9. “Rap’s a Hustle”
Cormega: “I believe Ayatollah could have been so much bigger as a producer. Some people just have this touch that the way they do something, nobody does it like them. And he’s one of those people, he’s got his own lane, the way he does his soulful shyt, it’s just crazy. So when he flipped that record [Willie Hutch’s ‘I Choose You’], it just felt perfect and I just wanted to be creative and have some fun, so that was the perfect joint. That was a great experience to work with him.”
10. “Get Out My Way”
Cormega: “That was for the industry. I didn’t see Def Jam as my main adversaries, I saw them as chess pieces on the board that I had to overcome. When I got my release from them, I was content — and I got paid too. My issue with them was when they wanted $350,000 to get
The Testament back. That’s what my issue with them was, because that was basically trying to sabotage me and stop me from getting on.
“‘Get Out My Way’ was for everybody. There were a lot of people that were trying to stop me from getting on, a lot of funny business, so that was for everybody.
“I don’t even deserve any credit for that shyt because Sha Money XL did the beat and he coached me through that shyt. I would say a rhyme and he’d be like, ‘Do it with this energy.’ There’s a certain Mega that’s like the raw Mega and then there’s the storytelling Mega. He’d be like, ‘Don’t be that Mega, be this. Be that energy nikka, almost mad aggressive, assertive.’ I had to do my vocals over, shyt that I wasn’t accustomed to because I was doing what the fukk I wanted on
The Realness. There weren’t no A&Rs, so basically every song was the way I wanted it.
“He made it an orchestra, he made that shyt triumphant. The way it starts off and everything, it’s big, it’s monumental. Whatever kind of rhyme I said on there, it’s because of Sha. He probably told me this is the rhyme for that and so on. There wasn’t no choices, like producers give you options, like ‘yo listen to these beats.’ He was like, ‘This is the one, Mega! This is your song. This is it. Point blank.’”
Sha Money XL: “I did the beat at my crib in Westbury and that was around the time where I had a heavy Primo influence, that I wanted my track to have some kind of hook in it. That was before writers would come and do hooks and lay them in your studio. So I was being more creative. I was a DJ, I had a whole bunch of a cappellas, and I took this record from Roc-A-Fella and Memphis Bleek was saying something and I liked it and I just cut it and I sampled myself cutting it.
“That was the era where I wanted to have this orchestra kind of sound going on and make it big. When I found that sample, I just put it together with that hook and that sample. I think Mega was recording at Hydra Studios in Long Island City and we got in a conversation and he like was like, ‘You got some heat, bro’ and I came through and pressed play for him and he jumped right on that joint. That’s before we emailed tracks, there was no mp3, I didn’t know how to mp3 until 2002. That was pull up on the artist and press play. He loved it.
“That’s when I was still defining my sound, so I was pulling from everybody from Primo, from Just Blaze. I had a lot of things going on at the time. Creatively trying to figure out the best way to make my mark, and I was pulling from people and that record was one of my favorite beats, nothing out there was like it. I remember mixing it with his engineer, Max Vargas, he killed the mix and he made my beat sound even crazier. It wasn’t about the money, I don’t even think I got paid for that track, I was just trying to be a part of his legacy. I was just trying to outdo everybody and make my mark.
“At that time I was doing Beanie Sigel’s album and I was starting to work on 50 [Cent]. I had 50 Cent in my crib so I was just coming with it, really defining myself as a producer. I think I was still Sha Self but I was transforming into to Sha Money because there was another producer named Self was coming into the game. He was an OG from my hood, and he started doing a bunch of Onyx records and Cocoa Brothers and all of that kind of stuff and I don’t want nobody to mistake me for anybody and so that’s why I started transitioning into Sha Mula.”
11. “You Don’t Want It”
Cormega: “That was just for the streets. The reason I put it on
The Realness was because it was so fukking popular and it was fresh still. It was a street record. When
Mega Philosophy came out, the first single was ‘Industry,’ but the song that I leaked for the streets was the joint with me and Raekwon, ‘Honorable.’ So that’s what I do with all my albums. I leaked ‘Dead Man Walking’ before ‘Angel Dust’ came out, but ‘Dead Man Walking’ wasn’t no single.
“Maybe that’s why I’ve lasted so long. I don’t make music for the radio anymore, I make music for the listeners, but when I did make music for the radio, I always made something for the streets first and leaked that and then I’d try to come out with something for whoever’s gonna spin it. And to this day I’ll still use that formula.
“‘You Don’t Want It’ was for the streets, and that was a raw ass, honest street record too. That was about some real shyt, actually. And that was Godfather Don, so it was an honor to work with him. He’s very elusive, I’m trying to find him now to do some work with him.”
12. “5 for 40″
Cormega: “I always believed a cappellas and spitting without a beat was part of hip-hop. So many of our first rhymes were said in the hallways with somebody banging on the wall with their hands or you’re just rhyming. Or some battles, there’s no music. You’re just standing face to face and your voice becomes the instrument and your words become the song. Every solo album I’ve done, I do an a cappella.
“‘5 for 40′ was a term we used to use in Queensbridge with hustling. You sell crack, it’s $10, so if you by five cracks, it’s gon’ cost you $50. But if you got $40, I’ll give you five cracks. So you get five for 40. That’s why I said, ‘Five for 40, crackheads like, ‘I only buy from Cory.’
