RO: How do you see yourself viewed within the Arizona hip-hop scene?
G: Avondale Productions Inc. has Arizona's scene's respect due to our grind. We've been doing this for four years straight. We've done more than the people out here who have been doing music for eight to 10 years. We've got a team and we all know our role and we play it very well, which means we get a lot more done half-the-time. Plus, we've put on shows when there were no shows going on.
We created our own scene when there really wasn't one. They respect us for that. Like when we brought Lucky Luciano to the Tropicana in Avondale or Young Berg to Club Red in Tempe. Don't get me wrong, you always have your occasional haters, but they come a dime-a-dozen out here when you're doing something right. That just fuels the fire, ya dig?
RO: Is hip-hop dead, like the T-shirts say it is?
G: In hip-hop, you just got to accept it for what it is and what it has evolved to today. A lot of the new rappers say that hip-hop is dead. Actually, hip-hop just changed, and some people changed with it and some didn't. It never died, though. I feel hip-hop is well alive. It's just going through changes, and change can be better or worse, depending on the situation and how you look at it.
RO: Who was the first Latino hip-hop artist to have inspired you?
G: South Park Mexican from Houston. I got a burned CD from a homey way back in the day that had a couple of his songs on it. From there I went and bought all the CDs he had out at the time. It was like six of them and they all were bangers. From then on, I was a fan.
RO: How do you feel the Arizona hip-hop game is different from Houston, L.A. or Miami?
G: The difference between the states you named and with us is that they have all been put on. The places you named like Houston, L.A., Miami... they all got unity. They all work together. Arizona doesn't have that yet. Everybody is still trying to get on and make a name, but they don't realize that unity is the key to making that happen. It's coming though. We're working on it as we speak. Arizona will be on the map soon. Mark my words.
RO: What other music besides hip-hop do you listen to?
G: When I'm not listening to rap, I listen to classic rock like Jimi Hendrix, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and others like that. I think that era of music is dope. It's more instrumental and less vocal, totally opposite of rock and roll now. Plus, I like Sublime.
RO: You talk a lot about Purple Drank. Do you really sip it?
G: It all started when Filero came to Arizona back in '06. I'm sipping on a cup as I'm talking to you, so yes, of course I do. If I didn't and still talked about it, someone please put me on blast because that's how we feel when imitators water down the game.
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Rolando Rodriguez is the managing editor of RedBrownandBlue.com. Follow him on MySpace and Twitter, or befriend him on Facebook.
