Big Caz Speaks On His Dislikes For Rappers
An O.G. is an original gangster. Even once an O.G.'s left the life, the life is still a part of him. Big Caz knows, and has experienced, this. At one point during a music conference in Palm Springs he was forced to leave early because "I got a call from the police department saying you need to come back because we hear you stabbed eight people. That's the reputation I have."
Although it's nothing he's involved in now, Big Caz takes full responsibility for the actions that built that reputation. This week 101D.com caught up with him to find out more about his history, why he has so much vitriol for some of the biggest names in the history of "gangsta" rap, and the lessons he hopes to pass on. During the interview Big Caz took aim at a number of big name artists, from 2Pac, to Ice Cube, to Drake.
101D.com: You have a long history in music. I heard Ice-T inspired you to start recording. It that true?
Big Caz: It was him, bro. I still don't consider myself a rapper. I hate rappers. I hate rappers with a passion. It's the only job where you can just lie your ass off. I think that's why I'm very hard on rappers. When I came home from prison, the first kid I went after was Snoop because I knew I couldn't validate nothin [about him]. So I was that guy, like Xzibit, no, Snoop, no, Mack 10, no, Cube, hell no, so I never put myself in that lane. Has it hurt my career? Yeah, but it never hurt me financially because I don't know what it's like to live as a rapper, and how thuggish am I four houses from the water in Manhattan Beach?
101D.com: Who needs to be a thug when you're four houses from the water?
Big Caz: Yeah, man. Who am I throwing my gang signs up at? Nigga this 60... oh, hi, Mrs. Marshall.
101D.com: Even with that, it sounds like you were clearly ready to pull people's cards in the rap world.
Big Caz: I was disgusted. You gotta understand, bro, when I got home I had just gotten a 15 year sentence, I did four-ten (four years, ten months), and I was sitting there like Freeway Rick. Imagine the years Freeway Rick spent in prison and he's hearing this Rick Ross, who's an ex-CO. You come home like wait a minute... But that part of me is past. It's still in me. If I don't like you, you know I don't like you. When 2Pac got shot I think I smiled. I hated the fakeness of his game because if you say something enough somebody's gonna believe it.
101D.com: Were you more upset that these artists were taking other people's life stories, or the fact that they were glorifying something that had put you in jail?
Big Caz: Well, I put myself in jail. I murdered somebody in '92. I beat him to death. I live the life of an everyday ex-gang member. The biggest crip gang in the world is Rollin 60 Crip, that's where I was from. My right hand shakes from Parkinson's from being shot in the head. That's not a 50 Cent story, or a Game story. I'm not gonna get my right leg back, it's all titanium now, and no matter how much I'm in the gym there's nothing I can do with that right leg and I can't stop my right hand from shaking, so I just can't give those green lights away to people. I can't do it. I never will do it. The stuff you see these guys playing with, that's really my life. When you talk about the phenomenon of drug dealing, I was nothing but a scumbag drug dealer. The series Glass was based on my life. I was one of the first cats, if not the first cat, that brought meth to LA. I'm not proud of that.
101D.com: I don't even know how you found time for music. Speaking of music, I know you own Mo Thugs Records, did you start it, as well?
Big Caz: No, Layzie Bone originally started it, then I met Layzie in '98. The funny story behind that is that I actually robbed Bizzy Bone and the only one that came back to the neighborhood to get Bizzy's chain back was Layzie. From 2000-2008 I toured with them and in 2006 I bought the rights back from Ruthless for Mo Thugs, so I've been the owner since 2006.
101D.com: What projects do you have coming up?
Big Caz: My record that just came out, His-Tory. We have Thuggin Without a Cause 2, which is all the members of Bone. A 2Pac project. I'm the only guy that can legally put 2Pac stuff out because I'm the guy who got all the Pac masters back. When Suge Knight went running around saying the Rollin 60s ran up in his office and jumped on him it was me and one guy and we didn't go there to jump on him. I now have a relationship with Afeni where if she needs new stuff we go through the hard drive and I make them available, but I also can pull certain things off of it.
big caz101D.com: But you said you're not a fan.
Big Caz: I couldn't care less about 2Pac. I do need to curb my tongue a little bit more, which is hard for me. Imagine sitting across from 2Pac's mom going, "I would have shot your son." I will say he was genius. He was very brilliant in what he did, but there was an insanity to what he did. He's a martyr, but not a leader. I don't think too many people should run around trying to replicate 2Pac's life.
101D.com: Switching things up a bit, what's this I saw you tweeting about Brian Pumper?
