Dubcnn: What’s up Banks?
What’s Up, Chad?
Dubcnn: Everything good with you?
I’m straight.
Dubcnn: So where have you been, and what have you been up to?
I’ve been doing a few little ventures out here in Arizona and stuff like that. Just trying to make some things happen.
Dubcnn: Why the hiatus from producing?
I’m just not having no true motivation to actually want to do music right now. The love for it has just died because you put your all into something and it’s not appreciated like it used to be. The kids nowadays, they’re not listening for that. They want to hear the youngstas do their thing, for which I’m not mad about. That’s cool, and it’s a young man’s game right now. When we were young, we had fun doing it and that was cool. And now, you gotta let the kids have it and pretty much find you an executive role in this business right now, to mentor them on something that they thought they could never become on their own. And that’s pretty much all I could see myself doing, at this point. BUT, best believe that I do have cannons in the arsenal!
Dubcnn: So you still be cooking things up in the lab?
Fa Sho! I have my own personal studio with full –blown pro tools. I have pretty much anything that any high-powered studio would have. I work in my studio pretty much 4 days out of the week. So it’s not to say that I don’t do my music, I just don’t do it publicly, or for anybody to really critique. Everything I have is done and shelved, and I may go back and listen to it a month or two later and add this or that to it. So by the time it’s a done and finished project, it’s something that I enjoy. When I’m ready for it to come out, then I got to have the right outlet for it.
Me and my boy Sonny B, we have a production team called the Slap Boys. Sonny B has been around for a really, really long time and we got a whole bunch of stuff in the vault right now. When the situation and the time presents itself the right way, and don’t think I haven’t been looking for the right situation because I have, but when it presents itself I have a lot of material that will surface that I feel the industry has been missing. That’s mostly what I can say about Ant Banks, right now, musically. That’s when the music is coming, when that situation comes along. As of right now, it’ll just sit in the vault. And I’ll just keep creating more and more music, and when it comes it’s going to come.....Tsunami-style!
Dubcnn: Sounds good, cuz I know you have fans out there who have been anticipating hearing from you and other members of the Dangerous Crew, both personally and musically. Basically, that’s how these interviews got started because over at dubcnn we began what we call the Dangerous Crew Movement.
Oh, now that’s tight!
Dubcnn: From there, I set up the Dangerous Crew myspace page. I’m seeing all the fans checking for the next interview from a member of the Dangerous Crew, whether I’m getting an e-mail thru dubcnn or an e-mail thru the myspace page. By the way, is there an Ant Banks myspace page, or are all these ones I see on here fake?
I haven’t done the myspace thing yet. I’ve been on myspace probably like 3 times in my life. I know it’s probably the best tool right now as far as networking with people, but I haven’t really got that involved in it yet. I’ve heard that there is a lot people trying to reach out to me though. I went on myspace, and they already got Ant Banks @ myspace.com, and I’m like, who the hell is Ant Banks @ myspace.com, cuz that ain’t me. *laughs* To even do my emails and stuff like that, [email protected] is already taken! Who the hell is [email protected]? *laughs* All this [email protected] is already taken, and it ain’t even me!
Dubcnn: That’s some funny shit! Let me ask you this, sitting back now, what do you think of the music industry today, compared to 10-20 years ago?
Really, right now, I would say that ever since like 1998, man the game has just been real goofy. And it just seems like that anybody can make a record about anything that’s goofy, like it doesn’t take talent anymore to make hit records. It’s just about who can be silly. Right now, the motivation to really create a high-powered record is over shadowed by somebody who’s just a marketing gimmick. And they’ll outshine you by miles, and it just looks like the true MC’s and the true producers and the people that’s putting in the effort and the time and energy are the people that are not successful today.
Back in the day, we did what we did talent-wise, and it wasn’t even for a paycheck. It wasn’t even done to be known or famous. It was because we enjoyed doing it. It comes to a point where you just turn the other cheek. I made a lot of money from this, so I’ve been investing in this and that and the other.
Dubcnn: So based on that, returning to full-time producing isn’t on your plate right now?
The motivation for me is just not there. It’s not like I’m not doing music right now. Like I said, I’ve been making slaps, but it’s just not my primary focus right now. I’ve probably done over 300 songs in the last 5 years, that I probably won’t release or put out because I don’t feel like I’m in the right situation to bubble and put it out the right way. Talent-wise, what I’ve been doing is on a 2010 scale to where there’s a bunch of shit that has yet to be seen. But I’m not gonna put it out there based on the fact that there’s nobody really selling records. I don’t want it to fly under the radar and just not get no love, then years later everybody’s like “Wow! He put out an incredible album that just went by ignored.” And if you really do your own investigation on this game of music, you’ll see that there’s been a lot of hot records, and I mean really hot records, that have come and didn’t bust a grape record sales-wise. And it’s not because it wasn’t a good record, but for some reason the industry wasn’t checking for that particular person.
