Hot Stylz got jokes. During this interview the one liners came non-stop. It shouldn’t be a surprise, since it fits into the scheme of their hit “Looking Boy,” essentially a snap fest (as in joning & the dozens, not that dance rap stuff) in song form that features Yung Joc. Signed to Jive via Joc’s Swagg Team imprint, the trio of Raydio G, Meatball and Krazee are taking the criticism (“We’re just trying to continue to kill Hip-Hop,” says Raydio G, tongue firmly in cheek) they’ve received in stride. Their goal is to prove their “these cats will only have one hit, ever” naysayers wrong.Citing acts like The Pharcyde, Eminem and A Tribe Called Quest as influences, part of their plot is to bring back more humor to the rap game. But the south side of Chicago products do get serious when necessary (i.e. Soulja Boy vs everyone, what Hip-Hop lacks, Raydio G’s pimping).With their album, Yo Mama Got a Mustache, due later this year, Hot Stylz is looking to get the last laugh. AllHipHop.com: How long have y’all known each other?Meatball: We’ve known each other since grade school coming up in class throwing rocks at the teachers and stuff, cutting class, stuff like that. I’ll say about 10 years since about 1997.Hot Stylz “Looking Boy” VideoAllHipHop.com: So tell us about your grind. What have you been doing from 1997 until now?Krazee: Our grind, first of all we don’t grind on anything. But no… Raydio G: For real man what we have been doing is YouYube a lot. We have been trying to utilize the online thing AllHipHop.com, we’ve been all over your blogs and message boards, so here we are.Krazee: In the flesh. AllHipHop.com: How did you all first connect with Yung Joc?Krazee: We had a Delta connecting flight to Atlanta, that’s how we connected to him. Basically Joc hit us up via MySpace, him and his assistant, we talked about some stuff and went down to the A, talked about some stuff, did a few things, made a record, became a hit and that’s how it happened. AllHipHop.com: How did you know that it was really him?Krazee: Actually we didn’t, it was a dude that called and said, “Yo, this is Joc.” We’re like, “This aint no Joc get off my line” click. Then they called back like “For real 100 with you this is Joc.” And we’re like, Okay.AllHipHop.com: I guess the actual tickets to Atlanta verified it?Meatball: Yeah, pretty much, that sealed the deal right there.AllHipHop.com: Were you all actively looking for a deal at that time? Meatball: To be honest, we weren’t, we was just having fun with music. That’s what we’ve been doing, putting out mixtapes locally in the Chi, just having fun entertaining people. Everybody enjoyed it. We weren’t trying to get a deal but it happened, we’re happy and the rest is history. AllHipHop.com: What about the Chi-Town upbringing? How does that come out in your music? Raydio G: You got a big Chi-Town upbringing, you’ve got Do or Die, Crucial Conflict, the big homie Kanye West also contributed to the Chi-Town sound. The city’s got nothing but flavor, so all that flavor just mixed up together and you got Hot Stylz. AllHipHop.com: What are you planning to bring to Chi-Town where Hip-Hop music is concerned? Krazee: We plan on being in the bedroom with your girlfriend, most weekends. No, but as far as music goes we…the type of music we are bringing is new fresh music, ignorant music, something new for the people everything might not be as comical as “Looking Boy” but it’s all original. It’s not going to be like I’ve heard that before or somebody’s got a song just like that, that beat sounds familiar, it’s not like that. Everything is 100 percent original. AllHipHop.com: what about the album?Krazee: Oh we are almost done with the album, The title of the album is Yo Mama Got a Mustache.AllHipHop.com: That said what can we expect from the album?Meatball: You can expect an all around album, it’s going to be fun, very entertaining like my man said it’s not going to be more of the hee hee haw haw the whole album. We got a couple of funny cuts so it’s all around sides to Hot Stylz too. We are all three individuals everybody has three different styles we come together and make one style and it’s hot, that’s how we became the name Hot Stylz. We want to show everybody that we’re versatile we can go R&B, comedy, pop whatever it may be. So every body just expect the unexpected from Hot Stylz, ignorant music is here to stay. Krazee: And the features are crazy, we got like ugly features, like this one track it’s like featuring Radio, Meatball and me. Then we got this other track featuring us and then we got a couple more tracks featuring the three of us.
