Zitat:
Even when it comes to Full Clip, VIBE has the sense enough to know not to bury the lede. So here it is: Scarface has left Rap-A-Lot Records. In an era of frequent artists drops and changing imprints, the news is indeed surprising given that the man born Brad Jordan has been associated with the James Prince-owned landmark Houston label since 1988. Back then, Scarface made his debut as a member of a revamped Geto Boys with country hard talker Willie D. and menacing dwarf Bushwick Bill. Face, whose at times violent, dark, vivid, complex and emotional lyrics dissected street life, would eventually find immense solo acclaim, becoming the south’s most heralded MC. But when the rapper, multi-instrumentalist and producer talks about going independent on a new album he’s currently finishing up tentatively entitled The Habit, he speaks with both regret and optimism for the future.
“I think with anything that you do in life it has to run its course,” Face tells VIBE of his split from his longtime label home and J. Prince. “And I think that my business relationship with Rap-A-Lot has ran its course. I’m not just a rapper anymore. You can’t make me an artist, anymore. It’s time for me to have my own shit. There’s a lot of money in successful independent records. I was totally unaware of that throughout my career by the label. If you put a few million records out and you are making eight bucks a pop, everything is supposed to be everything. I’m supposed to be a part of that money, right? I think with the amount of money independent artists make I wish I would have made the move a little sooner.”
“I feel good about my opportunities,” Face continues. “I have a son that’s 19-years-old who is a much better rapper than I was at that age! I’m trying to make his career right. I’m going to give him a couple of songs on my new album, which I’m aiming for an October release. He doesn’t have a MC name yet. I’m just going to call him Chris Jordan…because he’s a bad motherfucka, man.”
Whatever the future of Scarface, he can rest assured that he has had one of the most consistent and enviable careers in hip-hop. The always-candid icon takes a look back at his remarkable run. —Keith Murphy
Grip It! On That Other Level (1989)—Geto Boys
I had no fucking idea this record was going to be [so controversial]. I was so excited to finally get my face on somebody’s cassette. The music just drove me. Willie D, Bill and myself literally didn’t know each other. We just sat around for a little while and recorded a few songs and after that James told us, ‘Ya’ll aint getting it done fast enough.’ They took us out to the middle of nowhere and left us together. We were in a house and it was the nicest fucking house I had ever been in my life. But back then we didn’t want to see no beautiful houses in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to be around that hip-hop movement. You also have to take into consideration that we were kids. I was about 17 back then. And we were not recording in a professional studio.
We didn’t get into a professional studio until Rick Rubin came along. But Rick did not want me in the Geto Boys. He didn’t like my rhyme style. Rick wanted to exploit the fact that we were from Texas and I didn’t rap like I was from Texas. I never asked what changed Rick Rubin’s tune. However, I know early on he wasn’t fucking with me. I guess he felt like since we started together, we should finish together, so Scarface stays.
We Can’t Be Stopped (1991)—Geto Boys
I think my manic depressive state and suicidal tendencies played a huge role on who I was back then. “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” was one of the numerous songs I wrote and produced myself. There were three verses: my first two verses—the verse that Bill rapped was my own third verse. It was a record I originally recorded for my solo album, but nobody wanted that song. I swear…nobody. Willie D. didn’t think the record would work, but he wrote a verse to it anyway after J had done his research on this song. He found some people who were really feeling it. He wanted everybody to rap on it. It became a Geto Boys record.
If you look at my face on the We Can’t Be Stopped album cover you can tell I didn’t want to be apart of that photo shoot. Bill was still in the hospital. He was highly sedated, man. (Just days before the We Can’t Be Stopped photo shoot, a drunken and depressed Bushwick Bill shot himself in the eye after his girlfriend refused to shoot him during an altercation.) We took that picture at the actual hospital where Bill was at. And Chief, who was our manager at the time, said, ‘Bill, take the eye patch down.’ And I was like, ‘Awww fuck! Man, this is some bullshit.’ I strongly believe that what goes on in this house stays in this house. I didn’t really want to put Bill out there like that. How many people have gotten their eye shot out and captured it on an album cover for everyone to remember? It’s hard to wake up in the morning and deal with that one.
