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ARTIST INTERVIEW: SWAGGA RITE by
MENTAL MAN

HM: Go ahead and introduce yourself, man.

Styles: Name's Styles, CEO of Swagga Rite, just tryin' to do it big out here, you know.

Twizz: It's Twizz aka Captain T. You already know what it is, Swagga Rite Entertainment.

HM: How long, y'all been doing this?

Twizz: Damn, niggas been rappin' for a while. Since middle school., but we never took it seriously, and we just decided to take it seriously from the beginning of this year to like the end of '05, and decided to try to do something with it.

Twizz, my man Sho Nuff, Snizz, my man P Smokes, they was all rapping at first. They know I was in school doing most of the business stuff, that's like programs like NIFTY, whatever, so they just brought me on board to be manager. I do a little bit of spittin' myself, but mostly like to stay behind the scenes doing most of the business.

HM: How many of y'all are in the group?

Twizz: It's about five, yeah. Four rappers. It's P Smokes, my man Snizz, a shout out to S Dot, Sho Nuff, Cap T right here to my right, and myself.

HM: How long have you been together as a group doing this?

Styles: Man, me and Twizz go back. It's almost double digit years now. Me and Snizz, and Sho Nuff, those are like my brothers. We grew up together. I knew P since high school. That's like four or five years.

HM: What do y'all think about the music that's out now, compared to say, the music that was out in the '90's?

(laughter)

Twizz: Like right now, it's changing, in the new millennium it's all about what you got, and a lot of people that's rapping right now, to get where they at they have to front, and lie. You know, they got to fake it till they make it, they rap about what they don't got and stuff like that. Whereas in the early '90's you rap about cool stuff, you rap about having fun you know and everything was happy go lucky, and you could get away with it. Like late '80's early '90's I still listen to that type of music. You could rap about having fun, chillin' in the hood with your boys, it wasn't really about killing bang-bang, but then you did have the NWA people and people underground doing the shoot 'em up bang-bang, but at the same time the people mainstream were making the songs that hood people could listen to, but it wan't all that shoot em up bang-bang type of stuff. As for nowadays, the people who are doing shoot em up bang-bang, they ain't really blowing up. You got people like D-Bloc that are one of the best rappers in the industry, but they not making the amount of money they should be making because they're not rapping about having millions of dollars and all this other stuff. Showing the grills and all that.

Styles: Basically, I see it as a lot of people are trying to struggle through to reinvent themselves. If you take Big and Pac, they was just spitting about what they knew. It wasn't really about needing to invent themselves. They were just telling they story and making it rhyme. It just so happens that somebody was paying them to do it. But nowadays a lot of people are trying to make up a story and make up a persona about themself and try to sell after somebody else. That's fake. You can't try to sell me something that really don't belong to you to begin with. How am I supposed to buy that? That's the way I see it. A lot of dudes struggle to try and reinvent themselves, trying to be something that they're not. You might be able to get away with it with a few edits, but real recognize real.

HM: Do you feel you get proper recognition as a group?

Styles: Well, I Won't say it's like it's like any recognition 'cause we ain't really nowhere yet, this interview right here is the first one ever.

HM: You will get it though.

Twizz: Yeah. I feel that we are gonna go somewhere, because ever since we started being serious about it, everything's been just falling into place. Like, we've just been meeting people that do magazines, people that do photo shoots, people that want to get on CDs, people that want to do collaborations, people that make beats, all these people are just coming to us right now. When we never took it seriously, we never had people coming up to us out of the blue like "You gotta do this, you gotta do that." When we started rapping, everybody just come up like "Yo, yo yo, y'all rap right? So let's do this, let's do that." I find myself walking in my own hood and some white boy we call Crackhead Jimmy gonna come up to me like, "Yo, I heard you rapping, let me spit this 16 for you." And that's when I just started, so I'm like yo holdup where's this shit coming from? But it's good, it makes me feel like everything's happening for a reason, God's got a certain plan for us.

HM: What do y'all think about the locals?

Styles: It's like on the low Boston's got a lot of talent. Even yesterday, we were down at the barber shop and a group of like 20 dudes they just come up to the barber shop and like "Yo, were' like looking for this dude named A Yo, yo and we heard this stuff on Myspace saying he was trying to battle." And I'm like WHUT?! We didn;t know it was hoppin' like that, we thought it was like beef. They're like "Nah, we're just tryin to battle." So whatever happens, we end up in the barber shop battling. It was crazy for like a whole hour straight. Dudes is going at each other. It was crazy! Like freestyle fire in the barber shop, and it's like damn, dudes really had talent. There was like two or three cats that was really nice. I didn't really expect that coming from Boston.

