Audio Witchdoctor
Best Year

Brolin: Hey, Witchdoctor. Witchdoctor: What’s happening? What’s going on, man? I'm doing pretty good. So yeah, man, I just wanted to talk about the new album and we’ll talk about your history a little bit as well. But first of all, what can you tell us about your latest release? I would say, man, it’s the best thing that you can buy this year as far as rap music and music go, period. Nice. This album is, like, ten years worth of blood and sweat and tears, you know. I feel it’s a competitive album. If you’re an emcee, you know, I feel like it’s an emcee’s album. And then if you like music, there’s a lot of good music on there too. So I think it’s going to catch a lot of people by surprise. And I feel like a month or two go by it’s going to start doing well in the sales. Right on, man. And now I know that you a lot of your stuff, production-wise there is a lot of live instrumentation, a heavy funk sound. Are you doing a lot of the beats yourself or do you have session players or what? Well actually, man, I strategically chose—when I hand-chose different tracks for the type of style that I have for my voice, so I just went in and mixed up, took a lot of underground producers, put one track here, one track there and just mixed it up and came up with a good piece of work. I put a lot of time into certain tracks that I chose that I’m going to put my voice on. I feel like it’s almost like a painting. I just feel like I’ve got a real good piece of artwork on my hands. And I use a lot of no-name producers and no-name emcees, too. I’ve got, like, six white rappers and three black rappers and one Asian rapper that appeared on this album. So it’s a real colorful creative album. Is everybody from Atlanta for the most part? Oh, no. I’ve got one emcee from Greenville. Cas Meta is from Ohio. Fountaine is from Topeka, Kansas. The Wheeler Boys, they’re from Georgia. We got Earleybird is from Virginia. Mad Max and Khujo, they’re from Atlanta and Hill Nation, Kentucky. Excellent, man. I know that your first album, A S.W.A.T. Healin’ Ritual came out about ten years ago, which was on a major label and that you’ve still been steadily grinding and putting out projects independently since then. Yeah. Do you feel like—I mean, Atlanta is so much in the forefront right now, the South in general, but Atlanta specifically, more so than it was ten years ago when your first record came out. Are you happy to see your city blowing up to such a level, or do you feel like maybe you should be bigger as well? Well it’s good to see Atlanta doing good as far as the music industry goes. I came out ten years ago and it was a whole different story back then as far as the way Atlanta was looked at as far as being able to move units and being able to show New York and West Coast emcees we can swim in their same waters.

So today, man, I feel like Atlanta’s in a…you know, city-wise, we’re in a good position. I feel like the only thing we might need to work at as far as the people is our people skills, you know what I’m saying. We’ve got to learn that meaning of respect a little bit more, you know what I’m saying.

