Interview: One Be Lo For The Find Magazine

While "The R.E.B.I.R.T.H." was an ill look from Michigan native and celebrated underground champion One Be Lo, it's going on three years since he's hit us with a new project...Some have cast him off as a cat that will never reach his true potential while the rest of us patiently await his next drop, knowing full well it's gonna be worth the layover...

On Christmas Eve the good people over at The Find Magazine (specifically Silas P) sat down with One and asked him a range of questions about his upcoming album "B.A.B.Y.: Being A Black Youth’", what he's been doing during his hiatus and the re-forming of Binary Star....

-BIG D O

TFM: Tell me a little bit about your next project B.A.B.Y. (Being a Black Youth)

One Be Lo: Basically, the release date is gonna be February 2010. This is probably, in my opinion, the best album I put together as far as cohesiveness. We can get into the debate like “oh my favorite songs on this album or that album” but I feel like BABY is better sonically. My man Jonas came in with a lot of live instrumentation, I recorded all the music in the same studio, reached out to different vocalists and MCs I know and they helped me to paint the full picture of the story I wanted to tell about Being A Black Youth. For me its a complete project reaching out to singers, I had DJ Abilities do all of the cuts, I’m doing a little bit of chanting and singing on a couple joints, its crazy cause if I told you I have 23 or 24 guest appearances it sounds like chaos but I don’t know it just comes together nicely it’s a team effort and I like it man.

I’m anxious to see what people think it and how they receive it. All my career I just wanted to be on some stuff like I wanted to see if I could rap without a manager without a booking agent, without guest appearances and I did all that, I proved that I can hold down an album by myself I didn’t go out and get features because I wanted album sales, I got features because as a fan I wanted to see Nas and Mobb Deep on the same track it was ear candy so I’m like let me try to get Phonte, Freeway, Devin the Dude, Guilty Simpson, Jean Grae on tracks and they all came though and outta respect they murdered the tracks. In my opinion everyone that reached out to like the true underdogs of hip-hop from Supastition to Long Shot to Juice from Chicago. I’m not saying they don’t get their props but to the people that sleep on them these cats go hard; I’m really excited just to be apart of it. I was trying to push the envelope with the ingredients I was working with.

Full Interview Here