SHOCK G & MONEY B of DIGITAL UNDERGROUND Xplosive Magazine Interviews UNCUT - READ!!

  • Wanna Join? New users you can now register lightning fast using your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

C-4

Sicc OG
Apr 25, 2002
8,022
1,135
113
44
#1
SHOCK G & MONEY B of DIGITAL UNDERGROUND Xplosive Magazine Interviews UNCUT - READ!!

Sup yall, I meant to post this sooner but it got lost in the shuffle of me gettin busy and gettin put in a folder and what not, but if you read Shock G and Money B's interviews in the Xplosive Magazine with the Oakland City 2 City, you need to know that they were a LOT LONGER than what got printed, and there is a lot of good info that fans would love to know, how DU got started, everything about 2Pac, etc.... so read on and enjoy.

SHOCK G INTERVIEW:

Digital Underground is one of the most well known and respected groups in Hiphop history. They are known for their signature comedic and freaky sex filled rhymes, always on a futuristic tip. They are also responsible for bringing Tupac Shakur to the mainstream forefront as a very young entertainer. Digital’s debut “Sex Packets” was a huge platinum hit worldwide that included the classic “The Humpty Dance.” I talked in great detail with D.U. front man Shock G about everything Digital, past and present.

Shock tells me that Digital Underground comes from all parts of Oakland. “Money B and Fuze were in North Oakland, me and Kenny K was in East Oakland, Schmoovy Schmoov and 2Pac had an apartment on Macarthur.” Through hearing about each other, they came together to form a group. “We heard that Fuze was one of the best DJ’s in the Bay. Fuze heard the first 12” that I did and thought that I was one of the hottest rappers in the Bay at the time, and he came with Money B. Our manager Atron, was from El Cerrito. ‘Pac was sleeping on Leila’s couch, and she said ‘this guy I went to school with manages Digital Undergound, I should give him a call concerning you.’ So Leila had Atron and I meet 2Pac, and she was just swearing by him because of the talent he had. So we wasn’t really a block, a school, or a click of homies that all went to the same school or lived in the same neighborhood that decided we wanted to be a group. We was all individually chasing it on our own. We all had our own reputations and stripes.”

The Digital Underground sound is not the typical Bay Area blueprint, it’s not the mobb / murder music, describe the D.U. sound for me. “Over. (laughs) That’s one way. The Digital Underground sound was a combination of me bringing my East Coast roots, I moved out here when I was 24. I was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Tampa, Jr. High School in Queens. Let’s see, one of Mon’s favorite rappers was $hort. Fuze’s favorite rappers was Special Ed and all these East Coast cats. So we all had our opinion of how Hiphop was supposed to go. And Schmoov, his favorite thing was P-Funk. P-Funk was my favorite thing too, but I also had rappers that I aspired towards. My favorite rappers when I came to Oakland were probably Rakim, Slick Rick, and EPMD. And then Jimmy’s favorite rapper, was Hammer, who’s from the ‘town.’ ‘Pac’s favorite rapper was Chuck D, he liked Chuck D and later on he started really liking Ren. Chuck D, Ren, then Scarface was the order of ‘Pac’s influences before he got out of Oakland. Richie Rich too. They was real tight. They was both the same age, in the streets, real rowdy. I was like seven years older than ‘Pac at the time. I had already started to like, put the gat down, pick up the things I’d rather not discuss. We started messing with exotic sh*t. You know how you just grow different as life goes on, but ‘Pac was just gettin’ into his prime ‘ra ra’ stage. It was definitely a ‘regionless’ sound, where you couldn’t pin it. You couldn’t say ‘that sounds like East Oakland, or Palo Alto, or those Vallejo cats, that’s L.A., that’s the South, that’s the East.’ It was a little bit of all of that. Everybody was fighting to get there opinion off.” Would you say it was kind of funny? “Hell yeah, ‘cause comedy in Hiphop was still a strong force back then, from Biz Markee to Flava Flav.” It worked for you, you got a name off the humor. “It wasn’t just the humor, what worked for us I believe was the music was ‘jazzy and thick,’ so there was a lot of people that felt like Digital Underground was the first Hiphop they could listen to, so that created some of our audience. It was three elements. The music was a little different. It was more musical than most rap records at the time. That became a trend later. Up until then it was either drum machines or loops. Humpty was damn near like the mind set of Benny Hill, Rodney Dangerfield, Morris Day, Bootsy Collins, just like humoristic funk brought to Hiphop. A lot of people were trying to be funny back then. Then the third element with Digital Underground was the sex. Especially when me and Money B would get together. I would say ¼ of the element that helped distinguish Digital Underground was the ‘techness,’ of it. ‘Cause the word ‘digital’ in the title made us feel we should lean toward modern. If it didn’t lean on the sex, humor, or the music, then it had that ‘techness.’ Even the way Digital Underground was written on the album covers, was trying to show that African American Brothers are in touch with technology. A fifth thing that we didn’t speak on was that there was hats getting changed and characters being played by people in the group. We was specifically trying to not go with the grain.”

