It’s been almost six months since Dice Records took home the Orlando Source Award trophy for Best Record Label, and Shredda, CEO of Dice Records, reminds “the doubters,” that they are “still Orlando’s #1 Record Label, fo’ sho’.” Shredda took a few moments to tell OZONE what he’s got in store for us in the future.


SHREDDA:
First of all, we’ve been setting up some local shows and promoting ourselves real heavy in the streets. We’re gonna come out with Y.G.O. and Brother C that first weekend of August, on August 2nd at Heroes. The album will be in all the mom & pop corner stores, Sound Advice, Audio Sound Factory, CD Warehouse, East & West Record Store in Winter Park, and other stores. It can also be ordered on our website, www.dicerecord.com . “Maniac,” and “Mango Seed,” from Y.G.O.’s “Shut Tha Block Down,” album are both getting airplay on 102 Jamz on Thrill da Playa’s show, and Brother C has the singles “Freak,” and “Bust A Move,” out on the radio right now. The only complaint I have with the underground is that they don’t really play our songs the way they should. All Fam has a single out right now called “Wreck,” and “Ebony Butterfly,” which are both doing pretty good. We’ve got a tour planned later on this fall, as well.


TYM:
Tym, the newest member of the Dice Records family, recently linked up with Shredda to collaborate on their first album together, “Defensive State of Mind,” which will be hitting the streets in October or November of 2002. Tym talked to OZONE about his background in music and why he chose to be down with the Dice camp.

Have you always thought about becoming a rapper?
Yeah, I’ve always been into music. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I came out of high school, but I got into the streets and put it on the back burner. Now I’m coming back into the game.

What inspired you to get back into the game?
It’s just something I wanted to do. I’ve never played basketball or football too much, so this is just my dream.

Do you think those are the only options for people coming up in the streets?
No – I have a lot of choices, but music is all I want to do.

So what is your current status in the studio?
Shredda and I are working on an album together, “Defensive State of Mind,” which should be pressed up in late October or November. We had both planned to do solo albums, but we did one track together and decided to just do the whole album together.

What types of songs are on the album?
It’s a mix of everything – whatever the beat brings out of us, whoever comes up with the hook. It’s just in our nature. Sometimes other people come up with the hook and we just run with it.

Who is doing the production for the album?
Some of the Dice Records camp like Sadaam, Brother C, and Elkin Ruiz.

Do you have any tour plans coming up?
We have a tour coming up, but before the tour we’re gonna have an album release week, probably next month.

Being a young, new artist in Orlando, there’s a lot of labels you could have linked up with. What made you choose Dice?
I was gonna start my own label, but I decided to put mine on the back burner. As far as linking up with Dice? For me, it’s just the realness. Everybody out here is underground right now, so you have to have a certain mentality if you’re gonna get respect. That’s what I love about the Dice Records staff, is that everyone gets respect. There’s a lot of artists that get pushed around. You’ve got to throw some bows! You can’t be like a schoolboy when you’re among street cats, or you’ll get pushed over. Everybody wants to be a bully.

We were talking earlier about the Summer Fiesta concert at Tabu. What did you think of that show?
I dug it, with the exception of how they handled Jailbird. They didn’t have enough time for all the opening acts, I guess, so they told him he couldn’t perform. If it was me, I would’ve done my show regardless. I would’ve done what I cam eto do. Shit, if they had my name on the radio commercial, everybody in the building might have been there to see me for all they know. Let me get my 3 minutes and 45 seconds of fame! (laughs)

If you could work with any artist, who would it be?
I listen to more Northern rappers because that’s the type of flow I have – more hip-hop than down South. I don’t sound like Jay-Z, but some people tell me that we have a similar flow. I’d like to work with Scarface, Outkast, cats like that with a deeper vocab who can rap. These days, it’s not what you say but how you say it.

Do you think that’s decreased the quality of the music?
Yeah, definitely, at certain levels. You have underground music, but then when you cross over into the mainstream, you have more educated people buying your albums so they want to hear something to make them think.

What’s the goal of your music?
My goal is to make people think, because I’m a thinker.


BROTHER C:
Brother C’s newest album, “P.I.E.: Player International Entertainer,” drops this month, and will be available at many local stores, such as Sam Goody’s, Auto Sound Factory, Mega DJs, CD Warehouse, East & West Record stores, and many others. Most tracks on the album were recorded at Dice Record’s home studio, Hittin’ Lics, featuring production from Total Chaos, Hollywood of Minds Combined, and Elkin Ruiz. OZONE sat down with Brother C to find out the meaning behind each track on his new album.

