Outlawz interview:
(interview on WestSide Radio) (24/12/’99)

Interviewer (Julio G): First of all, you guys are the brothers that are very quit, but have been on hits, makin’ hits, congratulations on all that stuff man and congratulations on this album man. First of all I want to ask you guys about this album, is it a 2Pac & Outlawz album? Or was it really recorded to be an Outlawz album?
Edi: It’s like half & half, ya know what I mean? Some of these songs was done for an Outlaw album we was doing when Pac was alive, but some of them we was just doing because we recorded every day all day, and some of them was songs we went back to and was like: yo this is raw, the world gotta hear this one right here, we gotta put an album together. And it’s a 2Pac - Outlawz album. Pac always gotta get top billing, always. But it’s a way to re-introduce us to the world, and let them know ya know, a lot of albums come out and you got a million people on it, this is a Pac & Outlawz album, period. You don’t hear no other voices on here except for Big Syke and Storm, shout out to them. It’s just us. I feel like we holding down the whole rap game, just us, Pac & Outlawz, song for song, whoever you want to name, that’s why we wanted to do it, even though Pac gone, we can still put an album out full of songs we did 3 years ago, nothing new on there, except for one song, the last song. It’s like 2Pac - Outlawz, and it’s just us teamed up together, re-introduce us, get us started again, and we gonna come with our thing real soon.

Julio G: When is that coming man. I’ve been hearing The Outlawz are on Death Row, the Outlawz are on this label, the Outlawz are on that label. I mean, what’s the story with The Outlawz? People been hating on y’all? What’s happening with that man?
Napoleon: Man, in a way we can say that, but it’s like we in our own world. When we drop we ain’t gonna say shit until we drop, then y’all gonna see what label we on. Basicaly we in the studio now working on the Outlawz shit, we gonna come out of nowhere, we like the artist, put it like that Prince.

Julio G: How did you guys get hooked up with Pac? How did you cross paths?
Edi: Long story, to make it real short, it’s like family. Kastro, who’s not here, it’s four of us, plus Fatal in Jersey, but Kastro is out in Atlanta, and Kastro and Pac is cousins. Kastro’s mother, and my mother was real close. We all grew up together, along with Kadafi who’s resting in Peace (R.I.P.), we all grew up together, and Kadafi frop New Jersey, and his people knew-
Napoleon: - my people. So he put me on, like his moms and my aunbt cousins was real tight, and when we was younger, we knew eachother back in the day. His birthday was like 2 days before mines, so we always celebrated birthdays, and then like a period of years went by, when I ain’t seen him or talked to him, and then when I ran into him I was rhyming, and I heard he was rhyming, and his moms and them was like yo, that’s Pac brother, cause he’s Pacs half-brother, and after that we just hooked up. Pac took me out the hood of Jersey, moved to Atlanta. I was like 15 or 16, so when I ran into Edi, we just brothers.
Edi: He just basicly put us all together and started training us, started working with us everyday.
Napoleon: And then Noble is from the same block as Kadafi, and then when we moved out here in California, Noble was living in Rancho C, u know, out there in Rancho Cucomongo, his moms and them, they originaly from out there, so we just hooked up and just linked. And it’s been like brothers ever since, a chain you can’t break.
Edi: About the past 5 years.

Julio G: I just got to tell y’all man, you guys are on some hit records, that’s why I’m glad y’all came up here. I was always curious like what happened, what’s going on with The Outlawz. Sometimes people call on the phone and be like yeah The Outlawz gonna come out.
Edi: It’s like a double edged sword, being that we was on so many hits, and Pac is being fought over still to this day. It’s still people that want to fight over his legacy, and have the most control over his legacy, and we right in the middle of that, so we caught right dead smack in the middle of it. And a lot of times we be trying to break out, but you know we always kept our heads strong for the past few years. We always kept our heads strong and kept growing and getting smarter, and learning about the bussiness. It’s kinda like a blessing in desguise, we men now. If it would’ve happened back then, it might’ve been disastrous then, if it would ‘ve happenedwhen we was younger.

