SunN.Y. Interview With Audio

Interviewed by: Dirty Backpacks

Audio (real audio):

Interview
Soul of A Hustler
Introduction


Videos
Behind the Scenes with SunN.Y
Soul of A hustler (Media Player)



SunN.Y. is focused. Taking over 106 & Park’s Freestyle Friday, he battled 7 MCs in 7 weeks and lyrically lobotomized every single one of them. On his last vistory as he was inducted into the Hall Of Fame, Jermaine Dupri came out and announced to the world that he was signing the 22-year-old MC to Virgin Records. Since then, the Rochester native has been steadily preparing his major label debut, Overnight Celebrity, now set to drop in November. Find out why he won’t fall victim to the “106 & Park Curse”, his thoughts on the state of Hip Hop, why The South is hot right now, and why The Sun Of N.Y. may be the best chance out of the new generation of Hip Hop artists to bring the focus back on the East Coast.

- By Dirty Backpacks





Dirty Backpacks: First off, man – everybody wanna know – what does your name mean? How’d you get the name?

SunN.Y.: The name Sun of N.Y.- it derives from an attribute – Sun God Born Allah. You don’t wanna…you don’t wanna scare nobody with your attribute when you get into the corporate world, so I changed it to SunN.Y. to make it household. When I got to Atlanta I attached the "N.Y." abbreviation so while being in the South, I could get my New York representation wherever I go. Especially when I was on the radio, winning on Hot 107.9 for a year, you know. And then, um – the Sun of N.Y.? It just comes from – you know, New York is real serious. It’s one of the original 13 colonies, first of all. It’s a real influential state on the whole world. New York has had a great impact on the world. And by me giving the title "the Sun of N.Y.", I’m just expressing. I’m a representative of, a product of, New York and the environment. Not New York City, but New York State as a whole. Like my man Prodigy said, "it’s hard to survive up in New York State."

Dirty Backpacks: True that, true that. So it sounds like you got a little 5 percent influence in there – is that true?

SunN.Y.: Oh definitely, man. Definitely.

Dirty Backpacks: Alright – let’s get straight to it, man. Everybody knows the cats on 106 & Park’s Freestyle Friday is nice, but you know – there’s a little jinx with that. What’s going to separate you from Postaboy and Jin, for example?

SunN.Y.: What separates me from Postaboy is I got two videos. What separates me from Jin is I got two HOT videos. And I ain’t get sat on for no year; ain’t nobody make me come out lookin’ like ManTan or, you know, no type of pickaninny or nothin’. I’m Jamaican and Cuban, and they ain’t have me delivering Jamaican plates or none of that crazy junk in my 1st video! And I think that’s what separates me right there, for the most part. It’s the fact that – people say "the curse". The curse of 106 7 Park is: you freestyle, you can’t make songs. I think "Soul Of A Hustler" is a beautiful song. And "Introduction" – it’s definitely a song for the people that get down like that, you know what I mean? I think that’s what separates me right there.

Dirty Backpacks: Yeah – we been rockin’ "Soul Of A Hustler" – I do a show, and we been rockin’ that heavy.

SunN.Y.: I appreciate that. My man Melec from up that way.

Dirty Backpacks: Yeah, yeah! Melec IS from Buffalo! I’m glad you know him.

SunN.Y.: Definitely – shout out to Melec and his squad.

Dirty Backpacks: Now your 1st video was kind of grimy.

SunN.Y.: "Soul Of A Hustler."

Dirty Backpacks: Yeah, yeah – definitely kinda grimy, definitely my hot joint. Your 2nd joint, though, got you in Miami. There’s a concern, being as nice as you are lyrically, that, you know, you’re affiliated with Jermaine Dupri. People are a little concerned that you might come and be a bit mainstream. Address that.

SunN.Y.: Don’t nobody gotta be concerned about me being with Jermaine and going mainstream. If anything, they should give Jermaine a round of applause and appreciate the fact that out of all the music moguls, CEOs, producers, artists, and people like him in the rap game or in the music business period – that he recognized such an underground level of Hip Hop, which is Battling and Freestyling. And he took it to a mainstream, commercial label, if that’s what they wanna call it. So you know, instead of looking at it like "oh, that’s Bow Wow, and they just signed the Freestyle dude", look at it like "as of right then, he must really believe in the movement of Hip Hop." Of all the people to sign in the world, you know – nowadays, you got people with their labels going back trying to sign Dinosaur rappers; trying to rebirth careers that have already been gone. Jermaine’s really sticking his neck out there for new artists. Me, Slim, T.Waters, Yong Capone, you know what I mean? So that’s what I appreciate out of it. I’m not concerned with it. My album is my album. Me and J worked hard on it, and he definitely had his insight. One thing that he kept telling me is "Don’t go in there thinking that you gotta do what people tell you to do, go do what you been doing." I don’t know him personally like that, and he don’t know me, so all he knew was to tell me to do what I do best. All I knew what to do back to him is….I know who he is, so it’s like "Yo, give me your advice."

