Interview with G-Side (part one: CP)

You got a lot of electronic sounds in your music, but I was listening to you the other day, and I thought, “this feels like a Barry White, Isaac Hayes thing”, the way you organize these sounds. Do you have an influence from this older generation?

Yeah, of course. But what we’re trying to do is get away from those typical samples, that people probably have used, and dig deeper. I’m really into the eurotrance music. I just bought the Katy B CD, that’s dubstep and trance.

So you’re into more electronic stuff, like dubstep?

Yeah, it’s growing on me. DJ Giraffo sent me a lot of stuff to listen to. It’s growing on me. I see how it moves people in the club, so…

Do you think America would accept someone rapping over dubstep?

Right now? No. But if we continue to get stale in the states, I think, yeah, they’d be more open to it.

The way you program your drums, do you have an influence for your complex drum patterns… or do you just take the 808 and freak it?

Pretty much, man. That’s our culture in Huntsville and Alabama and the South. The first thing you do when you get a new car, before you get an insurance and before you put gas in it, is to put speakers in it. You put the 12 or 15 inch speakers in there and let the trunk bang. The 808 is the cornerstone of the whole track. The influences from that are definitely Magic Mike, Three 6 Mafia… just aggressive drums, extreme low end. The East Coast influence comes with the sampling and the nice melodies on top of that, making everything beautiful.

In your music there’s a lot of things going on, while Magic Mike is pretty straight-forward. Is that something you came up with yourselves, or is there an influence?

I learned that from Mali Boi. This whole thing is the element of surprise, sometimes you might hear something for two bars that you won’t hear anytime else in the song. That’s his whole thing, he just wants to keep pulling you in. He got a strong jazz influence. He’s from Chicago, and pretty much well-rounded and well-versed in a lot of stuff.

I read in an interview about your very hectic work schedule. Are you still working a 9 to 5?

No. No no no. I’m actually working 9 to 9 in the studio now. I spend 20 hours a day in front of the computer, recording. We started something and now business is picking up. I just sit and record all day. That’s my job now.

Where do you get motivation to sit 20 hours a day in front of a computer?

Number one: Money. And number two: I filled out an application and now i gotta deal with it. It’s rough sometimes, but I get through it.

Do you and Mali Boi ever make beats together?

That’s how we started. But he records also. What happens is that I lay down the skeleton of the track, give it to him, he’ll do some things and send it back, and we’ll go back and forth. He’s pretty much the beatsmith. I do tracks, but my main focus is the recording, engineering and overall production of the song.

What have you learned touring?

That the world is bigger than my immediate surroundings. As far as music, I was watching the videos on TV in the hotel… Man, there’s some nice music over here. We actually did a track where we sampled Scatman John. Jackie Chain recorded to it, so that should be out soon.

Is that Pimp C stuff coming out?

I seriously doubt it.

How can that shit stay locked down?

Just politics and bullshit.

Can’t you get Obama on the line, maybe The Navy Seals, and just get it out?

Maybe! When we get a little bigger we might be able to pull some strings, but right now I seriously doubt it. One of my partners, I don’t know if you remember a group called Royal Flush, they were on Rap-A-Lot Records maybe 86-87… Royal Flush was the one that actually brought Pimp C and Bun B together to form UGK, they’re from Port Arthur also. And my partner, his partner was actually in that group, his name is Albert Bush, they call him Al-B, and he was really cool with Pimp, man. Pimp made a show in Birmingham, Alabama, and he took me to see him. Pimp used to write Al-B from jail, when he was locked up, so it was really crazy. They called each other by first name, he called him Chad. That’s how we had that connection.

What is your first memory of rap music?

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