Even with the tinted windows rolled up on his all-black ride, people are waiving at his car on Jamaica Avenue in Queens. Domination is really in the hood. There is a stack of posters in his the backseat to promote the release of the recently released God Giveth, God Taketh Away. With Bang ‘Em Smurf locked up till 2008, Domination has a lot on his shoulders to prove he can do on the mic, what many say he’s done in the streets.
Up until this point, most people know Bang ‘Em Smurf and Domination on the strength of their issues with 50 Cent. AllHipHop.com let the quieter of the two, Domination speak on some issues to promote the album. Is it more important to trash 50 or push the Gangsta Flip envelope? Domination airs out.
AllHipHop.com: Who are you influenced by musically?
Domination: Man, to tell you the truth I’m not really influenced by a lot of dudes. That’s how I keep myself different from everybody else. All-time, who am I influenced by? My cousin Freaky Tah, [fallen member of The Lost Boyz] I don’t know if you know that he was my cousin. I’m influenced by him because he represents the same struggle that I came out of. With him, I got to witness that first hand.
AllHipHop.com: Do you feel any added pressure to blow because your Freaky Tah’s younger-cousin?
Domination: Nah, I don’t feel any pressure because of that. I feel added pressure because of the negativity they put on us because of the G-Unit situation.
AllHipHop.com: Smurf told us that he told us that he felt blackballed…
Domination: [Cutting in] Oh no, we don’t feel blackballed, we’ve been blackballed! We’ve spoken to DJs, reporters and websites who have told us that 50 directly told them not to put us on.
AllHipHop.com: 50 told The Next Level magazine recently that he spent money to keep Bang’em out of jail.
Domination: [Laughing] 50 never spent money to keep Bang’ Em out of jail. He didn’t give Bang’em his money man. Bang’ Em had $325,000 with 50 while he was in jail and he didn’t bail him out of jail. 50 didn’t give him the money and then he goes on the mixtape talking about the $325,000 he took from Bang’ Em. In actuality he never saw that money. You know what I’m saying, nobody ever seen that money.
AllHipHop.com: When did you really decide to do “What’s Beef?” and front page this?
Domination: Smurf had just come out of jail. We wasn’t thinking about 50 Cent, we weren’t going to do no diss songs toward him. We were just going to forget him if he wasn’t going to mess with us. And we heard a DJ Whoo Kid mixtape and 50 was on the beginning of a pack song saying “Hey Smurf don’t think I don’t hear you out there talking about me, brush your teeth before you talk about me, wash under your arms you smell like Queensbridge. Tell them n***as about the $325,000 I took back from you. When I come back off tour and I catch you I’m going to rip the skin off your ass, n***a.” So, he just came at us back. We couldn’t let that slide, we was from the hood and we was his gunnas, so for him to come at us like that we got to go at his head. So, “What’s Beef” was true facts, we put down real talk about him, so that’s why other s**t occurred, but that’s neither here or there.
AllHipHop.com – The beef between G-Unit and Murder Inc. really divided Jamaica, Queens a little bit, didn’t it?
Dominatio: That whole time, even when I was with G-Unit, and we was beefin’ with Murder Inc., my friend was Black Child best friend. He told me I should stay out of it, but at the time I told him “F**k it! I’m riding for my team!” I’m swinging hard for my team and it turned out not to be the wisest decision. And since then I’ve spoken to Black Child, and it’s not a problem there.
AllHipHop.com: A lot of cat’s on DJ Mello’s “We Don’t Talk to Police” mixtape made reference that they think 50 is a “snitch” or informer. What do you have to say about that?
Domination: Yeah, he’s a dry snitch, he sure is. At first I didn’t want to believe it, but he’s a dry snitch if you listen to his songs and what not. The things that he says are not a code of the streets to say the things that he says. Like he says “50, Who shot ya?, is it ‘Preme, Freeze or Tah Tah.” He’s putting a lot of business out in front.
AllHipHop.com: Beefing with 50 Cent seemed to have introduced you to Yukmouth and C-Bo to do “He Ain’t A Thug”…
Domination: Yukmouth and C-Bo actually got up with us. They did they background work and research and came looking for us. We just got a call one day and it was like “What’s up, this is C-Bo from the West Coast, we want to fly you out.” At first we were skeptical, we didn’t know if it was a set-up or what. But then we though if God wanted us to go that way; that’s the way we’re going to go. Without any more hesitation we went out to the West Coast and met C-Bo, Yukmouth had told him about us.
AllHipHop.com.com: And you recorded the joint for their album?
Domination:com Yeah, we got on they album, but they didn’t get a chance to be on ours because they wasn’t on this side at the time and what not. [I do have] Kurupt, my artist Young Dice, and D.V. Alias Khrist. .
AllHipHop.com – Being that Bang’ Em doesn’t rap at all, how does your group work out creatively?
Domination – Me and Smurf, it’s 50/50 regardless. He has a great creative sense, sometimes he’ll give me something to rhyme about. He also had a lot of the connects and we just build together. We never took it as “Yo, I’m the rapper and he’s the boss.” We took it as that we’re both bosses and we’re coming in this game together and we’re trying to stay together.
AllHipHop.com: In terms of your own career, you have to feel like you benefited from the attention given to the beef between 50 and you and Bang’ Em.
Domination: Oh, hell yeah! That boy got eight million fans. S**t, all I need is five-hundred thousand and I’ll go five times platinum on Koch Records you know what I’m saying. Hell yeah that benefited us, I ain’t going to front on that. But that is not my intentions because if you listen to my rap, I have skills. If you listen to my album everything is not about 50.
AllHipHop.com: Tell me about the process of recording the album. Because you said you’ve only been doing songs for a few year now.
Domination : Making the albums was beautiful for me, because while I’ve [only] been doing songs in these two years I’ve learned a lot. I learned how to format a song-song, how to make the song perfect. How to make it work and speak about something, instead of saying, “I’m going to kill you,” 5,000 times or say it in 6 million different ways. I chose not to, I chose to make music that battered women could listen to and be inspired by, music that your homies could listen to and say “Yeah! That’s how I want my n***a to feel about me. That’s my dude.”
AllHipHop.com: How much input has Bang’em had on the project even though he’s been locked away?
Domination: Oh, Smurf is still the boss man. He still has major input; I go see him every weekend, he’s up in “Sing-Sing” correctional facility in Ossining, NY. It’s about two-hours away at the most. He’s going, he ain’t worried about nothing right now, just coming home. He’s good in the yard, give him his package, money in the commissary and he’s good.