Loon

WHO?MAG: What’s going to make this release different from your first album on Bad Boy?
LOON: Well, “No Friends” is pretty much an album I’m putting out with out Puff all in the background. He didn’t have any influence in deciding anything. I put out this project out basically to show people a little diversity. The album is pretty much all over the place. It has different angles and aspects of myself. It shows progression in certain fields that people overlook or think I’m not capable of.

WHO?MAG: What made you decide to start off Boss Up Entertainment?
LOON: Boss up to me is a movement and a statement where I’m just bossing up. I’m not just doing things as an artist or songwriter my whole life. I’m trying to be a publisher. It shows that we are in it to win it.

WHO?MAG: How did you first get into hip-hop?
LOON: I first started off writing diaries in the streets at the time. Back then I really didn’t show the homies because they might have taken it as a weakness, but I wrote things down in diary form. Later on I started to use my imagination to overcome some of the things in my diary, then it turned them into rhymes. It comes from being a hip-hop fan and running around and reading Rap Pages, Word Up!, and Black Beat, and all those magazines from back in the day. I have always been my own motivation.

WHO?MAG: What was it that made you leave Bad Boy?
LOON: It was a couple things, but the major thing was with the differences with business. I feel I made a huge contribution to Bad Boy and to Puffy for his career. There were a lot of things going on at the label at that time when I came on board that really weren’t my issues. There we’re things going on with him and his girlfriend or problems with him loosing his street credibility by the way he handled Shyne and Case, and things like that, that ultimately had nothing to do with me, but I ended up absorbing those things which steered the whole company’s career. When it came time to do me, I really didn’t feel the company put their heat into it the same way I put my heart into it to steer the company into a brighter light.

WHO?MAG: What type of advice can you give an upcoming rapper to help him avoid some of the industry pitfalls?
LOON: Be open minded. Think outside the box. Music is getting so broad and the spectrum is getting so big, that to be close minded and to follow everything that is going on saturates the market. Talk about things people normally don’t talk about. Challenge yourself. Dig inside and try to express the real true nature of who your being is. That will bring some more excitement back into the game. A lot of young kids want to know who we are and where we come from. Make it something to which they can relate. I feel new artists should look at the game for what it is and look outside of the game for what is to come. There is a lot of evolution and change coming. There are a lot of corporations looking at hip-hop and looking at ways to be involved. Those are the songs you really want to give them. You should only use your music as a launching pad to get to something bigger than music.

WHO?MAG: Can you tell me about the song “What Happened to Pastor?”
LOON: That was a joint I did on Mase a while ago. I just threw it on there for namesake or whatever. Basically it was a record that was really personal. Some of the things that were said on there only Mase would really know the depth of really where I’m going. Like when I mention that I knew a lot of people who really wanted to rob him and I never green lighted it. And when I talk about how his religion belief is a fraud because he takes those church goers money and goes buy jewelry to make himself look good or whatever the case may be. He’s just a fraud overall.

WHO?MAG: So how did you get your part in “I Need A Girl”
LOON: I wrote the record. I wrote the whole record. It was nothing to pencil myself in. Seeing that there was going to be so much invested into this record, why not be a part of it?

WHO?MAG: Can you tell us about some of the other songs you also ghost wrote?
LOON: I wrote a bunch of songs for Puff, I wrote a bunch of songs for the Harlem World project, I wrote some songs for Shaquille O’Neil back in ’95, a couple songs for New Edition, and Foxy Brown’s brother. I have been busy. I was never braggadocios. You can hear it in my rhymes. I don’t carry myself that way. It’s funny because I heard rumors that I was cocky or conceded, but I just come from a world where a lot of people can’t relate to. They pretend they can, but they really can’t. It’s sad because a lot of people who think they can represent that world, they can’t even relate.

WHO?MAG: What’s next up for Loon?
LOON: My whole operation right now is about visibility. I just pretty much need to get my feet wet again. I’m dropping a couple of mixtapes coming out soon. Definitely look for me on DJ Drama’s new album and for my own album. I’m definitely going to be moving around getting my spit on. I’m just prepping myself for “My Harlem, My World Album”. On this album, I’m really going to be selling myself. I’m going to let people really know who I am from the beginning to now and let people really judge if they like me. I’m also working on a few indie films. We’re just trying to keep ourselves very busy. I’m trying to stay out of the light and away from the drama.