C-Rayz Walz may not be the most famous rapper in the world, but he’s arguably the most charismatic MC you “might have” heard of. If you aren’t aware, he came up in the streets of New York as a stick-up kid who once tried to jux the Notorious B.I.G. for rockin’ a Coogi sweater. From that storied, or shameful—depending on how you look at it—beginning, C-Rayz grew battling MCs on the underground scene, taking on backpack icons like Supernatural and Immortal Technique. Somewhere between then and now, he allegedly got knowledge from Heather Hunter, got hit with multiple felonies and slept with a known female lyricist—who you are more than welcome to identify for yourself. Yet despite the craziness he puts out to the world, C has been making moves to kick his career into high-gear. Fresh off the jet from a European tour, C’s return is prompted by a performance with his MADE protégé Niles Greenburg for MTV this summer. As far as this newfound work ethic goes in the lab, he’s dropped two albums. The first is entitled Sharkey & C-Rayz Walz are…Monster Maker on Babygrande Records. A separate project called Chorus Rhyme will debut almost simultaneously. Could it be that C-Rayz Walz has actually grown up? Newly married and the proud parent of his second son, it looks like things have changed for the self-proclaimed “Lunar Tick of Hip-Hop.”AllHipHop.com: You live in Indiana now. What would you say is the biggest change you’ve had to deal with since moving from The Bronx?C-Rayz Walz: Probably catching the trains, man, and just being able to walk everywhere around me. That’s my power water. If I was a superhero, I’d go to the train to charge up or something for inspiration: [From] people of looking at me, showing judgment, [to] going there to get my rest. It was where I lived. When I was bored, I’d go there to put it down, and get mad ideas to rhyme, and think, and organize everything. [They allowed me to] just be walking through hoods, to get the visual for the sense of urgency that surrounds us. That’s the thing I’m missing the most, the trains. AllHipHop.com: Now, we talked maybe like a month ago, and you got a little story about being arrested out there in Indiana. I was wondering if you could share that again so we could have it on the record?C-Rayz Walz: I came from the studio and I was drinking whiskey with my man. You know, I don’t get wack like that; I like to get nice. So I’m going to a club to meet Indiana Jones. I had a show the next day in like Humboldt County, so I’m going to get this check and this plane ticket. So I walk straight in the club and my wife dropped me off right in front. As soon as I walked in, the security guard rushed me and tried to grab me. I did a Aikido move on him; I just spinned on him and he crashed into the door. Then, this other guy comes—and I spin on him—and he crashes into the other side of the door. Then the [first] dude goes to grab me, so I squeezed my arm around, and he hit the other guy.Then they pushed me back, like, “Calm down, calm down.” I’m mad calm son. I sit down. Now all this time, I’m making them look real stupid. [The cops came] and they’re like, “We’re putting the cuffs on you.” Then my wife comes over, “What’s going on? This is my husband.” I whisper in her ear, “I got weed in my left pocket.” The police is on my right side putting cuffs on me, she’s on my left side, she’s taking the weed out right in front of their face while she says she’s looking for I.D. I’m still real calm. They’re like, “Calm down lady.” She’s like, “No one is f**king telling me to calm down. My father is a demented f**k! He could rob your county…I’ll show you, he’ll rob your county!”So they got me for felony battery, resisting arrest, intimidation, and some other bulls**t. I’ve been fighting this s**t for like, five months already, man, going back and forth in court. I just want to go to court and get this fixed in like five minutes already. AllHipHop.com: I wanna talk about the album that’s coming out. How did you approach it? C-Rayz Walz: There’s just mad transformations in Chorus Rhyme. Every line corresponds to the last chorus. Each song relates to the choruses. Each of the verses shadows one topic in each verse of the spectrum. The title of one song is called “DJ Chorus”, but I’m actually rhyming the chorus while the DJ just scratches a track and lasts for 16 bars. So, the DJ actually has a verse and I’m doing the chorus. Get it? I did a track called “Chorus Question.” It’s got like thirty MCs on it. And they all my peoples.AllHipHop.com: 30 MCs? C-Rayz Walz: Right, so basically it’s crazy ‘cause it’s all going to be fourteen 14 and 50 seconds. It may be repetitive, but it’s only 15 minutes, so it’s [listenable]. What I’m about to do is [run a contest] on Myspace. Producers can give me eight bars to do a remix for the entire song. [We’re gonna make it] with a video and it’s going to be a different beat for everybody’s verse. AllHipHop.com: How are things with you and your wife? You and her had your first son together, right?C-Rayz Walz: That’s my baby. Her water broke at Scribble Jam, son. It was crazy. We went to Scribble Jam, got busy with some people, and um, we went to watch “The Flava of Love” and somebody was like, “Her dress is wet,” and I start buggin, “Yo, there’s like eight cups of water on your dress. Your water broke!” Her water broke and she didn’t know it. [Then] what happened was like, “We’ll deliver it.” [We went] to the hospital and she didn’t really have no C-Section. Didn’t do no drugs. She handled it like a trooper. AllHipHop.com: What’s your relationship like with your firstborn, Ravi, right now?C-Rayz Walz: Son, I ain’t seen Ravi in mad long, like, his mom is so difficult with me. I don’t vibe with her. I ain’t gonna vibe with her, her energy, the way she been acting, She started playing the child games. I feel like going to court and snitching. This is the only option I got. I seen him one time last year, on his birthday. [Because I don’t see him,] I over-conversate. You know what I mean? That’s why I’ve been so active over the past year, because I can’t have one-on-one conversations with him. So I over-conversate, by successfully talking to thousands and hundreds of people. Before, I