Evidence (Dilated Peoples) Interview
April 2004
One of Dilated's emceeing duo, and producer of many a Dilated track, Evidence is well established. Having worked with everyone from Xzibit to Kanye West and completely grazing across the board. Dilated Peoples most recently released "Neigborhood Watch" on April 6th through Capitol Records.
Correction: As with all transcribed interviews, there is room for error and upon request we checked our recording of this interview and found that we mis-quoted Evidence. He did not say that he co-produced "a lot" of "The College Dropout," but "the last song" on the album. We're sorry for any confusion this may have caused.
MVRemix: So it turns out I'm interviewing you - I was told I was interviewing Babu...
Evidence: Would you rather interview Babu?
MVRemix: No, you're a great interview as well, it's just I was told up until now that it would be Babu. I'm going to interview you in a bit of a different format - I'm going to have to change up these questions.
A la "Fight Club," "If you could fight any celebrity, who would you fight?"
Evidence: Hmmm... If I could fight any celebrity, who would I fight. You know, I've trained jujitsu, so I'm up for the task. I'm not really looking for fights these days, I'm trying to deal with cats. But if it came down to it, I'm trying to kick a few. Hmmmm... lets do that question last.
MVRemix: With Dilated's progression and obvious audience growth, do you feel you're looked upon differently or respected as you were?
Evidence: On "Marathon" I said "I keep our heads with the sense that there's more to gain." Rakaa always said that we try to keep the same heads in the front row, we just hope it goes back a lot farther now. We've really done a lot to secure our fan base; whether it's through Alchemist presents "Heavy Surveillance" mixtapes or putting "Marathon" out on ABB Records in Los Angeles. We've really done a lot to stay in touch with the people that got us here and haven't left them. It just so happens that with the natural evolution of human beings; you're always going to grow, you're never going to be satisfied. I think that out of all the groups that do what we do, we really have an edge on them. We still remember our past, we're still real humble cats. We do in-stores, we're still with people and shaking hands letting them know we're still the same Evidence, Iriscience and Babu that we started out as.
MVRemix: With regards to production, you recently released the "Yellow Tape Instrumentals" album on Battle Axe. Are you going to be doing more instrumental albums or will you just be sticking more with the Dilated stuff or...?
Evidence: None of that was new material that was all previously released work that I've done over the last four years. Mostly from four years ago and before that. What happened was a lot of people were coming up to me saying "I loved this record you did for Aceyalone," or this record you did for LMNO, but "how come I couldn't find the instrumental for them?" And there were only 500 pieces of wax pressed... "How do I get that instrumental?" So what I did was checked over a lot of the production I'd done where the instrumentals were hard to find and just put them out. That's just a compilation of showcases of some old work. That's not what I'm currently up to up-to-date. Madchild was just like, "You have the outlet to put stuff like that out if you want through Battle Axe." So I just gave him fourteen cuts of what I had done. I don't feel that's a current representation of where I'm at now. Where I'm at now, I don't really think the world knows. I've really been in my hole - in my lab, like Dr. Dre says "I took time to perfect the beat." I really took that line to heart. So I've really been in my studio just really trying to let people know that when I come back out with some production in these next couple of years, you're gonna be noticing the difference in a major way.
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