Dubcnn: Given that, what made want to jump back in for a brief time with the V-White album and the L-Matik album?
Cuz they’re just my homies. It was just some good friends of mine that just needed some help. Just some little, “can you do this for us? Can you do that for us.”
Dubcnn: Did you actually produce something on the L-Matik album, or did you just oversee the project?
I just overseen it. I didn’t produce anything on it. Actually, I “helped” produce on it. I didn’t solely produce something where it was “produced by Ant Banks”, no. Just helped.
Dubcnn: What about on V-White’s album?
I didn’t produce on that. My boy Sonny B did the production, I just mixed it. V-White is just a really, really, really good friend of mine that I always wanted to see blow up anyway, becuz I always felt like he was one of the ones out of Oakland that really had shined for a whole lot of years, that never really got his chance to blow up. But he was always more deserving of it. He was one of those artists that a lot of stuff he talked about, he had reason to be able to talk about it. *laughs* That’s all. He is just one of the real ones.
Dubcnn: What’s your take on the Hyphy Movement out there in Oakland?
I like it! I just wish that labels would come and jump behind it to blow it up like they would anybody else’s movement. They jumping on everybody else, you know? I mean, if you look at how the music has shifted from the east coast, who had it for a while, to the west coast having it for a while, and then Master P kind of moved to the south and got the south really recognized. Let me take that back, Scarface & The Geto Boys really got the focus on the south, and then Master P kind of really turned it into this bouncy-type of sound. And then, it’s been there ever since. If you really look at it, the south is getting more of a run than anybody has ever got. And not that you can be mad about that because I love the fact that they got their run for as long as they’re getting it, but if you really look at how it’s going, they going to get the last of any kind of run.
Dubcnn: What direction do you see hip-hop heading to, talking about the last of any major run going to the south and all that?
Realistically, at the end of the day, the way it’s looking is there’s probably only going to be 10 labels left. Cuz all the other little ones is going to fall off, and/or have to join the big labels that’s out there. Everything will be under one umbrella. That’s where it’s going. I’m not saying that’s where it’s going to be, but that’s where it’s headed because nobody’s selling records. Either join, or fall off the wagon. Seeing all this, I’m just not motivated to jump in all this and put all my marbles in what’s going on because it’s not lucrative for everybody. It’s fun to see people still out there getting their money, and seeing people who was doing it back when I was doing it, still getting their money. But the new ones, it’s kind of sad to see that they’re not having good careers. They are having a good 2 or 3 album run, then it’s a wrap. I mean the last of seeing people with full, long, drawn out careers and actually retire from music is done. You can count the number of 10+ year artists on your hands, man. The truly successful ones. The rest of them are just artists that come and go.
Dubcnn: Ok. Take us back to the beginning of how you got in to music and producing?
I took band as a child, and pretty much after I learned how to play a bunch of instruments, probably over a 7-year course from like ’81 to ’88 I played a lot of instruments. Pretty much in band they don’t teach you nothing but Classical. So, I would come home and learn how to play Parliament, Funkadelic, The Gap Band or anything that was funk related. I had a little Casio keyboard that I would just put a little beat on and play my own little version of whatever they would do. And I would record it from time to time.
Dubcnn: Where did these experimentations lead you?
I had a buddy named MC Ant. He would just always cap on people and just all this and that and the other. We started out just making a cassette with a beat and him cappin’, but as he was cappin’ he’d start rappin’. And from that, it just turned into something. And pretty much, we made our first little tape and took it to school and started selling it. It became popular all over school, and from the school it went all over the city. It became an evolution that everybody had to have an MC Ant tape. It was kind of like a Too $hort thing. It wasn’t like Too $hort was the only one selling a lot of tapes out of his trunk back then. A whole lot of people was doing that back in the early ‘80’s. It became a little competition thing, but by far Too $hort was winning the tape battle (*laughs*). It was just so many people doing it, man! There was a lot of famous people selling tapes out the trunk back in the ‘80’s.
I was the only producer in Oakland making any kind of noise. In ’87 we put out the first MC Ant CD & Cassette and all of that and it had sold over 80-90,000 just in the Bay Area/California area alone! From there, I did Pooh-man in ’88, and he sold over 200,000. Then in ’89 I followed with Spice-1, who was close to 300,00. I came with Dangerous Dame in 1990, and he sold well over 100,000. So I was doing independent tape, after independent tape, and they was all selling like 200-300,000 units. Just independently, with no label, no nothing. During that time in the bay, I was the one that if you wanted a whole CD done, I was the man to come see.
