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It’s true, though. And I think one of the reasons you guys are able to keep coming back is because whether the mainstream or the majors or there or not, you guys keep making 8Ball and MJG music. No matter what.
8Ball: That shit is like the cowboy shit and the riding the bike shit. Like the best motherfucker, [like] Tony Hawk, ain’t got no front teeth, you know what I’m saying? ’Cause he kept falling, but he kept getting back on that motherfucker, you know? And that’s just the thing right there. We done tried all kinds of stuff, man, and just like in the streets, the only way you goin’ learn anything is to live it and try it. You know you just gotta jump in before you know if the water warm or cold you know, and that’s been our philosophy.
And it don’t matter if it’s a booty record, a dance record, or a strip club record; whatever it is, you goin’ know it’s 8Ball and MJG. It might not be the kind of record you expected from us, or that you thought we would have done, but you goin’ know it’s 8Ball and MJG, that’s fa’ sho.
MJG: And another thing, too. I know this kinda ain’t on the subject, exactly, but I just wanna touch on it, too. For a lot of cats who maybe came along in our era or maybe around our age, or maybe moved on to a different place in they life or doing different things or maybe don’t wanna rap no more or whatever, you know, that’s cool, and that’s they decision, and I respect it, and I don’t hate on them. And I think it just would be the same you know the other way around.
You know everybody can’t be exactly the same, but it don’t make you a bad person if you wanted to continue to make music. I thought you could do music ’til the day you die. I didn’t know you had a retirement time on it or whatever. I thought that was one of the luxuries of playing instruments and doing music—you can go longer than an average job. It ain’t nothing in the paperwork that say you gotta retire at 65 and all that. You know so, I think that there’s a lot of cats that moved on, or that put the mic down, or if they chose another life now maybe after they done with rap forever or maybe it was in they game plan to rap for a certain number of years and then stop. I don’t think they need to hate or nothing on the other cats who still doing it.
Sure.
MJG: You know ’cause if you don’t want to do it for whatever reason, I understand that and I respect that. It don’t really change who you are. If a grown man wanna continue doing it, it shouldn’t change who he is neither, or you know that’s just what we chose to do. And I think that the respect should be the same.
Right.
8Ball: And I don’t know if you read any kind of rock stuff but what’s the name of that band, man, like it’s a rock band and they just did like a life story on them. They should have blew up but they never blew up…?
Oh, that movie, right? I think it was Anvil. The movie was Anvil.
8Ball: Anvil, yeah, yeah. Our shit’s goin’ be like that. You know, ’cause as long as, like MJ said, as long as we don’t disrespect nobody man you know like what you wanna do is what you wanna do, and what we choose to do is what we choose to do, and people should respect that, man. I mean, we respect what other people choose to do.
MJG: Right. If we are booked to do a club or a show or whatever, you know our records might not sell, but just… I dunno, man, we just love doing what we do, and ain’t no time limit to what you want to do.
Sure. And to that end, what is it that keeps drawing you back to the music?
MJG:Well, you know, why not? Why stop? What would be the reason to just up and just stop?
What do you still enjoy about rapping?
MJG: Man, everything. Everything, man. The creative process, just even the thought of knowing I can rap, you know…
8Ball: All parts of it, though, man. You gotta think about when we still do clubs, man, with 2,000 or 3,000 people, man…. We just did Phillips Arena Sunday night with T.I.’s farewell show, and you know, man, it’s still a rush when all these people sing your music. That’s a definite rush. And just being in the studio creating music, man. And after you create this stuff, after you create these songs, these are thoughts that come from your head and you see people singing this stuff and they relating to it, that’s what we get from it; just the basic love of it.
The money is good when you are a hard worker. When you work hard in this business you goin’ get out of it what you want to. That’s a given, that’s a definite. Sure we don’t freestyle every time we asked, but that ain’t what we started off doing. Anybody on our level started off freestylin’ and beat boxing right, but a nigga ain’t goin’ ask Diddy to beat box for him and shit on a call and shit, you know, “Diddy go’n and beat box for us, dawg!”
Me, personally, I love this shit, but I love the creating part. I love to get in the studio like a singer or a songwriter, you know what I mean? Them the parts that we love, that I know I love, just the songwriting, the creation process, [and] the reception from the fans, man. When you do a show in front of a thousand people that are fans of what you do. Not just fans of the genre or fans of what’s hot now, but they love what you do.
I’ve never had the experience myself, but I can imagine exactly why it would be a draw.
8Ball: I mean it’s just like man, whatever you get a rush, just imagine that, man. You know what do you love to do that just takes precedence over everything, you know what I mean? Like you cancel all things to just do this, then you could imagine how we feel about what we do and what we love.
What do you think is the key to your longevity, especially as a group? I mean, you never hear about 8Ball and MJG are gonna break up or whatever. What keeps you guys together?
8Ball: You know honestly, man, it’s just about understanding and respecting each other. That’s the whole key right there. Like you know me and MJ get mad at each other and argue just like everybody else do but we friends for real, you know. I guess just the love for what we doing man, that just kind of keep us, you know, I don’t know man. When you living real life and you see things, and live things, there’s always something…like there’s always been something that [in] me and MJ’s life that will bring you back to earth. No matter how swole your head getting, no matter how swole your pocket is getting, something always happen in our life that just always bring us back to life and let us know that we only human. Like all of this, anything can be gone tomorrow. You know we just truly got a real brothers’ friendship. Like the friendship come first man, we know that’s solid, and all of that go into our music.