Twizz: I feel like the locals in Boston, we got what it takes to be the next Houston, or the next Oakland, or the next New York. We just gotta have people to actually come down here and look for us. The people from Boston that's already blown up, they don't worry about coming back to the hood. 'cause Boston's so small. When you go outside of Boston, when you are somewhere else and you bring up Boston, they be like "Damn, there's black people that live out there?" The hood of Boston is small as shit, so it's hard for us to get recognized by other cities or states, but once one person get recognized, I got a feeling that Boston's gonna blow and be the next Houston, because there's too much talent. You got my nigga Jermaine that's doing his thing with XL, and they signed with Clinton Sparxx. Like I said, it's this Boston thing we gotta make a move. We're the City of Champions, but still, we're not recognized as the talent of Hip Hop like Hip Hop in Boston is dead in other people's minds. We're trying. We got everybody on the grind, people freestyling for money and all this and that. It's too much talent out here. We just gotta get it recognized.

HM: Do you think we're trendsetters or copy cats?

Twizz: We are trendsetters. When you come to Boston., it's something different. I noticed that we got our own style when I went to New York and I said, let's go to Harlem. I want to take a trip to to Harlem. We're walking through Harlem on feet. I'm taking pictures. I'm the only person out there with some Addidas on and a Champion hoodie. So it's like, out here Boston's a city of dreams, a city of Addidas and stuff. You got people that wear their Nikes, but a lot of people wear Addidas, Jaboes, Champion hoodies. If we ain't trendsetters, we're unique.

I think we are trendsetters in the sense of our attitude. Boston dudes, we really do have sort of a nasty attitude. That's the reason why so much bullshit is going on in the streets, why so many niggas are dying, because Boston dude's are all ignorant. And I think that sort of reflects on why Boston hasn't really blown like that neither, because there's really no unity. You see a man selling a CD just because you spit too, you are going to not cop his CD. Y'all trade off CDs. Y'all don't gotta pay me five, I ain't gotta pay you five. Listen to mines, I'll listen to yours. If we feel each other, we'll get up and do something. My contact info's on there. I don't see a lot of that going on, but they just made the Mass Industry Committee. Somebody's gotta take steps to get more organization, 'cause when you're organized, things move a lot better and can actually happen.

HM: Do you want to put your contact info on here?

Styles: Yeah man, you can reach me at (617) 406-7108. or k.will@nextel.blackberry.net Swagga Rite, Get up and do something.

Twizz: You can reach Twizz at (617) 602-7179. Holla at me on anything. I'm always available. I'm looking forward to calls.

Styles: August 5th is my man Twizz' Birthday. We're at Who's On First, Boston. Official pum pum shorts are fair. Y'all come through it's gonna be good and crazy, and the flyers are gonna be out here real soon.

HM: This is Haters Magazine, so just tell us what you hate the most.

Twizz: I hate the size of Boston. Boston's too small. I can't do my pimp shit. I can't do nothing in Boston. It sucks! If I'm fucking with a couple of chicks, I'm getting caught up. That's that bullshit. And it's so small, you don't know if you're fucking your cousin... or not. Man, you could be fucking family members, and this incest shit is crazy out here. And I don't like all the hatred. Since Haters Magazine, Boston's a city of hate. A nigga will hate you before he compliments you. When they listen to your music, they are not listening to what you say. They listening for FLAWS. They love to criticize. They want to criticize you. They won't tell you what you did right. They love to tell you what you did WRONG. And niggas don't wanna help you out. It's all crabs in the bucket in Boston. That's what I hate. We call them Swagger Jaggers. If there wasn't so much crabs in the bucket, then Boston WILL be the next Houston. But to everyone who want to get out here first, it's not who make it out here the fastest, it's who make it... period. We need to help each other out if we want to make it and put Boston on the map.

HM: Let me ask one more. What's the name of your album, man?

Styles: We're doing a mix tape, the mix tape's out. Get your Swagga Rite Volume One. See how that mix tape move. You know you got the Caribbean festival, the Puerto Rican festival all those coming up so we can develop a nice little market around that. We're gonna have a whole lot of different types of people. We don't try to limit ourselves and only hustle our CDs to black people, 'cause black people are not the only ones who like Hip Hop. The white boys is out there banging that new TI and all that. Everybody loves Hip Hop.

Styles: That's how we make money, off these white people. You can't just focus on the hood and think you are gonna make money in the hood. You gotta look at people like one of the greatest rappers that's alive right now Styles P he really ain't making that much money, because he made music for the hood. All that's good when you're making music for the hood, 'cause that's what we're doing right now, but to tell you the truth, all the money is not in the hood. People in the hood buy bootlegs. If you want money, you gotta make music for everybody. These white people, they're the ones who buy the real shit. Everybody in Spain and Europe all that shit, they're the people that are buying CDs so you gotta be versatile and spread your shit. It can be hood but, tell your story so that anybody could listen to that shit.

HM: We're gonna sign off, so give us those names one more time.

Styles: Swagga Rite Productions. S-Coop. Call me CEO Styles, whatever. Signing off. (617) 406-7108. Scream at me. Niggas trying to get that paper.
Cap-T: You already know it's CAP-T. You already know what it is (617) 602-7179 Holla at me.