November 16, 2004 @ 1:04 pm

VIBE.com Interview: Lil Jon's Crunk Juice

by: Jozen Cummings

When Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz put their foot in the hip hop game, not even the so-called “real” MC’s could dismiss the coming of the dirty south’s crunk music. It’s something about the way Lil Jon hollers “Yeah!” in a southern drawl that according to him even has middle-aged white women complimenting his style. Well, the King of Crunk and his boyz ar

So I read that you voted? Who did you vote for? Kerry, cuz Kerry don't give a fuck. He wears that damn, ugly-ass-brown-ass-coat every other day, like he ain't got nothing else. So, Kerry could probably get crunk. Don't you think Bush could get crunk too? He is from the South. You know what, Bush is a gangsta too. He's probably a little wilder. He probably drinks in the Oval Office, because he got a lot of shit going on. You've been telling people to "Get Crunk or Die," and everyone's been down with it. Give me some of the names of people who you've been getting your crunk on with. Yeah, I just did a song with Jay-Z for the soundtrack to Fade to Black. The King of New York with Lil Jon? Crazy. Who else? Well Rick Rubin did the track and it's me, Jay-Z and Chris Rock. That's incredible. You also worked with Rick Rubin on your new album, Crunk Juice. What's it like to be with a legend like him? Oh, I just like working with a legend man and he's amazing because we just went in the studio and just got to work. In two days, we had the song done. The first day we figured out all the ideas for the track and got the track done. The second day we came in and as soon as I walked in the studio I came up with an idea for the chorus and it was just kind of magical the way the shit happened. And the song is one of the hottest records on the album too, and one of the most different. Now on the new album you work with another group of pioneers, Bad Brains. What inspired this move? Yeah, they got a song "Re-Ignition," one of their classic records, and I basically took the joint with Ice Cube and me. We got Bad Brains to play Re-Ignition and we did that song over. And that was special to have them all in the studio like that. And Cube? What made you want to work with him since he's been acting more than rapping lately? Yeah, I just hollered at his people. I actually wanted to work with him on the last album but we couldn't make it happen. So we hollered at him on this album, we had the right track and had the hook done already. And I was like, "What's up, you want to get on the joint?" And he was like, "Shit let's do it." So I came to L.A. and we just made it happen. We knocked it out. It's the hottest song on the album. Well it's obvious that you've expanded this crunk music past the South working with West Coast and East Coast artists. What do you think it is about the music that has people from all over getting on your tracks? Crunk means energy. So it's the energy of the music. We have been doing this since 1995. We have a hit record every year in the South and the Midwest so we always knew from day one that we knew how to make good music and music that made the clubs go crazy. So once we got on a level where it could be nationally promoted and distributed properly, we knew that you couldn't deny the music. It took us a couple of years to get to this point, but now we're at the point that everybody knows us, knows the music, and it's controlling the clubs. Crunk music is club music. It's designed specifically to make people go crazy and to release tension and energy and all that shit in the club, which is what music is supposed to do and that's why it is so successful. You cannot deny the energy of the music. People would try to talk about it like it's not real hip hop, with the lyrics, but then how do you explain how this record is making people go way crazier than this record over here? Well you're also working with people like Nas, who everyone considers "real" hip hop. And that track alone is monumental for hip hop, because every MC on the track spit and killed it. You have T.I., Bun-B, Jadakiss, Nas, and Ice Cube on one song. I ain't rapping or nothing on the song. I'm basically like Dr. Dre on the song. I put all of these cats together and show the world that it's MC's from all over the country. It ain't just about the East Coast niggas that can spit lyrics, you know the South niggas can spit lyrics too. And this nigga from the West Coast is one of the O.G.'s at spitting lyrics. So I haven't seen anyone do no shit like that on their album. What kind of pressure is it for you as an artist from the South and being one of the people who has brought this music to the forefront of not only hip hop but pop culture as well? There are a lot of names on here that aren't from the South, so do you think people from the South are going to be quick to hate, because you're not keeping it strictly South? Well if you listen to all of our albums we have been very diverse, no matter what. But we learned, and me as a producer and an A&R person and so and so forth, you don't ever stray too far. You know, you give people what they want and then you can try to do some other shit. But if you start going all the way to the left, that's when you lose motherfuckers and you can't come back. So that's why on the new album, the first single is "What U Gon' Do," which is classic Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz. We always had a female song on our albums. Like on the first album, we had "Shawty Freak a Lil Sumtin'." The second album we had "I like Dem Girlz." The other album we had "Get Low." So we always do something for the ladies. We always do like a fuck song. We do a screw song, it's the same formula. We just took it this time to another level. Every album I just try to take what I do, and what we do, and take it to another level. And it was harder with