By Tonisha Johnson

It’s hard to miss when meeting these young men the innocence that lies within them. At an early age they discovered responsibility for themselves and their ailing mother. And with this new responsibility they grew to become hard working men figuratively; because they are still under age. But age ain’t nothin’ but a number.

Don’t let the sad story fool you. These boys are definitely making their mark on the industry. And they aren’t looking for sympathy. With songs that they themselves blazed like ‘Kitty Kat’ on the radio waves; the attention is rightfully deserved.

Not too many rap artists can claim a writing skill these days nor can they claim their music came from the streets and made a mark. Hip hop is saturated with manufactured ‘talent’. Nothing holds true and sacred. But 2XL’ natural skills shines through and can be proved when Royal City and Laze put pen to paper and mouth to mic.

Tommy Boy Records is a landmark label in the hip hop industry. How did you get that deal?

Laze: We’re like grinding independently for so long, with no label. Just me, my brother and our manager. We sent records out independently to radio. We sent a record called ‘Kissing Game’ out to radio and it got 450 spins a week. Like every single record label offered us a deal. Tommy Boy offered us the best deal. And we saw, with just one meeting with them, how much of a priority they wanted to make us. We didn’t want to be stuck at a label with like 20 other artists that would put you on the back burner for so long. Tommy Boy definitely has showed so far that we’re a priority to them.

Being independent you claim more of your dollars. Where you making more of the deal than you were independently?

Royal City: We were independent for a long time basically because nowadays labels don’t care. They have 40, 50 meetings a day with artists… so we had to create some kind of X-factor to make them care. And we know that. All the labels were like ‘Ya’ll cool. Ya’ll hot. Ya’ll hot’; where’s the single? That’s why my brother said we threw a solo out there independently and it picked up so much with no money behind it that every that every bit of label came back to us. That’s not exaggerating; every single label came back to us. Tommy Boy signed us to a record deal, publishing deal as well as a merchandising deal.

In the decision to remain independent vs. major: what are some of the things artists can look for in the determining factor?

Laze: We definitely found with Tommy Boy and I don’t know how many other labels are willing to do this, we had like full creative control. But as far as the structure of the deal goes there needs to be more in it nowadays, like my brother said we got a publishing deal with our record deal, with a merchandising deal. Because if it was just a record deal then we would have been like… ‘Oh ok. We’re gonna put out a record and shoot a video?’… We can do that by ourselves. We produce too. So, they really took that into consideration like wow… To see what we are capable of other than making records… I would say if you could get something like a publishing deal or merchandising deal or something like that.

Do you find the industry intimidating because of your age?

Royal City: Not at all. We started at a really young age. We started when we were 10, 11 years old doing studios and everything. We went through a lot. We started with companies that burned us. We started with people that tried to take advantage of us. And in the five, six years in which we’ve been doing it we learned a lot. We always say this is a music business. We learned our business before the music. We know the business. If you don’t know the business, you can’t do the music.

Do you find it hard to balance both the business and the music?

Laze: I can’t lie. Sometimes it does feel like that. But the times when it does feel like that we put it in our manager’s hands. He looks after us so well as far as the business goes. Up till this point, it hasn’t really been hard at all and we’re so used to it. It’s like another thing to us, just natural. With everything in life you gotta know the business end of it.

With ‘Neighborhood Rap Star’ who did you guys work with on this album?

Royal City: Producer wise, we worked with a lot of people. But the cuts that made the album we got Scott Storch and… we produced half the album…

Is there anybody you want to work with?

Laze: Jay Z. Seriously. I don’t know what I would do if I met that dude. We look up to that dude so much. Maybe Chris Brown. I say Chris Brown cause like I just like him cause the industry needs like a new wave of whole new acts and his is like one of the first to do that recently. That’s really kind of big.

What do you mean the industry needs ‘new acts’?

Royal City: Just a bunch of new wave talent and a new circle of artists. A whole new era of cats to bring something to the game.

What do you think of hip hop right now?

Royal City: We’ll probably give you a different answer than most artists will. Some say hip hop is dead, hip hop is this… at the end of the day hip hop isn’t music… it’s a culture. Hip hop is the graffiti, the break dancing… everybody got their different culture. On the East they got their different culture, in the South they got their culture and on the West Coast they got their different culture. In the past years hip hop has been dominated by the South. And they have a certain culture that we aren’t used to. A lot of people say that’s not real rap but everything they talk about goes on in their culture. What we feel music has gone to now is that barbeque vibe, that backyard vibe when music wasn’t so serious and cats weren’t so… when Digital Underground was out. When it was iight for Public Enemy to be on stage with Flava Flav having a clock around his neck. That’s were we think hip hop is going as oppose to being mad all the time. Being mad at the world.

