Villain Park Explains Why They Are Next Up Out Of Los Angeles

Villain Park is here to revive that 90’s hip-hop era we all know and love. Comprised of 23-year-old MC and producer Smoke, 23-year-old MC Bunge, and 21-year-old DJ Coly Cole, the rap trio claims they’ve been doing music their entire life.

As far as together as a group, VP came into fruition in 2013 — and they haven’t looked back since.

Inspired by the likes of Dom Kennedy, Jay 305, Timbaland, and Terrace Martin, fans quickly fell in love with VP’s ability to formulate bangers while spitting that real.

Smoke (younger brother of Double K from People Under the Stairs) describes themselves as a “collective of individuals who don’t care. We out here for ours. We the watchers, we the villains.”

The villains mean they’re watching everything that’s going down around them. While you might not see them, they definitely see you. They’re taking notes and leveling up everything you’re doing to make it better in a whole Blackout way.”

They’re not afraid to speak up, villains to the normal way of doing things and villains to the industry in their truest form. Now, they finally unleash their debut album The Recipe, a 12-track project detailing their lives as VP.

AllHipHop: What sets you guys apart from other LA groups?

Coly Cole: I really can’t say, you can hear it in the music. It’s authentic. It’s not trying to be anything, it’s just what it is. It’s what the feeling is. We real out here. We keeping it real. We not out here wearing a whole bunch of chains, we ain’t got a whole bunch of tattoos. Before all this, we were regular dudes in the city. Just living, showing that you can live out here. If you got talent, you show that and execute, you could do the same thing. You don’t gotta gangbang. You ain’t gotta follow nobody. Especially living in LA, you could easily be known as a follower. That’s what everybody else does.

Bunge: You can get caught up so fast in the trends, that’s why it’s important to be yourself at all times. Stick to how you feel.

AllHipHop: What part of LA are each of you from?

Bunge: West Los Angeles.

Cole: West LA to South Central. And Inglewood.

Smoke: We representing anywhere that La Cienega goes through. [chuckles] We all met each other at Robinson Park. Me and Cole were in a band together as young kids. He was on the drums, I was on the keys. Bunge lived down the street from Robinson Park.

Bunge: Right there on Airdrome. I met Smoke at Robinson, I met Cole at Hamilton High. It’s a realness.

AllHipHop: What made you guys decide you could work together as a group?

Everyone: Connection.

Cole: Most definitely connection, it’s all a mental thing with us. We know what’s right, that’s why it comes out the way it comes out. It’s unbelievable to people’s ears. They be thinking we’re using other big people… no, it’s us. You always gotta start somewhere. Ray Charles wasn’t always Ray Charles. Stevie Wonder wasn’t always Stevie. Actually, he was Stevie. He was on Motown when he was like 5? Newborn? But you know what I mean, all the greats start somewhere.

AllHipHop: At what point did you realize this music thing was for real?

Cole: The impact of the music.

Smoke: Seeing the way people react to our music and really take us seriously as artists and musicians. Seeing other people sing our lyrics in the crowd when we perform. Seeing people who we once and still look up give us props for what we doing, that’s how I knew it was real.

AllHipHop: Who came up with the name Villian Park?

Smoke: I came up with VP. The whole idea was to get a clique of the homies together, we were gonna call ourselves Villains. We didn’t really know what it was going to become until the whole rapping thing. I knew it was gonna be music. We were gonna produce big material, throw parties, do something! It went from Villains to Villain Park ‘cause I knew Villains wasn’t the one. We needed something different that wasn’t used before. Google searched the name and it was a wrap.

AllHipHop: Congrats on dropping The Recipe. How has the fan reception been?

Bunge: It’s been crazy.

Cole: Everybody’s happy. They happy to see 1) we finally put something out. 2) the fact it actually came out better than they even thought it was gonna be. 3) the fact that yes, young cats are out here making real serious music again, with substance and an album that could just play from #1 to #12. It seems like that’s the right way to do it anyway, but it’s in and out. It’s not like you get bored with something and you gotta skip a track.

Bunge: They’re just satisfied with a full body of work, ‘cause we been dropping so many singles over the years. Been on hiatuses for 3 to 6 months.

Cole: Been gone!

AllHipHop: What were the hiatuses for?

Cole: Life.

