Off the Record

0:00
What's good everyone, you're listening to WKNC 88.1 FM HD 2 Raleigh. We are a student run, nonprofit radio station based out of North Carolina State University. I'm Plover, and this is off the record. Here with me today is Ed E. Ruger. How're you doing today?

0:14
I'm alright man. Thank you guys for having me.

0:15
Of course. I'm so glad you were able to come in for this. So, do you want to just give the audience sort of a quick background about who you are and what you do?

0:25
Sure. My name is Ed E. Ruger. I'm a MC, or a rapper from Greensboro, North Carolina. I've done quite a bit of stuff. I've been on Boondocks cartoon, I've been on the Breaking Bad television series, I've got collaborations with all kinds of people, everybody from BunB, to Rittz, to Wax, JellyRoll, Riff Raff, done tons of wrestling themes, kind of just trying to do it all, I own my own clothing line, coming off of that. So, just try to make the whole brand expand a little bit and bring it all together.

0:53
That's awesome. So how did you kind of get into, I guess, I know you have a bunch of different things. But when did you get into rap specifically? Like what was that kind of journey?

1:02
I've actually been in the rap my entire life, man. I started my first rap that my mom actually found, I think when I was like nine years old, and my sister got me into hip hop. When I was probably like four or five, she gave me mixtapes of UTFO, and Houdini, and Roxanne Shante, and Run DMC and just Slick Rick, Dana Dane, all on one tape. So I've kind of been into it my whole life.

1:28
So it's like, is like mixtape, I guess, culture, kind of really important, I know that's a, kind of a crucial part of rap. So that's something you like really care about and would like to see continue?

1:40
Now as far as a fan, listening to, I've got two different opinions on that. As far as the fan listening to it, I grew up in the mixtape culture, and I love it. As far as artists. I've never made a single mixtape because they don't make any money.

1:52
Yeah.

1:54
And you have sampling issues and yeah, license, clear licenses and all that kind of stuff. You can't get it placed on radio stations, you can't get. It's crazy once you get into the mixtape stuff, but as a fan, I love hearing MCs rap over other MCs beats and see what they would do to it. So I mean, I loved it. I grew up on G-Unit. During that whole mixtape era, I grew up on uh, Dipset, and Ludacris when he was down south doing it. But yeah, I love the mixtape era as a fan, but as an artist, it's just something I never got into because it just wasn't lucrative.

2:25
Yeah, totally get that. Um, so what would you describe your like, specific kind of rap that you produce? It's a very wide genre, of course.

2:34
I don't know how I would describe mine to be honest. Man, I've done I mean, I've done a little bit of everything. On Breaking Bad where we did more of the electronic style like, UK grime style dubstep. And we've got entire albums of that, one on my projects with my brother Philly Fresh, who is the producer for Dub-boro, which is our side project group. Um, we've got, it's more experimental glitch, hop, Trip hop, stuff like that. But then if you do, my album, my albums are more like, more down south Hip Hop mixed with Up North style lyrics, if that would make sense, because I love the more down south beats, but I love the more punch heavy lyrics of the New York rappers and the west coast rappers. Now, West Coast is probably my favorite hip hop scene other than my own hip hop scene here. So I'm very, it's a weird mix of all the genres that I've been influenced by put together, but we do it all, because I've got songs like Joy Riding and Good Day, that are very feel good. More jam band kind of influenced hip hop. And then I've got, like I said, the more experimental stuff, and then you've got, my favorite, which I do, is more of the down south trap type of hip hop. That's more mixed with like, a mature hustler type of music, like a more grown up type of hustler music.

3:58
Yeah, for sure. So what do you-

3:59
We kind of do it all. Oh, I'm sorry.

4:01
No no. You're all good. Sorry about that. What do you mean exactly by like, kind of punch heavy lyrics?

4:07
Just nothing but punch lines. I mean, it's definitely metaphors, similes, just basically punch lines throughout the entire thing. But with my style, I like to connect those to where it actually gives you a message in the story. And it's not just random punch lines back to back.

4:23
Yeah, yeah.

4:24
That'd be like, I do a bunch of double time. And I also do just reg, double time is like the faster rap, and then I also do the slower like, more classic type of hip hop, but with both of them, you got to make sure that even though you're doing the punch lines, I like to make sure mine are connected to where even if the people don't care about punch lines at all, it has a story and a message behind it. You got the people who look deeper into it, they find the punch lines and you find something new every time you play my songs.

