DJ Quik im F.E.D.S. Magazin, 2003..
f. how long have you been in the music game?
dj q. 11 years
f. how was your life before music?
dj q. sh1t, it was tough like any streetlife, you have to deal with bullsh1t, being broke and having to hustle to eat. a n1gga will do anything to eat. i grew up in "tree top pirus" an infamous blood set in compton la. well my momma had 8 girls and 2 boys, me and my brother weren't close, he was kind of anti social. it shouldve been me and my brother as one, us against the world but my brother didnt want to really kick it with me because of the differences in our ages, he was like 4 years older than me. he was into sports and i was into music. i started hanging out with the other cats, the neighborhood heroes, and the motherfukkers with all the money. i actually grew into tree top. i came in right before they started jumping n1ggas in.
f. arent there more crips than bloods in cali?
dj q. yes, we were always the underdogs. bloods are outnumbered 5 to 1. the saddest thing is that life became normal, motherfukkers getting they brains blown out, n1ggas getting shot at, n1ggas doing the shooting.
f. how old were you when you first saw someone get shot or lying dead?
dj q. a few people died in my arms. my brother in law had a plate in his head from vietnam, and one day he was tripping off his medecation, he was like a madman walking down the street fukking with people, arguing and cursing, the n he went to the milk dairy and disrespected someone at the dairy and they just shot him in his dome. i ran down to the milk dairy and he was just laying there with gray sh1t all over his head...brains open. thats some dramatic sh1t to see at 8 years old.
f. how was your school life? was there alot of violence?
dj q. well, they used to shoot up our junior high, which was in the middle of compton. one day bailing home, they shot my hommie named johnny in the back. that was some coward sh1t!
f. did you ever sell drugs?
dj q. i started selling scum to make some money, but motherfukkers was trying to steal my dope so at 15 i tried to get a regular job at this gastation this korean opened up. i was supposed to start that thursday morning, then wednesday night we heard gun shots and somebody came running around the house saying someone got shot. i bail around to the store and i'm like sam...sam, where are you? i smelled the gun powder and the smell of flesh burning, then i looked down and he was behind the counter. i grabbed him and started to talk to him, but he was hit all in the chest. he was dead before i even got there. so i just held him until the police came.
f. did the police harass you about the murder?
dj q. they tried to question me thinking i knew something. the truth is i was in my room having relations, so i didnt even know what happened. that started some sh1t in the neighborhood, motherfukkers was trying to say i snitched on the dude that allegedly did it, but i didnt even see him do it. when i got on the stand i told them that i never saw this man before, he's an older cat, i kicked it with kids, this motherfukker was already grown up. i got off that and stayed hustling these turntables, going into different neighborhoods doing parties, then i started making underground tapes and mentioning the cats from my neighborhoods names and that started the whole dj quik thing.
f. was it tough going from party to party with all the gang violence?
dj q. there was always drama, some parties we had to get helped up outta there by gunpoint. motherfukkers was trying to steal our equipment, fighting and jacking motherfukkers, and they ended up finding out what side of the fence we were from. we had to get out of there by any means necessary.
f. so you guys weren't flagging?
dj q. no we weren't flagging or set tripping, or trying to get at any ones girl, we were just in there to make the money.
f. was hard being from a blood backround to then do music with crips?
dj q. nah, because it was always music first. i always put the music in front of the bullsh1t. we always knew they outnumbered us, but they weren't going to beat my ass and turn me into a crip. i learned to get along with them and they learned to get along with me
f. how did you get your first record deal?
dj q. i moved to south central which is 10 times bigger than compton, with a guy named playerhamm, his mom helped us get a sp1200 and that was it. i would buy a cassete for $1 and sell it for $10. i would mention the police that bothered us on tape. then i met this dancer that danced with Hammer and one day she took me to the studio. they heard my sh1t, brought me a tape and had me do a record over. they took it and started shopping it, so i ended up on profile records.
f. how was that deal?
dj q. i mean $125,000, that was a tight deal, but the 8 points, i later learned was off. but back then it was groundbreaking, they had never giving a rapper that kind of money, and i produced my entire album, and it sold platinum plus. its still unbelievable, i didnt think people was into that kind of music. the music was straight dirty and obscene, i mean just gangbanging music!
f. did you tour?
dj q. yes, the first place we went to was sanfrancisco. its funny, we had this dark cloud over us. i didnt realize our underground tapes had gotten so far out there, so certain places we went they were already waiting for us to give us trouble. after i finished the tour i came out with "jus like comton"
f. did all the trouble on the tour make you want to give up?
dj q. yeah, most of the time, because we felt we couldnt even get on stage and do our shows and have fun. but then i realized thats what hiphop was.
f. how was your relationship with the rest of the west coast rappers?
dj q. well Eazy E tried to give profile records 1 million dollars for them to let me off of profile records. profile started to send eazy letters saying stop badgering our artist.
f. how did you get off of profile?
dj q. its funny, i went through this whole thing with profile over royalties. i never got paid, i never got the back end. all i saw was front ends, i never saw royalty checks, i see why motherfukkers would go up in these offices trying to beat motherfukkers down because it was a real shady business back then. motherfukkers was making millions and didnt even want to give me a half a million, thats when i started producing. the label put me on suspension so i couldnt peform on any record as dj quik. it was like i had handcuffs. instead of royalty checks they would send someone to the studio about life insurence incase i was killed. i'm still looking for steve, "restitution hommie you owe me". i mean the company wouldnt accept my calls they would only talk to my lawyer who seemed to be on their side. so i talked to Suge and he stepped in, so i was riding with Suge as he was trying to get me off of profile, but its funny he couldnt get me off. profile wouldnt even budge, so i never signed with deathrow, i only did production. i guess things happen for a reason because i was from the street and i thought it was all right to see engineers get knocked the fukk out. being at deathrow turned motherfukkers into straight animals watching n1ggas fight everyday, n1ggas were doing more fighting than making records, everybody had something to prove. after a while it started reflection in the music.
f. suge never stepped in and stopped sh1t?
dj q. nah, suge aint step in and say sh1t. some sh1t suge didnt even know about. deathrow was some crazy sh1t. it was like Babylon, even with all that money and power
f. how was your relation with tupac?
dj q. it was cool, i met pac in 91 or 92 when he was with digital underground. pac was actually a humble dude, he was bright, he was a proper talking big dreamer, but at the same time he had a seriousness about him that we really didnt pick up on until suge bailed him out of newyorks rikers island prison and he started doing "all eyes on me". i knew then, pac had become bitter, he became a rider and it was a trip to see him go through that transformation.
f. lets talk about mc eiht...how did that beef start?
dj q. i was shouting them all out and mc eiht took it the wrong way and started dissing me, he kept dissing me even tho i tried to squash it. i even went as far as asking him to appear on a song with me
f. thats odd...i heard that you were the next one the streets thought would get killed, because you were flagging!
dj q. for a minute, i was looking for the bullet, i was thinking if yall gonna do it come on, i'm not gonna be living in fear. i'm not a killer and its not my place to be trying to take any ones life, thats not who i am. ive been through some sh1t and if you fukk with a dog long enough, eventually its going to bite you
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