The Federation Interview

• Artist: The Federation
• Label: Warner Bros Records
• Be on the lookout for: It's Whateva
• Artist Website: The Federation

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Forget what you know or have heard about the Hyphy movement, because The Federation is ready to unleash its prescience beyond the bay.  Consisting of group members Goldy, Dooniebaby and Stresmatic, along with the expertise of A-list producer, Rick Rock, The Federation has made noise in the Oakland/San Francisco area for many years.  However, with the new found popularity of Bay Area artists such as Mistah F.A.B. and the career resurrection of a Bay Area legend like E-40, the group is set to take the simmering excitement of the Hyphy phenomenon to a whole new level.  Their debut album “It’s Whateva,” off of Warner Bros. Records, is set to be released this August and before it drops they jumped inside the DJBooth with DJ ”Z.” During their interview, Federation members Goldy and Stresmatic explain why producer Rick Rock was essential to the creation of their album, what former group they’d like to see reunite, and why the death (cancellation) of BET Uncut has hurt up-in-coming artists from less popular regions across the country.

DJ Booth:  What’s goin’ on ya’ll?  It’s your boy “Z,” doin’ it real big, and joining me inside the DJ Booth is a group who helped to jump start the Bay Area’s Hyphy movement.  There new album, “It’s Whateva,” drops in August off of Warner Bros Records.  Please welcome Goldy & Stresmatic of The Federation.  How you guys doin’?

Stresmatic: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah… what it do!

Goldy:  West Coast is the best @*#$! coat as usual.

DJ Booth:  See, I’m outta Chicago so we don’t actually technically have a coast.

Stresmatic:  Man, Chicago is so cold.  I remember we came out there – felt like I was gonna die.

DJ Booth:  What’s exactly cold to you guys?  What do you consider cold?

Stresmatic:  Man, below 30.  Or, below – it was like below 40 or something; you had to have a hoodie on and a jacket.

DJ Booth:  Here in Chicago, if it’s 30, 35 – even 25, that’s warm during the winter.

Goldy:  That’s not cool.  I live in Vegas, so it’s the desert, so when it get hot, it hot, when it get cold, it snow.  @*#$! don’t know that it snow in Vegas.

DJ Booth:  Well, we get plenty here in Chicago, so I don’t need to go anywhere where it’s gonna snow.

Goldy:  It don’t snow like that – it’ll be little trinkles, little snow junior.

DJ Booth:  Can’t even call it snow; it’ more like a misty sleet.  Now, I understand that you’ve had this release date pushed back and back, so does the title, “It’s Whateva,” encompass your feelings on the whole situation being so dragged out?

Stresmatic:  No, not really; we kinda had the title before, and, “It’s whateva” is kinda like – it’s self explanatory, it’s like: whateva you wanna do – it’s whateva.  Like, if somebody wanna fight, it’s, “Well, I guess whateva, nigga.”

Goldy:  “It’s Whateva,” to me means, like: for every action there’s a reaction.  Yo wanna get high, I wanna get high too.  You wanna @*#$! this @*#$!, I wanna go @*#$! the @*#$!, too.  Nigga, you wanna have a shootout and go down in a blaze of glory, let’s go.  It’s whateva.

DJ Booth:  It sounds like you guys live a pretty fun life.  I might do whateva with you guys pretty soon.

Goldy: It’s whateva, man!

Stresmatic:  Let’s go.

DJ Booth:  Long time producer-collaborator, Rick Rock, said his work on your new album is some of the best of his career.  How does a compliment like that make you two feel?

Stresmatic:  Aw, it makes you feel great.  I believe it’s one of his best works, too.  You got a lotta great work, but when he works with us, I feel like it’s some of his best work.  We mesh so well – man, it’s just great.

DJ Booth:  Speaking of meshing, I read that you guys consider Rick to be somewhat of the glue that holds the group together.  Do you think you could’ve properly drafted this brand new album without his production, guidance and assistance?

Goldy:  Hell no; we could’ve went to other producers and got a, Scott Storch beat, pulled out a Timbaland beat, pull out a beat from various hot producers, but it wouldn’t have been The Federation’s chemistry.  That’s the thing: we’re beyond brothers, we’ve been together for the last ten years, so we know – I know what your @*#$! smell like before it even come out!

DJ Booth:  You said you guys have been together for about ten years, and over the course of hip hop’s history, there’ve been a lot of successful rap groups, but most don’t have that type of longevity.  How do you feel as though you all have been able to stay together for this long?

Goldy:  By the grace of God, and we’re not [a] put-together group.  We’ve struggled together, we shared Top Ramen together, hard as @*#$! – we’ve shared each other’s clothes.  It’s not like, “Oh, he’s from over here, he’s from over there, he’s from over there, they’re both signed to the same label, so let’s turn ‘em into a group.” Naw, it don’t work like that.  That @*#$! is destined to crumble.  We are solidified as a stone.  Ten years; we are empire.

DJ Booth:  As fans of hip hop in addition to being recording artists, what former rap group who at one point in their career was blossoming and musically on top of their game, do you guys wish were still recording together?

Stresmatic:  I’d say the Wu Tang Clan, but I think I heard that they gettin’ back all together and doin’ something.