4:53
Yeah. Two people can listen to your songs and think of completely, two different experiences. Um.

5:01
Absolutely.

5:02
Uh, you mentioned a side project earlier, what exactly does that entail?

5:05
The side projects I do are really, really fun, man. Um, the main one we've got is Dub-boro, which got us actually placed on Breaking Bad. And it's more of the electronic stuff. It's mainly me and Philly Fresh that are doing it nowadays. It started off with me, Philly Fresh, JJ the Genius, and Doug Killer. And once we all got into TV music and custom music, we kind of went separate directions depending on the jobs that we got, and TV and music and stuff. So me and Philly Fresh are doing Dub-boro, which, this latest one was more of a glitch hop type of thing. So it's definitely got the trap, UK grime like, drill style beats, but it's more of um, a little bit faster rap and faster lyrics with it. So we basically just. It's crazy, man, we do more experimental stuff that you won't hear on the radio that you can't really get pretty much anywhere. And that's what got us on Breaking Bad. They were like, Yeah, we need this style right here, and can y'all remake us something? Absolutely. You got my wrestling side projects, which are my custom music that I do mainly with A.Star, who was also the one who's produced my last two albums, dude is amazing. Um, those, we've done everything from rock to country rap to old school boom bap to just straight out, like metal. I mean, it's, we bend genres a lot, man.

6:30
That's crazy. I guess I didn't really realize I was talking to a modern day renaissance man. That's really impressive.

6:37
I try my best. I appreciate that man.

6:40
Do you find that like, easier to like, the more genres you hop, like the I don't know, like, does that like make your music better? Now that you like, have like different sounds and stuff that you can like, really work with?

6:50
It's kind of a catch 22. I mean, it definitely makes it more fun. But one of the way I've been described my entire career is that I'm too underground to be commercial, and too commercial to be underground. Like, I'm one of the underground guys that knows how to write songs and write hooks. I'm also so underground that I'm going to keep my lyrics the way I want them. And I'm gonna make my songs the way I want them. I'm not going to, you know, bend to the trends and how they're doing it on radio. So it's really weird, but I've been, I've been successful independently off of that. So, I like to keep it like that. And the way I got more control over what I do, but it's definitely made it more fun, I'll say that.

7:29
Yeah, we love to see that. And, talking about music. You recently dropped an album, ROI. Can you tell us a bit about kind of that process?

7:37
Yeah, shout out to R, I'm about to say ROI. I'm sorry. He's the one who produced every song on there. He's the guy I was just talking about, does a lot of the wrestling stuff with me too. Um, that one ROI. For those who don't know, I'm sure a lot of people do since we're on you know, NC State radio. So we got, uh, ROI means return on investment. But it can also mean a lot of other things which we let people, you know, come up with those on their own. But it was originally for return on investment, meaning it's time to get everything that we've done in the industry and get paid for it. And we've done tons of stuff for free. We've done tons of stuff for cheap. And you know, we've toured all over the place. And now it's time for us to come back home, get this right and get our money from it. And what we did with that was basically made sure, like I said, we were having fun, the easiest way for us to see going back to getting the money from it, is making sure we do what we want to do, stay in our lane, and have fun with it. So what we did, both of us are huge wrestling fans, and it's like I, I keep mentioning. So we went and got two of the biggest wrestlers in the game right now, which happened to be homies of ours, Platinum Max Caster and Swerve the Realist, who were both, one of them is that, they just fought each other for the fact last week, so now Platinum Max is now the AEW, World Tag Team Champion with his partner Anthony Bowen and they just beat Swerve and Keith Lee. But both of those guys are on the album. So we've now blended not only the custom music that we do, we blended it with what we're actually doing outside of the custom music, which has been pretty successful. And that's one of the ways we're getting the ROI on it, is blending those two crowds, the hip hop crowd and the wrestling crowd together. And then our, you know, our our main crowd. So you just put it all together and then we got there, and then I'm a huge battle rap fan too. So I went and got my homie Jag, which is Cassidy's artists. That's a big battle rapper. And he's on there too. So we just made it from the front to the back. It's actually, it tells a story. It's, alright, I'll just explain it like I explained it to my producer man, this is gonna be dope. Alright, so we made it a story from front to back. So you play the first song and you hear us breaking into a safe, and then it goes all the way through what happens after we break into the safe. And then at the very end, there's a song called We Made It. It's got a very triumphant outro about how we made it out and all this. So there's a whole roller coaster in between. But the key to it is, we made it because of how, just how it is today in radio and streaming and all that, we made it so that every song could be played as a single. So not only does it tell the story, it's kind of like what we were doing, what I was explaining, with my actual songs. So we, we made it a story, but we also broke it down to where you can play every single song as the same.

