Craig G on writing rhymes and coaching actors on 8 Mile

Speaker: 00:00:13

We have a

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true hip hop pioneer with us today,

the one and only Craig

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G, who helped write and coordinate

some of the rap battles in Eight Mile.

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Craig G is a member of the legendary Juice

Crew from the Golden Age of Hip Hop.

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Juice crew consisted of OGs

such as Marley Marl, MC Shan,

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DJ Polo, Roxanne Shante, and Kool G Rap.

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Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Mr.

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C, and several others

centered around Queensbridge, New York.

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This crew paved the way for so many stars

in hip hop collectives

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such as the Wu-Tang clan,

the Juice Crews Collective.

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The symphony is one of the earliest

and greatest posse tracks of all time.

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Craig has been putting out tracks

since he was around

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12 years old, and he's still producing

dope albums and tracks.

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Welcome, Craig G.

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Thank you for spending some time with us.

It was good.

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First off, let me say rest in peace to Mr.

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C, D.J.

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Polo, and Biz Markie. Yes.

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Yes. Right on.

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Right.

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Well, thanks again,

Craig, for spend time with us.

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We just have a few questions.

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If you can share with us in the audience

that we're going to be showing to this

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and still stacks

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First question, how did you get involved

with the movie eight mile?

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Did Eminem approach

you? Did the studio approach you?

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Have that even come about?

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Very little known story.

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When you constantly hear

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about the rap Olympics that Eminem was in

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right before he got signed, the Dre,

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that's when I first met Eminem.

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I was actually a judge in that battle.

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Wow. Hey,

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he battled a guy named otherwise, and I'm.

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This is my personal opinion.

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I thought M-1 and another judge was,

I believe Athie alone,

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and he was part of otherwise crew,

and they gave it to him.

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And I thought

it was a travesty of justice.

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And I made a scene about it.

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And, you know,

I kind of got cool with them do that.

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But even a deeper, weirder story is

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I don't know what year this was.

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I had a show in Miami, and then

I had a show in Detroit, and we drove.

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We had a, like a sprinter type

event two years ago.

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We do the show in Miami,

we get to Detroit, shows canceled.

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I'm like, oh man, me and my boy will pack.

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We looking for Phillies to roll

some weed up in.

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We go to this gas station store

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like warehouses behind it.

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And every time this door open,

I kept hearing hip hop.

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I was like, yo, what's that?

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So we walked over there.

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Lo and behold, it was the club

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the shelter was based on.

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Me and rest in peace proof.

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We went back and forth Ryan for rhyme

like 87 rounds.

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None of us wanted to stop.

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And me

and him became good friends after that.

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Right.

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So, you know, also rest in peace to Chino.

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Excel because me proving,

you know, excel had a group

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that we pretty much was on the phone

bouncing ideas

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back and forth,

but we didn't really get to the studio.

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Everybody was busy.

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But moving on, I believe, that

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and also the shelter situation,

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plus me and, Paul Rosenberg,

we had the same lawyer.

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I think all of that kind of,

worked his way into me getting that job.

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Great story.

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Nice.

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All right,

so this is kind of a two part question.

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So that's the famous scene.

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Will be rabbit's character.

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Cause Anthony Mackie, aka Papa Doc

to freeze up during that battle.

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So part one, was that concept your idea

or in the second part is,

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have you ever did someone dirty like that

during the battle?

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No. Honestly, from what I understand,

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Anthony Mackie wasn't really, really,

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you know,

had the motions down for his battle.

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And so they just wanted him

to do one rhyme, which I wrote.

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And, the weird thing is the,

the movie was called

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The New Detroit Project at first,

and they sent me the script.

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Man highlighted

where they wanted me to write lyrics,

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and, I did it, sent it back to them.

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Whatever. Got my first check.

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And then on New Year's Eve,

I was in New Year's Day.

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I get a text,

this with two way pages out.

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Paul hit me.

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He's like, yo, you want to spend

your New Year's in Detroit?

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I'm like,

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He's like,

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we need you to coach Anthony Mackie.

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Like the motions and the battle and

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I think I was at a wild New Year's

Eve party.

