On a gray and rainy Friday night, Phayde sat down with Luckyiam in a crowded storage room amidst dusty tables and chairs, armed with Hennessey, a recorder, and a list of questions to conduct their second interview in light of Lucky's latest release, "Extra Credit 2: Summer School." The following are the transcripts of the interview, which took place on June 20th, 2003.
MVRemix: So right now, you're on the My Way And The Highway tour with Murs, Brother Ali, Omni, and Gershwin BLX. How's that going so far?
luckyiam.PSC:
Honestly, it's been cool but it has been a roller coaster 'cause we're out on tour at the time of the year when nobody else really tours 'cause we usually play college towns and a lot of schools are out, so some of the shows on the tour, the attendance wasn't exactly what we were used to, and been spoiled with, and are accustomed to. So that was a little disappointing, but everybody on the tour is so cool and so down that it makes up for that.
MVRemix: You're touring everyday from now on 'til the end of the tour, which is June 29th, 2003. That's gotta get repetitive, so what gets you hyped before a show?
luckyiam.PSC:
Well, because this tour that I'm on is different from any of the others that I've done, 'cause usually I'm used to going with the whole crew if it's a major US tour… This tour though, the only reason I accepted to go on it is because Murs is like my little brother and I wanted to go out and help him out. I didn't want any kind of focus on me. I basically offered to go out with him as his hype man, you know, to support him, 'cause I like doing that for my people, my crew, because I think I'm a damn good hype man.
MVRemix: Tell me about your new album Extra Credit 2: Summer School.
luckyiam.PSC:
Extra Credit 2 is the second volume of my little "Extra" album series. I call it my "play album" because it's not like my "real" projects like my first one Justify The Means. Extra Credit 2 was just sort of a side project, sort of like hand-to-hand combat, where I just slang it if you see me with it, you know. It's my underground album. My under-underground album. But the first one, I got a really good response from it. A lot of people liked it and when I started working on this one, I had the intention like, well, this album was loved by a lot of people so I gotta top it with the next one, so I think I put a lot of effort into it as far as just writing, making sure I chose some different beats, like staying away from the keyboard and taking it back to the samples and breakbeats. I was looking for a sound that was closer to the music we were making in the early 90s.
MVRemix: What's your favorite tracks off the album?
luckyiam.PSC:
Man, it goes up and down but I really like that song "Love Sucks," you know? That song feels really good to me. I don't know what it makes other people feel like when they listen to it but I think my stylings are different on it, and I like telling stories when I rap, you know?
MVRemix: Was it roughly based on a true experience?
luckyiam.PSC:
It was, because my homegirl who produced it - her name is Amy but her producer name is The Am - she made that beat and then she played it for me and then she told me this whole story about how when she made the beat… the second verse is like her whole story. She was going out with this girl and they got real serious, and then she got dumped by this girl and she was feelin' all sad and shit when she made that beat, and I told her, I was like, "Man, I'm gonna make a song about that." So the second verse is about her, and the first verse… well… is kinda true too [Laughs].
MVRemix: And then what about your self-proclaimed "girl song" "You're So Cool"?
luckyiam.PSC:
"You're So Cool" … that beat made that song come out, you know? My boy Mills from Saskatchewan sent me that beat and that's all I could think of when I heard that and I decided to tell a serious love tale that didn't have a twist in it. It was something geared towards girls but I mean, a lot of dudes like that song too, so it turned out the way I wanted it to. It was a sweet song. Me and Amy, when we recorded it, she was the engineer for my whole album basically, and when we did that song we nicknamed it "the sappy song" 'cause it's some sappy shit. But people say it's the best song on the album, so I don't know. It just came across way better than I thought it would.
MVRemix: When it comes to relationships, do you feel that it's important for the female to be into hip-hop?
luckyiam.PSC:
I guess it really might help if that's what you do, you know, like if you're a hip-hop artist or if you're a graffiti artist, or a breaker. It would help if your partner was into something that you love that much, but as a rapper I know it's kind of cool when you have a partner that doesn't like hip-hop 'cause it gets weird sometimes when you're in a relationship with somebody and they're really into hip hop. I don't know. It's weird lines that get crossed sometimes. Maybe it's just an emcee's ego or whatever. It's just gets weird sometimes.
MVRemix: What pisses you off the most about the hip-hop game nowadays?
luckyiam.PSC:
What pisses me off most about hip-hop these days is… people just keep trying to put music into different categories and try to define what is what and basically what I think it all comes down to is that people have respect for where it came from, and that you're making something that actually sounds good, you know? No matter what it is, from the lowest of underground to the highest of mainstream shit. As long as you're making some good music it doesn't matter what it is, because it all comes from the same place, and that's the four elements of hip-hop. That's what I hate about it. I hate some of the people that want to talk about hip-hop all the time -
MVRemix: Yes!
luckyiam.PSC:
That's what I really hate about it [Laughs].