Last year, Jersey MC Joe Budden needed some lyricists to join him in tearing up the Scram Jones-produced track “Slaughterhouse,” an album cut off his digital-only release Halfway House. The result was seven minutes of utter sickness, featuring guest spots from Brooklynites Joell Ortiz and Nino Bless, West Coast representative Crooked I and Detroit MC Royce Da 5’9”. Each (save Bless, who was still new to the rap game compared to the others) had dealt with and moved beyond a ridiculous set of industry politics that many would never make it passed, and the chemistry seemed too good to be true. With the streets and the Internet buzzing heavily about the collaboration, it was obvious what needed to happen: the four would join forces and form a supergroup named after the track that brought them together (Bless was not included, but remains close to the others). With leaked tracks like “Onslaught,” “Wack MCs” and “Fight Club” only adding to the buzz, fans are anxiously awaiting the group’s first LP, which hits stores August 11 via E1 Music.
Late last week, the four sat in DJ Premier’s midtown Manhattan studio, cracking jokes, answering questions, and building the excitement for the debut album of the “Voltron crew.” I talked to them about the future of lyrics, their upcoming Rock the bells tour, and what exactly it is that makes Slaughterhouse a four-headed monster.
It seems like now is the first time in a while when you can be a rapper at any level— and you don’t have to be lyrical at all. As lyrical MCs, do you fear for the future of lyrics?
Budden: Hell no.
Me: Why not?
Budden: Cause of us, nigga! Nah, it’s just like with anything else out there. Like I tell my girl all the time,rummaging through my phone, searching for shit, 'if you looking for something, you’ll find.' So for the people out there that are in search of lyricists and top-notch wordsmiths, they’re out there. Maybe you won’t find them on your local radio station, or when you turn on the TV, but they’re definitely out there, you just have to put the effort forth in coming out there to get it. I know the four of us, together, are fucking phenomenal MCs, not to pat ourselves on the back. But I don’t think there’s any reason to fear the future. The game changes. It changes every however many years it is: dancing’s cool one second, words will be back one second, fashion is cool one second. We’ve all made a healthy, comfortable living for a lot of years being lyricists. So no, I don’t think you can fear.
I picture the studio being extremely competitive, lyrically, since you’re all on similar level. How do you avoid letting things get too heated and too competitive? How do you push the egos to the side and keep all the competition healthy in the studio?
Crooked: I think it’s a respect factor. We all respect each other and I know that these guys right here are lyrical geniuses. So there’s a respect. If he [Royce] says ‘yo, I think this should be like this,’ I have to take his opinion very seriously because he’s a lyrical genius. It would be different if it was somebody who I had no respect for on the microphone telling me ‘yo, you need to do X, Y and Z,’ you know? So I think we can put aside egos and all that and just mesh together because we all respect each other. We respect each other’s opinion, each other’s bodies of work, and each other’s work ethic—so it was smooth, man.
Royce: I don’t even compete. I just know that I gotta perform at the peak of my capabilities in order to exist. It’s not ‘yo, I gotta have a better verse than Joey.’ I’m not gonna mentally do that to myself because I don’t know if my verse is better than Joey’s, because opinions vary.
Crooked: Opinions are like assholes.
Royce: Yeah, there’s always gonna be somebody there to say Joey had a better verse or Royce had a better verse. I just know I gotta perform on a certain level in order to be on a song with these dudes, otherwise that song will not be balanced.
Do you ever hear something one of you says that makes you go, ‘shit, I gotta step my game up?’
Joell: Every goddamn time! Every song you gonna get that, if you’re your worst critic and you know the niggas next to you are fucking dope. But we don’t let that take away from the fun of recording. That never interferes with our recording process. It might be something we joke about after when this nigga [Crooked] is doing tequila sunrise, he’s [Royce] doing Patrón, he’s [Budden] Red Bullin’ it and I’m Jack-and-cokin’ it. We might be like, ‘you lost, mothafucka.’ As long as the song sounds fine when we’re done, we good.
Royce: We all try to do our best because of how good we know that each other are. But we’re not against each other. That’s what I think a lot of people in press don’t understand, and why we keep getting these same type of questions. We on the same team, you know? But there’s always going to be a friendly edge there in terms of competition. I mean, I’m cut from the Eminem cloth. I was 19 years old in the studio getting clinked up by Em. A certain mind frame was already instilled in me at an early age. So I’m just doing what’s natural.
