As confirmed last week, Sean Price is guest-editing HipHopDX this week. We asked the Brownsville, Brooklyn emcee who we should feature, and he had Mac Miller at the top of his list. Moreover, Sean asked to do the interview himself. Last week, we got the Most Dope captain and Boot Camp Clik enforcer on the phone for a conversation that impressed us with each artist’s knowledge of the other’s catalog, its candor and its humor. We hope you like it as much as we do:
Sean Price: What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
Mac Miller: I did not eat breakfast yet; I just woke up.
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Sean Price: Such a rapper. Nice. [Laughs]
What’s the worst advice you ever received, and from who?
Mac Miller: When I was in a meeting, I got advice that was someone telling me that in order to be successful, I needed to create the character Mac Miller that couldn’t be the same person as who I really was.
Sean Price: If there was a Survivor reality show featuring all rappers, who would you like to see competing in it? That is horrible… that is a horrible question, man.
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Mac Miller: [Laughs] I want to see… damn, who do I want to see? I want to see like —
Sean Price: I’m gonna tell you right now, I want to see all you [weed-smoking rappers]. I’ll smoke weed with you, but you got to smoke weed. I don’t want to be the only survivor on the island with no smoke. Know what I mean? That would be funny to watch, period. You and all the smokers, man: the Smoke DZA’s, the Wiz [Khalifa’s], all the potheads, Curren$y, all ya’lls. Snoop Dogg. One island, just no weed. That would be fucking amazing.
Mac Miller: We need [Method Man and Redman] on that too.
Mac Miller & Sean Price Discuss Their Different Fanbases
Sean Price: Oh, of course. Are there any misperceptions about you?
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Mac Miller: Yeah, that I can’t rap.
Sean Price: Nah, that’s not true. You know what that is. Every time I hit you up on Twitter, my friends are like, “Are you fucking crazy? You like him?” I’m like, “Yeah, what the fuck, B?” [Laughs] And then I’m pretty sure you’re like, “Yo man, I love Sean Price’s shit.” Probably a bunch of [your friends are] like, “Get the fuck outta here!” You know how people is; they just want me to like Redman albums and that’s it. Anything else and I’m a fucking dick, you know what I mean? In they mind, every song I like should sound like “Time 4 Sum Aksion” by Redman. If you like anything other than “Time 4 Sum Aksion,” you a dick.
Mac Miller: My Redman jam is “Tonight’s Da Night.”
Sean Price: Yeah? The whole Muddy Waters album is my shit.
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Mac Miller: I like the video; when he pulls out the burner right in the camera, that shit’s so crazy.
Sean Price: Oh yeah, that’s one of my favorite videos too. I actually did “Tonight’s Da Night” over, with a new beat by Alchemist, but I didn’t put it on Mic Tyson.
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Mac Miller: Oh, fuck.
Sean Price: And I got it in the stash just in case. I gotta keep the clip loaded so if I have to shoot, I will.
Yo, I gotta send you the verse, B!
Mac Miller: For what?
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Sean Price: You remember the beat you sent me?
Mac Miller: No no, I sent you a couple ones.
Sean Price: Nah, I said I’m the only one with the sample as “Jesus Price.” I said, “I don’t hate women, but I’ll beat a dyke / the fuck down…” Ugh, how that shit go? “The only dude with the sample is Jesus Christ / Beat a bitch…” I don’t know, shit is funny as hell, know what I mean? I said, “I don’t hit girls, but best believe I’d beat a dyke / The fuck down, till the bitch turn into Tina, Ike…” [Laughs]
Mac Miller: [Laughs] Yeah, I’ve been waiting for that, man.
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Sean Price: I gotta send it to you, man. Yeah that shit is dope, I got to send it to you, B. I’m just a lazy nigga; I respect deadlines. If you just say, “Yo, get on this…” I’ll get on that. But if you go, “Fuck, I need this shit,” even if you lie to me, I respect deadlines, that’s my problem.
Mac Miller: Yeah, I’ll just start making up fake deadlines.
Sean Price: Do it. ‘Cause if you just like, “Yo, do this…,” usually means, “Yeah, I’ll get to it.” I’ve fucked up great songs doing that. I missed being on great songs. I wouldn’t even tell you ‘cause of that shit, B. I fucked up big time.
Mac Miller: Yeah, man. That shit happens.
