XXL D12 Interview

The phone rings and the voicemail picks up:"Leave your name and number at the sound of the beep and we're gonna send you some candy and two books for Black History Month. Anybody that wants to write poems or send me any speeches, you can reach me at 17305 Rosa Parks Blvd."

Welcome to Bizarre's answering machine message. Bizarre is in D12. And in that Detroit rap group's crazy, mixed-up world, anything can, and usually does, happen. Consider yourselves warned.

It's gray and raining. It doesn't even feel like Friday as you steer a brand-new rental truck down the highway to a nondescript studio in a quiet suburb. Fittingly, the radio plays "Stan."

Local news coverage today focuses heavily on the funeral of two young cops killed in the line of duty. The other big story is the debut, tonight at the Palace of Auburn Hills, of the newest Detroit Piston, Rasheed Wallace.

Inside the well-secured work space, old-school arcade games are lined up against a wall. Across the room, an ill painting of a blond blow-up doll stares out with lifeless eyes. There's homemade art too, taped up randomly around the place. Crude Xerox pictures, office humor; people's heads pasted onto pictures of other people's bodies. Most of the heads belong to a very familiar blond-haired rapper.

Three of the Dirty Dozen are already here. Swift, dressed in black like a ninja, brings to mind Method Man's memorable description of Inspectah Deck: He's "on some now-you-see-him, now-you-don't" shit, a quiet, kickbacked dude. Kuniva speaks with a distinguished Midwestern drawl, and you can imagine him being one smooth mofo with the ladies. Kon Artis is a sharp-witted dude with a knack for gadgets. He's usually at the boards, eyeing the security camera monitors or busy fidgeting with his two-way.

Bizarre shows up next. The rotund rapper everybody calls Bizzy is unquestionably one of the sickest weirdos ever to put his genius on wax (or answering-machine tape). In person, though, he speaks quietly. It's a trip how the guy is so normal. Soon after, Slim Shady arrives decked out in a red Nike outfit, glasses and a let's- take-care-of-business attitude.

Everyone's here but Proof. It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that he's running late. He just got out of jail, having served a month for a drunk-and-disorderly charge stemming from an incident outside a strip club in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. (The charges were knocked down from the originals of assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest.) He still owes time on work force, AA sessions and probation. Maybe the interview should start without him.

D12's new album, D12 World, is done. But the question remains: Is the world ready for D12's world? Despite selling two million copies of 2001's Devil's Night, the six MCs insist they still got something to prove—namely, that they deserve to be recognized as a legitimate crew, as opposed to one star and a well-paid collection of hype men.

This is a weird time in America. A nation of sports nuts doesn't seem to mind looking at close-ups of the 72-year-old Aerosmith singer's turkey neck, but everybody chokes on their freedom fries when the randy Janet Jackson exposes one of her ta-tas at the climax of Super Bowl XXXVIII's halftime extravaganza. With the FCC launching a brand-new attack on "indecency" in entertainment, what will that mean for a group like D12?

Hmmm. Let's take a closer look at Janet's planets, shall we?

XXL: Janet Jackson showed a nipple on the Super Bowl and people were outraged. Does the current cultural climate help or hurt D12?

SWIFT: Janet Jackson's titty does not hurt. [Laughter]

SLIM: They didn't stay on it long enough.

BIZARRE: Did you see the close-up? That shit was ashy, too.

SLIM: I think that shit does hurt. It's gonna fuck with music for a minute, as far as music videos and what people can do.

BIZARRE: But Lil' Kim went to the Grammys with her shit out, a little flower on the nipple.

KUNIVA: I guess you gotta have your nipple covered.

BIZARRE: I guess Janet Jackson is seen to be much more of a role model.

SLIM: No, I think it was because more kids were tuned in to the Super Bowl. Which is why they probably got so uptight about it. It puts a damper on things for a minute, but we're still gonna be us. Luckily, our first single ["My Band"] ain't really got nothing to do with that.

