HHG: Any favorite memories of working with producers for you AG?

AG: I remember J Dilla calling me when I first sent him "Hip Hop Quotable" off the Get Dirty Radio album...I sent him the lyrics and shit and one day I was at the supermarket and he did what he had to do to get my numbers and all that.  I was like yo, what's good?  He was like, do you mind if I do the ad-libs to the whole song?  When he sent it back, if you listen to the song, he's doing all the ad-libs and that was dope to me because he didn't just give me a beat and I rhymed on it.  Now J Dilla and AG got a song.  He gave me a beat and I brought it into this hip hop aspect but that's what the beat did to me.  That beat made me feel like, this is hip hop shit.  I just mentioned a whole bunch of hip hop songs that stuck to me, sent it to him and it touched him to a point he was like, naw, I gotta get on this...they gotta hear me.  It was so dope that he wanted to be a part of it.  I consider it like we made that song together.  That's not an AG song, that's like an 'our' song.  We were also discussing maybe we should do an album together, me and Madlib was gonna do an album together so...all that is love right there.  They said we are an extension of Diggin' In The Crates, they both told me this personally.  On that Quasimoto joint, Madlib did a song that was a nod to "Fat Pockets"...they pay homage totally man.  It feels good to see artists like that come back and tell you, yo we got our whole movement, basically, from you guys.  Then we come back and use them on our new shit to show them we recognize what y'all did and where y'all took it.  Everything's a cycle like O say man.  A lot of dudes can't get in that circle.

OC: I never had the pleasure, unfortunately, of meeting Dilla before he passed.  It's ill to know that people feed off each other and that's what hip hop is man.  You're supposed to feed off each other and he fed off people and we fed off him.  I'm a fan of his, he's a fan of ours, you know what I'm sayin'...and that's just a beautiful thing.

AG: It reminds me of when Ol'Dirty Bastard...we were in the studio one day and he was like, man, Wu-Tang saw you sellin' shit out of the trunk of your car and that's how we knew this is the route that we're gonna go.  So when they did Protect Ya Neck and all that, all that shit was straight independent...and not even just our music, our movements inspired people.  When these newer artists come back and tell you, we respect what you did and we're carrying on the tradition, that's what it's about.  Our whole culture, that whole era, loves each other.

HHG: In the liner notes, you list Party Arty and Grand Master Roc Raida as Spiritual Advisors.  How did the passing of Roc Raida affect you?

OC: Oh man...

AG: It still hasn't sunk in for me.  To me it's still fresh, it really hasn't sunk in.  But I'm kinda used to them taking the good ones early, that's been like a thread in my life.  I'm not saying I'm accepting it, you know what I'm saying, it just has to be that way.  But I think Roc Raida accomplished more in his short life than most people do in 70-80 years.  It's about what you do when you're here.  I think he made his mark...for Grandmaster Flash and them to call him Grand Master Roc Raida and give him that title...it's like KRS-One telling VH1 that Runaway Slave is the best album in hip hop.  There's nothing else that can match that.  You can make money, that shit can't make you feel good.  You can sell a lot of records and the next year sell shit.  I measure my shit by the people that do the same thing I do and do they respect what I do.  My people in Diggin' In The Crates respect me and I respect every last one of them because I see the genius in every last one of them.  That's all we can ask for at this stage man.

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