Who is G-Side?

The duo of ST 2 Lettaz and Yung Clova talk about repping Huntsville, Alabama, getting blog love, and their side hustles.

Not Available Lead
Image via Complex Original
Not Available Lead

Intro

Not Available Interstitial

Growing Up In Alabama

Not Available Interstitial

Growing Up In Alabama

ST 2 Lettaz: “We’re from is a suburb of Huntsville, Alabama called Athens. It’s very low income and there isn’t a lot of jobs there. You know the houses you see on those old slave movies? Those are pretty much the houses that we grew up in. No bathrooms, no proper heat. We grew up bad. We busted our asses and tried to get out of that situation and now we’re just trying to get our family out of that situation.


 

A couple of nights we slept in the back of U-Haul trucks. My mother had a connect at the U-Haul place and they’d let us sleep in there. It was hard times. —ST 2 Lettaz


 

“My mother was a single mother. When I was a kid, she lost her job and we got put out. Our family isn’t very big, so we didn’t really have anyone to fall back on or help us out. Eventually bills got later and later and then eviction notices came. We’d bounce around and stay at friends’ houses or we’d scrape up some money for a hotel. Or a friend would lend us some money for a hotel.

“A couple of nights we slept in the back of U-Haul trucks. My mother had a connect at the U-Haul place and they’d let us sleep in there. It was hard times. I eventually ended up in foster care because of it. People would see me out, and ended up calling the cops on me. Teachers couldn’t send stuff home. There was no phone to call. So that’s when I got put in foster care. It was crazy, man.”

Influences

Not Available Interstitial

Influences

ST 2 Lettaz: “Master P is the reason why I do this. From the music he did, to his business model—it was perfect to me. I liked everything that came out on the Tank until like 2000. All of the early shit was dope. Then of course you’ve got 8ball & MJG, Outkast—they played a big part in what we do.

“8ball & MJG are from three hours up the road. We actually got the album title for Starshipz N Rocketz from an old 8ball song from the Suave House compilation. They got that small-town feel and that small-town struggle that we went through, so it’s easy to relate to them.”

Yung Clova: “‘Starships & Rockets’ was like my favorite song. That was actually my idea to name the album that. Spice 1, Too $hort, and E-40 [are my influences]—a lot of stuff from the Bay. Geto Boys, Goodie Mob—we came up on all that."

Alabama Rappers

Not Available Interstitial

Alabama Rappers

ST 2 Lettaz: “Man, Yelawolf is family. That’s like our big brother.”

Yung Clova: “The first time I saw Yelawolf perform live, I was like ‘That’s how we gotta be!’ We gotta step our game up. He kills it.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “P.I.G. that’s our homies, they’ve been grinding. Jackie Chain is hot. That’s our guy, too.”

Yung Clova:“Of course Dirty. Mr. Big. You ever heard of Mr. Big? He’s an old-school dude who got shot in the eye or some shit and now he has a glass eye with a diamond in it.”


 

Ain’t no labels in Alabama. Now it’s a bunch of rappers coming out of Huntsville. They see what we’re doing and they say ‘I’m tired of selling dope,’ so they try their hand at rapping.
—Yung Clova


 

ST 2 Lettaz: “Yeah the homie has a diamond eye. He can rap his ass off, too. Rich Boy is dope too, but I haven’t heard anything from him in a while. We’re just happy people are paying attention to Alabama right now. That’s why we’ve got to support each other and keep doing it and getting bigger. Industry wise, we’d like to get a distribution deal, so we can put other people on.”

Yung Clova: “There are so many artists back home that just haven’t been heard yet. We want to get the word out on them. Ain’t no labels in Alabama. Now it’s a bunch of rappers coming out of Huntsville. They see what we’re doing and they say ‘I’m tired of selling dope,’ so they try their hand at rapping. They want to do what we did and ask us how, and I just tell them to make their own lanes.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “It’s taken some years but we’ve been patient. We have determination. A lot of sacrifice. The Block Beataz have also been a big help down here. We send people over to them to get their songs mixed and mastered. They give people a professional product.

