As Chicago legend Twista readies the release of his latest album, Adrenaline Rush II,
the hip-hop veteran sat down with rolling out to share his thoughts on
the Midwest music scene, conflicts in hip-hop and the senseless
killings in his hometown. –todd williams
Midwest Rappers Finally Getting National Attention
“The biggest thing I think about Chicago that’s changed is — back [when
I started] you only … a few local artists. But now you see Kanye
West, Lupe Fiasco, and the west side of Chicago is still strong. The
thing I noticed the most is we’ve gotten our music game up as far as
the creativity. We [were always] in the middle of the map and we could
never get to the executives and the record labels like all of the other
artists could. But now we have the internet so cats are able to get on.
The internet opened it up …”
Beefing in Hip Hop
“I’m gonna be honest. A lot of times, there is real drama out there. My
drama was rap drama. Like I had a battle with Naughty By Nature back in
the day. But where I’m from, with the people we deal with, … I can’t
be on no record talking about what I’m gonna do to somebody. If it s a
rap thing, we can handle like that and keep it on wax. But when the
drama gets deeper than that, it’s something that don’t get talked
about. A lot of cats out here that’s beefin, it be a lot of clown sh*t
and lame sh*t. I ain’t gone be sitting off in no radio station or no
studio talking about ‘I don’t like him.’ I’m [not] on that vibe.”
The Chicago Teen Killings
“I put out a new video called “You Don’t Wanna See ‘Em Bus.” I pretty
much [show] all of the students that’s been murdered in the schools of
Chicago. When you look at the statistics, more people died in the 90s
than now, because of the drug game and the gangbanging. They used to
fight over gangs and turf. Now, they killing over arguments. We were
shooting a scene for a video and some guys were around — some bangers —
and the police rode past and one dude started screaming, ‘Y’all get the
f*** from over here, y’all gone get it over here — get from over here.’
It’s a different breed out here today…”
