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  Necro Interview
interview 0497 added 15.02.07 words:
Louis Soul
technical:
Spoon
Porn rap, death rap, horrorcore, call it what you want
, but Necro has been steadily serving up his own brand of hip hop for years. With his own label Psycho+Logical Records now in its seventh year, he has brought us albums from the likes of Goretex, Mr Hyde, and his brother Ill Bill. Louis Soul met Necro at the Holiday Inn in Kings Cross to find out a little bit more about his roots, how his career has progressed since his death metal days and some slightly more explicit topics….
So how did you start making hip hop, because you used to be into heavy metal didn’t you?
Yea when I was 10 or 11, I was doing death metal, opening up for Sepultura, Obituary and all these metal groups
That was with you band Injustice right?
Yea that’s right…and we were doing that in ’88 and ’89, and what happened was we tried to get deals and shit with Metal labels, but we weren’t really getting the response we wanted and so we were also doing the hip hop because of where we lived…in the Glenwood Projects in Brooklyn…so we were rapping and getting into it and felt we were good…this was in the real early stages of demos and shit like 1990 and we just kept working on it…I’m talking like demos where the first ones sounded really amateur and by 1992 the style started to develop, by ’93 I pretty much had my whole brutal style down…because on the rare demos and freestyle tapes that I had put out, you could hear me in ’92, ‘93 rapping real brutal, evil shit. So it kind of evolved very fast from my death metal to hip hop, the influence was from death metal but it was still hip hop
So it was quite a progressive transformation?
 It was progressive yeah, because it was very hard to go from death mode and to start rapping with that influence, because all we were listening to at the time was Rakim or KRS, but we were also listening to Main Source, A Tribe Called Quest, and Large Professor, so the first rhymes were a mixture of Made of Tongue Style mixed with a bit of G-Rap mixed with a little Kane and then we incorporated our own style into it, so by ’94 we had our own style fully. I listened to everything, but big influences for me were Rakim, Kane, KRS as far as hip hop, but in terms of metal influences, Metallica, Slayer, Mega Death, Sepultra, Obituary are the groups that I personally got influence from.
How about the Psycho+Logical Records label and the progression you’re making with that?
This year will be the most progressive because from 2004-2005, I dropped 14 albums in 17 months on the label and then I got a little burnt out because I had been dropping so many albums and I was in the studio non stop, but from a business perspective I did good, I grossed over $1.2million independently in those 2 years and then figure out I was making money in 2000, ’01, ’02, ’03 because of “I Need Drugs” “Gory Days” “Brutality Part 1”; all those records brought in a lot of money, they all did like $20-30,000 each. So I racked up a lot of money in 5-6 years. I grossed over $1.5million in record sales, but it doesn’t mean I got that much in the bank, because it almost cost that much to make it. I spent so much on promotion, you know, every dime I get I pump it back in.
Did you set up Psycho+Logical because the more major labels were not showing interest?
People were being shady through the lawyers I had, people were just talking about were how other people were getting signed and I was like what about my shit, but people didn’t want white rappers then, it was a lot of stupid shit. But then I would read a lot of Master P reviews and he would talk about how he was doing it independently and giving advice to people and showing the youth shit that other people weren’t talking about. You couldn’t catch Russell (Simmons) giving you actual advice, but you knew he was a big guy by reading his interviews, giving the money break down of the CD and what it sold for. So when I started hearing this from Master P I thought you know what, if you can do it then I can do it, so that’s when I started the label. I pressed up a thousand “I Need Drugs” CDs and I got rid of them pretty fast, then I made a hundred kids fling CDs for me, literally, I had a hundred kids working for me, all fans…I would get them to write their names on a pad at a show, then I would call ‘em up the next day
“Yo, what’s up, it’s Necro”
 “No shit, Necro?! Whats up”
“What up man, you got a job?”
“Nah I ain’t got a job”
“You wanna work for me?”
“Hells yeah!”
“Alright you got a job selling “I Need Drugs” CDs, your gonna be like a legal drug dealer, you with that, you make $5 dollars of each CD.”
So I would give them 10, 20, 30 CDs and they gotta pay me in 30days. Some kids took 10, some 20 and some 30, and out of the 100 kids that worked for me, maybe 5 fucked me over with money.
Was that just in Brooklyn then?
No, all over the world…I had kids from Australia getting down with the programme, kids from the UK, and kids from all over America, everywhere. What happened was, anyone I would speak with, I got their email, so I was always in contact with fans on emails, message boards and shows. So anybody that emailed me, so say a kid from the UK emailed me… actually one of the kids from the UK was one of the 5 who ripped me off.
…
His name was Warren I think, you know the guy?!