In 1989 D.U. signed with Tommy Boy Records to release it’s debut full length album, “Sex Packets.” “Somebody sent or gave one of our 12” singles to Tommy Boy, and told them there was a group out here called Digital Underground, you might be interested. ‘Cause Tommy Boy puts out ‘different sh*t.’ They had De La, Queen Latifa, Stetsasonic. They heard the single, then we sent them a tape that had ‘Doowutchyalike’ on it, so that’s how that got started.”

“The Humpty Dance” was a huge hit off of that first album, around that time you guys were the biggest thing out here next to Hammer and $hort. “Na I wouldn’t say that. I know what you mean. We had what we had. We didn’t have the street like $hort did, $hort had Oakland sewed up even before ‘Pac did. We didn’t have the pop scene in Vegas like Hammer. We didn’t have the award shows and record sales and Grammys like Hammer did. But what we did have, we had the spaced out freaky party parliamentesque Hiphop that reached that ‘different Hiphop listener,’ usually people that didn’t only listen to Hiphop. We had a few of the odd balls and the misfits all over the world.” “Freaks Of The Industry” was also a big song, which did and still does get a lot of airplay, why was that never made into a single? “I don’t even know. I think we did a treatment for it, but Tommy Boy Records at the time felt like ‘any video to this is gonna be so nasty it probably wouldn’t get play.’ They was trippin’ ‘cause it said ‘take it out and put it in her butt.’ When that came out in ’90, you couldn’t say half of the sh*t that was being said in that song, so they said it was pointless to make a video, who’s gone play it? But in hindsight it was a beautiful thing because that’s what didn’t date that song.” It’s funny, to this day, not to down any other D.U. songs, but you don’t hear any others, but you still hear “Freaks Of The Industry” on the radio now. “Those other songs got that over play ‘cause they were singles, but ‘Freaks Of The Industry’ slowly rose by word of mouth. It was more on the radio in the mid ‘90’s to the late ‘90’s. Somebody told me that somebody from KMEL told Fuze that in 2000 ‘Freaks Of The Industry’ was the most requested record in the history of KMEL. Like ever, since the station started. In 2002, I was livin’ in Sac, and 102.5 had the top party jams of all time countdown, and ‘Freaks Of The Industry’ came in #2. Who knows now, the last couple years after 9/11 the climate has changed. Even now it’s hard for me to perform them songs ‘cause they’re so silly. They don’t relate to what’s going on in the world now. A lot of stuff that flew in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s wouldn’t fly now.”

