December 21, 2006 @ 9:41 am

EXCLUSIVE: G Unit Week - Hot Rod... Ryder Music

John Kennedy

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The G Unit capo took the 21-year-old rapper under his wing after Rod’s demo mistakenly landed in his CD player and was met with an unusual response. “He was listening to beats and then he came up on my demo,” says Hot Rod, who’s been rapping for seven years. “He actually thought it was something that he had done in the past that he didn’t use, which I thought was crazy.” The Sacramento native, who moved to Phoenix, Arizona at age 18, cites 50 as one of his biggest musical influences, hence a similar flow and cadence. But unlike his mentor, you won’t find talk of homicides and drug trafficking in Hot Rod’s rhymes. “You don’t have to screw your face up when you listen to my music,” says Rod. “It’s real fun.” Putting the city of Phoenix on his back, Hot Rod is poised to inject a spurt of momentum into the G Unit machine. As the Mary J. Blige-assisted “Be Easy” makes its way up the charts, Vibe.com chatted with Young Hot Rod about his initiation into G Unit Records, his legal woes and why his debut album will move “a gazillion” copies. VIBE: How does it feel to be the newest face in G Unit? Young Hot Rod: It’s crazy because before all of this happened I was already a huge fan of G Unit. I was inspired by 50’s music so I’m working with somebody I didn’t think I’d be working with. It’s still feels like I’m in a dream. Less than a year ago, you were living an average life and now you have an album on the way with G Unit Records. How has the transition been for you? Young Hot Rod: It’s been cool, but it’s been happening faster than it would for a normal artist. I got signed in March and my album’s coming out not even a year after. I had to go through media training and I’m doing big shows, recording everyday. It’s such a fast transition. And with the people who are around me, they’re seeing it happen so fast so I had to be prepared for that mentally. Now they view me differently. My friends and especially the girls—that’s a positive right there—but now there’s a lot of people that want something from me and before I wasn’t in a position where I could provide the things I can provide for them now. And I don’t know what intentions other people have who are now trying to act like my friends. Everybody’s smiling; everybody wants to do something for me. It’s just crazy, how my whole world changed so fast but I think I’ve been dealing with it pretty well. So you were recruited to G Unit after you sent in a demo. With the many demos floating around, did you really expect a response? Young Hot Rod: Actually one of the engineers from G Unit was from Phoenix, so he kind of reached out via a local Arizona website. So he was putting in Sha Money’s ear that they need to sign somebody from Arizona because the market is untapped and there’s a lot of talent out there. So Sha Money had him play some demos from the area and then he’d listen to them and see if it’s true. I sent him a demo; I really didn’t expect a response. I was like, “I might as well try it.” So I sent it in early December and got the call like, late January. At that point, I wasn’t really expecting any type of call back and it just happened. Somebody slipped my demo in one of 50’s beat packages. He was listening to beats and then he came up on my demo. He heard it [and] he actually thought it was something that he had done in the past that he didn’t use, which I thought was crazy. He realized it wasn’t him, found out who it was and he gave me a call and he said he wants to work with me. It’s a crazy story, I just feel like it was meant to happen. For me to be able to do what I want to do, be a part of hip hop, it’s just a blessing. And when you got the call from 50 Cent you were at your job—as a mortgage broker, right? Young Hot Rod: Yeah, I was doing loans. Mortgages. I was actually still in training so I was doing it for about a week. That wasn’t my career. I was just getting into it. My brother’s been doing it for so long and he was making so much money so he encouraged me to get into it How did your co-workers respond when you got off the phone and quit your job? Young Hot Rod: I was hard for them to believe because they didn’t know that I was an actual rapper. I just got there so I wasn’t running around saying I was a rapper. They didn’t even know. So it kind of sounded funny when I told them I gotta quit. Actually when he called me, 50 was like, “Do you work?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m at work now.” He said, “Quit. You ain’t got to work no more. I’ma fly you out tomorrow and we’re going to get to work.” So I went back in there after the call and I’m like, “I gotta quit. I know y’all ain’t gonna believe me but I just got a call from 50 Cent and he’s going to fly me out.” So I had to run the story by them and let them know what’s up. Put them up on game. What was it like that first time you met 50? Young Hot Rod: The first time I met him I was actually in the G Unit office. This is the first day I came out and I was with Sha Money in one of the offices and the door was open, so [50] had just walked in and I didn’t hear him. I was facing the other way. I turned around and I was like, “Oh, shit. Wow.” My heart dropped. I shook up with him and he was so down to earth that it was real easy to get comfortable with him and just have a normal conversation. At first I thought I was going to be so nervous that I was going to be stuttering and my knees were going to be shaking and all of that. But it was actually cool because he was just talking to me just being real. It’s not like he floated in like a god and said, “Look up to me.” It was real cool. We clicked. I was living with him for two months out the gate, in the mansion. That’s where I did all of my recording. We have a real strong relationship. I look at him as my big brother now. I actually got the album done in the first month. We knocked it out. Everything that we did was coming out as a hit. The chemistry was there already because the style