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LOON
By Dennica Abdo
Harlem 's former Bad Boy is back with a vengeance and ready to do the damn thing. LOON talks and talks and talks to Dennica’s Place about Life After Puff.
Introduction: Check this out this is your boy Loon, formerly of Bad Boy records, currently of Boss Up Entertainment. Self employed, self-contained entertainment entity right now.
The name Loon: Loon is a nickname that I picked up when I moved to LA; people were drawn to my NY antics; I was the type of person that would do things that a lot of people would second-guess.
Loon for Lunatic or Loony: Loony
A lot of people don’t know your situation, where do you stand with Boss Up: Boss Up right is an entertainment company I put together upon leaving Bad Boy, it’s basically my new beginning. Boss Up is my launch pad, me taking my entrepreneurial steps in the music industry and I’m excited about it. The freedom that I’ve obtained leaving Bad Boy has enabled me to really broaden my horizons as an artist and definitely expose multiple impressions of myself as opposed to the one dimensional artist that Loon has been perceived to be. So this is just my second coming, the label, and basically moving forward.
What we can expect from Boss Up Entertainment: You should expect everything you got from Bad Boy for the last four years but better. I wrote literally every hit record that came out of Bad Boy in the last four years; I Need a Girl: Pt 1, I Need a Girl: Pt 2, Trade it All, Diddy, Show Me Your Soul, I Don’t Wanna Know. I just feel honored that I was able to be a part of such a legendary record company, but my contributions kind of went by unnoticed to the fact that I was being overshadowed by Puff’s presence and just the efforts that he made to keep himself visible kind of puts everybody else in the dark.
Big things for the company then: Yeah, Boss Up is a statement, a movement, it definitely insinuates anybody that is at that point in their life where they feel like they want to take their own career in their hands and master their own destiny; this is the home that I am trying to create for those artists. We don’t want to do no babysitting you know, we don’t want to do no nurturing, none of that. I just want to give artists the opportunity to be their own man, master their own destiny, and come up with the results that they so desperately seek on their own.
New Artists, secret weapons: Yeah, definitely, I got an artist by the name of Gritty, he’s got a broad outlook of the streets and life and the way he illustrates is definitely unique. Gritty is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the hip hop world.
Also, an R&B artist by the name of Dante Hawkins, and he’s going to be the future of R&B because you know, a lot of R&B artists are getting away with a lot of jingles and a lot of remixed hip hop tracks, literally not even singing, a lot of shower singing going on. With Dante I kind of see him in the realm of like a Carl Thomas but in terms of the genre of music I could probably use Musiq Soulchild as a reference. He is just bringing back that real classical style of R&B.
Tell us about the album that you are currently working on: The album that I am currently working on is called Life After Puff. If I’m going to go about reestablishing and reintroducing myself to my fans and to the industry as a whole I got to just cut to the chase. Reestablish the concrete facts so that you know life for me is still the same. I’m still doing my thing, life is still grand, kids still love me, I still got an ensemble of fans, and this album just shows that there is life after Puff, that you can still become a major artist after leaving the Bad Boy regime. I wouldn’t want anybody to get it misconstrued that I left a boot camp or that the album is insinuating I just got out of prison or something. Everybody is pretty much familiar with the terrain around Puff, what comes with being an artist with Bad Boy and pretty much just here in the same circle as Puff, it just adds a different zest to your life, your lifestyle. Coming out of that, there is definitely like a recovery stage that you have to go through. I want to be able to show that I can still make great records and I don’t have any bitter feelings, I can still conduct myself as the person I have always been. Very humble, laid back, just learning.
What can we expect with regards to guests and production on the album: Well basically my first album was kind of like, I don’t want to say a star studded event, but being that I did so many features with so many hot artists, it kind of detours or kind of lessens the value of having celebrity features. With this album I’m concentrating mainly on production, I want to make sure the production is up to par. I’ve got a great relationship with pretty much everybody in the industry and they have no problem working with me, but I think I am pretty much on a selfish mission this time. I feel like I have a lot to establish as an artist, as an individual, about being a person. So I am really not too enthused about using too much celebrity help, you know.
Tell us about the tracks in response to Mase’s diss: Oh yeah, definitely, I want to put it out there that Mase is just a very confused individual. Unfortunately Mase has signed to G-Unit and I think he feels it necessary to throw shots at me. I understand where he is coming from, to gain some level of street credibility; it’s the same street credibility that he had gained by signing me at one point to his Harlem World group. I guess from there the flipside of that is you are down with some dudes who make careers out of dissing other artists or trying to destroy other artist’s careers. I guess he feels in his heart that is the approach he needs to take, but why takes it on me I haven’t the slightest idea.
Maybe it just stemmed from my interview on Hot 97 when I was asked my opinion about Mase signing with G Unit and basically all I did was elaborate my honest opinion. When I answered the question I said I felt that Mase was my boy, I am friends with Mase and he is mad cool, but if Mase feels that 50 Cent or GUnit can save him from ridicule, good luck. I didn’t think that was harsh, I mean Mase has known me for years, they know how I talk. I’m an outspoken person, I speak my mind. And it’s like; he put out a little freestyle basically trying to insinuate that he brought me in the game and basically breathed some level of life into me or whatever the case may be. Anybody on the street knows better than that. So I definitely had to go and take the initiative and put two records out that kind of like give the whole situation immediate closure.
What kind of response from the public are you looking for: I think this is definitely something the public has always been curious about. Like who is the father of this laid back style? If this situation continues to escalate, people will definitely get the opportunity to see two great MC’s, two great Harlem artists going at it. I just think it’s a great opportunity for me, now I get to come out of my shell, now I get to get back to my reality, my competitive zone, because life is just a little too sweet. I wasn’t getting any friction, and that’s what brothers like me need sometimes coming out of the street. You need some friction; you need to see if you still got it sometimes. So I have to thank Mase for putting his foot in his mouth because all he did was wake up a sleeping giant and on top of that he just gave me the opportunity to finally bury him and get him out the game so he can finally go back to church or go somewhere. The dude is really not just on the same planet as us.
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