THE BROTHERHOOD: HRSMN

INTERVIEW KB Tindal

We were blessed enough to have 3 out of the 4 legends from the group called the Horsemen (HRSMN) that consists of Ras Kass, Kurupt, Killah Priest and the one and only Canibus sit down with Validated Magazine to talk about their new album “The Last Ride.” Killah Priest was under the weather and unavailable for the interview.

These gentlemen have been super consistent in their careers of releasing music. As a collective they have had a ton of music that was never released and they also had some stuff that was heavily bootlegged. It took them 20 years to get back together to release this new project, “The Last Ride” aka “The Debut Final Album”. We got the chance not only to talk about the album but also some of the most notable moments in these guys’ careers. So sit back and enjoy the last ride with the HRSMN.  

VALIDATED: Why did you guys choose the title “The Last Ride” for this project?

KURUPT: The best one to give an answer to that is Ras Kass. Ras led the ship and put it all together. Canibus, me and Priest, we loved the work he did and dedication to the “HRSMN” name. Ras came up with the ideas so Ras, break it down for him.

RAS KASS: Like you know KB, we had a couple of false starts when we got bootlegged. People never really heard of the “HRSMN” album, they would hear a “HRSMN” song on Canibus’ album or on a Ras Kass song, but they never heard a collective project. They heard our ideas but things was not mixed, so we never really got a fair shot and I felt like psychologically, we had to close that door. This was the last ride, to show that we could execute and kind of biblically, “The first shall be last, the last shall be first.” We closed that door to open a new chapter.

VALIDATED: Kurupt is Famine, Ras Kass is Pestilence, Canibus is War and Killah Priest is Death. How did you guys go about choosing which title you would go by?

KURUPT: Naturally, Canibus came up with the whole idea if I'm not mistaken. Canibus was the one with the creative views of what we are going to be as the “HRSMN”. Am I correct, Ras?

RAS KASS: I think so. Yes, sir. He is ‘War,’ listen to his voice. You hear Canibus, you hear ‘the war.’

VALIDATED: On this project, did you guys get the opportunity to work in the same studio, or was it like a combination of sending tracks back and forth to each other and which method of recording do you guys prefer?

KURUPT: He came to my house first and he played the album like man, I just put it all together like a melting pot like gumbo. We love the work there. That is why we gave Ras the flowers for what he did. Because I loved it. We hit him with some records that we put out before, but the people need to hear it all together as one so that's why we chose to keep them. We weren't tripping off making a hit, we were tripping off pure unadulterated Hip Hop culture - of Hip Hop about the mic.

I think you all got a dose of that on Verzuz. Where we had Jadakiss, which was pure on unadulterated Hip Hop at the highest level.

I am proud to see that's the page that the HRSMN are on. We did not have the biggest hit records in the world but when we grab the mic it’s over.

VALIDATED: That brings me to my next question, what are some of those ‘ooh and ahh’ moments that you guys can point out where you pushed each other to be even more lyrical and to be even better on the track? Are there any standout moments on a specific song that kind of stands out for you where that took place?

KURUPT: For me Gotti, it was ‘Impossible.’

CANIBUS: I am going to take it back to the first HRSMN round with a song called ‘Shaky Love.’ Kurupt was on that with me. We recorded I think it was maybe two or three songs that night at Mama Joe's out there off Lankershim, on the West Coast. Daz came up to the studio, he had a Ferrari put a mountain turtle on the table. I remember it was a little bit tight because everybody was writing to the beat. As we writing to the beat, naturally, everybody wants to see where the other one's going with the rhyme. We know its mic wreck, but we don't know how intense it is going. Priest jumped up and said, I'm ready. Priest stepped to the booth, when Priest went in the booth, he put his pad on the stand and he started to vocal the rhyme. He did a little run over for reference then he started vocally. Priest killed the verse and when he was done, he came out the booth. I was like, I'm ready. So, I went in after Priest and I'll never forget this… I went in and he left his pad on the stand. I went in and I put the headphones on and I remembered the rhyme he had just put down and as I was looking at the pad waiting for my pre roll reference to come up. I was noticing that what he wrote on the pad is not the rhyme that he said, and I thought that was crazy! He went in there and said another rhyme, not the one on the pad and that's kind of like what we were dealing with each other. We had so many rhymes. I don't know why he did that. I don't know why he went in there and spit something else because the one that he left on the pad was crazy.