was so similar, so I was able to come in there and work really fast. I was able to follow his direction, his lead. If he had an idea, I was able to catch on to it instantly. Really, I make music the same way he does, but without the aggressive content. I don’t run around shooting people, but it’s still a similar style. Our vocal tone is the same. It was a good look. What is your relationship like with the rest of the members of G Unit? Young Hot Rod: We kick it all the time. It’s like a family. I get along with everybody, I’ve been to everybody’s house, I met everyone’s families, we go out to clubs and we kick it. It’s not like being on a normal label where you’re kind of in competition with the other artists. When I came in, especially with everyone knowing that I’m like 50’s protégé, everybody showed mad love on the situation. Really, I see why G-Unit is so successful. Because the chemistry, there’s no jealousy around there, everybody’s successful, everybody’s rich. That just makes it so much easier to focus on the music and also focus on the business side of it. They don’t run around trying to steal form you and trying to bully you into doing anything. It’s really a well ran company. What has been your biggest challenge since joining G Unit? Young Hot Rod: I’m still on probation right now. I’m still going through it. I’m trying to get that taken care of. I owed the state like $40,000, so I had to pay them off. And then right now I’m going through this big battle—I have to get my passports. We have to go out to London, to the Dominican Republic. That’s pretty much my biggest challenge at this point because it could really affect me if it doesn’t happen in a timely manner. That sounds similar to the situation Tony Yayo was in when G Unit was first making it big. Did he give you any advice? Young Hot Rod: I talked to Yayo about it and he just stressed getting it taken care of as fast as possible. I have the best lawyers on the case. He definitely gave me some words of wisdom, he said, “Just stay focused. Don’t really pay too much attention to that because it could take your focus off of the things that you need to take care of at this point to set your career up for the future.” So he definitely let me know some important things. Has anyone else from the crew given you and good advice? Young Hot Rod: Everybody actually took me to the side and they gave me their own little piece of advice at different times. Banks would give me advice on how these ladies are going to act, the groupies. Yayo, of course, he gave me advice on the whole probation situation, he was letting me know to keep my head in it. And 50, he’s given me so much advice since I’m around him so much. He’s given me a lot of advice on the business side of the whole situation and musically and how to prepare myself for the roller coaster that’s about to come. He just let me know that it’s going to be a real crazy ride and I just gotta stay focused, keep my head in the game and don’t let the game take me over. What should fans expect from your debut album Fast Lane? Young Hot Rod: What people can really expect from it is fun music. I’m bringing the fun back to hip hop. You don’t have to be a gangster to listen to my music or to feel comfortable listening to what I’m saying. I’m talking about pretty much living in the fast lane, partying, going out to clubs, drinking, driving cars, wanting money. It’s real commercial music without all the aggressiveness. So you don’t have to screw your face up when you listen to my music. It’s not going to make you want to go out and kill somebody when you’re done listening to the album. It’s real fun, I’m just real witty. That’s pretty much what my personality is. You’re hearing my personality in music form. I’m a real fun dude to be around. I just think it’s going to be real big for the game and it’s really going to impact it because it’s kind of different because right now a lot of people associate being tough with being cool. I’ma put it out that that you don’t have to always be doing that to be considered a cool guy. You can just be that cool cat on the side that’s getting the girls and just chillin’. That’s my aim. G Unit has generally had high standards for releases, with the input of 50, Eminem and Dre. Was it difficult for you to adjust to the high bar set for the group when making your album? Young Hot Rod: Every time we completed an actual record it came out so hot that it was already a done deal. I didn’t make too many records that we actually had to scrap. I don’t know if it’s just because of the talent that I have—really I think it’s the chemistry. Like I said, me and Fif’, we just have such a good chemisty. I don’t know if it’s because I was just inspired by him and I’m excellent at making that same type of music. But like I said, when we made the music, it just came out so hot every single time. So there was no denying that we were going to keep the tracks. It wasn’t a hard process at all and that’s why I’m able to come out right now and I was just signed a few months ago. A lot of people think that because I got signed after everybody else like M.O.P. and Spider and all of them, they thought I wasn’t going to come out until 2020. That’s just not how it works. It just depends on the timing, the marketing, there’s so much behind it. I just makes so much sense for me to come out, especially with the material that I came in making with them. Since your name is Hot Rod, what car do you think best matches your swagger? Young Hot Rod: I’d say a Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster. It’s hot, when it passes by everybody’s going to look because it’s a hot car physically and then it’s a V-12 so it’s real fast. It’s got a lot of horsepower. It’s just real flashy and it’s real fun to drive. And it’s a drop, so you can drive in the heat, let your hair flow. I just think it’s a real fun car; it’s the perfect car to me. I think that could be a symbol for my style and how I describe myself.

Article tags: 50 Cent, G Unit, Tony Yayo, Young Hot Rod 

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