So you guys are going on tour this summer. What’s a Slaughterhouse live show like? Is there a lot of planning or is it more just feeding off the energy on stage?
Royce: We have no choice but to feed off the energy because we don’t have a lot of time to rehearse. A lot of it is just what we do naturally. It ain’t nothing but rock-n-roll to us; we just go up there and do what we do best.
Crooked: And it’s a lot of energy. Don’t get it twisted, it’s not like some of these rappers that go up there and they don’t break a sweat. You got a lot of people in the industry right now that could do 12 songs and then walk off and look like they didn’t do shit. That’s absolutely not what’s going to go on at a Slaughterhouse show. At a Slaughterhouse show you’re gonna see a four-headed monster get on stage. Each individual is gonna tear into the microphone. Everybody’s gonna be sweating. You’re gonna see red slaughter water pouring all over the crowd. You’re gonna see an intense energy that you probably won’t see from the act after us.
Royce: Yeah, and if you’re headlining, and you’re a little too comfortable with your shit, then we might just steal the show.
Joell: And, if you look near me, there’s usually a good group of girls trying to tear my clothes off because of the element I bring to it. . .which is the beard element (laughs). You see, we do on stage the same thing we’re doing now, have a goddamn ball.
Budden: Wait, hold up a minute. (Turns to Joell) You really think those are girls trying to tear your clothes off?
Joell (to me): Go ahead, next question (laughs).
In the beginning it looked like you guys would take care of your solo records and then the Slaughterhouse record would come after that. Recently it seems like the Slaughterhouse buzz has been so big that you couldn’t put it off anymore. How did it come to the point where you guys were like ‘We gotta put out the Slaughterhouse album, then we’ll take care of ourselves.’
Budden: I think each and every one of us puts just as much energy and pride into Slaughterhouse as we do our individual careers. Royce’s album—that nigga pushes it back everyday I feel. I’ve got a project. Crook’s project—he’s got a million songs he’s sitting on. We all could do that [solo albums]. That’s the easy part, that’s been done before. There’s nothing monumental or groundbreaking in that. Not when you compare it to this and what we’re doing now. Like we were saying before, this is the first, actually it’s many firsts, and we’d like to continue to see many firsts. Personally, I’ve never been on Rock the Bells. They’ve never asked me to go on Rock the Bells, and I’ve been rapping for quite some time. So I mean, just for me personally, certain doors will open because I’m associated with these three monsters that haven’t opened before. So the eagerness was there, the willingness was there, the support was there, the fans were there, everything was there—I think it’s safe to say a lot sooner that what we expected. We were maybe three freestyles in- maybe two freestyles in, the third one was just like, 'all right we gotta put something out there, the people are tearing our asses up.' [Ed. note- pause]. They want something. It was something that we thought Hip Hop needed, and like I said before, it turned into something that Hip Hop wanted.
Any collaborations outside of the Slaughterhouse group on the album or just you four?
Crooked: Personally, when it comes to collabos, these are the dudes I want to collaborate with. Outside of them, it’s probably a noteworthy producer, and that’s it. There are a lot of well-respected people in the industry that wanted to be a part of this project, you know? My whole position was ‘maybe on the next one,’ right now we need to dig in with Slaughterhouse, do what we do. You’ll see what it is. I don’t want to give up too much of the project because I need the fans to really anticipate what’s about to happen.
In terms of the album, what percentage would you say are songs a la “Onslaught” and “Wack MCs,” versus more conceptual songs like “Move On?”
Joell: It’s very broad. We let you peak in on some personal issues. We let you rock out on some show-driven, stage-performance songs, and we also gives you the “Onslaughts” and the “Fight Clubs.” It’s a crazy record. I can’t wait for everyone to pick it up.
Budden: It’s a very unique album. It’s very diverse. And in the records- if you want to talk to percentages- the percentage that’s in the same vein as “Onsalught” is under 10 percent.
Really?
Budden: Yeah, and even on those, they’re concept records. The concept is Slaughterhouse. It’s to go in and do what we do on that microphone, back to back to back to back, no hook, hard beat, and just get it in the way niggas used to do when I was coming up. I just want the same feeling that niggas got when you listen to “Symphony,” when you listen to fucking “Triumph,” when you listen to “Rampage,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Banned from TV.” When you listen to those joints and you get a certain feelin. We want to restore that.