We never knew what each other was going to say. We just knew there was going to be mic wreck, someone was going to yellow tape that beat. We were challenging each other and for me, I’ll never forget the experience. I'm glad that we were able to get together and do it again. This time, there was a lot more to it in terms of - it wasn't just mic wreck and do it. They got a couple of records on this new one, a couple of them sound like radio singles. I don't know if that even matters anymore. Because who cares about radio when you got satellite and all these apps and everything.

But as far as that pen game, it’s a treasure to rock with these guys. These guys, if you put them up, bar for bar - pound for pound, these are the nicest guys on the planet. A lot of times for me, I pretty much just wanted to be off the bench because remember the way my music career started out. I was trying to get off the bench and had a lot of difficulty doing that and so to get around a group of MCs where everybody has some time on the field, I really enjoyed that.

Shout out to our era, we really did the damn thing. We went hard in the paint. It wasn't about the bread because we were doing more with less bread. Guys still living like kings. Any town we went into, we had room and board. Whatever you needed it was available for you.

VALIDATED: Like I said, “Morticians” and “Impossible” are my favorite tracks off the project. What are each of your favorite tracks on the album and why? Why would it be your favorite? Which one would you guys choose?

KURUPT: Morticians is my favorite.

CANIBUS: Morticians is nasty.

KURUPT: The reason why I love it so much, I’ll be honest, the one who stole the cake and was the Jada of Morticians to me, is Priest. He came in and started cutting lyrics, killing everybody. On ‘Morticians,' he clearly shows why he is ‘Death.’

RAS KASS: I like that record too, because we did that record together. It’s one of the ones that we were all in the studio together for.

CANIBUS: Once Gotti (Kurupt) started talking about the mustard gas you have a problem.

RAS KASS: I knew that record was gonna be crazy when Kurupt did the hook. It is such a lyrical record, then he just went straight gang banging hood. Best record ever. I love it.

VALIDATED: There is no secret, elite MCs on top of your craft. That’s just a testament to the work you guys put in. My question is before when you guys were young, before you even became MCs, who was the artist that you guys listened to where you said, ‘Yo, I want to be dope like that.’ That made you want to be a lyricist, and an MC and not just a rapper?

RAS KASS: KRS-ONE for me and then Kurupt. He was the first nigga for me that was nailing where I was trying to go as an MC. Like the quintessential BG. I have told him many times, I heard “Niggas Don't Give a Fuck” and his verse was just what every LA kid culturally grows up doing. It's about growing up in a neighborhood and then joining the hood, like getting quoted in and the whole story.

CANIBUS: For me Kurupt was out early enough to be an inspiration. Everybody in our age group. He was out young. In high school, he was already out. He was the inspiration because of his age, getting busy on the mic. He must have been maybe 15. In terms of some of the elders, for me it would be, I would say Rakim, G Rap, Kane. And, uh, and you know, crazy enough, man like Cube. Cube was a big influence for me because he was so aggressive. For me, that was some of my favorites.

RASS KASS: Definitely Cube, definitely Naughty Treach.

CANIBUS: Treach was dope.

KURUPT: Ras Kass is a part of Ice Cube’s top 15.

RAS KASS: Wow. Ice Cube gave me his top 15. That made my day I’m honored and that's better than any fucking Grammy.

CANIBUS: There was a MC out there putting out ‘Tales From The Crack Side,’ K-Solo. Lo was nasty, back then he did ‘The Fugitive’ and he had that Carhart hoodie on before anybody in rap.

KURUPT: He also did ‘Spellbound.’

VALIDATED: Let me take you back again to when you guys were kids, what was your first memory of Hip Hop?

KURUPT: Well I come from Philly so, I come from the era of Spoonie Gee. Legends and Spoonie Gee, he was killing Micstro, “through rain through shine even a blizzard/ everybody knows that I'm the mic wizard. I'm the M.I.C.S.T.R.O./ I go by the name of the MC Micstro.” All that came from my cousin Skippy G. That's what I wanted to be like. That's what made me start wanting to be an MC from the door because I wanted to be like him and emulate him. It was Spoonie Gee and Micstro… those were the keys to me. That's way before, I think I was 9 years old. Those were the keys right there. Then later Hip Hop grew. Melle Mel was key, Grandmaster Flash with ‘Scorpio’ too.

CANIBUS: Cold Crush Brothers.

