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  Craig G Interview
interview 0348 added 16.11.05 words: Kate Nowakowski and Tony Camara
technical:
QED
Craig G is a phenomenal, but highly
under-rated and under exposed MC.
Originally down with Marley's Juice crew from day one his contribution to
Hip Hop should not be underestimated. He is heavily featured on the
Freestyle: The Art Of Rhyme film directed by Kevin Fitzgerald and was on
the film's promotional tour.
They stopped off at Manchester's C-mon
Feet and new correspondents Kate Nowakowski and Tony Camara
managed to grab a few words with him...
How ya doin?
 We’re good. The tour has been really fresh.
Are you still feeling the old school love?
I mean, they appreciate it man. I started very young so right now I’m still a relatively young man - to me, to still be able to rock shows for a few hundred people, to come out, enjoy the show and do some classics is real fun to me.
Are you missing the US yet?
Not really. I miss the food. Well not today because today I got some Jamaican food from Dougie’s and Dougie showed me some love, I got some Jerk Chicken back at the room, and some sorrel, so I was alright, but usually, the food ain’t really doin’ a lot man.
Have you been checking the UK hip hop?
Well I been checkin' UK hip hop from day one – I come out here every year so I know about a lot of dudes –Blak Twang, Dizzee Rascal, my man Skit, I know a lot of dudes, I even know Miss Dynamite, she’s mad cool wi’ me - I just seen her on a talk show today, she’s singin’ now, I can’t knock that, she sounds good.
“...hip hop’s in a good place, if you spend less time being
angry at where it’s at and working on your music, you’ll make more of a
difference...”
So who’s the best coming out of the UK for you?
I like Blak Twang. Blak Twang’s my homie. Dizzee Rascal’s nice, a lot of the Grime dudes are nice, a lot of those dudes are alright, but Blak Twang’s my homie.
Has that reached over to the US then, the Grime thing?
Not yet. But it’s coming probably.
Do you think it can breakthrough?
 There’s legions of people everywhere like in the US - there’s legions of people looking for something different so I think it may catch on but, I’m no fortune teller. Shout out to the Gypsies.
What about progress for hip hop? Is Grime offering anything new? Is anyone else offering anything new?
There’s two things man, there’s good music and bad music. I don’t really kinda place it, you know. I like some new stuff, I like a lot of old stuff - I mean, hip hop’s in a good place, if you spend less time being angry at where it’s at and working on your music, you’ll make more of a difference.
So what do you think of the expansion that’s happened, you’ve got a lot of new directions, the dirty south thing, the Aesop rock thing…
I like a lot – I like some of it, I don’t like some of it, but you know, everything has a hip hop feel in the world today, everything. We’ve influenced every culture in the world. You know what I mean, and this is what we do, and somebody who is only 32 years old and celebrating my twentieth year in the music business, we’ve influenced so much stuff so it’s not really that bad, but at the end of the day, it all boils down to good and bad. There’s shit hip hop and there’s good hip hop. The down south stuff is good an’ all that - I named my last album ‘This Is Now’ because of the simple fact that I like it, and I don’t, but I’m not concerned with it, because I’d rather let my music speak for itself. I like a lot of rap music – I like a lot of types of music.
What’s your personal stuff – what’s stashed in your vaults?
Today – what was I listening to…I was listening to a lot of Prince today, and I was listening to my wife, Sade, I was listening to her today. You know, I kinda mix it up, I listen to a lot of Damien Marley, Bob Marley, I listen to a lot of Third Eye Blind, I listen to Stained, I listen to Creed, I listen to old Guns ‘n’ Roses, I listen to a lot of stuff man, my mind is just not limited - again, to me, it’s good music, and bad music. There’s no pop, rock, RnB, hip hop, there’s good shit and bad shit, that’s what it is.
“...People hate to ride in my truck you know, cos they might
hear some Ben Folds Five, they might hear - some other shit and get mad
at me. I listen to a lot of other shit because it’s all creativeness if
it’s good to me, and it gives me ideas...”
Yeah, I’ve got stuff like Bon Jovi, Def Leppard -
Hey Livin' on a Prayer, brother, Slippery When Wet, I rock with some Bon Jovi. Hysteria, I rock with Def Leppard too –I do what I do with that. It all depends what I’m in the mood for. In my truck I got a whole lot of things goin’ on. People hate to ride in my truck you know, cos they might hear some Ben Folds Five, they might hear - some other shit and get mad at me. I listen to a lot of other shit because it’s all creativeness if it’s good to me, and it gives me ideas.
You draw your inspiration from everything?
Everything, man, everything.
So right now, do you reckon music that is genuinely good music is getting a chance to break through, or are things run by the marketing industry and what’s going to sell?
 I mean – let’s be real about it. And I hate to say it - besides rock music, hip hop is so Cookie Club it ain’t worth – the next this guy, the next that guy, if you don’t do this amount of numbers the first week you’re fucked, but with rock groups – I remember maybe…early nineties, I bought an album in Texas, called uh - I can’t remember the name of it but it was by Faith No More. And, like a year later they went platinum because they treat the rock artists different – if you sell ten thousand a week, they keep pushing you, they keep pushing you, you stay on the road, they keep pushing you – I’d rather have ten gold albums than one album that sold 5 million copies any day – any day.