10:29
Absolutely, yeah, I added several songs off of that album onto our, our radio station. It sounds like very, like, you know, powerful and just like on their own, like when they're played in like a bunch of songs of other artists. It's really cool.

10:42
Man, I really appreciate that man.

10:44
Of course, this was a great, this was a great album. I loved it, I wouldn't have reached out otherwise.

10:49
That means a lot.

10:50
Yeah, of course. So is that like, is that um, I've been looking at the cover art earlier. Is that like connected to it, is that like y'all breaking into the safe?

10:57
Yeah, that is exactly what that is. It's us breaking into the safe and getting what we think we're owed. And the artwork is about my man Christopher Brown, aka the fat boy, he's amazing. He's also an artist too, he's great.

11:10
I was gonna say, Yeah, uh, you have great cover work. And there's a lot of very like punchy, cool cover arts that you have over the years.

11:19
Yeah, most of those I have done because it, the game keeps changing. So basically, the way I did the CD, just to keep people interested in the CDs is to do cover art like that, which those come, a lot of these are done by Charles Drake and William Withers who also do artwork for Marvel, and other deck trading cards. So if they happen to say, ink a comic book later on, now you have a piece of artwork by them, as well as my album, and you know, then it can also go up online, and it's a catchy thumbnail and stuff like that. But yeah, the artworks got a lot to do with, with the presentation. So we definitely try to reach out and do what we can with those.

11:59
For sure. And there's also that, that's really cool that like I, I knew that Platinum Max was in wrestling of course, it's credited as that, but I didn't know that Swerve was also in there, because like, they sound like really like, seamless on the, on the tracks. Like, it's not just like, you got some random person there who was like famous elsewhere, like, they like, really like, integrated with like, kind of the style you were going for, that must been really cool. Like, kind of putting all those features together into, into like a, such a cohesive project that you were, you were trying to go for.

12:25
Oh, it really was. And honestly, we had zero idea what to expect from it. Because it was like, dude, like I've heard their music, but you've never heard them on my style of beats, I have a very distinct style on certain songs. So I was wondering how it was gonna work, and both of them killed it. It's an amazing project and it was extremely fun to make with these guys. And Max has blown up to the point now where he's got John Cena talking about him every other week. So when I made the song with him, he was um, he's always been very popular and like, a great wrestler, but he was, he wasn't to the point where he is now. Like, definitely taking the level up and it, like I said, you got people like John Cena talking about you and Triple H talking about you and, you know, Seth Rollins and all the big guys there. It's, it's big now, it's hard to get in touch with them, I'll tell you.

13:15
Nice. Um, I was also very surprised when I saw this was only produced by one producer because it's like a really like, there's a lot of different sounds going on. It's very dynamic. Like, I know you say you have a specific style of beats, but there's a lot of like, different, very different like, beats within that style of beat, which was really cool.

13:28
Yeah, definitely. See that's, that's the part that's hard to explain to people because it's, it's a certain style that talks to me, but they don't sound the same, if that makes sense. Like none of the beats sound the same, but they're very, they have to be kind of powerful and different. Like, they don't sound like everybody else. So it's, I don't know, it's a weird, it's a weird mix, but um A dot is extremely diverse and has only gotten more versatile, the more wrestling and custom music we do. Plus all the work he's doing on the side with all his stuff that he just did, like remixes of the KRS one albums and stuff like that, that he's getting ready to do some, and he's got, it, there's a lot of stuff coming out between both of us, but he keeps getting better and better. The more people kind of challenging, that dude can learn anything. Like, he can learn any style of beat. If I sent him something like hey, they need us to do an Irish- and this has happened, this isn't just me making it up- they need us to do like an Irish steampunk beat and hip hop. And he's like, well I don't know what that means, but give me a second. I'm like alright. Plug is, get it right, and send me something amazing, like the dude is, he's genius.