KURUPT: They showed me original West Coast Hip Hop which one of my Uncle’s, T-LA. King T, was a part of that right there. Back in the days him and Mix Master Spade… that is West Coast. I got educated to what was original to them. They were out during the time when I was in Philly, so that's what I heard. Then I got educated on original West Coast and the first thing that blew me away in the West Coast... that influenced me was Ice-Cube like Cani said, because I heard that original NWA album. Oh my god he's just so fly, so sharp and the main one who really blew me away from Texas, but the West Coast put him in the gang, ‘The DOC.’ We all went down after that because DOC taught me style. When I got with Death Row to actually be around DOC, he enhanced my style. DOC and Snoop changed my style, he brought me style with this aggressive lyricism that I got and taught me how to have fun on the mic and make songs. Because all I wanted to do was stab a nigga with this microphone and put it on the mantle.

We had fun when DOC made the beat. I was just like, oh yeah and Dogg said what you got Kurupt, and I said check this out. “So, I murdered MCs for a living, limit these to destroy planets” and Dogg said wait Kurupt you can't kill every MC on every record. Rhyme about things that people can relate to. What were you all doing when you were in the 60s? What was your fun times? You have to talk about things like that. Then Snoop said Nate (Nate Dogg) what you got?

“When I met you last night.”

So I said I'm gonna put a little Snoop Dogg style in my rap. “Well if Kurupt gave a fuck about a bitch I'd always be broke,” I said “man that’s corny.” Then what else can I say, then Dogg said “Kurupt you go.” That's when I laid one of my most famous bars. Most famous Kurupt thing that always lasted throughout my career. was if “I gave a fuck about a bitch I’d always be broke I’d never…” (holds imaginary mic out to the audience as they finish the rhyme)

RAS KASS: I see it every show. This is awesome. Crazy. That is rock and roll when you can just do that.

VALIDATED: What about you Canibus, what was your earliest memory of the culture?

CANIBUS: When you ask about culture and earliest memory pretty much for me, I didn't get a chance to get around MCs as often or groups basically like superstar celebrities because you remember back then it was probably only maybe at most in rap total, no more than two dozen artists and there was only maybe half a dozen that were like superstars. For me at the time, I would have been in Miami. You are talking about Uncle Luke, you have 2 Live Crew, you had a group that was trying Afro-Rican, with Derek and I don't even know if people know how closely Afro-Rican and 2 Live Crew was.

I had a record contract and my mom was like “oh hell now you're not singing this,” but I was 14, 15 years old at the time and Special Ed was out. I remember every day after school going over to the studio, working it out on them beats, it was a little bit different, it was Miami bass, they were using the 808 back then. Of course, we all know that in terms of pushing the boundaries and envelope of what can be said on record, even though it wasn't heavily lyrical, it was still Uncle Luke and 2 Live Crew were fighting for our rights to say what we wanted to say, it was crazy.

For me it was mainly that vibe and then going to conferences. We talked about ‘How Can I be Down,’ The ‘Jack the Rapper,’ those conferences were always fun, you had Howard University at the time and I remember seeing Biz sometimes, he would be walking with the crates of records, and I would step to Biz and be like, I have a demo. Biz would be like “Hold my records quick.” (Laughs)  Biz was rough on the brother. Rest in Peace to the King. Biz was the influence on me, just from being out here because he was in the DC Baltimore area and Biz was just always approachable. At the very least, he would inspire you to make that demo better. He was never frontin.’ He never fronted on the youngin’s. I'm realizing that those records… a lot of those singles that Biz had, they came off one album. It makes you remember how just in general; we were allowed to have four, five singles off one album. They weren’t trying to get rid of you after one single or two singles. Biz’s timing was always impeccable. I've always marveled at his timing. We are going to miss him.

When you say culture, earliest memories, Biz, How Can I be Down, Jack The Rapper, Andre Harrell when he was traveling from state to state it was like a throne. He was sitting on a throne like a king, and he was going from state to state like a talent search thing. That's what I remember.

I remember Lil Wayne because I had A+. We were all running with Lost Boyz. And Plus was the same age as Lil Weezy and Lil Weezy because I was doing the backup for A+ and holding it down when he was performing to Jack The Rapper and Lil Weezy was like, “can you hold me down like that?” I am like, yeah. Lil Wheezy was a baby that's what I think of when I think of culture. That's what we used to get together, there was no violence man.

KURUPT: Biz Markie, give flowers when flowers are due. Unfortunately, he didn’t get it when he was alive. But we gave it in our own ways like Snoop did “The Vapors” over, But tell me something Canibus; This is the greatest Biz Markie record. (Plays “Make The Music With Your Mouth Biz”)

CANIBUS: When I saw Biz in 2019 it was at like a Source Museum… we pulled up; it was like a little blue Tesla truck there. I got out with my family that I went with, and I just heard somebody say “Canibus sucks.“ so, I turned around and it was Biz. Chain swinging, face looked good. He looked good. This is 2019. 2021 I always say, we got to do better, over the last week or two, you see like certain artists, things happening like Gonzoe. I used to watch him on YouTube and stuff like that.