Break this down for me, you still have a lot of people confused to this day, is Shock G and Humpty Hump the same person? “There’s three people, sometimes four, I should say five. Honestly, Greg Jacobs is usually the one who does the voice in the studio, however there’s a cat named Kent Racker who’s Greg Jacob’s brother who occasionally will do Humpty on stage visually. Sometimes Shock G will play both Humpty and Shock G in the video and we’ll do a split screen. Then sometimes Mike Webster used to be a stand in too, he’s an artist from East Oakland. He was Humpty a couple times on the cover of ‘BAM Magazine, and in a few of our publicity shots.’ There’s a cat named Devin, people teased him for looking like Humpty regularly. So we used to let him do it, ‘cause he had a little bit of a ‘Jew nose,’ and Humpty’s got the Black ‘Jew nose,’ which was something they just happened to have in a store up on Telegraph. Man, the first time we put that nose on, while we were shopping for the video, n**gas looked in the mirror and we had to sneak up to the mirror ‘cause it was so funny. It was so funny I just knew it would make other people laugh. And sure enough people were like ‘who is this nut, who is this crazy muthaf**ka on t.v?’ If this was television I wouldn’t speak on it that thoroughly, but I felt like y’all deserve some truth. Humpty is about five different people. But you know who’s holdin’ that voice down in the studio.”
 

C-4

Sicc OG
Apr 25, 2002
8,022
1,135
113
44
#2
Shock then asks me how old I am, to which I replied 24. “I was born August 24th, 1963. I’m 40 years old, you can print that. Cats can’t be thinkin’ I’m 25 or 30 and expect me to act crazy that way. The t.v. makes you look younger. They be wondering why I can’t keep up in the cipher, I be like ‘go easy on Uncle Shock.’ Let me get a pen and get it together and I’ll spit it in the booth just as tight.” Since you brought that up, how does it feel to be an older cat, in this younger rap game? “First of all, it’s a blessing. To have cats that’s young and hungry still looking up to me and giving me a pound or want me to come in the studio. That’s a crazy blessing that we can’t figure out, the same way we can’t figure out how come ‘Freaks Of The Industry’ has so much longevity.”

Over the years Digital Underground continued to release several good projects, which contained some decent hits, but not to the response or record sales of the first album. “The last video that we had that really got pull was probably ‘Kiss U Back,’ ‘No Nose Job’ didn’t really get it and ‘Return of The Crazy Ones,’ back then they had the video juke box and we would still chart, but it wasn’t getting banged like ‘Same Song,’ ‘Kiss U Back,’ and ‘Humpty Dance,’ and ‘Doowutchyalike.’ Them four were the ones.” Do you wish you were still in that major spotlight, or do you prefer the situation you’re in now? “It’s not really a preference, it’s more like if you turn your cards over and you got a royal flush, play the royal flush, but if you got a three of a kind, you’re thankful you didn’t get a pair. So having longevity without being on the radio or t.v. like LL, or ‘Pac, or Dre. To have their kind of longevity, that’s a full house or a royal flush. But to have four or five joints with longevity, and then to be able to come back and lift ‘Pac with the ‘I Get Around’ joint, ‘cause up until then ‘Pac didn’t have a breakthrough song. His songs were bubbling under and gettin’ him respect, but he wasn’t getting rotation. ‘I Get Around’ was the one that broke him through, and he asked me and Mon’ to be on that with him. So that’s part of the reason why we stayed, the name Digital Underground, Shock G and Money B stayed in people’s mouths longer. If Digital Underground had just ended at ‘Body Hat Syndrome’ or whatever was before ‘I Get Around’ came out, then obviously the legacy would have been a lot smaller. But that came back to help us, that we wasn’t stingy about Digital Underground. It’s outta control where ‘Pac ended up being the king of Hiphop, not so much the king of Hiphop but the king of rap music, and he became like the leader of the movement. But at that time, at the ‘I Get Around’ time, it wasn’t so much that he was the king of it yet, he had a hit record, he had ‘I Get Around’ out, and he had the ‘Juice’ movie out. So with them two things he was hot. At that time he hadn’t climbed all the way up yet, he was just at platinum status. He was about as hot as we was when we first came out. So here it is four years after we came out, and we’re on the radio again, that bridged the gap. Once that happened, it made it go up a level, we wasn’t ‘one hit wonders,’ we was in the game and it could help your career to mess with us. Then the Luniz started messing with us. And all of these was both way blessings, we never thought we was doing them a favor, they were blessing us you know.”