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I lost my I.D.. Remember, this is 4911.

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I took a Greyhound bus to Detroit

because of the money

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they offered me to come after the fact

just to do that.

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And,

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Anthony Mackie was doing the rhyme.

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He wasn't really getting it right.

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And everybody's

trying to figure out what it was,

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and I kind of pull him to the side,

and I was like, yo, you suck.

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I like, gotta make him say.

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When he got upset,

that's when he got that opening line.

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When the show first starts the movie

first dance and me mean the battle.

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Nah, I never had nobody freeze up.

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Not really.

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Well, what was it like working on the set?

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Like, what was it

like working with Eminem in the crew?

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If you could just a little bit

behind the scenes, how that was.

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Believe it or not,

and would shoot the scenes

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and then go to his trailer

because he had his family with him,

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so he wasn't really around.

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But I hung out with everybody else

of clues, was running

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around all over Detroit, which is crazy.

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I remember another crazy story about that.

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It was during what was that?

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Mayor and I went to jail.

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Kwame Fitzpatrick I think it was.

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Yeah. Chloe Kirkpatrick. Patrick. Yeah.

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They were I was in the GM,

the hotel near the GM building, and Dave

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was having his inauguration in the hotel,

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and I'm on the elevator with like 40 cops

and a big ass bag of weed in my pocket.

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And they had the

dog and everything on the on the elevator.

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I'm like, oh my God, no, no.

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And for some particular reason,

the dog didn't bother me.

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Snitches get stitches, man.

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I had Angel in my pocket that day.

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There you go. Absolutely right.

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But other than.

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That, like, you know, being on the set,

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it was long.

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I was man, like, you know,

I don't envy movie stars.

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It's a lot of work, man.

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You got to sit around for hours

and do stuff.

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Proof again. Rest in peace.

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Was the type of dude would hang out

till five in the morning.

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We got to be back on the set at seven.

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I'm there like, I don't even drink coffee.

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And I'm there

like with my head in my hand.

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And he comes bouncing in the door,

like, yet eight hours asleep.

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And, You

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know, all the extras

and everybody was cool.

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And then, they were going to actually do

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a montage of him battling,

and I was going to be in the scene,

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but I didn't have the right year clothes

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because, remember,

it was supposed to be early 90s.

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Yeah. And they they didn't do it.

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But I wound up in the bonus footage

on the DVD.

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Right. Thanks.

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I have that copy with a special feature,

so I had to go back and get it.

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Get nice.

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I you. The battles for the. Extras.

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All right.

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So in addition to multiple studio albums,

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we know you were the king of the rap

battle scene for many years.

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Tell us a little bit

about how you got into rap battling.

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I don't even want

to say I'm the king of rap battle, man.

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Be honest with you and I'll explain it.

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I never really got into it.

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I started rapping when I was like seven

and that's all I did.

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I never wrote rhymes, I just would rhyme.

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So I guess it kind of picked up

naturally like that.

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When I did my first single

when I was 12 years old called Shout Rap,

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which was the rap version of the show.

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By two years of age,

McCann had to help me structure the song

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because I went in the studio

and just rapped for six minutes.

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Yeah.

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So that's how the freestyling came about.

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But like, for me,

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it's kind of bad

because I, I enjoy it and it's cool,

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but it pigeonholed me and unjustly at that

because,

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you know, they used to throw me in that

that category of all

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the battle dudes can't make songs

and I'm like, yo, I had 4 or 5.

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What would be considered classics

before anybody even knew about

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my freestyle ability.

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So, you know, and then

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you could spend seven, eight hours

in a studio, another three hours writing

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a song before you go to the studio,

and it'd be the Dope Song Contest.

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Everything.

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And you go on stage performing live,

and they like rap about my shoes

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and you're like, come on, man,

I really want you to do this.

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Right? Right. You know what I mean?

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I want you to hear, like,

I, I'm a writer more than anything else.

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And the styling was just an extra.

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It was the undercoating on the new car.

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Right, right, right.

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So tell the audience, what other projects

have you recently completed?

