 Down-South:
Devin, what up with you, dude?
Devin: Man, I'm just chilling trying to lay here and cool out for a
minute before this album come out.
Down-South: Yeah, everybody is anticipating the release of your new
album, Just Trying Ta Live....
Devin: Man, that sounds cool, that sounds really cool. I don't want them
to wait too long.
Down-South: Ok, let's talk a little bit about your career and you your
life. You currently live in Houston Texas, are you from there originally?
Devin: No, originally I'm from St. Petersburg, Texas. (laughs) ....St.
Petersburg, Texas meaning I'm originally from St. Petersburg, Florida, but I moved to
Texas at an early age. I kinda like got both of them I'm a Texan, but I'm a Floridian
first. It kinda all blends in. But I wanna be nationwide. I just wanna be just like
anybody else born anywhere else.
Down-South: Damn, I didn't know that you were born in Florida.
Devin: Yeah, I get asked that quite a bit, but when I get asked where I'm
from, I really don't know what to tell them. When I go to Florida, and hang out with my
kin they'll introduce me by saying this is my cousin from Texas. And when I'm in Texas my
Texas family will say this is Devin, my cousin from Florida.
Down-South: So when did you move to Texas?
Devin: Man, I think I was in like the fourth grade. Yeah I was in the
fourth grade.
Down-South: So you really are a Texan.
Devin: Yeah. (laughs).
Down-South: So what part of Texas did you grow up in?
Devin: Well, it's a mystery. When we first came to Texas we moved to East
Texas [to] a small little place called Douglasville, Texas. My grandmother, she moved
there first and we moved there. But Douglasville was too small for my mama. She was like,
man....(laughs). She looked on the map for the biggest place in Texas and that turned out
to be Houston. So she bailed out, moved to Houston, found a job and sent for us and we
came to Houston and chilled. And then after that we grew up in Houston. I went to junior
high there and went back to visit my grandmother and stay with her so we were back and
forth from Douglasville to Houston.
Down-South: That would explain why, at times, you seem like you have an
old soul because in talking to you and watching how you carry yourself, you seem wise
beyond your years.
Devin: (pretending to be an old man) Well shit now, sometimes I just feel
like it. It's just a feeling ya gets see. Once you grow up and start ta feelin' different
types of thangs, ya start learning....ya just get wiser. Ya just start ta feeling older.
Ya know ya don't get older being a fool.
Down-South: I feel ya. I'm getting a little old myself.
Devin: Naw, naw, you're not old, man you're still in your prime.
Down-South: What kind of music did you listen to growing up?
Devin: Actually, man when we were in Florida, we used to live in front of
a radio station, WRSB. We lived in the apartments (laughs). I don't know if they were
apartments or projects, I was too young to remember back in them days. But I do know that
they were in front of the radio station. They always had records and stuff that they
didn't really want because they were scratched and they didn't want to take a chance on
them scratching on the air. So what they'd do is throw them away in the trash behind the
radio station so, you know, we used to play at the playground close by. I use to go by
there and get the records out the trash and there'd be all kinds of music. Man, I mean it
was a mixture of everything. It was kinda cool to me because I got to experience certain
records that a lotta people didn't get to hear at the time. I'd take them home and we'd
play 'em and groove 'em....you know...it was real cool.
Down-South: So you basically listened to everything?
Devin: Well, yeah, just about. Shit I listened to everything from old
school, classic rock to R & to blues....to old school Johnny Taylor to Johnny
"Guitar" Watson to James Taylor.
Down-South: James Taylor, ah naw, I liked him and Johnny
"Guitar" Watson. You know an album that I just bought, speaking of James Taylor?
Devin: What?
Down-South: Carroll King's Tapestry.
Devin: Ah, man I see you know your music.
Down-South: Bruh, before the fire I had over five thousand CDs, Tapes and
records.
Devin: Ah, man I'm sorry to hear about that too. [I know] you lost a lot
of things that had sentimental value to you.
Down-South: Yeah I did, including my tape of the Odd Squad debut
Faddenufffaevabody.
Devin: Ah, man don't worry about that. I'll get you another copy of that.
Don't even trip on that.
Down-South: Thanks.
Devin: No problem.
Down-South: Tell me, what was the first time you came in contact with hip
hop?
Devin: Let me see probably back in the Africa Bambatta days man. You know
the "Planet Rock" type stuff.
Down-South: So you grew up on old school hip hop?