Julio G: I want to ask you guys this. Is Outlawz, are you guys considered Gangsta Rap? What is ya style, man?
Edi: Man , we a step beyond that, and we a step beyond all that only because Makaveli wouldn’t allow nothing less. Hated for coming with that everyday same old thing, everybody else is saying. You gotta say something, and be meaning it, and be real about it. We ain’t gangsta rap. We started thug rap, but we beyond that too. You can’t really put nothing on what we do, we always feel like we coming with the precise, supreme music evertime we do something. If we ain’t, it ain’t gonna come out, you ain’t gonna hear it.
Napoleon: That’s real, we don’t sit around and say we real rappers, we don’t do none of that, like edi saying, cause we look thru all them people that say: well, I’m a gangsta rapper, I’m real, I’m being real. When we write, we come out the heart, we got a pen and a beat, and we gonna say like if we wanna write about children, we gonna write about that. We ain’t gonna say: damn the radio, they might not like us, cuz we talking bout little kids. We don’t do none of that.
Edi: A lot of people don’t know why we came out with baby Don’t Cry as the first single, that’s a song, women needed to hear right now, period. And ya know, Pac was the only one that could do that in rap. Do songs like that over and over again, that just touch people in a certain way, and songs that will be played on for years and years. Most rappers make songs for right now. I want a hot record right now. We never thought about that, we thought about being hot forever, that’s where Immortalz came from.
Napoleon: And another thing Pac told us, the females buy the records, so we ain’t trying to impress no dudes. Cause I will make a record and I would ask my girl, How you like this, cause you know, the gitls want to dance to it.

Julio G: Let me ask you about that whole Thug thing man, cause that word has been like I remember it started out from Thug Life, then I remember Bone Thugs came and dropped around the same time, I never really considered Bone Thugs and Thug Life kind of taken from each other. I thought they was just doing they own thing, but after that it’s all the way to the East Coast and back.
Napoleon: It’s people like, I’m not just gonna say them guys, I’ma say they names. People like Mobb Deep be like Thug Life is theirs. It’s a lot of fake tough guys, put it like that. That just come around, that really give it up to Pac, that really respect Pac deep in they heart, but deep down they trying to take it somewhere else.
Edi: Instead of giving it up, they wanna act like they all started it, and thugged out and all of that stuff. But it’s like, I look at it I used to be mad about it, but then my uncle G was like: Yo, when Elvis died it was a million Elvis impersonators. Pac’s the same, It’s pac impersonators everywhere. He was just the number 1, in every music, job or acting, its’ that one person that reach the penicle, and can’t nobody come across that, no matter who comes along, they always go back to Pac.
Napoleon: That’s real, it’s like they don’t give it up to pac, they’ll take his style, and they don’t give it up to Pac, that’s the only reason we hot about this, they don’t give Pac his dues, they ain’t giving it to him yet.

Julio G: Let me ask you guys about the writing situation. I think it was Daz that told me, he said when you worked with Pac, whoever had their verse finished first got on the song, and if you didn’t you was out. Whoever was done by the time he was done got to be on the song. That must be a good way to come uo tho’, man, cause that makes you sharper at what you do.
Edi: That taught us, that was the way he taught. Because you know he was gonna get on a song, and when he got on a song, nobody might not want to hear it after that unless you came with something tight. If you wasn’t coming tight you was getting lost in the sauce. And Pac was just like that. It wasn’t nothing to think about to take the beat home, it wasn’t none of that. You couldn’t take the beat home, we never took a beat home, that was not allowed, that was like a cardinal sin. Take the beat home, for what? We got 12 hours right now, we got to do at least 3 songs.

Julio G: Wow man, is that how you guys would record, like that?
Edi: Yeah man, whenever we got the chance.

Julio G: Wow, so how was it working in there. Was there times, when it was like, I can’t get the verse out, or were the Outlawz y’all making it happen?
Napoleon: Sometimes, it be mad times when you be stressing.
Edi: I was always trying to get on the song, I was trying to get on each and every record.
Napoleon: If you listen to it, I ain’t gone lie, like Edi and Kadafi, they was on, if you listen to some old songs, they was on everything. Where it was me and Kastro and Noble, I ain’t gonna lie, I wanted to get drunk, and hang with the girls, and call the girls. Back in the day, this like 5 years ago. You look at Edi and Kadafi they was always writing, but I was younger, so we look at them, like damn. Now, to this day, I be like : I wish I would’ve been one of them guys that have been writing non stop. Cause they taught ma a lot too with pac. Edi and Kadafi they was on everything.

