by Morgan Steiker for prefixmag.com
When Kanye blew up with The College Dropout, rapper Naledge (also from Chicago) was actually graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met producer Double-O. After forming Kidz in the Hall, the duo made enough noise on the mixtape circuit to get heard by such industry heavyweights as Just Blaze. They signed a deal with Rawkus and released their debut, School Was My Hustle, in 2006. Their second album, The In-Crowd, was released in May on Duck Down.
The video for your first single, “Driving down the Block,” premiered on TRL a few weeks ago. Are you looking forward to having teenyboppers stalking you now?
Double-O: Yup. Essentially, there is a level of success we’re trying to achieve where that kind of thing will be there, but, hey, it’s a great thing to be the shit to an eighth-grader. Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with that if the kids are into the music. In terms of them being teenyboppers or whatever, I don’t care about that. If you connect with them, you connect with them. Back when I was in eighth grade and Wu-Tang came out, the only thing you got was what was on the videos and on the records. Now, with MySpace and other outlets, there is much more in-depth interaction with the artist.
Naledge to the left, Double-O to the right
What does success mean to you guys musically and personally?
Naledge: Musically, I think it’s the freedom to do whatever you want to do and have people follow you
wherever you wanna go. It’s having a loyal fan base, a core that will consistently buy your albums. When I think of successful artists I think of Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes — people who made a creative contribution to our society that lasted longer than their lifetime. Basquiat and Tupac weren’t alive for that long, but their body of work still speaks for them. I also want my music to allow listeners to accept me as a big brother, a father figure, or simply a role model.
Now personally, I wanna be a millionaire before I die. I wanna be the master of my own fate. But I do wanna be recognized by my peers for my music. Rap is a sport, and the rewards are definitely a part of it.
Double-O: Success to me musically is the connection. F the critics. F all the in-betweens. Success is when you’re performing a song onstage and the whole front row knows the words to your songs. It’s the people that come up to you at the merch booth after the show, and they know a song of yours that is three years old and was like number seventeen on the mixtape. Truly connecting with the fans and them getting what you’re trying to do is what success means to me, musically.
On a personal level, success is whatever I make it. I’m big on setting goals. My first goal was to be able to make music for a living; then the next one was being able to put out an album, and once I reached that I wanted to top it with something even bigger and greater.
How’s the vibe for you guys over at Duck Down since you signed with them?
Double-O: It’s been great. They’ve all been very open to us. We’re a brand new element to that whole family where you have people who have worked together doing music for fifteen-plus years. They respect what we do musically and they probably like a certain energy we bring to the table. It’s not like they signed a teenybopper act that is a shell of what they’re supposed to be; they signed two dudes who have a certain appeal. The vibe is great.
If seven or eight years ago, someone had told you you’d be on the same label as KRS-One and Boot Camp, what would you have said?
Double-O: I don’t even know. I couldn’t even have predicted the way the industry is right now. If the industry was the same way it was seven or eight years ago, we wouldn’t be on Duck Down. Not only is it right that we are on Duck Down now, but there’s a possibility that we could be this huge thing for the label. All I could’ve predicted back then was that I was gonna push my art into this music industry until it worked. From there, anything else that happened was just luck of the draw, I guess.
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