Nah! But he’s probably from London!
But yea, whatever, it was cool, I definitely know he promoted me, so at the end of the day even if I didn’t get the money from the CDs, I still got promotion from him playing it and giving it to people. he just kept the money, it probably cost me $30 for him to give 10 CDs to 10 fans, but back then I didn’t care, I was at grass roots level, I answered every email I got, even when I opened my MySpace account, I answered every message I got.
Do you still try to do that now?
I can’t answer MySpace messages because I just don’t have the time…all I answer to is girls. To be straight up, bitches I’ll answer because I fuck bitches from MySpace. I get pussy. I fucked over 5 bitches from MySpace before I went on tour, and after the tour I fucked 10 bitches from MySpace in 2007 alone.
You know half of them I fucked in the ass. From the beginning of the year 2006 I had a girl from California, a Necro fan who came down from Florida sucking cock, and then when she left there were other girls from March, then April, May, then more through to June. The when I went on tour, I had a fucking orgy in Montreal, had a foursome in Toronto, fucked 2 Hungarian girls in the ass Ottawa, fucked a bitch in Vancouver, had a blow job from 4 porn stars in L.A. So you know…er I don’t actually know what the point of me telling you all that was….
Well one of my questions was actually…have you got down with many…if any, porn stars?
 Erm…well they all blew me, I didn’t fuck them, I didn’t wana put my dick in them. I made them just suck my dick, you know what im saying. I could have fucked them, but these are girls I know have been fucking everyday, so I opted out! I could fuck my own groupie fans who I know are fucking, but are not fucking everyday. These girls are fucking everyday though, you know they get tested and use rubbers sometimes, but I don’t trust those bitches and I gotta be careful!... I’m not saying I wouldn’t fuck them; I just wasn’t there long enough. I had Joey Silvera for my video, so I hooked up 4 bitches to come to my video and then you know, I made sure I was catching blow jobs from them, but I wasn’t really trying to fuck them.
Alright! Erm….back to the hip hop
Have you heard anyone from the UK?
The Streets….you know, and er Dizzee Rascal
Yeah, but they aren’t really that great for the hip hop. I know you were interviewed by the Foreign Beggars just before, have you heard much of their stuff?
Yeah I was, they gave me their albums to listen to so, I’m gonna check it out.
So apart from The Streets and Dizzee, you haven’t really heard much UK Hip Hop?
Well, I mean I don’t even listen to that much US Hip Hop so I kind of just focus on my shit. I have to do my business, so I don’t have time to sit around to listen to brand new people’s shit. I am sure there are a lot of people dropping good shit, but I don’t have time to be weeding through everybody at this point. Maybe when I was younger, about 25, I was listening to other people’s shit, but now I gotta focus and make sure Necro blows up, You’re limited in your day…in your day you got to do A, B and C…I mean half my day is sometimes just interviews online …that shit just has to get done. I got to do the artwork…all this new merchandise…I just dropped 7-8 pieces of brand new merchandise, that shit takes time, making new albums, touring…when you’re doing all that shit and bugging out with your friends and all that, you kind of listen to the records you like already…but different people, different folk …some people are all about new hip hop and listen to everybody but I don’t know….hip hop like died for me…not my hip hop that I’m making but a lot of the shit I used to check…like now I won’t even run to buy Nas’ ‘Hip Hop Is Dead’ album whereas maybe I would have bought one of his albums back in the day
Like Illmatic?
Yeah…I would cop his shit back in the day, but I don’t really feel confident that I’m going get killed by 8 songs and that I’m really going to get what I need
So the days of making songs for people like Cage are well and truly over then?
 I did beats for the dude and I haven’t done anything for him in 11 years but everyone seems to bring that situation up because what I did for him at the time was monumental and crazy back then…people loved it so much that they still want it, but our relationship wasn’t working out…we weren’t really clicking like that, we knew the record… but like, I’m more of a thug and he’s not really like that…he’s more of a different style which is his own…I was more barbarian…and honestly, it was back in ‘96, so to talk about it now is funny…because I was asked today before as well…yo, it was 11 years ago…you know that shit had a big impact because people were loving it when it came out but its cool, because people are loving the shit I’m doing now, and did in 2001….
It’s probably good to know that people are still giving you recognition from work you did 10-11 years ago…
Yeah because to me I never blew up…so I don’t think people look at it as ‘Oh look at Necro he blew up’, some people will say he’ll be as big as he’s gonna be...people don’t understand that I grossed over 2 million in 2004/5, they don’t know what goes down behind scenes…they just see banners on websites, ads etcetera…they don’t understand that I drop records…I have a catalogue…there’s many things I do that get dough….like I’ll explain it like Walmart…it took them 11 years to get that dough but now, Walmart is the number one biggest company on the planet, so if u analyze it, its like this dude is doing almost as good, if not better than Walmart did in the same amount of time…but you see artists that come out, drop their first album when they’re 23 years old, they blow up really big but then get dropped before their next album and the next time you hear about them, they’re 35 and only selling 2,000 copies
So is it reasons like this you think you get a lot of props from the underground scene?