“That’s the crazy thing about Queensbridge. Like ‘dun’ is how people talk in Queensbridge. ‘Kicko.’ ‘Wanksta’ too, 50 Cent used to be around Queensbridge people. Certain slang is just straight from Queensbridge and it translates in our music. Queensbridge was the first people saying, ‘Waddup, yo.’ Everybody didn’t say ‘yo” back in the days. ‘Yo’ used to be used at the beginning of your conversation, like, ‘Yo, you seen that movie?’ or ‘Yo, those are dope.’ It was like, ‘Waddup yo.’ And ‘skeeza.’ The first person I ever heard say ‘skeeza’ was MC Shan on that song ‘Project Hoe.’ Queensbridge innovated a lot of shyt, man.”
13. “They Forced My Hand” Featuring Tragedy Khadafi
Cormega: “It was a joint for Tragedy’s album [
Against All Odds] and I remember I wasn’t crazy about it. I wasn’t crazy about the hook, the beat was cool to me. And then after it was done I felt like I was wrong, this shyt is dope. Especially the way people reacted to it.”
14. “Fallen Soldiers (Remix)”
Cormega: “I got two beats from Alchemist when I was in the studio and I wanted to use both of them, but I only used one because sometimes I take long when I write. And I’m glad I do because I see the difference between rushed art and when you take your time. I’m not gonna rush to make an album because when I write my rhymes I scrutinize them. So by the time I record them I’ve scrutinized my rhymes so many times, it’s not like it’s rushed. Everything else could be rushed; if I gotta do eight or 10 songs, each one had to be scrutinized and inspected by me, examined by me, so by the time I lay it down I’m content with it.
“As opposed to just coming up with a quick rhyme, saying it, and then regretting that shyt after the album’s out, or half ass rhymes and then you’re made about it years later.
“I liked the direction Alchemist went with the production and that’s why I chose that song for the ‘Fallen Soldiers’ remix. It was different. That other Alchemist beat became “The Legacy” on
True Meaning.”
Alchemist: “I’m pretty sure that was a joint I had given to him. Think we were in the studio when I gave it to him and then I ended up leaving. He sat with it and ended up recording the vocals. Think it was towards the end of him recording the album, too. Mega’s that type. Some artists, you gotta go over the song with them. You can leave Mega with the beat and he has an idea of what he’s gonna do with it.
“It was dope just because it fit the way the record sounded. He was talking about certain people that had passed and he sort of captured it. I think that’s how it ended up fitting on the record.”
15. “Killaz Theme II” Featuring Mobb Deep
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Cormega: “That’s my favorite song I’ve ever done with Mobb Deep. I just had to have that on my album. The reason I called it ‘Killaz Theme’ was because Havoc had a brother named Killa Black, God bless the dead, he died. When I heard the beat and I heard the chorus where Havoc’s saying, “We wanna kill you,” I just imagined his brother smiling and singing that type of shyt. It reminded me of his brother, so I basically named it after my brother. I named it after Killa Black.
“I leaked that shyt in ’98 because it was just too dope and I was on the road. I was on the shelf [at Def Jam] but I thought my album was coming out that year and it didn’t, so I just leaked that song to see what people thought of it, and people went crazy.
“I think Havoc did some beat for me and then he used it for something else. So ‘Killaz Theme’ became the make-up beat and oh am I glad he used that fukking first beat, because it was way better than what he did for me originally. When he did it, I came to the studio and Havoc was asleep behind the big studio console. He’d been drinking so I remember he was asleep and when I came he woke right up, pressed the button on the machine, laid back down and all I heard was, ‘We wanna kill you.’ And the beat came on and I was blown the fukk away. I was like, ‘Whatever the fukk Havoc just did, he needa do it again. Go to sleep
all the time.’ That’s one of my favorite tracks ever out of my entire catalog.”
Album Cover
Cormega: “I was caught in a moment of deep thought because that was the same window that I stood in to watch over the block. To see if the cops was coming or see if my mans was okay. I sat at that window and reflected there. I saw a man die in that hallway. I counted money in that hallway. A lot of memories caught up [in that hallway], so being at that window for my album cover was like coming full circle. It was just deep for me and I’m glad it was captured the way it was because it was a perfect cover. That’s the same project building where I grew up in Queensbridge.”
Reflecting
Cormega: “My best memory was seeing myself at the No. 1 new artist of the country for two weeks in a row on the Heatseekers chart. Funkmaster Flex dropping bombs on my shyt and it’s playing on the radio, and I’m independent. The experience alone of recording it is something I’ll always keep with me because it was beautiful. It was triumph, because I didn’t know what was gonna happen to me after that. To be honest with you, hustling was more on my mind than that shyt.
The Realness saved my life. After
The Realness, I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t have to go back to the streets. This is for real.’ It opened my eyes to the world. Where I come from, it’s not much diversity in the ghetto. When I made
The Realness, I made it for the hood. I didn’t even know white people or college students were listening to my shyt.
“When I did my first show for
The Realness in Boston, I’m in Foot Locker and this white girl comes up to me like, ‘Hey Cormega!’ And I’m thinking, ‘How the fukk she know Cormega?’ Because I only thought hood people knew who I was. You know there’s always that white kid who hang out with everybody in the hood, so I thought was her. And she worked at Foot Locker and knew about
The Realness, so I was like how the fukk? ‘Cause I’m thinking that shyt is for street people and jail people and drug dealers. So then at my show that night in Boston, guess who showed up? Hundreds of other people who look just like more.
“That’s when I realized our music was cultural. I didn’t know white people and Chinese people and people in Germany and Paris liked my music, so that opened my eyes.”
Jae Supreme: “If people know the real history, they would know that Mega used to help Nas write rhymes. He would show [Nas] the structure and everything. Nas is a student of [Cormega and Tragedy].”