“They also cut Huntsville prices for aspiring rappers, too. Sometimes they’ll give local guys these big cinematic beats for a cheap price. They won’t kill you on the price if you can’t afford it. They pretty much created the economy down there.”

The Tipping Point

Not Available Interstitial

The Tipping Point

ST 2 Lettaz:Huntsville International was a free album so it traveled really well. Then, I think The One…Cohesive let people know we were serious, we could make a seriously dope piece of music. It didn’t sound like anything else. It was a lot of hooks and soulful shit, that’s just what we do.

“On The Cohesive there was a collaboration on every song and I felt like people thought we couldn’t hold records on our own. That’s why we dropped Island, which is pretty bare bones with no guests. We had to show everyone we could carry these records. We only seek out features with people we really like and think are talented. That makes the music fun and that’s the dope shit about it.”

Yung Clova: “I think a lot of people didn’t like Island because they were trying to judge us off Cohesive. We can make another Cohesive—we just chose not to. On Island we wanted to make music that could control the crowd and feel really big when we did it live.”

Blog Buzz

Not Available Interstitial

Blog Buzz

ST 2 Lettaz: “A lot of our buzz can be attributed to the blog sites. Being from Huntsville, Alabama, a lot of our music would be big in the city but it would kind of get stuck there. It never really left. Sometimes people would come down, hear it, and then take it back to where they were from. But thanks to the blogs, and all of the blog love we got, we were able to tour up and down the East Coast.

“A lot of Southern artists don’t get to play the East Coast or New York. A lot of them don’t get to play Chicago. The blogs definitely led us to doing shows like Pitchfork Music Fest, which only had like four hip-hop acts on the whole bill.

"And a lot of that is because of Andrew Noz [Cocaine Blunts]. He was like the first person to ever write about us, when we were on HipHopDX.”

Yung Clova: “And he didn’t even see us perform until just a few weeks ago when we was out in San Francisco. He speaks the truth and he don’t pull no punches. We’re always looking at his site like ‘Damn, did Noz like it?’”

ST 2 Lettaz: “We also got a lot of the quote unquote ‘hipster fans,’ too. We didn’t find them, they found us, which is dope because everything is organic.”

Their Signature Sound & Block Beataz

Not Available Interstitial

Their Signature Sound & Block Beataz

ST 2 Lettaz: “The production group Block Beataz gave us our sound. They gave us that edge over our competition. That’s why we get those Outkast comparisons, because we have an in-hose production group like Organized Noize.

“That’s pretty much G-Side—us two and the Block Beataz. Without them it’s like Phil without Michael Jordan—it just don’t feel right. We’ll continue to work with them on everything we do.”

Yung Clova: “Real talk, a lot of the stuff the Block Beataz send us don’t come until like a day or two before the album comes out. Sometimes when you’re downloading the album the day it drops, we’re also hearing it for the first time—but that’s just how we work. They work better under pressure, and right before the project drops they turn into monsters.”

Side Hustles

Not Available Interstitial

Side Hustles

Yung Clova: “I actually own a barber shop and I still cut hair. Shit, I was just working there two days ago doing cuts. That’s what we do. Everyone has a side hustle.”

ST 2 Lettaz:“My side hustle is shooting and directing videos. Most of the videos that you see from us are done by me. I like to be behind the camera. So I got a camera and just started shooting and fell in love with it.”


 

I actually own a barber shop and I still cut hair. Sh*t, I was just working there two days ago doing cuts. —Yung Clova


 

Yung Clova: “I know dope boys who sell candles, dope boys who sell flowers, dope boys who sell bootleg movies and CDs. They sell everything. They’ll do whatever. Shit, everyone in Huntsville has a side hustle—it’s necessary to survive down there.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “We even have our own clothing line, it’s called Purple Tyrant, so that’s my thing right now. In a lot of our videos you can see us rocking it, or when we do shows you can catch us in it. We’re just trying to get people to get used to seeing us in it. We’re trying to make it bigger. We’re just gonna need an infusion of cash.”

