J-Banks

After coming within an eye-blink of death, Crooked I says he has renewed sense of urgency to put out music, and the material has to have deep messages. So much so, it seems plans for the group LP featuring Crooked, Glasses Malone and Bishop Lamont have been put on hold.

"We were going to do that," Crooked recently told MTV News of the project. "There are some things going on with that right now."

The project, named No Country for Old Men, was supposed to take aim at some West Coast legends whom the trio felt were trying to thwart the rise of up-and-coming talent such as themselves.

"You've got people like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre. You've got all these people on the West Coast," he began to explain. "The 'Men' stands for 'mentality': No country for this old mentality. We don't want to deal with this mentality that says we can't like each other, we can't unify. That's why I like the South, because the South unites.

"Whether they feel each other or not, I see them on the video together. I see them on songs together. I see huge stars reaching back into the community of newcomers and pulling them up. You don't see that on the West Coast. It's because of the Crip and Blood mentality. Growing up with the gangbanger mentality, I cannot like you and never had met you. You live over here and I don't like you. It's easy to bring that mentality into the industry. They're like, 'I'm not messing with that dude.' Why don't you? It would help your business. We look at the O.G.s in the industry like you laid down the foundation, now we're left here stranded and we don't have no country."

"There's a lot of blocking that was going on," Crooked said of some elder West Coast MCs. "The new West movement was fed up. We're trying to wake them up."

Despite the sour feelings, Crooked said that after assailants tried to shoot him a couple of weeks ago, he wants to go in a completely different direction.

"After this stuff, man, I've been really thinking. That [album is] cool. That's something that needs to be said. But right now ... I've been in these [life-threatening] situations before. Last time I was in this situation, my brother got shot. You can only cheat death but so many times. Old people say you get three signs and you're outta here. I'm working on my fourth or fifth sign. I'm like, 'If I die tomorrow, I'm gonna say some real things today.'

"My focus now is if Ice Cube, Snoop, Dre, none of them dudes wanna reach down and help the new dudes, that's fine. Maybe I'll call them and have a healthy conversation about it and move on. I'm not in that zone no more. I want to leave a body of work behind that matches a Biggie or Pac. God is good. If I would have laid on that pavement and stayed there — no disrespect because I love Bishop and Glasses — but all I would have is No Country as my most recent body of work. I can't go out like that right now. Right now I need to focus on something that's gonna be around forever."

Source: MTV

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Precinct Phantom

Hope he releases an album very soon
Altho that album with BL and GM duz sound heavy!

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