Name: K Loc Company: BZM
Records Representatives:
Hot Rod (Harlem), J.D. Mac (Miami), Kev Mills (Boston)
Mental:
How long have y'all been in the game for?
K Loc:
8 years doin' it. Hard Work. On the grind. Every day.
Mental:
Do you find it to be a hard task doing it out of Boston?
K Loc:
You know it's hard anywhere, but Boston is where I gotta do it
from. If you can't do it from Boston, you can't do it from
nowhere else. Once I wrap it up here, I'll bring it everywhere
else.
Mental:
Do you feel like a lot of cats out here grind hard, or are they just
trying to get an easy hand out?
K Loc:
I can probably count on one hand the ones who grind hard. I would
defintely say BZM is one of those guys. We out here summer,
winter, rain, whatever falls, we out here every day, not matter how bad
the weather is, and we don't see nobody else out here. There
really aren't so many out here grinding like they should do it. You
know?
Mental:
Do you guys do your own production?
K Loc:
Yeah, definitely. We do our own production. Trevor Sparkxs'
sick with the beat, Big Beezy, got my man Noel, got my Cape Verdean boy
Crip, all top of the line production they do.
Mental:
How many albums have you put out?
K Loc:
We're on the third one. We got Target East Coast, Smash For Cash, and we're
doing the new one here called The
Gamble. I think that one's really gonna stir up a lot of
stuff in the streets. You know we comin' back hard after all the
troubles we been through.
Mental:
What do you think about Hip Hop as a whole? Do you think
it's going too commercial? Too much like down south? Too
easy? Is there not enough skills in Hip Hop?
K Loc:
Hip Hop is individual. Everybody's got their own way of how they
look at Hip Hop and what they do with Hip Hop. In Hip Hop you can
do anything, just do the right thing with it and try to get your
message out there. Make sure that it's quality music that people
can listen to and don't imitate nobody. I think Hip Hop is
stronger than ever. We came from nowhere and now we're doing
it. I'm Belizean. I came out of Belize. Grew up in
Hip Hop in Belize, Easy E, NWA, King Tee, Boogie Down
Productions. The game definitely changed and it's for the
best. We can eat off of it, we don't have to be out there
robbin', shootin' nobody, killin' nobody. It's a job without
going to college. We're pickin' it up and we're doing it. That's
Hip Hop culture.
Mental:
Lemme get grimy witcha. What do you think of the cats down south?
K Loc:
I love down south. I used to live down south. Everybody
hustlers. Down south, west coast, I see how they do it. I
brought that same thing to the east coast and that's why we're the
independent label and we distribute our own music. Our music is
quality music packaged right. So I definitely love them guys down
south for doing what they do. They hustlers. They don't
play with it. They do it for real.
Mental:
Do you think in MA, Boston will be put on the map like how New York,
L.A., Down South, Philly are represented?
K Loc:
Yeah, sure. Everybody's got their chance to do what they gotta
do. This is definitely Boston's time. We can handle
it. We've been watching from the outside. So now we're
about to go inside and play with everybody else. I definitely
think we're ready for it. We got good music. We're being
ourselves. We ain't being nobody else. We ain't trying to
imitate nobody. Definitely Boston can do this. Definitely!
Mental:
How long did you live in Belize for?
K Loc:
I came to America when I was like 2 years old. Then I stayed out
here until I was about 7. I went back to Belize and then came
back here when I was like 12 or 13. I've been back and forth.
Mental:
Is Hip Hop big out there?
K Loc:
Big BIG. Hip Hop is big, man. And as soon as I'm off this
case with the police, I'll be in Belize tripling up off my CD
sales. Now if I sell 10,000 out here in America, I can go out to
Belize and sell another 10,000. Then go to England and sell
another 10,000 or whichever way it goes. Belize is definitely big
on Hip Hop. We got Hip Hop stations out these just like 88.9 and
94.5 or Hot 97. We got Crim radio station out there in Belize and
they pump good music. They pump everybody's stuff out
there. They pump OUR stuff.
