(2002) According
to the code of the streets every pimp that is out there running his game needs a down ass
gangster to watch his back. Some one who will make sure that both he and his girls are
safe while they ply their trade on the streets.
Keeping with this street rule is Montgomery, Alabama’s Dirty, who call themselves
Pimp and Gangsta, two cousins who have been rapping together for almost six years. Growing
up in the City’s most impoverished area Dirty came up on the rough side of the
economic mountain. But never ones to let their environment get the best of them the two
turned to rap as a means to take themselves up out of their dire straights. After doing
numerous local talent shows the two stumbled upon Mike Jackson, CEO of Infiniti Music who
signed the duo at two in the morning after scouring the hood looking for them. Months
later the two released their underground debut Country Versitile and won the attention of
Universal Records, who tried to signed them. Unfortunately, at the time, they were locked
into a binding agreement
In 1999, free of their contractual obligations they dropped their sophomore album Da Pimp
and Da Gangsta and before you could say hot grits on Al Green’s black ass Universal
had snapped them up. This year the Dirty boys drop their second Universal release called
Keep It Pimp and Gangsta, which is a continuation of their same old pimped out hardcore
street flavor. Down South recently caught up with Pimp and Gangsta to talk about their
careers and the lives.
Author’s Note: This interview was conducted before Dirty was dropped from Universal.
Rumor has it that they have just inked a deal with Rap-A-Lot Records. We will try and
conduct a follow up interview to find out exactly what happen between the group and their
former label later on this year. |
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 Down-South: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about you guys personal
history. What neighborhood did you two grow up in?
Pimp: Man, we grew up in a place called Two Lane Coat. It’s a
project. Our whole family stayed out there.
Down-South: Coming up in the hood, what kind of music did you grow up listening to?
Pimp: Everything. Rock, heavy metal, blues, r & b and rap....
Gangsta: Yeah we were on that rap real heavy. UGK, Eightball and MJG,
Outkast –we pretty much on the cats that laid it down for the South.
Down-South: Okay now the two of you are cousins, right?
Pimp: Yeah, we’re sister’s children.
Down-South: How did the two of you start rapping?
Pimp: I wrote my first rap in the third grade. It was for my teacher who
was retiring and I wrote a rap for him. After I did it people liked it so I said to
myself, I can do this for real. Then I started battle rapping in school and tore everybody
up. I mean I was really killin’ ‘em. That’s when I started rappin’
around town. At first I was rapping with somebody, but they kept flaking out so when I hit
the tenth grade, Gangsta he’s coming up in the seventh grade and he’s coming up
behind me. So when my last partner jumped ship I was looking for a new one but I
wasn’t havin’ no luck with it. At the time me and gangsta was stayin’
together so when I came home one day he said man listen to this shit. And the boy just
went to snapping. I mean straight snapping and I’m like look at my lil' cousin. And
we been a team every since then.
Down-South: Okay how did you all get with Mike Jackson and Infinity Records?
Pimp: We use to do all the little talent shows around here man. And
we’d be winning them all. We ended up meeting Mike at a club where we were doing a
one of those talent shows that we won. A year had done went by since that talent show. And
we had gotten tired of doing them because they really wasn’t puttin’ money in
our pocket. So me and gangsta said that we were going to try out our CD or get a deal.
 We
did a song called “Candyman” with this dude named Rodney Wilkerson, who sang on
the hook. I graduated with dude and he worked at the club Rose were he knew Mike Jackson
from. Mike was thinking about putting out an r & b album on him so the dude let him
hear the CD as a demo and he like our song.
He came over to our house at two or three in the morning, woke us up talking about signing
us. He said that if we sign with him he was gonna have us a major deal in a year. He
guaranteed it.
Down-South: I bet you thought he was crazy?
Gangsta: I was like whatever man. We had been through so many niggas
talkin’ ‘bout they gone do this and that. It was pretty much to the point that
we was like fed up.
But when he came he came real with it. He sold his security system business and put all
that cheese into making our record and we had just met each other in about 98. This man
sold his business to put about fifteen Gs for us to do a tight album. And that’s when
we put out our first album Country Versitile.
Down-South: Okay let’s talk a little bit about the album. The name of it is?
Gangsta: Keep it Pimp and Gangsta.
Down-South: That’s sounds pretty much self-explanatory.
 Pimp:
Yeah, that’s basically what we was just saying; ya know what I’m saying. Keep it
Pimp and Gangsta, we couldn’t even find a better topic to go to. Maybe on the next
album we might do something a little bit different, but we felt like this album here
reflected on the last album. Like it was a to be continued. We have a couple of songs that
was like a part two, like “Candyman II.” The girls like the Candyman on the last
album so we gave them Candyman II on this one. And that “Six Feet Creepin’”
….we kinda didn’t want to do another part of Six Feet Creepin’ so we came
just a little bit different with the way we set it off with that “Ghetto Opera.”
That’s kinda like the next part to Ghetto Opera because once we hit the hood I said
me and Gangsta too be creepin’ and I just set it off and go into something after we
hit the hood.
Down-South: How long did it take you all to do this album?
Pimp: It took us about three months. Mike did a lotta the engineering
because the engineer that we had wasn’t working out right. We just had to step up our
game and hustle a little harder because we got this man doing the managing part, running
the label and then he got to run in the back and engineer too..
 Down-South:
Damn, now that some real down south hustling!
Pimp: Ya know what I’m say bwoi! We be spending the night up here.
I’m talking about two and three days just staying up here all night man, doing like
four songs back to back.
But it’s all gravy man, that’s what comes with the territory. I’m sitting
up here getting’ six Gs for a thirty minute show, ya know what I’m saying.
It’s gonna be some time when you gonna have to put that triple or overtime in and do
some real, real work, ya know what I’m saying. It ain’t no need of complaining
because after it’s [all] said and done we’re gonna get on that stage for thirty
minutes and we’re gonna make more than the average working man will make in three
months. So you can’t bitch about it –you just have to take it as it comes. It
ain’t nothing wrong with staying in the studio for two days straight doing about four
songs and ya ain’t gonna leave until we get them done.
Down-South: Ok, let’s talk a little bit about your names, how did you get them?
Gangsta: Well Mr. G-Stacka is my first name and Gangsta is my alias. Mr.
G-Stacka came from pretty much from me always liking money so I’m always stacking Gs.
I call myself Mr. G-Stacka because that’s what I’m always trying to do. When I
get in this game the way I really want to that’s what I’m gonna do.
 Pimp:
That pimpin’…that pimpin’ is for real main. This pimpin’ is for real
and I ain’t even talkin’ ‘bout puttin’ no hoes on the corner…well
ya might hear me talk about it in a song, but I’m here to talk about my type of
pimpin’. I’m that 2003 pimpin’ ya know what I’m sayin’. It
ain’t no pimps got no hoes on the corner because these hoes is independent. They
don’t need no nigga to run back to and report to like they did in the 60s and the
70s. That shit old. That’s been done. Today it’s all about game. If you
hollin’ at the hoes…the thing to do is get you ‘bout 15 hoes…game on
about fifteen hoes that’s going to be doctors and got a little job working at a bank
or something like that and get a check every week –make good money every week. You go
to each one of them hoes every week and say baby I need about hundred dollars from you.
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