“We are not doing typical features but right now we’re just trying to continue to kill Hip-Hop and whatever else they say we’re doing.” –Raydio G
AllHipHop.com: That said, are there any other uninvited guests?Raydio G: Uninvited guests…you know what, we kind of want people to tune into the album. Because a lot of the features are like shockers. We are not doing typical features but right now we’re just trying to continue to kill Hip-Hop and whatever else they say we’re doing. AllHipHop.com: Do you’ll seriously think you’re killing Hip-Hop?Meatball: No we don’t say that, that’s [what] the critics say.AllHipHop.com: What do you say to that?Meatball: We say if they think we’re killing Hip-Hop, we’re going to kill it. We’re going to murder it, we’re the weapon that will Ahhh to Hip-Hop. But at the same time people say we’re killing Hip-Hop, there are people who really don’t think we’re killing Hip-Hop, but at the same time Hip-Hop is supposed to be fun. We are expressing ourselves through music. That’s Hip-Hop your way of life, your creativity, and you expressing through music. If they say we’re killing Hip-Hop by just being ourselves then, yo I guess we’re killing it . Just because we might not be rapping about gangster stuff, shoot ‘em up bang bang, doesn’t mean were not Hip-Hop.
“I don’t think “Looking Boy” [is] Hip-Hop, for us to say “Looking Boy” is Hip-Hop is kind of disrespectful to Hip-Hop. But at the same time you can’t deny that it’s rap music, so get off that.” –Raydio G
AllHipHop.com: As in the different category between Hip-Hop and Rap…Krazee: Hip-Hop is something that used to be fun back in the day. If you actually track everything back, rap was always more Gangsta rap, as in hardcore coming straight at you, “straight out of Locash.”AllHipHop.com: Looking back who are some of the artists in Hip-Hop history that who guys feel had a fun aspect?Raydio G: We’re fans of the Pharcyde, in addition to them Tribe did a lot of fun stuff too. Talking about Hip-Hop personally, I don’t think “Lookin’ Boy” [is] Hip-Hop, for us to say “Lookin Boy” is Hip-Hop is kind of disrespectful to Hip-Hop. But at the same time you can’t deny that it’s rap music, so get off that. Meatball: We also have Eminem on that too, that’s my guy, that’s my dog. Raydio G: Just kind of going off that, ”Lookin Boy” is not Hip-Hop but we do Hip-Hop music as well. So for all you’ll who are out there blogging talking about “you killing Hip-Hop” and all this other stuff… Krazee: Stop wearing Iverson jerseys. Raydio: No, we’re just playing, we love you Ice T, church all day. But in the mean time if you’ll see these young brothers like ourselves making money, getting money, congratulate us because actually we are saving what you started. There are a lot of snakes here, that are trying to ruin what you started. They’re trying to infiltrate our music, and trying to destroy it. They’re trying to destroy it, trying to blend other genres into it and destroy it. So before you talk about Hot Stylz, before you talk about Soulja Boy, V.I.C, Lil’ Will or whoever else, you’ll need to think about it. See who is really saving Hip-Hop, homie. AllHipHop.com: Lately there it’s been a lot of young artists versus older artists. What can be done to squash it?Krazee: You can attempt to do everything but as far as music is concerned just to keep up publicity, people are going to always try to create some kind of controversy. So as far as old stuff versus new stuff, it should just stay in its own separate lane. The old is what it is, that’s why they call them classics. The new is fresh. When we get to be like ’85 and ’91, we’re here, our music is going to be our classic. So it is what it is.Raydio G: I don’t think it should be “beef,” we should work together. It’s just like before I was rapping believe it or not I as “pimping” that’s what they call it, and the one thing I learned about that was the game is about elevation. Just like anything evolution is going to bring about so strong of a change, people won’t understand it off top. Everything must evolve, the pimping game evolved from a trap to the Internet and all that other stuff, the same thing with rap music, from the street to the Internet. You see Hot Stylz on AllHipHop.com. Krazee: Dot Com. Raydio G: Man we’re out here in the streets we’re not MC Hammer, we’re not parachute pants in a ‘89 whip selling CD’s. We took it to YouTube, H.S., we’re in the building. We’re all on your computer right now, look at you’ll. You probably got megabytes. How many GB’s you got? What type of hard drive you got? Meatball: We’ll send you a virus. Raydio G: You saying that Hot Stylz ain’t Hip-Hop, why are you’ll wasting you’re time doing it. Make some good music or something. I mean we love KRS-One, we love Ice T, see we listen to that. But at the same time when y’all see Soulja Boy, you’ll see that boy gets money. I’ll tell you what it is, I’m going to stop covering it up, can I do it real quick for a minute?Meatball: Preach.Raydio G: Okay, I’ll tell you why y’all talking about Soulja Boy, y’all are scared, y’all made that boy is making that money. Now if Soulja Boy came out with that “Crank Dat” and it didn’t do anything, you’ll would have never said anything. Y’all seen that boy sell all those ring tones, y’all seen him sit up there and have all those little girls go crazy and y’all trying to come out with these songs like “Uhh yo” and people are not feeling you, you can’t make a dollar any more. That is why you’re hating on Soulja Boy, step your game up. Church.