EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW w/ FABOLOUS

John Jackson, better known as Fabolous is a Grammy-nominated rapper who became mainstream after his debut single “Can’t Deny It” hit the charts in 2001.

Six years later, he is back with his 4th album, From Nothin’ to Somethin’, which features some of r&b and rap’s hottest stars.

I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago to get the scoop on the new album, as well as other questions you wanted to know. Check it out!

[ Note: Before the interview began Fabolous was talking to his media rep about his new album and promos. I was listening for like 2 minutes until he said my name. LOL ]

Fabolous: Angel
Angel: Hi Fabolous
Fabolous: How you doing? You got a little behind the scenes..
Angel: Yeah, I was like; do they know I’m on the phone?
Fabolous: Yeah, yeah, yeah [laughs] I ain’t start cursing or nothing so you didn’t get nothing good.
Angel: Oh ok [both of us laugh] So can I start my questions or do you want me to wait until she [his media rep] is done or whatever.
Fabolous: I’m ready, I’m ready. You good.

Angel: All right, you know we have to talk about the new album. So who produced it and who did you collab with on the new album?
Fabolous: Um, we collab’d with a few artists on here. Well maybe a little bit more than a few. I think everybody I used brought a great addition to the album and to the songs. We got Jay-Z on there. We got Rihanna on there. We got T-Pain, we got Akon, we got Ne-yo, Young Jeezy. We got Lloyd. We got Lil Mo.
Angel: Speaking of Lil Mo, the first time I ever heard of you was on that Superwoman song. So are you guys cool, and are you still talking to her on a regular basis?
Fabolous: Yeah. We are definitely real cool. We always keep in touch. I always have her on at least one joint on my project, and you know the same thing on her side. I always do something on her projects too. So we are very cool, I will always have a lot of respect for her, because she put me on her song. When she probably could have got an artist that was much more famous than I was at the time.
Angel: That’s cool, that’s cool.

Angel: So what’s your favorite track on the new album?
Fabolous: There’s two I got. ‘Make Me Better’ featuring Ne-Yo or ‘The Change Up’ featuring Akon. Both of those records have a lot of meaning to them and I just love the way the records came out.
Angel: That’s cool. Yeah, ‘Make Me Better’ is my jam. We’ve been jamming that for the last 3 months because we got the advance. So when I put it on my I-pod and playing it in the car – it be bangin. You did good on that one.
Fabolous: That’s hot that you had it for 3 months and you’re still not tired of it.
Angel: Nope, I’m not tired of it. [laughs]
Fabolous: Hot 97 is blasting it off. Are you from New York?
Angel: No, I’m not I’m from North Carolina.
Fabolous: Oh ok, they probably don’t play it as much. But up here they play it like crazy so I was gonna say by now you might be a little tired of it.
Angel: Nah, they ain’t playing it like that. They play it, but they ain’t playing it like that.
Angel: So, how did you and Ne-yo hook up to make that song anyway?
Fabolous: I’ve always been a fan of his music and he told me that he was a fan of my music also. So when we finally got the chance to work together we just jumped on it.

Angel: In a recent interview with Giant Magazine, you said that New York was the underdog right now. So do you plan on changing that title with your new album? You know, try to switch it up and bring New York back?
Fabolous: I definitely want to try to switch that up. I just want to make good music for hip-hop and New York too. I’m not saying I can change everything in just one breath with just myself. But I’m definitely going to be contributing to that, to help New York get out of this lump.
Angel: How do you feel about the state of hip-hop right now? You know, Nas said hip-hop is dead. Imus is trying to blame everything on hip-hop. So how do you feel about the state of hip-hop right now?
Fabolous: I think hip-hop is in a good state respectively, if you look at business-wise. Some of the physical sales are down, but everything digital, hip-hop is on a huge rise. It has become a universal language. It’s not just your underground, street corner rap anymore. People in Australia want to hear with the people in Brooklyn are listening to. People in Russia are jamming to the same artists that you’re listening to down there in North Carolina. So it’s a big market right now.
Angel: That’s true.
Fabolous: When Nas said hip-hop was dead, I felt what he was saying. I think he was talking about a certain era of hip-hop. Nas grew up in a different era of hip-hop, where it was more about the passion and you just wanted to be an emcee and express yourself. But now it’s a lot more business and it has become people’s careers. Hip-hop wasn’t even a career then, you know what I’m saying.
Angel: Yea
Fabolous: It was a hobby, you rap in the park you might do some shows. Now this is what people are actually paying their bills off of. They live off it. It provides so many jobs for all kind of minorities and people across the world. It’s more of a business now. Hip-hop as an art form is kind of dying, but it’s moving as a business.