Mental:
Who is rappin' on the album you got coming out?
K Loc:
J D Mac, like I said, he's from Miami. He's a Haitian cat.
And Hot Rod. He's from Harlem One Fourty First / Lennox.
Same place Dipset and all them guys from. Them all run together
and chill together and shit. And he's Belizean right there
too. And we got Kev Mills from Boston. He's American so we
got a little bit of everybody on our thing, you know what I'm sayin'?
Mental:
Is there a number? Do you all do production?
K Loc:
Yeah man we do all that. We own our own studio, our own label,
everything. We record everything at BZM Records. And we go
to M Works and do all our mastering. (617) 894-0928.
Mental:
How do y'all make beats for heads?
K Loc:
If I hear a beat, I tell the guys I think if we lay it on this beat it
will be hot if we come up with a hook or a concept to the
beat. Sometimes, but usually the guys do it
themselves. They just sit there and think up what they going to
write.
Mental:
Do you bring any kind of Belizean flavor to you album?
K Loc:
Definite! Definite! Definite! I bring that nice,
smooth stuff that you just gotta love it. The production is
different from everybody... in Beantown or L.A., New York,
Chicago. Anywhere you go, our production stands by itself.
Mental:
What do you think about the Cassidy situation? With him getting
locked up for murder.
K Loc:
I don't really know where he from. I don't really know about him
like if he really really from the street, but niggaz that's really
really from the street, from what I know, when they're in that position
they don't wanna shoot nobody and kill nobody. Niggaz is just
trying to get money and relax and chill. Anybody, if you ain't
from the street, and you get a deal, NO NEED TO START WALKING AROUND
WITH A GUN AND START SHOOTING PEOPLE, 'CAUSE EVERYBODY'S GONNA KNOW
YOU. And if you want to run, you can't run nowhere. So, I
just say think about it. Unless somebody's really trying to
jeopardize your life, trying to kill you, and that's the only way you
can get out of that position is to defend your life and kill him.
But if you go to the club and you see girls, and you just want to act
like you're a tough guy 'cause of a song -- IT'S JUST
ENTERTAINMENT. Just because you say I'm gonna kill-kill-kill on a
record or whatever doesn't mean you go around and do it. It's
like the movies. You see *Brad Pitt*, you see *Tom Cruise* and
them with a gun, but you don't see them walking around the city
shooting people and stuff like that. It's just
entertainment. No need to make it go to your head. You'll
be in jail and you'll be in a lot of shit. Then when you go to
jail, you are gonna meet real real motherfuckers, and ain't never never
getting out, THEN YOU CAN BE SOMEBODY'S SENORITA OR YOU CAN BE
SOMEBODY'S BITCH. So you gotta think about it. If you gotta
defend your life, your family, your kid, hey, I support you. But
when you make a song and then you gotta get a gun and start going to
shoot people, it don't really make no sense. So, hopefully
Cassidy learned from this and maybe he can set a better example for
other people. And maybe there can be better security too.
We all gotta work together and figure out how everybody can come to a
show, be safe AND the artists can be safe, and the promoters.
Everybody can just get their money, people come and have fun and then
go home. That's it. Nobody got killed, nobody got hurt.
Mental:
For the mag...What do you hate?
K Loc:
I hate guys on the street -- since we're talking about Boston --
instead of selling $5 bootleg CDs, let's get it all the way
official. Sell real CDs where we can get a $10 market in Boston
for every single CD we sell. Because it's hard work for you to be
out there selling your garbage music or whatever you're bringing to
people, when we're out here packaging our stuff right and people are
out here giving us a hard time talking about "It's too much, at my man
down the street I can get it for $2." You can get it for two dollars,
but as a product, we sell you QUALITY stuff. It's hard
work. Let's try to big this city up and get rid of all that
then. Instead of having people say Boston's wack, just support
each other and let's do it. Stop the hatin'.
<< K Loc & Kev Mills