Yeah, outside of your projects, D.U. was part of some of the biggest collaborations in Hiphop history, like “I Get Around,” the “I Got 5 On It Remix,” and “We’re All In The Same Gang.” “For the record, it was Fuze’s idea. We were on the way to Dre’s studio, and he said do something with red white and blue in it, put the flag in it. Also, quiet as it’s kept, DJ Fuze came up with the drum pattern on ‘Freaks Of The Industry.’ He gets the credit for that. I wanna set some facts straight while I got the floor. The drum sounds on ‘I Get Around,’ even though I did the programming and the production, DJ Fuze tailored and truncated and sampled those drum sounds. He came over my house with a disc of new sounds, and the first beat I made with it was the ‘I Get Around’ track. Also for the record, ‘Top Of The World,’ by Kenya Gruve from the ‘Menace II Society’ Soundtrack, that was produced by Eric Baker, Kenya, but it was produced under DWayne Wiggins publishing company, so DWane got the credit. And the remix, I put that ‘sex packets’ up in there. Not even ‘cause it was my beat, I didn’t charge him or nothing, I just said that would be hot, let’s try it... There’s some other misprints of credits, let me see what I can clear up. 2Pac wrote my verse on ‘I Get Around.’ Well 80% of it. I was tired and wanted to go home, I had been in the studio for something like 15 hours. When it came time to do those vocals, I said ‘let me go home, we’ll finish it tomorrow,’ ‘Pac was like ‘I gotta turn this sh*t in tomorrow, here hold on.’ And he walked around the room for about 3 minutes and wrote that. He wrote one for Mon’ too, Mon’ read his and said it was too ‘gunned’ up, so he didn’t wanna say it. It was like ‘n**ga I’ll put the strap to you,’ he was like this ain’t me. But mine, at first I was like I don’t know about using somebody else’s lyrics, rappers don’t do that. But ‘I Get Around’ I was reading it, I was like ‘yeah this sh*t kinda tight, I’ll say this. I erased a couple lines, but ‘Pac wrote 80% of that sh*t. But I wrote 100% of that track, outside of the samples.”

Digital Underground has a legion of loyal fans, you guys have stayed very active touring, what has given you this longevity? “I’mma tell you exactly what it is, it’s not that our fans stayed loyal. ‘Cause when we first went on tour, the first five years of touring, our audiences were Black, mostly. Then in the mid ‘90’s we could not get a tour at all. We though ‘oooh, that’s it, we over, it came and went.’ Cats went our separate ways. Then a funny thing happened in the late ‘90’s, all the White kids who was too young or was too afraid to go see us at the big ‘all African American’ coliseums, where it was rowdy, we was on tour with Public Enemy, Cube, and Big Daddy Kane. It was rugged up in there and parents wasn’t letting they little White kids go to that. So in the late ‘90’s all those kids started wantin’ to see us, the crowd went from chocolate to vanilla. The ‘vanilla’ crowd, when they meet us or see us backstage, I always hear the same thing, ‘man I always wanted to see you guys, we used to love the videos, my Mom wouldn’t let me go, or it wasn’t advertised on my radio station.’ Now we do shows and we get surprises like, we did Austin, Texas, and I’m on stage and I look, and Matthew McConaughey is in the front row, drunk as f**k, with a bandanna on and his hands up in the air at our feet like ‘aaaahhh,’ rockin.’ Man I almost lost my place in the show. Another time we did the Players Ball with Ice T, and Val Kilmer showed up in the dressing room. Now, we get the weird nerd crowd, like Ashton Kutcher. He came on stage the last time we did Vegas. Metallica got word to us that Digital Underground was one of their favorite rap groups. So there’s a circuit that we wasn’t aware us, or they couldn’t get to us back when we was ‘keepin’ it real and keepin’ it in the hood.’ To be honest, January 1st, 2004, we’re gonna disband and put Digital on the bench, maybe permanently, ‘cause we feel we’ve even played that circuit out now.”

