PAWZ ONE- New album, New Views

Born a Compton native Pawz One started to see the Hip Hop culture unfold right in his neighborhood. From break dancers in the street to graffiti on the walls at a young age he became influenced to write.  Tuning  into Hip Hop icons such as LL Cool J, Kool Moe D, Afrika Bambaataa and also to his hometown heroes NWA.  Wanting to be heard Pawz would attend local house parties to rap or battle on buses. Anywhere there was a cypher session he was there. Now with more than 10 years of being a Master of Ceremonies he has just released his Face the Facts album. With tracks on this release like "The Luv" and "Officer Down" this album is bound to stir up some emotion. We got a chance to sit down with Pawz to see what he had to say about his latest release.

PM: What was your inspiration for making this album?

PAWZ: Before this was verbal virus 2.5 and even that name has stuck with me since the graff days because my rap name is my graff name. You would catch fame. People would see you up and they would talk about you as if you were a mythological person. It was dope because you're standing right next to them and there talking "yo I seen this spot here". It carried over into rhyming because everybody would say yo you gotta get out there if your dope people will talk about you. So word of mouth. So then Ludacris came out with an album called Word of Mouth and then I had to think of something a little more clever. A virus is something that catches on and it evolves and the verbal is self explanatory. So people talk about you and it carries on. So I did a mixtape Volume 1.5 then I did 2.5 and the idea was to do volume 2. I kinda of scrapped it because I got out of that way of thinking. To me that was rappin' for props, I'm out of that stage. I don't really need to impress people anymore, my peers at least, because they're gonna keep me at that same level if they can. So I said 'fuck it, Face the Facts'. I teamed up with two producers that, along the way, have been giving me beats [and] kind of molding my shit. I think this is my college album, I'm not in the pro's yet. We're not recording in a multi-million dollar studio, you know what I mean? It's definitely a big, big step forward from the other shit; sound-quality wise, production wise, even songwriting. They wouldn't let me just rap. I use an analogy like boxing, when they found me I could punch, punch, punch and knock people out but I didn't give the people in the stands a show. I didn't have any footwork, I wasn't graceful, everything was just brute force. I could take a hit and hit back but there was no finesse. These guys brought me back in the gym and kind of changed it up. That's the leap forward.

PM: You have Raskass, 2 Mex, Termanology and Rakaa featured on Face the Facts, why them?

PAWZ: People have asked that before. Why don't you get MC so and so, he's down the block. It's no disrespect to my peers. A lot of them in the LA underground think they're bigger than what they are and carry themselves that way . I saw it as pointless. Why work with someone that thinks he's Rakaa when I can work with Rakaa? Somebody who feels like they've earned the props he's earned when I can just reach out to him and build with him. Like I said it's no diss to none of my peers, there's some dudes out there that are dope but because of the politics like he's from the valley and he's from IE and all that childish shit a lot of these dudes stay stuck performing at the same venue every Friday. For me, I had to grow & evolve. I had to fuck with the big boys. Dudes that I grew up listening to that I respect. Luckily these dudes respect me too for my craft and my hustle. Seeing these dudes on tour, being on the road, they know this is what I want to do and that my heart's in it. I've been blessed to have all of them be a part of it.

PM: Do you have a song on the album that is your favorite?

PAWZ: It's probably "What you make it" because I wrote that the fastest. It's more inspirational. You could deal with all kinds of shit. You can sit here and cry but we just passed a dude right now who's missing a leg, pushing a shopping cart with can's in it. How am I worse off then him? My stomach's full, I'm in clean clothes, all my limbs work. So taking the opportunities I have and making the most of it.Even from when you're a little kid a shopping cart isn't a shopping cart that could be a race car, it could be whatever you want it to be. I'm saying the same thing about life no matter what happens it's up to you to turn that shit into something good. And I wrote it really fast because it just poured out.

PM: Tells us about your upcoming tour.