14:42
So like, obviously this is a great back to front album, but like if listeners would only listen to like one song for example, uh, what would you say would be that one like, one off the album for you?

14:51
So my main is I would say as a fan, probably Big Ol Bag would be the main song I would want anybody from this album to hear, because it's gonna be catchy to everybody. The family, kids, people out working, going to work out, jogging around the neighborhood, just going to work, like that's gonna be catchy to anybody. But if you wanted to get to know me as a person, I would have to say probably We Made It or Everything ain't Right. One of those two. But Big Ol Bag would be my main.

15:16
Yeah, those last two were definitely like a very, like, kind of personal like, very, like, good, like, send offs for that album that, yeah, I would definitely recommend those as well.

15:24
If you, if you want to get to know me on a personal level, those would definitely be the two that like, one of them's a little darker, one of them's a little brighter, but those are the two on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

15:35
How would you say this was kind of a, I guess a, an evolution from something like Implied Greatness from like last year, like, any of your like, last year, projects?

15:43
Implied Greatness was different in um, that was honestly just somebody, I don't do too much Boom bap hip hop. So one of my friends is Poe Mack, who produced that entire project. And everybody was like, I want to hear your style with, you know, bridges and breakdowns and things that aren't usually in boom, bap, on the boom bap album. So that's where that one came from. So that wasn't um, that wasn't really put together over a long period of time, like ROI was, that Implied Greatness came out great, because basically what that is, is, it's got two different meanings to the to the title, it's Implied Greatness, because me and Poe Mack did it. So everybody just assumes it's gonna be great.

16:25
Of course.

16:25
Got a great artist from Virginia and a great artist in North Carolina. But on the other end of it, it's basically talking about the entire game, how everybody just wants to tell you, they're great. Instead of letting everybody else tell you they're great, like they want to spend most of their time telling everybody how great they are, instead of proving it and letting the fans prove that they're great. So the album cover has, one side is a drum machine, and other side is a lie detector test. And if you, if you've seen them, they both look really similar.

16:54
Yeah, I, I, I actually didn't know what those machines were. Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense.

17:00
Yeah, that's what that was. Because basically, it's like, alright, so you're on the beat. Now, here's a lie detector. So, but that's what that one was. But the Guerrilla Grind album series was, to be able to go from that, to just working with one main producer as Adap. It's definitely, honestly, it was a pretty easy transition. Because Guerrilla Grind, I was working with about seven or eight producers, and it's hard to get everybody on the same page, it was hard to get a seamless vibe for it. I mean, we ended up doing it in the end. But also on Guerrilla Grind, on definitely part two, we had a bunch of features from all over the world. So I mean, it was just it was hard getting everything put together. It was hard getting everything in on time, but we did it. And it came out to be probably one of the best albums I've ever put out. But um, I really think this album ROI is probably one of the first albums I've been able to do on my own. That was everything I wanted to put out on it and not have any outside influences as far as the industry as far as just other styles of mu-, like music, just hearing other artists, I didn't even listen to any albums while I wrote it, I just wanted to get this out.

18:11
For sure.

18:11
So, that's basically where that came from.

18:14
You mentioned it took a while to make. How long was, was the, the process behind ROI?

18:18
Uh, little over a year. So we had this one, usually it takes me about three or four months to make an album and then another three to plan out how I'm gonna do it and all this, but this one, um, it took us about a year, year and a half to record. And then we're still in the process of actually rolling it out because we're doing a whole new way of rolling it out. So instead of just planning it out at the beginning, we just planned out the, the bigger stuff. And then we're just rolling with it and see how it works. And we're doing pretty much all direct to consumer now, I don't have too much on the streaming sites, because I just, I don't like the way they do it. But I mean, it'll eventually be out there. But I still like everybody being able to contact me directly and being able to, you know, talk to my fans and talk to my supporters and be able to, you know, contact them directly and then directly contact me.

19:06
Yeah, sure. And then that was how I was able to reach out and get the music through through Bandcamp. So yeah, I'm really glad you're kind of focusing on that, like very personal connection to the artist.

19:17
It's a lot easier too man. And it's, it's like, I made, let's say, I think I got almost a million streams last year and made less than I would have made selling 100 out.

19:29
Yeah.

