Ignorant ni****s, no real skills, party music. These are some of the labels that have been placed on the Ying Yang Twins their entire career.  Socially conscious, role models and political were never adjectives in the mix.  D-Roc and Kaine are fully aware of the titles and generalizations placed on them. According to them, they have the game figured out.

The first step was to get our attention with outrageously sexually charged music. Done. Step two was to gain acceptance through mainstream crossover party tracks with the crunk man himself, Lil Jon. Done deal. Now that the foundation has been laid they can truly display the full nature of their lyrical skills and display why they have more to extend to rap than just party tracks. Methodically moving on to discussing everything from politics to parents raising their kids, the two even go as far as comparing themselves to legends like OutKast.

After years of record label problems, and having spent their entire career being pigeon holed as strictly booty music, the questions that remain are… Can they do it? And also, do we care?


AllHipHop.com: What is your relationship like with TVT Records after the lawsuit that Slip-N-Slide had against them?

Kaine: Uhmm, for the most part they gave us the greatest publicity that we have ever had in our career. Nevertheless to say, it is an independent label, and the Ying Yang Twins have done enough to make major noise. People always thought we were on a major label and we have always been on TVT. We were with prior labels and they didn’t believe in us.

[Ying Yang Twins "Drop"]



AllHipHop.com: Why do you feel like previous record labels did not believe in you?

Kaine: Uh you know the Ying Yang Twins…..

D-Roc: First off because we had a one year deal with Koch, a one album deal. That’s disbelief right there. That means they were just trying to catch the hype. Universal signed us and put us on the shelf so they didn’t really give us no play either.  TVT came on in and when we jumped on them and we had the biggest single of our career. They showed more love than any record label. Koch wasn’t getting no recognition before "Say I Yi Yi". We the reason that everybody started going over to Koch. Koch still owes us for an album. When we left Koch we was 465,000 units. They still selling that album right now and not sending us our s**t.

AllHipHop.com: What’s up with that? Are you going to go to court for that money?

Kaine: You know how this business go! These shrewd motherf**kers! D-Roc and Kaine is from the ghetto. The mainstream can stay mainstream. But if the street goes to the mainstream it’s nothing they can do about that. We been blessed to keep it street and keep it gutter and keep it real. That’s why we made it so far. Not only that, they always make us squeaky clean our records.

[Ying Yang Twins "Say I Yi Yi""]



AllHipHop.com: Was Koch trying to censor you?

D-Roc: That’s just media period. They make us change our songs anyway. But that shows our skills as an artist. If we can take what we said dirty and find a clean way to say it, that’s skills. If you feel like you too hard to do that then you really not trying to show skills. That’s the easy way out. Everybody got Grandparents. Somebody they respect and when they go there they don’t cuss all the time. It’s somebody they go in front of that they straighten up for. The hardest motherf**kers out here if they ass go to court, they not cussing in front of the judge.


AllHipHop.com: While we are on the idea of censoring. What is your opinion about your music being considered derogatory towards women?

Kaine: They always talking about the derogatory female lyrics that artists put on their songs but let me explain something to the people that don’t work in the night life. The same people that got jobs… Everybody don’t wanna take their clothes off to make money. You gotta be a fool to believe that. That’s where the Ying Yang Twins come in with that. We don’t get mad at the regular ladies saying that our music is derogatory. Because in the exotic club, a dancer can make 1500, 2500, 3000 dollars between a Sunday and a Sunday.

D-Roc: One thing about it is, you got kids and you got grown folks. You can’t tell grown folks that we can’t get grown. You can respect the kids and that is where the radio version comes in. We have the right to do our dirty version. We should obligate ourselves to do the clean version. If we can take a nasty song like “Wait” and clean that b***h up, Then anybody can clean up their song. It don’t take nothing to clean up your s**t for radio. A lot of these rappers don’t got skills. They just in it for the money.

Kaine: I’m from the old school of rap. You don’t borrow another MC’s line. That’s grounds for smacking. You know how some folks came out with the “Chico Stick” line and then the next folks had different versions. I’m not from that era of rapping.

D-Roc: What we are saying is that we need more originality going on. Stop biting. Alot of groups are being followers and not being leaders and have one hit. They just joining the bandwagon.

Kaine: The Ying Yang Twins are as diverse as OutKast. We not as far out there as them cause they are a couple of years older. We just like to keep our s**t ghetto and to the streets so that you can come in manly and womanly understanding.

[Ying Yang Twins "Wait (The Whisper Song)"]



AllHipHop.com: What are your thoughts about the “real” Hip-Hop heads who feel like your type of music and crunk music is not real Hip-Hop?

D-Roc: Hip-Hop is real life. Real life subjects. It’s whatever you want to speak upon. Down here in the south, that’s what we do. It’s our everyday. So if you speak and say that it’s not real then what are you trying to say we are doing?

