Twista – Interview [2005]

You can call him the fastest MC in hip-hop history, the man with the flawless flow or simply the Chi-Town legend. Twista’s earned all his accolades and can breathe one huge sigh of relief with 2004 behind him. After year’s of building one of rap’s most loyal street following and accumulating immeasurable respect among his peers in the music industry, Twista finally was rewarded with the mainstream recognition and over two million sales of his seventh album—the classic—Kamikaze.

Now he is back with The Day After! We talk to Twista.

You have to be happy to have the record coming out.

You can’t ever understand as an artist how happy you are to have completed an album. That made me as happy as the album coming out.

Are you just relieved at that point that it’s done?

Exactly what you just said—you’re done. I’m finished, not just with the work, but with what I feel is a masterpiece.

Do you know when it’s done or do other people say ‘I think this is done’?

Pretty much my A&R at Atlantic is hard on, not on me, but the completion of an album. They’ll tell me when I got it, but with this album I feel like It’s the most fun I had on an album and carefree. After I finished Kamikaze I was able to go to the studio with a nice car and was recording knowing I had a nice car in the parking lot. I had a lot of fun making this album.

And I think that shows in the album. I think the way you feel when you record shows up in the album—especially if you are stressed and unhappy.

I’m strange a little bit. If I want to make a party song I have to go to the club. If you put me where I want to be and me in my environment; the piss, stank hallway is the best place. I got locked up in county for a night and wrote a dope rhyme. I have to be in the true state to write an album.

Do you know instantly when you write a hot track?

Yeah. Sometimes it will come straight to you. It may take a minute or two, but you can be in the studio and a track hits and you’ll listen and if you are a true artist you will feel it and know.

But it has to be tough when you hear a beat you love and don’t write something great to it.

Do I do that now? (Pauses to think) I don’t do that no more. I make stuff that I don’t like sometimes but that is very rare now. At this point I know how to rap like riding a bike. It’s a little effortless now where as I used to be so into it and write everything down and memorized. Sometimes now I won’t even write until I get into the studio. I don’t even memorize my rhymes now because it’s so natural and effortless.

You know better now what will work?

You do when you have a hit single like “Slow Jamz.” (Laughs) After that you feel a little better about yourself and more confident. Now I’m letting it out.

Like the track with Trey Songz.

You talking about “Girl Tonight”? That is my jam. That’s old school.

I know that was going to be a hit when I heard it.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

You have a lot of different producers on this album. That can be tough when it comes to album chemistry—is it different for you now because you have been doing it for a while?

You right. Exactly right. It depends on how experienced you are. What you are talking about applied to me at a certain time. Back in the day I didn’t want to get away from a different style but I also wanted to have a change in my style. But today I know I’m going to hit them with a half-and-half. I hate to give out my formula but… Half is your crew and half is outside producers.

I hear the younger artists making the mistake of finding different producers, who are usually those producers that are hot at the time, but it ends up changing their style and it sounds awkward. It doesn’t happen with you. You know who you are.

I went through a lot of years in the beginning trying to find myself. I started out trying to sound like Rakim and Kool G. Rap. So it’s a blessing for me to be able to look back—how many people can say that people know my style. It’s a really big achievement.

It makes sense that someone would want to be Rakim. I mean he was the best M.C. then.

Right, but the good rappers know how to take elements from him and other people and make it their own.

You’ve been around so you have a better perspective, do you think part of the problem with hip-hop today is that too many young rappers want to be like other artists and don’t try to be themselves?

I think you’re right. I think really a lot of M.C.’s are so full of themselves and into the whole thing about getting different producers. What happened to the days of Gang Starr, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, and Eric B. and Rakim? Everyone thinks its hot shit to have a feature with another hot rapper or a beat from the hot producer. They don’t think about having a song because they are passionate about the music. They just want to click with the hottest people out there.

What happened to the crews like Public Enemy? They had Hank Shocklee and Terminator X. They didn’t go out and find someone else to make anything for them. They kept that chemistry…

…and those were true friends who made music for the love of music. They didn’t even know where that music was going to take them.

Just like the early Def-Jam days with LL, Run-DMC.

See that was us. How old are you?

32.

Me too. See that was us. We loved it. We made it. We invented it. That was hip-hop in its purest form. It’s ragged today. It is the dominate music today but they didn’t do what they were supposed to do by keeping it traditional.

You just don’t hear solid releases much anymore from artists who believed in every word they wrote like Chuck D. did.

You know today the problem is crews can write songs in different parts of the country. Back in the day one person would be on the couch, another on the floor and the other coming up with a beat. We did it all in one house and we were all broke. You’d be surprised what you come up with when you are passionate compared to when you do it for the business.

If someone would have told you years ago that you’d still be around today would you have believed them?

Nah man, please. (Laughs) I’m a rarity. I’m a special one. How many artists can say that when they first came out they walked through Cypress Hill’s house before they got a record deal? I saw Das Efx when they were first getting promoted. There when Tupac first came out. I was at Hank Shocklee’s release party for Son of Bezerk and then today would be on TRL.

+ Charlie Craine