Angel: So who is the best rapper out in your opinion? I know you’re gonna say yourself, but you gotta say someone other than yourself.
Fabolous: I think a lot of rappers are doing their thing. Of course I’m going to say myself, as far as what I do. Because I’m the best at what I do; I don’t even know if I’m the best rapper in the game, but I feel like I’m the best at what I do. But a lot of rappers are doing their thing. I’m a fan of hip-hop, so when I hear new joints or hot joints from artists, I tip my hat to them. And even when I see them, I tell them you have a hot record. Let me see, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, T.I., you know what I’m saying. All the way down the line. You know there are a few guys in the game that consistently make hot records. I just feel like I’m the best at what I do, and my way of hip-hop. I think that’s why I’m famous, because I’m the best at what I do.
Angel: Oh ok. So how do you feel about being underrated? Because like you said, you are the best at what you do. And you are sick with the word play, so how do you feel about being underrated?
Fabolous: I feel that it just makes me work harder. There’s people who haven’t got it yet. I gotta do what I gotta do to get to them. Jay-Z feel like he had to dumb-down his lyrics for people who are on a slower listening scale or they don’t get everything metaphorically or maybe it’s to witty for them. So that may come in play with sometimes. But I still try to be relatable when it comes to the music, or be witty with the flow. Just to keep me going you know? I like the challenge of taking something and putting a twist to it, rather than just give it to you blatantly. That’s just what I do. That’s what makes me Fab. Being underrated is a bad thing and good thing at the same time, because it pushes me to work harder.
Angel: True, True.

Angel: I know you got a clothing company, Rich Yung Society and it’s mostly male clothing items. When you gonna start the female section? Because we need clothes too.
Fabolous: We’re hoping to come out with the female line, Rich Yung Lady in ’08. We was just building off of the success of the men’s line.
Angel: Yeah because a lot of people were asking about that.
Fabolous: Yeah, we were just trying to build the interest of the line first and interlink it with other things. The women line will be coming soon, we got you.
Angel: So, do you help design the t-shirts and the items, are you got a whole team behind that?
Fabolous: I’m on a team. I’m on the approval panel, kind of like a supervisor. You know I see the designs and I step in to approve them.
Angel: oh Ok.

Angel: You know my site is like a gossip community type of thing and right now a lot of debate has been going on about rapper’s not having black women in their videos anymore. And one of my readers wanted to know, do you pick the women in the videos or is that someone from behind the scenes?
Fabolous: I don’t really pick the models. But I give the okay once I get on the set, on what models we would like to be seen with the most. You know what I’m saying? You know the prettiest ones on the set.
Angel: Yeah, exactly.
Fabolous: But I heard some backlash about me overusing Spanish models, and I want to defend that in this interview. Because I looked at some of my old videos, me and some friends of mine were analyzing that and I looked at all of the videos that I did and all of them didn’t have Spanish women in them.
Angel: Yeah.
Fabolous: I don’t know where I got that title, that I only use Spanish women. I used a Spanish lady (Roselyn Sanchez) in the latest video for ‘Make Me Better.’ But if you look at “Can’t Let You Go” the girl was black. “So Into You” the girl was black. A lot of the other videos [in the video] “Baby” the girl was black. So I had to analyze it and look at the videos and I was like hey, why are they saying that when these girls that I was using were black. Some of them were light-skin but they were black girls. I just wanted to say that as an artist there are not many, um, black dark-skin women in modeling. If you look at any modeling agency, there is way more light-skin or Spanish girls.
Angel: Yeah, because that’s the popular thing right now. They aren’t hiring any dark-skinned people, so you gotta go to the streets and do your own little search one time you know?
Fabolous: Exactly. If I see a brown-skin or dark-skin girl that is top of the line pretty I would get her number just for that. Because you want to be the first person to introduce that, you want to kind of break the chain. You wanna have different girls.
Angel: Yeah
Fabolous: I never want to use the same girls people use anyway, so even in a sense of going to get girls, I never want to use the same girl that I just seen in another rapper’s video. Whether she is Spanish, white, black, whatever, you know?
Angel: Ok, so I’m definitely gonna add that to the interview so you can clear that up.

