I recently had the pleasure to speak with two of my favourite rappers, Masta Ace and Edo G., about their upcoming collaboration album, A&E. Ace and Edo spoke about hip-hop’s generation gap, how they’ve changed over the years and their opinions on Blueprint 3. It took a bit for Ace to join the conversation, so the first few questions are me talking to Edo.
ML: What’s the difference between working in a group dynamic and working as a solo artist?
EG: We’ve done the group thing before and I’m comfortable in the setting. It’s a little easier working with Ace because we’ve experienced a lot of the same things in the business. So we can really relate to each other on certain things. There’s no complications, we just do it organically. It’s less rhymes, you know? Less work. [laughs] With [Special Teamz], those guys aren’t that much younger than me. Just younger in the game. They were a little more unknown at the time, when we started. A lot of the earlier stuff with those guys, I was taking on the full weight of just using my connections to make stuff happen.
[A&E] was a lot easier because we had a whole team. Ace’s people, my people, combined. It was a smooth transition. We knew what direction we wanted to go with, we got signed.
ML: What does it mean for someone who’s been representing your city for so long to reach out to these younger cats?
EG: With the Special Teamz, it was something me and [Teamz member] Jaysaun had been working with for a while. We did two other groups that never came out. Special Teamz was originally called The Last Word, it had another guy. Then me, him, and Krumbsnatcha did a whole album which never came out. We ended up enlisting Slaine, we came across someone who knew him. We said, Let’s try something different. We tried albums with two other artists that didn’t work out. Even though we came up with great material, we couldn’t all see on the same wavelength. So we tried Slaine, changed the name and that clicked from the first time we went to the studio. It was something that was in the works and it just took a while to find the right combination. I think it worked out well.
It’s tough to find the chemistry because you’re going to be with these people for months, if not years recording and touring and doing stuff together.
ML: After Roxbury 02119 came out in 1993, there was a really long gap – you were doing guest appearances and the like- but you didn’t put out another album until the 2000s (The Truth Hurts).
EG: That period…That was me finding myself, and going through transitions with different labels. It was me jumping on a bunch of different projects. A lot of compilation albums, a lot of features, so people could be like, “Oh, I heard that. That was dope.” I was doing these so I could get to the point of putting out another album.
ML: What was it like working on My Own Worst Enemy with Pete Rock (who produced 7 of the 10 tracks), as opposed to A&E and Stereotypez, where you used diverse cast of producers?
EG: It was good. It was tough…it took a couple years to get it done, with Pete living in New York and me living in Boston. At the time we were recording it, ’02 to ’03, the technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now. He wasn’t sending me mp3s online. Now it could get done much quicker, but we were literally going to New York and listening to beats. Every few weeks, going to his house and picking out beats then recording. It was a back and forth project. [Most important] was making sure the vibe was right. You can go and pick 10 beats from Pete Rock but I wanted to get the best stuff I could possibly get from him. It was a good experience, man.
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