blackout, was compared to EPMD albums for being real funky and fun. Has EPMD always been an influence? Erick has his own sound. You always know it's him. There may be one or two tracks like that on this album that you can tell he did, but the others you can't tell. Dude is a genius. RZA's on the other side of the album. That's like the icing on the cake right there because once me and RZA lock in it's a wrap. Has the chemistry changed working with RZA today? It takes me awhile to get back into the mode. RZA's a busy dude so a lot of the times he wasn't actually physically there to fuck with me so I just had to do what I had to do. At this point in your career, you can't feel like you need a producer there to give you guidance. No, I don't, but I always like the extra input. He may have been thinking of something I wasn't thinking of. Sometimes you get that writer's block and then the second day kicks in and you still got that block and then the third day kicks in, sometimes you need a producer to come and say, Let that shit go and come with that bullshit! You also have Kwame on the album. How does it feel going outside of your traditional circle for production? I've been doing that shit but every time I did it it's like fans always caught a big-ass bone up their ass so I don't do it too much anymore. Does that ever get frustrated want fans want a certain sound that maybe you don't want to do? It gets frustrating especially when you're an artist who wants to grow and you don't just listen to one type of music. EPMD said it best, You have to give the people what they want. Do you ever feel trapped in a box? I broke out of the box and now I'm trapped back in it and it's not that bad. You learn a lot about yourself when you look inside yourself. It's like reacquainting yourself with yourself. It's like, This is what you're good at and this is your core. This is what they love so stay there. The tracks you've released have been getting a lot of positive feedback. Are you happy with that? I've been getting good feedback? I don't know. I've been on the road. You have been on HipHopGame for "Presidential MC" and "Fallout." I'm good then. But you know what? I never had a problem with the fans. It was mostly the media. I haven't read or heard anything good about myself in the media in the last three years. It's all good because when I go out in the street I feel the love so it doesn't matter. Why is it like that? Because they felt that when I went and started doing my acting thing, which I do very well by the way, they felt it sort of took away from my hunger. I don't know what it was. People hate to see their idols or icons doing something else. Maybe I should have taken on nothing but gangster roles but I was trying to show I had range. Maybe it was the sitcom. Who knows? Did the TV show take away your hunger from the music? I didn't think it did but according to the fans and the media it did. I took their word for it. This is how I make my living. This is how I got in it so this is where my focus should be. If they have a problem with it, you have to say, I'm going to chill on this shit and make my bread in this way. I just didn't like the malicious way they were coming at me. The hunger sounds like it's there on 4:21. It's dark and aggressive. I had to reaquaintance myself with myself. People thought I was too light and having too much fun. That's true. You could say it's aggression but I like to say it's defending myself because a lot of people were getting it misconstrued. You can not defend yourself to everybody at once. Whether this is my last album or my second to last or my third to last, I'm going to say what I want to these motherfuckers and get the fuck out of here and let these motherfuckers know that I am a true MC. How many albums do you have left? Five or six without a question. How long the industry is going to tolerate a nigga telling the truth is the problem. Is the media responsible for most of the problems in hip-hop? No. Hip-hop is the problem first and foremost. It's just the media gets it misconstrued a lot. They misquote niggas. They go right to the motherfuckers have beef every time. Then when there's fights at these concerts nobody's getting no money because nobody's going to book you. I remember when you had to have an R&B singer just to get booked. Thank goodness for Jay-Z and the Hard Knock Life Tour for hitting the road and having no incidents. Are you hitting the road soon? Yeah. I'm on the road with my family. What's the Method Man show like? I walk on water like Jesus! Anybody who's been to my show knows what I mean when I say, I walk on water like Jesus. Did "Say I" with Lauryn Hill do what you needed it to do? You know what? I've said in the past that I wasn't feeling the track that the label pushed for this record first. That's why I said there are some smart motherfuckers in that building (Def Jam). When that record came out, it was taken in a negative and positive light. People appreciated that it sounded so different from everything else and at the same time you had the radio station taking the lyrics so personally where they wouldn't put any spins on the record. That's exactly what I wanted them to do, listen. I kick myself in the ass right now and tip my hat to Jay-Z, LA Reid and Steve Bartle because I tried to fight it and they were absolutely right. That record was what was needed at the time. I missed the bus on that one but it served its purpose. You don't often hear rappers admit the label knows what it's doing. They were right on that one right there. Me being who I am thinking the label was going to fuck up, I didn't attack the record the way I should have. Do you have more faith in Def Jam now? It's still a learning process. Until the album drops I'm going to keep my mouth shut. With Rick Ross blowing up, are you worried you're not going to get enough attention? No. I'm happy for Rick Ross. He's a decent brother too. I feel that with Def Jam being synonymous with hip-hop, every artist should have their chance to do their music and get the same push. That's all I ask. Was Def Jam involved in the making of 4:21? That's why Jay-Z's there, to oversee that. He knows how to pick a hit. In the studio, it was just me, the producer and the track. Nobody else got any say-so. You're addressing the biters on "Fallout." I'm ready to teach Flowology in colleges and stuff. Everybody has that same flow. Like I said, I'll stop changing my style when y'all stop stealing it." Motherfuckers act like they're not feeling me but their whole catalog is my shit. They're not feeling themselves. Stop copying me. You must not be