Do you find it easier that you have each other because your brothers?

Laze: Definitely. That’s real because it’s like… at the end of the day, before this whole music thing… we spent our whole lives together. We probably know each other better than we know ourselves, if that makes sense. Us working together is like… we can argue and fight in the studio and 2 minutes later its done. It’s cool.

Royal City: Prior to signed with Tommy Boy, it would be like 4, 5, 6 people and all of us would get into one little fight at something like small and stupid and the whole group would break up.  When you have a bunch of people that aren’t that close together… anything can break them up that’s why groups don’t last. But at the end of the day I can’t say ‘you’re not my brother no more’.

How’s your mother doing?

Laze: She’s doing good. She’s hanging in there. Actually they told her and I don’t know if you read the bio or not… she’s paralyzed right now on the right side of her body because she got re-diagnosed in January with her third brain tumor. They told her 7 months ago now that she had 6 months to live. They told her that again this year.

Royal City: They told her that in ’96. She’s ok. She’s at home. We can’t afford to keep her at the hospital. She’s a real positive lady. She stays praying and she’s real excited to see everything going on with us. She’s like our biggest fan. It’s real funny cause she’s at home and she’s got our 2XL shirt on. And she got our pictures all around her bed. She doin’ the damn thing.

Most rap artist’s main focus is ‘getting their mother out of the projects’. You both seem to have a different focus. Does your mother’ situation push you everyday?

Laze: Yeah. We’re never like… in the best financial situation at all. The influence of our mother isn’t really based upon that because we know that will come. Our thing is inspiration. Our biggest influence has just been like… our main goal up to know was just to get a deal because she put so much into our career as probably we did.

Royal City: Like when we first started out our mom bought us a mic and computer software and she couldn’t even pay the electricity bill because she bought us that. We couldn’t even us it that month but she bought it. I think more than financially, she raised us as a single mother so we kind of feel like we’re responsible to pay her back. And that’s how she raised us.

Is a support system in this industry; both on a personal and professional level, important?

Laze: Well on a personal level it’s important just because there are so many negatives in this industry that you need somebody to stay there and always keep you positive and keep you motivated.

Royal City: You need people who will say ‘if you stay working this will happen’.

Laze: Our mom has been our inspiration and support on a personal level. But our manager has been our support on a business level. He’s really looked out for us and always making sure everything is right for us, you know?

As an independent artist, why did you need a manager?

Royal City: Because there is a lot of people out there that will try to take advantage of you and it’s an advantage to your career. Our manager is the CEO of the production company we were signed to so he was really looking out for us. Booking us shows, putting us into magazines… all prior to our deal. And the funny thing about our manager is he didn’t take a cut from anything we made until we were signed.

Really?

Royal City: We were getting paid from movie scores and all that. He wasn’t taking any of that money because he knew we needed it.

Well, that’s what’s up because he like proves himself to you.

Laze: Honestly, he’s like the closest thing we have to a father figure right now. We’re so close with our manager. Aside from music we go out everyday. We all kick it everyday. He takes us like on a mini vacation sometimes where we can just kick it. He looks out for us. He was buying us clothes prior to our deal. He took us under his arm and guided us. Showed us the business and the music. We always sit down and say like if we didn’t have him as a support system what would we be doing? He made our life complete… 180.

You sound like people are looking out for your best interest?

Both. Without a doubt. Yeah.

What should artist’ look out for?

Laze: Music. Business. Business before music. When it comes to money look out for people who are trying to take advantage of you in a way they shouldn’t be. Because that’s first. We all love music but we don’t want to have no-payoffs or at least have the right kind of pay off that we deserve. Artists need to look out for people who are trying to take advantage of their craft or their work or stuff like that… you know?

What advice would you give to artists on the come up?

Royal City: In any type of way… get your name out there and promote yourself to try to get yourself in the best situation. A lot of people nowadays don’t want to do it independent. They want to do it big. You got to start somewhere. We were standing in the rain at 2 in the morning passing out our CDs before we were in this situation. To really say you’re on your grind and to get out there which ever way possible. Even if you go to school and burn a bunch of CDs and do it like that. Make postcards and that’s the advice on the music tip. You can’t never let nobody tell you that your not gonna do it. Cause we were told that so many times. We were hated on so many times but if you believe in yourself… and I know this sounds a little cliché or corny but… if you believe in yourself your dreams will come true. The game is gonna give you if you give it.

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