As A Hustler's Hope, San Quinn's latest, proves, inspiration is something that can come to us at all points in life. Twenty years into a Rap career, one that has established him as one of the Bay's greats, San Quinn's next career move wasn't to crank out another solo project. Instead, he decided to play teammate and mentor for new signee Tuf Luv, with whom he collaborated on A Hustler's Hope. As Quinn admits, Tuf Luv was a breath of fresh air when he first heard him, probably because he heard so much of himself. Both have a very blue collar approach: no frills, no lies, just truth. While they may be two men at different points in their lives, they complement each other well on Hope.
San Quinn speaks with the insight of a veteran but still possesses a youthful hunger to keep pushing for greater goals. He wants Grammy Awards to ensure his legacy is lasting. The Fillmore icon aiming to be a mogul, to build an empire that not only brings the focus to the Bay Area but keeps it there. Citing successes in cities like Houston and Atlanta, he sees the potential for that success to head West, and even offers a few pointers that could help the Bay Area gain visibility. With a revamped roster at his label, Done Deal 772, only time will tell if he's sowing the seeds to become the Bay's version of Master P.
HipHopDX caught up with San Quinn last week by phone. He spoke on the inspiration behind a few tracks on the new album, gave us his take on the Twitter beef between Too Short and Messy Marv, and explained a few reasons why the Bay isn't getting recognized as it should. He also told us how Ke$ha is essentially Hyphy in a nutshell.
HipHopDX: Why the decision to make A Hustler's Hope a collaborative album with Tuf Luv instead of pursuing another solo album?
San Quinn: Tuf Luv is a new artist signed to my label, Done Deal 772, and instead of making him come out by himself, I wanted to make sure that he came in getting a little bit of a look. There's so much music out now and so many people doing music that it's hard for anybody, and he's so talented. I mean, he one of the best rappers rapping, period. I wanted to make sure that he got the right look. My partner Pablo wanted me to bring back the Done Deal label because I didn't have no artists on there except for Lil Quinn and my partner Hollywood up out of Richmond, so a couple people convinced me to bring the label back.
DX: One of my favorite cuts from A Hustler's Hope is a song you threw up as kind of a teaser on YouTube a little while back, the song “Drunk In San Francisco.” It's a real catchy and playful track with a vibe you don't hear a lot in rap. How did that come about in the first place?
San Quinn: Dex Beats. Gotta give all the credit to him. He made the beat. You know, if you from the San Francisco Bay Area, who hasn't been [drunk in San Francisco]? You partying and you go out, that's where most of the clubs [and] the club life is. It was like a no-brainer. It was pretty easy to do once Dex created the beat and the hook. He really produced the record, you know what I mean?
We're just trying to bring a breath [of fresh air] into Hip Hop because you know, with Rap music nowadays, especially Bay Area music, the rapper is the kingpin. There's no humor to it, so I just wanted to go there because I know a lot of people have seen me drunk [and have said] “What the hell is going on with Quinn?” I just wanted to go ahead and make light of the situation.
Tuf is just a phenomenal writer. His family, the Dumases -- his last name – I believe his great-great uncle was responsible for writing The Three Musketeers, so dude is phenomenal with his pen. It just excites me every time I hear dude rap. Then we threw [B-Legit] on there because B-la the king of the club. If "B-la" ain't the king of nothing else, he's the king of being down, and he's never sloppy drunk or nothing like that but [when] he is in the club, [he's there] with not the little bottles but the big [ones], so it was an honor to reach out to B-la.
It touched the radio but it's bigger than the radio. We about to shoot a video real soon with a silly concept to it. It's gonna be fun and hopefully the world gravitates to it. You can never be too sure, but then you just gotta have faith to see if the record will catch. We gonna take it to MTV with the visual part of it. Hopefully they pick it up and it becomes a big hit for us.
DX: Another song I wanted to highlight is the track that comes right before “Drunk in San Francisco,” which is “Foolin' Around.” I even Googled the hook to try and track down the sample because I loved it so much. Great storytelling from both you and Tuf Luv on that track. Can you shed some light on how that track came about?
San Quinn: It was basically the life of me fucking around on my woman at the studio. You know, in the life [of a rapper] there's always a groupie or some extra bitch that wants to be around, and a man being a man, being an animal, you get high, you get drunk, [then] you want something that ain't yours, and you go right to feeling stupid.
With my girl, she always finds out every muthafuckin' thing, especially with these social networks and sites. A bitch wanna say “Well, I was with you last night.” They be typing on Facebook thinking they're writing to me and [they] be writing to her, or text my phone thinking they texting me [when they're] texting her, you know what I mean? [Laughs] It just ends up [with us] arguing and fuckin' and fighting over me fuckin' around.
It's the life of a rapper. The life of a rapper and the night life, and women that are attracted to you and women that you think that you're attracted to but it might just be a carnal thing. You just wanna fuck with a bitch for that night and leave that there, but they wanna take it further, ya feel what I'm saying? All of it is through experience. [The sample], that's Morris Day & The Time. The Time made the beat and that's Morris Day on the hook. The hook is from “Gigolos Get Lonely Too.”
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