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Mac Miller & Sean Price Discuss Star Wars & Wu-Tang Clan
Sean Price: I know. Let me see what other questions I got: what are your favorite movies?
Mac Miller: Shit a lot. I like The Shawshank Redemption, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, I like the old Star Wars —
Sean Price: — I’ve never seen Star Wars.
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Mac Miller: For real?
Sean Price: I can’t fuck with space movies, man. They make me go to sleep, B.
Mac Miller: [Laughs] I feel you, but the old Star Wars is just —
Sean Price: — Even the old ones, yeah. The old ones- the original three and the other three after that; I want none of that shit.
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Mac Miller: I used to have ‘em on cassette when I was a little shorty. And then the movie that like shaped my personhood was How High, like that’s why I am the person I am today.
Sean Price: [Laughs] How High?
Mac Miller: Yeah, I just used to watch that shit on repeat, ‘cause you know, I’m like… if you listen to music on repeat. We used to watch How High over and over again on repeat.
Sean Price: They talk about the rap music, but movies really change you too. I remember that Christopher Walken movie, King of New York, and all my friends went to the movies to see it. And everybody came back from the movie theater like, “Yo, shit [is] different now, son. Shit different.” I’m like, “What the fuck you mean shit different?” They’re like “Nah son, shit different now, son. Go see that movie.” So I go the next day by myself and shit, and I wind up watching it twice. I went home like, “Yo, shit different now, real talk.” [Laughs]
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So I know how the movies is: movies will definitely fuck your mind up sometimes. I was running around with two guns on my waist like I was Larry Fishburne or something. I wasn’t making no money, I was just running around with two guns like Larry Fishburne.
Mac Miller: If you model yourself after Lawrence Fishburne, you can never go wrong.
Sean Price: [Laughs] Right. Morpheus, Jimmy Jump. He had great characters, man. I remember, it’s an old movie called Band Of The Hand, you heard of that movie?
Mac Miller: Uh-uh.
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Sean Price: Ah. It’s with Larry Fishburne, he was a councilor. If you get a chance, find it. It’s a great movie; [a lot] of drugs, lot of shooting. It’s awesome.
Mac Miller: Just what I need. And anything by [Quentin] Tarantino is legit.
Sean Price: Of course. I’m ready to see that new RZA movie [The Man With The Iron Fists] too, it looks kind of Tarantino-ish.
Mac Miller: It’s dope. I’m excited to see it is ‘cause I know that RZA’s always been a true fan of Kung Fu movies, so this is like the first time he gets to do his own. So I know he’s going to use like all the classic Kung Fu shit.
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Sean Price: Yeah The Iron Fists [sic]! There’s an old classic called Kid With the Golden Arm, have you ever seen that?
Mac Miller: Uh-uh.
Sean Price: Oh man, you gotta see that man. They got this one move called the “Sand Palm” where they slap you in the chest so hard it leave like a black handprint and you die! [Laughs] So if you sand palm a nigga, you don’t even know what that mean. It’s over.
Mac Miller: I wish the rest of Wu-Tang [Clan] had cameos in The Man With the Iron Fists. Like a big fight scene with like —
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Sean Price: — Nah, nah, that wouldn’t be good, you know why? Which is like you say, as much of a fan is RZA is of them karate flicks, he wouldn’t do that just by getting homeboy coverage. He gon’ keep it as authentic as he can.
Mac Miller: I know, I didn’t mean I actually wish there was, but I’m just trying to picture how funny it would be if there was just a scene with Raekwon just beating the fuck out of a bunch of karate masters.
Sean Price: [Laughs] I admit, that shit would be kind of funny. You hear that new song they got, though? The boxing joint [“Six Directions Of Boxing”]? U-God, he took the gold medal on that record.
Mac Miller: For real? U-God did?
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Sean Price: U-God got the gold medal on that shit, straight up. He bodied that shit. I had to hit him up on Twitter like, “Yo, your verse was a murder case.”
Mac Miller: Yeah. I haven’t heard anything from him in so long.
Sean Price: Oh man, you gotta hear that new Wu-Tang joint off the movie, man. U-God caught a body, man. One.
I’ll ask you another question: does the constant fame ever annoy you?
