This month, Havoc released his latest mixtape “13 Reloaded.” We caught up with the legendary artist to discuss his latest creation.
Q: What can fans expect from “13 Reloaded?”
More of that, you know what I’m saying, Mobb Deep sound. Good production, lyrics, all that. You know, the sh*t that I do.
Q: How is this different to your previous “13” release?
It’s not additional add ons or anything like that, the reason why I named it “13 Reloaded” was for the simple fact that I like “13” so much that I thought I would make an extension of that. You know what I’m saying, somewhere in the same vein of the first “13.”
Q: What was your favorite track to record on the album?
I really don’t have a favorite, I like all of them a lot. Offhand I couldn’t say which one was my favorite but I’m definitely feeling the album as a whole.
Q: What do you think about hip-hop’s landscape compared to the mid 1990’s, what’s better and what’s worse right now?
I would say what’s better right now is it’s easier to get your music out there, you don’t have to wait for no labels or nothing like that. We got the internet and all these social media sites that you could put your music up to, and you can accumulate a lot of fans on your own, without some label or company waiting for a major release. It’s more endorsements, raps much bigger now, it’s a lot more opportunity out there for successful artists. I would say the downside of it is that I think people’s attention span, being that we live in the 24 hour news cycle now, is a little bit shorter. So you have to put products out more frequently to stay relevant, that’s from the top on down, it doesn’t matter who you are. The 90’s? Things was kind of slow, the process of making albums was slow. It took like three months to promote an album, that’s like unimaginable now. But the good thing about the 90’s is people paid more attention to work, to music that came out at the time because we didn’t have the 24 hour news cycle with the internet and all that stuff. You got to take the good with the bad and I’m not mad at the state of hip-hop at all right now.
Q: What about lyrical content? What do you think about what rappers are talking about today as compared to the 90’s?
It’s almost like the same sh*t to me just with a different beat, a different generation. Back then you had party records, you had straight hip-hop records, your commercial records, and today it’s like the same sh*t. It’s just a different generation, a different beat, but the same idea basically.
Q: You’ve been in the game for a long time now, what’s one thing you wish you could’ve told your younger self about the industry back then?
Own masters, that’s number one! (laughs) It don’t get no iller than that.
Q: Who do you see as some of the new faces of hip-hop that will carry tap into the future, who are some of your favorites?
I don’t want to single out just one artist and be like he’s my favorite and he’s going to carry it into the future but there’s a lot of new artists out there and it’s yet to be proven if they can even last that long. It’s like one percent of artists really last to have a career span of 20 years. I don’t know the percentage I’m just making it up but it just seems like that. So that has to be proven, we would have to wait about another 10-15 years to see who carried it on in. But there’s a lot of good artists out there, I hate to sound cliché or be on a bandwagon/be commercial sounding but somebody like Drake. You could look at him and and you could tell that’s somebody that’s going to have a long career. I don’t see him stopping at all, and not just with rap but with entertainment in general.
Q: Who are your top five all-time favorite MC’s?
Top five? That’s pretty hard just to name five but if I could think of the top of my head, my list is normal. It’s not exotic, it’s like Nas, Jay-Z, B.I.G., Rakim, and I would have to go with Eminem.
Q: You have an established legacy, where do you go from here? Where does Havoc go from here?
A couple of things, I would like to get into movie music. Scoring movies, things of that nature. And then also lending my expertise to artists. Pulling out artists or whatever conglomerate I’ll come up with in the future. But it’s definitely music, you know what I’m saying? I don’t plan to be rapping until I’m 80 but I definitely would like to get into movie scoring, that’s my next thing.
Q: Any particular genre?
A: It don’t even matter, classical or whatever. I’m just an all around music man.
Q: Any shout outs?
A: I just want to give a shout out to the Source magazine for holding it down all these years and still being here and giving me the interview.