Julio G: Hey man, how many songs you guys think are out there of Pac that he recorded, that we havn’t heard yet?
Edi: It’s still a lot that y’all ain’t heard yet, and it’s still a lot that’s gone have people doing like this, ya know what i mean, scratching they head. It’s enough.

Julio G: When can we expect the new Outlawz album?
Edi: 2000, soon, very soon in 2000. Early part of 2000.

Julio G: What can we expect on that, man? You gone do just Outlawz?
Napoleon: Outlawz. We gonna do an Outlawz album, where it’s just gone be us. It’s gone be like Pac, go ahead and do y’all thing.


Julio G: That’s good tho’ man, I’m not trying to diss nobodies album, but really I’m kind of getting burned on the compilations.
Edi: And really if you notice, if you go back to All Eyez On Me, Pac started that trend. There was a gang of people on All Eyez On Me, and he did that for a reason, but that wasn’t something he was gonna keep on doing, cause we all know Pac didn’t need nobody. He could do albums, albums and albums by himself. And really, our egos won’t allow us to have many other people, cause we got too much to say. We still gotta get the story out, people ain’t knowing.
Napoleon: The only people that will be on our album will be some underdogq, like my brother Chameleon, so it’s gone be like underdogs. We mess with people likehow Pac did it, mess with them underdogs.
Edi: We gone give the light to the dudes who ain’t got no light.
Napoleon: We ain’t trying to get no name brand producers, nothing like that.
Edi: We gone bring up, up and coming producers, that you notice who don’t never work. We gone always bring the up and coming ones like Quim & Reef. They did the last song on the album. They gone come thru and change the whole producing thing.
Napoleon: And Big Edi producing too now.
Edi: I’m doing my thang, Yeah, I did Tattoo Tearz remix.

Julio G: I want to ask you guys about Tupac situation, its’ hard for groups sometimes when there is a star, to try to come up from behind him. There’s some people that can handle taht, there’s some that can’t. But I mean, you guys done a good job, ain’t never been like Aww we out. Outlawz have been Outlawz. And I commend y’all on that. There’s certain people that play their position at the moment, ya know what I’m saying.
Edi: Yeah it’s like, um, I don’t want to be freaking nobody out, but a lot of stuff that’s going on, Pac just already told us what’s gone happen, and he really, really laid the mane plan for us out. All we had to do was follow it. And a couple of times, we made mistakes, but we noticed, when we follow his plan, everythin worked. So that’s what we on now, just going with the plan that was laid down years ago.

Julio G: The name of the album is Still I Rise, go pick it up y’all. I went to a swap meet and it was out.
Edi: Was it the bootleg one?

Julio G: Naw it was the real one. The cats was walking in with the Bootleg talking bout it’s the real one, cause I want the real one. The one with the credits.
Edi: Yeah man, next week we trying to see big things. Pac must remain number 1 always.

