This interview was conducted in September, 1992.



Why do you call yourself "America's most complete artist"?

Quik: I can do all the shit that it takes muthafuckas five and ten extra muthafuckas to do. I can spin, I can scratch, I can play keys, I engineer, I arrange, I sequence, edit. All that shit, you name it.

You've had relatively quick success. What does that do for you mentally?

At first when everybody was on the dick, it was shocking. It was hard to accept because I didn't know whether or not it was sincere or just because I was a successful rapper. I never lost my site. I knew where I was going, and I knew what I had to do to stay the person I am — that's to be true to myself and my music. But you know what keeps me level-headed? It's to think of it all as a big ass joke, a whole bunch of fake people on your dick. It's trendy, and I hate trends. That;s why I wear the soul curl. That's why I wear my shit feathered. Fuck dreads. Fuck them high top fades. Fuck that texturizing shit.

I noticed how your lyrics are always improving. Do you work on that a lot?

What happened was when we started doing a lot of live shows, I started getting comfortable. That's how my timing improved. As far as writing, I just get inspired by a lot of shit. That's why lyrically I sound a little different. It's not as simple as it was, when every other line rhymed.

I know you got into music in 1981, but you only seriously started in '88. What were you doing before you got into music?

Fucking up, drinking, gangbanging — trying to gangbang. Not really banging but like trying to hang out with muthafuckas who bang and see what it's like. That shit was too on the edge for me. It was crazy. I didn't like getting shot at all the time. When muthafuckas come by shooting, muthafuckas be laughing. I be like, "This is fun to y'all?" I got another idea of fun.

Did you ever consider yourself a Blood?

Yeah, I was a muthafucking Piru, blood, Treetop. The media said it anyway. I was on the tip like, Look, I don't really gangbang. I never really gangbanged. It was like, "No, Quik's an ex-Blood." They kept saying that every time I tried to rectify them. The truth of the matter is I never went out and did drive-by shootings. I never carried red rags. I never had no guns. I lived in a Blood neighborhood so all my friends were Bloods. It's quite natural that every once in a while I would say "Blood." I think there's a level of how much gangbanging you do to classify you as a gangbanger. I wasn't really a gangbanger. You know how the Army has the reserves? I was a reserve Piru. Piru reserves.

Did you ever run into Tim Dog since "Fuck Compton" came out?

Yeah, we ran into him at the (1991) Jack the Rapper seminar. Nothing really jumped off though. 'D' from 2nd II None checked him. I was like, "It ain't worth it man. Leave these niggas alone. They up here groupying out."

In the past you expressed respect for the East Coast, but how do you feel about the East now?

Fuck the East Coast! Listen to me homey, fuck the East. Print that shit five times with a whole lot of exclamation points. Do it like the Mexicans — put one upside down in front, and then one right side up. Fuck the East Coast! I mean that shit. I hope they be the first to get hit with the nuclear bomb.

What happened to your curl?

I was doing this Pepsi commercial, right? The muthafucka caught fire dude. Naw, I just got tired of that wetness around my collar. But you know what I'm going to do next year? I'm gonna get me about forty dancers, and I'm gonna get some lines cut in my shit and get me some real baggy pants.



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