DJ Booth:  Well, they’ve been tryin’ to do that for years.

Stresmatic:  Wu Tang Clan was a beast!

Goldy:  I got a few groups: New Edition, Fat Boyz – I dunno where Ill and Al Scratch is – oh!  EPMD.

DJ Booth:  It’s good to hear you guys name groups not just from the West Coast but across various regions of the U.S.

Stresmatic:  We love hip hop.  We love all kinds of music.  We was raised on all types of music, so it’s not just, “Aw, we just listen to Bay Area music, or we just listen to Snoop, or we just listen to Dre.” We listen to everything.

DJ Booth:  Let’s talk about Hyphy music for a second.  You wanna be able to stay true to your Bay Area roots but I know that on this project, with Rick, you guys kind of expanded that sound.  Was this in an effort to make sure you could appeal to a broader national audience?

Stresmatic:  Well, we just do us, and who like it like it, and who don’t like it don’t like it.  We just do us; we ain’t trying to make certain – like we don’t go in like, “Let’s make a certain record, so niggas in the South will feel it too, even though it’s Hyphy they’ll feel it out there.” We just doin’ what we do, and then we put it out there. 

Goldy:  On that note: see when we record, we don’t even go in with attempts, “Let’s do a song called this,” or, “Let’s do a Hyphy song,” or, “Let’s do a crunk song,” or, “Let’s do a song for the bitches.” What we do is, we all sit down as a collective, we hear the beat, first person to come up with the no-brainer – that’s the hook.  We record the hook, the main thing is the beat and the hook.  Or Stres may have an idea, he may call Rick, “”Hey Rick, I wanna do a hook like this, do the beat like this.” There’s many different ways we come up with songs.  I just thank God that we’re diverse.

DJ Booth:  Because you guys all work so closely together, in an effort to make sure that all of your music sounds great, is there any point when you butt heads because you want to go two different directions, and then the end result is not what you wanted it to be?

Goldy:  Never, never!

Stresmatic:  Nah, it’s never happened.

DJ Booth:  So it’s peace and harmony always?

Stresmatic:  Musically we don’t never, naw, hell naw.  Somebody’ll be like, “Okay, let’s try this,” and we play with it, and if it just don’t work, we don’t come with nothing.  We don’t never be like, “@*#$! that, lemme do that!  No, lemme do this!” Naw, it don’t go like that.

Goldy:  Everyone gets a chance to be the leader.

DJ Booth:  I read that you have plans for a summer tour with multi-platinum group Linkin Park.  How did you guys hook up?

Goldy:  I don’t know how much truth to that tour is, but I would love to be on it!

Stresmatic:  Yeah, me too.  I’d love it.

DJ Booth:  After E-40 released his latest album, “My Ghetto Report Card,” it created a [Bay Area] buzz.  But because it failed to produce a second commercially successful single, people kinda started to downplay the control that Hyphy music would have across the country.  Explain, though, why it’s more of a lifestyle and culture.

Goldy:  You can’t put the fate of a coast, a genre of music, a new style of music, in one person’s hands.  It’s a collective, it’s Northern California – us all feed off of each other.  Hyphy is like an energy.  It’s our beat of the drum, it’s how we move.  It’s not like, “Oh, do the Hyphy dance.” No, @*#$! dance irate.  Hyphy dancin’ is: wiggle to the beat, you know what I mean?  Whateva your body do to the music, that’s Hyphy.

DJ Booth:  Do you guys feel like the majority of the country just doesn’t understand what Hyphy is all about?

Stresmatic:  I don’t think there [is] enough shown, there’s not been enough media shown.  All Hyphy, it’s like, if you see it in a magazine, it’s like, okay, you can’t get it.  You wouldn’t [get] crunk music if you just saw it in a magazine.  You hear the music, but you can’t visually see it, so when you don’t visually see it all the time, you can’t get it.

Goldy:  One thing about that – rest in peace to BET Uncut – that allowed a lot of regions that artists would never, ever be heard in, to be felt.  So rest in peace to BET Uncut.

DJ Booth:  Let’s talk about the new single, “College Girl.” What will the premise for the video be, and are you’re looking for college girls across the country?  I have a few if you need some numbers…

Goldy:  Ahhhhh, that’s whats up!

Stresmatic:  I think we’re shootin’ the video for that one, but we got another song that I think we might be shootin’ a video to too; it’s called, “Happy I Met You,” with Snoop.  Yeah, we lookin’ for college girls, so y’all can hit us on Myspace.  Doin’ open auditions, open casting calls.

DJ Booth:  Go ahead and give that Myspace address so people can find out more.

Goldy:  www.myspace.com/thefederation.  Check us out.  All you bitches who tired of fake pimps, and wanna get up under some dirty mackin’, you can hit www.myspace.com/thegoldiegoldoneandonly.  I’m waiting for your donation, baby, I’m waitin’.

DJ Booth:  Goldy, Stresmatic of The Federation, I appreciate your time, I wish you nothin’ but the best of luck on this new album, “It’s Whateva,” droppin’ in August.

Stresmatic:  That’s what up, go get it.

Goldy:  You will not press fast forward, you will not skip to the next track, you will not be disappointed!  “It’s Whateva.”