What’s Up, Chad?
Dubcnn: Everything good with you?
I’m straight.
Dubcnn: So where have you been, and what have you been up to?
I’ve been doing a few little ventures out here in Arizona and stuff like that. Just trying to make some things happen.
Dubcnn: Why the hiatus from producing?
I’m just not having no true motivation to actually want to do music right now. The love for it has just died because you put your all into something and it’s not appreciated like it used to be. The kids nowadays, they’re not listening for that. They want to hear the youngstas do their thing, for which I’m not mad about. That’s cool, and it’s a young man’s game right now. When we were young, we had fun doing it and that was cool. And now, you gotta let the kids have it and pretty much find you an executive role in this business right now, to mentor them on something that they thought they could never become on their own. And that’s pretty much all I could see myself doing, at this point. BUT, best believe that I do have cannons in the arsenal!
Dubcnn: So you still be cooking things up in the lab?
Fa Sho! I have my own personal studio with full –blown pro tools. I have pretty much anything that any high-powered studio would have. I work in my studio pretty much 4 days out of the week. So it’s not to say that I don’t do my music, I just don’t do it publicly, or for anybody to really critique. Everything I have is done and shelved, and I may go back and listen to it a month or two later and add this or that to it. So by the time it’s a done and finished project, it’s something that I enjoy. When I’m ready for it to come out, then I got to have the right outlet for it.
Me and my boy Sonny B, we have a production team called the Slap Boys. Sonny B has been around for a really, really long time and we got a whole bunch of stuff in the vault right now. When the situation and the time presents itself the right way, and don’t think I haven’t been looking for the right situation because I have, but when it presents itself I have a lot of material that will surface that I feel the industry has been missing. That’s mostly what I can say about Ant Banks, right now, musically. That’s when the music is coming, when that situation comes along. As of right now, it’ll just sit in the vault. And I’ll just keep creating more and more music, and when it comes it’s going to come.....Tsunami-style!
Dubcnn: Sounds good, cuz I know you have fans out there who have been anticipating hearing from you and other members of the Dangerous Crew, both personally and musically. Basically, that’s how these interviews got started because over at dubcnn we began what we call the Dangerous Crew Movement.
Oh, now that’s tight!
Dubcnn: From there, I set up the Dangerous Crew myspace page. I’m seeing all the fans checking for the next interview from a member of the Dangerous Crew, whether I’m getting an e-mail thru dubcnn or an e-mail thru the myspace page. By the way, is there an Ant Banks myspace page, or are all these ones I see on here fake?
I haven’t done the myspace thing yet. I’ve been on myspace probably like 3 times in my life. I know it’s probably the best tool right now as far as networking with people, but I haven’t really got that involved in it yet. I’ve heard that there is a lot people trying to reach out to me though. I went on myspace, and they already got Ant Banks @ myspace.com, and I’m like, who the hell is Ant Banks @ myspace.com, cuz that ain’t me. *laughs* To even do my emails and stuff like that, [email protected] is already taken! Who the hell is [email protected]? *laughs* All this [email protected] is already taken, and it ain’t even me!
Dubcnn: That’s some funny shit! Let me ask you this, sitting back now, what do you think of the music industry today, compared to 10-20 years ago?
Really, right now, I would say that ever since like 1998, man the game has just been real goofy. And it just seems like that anybody can make a record about anything that’s goofy, like it doesn’t take talent anymore to make hit records. It’s just about who can be silly. Right now, the motivation to really create a high-powered record is over shadowed by somebody who’s just a marketing gimmick. And they’ll outshine you by miles, and it just looks like the true MC’s and the true producers and the people that’s putting in the effort and the time and energy are the people that are not successful today.
Back in the day, we did what we did talent-wise, and it wasn’t even for a paycheck. It wasn’t even done to be known or famous. It was because we enjoyed doing it. It comes to a point where you just turn the other cheek. I made a lot of money from this, so I’ve been investing in this and that and the other.
Dubcnn: So based on that, returning to full-time producing isn’t on your plate right now?
The motivation for me is just not there. It’s not like I’m not doing music right now. Like I said, I’ve been making slaps, but it’s just not my primary focus right now. I’ve probably done over 300 songs in the last 5 years, that I probably won’t release or put out because I don’t feel like I’m in the right situation to bubble and put it out the right way. Talent-wise, what I’ve been doing is on a 2010 scale to where there’s a bunch of shit that has yet to be seen. But I’m not gonna put it out there based on the fact that there’s nobody really selling records. I don’t want it to fly under the radar and just not get no love, then years later everybody’s like “Wow! He put out an incredible album that just went by ignored.” And if you really do your own investigation on this game of music, you’ll see that there’s been a lot of hot records, and I mean really hot records, that have come and didn’t bust a grape record sales-wise. And it’s not because it wasn’t a good record, but for some reason the industry wasn’t checking for that particular person.
