Interview With Spider Loc
WorldwideConnected.com: You were with Death Row for a while there, right?
Oh yeah I ran around with Death Row and Suge Knight for about two years, but I never actually entered into an agreement with him contractually. Some offers were made but nothing that was substantial enough for me to put my signature on, but non the less I did spend a period of two years with him in association with him as one of his artists. I was featured in a magazine article as his artist. He released one body of work during that time which was the motion picture sound track to “Dysfunctional Family” starring Eddie Griffin. I was given the opportunity to perform on that sound track along side Eddie Griffin and I was able to do some writing for Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez and that was right before she passed. That was an experience that I really appreciated in my career during my time over there at Death Row. She is definitely a legend and she was understood and appreciated by music fans everywhere so for me to be able to have been in her inner circle and actually working with her was amazing. I received no monetary pay for my work at the time but to me that was pay enough just to be able to have worked with her.
WorldwideConnected.com: What was “Left Eye” like as a person?
She was real out spoken. I believe she was about thirty years old but she appeared to be about sixteen and she weighed less than 100 lbs. She was a very spiritual and health conscious person but at the same time she loved to smoke weed. One thing I experienced with her was she liked to smoke weed out of onion skins. She would take the outer layer of the onion skin and role the weed up in that. It burned real slow and that was how she smoked the weed. It was a trip! She didn’t eat no meat, or dairy just fruits and shit like that. I remember when I used to write for her she would be concerned and tell me “When you write the raps and if you are going to refer to a gun or violence can you make it refer to my music?” Suge Knight would be on the other side of the studio saying “No fuck that shit, make it gangsta!” Left Eye was a real cool person to be around because she was so free and was real positive. It was hard to be down and out around her because she always did or said something that would uplift you. I know she is missed by a lot of people!
WorldwideConnected.com: It sounded like it was a positive experience for you!
Yeah it was a pretty positive experience amongst a pretty negative time. Death Row was going thru a down fall with an apparent black ball for the leader. While he was doing everything that he could to re-assert himself it was like the industry was doing everything that they could to stop him from doing it. I realized that being associated with him was closing far more doors for me then it was opening and it got to the point to where I asked him to take my name and image off of his website because I needed to be disassociated with him and his label and he understood and didn’t have any hatred about it and he wished me well. Everything was cool and I left on a positive note and gained a lot from that whole experience at Tha Row.
WorldwideConnected.com: Can you tell me about “West Kept Secret?”
Right now, in my career, I want to keep the streets hot with the mix tapes and I’m constantly looking for a way to get the mix tapes promoted on a larger level. I’ve always been looking for a better situation to put them out and Koch came into play. I really prefer not to even use the term mix tape because it kind of denotes the value of the music. There is no DJ on my shit and it is more of an album any way. I got involved with a distribution deal thru Koch and it is a collection of songs that I recorded over the last couple of years. I was going to name my debut album &