After having his sentence reduced and finishing his bid, Project Pat released his first solo album Ghetty Green in 1999 where he goes in depth of his experiences from surviving federal prison and his battle with a “rat” that contemplated testifying against him. Mainstream Hip-Hop first got wind of the Memphis rapper when he appeared on the hook of Three 6 Mafia’s famed song “Sippin' on Some Syrup.” Soon after Project Pat released his second album Mista Don’t Play: Everythangs Workin’, though he was arrested again for violating his parole in 2001.
Despite numerous setbacks, Project Pat released two more albums Crook By Da Book: The Fed Story and Walkin’ Bank Roll after his release from prison in 2005. As February 24th, 2009 approaches, Project Pat is preparing to release his fifth album Real Recognize Real, dropping the first single, “Keep it Hood,” which features OJ Da Juiceman. As he continues to move on from a troubled past, Pat is adamant about one thing: making lots of money to stay far away from snitching rats.
AllHipHop.com: You were spending time in Hollywood with Three 6 Mafia, was it hard to adjust to that lifestyle?
Project Pat: What lifestyle? What you mean?
AllHipHop.com: They were in Hollywood! Was it a shock dealing with a different caliber of people in Hollywood than what you’re used to in the music industry?
Project Pat: Well, people in Hollywood are really fake.
AllHipHop.com: How fake are they? What do you mean?
Project Pat: Everybody is an actress, everybody’s a director—I mean, there’s so many fake people out there it’s retarded. It’s just like meeting fake people in Memphis. It’s the same thing.
AllHipHop.com: Do you think that world is a better place with a little Three 6 and Project Pat?
Project Pat: What do you mean “a better place?” I mean, it wasn’t just supposed to be Hollywood. I mean, we went out there—you mean from doing a show? Is that what you’re talking about?
AllHipHop.com: When I say Hollywood I don’t mean the place itself, I mean the caliber of people like the actors, producers…just that caliber of people.
Project Pat: If I go to L.A. I would rotate in Hollywood ‘cause that’s where the money at! I want to be where I can get me some money. I had a couple of dudes out there in L.A. and they asked me to come through to the hood…That’s cool, but what’s that gon’ do for me? I need some money! I’m being real! Everybody else can say what they want to say and all that ol’ “Keep it real” and all of that. One thing a n***a can’t tell me is he can’t tell me nothing about the streets, man.
These n****s are rats out here, real talk. You can’t tell me nothing about these streets. I ain’t no rat, I’m stand up. When I was in Feds, I was in Beaumont, Texas [and] I was in population. You can ask anybody. Dude ask me that out there when I was in California. I told dude, I said, “That’s cool, but what I’m a go out there for?” I been out there, but I grew up in the projects. I was at my mama’s front door when someone got murked… Another’s words that don’t excite me. Now if somebody give me some money, then I need to be around him! I’m trying to find out how I can get me some money!
AllHipHop.com: What kind of opportunities have opened up for you since you’ve been on your money making road?
Project Pat: I mean, you know, there’s been a lot of opportunities. There’s a lot of opportunities out here. [long pause] I had come across a lot of, um, you know—not even, just, not really out there. Not really in California, but I do real estate on the side and investments and, uh, I invest in companies. That’s in Memphis, though. Put it like this, it’s a good situation.
AllHipHop.com: Going back in your past, I know you served some time. Do you mind talking about the charges you acquired?
Project Pat: We could talk about whatever, which ones? You want talk about the guns?
AllHipHop.com: Not the one that violated your parole, but the initial one that you caught charges for in the ‘90s.
Project Pat: I had a robbery charge, aggravated robbery. They were supposed to give me 30 years on it, but I got it lessened and ended up getting nine. I don’t know if you heard the album Ghetty Green, but that was a real album. All the songs on Ghetty Green were true.
AllHipHop.com: So Ghetty Green was an actual testament of your life?
Project Pat: Ghetty Green was straight up me. Everything I was doing right then was everything I did maybe a few months ago or a year ago. I was rapping on this song called “528 Cash” and the whole song is talking about my robbery case, how the dudes that I wasn’t on the case with but didn’t snitch on was [trying to] snitch on me... Like, he was sitting beside the prosecutor while I was starting to take my stand, and I look and he’s sitting beside the prosecutor. Just in case I did take my stand they were going to take me to trial and give me 30 years and he was going to testify on me. It’s just crazy, but one thing about life—your “Realness Card” follows you throughout life.
