Why do you think so many up-and-coming artists give away mixtapes for free?
I think a lot of people have the right idea but they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re all over the place and they have no direction. Their ideas are regurgitated ideas that are five years old. You have to know what’s next. The mixtape game was hot. It got people a little bit out there but I think a lot of these guys are going to become mixtape rappers. Where are their albums? They have 15 volumes of mixtapes but where are their albums? The element of surprise, homie. You didn’t hear Public Enemy mixtapes before the first album so when you heard the album it had a huge impact. Same with The Chronic. After I hear five mixtapes from you and you come with an album, I heard it all. What do you do now? I heard it all. Maybe get a big-name producer? These kids need to start focusing on putting their album out and even if you ship 1,000 records, homie, it’s on the shelf and you can tour and then you do it again and do it again until you’re selling all those records. Do what the punk rock
