HHG: You've done so much work, from Cypress, to your solo projects, to other artists albums.  What keeps you going year by year on a creative basis?

Muggs: I'm still inspired man.  To be honest, I still love music and I'm still inspired...but now, where I'm at, I don't like making beats.  So for me to be inspired now, I need to sit down and work with an artist on a project, like this record with Ill Bill, like the record with GZA.  I get inspired to do projects, not really to do beats anymore...it's kinda boring.  But to do an album, to see a project from beginning to end, I'm still into it man.  I like painting pictures, I'm an artist, you know what I mean?  I don't think I've even reached my peak yet to what my full potential is, you know what I mean?  I still think I'm a work in progress.

HHG: In terms of working with Bill, is that an idea you guys had - to actually do a full album?  Or did you guys do a track, like This Is Who I Am off Bill's Hour Of Reprisal album, and you were like, we've got some chemistry, let's keep this thing going.

Muggs: No, we definitely talked about doing a full album.  Then, once we sat down and started working on it, we sat in the studio for like 10 days and it didn't feel like 10 days.  It didn't even feel like we were working man.  We came out of the studio after 10 days, with 12 songs, and just hung out and talked and had the basketball game on in the background...we smoked some weed and just chilled and the album was done man.  That's what it's supposed to be man - an exchange of energy, an exchange of ideas, just sittin' back and enjoying yourself man, you know?  That's exactly what the record was.  When I gotta call the manager and book studio time and muthafuckaz don't show up and it's all this corporate shit...that ain't what I got into this game for.  I got in this shit to sit back and, you know, paint pictures I feel like painting.

HHG: I love hearing that passion and enthusiasm in your voice...

Muggs: Right...

HHG: You really, truly, are an artist.  Some people, it seems, go through the motions after a while, whereas you...you get in the studio with GZA, Sick Jacken, Planet Asia, and now Bill, and the natural outcome is something great...

Muggs: Well, I think a lot of people get in the business because they wanna be famous.  I never got into it to be famous, I love the music.  Making money and getting notoriety is a bi-product of just my passion for my art.  The industry can burn you out.  I never wanted to be part of the industry.  I always been kind of a rebel even within the industry.  I always came into shit aggressively, I never done what they wanted me to do.  All my records that were even on the radio, if you listen to my records that were big hits, they're not traditional radio records.  I didn't go out of my way to make radio hits.  They're the records I felt like making that were underground, fuckin' dusty ass music that I like to make...and they happened to connect. 

Continued in part two:  http://www.hiphopgods.com/news/-DJ-Muggs-the-HIPHOPGODS-interview-part-2-