YoungAndTheFly.com: March 2009

Mar 26, 2009

Mike Epps New DVD Trailer!

Check out this trailer to Mike Epps new DVD called "Funny Bidness" thats in stores April 7th. I might just go pick this up!

YoungAndTheFly Interview With MIMS!

1 comments Labels: Interviews, Mims

I was able to get an interview with Mims (shout out to Kasey). Be sure to check out his new album called "Guilt" which will be in stores April 7th.

Q: What influenced you to get into Hip Hop?

A: Inspiration for me to start rapping I think honestly the first person I could remember listening to; Slick Rick. Like I remember really just fallin’ in love with his style and the choice of music and the sound was Slick Rick, but I got a lot of influence from many a artists. I don’t care if it was Biggie, Tupac, Jay Z, Nas, Outkast. There’s a million people that inspired me till this day.

Q: Were there any rappers that influenced you?

A: Who influenced me to get into hip-hop. Everybody. Everybody who was anybody. Whoever I could watch at the time, whether it was Slick Rick or Jay Z or Biggie or Tupac or Snoop Dog, NWA or Quincy Jones. I don’t care if you were SWV. I could name a million artists that I listened to on the radio and say “Man, I wonder what their job is like. I love music so why not. Why not pursue a career at it.”

Q: What artists would you like to work with that you haven’t yet?

A: A few artists. For me I always wanted to work with Quincy Jones because he’s been responsible for so many people’s careers, even their music and even outside of music, whether it was Will Smith, whether it was Tupac, whether it was Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones to me is somebody I’d love to work with.

Q: Many rappers have got into acting, is that something you consider doing yourself?

A: Ain’t nobody knocking my door with scripts or nothing but at the same time I never say never.

Q: This is quite old, but back in 07' The Game was at Power 106 radio station and was asked by Big Boy “if you could pour hot sauce into any rapper’s eye, who would it be?” The Game said MIMS. Is there any beef with The Game?

A: No; there’s no beef between me and the game. I don’t know the game. I know I never got no hot sauce thrown in my eyes so did I really worry about it? Who knows why people say what they say in hip hop. Sometimes it’s like WWF Wrestling.

But to answer honestly I can’t beef with somebody I don’t know. That’s just the way I put it period. I just know I ain’t never had hot sauce thrown in my eyes though.

Q: Music sales are almost irrelevant in society today, what do you think needs to happen to stop illegal downloading?

A: At this point I don’t think there’s anything you can do to stop it. It’d probably be impossible, but if somebody had the answer they’d be the richest person in the world. I tell you that much. So why not just work around it.

If the fans want the music, they want the music, but I will say this. For those who illegally download, just remember and I hate to make people feel sorry. You work at a job, you work a 9 to 5, whether you sell burgers at McDonald’s or you sell advertisements for a car company.

When you do something illegally, you’re taking money out the next person’s pocket. It may not reflect on the artist whose probably already got money, but it does reflect on the people that work at the label and it does reflect on the hard 9 to 5 working people that have regular jobs that people who illegally download aren’t supporting so they lose jobs as a result of it and on the same token they can’t feed their families.

So just remember if you worked at McDonald’s and I came in with a gun to rob you, am I wrong? ‘Cause I took all your burgers and Big Macs and you can’t sell no Big Macs. I’m pretty sure you’d probably get fired at that point in time. So I think the concept is the same.

It may not be something that people worry about when it comes to artists because they see them flaunting jewelry and Lamborghinis and things of that nature, but it’s the people behind the scenes that suffer the most. I’m not talking about the big guy at the corporate label that gets paid a million dollars a year ‘cause honestly they can kiss my ass anyway.

I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the hard 9 to 5 working people that are still making 30 to 40,000 a year working at a label doing an honest man’s job that are suffering because people are illegally downloading music.

Q: If you weren’t a rapper, what would you be?

A: If I wasn’t a rapper I would be a person wishing I was a rapper. *Laughs*

Q: What can you do to make yourself not considered a one hit wonder?

A: I think the biggest thing for me to do when it comes to Guilt is just create a great album. I think when you go into making an album and you worry about what everybody’s saying about you, then you just get – you have a single mind state.

Basically your mind state, you’re on a one track the whole time and the album’s gonna basically sound the same from track 1 to track 15.

For me I think I get in the studio and I create records. I make music. So when it comes to getting’ in the studio, I make a song. For example, I got a song on the album called One Day, which features Ky-Mani Marley which talks about all the hardships that the world faces financially, war wise, religiously.

These are things that honestly people aren’t saying about me, but I see it as being an issue and I wanna address it. That’s how I take onto my album. I make sure that I address the situations that people wanna hear and that’s why I’m callin’ the album Guilt ‘cause it’s a album for the people.

Q: What artists and producers will be featured on your new album?

A: From a production standpoint I’ve worked with the Blackout Movement, the same people who produced This is Why I’m Hot. I also started working with some new cats out of Atlanta called Khalichat. Also worked with Jim Johnson who produced Lollipop for Little Wayne and then I introduced a new production crew into the game called The Intern. So that’s my production squad.

As far as artists are concerned I got a record on the album with Latoya Luckett. I got a record with Jay Holiday. I also have a record with Nice and Smooth, as well as Ky-Mani Marley.

Q: You have a new single "Move" out right now, what inspired you to make that single?

A: My inspiration behind the song Move was just what I felt in the studio at the time. Obviously there’s a million things that go through your mind as an artist on an everyday basis and when you get music what you’re supposed to do is channel your emotions through it. So whatever I felt in the studio that day is what I put on that record what I recorded.

If you listen to the record the cadence and the beats changes every four bars from very laid back to hyper. So in my mind I wanted to do exactly what the beat called for and that was me bein’ laid back and then me getting’ hyper. That’s what I did and that’s what the Move record was built on.