shig phlare - new, unsigned, underground, and old school hip hop artists

How did Bob Marley influence your music?

That's what I mean by really capturing the hood. I was born in Jamaica so I got to know Bob Marley on a different level. And where he was from in Trenchtown, they was capturing the poverty and what was going on at the time. The music was just so soothing, for all the poverty and killing and starvation that was going on.. he was just great. Him Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, they put it down man. In life it's like some people come along where they gotta do that, their like messengers. They just got to send out the message, so people could hear it and see that they're not the only one's going through the struggle and getting up everyday and doing the same shit.

The way you describe him, that could relate to other people too.. say somebody like Biggie. The way he came out and spoke for the way a lot of people felt about life.

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Biggie was definitely capturing them times that we went through. If you went to high school like 88, 87, 89, then times.. niggas was wildin out here in New York and it wasn't over colors, it was over some dough. Niggas was gettin money, hustlin. Those was like the last of the best times to hustle. Biggie came through those eras, you know.. he was young but he saw the end of it. Then he came up in the era when people was boosting, niggas was trying to stay fresh even though they was broke, you no what I'm sayin'... slanging drums on the block.

Yeah, you can tell Biggie came through all of that, he was one of them kids just doing their little thing around the way, but he found another way to get his money. He talked about it in his music and you could hear how he was thinking just like most kids that grew up around that time, with that get money, be happy, and all your troubles are gone attitude.

...They was tryin to pick up where them other cats left off but they didn't really know how to hustle, that's why a lot of people ended up getting locked up.

You sound like you know a few things about that time. Do you talk about that in your records.. slanging and all that?

I definitely know about them things, everybody touches on that sometime in their life, especially living in the hood and seeing it all around you. I had my little problems with the state but I don't really talk about it in my records. My concepts for records.. my concepts is bomb threats, all my shit. I'm coming different. I'm taking it back to the time when you hear a nigga on the radio or whatever and you was intrigued. You didn't care about a nigga video. You was going out and trying to the buy the record, that's the time that's comin back and I'm bringing that shit back. Making you want to go out and see this, but I'm still gonna bring it to you in your living room. Household shit. Like Frosted Flakes man.

So you got a single coming out...

Yeah, the name of the single is called "Don't Go Loco." The first single off that WGC album. It's gonna be out in mid-January.