Buckshot – The Unkut Mini Interview

Once again I found myself subjected to indignities of a press day, where you have ten or fifteen minutes allotted to talk to a rapper who has already bored themselves to death speaking to the twenty other jerks before you and some herb always messes up the schedule and as a result that fifteen minutes turns into less than ten. Just for laughs, I decided to stay on the line and laugh at the other shitty questions from the amateur journalists who followed me, while witnessing Buckshot get progressively more confusing the more he drank and/or smoked to make the whole process slightly less tedious for himself. Nevertheless, I still managed to get a couple of interesting jewels from the former Black Moon front man.

Robbie: What inspired you start making music?

Buckshot: My uncle David was a dancer, he was an entertainer and he made dancing a big influence on my life when I was a youngster. He was a dancer for a group called Mtume, they made a record called ‘Juicy.’ I saw him on TV and I felt like he achieved the ultimate impossible and one day I was going to do that and I would achieve the same impossible. I kept going and kept going and I kept dancing. I stopped dancing in 1990 and I became an MC at that point. I always wanted to be an MC but never thought that that was my path. I always thought that dancing was gonna be the way for me. When my MC got locked-up I felt like I had no choice but to continue what we started. When he got locked-up he was like, ‘Yo, keep it going!’ I was like, ‘How am I gonna keep it going? You know what? I’mma just start emceeing myself.’ That’s how I became an MC.

Was that the original Black Moon or was that a different crew?

That was a different group. That was Reese Smooth, KB-1 and KB-2. It was a group we had called…umm…that wasn’t Critical Movements, that was another group that we had. Like you had Big Daddy Kane, Scoob and Scrap? That was my man Reese Smooth and 5 FT was KB-1 and I was KB-2. When Reese got locked-up, 5 said, ‘Why don’t I introduce you to my boy who’s a DJ, but he also produced these beats that me and you are dancing to and practicing.’ That DJ and producer was Evil Dee. From there we became Black Moon because Evil Dee said, ‘Why don’t y’all join my group? We’re called Black Moon, me and my DJ.’ Me and 5 FT said, ‘Let’s do it.’

How did you know Reese Smooth?

Reese Smooth was my man from around the way. Reese Smooth is actually my brother-in-law now, his brother is married to my sister. I was really cool with him and we used to hustle together and he got locked-up for hustling. They gave him a long time, man! He was hustling what us New Yorkers would call ‘outta town.’ From that point on we were Black Moon and we would do local shows and just try to get our name out there. I started interning at MCA Records after we shopped our demos around [there] I hustled my way in to get a job. [chuckles] While I was interning at MCA I was blessed to have this lady named Maria Davis, who was one of the biggest promoters back in the days and helped so many artists get a record deal. She allowed me to do a show for a club night she was having. Because I was an intern I had access to stuff like that. One day I was doing a show – me, 5 FT and Evil Dee – but Maria Davis said, ‘Listen, I’m about to club this shut down.’ I said,’Please don’t shut it down, can we just go on real quick?’ She said, ‘Y’all got five minutes!’ So I ran to Evil Dee and said, ‘Yo, we got five minutes! Don’t take off your coat, don’t take off your book bag, don’t take off nuttin’! Let’s hurry up!’ We actually ran on stage with our book bags and that’s why people started knowing us for wearing our book bags. We thought we had to be professional and take our stuff off, but meanwhile it was like, ‘Go as you are right now. Just go!’ We went as we are everyday, cos we wore out book bags everyday. We wasn’t coming from school, that was our style. When we got off stage, we heard somebody going, ‘Yo! Knapsacks!’ It was Chuck Chillout. He said, ‘Y’all want a record deal? Meet me Monday.’ And that was it, we was outta there!

Was Chuck Chillout working as an A&R at that point?

Yeah, he was working at Nervous Records at the time. I was smart enough to know that wasn’t the Chuck Chillout that was back in the days, but hey, he could still get into something. I entertained it for a bit and thank god I did because it got us…we got jerked, we got done real bad, but I ain’t mad at none of it. The first album, Enta The Stage, I had Havoc as opposed to Havoc and Prodigy. Even though I was cool with both of them, I was more cool with Havoc for some reason, I just had more of an attachment. When we both came out at the same time I was so happy, it was incredible! You know how happy I was when Mobb Deep dropped? It was like, ‘Wow, one of my cool friends came out just like me!’

Can you talk a little bit about working with KRS-One when you recorded an album together?

Why is it certain rappers are not connecting with other rappers? Why is it you’ve gotta have a record company to make ‘em do that? You don’t need a record label to make me connect with one of the most respected lyricists in the hip-hop game, period! If you heard him rap today and saw him today, how energetic, lively, how clean and brute and crisp – he’s so sharp you would think the nigga 30! I’m a student of KRS-One, proudly. I used to wake-up everyday, on my way to some new job, and I used to grab my radio and play, ‘What Can They Do, What Can They Say’ [‘Jah Rulez’] by KRS-One. I used to grab that Blueprint album, the first Blueprint, and I used to play that everyday, all day, on my cassette. So yes, I’m a student of that brother. Yes, I learned a lot of my skills and tactics and techniques as far as emceeing from that brother. Anybody that doesn’t give props to the people they learnt from is just a sucker! You didn’t just wake up one day out your bed and all of sudden you’re just start rhyming this way! You was listening to artists before you and decided to start rhyming yourself. Whether you believe it or not, there’s a subconscious influence on you. If you look at my style, if you look at my career, you can now see all the rappers that was – Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, KRS-One, Public Enemy – if you said, ‘Which MC would I match Buckshot up to?’ It would be KRS-One! An underground artist who was big, influenced everybody, sold gold records but never went platinum, never was a sell-out, never decided to cross-over! I’m that nigga! I’m not the Slick Rick or Big Daddy Kane – not that they sold out, none of them did – but I was never that flashy about it. Flashy was never a part of my priorities.

Great Black Moon B-Sides: