With his first album in two years out this month, Jadakiss returns to a changed landscape in hip-hop. And yes, you can call it a comeback.

As Told To Damien Scott; Photography by Chad Griffith; (CLOTHING) JACKET BY ENERGIE You can call it a comeback, even though I never went nowhere. There’s been a lot of digital change since I last been out—I couldn’t beat ’em, so I had to join them. You have to get your website bumping, you have to pay attention to the blogs… But you still have to service the places where mixtapes can’t be downloaded. Not everyone has computers; where I be at, we just have refrigerators.

I want to do some acting, and I also want to do some voice-overs. I could see myself doing anything… But nothing risking my manhood. You hear my voice? I have a unique voice. I could be on Family Guy, or the voice of Shrek, or, like, Adult Swim. Yeah, I’ll take that all day: “Jada does cartoons.” Build the Jadakiss brand up.

Since the beginning of time, we can’t name no rap group that didn’t fall apart or have some type of falling out… But with the Lox, whatever our disputes were, they were behind closed doors. A lot of crews now are made up. We grew up together, we know each other’s mothers, we been in little league football together. We’re brothers. If it ain’t tight, you will never see it. It stays in our own house.

The tight gear came in, so I’ve been getting my clothing a little smaller. Nothing too tight and squeezing the butt cheeks… But I’ve been getting it a little smaller. Also, with the whole tight gear, eating healthy is in, too. Everyone is eating right and everyone wants to work out. It’s cool to want to be healthy, so that’s a good thing. I’m still getting it in.

I’m cool with everybody in New York right now, believe it or not. Even the ones you think I ain’t cool with. I wouldn’t say the New York rap scene is moving towards a more peaceful situation… But they’re seeing how the South stays showing the unity, and they’re getting all the money. So now everybody wants to do collabos again. The music was better when you had collaborations like “Reservoir Dogs” and “Banned From TV.”

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