Curren$y Talks About Upcoming Movie Project

Curren$y recently sat down with Complex to discuss a few things including his hesitation to sign with Warner Brothers, working with Wiz Khalifa, upcoming projects, his EP Covert Coup, and Muscle Car Chronicles his new album and movie. Read what else Spitta said after the jump.

@Julie1205

Curren$y just keeps on rolling. The New Orleans native is seemingly always in the midst of releasing new projects while working on even more new material. He’s coming off a banner year in 2010 (where he released two thirds of his acclaimed Pilot Talk trilogy), but he’s not ready to slow down just yet. He kicked off 2011 right by releasing his mixtape Return To The Winner’s Circle and just inked a new deal with Warner Brothers. We got Spitta to stop by the office to discuss all of his upcoming projects, including his Covert Coup EP with Alchemist, his Muscle Car Chronicles, and what his new deal with Warners will mean for his career. It’s Jets fool.

On his Covert Coup EP with The Alchemist:

“I got to know Alchemist through beats. I reached out to him on Twitter about some beats. When I went to L.A. to finish the Warner Brothers Deal, I went to Al’s studio, and that was the first time I met him. We were on the same page. We were just in there rolling up, smoking, and I felt like I was around somebody I had been around forever.

“It was a good time, we got a lot of same shit in common. [In the studio] there was like four or five hours of fuckery. Just a lot of rambling, because it’s two high people. A lot of talking about missile silos and being safe in case there was any type of civil unrest, that kinda stuff because you gotta be prepared for anything. We were drinking a lot of triple ginger, apple, lemon juice. Some kind of crazy concentrate that you’re supposed to mix with water but we were drinking it straight.

“Once we recorded a song, I wanted to give it away on the Internet. And he was like, ‘Let’s record a backup record so that we still have one.’ Then it was like, ‘Wait, let’s keep that one and record another one.’ And it grew into, ‘Okay, I’ll come back tomorrow and knock out four more joints.’ One day in New York at Stadium Red, we did two more. And the next thing you know we had ten records and a project.

“When you’re friends with somebody you gotta figure out how you’re gonna pick some money up with them. He’s my friend, he understood what I was trying to do. And I was able to convey to him that what I was trying to do could be done more effectively with his beats. And he believed in what I was trying to do so much, he knew if that was what was going to put it at this level, then here you go. That was an alley-oop right there. Everybody in the industry knows how much an Alchemist beat costs. To get a double digit number of Alchemist beats for free is a sacrifice made.

“We’re putting it out for free on April 20, a little 4:20 thing. We just can’t call it a mixtape because it’s all original music. Smoke DZA, Fiend, and Freddie Gibbs are all on there. It’s just ten records, more of the same of what I do. I want to release an instrumental version too. I think Alchemist needs to put those beats out.”

On his upcoming Muscle Car Chronicles album and movie

“Muscle Car Chronicles will be through BlueRoc and the dealings I had to Dame Dash. I recorded that before I did Pilot Talk I or II. We’ll put it out this summer, we’re just trying to find the right date. With all these other projects and the deal with Warner, we definitely want to give everything room to breathe. It’s usually my thing to stack so much music, but I’m going to spread it out and give these retail projects time to do what they got to do. Cause I like money too, so I need to give them time to cash in right.

“We also got the movie, Muscle Car Chronicles. It’s a short film, the playing time might be a little over 30 minutes. Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah [of Channel Zero]—they shot a version of ‘Jesus Walks’ with Kanye and they’re partners with Dame on Creative Control—they directed and wrote the movie. [They heard the album] and just started scribbling the script. They had the movie [planned out], so when I got there they were like, ‘Let’s do this. We could pull it off in three days.’ So once they told me it would only take three days, I was like fuck it. Let’s see if we can do it.

“The movie is a cornucopia of cinematography inspired by Muscle Car Chronicles. In the movie, my name is Melvin and it’s me and this chick driving around in a Winnebago and dressing up as birthday clowns. We come to kid’s houses and do one-two steps with the balloons and shit, but we also burglarize the homes. But that money is to fund my musical takeover. I was in some Master P movies before. I was in Still Bout It counting money and talking like a gangster. But I’m still new to movies.”

On his new deal with Warner Brothers Records

“They reached out just based on what I had been doing independently. I think I proved to a few companies that I was going to be a machine regardless, whether I aligned myself with a machine or not, I was going to become a machine. The companies that did step to the table, I never thought I’d be able to maintain my independence and my underground soul of how I do my shit. Just talking to Warner Brothers, they let me know they only wanted to deal with me based on what I had already done. So they would only want me to keep doing that.

“They didn’t approach me with, ‘We think you should work with so and so, we think you should sing on auto-tune, we think you should make this cookie cutter shit-type record.’ They were like, ‘Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. We just want to show a lot more people what you’re doing.’ It’s a machine and they want to include me in that. And they just signed Jill Scott and Rick Ross’ Maybach imprint, so it’s definitely looking like Voltron or Megazord right now.

“In terms of sound, people get the big deal and people in certain positions try and change the music of the artist. A&Rs are bringing in beats from fucking such and such because he’s hot on the radio now and you’re changing your sound to please these A&Rs. This situation is not like that. Nobody brought me any ideas, I’m still doing my own ideas. I was brought there to do what I have already proved I was good at doing. And people have shown they fuck with it. It’s smart that we would hustle together. They got a bigger block than the block I was on. I was selling some real good weed, they knew people wanted to buy a gang of really good weed. And they was like, ‘Yo, come get a house on this street.’ So that’s what happened.

“[Dame Dash wasn’t involved with this deal], but that’s my homie. We got dealings on this Muscle Car Chronicles, but as far as the Warner deal, that was all me and my manager’s doing. But BlueRoc’s success is not contingent on if I’m still there. Nothing happens to my old label. They’re fine, they doing what they doing.

On working with Wiz Khalifa on “Rooftops”

“Dude did that for Nate Dogg. This is before Nate Dogg passed. We was in the house singing all kinds of crazy Nate Dogg hooks. Nate Dogg was fine as far as we were concerned. I was in Wiz’s house in L.A. right after the Warner deal was done, it was after the Superbowl. He had to turn [the album] in on February 12, so I think we did that on February 10. He already had the hook laid when I got there. He told me like, ‘Yo, this is my fuckin’ Nate Dogg record.’”

On Pilot Talk 3, The Jet Life album, and Puff Daddy album with Chuck Inglish

“I’m trying to schedule Pilot Talk 3. I don’t know what I’ll do with that. That might be free. That might be some shit I do with Ski just to give out for free just on the strength of what we did. I just got to see what Ski think about it. I got a couple things on my plate right now, and I got projects from Trademark and Roddy that is due too. The Jet Life album is also this year, we’re working right now. I just try to give projects two months to breathe. I also got the project I’m going to do with Chuck Inglish, that one is called Puff Daddy, that’s still being worked out. I’m going to put that out through my Jet Life Recording imprint with Warner.”