Life & Art Senior Writer
To say that the Southern rap duo Dirty was still on Alabama time last Sunday night before the Source Awards is the understatement of the century. I spent four hours repeatedly asking the Radisson’s staff to ring Michael Jackson’s room and listened to enough wanna-be rappers to start my own label. Damn…plus you can’t imagine how menacing Mike Tyson can be in a perennial elevator ride.
Reaching critical acclaim in 2001 with their Universal Records release, The Pimp and da Gangsta, Dirty, while being slightly detracted for likening their sound to Outkast’s crossfire elucidation of the Dirty South, founded their ghetto personas, while establishing a signature vernacular of “smokin’ on wood,” “pulling tricks” and “bendin’ corners” in their Caddies. Come 2003, the group left Universal to sign with Rap-A-Lot, claiming on their new LP, Love Us or Hate Us, that the former got them “starving and hungry,” so they had to roll out.
Finally, Big Pimp and Mr. G’Stacka invited me to their room, subsequently stuffing a wet towel under the door and sparking a blunt before I started in on them. Here’s what they had to say:
L&A: For those who don’t know, introduce yourselves.
P: My name’s Big Pimp, aka all up in your main girl’s draws, fat ding-a-ling, the daddy hog, the fat Michael Jackson. Make sure you put that in print.
G: And I’m your boy Mr. G’Stacka, aka breakin’ ’em off all so lovely dovely, in one letter the gangsta.
L&A: On your new album you talk a lot about mainstream rappers selling out. What makes you more real?
P: Every man speaks for himself when he says his music is real ’cause every rapper that’s from the hood claims their music is real. A lot of niggas would sell they ass just to sell a million copies but niggas like us, if we just sell a hundred thousand copies in the hood, shit, that’s still platinum to us. We probably wouldn’t do no Pepsi commercial. If it’s going to take the hood away from us, we ain’t gonna do. We always want the hood behind us.
L&A: Tell me, why do you rap?
G: For the money. Any nigga that say they doing it for the love ain’t keeping it real. If they was doing it for the love then they wouldn’t accept the money. Their CDs would be free. They’d just be out there doing free shows.
P: Fuck all that love shit. We’re out there to get paid. Shit, I’m 27 and I’m not gonna be rapping for fun. I got six kids to feed.
L&A: What songs on Love Us or Hate Us have you gotten a really good response to?
P: “I Wish.” We tearin’ clubs up with that one. They banned it Birmingham already.
G: Every time it come on, a riot break out. They said, “Look man, we ain’t playin’ it no more. Take your ass on. They done tore up my club…” It’s the new “Tear da Club Up.”
L&A: On “I Wish,” ya’ll talk about “popping the trunk, the sawed off pump” (a shotgun), and all that. Is this something that happens on a regular basis?
P: Yeah. It’ll happen if it has to happen, just not on no regular basis. I don’t think nobody pops the trunk everyday. But it has been popped plenty of times, believe you me. We some head-busters. True enough, we’re rappers, but at the same time we’re some niggas.
L&A: Pimp, why do you call yourself the Pimp?
P: ‘Cause I fuck with a lot of hos. They gave me the name. I get one and just break her. Like you, I get at you and I’ll have you giving me your whole check. Get to suckin’ on them toes and you’ll come off that money.
L&A: That’s what you think.
P: Oh, so you think you could get some of my money?
L&A: Probably. Anyway, ya’ll are presenting an award tomorrow night. I know you got some tight outfits lined up.
G: I’ll be representin’ Alabama to the fullest. You know, my Alabama throwback, all that.
P: And I got some pimp shit. My suit’s made out of nanny goat hair, the pants and the jacket.
L&A: Before I could leave, Big Pimp decided that he had a question for me. “Answer me this,” he says, “If a rooster is the man and the hen is the woman, what is the chicken?” “That’s easy,” I said, “Both.” Then G’Stacka comes in with the one-liner: “It’s the bulldagger, the sissy, the homosexual, the gay one. You didn’t know that, did you?”
Actually, Dirty, I didn’t, but thanks for enlightening me anyway.
Tiffany Rainey can be reached at rainey305@hotmail.com