 Juicy J | Big Boi  |
I thought you could do music ’til the day you die. It ain’t nothing in the paperwork that say you gotta retire at 65. MJG
8Ball and MJG have seen it all. Born and raised in Memphis’ historic Orange Mound neighborhood, the duo followed fellow Memphian Tony Draper to Houston in the early ’90s to record their classic debut, Comin’ Out Hard for Draper’s upstart Suave House Records. Released in 1993, Comin’ Out Hard became an instant classic, a tight, crisp collection of ruthlessly bare tracks that simultaneously set the tone for dark sound of Memphis rap records to come, established Suave House as an independent record label to be reckoned with, and set the stage for so much Southern gangsta rap to come.
In the years that followed, 8Ball and MJG refined their gangsta pimp personas, beating the sophomore slump with the more lushly constructed On the Outside Looking In (Suave House/Universal, 1994), and delivering again with the stellar On Top of the World (Suave House/Universal, 1995). 8Ball’s ambitious solo album, Lost (Suave House/Universal, 1998), a triple LP in the vein of The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death (Bad Boy/Arista, 1997), firmly established him on the national scene as an MC of note, but shortly after the release of the group’s mature fourth album, In Our Lifetime, Vol. 1 (Suave House/Universal, 1999), things soured with Draper and Suave House. Despite stints with Bad Boy and sporadic hits here in there (“Pimp Hard”), the arc of the group’s career has yet to fully recover.
Today, Premro “8Ball” Smith and Marlon Jermaine Goodwin, aka MJG, are some two years removed from an arrangement with Diddy’s Bad Boy Records that never quite panned out, hard at work on developing new acts for their respective labels, 8 Ways Ent. and MJG Muzik, and doing what they do best: recording as much music as possible and swinging through your town to turn out a club near you just like true pimps should.
VIBE: You guys are doing the independent thing currently, correct?
8Ball: Yeah, you know we doin’ the independent thing but we getting a little help from the Grand Hustle family, [Grand Hustle CEO] Jason Geter ’n them over there kind of extended their hand to us so you know, it’s independent with a little major help, if that’s what you can call it.
Are you on Atlantic? Or is it more of a management deal with Grand Hustle?
8Ball: It’s actually more of a joint venture type deal. We not probably going through Atlantic for distribution, we’ll probably go through somebody else, but it’s more of a joint venture man, you know. We givin’ them a piece of 8Ball and MJG to kind of help us and steer us in the right direction, you know.
Sure. So how long has that been going on? And I know you guys have done a lot of work with them over the years, just in terms of some sort of official agreement?
8Ball: Last year, I think.
MJG: Um yeah…a year, about a year.
And the relationship seems to be working out pretty well? You guys are happy with it?
MJG: Yeah, so far.
8Ball: Yeah, so far everything’s been perfect, you know. I mean not perfect, ’cause ain’t nothing perfect, but they been real 100 with us, we been 100 with them. We recorded a lot of records and everything is going smooth so far.
Cool. Good to hear after the Bad Boy situation. Can you talk a little bit about what happened there?
8Ball: Yeah, I mean with the Bad Boy situation, man, I think it just kind of ran its course with us, man. I think there really wasn’t no more that could happen for us [over there] or whatever. I think everybody just kind of came to a decision that it would be best if we all just kinda be on our own and just move, you know, that was the best thing for everybody.
Right. With that relationship dissolving a couple of years ago, how’s it been since? You guys are obviously still making music and touring…
8Ball: Yup. I mean, to me, it’s basically the same, man, you know. We both have our own independent labels that we been trying to work stuff through, and I mean, it’s basically the same with us. Ain’t nothing really changed, you know what I mean? It’s still kind of the same; you know, the shows don’t stop, the recordings don’t stop. I don’t know; it’s basically the same.
Are you both living in Memphis now? Or where are you guys based out of?
MJG: Yup, out of Memphis.
Talking to you guys, it’s almost impossible not to talk about Memphis and how despite such a rich musical history, the city’s scene has never taken off like say a Houston or an Atlanta, or even a New Orleans or Miami. Can you speak on that a bit? At this point, do you just feel like that time is never gonna come? It’s just what it is?
MJG: Yeah, it is just what it is.
8Ball: [But] Sayin’ that it never had it, don’t mean that it never will you know.
MJG: It’s just that right now most of the opportunities for Memphis artists is outside of Memphis. Most of the opportunities is like all those places that you just named. You know, we haven’t had that time like that yet, and maybe when we do, other people will have to come here you know, to catch a piece of the fame. As of right now we haven’t had that type of movement out here yet. For Memphis artists, I guess there’s like a Catch 22 you know. For the same reasons that we have to go outside of the city is really the same reasons we can’t never get shine all the way [for our city]. It’s the same like that for a lot of southern artists, because like a lot of southern artists [are] not actually from the cities that they known for coming from because there’s a lot of other smaller towns that surround the known cities in the south.
Sure.
8Ball: And you know you live maybe 15 miles or maybe 30 or 40, 50 miles, or maybe 100 miles from the main city.
MJG: And, you know, when you had to go to that city in order to get your break, that’s why everybody look at it like that’s where you from. You know, so really you doing it for you, it really didn’t do nothing for your city though. At the same time, you can’t get the same type of opportunity to no smaller towns, but a lot of times that’s where all the talent comes from. But you know over the last few decades, what’s everybody’s dream? If I can make it to L.A .or if I can make it to N.Y., you know, I can make it anywhere.
How many people you know went out to Hollywood with nothing but a dream? They say the opportunity wasn’t in they spot so I went to Hollywood, and that’s where I found my dream, and that’s where I been living for the last 15 or 20 years. And you know, in a lot of professions, people don’t get the pressure of where they from or like I have to put my town out there. Like I’m from Greensville, N.C., so I gotta put it on all my business cards. It’s just one of those things, I guess that come along with hip-hop culture.
Of course you should be proud of where you’re from, you should love it, that should be a given just anyway, without you having to brag about it, or anybody have to ask about it. But, you know, it’s just in hip hop it’s like if you don’t put your whole city on, the same time that you on, it’s like…I dunno.
8Ball: Man I’m telling you, the basic—the bottom line is, maybe Memphis ain’t never had shine like you know like the Atlanta run, and the Houston run, and the Miami run, but it’s not saying that it will never be, those are way bigger cities than Memphis, for one, you know what I mean, and even though Memphis has a long history in music…. You gotta think about Memphis at one time was a music city, but you know these places like Atlanta and New York, and L.A., and Miami, These are entertainment cities, not just music cities. These cities have other entities other than just hip hop blowing their cities up, and all of that just kind of goes into it. The foundation of where the music comes from, and the things that come into that city, and where the people come from, and the things that people bring to that city, and I think that Memphis…there’s a lot of different people here, man, but it’s still not as big as Houston and Atlanta, you know what I mean.
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