Artist: The Beatnuts
Interviewer: Alex Fruchter

After ten-plus years in the business, the Beatnuts offer us their latest release, Milk Me. I recently had the chance to talk with both JuJu and Psycho Les: about the album, getting older, and that funky Beatnuts sound.

Soundslam: You guys have been around for a long time, I’m just wondering what have you guys learned in all that time in music? Not even just how music works, but in terms of touring around the world and just growing and getting older.

Psycho Les: We learned a lot. We learned a whole lot of different music period. We learned a lot about the business too, what’s wrong with this shit. The traveling, just listening to all kinds of different hip hop all around the world, shit is different out there. I think on this new album we give everybody a taste of everything. We got shit for overseas, shit for NY, and a little bit for everybody. We’ve just been around.

Soundslam: Talking about different sounds for different people, what’s it been like for each album keeping your Beatnuts fans and still kind of changing and exploring new things on records and drawing new people in, but at the same time keeping your original fan base?

Les: We think about that sometimes. It could affect us in a bad way, but sometimes you gotta do it. We’re still gonna try to do it in a funky way that everybody could accept it.

Soundslam: How have you seen your own sound change or be perfected over the last ten years? What are you drawing on for inspiration to keep going and keep making music?

Les: I don’t listen to the radio at all. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t watch videos. Really what keeps me going is digging. I stay out there digging and just digging for new sounds and new shit on different, foreign records. That’s what keeps me going.

Soundslam: What kind of things do you get into, what things do you listen to on the side?

Les: I listen to old school shit, R &B, old school disco, little hip hop here and there definitely.

Soundslam: What did it take for you guys to achieve such a high level in music? What can you pass on to younger people now that are trying to get in a make a name for themselves as you guys obviously have?

Les: We love this shit, man. Even if we weren’t getting paid we would do this shit. I started off as a deejay, deejaying, collecting records and digging, and chopping beats up. Once the sampling game came I was already kind of straight, I had records. We just love this shit and that’s what sticks out when you hear our records, it’s just funky. It’s that Beatnuts sound that nobody could bring you.

Soundslam: What can we expect from ‘Milk Me’?

Les: ‘Milk Me,’ it’s some more funky music. It’s not the best of the Beatnuts. It’s just another stage, another album. It’s more funky beats for the beat heads. We got a lot of special guests on there just killing the lyrics. We’re just trying to put out some new music, something to refresh the ear out there.

Soundslam: Why did you guys choose the title ‘Milk Me’?

Les: At the time we were overseas and it some in-door joke. We were in the hotel room and there was a porn rocking in the background. I wasn’t even watching it at the time but I heard the homeboy, he was like, ‘milk me, milk me.’ So I turned to the TV and he was getting head and that shit was mad funny to me. The guy had a fucking British accent, ‘milk me.’ At the time we was doing the album and that shit just…we were like, ‘fuck it man. That shit could go in a lot of different ways.’

Soundslam: Definitely, it’s got a lot of meanings…What was the mood like making it?

Les: Like any other album, we just go in there, we vibe out, we listen to tracks. We pick joints and we just start rocking, getting ideas, throwing ideas together. We definitely got the drinks rocking, shorties coming through, we got the smoke in the air. We just have a good time with it. This time around we try to do shit that’s for crowds. We spend a lot of time on stage rocking crowds and everything, so definitely our music was towards that type of shit.

Soundslam: How would you describe a Beatnuts show?

Les: High energy! It’s some real hip hop, beats and spitting, no dancing or nothing. I mean, we wylin’ up there, having a good time with the crowd and we like to get the crowd involved, that’s really it. I don’t like to just get up there and have the crowd staring at me. I want to get them involved too, and feeling like they’re a part of the whole shit. We get the crowd on stage rocking with us, dancing, we got the girls dancing on stage. Everybody’s just having a good time. We turn it into a house party.

Soundslam Les: you said earlier that you started out as a deejay. What made you want to make that transition from deejay to emcee and do you still fuck around on the tables:?

Les: We had no choice really to step up to the mics and step it up. Cause if you remember the original Beatnuts was with Fashion, so he was really the main emcee. Me and Juju was just playing to play the background and just do the beats. Shit didn’t happen so we just had to step to the mic. And it’s in us anyways, it’s not like it’s hard for us…..

It seems that for more than ten years it’s been in the Beatnuts to make music. Whether on their own hits like No Escapin’ This, or Watch Out Now, or producing tracks for Mos Def, Jurassic Five, and others, the Beatnuts always bring their signature sound. They also have an answer for the critics that say they are just recycling material.

Les: We do hip hop man, we do real hip hop. People ask us, ‘yo what’s the message in your album?’ The message is it’s fucking real hip hop, and ain’t nobody doing it like us. We putting people on like Greg Nice, and Prince Whipple Whip. These kids today, they don’t know who the fuck this is. These are pioneers in the game. That’s the message, it’s some real hip hop. I don’t even remember a record that’s out today that has any scratching on it. N**gas don’t even own turntables: anymore. That’s it really, we’re a real hip hop group. And that’s what we put out, real hip hop. Hip hop to me is about having fun.

