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Home » Interviews » KLC Interview (January 2002) By: Charlie Braxton
As one of the founding members of the Beats by the Pound, No Limit in-house production team, KLC has been a major force in moving Southern hip hop to the forefront.  He and his follow Pound members Moby Dick (who now calls himself Rue), Craig B and Odell, have been responsible for selling over 30 million albums during the height of the Tanks reign on the hip hop/ R & B charts.

But, due to a bitter dispute over contracts, the core members of the Pound went AWOL and formed their own production team called the Medicine Men and started their own label called Overdose Records.  In addition to dropping the first official Six Shot album sometime soon, there are plans for KLC to drop his debut LP called The Drum Major.

In a recent phone interview KL runs down what’ been happening since they left No Limit.
What’s up with you KL?

You know we’re in the lab finishing up my album. We’re working on a new album on [Six] Shot.  You know that we just signed Serv.

Mr. Serv On is now on you all label?

Yeah.  Serv is an Overdose artist now.

Okay, most people know you for your work with No Limit during its glory days, but your roots in New Orleans' hip hop are much deeper than that.  Could you tell us a little bit about your roots in New Orleans’ hip hop?

I’ve been doing this shit since break-dancing, man.  Any affiliation that they’ve had in hip hop, I’ve done it.

So you used to break dance, right?

Break-dance, tagging, graffiti, DJing…shit –All that.

What was the name of your break-dancing crew?

The Action Crew.

What part of New Orleans are you from?

Uptown, third ward, Parkway...

Weren’t you part of a crew that called themselves the Parkway Boys?

Naw, that was the name of our company, way back when.  It was called Parkway Pumping Records.

That’s right you did have a record label back in the days.  Tell us who all was on that label?

We had Serv [On], 3-9 Posse, Mystikal, Soulja Slim, Koffe D, and Juvenile use to come through.  He wasn’t on the label, but he was affiliated with us.  Shit basically, even though they didn’t sign with us, damn near everybody came out of New Orleans had came through there.

I heard that it was a virtual training ground for New Orleans’ MCs.

Hell, yeah.

Ok, some of the artists on your label…Serv On, Mystikal, and Soulja Slim eventually ended up on No Limit with you.  How did that happened?

Well, when I came in I brought some of them in.  Serv introduced me to P, because, if you really wanna know, if it weren’t for Serv Knowing P, I wouldn’t have never been there.  Serv was the one that brought me to him.  When Serv and Mia [X] was out there in Cali….I ain’t gone say that they wasn’t feeling the West Coast, but by them coming from the South, we had a sound of our own, ya know.   So they’d go to him and say, man Look, I want KL to do my shit.  He didn’t know who I was until I got up there and I didn’t know who he was until I got up there and met him.

What year was this?

It was like in 94…95.

What album was P working on at the time?

You know I think it was in 95 because P was working on 99 Ways to Die.

When I got there that album was basically done, the only thing that I really did there was some vocal coaching and just mainly studio engineering.  I didn’t do any production on it.

So the first album that you did production on was the TRU True album?

Yeah, the first album that I really worked on was the TRU album.

In fact the first song that I ever did on No Limit was “Bout It.”

That was the one that first blew up!

Yeah.

Now Bout It, Bout It is considered a Southern classic.  But I heard that the beat came about as accident caused by your daughter…..

Yeah, I was in the lab, which at the time was a basement down by my grand mama’s house because that’s where I was staying at.  And I was just up in there kinda fooling around.  I had producer’s block.  I had the music to the song, but I didn’t have the beat to it.  What had happened was I had my back turn toward the drum machine, facing the keyboard and my little daughter came downstairs and I didn’t hear her.  I had the drum machine in record loop mode so the beat was playing and recording, looping over and over.  When she came down there she hit the drum machine.  When she hit it I turned around and I spanked her and sent her upstairs and after listening to it [I realized] that was the fucking beat that I needed to go with the song, so my little girl did the beat to the song.

So are you going to let her do some production when she grows up?

That’s on her if she wants to do that..

But that was the record that put No Limit out there nationally…..

Yeah, that was the record that gave me my name as a producer.  Even though it wasn’t the biggest record, it was one of the biggest records, but, to me, it was the biggest record because that was the record that P built his foundation on because P went on to name one of his management companies Bout It Management, to doing the Bout It movie after it to now it’s a common slang on the street.

 

 

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 I understand that Bout It first started out as a commercial…..

Yeah, it started out as a sixty second commercial for Wild Wayne at Que 93.  P recorded it in my basement.  It just so happened that record got such a buzz on it in New Orleans that people were calling the station requesting the commercial.  We took it from that commercial and made it a full length song and had Mia X rap on it.   Originally the beat was for Serv and Hound, who had wrote a song for it called Bucking like a Winchester.  Then it went from there to Bout It.

