Luckyiam.PSC

For those who may not know, could you please introduce yourself?

Luckyiam.PSC from the Living Legends crew, Mystic Journeymen, The CMA and the Underbosses. I’m from Los Angeles, California.

How did you grow up?

It was pretty normal. I wasn’t poor but I wasn’t rich. I’m from the era where people used to go to the Good Life and watch Freestyle Fellowship and watch the things that were going on in the L.A. underground scene. That was my training.

You’re from Los Angeles, the city where also many gangsta rappers hail from. Can you relate to their portrait of reality and everyday life?

Yeah I can relate to it as far as I have friends and cousins that are involved in such but I mean I was fortunate with growing up with both parents in my home than being in a gang. The gangs, they get kids who don’t really have their parents and stuff, something to gravitate. They speak of honor and loyalty but there is no code really. The gangsters always say they’re soldiers and stuff but soldiers without a code and without honor. They are lurking in nowhere. And I have friends and family members being killed through the gang violence. It’s basically something to keep minorities down.

What would you do if you’re rap career never came to be?

Easy, I go back to school and become a teacher, I would try to teach at inner-city schools just to get back to my community but if I wanna be a playboy gigolo I just be a English teacher in a foreign country. Like go down to South America and teach English and go out to Japan and teach English. You know, just go live it up.

Could you describe the rap scene of L.A. how it looks like today?

There are some L.A. based groups and crews that get a bit of love and then there’s a whole commercial scene with people that go to clubs and that hang out in the Hollywood scene. And then there’s even a underground gangster music scene. L.A. is like immense, it’s so big, so many people that there could probably like 3 different shows and 5 different scenes going on. The only scene I know about is mine, it’s the underground hip hop scene and I think we’re pretty much the best or the most productive grew that resides in L.A. right now. We do big shows and when we do shows a lot of people come out to ‘em. But than in the same aspect I think L.A. is sort of a lot of people who give a lot of love to anything. Acts from all over the country come out to L.A. They get a lot of love. That’s not always the same thing when we go out to the east coast. So I’m happy with L.A. but then at the same time there are a lot of dick rider fans in California, too.

And what will happen in the future?

I don’t know. Maybe it’ll get bigger, maybe it will sizzle out and die, we don’t know. All I know is that we keep making the music and the stuff we got coming sounding good and hopefully the people around us step in the game up as well.

How did the Living Legends Crew come together?

It’s a big puzzle, you know? We didn’t just sit in a room one day and decided to be crew like people that fell into place like the Mystic Journeymen. And then after that we found The Grouch and then we started working with The Grouch and Murs and Arata. And then Murs and Eligh still were going to high school together so that breed united. We met Eligh separately and then everybody fell into place, you know, just like a big, big sort of puzzle. But everybody’s a different person, different entities but we all have pretty much a common goal of like making dope music.

What about the current situation with the Living Legends? Are you still down with each other?

We don’t hang out with each other as much as we did in the old days when we lived together. But we still want to preserve the actual crew name. Living Legends is a crew of independent contractors. Most of the people in the crew are basically out for themselves but they come together here and then and to do some stuff in the name of Living Legends. I mean for instance, anything we put out that says Living Legends like “Almost Famous” and “Creative Differences” – we don’t take any of the money. All the money goes strictly back into our company Legendary Music to run operations and make things happen.

When I think back about the old LL music, it was all about ‘word of mouth’ or financial embarrassments. How do you comment this change of lyrical content?

Well, it’s gonna change if your situation changes. There’s no way we still keep rapping about what we did in 1992 cause it’s 2004, you know? Right now it’s not so much word of mouth or financial embarrassments – actually there is for some people – but I mean you grow up and you go through different things, you get more popular, whatever, or your just a old man, a human being and there is no way you can stay on the same stuff that you’re rapping about when you are a 18, 19 year old kid.

But some fans have the opinion that this change stands in immediate context to the poor quality on the last few albums? How do you react on such harsh criticism?

Ahh… I don’t know… I think that some people that have criticism on certain things that they don’t like. And I think it’s only a handful of people compared to the whole. The only thing I saw that has been harshly criticised was “Creative Differences” and as funny as it seems that’s like the biggest selling cd we ever put out. And at the same time I can laugh at all because I know exactly what that cd was, it was a compilation of things we done, so whatever, I don’t really care about it. Whatever the internet has to say is not direct my day. For people who really like our old flavor, they gonna like the new album that will come out next year.

What do you think, do you have more fans outside of the U.S.A. than in America itself?

Nah, I doubt that (laughs). There is no one place outside of America where we have any sort of really strong or decent distribution. Our music is sprinkled and in little commence in other countries. We’ve probably been to Japan a lot so we might have a few people that know of us. We just one of the groups out there that truly had done it on their own with limited resources for this long time. And just blessed to be able to have any kind of stature or posture that we have right now.

You’re a member of the group CMA with The Grouch. The new album will be dropping in November – can you already give up some information what’s happening on that one?