The entertainment industry still displays quite a respect for Digital Underground’s accomplishments, most recently with the use of some of it’s works in popular movies. “Word. That’s hot. Big regular movies. ‘Love & Basketball.’ ‘Humpty Dance’ was in ‘Charlie’s Angels,’ and that Denzel movie. ‘Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood’ had music from the ‘Future Rhythm’ album.”

“While I got a minute, this is a Bay article, I wanna shout some cats that deserve it. I think the hottest mixtape on the streets right now is by Beefcake and Esinchill from East Oakland, that needs to be checked out. And there’s a new messiah about to rise, there’s a cat out here coming up from Hunter’s Point, he cares about the community. If he ain’t all of what 2Pac was, he’ll be some of what ‘Pac was. His name is Kev Kelly, and I think the world gone have to get ready for that cat, ‘cause he’s not stopping ‘til he get it, not just for himself, for the nation. He’s a hard working man. He’s a little different from a lot of the typical cats out of the Bay, because he cares. Esinchill is a flosser, a dazzler, he’s our own town’s Eminem.”

You’re working on a solo album right now too right? “It’s more of a collective album that will have my name on it, just ‘cause we feel like if it says ‘Shock G’ it will get a DJ’s attention more. What I’m working on is like Dre’s ‘Aftermath’ Compilation, or even ‘Chronic,’ even though it said Dre on it, that was about bringing through the Dogg Pound, and Snoop, etc. I’m working to get some of the sh*t off my chest that I couldn’t do under the pressure of Digital Underground. Even though Digital Underground was a group that I was the focus of, it still smothered a lot of what some of us wanted to do and say. This project is to shed light on other cats. It’s funny, your article is called ‘City 2 City,’ I did a song with a cat named Straw from Vegas called ‘City 2 City,’ we shot the video and everything. That might come out soon.” The album will possibly include appearances from Yukmouth, Ray Luv, Mac Mall, Planet Asia, & Talib Kweli.”
 

C-4

Sicc OG
Apr 25, 2002
8,022
1,135
113
44
#3
You guys have been putting out some dvd’s recently also. “We got one out. We’re trying to follow in the footsteps of, I guess Ice T first. 2 Live Crew, $hort, Snoop, a lot of people have done that with mixing the adult films with the music, so we took our stab at it. That was, I’m proud to say, written and directed by Money B & Clee. It’s called ‘Sex And The Studio.’ We’re catching a lot of flack about that, and I’d like to take this time to say that sex, when done right, is a healthy and beautiful thing. It’s God given. It’s the ultimate form of self expression from one human being to the other. So there should be nothing wrong with showing sex, when done right. I’m tired of getting judged for showing naked girls. ‘The Source’ actually said Digital Underground was a promising group until they got into porn. How can we get judged for showing sex in Hiphop, when others don’t get judged for showing MURDER in Hiphop? African American on African American, young Black male against young Black male, MURDER. ‘Pac and Biggie are MISSING. These cats are MISSING from the world right now. Those were our kings.