I remember you from back in the day so – you know the BDP/Juice crew thing n all that, there were certain people that didn’t get mentioned weren’t there -
Hey, he never mentioned me! I’m notorious for whippin’ ass! You don’t wanna mention me, man…I’ll whip yo’ monkey ass, man! Where you at? I’ll pay my own airfare to come find you and whip yo’ ass! That’s how I do.
But, on the reals, respect to KRS One man, he got a lot of classic shit. You know, KRS One is really a true emcee, and even to this day, he’s kinda in my realm with, you may not hear much about him compared to the average…pop guy, but he’s still a dangerous muthafucker.
Yeah I saw him in London about three months back and it was hot. This concert though was on a par with that – there’s only a few I’ve seen this year on that level, the other was Lord Finesse –
Lord Finesse, I was in New York with him over memorial day in May – that’s my homie – D.I.T.C. gonna be out here soon, so yeah yeah yeah, you know that’s all my peoples man, everybody’s my peoples that I respect. A lot of wack muthafuckers out there though.
“...In my hood, in Queensbridge when I was younger, my neighbour
had permission to whip my ass if I was doing something stupid in the
street and nowadays, this generation is lost because half of the parents
are scared of their kids. So - it does affect hip hop music...”
So with the BDP thing anyway, people said that because Queens got it bad, Queens emcees had to rep a lot harder..
Well – you know, it’s funny and I’ll admit this – I’m from Queensbridge and – we liked the ‘Bridge Is Over’ record. Because it was a good record. I mean we didn’t like what he was saying, but it was a good record. But - at the end of the day, I don’t give a fuck what KRS One said because Run DMC is from the hood, and there’d be none of us without them. I’m not wearing leather pants with spikes, you know what I mean, I’m rockin’ a pair of jeans, and without them, no matter what KRS did – and I respect him to the fullest – without Queens…most of this shit went crack just because of Run DMC, Run DMC made it possible for everybody, for everybody to eat off this shit. and still kept it street, you know what I mean? They made a couple of turns here and there, but - nah, if you look through the legacy they kept it street.
So what do you feel about what happened to Jam Master Jay?
 I don’t really want to talk about that, I’m disgusted by that whole scenario man. I mean, you know – you don’t harm legends and icons man….and Hellfire to the man that did that - we still don’t know who did it, but, his soul will burn in hell, you know how we do. Next question.
Do you think hip hop has been dumbed down by commercialism since the early nineties?
I can’t blame it on the rappers - I can blame it on the labels, I can blame it on…being a lost generation where people from the early eighties that are now maybe 18, 19, even 21 and up, a large percentage of them I would say, don’t want to be taught anything. They know fucking everything. You know in my era, you learnt some shit, you learnt suttin’. And nowadays, these Muthafuckers don’t care about nothing, and at the end of the day, you gotta have respect. In my hood, in Queensbridge when I was younger, my neighbour had permission to whip my ass if I was doing something stupid in the street and nowadays, this generation is lost because half of the parents are scared of their kids. So - it does affect hip hop music – it’s partially a part of the times, it’s partially the labels, and it’s partially some of the shit some dudes are saying but - it is what it is, you can only just do what you do and try to teach: if I could teach three people, that’s good for me.
So you think it’s more a reflection of society then?
Society fucked up. I mean...come on. I mean, all over the world muthafuckers are starving, they don’t even wanna give Pakistan and India no money, but they spent three hundred billion on the war. You know what I mean? Fuckin’ Exxon made 9.9 billion dollars in three months!! And muthafuckers can’t heat they house in the winter. So it is society, shit’s fucked up. When you think about it, Bill Clinton might have… banged a broad in the oval office or whatever he did, that’s between him and God cos he’s married, but at the end of the day he wasn’t a war president and war costs money. And once war starts economy is fucked up. Even out here, I’m sure Tony Blair spent millions, if not a billion dollars on troops.
“...Society fucked up…all over the world muthafuckers are
starving, they don’t even wanna give Pakistan and India no money, but
they spent three hundred billion on the war...”
War is money….. Man, fuck the war man. Ain’t no Iraqi did nothing to me - and at the end of the day, America was founded on the same principles; I wasn’t born then, but we felt like we was bein’ oppressed, and we rose up against whoever we had to, and did what we did ourselves, with nobody buttin’ in. So why the fuck we gotta bomb Iraq? I mean, I’m sure Saddam Hussein wasn’t a good person but I don’t know the muthafucker… there’s a lot of poor people in this world and at the end of the day, I’d rather see a war between the poor, and the well off that’s not helping the poor people out, than invading a country I ain’t got nothing to do with. You know what I’m sayin? Shit I know a hundred thousand arabs…. they cool wi’ me – I’m cool wi’ them.
People are people.