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What else would you like

to mention to the hip hop heads out there?

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Great.

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As I was saying before we went on air,

I just today,

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September 3rd, 2024,

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I just finished

the album is called The World Is Cooked.

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I got KRS one, Chuck D, Chubb Rock,

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B-Real, freeway.

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I wasn't even trying to make an album.

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I wound up, like, doing some songs,

and then the beats kept coming

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and we wound up with ten joints

and two interludes.

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And the first single called The Okie

Doke be out September 20th.

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The album will be out November

1st on all platforms, and we'll have vinyl

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probably in December, probably. So.

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That's dope. What a lineup.

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What a lineup for you.

That's definitely a banger, right?

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This all heads like this? Yeah, yeah.

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And if you if you gauge from the title

the world is cooked,

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then I think you already know

what I'm talking about. So.

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Yeah.

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Right. Right. Right on.

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Yeah.

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So, this this question is,

it's kind of it's a little personal to me.

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Knowing, you know, the Juice Crew.

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So is there

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a Juice Crew reunion in the works

or any plans for a kind of juice reunion?

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Well, we did quite a few man.

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Quite a few. We did a good

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seven eight reunion shows.

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We went to Europe.

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Not everybody came by. The bulk of us.

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And I don't know,

we might do them, you know.

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But I have to because, you know,

we really kind of like, you know, so

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maybe the most you might see is me

grab Kane and Ace on the same show.

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Probably. Okay.

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That's the last one we did.

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We did that.

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And,

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and June I think in Atlantic City so yeah.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Next.

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Nice nice nice.

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As you know we'll be showing this video

to the crowd who just watched Eight Mile

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at Steel Stacks in Bethlehem.

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So shout out to everybody.

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Shout out to PA.

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Right on. Right right.

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So thank you again

Craig G for giving us some time.

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Everybody go check out his new album

The World Is Cook dropping November 1st.

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Can I clear up

huge biscuits ception about him. Yes.

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Please do. This.

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I didn't write any of Eminem's

lyrics, okay?

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Only the opponents

and a lot of them took what I wrote

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and use their own stuff,

like within what I wrote.

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I think exhibit probably said

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the closest to the full rhyme

that I wrote, but he even changed

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a couple of lines, didn't change my check,

but it was still a great experience

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to work on the movie and, you know,

help out the actors with the motions,

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with battling and all that, man.

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So yeah, what a legacy.

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Yeah. That authenticity though. Yeah.

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Which also led to me writing the dangerous

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characters rhyme and get rich die

trying as well.

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Oh, it's just a write that up. Yeah.

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Yeah. Right.

Yeah, yeah. It it would do that.

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Well he was in the club

and they shot it up and dangerous.

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I wrote that song.

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Yeah.

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Were you involved with the movie body

at All that Eminem had put him

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in all those rap battles as well?

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Okay, no, no, because that wasn't like

a theatrical release.

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Zahler. Right, right. Yeah.

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Like I'm the future films.

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That Universal Pictures check.

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That was. Those were nice.

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I still get residuals on that or.

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What I did on the DVD sales, but,

you know, that's okay.

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Go on and win.

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Now, you know, while the final DVD is.

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So you're not getting a penny

from Netflix.

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But, you know, it's cool.

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Yeah. Hey.

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Great experience.

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Yeah.

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: 00:13:23

Absolutely I can imagine. Yeah.

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Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

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Less again, enjoy the movie.

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I hope you all enjoyed it.

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It's not the battles you're seeing now

that's become popular with,

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you know who your opponent is eight years

before the battle happens.

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Eight mile was more about the organic,

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you know, battling

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where it was just you and another person

you might have found out ten minutes ago

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you was battling them,

and you had to take a long look at them

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and soak in all the jokes

before you started running.

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So yeah. Hope you all enjoyed the movie.

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And like I said, the World Is

could be out on November 1st one.

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Love y'all.

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It's awesome.

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Thanks for all you done for the culture

and for sure

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blazing a trail for so many people

we really appreciate.

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Thank you man. I appreciate it as well.

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Yes. Give you a few hours.

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