L-No comes through with the EXCLUSIVE Profit Money interview!
Profit Money is a name that has been steadily climbing towards the top of the list of producers in WV for the last four years. More recently, he’s thrown his hat successfully in the MC’ing ring. Love him or hate him, everyone seems to have an opinion…but luckily so does he. Lots of them. And he’s not afraid to tell you either… for my money, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I linked up with P Dollars on the release date for his DOUBLE album “Redshift/Blueshift” to philosophize about god, bitches and shit…
L-NO: Tell me about the new album and the process of making it…How did you come up with the title, and why did you end up deciding to do a double album as opposed to holding some material back for a future release?
Profit Money: SPOILER ALERT: This is going to be a long answer. This thing has been almost a year in the making, whether I knew about it then or not. At first it was going to be a producer album along the lines of Charleston producer, 95’s “9 Nickel Bags Of Funk.” Meanwhile I was still making beats and songs for myself. It kept getting harder and harder to let beats go so I just started jumping on them too. Eventually I scrapped the producer album altogether because I had just done something to that effect with Paycheck Game called “Inappropriate Assholes”. Plus I had released 3 beat albums over the summer so I felt like I’ve pushed far enough on the producer side, so let’s fuck rap in its butt right quick.
That’s when Redshift slowly started coalescing and forming a shape. Originally it was a single album for which I planned to have around 20 or so tracks. I just couldn’t stop creating. When I was finished, I couldn’t fit all the music I had made into an 80 minute disc. So from there I decided, fuck it, I’ll split this disc and THEN I can put back some of the tracks I really hated to take off the album in the first place, for the sake of time constraints.
So Redshift continued evolving right up til its release. In fact, it wasn’t a double album until the day before me and B Hyphen dropped it.
As far as the title, it comes from astrophysics. You wouldn’t know it from a casual conversation or even my music, but I’m really into that shit. Redshift and Blueshift are terms for the visible light one can observe relative to a star or galaxy’s movement toward or away from the observer. As an object moves away, its light signature is relatively loose, if you will, making its light appear closer to the red portion of the visible light spectrum. As an object moves closer its light is compressed in front of it, causing it to appear bluer; if only slightly. In fact if you were to travel at the speed of light, you would be seeing through a sort of tunnel vision. The inner field of your vision would be crested in a faint blue ring, while you’re peripheral, because you would be observing approaching and receding light at the same time. This is also called the Doppler Effect or Doppler Shift. It is demonstrable here on earth. The next time an ambulance passes you, listen. As it approaches you, the sound waves from the siren are compressed in front of it, and as it passes it they are more spread out. This “Redshifting” and “Blueshifting” is the reason why the ambulance sounds so different relative to its location and yours.
I picked the title “Redshift” for the album to signify that a) I’m a fuckin star and b) I’m moving away from everybody. When I decided it was going to be a double album, it also afforded me a stroke of genius. I could now use the antithesis of Redshift for the second disc, instead of the generic Disc 1 and Disc 2 format. Thus Blueshift was born. Then I went a step further. I split the album in such a way that my most crazy, experimental, and fun songs could be on Redshift, keeping with its namesake and showing I was “moving away from you”. While on Blueshift, the songs gradually become more personal and therefore more relatable on a human level, and keeps with its namesake by showing I was “moving closer to you.” To me it was a flash of brilliance and I was extremely grateful for it, though I doubt most people would get that straight out of the box, and please believe I’m not saying that condescendingly. But to know all that would require that you really be into that kind of stuff which, thankfully, I am. I will now cease pretending to be smart for the rest of this interview.
With that said, the material was final as soon as it was recorded. To get that, you have to understand how I work. When I make beats I write to them. If it makes it past 4 bars, it might be good. One verse? I’m onto something. A verse and a hook? Let’s write a few more verses and see where it goes. If I write a whole song, export the beat, move it to my recording PC (I make beats on a separate computer and shift beats with a jump drive)and then finish it without thinking it sounds dumb, or just isn’t good… Then I have a keeper. It sounds simple, but believe me it’s a long process that works well for me. So I don’t make a whole shitload of songs and pick the best. If they make it into a “finished songs” folder then trust they are the best I could do or they would never have been done. Oh, and if there’s a beat that makes me run around my house freestyling like a crazy person and write a song in 15 minutes, that’s a keeper too.
L-NO: Have you heard any early feedback from the album? What are your expectations for it?
Profit Money: I have actually. It’s been really good. As cocky as I am, this is a surprise. I’m not so stuck on myself that I’m not aware of how I’m perceived. I am fully aware I’m not for everyone, maybe anyone, as any of my ex girlfriends will attest to. People I’ve never met are sending me messages full of accolades.
But the biggest feedback is the numbers. We all know that quote “Men lie, Women lie, numbers don’t.” My goal was to achieve 250 plays and downloads within one month of the release. As I’m talking to you it hasn’t been a full 24 hours since we released RS/BS and we’ve already hit 220, only 15 of which is tracking from WVRapscene.com. The song WVU is the fastest moving single despite having no hype and being buried on Redshift. 5 people were kind enough to actually buy the album despite the fact that it’s completely free. We’re on track to exceed our first month’s goal on the first day of the release.
It gets better when you consider: We had no release date, No prior promoting other than a Facebook page, I haven’t had an album out since 2006, This is my first solo album, It’s a double album, We haven’t been blowing anyone’s Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter accounts up with spam mail, and it’s all on the internet. I’m blown away by how successful the album already is. I’m ecstatic actually. It feels so good to sit back and look at this thing and be like “I did that”, and then to see it be so well received? Cloud 9 over here bro.
L-NO: How do you juggle your schedule of WVU student, military service and being one of the best producers in the Dub and still stay motivated?