Angel: Alright, let me get to some random questions. A lot of people want to know, are you dating anyone right now?
Fabolous: No, [sigh] I’m not.
Angel: You’re single?
Fabolous: Yep.
Angel: Do you have any celebrity crushes?
Fabolous: Celebrity crushes? I use to have a J.Lo crush until she got married.
Angel: And ruined it right.
Fabolous: I use to have a little Halle Berry crush too, but I’m over it. I’m getting a little older now, so I don’t hold on to my crushes anymore. Now I’m old enough to really maybe go at them if I see them so.
Angel: Well a lot of ladies love you, and they want to know what kind of qualities do you look for in a girl?
Fabolous: Qualities? I look for a good personality, of course attractive, but really a good personality and someone who is easy to communicate with on all levels. Whether it’s just chatting on deep conversation. Someone who is open to all sorts of things, someone who is secure because being in the profession that I’m in..
Angel: A lot of drama.
Fabolous: Exactly, a lot of drama involved in that so you have to be with somebody who is really secure.
Angel: What’s your favorite part of a women’s body?
Fabolous: Um, the butt. The butt is my favorite thing on a women’s body.
Angel: Can you cook?
Fabolous: I can cook a little bit. I’m not heavy into it, but I can cook some breakfast things together.
Angel: Do you have any pet peeves? Like something that irks you and gets on your nerves…
Fabolous: Something that irks me?
Angel: Yeah
Fabolous: Junkiness. Junkiness irks me. I hate to see like clutter, I like to see..
Angel: Organization
Fabolous: Organization, that’s what I like. I love things organized, I’m an organize freak.
Angel: Ok. What’s your favorite song at the moment?
Fabolous: My favorite song at the moment? Um, I would have to say ‘Make Me Better.’

Angel: And the next part of the interview, which is basically the last part, is called word play. And basically, I’m going to say two words and you gotta pick one or the other. No, if, ands, or buts – you gotta pick one or the other.
Fabolous: Ok.
Angel: The first two are: Biggie or Tupac?
Fabolous: Biggie
Angel: Jay-Z or Nas
Fabolous: Jay-Z
Angel: hot or cold?
Fabolous: hot
Angel: McDonalds or Burger King?
Fabolous: Mcdonalds. I’m bout to go against that. I had some McDonald’s the other day and I had a bad experience.
Angel: What happened over there?
Fabolous: In my particular day, I would have picked McDonalds over burger king, but I’m not really fucking with McDonalds anymore.
Angel: [laughs] What did they do, mess your order up?
Fabolous: I had a long hair in my chicken McNugget. I bit into the nugget and there was this hair and I pulled it. It was like a girl’s long hair in the chicken mcnugget.
Angel: You lying. [laughs]
Fabolous: And then I went to bite into the hamburger I had and it had some little hard-plated thing inside of the hamburger.
Angel: Are you serious? You could have sued them.
Fabolous: ..It was like a toenail or something inside my hamburger. That thing was disgusting. And it looked like a toenail too, that’s why I really said, “Oh hell no I cannot even eat this shit anymore.”
Angel: That’s messed up. So I guess it’s Burger King now, right?
Fabolous: I don’t know, I’m scared of the whole fast-food thing right now.
Angel: So now you gotta make a homemade burger, so you know how to make that now, right?
Fabolous: I just gotta go get me some ground beef, I know how to slam that.
Angel: Yep [laughs] Ok. Well the next one is: Money or Power?
Fabolous: I guess money, because with money comes power.
Angel: Silver or gold?
Fabolous: I like gold.
Angel: Bob Marley or Peter Tosh?
Fabolous: Bob Marley
Angel: BET or MTV?
Fabolous: BET or MTV. That’s a tricky question, that’s gonna get me in trouble.
Angel: [laughs]
Fabolous: I’m just gonna say both on that one.
Angel: Chicken or steak?
Fabolous: Chicken
Angel: This is the last one. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Fabolous: Vanilla.

Angel: Ok, do you have any last words for your fans on the site or do you want to shout anyone out?
Fabolous: Yeah, I just want to thank everybody. Big shout out to the street fam. I want to shout out everyone who supported everything all the way from the first album to now and go and get that album.
Angel: Ok, thank you Fabolous.
Fabolous: No problem.
Angel: You have a good day.
Fabolous: No problem.