couldn’t do it, but now, I’m over-conversating because I can’t have conversations with my son. AllHipHop.com: Now in this past year and a half, I saw you got some losses in the family. I just wanted to touch on that a little bit. C-Rayz Walz: I lost my second brother last year, and I had to bury him on my birthday. The date was on August 3rd; his birthday is on the August 20th. We both Leos. He died when he was 33, like Jesus. He was crucified on a Friday. In front of everybody. You know what I mean? AllHipHop.com: Nah. What do you mean by that?C-Rayz Walz: You know, crucified means to be killed violently. He was hustling. On my block, it’s just known [that you fight for your spot]. People were stabbing the kid. The kid started fighting for himself by his waist. Then they started beating his brother up with their hands. The kid with the razor who was beating his brother up, he came back, pulled a knife out. My brother got hit under. He backed up and fell on the curb, and hit his chest, I don’t even know. They both went to ICU. They both blacked out. My brother blacked out and he didn’t come back. AllHipHop.com: Damn, so what do you do to just keep on moving? A lot of people tend to give up, but you kind of always keep moving even with the adversity.C-Rayz Walz: I’ve been through a lot of crazy things, I got so busy, I got so much style, and I know I’m flourishing, But losing all my possessions, like every video say since from 1970 and even before? Like, I had video of me and Big L rhyming. You know what I’m saying? Losing all that s**t had me empty. That’s so much. My best friends photos, everything. [But] I’m trying to focus more on Buddhism right now, so I can really keep unattached. I lost mad people. I lost all my cousins man; I went to high school with them, I played basketball with them and I studied Kung-Fu with them. My cousin Trion was murdered on the corner of James Monroe High School. A kid just toasted him. My cousin did Wolf Ox. Wolf Ox is this form of Kung-Fu that only dudes from Bronx River Houses know. So the kid was like, “No, I’m not fighting you. I know about the Wolf Ox s**t. I’m not going to fight you.” So then “Pow!” He pulled one in his chest. So it’s like, after that, the kids that I stepped up with, kids that I got locked up with….Everybody died. It’s pitiful. Everybody. [But at the same time], you know, being a single kid, I had a lot of money. Not as much as I want now, but it was a lot of money [for me back then]. I’d be at all the parties. I’d be 15, with like $15,000 in my pocket. Not worrying bout anything, just trying to get some food and a bun…I had mad pu**y. You know what I’m saying. Doing it forever. I would party with entertainers. Big names. I don’t know how they are doing now.AllHipHop.com: So, it sounds like you’ve seen both perspectives. Speaking of partying with entertainers, like a year ago, I seen Heather Hunter. She was at this gallery thing. It’s been revealed you had “relations” with her, you know what I’m saying. Would you care to comment on her a little bit?C-Rayz Walz: That’s my girl. You know what, she’s cool. If I see her again I’ll definitely come through and say what’s up. I think had I sex with an ill female MC, but it was so ill, I think it was a dream. I don’t know. It seemed like a dream, but I don’t think I was dreaming.AllHipHop.com: Oh yeah, and who may that have been?C-Rayz Walz: Like, Heather Hunter, I used to think that was a dream, but nah, f**k it, she gave me dome.AllHipHop.com: Well, how about a hint for my smart readers out there? C-Rayz: She’s not even pretty. She’s not one of the most beautiful good looking-type women. She’s straight up facial, hips. She’s obviously hot, but she ain’t drop anything in a minute. AllHipHop.com: Okay, now that could be a bunch of them. That could be a couple of them.C-Rayz Walz: She ain’t drop a record in over five years. She’s got an ill voice [Howling].AllHipHop.com: Was it Bahamadia? Is that who you were talking about? Did I scoop the story? C-Rayz Walz: Shout out to Bahamadia son. [Laughs]AllHipHop.com: Can you tell me one of those Biggie Smalls stories? C-Rayz Walz: Yo, I’ll tell you the Biggie Smalls story. I think Biggie Smalls was just started out with Bad Boy and s**t. The illest s**t was when nobody knew who he was at a Rucker game, back in ’95 or ’96. You know what I’m saying, that used to be our spot [to catch a vic.] I didn’t really care who it was. My s**t was if you got a big chain, you probably be coming in with some drugs and s**t. So, I’m probably [gonna be] robbing you… I’m chilling right in front of the entrance of Rucker Park. It was crowded but it wasn’t crowded-crowded. I’m standing right in front of a building and I see this dude wearing a Coogi sweater, a chain, Versace glasses, big ass Jesus-piece and a Herringbone bracelet, with the diamonds squared. He’s just standing there by himself. He’s definitely not from Harlem. Dudes in Harlem ain’t even doing the Coogis yet. So I’m looking like, this dude ain’t with nobody. He’s looking like off into space and s**t. I’m gonna get this kid. He’s mad cool and s**t. So I’m like, “What’s up?” This n***a is just too cool for me. This guy was just too calm, like he’s holding heat. I’m like, “F**k it, Let me get away from this dude right now.” I go “Stay up, man.” [And Biggie goes] “You too, baby, baby.”So I went down the block. [The people I was with] went inside a building. They’re like, “What are you doing? I said, “I’m f**king robbing somebody. Come.” I’m going to the park, I’m blowing a couple of L’s and I start freestyling. They’re like, “You crazy ill son. You need to go to a place called 88HipHop where you could just go in the booth and rhyme.” And they took me there. It started my career. AllHipHop.com: So you were going to rob Biggie Smalls?C-Rayz Walz: I was definitely going to rob Biggie Smalls. If he stepped over, or he walked over near the car, it would’ve been a wrap. It would’ve been a wrap. I would’ve took him down, and put him in the trunk. AllHipHop.com: You would’ve put him in the trunk? C-Rayz Walz: The trunk would’ve been enough. Biggie wasn’t even big at that time. He was just regular fat. [Laughs] He was just regular fat. That s**t was crazy.
