Photo courtesy of Universal Motown.

Man In The Mirror - Page 2

C: Now you address it on The Mirror?
Ja: Oh for sure. I don't address 50 on The Mirror at all. You may hear little references on a record here or there, stabs, a gentle touch here, but it's all real talk. It's none of the propaganda; it's just real music. I got a record on my album called "Judas." And we all know who Judas is. But to me, it's like a "Lost Ones" record that Jay made. It's not a diss song, it's a real song. So when people hear it, I don't want people to take it the wrong way. Because I may be talking about somebody that I love, that's a friend of mine that I deal with. But sometimes people need to be talked to hard, they need tough love.

C: Looking back on it, would you handle anything differently?
Ja: Not at all. Had I not gone through all of that I wouldn't be in the same mental space that I am now. I'm much smarter, I'm hungry as an MC; I may have lost a little bit of an edge, this being my seventh album, if everything was still peachy-keen for Rule. I may not have went into the studio with the same conviction, but right now I'm amped up, I feel like a new artist. I want to win! It's not about the fact that I have to win, because we're making money, we're doing good things, we doing other big things, but I want it and that's the difference. Wanting it and needing it is two different things.

C: Do you think you guys will have issues forever? You brought Farrakhan in, who did wonders for Common and Ice Cube, but not a lot of progress was made, do you think this will go on whether it's subliminally or tap references forever?
Ja: Let me tell you, from my end: I could care less about what he's doing, or what he's saying or anything else like that. To me he doesn't even exist. So when people ask me about him I never dodge the questions, I never get on the interview and say don't ask me any questions about 50, because sometimes these things need to be answered. In reality, he doesn't even exist to me. He's not relevant right now in my life.

C: When Irv caught the case, was there talk of him going away for a while and you taking the reigns of the INC?
Ja: Absolutely. Me and Gotti had that discussion. Gotti going through the trial made me perk up and say well, damn, what the fuck is to come of Murder Inc if Gotti goes to jail? I'm the guy who's in charge now? I mean, I'm the creative guy, I don't fit behind the desk, I don't know any business, I know the business, but I don't do it. So there's a big difference between knowing the business and doing the business. So I had to really put my business cap on and start thinking, wow, if my partner's not here, I'm going to have to hold us down, and I don't want to fail him because I don't know the business. So I had to start preparing myself for the worst. And one thing 'Preme taught me was always prepare for the worst, so if it doesn't turn out that way, you're above the curve.

C: Back in '99 the XXL cover with You, X, Jay-Z and the planned Murder Inc super group, do you ever wish that group actually came into fruition?
Ja: I do. I wish that would have happened because it would have been a good thing for hip-hop, it would've made its mark. Even though it would've hurt Ja Rule's presence, and the mark that I've made in hip-hop, if that project took place. I was the low man on the totem pole, I hadn't even put out an album, so if we did that album, it would have been more or less, "Ja's only hot because he did that Murder Inc project with X and Jay." There wouldn't have been no "Holla, Holla" probably, there wouldn't have been no "Between Me and You." Those records wouldn't have come to fruition right away because I would have been riding such a high wave with that Murder Inc situation. So in a way I wish it would've happened because it would've been a great thing for hip-hop, but like I said, I don't regret anything that has happened in my life, because God takes certain turns for reasons.

C: Around the time of the Backstage film, it seemed as though New York acts were tight-knit. What do you remember from those days?
Ja: Fun. That was when hip-hop was real for me. Those are the days when hip-hop and battles was real. It wasn't about this fly-by-night WWF bullshit, that you're seeing today. It was the illest thing, because as much as I wanted to be the best and I wanted to be better than Jay, and better than X, and better than Red and Meth, I was on that tour. As much as I wanted to excel and be the best, I have respect for all these dudes. I respected Red and Meth, I respected X and Jay, these are the MC's that I wanted to be in their spot. I wanted to be the headliner and shit. So even though I had the killer instinct, it was still a respect factor for the niggas that did it before me. And I think hip-hop has lost that.

C: Do you think we'll ever see New York rap together like that again?
Ja: Yeah, because I'm going to fucking take the seat again. And when I take the seat again, I'm cool with everybody. I don't have any problems with nobody, except for one man and we all know who he is. I don't even got beef with none of his little [people]; I don't even know those dudes. I could care less about them. When we're talking about beef we're going to talk about what beef really is: You aim for your target, you don't go shoot up the whole block. So I only got beef with one man, and I'm not going to sit around and say I got beef with the dudes that's with him. That's WWF shit. I only got beef with one man, so if we were to get back in full form, what we're going to do this year, I would take it in a whole different zone. I want to put together an East-West-South tour, because I hate the way the media tries to divide hip-hop into East, West, South. We're all one genre of music the last time I checked. Why do we have to be segregated, why do we have to be separated? It's the whole divide and conquer shit, and it's being brought beyond race right now, it's being brought into a music genre. If all hip-hop merges together right now, and we all make records together and we all do what we do and have a good time, and fucking hold down hip-hop, we push pop to the side we push R&B to the side, we're the #1 genre and that's it. Then we can shut down the fucking Don Imuses of the world and the Al Sharptons of the world and start making more positive moves in our communities and make it look like hip-hop is the biggest supporter of the communities out there, which we are anyway. But nobody sees that because there's so much negativity being thrown at us, and then we support that by fighting against each other. I've seen this done many times, it's been done throughout history, it's in the rulebook somewhere, the shit that they're doing with hip-hop right now.

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