19:30
So I mean, I'm still gonna put them on there. Like on streaming sites as singles, you know, here and there. But the album's are always gonna be on my site. Like there's all 17 or 18 of the albums on there, but they're not all, they're not all on digital platforms at all.

19:44
Yeah, cuz you want the money, not Spotify. Yeah.

19:49
So yeah, Spotify, I don't know, man, that whole thing's weird, man. But that's a whole other conversation today. The streaming, the streaming thing is about to go a whole other direction. That's why they're buying everybody's catalogs.

20:00
Yeah.

20:00
But it's, it's crazy. Because once you see them buying everybody from The Weekend's catalog to like Paul McCartney, and you're like, hold on what?

20:12
Yeah, the writing's on the wall for this event.

20:14
Yeah, they've got something planned. And I'm pretty sure it's got to do with the NFT's or something similar to that to where you can buy, like a portion or a share of somebody's masters and things like that.

20:27
Gotcha. Yeah, that's, that's crazy. But yeah, it's definitely, uh, whole other conversation.

20:31
Yeah, it's a whole deep dive.

20:31
One thing you did mention was, of course, you're rolling out the album, and, I believe you have a show, um, this, is it this weekend at the Flatiron in Greensboro?

20:43
This Saturday at the Flatiron, October 22. And we've got lots of, lots of really dope artists coming out to man. That's one thing about our shows is I only book the people that I rock with. I know that sounds crazy, but it's because I booked for years, I booked outside artists and it was a headache. So when I came back from the pandemic, I was like, I'm only booking my friends man. So I really, don't even really book shows now, I just bring the homies, like, alright, let's go. And we show up and have an awesome show. So that way, you also know that the quality of the concerts gonna be top shelf no matter what too.

21:15
Oh, for sure.

21:16
Like every artist on there knows what they're doing.

21:17
Nice. So who all is gonna be there?

21:21
We've got, let's see, we've got Mr. Rozzi will be there.

21:24
Oh my God, wait, he's gonna be there? Mr. Rozzi is so cool. I've been playing a lot of his music recently.

21:29
Yeah, Mr. Rozzi is actually, basically like my big brother man. He's been a mentor of mine for years and years and years. And we're, we've done lots of songs together. We're actually working on a project with me, him and Ty Bru, which is my brother. To me, Ty Bru, Ty Bru, was my like, that's been my, God, that dude has been, we've been on tour for last 15 years ago. But for me, Ty Bru and Mr. Rozzi are The Good Day Gang, and we're getting ready to make a whole album, our whole project called The Good Day Gang.

21:59
Nice.

21:59
And so Mr. Rozzi's gonna be there, Stitchy C's gonna be hosting it. Philly Phr3sh is doing the music and DJ, he don't like me to say DJ, because he does a whole lot more than DJ. So Philly Phr3sh is running the music, Prez is running the sound. We've got Kush, Razi, Jones McShine's gonna be there. Seashree The Professor's gonna be there. Sam Hughe's gonna be there. Ikabus Brickberg's gonna be there. Who else we got? I know I'm missing people. I know I'm missing people. I'm trying to think. Jeremy Johnson is gonna be there he goes by Jay da Prince now, Jay da Prince is gonna be there. Let's see. I'm missing some people.

22:41
So many awesome people are gonna be there it's hard to keep track.

22:44
It definitely is man but I know I'm missing somebody I feel like I named everybody but I think I've named somebody twice.

22:50
I got you. It's like that, um, so this is at the Flatiron. I know that, let's see, venues have been a little impacted recently. Are the still, like, good venues either in Greensboro or kind of the wider area for like hip hop for you that you've still noticed?

23:07
Oh man, the venues are closing left and right man. Blind Tiger just closed, which was one of the main venues around here they had a whole bunch of controversy around that. Then you got, let's see Flatiron has been open and they're gonna be, they're gonna be a stalwart around here for sure. Um, they've been a staple for years and years around Greensboro so it's just good they got back open like they needed to um, I'm trying to think what else closed they've got, they had, they had a few things out here that are just gone now. So now the only places to really play now are Flatiron Artist Block and, like, Rock House.

23:44
I no idea The Blind Tiger closed. Is that like a recent thing?

23:48
Yeah, that's been, with all within the last couple of months. And it's been just craziness.