You’ve already spoken on it a lot throughout the interview, but most people know that Digital Underground was very instrumental in the start of 2Pac’s career, how did he get started with you? “’Pac signed with TNT Records after my tip to Atron about his skills. First time I met him was at Starlight Sound in Richmond. We was mixing ‘Sex Packets.’ After spitting a few rhymes, he hung out for a little while and cut with his girls. Meanwhile we rushed and got that record finished and went on tour with Public Enemy, or Big Daddy Kane, or Heavy D, we did all three of them that year. So while we’re on tour, TNT Records is putting producers who didn’t go on tour, on 2Pac’s album, ‘2Pacalypse Now.’ The first people to touch it was Pee Wee from Gold Money (Trapped), and Jimmy from Force 1 Network, Dion, DJ Impossible (Brenda’s Got A Baby, When My Homies Call). But it’s know that soon as Shock gets off tour he’s gonna do something for it too. When I get off tour, we do ‘Rebel Of The Underground,’ ‘Soulja’s Story,’ ‘Wordz Or Wizdom,’ but the album is still not finished, a few more songs gotta happen. So now we’re going on our second tour. I got three done with him but ‘Pac was like ‘man I gotta wait another two months for these n**gas to get off tour man, it’s crazy, it’s stressful out here in the jungle.’ Atron was like ‘well we only got seven passes,’ seven slots on tour, they’re real strict about this at the time. For you to go we’d have to leave somebody else at home and we need everybody on there. 1 is the stage manager, 1’s the DJ, Shock, Mon,’ 1’s the keyboard player, Jimmy & Atron are the tour managers. So the only person who was really expendable was Money B’s little brother who ‘humpty danced,’ he was a roadie. So if you take his slot, if you don’t mind doing that kind of work, and Atron asked me, should we take 2Pac? I said ‘Atron, 2Pac is an MC, he’s not a dancer or a roadie, I don’t wanna insult him or disrespect him like that, but if he still wanna go...,’ and he got back to me that ‘Pac was like ‘HELL YEAH, WHATEVER, I just wanna get out of here. I might be dead by the time y’all come back.’ So I called ‘Pac like ‘yo you wit it?’ ‘Hell yeah n**ga it’s nothing, I’ll do all that sh*t. I just wanna get out or here, I’m going crazy.’ So that’s how he got started, it wasn’t that he was a dancer for Digital Underground and then we discovered his rhyme skills, NO NO NO NO, we were working on his album, but were going out of town to do shows. We were grooming him to shop him, and at the time his rhymes were a little more ‘backpackish,’ they were college Hiphop. They was militant and political, or battle rhymes, he wasn’t thuggin’ yet. He was thuggin’ in the world, but not in the studio yet. He had the political organization in him. He had real intelligent plans for the white house and letters to the government. It was organized and focused anger and dispair. Yeah man, by the time we got off tour, we was all homies, he was in Digital Underground, and already had a reputation for rippin’ freestyles, he had already done t.v. with us. The reason they didn’t see him rhyme that much, was when they called us to do shows like ‘Arsenio,’ or ‘MTV,’ they wanted us to do the singles, and they were done before we met ‘Pac. Doing the dancing, that’s how ‘Pac got on t.v., that’s how he pulled his chicks after the show.”

