(AllHipHop News) Moonie and Count of the LEP Bogus Boys took the time to speak with AllHipHop.com about their recent rise to the forefront of Hip-Hop playlists across the net, their feelings about the Chicago hip-hop scene and an upcoming movie.
“We just working hard, staying focused and staying sucka free at the same time,” Moonie told AllHipHop.com in the exclusive interview.
Repping for Chicago’s South Side that they call the “lower end of the city,” the Bogus Boys embody the rugged “24th Street going all the way up to the hundreds and two-hundred streets” of the Windy City.
Influenced by N.W.A., Tupac, Scarface and the Ghetto Boys, the Bogus Boys still maintain a studio where they first started in Englewood, where fellow residents Jennifer Hudson and Chicago Bull Derrick Rose also grew up.
“We basically just rapping about our environment, our studio is in the heart of Englewood, in the middle of the city. As soon as you walk out the door, its action,” Count told AllHipHop.com. “We basically are influenced by the last six months of our lives, but we did grow up listening to gangsta music.”
The LEP Bogus Boys are confident with their place in Chicago music, even though the city has produced notables like Kanye West, Twista, Lupe Fiasco, Common and the Cool Kids.
The group is a part of a batch of new artists like Rockie Fresh, King Louie, and Chief Keef, who are building a buzz beyond the city.
“I mean the Chicago sound, to be honest has just developed itself, you know we have different accents and slangs and different things so our sounds, you can tell it isn’t mimicking anyone else’s,” Count explained to AllHipHop.com. “We are fitting in and we just talking about whats going on in Chicago, and we setting the standard to tell you the truth.”
“A lot of people you hear, like the most previous rap that you heard from Chicago, bigger artists aren’t touching on things that we are touching on,” Moonie explained of the different between The LEP Bogus Boys and other Chicago rappers.
“I think that’s what makes our story that much interesting.” Moonie said. “People are like, ‘Hold on, Kanye don’t really speak about the gangsta s**t, Twista don’t neither, or Common and even Lupe don’t neither.’ People are like, ‘damn the stuff that we are really hearing about Chicago is really real,’ and that makes the story that much better for us to tell it.”
In addition to their careers as rappers, the self described “black mobsters” are making their own movies and are planning the release of Bogus Boys in the coming months.
“Our movement is organized, how we move and how we take care of our business, and of course we got the no snitchin’ policy. Its consequences and repercussions around here man. So you know what I’m saying man, we black mobsters, we don’t have to give you no story straight out of Scarface and the Godfather man, y’all seen that movie already,” Moonie told AllHipHop.com.
The duo creates their own treatments for their music videos and movies by recreating real life experiences.
“We basically have come up with our own treatments, that ‘Trading Places’ video is a true story man, that s**t be happening, that ain’t out of no movie so it ain’t hard to reenact it and just film it,” Moonie said
Having recently worked with Kanye, the LEP Bogus Boys also continue to work with the Justice League, and several other producers for their project, Don’t Feed the Killaz 4, a street project to be released before their official release on a yet to be named label.