Julio G: That’s right man, hey, I want to ask you guys a question. I don’t want to put you guys in the spot man, but you guys come off like very real cats to me. I want to just ask you this, cause you guys have been around Pac a lot. And, just your opinion, I’m not trying to start no dissing. What do y’all feel on the DMX thing? Do y’all feel that that is kind of like a Pac style, or, cause I’m in the middle, I ain’t gone lie, I like DMX for what DMX does, but there is moments when I think, oh that note sounded like Pac, or that hook kind of sounded like Pac, I mean, what do you feel about that?
Edi: Pac, Pac, Pac ain’t never had no kids biologicaly, but he got a lot of kids in the rap game. I’ma leave it at that. It’s a lot of sons running around here.
Napoleon: That ain’t giving it up to him.
Edi: And it’s a lot of dudes, who just don’t want to give it up, for whatever. They click probably be like: naw man, don’t say that or whatever. But they know, and I can see it, I can see it no matter who, name whoever you want to. All the time, rappers right now take a little bit.
Napoleon: I look at it like, man they probably figure like, man Pac is gone. We was gone out the bussiness for a while, so they probably thinking like: Man The Outlawz ain’t never coming out. Ya know Pac had a lot to give, so they gonna take what pac left off with, like Fuck it. I mean they probably like The Outlawz ain’t gonna say nothing, so I’ma pretend like I was around with pac. Cause it’s a lot of rappers that say that now. Well Pac gave me this name on my album. To me, all of them got a little Pac in them, but they ain’t trying to give it up and that’s for real man. Pac started this tattoo thing, and everybody walking around with tattoos and tank-tops. Pac started that, he branched it off to us, and it’s like now I’m on the point where I don’t even want to show my tattoos no more. I don’t want them to think we the followers.
Edi: And man, that’s the one thing we was like tripping off, we was like man if we step back in the game, they gonna be saying we stealing, we stealing from everybody else. When we been doing this since ’93-’94. We been running around with Pac in the bussiness since ’92.
Napoleon: And we had tattoos, and we was the outsiders. We was like damn, and nobody got tattoos. We was looking weird.
Edi: When we was walking around with them, everybody was like look at these gangsters, they look dirty. Everybody used to call us dirty, and looked down on us, and were like get out of here.
Napoleon: The fatigues, the army pants. We been doing that in ’94, teh army pants with the white t-shirts. Everything No Limit doing. For real, no disrespect to nobody, but like everythin they doing, like No Limit, all of them.
Edi: And they knowing it man. And we don’t have a problem with nobody, as long as you give it up. If you give it up we don’t got no problems with you, if you just say, look, Pac was the dopest rapper to me, I love the way he did everything, the way he walked, the way he talked, I just want to be like him. I ain’t gone fault you for that, yo I feel like that. Like Chico DeBarge, he loves Marvin Gaye. Everybody be influenced, but when you talk around like you the number one dude, and you started it, that’s when everybody know that ain’t real. Fans might buy ya records, but you ain’t real.
Napoleon: Bit off of Pac and then run to us and be like Hey, and trying to give us love, like we gone love that you sounding like Pac and acting like Pac, and we ain’t gonna really respect you.

Julio G: Let me ask you about the Outlawz album that’s coming out, on the Outlawz album, is there still cuts we gone hear with y’all and Pac on that? Or is it straight Outlawz?
Edi: Right now we kind of debating on that, cause we really never wanted to. Look at the type of people who always use Pac as a crutch. It’s people that don’t even be knowing him, that just be leaning on Pac, and they basicaly owe they whole career to Pac. And Pac brought us in the game, and we feel like we established at a point were we maybe we don’t have to have Pac on this album. We got a whole album that’s coming out. So next one, might not have Pac, and if it is, It’ll be on ethat y’all never heard before.

Julio G: Yeah, cause ya know, I don’t feel you guys would be riding on Pac, y’all sound good together, so I was wondering if y’all could do one cut on the album, one cut would be hot. Y’all do ya thing man.

Julio G: Let me ask you guys about the 2Pac estate. I heard there was a lot songs, I mean, just from Daz, I think Daz told me there was over 100 songs that have been recorded, and thing like that. But I know it’s gotta be crazy for you guys to be stuck in the middle of a situation like that. I think the Outlawz should’ve been out a while ago, you guys should be on album number 2 or 3 by now. I mean, behind closed doors, have you guys sat there and was like, just frustrated, like “Damn, I can’t believe this is happening to us”.
Edi: Man I couldn’t even begin to tell you man, if I tried to tell you, you still wouldn’t be able to feel me, the frustration, especially when you look at TV, and you just seeing people steal a bit of ya homeboy, then a little bit of you. It’s like rape almost. But we neva surrendered, we neva, all day everyday.
Napoleon: We real. We soldiers to the fullest.
Edi: We neva even thought about surrendering.
Napoleon: We just knew one day, we’d get our light, regardless, no matter what. We just always felt one day we gone get our light, we just, ya know, staying up in there, cause we rocks.
Edi: And one love to Rap-A-Lor records, cause ya know Lil’J, came at us at a time, where ya know… he just threw like a light. At a time everybody was scaredto deal with us, cause they scared of what might happen to them, or whatever. He was like whatever man, I’ma give y’all boys some light cause y’all deserve it, y’all raw. And it don’t make no sense y’all just not being heard. So one love to Lil’J and Rap-A-Lot, and the whole label.