How was your relationship with him before he passed away? “With ‘Pac it was always just like a family member. You know how if you had a brother who went away to Hollywood and became a big star, he’s still your brother, but now he’s runnin’ with his agent and his new click, and directing pals and other acting peers. ‘Pac got big, and had to leave the nest. He worked with us. People say ‘you guys didn’t work with ‘Pac much toward the end of his career,’ well nobody worked with ‘Pac more than three or four songs as a producer ‘cause ‘Pac was trying to mix it up and spread that love and keep it fresh. If Dre did his first two singles, maybe I would have done his last two, he loved Digital Underground musically, he wanted some of that, he just had more to say lyrically, he was more serious. He had a song where he said ‘now I clown around when I hang around with the Underground, but when I’m with the mafia, I’m droppin’ ya.’” You did one of his most serious songs, “F**k The World.” “’So Many Tears’ too. Let me say this, 2Pac should teach all of the rappers, and all of the leaders, people that are taking cues from ‘Pac, all the wannabe actors who are comparing, looking at how ‘Pac did things, ‘Pac should teach you to be full blown, do you. Don’t do what ‘Pac did. ‘Pac did what worked for ‘Pac. ‘Pac was not a happy person, he had a lot of pain, if you don’t have that pain, you won’t feel that sh*t. ‘Pac had a real rough miserable childhood, 60% of the time. That Baltimore school for the arts, those were bright spots in a life where ‘Pac felt really family wise, alone. He didn’t have that close family structure. ‘Pac should teach you to tap into what your gift is, and be you. But if you trying to be ‘Pac or sound like ‘Pac, you void yourself out from ever being on his level, because ‘Pac didn’t try to sound like nobody before him. He might have took cues, but he didn’t try to sound like nobody ten years before him. Remember when ‘Pac was out in the early ‘90’s, he did NOT sound like early ‘80’s rappers, so right now in 2004, if you’ve got a lot of 2Pac in your styles, you sound ten years old if you’re doing that. You gotta flip it. Imagine, if you sound like 2Pac today, would ‘Pac have won if he sounded like Run DMC? Also, it won’t help the world for some people to die. ‘Pac knew by him dying, it could help the world. So trying to live like ‘Pac, might make you brave, but it doesn’t make you intelligent, we might need you here. ‘Pac didn’t have no kids, he sacrificed his life for the world.”

.....Do you feel that Ja Rule is a 2Pac clone like a lot of people say? “Please. That’s silliness. ‘Pac laid the blueprint, you ‘sposed to do stuff ‘Pac did. If you don’t, you ain’t gonna have no rap career. Nobody actually jacked everything ‘Pac do. Some rhyme like him, some look like him. Ja Rule don’t sound like ‘Pac. 50 got some of ‘Pac’s patterns, but he don’t sound like ‘Pac or look like ‘Pac. He’s more flashy than ‘Pac. But expecting rappers not to take cues from the greatest rapper who ever lived, is like expecting boxers not to take cues from Muhammad Ali. The top people in any game, they bring something to the table. ‘Pac brought things to the table that have just become, rules of the game. That’s what you gotta do now.”

“This was the Shock G interview, next time we’ll talk to the Piano Man and just chop drum sounds and music and chord changes and melodies, and if you want, I’ll do a couple shots of Hennessy and you can interview Humpty six months after that, know what I’m sayin.’” If there’s anything else you need to know about Shock G or Digital Underground, you’ll just have to meet the man himself and ask him.
 

C-4

Sicc OG
Apr 25, 2002
8,022
1,135
113
44
#4
MONEY B INTERVIEW:

Although there are many members of the group, along side Shock G, Money B is the other half of Digital Underground most seen and heard by the listening world. Most fans, or people who have heard their music know that Digital Underground is not your typical Bay Area rap music, I asked Money B to describe their sound. “The only way I can describe the sound is ‘doowutchyalike.’ We didn’t stick to any formula. And because we were all from so many different places and backgrounds, we never were locked in to one sound. It was just whatever sounded good. Whoever had the good idea. I don’t think you can pigeon hole what our sound is, we always change it.”

“The Humpty Dance” was a huge hit off of the first album “Sex Packets,” tell me about that single and the success of that first project. “That was our first hit. At the time, there wasn’t a lot of people that we could look at out of the Bay. Hammer was out, the Tony’s, Too $hort, but we were all from different camps. How we started, we were able to appreciate the success. It was a slow climb. It was somethin’ that we put a lot of work into. When ‘Humpty Dance’ was out, I still had a job. I just took leave, I didn’t know what having a successful record out brings.”

“Freaks Of The Industry” did and still does receive a lot of airplay, why was it never made into a commercial single? “We don’t know. We always wanted it to be a single, we had a concept for the video and everything. The people at the label, I don’t know if they weren’t feeling it because at the time it was too explicit. In hindsight, maybe the fact that it wasn’t a single gave it that longevity. My personal opinion is it should have been a single, it’s a timeless hit.”

