Interview by Tim "Styles" Sanchez

Styles: Give us a nice little break down of your history, just to start off….

Pr1me: I came out of the streets of Long Beach. I’ve been doing this [rapping] for a long time – for 11 years! Professionally, only 3 years. I’ve played the background for a long time and it’s time for me to get my shine on properly.

Styles: Who have you played the background to all of these years?

Pr1me: I played the background to Kurupt, Daz, Snoop, RBX, Lifestyle, Frathouse – a lot of people. I pay my homage to them. It’s a good thing that I did because I’ve learned a lot from their mistakes and I feel that is a great thing because everything that they fell apart on or got rich on – I was able to be there and experience that. So I just apply that to everything that I am doing right now.

Styles: That’s a lot of good experience right there. What’s the background on your name?

Pr1me: I felt like it applied to a lot of things in my life. I got it from The Transformers but it’s a double-edged sword because it means so many things. Basically I am Pr1me because I stand out from a lot of other people. Like 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 – I am an odd number. I’m an odd guy. I am never confined to being “even” or just be like other folks. I am always the opposite. Prime Time is the time that you get the most exposure on TV. It’s a musical note as well – there are prime numbers in music. So Pr1me means a lot of things but it’s always in conjunction to being number 1.

Styles: You talk about standing out. What is it that separates you from a lot of other artists coming out these days?

Pr1me: I feel music in my heart. I am not trying to portray anything that I am not. I just try to put out good music and what I feel at the time. I don’t try to “over-gangsta” stuff. I like to lay it out cut and dry how I feel. That’s how I stand out from other folks.

Styles: When you think of East Long Beach, you think of Crippin’and Gangsta music, so yours seems to be a unique approach.         

Pr1me: It’s still all of that but I am for the community at the same time. Long Beach as a city, we are the only All-Crip city. But it’s also like; there are no back-packers from the city? Or everybody has a gun? Or everybody has to murder somebody? Our whole city should be on lock-down if it was really like that. We should be confined to our own little civilization if everybody was killing like that on my side of the town. There’s still good people and good things that be going on. There are parks that need to be cleaned up for the kids. I want free lunches and other programs like that to go on. That’s why people are cleaning up Pine Street. They don’t really want the gangsters on Pine. That’s why there are so many police there. I’ve got nothing against gangsters, I’m all for it. I just think that if we had more things going on in our community – there wouldn’t be so much crime and we wouldn’t get depicted as that. The Eastside of Long Beach in general, everybody like Domino, Snoop, Warren G, RBX, The Twinz – have a melodic sound – a jazzy sound like smooth laid back cats. We are about imprinting real music in to rap. Long Beach brought a lot of that melody and Compton did to – and that’s what we are losing out on. I am trying to bring back real music and the melodies. That’s what I am trying to do in my community and with my movement.

Styles: Wow, so you are actively involved in your own community?

Pr1me: I am actively involved. I just got my own business over there. I sell all of my merchandise at a very low price. I’m talking whole-sale prices! When people buy from me, they can go and feel good about themselves knowing that they have saved money and they can use that for other things like feeding their families. I sell T-Shirts, Tennis Shoes and Pants – and after shopping for clothes they can still go to the grocery stores. Everybody wants to look fresh but you don’t have to break the bank just to do it – and that’s what I’m all about. My business is called More/Less; you get more for what you bargain for, for less money. Because it’s not all about the dollar with me – it’s about you and you feeling good about yourself. When you are confident about yourself, then you won’t want to pull a gun out on somebody. That’s what I want to do for my community. I just want to make everybody feel at ease. I can’t please everybody but I can at least try. My whole thing is if you have something bad to say about somebody, try to resolve it first. If you don’t like Barack Obama, then tell me why, instead of just saying, “I don’t like him.” I’ll say “why” and if you say “I just don’t”, then that’s not good enough for me.  I mean, if you don’t like Hip-Hop, then change it – and that’s what I’m all about. People say that Hip-Hop is dead but they aren’t trying to put their music on the line and put their money where their mouth is. If I am like, “I ain’t feeling what’s on the radio right now”, then it’s on me to do something about it.

Styles: Everybody is a critic these days, especially with fans using forums. Some are good with opinions but there are a lot of haters that use little logic or reason.

Pr1me: In the Hip-Hop world, we can be the worst critics but now it’s time to also show and prove. I keep going back to Obama because he’s a big example right now for change. If you don’t like the way that the government is, I’m willing to go against all of the rumors and statements that say that the moment I am elected, I am going to die – just so I can try to make some kind of change. Myself, that’s what I am willing to do. I am willing to put my music on the line. You don’t’ like the way Hip-Hop is right now? Put your music up. Put your money up. That’s what I did – I came out to Vegas for the Magic Convention – put my CD’s up and my music up. Me and my cats went out there grinding, putting our money where our mouth was. People gave us a great response because we had the balls to do it. I gave away my music for free with producers on it that could have charged us $20,000 a track. But that’s what I am about though; I am just trying to make change. There are going to be a lot of older cats that are going to hate us for that because they can’t even get these kinds of tracks from the producers that I am dealing with. Even if they did have the money, these dudes wouldn’t want to deal with them. They will be mad because we are putting out hot music for free, especially with downloads taking food out of people’s mouths these days. But if you would have given us young cats a shot, we wouldn’t have to put out free music that makes y’all look bad. We are putting out hot free music and y’all are out there trying to sell your stuff – and y’all can’t even let us open up for a show. Can you believe that? I don’t believe that.  That’s bullshit! I think that if you see some young cats doing something, we feed off the energy.

I’ll use Dogg as an example. I think if he had some real talented cats around him, that he respected on that level musically, I think he would sound like the old Doggystyle Snoop again. He wouldn’t have to go for a Sexual Seduction. He wouldn’t have to go that route. He would have been confident in his flow like, “I’m gonna bust like Tha Shiznit again.” But he’s like, “My raps are still dope but I want to go a different route with it.” Props to him for doing that but what that does for the Youth, it gives the radio a reason to knock the West Coast rappers style now. Like, “do you think you can take some of that content out? Snoop lowered his for radio. You can do the same thing.” It’s harder now to get something on the radio because it’s too hard. “Dumb it down a little bit, Snoop did Sexual Seduction”, you know what I’m saying? Now there’s another excuse for radio to turn our music down. It’s not that he did a bad thing, I just think that there are Hip-Hop cats coming up in the game – we get enough excuses from the radio. All we know is this type of music: harder beats, harder snaps and harder bass.

Styles: What kind of excuses have you heard so far in trying to push your music?

Pr1me: Me personally? This is my first time really pushing my music and going out here. This is my first time being out on a limb, and under a microscope for everybody to see. I’m always with a group. I’m always with a lot of people – but now I am out here by myself. I haven’t even really gotten any bad responses. I’ve gotten all good ones because I’ve had good mentors that have helped me along the way and given me good advice. If I hear any excuses, then I am going to go around it. I feel like my music is commercially ready and street ready – at the same time – because I have dealt with both sides. By me taking the background with Snoop, Kurupt and them – I’ve learned all of those elements. Now everything that I have learned, I am putting in to play. Let me see if I am right or if I am wrong.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PR1ME'S RECENT MIXTAPE: THE TRANSFORMATION 

CLICK HERE TO VISIT PR1ME'S MYSPACE PAGE  

Comments (2)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by Lunatic 63, March 20, 2008

great read styles! good to see PR1ME doing it ohh so big right now!

...
written by KWB EXIT 19, March 26, 2008

never heard of dude but I just got schooled and some bomb ass music thanks

Name

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment

---