Profit Money: To be honest? WRECKLESS AS FUCK. I can’t plan for shit and I’m horribly disorganized. One of my exes called me a beautiful mess, because somehow it all works for me. I have to take everything one day at a time. Things come, things go. Shows come, get canceled, I get pissed, I get drunk, rinse and repeat. When it comes to my son though, he has priority. I have precious time left here and I want to spend it with him. He is my heart. No homo.
To do it all though, I have to add hours to my day. I do that by sleeping less and eating one meal a day. Sleeping and eating actually piss me off. I hate that I have to do them, if that makes sense. It’s such a waste of time. During school year I spend my day at my mandatory classes, come home and study for a few hours, play some Xbox or make beats, call my baby’s mom to bring Jace over, hang with him while reading and pass out. There’s nothing I can do about the military stuff though. I just have to do it when it comes around. The military is the only solid part of my life. Everything else is fluid and subject to change.
L-NO: You’ve been known to own a message board battle or two…and have produced some of the greatest jpeg thread jacks of all time…what are your thoughts on message board shenanigans and what’s your favorite web battle?
Profit Money: HaHa. Didn’t see this question coming. Love it though. It’s hilarious. I’m just glad other people think so or I’d be a huge douche… Wait. I AM a huge douche. Just as well.
I don’t take myself too serious. And if you do, you deserve all the shit you catch. Looking at you Heavyweight, you fat fuckin’ bastard. My favorite thread jacking has to be the one where I put up the pictures of who’s 80’s Saturday morning cartoon powers I’d like to have and then I put James Brown’s picture as Lionel from the Thundercats. I just laughed thinking about that one.
Another more recent one is when Heavyweight was over saturating the board with his dumbass topics and arbitrary comments. So knowing he was on a shitty dial up connection I bombed every thread he posted with pointless high resolution pictures, pages long, knowing he’d have to wait 800,000 hours for each thread to load just to check if there were any actual replies to his original post. I did one on zoo animals I think, just posting random zoo animals. And the other one was about sinks hahaha. He was so heated. I wish I still had time like that. Those days were awesome.
L-NO: How did the name Profit Money originate and who were your biggest influences as a producer?
Profit Money: Dre. Hands down. He’s the only producer I’ve ever encountered that has never made a whack beat to me. If he has, I haven’t heard it.
Profit Money has 2 origins actually. Money came way later. Profit actually used to be Prophet. I lived with my Dad for a year and he’s a preacher, so he used to drag me to all his preacher shit. At this prayer meeting one day this lady starts going off “speaking in tongues”. Then this other lady, a Jew For Jesus, stood up to translate the first lady. She rattled off a long list of things I would do but one thing she said stuck with me: “This child will be a great prophet of god.” When I started rapping I went by J-Bo, which was gay as fuck. Then I went by Logik which was also a computer keyboard and as original as off brand cereal. I kept trying to think of a new name and that memory flashed back to me. I thought “Well how bout I just call myself Prophet, and make that prophecy true, in a roundabout way?” Then I thought “How ‘bout I get clever and change the spelling but retain the meaning?” And then I thought “Man I’m hungry”, so I went and got something to eat.
Money came along because back in the late 90’s EVERYONE was money. “Yo money, whattup.” “I just fucked yo bitch, money.” Etc. Plus my cousin Boo also went by E-Money (Why a man with a nickname needs a nick name I’ll never know). So I thought it would be awesome and all “double meaning” like to call myself Profit Money. Everyone liked it and it stuck.
L-NO: What does your current studio setup look like?
Profit Money: Like this:
That’s 2 laptops, an extra screen, and a little sound system. The laptop to the left is my beatmaking computer. I only use FL Studio 8, and Soundforge to cut samples. To the right I use Adobe Audition for recording.
L-NO: Describe your ideal studio session (or what is your favorite session you’ve been involved in?)
Profit Money: Lots of beer and being alone. IF I’m working on a solo project. People are welcome if it’s a collab. I like it to be a party. My favorite session is probably my first one. MonstaLung recorded me at SoundVizion’s setup and I did “Eyes on my money” and everybody loved the hook. That’s when I knew I could go somewhere with all this.
L-NO: What, if anything, would you change about the WV hip hop scene?
Profit Money: The pettiness. Sometimes the next man is only looking out for himself. And that’s all good to an extent. But don’t act like you can’t do certain things to support other artists. If I’m standing in the front row during your set, I better see you in the front row of mine.
On a macro level, I would like to see our overall sound become more cohesive and distinct from the rest of the country. Nobody is coming to WV to hear what they can hear in New York or Atlanta or LA. Let’s give them WV for fuck sakes.
L-NO: What kind of things do you get into outside of music?
Profit Money: Fuckin’ bitches and blowing money. I’ve been all over the country these past few months. From NY to FL. I blew money. I blew money on bitches. And then I fucked said bitches. Now I have no penis.
Haha… if I’m home I go out to clubs when I don’t have Jace. I only go out with my boys, otherwise I hate clubs. I’d much rather chill on a porch with some beer and have great and funny conversations. Those are my favorite times. But if everyone is in or busy I read, watch movies, or BUST YO MOTHAFUCKIN ASS IN MODERN WARFARE 2.
L-NO: What does the next year have in store for Profit Money?
Profit Money: Deployment. I will be spending the next year of my life in a country in the Middle East fighting for America’s right to disrespect the soldiers that give up their lives to fight a war they would never have the balls to engage in themselves. But I’m not bitter.
You can download Redshift/Blueshift for free at HERE (but you could also not be a cheap ass and drop the man a fiver at least for his work!!!) You can read Profit Money’s innermost rantings at www.wvrapscene.com.
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