Here’s a good article/interview with your boy X-to-the-Z. A snippet:
“What I miss is a time when hip-hop music had integrity; there was some kind of message,” he says. “Not in all the music, because it’s not for that, but there was at least something that got through that had some content that was sensible and positive, not just hooky junk-food rap.” You can’t help but be reminded that Xzibit has a nine-year-old son, who must cause him to be more thoughtful about his pronouncements. “We have kids that listen to hip-hop by the millions and they listen to us more than they listen to their parents, their teachers and politicians. So if the only thing we’re doing is selling them clothes and making them have sex, what are we preparing them for?”
Xzibit names the artists that had attracted him to hip-hop: Public Enemy, Poor Righteous Teachers and A Tribe Called Quest. Not that he necessarily wants a return to some mythical golden age of politicised, didactic rhymers. He believes artists should express their own points of view rather than rely on clichés. “If your reality is get up, drink, smoke, fuck ho’s all day, then say that, but not everyone does that,” he says. “I want to hear other points of view.”
It’s good to see XZibit come up the way he has although I don’t know about doing those deodorant commercials. Isn’t that what led up to the Red & Meth show? 🙂