Sam Scarfo – The ProfileWild Interview
Back in 2004, Sam Scarfo was the Fight Klub chance and was all over street DVDs like Smack. He was immediately signed to Def Jam during Jay-Z’s presidency and it was one of the only signings both Jay and L.A. Reid immediately agreed on. Long story short, the Plainfield, New Jersey native never dropped anything on Def Jam and was later released. As an independent artist, Sam Scarfo worked closely with Prodigy of Mobb Deep and stayed creating music, but his music from his Def Jam days sat on hard drives collecting dust. But last week, Sam Sceezy unleashed some of his standout tracks from his Def Jam days on the album 5 Million Stories, which has features from Nate Dogg, Ghostface Killah, Fabolous, and others and is available both as a free EP download or a deluxe album at all major music spots. ProfileWild chopped it up with Sam Scarfo on 5 Million Stories, Nate Dogg, his new music, where he’s been, the Hollow and Joe Budden battle, his battle history (including his one and only loss), his upcoming album with Ski Beatz, and much more in this exclusive interview.
Here are some quotes from the feature:
On the album 5 Million Stories:
This is actually like my first album that I’ve ever released and I’ve been in hip-hop for a few years now. I just felt like I needed to put something on the marketplace and I didn’t want to make it a new release because the music, to me, isn’t really current but I think it has that timeless feel. It definitely feels great that people get to hear it.
On the Hollow Da Don and Joe Budden battle:
I thought that Joe Budden spit some nice verses. But see, battle rapping today is so much about performance and the verses are so long…I just think that Joe Budden was speaking condescending in the battle rap arena and to battle rap fans. Battle rap fans are against mainstream rap. They are against it. They don’t want to hear mainstream rap. They don’t want to hear how you shine. They don’t want to hear you talk about how much bigger you are. You’re not bigger than him in his zone. You think you are, but you’re not. Battle rap fans want what they want when they want it. They’re into it. They follow their Instagrams, their Twitters, their Facebooks…I think he attacked it from the wrong angle. I think he spit some good verses though. But he automatically made him the underdog and it’s human nature to want the underdog to win. They make movies about that. Rocky!
On his writing process:
The best verses from me come out in the studio. I write them in the studio, which is very expensive. I can’t write them at home. I got three kids running around. I can’t write at home…The beat has to be something to me that speaks to me and I’m going to jump on it. I’m working with another producer and we wanted to do a project together. I understand, older MCs and older producers, especially dpoe ones, they don’t work fast, but if you send me ten beats, and I only hear one, I can force out the other ones, but I need a producer who can send me 40 beats and I can pick five. Usually those verses don’t take long to write.
