Capone: The Definitive Interview Part 2

AllHipHop.com: Can you break it down and give your side about the Lil Kim trial?

Ima take you back to the incident, step by step. This is what happened. We go to All-star weekend, There’s little tension about the “Bang Bang” song in the air. I’d seen Cease and D-Roc two weeks prior to going to Hot 97 at a basketball game, and it was all love. Slaps, pounds, hugs all that, we talked about music. Then you know, going to Hot 97 and it’s like funny face looks. Words were exchanged, it wasn’t nothing too major. But you got to understand that people are going to take care of their boss. They guarding their boss and my n***as is guarding their boss. I mean like, 22 shots were fired. That they counted. So to skip onto that, we’ll go into the court proceedings. After that incident, we all got called into the precinct. We all had the same lawyer by the same way. When I say we, I mean me, N.O.R.E., Kim, Cease, D-Roc, James Cruz, and everybody else you can think of that was there. Everybody went in there and gave their version or whatever. Nobody snitching on anybody, that was it. Nobody said nothing, that was it. Two years later, they subpoena everybody to the federal grand jury. They subpoenaed everybody I just named including our car drivers. N***as was making this s**t a fiasco. So anyway, we went to the federal grand jury. Everybody told the incident of the story, she goes in there on some like real like, “I ain’t got time for this, y’all got me in here for nothing.” Like not taking it that serious, thinking [she] could say no to everything. Like it’s that easy, like you could say to no to everything to something as simple as, “Do you know D-Roc?” But look at the repercussions of them finding out that you know D-Roc. Because if she was smart, she would of known that D-Roc and them already said they were there. You can’t lie about them not being there.

At the end of the day, everybody told their story and she was the only one that decided to lie. And we already know who told on who it was in the papers. I ain’t got to say his name. His statement was in the papers. Grand jury, everybody, went. So after the grand jury, everything was cool, I thought the s**t was over. Next thing I know, they hit my lawyer like, “Yo they filed charges against Kim.” That’s when they came out in the paper and posted all of her charges. So now this is like six or more months ago, they hit the lawyers with the subpoenas. Now I gotta go to the Kim trial. Now they want to question everybody that was there. The only thing they could ask us, “What was said in the grand jury?” I didn’t say s**t in the grand jury. I couldn’t possibly think that anybody else had anything to say, because it’s so simple. It boils down to you can’t get around a federal subpoena. We were subpoenaed to go to Kim’s trial. So in Kim’s trial, it was like amusing to me. I was in the stand; they were asking me dumb s**t. They not even asking me [about] s**t she on trial for. Like. “Did you ever see Kim with Damian Butler?” They not even asking me s**t like that. They asking me s**t like, “When did I first learn Lil’ Kim and Foxy had beef?” Stupid s**t, this is the D.A. So mind you Cease, all these other people on the stand for hours and better. I was up there fifteen minutes. It was some h### dudes in the back. So when I went in the joint, they went in there to see what I had to say. When they seen after ten minutes I had nothing to say, they got up in left. Like, “Dog why did you bring me to this?” But see, they need the other rapper names to make her case bigger. They need to make this a fiasco. Like her friends turned on her and all that. But they didn’t even know that she ain’t speak to Junior M.A.F.I.A. in years. So it’s not like they got personal beef right now, that s**t is over with. They done grew out of that s**t, but on the trial they tried to make it seem like they got all this drama. Nobody want to f**kin’ go to a courtroom and sit there, that s**t is weak. That s**t is not in my nature. The newspaper tried to make it seem like… picture me having beef with a girl to where it comes to busting guns? With a girl? That’s impossible! Another thing that made it crazier was when I got on the stand at Lil’ Kim’s trial and her defense attorney was questioning me, they had nothing to ask me, duke. I was up there for like five minutes at the most. Then the lawyer going to ask me a question from the newspaper, “Didn’t you say they went at you like a bunch of wolves in your grand testimony?” I said, “Wait a minute, dogs, you reading from the newspaper?” Luckily, the news dude I told that s### to was right there. I said that to him and he said no further questions. I was gone.

AllHipHop.com: What is your response if someone referred to you as a snitch?

Capone: They could say what they want, but obviously they don’t know the game. They don’t know the game of being subpoenaed and things of that nature. So people go and say what they want. Say it to my face and I’ll knock your muthaf**king teeth out, but then again, I might not. I might laugh at you like, “Come on dog.” Because at the end of the day, you know, I know, the court know, she know, who said it. So you know, if you want to call me that, then you just don’t like me, dog.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think the code of the streets should still apply to rappers that have achieved mainstream success?

Capone: It should apply to everybody, no muthaf**king doubt. I don’t give a f**k how much success you got. It’s a code you abide by. I got a song called “The Manual.” It’s the do and don’ts of street life. Just in case you get lost in something, you get in a jam and you don’t know what to do. Put that record on, and you’ll live longer on that street.

AllHipHop.com: What are your thoughts on the Hip-Hop police? Do you think it’s justified considering many rappers come from criminal backgrounds?

Capone: Hip-Hop police is justified in a certain way in a sense that a lot of people out here catch stupid cases and I feel like the Hip-Hop police is bad, but it brings some kind of order into teaching muthaf**kers how to move. For instance, if Hip-Hop police wasn’t around, a lot of rappers would be moving how they want to move and a lot more rappers would be going to jail. So instead of a n***a bringing that mac out, or bringing that biscuit out, it’ll be like, “Nah, the Hip-Hop police is out here, I can’t even do that.” The NYPD has no more to do, there is no mafia. [John] Gotti is dead dog. It doesn’t exist like that to do that and leave us alone. So what they going to do, we the n***as making the most money in America, the entertainers. So what are they going to do? They don’t want to be running around chasing a serial killer n***a around, they want to be walking around with 50 Cent or whatever. I’m not using 50 as a scape goat, but he’s known to be with the police. So half of them n***as that probably around him that’s police, they would have been right on the street beat walking or chasing a n***a with a 100 pack worried about this n***a bucking at him or whatever. But they like, “F**k that, I’m going to the Grammy’s.” [Also,] they called Hip-Hop police because they look just like you. They be five White Hip-Hop police, they the throw offs. F**kers like me, muthaf**king that n***a right there asking you for a bag of weed is the police. So the stupid n***as don’t know the game, I’m here to school you.

AllHipHop.com: Are you still being managed by Violator?

Capone: Nah, but Violator is cool man.

AllHipHop.com: Going out on a nostalgic note, few heads don’t know BIG was trying to get you down with Junior M.A.F.I.A. back in the day. Can you get into that and how that came about? How did he hear about you?

Capone: Rest in peace to B.I.G. We was North Carolina, this was 1995. I was on the road with Mobb Deep and Nas and s**t. So B.I.G. came out there. Me and Lil’ Cease, we in the club, doing our thing, B.I.G., N.O.R.E., everybody in the club, Keith Murray was out there too. They start fighting in the club. Me and Lil’ Cease, back to back fighting the whole club, we’re like, “Where’s B.I.G. and Nas? They had left us. We come out the club, n***as start shooting at us and s**t. We go back to the hotel; it’s like a thousand people outside of the hotel, wilding. B.I.G. comes out in the leather boxers on. He in the balcony like, “What up!” That was the last time I really hung out with B.I.G. Before that, he was on HOT 97. I did the real rapper fan move, b. I could admit it. I heard B.I.G. on the radio, went to HOT 97, waited til’ his ass got out and I rapped for the n***a and the n***a wanted to sign me. D-Roc was with him. ‘Cease can vouch for it too. He went back to Junior M.A,F.I.S and told them [about me]. That’s how real it was.