MTV and Genius have recently partnered to release three, exclusive interviews never seen in their entirety from New York hip-hop artists in the late 90′s. First up was a super-personal interview with then-music journalist Josh Tyrangiel talking to the late, great Ol’ Dirty Bastard. The conversation went from talks of his 13 kids to his love for songstress Mariah Carey, including personal memories from those involved.

Next up? Hip-hop legends DMX, Method Man, Redman & LL Cool J.

On set at the ’97 video shoot got “4,3,2,1,” the four emcees chopped it up with journalist Abbie Kearse about a plethora of topics, including an interesting segment on the art of freestylin-she even got D to spit a little somethin’. Catch highlights from the interview, which included an “interesting” “What Thanksgiving Means To You” speech from each of the seasoned artists, below:

What freestyling means to DMX:

Just talking mess, that’s all. You are not talking about any particular subject, just talking about how good you are. That was freestyle to me. Because there are many styles of rap, you know what I am saying? Story rhymes, you know what I am saying? All types of styles. Freestyle to me is a style, not really speaking of any one particular subject, just how nice you are.

Method Man on his first freestyle ever:

It was some old Gilligan’s Island rhyme or something like that, you know what I am saying? It had the theme to Gilligan’s Island in it. I don’t really remember how it goes or whatever yet. It was one of my first joints but I had to come back strong after that. I remember they were throwing empty crack vials at niggas and all that shit. You know, we was up at the club and it was bad[…]

LL Cool J’s thoughts on Redman:

They are different. You know, Red – his thing is like intergalactic and wild out, and he talks about things – he says things that make you laugh and make you feel good. And he just paints an interesting picture, do you know what I am saying? He makes you feel like, you know, like his whole zone – you know what I’m saying, it’s a place that you want to be. You know, he makes you feel like it is a cool place to be, like you want to sit in his car and listen to him because he is talking about a lot of things that people don’t know. And he has a very cool flow the way he rhymes tracks that makes you want to dance. You know, he can take the worst beat and just the way he sits on top of it makes you want to dance. 

The entire interview can be viewed here.

 

-Kairi C. (@_findingforever)