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Mac Miller: Yeah man, I don’t really leave my house too much, ‘cause I don’t like… it’s funny, I don’t really like to be high and famous at the same time. When I get high, I don’t feel like taking pictures with anyone [or] doing anything. I just like chillin’. So yeah, I just kind of kick it at my crib all day because I’m not famous at my house. But you know, at the same time, it’s fun to fuck with people and be weird for no reason.
Sean Price: Yeah, no doubt. Me, personally, I don’t fuck with nobody, man.
My first go-round was in a group called Heltah Skeltah, I did that, it was cool; nobody’s your friend. It’s all fake. And you can play the game, I’m not mad you play the game. And I do play the game, that’s why I have [Dru Ha] as my manager. But you know me, I don’t want nothing to do with y’all, I just stay home. I do drugs, lay around and take care of my family, that’s it.
Mac Miller: I got a question for you: back in the day when you were recording the Heltah Skeltah [Nocturnal] album…I used to bang that shit. The joint you had on there that was just you on it —
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Sean Price: — “Sean Price.”
Mac Miller: Yeah, yeah. How much drugs were you on, man?
Sean Price: Me and my brother, Illa Noyz. We was smoking weed. A ton of weed. I had a friend who at the time sold weed, and it was just there. And we just smoke and smoke. I think we had about… and remember, this is back in the day, this might have been when niggas were still smoking White Owls. So could you imagine, like 18 White Owls?
Mac Miller: Yeah, I can. [Laughs]
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Sean Price: Yeah, you can. But imagine like 18 White Owls between two people and my brother. We just smoked that all night and we knocked it out, man. It was funny as hell.
Mac Miller: I remember when I copped that album, I was listening to it and I was talking to my homie about it like, “Yo this shit’s crazy.” And he was like, “Yeah, man. They were on all this PCP and stuff when they recorded it and shit. There’s videos of them in the studio all trippin’ out and shit.”
Sean Price: Nah, I ain’t do no PCP, man, not while rapping. That was in high school. We ain’t have video recorders back in high school, or at least we couldn’t afford them. I remember… true story, I wrote a song called “Onion Head” —
Mac Miller: — Yeah, “Onion Head” is one of my favorite songs, for real.
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Sean Price: I took [mushrooms]. [The] homie gave me the ‘shrooms, they were in like chocolate fishes and shit. So I ate too many of them, and still workin’ on the record.
Mac Miller: You were on ‘shrooms when you recorded “Onion Head”?
Sean Price: Yeah. And I wrote the rhyme quick, and I felt them kicking in, so I stopped [General] Steele from Smif-N-Wessun’s session so I could do “Onion Head” before the drugs kicked in. I did the whole song in one take, boom.
Mac Miller: Trying to get it out before you started tripping.
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Sean Price: Right, right, right. And I did.
Mac Miller: That song and the video are super hard. That rooftop shot; super hard.
Sean Price: [Laughs] Yeah that wasn’t the look we were going for, that’s what we could afford. [Laughs]
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Mac Miller: And it looked ill, ‘cause it was like real gritty and it’s like, “Aw shit, that’s some real-ass shit.”
Sean Price: It was some real-ass shit. It was real gritty ‘cause everything was gritty. [Laughs]
Hold on, let me see what other geeky question I got: What are your hobbies? Do you play any instruments?
Mac Miller: Yeah, I play a bunch of instruments, like piano, drums, guitar and bass. And the kazoo every now and then. I’m trying to learn how to play the trumpet and the saxophone. That’s what I’m learning how to play.
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Sean Price: I used to play tenor sax in high school, man.
Mac Miller: Were you tight?
Sean Price: I was okay. If all else fails, I could go to a train station and open up my saxophone case and make some bucks. I can do “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” I can do “Happy Birthday.”
Mac Miller: People would be like, “I better give this dude a couple dollars before he beats the fuck out of me.”
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Sean Price: Yeah, put on my thuggish look and start playing “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on sax.
Mac Miller: [Laughs] That’s the ill viral video, if you do that.
Sean Price: Nah, I got this idea, man. I’ve been doing these skits…did you see my “Sean-wuar?” I impersonated Nardwuar, it’s online right now, I call it Sean-wuar.
Mac Miller: For real?
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Sean Price: I just did it today, man. It’s all over, I interview Pharoahe Monch. You gotta hear it, man, it’s funny as hell.
Mac Miller: You interviewed Pharoahe Monch? That’s tight.
Sean Price: Yeah, I interviewed Pharoahe Monch, acting like Nardwuar calling it Sean-wuar.