In terms of the personal songs, when you guys are in the studio making music about personal experiences, do you learn about each other there or is that something that happens away from the studio?
Joell: The learning process for me, it’s simultaneous. It’s physically being in the studio with these guys and it’s also hearing what they talk about. I would’ve never known about, rest in peace, Crooked I’s aunt and her story if he didn’t express it over music. Which brings me back to what I was talking about in the other interview, that I’m such a fan of Slaughterhouse that I want to answer a lot of these questions as a fan. So I wouldn’t have known a lot of stuff about a lot of these dudes—about Royce’s situation in the crib and stuff like that—if it wasn’t expressed over music. It excites me that even when these dudes, who are now my friends, talk about something personal they still remain lyrical. They still don’t take away from what the fans want to hear. So when Joe Budden said that less than 10 percent of the album is in the same vein of an “Onslaught,” it just means structure-wise, because you still feel lyricism each and every time out. It’s just a different energy.
What specific producers did you guys work with?
Crooked: The production credits on this album are ridiculous, to me personally, as a fan of Hip Hop. Because, to me, DJ Khalil, he’s bananas. Denaun Porter—ridiculous. Alchemist—ridiculous. StreetRunner. Focus. Nottz. Emile. It’s a buffet of production, you know what I mean. Anybody who knows those names that we just called knows that those dudes are at the top of their games. I’m very excited about the production.
Royce: They’re the Hip Hop producer version of us.
Crooked: And they were all excited to work with us. They’re bending time schedules, doing different things, just because they respect what we bring to the table, and that just feels good that somebody who understands what you’re doing in Hip Hop wants to be a part of it. It gives the project a different energy.
Do you ever disagree about beats?
Royce: If it’s a disagreement with beats then it won’t be used. It’s easy for all four of us to agree on something because we all got great ears.
All right, this is a little tough. Let’s say there’s one Slaughterhouse song, and it’s the last one ever. What producer do you want on the beat?
Budden: Man, I ain’t answering this shit (laughs). There’s so many different producers that showed us nothing but love, put their, well, I’m not gonna say put their feet in the sand, but certainly gave us a family discount, some waived fees, some producers are just extremely big fans of us and what we’re doing. I wouldn’t do that.
Joell: It would have to be somebody doing the kicks, somebody else on the drums, somebody else doing the bassline.
Budden: Or the beat would have to change every four bars.
Crooked: With every producer that we respect, beat changing every four bars, and Rahzel and Doug E. Fresh beatboxing at the end.
Joell: If the question didn’t involve producers though, I’d want the last shit to be a capella, just so niggas can hear what the fuck we talking about. That’s what all of us really concentrate on, understanding what the fuck we talking about. It ain’t bullshit just because it’s lyrical.
Crooked: A capella lyrics are music to my fucking ears. I swear to God I can listen to a CD of a capellas driving down the street.
Joell: Me too.
Budden: (Looks at computer, which is live streaming) The fans voted, they said it should be Jazze Pha.
Crooked: Jazze Phanzelli! That’s what the fans said, Jazze Pha? He’s got a lot of respect out there.
Royce: I can’t even answer that question for my own solo shit. I don’t see how it can be possible for four different opinions to answer that.
Joell: Good question though.
Crooked: Yeah, you got us.
I heard you guys were doing an EP each week in July to build anticipation for the album. Whose idea was that?
Budden: Who said that shit? And what week is mine coming out?
Read it somewhere on the Internet. I heard you guys were doing songs each week leading up to the full album.
Budden: That’s not something that the four of us have decided on as a cohesive unit. But we would like to build anticipation for the project. I know as a solo artist I’m willing to do any and everything in my power to try to get people excited and look forward to this project just as much as I am.
Are you guys going to put out a mixtape or something? How do you plan to build anticipation beyond the tour?
Royce: There are other things we can do. I don’t think we need a mixtape, people know what we do. I don’t think we have time to do a mixtape before we leave for the tour.
Crooked: There will be music though. There will be a variety of things to get the pump up, you know what I’m saying? But personally I don’t think we need to do a mixtape. It’s like we are a mixtape.
Budden (to Crooked): Are you gonna put an EP out in July?