When it all boils down, dudes be out here talking about they hard and they tough, the truth to that is they be rats. They’ll squeeze a trigger, they’ll do a mission with you, but they be some rats. When you’re a rat, all the street credibility you thought you had you just lost it. If you were to go to the Feds you have a PSI that tells everything you ever did and everyone you ever snitched on and told on and if you don’t show your PSI when you get to the penitentiary in the Feds, guess what? You going to go live in a hole or here comes 15 knives coming at you…You got real dudes out here, but you got a lot of rats out here too.
AllHipHop.com: You violated your parole by carrying two revolvers, how do you feel about T.I.’s case?
Project Pat: I mean, I feel sorry for the man. It’s a mental situation…I was around there when he got caught. I was [about to] go to the BET Awards and the police told me they had just got him. I was like, man that’s sad. I was walking in and the people knew who I was and he was like, “Man, they just picked up your boy.” I’m like, “Who are you talking about?” He said, “T.I.” and I said, “For what?” I thought he had gotten some wrong information. That’s just sad man, but you know somebody set him up.
Let me tell you something about T.I., he’s not a bad dude at all. That man is a millionaire. He’s not a bad guy. He just had a little fetish for guns. S**t, I had it! The thing is, he wasn’t [trying to] hurt nobody. If he came out good in this situation, which I heard he did—why give a man 30 years? He ain’t that type of dude. He probably could be that type of dude, but he’s not on that…
Everybody make mistakes. People try to look at folks like they God or something. Nah, that man is a human being. The thing I like about T.I. is he brushed it off and he still out here shining, he looking good and he’s making money. Even though he lost one of them endorsements, hey you win some and you lose some. That’s how life is. I had lost a lot of stuff when I had gotten locked up on that pistol. I lost so much money, I could have been paid out here a long time ago! Right now I’m in the ring battling it back out! That’s all I can do, I can’t do nothing else. I can’t sit around and cry and whine and be mad at everybody else.
AllHipHop.com: Let’s lighten up the mood a bit. You have a remix out right now that you did on Santogold’s song called “Shove It.”
Project Pat: Yeah! People been telling me about that! People like that! I heard people liked that! Juicy told me the other day that people liked that.
AllHipHop.com: What do you like about Santogold & M.I.A.?
Project Pat: Santogold’s swag of music is kind of like European. I peeped the East Coast starting to employ a lot of England/European music into their beats and stuff. I see a few people doing that. M.I.A., she’s from another country, so that’s just where she’s from. She brought that where she was from to the music world and it’s working. A lot of people in the industry are looking for something different. A lot of stuff be sounding the same. I can’t even lie and say it don’t. People been saying that about the South. Not all the stuff, but some of the stuff sound the same. People like stuff that’s different.
AllHipHop.com: What are you giving us in your new album Real Recognize Real that’s coming out?
Project Pat: I’m keeping it gutta, of course. I got one track on there called “Horny” and it’s got a girl saying the hook. She’s not singing it, she’s saying it and it goes, “The weed got me horny, got me horny/ this liquor got me horny, got me horny/this pill got me horny, got me horny.” Paul made the beat and when I heard it I had to have it ‘cause it’s different. It’s got an Arab melody of music. It’s hard and it’s got this bass in it! When I put the girl on the hook it just shifted. Real talk, most of my album still got the same flavor that people like. I got that soulful sound that keeps it hood.
That’s the thing about rap. When you come into the rap game, you got to keep it how you listen [to music]. Real Recognize Real February 24th and it’s some real congo-bongo. It’s some real ham-wam in the trunk, ‘cause we got to have some ham-wam in the trunk. All the young kids in America got to have ham-wam in the trunk.
AllHipHop.com: What is ham wam?
Project Pat: Ham-wam, that’s that bass! Ham-wam! Going ham means going hard. The bass is going to go hard in that trunk! I promise you! You’ll hear some serious ham-wam ‘cause this time I made sure I told the dude to make sure he turns the bass up!