I know the era that he's from, I grew up watching him on the TV screen. We got to do better man, while it might not be our era out there yellow taping, we got to do better because mortality has been staring us in the face for maybe about two years real hard now. It looks like you're just letting the media eat it up and post the different milestones in people's lives. But we're more than just a blurb here and there on Wikipedia, these guys are legends. They did things that if it wasn't for them, Hip Hop would be chopped down to a quarter of what it is now. Everybody has them to thank for it, even artists that came and sold multi-millions of records and then took a trip to Mars. Even those artists - they still owe, some of these artists that are not here anymore, they owe them, we all do. Also, I am going to say this to shut up about it. When you say culture and earliest memories. I'm gonna just keep it all the way above and say, mixtapes. Mixtapes are so important and DJ Doo Wop was a favorite of mine. Everybody knows like the Ron G, the S & S, Clue, Kayslay you got these guys.

Wop was special to me because Wop would take the beats that was just getting ready to come out and he would flip “Benjamins,” so he would flip like some Brand Nubian beats, he would take the new tracks, even what The Lox was doing, remember we were all on that mixtape circuit at that time and Doo Wop and The Bounce Squad and they would flip those records in their own way. Instead of just playing a song, they would tear the beat up first then played the song.

I want to send a shout out to Doo Wop for that because that was one of my earliest memories of creativity in the culture.

VALIDATED: No doubt. What about you Ras?

RAS KASS: I was pretty young. I felt like I might have been seven or eight. I went to the Fresh Fast in Long Beach and my sister took me, she didn't want to… my older sister. So, I was just tagging along, and it was Whodini and Run- DMC and it was ill because the stages were set all the way to the left and then all the way to the right. People would have to walk, like you'd run over to Whodini and then the whole crowd would have to run back, it seemed crazy. I was just a kid.

KURUPT: Then what happened Ras?

RAS KASS: Then them niggas tore it up, gang banging! I was a kid, they shooting, killing, throwing niggas off of shit Was it the 60s? I don't know who started it. I was like, rap is amazing, and gang banging is real. People were being thrown off the rails. I'm like, this is real, I'm really in California. This is how it goes down. It's awesome. I just remember really not being too young to be afraid. I was just like, oh, this is what they do, and I watched the fight like I was watching the concert. I'll never forget it. It got real tangible, like rap is real. The experience was very tangible, and I will never forget that.

CANIBUS: I really want to say thank you to the guys for putting a bow tie on the record. It really was a lot unfinished, the saga was unfinished, there was no closure to it. To sit back and look at the videos that were made, just how it was put together from start to finish and the excerpts that were put in there I did appreciate sitting there and listening to it myself. One thing I will say, and this is no fault of our own, I don't get much time to think about it, but when I did sit down and go ahead and reflect on it, I felt like damn, we missed out on that early era. Like to come out in that earlier era when that was what rap was about. We missed that. I'm glad what happened, everything happens for a reason. I'm not sitting up here, trying to make something out of it. I'm just saying that it really was just like when Wu-Tang came out, they came out just at the right time. When Wu came out, it was just at the right time. When the HRSMN came out, just because it's certain, just the way that the label was pushing things they were trying to get away from just the lyricism that forced the listener to take them on a journey. We forced people to go pick up a book or go figure out what we talking about. We forced them to visualize what we were writing and saying.

It seemed like the game was just running in a direction where they wanted people to understand what they're saying like they are all the A&R’s., They wanted you to speak in a language and speak so right, and vocal in such a way that everybody understands what you're saying. We were going in the opposite direction, because that was opening more parts of the mind. We missed that window. That window was the greatest window in Hip Hop because that was a time when, I know people don't really remember these guys and stuff like that.

But back then, you had the Cella Dwellas. You had like the Black Moon who was doing it. Redman was always doing that. Redman was forcing you to listen. You had to go on a journey with him. If you didn’t go on his journey. You wouldn't understand what he was talking about. You had to get into it to understand it, but in doing so, it opened your mind. This happened to anybody that will go out there and buy the tape. Sometimes people would say okay, the cup is half full. Why don't y'all just do it now? Can't do it now. Can't do it now. I want to say thank you to the team for putting a bow tie on that record and putting it out. It made some noise and at least people got something that they can hold in their hands. The artwork is nuts. I want to send a shout out to the man that did the artwork.

RAS KASS: Gifted Glitch.

CANIBUS: Shout out to Glitch.

