I was blessed with the opportunity to speak with the homie, Paul Wall. Check it out.

- Essince, Royal Heir Entertainment

Essince: What it do?

Paul Wall: Hey, what’s goin’ on? What it do?

Essince: Thanks for taking your time out to do the interview, man. I appreciate it.

Paul Wall: Fo’ sho’. Nice to meet you.

Essince: First of all, how’ve you been? What’ve you been up to? I heard the new single, “I’m on Patron.” What else have you been working on?

Paul Wall: I’ve been on my grind lately but I had to break off for a little bit to handle my business as dad; my roll as dad. I got a daughter and a son. So I’ve been enjoying my time with them, raising them. Especially being that my father wasn’t around so I wanted to step up. I know lately I’ve been on the road a lot and in the studio a lot. And this is the first single off my new album [I’m on Patron]. The new album is gonna be called “the Heart of a Champion.”

Essince: Do you have any idea when you wanna drop that?

Paul Wall: Yea, it’ll probably be coming out around April or May of this year [2010].

Essince: I had a few friends who wanted me to tell you that the Pepsi Mic Pass Part 2 was dope. I watched that again earlier today. I love seeing you and Chamillionaire back together.

Paul Wall: Oh, yea. Me, too. I’m trying to talk him into doing an album together, too. I don’t know if he’ll do it but I think I’m gettin’ him…I’m inching my way toward talking my way into it. So maybe one day we’ll do another album together.

E: Ahh. Definitely, man!

PW: I love the fact that we’re able to work together and be friends again, you know? You know it’s been great.

E: That’s great. What do you think, or I guess could you comment on the importance of having a side hustle? A lot of rappers are coming out with clothing lines or other things besides just the music. Do you think that’s something rappers should look into as far as having a career?

PW: I mean I think you definitely gotta keep your options open if something comes up then they should definitely do it if that’s where their heart is. But sometimes people just get some t-shirts printed up and say they got a clothing line, you know? And that ain’t necessarily what a clothing line is. I’ve been blessed to be able to be on my good friend, Travis Barker’s, clothing line called Famous Stars and Straps. So when me and him and my other homeboy, Skinhead Rob got together and started doing music together the opportunity came up for us to do a clothing line with our group, too. And then Travis already had all the marketing teams and it was very easy for us to transition into a clothing line. We have a clothing line but we have a full marketing department, distribution, you know, a real clothing line. Not just t-shirts we had steam-pressed up. The thing about it is you have so many opportunities to make money and do what you wanna do and as you start to build a fan base up, your fans will support you with everything you do and any thing you do. Go on out and get every dollar that you can and whatnot.

E: The southern artists really started being successful with independent labels. What do you think as far as new rappers looking for a deal? Like independent versus a major label deal.

PW: I think you have to go through a growth process. You know everybody can’t be Kobe [and] go straight to the pros from high school. Some people can. Rashard Lewis, Kevin Garnett, you know those are 3 of the elite. A lot of times when you try to go straight to the pros from high school it don’t work. You gotta go through that college thing and you gotta go through growth. And, you know, like myself, especially with the Texas movement, you know, Slim Thug, Chamillionaire, Mike Jones, Trae, Z-ro, everybody had a history of albums, a resume of independent albums we put out before we got on to a major label. We earned it, you know? And sometimes when people get a little buzz goin’ and sign a record deal they lose a lot of that because they don’t build their fan base up. You gotta build your fan base, build your relationships with people. It takes time, it takes albums. It’s not something that happens off one song or one album. It’s something that takes albums. And I think that’s why the Texas movement really died down a lot because a lot of the artists stopped putting out independent albums. They want to be in the spotlight. They want to be on BET, MTV, and have songs on. You know. I think that’s what really killed a lot of the Texas momentum. The new phase of artists didn’t put out their independent albums because they’re trying to go straight to the pros.

E: One of the things I really respect about the Texas scene, especially me being from Ohio, neither one of our cities/states have a major label record there. There are no Interscope offices in Cleveland, there are no major labels here. So I really respect the scene in Texas. Everyone really had to learn and do everything on his own. I wondered if you had any advice on how to build our scene up.

PW: I think the intentions anywhere are kinda split down the middle. Or what I learned growing up was always split down the middle where people either thought, oh these artists are just local or this producer or DJ is just local so they look down upon the local music scene, or they’re like how I was growing up, I always looked up to the local music scene. It inspired me. People are pretty much split. They either look down on the local music scene or they look up to it. I think in order for, and this goes for anywhere in the country, especially somewhere like Ohio, where you got a big major city like Cleveland, and it’s the same way in Houston. In Houston, we didn’t get a lot of love in Houston. We had to travel outside our city. We went to Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, all the surrounding cities and got love. And once we got enough buzz and enough love people in Houston started supporting us, too. On the back end. A lot of people don’t get love in their home town. They gotta travel they gotta hit the road, dude. Go to Columbus, Cincinnati, Chillicothe, all those small little towns. That’s how you really get your market on. Ou can make a lot of paper that way. The problem is a lot of artists just want the hometown love. They want the home town fame so they get caught up on that so they don’t care if they’re a star. If they’re from Cleveland they may not care if they’re a star in Columbus they want to be a star in Cleveland. But it don’t work like that.

E: A lot of times the home market is real easy or incredibly hard. Some people are like ‘oh yea, it’s the local guy. We’ll support him’ or “man, I know that guy. He works at the super market. He wants to be a rapper now?!” [both laugh]. So we gotta get outta there. Are you familiar with the Ohio Hip Hop Awards?

PW: Yea, I think my boy Young Yonny won an award there.

E: Yea. I really think events like that really fit in with what we talked about earlier about supporting the local scene and people who may not be in your area.

PW: Yea, I mean just look at Kid Cudi. He’s from Cleveland. He didn’t start making it til he traveled out. He went to New York before he got discovered. So I mean, I’m not saying everyone has to go to New York, or Atlanta, or LA but if it ain’t workin’ for you in your city you got to move around. Hit up that big city a couple hundred miles down the road. Just travel. Promote. I mean when I was young I bought everything local that came out. Any artist from Houston I’d buy, even people I’d never heard of. I’d look at the CD and say ok, I’m gonna support it. I’m gonna check it out. In order for the scene or particular region to blow up you have to support your own.

E: What can we expect from Paul Wall in the future? Do you have any plans of behind the scenes stuff like A&R work or stuff like that?

PW: Um, not really, man. I just plan on continuing to put out the music the way I have been. My fan base supports me. I feel like I’m putting out good music so I’m gonna continue to do it. Maybe branch off and do other things with my clothing line, Expensive Taste. The clothing line is www.expensivetaste.net and grills, too. Me and my boy, Johnny still doin’ the grills. It’s on www.grillsbypaulwall.com but other than that, man I’m just gonna continue what I’m doing. I have a real big passion for music. I love music. I’m real happy to be doing it.

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