Artist: GLC
Interviewer: RJ Walker

GLC understands love, life, and loyalty, and his career as rapper reflects these values. GLC loves the craft and art of being an emcee, shows the reality of life in Chicago, and he has pledged his loyalty to longtime mentor and friend, Kanye West. Despite having to wait years to release his debut album on West's G.O.O.D. Music, GLC has kept his name in hip hop listeners' ears with timely guest appearances and mixtape appearances. Now with his debut, GLC plans to show a side of Chicago that has long been hidden, the side that struggles with poverty and temptation.

GLC is not selling death, however. GLC is shedding light on unseen corners. His evocative voice aims to be a cultural touchstone in a hip hop environment content on selling ringtones and silly dances. GLC has been rapping for years before he got any acclaim and he plans to rap for a lot more now that he has garnered the ears of listeners worldwide.

Soundslam had the opportunity to sit down with the Chicago emcee to talk about the delay of his album, the difficult choices of his youth, and about the enduring relationship with Kanye West. Plus, it's not often that an emcee name checks Guru during an interview.

Soundslam: I'm going to get into the question everyone wants asked, when is the first album coming out?

GLC: This summer. Love, Life, and Loyalty is coming.

SoundSlam: What's the delay with the album?

GLC: The delay is that I've been traveling, I've been on the road. I've been on tour, I've been on a whole lot of things. I've been on mixtapes and I've been on videos to keep the buzz going, but when you're truly trying to create a masterpiece, you never want to rush it. Hopefully it will be well received by the world when I drop it.

SoundSlam: I guess it's like what Kanye said about his first album, he had been waiting his whole life to release it.

GLC: Yeah, that's what it is. Also, the fact that G.O.O.D Music and the label it was distributed by severed ties, they parted ways and that kind of set back all the artists that were on the label. I was slated to come out in '06.

SoundSlam: Do you think it made you a better artist, being on the road and collaborating with other artists?

GLC: Ah man, it really has. I recognize a lot of myself in those guys, and I'm just waiting to take the shot myself. It's all good, just sitting in the cut building my artistry.

SoundSlam: As far as guests for the album, who are you going to have on there?

GLC: Kanye West, of course. Three Six Mafia, of course. I got John Legend, of course. I got Common, of course. I got Bun B. I got some spirited producers out of Atlanta and Chicago. I got some fire on the album.

SoundSlam: You sound really happy about how the album is turning out?

GLC: Man, I'm really happy because every time I play the album out, people are like, 'you should go platinum.'

SoundSlam: Coming out of Chicago, you seem to have this really close relationship with Kanye West, but you seem to come from two different places. How did you grow up and how did people from two different environments hook up?

GLC: We had mutual buddies. We had a buddy that grew up in the hood, but he was able to go to the magnet school because he was smart. His mother put him in magnet school and that's where Kanye went to school. That's were he met Kanye. They were handling their business, marketing their own concepts. But fortunately enough, they embraced each other's concepts, so they became friends. After that, my friend ran into Kanye at the mall and they were like 'hey, I got a buddy named Beats, you should come holler at him.' This was back in '93. I went through a little of this and little of that. But me and dude just clicked because despite the man being from a different background, I respect the man as a man and the person as the person. It's not all about where you come from. It's all about what's really inside. Being able to judge the character of the man and not just his surroundings, but what separates him from the pack. The dude had a great heart, he had vision. He really liked the gals, and I really liked the gals. Man we really like music and we both had Afrocentric influences in the household.

SoundSlam: How are you going to stand out from the rest of the G.O.O.D record label artists?

GLC: Man, listen to my music man. Do I sound like anything else that's come out on G.O.O.D music? I'm the GLC for example, there will be none before me, and there will be none after me. What I got going on is a hustler story. I'm the dude that's on American Gangster on B.E.T., the documentary, not the movie. I cut out stories from that.

SoundSlam: What does GLC stand for exactly?

GLC: It depends on how I feel. It could be Got To Love Chicago. Or it could mean Gangster Loves Christ. It just matters how I feel.

SoundSlam: You're kind of showing the darker side, maybe the harder side of Chicago. Is that because of how you grew up?

GLC: Yeah, I seen some things because of my experiences. It's just the pain, the pain. It's just about the difficult choices, because I could have made some different choices growing up.

SoundSlam: Yeah, you could have avoided some pain but the choices got you to where you are right now. What kind of choices are you talking about exactly?

GLC: If you're standing on the corner and you know one of those guys might have some work on him and that dude may have a pistol on him, and a little something on you or may not have nothing on you. If the police ride down on you, you're all going to jail. Depending on how they see it or who talks the most. Whatever goes on there, they're going to determine who is going to get the most time. Even things like that in your community, you have to avoid them. Every other day you could get caught up in something street level. I grew up in the streets where it wasn't a fad. Back then, you didn't try to act like you were doing anything. Now, everyone acts like they're shooting someone. We don't be doing any of that, because that's not teaching the children anything but destruction.

