PHOTO: La Chat - Dramatize
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La Chat – Speaking on the real story behind her, Three 6 Mafia & the Music Industry

PHOTO: La Chat - Dramatize

In a recent exclusive interview with MemphisRap.com, La Chat exposes herself and her true thoughts about her life, Three Six Mafia, and the Music Industry. As in-depth questions are presented throughout the interview, La Chat answers without hesitation revealing the real story behind her time span with and without Hypnotize Minds, how she learned the Music Industry throughout the experience and how it affected her life now and then.

The interview also touches on her recent connection with Cash Money Records’ recently inked Rap Hustlaz for the album Dramatize, her upcoming DVD, her motivations and more.

MemphisRap.com: This yo boy Eric with MemphisRap.com here with yo girl La Chat.

MemphisRap.com: What’s up La Chat, how yah doing?

La Chat: Doing great, doing great couldn’t be better.

MemphisRap.com: That’s all good.
For the people who don’t or who may have forgot, how long have you been in this rap game?

La Chat: I been in the rap game professionally since around 98′.

MemphisRap.com: 98′, fo sho.

MemphisRap.com: There’s not too many female rappers out doing what you’re doing.

La Chat: I know.

MemphisRap.com: You know you got the Gangsta Boo, Lady B, Louise Lane and you Chat. Give the young upcoming female artists some advice on how to keep pushing, keep moving, doing what they doing?

La Chat: First and foremost, don’t stop doing whatcha doing. Don’t never stop rapping! A lot people think it’s hard to get in the game and cause you a female, they think it’s a male dominant game but it’s not. Just get in and give it what you got, give good music and you can make your way through this industry because I sold over 150,000 copies and more males bought my CD than females you know. That’s the best advice I can give you is keep doing what you doing, don’t feel like it’s a male game because it’s not. So give em whatcha got, give good music and you’ll win.

MemphisRap.com: Fo sho! That’s real. Word on the street is your song Round & Round with Mike Jones is geting heavy rotation outside of Memphis. How you feel about that?

La Chat: I’m loving it. By me being already an artist as well, it’s good to get something back on the radio, back in rotation and it’s making me feel back like the star that I am.

MemphisRap.com: Fo sho, fo sho, that’s real talk. You’ve also been nominated for artist of the year on MemphisRap.com with over 1,000 votes, how do you feel about that?

La Chat: I feel great about that. I had won the mixtape artist of the year at the SEA awards this year.

MemphisRap.com: Fa Sho! Congrats on that!

La Chat: Thank you… and I’m glad to know I was nominated for the MemphisRap.com too, when them votes coming out?

MemphisRap.com: Well, we’ll keep you posted. We working on the Memphis Rap Choice Awards and you gotta be on the spot cause it won’t be the thang without ya.

La Chat: Fa sho, I just want to tell the fans to keep listening and gone vote so I can get that other award under my belt.

MemphisRap.com: I heard you gotta group, what are your plans with the group and what can we be looking out for?

La Chat: Yeah, I got the Hard Hitters coming out, I’ma end up taking them thru Select-O you know, keep it independent, get this independent money right quick, but I also got the DVD Dramatize coming out. Also we starting with a new La Chat album “Bad Influence” for probably next year, cause the Dramatize album it’s selling real good. Also I’m on tour now trying to get that promoting real good featuring Mike Jones and Juvenile and Hard Hitters, so I got som stuff up fo ya!

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho, we’ll be looking out for that, grind that, you know what I’m sayin! Everybody knows you’re with the Rap Hustlaz, so tell us how you chose them to further yo career or why you chose them?

La Chat: I’m not with Rap Hustlaz anymore. At the time after I left Three Six Mafia, I was trying to do it all on my own and it was hard you know. I really didn’t know the rap business you know, I was an artist under Hypnotize Minds so I really didn’t have any doors open to me where I was walking in getting stuff done and making stuff happen.

MemphisRap.com: Right.

La Chat: So it came to a point where I felt last year was the year that I had to get something out or it was gone be hard to come back out and I ran across Nakia Shine, and you know he was telling me he could make it happen for me which he did. He made the Dramatize album happen for me and that’s how I ended up using him as a better choice cause it was lot of mo’ people trying to get at me, but you know Shine he jumped right on it you know what I’m sayin’. He got the Dramatize out there and it was a lil’ situation where we both needed to get back out here so I got back out here and he got back out here and that’s just that. But I’m holding my own tho’.

MemphisRap.com: That’s the biz. Keep pushin’, keep movin’. So as far as your relationship wit Rap Hustlaz is everything on the ‘up and up’?

La Chat: Yeah, everythang good ya know. For now I guess, Lol.