Dirty Backpacks: Yeah, yeah.

SunN.Y.: But even with "Introduction" – the song’s hot and all that, but J asked me a couple of times "You sure you wanna run with this one? You wanna do a video for this?" You know what I’m saying? I was like "Well yeah, cuz you know, I gotta try and ride both sides of the fence out the door."

Dirty Backpacks: So, with that being said, what’s your album going to sound like? What can people expect when it comes out?

SunN.Y.: My album got different sounds to it. My album got the sounds of what I was raised on. So, you’re gonna hear a song that’s gonna give you a feel like you first got when you heard (Jay-Z’s) "I’m Feelin’ It" on Reasonable Doubt. You’re gonna hear a song like "Soul Of A Hustler" that’s gonna remind you of (Raekwon’s) "Incarcerated Scarfaces", or Wu-Tang’s Method Man and Shaq’s "No Hooks" – just straight bars and nothing flashy, know what I mean? And then you got songs that’s like – you got songs that we need nowadays. I didn’t dummy down my flow not once, but you know you need your club records. Some people want you in the clubs, they want you on commercial radio. But for the most part, my album….it could be on commercial radio, but it gotta be songs that’s not like your typical commercial songs. Like take (Jay-Z’s) "99 Problems". That’s not a commercial song at all, but it crossed over due to the fact of the demand behind it. So I got an album where I got like 5 songs that’s gonna play in the clubs, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t designed to be like that. The album is definitely hard. It’s fresh, it’s hardcore….it’s everything that Hip Hop’s supposed to be.

Dirty Backpacks: Are you kind of concerned being that you’re Jermaine Dupri’s 1st big signing….you’re getting a lot of pub for that, and you’re like the first rap artist signed to Virgin – are you concerned with the pressure, and is there any pressure to succeed?

SunN.Y.: No, I ain’t got pressure to be successful, cuz that falls on me at the end of the day. The label do what they do, and then it’s up to me and my team and my ni99as that I deal with to push the next button and make it happen. Truthfully, the only fear I got is knowing what state the music business is in, knowing what state Hip Hop is in. It’s people that aren’t buying Rap records right now just because they’re fed up with what’s already been out there. You got people that don’t give new artists a chance, because every time a new artist comes out, look at how they come out? You see their video, you hear their song; two weeks later their album’s in the store.

Dirty Backpacks: You sound like you’re touching on the fact that a lot of people gripe about how wack Hip Hop is, how it ain’t like it used to be….

SunN.Y.: I’m not even, naw – I’m not even stuck on the fact that of "Yo, Hip Hop ain’t the same, Hip Hop’s dying, it ain’t what it used to be…" – IT IS. HIP HOP IS THE SAME. It’s just the fact that you have a larger audience listening to it that’s making the politics of it go a certain way. 8 million people buy 50 Cent’s album, but 8 million people don’t know what he’s talking about. They’re really buying because of the over-saturation. I mean, look - VH-1 plays Rap and Hip Hop now. Since when did VH-1 start playing Hip Hop? So, once you got people that watch stations that never showed Hip Hop but they watch it to find something they like, then the masses feed into what they project out there.

So that’s kind of like where it’s at. Hip Hop is good, man. You got Nelly representing how Hip Hop sounds in the Midwest, and you got West Coast rappers representing Hip Hop out there. Just cuz it ain’t coming from New York or from The Bronx don’t mean it ain’t Hip Hop; just cuz a ni99a ain’t got a backpack on and his Tims dirty don’t mean he ain’t commercial.

Dirty Backpacks: Now you talk about it ain’t gotta be from New York (City)….you’re from Rochester, NY, and I know Rochester real well – what was your influence in the Rochester music scene? Was there really cats around there really hippin’ you to it, or was you kind of like, out on your own listening to stuff, getting influences from all over?

SunN.Y.: Well yeah, you from Buffalo, so you definitely know - there was nothing up there to make a ni99a really be influenced or wake up and be like "I’m about to go hard in the game." It was just listening to everything around me. Listening to Poor Righteous Teachers, Diggin’ In The Crates, The Pharcyde, N.W.A., Nas, Jay, B.I.G. – you know, just going all around listening to stuff. As far as it go though, I can probably say as for my generation, growing up with like the Wu-Tang, Bad Boy, Ready To Die era – it was like me – and back then, I was going by the name Technique back in like ‘92-’93 – and then you had the Timberland Foundation. You had my man Little Philly. The only radio station we had was WRUR, the college station. Stuff like that was my influence to really go hard, because I saw how hard it was to find an outlet in my own city to make it happen.

