Part I
White Bred and Honky MC interview by T. Bone
Published in RW #4, 1994.
The latest rap sensation to hit the nation in recent months has been two white boys from Rockford, Illinois: White Bred and Honky MC. Their fusion of really annoying, nasally raps and overdone sampling has rocketed their debut record, Chilin’ in the Hood, to a number eighty-seven spot on the local radio charts. How this happened we’ll never know, but here they are, White Bred and Honky MC.
Reglar Wiglar: So where you cats from?
White Bred: Yo holmes, we from the hoods of Rockford I. L., bro.
RW: Straight up?
Honky MC: Boo-yah!
WB: Word.
RW: They got crazy hoods in Rockford?
WB: Straight up, fucked up hoods, dog. Mutha’fucka’s be crazy out in Rock Town.
MC: Yeah, but we got to give props to the burg though, it’s where we’re comin’ from, right?
RW: So how do you guys cope with people who say that you guys are rippin’ off black rappers and that your style is completely wack and that you try to portray yourselves as gangsta’ homeboys from the hood and—
MC: Shit man, people always be trippin’ on that, right? We grew up in the hood, man, with the brothers. Me and White Bred, we down with the brothers, bro. We grew up in the hood, man, and it was crazy.
MC: Straight up, dog. It’s crazy in the hood.
WB:: Stone cold crazy.
MC: Yeah, me and White Bred, we be trippin’ all the time.
WB: Steady trippin, jack.
MC: And as for all that bullshit about us rippin’ off other rappers, that’s messed up. What’s the difference if we sample other samples? They’re both samples right? Why not cut out the middle man, you know? You got a James Brown sample on a rap record, right? You wanna use it on your own record. Why sample James when you can just use the sample that’s already there? It makes sense right?
WB: I look at it this way, someone builds a house, right. So live in it, don’t go and build another house just to say you built it yourself. If we all built our own houses, man, there’d be no more room left on this rock.
RW: Controversy seems to follow you guys around wherever you go, latest thing is all about how you guys are always dissin’ homosexuals.
MC: Shit, ain’t that a trip, man. We don’t be dissin’ people that are homos man. Peoples be peoples, right? All’s we sayin’ is it ain’t natural and God ain’t down wit’ it, right?
WB: Right, you wanna pop that ass, hey, that’s your trip, but bein’ a fag ain’t cool. That’s our message to the kids and there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with it.
RW: What about the misogynist personae you project, what’s up with that?
WB: Yo, I’m not sure what that word means but I’ve heard it enough to know what you askin’, right? It’s like this; a ho be a ho and a bitch be a bitch and visa versa. Not all hos is bitches either ’cause you know I respect sisters of all races, creeds and bootys, but like I’m the man, you know? I say what’s up in my relationships with females of the opposite sex. But that’s not say that you gotta do it that way. There’s a lot of sissy men out there lettin’ their woman drag ’em around by the balls, but that ain’t me. I’m the man, and I encourage all my homies to be the man. That’s just our message to the kids, you know?
RW: And what about your sexual bravado.
MC: I’m an artist whether I’m on the microphone or I’m on my girl. I’m a pro when it comes to hittin’ that thang, and my ladies respect that. They know what they got and they don’t trip. Havin’ the tool and knowin’ how to use it, that keeps your ladies in line.
WB: That and an occasional slap upside the head.
MC: Word.
RW: I also heard a rumor about a video you guys shot for a local cable access show out there in Rockford that got itself banned. What’s up with that?
MC: Awww man, it was straight up bullshit. Me and my homies, we were chillin’ on the stoop one day tippin’ forties when this idea came to me to make a video featuring all these fly ladies in thong bathing suits dancing around a pool while me and White Bred did our rap thang. You know, they’d be hangin’ all over us and we’d be in our bikini briefs with our packages bustin? out ‘n’shit. But that station pulled the video after one showing.
WB: Total Hammer thing, man. Turns out our rigs are too big to be shown on TV, man. Ain’t that a bitch? The God Almighty blesses me and my boy Honky here with full baskets and we can’t even display them in an artistic way. Fuck, ain’t that what the Fifth Amendment is all about?
RW: About the size of your unit?
WB: Yeah, isn’t that what Frank Zappa was fightin’ Tipper Gore about back in the day?
RW: No it wasn’t. Anyway, speaking of TV, you guys did a “Just Say No“ commercial that aired on local stations. Despite your repeated and much publicized “run ins” with the police over drug related incidents, do you still endorse that “Just Say No” stance?
