It’s been a while since we talked last. It’s been about a year. How is everything going?
Everything is great, you know? The album is coming out Thursday. I got two more albums done so far. I’m gonna put those out in July and November, I got a book coming out in September, you know what I’m sayin’? I’m about to re-release the documentary in August and probably the fourth album in February.

Man! So you already got, what, four albums completed and…
Well I got three completed and the fourth is halfway done.

Well you’re steady workin’, but we already established that before, so I’m not surprised. But, what we’re talking about today, the 4/11 album is coming out Thursday [April 21]. What was the inspiration behind the title and the album itself?
Well the inspiration behind the title was, fairly simple. 4/11 it comes out, you know? April 2011, so four slash eleven. The music itself…basically I had a rhyme book full of lyrics I hadn’t recorded. Typically, how I record an album is, I have a concept and I build the album around that concept or title. But, throughout that, I had a rhyme book full of lyrics and beats coming in everyday. I got two, three gigs worth of beats just sitting on the computer, waiting for me to pick what I like and write to it. And so, some of that stuff had been a couple years old. So I decided this year was gonna be the year, since everybody is touring…You know everybody is touring so tour money is down, things are a little tight, I said this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna record every song I got; period! I’m gonna record every song I got and I even wrote three new songs…No I wrote more than that. I wrote probably five or six new songs. I just keep writing, but 2011 is clear my books.

That’s a lot of material.
That’s what I think about, so every lyric I got, every rhyme I got, every rhyme I thought about writing in the past, every beat I listened to and liked and just set to the side, I’m recording all of them this year. And we’re basically gonna be putting albums out for however long it takes. However long it takes for me to get these out, that’s how many albums I’m gonna put out. Plus, I got mixtapes. I did a freestyle to “Moment For Life”, that Nicki Minaj song. I just did something to Ne-yo’s “One In A Million” and “Champagne Life”. I’m working on “I Need A Doctor”; Dr. Dre’s instrumentals, you know what I’m sayin’. So, in-between, I’m still doing everything. I bought a mic and I’m gonna utilize it.

And that’s what it’s there for. I know all your fans are appreciative because anytime you come out with something, it’s definitely quality…
I appreciate it, man.

I know the first single from this album…I know I hit you on Twitter about it. The “Yayo” joint. I heard that and I saw the video for it and I was like “I gotta give him props right away,” because you had the metaphor for it in terms of it being like an artist going on tour and everything. And just the…everything it just came together beautifully. What caused you to set it up like that? Was it the hook, was it the…
Yeah, the Lexzeyne cats…The three [albums] that I’m putting out by the way is like a joint venture between myself and Lexzeyne Productions. Those are the cats that produced all the joints on these three albums. Lexzeyne is like a brotherly tandem in Indiana and in Northern Cali. They’re super dope. I might have like 300 tracks from them sitting on my computer. Anyway, they just sent this beat. I’ve actually been sitting on that track for like two years. I knew I wanted to use it, but I wanted to use it the right way. I wanted to wait until I got that inspiration and do it the way I needed to. So, one day I’m chillin’ and I put the track on, and it just came. I wrote [the song] in like twenty, thirty minutes. It was just something…For the last two years I’ve had that track, I’ve been playing it once a month, but I just didn’t have the right idea for it. But, I finally had an idea for it and I wrote it. And it was pretty tight. The video…I just wanted to make it…I wanted it to be extremely graphic and I wanted to get the point across the way it’s supposed to. So I ran that, however…You wouldn’t believe how many cats just openly, on YouTube, got pictures of themselves smokin’ crack. So, I’m searching this and I’m just like “Wow!” I’m developing this idea as I’m pulling up all these videos and I’m like, “This is crazy!” It took me over a month to put the video together. There was some stuff as I’m searching the pictures where, I just had to stop. There would be twenty videos of twenty different people putting a pipe in they’re mouth. Some people were videotaping themselves smoking the pipe, you know what I’m saying? So, it was just crazy.

Even with all the knowledge and warnings we have now, it’s amazing what people will still do to themselves.
Yeah, it’s weird, man. It’s weird. You wouldn’t believe…And I had to find different ways to word it, to search for the pictures. And it just started popping up right and left.

That goes to the show that the song and the message still need to be heard, even today. Like I said, when people hear it, if they haven’t checked it out already, when they get the album I’m sure they’re gonna enjoy the song and enjoy the concept. And we’re gonna go back to that album, but I know the last interview we did was right before The Underdog was gonna drop. How did that go? How was it terms of success and your expectations?
It was pretty awesome. I loved it. It’s the first step to where we’re moving. We had a major distribution channel and now we’re dealing with a bigger situation for these albums and my crews albums; Ghani Gautama, Evaready RAW. So, Underdog set the tone for that. The critical success of Underdog helped with that.

