via Dallas Observer
Can you tell us a little bit about the deal you've offered Treal Lee & Prince Rick?
They're signed to Collipark Music and my label deal is with Interscope Records.
What's the plan?
We're trying to play it in the middle of the road right now. You don't want to put it out there and have it burn out naturally. We're gonna blast it all over the country.
Is it a singles deal?
All deals now are singles deals.
Fair enough. But what turned you on to these guys?
I think they're entertainers. And that's what I saw from them that I didn't see from the other stuff that I saw in Dallas.
How'd you find out about them?
My brother, who's A&R for the company, was in Dallas last year, and we go back with DJ Bay Bay because of Hurricane (Chris). So Bay Bay was taking him around and showing him stuff. And he called me and he was like, 'Yo, there's this record..." And just the name of it--Mr. Hit Dat (Hoe)--it just sounded like it it had Collipark all over it. And then I went down the next weekend and I met them. To me, a record is a record. But I look for personality, showmanship, all that stuff. And we went around the city and people had love for them and all the intangible stuff that you wanna see in something that you sign.
Is it true that they drove all the way out to Atlanta to see you and you snubbed them at first?
(Laughs.) I was contacted from a guy I knew back in the day. And he told me he had a group from Dallas or whatever and they were coming to Atlanta. However, at that time, I didn't know that they were coming primarily to meet me. Second of all, I didn't know that they were driving from Dallas! And I was busy doing family stuff, so when they called me, I was like, 'Yo, man, I can't make it.' I had no idea that this was the same group. But they made it a point to let me know later that they were the guys who drove out there and stood in front of my office. When I found out, I was like, 'Oh, man! That was you!'"
What're your thoughts on the Dallas hip-hop scene as a whole?
I like it. To me, I like it because they remind of back when everybody was hungry. When you look at a market that hasn't been developed or exposed, you find a certain kind of hunger that comes with, y'know, when hip-hop was fresh. See, I'm in Atlanta so everybody is doing it here. Everybody knows that they can put a record on the radio and they're gonna get a record deal. So the creativity, the work ethic, it's not like it used to be. So when I went out to Dallas and I saw the level of support that I saw everybody giving each other and the amount of records I'd never heard before--it kind of reminded me of when I used to go to New Orleans back in the day and the bounce was the bomb. You would go into New Orleans and they'll play five local records and one national record. I like it. What I don't like [is that] it's very one-dimensional right now. (drops Big Chief's name) What I mean by one-dimensional is, you're gonna find different variations of it, but it's all basically going in one direction.
Read the full Mr. Collipark interview here:
Dallas Observer - Extended Q&A: Mr. Collipark On Dallas Hip-Hop
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