Mr. Scarface Is Back (1991)
That album cover was shot near the same place we recorded the first Geto Boys album. And, no, that wasn’t real coke on the table. That was fucking flour. But the guns were real. Still, I was so reckless back then that at 19-year-old I know I would have taken that coke and sold it [laughs].
Willie D. didn’t like the fact that Scarface of the Geto Boys was printed on the cover. He did not like that shit one bit. But the plan was for me to always go solo. J new that; it was always understood. I think a song like “Mr. Scarface” became so popular because there were a lot of elements to it. First, it had that nursery rhyme intro that everybody could sing to. Then there was a real story you could follow. I consider myself a storyteller.
Til Death Do Us Part (1993)—Geto Boys
I didn’t want to be in the Geto Boys anymore. I had a successful solo career, so why would I want to join that fucking group again? But I was contractually obligated to come back. I produced “Six Feet Deep” and “Street Life.” We had a new member in the group Big Mike because Willie didn’t want to be apart of the Geto Boys. Looking back, I did a lot of writing on this album.
The World Is Yours (1993)
That funk you hear on The World Is Yours comes from my uncle Eddie. He has played bass on some of my albums. My uncle is an ex-crack head, ex-alcoholic, ex-everything. But he was a bad motherfucker. He played everything. He’s a Stanley Clarke, Bootsy Collins, Eddie Hazel, and Stanley Jordan all rolled up into one nigga. That’s where I got my funk from. I didn’t meet George Clinton and become friends with him until I was in my early ‘20s. So before I got the chance to meet Dr. Funkenstein, Eddie was my Funkenstein. He turned me on to Parliament, along with my mom. She’s another one of my big musical influences.
My mama taught me how to pull instruments out of songs. When I was four-years-old, she would tap out the basslines of a song on my leg while we were driving. There’s a certain theory in music that I feel that’s not necessarily something that you learn in music school. You can’t really teach feeling when it comes to music. Either it’s in your heart or it’s not. I can’t read music, but I can tell you what key the song is in.
The Diary (1994)
I was so dead set against what Rick Rubin had said. But when I got the chance to get into my own personal shit I realized, ‘Man, I can really rap.’ I stopped worrying what other people were saying because I realize that people liked me. My first two solo albums went gold. So, man, it became a point for me to rap about what I know…let me rhyme some shit; let me create some more complex rhyme patterns and show these people I can rap. That’s what you hear on The Diary. I remember recording “I Seen A Man Die”…I was so high. I made the original beat and bassline, but Mike Dean took it to another level when he started playing the organ and adding those eerie sounds. He moved the song into the direction of a scary movie.
It took me a while to write the actual lyrics. One night I was in my condo and I had just broken my hand, so I was taking Demerol. I took a downer, drank some beer and smoked a half a joint and I was so fucking high. I said, ‘God, if you let me come down off this shit, I’ll never do this again.’ But I’ll never forget the vibe in the studio when I laid the lyrics. I was so high and it was so cold and dark in that vocal booth. I had no idea I was breaking new ground writing a song about death in such a detailed way. All I knew was I wanted to come down off that high.
The Resurrection (1996)—Geto Boys
The album art was my whole fucking vision. If you notice, the first shots are with the caskets open. To close the caskets and take the picture of the album cover with no one in them??? Yeah, we were resurrected. I was very happy with this record. I was glad to have Willie back in the group. I think that era of the Geto Boys was when Willie and I were at our closest. We’ve always been friends, but I think when we did The Resurrection album my relationship with Willie was like, ‘Damn, man. This is my nigga.’ We were trying to get Bill to stay in the group. That was our main focus. Willie would come to my crib almost everyday.
The song “Still” was featured in Office Space, which was directed by Mike Judge. I got the chance to meet Mike and he is definitely a Geto Boys/Scarface fan as I am for the crazy shit he does. I’m a King of The Hill junkie. I have to get home and watch all of the episodes that play every night. I love Beavis and Butthead and of course Office Space; I love Idiocracy; and I love Extract. Mike Judge is just a funny ass dude.
