Published: Monday - June 30, 2008
Words by Tiffany Thompson
Jim Jones (Photo: Bryd Gang)
In the music industry it seems that a group is too small a place for massively creative minds. Many successful female groups of the past have dismantled, be it from internal bickering to issues with management. More recently, rap families, Units rather, are finding its members going astray and members loyalty being questioned. In an era of music where an artist's ego can engulf their entire being, groups with longevity are scarce.
Enter the Byrd Gang. An affiliate of the Diplomats, the Byrd Gang is a family of MCs who've faced very similar struggles and problems, but have managed to leave egos at the door when entering the studio and instead bring raw talent into the studio with them. This brotherhood of artists all know what it means to struggle. Some members have, at one point ended, up behind bars. Any music lover and hip-hop follower knows when they hear a Byrd Gang artist's lyrics, when they talk about life on the street and what it really means to hustle, please believe ever bar spit and every lyric said is true and straight from the heart. It's all real.
We have become so immune as to what is real, you can count on that every bar that a Byrd Gang member spits to be as authentic. Jim Jones finds the time to talk to Ballerstatus.com about this unity, his charity work, the passing of dear friend, and a cliché known as hip-hop.
BallerStatus.com: How did you and Byrd Gang and the whole group come together?
Jim Jones: L Murda, I knew since he was a teenager, that's my young boy. NOE, a mutual friend of mine brought him to me, I've known him for damn near ten years... I love his ambition, and he just looked like a beast, and I got him into the studio. Stack Bundles, like I always knew who he was and I heard one of his freestyles. [Raps] "From I know you love Cam and the Dip set / Screaming, 'squad down' / Disrespecting my sh** / I know you don't love me!" I was like, "Get that boy in here, that boy is nasty with it." It's like God hand picked these individuals and brought them to me, and put them right in front of me. I can't tell you how it happened. Chink Santana, [his family] is with Murda Inc. and Ashanti and things like that. We ended up living in the same skyscraper out in Jersey and things like that and we ended chopping it up. It just happened like that, very organically.
BallerStatus.com: Why did you pick the name Byrd Gang?
Jim Jones: Byrd Gang is a subsidiary of Dipset. It really was another name for Diplomats; it's was Diplomats' nickname.
BallerStatus.com: What can we expect from this Byrd Gang album that's about to drop?
Jim Jones: Powerful music. Hustler's anthems. Like what's been going on it's crazy out here, I don't hear no music that makes you want to go outside and give it your all and get some money, so you can get to them clubs ad have some fun [and] you can take care of your responsibilities. Everybody's acting like they got all the money already. That sh** don't make you want to go make no money, it make you want to go spend that money. (laughs) That hustler's music is what makes it all fun.
BallerStatus.com: How will it be different from anything that's out there right now?
Jim Jones: Oh sh**. Rap is a cliché. I don't think no rap is that much different. Just the beats, 'cause we all talking 'bout the same thing 'cause we all come from the same dramas in life, same places, same struggles and things like that. It's how we arrange our words and how good we are with the music. It's just all a cliché, so it depends on what you [personally] mean by different. We different 'cause our flash and out swag, we set the precedence for that. Like n****s don't get flier than us, they don't ever ball like us. We just living our lives for real. We ain't no prisoners to our fame. It's just that. Its our lifestyle, we the sh**. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but you know. (laughs)
BallerStatus.com: When you say struggles, what types of struggles have you and some of the Byrd Gang Members have gone through?
Jim Jones: Well, all the members of Byrd Gang, with the exception of me... have done heavy time in penetentiary, and they all came back home and have been disciplined enough to do this music. The struggles and stuff, in the streets, we've all been trying to hustle, get money, 'cause they don't give us jobs, so we gotta do whatever we gotta do to make that dollar. You know?
BallerStatus.com: Do you feel that there's often a prejudice, or a stigma against ex-cons?
Jim Jones: There's always a stigma once you've got a felony. They pretty much wrap you up, as far as getting a job. A few of them have by-passed that stigma, and things like that, but for the most part when you have opportunity such as being able to do music and being able to make more money than we would ever make as far as being in the streets, I mean sh**, we going all the way in. We putting our life on the line for it.
BallerStatus.com: Are you currently doing anything to give back to the community, to help the young people who face the same struggles that you and some of the other members of Byrd Gang might have had to face?
Jim Jones: I just won an award this year, from the Hip-Hop Summit -- me, Snoop, Ciara, for how much we give back to the community. To me, the award means nothing, because I give back regardless. It may not be in the most conventional ways, but it's what I do. Every summer we have basketball tournaments. [I] sponsor one of the biggest basketball tournaments with Dame Dash inside of Harlem called King Dome. I do different things; I give money to the football league(s), for uniforms. I do a bunch when it comes to the kids and I always go speak to the kids. I go to high schools and things like that. 'Cause I know I wish I had somebody as fine and as cool as I am to come talk to me when I was younger (laughs).
BallerStatus.com: (laughs) That's always good, because a lot of people look up to you.
Jim Jones: Yeah. It was a lot of rappers that I looked up to when I was coming up. I wish I had a chance to even be in front of them and hear them speak, not just hear them rap.
BallerStatus.com: How has the passing of Stack Bundles affected you and the other members of Byrd Gang?
Jim Jones: It has affected us deeply, emotionally, mentally. Like Stack was apart of us. Like, Stack was one of the reasons why I started rapping so hard. He instilled some fired under my ass. He was the type of character that could rap circles around anybody. The kid was out of this world. We miss him dearly. What he has helped created is about to go so far above what we thought it would do and I wish he could be here to watch it blow up and experience what we're about to experience. But he's watching and he's going to experience it from heaven. Every time it rains, I feel like he's poppin' champagne on us (laughs).
BallerStatus.com: Will you be releasing anything that Stacks has recorded?
Jim Jones: Yeah he's on the new Byrd Gang album, a couple of the songs. We will be releasing the whole Stack Bundles album, with different features from different people in the industry.
BallerStatus.com: Is it important to you to keep his memory alive?
Jim Jones: It's very important to keep his memory alive. His memory is everything to us. Stacks was making this Byrd Gang fly. And his memory is in our work.
BallerStatus.com: Is Byrd Gang doing part taking in other endeavors outside of music, such as a clothing line?
Jim Jones: We doing a bunch. We doing DVDs, we doing movies, we doing liquor, [and] a clothing line that's up and running. We promote that through all Byrd Gang artist.
BallerStatus.com: Are you working on any solo projects?
Jim Jones: Yeah, well my solo album comes out in September, it's a venture that I did off of Columbia. I just dropped a single in the city and it's called "Good Sh**." You should be hearing it real soon where you at. I'm double time working.
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