VALIDATED: I want to take you both back just a little bit. Canibus first, you know, the iconic, legendary freestyle in 1997 freestyle that you did with DMX, Big Pun, Mic Geronimo, Mos Def and John Forte. When you see that freestyle or when someone brings it up. What do you recall about that time in your career? And rhyming with guys like Pun and DMX that are no longer here and how Hip Hop was then as opposed to how it is now?

CANIBUS: My favorite part of that was when X said “hmm ahhh no, hope God’s with him” he came out of nowhere. When we went up there. I knew that X was going to be there. But I didn't know Nore was going to be there. The whole story about Pun trying to get upstairs. People only know that because I was the one that told that. I knew that Pun was downstairs because when I came downstairs, he was downstairs in the car, Fat Joe was with him. Pun was in the passenger seat. He was like, they wouldn't let me upstairs, He was mad. Because of what I just came out of, I was careful to how I was speaking to him because in my mind, I was like, I hope this nigga don't want to start no Cipher out in here in the street like on Hudson Street..

I was like, yo word, y'all just let them go ahead and vent. But from X, I remember when we were in there, I started it on my feet. I wasn't sitting down and, maybe I was sitting down for when we were talking on the mic. But when the beat came on, I stood up and I got to it on my feet. X was sitting for a while and once you started seeing maybe we got like 15 minutes in and X started to realize I'm with Def Jam, X started to go berzerk. He stood up; he didn’t want to sit down anymore more. I don't know if Nore ever stood up. Everybody has a love for Nore, but Nore knew it was mainly DMX and Canibus that year.

I think we had the biggest publishing deals that year in 1998, I think he was probably the most sought after that year. I'm only saying this because this is what I remember. I am not saying it because I'm trying to throw my name in it like that. As a matter of fact, I feel like, X had more history to me, X had been Rhyming for longer. X definitely had more history. I heard stories about him when his name was Father Time. This is what I heard… The LOX used to rhyme under him, he put The LOX on and they kind of proved their pedigree, even up to recently, even though they were always one of my favorites. You could go through my rhymes and see me mentioning their names, here and there throughout the years. So, it's not nothing brand new.

I remembered when LOX first got signed, it was around the same time when I got signed, and I remembered when Mase got signed and I remember, we were downtown, somewhere in Manhattan and they all had these matching triple fat gooses on, they were beige. And we were out there, and they were all sitting, linked up, outside and I had rolled up with the Lost Boyz at the time and somebody was like, let's throw a beat on and I remembered we were all looking at each other because they had just gotten their deal and I just got mine and we knew that it would be better off, like nobody was speaking on it. Even though somebody would say, y'all need to show me something now. We all had to do it. We were all showing each other the respect like look, I know y'all niggas get busy, but I am not gonna let y'all wash me out here like this. I just got my deal. We gave ourselves that look and left it alone.

I have always loved them niggas for that because that was me knowing that they are with me because they didn't move. I didn't move either, we were just standing there. We looked at each other, we just looked away. That was the same energy with X. None of us wanted to do face off in a way that it wasn't just a lyrical thing. Me and X made it lyrical that night. We turned it from something that always goes left. We turned it into something like old school where it was just a sight and that's what it ended up being. Now Flex being a nigga that don’t rhyme, and Flex wants all the ratings and all the energy, Flex don't really care where it goes. Most of the time, the fans, the people that are listening from the outside, they never really care where it goes. They just want to see all out-blood fest.

I mean, it doesn’t matter. Nobody's gonna care anymore anyway, but at the time, us MC’s we didn't mind the cipher in the building. You get back to your pen work later. You would be like, I learned from that. I learned from Priest. When Priest did “Heavy Mental” the song had never been out before. It took me to another level as to what could be done with a rhyme. When he did “Heavy Mental” acapella. It was like reading, a novel. That's how we used to be with each other. Now, I see battle rap go to a thing with these guys get at each other where it's like they don't even understand. Look, man, one day you are going to get old, you're gonna be old too and all y'all gonna be working with is what y'all built together. Because whatever y'all build separately, you're going to lose it separately. Then when you lose it separately is no way to get it back. Not because you don't have the skill or the ability, but because as you age, you just don't have the stamina, the endurance anymore. This is all natural, this is not something that.. nobody's defying that.

I just wish our brothers would kind of work together more. Than tearing each other down for real, what is wrong with doing WWF, WWE style where you go out there and make a good show for the people. Even this interview right now, to me, It's a closed-door interview. I don't know how far it's gonna go. But I feel like it's a closed door interview and I'm saying, we should make it where it's like a WWE, WWF thing where these guys put on a great show for the people, for the public because we're entertainers but when it's over, we all get bread, we break bread, we're able to have barbecues, we're able to hang out with each other, we're able to build something together because we all have the resources to do it.