Staying True To Alabama

Not Available Interstitial

Staying True To Alabama

ST 2 Lettaz: “We’re staying in Alabama. We aren’t trying to move to L.A. or New York or Atlanta. The cost of living is great. Those people in L.A. will pay $3 million for a house that would only cost us $200,000 in Hunstville.”


 

Have you ever seen that movie Conan? You know how everybody had their own little islands and they build homes on them? That’s what we’re trying to do. Get our money and build our own homes and start our own islands. —Yung Clova


 

Yung Clova: “Have you ever seen that movie Conan? You know how everybody had their own little islands and they build homes on them? That’s what we’re trying to do. Get our money and build our own homes and start our own islands. Take care of our people and move them in there.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “They don’t treat us like celebrities in Huntsville because it’s a small town, so everyone knows each other. Some groupies, though. [Laughs.] I can’t even go to the mall without someone stopping me and saying, ‘Man keep doing what you’re doing,’ and that’s a blessing. I’d never been an asshole to anybody who’s showing me love.”

Yung Clova: “Yeah, people now walk up on us and just start spitting raps to us. Like we’ll be in the club and some dude will come up and start rapping in my ear with beer breath. We humble so we’ll listen to you, but we’ll tell you if it’s wack.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “There will always be jealous people but we try not to feed into it. Obviously, if people see what you’re doing and aren’t or can’t do the same thing, there’s going to be hate issues. But like I said, we try to stay away from it. They might not like us, but pretty much everyone shows support and doesn’t bad mouth each other publicly.”

Sundance

Not Available Interstitial

Sundance

ST 2 Lettaz: “T-Mobile and Google Music had us out to do this. We’re talking to Google Music and would love to be a part of what they’re doing, so it made sense. We’d love to be the new face of Google Music. [Laughs.] Let’s put that out in the world.

“One of the execs from Google Music heard our music and liked us, so they had us out to perform. I never in my life imagined I’d be playing at an event like this. I’m a big movie buff, so I’ve known about the Sundance Film Festival for years, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be out here attending it.

“It’s celebs everywhere. We’re just walking around on Main Street checking everything out. There’s a lot of snow out here, though. At least they know how to deal with it. In Alabama if it snows, the whole damn city shuts down.”

Major Label Aspirations

Not Available Interstitial

Major Label Aspirations

Yung Clova: “We’d go to the majors, but we’re more looking for a business partner. We’re looking for a friend, not some ‘we run you’ type of deal. We’d like to go in together to go get money.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “I like the independent route, but it’s got its ups and downs. I really like having the control. I’m a control freak. And I know going with a major would mean I’d lose a lot of control. But to expand it’s necessary. We’d be open to it, though.”

The Future

Not Available Interstitial

The Future

ST 2 Lettaz: “We got a new album on the way, but we’re not releasing the title just yet. We’re looking at a Fall 2012 release date. Early Fall.”

Yung Clova: “We always drop our projects in the Fall, and it works for us. They’ve all kinda been released at the same time.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “We’re fresh off the release of Island, and we’re still pushing Cohesive. I’m not a big fan of mixtapes, so I don’t really do them. So you won’t be getting a G-Side mixtape.”

Yung Clova: “I’m supposed to be coming out with a solo mixtape with Traps N Trunks in the next couple weeks, but if it ain’t done right, I’m not gonna drop it. Not gonna rush it and mess up our name.”

ST 2 Lettaz: “I never want to just throw out a bunch of music. We try to make quality stuff all the time, and it’s always quality over quantity with us. For the most part we’ll just be pushing our current projects until next Fall.”

Yung Clova: “We’ve got other artists to put out, and our clothing line, so we have plenty to keep us busy.”

Latest in Music