L
ong before Hyphy blew, Milano was blazing the streets with his own style of lyrical dope, and well after the Hyphy hype dies down, Milano will stand tall with the Bay area heavyweight’s who have been reppin for the Yay area from day one. The Bay area has been reveling in the attention that the “Hyphy” movement has cast upon its region as of late, but Milano is about wake the game up to another style of Bay Area music that is representative of Bay Hip-Hop in its established form.
Some may remembered Milano, a group member called the Sons of Funk signed to Master P’s No Limit Records. After No Limit’s massive roster caved in, Milano started appearing in music videos which lead to him being cast in a Destiny’s Child video along with others. Now hooking up with DJ Skee is the chapter in a career destined for glory. With a debut project, The Mdott Report featuring platinum production from Bosko, DJ Khalil, and many others, perhaps Milano can follow The Game and Polow Da Don as guys with great second-chances.
AllHipHop.com: You got your song “Wop Bop” with E-40 and work Mistah F.A.B and Turf Talk, who all pretty much ushered in the Hyphy. Your close to the movement, but it seems like you’re not a part of it…
Milano: Yeah, it’s more real, man; it’s like everyday life for me. I know the Hyphy movement is what a lot of people live in the Bay but I just look at it like Crunk music in Atlanta, but you have Ludacris and Jeezy coming out of ATL, but they’re not Crunk, but they got love for everybody doing Crunk because it’s all one movement. I want the West to win period, and it’s coming. With music, it’s all like a boomerang: it goes around in a circle, from the East to the mid-west to the South and the South is winning and I’m not mad at nobody. I want everybody to get some cake, but I just want when it comes back around to the West that I’m one of those forerunners.
AllHipHop.com: How would you describe your music?
Milano: Real life, everyday living, like reality. I’m rapping for those dudes on the corner grinding everyday. I feel like everybody out there they grind so hard to get out of a certain situation and then they get into a better situation where they making millions and they still want to keep it street. I feel like people need to block all this beef they going through, and just respect each other’s hustle there’s enough money for everybody to eat, and we all say we trying to get out the game and get out the streets, but then we get into this rap game with people making multi-millions and people still shooting and killing each other. If that’s the case, you might as well just stay in the streets, stay selling dope, stay hustling that way if you wanna just keep on warring and f**kin’ with each other. I feel like we got an opportunity to feed people man people who are really hungry. It’s just crazy to me so like my music is just real music, man, it’s like people are gonna be able to feel me cause real recognizes real, people cam do their background check on me and see it’s real with me its not something I just come up with out of my head, I rap about reality and that’s what it is.
AllHipHop.com: You’ve got a mixtape with DJ Skee, is it all original beats?
Milano: Yeah, it’s not like your regular mixtape where you just jack people for beats that are going on, I got some exclusive stuff on there that I did with genuine production as far as like real beats, real producers and real songs. I used a couple of joints that were hot that I felt was hot and did my thing over them, but I wanted to show them that cats can make a real song and we don’t need to just use every hot beat that’s on the radio to make a hot mixtape.
AllHipHop.com: Give me an example of a real song…
Milano: Man, I got a song called “Dollars in my Bank” based on my former persona they used to call me “Floss” back in the day. So I just explain my whole get down about what I’m all about on that song. It’s like a whole new era of west coast rappers coming out who are legitimate rappers and can hold their own against anyone out there. Like back in the day, all people thought about the West Coast is that it’s straight gang-banger music, but we got bars out here, man. Everybody used to always categorize California as just L.A., but now they’re recognizing the Bay and L.A. and the Bay both have their own separate swagger but when we get together, it’s all love between us. I feel like the days of people seeing all rappers from the West Coast in Chuck’s and Dickies and white tees, man, those days are over. It’s fly cats out here we out here getting it doing our thing, you see Skee over there diamonds shining and everything its not a game out here.
AllHipHop.com: Regionally speaking, you have songs with Akon, Sean Paul from the Youngbloodz and Bleu DaVinci, how did those come about?
Milano: Oh yeah, we just did a hot remix to that Akon song it’s called “Drop” big ups to my boy Akon. Basically, it’s a matter of real recognize real, with Bleu ya know it’s street cred real mess with real and all of my collabos come from some type of relationships, man. I stay in the streets; I stay connected. It’s all about making the best music and working with the best at it. The mixtape is buzzing thanks to Skee now that people see Skee is messing with it people are really starting to listen.
AllHipHop.com: What’s your label situation?
Milano: ICCE Records is an artist-driven indie label. Skee is helping us out putting the structure together, but we have a roster of hot artist like the Generalz a hot Latin group, we just signed an new singer named Jah-Free; he’s a rock star that dude is nice! DuReal and lyrical beast out of Augusta Georgia, ET Jedi is my boy out of my camp, he’s sick, a great writer. Man, we just got some heat and we’re trying to really bring something new and different to the game we’re grinding and working hard over there. It’s some of every thing that you’re looking for from Latin, to R&B to Hip-Hop. I had some action at other major situations but as far as what they were offering me as far as my creative input and my budgets and everything they were willing to do for me and what I can get from them as opposed to someone else who was trying to rape me, it was no question, I had to be down with the ICCE records team.