Big Caz: A very dear friend of mine knows him. I had an ex that did porn. Brian Pumper was trying to get up in my girl's head and I showed up on the set. Maybe six words were exchanged and he very politely realized, stick to fuckin'. But I see this guy, he's not a bad rapper, but when you have to keep selling yourself, if you have to keep saying "hey look at me, look at my dick, I can do this, look at my jewelry..." Bill Gates rides around in an electric car. When I walk out on my balcony I can pretty much hear the ocean. You don't have to keep yelling it. There's just certain people that don't need to rap and he probably falls under that because this isn't his lane. It's like gangbangin. I posted something where I said, you want to see gang violence be ended? Start rapping and watch how your enemies just start ignoring you. Even gangbangers can be bought. O.G.s can be bought. There are some O.G.s running around with Baby and Lil' Wayne, and who is Lil' Wayne gonna gangbang on? Let's be real. It's not some ritual like they're gonna go sit down and put a red rag on the floor and sing "Kumbaya" over it. No, niggas are dying over this every day, and they're treating it like it's some African ritual to be a blood, and that's not to excuse even some crips. Then I see Rick Ross with a bandana, I heard Chris Brown say blood, the little weirdo Tyga say blood, I heard DRAKE say blood. Drake, on his mixtape, has a song where he says "I'm soo woopin for my bloods." When Drake's grandmother dies, that poor little sweet Canadian white woman needs to turn her ass up in the air for this disrespectful little fuck. For you to cross over, by the time you're done singing that song, probably 50 kids done lost their lives. So you're not soo woopin for anything. Someone's gonna read this interview and go damn, this dude always goes hard. Shit, OK, let me say something positive; I live on the beach.
101D.com: Here's a positive question for you that we can close with; what do you consider the smartest thing you've ever done?
Big Caz: Not investing to be a rapper. I'm not in the music business, I'm in the business that happens to be music. What I've tried to do with Bone over the last few years is explain things don't need to be bought right now. They didn't stop making that Maybach, they didn't stop making those wheels, and that girl that you could fuck right now, news bulletin, you could probably fuck her a whole lot more times somewhere else. Ice-T at his best, before he bought the mansion up in Hollywood, was living in an apartment. You notice you have never seen Ice Cube on MTV Cribs? I don't like Ice Cube, but he's a genius. He's probably in the top five of highest paid entertainers and you don't ever hear him bragging about it.
An O.G. is an original gangster. Even once an O.G.'s left the life, the life is still a part of him. Big Caz knows, and has experienced, this. At one point during a music conference in Palm Springs he was forced to leave early because "I got a call from the police department saying you need to come back because we hear you stabbed eight people. That's the reputation I have."
Although it's nothing he's involved in now, Big Caz takes full responsibility for the actions that built that reputation. This week 101D.com caught up with him to find out more about his history, why he has so much vitriol for some of the biggest names in the history of "gangsta" rap, and the lessons he hopes to pass on. During the interview Big Caz took aim at a number of big name artists, from 2Pac, to Ice Cube, to Drake.
101D.com: You have a long history in music. I heard Ice-T inspired you to start recording. It that true?
Big Caz: It was him, bro. I still don't consider myself a rapper. I hate rappers. I hate rappers with a passion. It's the only job where you can just lie your ass off. I think that's why I'm very hard on rappers. When I came home from prison, the first kid I went after was Snoop because I knew I couldn't validate nothin [about him]. So I was that guy, like Xzibit, no, Snoop, no, Mack 10, no, Cube, hell no, so I never put myself in that lane. Has it hurt my career? Yeah, but it never hurt me financially because I don't know what it's like to live as a rapper, and how thuggish am I four houses from the water in Manhattan Beach?
101D.com: Who needs to be a thug when you're four houses from the water?
Big Caz: Yeah, man. Who am I throwing my gang signs up at? Nigga this 60... oh, hi, Mrs. Marshall.
101D.com: Even with that, it sounds like you were clearly ready to pull people's cards in the rap world.
Big Caz: I was disgusted. You gotta understand, bro, when I got home I had just gotten a 15 year sentence, I did four-ten (four years, ten months), and I was sitting there like Freeway Rick. Imagine the years Freeway Rick spent in prison and he's hearing this Rick Ross, who's an ex-CO. You come home like wait a minute... But that part of me is past. It's still in me. If I don't like you, you know I don't like you. When 2Pac got shot I think I smiled. I hated the fakeness of his game because if you say something enough somebody's gonna believe it.
101D.com: Were you more upset that these artists were taking other people's life stories, or the fact that they were glorifying something that had put you in jail?
