Interview with Dru Down
By Charlie Braxton
Continued from Murder Dog Volume 13 #2
How do you all feel about what’s going on in the Bay right now. and where and how do you all see yourselves fitting into the current scene?
LM: It’s a great time for the Bay. The Bay Area is getting a whole lotta shine right now. We been getting it for the past year because of the Hyphy movement. It’s a lotta artists out here that’s doing their thing independent. It’s a lotta hot producers out here that got more talent than them mainstream cats. It’s a lotta artists out here with talent. The Hyphy movement is going strong and at the same time it’s people in the area that’s doing other things. We got artists like Souls of Mischief and Zion I. We got revolutionary groups like The Coup. The Bay got like a whole bunch of different kinds of styles. We’re very versatile out here so it ain’t no one kind of style that defines the Bay.
Dru: It’s good that the Bay done came back, but I was hyphy before hyphy was hyphy. I was the hyphy nigga. It’s the crack baby syndrome. We ain’t got no sense, so we just acting real stupid and dumb. That’s what we call it. As far as hyphy, I was that. I’m watching all the activity that’s going on around me.
LM: Back when Digital Underground first came out, "Humpty Hump" was talkin’ about going dumb and gettin stupid with it way back then. It’s the same vein. It’s just history repeatin itself. It’s like the old school 80’s music. It almost goes back the early shit NWA made when they were coming out with the "Dopeman" songs. Music is back to the 808 kicks and synths.
It’s almost like old school Hip Hop when it was just a raw beats like LL Cool J’s "Rock the Bells" or "Radio". The Hyphy generation grew up on that kinda of music so they naturally gravitate toward that sound. Just as when Dru Down grew up when Parliament was hot and he has a natural affinity toward it when he started doing music.
LM: One thing about us is we don’t just listen to just one form of music. We listen to R & B, Funk, Rock, Jazz, Soul. We listen to Bootsy Collins, Bobby Womack, Stanly Clarke, Parlament/Funkadelic, Brothers Johnson…we listen to it all. Down at the studio we got a gang of records. We be digging in the crates. We trying to bring that Funk back.
When you and Too Short first came out spitting pimp lyrics it wasn’t a popular thing to do. How do you feel about all of the pimp talk in Hip Hop now?
Dru: "Pimp of the Year" is still an anthem to a lotta muthafuckas. A lotta muthafucka done grew up of that shit. A lotta muthafuckas have learned a lot from that song. A lotta of them didn’t know the first thing about pimping and then all of a sudden they started being pimps. My thang is everybody can’t be one. If it ain’t embedded in you, if it ain’t in your blood, then it just ain’t gonna happen for you. But a muthafucka can always put on the actor’s role, break out the SAG card and be a SAG card pimp.
Did you two grow up together?
LM: We come from two different sides of the family. His grandmother and my grandfather are brothers and sisters. We grew up on different sides. We really didn’t find out that we were cousins until later on down the line. I had to be about twelve or thirteen when we found out. By then he was doing his thing. He was a little bit older than us and he was touring and doing so much that we really couldn’t hook up like we should. It took all these years for us to hook up and do our thang.
Dru: At one point they were in my kitchen at my mama’s house. This was when they were real young. This was when I was moving at about 1,010 miles per hour. I’d come through the kitchen and they were there. They were fuckin with the music real tough but I’m
Doing 1,010 and my mama trying to let me know everything about them but I’m moving so I really couldn’t holla at him. At the same time I knew that they were with the business –I knew they was real because they were sittin’ at my mama’s table. I used to get that all the time, "Hey I’m your cousin…,woo…." I’d get that a lot. This was deeper than that, so we just put it together and came up with the gumbo funk and put this album together called Cash Me Out.
What inspired you two to hook up and do Cash Me Out?
LM: One night I was at the studio and Dru had just got outa jail. He just knock on the door and said cause let’s do a song together and we just started recording songs. It turned out so good that we might as well just do the family thing and record a whole album. So we just went on and started knocking out songs and the next thing you know we had about twenty or thirty songs. We decided that we were going to split ‘em up and put out two albums.
When the book on Bay Area Rap is written what do you want it to say about Dru Down?
Dru: I started this lyrical pimpin’. That’s what I really want everybody to remember: I really started this shit. Too Short always talked about pussy and how he was a mack, but I came into the game really doing this shit. I was really doing this shit. I just felt like I needed to put it on paper. It turned out fly so I’m real happy about it.