MemphisRap.com: Lol. Ok, as an artist how do you feel you have grown in the some odd years you been in the game?

La Chat: I think I have got a lot smarter, I’m learning more about the game keep in mind cause I came into Hypnotize Minds I didn’t know nothing about the game and I feel that they took advantage of that you know what I’m saying. I didn’t know nothing bout BMI, ASCAP, none of the publishing lil things, or none of that. Just for the record, no, I never received any publising, no I never received any royalties, no I never receieved any writer’s publishing I never knew anything about that and that’s the truth and nothing but the truth. So I learned that I suppose to have way more money than what I got now and I learned how to get my business part right more than the fame. Get yo business right then come the fame cause fame aint nothing without the money and yo business right.

MemphisRap.com: Right. That’s real. Ok, so if you had the chance or opportunity or if you could do a compiliation with any artist, local or nationally, who would it be and why?

La Chat: If I could it would be with Trick Daddy, I like him, he just so thuggish, you know that man just gutter, he just real real thuggish and str8 to the point. I love Trick Daddy.

MemphisRap.com: Yeah. Yeah. So, on another page I want flip to this. As an artist, how do you deal with trying to manage your music and your family?

La Chat: Ahh I just do ’em at the same time. As a matter of fact I don’t have a manager, I never had a manager. I been handling my own business. When I was wit Three Six, they was somewhat my manager, but I found out that was a conflict of interest so other than that, I really been handling my own business and I just do ’em together you know like right now I’m on tour and I been gone bout a week and prolly got bout two more weeks to go. I check in wit my lil’ boy, I got a 8 year old, his name is Doodie and he go to school so I have to keep checking in on him. He stay with his Grandmama while I’m out of town and I leave him with all his clothes washed up and make sho he got enough money and make sho everythang is squared away and as long as I’m calling, he understand what mama do, so it’s all good.

MemphisRap.com: That’s real, I know that prolly encourages alot of female rappers out there trying to do it thinking “I can’t do the music thang and the family,” you know what I’m sayin.

La Chat: You str8 as long as you deal with the kids you already got. Just don’t end up with none while doing it, lol.

MemphisRap.com: LoL

La Chat: Cause it’s hard doing the work pregnant and trying to have a baby and nursing a baby, but as long you already got kids, you good. But if you pregnant wait til after you ‘drop the load’ and get the baby nursed and old enough to stay with other people then you go on.

MemphisRap.com: Yeah Yeah, fa sho. So, if you could tell the Memphis rap community anythang, what do they or what could you tell them that they don’t already know or that you wanna let ’em know?

La Chat: Ok, well first of all, Memphis, stop hatin’ on one another. Well, lemme not say hatin’ on one another cause a lot of people feel like “I ain’t hatin,” well stop going against one another, stop feeling like you better than somebody cause if you listen to all the Memphis rappers, we all sayin’ the same slang, we ALL got the same style cause we Memphis mothaf**kas. That’s just ‘how we is’! So, we all is really on the same page and ain’t nobody better than us and if yall listen to anybody that’s on top, they sound like the typical Memphis mothaf**ka, you know what I’m sayin. So I feel like, if we can just put s**t together and quit trying to be the one to say “I’ma make it to the top before you,” we’ll grow, we’ll get bigger than what we is cause everything is coming from Memphis. If you put a CD in and they ain’t from Memphis, I guarantee you gone think they from Memphis. I promise you that! LoL.

MemphisRap.com: Lol, yeah, yeah. Fa sho. Ok, well now I wanna say some words and I want you to just (you know what I’m sayin) I want you to just speak yo mind and tell me the first thing that come to yo mind when I say these words.

La Chat: Ok.

MemphisRap.com: Ok, first one, “Three 6 Mafia”

La Chat: Lol. Uhhhhhh. Nothin’, nothing don’t come to my mind.

MemphisRap.com: Lol…

La Chat: Nothing. Like s**t. Nothing, just being honest. When you say “Three 6 Mafia.” Don’t get me wrong, you know what I’m sayin. I thank them for the thang, I can’t be mad at that because one thing about it, they did put me out there. So, you know I got love for them ni**as, but I just don’t mess wit them ni**as. I miss ’em from time to time cause I dealt with them for a long time and it would be fake for me to say that I hate ’em, that I don’t love ’em, and I don’t miss ’em because I really grew with them ni**as, you know what I’m sayin’ but “business is business, ain’t nothing personal.” You have to still stay on your business side and along with the love you gotta be able to feed yo family cause they feeding theirs. You know what I’m sayin. So, I feel like, you know, pretty much, don’t nothing come to my mind though I don’t hate ’em, I still got love for ’em, and like I said I miss ’em from time to time but I don’t mess wit ’em. I got to feed my family, I love my family more. Put it that way, when asked what come to my mind, I love ’em but I love my family more so therefore I got to go on with what I got to do.

