Streetz & Young Deuces are the hottest duo coming out of the Milwaukee (or as they refer to it) the Ill Mill hip-hop scene right now. They've got their own label (EMP Records) and their 4th mixtape, Straight Drop Musik hosted by DJ Head Debiase, drops on April 28. Their new single, "Shawty So Strapped," is currently blowin' up on Youtube, so I decided to speak to the artists themselves to find out about the new mixtape and get their perspective on Midwest hip-hop.
Andrew the Intern: Its great to speak w/ you guys, I just listened to the new mixtape and I thought it went really hard while having a lot of different styles, what is "Straight Drop Musik" about?
Young Deuces: What is "Straight Drop Musik" about?
AtI: Yeah, like what does it mean?
YD: Well, "straight drop musik" is really about like a rare form of music that our fans want, you know straight drop is the purest form, you know what I'm sayin? We view our product as the best product out there in the industry right now.
AtI: Right, now "Shawty So Strapped," that's the lead single right?
Streetz: Yeah.
AtI: I thought that it went really hard, but why did you guys choose that to bring out 1st?
S: We always had female fans, but we went a while really spittin, just makin music for the hood and for the hometoen and everything that, you know what I'm sayin, it ain't like we forgot about the ladies, we just hadn't really made a song catering to them but we artists and we like to touch every aspect we can, so we hooked up with my man Felicio Don outta Orange County and we just put together this banger, and the response that we gettin fro its so crazy. People already know us as having the lyrics so we had to show that versitility that we could capture the ears of the ladies and the radio and you know, do our thing with that aspect.
AtI: Yeah cuz that's all over Youtube, I've seen it all over. What is "wangin?"
SNYD: (laughs)
AtI: Its like bumpin music or something right?
YD: "Wangin"'s like when you have a system in your car, and a lot of people say that your music is loud, we just made up our own term for it, the system in your car...
AtI: You made up that term?
S: Yeah, that's all us.
AtI: Cuz it sounds like something more dirty than that
(laughter from SNYD)
Anyway, probably one of my favorite tracks on there was "Limelight," with that Biggie sample, cuz I havn't actually heard that sample used before, are you guys the 1st ones to use that?
S: Well, um, my man Uncle Ruckus actually put the beat together, and the funny thing about that beat was we recorded it as soon as possible and then we actually kinda lost contact with him, but it was always one of the beat's that we was gonna rock off, but when we got back to him he was like "damn, I already sold the beat to one of Dipset's artists," but there's still much love and he told us to go ahead and use it for the mixtape, cuz its one of the original beats [Uncle Ruckus] had made that he thought would be hot for us to hop on.
AtI: Yeah, well you knocked that one out, how did you actually put the tracklist together, was there anything not on there that you wanted?
YD: We picked all the songs but for the actual arrangement, DJ Head Debiase and the Aphiliates, we told them make the mixtape smell good and you know Head did his thing.
AtI: I saw you got Drama shoutin you guys out on there, do you know him or how did you get involved with the Aphiliates?
YD: The Aphiliate situation, that's more our involvement with Head, but we got a chance to run into Drama and Willie the Kid a couple weeks back in Mississippi and they know about us, it was all love, they was gonna do they thang for us.
AtI: That's what's up, so you guys are from Milwaukee, the Ill Mill right, that's what its called?
S: Yeah, the Mill Town, Ill Mill, all that...
AtI: What other artists are representin the Ill Mill right now in the hip hop game?
S: Well, of cousre you got the boy Rico Love doin his thing writin, he was all over that Beyonce last album, we got a coupla cats out here that's really grindin doin they thang but as far as Milwaukee goes there's just so many people that's gettin they thang together right now, Ray Eddy got a joint out here thats goin crazy in the clubs, we got my homeboy Ray Rizzy who just signed to Young Jeezy's label so you know, Milwaukee comin'.
AtI: You have your own label [EMP Entertainment], do you have any of those Milwaukee guys or anyone hot right now signed to that?
YD: Yeah, we got an artist by the name of B-Eazy who's comin up.
AtI: He's on the mixtape right?
YD: Yeah, we got an artist by the name of Telly Ferrel, he's like a neo-soul, R&B kinda artist, a producer, Astro...
