Q: First off, I suppose the most obvious question is about your back-story. So at the risk of being redundant, why don’t you guys tell me how Pacific Division formed?
Mibbs: We met Be-Young in high school actually. But my brother tells the story better than me, I go off on all sorts of sub-stories.
Like: What’s the question? How’d we meet? We met in Palmdale, we’d just moved there and we weren’t really familiar with the community but we started playing basketball and that’s where we met Be Young. We got into a little hip-hop group at the time; we all had a passion for great hip-hop music, but we were always trying to be different from everyone in the West. We were more into being well-rounded. We liked everything and everyone surrounding us seemed to just be into one sound. It gave us an advantage.
At first there were other members in the group, 10 in all. It was intended to be a West Coast Wu-Tang. But differences occurred and we needed to advance. We downsized it to just the three of us and things have been rolling ever since, rocking shows, doing whatever. We used to pay to do shows, now we get paid to do shows. And now we’re here.
Q; Where did you guys grow up prior to moving to Palmdale?
Like: We grew up in
Q: What led to the move to Palmdale?
Mibbs: Our parents wanted a house and got to buy one out there for cheap.
Like: I didn’t know anything about it, we didn’t want to be out there at first, but it was a learning experience. It’s a slow-paced lifestyle out there. We learned that not everyone is the same.
Q: Was there a pretty severe culture shock?
Like: It was, but we adjusted.
Q: What high school did you go to?
Mibbs: We all went to
Q: How did you guys get started rapping?
Mibbs: We’ve been rapping since we couldn’t even speak words. All my life. Seriously. We’d do our little mixtapes trying to show people that we could rap. It wasn’t nothing we took seriously until things started picking up and people started liking the music. We were trying to find ourselves.
We used to have another group, there were four of us—Be wasn’t in it then. I don’t even remember how, but we got down with Sean Healy and he’d make you sell tickets to play a show. We were young and wanted to rock so we did it and sold all our tickets and packed the house with our friends. Then the situation broke off with the old group and our older cousins were out here in LA, rapping in a group called Blue Collar that had the scene popping for a minute. They had a monthly night at Little Temple and I invited my cousin to one of our old shows where we had to sell the tickets and he liked one song. Nothing but one song and he said I want you to do the one song at our show. So we got a good reaction and we kept on doing that one song at their shows and then finally, they asked us to do a whole set at Little Temple. Then we were playing shows there and doing well and then next thing people at Temple Bar saw us and wanted us to do shows. People would leave with our records. We started hustling. It’s a domino effect, people tell their friends, family, what have you and it takes off from there.
Q: Who were/are your biggest influences?
Mibbs: Common,
Be Young-Redman, Nas, Rass Kass,
Like: 2Pac, Az, Grand Puba
Q: How did you end up with the deal at Universal?
Mibbs: We just went into their offices with our catalogue. We had the “Fat Boys” video, which we did ourselves with our own money. It was a sacrifice that we made and it turned out well. We showed them all our stuff, we had a press kit and they’d done some research and knew that we had fans and potential.
Be Young: We just performed for them. We hopped on tables. We performed four or five songs in front of Sylvia Rhone. We were on the tables…just wilding out.
Q: Why did you pick Universal?
Mibbs: They seemed the most in tune with who we were. They didn’t skim through the music. They understood. As soon as we met with Sylvia, she started throwing out the right names of people to work with, Q-Tip in particular.
Like: You can’t trust nobody at labels but we figured it was a good time for us to be at a label to get their muscle. We’d been signed to Snoop’s manager’s label, Two-Tone Elephant. People always say indie is the way to go, y’know be rebels to the majors, but indies are labels, albeit with less money. If you want someone with money, they have that muscle. It’s about using it to your advantage. We still operate our own indie label.
Q: What’s the status of your debut album?
Q: Does it feel like the major labels are actively seeking for good rappers now, whereas for much of the decade they’d been searching for artists who could sell ringtones or pander to the lowest common denominator, or both?
