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CONCRETE: Give us a quick break down on your new album.
Count Bass D: It's called Act Your Waist Size. Most of the time I was making it I was 32, my waist is 32" measurement. It's just a situation of me doing me, mainly. It's a statement that mainly applies to myself. I'm just trying to do what I do, the topics that I feel like talking about and things like that. I hope a few people ride with me. But I'm not really expecting the whole world to be able to handle that, because it's really a record centered towards me. Unless you find my life interesting, it's probably not for you.
CONCRETE: So what are some of the different topics you speak on?
Count Bass D: It's really not even like topics. For me, I stopped writing songs per say about a whole theme, and each verse has to do with the same thing, and then a hook that I drill in your mind. But, you'll hear certain lines throughout the whole album of me being this certain age or having children or being married or just what I've learned from being in the business for so long and dealing with so many different types of people. It's that type of perspective is mainly what I was trying to get across. It's just a perspective of what it is to be this age and still be in the business after so many years.
CONCRETE: So you signed a new record deal?
Count Bass D: This is with Fat Beats Records. This is the first record deal I've actually signed since '93. I haven't signed a record deal since. Everything else has just kind of been licencensing deals. This is the first "record deal" I actually signed. The last (album) a German distributer put it out over there, licensed it from me. I try my best not to sign any record deals if I can avoid it.
CONCRETE: So is this a one record deal?
Count Bass D: It's multiple ... I'm hopin' (laughter). It's one record and two options. I'm trying to see if we can work something out. It's just a situation where I think were just different types of people. I'm going to see if we can work a situation out.
CONCRETE: Let's go back in the day. You've been in the rap music industry since '92 and signed a major deal in '93. Give us the history of how things went back then.
Count Bass D: I was in high school. I was going to a boarding school in high school, music scholarship, in Pennselvania. Wyoming Semenary it's called. When I graduated I was doing a recording session in Tampa, Florida with some of the affiliates of Digital Underground. They gave me the advice to come to MTSU when they were just starting the R.I.M. department. So I just washed up ashore here. At the time I had heard about groups like Teknique, Blow Pop Crew, Walter D, Sir Chance, DJ White Night a lot of these guys from way back then. They were just really trying to get some things going around here. So when I got here, I just wanted to be a part of what was going on. Just working with anybody and everybody. Just trying to get some things poppin'. That's how things how things started to happen. Basically from coming here to go to school. My main mission was to just use it for the room and board. I wasn't really here for trying to get an education. I went to MTSU to just try to get my rocks off and get into the game. So as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I left school.
CONCRETE: So you left school for a major record deal?
Count Bass D: Not initially. I left school off of rumors of deals. (laughter) The deal didn't actually come unitl about two years later. At the time, I was talking to this person and talking to that person, and thinking this situation might work or that one. It took a couple of years for it to actually popped off. It wasn't until the end of '93 that I actually officially signed something.
CONCRETE: Who was that deal with?
Count Bass D: I was with Hoppoh Recording which was Pete Nice's (3rd Bass) label, and he had a subsidiary under Columbia. His record label was going thru Columbia Records. (album title: Pre Life Crisis)
CONCRETE: When you were on Hoppoh, was that when you first hooked up with MF Doom (Zev Love X back then)?
Count Bass D: Yeah, that's when we started having an affiliation together. It was a situation where we'd pass messages on to each other. I would only be in New York like a weekend at a time, or a week at time. He might be out of town, or the guys might be out of town. So we never really even got up. I didn't even meet Kurious until like the next year. I didn't meet him until '95. Since I was based out of Nashville, I knew of a lot of the guys and the guys knew of me. We'd pass messages back and forth, but I didn't really affiliate with the guys at all. We knew of each other and respected each other.
CONCRETE: Back in 1992 and 1993 there was not a lot of focus on Southern hip-hop. Do you think that made it a little easier to get on people's radar?
Count Bass D: I think it was easier for me to be able to get on. I stuck out here, very much so. My name I htink floated around the city real fast. I was talking to my wife last night about that. There's been a lot of guys here, even institutions. I remember Southern Fried Funk (clothing store/hip-hop shop). I remember a lot of different things like that, that's been going on for a while around here. People trying to pop it off that way. It was just a situation where you stick out at one point, but you don't really have the infrastructure around you to really support what you're doing. That's what was happening to me. At the same time, Nashville is inexpensive enough to where you can still survive and not end up on the streets.
CONCRETE: So that record deal came and went. Since then you've continued to put out a lot of music. How do you get it out there and make a living off of your music?
Count Bass D:
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