We describe it like we the twins, man. We the same age. We just born a couple of months apart and what we think come out differently in our raps but we damn near think just alike. Like we write songs and it’s some committed shit there. It just happens. And that’s just my opinion of why we last so long, and what we do, and why we ain’t never broke up or nothing. We done been through all this same shit the other niggas done been through but, I don’t know man, maybe the outcome’s just different, you know.
Right. It’s impressive. It’s an impressive testament to your ability to work together and your friendship I think. One of the things too is even hearing you say that, and maybe it’s because of the Memphis connection or whatever, but I feel like you guys really have Blues roots to a certain degree. I always think about the record “Nobody But Me” on the In Our Lifetime Volume 1, and the Cee-Lo record, also on that album which also seemed so honest and Blues based, on a certain degree. Would you agree with that or am I just reading into a couple records for no reason?
MJG: Them were some good, good records, I agree.
’Cause when you look at rap music, you guys stand out as this Blues version of rap music. If I was telling somebody about you guys, like if you wanna know something about southern rap music here’s 8Ball and MJG. You know this is their story, but what they’ve really kind of refined themselves into is you know it’s Blues based rap.
8Ball: Yup.
MJG: You know that’s just that soul right there. Like you say, I guess that’s like the sound that comes out. That’s the music like…
8Ball: Those songs that you mentioned, like that’s the music that like our real fans love, man. They love all the singles like “Pimp Hard” and the “Don’t Want None of that Drama.” Like they love all of that shit, too, but our real fans like those be “Friend or Foes” and “On Top Of The World” and they like that kind of stuff. Man, you know, that’s just really us. I don’t know like that’s just what we come from. Where we come from, it’s soul music, and like people spillin’ they guts out on the music, you know what I’m sayin’.
MJG: Yup. The Blues and cafés…
8Ball: Yeah, we come from that so why wouldn’t our music. Everybody done picked that up, you know, like the real fans done picked that up. We come from the Blues, soul music, Al Green and stuff so why wouldn’t our music feel like that? You know that’s what sets us apart from other Memphis rappers. Not even just rappers from around the world or whatever but other Memphis rappers, too.
What’s your favorite thing about the job, about being a professional rapper? What’s kept you guys going for this long?
8Ball: I don’t know…being our own boss. That’s one of the big things; you work for you. [laughs] That’s an excellent thing right there, you don’t have to punch no clock, you know what I mean. You do everything on your schedule.
MJG: And you are the machine. You are the product, you know.
What’s the worst thing?
MJG: Just the assumptions.
In what way?
8Ball: I’d say business. Business politics are the worst things to me. Like radio and stuff like that. That’s the worst thing in the world.
Right. MJ you mentioned the assumptions. What did you mean?
MJG: You know, people thinking your life is like the songs 24/7, or maybe like the videos, or you flying to the grocery store in a private jet…
If that’s what’s up, y’all gotta let me know when you’re going shopping… Who would you say is some of your rap legends? Who are your five legendary rappers of all time?
MJG: Um, this may not be five, but I’ll just name some: Run-DMC, of course. KRS-One, Rakim, NWA, Public Enemy, Eazy-E, Kool G Rap, Getto Boys, UGK…
8Ball: You gotta think about, without all of those people you just named, it wouldn’t be no 8Ball and MJG without none of them…. But then you gotta look at there’s some phenomenal motherfuckers…like for me, Eminem, is like rapping plain old off the head and then his ideas and shit…. He’s definitely one of the cats at the top of the list; just his thought process. He still, off the top of the head, like dude can still rap about a cup on the table and make it sound interesting to a motherfucker you know what I’m sayin? And you know, he holdin’ it down. All the stuff he just named had substance and it’s a lot of shit right now that’s like hard to name because a lot of this shit is just glitter and lights and shit. Like would these motherfuckers still be the same motherfuckers if they didn’t have the events and shit? It’s like certain things in they life they changed to make people recognize them. So that’s why I’m gonna go with his list, because without his list there’d be no us. And then we goin’ throw Eminem in that list.
MJG: Yeah, most definitely.
Are you guys heavy on the Internet at all? With the Web becoming such a big deal for so many rappers and with so many people getting on Twitter, getting their Facebook thing poppin’. I know you guys have the MySpace situation set up but how much further invested are you with the Internet?
8Ball: Um, not too much further, man. You know that shit, that’s like another thing, too. I’ve definitely tried, but I can’t keep up with that bullshit, you know? That’s like a whole ’nother job right there.
It’s true. And it kind of goes against what you where saying, too, about people wanting to know so much about you and the Internet is all about, here’s everything about me.
8Ball: Right. Like, I’m taking a shit right now [laughs]. Come on, man.
Press play to listen to 8Ball and MJG's "Paid Dues" feat. Cee-Lo from the album, In Our Lifetime, Vol. 1 (Suave House/Universal, 1999)
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