Devin: Oh fo' sho', man, fo' sho. Then when we got to Houston, man, they
just whoa. They had it all live everywhere. Like 90.9, KPSU.... Oh man, every Saturday
morning you tried to have your tape recorder ready so you could get your tapes together.
And we'd have our tapes together and as soon as they came on we'd have our tapes on going
down the streets just blasting it, man. We'd break out the cardboard and whatever....man,
them was some fun days.
Down-South: Ok, tell me how did you go from being a listener to a
participant in hip hop?
Devin: Well, actually it went from listening to popping and breaking to
it.
Down-South: Word, you used to break?
Devin: Hell yeah, I used to get down. (laughs) We used to get extra
change like that. We'd go in front of the mall and three or four break-dancing/popping
groups would go at it right there.
Down-South: What was the name of your group?
Devin: Well, the group that I was in Houston was made up of my brother
Dexter and my home boy named Dexter so we called ourselves 3-D. But we used to rhyme too
on stage. We used to rhyme and break on stage. It was almost
like a UTFO type thing.
Down-South: Ah, that's old school right there.
Devin: Yeah, only we didn't really care what we were saying on stage.
Down-South: So you've always been explicit, huh?
Devin: Just about, man. I guess that Rudy Ray Moore and Richard Pryor did
it to me when I used to sneak and listen to it. I wasn't allowed to listen to it.
Down-South: I understand that you used to do talent shows too, is that
true?
Devin: Yeah, man we'd take the poppin' and rappin' off the streets and
bring it into the schools and colleges and bring it to the clubs that had talent shows. We
started getting names and such from doing talent shows at the skating rink and such. Man
the skating rink was the shit because that's where you'd get together with all of your
friends and have fun. You'd look at other crews and just eye them down like you wanted to
battle. You could just feel a battle coming on. It was kinda cool man.
Down-South: Okay didn't you meet fellow Odd Squad member, Rob Quest at a
talent show?
Devin: Yeah, that's where me and Rob met. I think it was in like 91, or
90. It was during a TSU talent show, where Kurtis Blow was supposed to be judging. So they
had like an audition for the talent show. You just couldn't just show up and participate,
you had to audition and go to rehearsal and all of that. It was a room of people inside
doing their own thing. And Rob showed up. He was holding on to his mom's shoulder. He was
walking slightly behind her to side, but he didn't look like he was visually impaired at
the time. He just looked like he was just another rap guy coming in there to put it down.
It was a guy who was over the promotion thing of it and he walked in the room and asked
us, "do anybody feel like it would be unfair if this guy participate in this talent
event. And everybody else was looking around each other and said sure, why not. And we
didn't really get it. Everybody went to the stage one at a time and did what they was
doing. When [Rob] went up there it was apparent that he was visually impaired. He went up
there with his drum machine. He had a Yamaha RX-7 and he plugged that shit up to the
speakers, pressed play and started punching buttons and started rapping and shit at the
same time. Everybody was like whoa! I was like whew wee, Rob is cold! And everybody else
was saying oh, that's what he meant by that -the dude is blind, that's why he was asking
us is it fair for him to compete with us. And I was like shit, is it fair for him to be in
the show because he is colder than a muthafucka! He is so damn talented, it'd be a real
close call if he didn't win.
Well, anyway the show went on the next day and when we arrived at the talent show it was
more people in the audience. And Kurtis Blow wasn't there. He was what everybody got
excited about and they kinda got let down. We still went on and did the show. After that
we started working together.
Down-South: What about Jug Mug?
Devin: When we moved to Houston back in the day. I think I was in the
ninth grade back when I first met him. He mostly hung out with my little brother Dexter.
They were hanging buddies just running around. We had different sets of friends, but we
all was cool. So when we started rappin' and breakn' we all just got closer. And we
started rappin' back in 85, 86. We had a DJ named Gerald and he was cold back then. So
after like the tenth grade I moved back to East Texas. I moved back there to try and
finish high school 'cause shit was getting' kinda wild here in Houston. We sorta lost
contact with each other. After I graduated I decided to come back to Houston. I just
wanted to a rap album out and buy a 79 Seville. That was dream back then. So I came out,
got a job, got the Seville and met Rob at the talent show. Me and Rob started hooking up
at his crib out in 3rd Ward. Rob had that new instrument called the EPS. It was brand new
back then. He had to get it. His mom went and got it for him and we broke it out the box.
I would read the instructions to him and he'd be fooling with the buttons, just learning
the different samples and instrument sounds that it made. We just started creating songs.
We didn't have a name or nothing back then.....
