Part II of G-Unit: Pop & Politics
AllHipHop.com: They consider the South to be a real racially charged type of place, how is racism down there.
Young Buck: The s**t is real. The s**t is realer than anywhere I’ve ever seen in the world. I know in New York, a lot of interracial people, all races can interact with each other like that. Where I’m from that s**t is still kinda like popping in a sense. It’s separate. You don’t really see too many white people in the clubs, they got their own little spots. So in a sense, it’s damn near still popping, that s**t is still segregated. You see the rebel flags and sh*t, flying and sh*t. The shotguns in muthaf***er’s windows and all that good sh*t.
AllHipHop.com: Do you get offended by stuff like that? The rebel flag?
Young Buck: You know what, man? I don’t get offended by none of that sh*t. I look at it as if that’s something that happened so many years ago, we all should forget about it and move on with the sh*t. I kinda pay the s**t no mind and just move on, homie.
AllHipHop.com: They say hip-hop music brings people together, but do those same people listen to hip-hop music?
Young Buck: The same race of people? I really think they do, because that’s how they get an insight into the way they feel about a muthaf***er. That’s where they get it from. I just stay away from that as much as possible, man. I done came up around that s**t so much in my life and seen so much bulls**t go down from s**t like that to the point where it’s, more or less, y’all dudes live the way y’all live and I’ma stay the way I am.
AllHipHop.com: How does that play into your lyrics? Y’all obviously have gangsta-type lyrics or whatever, with people dying in the war and in race relations, do you ever feel like you need to say maybe a little more about stopping the violence or do you just feel you need to reflect what’s going on?
Lloyd Banks: As far as the violence goes, it’s always going to be violence. Between violence, sex and backstabbing, that’s probably like the top three attractions as far as movies, records sales and what have you. If you think about the movies, you think about “Scarface,” you think about “Menace II Society,” you think about all these movies, and the things we talk about on the street is the same thing that attracts them to go see it. If you could see a real live murder take place you probably would watch it.
AllHipHop.com: They did when they executed that kid over in [Iraq]—
Lloyd Banks: Yeah! How many people done watched that, man? Who didn’t log onto their computer and see it? I seen it. It is what it is, at the same time I was raised and my surroundings told my moms and she put it in me what was right from wrong. Everything else you gotta take for yourself. That’s the same thing. That’s why everything that’s purchased has a parental advisory sticker if it needs one. If it’s a rated R movie, it got the rated R stamp. If you have kids, then it’s your job.
AllHipHop.com: But when that lifestyle is a reality as opposed to a sticker, is it different?
Lloyd Banks: I absorb everything that takes place around me. If you don’t, you’re in denial. It’s like if I go back to my favorite barbershop, where I always got my haircut. I remember the way I use to have to be standing on that boulevard when I was there. Ain’t nothing change now. I had to have my gun, gotta have my vest, that’s the way I move around. So knowing is half the battle. If you know you can’t be there comfortable then why be there? You understand? They say the club is the place to go to have fun, but yet we all go with our guns. So we’re in denial again. That’s obviously not the place to go have fun at.
AllHipHop.com: Buck, going back to the race thing…Have you ever had any encounters? I had a situation, like, where I’m from it’s not really the South, but I used to live near an area where the Klan used to live. A place called Elkton, Maryland. And I had an altercation where one of them pulled a gun on me. It was real hectic. You ever had a situation like that?
Young Buck: I had a situation. I’m tell you what, years ago—my homie who I just told you I’ma bring into the game, D-Tay—we was shooting like some low budget video sh*t. And where I’m from in Cashville, they got like a marksmen spot, it’s like a spot that’s on the side of the damn interstate and ten horses with ten confederate flags just flying like Paul Revere, like some real racist sh*t. So I was shooting the clip on that property to kinda let them see that s**t like this s**t is real and the truck drivers had the nerve to pull over on the side of the road, my man, and run up and tell him, ‘Do y’all muthaf***ing n***as know you standing on sacred ground?’
All of a sudden they just start hearing shots come from anywhere. I didn’t know where they was coming from. I got to moving, too. I don’t swing up on anybody like that too much anymore. That s**t is a part of the South. Where I’m from that s**t is out there real big. I never understood that s**t and still don’t to this day.