And after that you all did the version on Ice Cream Man album, right?

We remixed the record for the Ice Cream man album.  The one on Bout It was a whole different record.  It’s the same song, but it part one and part two.  The beat is different.

The Beats by the Pound sound has been known for introducing New Orleans’ bounce flavor to mainstream hip hop. Tell us your opinion on this?

Well really, what people consider bounce around the country, we don’t consider bounce.  They may bounce to the record when they hear it because it makes them want to bounce, but it’s not like that raw bounce that the typical New Orleans person considers to be bounce.  You know like 5th Ward Weebie.  They (people outside of the South) don’t understand our term bounce.  What other people consider bounce is what makes them move a certain way.  When they hear it they start to bounce their head to it so they think that its bounce.  But bounce is a whole different than what other people claim it to be.

So what separates what you all do from the rest of the New Orleans producers?

What I think makes the difference is…..I know as for me and the rest of the Pound…..is that we always try to keep our music bass heavy.  Our music stays heavy always.  When it comes to us, it’s less music all drums.  I fuck around and get a nice sound effect and put it with a fire ass beat and the song is there.   I keep my music simple.  The simple it is the easier it is for you to mix it.   Once you get the beat….the beat is the heart of the song, period, regardless to how you put it.  The music is gonna groove you, but the beat is what makes you move.  That’s me speaking as a producer.  There’s a big difference between a person producing and a person who makes a beat.  It’s totally different, totally different.  I’m a producer, but I also know how to make beats.

What instrument do you play?

Drums.  You’ll hear it in my album.

You all have officially left No Limit and have changed your name from the Beats by the Pound to the Medicine Men.  Why?

The whole situation was about a dispute over contracts.  We both couldn’t agree over contracts.  He didn’t wanna hear whatever changes we wanted in the contracts and he was trying to change what he had in the contract.  The contract didn’t benefit us at all.

Has that situation been resolved?

There is no reason to resolve it because there ain’t no going back.

So there’ll never be another collaboration between Master P and the Medicine Men?

Honestly, I’m gonna tell ya I really can’t say that because I still got love for P deep down in my heart.  But he knows in his heart that he needs us.  I don’t give a fuck how you put it.  Once people get used to hearing people on certain shit, that’s what they expect.

Say for instance Snoop Dog.  I gave Snoop some fire shit like “Fuck Dem Otha Niggaz,” a lotta people love it, but you know what the first thing people say is that shit bucking, but it ain’t Dre.  The same thing for Timberland and Missy or Juve and Manny, they have a certain sound that goes together and No Limit became bigger than just the artist or the company, it had a certain sound that people liked.  Once you have that certain sound and people get accustom to hearing that shit, you can’t fuckin’ break it.

P was one of the most gangsta niggas in rap.  He was one of the most hardest niggas in rap.  He put his mack into gangsta rap.  But he don’t do that kind of music no more and his records are not doing what they used to because he’s not giving the people what they want to hear from him.  He’s not giving the fans that brought him there what they want.

And I’m not going to say that I or the pound totally just made him, because in spite of all the hot beats that I gave him, he did have the fucking hooks to go with them and all of that played its part.  I’m not going to dis-credit P on shit because the nigga’s good.  But he’s that much better when he’s with us.

Ok, tell us about your new artist Six Shot’s alum called The Medicine Men Presents Six Shot: The Actual Meaning, which is in stores now.

Naw, that’s a bootleg, we’re working on a new album right now.  We’re about eight songs into it.

Word!? That records that in the stores is Bootleg!

Yeah, it’s not the real.  The real Six Shot will be out after we do my album.

What’s the name of your album?

It’s called the Drum Major.

What can we expect from it?

Well, I have my click on it.  I have Serv, I have Six Shot, I have T-Knock, I have Beautiful, Don Yute, and I’ve recorded songs with Max Manelli, Lil Boosie, Lil Jon and I’m hollering at Pastor Troy and Drama people.  Plus you’re gonna have Moby, Craig B and Odell doing production on it.  Oh and Fiend is on there also.   I definitely can’t forget Fiend because he’s going to have one of the biggest songs on my album.

This is definitely going to be a DJ’s club record.  It going to be the kind of record where a if a DJ’s getting tired he can put on my record and let it ride.   It’s definitely going to be like that shit you heard in 1997 and 98.   It’s going to be well rounded and balance.  Anything that you might want to hear from a good album will be on there.  It’s that fire!

by: Charlie Braxton.  © 2002 Down-South.com

 

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