By Charlie Braxton
Continued from Murder Dog Volume 13 #2
How do you all feel about what’s going on in the Bay right now. and where and how do you all see yourselves fitting into the current scene?
LM: It’s a great time for the Bay. The Bay Area is getting a whole lotta shine right now. We been getting it for the past year because of the Hyphy movement. It’s a lotta artists out here that’s doing their thing independent. It’s a lotta hot producers out here that got more talent than them mainstream cats. It’s a lotta artists out here with talent. The Hyphy movement is going strong and at the same time it’s people in the area that’s doing other things. We got artists like Souls of Mischief and Zion I. We got revolutionary groups like The Coup. The Bay got like a whole bunch of different kinds of styles. We’re very versatile out here so it ain’t no one kind of style that defines the Bay.
Dru: It’s good that the Bay done came back, but I was hyphy before hyphy was hyphy. I was the hyphy nigga. It’s the crack baby syndrome. We ain’t got no sense, so we just acting real stupid and dumb. That’s what we call it. As far as hyphy, I was that. I’m watching all the activity that’s going on around me.
LM: Back when Digital Underground first came out, "Humpty Hump" was talkin’ about going dumb and gettin stupid with it way back then. It’s the same vein. It’s just history repeatin itself. It’s like the old school 80’s music. It almost goes back the early shit NWA made when they were coming out with the "Dopeman" songs. Music is back to the 808 kicks and synths.
It’s almost like old school Hip Hop when it was just a raw beats like LL Cool J’s "Rock the Bells" or "Radio". The Hyphy generation grew up on that kinda of music so they naturally gravitate toward that sound. Just as when Dru Down grew up when Parliament was hot and he has a natural affinity toward it when he started doing music.
LM: One thing about us is we don’t just listen to just one form of music. We listen to R & B, Funk, Rock, Jazz, Soul. We listen to Bootsy Collins, Bobby Womack, Stanly Clarke, Parlament/Funkadelic, Brothers Johnson…we listen to it all. Down at the studio we got a gang of records. We be digging in the crates. We trying to bring that Funk back.
When you and Too Short first came out spitting pimp lyrics it wasn’t a popular thing to do. How do you feel about all of the pimp talk in Hip Hop now?
Dru: "Pimp of the Year" is still an anthem to a lotta muthafuckas. A lotta muthafucka done grew up of that shit. A lotta muthafuckas have learned a lot from that song. A lotta of them didn’t know the first thing about pimping and then all of a sudden they started being pimps. My thang is everybody can’t be one. If it ain’t embedded in you, if it ain’t in your blood, then it just ain’t gonna happen for you. But a muthafucka can always put on the actor’s role, break out the SAG card and be a SAG card pimp.
Did you two grow up together?
LM: We come from two different sides of the family. His grandmother and my grandfather are brothers and sisters. We grew up on different sides. We really didn’t find out that we were cousins until later on down the line. I had to be about twelve or thirteen when we found out. By then he was doing his thing. He was a little bit older than us and he was touring and doing so much that we really couldn’t hook up like we should. It took all these years for us to hook up and do our thang.
Dru: At one point they were in my kitchen at my mama’s house. This was when they were real young. This was when I was moving at about 1,010 miles per hour. I’d come through the kitchen and they were there. They were fuckin with the music real tough but I’m
Doing 1,010 and my mama trying to let me know everything about them but I’m moving so I really couldn’t holla at him. At the same time I knew that they were with the business –I knew they was real because they were sittin’ at my mama’s table. I used to get that all the time, "Hey I’m your cousin…,woo…." I’d get that a lot. This was deeper than that, so we just put it together and came up with the gumbo funk and put this album together called Cash Me Out.
What inspired you two to hook up and do Cash Me Out?
LM: One night I was at the studio and Dru had just got outa jail. He just knock on the door and said cause let’s do a song together and we just started recording songs. It turned out so good that we might as well just do the family thing and record a whole album. So we just went on and started knocking out songs and the next thing you know we had about twenty or thirty songs. We decided that we were going to split ‘em up and put out two albums.
When the book on Bay Area Rap is written what do you want it to say about Dru Down?
Dru: I started this lyrical pimpin’. That’s what I really want everybody to remember: I really started this shit. Too Short always talked about pussy and how he was a mack, but I came into the game really doing this shit. I was really doing this shit. I just felt like I needed to put it on paper. It turned out fly so I’m real happy about it.