....Later on I ran into
Jug and he was like hey man what's up? I said nothing man, I'm still trying to put it down
with this rap shit. And he was like man, you still trying to fool with rap. Because by
then everybody else that used to hang with us had moved on to different things. I was like
man, yeah, You ought to come on over. We chilling over there. We got forties and broads
and shit. So I guess that's why he came over. He was like hmmm, I may have stopped rapping
and shit, but I ain't stop drinking and smoking and fucking with these hoes and shit. So
he came over and we had some fun free styling and drinking 40 ounces. Man we had the house
just full of 40s every night. His mom...she was kind cool with it. Actually, she would
come in and help us out on certain hooks, the clean ones.
We started making little songs....so we had like 30 of these songs and we went like shit,
man we ought to come up with a name. So we had to concentrate on that but still focus on
the music. So one day me and my bigger brother Donnie was driving down the street and we
saw this group of girls. And they just were the strangest group you ever saw. One was tall
and skinny, the other one was short and fat one. They all looked so different. And my
brother looked out the window and said man they look like the odd squad. I remembered that
and thought that it would fit us perfectly because each of us have our own personality and
trait that we bring to the table. So I brought the name to the group and we went with it.
After that we started pressing up little tapes and making up press kits and sent them out
all over the place. And Crazy C got a hold of one of the tapes. [He] and Rob was cool.
They were from the same neighborhood and shit and he gave C a tape. Crazy C was doing some
work for Rap-A-Lot at the time and he handed the tape to Lil' J and J was like whoa we
need to get in touch with these boys. Actually, he came by Rob's mama's house. He talked
real with us and left us with a contract, and told us to look over it and see what's
happening. After that we really didn't know anything about the business so it took us a
while to find a lawyer we could trust. So we went around asking what is this, what is
that? Nobody could tell us anything that we could really get a handle on so we went with
our instinct and trust what we believe in. So we signed the contract and got on and
everything was cool. We got with Ghetto Boyz and did that song "Bring It On"
that was our first appearance on record.
Down-South: You all also released the classic recording
Faddanufffaevabody. You know I've often wondered why didn't you all put your picture on
the album cover instead of the cartoon?
Devin: Well, we had (pauses and laughs).....well actually the first pick
of the album cover was a picture the we did of me, Rob and Jug holding up a big fat joint.
We had a big ass joint. It was between the legs of a big fat ass woman. Everybody was
getting a hit. If you wanted some weed or you wanted women, it was fat enough for
everybody inside this album cover. But we couldn't make it work. The way we pictured it in
our mind wasn't the way it was coming out in the album cover and the deadline was coming
up so we had to really try and do something. So Rap-A-Lot had this artist who did a real
good job on the cartoon. We told him that we wanted it to have that feel-good and that
Good Times type of feel to it, but in a café type way. SO we changed it to that and he
did a pretty cool job on that. It turned out pretty cool. I wasn't too fond of it at
first, but it grew on me.
Down-South: But it kinda looked like a graffiti drawing also....
Devin: Yeah, it did kinda had that hip hop sorta feel to it. I didn't
want it to be like animated. And it worked out for the best.
Down-South: I understand that there is supposed to be a Coffee Brothers
album coming...
Devin: Yeah man, there is. We're just trying to let some people out here
hear my brothers man. We've got some brothers out here with talent, we're just trying to
get it together.
Down-South: Who are the Coffee Brothers?
Devin: Well, there really is no set member fro the Coffee Brothers. It's
just based on different groups and different solo artists even. We're just putting out
like a big compilation type thing to introduce our camp.
Down-South: Will there ever be another Odd Squad album?
Devin: (sings) Oh yeah!
Down-South: Speaking of the Odd Squad, you all's album was critically
acclaimed. It won you a lot of fans including Dr. Dre who would later ask you to be on the
Chronic 2001, but, before that didn't you get down with Scarface on a couple of his
projects?
Devin: Yeah, I did. I was on the Diary. That was the first time that I
did a feature as a solo artist.
Down-South: Now Scarface was the guy that really sort of pushed for you
as an artist. From that point on he kept you on his albums and he actually put you in his
group the Face Mob.
Devin: Yeah, that true and I love face for that.
Down-South: Now from the face Mob you caught everybody's attention with
this song Boo Booin', which first appeared on Scarface's My Homies album. How in the world
did you come up with a song about taking a dump?
Devin: (laughs) Man, it's the best seat in the house. It's peaceful. You
get to relieve yourself from all that other shit....that stressful shit that you can be
doing. If somebody is doing something that you don't want to do, hell, you'll be better
off going taking a shit.