The Other Side of the Law (1996)—Facemob
This was my first album under my Inerface imprint. This was an important record for me because I got the chance to introduce some new talent; my own crew. A lot of artists that have come through Rap-A-lot are artists that I was friends with before Rap-A-Lot. Devin the Dude, who was in the Face Mob, started with the Odd Squad. DMG, I’ve had known him for a while, too. We had a lot of talent on that Face Mob record. I’m a student and I know what music is supposed to sound like. I just take what I feel and I use that shit.
The Untouchable (1997)
I was living in Oakwood, California while I was recording The Untouchable, staying in the La Mandrian. Tupac comes up to my room and I’m already high, but this dude is trying to get me to go somewhere. Now I’m from Texas…we didn’t have that grade of weed they had in Cali. How and the fuck can I go somewhere? I was like, ‘Nigga, there’s the remote control. I’m going to watch TV.’ Pac ended up leaving, but the next day, he came through Sunset Blvd. and bust a u-turn in the middle of the street when he saw my manager. They told me Pac was downstairs and I was like, ‘Ah man….fuck’ [laughs] He was in the car with Eddie Griffin.
Pac drove up and he had a Hummer at the time when they had just come out. Him and Eddie just came from drinking at the Hyatt. ‘Pac and I toured together, so I knew how wild he could get. I found out later that he didn’t even have his driver’s license! So I come down and ‘Pac is like, ‘Yeah nigga…we are going to do some shit in the studio.’ It was his idea to record that “Smile” song. We had a blast, dog. I left and went to my recording studio and a few weeks later Pac comes though and he plays Makaveli for us. Dope, right? And again, he’s trying to get me to come out with him. ‘Pac is like, ‘Come on, man…you spending too much time in the studio. Just write and record that shit!’ I could sit in the studio for six years and not put an album out [laughs]. But ‘Pac couldn’t sit in the studio for six days and not have an album out. His work ethic was serious.
“Smile” was slated to be a single even before Tupac’s death. But I really didn’t want to shoot that video. I wanted to leave his death like it was. The video didn’t drop until after Notorious B.I.G. died. Now I’m grown and thinking about how short these geniuses’ lives were. Damn.
My Homies (1998)
I went the direction of making a double album with [guest artists] because these people really were my homies. They weren’t just people I decided to work with. Everybody on that record from Ice Cube to UGK were my homies…and they could rap. This was also the second album under my Inerface imprint. My Homies represented my own personal shit.
Da Good Da Bad & Da Ugly (1998)—Geto Boys
I wasn’t happy with this record. That’s when Master P was making a lot of noise. So I feel like Rap-A-Lot wanted to try to do the same shit and release an album every two weeks or something. I was like, nah. I wasn’t down with that shit. I did the album because it needed to be done, but if I would have had my way I would have done it a lot differently.
The Last Of A Dying Breed (2000)
When you hear me talking about the Feds trying to make me flip, that’s not just an album. The Last Of A Dying Breed is a document. We had a lot of friends that we were close to that were dibbling and dabbling in that other shit. Well, these fucking drug agents have a hard-on for James [Prince] so bad until they just grabbed people around him. These motherfuckers even sent a snitch at me. But when the snitch didn’t get shit, they put his ass wherever the fuck he’s at in Pennsylvania. Feds trying to get you to say some shit that you don’t know nothing about.
A lot of brothers went down in ’99 from people telling. A motherfucker wasn’t even doing any dope back then…I was strictly doing music. I may have smoked a little weed, but not enough to run a dope house. What the fuck I look like touring all over the country and selling millions of records and jeopardizing my family and my children behind some funky ass cocaine? That’s just some racially motivated shit. James told me, ‘You have to expose their ass.'
The Fix (2002)
People talk about how great The Fix album is. It took me long enough to be called one of the greatest, right? I think “Heaven” really stands out. There are two beats to the song. I had a track from T-Mix and a track from Kanye West. People love the beginning of the song. I mean they love it. But I love the switch up in the song. I took T-Mix’s song in the beginning and did some crazy shit where I made a crazy backwards transition into the other “Heaven.”