23:54
So a lot of venues are like, they're like, very like niche, like types of music as well like really, was like kind of keeping entire scenes afloat and now, now they're closing, it's, it's unfortunate, the impact on, on kind of the wider scene.

24:08
Yeah, that's why I'm very thankful for Flatiron and Josh and you know, everybody up there because they totally don't have to have us up there. But being that, you know, all the venues keep closing, then you know, hip hop is going to be usually one of the last ones, the venues, accept. So, we, we bring a very diverse crowd. So it's a little different for like, when we go in there, they know they're gonna have good bar sales, they know they're gonna have a cool crowd, everybody's gonna be up front at the stage. Like it's gonna be, people there to see the music instead of people there just to hang out with each other and talk over them. So it's a different vibe. And they know that so it's a little easier. But, you know, it's still we get a bad rap a lot of times when it ain't just us, it's everybody.

24:54
For sure yeah, yeah. I feel like mo-, like every venue is just like punk and country now and there needs to be more like repre for other gesentation for other genres.

25:03
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's very true. But it's funny because even with like the custom music stuff, it's real weird with the shows and the music in general, because you can take, you can take hip hop, outside of the hip hop scene, and be successful with hip hop anywhere in the world, under any business, anywhere. And they're going to be accepting to it. But if you try to bring that into the hip hop scene, it doesn't work like that. So it's just, it's really weird. But, you know, that's when we kind of branched out and I started doing my own thing, which one of my most quoted lines is when it says, the ru-, I mean, I'm not in the music biz, I'm in the Ruger biz, because the mu-, cuz the Ruger biz is more lucrative, like that's one of my most quoted lines, because I never followed the rules to the music game.

25:52
It's a good one.

25:54
I mean, it didn't make sense to me. So, like, I saw all of it was like, yeah, none of this is working for anybody. Why is everybody doing this? And I was making enough around here that I knew it could work everywhere if I just stuck to my plan, and did it, you know, on a bigger, on a larger basis.

26:13
Yeah, I mentioned around here. Do you mean like, like the Greensboro rap scene? Like, like, how would, how is that sort of something you work with?

26:20
Yeah, I had, I definitely, how do I say this without, I don't want to really pat myself on the back and say it was all me. So us throwing shows for years, we brought a ton of the artists in. We've, we've definitely helped build this scene around North Carolina without a doubt. We've had, we threw the biggest beat battles for years. We had 500 to 700 people in most of the beat battles we had, we were sponsored by Ozone Magazine, Red Bull, Guitar Center, we were sponsered by all kinds of people doing that. And then when we toured, we toured from not, well, I'm saying tour when we brought people in, we brought everybody in from Obie Trice, to Wiz Khalifa, to Wu Tang Clan, to Project Pat. I mean, we, we made sure that before the pandemic, there was a hip hop scene, and it was active. So I'm not saying that everybody else didn't have something to do with it. And everybody else didn't do their own thing, because there's lots of awesome promoters and lots of awesome artists around here. But we definitely made sure this thing was active.

27:22
Yeah, and you definitely deserve to pat yourself on the back for that. That sounds like you put a lot of work into it.

27:29
Yeah, we did, we put a whole lot of work into it. That's why I don't really sugarcoat what we did. I just don't like taking away from everybody else. Because there was also a lot of other people that were doing it as well. But when everybody else stopped, we kept going. And that wasn't just during the pandemic, that was other times too where a club would close and everybody would stop, we'd keep going. The pandemic came, everybody stopped, we kept going. Like we would throw live basement shows to where it was only us six feet apart in the basement, so we're, we got the cameras at a fisheye angle where you can see all of us, and everybody's rocking, and then we put those on live videos, I mean, on actual videos on YouTube, we put out all different kinds of collabs that we did over the pandemic. So man, we just stayed active all the time when other people got slow we didn't. We sped up basically. When everybody slowed down, we sped up.

28:22
Yeah, because there's more of a market to get at that point. Yeah. It's really cool. So yeah, you mentioned all these collaborations, what would you say is your like, some, like your favorite coll-, collaborations you've like ever had?

