Interview: Tragedy Khadafi For The Rap Up

Some weekend reading material for ya'll to get into in between pitchers, and hopefully, some sort of occupation..

Tragedy was recently made a free man after serving a skid bid for trafficking some sort of nefarious substance, I can't even really remember..What I do remember is how this cat routinely gave his Queensbridge brethren like  Nature, Nas, Blaq Poet and Cormega a run for their money lyrically and churned out a couple really decent albums and one pretty compelling DVD about his life story... I've been wanting to catch up with homie and in the light of the fact that he has a new project out,  now's as good as time as ever..

The Rap Up's J.Monkey caught up w/ Trag and got some of his perspectives on things past and present recently and I thought you guys needed to peep.. he speaks on everything from Roxanne Shante, the "LA LA" record's personnel and the late great Big Pun.

TRU: You’ve been in the game longer than almost anybody else, what were    your most memorable recording experiences?

Tragedy: The most memorable? I’d have to say; Chuck D, Nas and Big Pun. Those are like the three most memorable to me. The reason why Nas was one of the most memorable was the time we did this song together called ‘Calm Down.’ Everybody gave their energy and came a certain way on the song and killed it, I killed it, Nore killed it, but when Nas came he did a short story that was so graphic… He did a story in 16 bars. Most people would’ve taken a whole song to do a story. But he did the story like he wrote an essay, he wrote and spat a lyrical essay in 16 bars. An essay has an introduction, a subject matter and a conclusion. He gave you the story, he gave you the intro, the subject matter and he closed it. That was crazy how he did that. He killed that shit. That was one of the phenomenal joints to me. 

TRU: Your older music often has a very confrontational, in-your-face attitude. While it still is confrontational, your new album makes it seem like you’ve grown beyond that a bit, it has more of a victorious feeling to it. 

Tragedy: That’s exactly what it is, I see myself as really victorious. When you come out of the world’s largest projects -96 buildings, 6 blocks- and you grow up and was raised te way I was raised in the struggle here in so-called America, you’re battle-tested. I was definitely battle-tested throughout my life when I grew up. And I’m constantly being tested, the test hasn’t ended, but just reflecting back on everything and looking where I’m at now and seeing the direction my life is moving into, I know that I’m victorious. I am victorious.

Read the rest here