Kingpin Slim: Ain’t no problem. What’s going on Kingpin Slim Five Dollar High is now available let’s get it.

Kingpin Slim: I was born in George Washington Hospital in Northwest, Washington D.C. I’m from uptown. I have been uptown for the majority of my life so Washington D.C. born and raised.

CRED: What musical influences were in your household?

Kingpin Slim: Well my mother is West Indian, my father is West Indian so we listened to a lot of calypso and reggae; that was a lot of the early stuff going on in my household.

CRED: How did hip hop get in your household?

Kingpin Slim: Hip Hop never got in my house through my parents per se. It was something that I brought to the house, something that I found that I fell in love with started dibbling and dabbling started writing music, found out I was pretty good at it and took it and ran with it.

CRED: How did you get exposed to hip hop?

Kingpin Slim: Jukebox. The Jukebox turned me on to hip hop. Some of the first artists, the first song I remember liking was Ice T when he had the song "H-U-S-T-L-E-R, hustler, hustler" back in the early nineties. I remember that song, loved it and ran with it.

CRED: You made reference to Ice T but before you became an artist who helped mold you as a fan?

Kingpin Slim: Early in the game 2Pac, I was a Jay-Z fan out of the gate before Jay-Z sold five million records. I was a Nas fan out of the gate. I had this dude that lived in my neighborhood that turned me on to Nas when Illmatic first came out. All of those dudes that exemplified lyricism and being legendary your 2Pac’s, your Jay-Z’s, your Scarface’s. I had this dude who lived round my way named B-Love that played in a band called Simplicity. He was probably the first dude that I was around that could really rap. He could do this back then so I took a little game from him took it and ran with it.

CRED: What game did he give you? Make reference to all the people that helped mold you as an artist.

Kingpin Slim: The thing with me is I came up in a go-go band in my neighborhood that’s being on stage live, performing in front of neighborhoods, rowdy lil niggas, just people that will stand there with their arms crossed waiting to hear what you have to say. I caught the bug to be a performer in my go-go band Young Bucks implemented that and realized maybe I can take the solo rap thing and take it more seriously and run with it. Around that time you had your Jay-Z, your Nas’, your Biggie’s, Pac getting ready to die or had died at the time I’m still a kid but I am realizing that this is something that I want to do and I am taking it very seriously. So between that and being in the streets of DC at the time which was crazy; I think at the time we had murder rate back then; and to see all that go on when I was a kid. Seeing all that kind of shaped and molded it to where it was now. Back then it was rat but it was definitely what put it together.

CRED: What was your street involvement in DC and how much did it impact your music?

Kingpin Slim: Coming up I had a couple of uncles that used to hustle. I was a smart kid in school I never really had bad grades. I kind of sought out the streets. I wanted to be out there, it was a little different for me than it was for someone else. I guess I was turned out by the things I seen. All my uncles and I had three of them; all had Mustangs when the Mustang was a hot car. Just seeing that it just kind of developed more and more. Then you get to an age where you are kind of looking at yourself like ‘damn I cant afford these new shoes or I cant afford this new Eddie Bauer coat so I jumped out there and started fucking around. From there I started running around in the streets, I’m rapping, I am doing both at the same time so of course the streets started to influence my raps to 100 percent that was how Kingpin Slim was born at an early age.

CRED: When did you know you could make a career out of hip hop?

Kingpin Slim: Well you figure 96-97 I was a teenager, I was in a go-go band we were young, young as hell probably just starting high school. I figure we see 100-150 people every time we play and they always gravitating toward me telling me that I am nice that I could do it; so the confidence just grew and grew and grew to the point that I knew I could take it and do it. Not just take it and do it but really make some money off of it, not only make money off of it but put my city on the map. So it was an ambition born out of that time.

CRED: What capacity did you perform in the go-go band?

Kingpin Slim: I was second mic on the front line. I was a rapper they would do their pockets and cut to me. I was flowin and I used to shake the tambourines too. (laughs)

CRED: Are you still involved with the members of the go-go band?

Kingpin Slim: Most of them are my best friend to this day.

CRED: What was it like going from being a member of the band to being a solo artist? Describe the transition.

Kingpin Slim: Well the new millennium hit 2000, I came home; I went to bootcamp for a distribution charge.

CRED: How long were you gone for?

Kingpin Slim: About a year. When I came home I started messing with these dudes Cybehype to record what was supposed to be my debut album DC Ghettolistics. That is when I started to run with it hard, you know get the beats, make the songs and see what I sound like and really feel like this is going to be serious for me.

CRED: What was your thought process for creating the album DC Ghettolistics?

Kingpin Slim: I didn’t know shit I was 19 years old. I didn’t know anything about nothing. I wanted to rap I thought I sounded good so I figured you get in there it sounds good and people put it out. I did know too much about the business. The actual album got flooded the whole studio got flooded. Back then we recorded on A-DATS the masters got flooded. It was pretty much a wrap for that whole DC Ghettolistics project. I had it in someone else’s hands they really didn’t know how to promote it at the time. They had the ambition to do it but not necessarily the game plan to do it and I learned early on that you really have to plot, plan, and execute if you do not do all three you are going to lose.

CRED: How long was the recording process for the project that never made it to light?

Kingpin Slim: It was at least a year and a half to see all that work go down the drain it was rough on me. At the time we had a group uptown called Wildlife Kingdom they were poppin they sold ten thousand cop

ies independently which was a big deal in DC at the time. The founder of the group named Scrap Tommy Small recruited me to be in the group and we worked on that project in 02-03. The Wildlife Project. One of the homies in the group T we called him Sleepy Eyed bandit got shot on a playground on Kennedy Street since then we have been struggling to find our footing so I started back on the solo thing in 2004.