Like: I think they were searching for cleaner music for a while after the Michael Richards/Don Imus thing. Cleaner rap, which they thought meant backpack rap. But now they’re just looking for anyone making noise.
Mibbs: Something without baggage, they’re looking for artists that are more well-rounded.
Like: They don’t want to worry about dudes going to jail.
Q: How has it been working with the label in general?
Mibbs: Not really. We want to take over the world but you’ve got to start in the Church League.
Q: What’s the breakdown of the new tape? You guys going to rhyme over original beats, other people’s, both?
Mibbs: About 60 percent original sounds, 40 percent mixtape tracks. 100 percent Pac Div. We’re rocking over Stevie Wonder loops, Al Green’s “Still in Love with You,” Naughty by Nature, Madlib, and lot of original records from our producer Swift.
Q: How do the think the role of the Internet factored into your guys’ success?
Mibbs: The Internet has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages are obviously that previously, people would buy albums. Before, I couldn’t directly speak to Common or have sway in someone’s career. If you bought a bad album, you bought it and you had to live with it. Now if you buy a bad album, you can comment about how terrible it is and make people not want to purchase it. The little people have a lot more to say. Once it catches on blogs and writers spread it, word travels fast..
Like: You don’t need radio in a sense but you’re going to eventually need radio to sell units.
Mibbs: Soulja Boy wouldn’t be what he is without the Internet.
Q: How did you go about getting buzz on the Internet?
Mibbs: We was on Myspace and adding people at first, no big deal. It wasn’t until we got a video to people when it all jumped off. We shot the video and people saw what they had already heard. They communicated with the energy and the visuals of the show. It just naturally caught on.
It’s about fan interaction. If the blogs like your music it’ll spread, I don’t know anybody at Nah Right but they know us, which means we’re doing something right.
Q: Were you guys listening to a lot of 80s music when you came up with the idea to play off the Fat Boys?
Mibbs: I was playing some old Audio Two shit at the time. We’d already called ourselves the Fat Boys since Be rapped over a old Fat Boys instrumental. He said that we should call ourselves the Fat Boys to pay homage to them.
Q: Who are your favorite rappers these days?
Mibs: Blu and Diz Gibran. They’re the homies but we like their music too. We’re not into giving people free passes, we get inspired from listening to those cats. We’re cool with The Cool Kids too, everybody really.
Q: What non hip-hop do you all listen to?
Like: Coldplay. Chromeo.
Be Young: I listen to a bunch of artists no one’s probably ever heard of.
Q: What did you think of the hipster rap labels that some people threw at you?
Mibbs: We didn’t sign up for none of that. When people don’t understand shit, they want to put labels on it. When we saw them called us hipsters, we thought it was on some coked out shit—that they thought we were people doing weird things.
Like: When the Cool Kids come out to LA, they chill with us. They’re like, ‘fuck that,’we don’t want to go to some hipster party.
Q: What are your favorite spots to kick it in LA?
Like: The house, we go to work and we make music.
Q: What are your goals going forward:
Mibbs: We want to keep expanding. We’d love to play The Nokia Theater, sell out arenas, do the crazy visual shit that goes on in our mind. There’s no limit to how far we’ll go to create.
Like: We talk about interesting things. We want people to know that there’s more to us than sneakers and a “Fat Boys” video. We know that there’s a whole world of human beings and we’re excited to be in this position. I feel like we’re a high pick, now we have to show everyone what we’re made of. You know how good you can play, now you have to go play.
Mibbs: I wouldn’t call us the number one pick. We’re underdogs. We’re going to be like Chauncey Billups and surprise people with how good we can play. We’re gonna’ start in the church league and work our way up.
Videos:
Pacific Division-“Fat Boys 08”
Pacific Division-“Women Problems”
Pacific Division-“Paper ft. TiRon”
Download:
MP3: Pacific Division-“Fat Boys”
MP3: Pacific Division-“Wake Up”
ZIP: Pacific Division-Sealed for Freshness Blendtape (Left-Click)