MC: Well, doin’ public service commercials is always a good way to get out of doin’ real time in the joint, but it’s like this, I gotta chill with my homies. If that means tippin’ back forties and smokin’ blunts then hey, that’s just what we do, but we don’t fuck around with crack or blow. Fuck that.
WB: Unless it’s offered by a homey. You can’t turn down a pipe offered in good faith from a homeboy.
MC: Straight up, but we never buy that shit. Fuck that.
WB: Yeah, motherfuck that.
MC: And beside all that, just for the record, all those drug convictions, we was railroaded by the man on every charge. The authorities ain’t down with boyz from the hood.
MC: Yeah and God ain’t really down with the whole drug thing neither.
WB: Yeah, Jesus is the ultimate homeboy.
MC: Word.
RW: All right, it’s been a trip talkin’ to ya’ll, maybe not a good one, but a trip nonetheless.
MC: All right brother, peace.
RW: Yeah, peace. I’m out.
Part II
Interview by Joey T. Germ
Published in RW #18, 2002
You could argue that rap music in 1998 has been gutted of any real social significance. You could make the case that rap has become bloated and blasé and therefore insignificant as a movement in music; that it simply celebrates the material and avoids the issues that continue to affect urban society and black culture and that which brought rap to the forefront in the first place. You could argue all these points if anybody wanted to hear about it and there ain’t nobody ’round here that wants to do nothin’ but shake their booty. With the Reglar Wiglar’s national reputation for being somewhat unhip and yes, we can admit it, a little “whack” we were unable to get any legitimate rap acts to consent to an interview. We did however manage to, once again, get an interview with the notoriously desperate, terminally white rap group, White Bred & Honky MC. So… sorry.
RW: Hey guys, how the hell are yah? It’s been awhile. I interviewed you guys back in ’94 remember?
WB: Yeah, right man, right. So wassup, brotha’?
RW: Oh yeah, that’s right, you guys think you’re black. I forgot.
MC: It’s all good though, you know. Keepin’ it real, got to keep it real.
RW: So, I thought we lost you guys back there when the gangsta’ rap thing was peaking and you two were nowhere to be found. What happened?
WB: Well, apparently some people felt that our shit wasn’t as hard as some other stuff that was goin’ down around about that time, you see.
MC: Yeah, the shit we were layin’ down and the things we were sayin’ in our rhymes about our struggles in the streets were fallin’ on deaf ears in our community.
WB: Just ’cause we were—excuse me, are a couple of white brothers from the streets of Rockford, Illinois, people weren’t hip to what we were sayin’.
MC: I to the L. That’s right homey, just ’cause we from Rockford, I-L, and due to that fact that the color of our skin is a lighter shade of pale, the record industry felt that our rhymes were wack and somehow had no relevance in a late ’90s type of musical situation.
WB: Let me ask you something bro, you heard our most recent record?
RW: Yeah, actually, I heard it at a party a couple of weeks ago.
WB: Ok, ok, then let me ask you this, are our rhymes wack?
RW: I don’t know.
MC: You know that shit was the bomb, man.
WB: That’s why the shit we cooked up for the nine-eight is heavy, funky, over the top, in your face, ya’ll.
MC: White Bred and Honky MC definitely be in the motherfuckin’ house in the nine-eight.
RW: Could you do me a favor and say ninety-eight instead of the nine-eight?
MC: Aiight! It ain’t gonna be easy though.
RW: I understand, but please try.
WB: If we could bring this thing back to reality here and make an attempt to keep it real and get serious for a moment about this record. Our new album is about some heavy shit that went down in 1997. It didn’t get shit for attention in the media but we had a homey who got it cut short back in the nine seven, sorry, back in ninety-seven. Little Big D.U.D.E. met up with his maker last year ya’ll and me and the MC here, we had this idea to commemorate the brother’s memory with a new jam.
MC: It’s just our way of tippin’ a forty to him metaphorically, or metaphysically or whatever you want to call it.
WB: We made this record to remember Little Big D.U.D.E., you know.
MC: Life is short ya’ll. We just felt with this record that we had to give somethin’ back to a man that inspired us, not so much musically but in they way he lived his life. To the limit. Goin’ for that extra Twinkie when all the other brothers were sayin’ they was done with the Twinkie. Big Daddy D.U.D.E. was that kind of brother.
RW: How did Big Daddy go out?
MC: He got hit by an ice cream truck.
