Middle Men - conducted by Bill "Low-Key" Heinzelman
Hustle Music
March 2005
The city of Cleveland has not felt a Hip Hop buzz radiating from its streets in almost a decade. The Middle Men, comprised of Mack and Live Wire, have revived Cleveland's Hip Hop scene in only two short years. Now the entire city and state of Ohio has embraced the duo as Hip Hop's next big thing.
MVRemix: First off, why don't you guys introduce yourself and let the fans know who Middle Men are?
Mack: Middle Men is comprised of me and Live Wire. We are cousins from the inner city of Cleveland. We have been rapping for two years as a group, going real hard. At first it wasn't that serious, but we got real serious these last two years and it has been on since then. And the name Middle Men means we need a cut on everything.
Wire: We are just hustlers that are in the middle of everything. It doesn't have to necessarily be anything illegal, but we are always in the middle of every situation trying to make a dollar.
Coach (Manager): We also feel like we have that sound that the mid west is waiting for. We decided to form a record company because we felt we could do this ourselves. We have made some big moves the past year, reaching out to the Dipset and Purple City in New York. And basically we decided as a crew that we could do this on our own. I think we are headed in the right direction. We all grew up in the poorest city in the country, and everything about us is about hustle.
Mack: We are bringing hustle music table.
MVRemix: Wire what was your childhood like growing up in Cleveland over the years?
Wire: My story is pretty much like any individual living in the inner city. I grew up in a single parent household, and I didn't have a lot growing up. My mother was able to support me up until the age of 14, but after that my mom couldn't produce what I wanted. At a young age you always want the flashy things, and we couldn't afford it. Shit was too expensive, so I did what I had to do to get things. And that caused me to be in and out of jail. But I was always in love with rap. I knew I could flow, so after awhile me and my cousin came together and people started to feel what we were doing. Eventually we got serious and here we are today.
MVRemix: Mack what about you?
Mack: It was really the same scenario. When I was 19 I moved out to Atlanta, Georgia, for five or six years. I was doing music out there with a guy named Chris Cosper from Hype City Entertainment. That is when I really started going to the studio and taking my music a little more seriously. Then I ended up moving back to Cleveland, hooked up with my cousin Live Wire, and its just been history ever since. Everybody started saying we were hot, so we just stuck with it.
Wire: Now we got songs with the Diplomats, Geto Boys, and Purple City. So its been on, full throttle.
MVRemix: How did you guys hook up with Dipset and the Geto Boys?
Wire: We hooked up with the Geto Boys at The Source awards. We were back stage chopping it up with them and they were feeling us. Obviously they knew we were feeling them, so it was on. You can't go wrong with the Geto Boys. The following week we flew out to Chicago, met up with Bushwick Bill, and we put a track down. Its been love like that ever since.
Mack: Yeah, they are some of the realest niggas we ever met. But we met the Diplomats through Un Kasa, who's in Purple City. I had met him out here in Cleveland when he was promoting his mixtape. I told him that I did music, so I gave him a CD and he was feeling it. So he called me the next day while he was still promoting and he wanted to get on one of my songs, Put It In Reverse. So he got on that, him and Taj Mahal, and then they introduced us to Juelz Santana. We started that relationship like that. They were just feeling the movement.
MVRemix: How would you guys describe your style?
Mack: I think we have a combination of styles. Obviously we have a mid west feel, but we have a combination of every coast. East, West, South, it all creates what we call Mid West flow.
MVRemix: What do you think are your strong points as a group that help separates yourself from everyone else?
Mack: To me, we are not on that bubble gum music. Everybody is coming out with that shit, and we are not trying to hear it. We are bringing the reality and the realness back to the music.
Wire: It's real talk fo' show.
MVRemix: So you guys have your own label?
Coach: Yes, we just recently formed Middle Men Records.
MVRemix: Are you guys still working on your album, or is it done?
Wire: Yeah, the album is pretty much done. It is coming out soon, but there are a couple more things we need to tweak. The album will probably come out at the end of summer. What y'all think, around then?