Juju: I’m saying, we don’t go and conceptually make records. As far as recycling, I don’t know that shit. That shit to us is taboo. With the beats we strive to keep our shit original and keep the essence of sampling in our music just to keep it hip hop. We keep on sampling and we’re always digging so I don’t see how we’re recycling anything really. When n**gas is getting high and drunk in the fucking studio, we just having fun with this shit. I’m not trying to save the world with these albums. I’m just trying to have fun and make some dope tunes at the same time. I think people ask for too fucking much. Everybody’s a fucking critic. You got so many n**gas rapping and making beats now it’s like everybody’s a goddamn critic. Beatnuts, if anything we kept it the realest, cause we the same n**gas from day one. Everybody’s trying to switch up their styles for different reasons and different agendas, we’re keeping it funky. We still sampling, we don’t give a fuck who’s suing. N**gas is like, ‘I don’t sample no more cause you gotta pay a lot for those samples.’ That shit ain’t hip hop no more. N**gas is scaring you into some other shit.

Soundslam: I think that passion comes through in your music. As Les was saying earlier, you guys would still be rocking for free, but being in it for so long, how have you seen hip hop change?

Juju: I think we were just born at a good time. Me and Les, we’re just fortunate. People our age were born, like the people that seen hip hop coming through the 90’s that experienced groups like Jungle Brothers and stuff like that, and A Tribe Called Quest and shit like that. Now it’s just a whole big industry right now. You got all these young kids that’s in it for the wrong reasons. There’s not really a love for the music there, it’s more about the glamour and the glitz. I look at it a different way, so it comes out of me in a different way that I don’t expect young people to understand. As far as trying to teach them, I don’t know. The only way I can teach them is to keep making records like this and hope that they ask questions. Like, ‘who the fuck is that Greg Nice that they keep putting on they record?’ And they go back and buy Nice and Smooth album, and be like, ‘oh yeah, I kind of remember this shit right here.’ Make them go look who these people are.

Soundslam: I know you guys did some work with Babu on Duckseason and produced with J5. Partnering with groups like that, that have a younger generation as a fan base is a good start in breaking through to younger kids. Who are some other groups you may want to work with in the future?

Juju: There’s a lot of people I would like to work with. Somebody like Kanye West, Evidence and them.

Soundslam: I think you and Dilated have a similar kind of feel. That would be a good partnership, it’s worked in the past.

Juju: Yeah, definitely. I just saw Evidence in LA he’s about to start working on a new record, we’re supposed to collab on something. The last time it was like I just sold him a beat. It wasn’t a big collab. But this time he said he really wants to go in the studio and make a song with me. Les: I would like to work with whoever, LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes, Mobb Deep. We’re open for everybody, it don’t matter. We got music for anybody. Anybody you throw us we’re gonna guarantee we got something for them.

Juju: Man, I wish I would have done something with Jay before he retired. That would have been nice to have that. Definitely Mobb Deep, that way I could give them something. There’s a lot of people we would work with. I’m pretty open as far as that’s[producing] concerned.

Soundslam: You think Jay-Z retired? You don’t think he’s gonna come back?

Juju: I don’t know, yeah…He’s a grown man so you got to accept his decision. I know he loves this but I think he felt it was the right time to do what he did. I’m not mad at him at all. What else can you do?

Les: That n**ga has a lot of other things going for him too so it’s not he’s just chillin’.

Juju: That n**ga’s a grown man, kid.

Soundslam: Do you guys ever find it difficult balancing growing up versus still doing music. Have you guys ever thought about doing something else?

Juju: I’m struggling with that shit right now, kid. It’s creeping up on me right now. I don’t even know if this is…you know. I don’t want to be a 40 year old rapper. I’m struggling with those demons right now, if this is what I want to do the rest of my life. I know I love the music. I may continue making the music, I may back off the mic for right now anyway. At least while I’m going through this. I want to see what the hell it is I want to do with my life. Who knows? Right now, when I’m at this stage of confusion I should just stay away from the mic cause I may sound bitter. I may say something that I might regret.

Les: We definitely got groups we’re working with and trying to put them out. That’s definitely the future. We’re gonna have music forever. That’s been our thing forever, the production.

Juju: Word up. On the production tip, the Beatnuts aren’t going nowhere.

Soundslam: Are you going on a tour in support of this record? What’s up in the near future?

Juju: I know we’re supposed to go do a little road work right now come September, do a promo run, hit up some cities.

Soundslam: Do you guys have a favorite city to hit up?

LES:: LA, Chi-town.

Soundslam: Chicago, that’s where I’m from.

Les: Chicago always shows us love. Really anywhere, man. Everywhere we go there’s a crowd there for us.

Juju: We’ve been fortunate as far as that’s concerned.

Les: It’s shit like that that keeps us going. Because if I was to ever walk on stage and the crowd is like, ‘boo, boo, boo,’ I’ll drop the mic and be like, ‘fuck all y’all. I won’t do this shit.’ But it’s not like that. We walk on stage and the crowd’s wylin’ and screamin. So fuck it baby, let’s rock with it.

Milk Me, the Beatnuts latest studio album is in stores now.