Bravehearts
The
chant of "Braveheart" quickly gets your attention on Nas'
"Made You Look" single. The name stands out not only
because it's associated with one of
rap's
most talented individuals but because it sounds like a group that's going to be a force in the rap industry. The Bravehearts consist of Jungle and Wiz who are the latest Queens Bridge act to hit the scene, and the first group to be released off Ill Will Records. The group was first introduced in 2002 on the QB Finest album. Their single "Oochie Wally" had the ladies and the fellas bobbing to their lyrics. Since then the group has gone through some changes with the lost of a member but plan to have you bobbing your head again this summer to their new album.
Q: How does it feel to finally drop a Braveheart's album, it's been a while since "Oochie Wally?"
A: [Jungle] It feels good. There is a little pressure because we have a lot of expectations to live up to but I'm relieved that it's finally about to happen.
Q: Politics slowed down this project?
A: [Jungle] Politics, then Horse left to get married and Nas takes his time working. He's a little slower than the average business man.
Q: Why did Horse leave?
A: [Jungle] Horse wasn't really built for the movement we were making. Horse was kind of scared of the Jay Z battle.
[Wiz] Yeah, he got a little nervous over that.
[Jungle] We were like it's going to be alright but his girl was telling him to stay home. He listened to his girl. So we had to let him go.
Image of Jungle during the interview
"They are afraid of the real street war. All that stuff they say on the radio that this is WWF that is what they want it."
Q: How do you guys perform "Oochie Wally" without Horse?
A: [Jungle] We just don't do his verse. He went last so it's easy. But if the crowd is really feeling it, we just do his verse.
Q: What's up with the album?
A: [Jungle] We have a lot of joints recorded but we are not finished with the album. We have Salaam Remi who did "Made You Look" for Nas. We have a lot of new producers.
Q: Were the producers from QB on this album or from everywhere?
A: [Jungle] From everywhere.
Q: How did you guys get started in the game?
A: [Jungle] Just from hanging out with Nas. I saw what he was doing, but I was so ignorant I didn't know you could make money doing this (rapping) I just saw it as fun. I was running with him then I said "hold up this guy has a lot of bread." Since I was already giving him ideas, I knew I could do this.
Q: What do you rap about?
A: [Jungle] I write about whatever comes to mind. I like girls so I write about them a lot. There's stuff I remember from the street in my past that I write about.
[Wiz] My style is just straight ghetto.
Q: What did Bravehearts think of the QB project?
A: [Wiz] The QB project was cool, but they should have let us blow it out more.
[Jungle] They should have had more of us on it and let me have more of an insight into the business aspect of it, it would have done better.
Q: How is Nas as a businessman?
A: [Jungle] Nas is more of an artist. He's so much of an artist. Business comes last to him, but to me business is first.
Q: What were you doing before you started rapping?
A: [Jungle] I was in the hood grinding. I didn't think there was a such thing as a future. I only knew there was a past and present.
Q: How do you guys ride with Nas?
A: [Jungle] Whatever he does we do. If he falls off right now, we will be there to pull him up. If he's on top, we are there with him. We will never turn on him like the rest of the people. Even if he messes up the business with us, we already know he's not a college graduate or into business. We will never turn on him.
Q: What is the Bravehearts position on the Roc?
A: [Jungle] We feel that they are a bunch of rappers that made money and are now feeling themselves. They forget what real rap is. Queens Bridge already got dissed by KRS 1 and we weren't going through that twice.
Q: Did you ever bump heads with the Roc?
A: [Jungle] They are afraid of the real street war. All that stuff they say on the radio that this is WWF that is what they want it. We are from the streets. We are so ignorant that we never thought to have a label like Roc-A-Fella. They don't want to mess with guys like us.
Q: Is Nas promoting with you guys?
A: [Jungle] I want to do as much without Nas as possible. So we can go out there by ourselves. Nas is already rich and he's an artist, he has his own stuff he's doing.
Q: So what's your relationship with all the Queens cats such as Cormega, Nature?
A: [Jungle] We are not feelin Mega. Mega was corny until he started hanging with my man Lakey. That's when people started looking at him differently "If you mess with Mega you have a beef with Lakey." So Mega started thinking people were scared of him. Mega is obsessed with my brother (Nas) but he doesn't want to see us. And Nature, we stomped him out in front of the chicken spot for saying that stuff about Will's mom. I used to manage Nature when I was seventeen I got him his first record deal. I brought him to Steve Stoute and the Trackmasters.