Kaine: They just mad. I think it has something to do with opening your mind frame. In California and New York alone you can go mulitplatinum. From where we are at, they don’t know how to acquire those two cities attention without going through the chittlin’ circuit. That’s how we made it to be even noticed on East or West coast.

D-Roc: The one thing about the South is that we went through a different type of struggle than the East or West Coast. They didn’t have to live like us. When we were living f**ked up as Black people they were already comfortable. Or they migrated from the South in order to establish themselves and when they did that they began to forget about anything else. What I'm saying is they have to open their minds and know that we can blow up and be just as known as people from New York or Cali. That’s what we did.

Kaine: It’s like Atlanta is five million strong and getting bigger. Those other cities that are bigger will sell so much that they forget about the smaller people to the point where they don’t matter and everything matters!

D-Roc: Everybody listening to 107.9 on the Internet. I swear when we go different places I swear I’m still in Atlanta. We over in Taiwan and they still crunk. They doing the same dance that we doing in the states.


AllHipHop.com: Hip-Hop is cross cultural.

D-Roc: Right, that’s what we trying to say. A lot of these underground south s**t that I think won’t get played anywhere else is getting played everywhere. Some of New York’s greatest artists act the same way we do when they were kids. A lot of us need to do away with the egos. Leave it to the mego’s. Ya dig?

AllHipHop.com: Tell me about the new album you have coming out, Ying Yang For President. Did you approach this album differently?

Kane: We been having fun for years. It kinda makes a person not want to pay attention after a while. So us being the Ying Yang Twins such as “Salt Shaker”, it makes people not want to look at us for no other reason…

AllHipHop.com: Unless they want to party.

Kane: Right! We really just trying to say life ain't all fun and games.

AllHipHop.com: Are you getting more political?

Kane: Very much so.

D-Roc: It’s not just political, it’s more so getting down to real life s**t. Parents need to start taking care of they kids and these kids need to start taking their education seriously. A lot of issues that need to be touched not just political. We trying to be socially conscious period. Which was the reason why the U.S.A. album did so good. It was a balance.

[Ying Yang Twins “Salt Shaker”]



AllHipHop.com: Are you expressing these values on the album?

Kane: We always did but people just want the club record.

D-Roc: We got a political song called “Hand Part Two”. It’s about people needing to go out and vote. If it starts at home first, then these kids will think it’s important. This will help make leaders.

AllHipHop.com: Do you stress these values in your household with your kids?

Kaine: Man, I got two nieces. I’m only 5’ 5”. They are well over six feet [tall]. They do not want to see they Uncle if they are doing wrong in school. One is twelve and the other about to be eighteen. They don’t want nothing to do with Uncle Kaine if they a** ain’t doing well in school. Ain’t no in between. I don’t make deals with kids.

D-Roc: School is a major issue. One thing that they tell you from jump is that knowledge is power. You may not want to believe it but it’s true. The more you know then the better you will do in this world.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think that some people would expect you to have such strong values?

Kaine: That’s why you gotta say who gives a damn about what people say. If they gonna judge us just by the music we f**king make.

D-Roc: One thing I will say is the things that people want to do, we were doing it. Yelling and screaming and interrupting people. That’s what people want to see.

Kaine: The industry wants you to be a puppet. We our own puppets.

D-Roc: If we calm down it’s for a reason. Then it’s like damn, like you said I didn’t know ya’ll had this much brain on ya’ll. We thought you were just two ignorant n****s.

Kaine: I got buddies from New York and I tell them that they think so much that you don’t think enough. They think that they can out-think us. When you from up top and somebody say Georgia they think red dirt. Nothing else. Atlanta is country but we city country.

AllHipHop: Lastly, I just want to make sure that things are clear for the fans. As far as the record label, you guys are going to be okay. As mentioned earlier, there were some legal issues with Slip-N-Slide Records that your TVT label was having a while back.  Slip-N-Slide did in fact win the case.

D-Roc: TVT got awarded a budget for the Ying Yang Twins to drop an album. They are giving us the best promotion on our career. They have had the best work ethic for our career. We have our own labels now working with TVT called Grown Folks Entertainment. The fans aren’t going to be disappointed as far as this album.

AllHipHop.com: Is there a reason why you are not working with Mr. Collipark?

Kane: Nah, we just didn’t resign the deal. Our contract was up and we wanted our own label. We grown. Everybody who knows us knows we go hard. We do the club s**t but we can go hard. Eveybody start rapping and want to rap about being a baller. What I mean is this, “My pockets f**ked up. I need a job. I got a clear conscious. I don’t wanna rob. But I need money. I gotta feed my baby. Every day I argue with my old lady” The Ying Yang Twins rap.

D-Roc: Word to the Motherf**ker!

[Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz f/ Ying Yang Twins "Get Low"]