28:35
Well, right now, I'd say my favorite, like without a doubt, are some of my current ones like the Acon song that we have out, me and Stitchy C just did a song with Acon and it's almost at a quarter million streams. That song is just great, because of the message behind it. It's great because it's Acon. And it's great because we went through so many loopholes to finally get it out. Like we've had that song in the stash for three years, probably more than that and went through loophole after loophole and we finally got it out. And it's out in a way that it should be out and, you know, it's getting, it's getting the ears that it needs to get. So, we appreciate that part and then we got, let's see, my favorite as far as just being fun would be the wrestlers like because I'm such a huge wrestling fan. And I'm such a huge just hip hop fan in general to put those together and have two wrestlers that can actually rap on the album and put out great songs it's amazing. I love it.

29:31
Yeah. How was it like, like getting into, I guess like, that, that, side of the wrestling scene by the way that, that seems like, a again, a whole different, like, sector from music but also really cool.

29:40
It definitely was man it was really different as far as like the people but the business is very similar like they don't make a ton of money independently like we don't make, or they weren't now they're doing great just like music is but at first you know independent wrestling was just underground stuff just like music is then it got, it blew up more and more over the last like probably five to ten years. And these independent wrestlers are making, the ones that are doing it right are making a great bit of money, man making a good bit of money. And it's like that with hip hop too like a lot of people don't know exactly, I'm a great example of that. A lot of people don't realize what you do, because you're not on TV, and you're not, you know, in the mainstream, but then they, they look at your stuff and like, oh, you've done all this?

30:26
Yeah.

30:27
Yeah. It's because I chose to be independent, and be able to stay home with my kids and my family and bring things here and tour when I needed to, instead of doing everything with the record labels and all that to where you know, they're gonna take all your money. So it's totally different because I've had plenty of record label offers too. And none of them have been anything worth even looking at. But yeah it's weird, man. So to get into wrestling, being that that was a different kind of outlet. One of my friends that I was working with when I was bartending is a member of the Ugly Ducklings, which is one of the best independent tag teams out right now. And, um, he got me into it just because we were friends. He was like, dude, we need a song, you make it, I'll pay you. Let's do it. Because I was like, alright, cool. Let's rock. And I did it. And me being a huge fan of wrestling, that didn't do anything. But get me to start going into more of the wrestling around here instead of the bigger ones. So I started going to a lot more matches around here that the Ugly Ducklings were at so I could see them. And then I met their roommates who were the Gymnasty Boys and I ended up doing their songs. And it's kind of just branched out until I got to my homeboy, JD Drake, who is one of the big guys in the independent scene around here got signed to AEW. And he's the one who introduced me to Platinum Max, and it just, you know, went from there. And the whole time, we're also doing entrances for other people I meet along the way. And it was real cool, because these guys know I'm a fan of wrestling. I'm not just a rapper that's there to make music. Like I'm there. I'm a huge fan. Like I go through the history of all that with them. I was at Starrcade 84 in Greensboro, at the Coliseum. So I've been, same as hip hop, man, I've been my whole life wrestling and rap.

32:08
And I really like the local approach because you really just can't be like a good like local scene of anything really.

32:15
Well, that's also my, um, Guerrilla Grind. That's where Guerrilla Grind came from. Guerrilla Grind is basically the definition of being a guerrilla, not the animal that, you know, the gorilla. For the people listening not ,not the us-, for people listening. Not, I'm not talking about the animal gorilla. I'm talking about the guerrilla soldiers. They are well known for using their local communities support to fight off bigger, larger, entities of all different kinds and they couldn't do that without the local support. And that's where they build their foundations from and then you got the grind part which is just to do whatever you can to achieve your goals. So that's where Guerrilla Grind came from. And if I was to go against, if I were to go against that, I wouldn't have the local support anymore, which is what got me to where I am and you know, that wouldn't be good.

33:06
Is there anything else you wanted to get in? I feel like we, we covered, covered a lot of good stuff here.

33:10
Let me hit October 22 again. alright, so this Saturday, I pulled the flyer up so I didn't miss anybody this time.

We've got me, Ed E. Ruger with Philly Phr3sh and stitchy C, Mr. Rozzi's gonna be there. Twist The Rappers gonna be there. Jone's McShine, Jay da Prince, For Ever JeBron,. Bam Yu, Seashree The Professor, Key Air, and Ikabus Bricksburg. So we got a crazy line up.

33:34
Entire squad. Yeah. Thank you so much for talking to me. And I really hope the show goes well this, this, this weekend. That sounds amazing.

33:42
Man, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Anytime you want to have me back up here to do the deep dive on other stuff or talking just let me know man, I love it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai