The Lox Break Down Their Most Iconic Tracks

Since this is GQ. I usually don't pop [beep],

but I'm going to pop a [beep] little today.

We set the trend to say, yo,

we're giving you free work us us three right here.

That's why the people love us.

[hiphop music]

Yeah. Yeah.

What's up y'all, you know who it is, LOX.

What up!

Sheek Louch, Jadakiss, Styles P.

Yeah

Now we're about to take you out through some of

our iconic tracks.

Yeah!

Y'all ready?

Let's go.

[hip hop beat playing♪]

[money, power & respect playing♪]

Rest in peace to the the dog, first of all.

We love you X, forever.

Yeah. Working with X, is always,

you know, the energy's up a lot of good vibes,

a lot of good flowers in the air,

you know what I mean?

And he actually

bought us the rough riders and

we got the deal on bad boy first.

It was only right,

put him on the

first big, single.

Big record.

[money, power & respect playing♪]

X was a superstar to us already.

[Styles P] Yeah, already.

He was already a star.

He come through with a Luther tape with no Luther songs on

it, write his name on his sharpie and sell them joins for

25, 30, $50 back then.

After them 5 songs go off Luther come on.

[laughter]

The biggest hunger

I think anybody who ever seen him perform a rap at the time

knew he was bound to be a superstar.

Absolutely.

He possessed the energy that was unmatched.

The dog thing is

not just a gimmick or promo to men,

his dog, God bless his soul.

Like, you know what I mean,

as that's what he embodies.

What I remember about money, power, respect.

You know, we was new on bad boy.

We was knew in the game.

We was a little scared to ask him to get on the hook.

He was a little busy at the time,

but it was able to happen.

[money, power and respect playing♪]

Be honest in the studio that day,

it was a surreal session,

Like we

Like we were from Yonkers, New York.

We're on bad boy. Basically the Chicago bulls of rap.

We got our brother X with us with rapping Yonkers.

We got Kim in the next room.

We're making the hook and playing with the hook,

money, power, respect.

You know, that's a staple term in hip hop now too.

That's why we made it our first album.

I think even for new artists

who don't even know who we are,

they know the term

money, power, respect.

And as from that's what we were striving for.

[we gonna make it playing♪]

We got a pack of beats from alchemists, or.

Yeah

He did.

I actually paid for it.

But than he gave it to Rass Kass first.

What I think what happened was miscommunication.

I don't think the business was handled

on his side or,

cause I don't know how you could sell a beat twice.

Once we heard it, and once I loved it,

I did the agreement right away to lock the beat in.

Think Rass was pissed off a little at first.

But it should have been with Al

it shouldn't have been with me and

I ain't, I'm not a producer,

I just heard it and poured it.

[we gonna make it playing♪]

There you go.

I came from the block.

It was in the studio, the sweat,

it was in rough around the studio working on it. I was like,

Cha' doing.

I heard this. I says fine.

And I think I left.

So again, got right back into the hood.

Probably went just was like that

Just like that

I miss Mariah married, Patti LaBelle.

I miss anybody you could name.

It's so crazy. And didn't take it as serious,

like getting on that record

until like later when it blows up,

you're like, man, I wanna,

you know, I should have been on that

instead of hanging outside

chilling or doing whatever.

So that's how that went

We started from just Samira and all of those before us,

Yeah

he PMD

MOP,

DMC

It's an art, it's part of the art.

Like, you know,

I'm seeing as a craftsmanship,

especially PMD the timing of the in and out

and slick Rick and Doug to, nods, uneasy.

It's kind of a nerdy thing, I guess, to mix.

Usually its two mics

Yeah, And to be able to say.

[crosstalk]

And fill it in

you write it and learn it.

Then you got to lay it with the spaces in it.

Yeah

So could you imagine doing the old version

you got to do to leave out for a dude?

And then the time it has to be very precise.

So it's always been a dope hip hop thing to do.

It's showing I, man, we got good time.

And man.

[Jesus Lord playing♪]

The one we own is 11 minutes Long.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I used the artist.

He got a 11 Minutes song.

He basically made a triple album

11 minute song is incredible.

The whole treadmill we're wanting them songs.

[laughter]

You could lose 12 pounds playing this probably

the one thing you gotta just do say is

he ain't following nobody's fuckin template.

[crosstalk]

So a lot of shit I don't like,

but if it's different than you follow yourself, man,

get your money man.

Like five people with me and said that, yeah,

he was going to call me. Then he finally texted me,

congratulated us from verses and said he wanted to work with

us.

Who is we willing to come to Atlanta that night?

I told him yes, and send the jet, he actually sent it.

We went, when he flew to the Falcon stadium,

they played us a few cuts off Donda and they played this

Jesus Lord. They said, that's the song they wanted us on.

He got some accessories that we needed.

I got a few pots of coffee brewed up

and we knocked it out.

Left at seven in the morning,

went to the hotel, showered up, ate some lunch,

went back to the Antlanta to the listening party.

[it's all about the Benjamins playing♪]

Tell him the Missy part loops.

[laughter]

She was already in the studio. When we walked in,

he was working on something else with her.

Yeah, and puffs said Yo, you gotta,

you gotta hear something.

He turned the beat on and she was just like, yo,

let me hear y'all rap, let me hear something.

She asked all of us to rap

and that's when she heard the lyrics,

and then when it was done, she was like, yo,

and y'all gonna write puff verse.

We ain't even know who she was,

She just turned around,

start dancing and doing the beat box and stuff.

I'm like, yo, we know he was making us keep that track.

We didn't like that beat at first,

the verse Daddy has for all about the Benjamins.

We was actually having a writing session,

a locks in the middy room one day,

I was rhyming that verse.

And he came in and said, I want that.

And I said, you gotta have it.

And he used it.

[its all about the Benjamin playing♪]

Its Puff, that's all Puff

[it's all about the Benjamins playing♪]

Who else comes in that game?

Has they first saw him with biggie and he's going at you

when you came for him? Yankees.

I think big was the one who put the battery in our back for

real, for real.

Like once we was able to meet him and

the way he embraced us and

kept telling us that he loved us and he was happy,

we was down with him and.

He heard us rhyme

and he was like, y'all rapping', rapping'.

You know,

it's an honor.

It's an honor

[ Reservoir Dogs playing♪]

We was out touring and doing spot dates.

But we got the call that,

you know,

Jay wanted us to come to the studio to get on his album.

They called us as soon as we got from baggage claim.

Like we standing on the curb ready to get in the car

service. And we like, yeah, nah, we can do the song,

let us go home, drop the luggage.

They like, nah, we need you to go

right now.

We made this collective decision that, you know,

we going to go straight there and see who was there.

See who was there

The angel was there, homemade binge round for us into his

mouth, got dry.

Then he pulled up the beat

and we laid reservoir dogs right there.

That is my verse for that night.

I don't remember.

They had to go there. They go to a club or something.

So Pete had to come back the next day

and actually lay his verse.

And I laid my verse and I come out of it's like, oh,

I hear you, baby.

Yeah, you ain't the only one who knows his stuff.

You really got to ask him what he was doing.

But I mean, it was obvious to a duck

I used to think was doing that

like making a habit

Steve Stout was very involved in that.

Cause he had called me for the original and call him for the

original

And he loves that kind of...

He called him for the original call me for the remix, So.

I kind of think that was him being smart,

doing what we did.

They show you, why you going to corporate?

You paying attention to what's going down downstairs

and cover your basis.

I would say when that was a very intense time.

That was different. That's where he was at different.

Times. And we were young and man,

we were all immature coming from the concrete jungle.

we was in a hip hop industry with a lot of dudes is coming

fresh off of street life.

We had hung out with each other's rough riders and

Rockefeller a lot and kind of studio sessions.

You build some sort of comradery.

So I guess when it started it was

little weird.

It was weird and offensive more than your music side is,

you know, your street sign started kicking

and you start thinking of the shit

Because you talking to him, you talking to me,

it was like that you swung on him.

You might as well swung on me. And.

[crosstalk]

[hiphop playing♪]

The golden ever is some,

I think the time of maybe probably the idlest lyricist that

ever lived

right or wrong?

Yeah.

Go back through the dates, go through the history,

go look

who the did as much mixed tape work as we did.

We always been the people's group to say, Hey,

we do this other on the side,

but where the guys you're actually see outside.

We the actual guys who put out mixed tapes.

Even when we was on bad boy,

when everything was doing great,

we was doing great underground.

Yeah.

We was making our bones over there.

So they, they knew it was.

We basically created the mixed tape lane.

No artists really lived off it until they seen what we did,

how we did it. Then you see

50 murdered it

two chains,

murdered it, little Wayne, murder it.

And it became a thing to do because we figured out we can't

get on a radio. You know, singles out.

You got to find a way to be alive.

So we was used to putting out consistent work and feeding

our fans for free, like we literally made up, Hey, I,

we get paid off for this. We do this, but

we love this. we respect who came before us,

We'll lay some ill shit,

throw that shit out for free

[F**k you playing♪]

That whole album, you know, we was just

happy to be on well Fridays.

We knew Schwartz before he made one beat all for the

love,

his first placement and then Roughriders Anthem and all

that.

We used to be running around.

Back and forth out of town, and

I'm supposed to call me like, yo,

convince my uncle to buy me a keyboard, man.

Beat machine

Yeah,

we did not a trillion Swiss beats before we accepted.

