Illuminati 2G

To many, reading the story of F1 Diamond will sound familiar - a rapper who rose from trouble out of the slums to find hip-hop as his talent and skill. However, with deeper thought and meaning, you will quickly see that F1 Diamond and his story is as unique as you will ever come across.

Living the “gangster” lifestyle was all F1 Diamond knew from a young age - dealing drugs, running with gangs, jail, murder and violence was just everyday life in the hoods of Memphis, Tennessee and Milwaukee. When F1 realized jail or death was going to be his calling, he took a trip back home to Milwaukee with his mother to get away from the hood for a little relaxing time.

It was in the car ride back to Milwaukee that F1 Diamond made a decision - he was going to dedicate his life to Jesus and preaching the word of the lord. 

Now with a positive but not preachy album on the way, F1 Diamond is here to promote the word of the lord through hip-hop music that “still sounds good.”

Enjoy…

Interview: Tell our readers where the name F1 Diamond comes from?

F1 Diamond: You know that diamonds come from the dirtiest substances on earth known as coal. There are different grades of diamonds – S class diamonds, VS diamonds; well the F1 diamond is the portion of the diamond that has been through the most heat and most pressure. It’s like depictive of my life. The kind of life I lived in my past, I’ve been through a lot of heat and pressure. The F1 Diamond ironically is the part they use to cut and shape the other diamonds. With me working with and trying to reach young people, I look at young people to be diamonds and I feel like I’m qualified in this area of my life to cut and shape them and get them out of some of the things they’re getting into; some of the stuff I got tricked into when I was a lot younger. That’s where we get the F1 Diamond name from.

Interview: That’s a fantastic explanation right there. Speaking of the heat and pressure you went through, is that what made you decide to take a six year hiatus from hip-hop?

F1 Diamond: Somewhat. Really, I was living a street life to such a necessity that I found myself basically burned out and tired. I just wanted to change my life. I was tired of thugging it and living that life period. I just grew tired of it. To make a long story short, I made a phone call from Memphis where I was living at the time to my mother and told her that I wanted to come down to her for a couple of days and get my head straight. She saw that I was going to catch a flight there. My mother decided that she would come get me. Within that ride and with that transition on the highway from Memphis to Milwaukee, Wisconsin which is our hometown where I was born and raised at, I was listening to a song, Donnie Mcclurkin was singing “just for me, just for me, Jesus came and did it just for me.” I just wanted to change my life and accepted Jesus as my lord and savior.

I decided that at that moment I would begin working and striving towards changing my life. I wanted that change because hip-hop was such apart of my every day routine and the lifestyle we were living and everything I was rapping about was real – we were talking about money, girls, fighting in the club, or running with your gang, it was being solidified in my lifestyle. I finally grew tired of it. When I backed away from the lifestyle, I backed away from the music for a while. I wanted to get myself together. I was a high school dropout. I got back here and went back to school, got my GED and graduated from college. I just transitioned and changed my life. It was about change. My foundation was so rocky that this was an opportunity for me to straighten some things out. It took me six years to get a strong foundation before I started messing with the music again. In that time I didn’t write any music or did any music including no recording; no nothing. It was strictly serving God and trying to press forth for that change as they say.

Interview: You touched on a bunch of stuff I want to talk about; will get into that later. Is all that what made you want to come back with such a new and fresh approach to your music?

F1 Diamond: I almost say I got tricked back into the music. I was working with young people who are so involved and embedded in the hip-hop community. I knew that I could rap because the talent never went anywhere. The flow and actual art form was so embedded in me that it never went anywhere. I began using that talent, energy and that gift to reach young people and it was just for my youth group. I never intended to put a record out or even recording a song. I was just using hip-hop to reach them. As a joke in my youth group, the kids in my group began calling me “the pastor of the traphouse.”   I’m from the hood for real and come from the traphouse so as a joke that is what they called me. I was like that’s kind of fly. So I went ahead and made a song for them called “Pastor of the Traphouse” which is actually the number one track on my new album. I made the song just for the youth group and they loved it. They started playing it and so did their friends. One of the DJ’s down here in Memphis liked it and he started playing it too. One thing lead to another and I woke up again. Everything just returned, the whole hunger and fire was just back in me like I was a kid rapping again and it was so fresh. That’s where I’m at with it right now.

Interview: Tell us more about then street life you lead in Wisconsin.