You know what? I wanted to ask you because I saw that you were using it, and I know other independent artists have tried it. You allowed fans to pay what they wanted or pay what they felt necessary for the album. How did that end up working out for you?
It worked out great. The funny thing about it, you still average $7, $8 a sale. So you do have people that don’t pay anything to download it, and that’s fine. But I had somebody that heard the album for free. They downloaded it for free and then came back and downloaded it again and paid $20. You know what I’m saying? So it averages out.

That proves when you put something quality out, people are still willing to pay for it. It just has to be quality, they need a little taste of it and they’re willing to come back. I’m sure more and more people are gonna be using that, but I’m glad to hear it worked out for you. Are you gonna do the same thing with the 4/11 album or you just gonna set one price for it?
No, no…Well, even for Underdog, I let people download it on the Bandcamp site where you could pay whatever you felt you wanted to pay, but it was also in distribution with eMusic and other companies. So 4/11, it’s gonna pretty much be the same, except the distribution channels for it are gonna be a lot bigger. So you can still go to the Bandcamp for it. Right now it’s gonna be on Bandcamp and then in a couple months, it’s gonna release worldwide on all the distribution channels. Also now, all the albums are gonna be Droid apps. So, that’s gonna happen this summer. All of my albums, all of my back catalogues, the documentary, it’s gonna be a Droid app. The book is gonna be a Droid app, so I got my team together and we were figuring out how to do it. Now my designer is working on it and making it happen.

That’s what’s up. And what that says to me is that, obviously we talked about your hustle and your grind, but it also says that there’s still a place for independent artists and there’s still a place for artists that aren’t glorifying the negative stuff or exploiting the culture. There’s still a place for a message in the music. We don’t see that all the time, but the fact that you’re able to enter these different markets and continue to build up, that’s something that gives a lot of independent artists hope.
Yeah, absolutely.

Now, I know you been talking about your team and on the 4/11, you have…Is it Tea Bag the Herbalist?
Yeah, Tea Bag the Herbalist.

I heard him on the “Underground Rap Star” track and he did his thing. Is he new to the team or has he been on, or what?
Naw, naw, naw. He’s actually with a group called the Greasekydz and their company is called Igloo Recordings. We all came up together on the Atlanta scene. Greasekydz live in Columbus, Georgia and Tea Bag’s up here. He actually has an album coming out. He has this song he’s been pushing called “Take Me To Your Leader”…Whew! It’s a killer. He’s a super dope MC. We all came up together. We’re different camps, but we’re all like family.

I feel that and I’m gonna try to check him out and hear some more of him because he did his thing on the track. I know we worked with you and your crew, Ghani Gautamaa and Evaready RAW, on the Commercial From Commercial mixtape, you know? If we put another one together, maybe we can get him on there, as well. I wanted to ask you something else, too. Anybody that reads the blog knows I’m a huge fan of samples when they’re done right, especially on hooks. You can tell that the artist drew a genuine inspiration from the song they’re sampling and I know you use them pretty frequently. You have an Anita Baker sample on this album, you had the Toni Braxton sample on The Underdog. What is it about those songs that get you motivated to write?
That’s a credit to the producers. They build the song around whatever sample they choose. It’s not even the sample. It’s the song and that song as a whole motivates me and moves me to write. That’s a credit to the producers. They put their thing together and put it in front of me and it’s my job to make myself one with that song. It’s to become a part of that track.