It’s a long awaited sophomore release with CMA. First of all, I guess it’s a fan-favoured album. We took a lot of time and put out this next one and the new one has outshined productions by a producer out of L.A. named J-Drill, a girl out of Canada named Mills. We got DJ Epic, Eligh did some beats on there, The Grouch did some productions. Then we have guests like Brother Ali on a song, we got Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, we got guest appearances by Slug and by Murs. I think it’s one of the best albums that our crew has put out in a long time. And this is the next shit people gonna hear from us after hearing “Creative Differences” and I guess it should be shocking the shit out of everybody (laughs). So if you hate that album you will love this album (laughs). The single is out right now, I just got a report back from shops or radios and stuff and the response is really strong. People are in love with the a-side and some people are in love with the b-side. The a-side is a song called “Windows” and the b-side is a song with Del Tha Funkee Homosapien called “Tactics”. And our album is banging, I mean I can really speak for it cause it’s me and Grouch. And that combination of me and Grouch is like two similar styles and two guys that rap on beat and make sense and can rap really well. So that makes good albums (laughs).

Will there ever be new music from the Mystik Journeyman?

Oh yeah one day. We talked about it the other day, our plan of going somewhere and get a whole bunch of dope productions and make the album called “Return Of The Mystik Journeyman”. To introduce all this new booty fans cause a lot of people that are into Living Legends right now don’t even know anything about Mystik Journeymen really.

Also Scarub is said to release a new album – do you have any news for us?

I think it’s coming out December 7th, or 9th. I’m not exactly sure but from what I hear it’s a very dope album. Scarub fans out there should simply check out for it. Also the new 3MG’s album is already done. They recorded that in England earlier this year. It’s coming out next year as well as the new Living Legends album that was recorded in Maui this year. And now it will be ready on February 25th.

You’ve been to Germany several times – what about the next tour?

Yeah, definitely. We were supposed to tour this fall but it fell through. So we gonna tour to support the next album when it comes out next year. We’ll gonna do an U.S tour like mid-March to April and the first weeks of May and after we get back from May we’ll start touring in Europe. May 2005 we start touring in Europe, alright Europe? Germany always showed us a lot of love and we got much love for Germany.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Hopefully running shit, you know? Now without compromising our integrity just making good music without having a worry about the things that we have to take care like worrying so many haps in our situation, just being able to get into the studio and produce very tight music and that’s where we wanna be at.

Do you have an opinion about the beef between the Afterlife/Project Blowed and the Anticon camp? There are rumors going on that Bus Driver dissed Dose One…

Oh he did?! I didn’t know about this (laughs). Can you give me some details so I can give you my opinion, I didn’t know about this! Did they say anything back (laughs)? Did he just recently diss him on the internet or in an interview or on the phone?

I think on the internet…

Okay. That’s nothing, man. (laughs)

You’re not a great fan of the internet, am I right?

No, I mean I take it for what it is. It’s just there. It’s not really the mind state of people who actually go outside of the house and come to your shows, you know. It matters only so much. But trust, I you have a bad opinion about your music on the internet it will affect yourself and stuff. People can ruin you on the internet just with talking and with making a bad opinion about your stuff. It holds some power but unto a certain extent. Because if you live in the real world and you have to do your thing and people like it and come to your shows and they appreciate and have fun at the shows. Internet only matters so much.

Let’s get political: what the best about Bush, what about Kerry?

Only the good things? (laughs) What’s the best thing about Bush? He can make me laugh; he’s so stupid that he’s funny. The best thing about Kerry is that he’s not George Bush (laughs).

GTA San Andreas is out right now… what’s your opinion about the game?

I didn’t play it yet but I’ma get it for the X-Box. Is it out yet? Shit, I’ma call somebody at the mall right now and tell ‘em to pick it up right now. My mother is really against it! It’s sooo bad, it’s sooo bad! Just think about this: think of a little kid playing that game, bumping some 50 Cent while he’s playing it – I mean: the combination of the imagery and the control of that and listening to the music pumping you up while you’re playing that… I don’t know what it’s gonna do to people out there but out here there’s gonna be some kid that’s gonna really get influenced by that game…

It’s Halloween today… are you ready to party or do you slap the children ringing the bell like we do over here?

I went to a party last night and tonight I just take the kids trick or treating.

Do you have any last words?

Order the new CMA album. Buy the new CMA album! And Living Legends will be back in Europe in May 2005. Everybody leave Anticon alone. They don’t even make Hip Hop music anymore. Leave ‘em alone. And they don’t rap anymore. They make Folk Hop. Sexy girls in Germany, start coming to the shows! Girls, stop coming to the shows with your boyfriend, I’m sick of that! And little do you know, Kool Savas used to be underground. UHB, baby! (laughs)

He ain’t underground no more, you know that?

Yeah, that’s what I heard (laughs). He used to be a big Living Legends fan. He probably be a Kool Savas fan right now (laughs). Before he was Kool Savas, he was sleeping on our couch in Oakland. He came out to Oakland with his girl Melanie and they chilled with us and we made some music with him before he turn into a German rap star. He’s still a homie, though (laughs).