But when you really go for the bait and start to hate your brother who's doing the same thing you do and pretty much, we all are carrying the same flag, we all under the same banner, different clicks, different crews, different regions we all got the same flag and that flag is Hip Hop, it’s Rap. It's the same flag. We built this, we know what to do with it, we made money off it without the investment or the capital from these major labels. We still made money, we made ends meet, it's a tragedy that we’re not really building nothing; and quiet is kept, people don't really know. But as we look at it, it is over with now. So even if people want to get together after this closed-door discussion and say, well, yo, we go do this now, the metaverse is here. The metaverse is here, not the universe. The Metaverse, it's here, you look it up. That's where everything's going, and people got to get with it. When I say people, I'm talking about like, every color, every nationality, every origin wherever you from but if you rep that Hip Hop flag and that rhythm and poetry you got that gene, then yo the metaverse is where everything is going. If you go out there you look. It hasn’t really many avenues for that right now. Y’all figure it out. I wished y’all would have got together. and just like how we put a bow tie on this record. It took all this time, just like how this bow tie got put on this record. That's where the metaverse is going. By the time it gets there, you just gonna wake up one day, you're gonna be living in that world, it's not gonna be your own. It's sad, because you tell these niggas this and they reject it, they are in denial about it.

I started the first album out, dialing up to the internet. I don't think anybody else even was thinking about how important the internet was going to be. The only reason I was able to do that is because I had the edge. I was working for AT&T and the FCC at the time I had a day job with them. It was a temp agency then I got hired on permanently. I was getting on the internet in order to make service field tickets for the technicians that were out in the field. I had an edge; I knew what the internet was about early. So, when I tried to put it in my music, if you listen to that first album, and you listen to the first interview, Clef (Wyclef) didn't even really know what I was doing. But he hopped with it.

What are you doing, are you trying to hack into the NSA, this is federal, what are you doing? That was in 98 and we were brothers doing that. Now it's a regular thing. Everybody get on, the first thing they want to do is log on today to an online app or what have you. It's just a shame. Nobody came to me after that, and said, you had some real bright ideas. What new bright ideas you got in 2021? Nobody wants to know. Great. We're gonna slow ride this to the end just like everybody else got to do. And we're going to watch all our greats, reach the peak, decline, we're going to do the same and we're just going to go through the same thing, everybody wants to be dummies. Then we are going to be dummies and we just going to go through it all over again.

There is no way out for us. I can honestly say, with no regrets that I gave it my best shot. I did everything that I could, why they rejected it to the point where they didn't see it until it was way late and then don't even have the foresight to say, what bright ideas you got now? What about my team? Like we all got bright ideas? People don't want to jump on board something, until it's already owned already. Until it's owned, I say owned by somebody else. I don’t want to start no argument with nobody about nothing. It's just amazing to me, we got all the talent. We got all the raw ability. It all comes from us.

All of it, the breakdancing, all the elements, the graffiti. The turntablist. Look at all our legends, so many of them. They come, they go, no union, no benefits, no medical and I look at this. This made billions, they made enough to take care of everybody. I remember a time when everybody had jobs just by being involved with the music. You had the craft services, the clothes designers, you had the makeup gals, you had the dudes who used to run the DATs from studio to studio like the promo. Marketing and promotion, the street team. They were riding around in Expeditions like the Eddie Bauer, everybody had a job. Now look at you. You all lease everything out to third parties. Like I said, I'm not saying this to make y'all feel a way. What I'm saying is if that's what you want, you got what you wanted. So don't be upset at our team, our era for not doing everything, we did everything we could. We tried every avenue we even tried to make radio records for y'all. (Laughs)

“16 bars, I’m gonna put shorty on the hook. She gonna sing the chorus and repeat this part”. We did it all. We tried everything. People just couldn’t see it and now slowly it got taken away. It's been taken away and it's going into metaverse now and y'all is late. We got bright ideas. It’s all what y'all want to do.

VALIDATED: Ras Kass, the Verzuz battle, The Lox, Dipset we know that your song “Home Sweet Home” was the first song, so when Jadakiss used that beat for, “We Gon’ Make It” a lot of people may not know that was your beat first. What do you remember about that point in your career? And let's set the record straight on how that beat ended up with the Lox after it was yours to begin with.

