Leaf Dog makes up one third of UK hip hop heavyweights The 3 Amigos. They've just dropped a new album entitled World War 3 so we caught up with Leaf Dog to discuss the album as well as future projects and the group's origins.
First of all, for those that are not familiar... who are you and The 3 Amigos?
The 3 Amigos consists of myself, BVA MC and our producer Naive. We've been making hip hop since 2004; we dropped an album when I was 17 called The Lost But Not Forgotten but that was real underground, not many people have heard that. We've continued making tunes since then. We've just dropped our new album World War 3 and I've also got a solo album dropping on High Focus Records soon.
Tell us a bit more about World War 3...
We made this album in 2008, it was actually made before I even started making beats. Back in the days when I was just an MC.
How did the transition from MCing to making beats come about? I've seen that you have worked with some established American artists such as Ras Kass...
Yeah man, I've made beats for Ras Kass, Kool G Rap and others. It came about after watching Naive do what he does for so long. I was in Brighton with Jam Baxter and that lot and I just decided to start making beats. I made like 12 beats in a week and I got some of the Contact Play lot to rap on them, that was some exclusive shit.
What do you use to make your beats?
Logic 5.5, the shit you can download for free!
How did you get the hook-up to be able to sell beats to artists such as Kool G Rap, etc?
Just hustling really man. Trying to get at people through the millions of ways you can these days; through things like Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. I got ignored for years but when I got good enough I guess people started paying attention. No one has ever handed me anything, it's all strictly off my own back through my PC in my bedroom.
On World War 3 you have a feature from Sadat X of Brand Nubian. Had you always been a big fan? How did it feel to work with him?
I've been a big Sadat X fan for a long time. I sent him a message thinking nothing would happen but then it did, it came through. We couldn't believe it, I think that collaboration opened a lot of doors for us. Dudes see that we've made a tune with Sadat and it helps man.
Are there any other American MCs that you'd like to collaborate with if you could?
The plan is to get Slick Rick on a track, I'd also love to work with anyone out of the Wu, Big Daddy Kane and Lord Finesse.
I understand that the track you did with Sadat X got played on DJ Premier's radio show?
Yeah, DJ Eclipse was filling in for Premo and he played the track. That was a good look man. That's a quality show, Eclipse holds it down, he plays all the dope shit!
Taking it back a bit, how did you get into hip hop in general?
I used to be a drum & bass MC. Between the ages of 14 and 17 I didn't even really think about being a hip hop MC. At that point BVA MC was a DJ and it was all about drum & bass for us. Then one day things just happened and I couldn't do DnB because of certain situations. BVA then started to freestyle a bit. We got booked for a show at a club and we decided to just get up and spit some hip hop and that's where we met Naive. It all just kind of happened, it wasn't planned. Even the name The 3 Amigos is something that we just used to call ourselves when we were younger, it all just carried on and we just stuck with it. To be honest I probably wouldn't pick the name The 3 Amigos or Leaf Dog nowadays but that's just the way it is man; it's written in stone now!
I understand that you are affiliated with Contact Play and Tactical Thinking. How did you all meet?
There wouldn't be any 3 Amigos without Derogatory from Tactical Thinking, he was the one that introduced us to Naive. The original team was us and SK crew and we were actually part of Tactical Thinking originally. As things went on we ended up splitting of and doing our own thing, there was no beef or anything like that, we just wanted to split off and make our album. We've known Tactical Thinking since the very beginning; in fact I thought of the name Tactical Thinking.
We met Contact Play a few years later, one of my DJs started playing for them. Someone then played me a Jam Baxter verse down the phone and my instant reaction was 'Yeah! I'm gonna go to Brighton and battle this kid!'. We went down there and me, BVA, Jam Baxter and Mr Key from Contact Play had a battle for like four hours! It was undecided who won but I think I won and they think they won! We've just been linking since then; I've got something on the way which will be an R.L.D (Real Life Drama) album featuring 3 Amigos, Contact Play and Fliptrix as well as a few other heads from the UK I'm feeling. It's in the pipelines at the moment, it's a long way off but it will happen.
Will that album be produced by yourself?
For the most part but it will also feature any beats that are dope enough.
Tell us a bit more about your alter-ego MC Scrumpy Jack...
That came about when me and BVA were in sitting in the studio with no herb; we were racking our brains for things to do. Back in the day one of my friends died and he always had the most crazy west country accent. I always imagined him as a rapper and we said we'd write raps for him. He passed away so we couldn't do that so we wrote some crazy raps in that style as a tribute to our mate.
Where are you guys from?
BVA grew up in Glastonbury, I grew up in Glastonbury and East London for a bit and Naive is from near Brighton.
Hailing from the west country, how is the scene there? Bristol has a big scene but what about Bath, etc?
That's a good question. We don't really play out in the south west much. We tend to get booked all over the place and we get booked for out of town gigs more often than not. Dubstep has taken over round here really, I don't really see anything else apart from dubstep being put on around here. I'm not really in to it. I liked it at first but I really didn't see it becoming what it has now, it used to have a lot more soul to it. Now it's just become some plastic, fabricated, trendy kid bullshit.
Do you have any up and coming shows / tours?
We have a show with Contact Play in December in London, we should also be playing at Suspect Packages sometime soon as well. I'm also doing a beat battle with Pete Cannon soon, Pete helped me learn to make beats as well. This battle will take part in Bristol and Top Billin'. I'm planning to set up a few of these beat battles all around the place, I reckon that would be a good look.
Do you have a follow up for World War 3 planned?
Yeah man, we've already started work on that. So far we have a track with Ras Kass, another with Q Unique and hopefully we should get Kool G Rap on there as well. I've got another thing coming up also, I've formed a new group with me, BVA and my little brother. My little brother has started making beats and he's getting proper ill with it. It's going to be called Brothers of the Stone; it will feature Jam Baxter, Fliptrix, Dirty Dike and a few other people.
You'll also be dropping your solo album on Fliptrix's High Focus imprint, tell us a bit more about it..
Fliptrix knows what he's doing man. I've had a solo album finished for about a year now; there's some real dope features on there too. I've wanted to bring it out for a long time. Fliptrix heard it and was up for putting it out. It's a big look man, I think that High Focus is gonna be a big thing man.
Finally, any shout outs?
Yeah man, shout out to all the real beat bandits and real MCs out there. Big up to everyone doing this thing properly. Fuck all you fake motherfuckers switching up; big up to High Focus and everyone else you know who you are.
peep the website here
http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/features/2832
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