Mac Miller: Did you dress up like him too?
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Sean Price: I dressed up like him too.
Mac Miller: Oh fuck. [Laughs] I gotta see that shit.
Sean Price: I always do these skits, man. I always do this dumb shit.
Mac Miller: Yeah, you know what? I’ve seen the Sean Price Rap [Clinic] shit, that’s funny.
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Sean Price: Did you see the tennis one?
Mac Miller: Nah.
Sean Price: Oh man, they got me playing tennis, you’ve got to see that shit, B.
Mac Miller: Is everything uploaded on one YouTube channel?
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Sean Price: Yeah, it’s the Duck Down channel.
Mac Miller: Okay, perfect.
Sean Price: Alright, what else? Oh shit, there’s a [Mac Miller] stalker at Duck Down. Somebody wrote, “He tweeted about listening to some Willie Hutch yesterday, did you?”
Mac Miller: Yes, yes I did.
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Mac Miller & Sean Price Discuss Willie Hutch, Portishead & The Brand New Heavies
Sean Price: Wow, what a fucking stalker. “What you know about Willie, and what other old school artists do you listen to?
Mac Miller: Well, one thing I know about Willie Hutch: my homie, [Big] Jerm, listens to nothing but Soul music, so he put me on to all this Soul music back in the day. One thing I know about Willie Hutch is like, if you listen to one Willie Hutch album [The Mack soundtrack], you hear every song that’s ever been made. You hear like six Three 6 Mafia [samples], it’s crazy.
Sean Price: I have the Willie Hutch Pandora station on my iPad, so I know exactly what you mean, man. I fucks with Curtis Mayfield, though. That’s my shit right there.
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Mac Miller: Oh yeah, yeah. Curtis Mayfield is the shit. Juicy [J] likes Willie Hutch so much that there’s this… I forget which song it is, but there’s this one Willie Hutch song that if you listen to the beginning of the song, you hear one Three 6 Mafia song, and then if you go to the end of the song, it samples the song, he sampled the same song in two different songs.
Sean Price: [Laughs] And Willie Hutch’s from [Pittsburgh], right?
Mac Miller: I think so.
Sean Price: I think so, too. I’m not really sure though. But yeah, man. Willie Hutch is the shit. What other heads you listen to besides Willie Hutch?
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Mac Miller: I mean, I listen to a lot of different kind of music. A lot of weird-ass music, like weird-ass, old Portishead-
Sean Price: Ah, you know what’s so crazy? Back in the day, we sampled Portishead on Nocturnal, that song “Proud” we sampled Portishead. And we used to have the [Dummy] album, ‘cause Da Beatminerz put me onto the album. I had the album, every time I played it, I had this dude like, “Yo man.” He thought I was so ill ‘cause I listened to Portishead. “You’re different, man.” [Laughs]. “You’re different, man. You listen to Portishead, you’re not like the others. Want some coke?” I’m like, “Nah, man.”
Mac Miller: Is this a White guy that you’re talking about?
Sean Price: Actually, no. It’s a Black guy with dreads, with brown tips on the end of it. Yeah he do talk like that. He ain’t from Brownsville. Then he opened his hand up and was like, “Do you take these?” [Laughs]
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Mac Miller: [Laughs] That’s how every wild story starts, like the random dude [who’s] like, “Hey you ever fuck with these before?” “Uh, nah, but why not?” But I fuck with Portishead heavy. It’s funny because actually, their sound, the sound that y’all had on Nocturnal, is very like… if y’all would have worked with them back then, it probably would have just made a lot of sense and worked.
Sean Price: That’s not a bad idea. Heltah Skeltah-meets-Portishead; that would be kind of crazy. Do you remember the group The Brand New Heavies?
Mac Miller: Uh-uh.
Sean Price: You never heard of this group? Well they had a Brand New Heavies Hip Hop album [Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1], they had Large Professor on there and Kool G Rap. You should try to find it one day, it’s a good fucking album.
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But yeah, Heltah Skeltah-meets-Portishead would be like the Brand New Heavies Hip Hop album, something like that. That’s dope, word. Thanks for the idea, bro. I got to get you involved if it goes down.
Mac Miller: Yeah if it does go down, please let me hop on something, ‘cause that would be crazy.
Sean Price: Oh for sure, that shit’s crazy.
