Re: D12 Get Seriously Funny And Take Over The World
D12 Get Seriously Funny And Take Over The 'World'
NEW YORK — The Roots they are not. Sometimes lost in all the humor of D12's "My Band" is the fact that the group really doesn't want to be put in the same category as instrumentalists.
Eminem's crew of Swift, Bizarre, Proof, Kuniva and Kon Artis are just rappers. "It's a big misconception with bands and us," Kuniva said Monday. "When I think of bands, I think of instruments with live sounds. With a rap collective, that's what they are, a group, a posse. No one ever called Wu-Tang Clan 'a band.' ... We do hip-hop. We don't play instruments or nothing like that. We just tried to clear that up and at the same time just have fun with it."
Not only did they have fun with it, they've had a hit with it. The single and video for "My Band" are bigger than Bizarre's stomach. One of the clip's most memorable images is the robust rapper doing a parody of 50 Cent's "In Da Club" video by running a treadmill and hanging upside-down like the leader of the G-Unit.
"We always make fun of people," Bizarre explained. "We make fun of people, we make fun of ourselves. We just decided to make fun of 50 on a fat guy level. He's buffed, I'm not so buffed. I wanted to let him know, 'Hey, dog, I work out too. You can find me in the club.' ... We're jokesters, swindlers."
Despite all the humor on their new album, D12 World, the crew said it buckled down and got serious when recording the project.
It's called D12 World "because it's all about us on this album," Bizarre explained. "The first album, we laid back and let Marshall [Mathers] take control. We were new to the game. [This album] we're taking more control as far as production, the choruses, song input and ideas."
"This album we're letting people know who we are as individuals and as a group," Kuniva added. "We really went in the studio with a mission. We knocked out a whole bunch of songs in like two weeks.
It's a serious side of D12. We wanted to up our game as far as flow and work ethics. The sophomore jinx, you always have the jitters. We didn't even think about it."
They may not have been thinking about being jinxed, but the guys sure seemed to have just about everything else floating through their maniacal minds. Blood, guts, guns, molestation, malt liquor, incest, crackheads and prostitutes, just to name a few things, all make D12 World go round.
"You don't want to be just like your daddy, pimpin' hoes, driving around in Caddies," Bizarre raps from the perspective of a father talking to his son, on his solo offering, the anti-role-model anthem "Just Like You." The shower-cap-wearing member of D12 said although he got to shine by himself, he's more partial to the title track where he gets to freestyle with his boys like they did back in the day.
"We go back and forth every four bars," Bizarre said. "The members keep switching. That's something we use to do back in the hip-hop shop days, pass the mic to each other like a hot potato."
The crew love is prevalent on another track called "Loyalty," one of the only songs that was opened up to a guest star, Obie Trice. "We was just in the studio, vibing," Kuniva said. "Obie just stopped by to hang out. When he came in and heard that track, he said, 'Ah, man, I gotta get on this.' He went in there and spit a dope verse. He was ripping it to shreds."
B-Real also made the cut for the guest list. On the Dr. Dre- produced "American Psycho II," he raps. "I'm a little bit off the chain/ Call me insane, but the fact remains that I'm a psycho/ Better get in through your brain, when you say my name, never say it in vain/ 'Cause I'm a psycho."
"We were in there thinking about the hook," Kuniva
remembered. "Bizarre went in there and laid a hook, it was kind of crazy. Then he said, 'You know who would sound dope? B-Real would sound dope on this.' We called him and he came right to the studio."
The dirty half-dozen do show composure while rapping about deceased member Bugz, who was murdered on May 21, 1999. In fact, the original plan for D12 was for him to be the sixth member of the rap clan, not Eminem. On "Good Die Young," D12 rap, "They say the good die young/ That's why I know we gonna have fun/ In this life, 'cause you only have one/ When God comes for me, don't cry."
D12 are in the midst of putting together a club tour that may include Slum Village as openers. It's unclear whether Eminem will hit the road with the group, as he is working on his fourth LP. Next year, however, fans might see not only Eminem with the rest of D12, but the entire Shady Records family. D12 said there's talk about the whole label going on tour together in '05.
For a full-length feature on Eminem and D12, check out "Eminem: Rolling The Dice On D12."
And listen to the new D12 album on MTV.com's the Leak.