Illuminati 2G

LuLu Torres of BYI: I look at what were doing right as the beginning of hip hop. Just like how Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin started Def Jam, thats how I look at it. Thats how I look at hip hop for Latinos, it's just starting you know? In regards to getting that attention so that people know what they got. We just do it the right way, you can't allow these labels or allow people to water us down and that's happening alot on radio right now. Alot of the so called cholo rappers or whatever you want to call them, they allow radio to tell them what kind of music to make, in regards to all that singing, all that R&B rap that they're doing. They're so gangster but you hear them on the radio and they really singing to a girl on their songs. You know? Come on man you talking about keeping it real? Someone needs to tell you how to get on the radio. I have a joint venture with Interscope, Interscope is one of the biggest rap labels that you can be on. Me personally, I'm the one picking the singles, Omar's 1st single is a straight street record. It's just saying basically, the records called "Hang with my Dogs,"that's basically saying who he is and he's hanging with all the homies. He's hanging with the Latinos, that's basically what he's saying, were here and were all hanging out. That's really what the records all about. I hang with my dogs, he's from where Biggie got shot and Tupac, he's half Mexican and half Colombian. With Interscope, you don't think they want Omar to cross over right away and be huge? Of course they do, that's if they allow them you know? I'm not going to do that though.

Jehuniko: Thats interesting so you guys are in charge of picking your singles, thats really good to know.

Lulu: That's the type of deal that we got, we pick our music. Rome, the producer for BYI, he did half of Omar's album, and then everything else is like...We only have one other producer that I wanted on, and thats Cool and Dre from Miami. The only reason we got Cool and Dre is they have that sound were looking for. You know and thats why we went with Cool and Dre. Everything else, is people you may not have heard of, or you might have heard of them but they're not big. We have Javie Lopez, he's the one who produced the 1st single, "Hang with my Dogs." Then there's this other kid, Julian Beneta. I want to take it back to when it was all about the music. You didn't really hear about, produced by Just Blaze, Swizz Beats, or produced by Pharrell, or produced by Kanye. Like when Biggie came out, people don't even remember who produced those tracks. The records were just hot. Look at Tupac, people don't really know who produced Tupac's, they're just like oh Tupac, that's a great record. That's just the way we are. We have our own street teams, we have our own publishers, we have our own studio where we record, we have our own producers, we keep moving. Interscope and Geffen, they are there to push that button. To get that music out there.

Jehuniko: Can you tell me about the beginnings of BYI, getting some of the people involved, as far as art direction, just the whole foundation of it before you approached Interscope.

Lulu: BYI started like 5 years ago, 6 years ago. I was on the road with a group called the Clipse, I used to help them out. They gave me the opportunity to go on the road with them, to get the knowledge of how the music works. I met them before their 1st single came out. You know, real people meet real people. I was helping them alot, booking shows for them, taking them to the BET Awards, all on the West Coast I was just handling a bunch of stuff for them. At that time, BYI had other artists and it just didn't work out, because it wasn't going in the direction that I wanted it to go. In regards to what the company was about and who I was about. So I just stopped it for a second and just concentrated on really learning the music game. Really get to know the publishing, royalties, the laws of the music game and also learning hands on by going on the road with the Clipse and just learning that side of it. So I put BYI to the side and didn't mess with those artists anymore and that at that time I met Rome. I threw a party for the Clipse, they got nominated for the BET Awards and I threw a party for them and Pharell and Nas performed and Kelis performed, the whole Star Trek, everybody that was was on Star Trek at that time performed on stage. They did all for free for me, on love you know and I needed somebody to make a flyer and somebody knew somebody that knew somebody that finally knew Rome. I met with Rome and I told him exactly what I was looking for and at that time he was young, like 17 or 18 years old. He was making beats at that time. He was a young dude, making everything, graphics, flyers, throwing parties and I liked his hustle. The beats were alright, they weren't nothing great and after I finished promoting the Clipse album, I called him and I told him what I was trying to do.

I brought him around my other team to show him I was real. I told him I was trying to find a Latino MC, that can really rap. I had a whole vision and he was down with like it like, "lets roll," So I had him just making beats, I was just shopping his beats but people weren't really understanding his music, his sound which is a Latino soul-sample music you know? People weren't really understanding it so I told him the only it's going to work is that we have to get one of our own and have him get over you know? I met Omar maybe a year and a half later, on the West side, I told Omar my vision. Omar was at a point where he was with another label where he didn't want to deal with that label no more. We had to deal with that and everything went smooth. Just put him and Rome in the studio, they were just vibing. Rome came out with a sample, I told him you need to start sampling, so you know he came out with a sample and the rest is history. They were just in the studio for months and months just recording, recording, recording. Thats just how we started, it all started in a studio that was 10 x 7, a small studio, as big as a closet and we'd all 3 be in that studio everynight recording, like 3,4,5 records every night for like 6 months. Then it went from there, to having a CD, alot of people like it but it was so hard to get out there because when we used to go around to record stores, even swap meets, they didn't have a section for Omar Cruz. They had either, you were a black rapper, or you were a total rapper or you were super underground and Omar was none of those. Alot of people didn't want to take that CD so we just decided to start giving them out for free and we just started going out to all the clubs and having it out for free. We started getting a good response and made the next mixtape, which was "Blow," and it was online, downloadable for free online, with this DJ that had a good buzz out here, Dow Jones, with some freestyles on there, some originals on there. Those 1st two (mixtapes) were proof to the people that we weren't just here for the moment, that we were actually trying to build something.