After a six-year hiatus, Sir Mix-a-Lot, the emcee best known for his 1992 hit "Baby Got Back," is back with a new record, Daddy's Home released Sept. 9.
In an interview with the Daily Lobo, Mix shared his thoughts on the music industry, downloading music and diverse perspectives on his new record.
Daily Lobo :Why has there been such a long period between this album and the last?
Sir Mix-a-Lot: The record industry. Everything's wrong with the record industry right now. You got guys paying $20 for wack-ass CD's with one song, you got the industry talking about suing kids for downloading music, you got these artists with Web sites and they charge you to watch the very same videos you can watch for free on MTV.
It just ass-backwards. The whole business is dying and I think that's beautiful, let it die. If it dies it's going to help the musicians get their product out there because the fans are so weaned on the MTV titty that they're scared to look elsewhere for product. I'm not dissing MTV, I'm just saying there needs to be some other things out there.
DL: So you don't object to people downloading your music?
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SM: Well, I don't want to go broke because of it. But if a guy is going to spend $20 potentially on my CD and he's downloading my stuff, I don't mind. I'm giving a lot of stuff away free on my site, (www.sirmixalot.info). You can check out any song you want, you can look at any video you want and that's what the Internet should be about.
DL: Your flow has changed over the years...
SM: Oh, most definitely. I think a lot of people almost expected me to do a wack-ass record. They're probably saying, "Oh, this cat's been in the game for a while, he's probably gonna rap the same way he did when he did 'Baby Got Back.'"
A lot of old school artists do that, they have a tendency to say "well, this is my sound." That's not your sound! That's just all that was available at that time. If you truly love hip-hop and you truly love music, you stay in touch with it.
I tour. I'm not this guy who sits back in house in Beverly Hills trying to tell the world what they like. I touch hands and talk to people and do shows in little hole-in-the-wall clubs intentionally because I really want to get out and see what cats want to hear.
That's why the flow has been majorly upgraded. And I don't want to come off as some old-school ass rapper. I mean old-school is cool, but don't try to make a new old-school song.
DL: So could one potentially find Sir-Mix-a-Lot in a local hip-hop cipher, battling with other emcees?
SM: No, I don't battle. Don't get me wrong, it's entertaining, but it's a little stupid. I've heard some old-school rappers say, "if you're truly hip-hop you must battle." That's the biggest crock of bullshit I ever heard in my life. How many guitar battles did Jimi Hendrix win?
The fact that you can win an emcee battle has nothing to do with making a good song. I don't buy into emcees dissing other emcees, that's created a lot of false ideas of what rap is.
DL: What did you focus on for this record?
SM: What I wanted to do with this album is mix flow and cadence. A lot of cats can flow, but they don't use their voice. You can turn on the radio right now and you can hear four or five cats that all sound like the same person. They have no cadence.
That's what I like about my favorite emcee right now, Ludacris. Ludacris will say "We rockin' out specTateeeerrrrs!" It has more to do with overall entertaining than the other stuff. I love cadence and style and that's what I've been wanting to do so I've been listening to Ludacris and Eminem, who is, hands down, the best rapper out there.
DL: They both got great senses of long-range form, extended metaphor and internal rhyme...
SM: Right! It's very easy to write down a list of everything you own or wish you owned and then mention it in a song. Shit like platinum and crystal, un-pop the cork, bubbly, big-ass, drop it like it's hot, those are buzzwords in hip-hop. If you say that stuff people will respect it and for some reason, credibility is built on that bullshit.
But if you listen to Eminem, you can knock him because he's white, you can say what you want, but he takes a story and maintains continuity but he's still flowing. That's hard to do.
DL: But you've been doing that since "Posse on Broadway."
SM: Yeah, I maintained a story on "Posse" but I wasn't flowing. It was like blah-blah-blah one, blah-blah-blah come. It wasn't really bouncing rhymes within rhymes and maintaining continuity. That takes work you really got to sit down with a pen and really think that shit through.
DL: You have always crossed genres from your cover of "Iron Man" to your recent collaboration with the Presidents of the U.S.A. Tell me about some of your non-hip-hop influences.
SM: I started out as more of a fan of the techno shit - Gary Neuman, Devo, Craftwork, Depeche Mode. I hated '80s rock. Just big hair and guitar solos for 10 years. But when Metallica did the "Enter Sandman" record, that raised a brow for me. I was like "whoa! This isn't that shit without rhythm, this shit has rhythm!"
I went to the Grammy's a while back and saw Metallica and they were playing to all the balcony people, and they ignored all the rich cats in the front row all the hip-hop cats were playing to. It was incredible.
I realized at this point rock is way more plugged into its fans than hip-hop is, and that kind of scares me because that is what hip-hop was known for back in the day. Now were so infatuated with jewelry, cars and alcohol that we forget to reconnect from time to time.
I went to a Korn and Disturbed concert a year and a half ago and there was this cat crowd-surfing in a wheel-chair. So, they stop the show, bring this guy to the front of the stage and give him a hug. I was like wow! That's what it's supposed to be about. It's not about how big your chain is. Now I'm addicted to Limp Bizkit and all that grunge stuff from Seattle.
DL: You've dealt with political issues in the past. How do approach messages in your music?
SM: I don't deal with a lot of the issues in the same way that most rappers do. I'll never be the black guy that blames the man. I think that shit is stupid. You know, "everything I do wrong, let's blame the man!"
I don't pretend to know what my fans think, I just try to pay attention to what they say. I'll address political issues, especially the rock songs that I've done that haven't been released yet.
I did a song back in '98 called "We Can't Stop Us" which would've been almost prophetic if I had released it. I mean people would listen to it and say I predicted the war in Iraq, the election of Bush and all the scandals. I have some strong feelings politically but I'm a pretty strong centrist.
I'm not a democrat or a republican but I think that's where most of America is because most politicians on both lines are hypocrites. At the same time, I think that entertainers have the tendency to be self-important. I'm aware that when most people buy a Mix-a-Lot record, they're not buying it to hear what I have to say about Dick Cheney. I'll talk about it in interviews, but on this record I deal with more real-life issues and more fun stuff.
DL: What was the inspiration behind "Big Johnson?"
I did it because I got tired of chicks criticizing the fact that I kept talking about female body parts and don't give them anything.
Well, I had a chick help me out with it and she gave me some ideas on some things to say and I almost diss myself a little bit. I didn't want to come off like one of those guys just sitting around bragging about penis size.
I want to destroy a lot of stereotypes and urban legends and just play around with that a little bit. The video is going to be hilarious. I really want to bring fun back to hip-hop.