RAS KASS: Long story short, Alchemist sold the beat twice. I paid him and he's paid in full. We have the receipts, it wasn't me. My label had a budget, so we had the cashed check, we had the contract signed. I guess Al ran out of beats, he probably got an opportunity to catch up with Jada and he played beats and nothing stuck. He went into his breaking glass and sold the beat twice. I'd already put the song on Kayslay’s mixtape. I performed the song already. We were already manufacturing the vinyl. So that was the holdup. It takes 90 days to make vinyl. We were already manufacturing, that was going to be the street single.

First, my A&R at the time, at Capitol Priority Records, A&R they all hung out together. Basically, the Ruff Ryders A&R it was like a Friday and apparently, they came up to the office and said Jada’s album is coming, we have this hot record. He played the record. He's like, we bought that record. We were supposed to iron all that out Monday, like what Al did, Saturday I'm got call for my nigga in New York like yo, Flex is playing your record with Jadakiss on it. I get it, business is business. We were supposed to iron it out with our legal teams and the company Monday but they went and took it straight to flex Saturday. That was important for him, all fair in love and war. To this day, Flex he's always been a stand up dude. Like, once he found out he's like, Dude, I owe you a spike, because nothing changed by Monday and the song was a hit. I knew it wasn't Jada’s fault. He didn't know, I never blamed him and to his credit Alchemist tried to make it right. But initially, he denied it and lied.

Just to be very honest, I'm a fan of The Lox, I am a fan of Alchemist. I am not a fan of when people do bad business with me, but The Lox didn't do bad business with me. Jada didn't do anything. What, execs at Ruff Ryders did wasn't cool, what Alchemist did wasn’t cool period. But I have lawyers. I was signed to a major label; I could have easily done a cease and desist. He was shipping gold. That would have fucked his whole project up. That's a million dollars that you got to flush, like he can’t erase the song off the vinyl or CDs, cassettes, vinyl. Also, real human things all I ever wanted was the credit for that. That I did the right thing because I'm a fan and I felt like it wasn’t Jada’s fault. They asked me, send them a cease-and-desist letter and wash his whole project. I didn’t want to do that.  I'm a fan first and I felt like, what would I want somebody to do if the shoe was on the other foot. I've always felt like I would like my credit for, instead of being the footnote, watching Alchemist posts, “I love you so much, bro.'' to Jadakiss and that shit is kinda groupied out to me. I don't appreciate this. Love me too my nigga. I really looked out and tried to do the righteous thing. Then you start feeling like people taking your kindness for weakness. That's that, again people's talents and I felt like I did the right thing. Although, Al lied about it and then try to make me the bum nigga, like I didn't pay you. I paid you double what his rate was back then.  Give credit where credit is due, that's the truth. That's the story. No more no less.

VALIDATED: I have a couple more questions. I'm gonna let you guys go. The next one is all of you guys have had major label deals at one point in your career. And you've been independent, which do you like better and why?

RAS KASS: I like being independent. Because it forces me to learn things that I didn't want to learn but it makes me a better business. I am my own business but of course, utilizing other people's money is great. (Laughter)

CANIBUS: I thought you were going to mess it up Ras, you said what it is. I would say, who doesn’t love the majors. But the whole thing is the majors, they didn’t deal with us the way they dealt with other artists, and other genres. They dealt with them like we see where you were going with it, like rain man style, we see where you're going with it, but you know what, we can do something with this, we're gonna go ahead and push it, we're gonna continue with it. We were speaking on things that we had more time to bring the listener into our world, it would have turned into a situation where, maybe you would have had, half a dozen or a dozen Pac’s in different vibes, though. Ras was in his own vibes, Kurupt was in his own vibe, I was in my own vibe, Priest was in his own vibe, but it would have really turned into something where it was cult followings that were backed by a major that turned into things where, when we have bright ideas, we would have had the resources to implement them without needing anyone's approval.

Because remember, we still weren't trying to start revolutions, we were just making music and we were forcing people to think. Where's the crime in that?  I mean, this is a first world country. Despite what was going on, and how things are, there is a constitution, we did earn the right to, to be able to say we read, and we write. We earned the right to write our poetry, have our thoughts, we earned this right to express ourselves. We pay our taxes, it's not something like we were committing crimes. We were just making art. You have the NFT market, suddenly, all these great collectibles and art. But then when it comes to our music.  Rap music and NFT it's like, somebody just want to sell a chain, or somebody want to, I'm not mad at nobody for what they're doing, but what I'm saying is, it's not really reflecting the art of what we did create. You can't just make a painting and sell out as a NFT and say that's rap. Rap has a whole lot more to do with it than that. There are billions of dollars in that NFT market right now. I'm sorry to keep talking all this nerd shit to folks, but the thing about it is we came to them with these kinds of ideas then for what it was at that time, and they pushed it to the background.