this album because of the success of all the other damn records I produce for everybody. So I had to basically do those types of records on the album too. I gave them a "Yeah!" but it's different from what you thinking. The "Yeah!" on this album is the R. Kelly record ("In the Club"), and the one with me Usher and Ludacris ("Lovers & Friends") is not what you expecting. You know we got a go-go song on the album, like doing all kind of shit. Whoah, go-go is a D.C. thing. There hasn't been a go-go hit since "Da Butt" by E.U. But everything on the album still sounds like us, that's another thing. Most artists, when they cross over or whatever, they go somewhere else. Like Usher came to my world, I didn't go to Usher's world. As far as "Yeah!" and all the records I've done, it still sounds like me. It's not like I conformed to be anybody else. So, you know on this album, we just gave this all of the shit they love, me and Lil Jon & the Eastside Boy. We put all that shit on the album and just switched it up, and gave them some new shit. But it's still us, we still sound like us on the rock tracks. I don't sound compromised. So then how do you decide which artists you are going to work with? Before I was like, "Shit, I'll work with everybody, because I'm a producer, man. I'm a fan of music and I just want to make records man." But now, I'm so busy I can't do everybody's shit. And now, I got my own artists I gotta break. I gotta do Trillville's album and I gotta do Scrappy's album. I signed E-40 so I have to do his album now too. So for now, it's about sitting back, because I made all these hits with everybody else and proved myself. I gotta sit back now and you know, build my team up and get hits on my team. Besides Lil Jon the producer, you got Lil Jon the pop icon after Dave Chapelle's skit on Chappelle's Show. How do you feel knowing you have fans who probably don't own one of your albums, but they love the skits? I mean, Chappelle's show is me. That's what I say on the records. I'm happy that people know me for whatever, because if I do put a record out, and they never listened to my stuff before, they might go buy the record just because they love Lil Jon the character. So, I'm down for whatever. And I really hold Dave forever for that, because Dave recognized that and thought it was funny, and brought it to the world. He really helped me get into people's households that I never would've reached by music. I've seen 50-year-old, 60-year-old white women come up to me in the airport and say "Yeah, What! I love you, I love your stuff! I got a picture of you in my living room." I'm like, "What the fuck? A 60-year-old white woman is telling me this." Is it hard to turn it off though? They don't turn it off. They can't. Because the way people see me on TV is that I'm always wildin' so they think I'm like that all the time. But a lot of people don't understand that I'm also a businessman. There's a business side of me. You gotta act like you have some sense. You have to be able to talk to people and deal with people so, I'm not screaming all the time, and to some people, that's what they say all the time. I mean, me and my boys, we say that all the time, that's our thing. I'll be like "What!' Or I'll be at work and such and such, and they be like, "Yeahhhh!" And that's what they say all the time now, it's like we created a monster, because people don't know how to stop saying the shit. And like, no matter what, they want to hear me sing it. They screamin' at me, thinking I'm gonna say it back to them, but I'm so tired of saying it, that I just be like, "Whats up," and I keep it moving. I try to stay low key in the airport. Well, maybe you need some new catch phrases. Like instead of saying, "Yeah" you can say, "No." What about that? (Laughing) Nah, I mean. It's funny because all of those words are just crunk words that I had adlibs that I say on songs. Like, 'Ok' came when I did the song "I Don't Give AÂ…," and soon as I put it on there, we wrote the song out. So I went in and laid the foundation and then as soon as I put the headphones and pushed play, that was the first thing that came out of my mouth, (screaming) "OKKK!" I don't know where the fuck it came from, but that's what came up. And like "yeah" was just a crunk word. We'd be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And it just turned into me saying (screaming), "Yeahhhh!" I don't know, I just adlibbed it like that one day, and it stuck and then, the "what" just came from us going "what, what, what." And then I guess, I just used it to fill in the gap one day and I was like (screaming), "What!" What has been the most unusual moment where you've heard people saying your lines? I can't remember. It's like I can't go a day without hearing people screaming that shit at me. Like it can be very quiet, like in the airport, that's the wildest shit, I go in the airport, I'm going through security check, and all the security is screaming, "What! What! Yeah! Ok!" And all the white people looking at them like they lost they minds. These are the people screening your bags, looking in the X-ray. The X-ray people! Everyone just screaming. And people are just looking at them like they are crazy, and they don't care. Well besides the security check at the airport, there are stories where people have been singing your music at graduation ceremonies. So with all this exposure to your style of music, are you ever afraid it will burn out, and it's just a fad? No because crunk is what rock music was to white kids; it's an expression, it's a release. It's a way of getting rid of all of that stress you got going on in your life. It's our punk rock music. That's what crunk is. It's our punk rock. To watch the video for Lil Jon's "WHAT U GON' DO" click here

Article tags: VIBE.com, Interview, Lil, Jon's, Crunk, Juice 

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