MAYO
It’s about money, making flow. Dividends, dips, chedda. I just came up with “mayo” for money. The things I count. I see dollars every day. I’m hungry for it. Money, power, and respect are the three things we want in the game – but money comes first. “Money and the power / Certain cats be sour / By the hour / Their soul I devour.”

SEVEN DAYS
It’s about the things I do seven days a week – chillin’ in the hood and parlayin’.

CHEDDA
Chedda is about money too, but I came with a different perspective on this track. “I hate to tell ya / No one can do it better.” That’s what I’m saying – I’m all about my chedda. I don’t know what the next man is about, but I know what I’m about.

HOW DOES IT FEEL
I’m just talking about how anyone can fit in anyone else’s shoes. I just broke it down, and said, “How does it feel to get hit by my clique?”

YAYO
That stands for servin’ yayo, and that’s what I did back in the day, back in my times. That’s all I talk about, the realness. Niggas don’t want to hear it, but I talk about how I came up from the ground to get mine. That’s all me, right there.

CRIME, SEX, & DRUGS
This song is talking about the three basic things that go on in the world. These are things we have to get around to live our lives, to party, to hustle, whatever. Crime, sex, and drugs. We don’t need those three things – but they’re all there. That’s what’s going on in the world.

BIG CAHUNA PIMP
This song just describes what I am. “I got Gs in my pocket / Fuck your bitch / We got spare hoes / So we can share hoes.”

KEEP ON
This is something that we put together one night just buzzin, chillin’. We just decided we’re gonna keep on doing what we do, and we won’t let anyone stop us from making moves. Some people hate. No matter what you do, there’s always gonna be somebody trying to hold you back, like crabs in a pot. When one crab tries to climb out, all the other crabs try to hold him back.
FREAK
Freak is describing a girl, period. “She just a freak / She wanna be with me / She wanna lay with me / She’s just a freak.” I wrote that song for all the women. I was just describing that girls are freaks, but as a man, I don’t know what they want – do they wanna lay with me, or do they wanna be with me? The only thing I do know is that she’s just a freak. God says you’ll never know all the ways of a woman – so I’ll never know. I know why she’s a freak though – they all are! The things she do when we get down to it – that lets me know she’s a freak. You know when you’re dealing with a freak – when you both collide, connect.

X PILL
It’s similar to White Dawg’s song, “Pop A Pill.” It’s talking about getting high on X pills. X has been here since ’87, but at first a lot of people wasn’t touching it. We felt that it was a powerful drug, but now people pop it like it’s nothing.

BUST A MOVE
That’s just describing my Dice Records family. We’re gonna bust a move, tonight. In the industry, no matter what we do, we’re gonna show and prove.


Y.G.O.
Y.G.O.’s newest album, “Shut Tha Block Down,” drops August 2nd, kicking off with an album release party at Heroes Nightclub. OZONE sat down with Don Dada, Dice Record’s self-described “#1 Stunna” of Y.G.O. – the Young G’s Organization – to find out what we should expect on this album. “If any distributor ran into Orlando right now and asked anyone who’s the hottest label, they would have no choice but to say Dice Records,” Don Dada says, “because the trophy has been won. I see artists that are trying to come up, but they don’t have a powerful team. We have an all-star team here.”

CHOPPER BULLETS
That’s the first track we did for this album, mostly for entertainment. I was vicious and hungry to show Orlando that I am King. It’s off the chain. I mostly wanted to stress that we’ve got it on lock, even though nobody knows yet. It’s real quiet.

BEEFIN
We were beefin’ with a label at the time, even before we got on Dice Records, called Big Face Entertainment. I was a more aggressive rapper at the time, and this song was just a way to let people know that we love beef. One way or the other you’ve got to prove that you’re the greatest, and I’m gonna promote myself.

DO WHAT YOU CHOOSE
Handle yourself. Do what you do. This was at a point where Y.G.O. was growing into a more powerful group, more mature. The music we’d been doing wasn’t really hot until Godfather started doing some beats for us. He produced most of the album.

SICAMOSIA
Sicamosia means the end of the end, the sickness of the rap game. Every rapper has a sick style in their flavor, every rapper wanna be sick. Sicamosia cames from a mentality of how we were living at the time. This track was produced by Goldfinga and it featured my brother Escobar, who’s in prison now. I felt like he was the hardest one on the album.