Big Caz: Well, I put myself in jail. I murdered somebody in '92. I beat him to death. I live the life of an everyday ex-gang member. The biggest crip gang in the world is Rollin 60 Crip, that's where I was from. My right hand shakes from Parkinson's from being shot in the head. That's not a 50 Cent story, or a Game story. I'm not gonna get my right leg back, it's all titanium now, and no matter how much I'm in the gym there's nothing I can do with that right leg and I can't stop my right hand from shaking, so I just can't give those green lights away to people. I can't do it. I never will do it. The stuff you see these guys playing with, that's really my life. When you talk about the phenomenon of drug dealing, I was nothing but a scumbag drug dealer. The series Glass was based on my life. I was one of the first cats, if not the first cat, that brought meth to LA. I'm not proud of that.
101D.com: I don't even know how you found time for music. Speaking of music, I know you own Mo Thugs Records, did you start it, as well?
Big Caz: No, Layzie Bone originally started it, then I met Layzie in '98. The funny story behind that is that I actually robbed Bizzy Bone and the only one that came back to the neighborhood to get Bizzy's chain back was Layzie. From 2000-2008 I toured with them and in 2006 I bought the rights back from Ruthless for Mo Thugs, so I've been the owner since 2006.
101D.com: What projects do you have coming up?
Big Caz: My record that just came out, His-Tory. We have Thuggin Without a Cause 2, which is all the members of Bone. A 2Pac project. I'm the only guy that can legally put 2Pac stuff out because I'm the guy who got all the Pac masters back. When Suge Knight went running around saying the Rollin 60s ran up in his office and jumped on him it was me and one guy and we didn't go there to jump on him. I now have a relationship with Afeni where if she needs new stuff we go through the hard drive and I make them available, but I also can pull certain things off of it.
big caz101D.com: But you said you're not a fan.
Big Caz: I couldn't care less about 2Pac. I do need to curb my tongue a little bit more, which is hard for me. Imagine sitting across from 2Pac's mom going, "I would have shot your son." I will say he was genius. He was very brilliant in what he did, but there was an insanity to what he did. He's a martyr, but not a leader. I don't think too many people should run around trying to replicate 2Pac's life.
101D.com: Switching things up a bit, what's this I saw you tweeting about Brian Pumper?
Big Caz: A very dear friend of mine knows him. I had an ex that did porn. Brian Pumper was trying to get up in my girl's head and I showed up on the set. Maybe six words were exchanged and he very politely realized, stick to fuckin'. But I see this guy, he's not a bad rapper, but when you have to keep selling yourself, if you have to keep saying "hey look at me, look at my dick, I can do this, look at my jewelry..." Bill Gates rides around in an electric car. When I walk out on my balcony I can pretty much hear the ocean. You don't have to keep yelling it. There's just certain people that don't need to rap and he probably falls under that because this isn't his lane. It's like gangbangin. I posted something where I said, you want to see gang violence be ended? Start rapping and watch how your enemies just start ignoring you. Even gangbangers can be bought. O.G.s can be bought. There are some O.G.s running around with Baby and Lil' Wayne, and who is Lil' Wayne gonna gangbang on? Let's be real. It's not some ritual like they're gonna go sit down and put a red rag on the floor and sing "Kumbaya" over it. No, niggas are dying over this every day, and they're treating it like it's some African ritual to be a blood, and that's not to excuse even some crips. Then I see Rick Ross with a bandana, I heard Chris Brown say blood, the little weirdo Tyga say blood, I heard DRAKE say blood. Drake, on his mixtape, has a song where he says "I'm soo woopin for my bloods." When Drake's grandmother dies, that poor little sweet Canadian white woman needs to turn her ass up in the air for this disrespectful little fuck. For you to cross over, by the time you're done singing that song, probably 50 kids done lost their lives. So you're not soo woopin for anything. Someone's gonna read this interview and go damn, this dude always goes hard. Shit, OK, let me say something positive; I live on the beach.
101D.com: Here's a positive question for you that we can close with; what do you consider the smartest thing you've ever done?
Big Caz: Not investing to be a rapper. I'm not in the music business, I'm in the business that happens to be music. What I've tried to do with Bone over the last few years is explain things don't need to be bought right now. They didn't stop making that Maybach, they didn't stop making those wheels, and that girl that you could fuck right now, news bulletin, you could probably fuck her a whole lot more times somewhere else. Ice-T at his best, before he bought the mansion up in Hollywood, was living in an apartment. You notice you have never seen Ice Cube on MTV Cribs? I don't like Ice Cube, but he's a genius. He's probably in the top five of highest paid entertainers and you don't ever hear him bragging about it.