Bunge: Sitting back, wanting to get more creative with the music. You wanna get better. Also yeah life, what life is throwing at us.

Cole: Plus, you gotta let it age like wine. When wine come out, they let it sit for a while, then they put it out. That’s when you get the best taste.

Smoke: When it’s ready. It was all worth it though. A lot of people said the music was worth the wait, that’s very important.

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AllHipHop: I heard the album release party was lit! Talk about that evening.

Cole: A whole lotta Blackout s##t. A whole lotta drinks.

Smoke: Real s##t, Blackout drunk.

Cole: We did blackout, that’s the name of the company anyway: B.O.C.

Smoke: It was crazy. A lot of real heads who really represent the culture in the right way, also the people who came out. We got a lot of comments saying when they walked inside, they felt the energy in the room. It wasn’t like a regular function you walk into where it’s people just sitting around, being cool. It was a whole ‘nother energy. It was our energy, it was VP.

Cole: That’s where I wanted to go with it. It was one of the first parties people been to where it was a lot of important people in there, a lot of people that you’d see at those types of places where they just wanna be cool at. But they felt comfortable to do whatever they wanted. Ya’ll see the homie Keyvon? You see how he was acting?

Bunge: He did the butt drops! [chuckles]

Cole: He was dancing… he lost his mind. He probably hurt himself the next morning, and his shoe came off! He picked it right back up and acted like it was a phone. I’m like yo. The person that we talkin’ about, come on he works for ADT. He don’t do stuff like that. [chuckles]

People in there were all blacking out. Nobody was caring about looking cool. If they made themselves look like a fool, that’s just what it was. Everybody embraced it. We want to show you could be cool by being your g###### self.

Bunge: All the time.

AllHipHop: The “Visions” music video is dark af. What was the creative vision behind this?

Cole: We wanted to make sure that everybody’s altogether man, that’s why we didn’t put no faces in it. Shout out to Qewly, Smoke Dawg on the editing. I watched him do that all night. All night, picking up the right little spots. That’s why it was so surreal to see on Revolt and all the places that it was on. We literally were in the house editing…

Bunge: All night.

AllHipHop: I know artists tend to have their own favorites that aren’t singles. What songs mean the most to you?

Everyone: “5 Fingaz.”

Cole: It’s the heart. It’s the story about Smoke and Bunge, on everything that led up to the point of how it is now. We were already talking about needing a song that tells a story, it gives you that feel.

Smoke: I naturally just started writing the story. Made the beat, sat down and started getting things off my chest I was holding in. I never really had the time to think about or see the way it really affected me. It was real therapeutic writing it, I felt like I was writing in a diary. Letting it be known and just getting it off, turned it into a song.

AllHipHop: What is it you want fans to get from your story?

Cole: It was never planned. The fact that we never gave up and we stuck to our guns. We stuck to what we know was right. There’s been so many people who tried to tell us “don’t do this, don’t do that.” We always still said “f##k that,” and did it anyway. The outcome ended up coming out in our favor at the end of the day.

Bunge: We did it our way. That was the plan, for us to do it our way.

AllHipHop: What are some goals yourself as an artist at this point of your career?

Smoke: To be the greatest. To be the hardest.

Bunge: Top tier. Definitely in your Top 5, Top 10 at the end of the day. Beyond that!

Cole: Overall, to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I want to see little girls in 30 years wearing VP shirts, even though they don’t know what a VP song is. It’s like you got people that wear Metallica shirts and you know damn well they don’t know who Metallica is. But that’s because they large though, it’s more than that.

Smoke: Same thing with the Wu-Tang logo. Everybody got it tatted, everybody got a shirt, don’t even know who RZA is.

Cole: But that logo was a stamp though. They put that s##t on the moon, so we want to do the same thing. We trying to make this the new Batman signal.

Smoke: In the sky, you’ll see it one day.

AllHipHop: Cole you deejay for the group, then you two rap?

Cole: Yeah we Run-DMC-ing, A Tribe Called Quest-ing, Naughty by Nature-ing. Good s##t.

AllHipHop: What do each of you bring to the table?

Cole: Smoke brings the most immaculate production of all time, that you haven’t heard in centuries. To a whole ‘nother Blackout level to where people think it’s so complicated, but that’s just him. That’s what he does, g###### immaculate man. The fact that he’s also a master wordsmith as well, he’s a sword. Bunge is also a cutthroat sword that will cut through your ears.