By this time, I was the President of Def Jam South and extremely happy. I saw more fruits from my labor at Def Jam than I’d ever saw in life. I was getting dumb ass paid. I was like the newborn of the family. Any fucking thing that I could even imagine that I needed to do, I got it done. I’m proud to say I signed Ludacris. But there were a lot of groups that came through Def Jam that I brought that went unsigned that later turned out to be very successful. Before he was Rick Ross he was Teflon and I was trying to bring him to Def Jam. If you look at David Banner, Lil Flip, Pall Wall and Chamillonaire, Slim Thug, and T.I.—I tried to give all of them situations. But the powers that be left and I was stuck holding the bag.
Everyone that I came to Def Jam to be with had left. Lyor Cohen was my sole reason for going to Def Jam. I remember in 1991 during the Public Enemy tour, Lyor came to Baltimore. We sat down at this table and Lyor made me an offer on my debut solo album. But I was so fucking loyal to J. That could have changed my life. It was an astronomical amount of money, back then. I didn’t know that kind of money existed in the rap biz.
Balls and My Word (2003)
Balls and My Word had nothing to do with me. That’s all shit that didn’t make the other albums. All the shit from the 1990’s—the bulk of my career at Rap-A-Lot. I was very pissed that they released it. It was just a blatant move of, ‘Fuck you, nigga.’ It was a blatant disrespect to me. And the coldest part about that shit? I still aint seen a royalty check from it.
The Foundation (2005)—Geto Boys
I came back to the Geto Boys because there was a little money on the front end for me. I sat down and created this album mostly by myself. If you look at the production credits, I did a lot of those records.
My Homies Part 2 (2006)
Again, this had nothing to do with me. This is something you have to talk to James about. But I was totally not on board with this shit. However, I got smart. I started taking all my hard drives and shit away from the studio [Laughs].
Made (2007)
I never had to force myself to be something I wasn’t to sell records. That’s never what I’ve been about. I’ve always stayed true to what I do even on the more commercial records. But you will be surprised where I find some of my inspiration from. I have a cousin named Johnny Nash, who is probably one of the biggest singers ever. Google him. We have had conversations on a regular bases where we talked about life. But I just started getting into his music recently. When I started downloading his shit from Amazon I found out he was a bad motherfucker and I was mad at him [laughs]. He never told me how good he was. He was the first and maybe the last act to move to Jamaica and sing American lyrics over reggae music. He was fucking phenomenal, man. And he never had to change who he was. I come from that. Like I said, I come from music.
Emeritus (2008)
I was contractually obligated to record nothing but this album. I couldn’t put anything out. I got a cease and desist put on a group I was trying to produce. Oh, you would be surprised. This was not a good time for me in all honesty. But I think I performed pretty well under pressure. I’ll say again. I’m a musician. I just don’t fucking rap. This is not an accident. I play a lot of my songs and I’m not talking about going to the machine and pushing play. I can pick up a guitar and play it; pick up a piano keyboard and play it; pick up a xylophone and play it. Any fucking thing that can make some noise that I can play will get played. I’ve been playing instruments all my life. I want to bring music back. That’s going to be the sole responsibility for me, right now. I have the opportunity to be the person to help save music logic.
A lot of stuff out today is just a bunch of electronic noise. What happened to the horn section, the live basslines and the guitar player shaking in the pocket? Whatever happen to the drummer staying in the pocket? Shit, what happened to the pocket? [laughs] I remember growing up, 75 percent of the people in my neighborhood knew how to play something, even if it was just a fucking drum. Remember when it was cool to bring your band instrument home for practice? We have to bring that back.
I recently dropped a mixtape called Dopeman Music. And I’m working on a new album, which will be my first independent release. I’m thinking about calling it The Habit. I’m just going to tell my side of the story; just the absolute truth. You know how a lot of people get on their records and they are scared to tell the world how they really feel? Or they scared to tell the world what they are going through? Well, this is a tell all. This album will explain the shit that I’ve been up against.
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