Black Truth News: Something totally different, I was watching something on Wu-Tang Clan, and they mentioned that they pattern their crew after your crew the Hit Squad, you guys had Redman they came up with Method Man, and so forth. How does that make you feel? Knowing you have inspired so many people for so many years.
Erick Sermon: Well we all got inspired by somebody. Like EPMD, we watch RUN-DMC. We patterned ourselves after them. So it’s cool to hear the stories, but everybody got inspired by somebody.
Black Truth News: Over the years, you have been known to come out of the blue with a hit. Anything you working on right now, where we can say, ‘Oh, he’s back?
Erick Sermon: Right now, my main concern is trying to balance out the culture. The music is secondary, right now we all got kids, and we only got one side of music right now, which is murder, strip clubs, and drugs. It’s only one side.
So somebody got to make a difference, just to make another side, just in case he chooses to do some other shit, and he won’t get looked at a certain way for doing that. Like we used to have a choice to play something like the Pee Wee Herman Dance or Eric B. & Rakim or EPMD or Krs-One, but now it’s no balance.
So don’t tell me you can’t win by being different. I want to be able to tell my child, that you can either choose this one or that one, but give them a choice. And that’s why I’m here in Chicago, to make sure these niggas don’t kill anybody, because, at the end of the day, you can win. And I’m telling them the shit you listening to on the radio, only gets you a summer. You can be a real artist and have a long career if you do it this way.
Everybody raps, everybody does what you do, but they only got the summer, but when the winter comes, the records are gone. You don’t want that, you want to be able to make some material; say something to these niggas that he might not know. Yall niggas ain’t ignorant, they making yall think you ignorant. Eminem is the number one rapper in the country, but he is the most complex rapper in the world, he’s the number one rapper.
He doesn’t speak any ignorance. He’s intelligent. Same thing when you hear Hov, or Kanye and Lupe. These are intelligent people. They sell the most records, 2 Chainz sold 30,000 pieces, he is the hottest rapper in the country, but he doesn’t sell more than Kendrick Lamar, so you have to tell me which one is the true mainstream. It’s in your face but people don’t look at it that way. This is the truth of what’s going on. People want to be taught something; people want to hear something else.
You can give them a fun conversation, but give them something else too. Tell them that you walk home from school 16 blocks. Let them know you are tired, and see how many people follow. Someone somewhere may be listening, and say ‘hey I’m tired too’, that’s my life too. Do something like that and see how many people follow you.