SoundSlam: Why are people attracted to destruction anyway?

GLC: Because we grew up watching all kind of movies and s**t. We watched Rambo, Commando, GoodFellas, Casino, you know what I'm saying. Those were the guys we wanted to be like because we grew up without fathers in the house. We wanted to be like what we saw on the TV. We saw all this gangsta s**t on TV and movies. Sometimes life is so bad you wish you were living a movie. With that being said, a lot of times people emulate...That leads to little kids watching adults, watching this s**t, and wanting to be like the adults they see. They can see LeBron James on TV, but it's rare they see LeBron in the hood. Some of this s**t is believable, you can believe that s**t.

SoundSlam: I read that when you were growing up you were involved in the Gangster Disciples, or that's what my research said.

GLC: That's what your research said. (laughs) When I was a kid I was affiliated.

SoundSlam: How did you get involved and how did you leave that lifestyle?

GLC: The things is, if you live by the code, you may not be doing anything negative anyway. When you're young you may not understand that because you're caught up with what the O.G's are doing. If it's some dude you look up to, and he wants you to get on some bulls**t, you might be on some bulls**t too. But, as you get older and you take losses, you do this and you do that, it comes a point where you start going 'damn, I'm doing the same thing everyday.' It becomes like the Truman Show. It really wasn't warming up. A lot of the guys that were once strictly in the streets have moved on to different things. You could look at Mayor Daley's father, the first Richard Daley and how he ran a street gang. After leaving that street gang he became mayor of Chicago. Another thing, being a part of that thing instilled a lot of good qualities in me that I use on a day to day basis in the real world.

SoundSlam: What kind of qualities did you learn then that help you in your rap career now?

GLC: Aw man, it gave me character. It gave me a voice for people who grew up in a similar place or they can see that the place I come from is authentic. We're not f**king with a character. They get that realism f**king with me.

SoundSlam: I would like to talk to you about how you developed your voice. Your voice is your most distinct characteristic as a rapper. Has it always been this way, did it come naturally?

GLC: Yeah man, it ain't like the chocolate rain did this s**t. I'm fortunate enough that the way I rap is the way I talk. Other rappers may talk with a low pitched voice and come out all high. It's just the real me on record.

SoundSlam: This may be off for a rap magazine, but your voice has character, like Tom Waits or something out of rock music.

GLC: Yeah, that's what it is all about. I remember an old Gangstarr album with Guru, the record I think is "It Must Be the Voice." I thank God he gave me the voice. 'It' must be the voice that gets you up, it must be voice that makes you buck, you may have flavor, you may have skills. But if you don't have the voice, then chill.'

SoundSlam: It is good you brought that up. Guru is one of those people who have great voices. When did you start to take this rap thing seriously?

GLC: We got on the radio in Chicago and we thought, 'It's on and popping, we got on the radio in Chicago'. After that we thought it was on, but it wasn't really on. We were on magazines, we were on the radio in Chicago. I still did music, here and there. That's when Kanye moved from Chicago to New York. Before you know it, he ended up with an album and I was on there. I read about the verse and people said it was one of the most classic verses they heard.

SoundSlam: How is it being on a label with someone you're so close to?

GLC: It's something else. It has its perks and it has these situations where...the good definitely outweighs the bad because your man is someone that's going to be down for you, no matter what. If all odds are against you, they are going to be down for you. Once you get the ball rolling, they're going to be down for you then too.

SoundSlam: What kind of record do fans need to expect? Is it a storytelling type of album or more just ripping the mic?

GLC: More storytelling, it doesn't get down for my fans like that. If you're familiar with a show from the 70's called "Good Times", JJ did this painting. At the beginning of every episode they showed this painting. The name of the painter is Ernie Barnes and he's one of the most prolific painters of our times. These rappers aren't that prolific.

SoundSlam: At the end of the day, who do you want to be compared to?

GLC: I want Michael Jordan, I want to be compared with Malcolm X, a man who transcended the limits of a man. He went from a street hustler, a gambler, to become a righteous man. He never got to the point where he was like, 'I'm resting on this bulls**t.' I want to be compared to Marvin Gaye, the soul aspect was very phenomenal. I want to be like Snoop Dogg. What he did for the West Coast, he made that universal. He made gangster music that was fun, that people were playing at parties, but it was gangster as hell. He made "Gin and Juice" and that got played everywhere, bar mitzvahs, etc.... He sold like 11 millions records on that one.

SoundSlam: Basically you want to be a world changer, a culture shifter?

GLC: I want to be like Michael Jordan and what he meant to the Chi. When Michael Jordan came to Chicago, the economy rose. I want to make it a better place for everybody. I want Chicago to be how Atlanta is, I want Chicago to be like that.

SoundSlam: Chicago has risen in the past two years, beyond Kanye. Do you have anything to say to the fans before we end this?

GLC: Thank you for the love. Go to my MySpace page, www.myspace.com/glc.