Published: Friday - September 14, 2007
Words by Starrene Rhett
Chamillionaire (Photo: n/a)
Now that people have finally stopped calling "Chamillionaire" "Shamillionaire," it's very clear that anyone who follows hip-hop knows his name. The Houston native, also known as "The Mixtape Messiah," as a result of independently selling over 100,000 copies of Get Ya Mind Correct and various other mixtapes, made his major label debut with The Sound Of Revenge in 2005.
Two years later, the platinum selling, Grammy Award winning rapper has etched himself in our psyches as one of hip-hop's major players set for superstardom beyond what he's already achieved. Returning with his sophomore release, Ultimate Victory, on September 18, he's more mature and has decided to be more responsible with his language choice and content. Ballerstatus.com caught up with him to discuss how recent events in history and a negative association with the "N-word" have affected his musical judgment and what people can expect from his forthcoming LP.
Ballerstatus.com: What's been going on with you over the past couple of years where you decided to be a bit more responsible with your music?
Chamillionaire: Listening to music in general -- just life I guess -- being around a lot of artists, being around a lot of people and seeing what they say and all the stuff that you really talk about that everybody is always scared to say. All that stuff made me want to say something because I'm naturally a person that goes against the grain and it's a lot of stuff that went on in history in the past year -- the world is kind of crazy right now, even hip-hop. With hip-hop nowadays, how the game has changed -- I just follow my gut a lot and it tells me what to do and it always works for me. My gut now is telling me to speak on something more than just making words rhyme just to rhyme -- say something that people can remember.
Ballerstatus.com: I saw the videos for "Hip-Hop Cops" and "Evening News," they were very good and very funny, who directed them?
Chamillionaire: The videos were directed by Marc Klasfeld.
Ballerstatus.com: Were the videos your vision or did you guys work together?
Chamillionaire: Originally, I've always had this thing in my head from beginning to end, even when I wrote the song. I always knew how it looked, but it was about taking it out of my head and finding direction -- taking the video out of my head and making a visual for it. And once I started talking to Marc Klasfeld, I knew he got it. We didn't even send the treatment out to a hundred different directors. The minute I talked to him, I knew he understood what I was trying to do and he pulled it off.
Ballerstatus.com: How was it playing all those different characters?
Chamillionaire: It was crazy. As an artist, a lot of times you're kind of skeptical because you don't know what people are going to think, especially when I had to be the Bob O'Weily character. I was kind of nervous about that, but then after I got into it and I started doing it, I felt like, "Ok, this is the right thing to do." It was cool. I see how Eddie Murphy feels when he does it now.
Ballerstatus.com: [Laughs] If Bill O'Reilly sees this and invites you on his show, are you going to accept?
Chamillionaire: I don't know. It depends on what Bill O'Reilly talking about. Bill O'Reilly... he never change his opinion anyway, so he's gonna feel what he feels about rappers regardless of what anybody says, so we're not really trippin' off of him.
Ballerstatus.com: Why the decision to work with Slick Rick?
Chamillionaire: Slick Rick was just basically about finding somebody that could fit the song -- that could tell the story and also finding somebody that was more of a breath of fresh air, not somebody that was the average person that everybody is getting on the records. I just wanted to find somebody like that, like when I messed with Krayzie Bone originally, and he came and did a track with me, everybody wasn't messing with Krayzie Bone at the time, so it was fresh to hear Krayzie Bone and it's the same kind of feeling when you hear Slick Rick. It's like, "Oh, there go Slick Rick," and then he still sounds himself, he's still killin' it, so that was the whole thing. I didn't even think he was going to do it, but he reached back to me and he decided to do it.
Ballerstatus.com: Would you say that your album kind of restores a sense of balance in hip-hop?
Chamillionaire: I wouldn't even put that big challenge on myself by saying something like that. All I'm saying is that I just see what I think is missing and I try to add a little bit of that to the game -- coming from the South especially. In my area, there's a lot of music coming out and a lot of it is club-driven. I understand that and I like a lot of it, but that's what made me go a different route -- just tryna fill in a space and make a creative conceptual type of album.
Ballerstatus.com: I know that you've been making a more conscious effort not to be profane, but is it no cursing at all or just no more "N-word?"
Chamillionaire: I never really cursed like that. "N-word" is the word I always used to say because I didn't even really look at that like a curse word, but now, I'm just not saying that. On my album, there is some cursing. I'm not changing all the other rappers that are on there, but for me personally I'm just not saying that.
Ballerstatus.com: What was your personal decision not to say it anymore?
Chamillionaire: The bigger I got as an artist, the more my shows would be packed and the more white kids would show up. And when you have a record that crossed all the formats like "Ridin' Dirty" did, you can go and perform anywhere and it's these big arenas packed with white kids and I'd be performing my lyrics, and right when I get to the "N-word" and look at the crowd, they'll be saying it. [So] I'm like, I don't want to be training them to say it, so I'm not gonna do it for that reason. So the next time I go around on tour, they're not saying it.
Ballerstatus.com: You spoke a little bit about Hurricane Katrina at your New York listening session. A lot of the evacuees ended up there and being that you're from Houston, were you affected?
Chamillionaire: I was on the road so long I was seeing the affects just outside of Houston and everywhere. To this day, I still bump into people who are still trying to rebuild from that. And in the city, I know there's a lot of stuff going on where they said crime had risen in a lot of areas and they were tryna blame it on the Katrina victims. A lot of stuff like that was going on to where you could try to ignore it, but you can't.
Ballerstatus.com: What are your expectations for Ultimate Victory?
Chamillionaire: Basically, I'm just gonna go out there and push it as hard as I can. All you can do is get in the studio and make what you believe in and then you go out there and push it and hope for the best. If it doesn't happen the way you expect, then it wasn't meant to be. My last run, I didn't expect half the things that I got, and I got a lot of stuff! So it was just meant to be for me to receive all these accolades. Maybe this time, it might not be meant for me to get all that or maybe it will, who knows? All you can just do is go out there and grind it out.
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