As far as with Atlanta, you know, we’re being considered, like, the Mecca of the South. So that’s good. But as far as the loyalty, the respect part, that’s something in Atlanta we’ve got to work on. But otherwise than that, man, it’s good to see Atlanta at the forefront of this music industry and I feel like I’m one of the pieces that helped pave that. No doubt. So that’s always good. But we still got a long way to go as far as, like I said, the unity and the loyalty type of thing and respect. We got a long way to go when it comes to that. Sure. I hear you, man. Now being that you’ve done the major label thing and you’ve been doing the independent thing for a while now, do you feel like—I mean, obviously the industry and this is just the way the labels work and the Internet has changed so much, but if a major label stepped to you again with a deal, would you take it or do you prefer being independent and just being able to control everything? Yeah, right now it’s about Williams Street right now. With the situation that I’ve got right now, another major label to even jar me away from this situation, they would have to really be talking numbers and units, you know what I’m saying. Totally. I’m a pretty neutral cat, man. I feel like I can thrive in any type of atmosphere, in any environment. If I’m in a major label situation, I can thrive and handle that situation. I feel like I’m a easy person to work with. The situation that I’ve got now is that it couldn’t be a better situation. I did a two-album deal with Williams Street. I’m only concentrating on fulfilling my obligation with Williams Street. If a major label stepped to me some time in the future, that would be good too. But I’m pretty much—I’m neutral. I can handle any situation whether it’s a good or bad one. I know that when you first came up you were working with the Dungeon Fam and Goodie Mob and OutKast and Rico and all those cats. Are you still in touch with them? I mean, obviously I’m sure those guys are busy and stuff but are you guys still, are you still close? Do you still kick it or do music at all? Well, right now with my situation with Williams Street, like I say, I’m putting all my 100% into my deal and this record company, that I really don’t see too many Dungeon Family heads. Khujo, like, he just got off tour with me. I took Khujo on the tour. But from what I heard, man, everybody is doing solo projects right now. Yeah, totally. Everybody is busy. And so everybody’s—you know, this rap game, it’s like we’re playing chess, you know. Everybody wants to make the best chess moves that they can make. Yep. So from what I heard, everybody is doing solo projects right now. And with my situation, I’m just basically trying to present a good showing and then I want to set myself up as far as to Williams Street or other record company so that I can run a record company, you know what I’m saying. I want to run my own record company and I’ve got other artists I want to sign. So that’s where I am as far as my record company and [my own label] Dezonly1, and I’m really looking forward to pushing out some projects where I would be looked at as a label head, you know. Nice. That sounds good, man. And are you still touring with Ghostface now or did that tour wrap up or what’s the deal with that? Yeah, we wrapped the tour up. The tour was wrapped up November 1. Okay. How did that go? Man, it was great, man. It was an excellent tour. I couldn’t have scripted it out myself any better. Just even being on the same ticket with Ghostface, somebody from Wu-Tang, that was the perfect situation for me, the type of the crowd that I was looking for. Just a crowd coming to see Ghostface, that’s a real, a gritty-rap crowd. Definitely. I wanted to jump out there with somebody like that first, you know. Absolutely, man. And how did Adult Swim approach you about that? Yeah, Williams Street, my record company, they put that together. They had a relationship with Ghostface through some old work and so they put that together, man. So I was just grateful to be out there and be able to do my thing with a Wu-Tang member so let the crowd see that I can handle my little thing out there with the big boys. Absolutely, man. So what’s next for you? What’s on deck? Obviously, you’ve got the new record coming out. Are you going to be doing your own headlining tour or are you going to go straight to the lab or what? Well I’m going to sit back and once the album has been out a month or two we’ll sit back and see where we are and the sales are. But I’m a workaholic, man. Like I said, I did a two-album deal with Williams Street. So I’m going to take this year and next year and promote this album and see if I can get a gold album or a platinum album.

And I’ve got couple—I’ve got three other titles, man, that I want Williams Street to choose from. It’s an album called Mary Magdalene [ph] or either Escape 2 New York or an album called Global Warning [ph]. They’re going to have their choice between those three albums. And so that will be the next project that we drop. Nice. But I’m going to be—man, I’m on a hard grind, man. Hopefully, I can jump out there on tour with a bigwig, somebody like a Jay-Z or a Kanye, 50 Cent, one of the bigwigs out there, man, and do my thing. So that’s where I’m at right now. That would be sweet. Well listen, man, it’s great talking to you and the album sounds dope. I’m digging it. I think it sounds good and I feel like it’s definitely got a lot of potential in reaching a lot of people. I appreciate it, man. The "Best Year"video, too, man, I like the video a lot. Man, I appreciate it. And be checking out all my new stuff coming out. I’ve got some good stuff, man, some good stuff coming out. Will do. Yeah, my Myspace is a good place to check me out, man. I’m on there 24 hours and I’m always putting up new material and stuff that you would hear before it hit the streets. Right on, man. Well I appreciate it, Bro. Hey, no doubt. Have a good one, Witchdoctor. You too, dog.