MANGO SEED
This is the only track on the album that I’m not featured on, but mango seed is about the women. A mango seed is a woman’s vagina, because a woman’s hidden spot looks like a mango once it’s all eaten up and chewed up. I don’t know where they got the idea from, but I liked the topic. That’s really the only song we talk about women on the whole album.

MANIAC
That was our first single. As far as radio airplay goes, we’ve been loved by few and hated by many. I wanna give a big shoutout to Thrill da Playa, cuz he plays us the way we should be played while other radio stations hate. It’s all gravy, though.

SNAKE IN YOUR EYES
It’s about when you look in someone’s eyes and you can see that he’s scheming and conniving, a person who wants to hold you back from what you’ve got to do. We’re really getting on the topic of haters.

FATAL DICE RECORDS
That was one of the singles I did solo. I wanted to let everybody know that we’re not just Dice Records anymore, we’re FDR – Fatal Dice Records. I take this game so seriously.

FEDS ALL AROUND US
That was mostly a track where we wanted to touch on the basics of the rap game. Grandaddy Souf touched on it a little bit, talking about, “Fuck da Law.” We feel like we are being watched – they’re all around us so we can’t handle our business. That’s why so many successful rappers are going down today, because they are being watched.

SHUT DOWN THA BLOCK
We’re telling everybody in Orlando that it’s closed. We got this locked this year, next year, the year after, and so on. But I also wanna give a shoutout to a cat that’s doing his thing real tight, Killa Gorillas and Red Dogg.

AIN’T NO KILLING ME
You could kill me and take my life physically, but you can’t take the raps that I’m gonna spit out of the ghetto. You can’t stop people from feeling the Don Dada, cuz I could go on for a million years. I just want to be remembered around here like a legend if I do go early, like Tupac. Tupac was one of the greatest rappers, when he was alive.

DON’T GET TOUCHED
That was a song that really inspired me. You better slow your roll with what’s going on in these streets. Everybody can floss and ride around and do what you gotta do, but consequences come with it. Everybody has to handle their own business.


ALL FAM
ALL FAM is the black sheep of the Dice Records family, stuck all the way out in Merritt Island. They’ve already finished their 19-track debut album slated to drop in August, and are itching to rip mics all throughout Central Florida. We first spoke to these cats back in january, and since then, we’ve been counting the days to their release party. The whole crew wasn’t available for the interview, but I did manage to catch up with Alias.

Do you plan to relocate to Orlando if your music is well-received here?
Definitely. As a matter of fact, I’m trying to go to school down there, at Full Sail. I want to be multi-faceted, learn how to produce and drop tracks. I want to know how to do everything.

Who else produced joints on your first release?
My mans Hollywood from Minds Combined did most of the album. We also have our in-house producers who did several tracks, and the single we dropped was produced by this cat Amidaeus.

What separates you from the other groups on Dice Records label?
Dice Records is mostly a Dirty South label, but our sound is more universal. It has a little Dirty South feel to it cuz most of us have been here all of our lives, but it’s mostly just straight, raw hip-hop. We’ve got many different unique flavors and different styles.

Have any of you thought about doing solo projects after you drop and everyone knows what All Fam is about?
Yeah, in fact, we were just talking about that. There’s four of in the group, but my man Grace just bounced to the Army tryin’ to do his thing over there. When I move down to Orlando I might start thinking about a solo project. We haven’t really discussed it heavy like that, but we’ll see what happens.

Will Grace be back?
Oh yeah, he’ll be back. We already have him on three tracks on the next album we’re working on. He left right after the first album was finished.

How did you link up with Shredda and the Dice Records family?
We met through a 69 Boyz concert in Cocoa Beach that Shredda was promoting.

Any tentative dates for shows in Orlando?
We just performed as part of the Summer Fiesta at Tabu. Right now, we’re trying to do whatever we can – shows, mixtapes, anything to get our names out there. We’re serious about this, and we want people to know that we’re for real. All Fam is for real.

What’s All Fam’s goal with this album dropping soon?
We just want to get the same respect and the same buzz that veteran Orlando cats are getting now. When you think of Orlando you think of all the veterans doing their thing, like the WarHedz and Grandaddy Souf. Now you see Smilez and Southstar, them cats are in The Source! We just want to get to that point and let people know that we’re holding it down for all hip-hop. You can’t deny us, man! We’re real!

Anything else you want to say to the people of Central Florida?
Yeah! Go check out the album when it drops this August, and look out for All Fam in a club near you!

- Interviews by Noel Malcolm and Julia Beverly