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Sqad Up first stepped into the hip hop spotlight
as Lil Wayne's protégés. And for almost three
years they remained loyal to the one they also
call Lil Weezy, grinding out over six volumes of
mix tapes, which were received with great
enthusiasm by rap fans throughout the South and
the Mid West. Wayne and Baby were once so enthused
with the group that they made plans for them
to be the first act on Lil Wayne's subsidiary
label, Young Money Records. But as their
popularity increased things begin to dissipate for
them at the label. When the group inquired about
the possibility of a full length release Lil Wayne
stalled, saying that he was waiting on Baby to
give him the green light. Feeling frustrated and
neglected the Sqad struck out on their own a year
ago. Unfortunately the split wasn't an amicable
one. Soon after they left Wayne dropped a mix tape
dissing Sqad Up. They quickly returned the favor
and dropped a mix tape dissing Lil Wayne with a
fearsome vengeance. They also took time to form
Money Young'n Records and dropped their debut LP
Now or Neva, independently. Currently their album
we here now is in stores. Down-South.com caught up
with Sqad Up to talk about their departure from
Lil Wayne and Cash Money and here's what they had
to say. |
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Gudda:
What up! This ya boy Gudda. I was born in LA, but I
was raised in New Orleans East. I was born in 81,
but I came to New Orleans two years later.
Nutt:
My name Young Nutt. It comes from the name Peanut,
which was a name that I had when I was real young.
I'm from Downtown, 9th Ward -Mazant Street.
Young Yo:
This Young Yo right here. I'm from New Orleans East.
T-Street:
Yo, this is T-Street. I'm from the New Orleans East,
that's what's up.
Supa:
Well, me I'm Supa. I'm the CEO of Money Young'n
Records. I'm from East new Orleans. Born and raised.
Down-South.com:
How did the Sqad hook up?
Supa:
All of us we were like raised together since birth.
This (pointing to Young Lo) is my brother and these
two (pointing to Gudda and T-Street) are like two of
my best friends. And we hooked up with Nutt, we
kinda got with him on the rap tip, but all of this
was from birth. [We've known each other from] middle
school till now. Wayne, he was put with us. We was
the Squad
before Wayne. This is the real family here.
T-Street:
We basically all raised each other.
Down-South.com:
Nutt you're the only one who isn't from NO East. How
did you hook up with the Sqad?
Nutt:
Well like one of the older cats in the hood knew Lil
Wayne and knew that I be spittin' so he brought me
to 'em and he told me to spit. So I was dang, here I
am a lil boy in front of Lil Wayne. So I spit for
him and that's how I got down and I done been family
since.
Down-South.com:
So how did Lil' Wayne get in the group?
 Supa:
Well, ya see how we present ourselves. We were some
of the baddest bag carriers out there. I mean we
were looking better than the St. Lunatics when we
were on the road with them on the Nellyville Tour.
We running around signing autographs as Super and
Kapa. So fans thought we were somebody already.
Wayne was first gonna open up a clothing line. He
was beginning to see a little money so he was trying
to do something on his own. But he really didn't
have the nuts to go against Baby. When he really
didn't have to go up against dude so that's how
everything got started. He was so nervous that he
was scared to even start a rap group for fear of
what Baby was gonna say so he started doing the
clothes. He started cuttin' up shit and bleachin'
shit. He had gotten into the Giovanni design mode.
So when he had came way outta left field when baby
told him to start a business finally Baby told him
to just rap. So niggas went into the studio and
started playing in the studio till we really got
good at this shit.
Down-South.com:
Okay, once you guys got hot and everybody was
waiting on a Sqad Up album but it never came out,
why?
Supa:
Man dude was nervous. We had gotten to the point
that we were doing shows performing all of our mix
tapes and some of Wayne's stuff. Man we did 90 paid
dates. Like we were really that hot! I was saying
man they gotta see what we see. But you know how
niggas go to selling niggas them dreams and shit.
Wayne kept telling us "I got yall. We gonna do
this." Even though we were rolling with Cash Money
it should have been no problem. If you're a hustler
you gonna do what you're supposed to do. So time
kept passing and nothing happened. At the same time
Chingy started blowing up I felt that we should have
blew up too because we had started off with more of
a buzz than Chingy had when he came out. We had more
of a foundation than that cat and J-Kwon. everybody
that came out then and blew up. If we get that kind
of push..if we get any kinda marketing behind us
then we knew we were going to blow up. We had did
all of the marketing already. We got people to
already like us before they even seen us. People
thought that Gudda was bigger than Bonecrusher. They
thought that T-Street was just big and black. Now
when they see the cats they see that they look
better than anybody that's out then they go damn, it
a whole other ball game now. That's because they see
how marketable we really are. So we're like when are
we gonna come with an album? They were like well
let's just do another mi tape. We had started to get
aggravated with the mix tapes. Volume six, nobody
wanted to do it,
nobody. Wayne was doing it to relieve pressure
because everybody was asking him -we got this fan
base now what you wanna do with it? I done took the
position to where I managing. I'm like man let's go
and get a web site. I told Wayne lets get some
t-shirts. We were just making our CDs and burning
them and passing them out. I was the one who said
let's get some covers and
shit. I told him man I not telling you to leave Baby
and shit I'm just telling you lets step it up a bit
and show him that we serious about this shit. He'd
be like naw, I'm gonna wait for Baby. I'm gonna wait
on Baby. Man it had got to one point in New Orleans
where there wasn't no Sqad Up buzz. here it was
stronger than ever and I was like damn, this shit
can really happen. So it was like it's now or never,
man. But Wayne was like wait for Baby, wait for
Baby. I was like Wayne we got a better chance
rolling on our own, if you ain't gone roll then you
ain't gone roll, straight up.