Look man, I don’t give a fuck if you Muslim, Christian, Catholic, whatever – if you good – you good, if you’re evil, you’re evil, and at the end of the day that’s what it’s gonna come down to. Me, I believe in God, but - I’m not adjoined to any religion, but at the end of the day, it’s good or evil. You got evil Catholics, evil Christians, evil Muslims, you got it all. It is what it is.
Do you think that when society fucks people off like that, it can have a good affect on music - at the moment, in England people are pretty angry –
Shit, people are angry in America.
And in some ways, that affects the creativity going on.
You know, fortunately, I’ve been very good with my money, so – right now I live in Las Vegas, I got a house with a studio, and - you can’t have good music without pain. You can’t. Some of the greatest music has been done out of pain. Bob Marley. The Doors, Billie Holiday, you know what I mean? Shit, I mean, uh - Nirvana, you know, the greatest music has been done out of pain. It shouldn’t be necessary but it’s good because it’s part of life man, it’s part of the most highest plane, you gonna go through shit, you not gonna go through shit.
Life will drop it on you anyway!
That’s what it is, man, that’s what it is and for me, I’m just happy to wake up, breathe a breath, reach for a spliff and still be creative. I’m good. I’m good, you know.
We’ve got a pop quiz for you to finish things off:
Well, I’m gonna fail if it’s all about hip hop.
Nah, just like an ‘either or’, quick one word answers…
Number One. Biggie or Tupac?
Both.
Why?
Now - here’s the difference. And I can’t even put a difference on it. What it is, is – both Biggie and Tupac had tremendous rhyme skills, but also, have made songs about the struggle, that deal with life. And to me, you can’t really split that down the middle. You know what I mean, there’s a lot of shit going on in the world that Biggie spoke on, there’s a lot of shit in the world that Pac spoke on - to me, if you’ve done that, you’re a great emcee.
The hip hop B-Boy in my heart says Biggie, but the intelligent, conscious thing says Tupac.
I would say that as a rapper - rhyme skills - I would give it to Biggie. Just because of the cadence, and the word play that he distributes, but they were both great men. Both great men.
“...both Biggie and Tupac had tremendous rhyme skills, but also,
have made songs about the struggle, that deal with life. And to me, you
can’t really split that down the middle. You know what I mean, there’s a
lot of shit going on in the world that Biggie spoke on, there’s a lot of
shit in the world that Pac spoke on - to me, if you’ve done that, you’re
a great emcee...”
WildStyle or Stylewars?
Wildstyle. Wild fuckin’ Style. That’s because Wildstyle was really, honestly, just a true description of the origins of hip hop, even now - it deals with nothing that has anything to do with hip hop now, but if you wanna see it, and see where it started, at the parks, at the amphitheatre, where Muthafuckers just got together and said, ‘we gonna do a party here, fuck what the cops say, get the electric poles, plug the turntables in and let’s rock’ - Wildstyle is it.
Do you think those kind of movies opened up the way for rappers to become entertainers?
No. No, I mean it was a great tool for it, but it was still one muthafucker tryin to make money off our culture.
But do you think it facilitated the multi media aspect of hip hop?
 Of course – especially at that time, of course.
So do you think that opened the way for people like John Singleton and Spike Lee?
No, no. Because again, [Wildstyle] was more of a documentary, and John Singleton and Spike Lee actually had scripts and movies they wrote, or had a theme to it. Wildstyle was more or less walking around with a camera. I would think, not really, because John Singleton and them came in at a time, when hip hop just was what is was and used aspects of it, and Wildstyle was a straight hip hop movie, but was more or less a documentary.
Back to the Pop Quiz. Ghettofab or Grimy?
I’m from the hood man, I’m from Queensbridge, I like to mix ‘em both. I like to come in a club, with a button-up on and smoke weed even though I ain’t supposed to. So I like to mix ghetto and grimy together, I like to mix it together, you know. Cos I’m an educated muthafucker.
Battling or
concerts?
Both. Matter of fact nah, fuck that, concerts. After about the seventieth rapper I can’t hear no more, man. They should be structured better. There should be a certain number of ‘em, where you’re not standing there for four hours just listening to fuckin’ rappers. I’d rather take the best ten than hear all ninety - a concert, if you have a great show, I saw Coldplay in Vegas, great show. Great fuckin show.
Right, last one: Rhyming, Poetry or spoken word?
Rhyming. Because, a lot of dudes that do spoken word, do it to just to get fuckin’ girls, ok? And a lot of em – say a lot of shit that don’t really make sense. ‘The moon, the trees/ my intergalactical forces of my mind/ turn into a spinach sandwich on a Thursday afternoon/with the sun, with the sun, with the sun’. Nah, nah. Nah, there’s some spoken word that’s fuckin’ great. There’s some poetry that’s fuckin’ great. It’s like everything else: there’s shit, and there’s good shit. So fuck all you guys who making just shit. UKHH.com, this is Craig G, we don’t fuck around with all that bullshit.
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Kate Nowakowski and Tony Camara
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