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Historically
speaking the name Alkatraz has always been associated with the infamous prison out in
California. It was a place where very few of its many prisoners ever escaped and lived to
tell the tale. Today, the name Alkatraz is widely known among fans of Southern hip hop not
because of the prison, but because of the Memphis based four-man rap crew called the
Alkatraz Riders, a group that consists of Al Kapone, the undisputed Godfather of Memphis
rap, Taylor Boys ad Sir Vince.
While most people know the Alkatraz Riders as a group what the average fan doesn’t
know is that the group is just representative of the whole movement, which includes
Alkatraz Records, Alkatraz Films (be sure to check out that upcoming DVD Memphis
Underground, it’s a classic) and Alkatraz Productions. Recently Al Kapone and Sir
Vince were in the city of Jackson and they stop by to chat with me about their past and
future endeavors. Check it out.
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 Down-South:
Al Kapone, Sir Vince, Alkatraz Riderz what’s happening?
Al Kapone: Good.
Sir Vince: Awiight, what’s up with ya
now?
Down-South: Nothing. Ok, let’s get started by talking a little bit about you
guy’s background. Both of you are from Memphis.
Al Kapone: Right.
Down-South: Did you all grow up together in the same neighborhood?
Sir Vince: I’m from the south part of Memphis.
Down-South: What was it like living in that part of town?
Sir Vince: Man South Memphis is one big neighborhood, but it’s still divided
off by streets, ya know what I’m saying. I stayed off a street called Mississippi
Blvd. and Crump
Al Kapone: And I’m like right off Mississippi…a few streets away from him
on Wick’s Alley. I grew up all around that neighborhood from Crump to
Stevens…Mississippi…Bonneville….that whole area. We roamed around that
whole area of town. But, the only thing…my only difference is that I sorta lived all
over Memphis because my family roamed around a lot so I ended up living in North Memphis
for a couple of years living on Nance, Florida and Humes. I lived in the King’s Gate
Apartment in Black Haven. That was back when “Lyrical Drive-by” first came out.
I was staying out there then. We lived in Watkins’s Manor before we moved out to
Black Haven. That was after we moved to the Lamar Terrace Projects. Lamar Terrace is in
South Memphis. Watkins’s Manor is in Frazier which what everybody’s calling the
Bay Area now. So I pretty much lived all over Memphis.
Down-South: How did you guys hook up?
Sir Vince: How me and Al hooked up was through Al’s cousin, Taylor Boy. They
were in studio puttin’ in down and he met me in the streets and he said man I gonna
introduce you to my cousin Al Al Kapone. This was back in 1992 when he first got me in the
studio and every since then we’ve been putting it down together. Ten whole years
we’ve been doing this.
Al Kapone: Fa sho’. I wanna say something about this Vince character. What made
me know that the cat was real was like he said Taylor was the one that introduced us and I
always noticed how real he kept it with Taylor. I don’t know if he realized but I was
peeping him out the first couple of years. You know it a lotta times ya family members
will bring people around and after a period of time something will happen to where
they’ll fall out. So when somebody bring somebody around me, I’ll be cool with
‘em, yet, at the same time, I’ll be evaluating them and peeping how they act
towards the person that brought ‘em into this and see how they changed. That cat
Vince has always been cool and kept it real with Taylor. And that’s what let me know
what type of person he was. So I always knew that Vince was a re! al cat an
Down-South: Now you all have been recording together for ten years, what was the
first manifestation of you all recording together as a group?
 Sir Vince: Ok Alkatraz Productions first came together back when I was working on
The Pure Ghetto Anger album. That was the first time that we actually came up with the
name Alkatraz Productions. It was me and actually a guy by the name of Lil’ Pat, who
does a lotta stuff for 3-6 Mafia now. We were in the studio doing some things. I always
had a lotta ideas and he would know how to work the studio equipment and just make my
ideals come together so he used to help me bring my ideals out. He’ll add something
to it and he’ll come up with stuff and I’d work with him on it. I’d say
after about a year of me and him doing stuff together. He introduced me to this white guy
by the name of J-Dogg, John Shaw. And J-Dogg plays piano and I was just blown away by his
playing….
Down-South: Wait a minute are you talking about J-Dogg, the writer for Murder Dog?
Al Kapone: Yeah, the same J-Dogg. I was so impressed with the way he played
keyboards and I was also impressed by how much he knew about black music. We just
naturally started working with him.
Down-South: I wanna say this, a lotta people don’t know that J-Dogg is a very
fine jazz pianist also. I heard a tape of him playing and I was blown away by him.
He’s a very versatile musician. Select-O-Hits outta put his jazz album out, but
that’s another story….
Al Kapone: Not only jazz, but dude can play classical music…..
Down-South: J-Dogg plays classical music!?
Al Kapone: What, dude, you didn’t know! Man Mozart, Beethoven, he can play all
of that stuff. Just give him a piano and he can go at it for four or five hours.
Down-South: So J-Dogg is a part of Alkatraz Productions?
Al Kapone: Yes, he’s definitely a part of Alkatraz Productions. In fact, the
original Alkatraz Productions started with me Lil Pat and J-Dogg.
Down-South: Okay how did the group Alkatraz Riders come together?
Sir Vince: Well how we came together as a group…was Al was already doing his
solo thang and Kokane Wayne and Taylor Boy they was in a group called the Taylor Boys and
they was doing they thang and I had just gotten to be an additional member to the label.