Down-South.com:
Most of you grew up in East New Orleans, where
there's a history of great N.O. lyricists, who were
you listening to coming up?
Supa:
Soulja Slim, Pimp Daddy, UNLV and then the Pacs and
the Biggies and all of them. You know that was
automatic. But as far as what I listened to most it
was the Pimp Daddy's and UNLVs and Partners n'
Crime, all of that.
Gudda:
I listened to the LOX, a lotta East Coast rap
influenced me. I listen to a lotta New Orleans music
like Soulja Slim, BG and all of them.
Young Lo:
Really I listened to Cash Money. That's all I was
around was Cash Money.all the local rappers: Cash
Money, Partners N Crime and Pac.
T-Street:
basically I listened to a lotta Soulja {Slim} and
Pac. I really didn't start listening to a lotta
music until I got older.
Nutt:
Well, first off I'd like to say rest in peace Soulja
Slim, who was one of the realest in the game to do
this. I listened to a lotta him. I listened to a
lotta Cailo G, who was from Downtown, 9th Ward too.
He was real local. I listened to a lotta LOG, YG,
Hot Boys..you know just a lotta
local artist who were coming up back in the day.
Down-South.com:
In listening to you all talk about your influences I
noticed that Soulja Slim is on everybody list. So is
it safe to say he was a major influence on you all?
Supa:
Oh yeah, if you grew up in New Orleans you had to
listen to him so you couldn't help but be influenced
by him.
Young Lo:
He was the inspiration for the Hot Boys. Believe it
or not, that's where they get their style from [even
though] he was in jail when they were first coming
up. His first name was Magnolia Slim..
Down-South.com:
Do you all remember where you all were when you
heard about Slim's death?
Supa:
I was in Peaches puttin' up our first Sqad Up
display. You know it happened three blocks from
Peaches so you can imagine how it was when Sheronni
got the call. She just dropped the whole mood and
everybody just got on the phone trying to see what's
really good.
Down-South.com:
When did you all first decided that man I got to get
into this rap game?
 Supa:
Man, you know I first started carrying Juvenile's
bags on tour, just hanging. When I peeped it out, it
wasn't nothing but common sense to me. So we kinda
like fell into it like it wasn't nothin'. It was
kinda like it was meant for us to be in this, ya
dig. We didn't force nothin'. The Squad got hot
from just playing around in the studio, ya dig. So I
kinda was appointed Wayne's manager. As he got older
and needed to he needed more business to be
handled I took the initiative to just take all the
business into my own hands. Before you know it, we
had our own tour bus. We were setting our own dates.
We were getting our own money. I guess it just got
overwhelming for cats.
Down-South.com:
So Sqad Up was also on the Nellyville Tour, right?
Supa:
Yeah, but not as performers. But we did do a lotta
after parties. The Nellyville Tour was so funny
because on that tour we got cats like Murphy Lee
telling us how much of a fan he is of us. And cats
was like telling us how much they listen to our
music and they little brother love our songs, but
they don't know. They thinking that we're in a
better position than we already in ya know. So that
was crazy.
Down-South.com:
How did you all come up with the name Sqad Up?
Gudda:
Just playing around one day. We said that we were
going to call ourselves the Squad and so we were
like Sqad Up. We got Sqad Shit tatted on our
knuckles, but we decided that we'd call ourselves
Sqad Up so it could be censored for radio or TV or
our albums or whatever.
Down-South.com:
Young Lo when I first met you I was under the
impression that you were Lil Wayne's brother. You
two do kind of favor each other a little bit..
Young Lo:
(Laughs) Yeah, they had started saying that I was
his lil' brother because we hooked up when we were
young. It was just us two at fist. We just clicked
up and by us hanging with each other and all that,
they had started saying that we started to look like
each other. I mean we had the braids and all that
there. But we from two different blood lines, let's
get that clear.
This bloodline here is way thicker than that.
Down-South.com:
okay I understand that you guys hooked up over a
girl, is that true?
Young Lo:
(Laughs) Yeah. Semi..that's how it happened. I mean
I was dealing with one of his..
Down-South.com:
From what I hear it was his baby mama, is that true?
Young Lo:
(Laughs) Yeah looks like you know already.
Down-South.com:
I do my research.
Young Lo:
I see. (Laugh) But yeah, that's how it was. And
that's how we hooked up. He saw that I was taking a
lotta his so it became a situation of if you can't
beat 'em, join 'em. (Laughs)
Down-South.com:
One of the things that I did notice was you guys
seem to be a lot more lyrical than some of the other
acts coming out of the NO today.
Supa:
That's because we're more broad so we're able to
speak to a whole lotta different situations ya
understand what I'm sayin'.
Gudda:
I'm glad that you said that cause a lotta cats don't
bring that to the light when they speak about us.
They don't speak about how we're a lot more talented
than a lot of groups that's coming outta New
Orleans. |
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by:
Charlie Braxton © Down-South.com |
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