feeling yourself, fuckhead! Do you hear a lot of yourself in the new guys? I hear a lot of myself and I hear a lot of the Ol' Dirty in these dudes. We shaped and molded these motherfuckers. Tical O: The Prequel dropped three years ago. Are you happy with how that did? It was more or less like I was trying to swim. I'm not going to blame anybody for that. I'm not going to blame Bad Boy who oversaw the majority of the album. Javier is a good friend of mine. It just didn't mix. Everybody had a right to say what they wanted to say but I felt critics were too hard on me. They weren't looking at the changes the label was going through at the time. I was pushed in a direction. That wasn't by choice. Tical got such great feedback when it dropped. Are fans expecting you to live up to your debut album every time you drop? No, because I felt like on the Wu-Tang food chain, that record right there was one of the lowest. That's my opinion. That was because we lost a lot of the information in the flood that RZA had. Plus we were on the road. I had to be connected to the street and we were out in San Francisco and all over. I think people liked it and felt the fact I was fucked up throughout most of the album. Who knows, man? How much did you lose in the flood? A whole lot of shit. He had to do a lot of those beats over like "Stimulation." "What the Blood Clot" was made on the fly. A lot of beats were made on the fly like "P.L.O. Style." "Bring the Pain" was saved. "All I Need" was made out in LA. Nothing really was saved. Everything was gone. Is the Wu-Tang album going to happen soon? I don't know. I'm going to keep it real diggy with you. The fans can stay real hopeful. We're going to stay touring and see how the fans receive it. If there's another Wu-Tang album, I'm guaranteed to be on it. Will everybody be on it or is anybody saying they don't want to be on it? Nobody's saying that. It's more about how the business is going to be handled first. Do you get the respect you deserve in the industry? I used to. I don't know what happened to it. I'm working to get it back. I don't know where it slipped up. I'm still the same motherfucker. You can run around and ask motherfuckers. It seemed as though you were dissing Ghostface with some comments you made to MTV. Can you clarify what you meant by those comments? I said, Ghost is dope. Yes he is dope, but I don't like the way you motherfuckers try to hold him higher than the rest of us. If I read one more article that reads, Former Wu-Tang member Ghostface, I swear I'm going to stomp someone the fuck out. I feel like that's a form of separation right there. It's been going on since day one. Look at how PE had to kick somebody out of their group for anti-Semitic comments. You're talking about somebody they grew up with from childhood. I don't like the way the game is played sometimes. I'm not taking anything away from Ghost. He's introspective and I've always said he was the heart of the group. These media geeks like to just filter niggas out. They tried to do the same shit to me but I didn't feed into it. I didn't try to be the media darling. I always shied away from it. When I did a show the crowd wasn't screaming "Method Man." They were screaming "Wu-Tang." Will you and Redman do another record? Yeah, if they sign off on it. Hell yeah. Did your sitcom with Redman have enough of a chance to succeed? I wanted out after the pilot, man. I wanted to be out after the pilot. I don't know. I was blinded. They'll tell you that same shit they tell countless others. "We understand where you're coming from and we're going to make this project exactly how you want it to be." It started out that way and then it got twisted. The writers were saying this, the producers were saying this and me and Red were saying this. I appreciate the opportunity with Fox but it just didn't work out. I think it kind of stagnated niggas for a little bit. It kind of pushed us back for a minute. Do you have anything coming up? Hollywood left a bad taste in my mouth. I left my agency and I'm working on the music. You can hear it in the music. You can tell. A lot of Wu-Tang members have their sons rapping now. Your kids are still young, but do you want them to be MC's? Whatever my kids want to do, I want them to do it as long as it's legal. I don't care what it is. If they want to be janitors, be the best fucking janitor you can be. They have opportunities that I didn't have when I was that age. They're going to take full advantage of that. I'm going to make sure. Have they shown any early signs that they may have the rapping gene? Yeah. My oldest likes to freestyle and my daughter does the karaoke at Applebee's. My youngest just wants to be a ninja or a serial killer or some shit. He likes weapons. Does being a ninja run in your bloodline? You know everybody has a little ninja in them. What's your relationship with Lyor Cohen today? I haven't spoken to Lyor. I'm looking to catch up with him and have lunch and thank him for giving me a chance. Him and Kevin Liles. They both did a lot of good things for me and Redman. How's Streetlife doing? He's good. He's right here. What are you working on Street? (pause) He's got some shit he's working on! He's a recovering drug addict like all of us. He's got the Method Man Presents Streetlife album. You can check his MySpace at http://myspace.com/streetlifewu. What's holding up Redman's album? Doc is his own worst critic and he's very meticulous in the studio. Every time Redman drops an album it's very well-received and he knows that. It's the second-guessing game right now. He has dope shit. What are your plans for the rest of the summer? I'm striving to be the first MC to sell over 150,000 units without a video, straight up. I missed my opportunity to shoot a video because I lollygagged trying to get these extra records done. It was either a video or getting these extra records done. Def Jam was gracious enough to give me the extra time to go in and work on some extra joints so I missed my opportunity for the "Say I" joint. We're going to see how "Fallout" does. I still have this nice jumpoff under my belt so that means I still have life and another album to come. Have you been watching Flava Flav's Flavor of Love? I haven't caught that yet. I caught last season. I got a TiVo. What advice do you have for up-and-coming MC's? First and foremost, save your money. Second, keep making those fucking albums and third of all, don't bite my shit! What do you want to say to your fans? Believe half of what you see, nothing you read and everything I say.

By Brian Kayser

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