It’s been 15 years since M.O.P burst on the scene with their explosive debut album ‘To The Death’, and in that time the duo of Lil Fame and Billy Danze have become synonymous with the term ‘hardcore’.

Collectively, M.O.P spent the last eight years in record label limbo, first leaving Sony’s LOUD records - after their most successful album to date ‘Warriorz’ - for Roc-A-Fella records, which left them on the shelf for almost 5 years, only to leave for 50’s G-Unit records to spend the duration of their contracts on the shelf once more.

“It’s not really officially a break [between M.O.P and the Unit], but, it’s based on a lot to do with communication and the fact we been over there for nearly 3 years and we haven’t put a record out.” Danze reveals “As for who’s fault it is? It just hasn’t happened. We just decided to move on, this is business, we’re all grown men [so] let’s just move on. I gotta continue to move, man. I’m doing my thing, Fame doing his thing, we both doing the M.O.P thing. It doesn’t even make a difference whose fault it is it’s just unfortunate that it happened that way for us. “

Although the record label politics would have shattered most other artists desire to keep pushing out music, for M.O.P it was a motivator to take a hands-on approach to their business. “I feel like I got a lot of people - ourselves – M.O.P got a lot of people behind us in different pockets of the world; we got true-true fans that [are] almost to the point where the fans is like family because they actually dictate what kind of music we do and what we put out. That’s why I won’t listen to an A&R, or what a marketer or a marketing promotion person tell me, or any company, any management, nothing. I’m busting my ass, doing what I gotta do for my family to make sure every body good. And when I say family I mean my family-family, and my fans.”