After the success of the first album, D.U. continued to release successful projects, but kind of dropped out of the mainstream ‘MTV’ spotlight, do you wish you were still there? “If you do make records, and you’re on MTV, that means your successful, and you’re doing well. Any musician would lie, if they say they wish that wasn’t still happening. But at this point and time, we’re fine with our place in history, Bay Area Hiphop and Hiphop over all. We know that we made some hits, and our music is still appreciated. We got to see the world, I don’t think you can ask for more than that. Having a career doing something that you love is a blessing.”

In our conversation, Money B brings up the fact that even though D.U. has not had a hit in years, they have consistently toured, and I ask him about their loyal fanbase. “I almost attribute it to like a cult following, not a cult, but when we go to these cities, we see a lot of the same people at the shows. Just the whole experience, being accessable, partying with us, we have one of the best shows in Hiphop. There’s a group of Digital Underground fans called ‘The Noses,’ they correspond throughout the country.”

Everybody knows Money B from Digital Underground fame, but I don’t know if people know his other group, Raw Fuzion on such a large scale, I asked him about that. “Raw Fuzion was myself and DJ Fuze, and we were a group before Digital Underground. Actually the original group was MGM, with me, DJ Fuze, who used to be DJ Goldfinger, and Mac Mone. We used to do shows and college radio around the Bay.” The group released two albums and several mixtapes in it’s time as well. “That’s how we came to hook up with Shock, we were making noise.”

Tell me about your solo album. “’Talkin’ Dirty.’ That was my first solo album that I ever did. It was time to do it, I had always been part of a group. I felt like I wanted to do an album where it was me. It was still a collective effort. It was definitely a family affair. It did ok. The single ‘Putcha Thang On Me’ was gettin’ like 45 spins a week on KMEL at the time and we did a hot video with Knumskull and Clee. Sales wise it did ok, I attribute that to the marketing and money not being there to push it. But it was definitely a solid album.”

Money B and Clee have been working on a DVD magazine called “Sex And The Studio.” Vol. 1 is out now, and there is a second one in the works. “It’s a DVD series. Me and Cleetis Mack. It’s a celebrity based adult music video series. We have celebrities interviewed by adult stars, show performances. The first episode we got Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Redman, Naughty By Nature, Luniz, Dru Down, The Outlawz, Ras Kass, De La Soul. It’s very candid interviews, and in between, we have hardcore sex scenes. And the DVD actually comes with a 14 song soundtrack. It’s done very tastefully. It’s doing quite well. Over 20,000 in just adult stores. Episode 2 will probably be out early next year.” Check out www.sexandthestudio.com.

What else are you working on? “Editing Episode 2 right now. Also directing straight pornos, and getting into mainstream DVD’s. Still recording, 5th Element out of San Diego is the newest artist Digital Underground is introducing to the world. He’s hot. He’s 17, he produces, writes, R&B. Esinchill has an album out right now, Mystic has an album coming out, Shock G is working on a solo album.”

Digital Underground was very instrumental in the start of 2Pac’s career, give me some info. on that. “Basically he was managed by our manager, he was brought to us. Leila was managing Strictly Dope. ‘Pac was about to get into politics, The New African Panthers in Atlanta if he didn’t do something quick, so Atron was like ‘hey let him roll with y’all.’ We took him on the road, and while being out, he did his thing, got his chance to shine. Soon as we got back we recorded ‘Same Song,’ and of course the rest is history.”

How was your relationship with him before he died? “The last time I seen him, he was basically telling me all the things he had done. ‘All Eyez On Me’ was out at the time, but he was telling me he had already recorded 3 or 4 new albums since then. He told me to come down and be in the videos and just get on, but Death Row, I didn’t know those dudes. I’ve never been one to hang with a bunch of people I didn’t know. I didn’t really see him much. Last time I seen him, he told me to come down to L.A. and do some music.”

“Thanks for the support. 15 years down the line, I believe there will still be an artist out affiliated with Digital Underground.”