Hands down Cage has been one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done. Mainly, because the guy is just one of the most brutally candid people you’ll ever speak to. Which is one of the many reasons why I think his last record, Hell’s Winter is one of the best underground records made in this decade. It’s unflinchingly honest without being soft, it’s lyrically complex without being pretentious and it’s just a flat-out great record.
It’s also nice to hear someone who is actually good at rap (read: not rap critics) go on the record to say that most Southern hip-hop, with a few notable exceptions, fucking sucks. As for his thoughts on the record industry, his perspective was equally frank.
“I’m sure the downturn of the industry affects us, but it affects major labels a lot more. It’s a quandary for me because I’m kinda with everyone else, fuck corporate America steal their music, these artists aren’t making that much money off their music via labels so what’s wrong with stealing music? The rap industry is falling apart because it’s crap. They’ve saturated the game with the same bullshit jingles that mean nothing and you get nothing from it. The huge artists still go platinum. They aren’t fucking hurting from it, it’s the slave masters who hurt.”
Download:
MP3: Cage-“Shoot Frank” (left-click)
MP3: Cage-“Good Morning” (left-click)
And if you’re interested, I also have two more features that ran in the Republic this week:
