Atlanta has always been a city with artists that has had strong movements that seemed to willingly put the streets on their backs. Rappers like Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Boyz n tha Hood, Shawty Lo and numerous others hold hip-hop down in the city and have transformed it into a breeding ground for great talent. Well if your ears are close to the streets, then you might be familiar with a new movement called Duct Tape Entertainment (DTE), founded by Big Bank Black and Alley Boy.
Hailing out of East Atlanta’s Zone 6, this family owned company has built enough buzz that the two main rappers finalized 50/50 deals with Atlantic in a 3 month span last year, with no Internet buzz or radio airplay. Impressive to say the least. While attaining numerous notable features on songs from Gucci Mane, CTE, Maino, Wacka Flocka and Rocko to name a few, they have also received cosigns from radio DJ’s across the nation. It’s clear that (DTE) is right around the corner from national success with a movement as strong as we have ever seen in Atlanta.
AllHipHop.com: What good wit ya man?
Big Bank Black: Out here getting a tattoo, we out here killin it.
AllHipHop.com: What kind of tat are you getting man?
Big Bank Black : I’m getting a cross on the back of my head man, so God can watch my back man. You feel me? What you got going on?
AllHipHop.com: Chillin on it man. So where you from man?
Big Bank Black: I’m from Atlanta. Originally born in Atlanta. Edgewood, Zone 6, East Side of Atlanta.
AllHipHop.com: Ok, Zone 6, that’s familiar, a lot of people talk about Zone 6.
Big Bank Black: Yea, yea a lot of folks, Gucci, n***as like that, all them n***as from out that way. I’m from Mason, they from the Bouldercrest. I’m from Mason Avenue, like the slum part of Zone 6
AllHipHop.com: Right, so tell me a little about how you got your name?
Big Bank Black: Well you know Jade gave me the Big Bank s**t, but you know I been Black, rap name, street name forever. Like n***as been calling me Black since I was 20 years old or whatever. That comes from my skin color. But you know my street name, just raised up with me and you know Alley and Jade were just playing around, “Big Bank Black, ” playing around, so and I came in the studio and did a record and when she said my name on the administration papers, she said the name on the papers is “Big Bank Black ” instead of “Black,” and that’s how the name came about.
AllHipHop.com: Now when did you first start recording records?
Big Bank Black : Last February, almost a year ago.
AllHipHop.com: So I heard the “Try It Out” joint, that sounds tight and it got a lot of response, I saw you were at Club Body Tap in the video. That looked tight.
Big Bank Black: Yea, I just received the first copy of my newest mixtape out n***a Reckoning. It’s a classic!. I received it and it’s got all kinds of s**t on there. Street s**t, club s**t. Its really stuff you can play in the beauty shop or the trap, you know what I’m sayin? Either way we hit both sides of the mixtapes.
AllHipHop.com: You’ve signed Alley Boy right?
Big Bank Black : Yea that’s my brother.
AllHipHop.com: How did you guys build the buzz and get signed to Atlantic with no real radio airplay or Internet presence? How did everything start so quickly?
Big Bank Black : It was the streets, like the streets backed us up 100%. Like at the end of the day we just killed the streets, stayed on all the street corners. Alley had a big buzz because you know he’s real lyrical. Like everybody knows of him. All the big artists and s**t know of him and he was just Atlanta’s best-kept secret. n***as tried to hide this s**t. Then when I dropped the “Try It Out”, it brought their eyes over to Duct Tape [Entertainment] and once they started looking over here, they looked up under the leaves and saw Alley, know what I’m saying?
AllHipHop.com: Right.
Big Bank Black: He was locked up, got out and signed to Atlantic less than two weeks from his release, signed to Atlantic on a 50/50 joint venture. We got buzz instead of budget, so that means that’s money that we get to keep. You know they really blessed us, shouts out to Julie out there. They really blessed us over there.
AllHipHop.com: What is one thing that you feel Duct Tape is bringing to the game, what would you say is it?
Big Bank Black: Real s**t.
