"Where the starzz come to shyne!"
Inkstarzz had a chance to catch up with the group Hip Hop Friends to talk about everything going on with their
movement and discuss why it's  about more than just rap. Roll with Inkstarzz to the east coast as we kick it with the
E&J brothers...


Inkstarzz.com: What's up, man? How is everything going?

ChuckyBigBux: Everything going good man, just the calm before the storm. We
got the music video for "Private Party" being shot and we're gathering the
models and things like that. My name is actually Chucky Big Bux and I'm 1/2 of
the E & J Brothers, HipHopFriends as well. We've been doing this for a minute.
I would say for about 10 years, we've been doing this for about 10+ years.
Started out in Queens, New York beatboxing and just creating lyrics. We
grew up in the era of Hip-Hop and lyricism when Hip-Hop was created, so we
really are in-tune with the lyric part of the game and musically and all that stuff.
We've been doing this for a minute and each year we just see more awards,
more accolades, more fans...it just keeps growing and growing. It's kinda like a
runaway train right now with the HipHopFriends movement.

Inkstarzz.com: So you guys are brothers, right?

ChuckyBigBux: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

Inkstarzz.com: Ok so what motivated you, as brothers, to form a group instead of going the individual
route?

DirtE Dread:  My name is Dirty Dread, the other half of the E & J HipHopFriends. Actually, being brothers it's like a
family member so like yall grew up in the same environment, yall grew up seeing the same things and yall can relate
to the same things and speak about the same things. It was just easy for us to say, instead of being like individual
artists because we both love the grind, we both love the music aspect of things, we love the business aspect of it, so
why not be a group. It's nothing like being in a group with your own family member. That's how it came about; we
figured we could just be E & J. My real government name is Ellis and my brother
Chucky Big Bux is the Jr. of the family, so that's where we got the E & J and we just
ran with the group like that.

Inkstarzz.com: So would you say that it's easier to work with a sibling or a
bit more difficult because you know they're gonna tell you straight up how
it is, whether it's good or bad?

ChuckyBigBux: I would say it is kinda easy. We're easy-going.  We're brothers;
we don't argue and stuff like that. My brother is like the executive producer of all
our projects. He picks the beats, he picks the songs and sometimes picks the
choruses. Me, I handle the business of the songs like, getting it published, getting
it licensed, making it move, getting it to the DJs- I handle the business part. So he
helps create the product that I push and then we end up pushing it together so we
never really argue about nothing. We're just like really easy, humble guys.

Inkstarzz.com: So you guys are East coast artists and also winners of an
SEA (Southern Entertainment Award) Award. How did it feel crossing a barrier like that, reaching another
type of audience?

DirtE Dread: Basically with the SEA Awards, we feel real good because actually, you know coming from the East
coast it's sometimes kinda hard to transcend the boundary and go into another region, especially the south because
they're doing their own stuff and the East coast is doing their own stuff. What happened is, we decided a long time
ago we didn't want to be labeled as just east coast artists. We go to any other area and adapt and relate to them.
So, when we were nominated for the SGA Award and we actually won it, we were excited because we knew we had
finally made it where we crossed the barriers where people didn't just accept us as east coast artists, but overall
artists from anywhere. So it was just a real good feeling and we built a lot of relationships in the south. A lot of
relationships with the DJs and stuff like that.  

ChuckyBigBux: We actually won the award for our Web cast radio station, which is actually getting renovated right
now. We broke a lot of southern artists' records on the radio station as well as our own records. That's why we
created the web cast radio station. We got nominated because we had about 55 shows on there, we got DJs from all
the coalitions from the Core, Hittmenn, Go DJs, we got regions from all over and we were actually surprised recently
because we got nominated for another award, for "Best Industry Service" cus we provide services for independent
artists, labels and so on.

Inkstarzz.com: I know you are more than just a rap group. Could you let everyone know what services
your company provides?

DirtE Dread: We provide a little bit of everything. If you're like an up and coming artist, what we do is a lot of
consulting, getting artists to what they need to start a label, where to put their money, what outlets to push the songs
in, which DJs are the best for them in what markets. We also do services like, my brother does the radio station,
Hiphopfriendsonline.com. We got me servicing records to all of our DJs, which we have under our belt. We also do
Business Crash Course 101. We go to different colleges and different high school and we teach an hour to two hour
class. We do a couple of services for people to help them out if they don't have the direction in which way to go or
how to use their money.

Inkstarzz.com: Your single, "Private Party" is getting a lot of love everywhere. Were you expecting that
song to be such success?

ChuckyBigBux: We actually went into the studio this time around and said "we have our fans and our followers, now
let's please the radio, let's please the other corporate side of things and lets get some numbers besides the
accolades", and stuff like that. So it was kind of a planned attack, it wasn't like something we stumbled across, we
kinda knew. We tested beats from producers for all over the country and actually the producer of "Private Party" is
from California. So we were like, this is one that will crossover. We're east coast lyricists, the beat's from California
and *beat in the middle* is the style of the Midwest because of the way it's delivered. It was kind of a planned attack.
We knew what we were doing and we kinda knew what outlets it would work in. Once we got it to radio, they just
picked it up and ran with it. That really shocked us that they just kept going with it and adding more and more. That's
why we got to shoot the video because a lot of people want to see our images besides just pictures and stuff like that.

Inkstarzz.com: You said you've been in the industry for 10 years. There are a lot of people that say Hip
Hop is dead or dying. How do you feel about the state of Hip Hop?

DirtE Dread: Actually, right now I'm feeling pretty good about the state of Hip Hop because it seems that the
audience is not being fooled anymore in the sense of, now they are asking for quality music lyric-wise, beat-wise and
chorus-wise. Not too long ago when the statement was that Hip Hop was dead, it seems like, after that statement,
everybody was like "Yo we gotta step our game up!". So all the lollygagging and all those one-hit wonders, all those
artists are starting to dwindle and if you notice, it's now more of the artists that have high quality substance in their
music. I think the state of Hip Hop is pretty good whereas the audience is not being screwed anymore and it's only
quality music that's being accepted now in sales and downloads and stuff. It seems like it's coming back to the
realest. It's coming back to good beats and good ideas and good thoughts like that, so the up and coming artists
have to step their game up because the industry's not allowing any lollygag singles. I have to give credit to a lot of
the veterans who have been out for the last 5-10 years. They've seemed to step their game up too and deliver good
quality music. So overall to me the state of Hip Hop is starting to go in a good direction where it's about quality again
and it's not just about lollygagging.

Inkstarzz.com: Do you have any contact information you would like to give out?

ChuckyBigBux: The fans can check us out at hiphopfriends.com/artistpage.html or www.hiphopfriends.com. On
Twitter, they can hit us at twitter.com/hiphopfriends or just Google HipHopFriends. It's a brand, just go to any search
engine. We really easy to be found, that's why we picked the name HipHopFriends because it's user-friendly. Just
keep the words together, its all one word. You can find us and check out our accomplishments, our mixtapes, our
everything.  

Inkstarzz.com: Thank you for the interview.

Interview by: Sonnie_inkstar
Hip Hop Friends