VALIDATED: Let me cut you off for a second. Do you think that that has something to do with the fact that Hip Hop was still new? And they didn't know if the genre of music was even going to last? Or do you think it was just the fact that they were like, these kids don't know what they talking about?

CANIBUS: Valid question, but because of the energy that was involved, they knew it was so much energy. Do you remember what the tours was like back then? Tours was like people used to come; they used to cry. We weren't Michael Jackson, but there were times when I was on stage that I felt like Mike. They are crying, they are passing out. I remember one time I did an interview with Charlie Rose or was it Bill Maher? I can't remember but he straight up sonned me. He really tried to play me… not Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose was cool. It was Bill Maher, it was him. Bill Maher, he was trying to play me, and I remember some questions. I was young and I was stupid. He said something and I said yeah, “but age was a biological weapon of warfare created.” (Laughs)  He shut me down. Now I didn't know that this is TV it is going everywhere. I was saying what I knew at the time, I did research on this, I looked this up, I paid attention and this doctor from Cameroon, and African says this, and so forth, so on.

I knew what I was standing on, but he shut it right down. After that, I knew that things were a little bit different. Now, you got certain things going on and what are people talking about? They say this is created in the lab. This was used to do this, so forth and so on. But see, we got a chance to go through the drills. So, none of this is surprising to us now and as a matter of fact, we are sick of it. We pretty much wanting to get it over with. I don't know if you see the irony in the HRSMN album, but we're talking about things that are so end of the worldish. We've been there for so long because the record was done so long ago that we're so over it. We kind of want everybody to get dragged off to the fun camps. You want to be all the way honest, there is a side of us we're so over it, that we feel we're not elite, but we feel a little bit like the elite, when we look at people like they're dummies, and they don't want to be free. They want to be owned; they want to be shackled. They want to be fed poison.

I just look at that and to me it’s a gordian knot.. Because we're doing this interview, we're gonna be on a magazine cover, it’s great. Is it swaying in any way, what our fate is? If the answer is no, then at this point, you can understand why we are all so cynical about anything being real or mattering anymore and it isn’t just us. I was really enthused to see The LOX come off like that.

VALIDATED: No question. Canibus, let me just end this off, man. The final question that I have is, what does Hip Hop mean to you, from the time that you got into it, to everything that you've been through in your career and to where you are right now. What does Hip Hop mean to you?

CANIBUS: For me Hip Hop was a language. The language that I say probably came from before our time, like maybe from my ancestors. Like just Hip Hop… it was a language that came from my ancestors, that sometimes we feel we get the energy from, the genetic memory, and then we put it down in our music and our poetry, and that's the past, of course. The future is Hip Hop in this Metaverse, that's what it is, to me. A language that became a lifestyle on the surface. It became all material things to people. Hip Hop became a material thing, because all those clothing brands. You go into mall now, some of those clothing brands that are still on the racks. We broke those brands. We're responsible for a lot of the way the culture was, the lucrative side of what the culture was able to do. I'm not looking for any credit from it, who cares anyway. But as far as what Hip Hop means, to me in the future, it is the metaverse, it's everything. It's everything that all these youngins are doing right now. What they are going through right now, we didn't go through that when we were coming up. They're going through a whole other kind of obstacle course.

But they're going to figure it out and the metaverse is part of that. I would like to see it turn out to be something just for a little something to switch up the trajectory a little bit so that maybe we can get to be owners in this. Maybe we can get to choose what we want to do with it and how we want to promote ourselves and how we want to be seen and not always be the object of someone else's imagination. I am looking forward to that either happening or not like I've told you. Hip Hop is all things to lyricists for my era. We all sacrificed so much, we put so much energy into it. We could have built a stone castle with our bare hands individually, each one of us with all the energy we put into it.  I love y'all man. Thanks for the interview, thanks for the time.

VALIDATED: I know you don’t do a lot of interviews, so I really appreciate you coming through and blessing me with this one. I really appreciate it bro.

CANIBUS: To the fullest family. The rest of the HRSMN rolled out?

VALIDATED: Yes, they all rolled out.

CANIBUS: They left me. You know that is some superstar thing from the 90s. Like I am going to be the first one to leave out the club. To make everything look exclusive. The irony of it is, I am the one that never shows up.

VALIDATED: Well, I thank you for showing up today. This is a precious jewel. I thank you for giving out all the energy that you gave out. I appreciate you bro.

CANIBUS: To the fullest. Love it.