We knew him when he was still like figuring it out.

We knew we couldn't beat puff lawyer wise or money wise.

So we had to play mental chess,

figure out what was assets and assets,

where the people.

before we did it, and we knew that it was a chance that

this might be a bad thing but,

this is the only way to do it.

And if we're going to do it.

And we started the whole campaign at some,

at a big continent.

[crosstalk]

Had the t-shirts.

The old arenas saying it

We put out the train and he said,

No, but people saying that thing,

like we got back together.

We own a studio together.

We see each other a few times a week for all of them years.

Just everybody started doing solo things and

opening up businesses and doing nothing. And we own.

[crosstalk]

A big part of it was really ownership and what we could,

what we could get out of it.

It didn't make no sense for us to do something that we had a

problem with and not being able to make reap the benefits of

it.

[crosstalk]

Shout out to Puff he got up and got a log back.

[crosstalk]

Our relationship with daddy is solid.

We good catalog back.

Thank the Lord

[2 guns up playing♪]

He went up to the ready on the door interview with

Greenland.

He asked us the freestyle and we did that,

but that stayed in our head because we played pop Warner

football.

That wouldn't be a song that we would sing going to away

games on the bus.

Then green produced it and made it a real song and happened

to be a nice call and response hook that the crowd always

respond. You can throw it on this day.

They will sing the rest.

[2 guns up playing♪]

In the nineties, we had a reputation one,

cause we was from Yonkers.

Everybody's from all the boroughs.

We didn't do security,

but we didn't let nobody

be blocked.

We didn't let nobody blocker.

[laughter]

So we'll come through and it'll be a problem and we'll work

it out ourselves.

And it means discipline, dedication and determination.

That's what the D stand for.

Nah, I just ran with it.

[crosstalk]

you had some balls to say that.

Said, Hey, you got to, it takes a little,

it takes a lot of gumption as he was saying,

Eh, that's cool.

You know, when people say it, nobody be like,

get the hell outta here.

You know, I know a few rapids, they say they top anything.

You go ahead, a bunch of busted tires out there that.

[crosstalk]

it really go out.

We laid it unless one of them just Shop out skin and then

go. Then.

It's always whoever lays it. And then less, like he said,

unless sometimes it's like,

that would sound better first.

Like if I'm on the hook, I probably won't go first.

I probably moved go down somewhere.

[crosstalk]

You want to hit on as quick as you can get on,

they only play in 37 seconds.

We are always openly competitive.

I'm never getting in a studio as I expect them to

and want them to have the better verse.

But when they do have the better verse,

I'm not mad, I'm glad because it's still,

we one exercise that ego and pride with the competition,

not your brothers. You want to keep that in house,

discuss whatever y'all got to discuss behind doors, get mad,

yell, scream, but that ain't for everybody to know.

And from social media, Twitter, Instagram,

that's that bullshit.

You already love that, man.

I ain't been broke together.

Y'all ain't really shit.

Y'all was lying to each other from the beginning.

One of y'all [Foreign language]

Pardon? My French.

It helps that we was a group way before social media.

It's weird to us that calling each other, having to meet.

And then you see what I posted about you or call me back.

I the look on Facebook.

[upbeat music♪]

[crosstalk]

The only rap group, I think besides daylight,

Sola mop who didn't break up

no qualms, He showed y'all what loyalty is,

we showed y'all what brotherhood is,

We showed you what a code is.

We showed y'all. What growth is.

We showed you all that we care for the hood knew.

It shows you that we even want to give back and keep the

hood healthy. We got the key to our city.

We deal with the mayor to police, the criminals,

the ambulance, the firemen, the mothers, the fathers,

children, hospitals, schools, hospital.

My legacy is we gave a and we gave back and we always been a

hundred and million percent hip hop.

Some of the nicest, the Evans guys too.

We like full-time dads and all that.

Like I like 42, I like little baby,I like

like a lot of the music,

but it's the craftsmanship.

I think they given so much money to some of these young

dudes that they getting far away from craftsmanship as

possible.

All we want to see is that continue to be

some young dudes reach out after versus like,

I don't want to change. My joke is

I want to rhyme the words and I don't want to go

over that. Touch me more than anything.

No, like you can't be the older dude who don't want to see

younger brown,

black Kings and Queens make more money.

That's what you were supposed to do besides posting.

It's supposed to be like,

your generation is supposed to set the path for the next

generation to make more money. Like he said,

as long as somebody we got Kendrick, we got Coles.

We got all of these young gentlemen to keep the

craftsmanship. So it's in a good space.

No, it is your boys.

The L Y P

Styles P, Janie kiss, Sheek Louch, GQ.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Very iconic.

It's a little job

[laughter]

We did GQ, this is crazy.