AllHipHop.com: Real s**t? (Laughs)
Big Bank Black: Authentic. You can put authentic. Because I dunno, you know? Just put authentic. However you say it. Authentic s**t. Know what I’m saying. None of that knock off Gucci s**t, you know that real s**t. n***as got that knock off Prada s**t. You know how you have that knock off fake s**t?
AllHipHop.com: Yea
Big Bank Black: This is ain’t the knock off fake s**t. This the real s**t. You gonna get 100% Black. 100% Alley Boy. You gonna get 100% Duct Tape s**t. Like we put our lifestyle on wax. You know what I’m saying? Give it to them raw, uncut. You know America loves gangster s**t. They like gangster movies. You know what I’m saying? The biggest box office movies be gangster movies. We bringing that gangster s**t back really. I do music and what I always tell people is that my music is gonna what’s gonna keep their attention. Alley do music that is what’s gonna keep us there. You know what I’m saying. Like that’s the difference. I’m gonna pick up all the little s**t that Alley’s music don’t pick up, and he gonna pick up all the s**t I don’t pick up and the two work hand in hand. You feel me.
AllHipHop.com: I wanted to ask you, who are some of the artists that you are working with right now?
Big Bank Black: Well Alley’s been doing s**t with Wacka, Gucci, n***as like that. He did some s**t with CTE, Slick Pulla. You know just all the real n***as. Alley is doing a lot of s**t with n***as on the West Coast. I just got most of my people. I got Rocko, Rasheeda, Cannon, Young Ralph, you know. We f**k with everybody that f**ks with us, you know what I’m saying, you either with us or against us, that’s how we kick it, know what I’m saying. Either way it don’t matter.
AllHipHop.com: So who has been doing the production.
Big Bank Black : We got in house producers. I do beats too. Me and my in house producers. We try to build everything from the ground up. We aren’t no bandwagon dudes. They wouldn’t f**k with us then so why we just gonna jump on the bandwagon. Our s**t’s about to break and we are gonna bring our own sound to the game, know what I’m saying. We really f**k with underground producers to help people come up.
AllHipHop.com: So the All-Star Game is coming up soon out in Dallas this year, are yall gonna make it out this year?
Big Bank Black: We are gonna flood the s**t down there man. s**t we are gonna decorate the whole town, you gonna see Duct Tape everywhere! (laughs) They f**k with me hard down there in Dallas. I f**k with Bay Bay, Tape Masters Inc., I know a couple of dudes down there. I f**k with them. Its nothing, we gonna be home in when we go for All Star weekend.
AllHipHop.com: Tell me a little bit about Duct Tape Entertainment and how it started. Tell me about the movement, all about that.
Big Bank Black: Originally, me and Alley, we had caught a case together, but in the case Alley ended up going to prison. When he went to prison we caught us a case with pistol charges and weed charges, it was my first case so I ended up getting probation time. But it was Alley’s fifth offense so he went to prison. So when he went in to prison I was like “f**k it,” I started the company Duct Tape, so when he got out he could do his thing. I just took really, mainly people out of the neighborhood. It’s a neighborhood, like a family thing. Changing a lot of lives and turning everything on. I went out to the West side to get my partner Ricardo, my business partner, along with S6, that’s another one of our partners and we put everything together. The whole Atlanta, West, East, South, pushing for the real n***as. Its really just a family affair. In the video on 106 and Park, that’s all family. I known all those people 10 years or better. You know what I’m saying? We just wanna bring a whole new movement to the world.
AllHipHop.com: That’s what up I definitely checked out a lot of the videos on YouTube and it sounds like yall got a nice movement going.
Big Bank Black: Is the biggest and realest movement to come out of Atlanta. They can mark my word. You can mark my word. These ain’t no n***as I just met doing this music s**t. Like its n***as mommas, aunties, all my n***as locked up in prison, its just one big family. We never did contracts until it was a major deal. That’s when it came because it was all loyalty in the family. We ain’t worried about that over there. Some people try to ask about working with my brother. Is there any competition? Its no competition because if he won I won. If I win he won, know what I’m saying?