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Chamillionaire- Interview

by: Flex
Rapindustry.com

Universal Motown groundbreaking hip-hop artist, Chamillionaire has marked September 18th as the official release date for his much-buzzed about sophomore effort, Ultimate Victory, the follow-up to his Award winning, platinum-plus debut The Sound Of Revenge.

The first single from the new disk, “Hip-Hop Police,” featuring legendary rap star Slick Rick, has already set hip-hop chat rooms a blaze and is the #1 Most Added song at Rhythm Crossover and the #4 Most Added on Urban Radio. Chamillionaire promises the song is just ‘the tip of the iceberg’ when it comes to Ultimate Victory, which he describes as ‘A very conceptual album where I really pushed my creativity.’

He took some time out of his busy schedule to give us a brief interview..

INTERVIEW:

Hip Hop Police explain why you chose to do that record?

Just to be different. The inspiration came from watching so many videos talking about the club and VIP, and I’m like wow, we all doing the same thing and not realizing it. I’m do something different. I know people think the record is about the actual police but its not, its about people trying to police hip-hop in general.

How’d you link with Slick Rick?

I wanted someone on the record that could fit and also be able to tell a story, so I asked my homegirl if she had his number..so I paged him and he hit me back. He came to the studio and did his thing.

Do you think we contribute to the hip hop police’s scrunity tho? Take Remy Ma, and Stack Bundles for example?

Uh, yea, and its crazy because a few people make mistakes and it reflects on all of us. Next thing you know it makes it harder on all of us to do certain things, ya know, its kinda like..if I’m going to a bowling alley to bowl and they say, “you gotta take off ya hat”, cause somebody with a hat came in there and messed it up for us. But I can’t really say we all have a responsibilty, its up the morals of each individual.

Talk about the Sophomore Jinx.

I think that comes with the territory of the artist. It don’t really matter who you are, you could be Usher or R.Kelly or whoever, people are gonna automatically compare previous successful projects with the latest one. I don’t care if, say, Master P went platinum 12 times on the 13th time–everybodys gonna doubt him. Its the nature of the game. And you gotta be able to handle it. I just go into the studio and make music I feel is good, then push it as hard as I can. No formula really, it just worked for me that way for years.

Ultimate Victory you describe as a conceptual album…elaborate on that.

Yea, like even if I do a “club” tempo record it still is going to have a certain concept or story that fits into the project. And most records fit within that same concept like a movie..

Tell me about the night you won the grammy for “Ridin”, how did it feel?

It felt great! I mean, not the fact of the actual award trophy, but just seeing your hard work pay off…that satisfaction.. and not only that but, peoples’ views of you change. Once you become successful, people pay attention to you– they listen more.

We gota mention this….how r you handling the so called beefs, not mentioning any names, Are you gonna address that on cd? Or is that back there?

I definitely left it back there…there are way more interesting things to talk about besides beef and dissing people. I’ma leave that to everybody else. There was a time where the hip hop battle was cool cause it was lyrical or whatever.. but now, its stale. People used it as a gimmick.

Did Weird AL call you, to spoof Ridin Dirty?

Yes, he asked permission. It was great from a business standpoint because I got paid from it. And also, I had pushed “Ridin” as far as it could go. And then that gave it some new wings and took it to another
level with the legends he’s spoofed– like Nirvana and Michael Jackson– so I couldn’t even hate on that.


Why drop a mixtape when album release is a few months away?

To react and ignite peoples memories. Fans’ memories are so short nowadays. You gotta always stay fresh cause people forget so fast. Its to remind them. Its all about making a connection to the fans and the
artist ya know?

Lets get political.. you address Bush and Katrina on this album?

On a record called “Evening News” I’m speaking from the stand point of a newscaster. I talk about Kobe Bryant, OJ, to Bush, to Katrina. I just shot a video for it. People will see it real soon.

What’s one of the main things wrong with rap music today? Can it be fixed?

Too many followers, even from a business standpoint people are doing what everybody else does. Creatively, people doing the same stuff. If one person says this is not cool, then everybody stops doing that, cause somebody else said it wasn’t cool anymore…its just crazy…people need to set their own paths. Even with the labels, putting out the same stuff, and look at what’s happening to the music! But I’m not feeling that. Ill continue to do what I want to do. Even if it goes against the grain or whatever – I gotta do what I do.

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