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Home » Interviews » Unda Presha Interview (October 2001)
Unda Presha is a click of six young rappers from Miami, Florida who caught the attention of Slip ‘n’ Slide’s Ted Lucas while they were working on the follow up to their underground debut LP entitled Young Dynasty. After talking to their label One Stop Record Lucas inked a distribution deal with One Stop and is now set to drop the group national debut Under Pressure. I recently bumped into four (Bullet, J-3, Kamaflage and Soulja Boi) of the six-member group at their home office and here’s what these young players from the MIA had to say.
What part of Florida are you all from?

J-3: I’m from Miami Florida, but I represent everything.

What Neighborhood did you all grow up in?

J-3: I grew up I the Scotts Projects, Liberty City, baby.

Bullet: I’m from Brown sub.

Kamaflage: basically I done grew up in all parts of Miami, Florida. That’s why I feel like I’m the true Kamaflage. I done grew up in Little Haiti, Overtown, Brown Sub, and Liberty City. I always stayed moving. I grew up with a single parent so I always stayed moving a lot. I had to adapt to different places and different area so I took my name seriously. In fact that what people started calling because I could fit into any hood in Miami.

Soulja Boi: I’m from Liberty City an area called Brown Sub. It’s a ruff area. Times were hard coming up it was a lotta killing and stuff going on in the neighborhood. But I managed to survive. I tried my best to stay outta trouble. I had my mama around me. My mama raised three kids. It was hard. But we made it.

How did you all get into rap?

J-3: Well, you know, being a child growing up in that type of environment you run into a lotta things. It certain roads that I took that I didn’t really want to take. So I feel like rapping is a way out for me.

Did you do a little hustling?

J-3: Yeah, I did a little hustling. I did a little time; ya know what I’m saying. By me being young that was bad on me. I had to come to this rap thing and put it down because we tight work.

Q: Miami is basically known for the bass sound or booty music. The Slip ‘n’ Slide camp biggest hits are more thuggish. But people still tend to think of Miami hip hop as booty shake. Does that bother you?

J-3: Naw, not really, cause if you got one group on their booty-shake thing and you got another like us on our thug thing, you can’t really separate those two because they both a part of Southern music. By the way Miami has been slept on for a long time. I mean you got cats putting it down in New York, you had cats putting it down in California and you had cats putting it down in Texas. Now Miami is on the map so no matter what level you’re on, bass music or gangsta…..we’re still united. We’re all one big family down there.

Right now the South is doing real well nationally what do you all think is the reason for that?

Soulja Boi: Well, first of all, it’s our time. For a long time the South was labeled as the booty shakers as dancer. But everybody had their time and their own sound….the north, the West. But we came with own sound. And now it’s our time to take over.

How did you all hook up with Slip ‘n’ Slide?

Soulja Boi: We got our own label called One Stop Records. And we were recording some of our album in Circle House Studio in Miami. That’s a major studio down that way. Juvenile comes to record there. We were in a session there one day and Ted Lucas of Slip n’ Slide Records heard our material. He like what he heard and he was like who that is. And our manager told him these are some young cats on One Stop Records and they trying to do their thing. And he hollered at us from there on out. He liked what he heard. He seen longevity in us young cats.

And this is you all’s first album.

Soulja Boi: yeah, this is our first album, but we came out with a lil’ local album back in 96.
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What was the name of that album?

Soulja Boi: Young Dynasty.

What is the Slip ‘n’ Slide sound?

Souja Boi: We got a thug sound, a clubbin’ sound….whatever. We’re like the Def Jam of the South.

Why weren’t any of the other Slip ‘n’ Slide artists’ on you all’s records?

Soulja Boi: Well basically we wanted to pave the way for ourselves. We want the audience to get to know us for who we are.

Kamaflage: But we’re doing a remix with Trick Daddy. He heard our CD and he like us so he might get on one of our remixes.

Okay how did the six of you come together?

Kamaflage: Well, like I said before, I lived in Brown Sub and I used to see the rest of the guys around. And they was always quite. I used say to myself I wonder what they do? So one day I seen them kicking it in a session, free styling. We got down. We freestyled. We liked each other. We all was cool with one another. It wasn’t no beef or nothing.

In Brown Sub….it’s like real bad. It’s not gang territory, but sometimes it’s good to roll in a click, ya know what I mean. So we just made it a click. But we basically kept it music. But if somebody were to mess with us we would handle our business, ya know what I’m saying?

Yeah, yall look like yall can handle yall selves pretty well…..

Kamaflage: (laughs) We don’t cause trouble, we just finish it, you know what I’m saying.

I hear ya. How long have you all been together?

Kamaflage: Man we been together for about eight years.

J-3: We grew up together. We’ve always been cool with each other.

Souja Boi: We’re like friends and in a group together.

Q: Okay let’s talk about you all’s album? What’s it called?

Kamaflage: It’s self-titled Under Pressure.

Yeah but you spell the group’s name Unda Presha wassup with the name?

J-3: Well, basically it’s not your everyday type name. But everybody is under some type of pressure. For instance, in school you might be making bad grades and you’re under pressure to get your diploma. In the streets people are pressuring you to do drugs and all type of shit. Everybody is under pressure so why not name the group under pressure.

Bullet: Black folks are under pressure regardless.

Kamaflage; And another reason why we kinda came up with that name is one of the people that I look up to is Tupac. And he had a lyric that said all the cuties know that we under pressure so when we all brought that to the table everybody agreed that that what we’d call ourselves. It was a name that we are proud to be carrying.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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