You hear his voice, his voice is a frequence already. His s##t is smashing through your ears.

Me on the other hand, I’m the f##king shield ready to smack you across the head. I’m more than just the DJ, I’m low key like Flava Flav, Spliff Star, Jam Master Jay, Jazzy Jeff, a whole bunch of other people in one. But at the same time, I’m motherf##kin’ Coly Cole and you ain’t never gonna see nobody like me in your life. You put that all together with this Villain Park s##t, it’s a big ass boulder just getting ready to smash on you.

Smoke: It’s a vibe, it’s a perfect balance. And we brothers too, so it was destined.

Cole: We all know what we bring to the table.

AllHipHop: What’s a normal day in the life? Walk us through.

Bunge: Aw man, joking. Clownin’. Goofing around. Ballin’.

Cole: One of the main things that we’re notorious for is posting up. We gon’ be posted up for hours and not know that we been posted up for that long. Everybody else around us be like “bro, what are we doing?” s##t, we posted. [chuckles] That’s if we not in the studio though.

Smoke: We having fun. We leave the doors open so the masses can come in.

Cole: Inspiration.

AllHipHop: 3 things you need in the studio?

Bunge: A gallon of water.

Cole: A big ass bottle of Jameson. Some incense.

Smoke: Some incense fasho.

Bunge: A charger. Of course there’s already equipment in the studio… I’ma say good energy.

Cole: No bad energy, that’s also why I brung up Nas. That first song he put on the Lost Tapes 2, he’s like “No Bad Energy.” Please no bad energy. When you have good energy, you always gon’ always bring something nice and make a moment. ‘Cause even that little smidge of tension, it’s not gon’ feel right. Everybody not gon’ be on the same page.

AllHipHop: Speaking of Nas, who’s in ya’lls Top 5?

Bunge: That’s hard. Kendrick, Eminem, Luda. I gotta put Cole, Cole’s hard. And 50.

Smoke: We talking rappers? Ice Cube. I’m really trying to be careful with this. Busta Rhymes fasho. I love WC, Suga Free, Spice 1.

Cole: Black Thought. Kurupt. Xzibit. Jay of course. I need one more. It’s between two people for me: Busta. People don’t be putting Busta in they Top 5’s like that.

AllHipHop: He can spit like a motherf##ker!

Cole: People know that, but then they don’t want to put him in their Top 5. My 6th man is, I never told ya’ll this, but Lady of Rage. Lady of Rage is my 6th woman.

Bunge: You f##k with the female artists.

Cole: I do! I f##k with the hardest, that’s what it is.

Smoke: One of my favorite female artists is Pookie Blow. She on the album, she on “Smoke Break.” That’s my actual sister.

AllHipHop: What’s the best encounter you had with a fan?

Cole: Mine was in a text message. It was a supporter. He’s basically talking about how he wasn’t trying to listen to no new music because his cousin had passed away. But then he heard ours and it uplifted his spirit again. That’s all he was listening to, it made him feel good. That’s always good to hear. Plus the homie’s mama who don’t even like me.

Bunge: ‘Cause it’s usually moms and parents.

Cole: Exactly. Even if they do say it, they just say they like it. “I like what ya’ll doing.” They be really writing paragraphs, going “man you guys remind me of this when I was a kid. This was crazy! Tapped into this vibe, how’d ya’ll do that?” The little things are always amazing. The people you’re not used to reacting to stuff, react. You gotta make even more overlook of what the whole world is probably gonna do instead.

AllHipHop: Dream collab?

Smoke: Dream collab is to be in studio with our music and Dre. I’d definitely say one of them.

Cole: I want us to do something with DJ Quik. I always heard how if you not with Dre, they Quik is the guy. If you can’t get to Dre, Quik is the guy.

Bunge: Of course Kendrick. For me man, ‘cause I was listening to him when I started. That’d just be dope to have him in the studio with us.

Smoke: Another dream collab real quick, is The Alchemist.

Cole: Oh yes, please!

AllHipHop: Anything else you want to let us know?

Everyone: The Recipe, new album just released. “Visions” video out now. We got a whole bunch of other music videos coming. We got a whole lot coming from the Blackout Company and Villain Park. We got something for ya’ll, that’s all it is. Enough said.