But politics have hit you before. Like when you had to change "Purple Pills" to "Purple Hills"—did that bother you?

SLIM: That bothered the fuck out of us.

BIZARRE: It bothered me. But then when I heard lil' kids rappin' it, I would rather them rap the clean version than the bad.

So did you fight it until the end?

BIZARRE: We lost.

SLIM: I mean, we could stick to our guns and say, "Look, we're making it `Purple Pills.'" And then guess what? No radio play, no record sales. If you want to eat, this is what you gotta do. You change "pills" to "hills." It's the difference between "mills" and "bills."

But controversy in music can hurt or help, right? A lot of times it's good for sales.

KON ARTIS: That shit done turned into a fad. It's gay now. You got a lot of people doin' shit just to do it. It's a dude right now who's just like dissin' everybody. 50 already went that route with "How To Rob." Now it's cool for people to do it, because they feel like controversy sells. It's just bullshit now. It's not like it was before, when we first came out. The way we rapped, that was the way we always rapped. So we didn't look at it like, "Let's come out and say fucked-up shit."

SLIM: When we used to rap in the Hip Hop Shop days... There's a difference between being in a spot where there's like 50 people, and you want to say to them punch lines that get the "oohs" and "aahs" from the crowd, and when you go before millions of people and you're saying your shit. Once you get a deal and you get in that spotlight, you gotta be a lil' more careful with what you say. So we had to go that route. We got thrust into this world of, "Holy shit! We can't say lines about other rappers that may be metaphors and we don't mean anything by them. This might offend this person and we're gonna start beef with this crew." We didn't want to come out and cause beef with nobody. There's a difference between controversy and fuckin' with people's minds a lil' bit, and startin' beef with certain crews for no reason and shit.

Proof walks into the studio and makes a beeline for some pizza.

SLIM [to Proof]: How long are you out of jail for this time?

Proof is too busy chewing to answer.

SLIM: Long enough to eat this pizza.

Proof gets into trouble a lot, especially at strip clubs. Do you all ever tell him to stay the fuck away from strip clubs?

KON ARTIS: Yeah, I'll say it, but then I go. Matter of fact, I wanna go to Hot Tamales tonight.

SLIM: We tell Proof to stay out of them fucking scenes, period. Every day we wonder if we're gonna get that phone call.

KUNIVA: Sometimes it's not even the strip clubs. I believe him. Sometimes he really just be chillin' and he gets into some shit.

PROOF: Just yesterday, my landlord got beat up.

KUNIVA: They blame it on you?

SLIM: Uh, we're in an interview. [Laughter]

PROOF: Yeah, well, I got to move in 30 days.

Speaking of trouble, have you ever said anything in your lyrics that years later you regretted saying?

SLIM: Aw, man! Damn!

REST OF D12: ( Laughter )

KON ARTIS: What a question.

SWIFT: I know we had to tone it down. We’ve said some hard shit.

KUNIVA: When you’re young, you wild, you say a lot of stupid shit. The older you get, you look back and go, “ Man, that was fucked up. I gotta watch what I say.” It’s just part of growing up.

So to clear up the controversy, who is the best rapper out of D12?

( Silence)

BIZZARE: Bugz ( Original D12 member Bugz was murdered May 21, 1999 )

SWIFT: All of us are the best.

SLIM: He is tryin’ to start beef amongst the crew.

KUNIVA: He tryin’ to start a mutiny over here man.

BIZARRE: Honestly what did you think we were going to say? Just fucking with you. I didn’t think any of you would answer.

SWIFT: I am the best.

KON ARTIS: Swift is.

SLIM: Ok, I am.

PROOF: Em, the Tiger Woods of rappin’.

SLIM: First of all I am the group.

KUNIVA: He is the lead singer of the band.

SLIM: I’m the lead singer of this whole band. Why don’t you ask who gets the most chicks?