F1 Diamond: I was apart of a click called 4-5, 45. That is the name because I grew up on 45^th Street. Growing up as a kid and seeing gangsters in your house, players and dope boys and stuff like that around you and everybody you know around you has some kind of street hustle and my mother when I was a kid was living a street life and I had al’ these street people around me; just being raised in the streets talking slick and being around people where it was nothing to see somebody with a gun or to see somebody selling dope and just being rid of that environment where everything wrong looks so right. Because of that it distorted my perception of the world. I grew up and everything I knew was street life. All I had around me was people like this. My family didn’t go to church back then and growing up in the streets being around that stuff, constantly around violence, seeing your friends getting killed. It kind of numbs you and you become apart of that street life and that’s what happened to me.

 I started running with the gang as a little kid and people were coming down showing me how to twist my fingers and all that; showing me how to mix cocaine and hustle and do all those things that my mind got embedded in the street life. That just consumed me at that time of my life. That’s what Milwaukee wanted from me; to be heavily involved in the streets and the night life; on top of that I’m rapping and becoming popular in the Milwaukee community. At that time, everybody knew me by “Mr. Do It To Death.”  I released some projects with Infinite Recordings and we were shooting videos, running around hopping out of Benzes and Range Rovers just living the life; I was dying on the inside. I just came to a screeching halt and said something’s gotta’ give. I really came to a point where I knew for a fact that jail or death was not an IF, but a WHEN for me. I started living my life like that and just needed to change. That’s what God did for me; he allowed change in my life.

Interview: So do you consider yourself “lucky” that you were able to pull out of that lifestyle before it was too late? Or do you attribute that to making the right decisions when it really came down to it?

F1 Diamond: No, not at all. I definitely don’t consider myself to be lucky at all. I never use the word lucky. I would say that I was blessed. God had his hand on me so easily. I could have been doing life in prison easily. Someone could have eulogized me easily. God put his hand on me and I can’t acknowledge that as luck. I can’t speak for anybody else. I can only speak on what happened to me and it was God that put his hand on me. My name was “Mr. Do it to Death” and I was trying to die. God had his hand on me and protected me in situations when I couldn’t protect myself. I don’t call it luck, just blessed.

Interview: I like that. Was it important for you to go back to school?

F1 Diamond: Very important; it was so important. I dropped out of high school at 17 years old. I knew then when I dropped out, I will never forget the last day I went to school and started running with the d-boys, I knew that I made a mistake at that point. But I was so far in it that I felt like I couldn’t turn back. I didn’t feel like I had any other options. When I started to straighten my life up, the first thing I wanted to do was go back and get what I felt like was something that was important that I had lost which was my education. I went and got my GED. One of the things that kept me from getting my GED was embarrassment. I was a grown man and here I am going to get my GED. I felt embarrassed but just fought through that embarrassment and foolishness and went back and got my GED. Once I got my GED, doors just started opening and I realized I could go to college. I enrolled in a four year college program and got my bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Biblical Studies. Education was very important for me.

Interview: How did the Spring Breakthrough Youth Meeting change your views on hip-hop?

F1 Diamond: At Spring Breakthrough, let me tell you what I was saying at the beginning at my youth group – I started seeing how rap music…when I was coming up, we had different styles of rap music. There were all kinds of rap styles and they were all appreciated. You had people like Special Ed, Brand Nubian, NWA – all these different styles where-as if you had somebody saying something negative, you also had somebody saying something positive. Right now, I would say 95% of the music is just negative. I’m not saying its all negative, but the majority is talking about something there about to do around negativity. I started seeing this affecting our kids. Kids really listen to this music and they’re getting to the point where they want to put tattoos on their face because they saw a gang member with one or saw Lil Wayne do it. They only view each other as certain things and can only go so far. We see that and we see it effecting kids on an intimate level. I felt compelled to do something about it. I have a flow and can actually spit, for real. You can put me in a circle with the best rappers and I can get down. I wanted to do something about it.

That’s when I started choosing the music to reach those kids just in my youth group. It just began to spin outside of that. As far as the art form, I know that I’m great at it. I have a verse that says “I’m the ‘F’ in-between the Weezy and the Baby, the one in the K-R-S-, the hyphen in the Jay-Z.” I say that because I know I can actually flow as far as the art form is concerned. I felt compelled to do something to show young people that I can do music without cussing, smoking anything, drinking anything, how many girls I flipped out or how much dope I sold and still have the music bumping and feel good the same way as if you were listening to Yo Gotti or Lil Wayne or anybody else. And I’m not disrespecting those guys, but I feel I can make music on that same platform that feels good and authentic without compromising the message. That’s why Spring Breakthrough did that for me. We do it during the spring and it’s a three day event. We do it right here in Memphis, Tennessee and it just revolutionized my thoughts on hip-hop. It made me want to go back in and bring them back.