Julio G: Let me ask you guys about that whole bootleg situation. I’ma be honest, I might have heard maybe 2 songs off one bootleg.
Edi: Ultimate disrespect, it’s like walking up to somebody in Pac’s family and taking right out they pocket.
Napoleon: I feel like you ain’t really got much respect and love fo pac if you bought a bootleg, man. A real fan will wait.

Julio G: Did you guys trip tho’man, I know you all must have tripped, just hearing people just driving down the street like, damn that’s my song.
Edi: I mean, it was like, it’s like the ultimate slap in the face. There’s no respect and especially it just came right after Pac died. It was like as soon Pac died, as soon as he left, here come these bootlegs all on the street.
Napoleon: And it was like when it first happened, it was someone that was around us. It was someone that was around us, just a fake friend. Put it like that. That’s how I look at it, they’ll get theirs.

Julio G: How true is that music to what it is? Or is it more Some songs may be undone.
Edi: Naw, it’s like a real trashy version. A lot of times when we record a song, we never spent a lot of time on a record. No record that you heard we spent more time than needed to be on it. Do it, and when it has to be mixed, do it then. A lot of times we would do a song to a, excuse my French, to a half assed beat. And just get the song out and come back and just hook the song up. Make it tighter, to be presented to the world. A lot of times those songs, theyw asn’t even there yet. They was just done for that moment. And we had to move on cuz we had to keep on moving. That was our motto in the studio: keep Moving. No down time, no nintendo time, no smoke a thousand blunts time. I mean ytoyu could smoke all day but you gotta be doing something. So that’s why the songs came out like that.

Julio G: What was the hurry? I‘ve always been curious why Pac wanted to record 100 songs?
Edi: that’s a good question, man. Part of me feel like, Pac was always like that. When it came to the studio he was like a vessel, something was just flowing thru him all the time. Always a thought, always an idea. Always a new idea, a new way to do a song. Then the other half of it was , I just you know
Napoleon: It kept him outta trouble man. In the studio everyday, that kept him outta trouble. That’s one thing he did say: When we in the studio, we away from trouble.
Edi: Away from people that can bring harm to niggaz.

Julio G: Do you think that that murder is gonna go unsolved?
Edi: It’s already solved. Pac restin in peace and what’s done in the dark always comes to light. It might not be solved to peoples satisfaction, we as a family, and we as a team, we put closure on it. Cause that’s the only way for Pac to rest right. It’s not to keep holding on it. And to keep searching cuz it’s gonna come. Everybody will know one day.

Julio G: Do you guys feel that people kinda push y’all out with the loot?
Napoleon: Fo sho. And that goes out for video stations, I ain’t saying no names but that’s from down the line and that’s because I think they know, we are not really out here to sell people garbage, we’d never dookie on pac’s name, like that by getting up here and just sell garbage, which I feel like a lot of people do. They just sell garbage, wrap it up, package it and sell it. And being that that’s the case when you got a message and it’s uncut and it’s real, it’s dangerous to certain people, they feel threatened by it. You know who i’m talking about. And they don’t wanna hear that so they gonna do. I be feeling like people be paying money, to keep us out the loop cuz unlike anybody else we not gonna do what anybody else is doing. We might just tell the truth on any given record and it’s that unpredictability by us and Pac that always made us dangerous and always made us what we is, Outlawz. Outside it’s like no clique you can really say we runnin around with, and it was like that when Pac was alive. It ain’t like that now just cuz it’s now. It was like that when Pac was here. We was always on our own thing, even on Death Row. We was always on our own thing, ride for the Row but on our own thing. On our thing.

Julio G: What you guys got planned for New Years? You staying in or you going out?
Napoleon: With the family, the family.
Edi: The lights, I’m at the house strapped up looking at the lights, making sure they staying on. Fa’ sho’, that’s where I’m at.