MemphisRap.com: Ok, well that comes to my next word, “Family”

La Chat: Love, nothing but love. I’ll trade my life in for my family.

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho, fa sho, Ok, next word, “Future”

La Chat: Big, very big.

MemphisRap.com: The next one is “God”

La Chat: The head of my life.

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho. Ok, “Chat”

La Chat: Uhh, Lol, unexplainable.

MemphisRap.com: Lol. I like that, that’s real, fa sho. Ok, well you know it’s alot of thangs happening for the city, you know what I’m sayin. Alot of people getting the independent film thang, you know what I’m sayin with the “Hustle & Flow” the “Choices”, the “I’m Bout it”, you know all the independent things. What’s yo next move? Are you ever going to do anything outside of the music?

La Chat: Yeah, well I got Dramatize, the DVD that I’m gone be working on soon as I get off the tour. I wanna do the Life of La Chat further on you know when I make it big or when I make at least farther that where I am cause people don’t know “Boy! Do I have a life!” Do I have a life to tell ya’ll about! Ya’ll will never believe, ya’ll will look at me and would never believe! Lol.

MemphisRap.com: Lol. Say a real story?

La Chat: Yeah. Lol. This thang and all this goes on in La Chat life.

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho, fa sho. So, what do you think about the MemphisRap.com website?

La Chat: Ahh, I love MemphisRap.com cause I then had alot of people that say “La Chat, I was looking for some pictures of ya and I found it on the MemphisRap.com site,” so I appreciate the love cause ya’ll help get us farther also.

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho. Fa sho, so how often do you get on the website?

La Chat: I don’t get on that much but I use to get on it alot but I ain’t got my internet no mo’. Lol. I use to get on alot, but I’ll be back getting on it!

MemphisRap.com: Ok, touching back on to what you were talking about earlier about Memphis coming together; what would you say that could probably unite or help Memphis get like other cities as far as artists unifying?

La Chat: Like which artists?

MemphisRap.com: As far as what it would take for Memphis artists to come together?

La Chat: I just believe that everybody should give free features for everybody, don’t be trying to make no money cause ya’ll know Memphis mothaf**kas ain’t got no money to be paying no 10 and 15, 20 thousand for a feature and all that and then it might not even go nowhere. So, I believe if we help out and give those that’s trying to come up features, yeah I know you don’t want to ‘burn yourself up’ but at least somebody that you know got a good chance of making it. You know, do some ‘swap out’ and include in some videos and you know if you aint even doing no verses you can include ’em in some videos and let ’em support themselves thru t-shirts, you know what I’m sayin cause you already there, help others get there.

MemphisRap.com: Yeah, that’s the business. That’s what Memphis need to grab onto, you know what I’m sayin.

La Chat: Yep.

MemphisRap.com: So was there anythang else you want to add or say to yo fans?

La Chat: Yeah, I want to say whassup to “On the Grind Records” because they supporting me alot. They come behind me, as a matter of fact, they was behind the whole Rap Hustlaz during the Dramatize product which I didn’t know, but I came to find out that “On the Grind Records” had alot to do with the Dramatize product and I just want to thank them for that and let them know that I appreciate it ya know cause they aint have to do it.

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho, fa sho.

La Chat: Yeah, but to my fans, I want to tell ya’ll keep on supporting me. Keep on supportng ‘yo girl’ cause ‘yo girl’ trying to get where she belong or where ya’ll think I belong. You know I ain’t one of them artists that think I “got the big head.” I just do what I do, ya know.

MemphisRap.com: Fa sho, fa sho. Well it was good interviewing you and on behalf of MemphisRap.com, I want to say thank you, you know what I’m sayin.

La Chat: And I want to say thank ya’ll.

MemphisRap.com: And I can’t wait to do it again Chat, ya hear me! Lol.

La Chat: Lol. Anytime, anytime.

Dramatize – 2004

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  1. MAYNE YALL NI**AS BE STEALING ALL DEM THERE HASHBROWNS I HAD ON THIS HERE STOVE. AND I WANT MY WASHIN POWDERS BACK. IM SITTIN HERE LOOKIN LIKE HUCKLEBERRY FIN WITH A BANJO ON MY KNEE AND NO SHOES JONE! YALL SUM FOS2BEES OVA THERE MAYNE. EVERYONE KNOWS MEMPHIS HOS BE SNAWTIN DAT FUNK MAYNE.

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