Dirty Backpacks: Cool. Let’s get into the album, man. What do you have for production on the album; who produced it?

SunN.Y.: Well, JD let me make a wish list. I made a list of producers I wanna work with, and that’s who I worked with. I got JD on there, I got the Heatmakerz, who did the track "Love For Me", Nimrodz, Bam and Ryan from out of St. Louis. Of course the Track Boyz, Chad West, who did "Soul Of A Hustler", my man Big Reese, who did an ill song called "For The City". My man St. Vincent – he did "I Get High" for Styles P – he got a song called "Countdown" on my joint that’s like a Rock ‘N Roll song. Then I got this kid who flew in from Seattle named J-Hin, and this new dude from Texas named Say No More or Mr. Phillips, and he’s crazy! I got like a producer for almost every song.

Dirty Backpacks: How many tracks on the album?

SunN.Y.: 12.

Dirty Backpacks: Aight…any collabos?

SunN.Y.: I’m working it right now, man. At first, I wasn’t gonna do none. The only person I’d really care to collabo with right now is probably Young Jeezy, only because I met him before 106, and I rubbed elbows with him in the club and sh*! like that. I ain’t really too cool with making songs with people I really don’t know, cuz then it looks like I’m just doing it to boost the sales. It’s already bad enough that I’m "a Freestyler that probably can’t make songs that’s signed to So So Def." All I need now is a 1st album with 1,000 collabos on it. I’d rather hold all the weight myself – I did 106 by myself, promote my album by myself – I’d rather hold it down DOLO. But right now, I’m reaching out to…hopefully I do get Jeezy on this one track called "Brave Yankee", and get Lil’ Wayne on this track called "Same Corner".

Dirty Backpacks: Okay, I respect that. Obviously you’ve got the Southern influence being that you was in Atlanta…

SunN.Y.: Right now the South just spittin’ it a lot more iller! Not even lyrically, but they just, they’re like a lot more RAW with it than a lot of New York rappers are. Cuz like, okay, boom – you got New York rappers, and everybody’s saying The East need to come back or whatever the case is. So now you got us like – now we making songs about like the B-Boys and about this, that and the third. It’s like rappers from the East Coast is like trying to fit in now to the new so-to-say "rap ways" that’s going on. Fat Joe said it himself: "it took ya boy from The South to bring ya boy back." So you saying you jumped on Lil’ Jon’s back and got back in the public light? Come on, dog. You from New York, man. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s why we can’t be saying Hip Hop’s dead, cuz if it’s dead then why are you like….I mean, what is East Coast rappers doing with themselves?!? Are we now trying fit into the Hip Hop World, or are we trying to fit into the Rap Game?

Dirty Backpacks: Alright, I’mma put a question out there, and I’m not trying to lure you into something incendiary, but….

SunN.Y.: Naw, I talk from a fan’s perspective, cuz I’m still a fan.

Dirty Backpacks: Okay – is SunN.Y. the person that’s going to bring that focus back on the East Coast?

SunN.Y.: YEAH. I will. Cuz I believe, people gonna listen to my album – they’re not going to say "oh, he went and sought out the Down South track, he went and sought out the West Coast sounding track." My album it’s lyrics, it’s bars, it’s ME. It ain’t bars, it’s verses and choruses, not bars and hooks.

Dirty Backpacks: I’m feelin’ that, I’m feelin’ that. One last question – what do you want the fans and all the people to know most about SunN.Y. and the album?

SunN.Y.: That I’m a fan before I’m an artist. And about my album – it’s timeless music.

Dirty Backpacks: Are you sticking with So So Def? Is this a one time thing, or are you and Jermaine Dupri good? You So So Def for life?

SunN.Y.: Oh naw – me and Jermaine good. We good. I ain’t got no Rap friends, and I ain’t got no Rappers talking in my ear influencing me to make no decisions. I’m just going off of Real Talk, real values from on the block and in the street. I mean, where he damn-near mean more to me than anything, you know what I’m saying? Overnight Celebrity, I had it written out as a business plan. A few people in Atlanta got a hold of that, people that could’ve made things happen with it. Jermaine read it, then sat down with me. I broke it down to him, and he ran with it.

Dirty Backpacks: When’s the release date?

SunN.Y.: September 13th. But seeing as I’m about to go back in the studio, I might just have them push it back again for me. With school coming back in September, I really want to kick it with the back to school crowds, and things of that nature. You know – to keep the audience that I had on 106 & Park.

Dirty Backpacks: Alright, cool SunN.Y. – I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, man.

SunN.Y.: Oh, fa sho’, Dirty Backpacks. I like that name too, B.