Down-South: Yeah, that's true, they definitely ain't going to follow you
up in there! (laugh)
Devin: Yeah, but I was working on my album at the same time that My
Homies album was planned to be released. It was just like a promotional thing to pull a
couple songs off my album and put them on that album.
Down-South: Well, it worked like a charm because that song definitely got
everybody's attention. That one and "Fuck Faces."
Devin: Yeah, that one was cool. That one was real cool. That was a nice
little project right there. It was real cool to be on a song with Too $hort, Face, and
Tela. Man that was a cool little collaboration.
Down-South: Going back
to covers, you know what really tripped me out was that for your solo debut The Dude, you
actually took a picture of yourself sitting on the toilet. That was ill. That was really
ill.
Devin: (laughs) Well, we were taking pictures for the album.....
Down-South: And you came up with the idea, well let me just sit on the
toilet.
Devin: (laughs) Well it was like, man it would be cool if you did like a
boo booin' shot since so many people like the song. I was like aw man. I had thought about
it already, but it didn't sound cool you know. But I just went ahead and tried it. We had
already took like 800 regular pictures. I took two shots of the bathroom pictures.
Down-South: Yeah, I can imagine that the photographer didn't want to stay
in there too long.
 Devin: Yeah we only took
two shots of that. Like I said we had taken about 800 shots of different things to fit the
concept of the album, but when all of the pictures came back and we lined them all up, the
ones that looked pretty cool and we took a vote on each one. The boo boo shot that you see
on the cover came out to be the one that everybody liked.
Down-South: Even though the album didn't do the numbers that it should
have, it is considered to be a classic of Southern hip hop. Does it disappoint you that
the album didn't do well?
Devin: Aw man, whatever happened, it was meant to happen. I was cool just
to have a solo album out. I was kinda under estimated, but, to be real, I was under
estimating myself. I didn't really know that so many people would like it. I remember when
they came to me and said what if you were to do a solo album, what would that sound like?
And I was like well, I don't know. Then I heard other people say, well, I don't know if
it's the right time for it. You might just want to wait and I was like hey, hold up. If I
start doubting myself then everybody else is going to start doubting me so I was like
yeah, yeah, I'll do one. Give me the studio time and my potnas and we can make it happen.
So it was a lotta work involved. Man it was a lotta fun. I had fun in the studio with Mike
Dean, N.O. Joe, KD from the Lynch Mob; he's was one of my favorite artists at the time.
Still is. Man, he's raw. JB. Face contributed a lot too, it was just fun, man.
Down-South: That was the project that actually prompted Dr. Dre to give
you the call to come perform on the multi-platinum selling Chronic 2001, wasn't it?
Devin: Actually Dre was telling me that they used to listen to the first
Odd Squad album when they were on the first Chronic tour. He said that they used to trip
out on the songs man. When they started working on the Chronic 2002 album, that's when
Mailman, the producer from Pittsburgh, joined the Aftermath team. We was kinda familiar
with him and he with us because we had did a show up there a long time ago. They had
brought us up there and we all had a real good time and we just kept in touch. So when
they were going over a list of names that they wanted for features he said to Dre,
"Man, what about Devin?" And Dre went oh, that cat from the Odd Squad? Can you
get in touch with him?
It just happened from there man. He called Rap-A-Lot, looking for me. He called around to
different places looking for me until he finally got in touch with me. When he called to
tell me, I was like, whoa, don't be tripping, man, don't be tripping. I ain't having a
good day for you to be calling here with this bullshit, talking about Dr. Dre want me to
be on is album. I just hung up on him. Then another phone call came later and it was Dr.
Dre on the phone. And it was on.
Yeah, working on that album and going on tour and working with Face...all of that played a
big part in what I'm trying to do now.
 Down-South:
Tell me about the new album Just Trying Ta Live?
Devin: Hmm...what do you want to know about the new album Charlie B.?
Down-South: What can we expect?
Devin: Well you can expect to hear some good soul music, mix with rap/hip
hop lifestyle all wrapped up in on good musical package.
Down-South: One last question, who is Devin, the Dude?
Devin: Well, actually those are two different people.
Down-South: Ok, who is Devin....
Devin: Man, I'm Devin. I'm Devin man...that's me.
Down-South: I know that, but who's the Dude?
Devin: Now the Dude is somebody you don't need to know about. I mean like
you really don't need to know about the Dude. I can't be puttin' his business out there
like that. I don't want to put his shit out there like that. So if it get back to him,
shit, it wasn't on me. (laughter)
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