I think its because I have a lot of integrity, I don’t sell out…I don’t just go an take a deal from someone and go and put out a bullshit album, I don’t just drop an album that’s going to be whack…I’ve invested too much in my shit…they say most businesses don’t last a year, even fewer last more than five years and most never make ten…I’m already in my seventh year and I just added a new team…it’s like you’re a climbing company and the industry is throwing rocks at you, and the first year you’re gonna get hit by all these rocks but now you’re strong enough…but they just throw other shit down at you…I’m in my seventh year now, the move I just made now is like whatever you throw at me…can’t knock me off…..sooner or later I’ll be so indestructible you’ll never knock me down….where as some dude just gets signed and hover-crafted to the top of the mountain…he’s very weak and didn’t have the strength to do it on his own, so when shit doesn’t work out no more, the label knocks him down, he gets to the floor, he’s ten years older now, like 28 or whatever…and he had to sit with them through their bullshit deals that had no promotion…he’s fucked now. I might be 30 and not have blown up at 22 or 23 but what’s going to happen is, because of the snowball I’m building and the way I’m going, its like by the time I’m 33, this shit is gonna blow up on some shit that’s gonna last forever….some people might not like me, but the people that do like me are going to be with me forever because I didn’t try and put out a record just by signing with some dude to be commercial
Do you think your style of rap, and the explicitness of it has helped you in any way?
 I don’t think it’s much about the explicitness. I’m not really dropping shit for the sake of making money…like you see rappers who just drop records for their $5,000 advanced cheque, they put anything together…whereas whether a CD of mine is good or not in the opinion of anyone who has an opinion, I felt it was banging when I dropped it, I wouldn’t have dropped it otherwise…I think a lot of people in the game will drop shit that isn’t banging and they know its sub-par but they will, just to get some sort of money… whoever it is, it happens all the time so you know…that shit ain’t good for them because that one album could be the album….like Mobb Deep, they dropped a few albums that were kind of ‘eh’ and I think it affected them because now I don’t think I’ll ever get that Murda Muzik again because they already fucked up so many records…maybe after the first one I let ‘em slide but then when they keep coming with the crap…Amerikaz Nightmare sucked, The Infamy was ‘eh’ and Blood Money was the worst and now its like you’re done….for me its like my fans can’t say I’ve dropped anything that’s weak…they like everything, it keeps me steady…
When I get to the top it’s solid…this may sound egotistical or whatever….but I’ll be the type that will be sitting on $50 mil’ because that’s what happens when you build your own business and anyone who does this and constantly backs it and pumps money behind it…not just some dickhead that says he’s doing it…I really do it….every CD of mine is in chain stores, I own every master, when we talk rugged street shit it ain’t a lie…ain’t nobody in the game can say they played me or anyone I rolled with…hasn’t happened…. so if somebody wants that, we just look at it as another reason to show that we are rugged, that’s one of the things that the kids love….kids want to know that there’s white kids that are rugged that can represent them….so many people in the world, in American hip hop, you look at hip hop on the TV, and all they do is diss is white people, then they see a guy like Necro whose from Brooklyn and white, whose rugged and ain’t having it, they get proud…
- Only half way through the questions, we are told to wrap it up, probably a good thing as Necro seems to be getting a little impatient at the room service…
Yo what’s up with the coffee….you have to get me coffee or I’m going to fall asleep on the next interview…three sugars and milk…you can’t rely on this place for anything…this place sucks cock…the room service is a piece of shit…
Seeing as we have to wrap it up I’ll just get the slightly more controversial questions out the way…
If it is what I think it is….
What do you think it is?…
Is it about a certain interview that was done?
Yea that was one of them…
But you know why, it’s mainly because I don’t like douchebags being mentioned…and I read the forum and saw your post…I’m on point…we’re on good terms right now… as much as kids wanna know shit on message boards, they’re little scumbags that would download all of our music and so…..
Yea that’s fair enough, I didn’t think you’d be up for answering questions on that anyway…
I wouldn’t get deep into it anyway, it would be a quick answer…I’d pretty much just be insulting the person, because I’m not looking to give people who are disrespectful light…I’m not the type of person that looks to diss people on records…I’ll more likely meet you in person and punch you in your face, if you feel you can fight back then lets do that…
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Louis Soul
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