S: He produced "Wangin."
YD: He's up-and-coming, he's gonna be a real problem, man we just workin, we got a lot of stuff forming right now at EMP, but right now the big push is SNYD.
AI: That's right, so once you guys blow up real huge you bring everybody along?
S: Oh yeah, its gonna be a swarm, we gon do the crew thang like most successful artists do but our crew gon be tough and we gonna conquer this game right here.
AtI: I gotta couple questions about the Ill Mill, you guys like to drink a lot of beer out there right?
S: (laughs) Yeah, they drink a lot of beer out here, yeah we do.
AtI: Also, I was wondering, do you think the Bucks are ever gonna be a good team?
YD: (laughs) We love our team but man, they just be makin a lot of bad decisions.
S: When everybody get healthy we might have a good chance but the situations lookin real bleak right now.
AtI: I'm a Cavs fan, we took your boy Mo Wiliams so..
S: Alright, next question (laughs).
AtI: Ok, I'm from the Midwest too, and I feel like people in the Midwest are all really laid back, but I've noticed that rappers from the Midwest all spit really fast, do you have any comments on that?
S: I mean, its just that certain things is embedded in a certain style, certain people gon slur to make a couple of words rhyme, there's just certain things that people do, on the East you know on they album they gon have some kinda sample track or somethin like that, there's certain dtuff that caters to a certain side you know, Midwest, the best speed rappers in the game come from the Midwest, Twista, Crucial Conflict back in the day, a lotta these cats was spittin fast so with that bein part of our culture its something we trained ourselves to do, its part of the culture to spit it a little more rapid fire than usual.
AtI: Right, now I don't know if you feel this way, but I'm gonna put it out there- why is Midwest rap the hottest in the game, as compared to the other coasts and the South?
YD: The reason the Midwest is so hot, and a lot of people fialt o realize it but you gotta understand, the Midwest is so hot because look how quickly people come to grab Midwest artists and then try to embed them in their culture, we speak about this all the time, some of the hottest rappers or people that sold the most come from the Midwest, it ain't that many people sold as much as Nelly, arguably the dopest MC is Eminem, he's from Detroit, this how we do it, we got a lotta good people out here.
AtI: Yeah, I feel like the Midwest does get disrespected al ot, I don't know why, but people talk about New York, the South...
S: Yeah, you know as artists we really gotta step up and change that perspective.
YD: We need to unify for real, make the movement hot, that's why it was great that we hooked up with DJ Head Debiase, he's outta Grand Rapids, MI...the last mixtape that we did was hosted by a DJ from Milwaukee, the one before that we did with DJ G-Spot from Cleveland, so you know we keep it in the Midwest to try to keep that movement strong, within the near future we want to go up to Detroit and hook up with Trick Trick and Eminem and knock out joints, then we wanna head down to Chicago and work with everybody there, and work with everybody in Gary and St. Louis.
S: If anybody know SNYD, they know that we are Midwest, anybody from the Midwest wanna work with us holla at us cuz we all about gettin the Midwest the respect that's been deserved.
AtI: Alright, well we definitely gonna look out for all these Midwest collabos and when can we be lookin out for the studio album?
S: Well, the album's gonna be called Hustlas Don't Sleep and we lookin to do that maybe around the 4th of July, everything right now is about Straight Drop Musik, that's the project that we're goin hard with right now.
AtI: Definitely.
YD: I'd say don't hold your breath on us and don't sleep because Straight Drop Musik is what it is, its the problem that veryone need to worry about right now (laughs).
AtI: Alright, well I don't think anyone's gonna be sleepin on SNYD for long but, last question, its called The Swag Report, so I wanna know why do you guys think you have "the swag?"
YD: I think we have the swag because when SNYD is in the building the Midwest is here, and we got that Midwest swag that's just slightly different from a lot of people's swag, cuz when you come here you know we gon be flashy, you know we gon be lookin fly, and you know we gon have a lot of money, so when we in the building everybody know, "there go the Milwaukee dudes right there, SNYD from Milwaukee and they get it in, they grind hard, and they put on."
AtI: Well, I'm gonna make sure everone picks up the mixtape April 28th and it was great to talk to you guys.
S: Man, good lookin out, much love to the Swag Report for real.
