Ny intervju med Cormega [XXL]
Fuck it, det blir en post till innan jag sticker vidare.
Det märks verkligen att eskay har tagit över onlinedelen av XXL. En helt annan nivå. Hur som helst, här är en ny intervju med Cormega:
“When me and Nas had beef, people had the perception that I was still in the projects broke and mad. Meanwhile, I was probably the richest rapper from Queensbridge.”
Harrowing street tales of life in the Queensbridge housing projects morphed Cormega from local rapper to underground cult hero in the ’90s. Debuting as a member of The Firm, a super-group comprised of Nas, AZ and Foxy Brown, Mega-Montana starred on the crew’s 1996 song “Affirmative Action” off Nas’ sophomore LP It Was Written. Shortly after, label politics forced ’Mega out of the group and put his Def Jam Records solo debut, The Testament, on permanent hold. After finally being released from his Def Jam contract in 2000, Cormega launched his own independent label, Legal Hustle, releasing his debut LP, The Realness, in 2001 and follow-up album, The True Meaning, in 2002. Since then, five years have passed since a true solo album. In 2004, ’Mega dropped a Legal Hustle compilation LP, followed by his long-awaited original debut, The Testament, in 2005, and finally, a collaborative release with Lake in 2006 entitled My Brother’s Keeper. Now, in 2007, ’Mega is prepping for the release of a new DVD, Who Am I?, and an instrumental album, Legal Hustle Presents: Got Beats, which features production by DJ Premier, The Alchemist and Buckwild. Cormega kicked it with XXLMag.com to talk about life as an independent artist, his new side projects and the status of his forthcoming solo album, The Inevitable.
Your career suffered a number of false starts in the ‘90s with both The Firm situation and your problems at Def Jam. What did you learn from those experiences?
From the Def Jam situation I learned that labels don’t care about artistry, they care about sales. You can have the wackest album on the whole label and your project can come out and get more promotion than an album from the most talented artist on the label, because labels base all of their decisions on what’s hot at a particular moment and what’s going to sell. So I learned that in the industry you really have no friends, because people will shake your hand, they’ll compliment you and tell you all kinds of different things, but then the next thing you know they’ll put you on the shelf and fuck-up your whole life. Everything ain’t always what it seems and you really can’t trust too many people in this industry. You really have to expect the worst when you get into the game and then if something good happens then that’s a blessing. From The Firm, I learned that everybody’s really out for self. After The Firm situation people really thought it was over for me and they counted me out, but I re-established myself. See, when The Firm situation was going down, I knew I wasn’t going to be in the group because it was all politics. But nobody in The Firm revolted and said, “Fuck that! ‘Mega gotta be down.” If they’d have stood up it would’ve never been an issue, but everyone was pacified by their check.
Last year you performed with Nas during his Hip Hop Is Dead tour. What’s your relationship with Nas like now?
I ain’t got no beef with Nas. That shit is old. He brought me out at his show last year and it was a good experience. It was incredible. See, a lot of new artists today think that beefing with someone is the only way to get in the game and get some attention. But what a lot of artists don’t realize is that when the beef’s over nobody cares about