Recently, I’ve seen you have a lot of really random cameos—the joint with the Heliocentrics, joint with D3Concept, joint with 88-Keys. Do you make it a point to do cameos that throw people for a curve, or is that just how those songs turned out?
I don’t have a preconceived type of bill that I go through and feel like I’ve got to do anything extra. The beat is my friend, so the main thing want to do is compliment the track and play my part. When I do these features, my aim isn’t to outshine. I listen to the music, and let the music take me where it needs to be, because I feel like I’m the last instrument on an instrumental. Even though the vocals make it not an instrumental, I want to be a part of the music. I know some people want to be like, “I’m going to kill this beat!” Nah, that’s not me. I want to compliment the beat, the beat is my friend.
With the Heliocentrics, I give them props on “Before I Die,” because of its more of a concept. People are used to hearing me open mic style, so to actually see me big with a concept or certain type of subject matter to a song shows more well-roundedness in me. The Detroit Concept dudes, I met them in Paris. The beat (to that song) is crazy, it reminded me of “Game Over,” with Phat Kat and J Dilla on the Dabrye album. So I just did my thing on that, and you can even hear on the last line, “Peace to Phat Kat and Dilla, game over.” With 88-Keys’ “Like A Man,” I give him credit because he had the concept and everything formatted already. Death of Adam, the album he’s coming out with, people know I’m pretty good at rapping about relationships and stuff like that. The beat and everything catered to where I was mentally anyway, so that made it real easy to do that feature. Peace to him too, 88-Keys got that heat.
Guilty Simpson “Man’s World” (Prod. J Dilla)
[audio:http://www.michiganhiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/guilty_mansworld.mp3]
Guilty Simpson “ChiefPatPockets” (Prod. DJ Haircut)
[audio:http://www.michiganhiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/guilty_chiefpatpockets.mp3]
Phat Kat Feat. Guilty Simpson “Nightmare” (Prod. Nick Speed)
[audio:http://www.michiganhiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/phatkat_nightmare.mp3]