PAWZ: Well, like I said the other day on Facebook, I wish I had famous rapper friends to take me on the road. It doesn't happen. There's some people for political reasons or whatever they get lucky. Somebody will reach out and put them on a tour. Nobody's done that for me. That's why I named my first tour on my own because I booked all my own dates, I took a bus , took a train, slept in a airport I did all that. I'm working on setting up another one it's called still on my own tour until the day somebody decides to put me up. I'm starting to see that's probably not going to happen because no body wants to take anybody on tour because they consider it a liability or another mouth to feed or somebody else to worry about when the plane is about to leave. I get that part.Plus we didn't grow up together type of shit. There's a lot of little things. I can't sit here and cry so I gotta do shit on my own. The dope part is to get in the car and driving to New Mexico and absolutely not a soul in that whole state knows you and then to leave and you sell out your merch, people want pictures, people want autographs, when are you coming back? That is amazing. It wasn't because I opened up for so and so. They respected what I did.

PM: You've come pretty far in your hip hop career  and like you said this is your college album. Do you have any advice for any up and coming MCs?

PAWZ: The one thing that  I am learning is I thought just coming in the game and speaking honestly. I thought that was what people wanted. I thought that's what they respected. But nobody wants that. People like being lied to. They like the bull shit. If they didn't we wouldn't have a Trinidad James, a Wakka flocka, we wouldn't have the hype, we wouldn't have that because they sell you an escape. My advice would be to hold your tongue. If your gonna get in the game and you don't like some shit don't say anything. I've been vocal about a lot of things I disagree with and people agree with me and give me their silent thumbs up but behind closed doors there plotting to push me out. How do you tell someone not to speak your mind and your a fucken artist? Unfortunately your only one artist and you can't change that system and I'm learning that. With out the help from the people you can't turn shit around. Look at Lennon or anyone that tried to do that they ended up getting smoked. So my advice is Hold your tongue, race plays a big issue in the game, invest in yourself or find an investor.

PM: What's the message you want Face the Facts to send out?

PAWZ: As much as you would like to hide the truth, cover the truth, put a piece of tape over it all that shit it's always gonna be there. It's gonna stare right back at you. You can break one mirror but then there's another one and then another one. Eventually you've got to face the truth. That's for every individual. Be realistic. it's ok to have dreams but be realistic. Face the Facts, you can't run from yourself.


PM: How has graffiti influenced you?

Art by Pawz One

PAWZ: In the beginning it was mostly just the idea I could write my name on a wall, a name that I made up and I could catch fame off of it. The fame was part of it but that was because I had no technique. I had no can control or none of that. I used to draw before I started painting, Once I learned how to hold a can and use different tips that's when everything opened up. I started getting into doing letters and throw ups but I wasn't dope at letters. I started drawing characters and my character's were dope. When I started  getting good at letters I started getting busted a lot. Shit that is expensive! So I did some jail time for writing so I pretty much just switched up elements.


PM: Do you have any last words?

PAWZ: It's easy to get frustrated when your trying to be an artist in the game. Weather it's production or your a DJ whatever it is you do. It's easy to get frustrated and look around and kind of blame circumstances and sometime that does create good art out of frustration that's how some of the best is made because it's a genuine expression but you can't let it eat away at you to were you don't produce anything positive. There's still a positive in there you just got to blow the dust off of it first. Don't get too frustrated. I learned my lesson coming out trying to change Hip Hop, trying to save Hip Hop. It's like a battered wife it get beat on , treated like shit and it just keeps coming back because it doesn't really want that change. It likes the abuse for some reason and it's a afraid to grown and evolve or at least go back to what it was and accept the good guys the motherfuckers who will do anything for you and genuinely love you. You would rather have a doush bag that put's hands on you. It's the same thing with Hip Hop now. I'm done trying to save it thumbs up everybody keep doing what you're doing.

Writen by: Corrin

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PAWZ ONES LATEST VIDEO "THE LUV" FT ARIANO

Pre order Face the Facts at http://facethefacts.bigcartel.com/. The pre order includes goodies!
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