[Wiz] Nature was nothing but a fill in for Cormega.
[Jungle] Yeah when Cormega started going crazy I was like I got something for his ass. I'm going to make this cat Nature hot. Nobody knew who Nature was until I brought him out and he never respected me for that. I also took Nore away from Tragedy. I got him out of that head lock deal, and got him some real beats and some real money.
Q: How's Nore?
A: [Jungle] He's alright. He let the business run with his head, but he has a good work ethic. He reminds me of my brother they're both Virgos or something.
Q: When I interview all of you Queens cats none of you feel one another?
A: [Jungle] Queen's cats are jealous of one another.
Q: How about Mobb Deep and Hav and Prodigy?
A: [Jungle] I like Hav.
[Wiz] I love Hav but P.
[Jungle] P was faking all that time. He was never from the Bridge. That was Hav's friend whom he met in high school.
[Wiz] Hav used to write for P when they first started. He basically had a dream and just put that group together.
Q: So it will be hard to put that QB project 2 together?
A: [Jungle] Not really. If we were like come down to the studio, those cats would be there.
Q: What about Lake?
A: [Jungle] He's cool. He has some records, when he comes out he's going to mess cats heads up.
Q: Last person he's not from Queens but what's with you and Kay Slay?
A: [Jungle] That's some stuff I didn't even know about. He and Nas had some argument over Kay Slay video. Kay is best to chill he's to old to be messing with us. He don't want no drama.
Q: So what's your relationship with him?
A: [Jungle] Kay Slay is cool with us. He held us down when that Jay Z thing was going down. He held us down when a lot of people said Jay Z won just to follow suit. I will always love him for that no matter what goes down. That's why I tell Nas, that's people. You should do his video.
[Wiz] He could have really changed the whole history of what happened, just by jumping on the bandwagon. (If it was not for Slay, we would not be sitting here now.) He's peoples.
"We were telling him [Nas] to get back at Jay and that was like four months after Jay dis Nas."
Image of Wiz during the interview
Q: How big was "Ether" to Queens Bridge?
A: [Jungle] It was important because Nas was going to ignore that s#!t. We were like you can't do that, you have to get in the battle. You can't let that happen twice.
[Wiz] We were telling him to get back at Jay and that was like four months after Jay dis Nas.
[Jungle] Jay forgot people love Nas for his lyrics not for the gimmicks. The people love Nas for nothing else but his lyrics. I ain't going to front I thought it was over for QB for a minute myself?
[Wiz] We knew that was what everybody was thinking. We made Nas do "Ether."
Q: What do you think of 50's success?
A: [Jungle] It's gangster, what he did for rap. Rap really started to get watered down. The labels started to tell you what was hot. How do they know if it's hot or not until it hits the streets. Look at Def Jam, their whole roster is rapping about girls. Now that 50 Cent came out, it looks like it's over for them and they are rap's biggest label.
Q: Does that benefit you guys?
A: [Jungle] To me it does because fans might like my stuff more than that bourgie rap. When I rap to the girls it's from a ghetto perspective.
Q: So how do the corporates cope with you guys?
A: [Jungle] They prejudge us.
[Wiz] They are here do a job that is connected to music. They're so corporate they don't even think about the music but the music is everything.
[Jungle] I hate when the corporate people follow a trend. They follow stuff that happens instead of creating. They will take a diamond and make more diamonds.
[Wiz] Or just create dirt. We are about creating. They are about looking on what's going on in the next company.
[Jungle] I hate when a label watches what another label is doing. They are like "wow look at what they are doing over there," no working on their s#!t. Stop and look at what you are doing.
Q: We know the album isn't done but what is the theme of the album?
A: [Jungle] We couldn't do the "Oochie Wally" thing again because we already did that and we couldn't get that nasty twice. The album has a balance of songs some gangster some for the females kind of like Biggie's first album.
Q: What's next?
A: [Jungle] We trying to do movies. We write movies, I'm trying to do a science fiction and a black history film.
If you
liked what you read in this interview then click
here and order a
copy of the issue it first hit the streets in and
catch all of the other great articles you missed. This
maybe your last chance to catch-up on everything
that's going on in the HIP-HOP game.