Dubcnn: Given that, what made want to jump back in for a brief time with the V-White album and the L-Matik album?
Cuz they’re just my homies. It was just some good friends of mine that just needed some help. Just some little, “can you do this for us? Can you do that for us.”
Dubcnn: Did you actually produce something on the L-Matik album, or did you just oversee the project?
I just overseen it. I didn’t produce anything on it. Actually, I “helped” produce on it. I didn’t solely produce something where it was “produced by Ant Banks”, no. Just helped.
Dubcnn: What about on V-White’s album?
I didn’t produce on that. My boy Sonny B did the production, I just mixed it. V-White is just a really, really, really good friend of mine that I always wanted to see blow up anyway, becuz I always felt like he was one of the ones out of Oakland that really had shined for a whole lot of years, that never really got his chance to blow up. But he was always more deserving of it. He was one of those artists that a lot of stuff he talked about, he had reason to be able to talk about it. *laughs* That’s all. He is just one of the real ones.
Dubcnn: What’s your take on the Hyphy Movement out there in Oakland?
I like it! I just wish that labels would come and jump behind it to blow it up like they would anybody else’s movement. They jumping on everybody else, you know? I mean, if you look at how the music has shifted from the east coast, who had it for a while, to the west coast having it for a while, and then Master P kind of moved to the south and got the south really recognized. Let me take that back, Scarface & The Geto Boys really got the focus on the south, and then Master P kind of really turned it into this bouncy-type of sound. And then, it’s been there ever since. If you really look at it, the south is getting more of a run than anybody has ever got. And not that you can be mad about that because I love the fact that they got their run for as long as they’re getting it, but if you really look at how it’s going, they going to get the last of any kind of run.
Dubcnn: What direction do you see hip-hop heading to, talking about the last of any major run going to the south and all that?
Realistically, at the end of the day, the way it’s looking is there’s probably only going to be 10 labels left. Cuz all the other little ones is going to fall off, and/or have to join the big labels that’s out there. Everything will be under one umbrella. That’s where it’s going. I’m not saying that’s where it’s going to be, but that’s where it’s headed because nobody’s selling records. Either join, or fall off the wagon. Seeing all this, I’m just not motivated to jump in all this and put all my marbles in what’s going on because it’s not lucrative for everybody. It’s fun to see people still out there getting their money, and seeing people who was doing it back when I was doing it, still getting their money. But the new ones, it’s kind of sad to see that they’re not having good careers. They are having a good 2 or 3 album run, then it’s a wrap. I mean the last of seeing people with full, long, drawn out careers and actually retire from music is done. You can count the number of 10+ year artists on your hands, man. The truly successful ones. The rest of them are just artists that come and go.
Dubcnn: Ok. Take us back to the beginning of how you got in to music and producing?
I took band as a child, and pretty much after I learned how to play a bunch of instruments, probably over a 7-year course from like ’81 to ’88 I played a lot of instruments. Pretty much in band they don’t teach you nothing but Classical. So, I would come home and learn how to play Parliament, Funkadelic, The Gap Band or anything that was funk related. I had a little Casio keyboard that I would just put a little beat on and play my own little version of whatever they would do. And I would record it from time to time.
Dubcnn: Where did these experimentations lead you?
I had a buddy named MC Ant. He would just always cap on people and just all this and that and the other. We started out just making a cassette with a beat and him cappin’, but as he was cappin’ he’d start rappin’. And from that, it just turned into something. And pretty much, we made our first little tape and took it to school and started selling it. It became popular all over school, and from the school it went all over the city. It became an evolution that everybody had to have an MC Ant tape. It was kind of like a Too $hort thing. It wasn’t like Too $hort was the only one selling a lot of tapes out of his trunk back then. A whole lot of people was doing that back in the early ‘80’s. It became a little competition thing, but by far Too $hort was winning the tape battle (*laughs*). It was just so many people doing it, man! There was a lot of famous people selling tapes out the trunk back in the ‘80’s.
I was the only producer in Oakland making any kind of noise. In ’87 we put out the first MC Ant CD & Cassette and all of that and it had sold over 80-90,000 just in the Bay Area/California area alone! From there, I did Pooh-man in ’88, and he sold over 200,000. Then in ’89 I followed with Spice-1, who was close to 300,00. I came with Dangerous Dame in 1990, and he sold well over 100,000. So I was doing independent tape, after independent tape, and they was all selling like 200-300,000 units. Just independently, with no label, no nothing. During that time in the bay, I was the one that if you wanted a whole CD done, I was the man to come see.
