The rest of the day's conversations are quickly forgotten when you get into it with the legendary Buckshot. He's stern, but relaxed. He's intense, yet humorous. He's overcome with opinions and isn't afraid to let you know them. It's apparent he takes great pride in his cultural and business knowledge. He speaks as only he can: an authority on remaining a rebel. Urbanology recently caught up with Buckshot to talk about how the game is quickly changing.

WITH THE CREATION OF "ROCK BAND", "GUITAR HERO" AND "DJ HERO" WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE OPPORTUNITIES ARTISTS HAVE TO DELIVER THEIR MUSIC?
Buckshot: Record companies are a thing of the past. I told people that a few years ago. And how about this: there's still about four or five of them [record labels] left and you're gonna see those die out. So now you can document this..., Columbia Records is gonna fall... I knew they were falling only because I seen them leaning over. The same thing is happening to the game, with their whole business right now.

DO YOU THINK THE "DJ HERO" GAME WILL BRING MORE FANS TO HIP-HOP?  
Buckshot: I think it will. I think companies that capitalize on bringing something new and interactive to kids will benefit from that in the future and that will be the force for the survival of these companies.

IS ONE OF THE STRENGTHS OF BEING INDEPENDENT IS THAT IT REALLY RESTS ON A TEAM OF INDIVIDUALS VERSUS A CORPORATION WITH INTERESTS OUTSIDE OF THE MUSIC?
Buckshot: ... An independent label is still a corporation. You have major corporations and you have minor corporations. Duck Down [Records], we fall under the case of a minor corporation... Because we're minor, we fall under the independent bracket. Then you have major companies. A major company is a company... dominated by shareholders and people who have stock in the company and people who own shares of this corporation... Duck Down is made up of individuals. We're not Pepsi and Coke that have shares that own half of Def Jam... That's a corporation. We don't have other people that make decisions for us. We make decisions for ourselves.  

BACK TO THE GAME, WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT HIP-HOP RIGHT NOW?  WHAT DON'T YOU LIKE?
Buckshot: [I like] the freedom to still be able to do what you wanna do and do how you wanna do it and get it out there. And I like everything about hip-hop. I like the good and I like the bad. I like the dope and I like the wack... I like the state that it's in. I like everything about hip-hop because if it wasn't in the state that it's in, it wouldn't allow you to look at things that make it much better.  

YOU AND KRS-ONE PUT OUT "ROBOT" AND THEN JIGGA COMES WITH "D.O.A." OBVIOUSLY ALL OF YOU TAKE AIM AT EXTINGUISHING THE GIMMICK. CAN YOU RECALL OTHER GIMMICKS THAT HAD TO BE TOSSED AWAY?  
Buckshot: ... Backpacks. I wore backpacks because that was a style and it was a personal love and it was a part of my culture, the same way it's a part of a lot of other backpacker cultures. But there were a whole bunch of people who all of a sudden they wanted to buy backpacks, wear book bags, and just walk around with a backpack on, putting goggles on their head. They don't even go skiing, they just wanted to play with goggles... That was my era... The whole autotune [now] -- everybody want to sound like a robot. You don't know the difference between anybody on the radio, and that's why we made that record ["Robot"].  We made the record 'cause we're like, 'Yo, what the fuck?  Who is this? Who is that, who is this?' So we made the record to say, can we get back to the original voices so I could tell who these people are?  'Cause I don't know who these people are. They just sound like a bunch of robotic avatars... I'm asking them to reveal their voices.  

WITH SO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE LOOKING TO PRESIDENT OBAMA AND HIS ABILITY TO SPEAK WITH INTELLIGENCE AND ELOQUENCE DO YOU THINK THAT WILL IMPACT ARTISTS' FOCUS ON THEIR LYRICS?
Buckshot: I hope so. I hope other people follow and do the same thing... Barack Obama is someone that speaks a language that the young people understand and very young people don't understand... Young people, such as myself, that are in our 30s now, we understand what stimulus package means. We understand what capping trade means. We understand what these things mean so I can translate to the younger people... what these people [politicians] mean as far as taking advantage of these things, like stimulus package and all these other things.  

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM THE FUTURE?
Buckshot: ... Let's get more innovative as a community. I say this to the young black Americans; this is to the kids out there and it's going to sound real harsh -- please everybody, try something new. Let's open up our minds. You get things by being a hard worker, by doing hard work and you become famous by putting in really hard work. You can't become famous and then put in hard work. That doesn't happen.

Words By: Jonathon Brown + Photos courtesy of Duck Down Records