AVC: But you could also say, "I've been a rap star for 15 years. I have this track record. I have a fan base." Isn't that reason enough to treat yourself?
RM: I tell you what, man, you gotta ask your goddamn self something. What were the deals like when I started out, compared to now? Now, you're able to go do that, because you get joint ventures, you get half of your album sales or whatever. Those deals weren't available when I was coming out. So I have regular MC deals still sticking, right now. But I'm learning to avoid that with my artists. Being in the game all these years taught me a lesson to get your own shit. I don't care how long I been in the game, you let all my fans know, I keep it myself. I don't keep it real. I didn't have the deals that have me go get the $5 million crib or whatever. All my money comes from show money. From the '90s until 2001, all I've had has been from show money. Believe me. All of it. You might get your deals, your advancements to do your album, but it wasn't in great abundance. Everybody's money in the '90s came from doing shows. That's a whole lot of show money, and that's it.
AVC: Could you talk a little about your pit bull Daddy, who lives with Dog Whisperer star Cesar Millan?
RM: Pit bull Daddy is a bigger star than me. He's been on Oprah. I knew Cesar before he was big. Cesar was right in East L.A. I was referred to him from my homeboy Tone in LA, and I brought Daddy down there when he was a puppy. Cesar used to talk to me all the time about him getting on and stuff like that, and I was just dropping Muddy Waters, I think. I finished doing Muddy Waters around then, so I was getting back fresh myself. And it was cool in there, I see him on TV, doing his thing. It's a great thing, this guy, I wish him a whole lot. But Daddy helped make his career. Everybody says that. To this day, as much as Daddy did, I haven't received one dime from Cesar, for Daddy's appearance or nothing. Which is cool, and I'm not looking for it. It's just the fact that I know when I chose that dog, even the way he was acting with me. See, he stayed out there, Daddy stayed out there. He don't live with me. Daddy lives with Cesar. He's been living with Cesar for like, six to seven years. If he stayed with me, he wouldn't have been the Daddy he's supposed to be.
That nigga wouldn't have been smoking. That nigga wouldn't have been on no TV. He would have been jogging, not running. So I sacrificed letting my baby live with me, and paid for him, like a child, for six years with Cesar, and he blew up! Now he's a star, man. Now, he had cancer of the balls, and the cancer left his balls. That's another blessing. And I'm bringing him to New York fucking next week, in two weeks. So I love him, and big ups. That's good for now.
AVC: Will there be another Redman/Method Man album?
RM: Yeah, of course. Probably in September we'll start working, or midsummer we'll start putting it together. But right now, it's about Gilla House. The Gilla House album is coming. Icadon's album is coming, Saukrates is coming, Runt Dawg, Melanie, E3, those are the artists on the new Red Gone Wild.
AVC: What's with the title? Didn't you go wild a long time ago?
RM: Red Gone Wild is not just basically saying Redman is wilding, it's more to a fact that yeah, Red is wilding, but I'm also breaking out of all of my boxes. On previous albums, I only had Rockwilder and Erick Sermon on production. Now I got other producers on there, so that's wilding. My crew, Gilla House, I never had a crew to introduce, but I'm introducing the crew now, so that's something new.
AVC: You're known for being a funny guy. What makes you laugh these days?
RM: You know what make me laugh? Good, clean, honest humor. Not-trying-to-be-funny humor. Like Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell got that kind of humor. I think Will Ferrell is the new Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase had that kind of humor. Like, not trying to be funny, but he just do shit, unexpectedly, that's funny. I like that not-supposed-to-be-playing humor. That being-yourself humor and shit.
AVC: Does it ever bother you that you're so strongly associated with marijuana?
RM: Oh, no. I love it. What the fuck. I gotta be who I gotta be. I think motherfuckers would be more disappointed if I tried to front and not be around it.
AVC: Rappers are always making a big deal out of quitting pot, and you always wonder whether they're actually quitting, and what kind of statement they're making.
RM: Real smokers don't really give a fuck about that shit. It's only a couple of certain motherfuckers among smokers and artists, the fans really respect. Like a regular motherfucker doing this, just saying "Yeah, I smoke weed," they ain't gonna respect it. "Oh, well, everyone smokes weed, motherfucker. But how long have you been a stoner? Have you been representing it in everything you do, not just to be looking cool, motherfucker, not just to be looking cool for your hood?" "Yeah, I smoke weed." "Nah, nigga. Were you willing to do a movie about it, motherfucker? Were you willing to talk about it on every album you do and represent it? Were you ready to be looked at as a marijuana representative?" And I think that's a big fucking difference.
