Rick Rock Is Right At Home at Impact 210 (Impact210)

Impact210: Talk about your group, The Federation.
Rick Rock: There are so unique. They are in the Bay, and they go against the usual style I hear everywhere. They fit perfect with my music. They get it. It’s a click, a connection. They’re talented and they get me. It’s a lot of love. They have so much energy. They’re hyphy. They are a ball of energy. They have a lot of creativity, and that translates into the records, and that translates into their performance. I’m drawn to their energy.

Impact210: Do you plan to go independent now, or look for another major label deal for their sophomore CD?
Rick Rock: If I do it the way I’m doing it now, independently, then I’m going to try to get them on a Black college tour. People are loving them. I just pressed up vinyl and I’m going to the record pools and DJs and college radio. I’m just trying to get their climate bubbling and then drop the album independently. Or I’m going to go with a deal and go through that regular sh*t again.

Impact210: What bothers you about major label deals?
Rick Rock: The bullsh*t. Everybody has to ask somebody to do something. Just to get something done, it takes forever. My situation with Virgin… Nobody talked to each other. How do you run a cohesive machine if nobody is ever talking to each other? Because of that, sh*t flops over there. Not to say that my record didn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe if we had a no-brainer we could’ve won. I take some fault but they are just the Pinto of record labels.

Impact210: Talk about some of the records you’ve produced.
Rick Rock: In the early days, I did a lot of work in the Bay area. An Ice Cube record, Mystikal, E-40. I was eating. I was working a lot. Then Jay-Z comes and picks some records. Then Beanie Sigel wanted a record. Then the “Change The Game” remix, then another record for DJ Clue. Then Fabolous came with “Can’t Deny It,” then Angie Martinez “Wish I Could Go,” then “I Know What You Want” for Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey, “Make It Clap” for Busta. Then I did some singles that didn’t do well like “Symphony in X Minor” for Xzibit and Dr. Dre. That’s one of my favorite records I ever made. Some records perform better than others. Then Mase came with “Breathe, Stretch, Shake.” My last record was “Mutherf**ker” for Xzibit, but that didn’t perform well. It just goes like that. It just keeps moving. When I did Busta’s and Xzibit’s, I started doing my own groups. I got a deal and I fell out of the loop. Now I got to get back. So I’m getting back. I’m working with Busta again, working with Fab again. Snoop.

Impact210: Do you work with people in the studio, or just send them your beats?
Rick Rock: It’s always been a little of both. I do send artists my beats. Like with Jay-Z, he might have a beat CD and fly me out. Then when I get here, he doesn’t like them anymore. So I got to come with something new and we straight. I boogie on the spot.

Impact210: What impact will the Federation have on the hip hop game?
Rick Rock: We are the catapult for the Bay area coming back. We are spearheading a movement. The hyphy movement is crazy. The kids are going crazy. The world hasn’t seen it. They haven’t seen East Oakland, West Oakland, Richmond, Fairfield, Frisco, Santa Rosa, Fresno, Sacramento, any of Northern California. They don’t know what we do, how it is. We got E-40 and he’s holding us down. They need to see how these youngsters are acting. New York is lyric-driven, but at this point, 30 years in, I want some creative sh*t. It’s 30 years in. 30 years of rap. How much can you do with it? You have to try to come as different as you can. That’s the Bay area. We are the leaders in coming with something new.

Check out www.rickrockbeats.com.