The Federation
By Soren Baker
Continued from Murder Dog Volume 13 #2
What’s the title of your new album and was is the difference between it and The Album?
Stressmatic: The new album is called It’s Whatever. I wouldn’t say that it’s the same because it’s two, three, four, five, six steps up. We’re on a whole different level, a different page. We’re more comfortable in our skin. We sound more comfortable. It flows more and it sounds better to me. The first one was official, too, but to me it sounds like we’re more comfortable.
Doonie Baby: Everything we did on the first one, we just found a better way to put it on this one.
On The Album, it wasn’t like the whole album was Hyphy, to me.
Stressmatic: Nah, it wasn’t. This album ain’t all Hyphy, either. We’ve got Hyphy songs, but that’s not all we do. We’ve got a gang of different type of shit on there. We’ve got some Rock shit on there, some soulful shit, a lot of different shit. We don’t just do a whole Hyphy album.
Why not do a whole Hyphy album?
Stressmatic: I guess we could, but then wouldn’t you get tired of hearing just hyphy, hyphy, hyphy? I would, shit. I’d be like, "Goddamn." You can only take so much hyphy.
Did Rick Rock produce the whole album?
Stressmatic: From top to bottom.
What are you doing to make sure this one hits commercially since The Album didn’t?
Stressmatic: It’s just high energy and we’ve got to push. We could have did it with the last album, but it’s the push. That’s all it is. Muthafuckas could be weak as fuck. You know because you see that some of these muthafuckas, their shit be weak, but they got a push. You can push anything.
I heard that were going to be on Da Muzicianz’s album. What happened?
Stressmatic: We were supposed to be, but the people at their label were on something. I don’t know what happened with that. Something happened, something weird. We did the remix, but it didn’t make their album. It didn’t have nothing to do with us. It was something with their label.
That didn’t come out, but a lot of people are comparing Hyphy to Crunk. What are the differences and the similarities between the two?
Stressmatic: It’s basically the same, but Hyphy is a little bit more crazier to me because it’s out in the streets. Niggas be jumping on cars, stomping cars out and all types of shit. They might do that in the South. I’ve just never seen it. They might get Crunk and do that shit, too. I don’t know.
Where do you think Hyphy is headed now?
Stressmatic: Hyphy is headed to the mainstream and it’s going to do like what Crunk did, or like any other music did. People are going to over-commercialize it. You’re going to see old people getting hyphy on a TV commercial, on a Doublemint commercial or something. You know how these people be doing that shit. Then it’ll burn out and we’ll still be here doing whatever else is the new shit.
What are you trying to accomplish with your music? Is there any particular motivation in mind?
Doonie Baby: We’re coming to get ya’ll. All the muthafuckas that’s young that’s trying to get into the game, be about your creativity. And for the muthafuckas that’s in the game and that’s hating and sulking because they ain’t got on and nobody’s listening and paying attention to them, be about your creativity and get your game up because it’s all about expanding. Learn some shit, man, and I ain’t saying where you got to go to learn it. I ain’t saying you got to go to college or that you got to be on the streets. Just learn something, talk about it and put it in a way where you can be different. Don’t say the same shit everybody else say and don’t always be a follower. It’s cool to be a follower sometimes, but be a leader on some shit. That’s what The Federation’s about. I want to do an album that passes up what’s already been done so that the old heads say, "This is a Rap album that will be listened to throughout the years to come."