Crooked: Yeah, I’m thinking about putting an EP out July 21st, just to kind of circulate through digitally and create awareness. My thing is that when it comes to the West Coast, I have to take special care to inform them about Slaughterhouse. So I’m hiring a publicist out of my own pocket to work the West for Slaughterhouse. I’m dropping things over there, and I’m putting the Slaughterhouse logo on everything from San Diego to Vancouver. That’s just something that I’m doing to further the name of Slaughterhouse, so when we get out there, and we’re in San Bernardino on August 7th or we’re in San Francisco on August 8th, I want niggas going bananas, period. So I’ll to utilize every relationship I got, whether it’s radio, whether it’s cross-street promo, whatever it is, to Slaughterhouse the game. So when we get over there, it’s like, ‘yo, we been waiting on ya’ll.’ So I’m definitely dropping an EP because I know that might awaken some that might still be sleeping. There ain’t too many people sleeping though. When I do individual shows on the West Coast, and I say ‘Ya’ll heard of Slaughterhouse’ (makes cheering noises). They get crazy. There ain’t too many people sleeping, but those who are, I’m trying to get everybody involved.
Budden: Royce, you still doing your shit on the 7th [July]?
Royce: Yeah, I think I’m looking at July 7th for my digital EP. It’s called The Revival.
Budden: I gotta tip-toe around these things because I know with release dates, and fans, I don’t want nobody getting hung up.
Royce: My shit is digital so I don’t think that’s going to matter.
Budden: Yeah, so hopefully I can play catch-up. If Royce does the 7th and Crook does the 21st, then I need to snatch the 28th or the 14th and maybe niggas (turns to Joell) will jump quick and make them do the same thing. Then you’re rumor will be correct.
OK, so when I think of groups or supergroups like you guys coming together or attempting to—groups like the Four Horsemen, Jay-Z, Ja Rule and DMX [as Murder, Inc.], The Firm—why will you guys not fail?
Budden: We’re not even in the same sentence as the Four Horsemen, no disrespect to them, because they never put out a project, an official album.
Royce: They never even got on a label.
Crooked: They never talked to you.
Budden: I mean I get it. I’m clear that the Four Horsemen are up the same alley in terms of four guys who cherish their pen game the same way that we do. But it was short lived, for whatever reason, and it didn’t work out. We don’t let this fail, individually, we won’t. We all treat it the same way we treat our solo careers, and I think that says enough about the perseverance and resilience that each one of us has. We’ve all been through the turmoil and trials and tribulations and went through the gun smoke and came out unscathed.
Joell: I feel like we already won.
Royce: Just look at the results. That’s your answer right there.
Crooked: Yeah, because you know how many people wanted us to get in a group? And you get together with people that’s very talented and you say, ‘Yeah, group project.’ But sometimes it never gets passed that.
Royce: Only thing we actually share in common with those other groups is the actual idea. Look at the results.
Crooked: And the idea’s even a little different than theirs because they didn’t come from the different amount of regions that we do. What people need to understand is that this is very unique. This man [Royce] is Midwest. This man [Joell] is Brooklyn. This man [Budden] is Jersey. I’m Cali. This is unique. You can’t name me—go get any Hip Hop almanac you want to—you name me a four-member group, with the skills that we have, representing the regions that we represent, combining together. Never happened.
Royce: Somebody’s gonna try it again.
Crooked: I’m hearing it right now. You know, the little fly buzzing by my head right now. There are a lot of people trying. But I ain’t mad at though, because when you set a trend and somebody follows… you know.
It seems like you guys use the respect that you have for each other and put it together, and it results in a respect for the group on the same level that you respect your solo careers. Is it accurate to say that that’s a big part of making this happen?
Budden: Well, I’ll take a step further than what you just said. Not only are we students of our own craft and we respect our own craft as well as students of the group, we’re students of the game. We have a mutual respect for Hip Hop. We love it, and I think that helps add to what we’re trying to do. I don’t think any of us here are doing it for financial gain. We’re certainly not doing it to gain this big TMZ pop notoriety. We’re doing this strictly out of love and passion, and the same love for Hip Hop we have for our solo careers, and it carries over into the group, which is why this is a four-headed monster. It’s why this animal is stronger than 95 percent of the other animals out there. Because it’s four bad asses; it’s four lives; it’s four people with totally different experiences; it’s four different hoods; it’s four different everything, just rolled into one. It’s a four-headed monster. That’s the easiest way to put it.
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