“Dirty Tampons and Multiple Talented Women”
Interview by: Nygh

PHILFLAVA: What does OH-10 have to offer?

BLUEPRINT: Low cost of living!

PHILFLAVA: Being a beatmaker, what is your take on Primo's recent stint against Serato and C-DJs?

BLUEPRINT: Well first of all Primo is always mad, so I'm not really sure what its about. In my opinion, C-DJs are pretty wack but Serato is dope. I recently started using it for live shows a couple months back and I like it a lot. It would cost me $500 to make one dubplate with all my instrumentals on it for a tour, you would get ten copies and half of them would be scratched by the end of the tour, but that’s not an issue with Serato. Its just like doing a show with records except the quality is more consistent, so I got no problems with it.

PHILAFLAVA: If you could meet one person dead or alive, who would you NOT want it to be?

BLUEPRINT: George W. Bush. I'd have to strangle that dude.

PHILAFLAVA: RJD2's latest albums have been very non-Hiphop. When working with him for "Things go better with RJ and Al", could you sense that his heart wasn't with Hiphop too much anymore?

BLUEPRINT: RJs vision has always been bigger than just Hip-hop music so nothing really changed if you ask me. And since "Things Go Better" was way more conventional than our earlier Soul Position work I dont think his direction affected where we wanted to go at all. I think its one of those things that changes as you grow. When you're 21 you wear hip-hop on your sleeve and will fight somebody over their opinion, but when you're 30 years old you don't give a shit what people think, you just wanna enjoy music and make the best music you can make. I love hip-hop just as much as ever, only difference is that I love other forms of music too.

PHILAFLAVA: Why does Scribble Jam get such a bad rep?

BLUEPRINT: Too many nerds, no diversity, and Cincinnati is one of those cities that you probably wouldn't visit if you didn’t have to. I lived there 7 years and I couldn’t wait to get out.

PHILAFLAVA: On 8 Million Stories you have a song called "Fuckajob". What was the worst job you ever had?

BLUEPRINT: I had a job for a cleaning company once and I was always stuck cleaning womens bathrooms. Going in I thought dudes were dirty but women are way dirtier than dudes. I couldn’t believe the shit they were doing up in there...stuffin’ used tampons inside shit like some kind of treasure hunt. You would try to change the toilet tissue roll and a dirty ass tampon would pop out like "suprise!". You had to rock the plastic glove joints all the time.

PHILAFLAVA: Inkwell wasn't on the last Greenhouse Effect joint. What's up with the kid? BLUEPRINT: Dude is a preacher now, but he does gospel rap now. He changed his rap name to Sword. Me and Fess were going to dead Greenhouse alltogether after he quit, but then we felt like we could take it somewhere different without out Inkwel so we decided to keep it going.

PHILAFLAVA: Is Hiphop dead?

BLUEPRINT: Oh yeah. Shit's been dead for a minute...but fuck it. Consumers and Clear Channel killed it, but since dead rappers sell more records than a lot of the living ones I don’t think it matters much.

PHILAFLAVA: If you could change one thing about you rap career, what would it be?

BLUEPRINT: Not much really. I think I've made a lot of good moves since I've been doing it. I'm happy. PHILAFLAVA: Illmatic or Reasonable Doubt?

BLUEPRINT: Illmatic. I hated Jay-Z back then--now I like him.

PHILAFLAVA: On your "Candyland" songs from the same album, you mention many things you remember from your childhood. Do you think kids now-a-days are deprived of the fun that us 80s babies had?

BLUEPRINT: I dont know if I would take it that far. What people call classic changes every year, you know? Sometimes me and my Dj Rare Groove will be out going thru records and playing joints that are classic to us, but the younger kids dont really it. But when we drop some shit that’s from 1995-1997, or from the Rawkus or Deathrow era they go nuts, because that’s classic to them. Its just another era we like but its classic to them. I think memories and popular culture are gonna hopefully give them the same kinds of memories and affection towards their childhood that we have. Like if we were buggin’ off of Sony Walkmans, they're gonna be buggin off of Apple iPods. The only thing I think we got on them is 80s music. For better or worse its got a lot of staying power and isnt going anywere fast. 90s music doesn’t even get as much burn as 80s music.

PHILAFLAVA: If you were on a deserted island and could only take one thing with you, what would it be?

BLUEPRINT: My iPod.

PHILAFLAVA: If you were on the same deserted island and could only take one female celebrity with you, who would it be?

BLUEPRINT: Maybe Rachel Ray, not because she's the hottest chick but because she can cook and she looks good enough. You gotta take a woman with multiple talents on a journey like that.

PHILAFLAVA: What's on your hot dog?

BLUEPRINT: Honey mustard.

PHILAFLAVA: On your song "I Need Minutes " from your latest album, you talk about a lot about cell phones. What carrier are you currently with?

BLUEPRINT: I got a sidekick now so I fuck with T-Mobile. They're way better than Verizon so far.

PHILAFLAVA: Did your sales increase a lot when JayZ's "Blueprint" came out?

BLUEPRINT: I don’t think so. Only thing I saw more of was corny internet jokes by people who had never heard of me until after that record came out and thought I got my name from it.

PHILAFLAVA: What was the most scared you've ever been?

BLUEPRINT: Getting shot at and hearing bullets whistle over my head and shoulders.

For more info on Blueprint please visit these websites.

http://www.weightless.net
http://www.rhymesayers.com