Al had come up with the idea let’s all do something together with all of us. And
that’s how it happened. We came up with the name Alkatraz Riders after the company
and it’s been on every since.
Al Kapone: Let me go a little deeper than that. It actually started as Alkatraz
Syndicate. It was me Sir Vince, Taylor Boys and a few other boys that we had with us at
the time that was a part of that clique too. And time progress and the other artists ended
up drifting off and going their different ways. It ain’t no problems with that. I
guess that people thought that they could do things in different ways. I’ll never
knock a man for how they feel. But what ended up happening was after that disassembled the
group situation sorta just happened. I’ve always loved being a part of groups
personally. I’ve never really wanted to be a solo artist. I was really thrusted up
into that. And since then it’s been like that, but I always liked to be a part of a
group so I just thought about it after that Syndicate thang fell apart I still had my solo
career, the Taylor Boys had their solo career, Vince was the only one who didn’t have
a record out yet.
 Down-South: Well, now that first Alkatraz Riders was really off the chain.
Al Kapone: I appreciate it…
Down-South: And you all produced all of that?
Al Kapone: Fa sho’, fa sho’. That’s another thing about Alkatraz
Productions; I always kept it open so that we could work with other producers. Well
actually with the Taylor Boys album 28 Grams, we did a lotta production on that album and
what I had come to find out was that I lotta people loved the production on that album.
People loved that album, and that was actually one of the first albums that Alkatraz
Productions did all of the production on. We always would do some production on different
albums and stuff, but not like we do now. Years later we did the Memphis to Bombed Out Bay
and every track that we rapped on we did the production and everybody else did the tracks
that they did. And we really got a lotta response from our tracks.
Down-South: How would you describe you all’s style of music?
Al Kapone: Deep bass lines, strings, guitar licks…wah, wah….I like rock
guitar in my music so you’ll always see that in my music.
Down-South: Right now a lotta people see Memphis as one of the main centers for crunk
music, but you guys really do have a very diverse sound when it comes to rap music.
 Al
Kapone: Yeah, but really the crunk part of Memphis
came from the 80s club scene with the gangsta walk and the Studio G’s, Club Memphis,
Club No Name, Club Expo, the Mirage, places like that. The crunk part of music came from
the club scene. Dances like the gangsta walk and the get buck that’s where all that
crunk music came from. Outside of that we always had what we call the pimpin’ style
of music.
The pimpin’ style is really all of that old school soul music…that 70s flavor.
And the reason why I think that they call it pimpin’ is because it was the music that
the pimps with the big hats always used to ride around in the big Fleetwood Brougham
listing to it all the time so we just called that style of music pimpin’.
Down-South: Okay, let’s talk about some of you all’s upcoming projects?
Al Kapone: Fa sho’ 2003 we gotta lotta thangs coming. We gettin’ the
chopped & screwed that Houston originated, you know DJ Screw….Michael 5000
Watts…OG Ron C… so we got the Memphis Drama Chopped & Screwed. It’s
basically all of the hot songs on one and two and we’re putting them on the chopped
& screwed album.
Down-South: Memphis is on chopped & screw like that?
Al Kapone: They wasn’t at first, but now we do have a sub-culture of people
that’s getting’ into it. So with this CD, I think that it’s gonna open it
up some more. We got my new album the Memphis Godfather. It’s going to an album of
nothing but the underground classics that laid the foundation for Memphis rap. These songs
have been hard to get. A lotta them can’t get them. People have been asking me about
them so we’re just putting them out there for people to check out. It’s got
songs on there like the original “Lyrical Drive By,” “Still Loc'ing
Up” and me and Gangsta Pat did some collaborations that were hot. This album will
have it. It would be nothing but the original Memphis flavor --the original tracks.
Down-South: Okay, now I heard that there’s an album coming with you and Kingpin
Skinny Pimp......
Al Kapone: Oh yeah
that’s another one, me and Skinny Pimp and this new guy called the Jerk just
completed an album called the Memphis Untouchables. It’ll be out the end of February,
maybe March. Sir Vince….we’ve been working on his solo album. He’s been
down for a very long time and ain’t never tripped about nothing so we figured
it’s time for him to step out there and shine. We’ve been working on his album
real hard, trying to make it real hot so that people can get a little taste of his
personality and whatnot.
Down-South: Sir Vince, could you tell us about your new album?
 Sir Vince: Well, my album is gonna be something real interesting to listen to.
I’ve got my style of lyrics [that] I call the aggressive style cause I come straight
direct at you. I ain’t sugar-coatin’ nothin’. I got my first single called
“Ya Heard Me” it’s got a nice Memphis feel to it. It’s classic Memphis
flava. The title of my album is going to Niggology. It’s some real nigga shit.
That’s going to be the flava.
 Al Kapone: It’s gonna be hot. We gonna make sure of that. It’s gonna be
real because Vince gotta a lotta shit that he wants to talk about and it’s gonna be a
lotta stuff that people in the streets gonna be able to relate to.
We also have Memphis Drama III: Outta Town Love and that’s just an album of
collaborations and songs from people from outta town who have always showed love to a
nigga. It’s our attempt to show that we can come together and unite and show people
that we’re not separated the way it’s kinda perceived that we are. I try to do
my part to show that we can do unified stuff. It was also done to show the people in town
all the love that we get outta town. A lotta people don’t know that we do get a lotta
love from different cities.
Down-South: Especially Atlanta….
Al Kapone: Yeah, especially ATL. I just wanna show that we recognize that love and
we appreciate it to the fullest.
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Al Kapone Interview
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