For an entertainer,
Fabolous has been through a lot in the last couple years. With crossover success,
he’s seemingly had more encounters with the police, who seemed to be on
convert operations against the BK rep.
Nevertheless, no
legal adversity thrown at him stuck and Fab offers the state of affairs as Real
Talk, his latest, is slated to drop shortly.
AllHipHop.com:
Can you give us a little overview of your upcoming project?
Fab: My album is
called Real Talk. I think this album is very different from my last
two albums, it captures my versatility and growth. It goes down south, it goes
to the west coast and of course I have to rep my eastern side. That’s
why I came out with “Breathe” as the first single because society
has placed me in a box where I could only make party joints or joints for the
ladies, so I wanted to give the people something different than what they usually
would expect from me. I titled it Real Talk because that’s what
I thought I was giving the fans. I’ve been going through over the last
year and a half – since my last album. The places I’ve been, experiences
I’ve had, I captured its all in song format.
AllHipHop.com:
Is it true that “Breathe” was a leaked street song and the good
response turned it into an official single?
Fab: Definitely.
We wanted to leak a record and make people see how they feel – like I
said before, that’s not the type of record people are used to hearing
as a single, so we wanted to leak it and see how people would respond to it
and it ended up getting a great buzz so we decided to release it.
AllHipHop.com:
Now you talked about some of your experiences between your albums, you’ve
been arrested a couple of times and there’s been rumors of a lawsuit pending,
is that true?
Fab: We filed a
lawsuit against the NYPD for [me] being wrongly accused and unlawfully arrested.
It happens to people everyday, but not too many people go back and file a lawsuit,
or make a complaint to the city know that they can’t just keep doing this.
Even though the charges were dropped; it hurt me because it could be looked
upon as a bad look.
AllHipHop.com:
Do you think it will be successful? It was for like five million, right?
Fab: Yeah. But
It ain’t even about the money. We just put that on so they could see that
we’re really serious. I wanted to make a statement to show the people
that this is what you can do whenever you get picked up and get [unlawfully]
searched. Make a complaint.
AllHipHop.com:
Now you’ve set up your label and I heard that you signed a former member
of Destiny’s Child. Can you tell us more about that?
Fab: I’ve
started a production company Street Family Entertainment. And we signed Farrah
Franklin and a guy by the name of Mike Shorey from the song, “Can’t
Let You Go” form my last album. The Farrah Franklin situation didn’t
work out because she’s from the West Coast and I’m from the East
Coast and there’ve been conflicts on the space that’s between us.
There’s no bad [blood] it’s just something that didn’t work
out.
AllHipHop.com:
Mike’s a singer right?
Fab: Yeah.
AllHipHop.com:
So there are no rappers on the roster yet?
Fab: No rappers
on the roster yet. We’ve been trying to do something things with some
rappers, but we haven’t locked in with anybody. So we wanted to take every
situation and put or most into that, let that grow and tap into other situations.
AllHipHop.com:
What’s you relationship with Clue now that you’ve branched off to
your own brand, so to speak. Are you still under Clue?
Fab: Definitely.
I’m still with Desert Storm. Our relationship is very cool. Besides the
music industry, we get along as friends. That makes the music and everything
even smoother. Some people after the studio, they give each other day and walk
away and don’t even chill. So it’s definitely an advantage.
AllHipHop.com:
Then what about Joe Budden? Because I heard that Game was in your video and
people wanted to know about that.
Fab: Me and Budden
is cool. I mean everyone have their differences. I’m pretty sure that
everybody has someone they are cool with and then have another person that they
don’t connect with. I’m cool with Buddens, I’m cool with Game.
Game showed up [to the video shoot], I don’t know why Budden didn’t
show up; maybe his people didn’t let him know about it. It’s just
two people that don’t like each other. People moms and pops don’t
get along and the child be caught in the middle.
AllHipHop.com:
What’s your opinion of the state of New York Rap in relation to down south
who’s dominating the game right now.
Fab: Down South
has a great sound out right now. You can’t knock it because they’ve
been doing it for years, but they’ve never connected mainstream wise.
You go down there and they’ll tell you “We’ve been getting
crunk down here for ten years.” So now it’s broader and people are
getting to see it up here. Also the game changes every once in a while but east
coast Hip-Hop is always going to have its stamp on the game. I don’t think
Hip-Hop would be as good if it was only one kind of sound. People would get
tired like, “I can’t take all this gun-bustin s**t” all day.
AllHipHop.com:
What do you do in your downtime? You seem like a laid back dude and we don’t
see you at industry events, what do you do?
Fab: Offtime, I
be chilling. I know people in New York say that they see me all the time. Sometimes
I’m more of a homeboy. I just lay back watch some DVD’s get some
girls, have a barbeque. Sometime, I’m more outgoing, like I want to hit
the clubs a little bit. I am outgoing, I was at some of the shows in Fashion
week. But I’m not on some extra star s**t and move around with ten security
guards. I’m not into s**t like that.
AllHipHop.com:
Fashion wise, you kinda brought the throwbacks in the game. I don’t know
if you was the first one but you kinda early with it. I see you changed up,
rockin’ Izod. Are you done with the jerseys?
Fab: Well, I do
a jersey here and there; I still feel the jerseys match good with certain footwear
and fitted’s. I’m just not on some everyday tip with it. Right now
I just stick to what’s casual and what’s simple. When throwbacks
came out. it was something new at the time, I wasn’t the first one with
it but I kinda put the stamp on it. Young kids connects with hip-hop artists.
AllHipHop.com:
Any thoughts on the Hip-Hop Police because you cited them as one of the reasons
for your arrest?
Fab: I don’t
want to speak too deeply on the Hip-Hop Police because of the lawsuit, but they
are very influential in the arrests and they let people know about your whereabouts,
they’re mixed within the regular crowd. I don’t see the need to
stake out Hip-Hop artists out like that. I mean its not like we are the mob
or anything.