Interview: Now the album “Pastor of the Traphouse” is coming out through Cloud Ten Entertainment/E1. How did you land the deal through E1 for the “Pastor of the Traphouse” album?

F1 Diamond: Well my label is T.A.E./Diamond Life Entertainment and I started pushing the “Pastor of the Traphouse” album. Cloud Ten Entertainment has a movie called “Saving God” with Ving Rhames and I actually aired the movie at my church. It happened through talking to the president of the company back and forth and constantly sharing ideas. They were letting me know they were interested in getting involved in the music scene because they do movies and this is from the company that brought you “Left Behind” and I don’t need to say anymore. These guys have moved over 12 million DVD’s. That’s crazy. We started talking about it and they liked the movement I had. I have over 300,000 hits on MySpace. I have 2-3,000 people on my Facebook. They like the movement and energy in the message that I was bringing and the way that I was bringing it. We got together and talked and were able to work out some logistics as far as what we wanted to do and those guys were already established with E1 independently as for distribution. We just ran with it and here it is. Here we have “Pastor of the Traphouse” the album.

 Interview: What’s the release date for that?

F1 Diamond: The release date for the “Pastor of the Traphouse” album is September 29^th. I’m excited about it. We have over 3,000 pre-orders in the system already. For an unknown artist, I think that is great, especially in these economic times with dealing with music and selling music. People are having a real hard time with music. This project is win-win. It’s a growing project and it’s real lovely. “Pastor of the Traphouse” is me saying I‘m coming back to the hood with the message I have which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I’m putting it on a platform like you never heard before. It’s not corny, wack, watered down; It’s going to be effective and sound good. That’s the angle that we’re taking with the music.

Interview: Tell us about the guest appearances and production.

F1 Diamond: I have a guy by the name of Mr. Del on the album. We have a record called “Pray for me.” Mr. Del is signed to Universal/Christian Music Group. He’s signed through Universal with the Holy South movement. I have Dave Hollister on the album; we have a single called “Where Do I Go from Here.” Dave Hollister has a new album called “Witness Protection” through Jive. He is very big in the R&B area and is getting big in the Gospel area. I also have two artists from my record label named B. Jackson and Cano. They both have releases coming out in 2010 and both of them are featured on my album.

As far as production, I have seven of the greatest producers on this album. First all, we have Enigma who did production on the Scarface “Made” album and he produced on the Bun B last album on the song that had Lupe Fiasco. Enigma produced those tracks and he’s also produced for Z-Ro. He is a gem right here in Memphis, Tennessee.  I have a guy by the name of Pyragon, Sean K, J. Mac, B. Jackson and Big Hank produced a record on there; he is the guy who did “In my Projects” for Coo Coo Cal. He produced a song for me on the album. The production is just absolutely astounding. Everybody who is hearing this record wants the number for these producers if there looking for beats. These guys are official.

Interview: Why should everybody go cop the album on September 29^th?

F1 Diamond: If you don’t want to be preached to and you just want some good music, the music here is absolutely impeccable; that’s the first reason. The second reason is because it’s so real and relevant to right now. Like I said, they called me “Jeezy on Jesus, Wayne on words.” The music is off the hook and is really worth going to get. Once they hear the music for themselves, I don’t have to even worry about trying to convince people; there going to want to get it because the music is absolutely that good. I’m not being arrogant; I’m just feeling what’s going on.

Interview: What’s the best way our readers can keep up with you online?

F1 Diamond: www.f1diamond.com. They can Google F1 Diamond and hit me up on MySpace at www.myspace.com/f1diamond. Everything is F1 Diamond for the search engines. They can Google it and hit me up on Youtube or MySpace.

Interview: “Pastor of the Traphouse” is in stores September 29^th. Do you have any last words before we let you go?

F1 Diamond: I just have one more thing to say. God loves the hood. That is my new single – “God Loves the Hood.” I just want to tell all the listeners to get it in there ear because “God Loves the Hood.” Request that song on the radio because it’s a big record. It’s off the hook and I’m excited. I want to thank you brother for taking the time out to reach out to me and interview me and give me this time to let my little voice be heard.