AVC: It's a culture and a lifestyle, not just something you do with your spare time.
RM: Yeah, fuck all these motherfuckers just picking up a blunt, saying "I smoke weed." Fuck you.
AVC: Are people always trying to give you weed, like on the street?
RM: Yeah. I look at it as a gift.
AVC: Do they consider it an honor to get high with you?
RM: Always. They look forward to it, like, "I just wanna smoke with you." It's an honor. If I didn't do that, if I didn't have smoking, then what would there be of me? Yo, I just wanna sit down and talk.
AVC: You just opened a new shoe store?
RM: I wanna get that correct. It's not a shoe store. It's an action footwear store, for all kind of action. It's really dedicated to the skateboarders. I'm working on women's shoes. I'm-a get a boutique, but I guess somebody got it misconstrued down the line, that I'm opening a boutique for women's shoes. I'm opening up a footwear store like a sneaker store, but an action and sneaker store, for like boarders and mountain climbers, shit like that. Action shoes. Real shit that be going on. We wanted to take that to another level. And on the side of that, besides, when that gets going, on my own time, I wanna open up this shoe boutique. But the action footwear store is just action footwear: sneakers that you need for the action sports. Skateboarders, Vans, stuff like that. Real shit that's going on right now, for our coaching. These motherfucking rappers is dressing like skateboarders. I've seen skateboarders rock them tight pants and the chain hanging around them. That's been the culture of boarding. And it's just going to show that all that shit is just tying in right now. I've been a fan of all the X Games, I've been a fan of all that shit, you know. So it's just a privilege.
AVC: Will there be a sequel to How High, or another comedy with Method Man any time soon?
RM: Yeah, of course. I gotta do another comedy with my brotha. How High 2 is in the making. We're writing for it right now.
AVC: How did the filming of the first one go?
RM: Filming the first one was great. I wanna shout out to everyone on the whole entire How High movie, I'm too high to give names. I wanna shout out everyone from makeup to fucking directing to food staff to cosmetics to art department. Everyone was fucking great. I wanna let ya'll know out there, the only way you can have a successful movie is for people to have the right attitude on the set. And everybody woke up with the right attitude, everybody said "Good morning" real loud when they came to work, whether they had a bad day or a good day. And that only rubs off on having a good movie.
AVC: Is there anybody you haven't collaborated with that you would like to collaborate with?
RM: Jamiroquai. If you find him, tell him I'm looking for him.
AVC: What was the best and worst part of having your own sitcom?
RM: The best part? Just the experience of it. The worst part? Definitely the writing part. First of all, it started off too big. I think you gotta start off small and get big. When you start off real big, it don't leave you no headroom to do anything else. What we should have done was started off smaller. That part of it wasn't right. The business part of it, like meeting and getting things together beforehand to give the writers something to talk about, wasn't really handled too much, so they just really fed off of what they wanted to do. I would have started smaller. I would have started in an apartment, and fuck it. It would have given us room to move into something big. You always gotta give yourself headroom.
AVC: Which have you found to be trickier to navigate: the film world, or the music business?
RM: The movie world.
AVC: How so?
RM: Because you can just come out with a hot song in the business and be a boss now. You can be a nobody and have a hot song, and you're on. The movies are more strategic. You can come out with a DVD, but there's certain levels of movie shit that you won't even be allowed to do. In order to get to that Oscar-winning—'cuz if you're gonna do it, you might as well do it big—in order for you to get to that Oscar-winning role or whatever, you're gonna have to really ball hard. You have to go hard, you have to live it, breathe it, sacrifice a whole lot of shit, continue the process like that. It might take 10 years. You see who got Oscars now, how long it took to get Oscars and all that shit. You ask yourself. Like Denzel, you see how long it took them to get Oscars and stuff like that. The movie business is serious. Very serious. I look at it as though, whatever you do in life, you might as well do it big. Why would you be in the game, not ready to get an Oscar? Fuck it. You know if you gonna get an Oscar, you gonna have to work. Fucking work.
AVC: Can you ever see yourself retiring from hip-hop?
RM: You know what? Yea and nay. It depends. I can see myself retiring from rapping, but I don't think from music. After that, I think I'd just go into some other kind of music, 'cuz I'm a worldwide fan of music, all types of music, all cultures, so I'll always be involved. Maybe I'll have my label running by then. Shit, I'll still be in the game, doing what I do best. I could be coaching. I love to coach.
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