RESPECT. Interview: Dizzy Wright Speaks On Life After Funk Volume, Black Lives Matter and Taylor Vs. Kanye

The music industry requires a huge amount of resilience, where only the strongest musicians survive the rollercoaster journey it takes them on.

One man who knows all about this is Las Vegas rapper Dizzy Wright. Earlier this year, Wright experienced the fallout of the record label he was signed to, Funk Volume. Overcoming turbulent times, the rapper is now moving on creating his own label Still Movin and doing what he does best, providing us with some dope music. We caught up with Dizzy fresh off the release of his new EP 702.

RESPECT.: You’re constantly turning out music incredibly quickly with your two EPs this year, what was your writing process for the 702 EP?

It was a little more comfortable this time. I’m in a more comfortable space but we’re were just having fun. The turn up music is a little easier to make than the other stuff.

RESPECT.: What’s your favourite track from the EP?

Eastside, because it’s a song about an area, helping you become a man.

RESPECT.: It’s now been some months since the Funk Volume fallout. You’ve had some time away from it, how do you now view everything that happened?

I just view it as a blessing in disguise. I think it was just time for me to move forward and do my own thing and build off of my own momentum.

RESPECT.: What’s your current status record label wise? We saw your post on Instagram about creating your own label Still Movin. Is that completely official now and is that what you are recording music under?

I am eventually going to drop music under my label, yes. That’s definitely going to be official but right now I’m recording music. I’m still working for things for Still Movin and just getting everything on the back end done that I need to get done. But it’s moving and it’s looking like I’m going to be able to do something great.

RESPECT.: What’s the experience been like of setting up a new label? Has it been what you’ve expected it to be? Did you take any lessons learnt from Hopsin as well?

Well I guess I had the biggest lesson still with me, which is with Damien Ritter and I guess, that’s who Hopsin had a falling out with. My relationship is different with Damien and I’ve learnt the business, the record label business when I got off Funk Volume. So I was already familiar with how things were ran and how to accomplish things and how to build momentum. Yeah I’m just being strategic and doing things the right way. I already had a real insight into that with Funk Volume so I’m just going to stick with that knowledge with Still Movin.

RESPECT.: Obviously, right now your priority is with your own music and the label, but in the future what are your thoughts on getting other artists on board? What sort of artists would you want to attract to your label?

All kinds of artists. Not really picking and choosing, just good people that believe in themselves that can make us believe in them. If you can make me a believer and you can make the world a believer, I have the knowledge that I have and I haven’t changed. People believe in me and believe in my word. I want to be a visionary and be able to just give the world good music and positive dope people.

RESPECT.: With the Funk Volume situation, and situations like this, have you ever felt the need to seek out advice from your very famous uncles (Layzie Bone and Flesh-n-Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony)?

That’s a good question. No I haven’t, no one has ever asked me that, but no I don’t reach out to them for advice in these situations. I feel like the game has changed a lot from social media, to being independent and being able to dp music videos so cheap. Back in the day they used to do it way different, put all their money into videos. There was no social media and everything was different. So, I’m kind of like my own little prodigy right now. I just go to the people that are around me, that have gone through this all with me.

RESPECT.: So part of the reason of not going to them was that they would have not experienced something like this in their era of making music?

Yeah…yeah the owner of the label walked away from the label, so most people wouldn’t experience these kind of things.

RESPECT.: Would you ever be open to signing to a major record label or have you now completely ruled that out?

No I haven’t completely turned it out or anything. I mean at this point, if anything, I would like a label deal. I still want my music to reach its full potential. I feel like there’s a lot that I haven’t been able to do with my music. Still to this day I haven’t been on a late night TV show. But that’s kind of like an accomplishment that I want to make happen. It’s small for some people but it’s still something I’m striving for. With the established labels, I feel like those are the sort of things that they bring to the table. I just think that I’m ready for that now. I kind of also don’t want to go just go in as an artist, that wants to accomplish his little thing. I want to also be able to accomplish the bigger picture which is the label. I would love to have a major label to get behind what we have going on with Still Movin and help me turn this into something amazing. But it takes time, but I’m not completely tuning it out.

RESPECT.: We noticed from your social media that you recently visited Flint, looking at the water crisis. What was that experience like?

It was crazy, it was crazy. I really just wanted to know if things had gotten any better since Obama got on TV and talked about how the water was okay to drink if you were above three years old. It was a crazy experience.

RESPECT.: We know you have your track “They Know Why.” For you, how important is it right now for artists and celebrities to throw their weight behind the #BlackLivesMatter movement?

It’s not important to me at all. People can do whatever they want to do. I’m not holding anyone accountable for not being a part of it and the people who do stand up. There’s that saying ‘stand up for something or you’ll fall for anything.’ That’s just how I look at it. But’s it’s like some people will stand up for it but some people are just going to fall for anything. You can’t change that. For me, the right people will stand up and speak and the people who don’t, are maybe the people who wouldn’t have worded things the right way or said it the right way. Everybody has an opinion but some don’t know how to say it in the right way. You can’t hold people account for that. I really don’t care. I just want people to vote and know that this is an important time for this country.

RESPECT.: Who would be your dream collaboration?

Right now, still probably Nas and Damien Marley. Damien on the hook and get a 16 from Nas (laughs), that’s my dream collaboration. Their album that they did together is one of the best pieces of music, art to me. Yeah that’s my dream collaboration.

RESPECT.: Currently with all the rappers who are on the scene, who is the person you want to work with?

Um..I would say Wiz Khalifa and Ty Dolla $ign. Ty Dolla $ign is one of my favorite artists out at the moment right now. I think he’s just super dope. Wiz is killing it. Those would be the ones that are still killing it that I would want to work with that are current.

RESPECT.: Something that’s been dominating currently the headlines is the Taylor Swift and Kanye beef – who’s side are you on?

Oh I’m not even familiar with it (laughs). I know that Kanye said something about her in his album. I thought it was a little odd that he said that but other than that…What Taylor Swift beefing with Kanye West, that doesn’t even sound right (laughs)!

RESPECT.: Kim put Taylor on blast because they had a recording of her approving the lines in “Famous.” The bit about her being a bi**ch, that wasn’t addressed.

So she supposedly agreed to it and now she’s said she didn’t agree to it? Did she agree to him saying something about her in the song? Or did he show her the lyrics, and did she know she was being called a bi**ch? I’m thinking she probably didn’t know she was being called a bi**ch. That just seems retarded that she would allow that. But then again maybe she just overlooked it (laughs)! I don’t know why Kanye would ask her if he could use the lyrics. Either you stand by that or you don’t say it because you know it’s kind of wrong! I don’t know. You got to be that dude. Like Eminem and Mariah Carey, you just got to be that dude. Or you shouldn’t be saying it because you know it’s probably going to rub up that person the wrong way and you care about that person.

RESPECT.: So what’s coming up for you Dizzy?

I’m about to go on tour, a headline tour. I was on tour with Logic but I haven’t had a chance to do any of my own shows this year. So I’m about to go out on tour and then a little later this year, I’ll be dropping a free mixtape with the artist Demrick. We’ll give some more free tracks away for the fans. I’ll just be dropping more visuals and stuff like that. I’m just really gearing up for next year.

Dizzy Wright’s 702 EP is available to stream here and can be purchased on iTunes.

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