WB: The same ice cream truck where he had just purchased several fudgecicles not two minutes before this incident took place.
RW: Kind of an ironic and tragic twist of fate, not to mention the human interest element, I suppose.
MC: Yes, but everything happens for a reason as the good lord can attest to.
WB: Amen, brother, keep it real.
RW: Are people still saying ‘keep it real’.
WB: Shit, I don’t know, aren’t people still sayin’ keep it real, homey?
MC: I don’t know, White Bred. I gots to call some people on that one.
WB: We’ll get back to you on the answer to that particular question, yo.
RW: Not to split hairs, but it’s kind of ironic also that Puff Daddy had quite a bit of success last year immortalizing his friend, The Notorious B.I.G. in much the same way.
MC: Yeah, man this is very ironical, a very ironical type of situation where you get a couple of artists onto the same artistic idea at the exact same time. Life’s funny that way, you know? But we couldn’t get the rights to any of Sting’s jams ’cause of legal reasons.
WB: Yeah, legally Sting ain’t down with White Bred and the Honky MC. Apparently his management figured there wasn’t any coin to be made bein’ associated with the MC and myself, just bad press.
MC: But we’re talkin’ about a man’s life you know? How can they be thinkin’ of money when we just want to use Sting’s name to get some records out there to the public so that we can all remember Little Big D.U.D.E.? We’re talkin’ about a man’s life.
WB: Little Big Daddy D.U.D.E., we won’t forget you Big Daddy.
MC: That brother could eat ya’ll. That brother could eat a house.
WB: Amen. God bless Big D.U.D.E.
RW: All right moving on from the topic of Big Daddy D.U.D.E., if we may.
WB: All right we can move on but we got to keep mentioning him every five minutes. It’s a contractual obligationary type of situation, you know, we’re tryin’ to promote our record here, you understand.
MC: We’re artists, right.
RW: Right. I keep forgetting that for some reason.
MC: It’s all good, baby, don’t sweat it, baby.
RW: Let’s not start with the “baby” thing all right?
MC: Damn, baby, it’s cool.
RW: Back in the nine-three—shit, you guys got me sayin’ it. Back in ninety-three, you guys were embroiled in controversy for sampling, not just other artist’s music, but other artists samples of other artists and then in ninety-seven, it seems like you guys completely skipped the sampling aspect in favor of karaoke-style overdubs of your raps onto songs?
WB: Yeah, yeah, much easier, much quicker to get an album out.
MC: We didn’t think creating music could get any easier than sampling until we busted out with that karaoke machine.
WB: In fact, we never really felt comfortable calling ourselves artists when we was just sampling but now it feels good, like the shoe finally fits, you dig?
RW: But isn’t that just cutting more corners than you were before and giving your critics more ammo than ever?
WB: Look, somebody took the time to make a good jam, right? Who are we to say that there should be another jam out there that’s better than that jam. Let’s just use the jam that’s there. People know the song, they recognize it. And if they’re too young they’ll think we wrote it and it will forever be associated with us by them.
MC: But we gave the song props by covering it so it’s all good for every individual involved in the situation.
RW: Don’t you think that alters music history just a little bit?
MC: Hey, it’s not my job to educate the kids. I’m just making ’em buy records, ya’ll gotta understand that. They’re parents should be teachin’ ’em that shit.
WB: What about music history, since you brought it up, these kids might have never heard that jam if we hadn’t paid for it, put it out there for the people who don’t know any better. Is it our fault if people are ignorant?
MC: Hey, we did our homework. We went out and found those songs for the karaoke machine our ownselves and found out who did it originally. It’s not like they can’t do a little research.
WB: Yeah, it’s not like you can’t read the little print on the CD, see who wrote the tune then go to the library or wherever or the Internet and research what other songs they wrote and what musicians originally recorded them and whatever. It makes music a challenge. It make it excitin’ and shit.
MC: People are so damn lazy these days.
WB: Word.
RW: Any last words of wisdom.
MC: Yeah. I’ll never forget what my boy Vanilla Ice once told me back in the nine-two, when we was just startin’ out and he was, you know, doin’ the opposite.
RW: And what was that?
MC: Save your money.
WB: Word.
RW: Alright, that’s the interview guys. Maybe I’ll check back with you guys in a couple of years and see how you’re doing.
WB: Me and the MC would appreciate that, man. Keep it real ’til then aiight.
MC: Yeah, man, keep it real.
RW: I’ll try.