K: How did you meet Kool Keith, and how did the whole Dr. Octagon projects unfold?

S: I met Keith at a birthday party for Busta Rhymes with my girlfriend at the time named Stephanie (she is from San Francisco). I went to pick her up from this party she was hosting. When I got there I ran into Ced-Gee, Flavor Flav and Kool Keith. I was like “Oh shit!” everybody was in here. So I was like “Yo I spit flames too, what’s up ya’ll want to go on stage and get busy?”. Everybody was getting on the mic - Freddie Foxxx, Lord Finesse, CL Smooth, L.O.N.S., Tip and Phife, Pete Rock, Large Pro and Diamond D - it was out of control! I was hungry dude you know? So I spit some old ill shit at Keith, Ced and Flavor and they took me on stage. After the show Keith got at me like “I got a deal on Capitol and I want you to come to L.A.”. After a long story with Capitol, Lo and Malik who were A&R;’s got fired, and Keith’s deal got canned, soon after that Automator approached Keith about doing an LP.

When it came time to record Dan and Keith picked me up at the airport and told me what was what, then they hit me with a few chips and that was that. I laid two tracks on the LP - “No Awareness” and “Biology 101″. “101″ were taken off the DreamWorks version so I got even less publishing. I still have a bitter taste in my mouth. Keith was so hype to do the LP, Dan paid him like 30 G’s up front, and he also got like 200 G’s on top of that.

K: How did you get involved with Rawkus?

S: I stepped to Rawkus after I came back from Cali and they were mad at anything I was down to do. I got tired of waiting to put out the album so I bounced over to Fat Beats and banged out the Scaramanga LP. It was crazy, and then all of a sudden Rawkus was all behind Blackstar and Pharoahe Monch. I told them to sign Monch and Big L. When Big L was alive they would not close his deal… then BOOM! As soon as he dies they swoop in and put his record out. They dissed me, I knew they never would promote my shit like Mos Def and Company Flow, but so what it’s in the past. I’ve still got my label and my records and I’m out to make paper to I’m not mad or hating on anything!

K: What about the industry?

K: I paid Don, Diamond D, DJ Spinna and Showbiz out of my budget and nobody can complain, even though the records took years to come out. It’s not like Sun Large Records wasn’t handling business, but my distributors - Caroline, Fat Beats and some newer ones I have - were ripping me off left and right. That’s why hip-hop underground dies, because nobody supports the real cats that make this shit go to the next level. The Menelik’s, the Rass Kass’, the Saafir’s, the Del’s, Pharoahe’s or Jeru’s. They always want to talk shit how we use big words and we’re “Back Packers” but our records sell. Then they bootleg our shit behind our backs. Now all you got is fucking Nelly and Lil Jon, well thank you miss hip-hop! You aren’t shit, you just prey off real MC’s struggling to make it in the game. On that note, holla at the last real poetical one under KRS-One and Ultramagnetic MC’s the real hip-hop shit! Representing the Temple of Hip-Hop…

http://www.unkut.com/2005/06/holdin-new-cards-scaramanga-interview/