I gotta tell you, every song I listen to with one of those samples, they become one of my favorite songs from the album. I get that same feeling and vibe you’re talking about when the sample comes on, but then of course your lyrics and message mesh well them. It seems to be a recurring theme in your music, so I had to ask you about that because I know you used Anita Baker’s voice for “What’s Wrong” and you got a little personal on that track, so I’ll let all the fans check that out. The last track I want to talk about though, because I don’t want to give too much away, is “Come Back To Us”. I think I know what inspired it because as hip-hop heads, we tend to all have the same discussion around how the industry takes advantage of artists, but then you take it a step further, so tell me what caused you to do that.
Well, originally, that song was written to another track, called “Fly Away” that Lexzeyne had. I wrote it and I had been sitting on it for a minute, and when I told them I was gonna record it, they said [the beat] had been gone for a year or so. So, it was cool, but then they sent this track out to folks and I was like “That’s it! This is the track.” But initially, even with the other song, I wrote the third verse first because I was just thinking about something. I think I was looking at something on TV and, you know, it was basically showing the people that make it, they don’t ever…Not to say they have to give them money or whatever, but you get on and get yours and then you look at everybody like their gnats now. So, I was just thinking about that when I wrote that verse. And then, since at the end of that verse I say “stories that’s more than sports and rap”, from that I wrote the other two verses. I wrote a side about sports and a side about rap. So, I made the verse about rap first because I’m a rapper and that brings everybody in and the second one is gonna be about sports because people do deal steroids and…I knew dudes that took steroids and said they would take steroids if it got them to college when I was playing football, you know what I’m saying? So, it was something you could relate to. People taking steroids starting in high school and end up getting f*cked up in the end. Then the last [verse] tied everything together and that was the song.

The thing I appreciated most was, one, when you say “stories that’s more than sports and rap”, you know, people need to hear more of those stories to begin with, so that was already good, but even in the “negative” light that this character is being placed in, there’s still a positive. I think everybody tends to see the characters in the music as black people. You’re a black artist, so the people you are talking about in the song, listeners will assume is a black rapper or black athlete, and so, even though what the person is doing isn’t necessarily right, I think that it’s still good that there is an image of black man on Wall Street. It shows another aspect of success for black folks.
Yeah, what I try to do is…I like to tell stories, I like to paint pictures, but I also try to push the boundaries. I want to tell a story that may or may not be told from another perspective. I wanna say, “How can I approach this story that’s different from the way everybody else is approaching it?” The same thing with “Yayo”. The same thing with “Caffeine Hustlaz”, you know? I just wrote a song called “Pepperoni On My Mind” about being in a pizza shop, where I wrote a metaphor. That’s gonna be on the third album, where basically I use metaphors for like the b-boy on the block, the hustlers, and that’s how they push pizzas. It’s like I’m looking at it and I’m trying find out how differently I can write that story and still get the message across or how abstractly I can write it and still get the message across.

Well I know, like I said, when that third verse came on, it was refreshing to hear a new twist. Even with the second verse, the Barry Bonds trial just wrapped up and everything, so it was perfect timing, but the third verse was the one that I really enjoyed. So, I know we’ve already covered a few tracks from the album, so I don’t want to give too much away, but just tell me how this album, outside of you just clearing your books, is different from, say, The Underdog, that you just dropped within the last year.
It’s still the same approach, but this one is more like the first part of The Underdog. This is like the first third of The Underdog, in a way. How I’m looking at it is, the first three albums that are coming out are EPs. I recorded them all at the same time and I’m releasing them to the people at different stages. My goal is to…with The Underdog, it still got its burn, but there’s only so many times you can say “Underdog, underdog, underdog.” By the end of the year, everybody has it. So, I split it up and it’s something I’m contemplating doing from now on is splitting them up and doing EPs rather than me just doing one album a year. I’ll do like two or three albums every year because it keeps that newness going for everyone. That’s what I want. I want to have new songs. To be honest, I get tired of pushing the same songs every time. I get tired of performing the same songs every time. I will write a song that’s better than that tomorrow, but I’m not performing it. That’s kinda where that’s at. The world is A.D.D. right now, and rightfully so because it’s flooded with music and consumers shouldn’t have to dig in the crates and find it. It’s our job to give it to them, so this is just another way to keep doing it. I said I’m gonna be an artist this year. I’m always a business man. I’m always an artist when I make the project, but I said I’m gonna be an artist more often, so I’m writing more often and I’m recording more often, and I’m getting my music out to the people. In advance, I put together my marketing plans. I did all that a while ago, so everything is set for the year. All I gotta worry about is being an artist.

That’s what I think we hope most people do more often. So many people are focused on just the business side or, even if they just an artist, they’re still focused more on the quick and easy and making money as opposed to really perfecting their craft. I think that’s gonna make for great music throughout the year. Is there anything else you need to let everybody know before we wrap things up?
Well, 4/11, you can get it Thursday, April 21. You can go to quanstar.bandcamp.com or you can go to quanstarmusic.com and cop it on the 21st. Sign up on the e-mail list. I got exclusives like freestyles, mixtapes, while the album is pushing. Go to my YouTube, quanstar/2007. Check out my new video for “Yayo”. Let’s get it. Let’s make this music, let’s make it right.

Thank you, as always, for really holding down the craft and the culture. We all appreciate it. Good luck with the album.