| written by William Hernandez
WHO?MAG: Talk to me about the album Ridin High?
8ball: It’s really gritty man. It’s on that 8ball & MJG format. We had all our creative control that thing. We picked and choose everything we wanted . Just stuck to the format and tried to have it make sense. Like a lot of our classic stuff.
WHO?MAG: Who do you have as far as cameos and producers?
8ball: We got Juvenile, 36 Mafia, plus Slim from 112 on a song that a cat name Midnight Black from Atlanta produced, actually three songs on the album. Also the one with Pimp C called “What you want to do?” and the one called “Take it Off”, which is a strip club anthem right now. The Drum Majors produced a song with did with Killer Mike. We got a song called Memphis with Al Kapone produced by B Rock. Gorilla Zone produced “Clap On” feat Yung Joc, DJ Nasty from Orlando, FL produced Relax, and Take Notes. It’s a tight album bro.
WHO?MAG: How did you guys get with Bad Boy?
8ball: When we started out we was on majors, MJG was on 112 first album. I ended up doing a song with Carl Thomas on my seventh solo album. We just started building a relationship after that. We decided to go that way, because it would be something different. A South group with our status going to an East Coast label with Bad Boy status. We can do a lot for them and they can do a lot for us.
WHO?MAG: How did you guys get with Tony Draper and Suave House records back in the early 90’s?
MJG: We already had some stuff out locally. Tony Draper had some folks in Memphis and he heard about us down there. We had some songs on the radio and a couple of albums out already. We moved down to Houston probably a year after meeting us. We were the first act signed and we got nationwide distribution deal. We moved to Houston back in ’92 and “Coming out Hard” came out in ’93.
WHO?MAG: You had a song that you sampled “Candy” from Cameo. Was it hard to get cleared?
MJG: Actually, we met Cameo in person and stayed out with them for about 3 days working in the studio on trying to come up with the first track. We couldn’t come up with one so we went back to Houston and really came up with it ourselves. We sent it back to Larry (Blackmon) and them. Larry and them oked it. Everything is history from there. We wound up performing it with them when they came to Houston.
8ball: T Mix actually produced the track. It wasn’t a sample. He produced it and did it over, his own way.
WHO?MAG: You guys still working with your old producer T Mix?
8ball: I haven’t talked to him in a while. The last time I talked to him like face to face was in Miami. We were at the Hit Factory together. Me and MJG was in one room and he was in another part of the studio with Lil Wayne I believe. We talked for a minute, but I haven’t talked to him in a while. He’s working with Cash Money (records). He did the last couple of albums over there with Lil Wayne and Baby. |
