Pete the Meat: So when I decided to look you up, I never realized you were still making music, let alone working with DJ Drama and shit now. So I heard it, and it's dope. It's like the crazy hype southern beats but the razor-sharp lyrics are still there.

La: Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you like it.

Pete the Meat: That's what I noticed. The lyrical complexities are still there but it's changed up to a new style.

La: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's just upgraded because the principles in the system don't change the game, it'll change with the players. So the style is upgraded. The music is a 2008 format as far as the beats, but the lyrics are still potent, the substance is still there and the sharpness of the lyrics is definitely never going to leave. That's just how I swing my sword. It's kind of easy.

Pete the Meat: Sometimes people don't really change with the game like that so I was surprised to hear that music from you.

La: And I don't think I really changed. I definitely feel like the same La. If you listen to my first album I've got the same type of hooks, the same type of melodies, the same type of substance. I rap similar to the same content. It's a different format, but I feel the same. I just feel like I'm more mature and I don't have to pick my spots more than I have to just do things. On my first album I was running off of pure energy. I just felt energetic and it was like being athletic. But now my strategy is put together so well as far as I'm a founder of Gangsta Grillz, The Aphilliates Music Group, Embassy Entertainment. This is my new chapter. I've got like three or four different companies under one umbrella - Embassy Entertainment and Aphilliates Management, you know what I'm saying? And I manage DJ Drama, DJ Don Cannon, DJ Head, DJ Infamous, DJ Lil' Larry, I manage Willie the Kid, I manage myself. I mean, I wear a couple of different hats but I feel like Kobe Bryant right now. Like, I feel like I've got a great team, I feel like I'm playing the game correctly, I practice so much that I think it was really meant for us to put music in the right place.

Pete the Meat: So are you in Atlanta now?

La: In New York. I go back and forth between Atlanta and New York and I got an office in Michigan too so we're really everywhere.

Pete the Meat: So you're basically doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

La: Yeah, I executive produced the whole Gangsta Grillz album. When you hear the Outkast song, I A&R'd, picked all the beats. The whole Gangsta Grillz album is a success. I executive produced that. I executive produced Wille the Kid, DJ Drama, I'm the executive producer of the La the Darkman album and, like I said, I've got a deal with SRC Embassy Entertainment with Steve Rifkin from Universal Music Group for the La the Darkman album. Then I've got a deal with the Aphilliates Music Group with Grand Hustle with T.I. for the DJ Drama Gangsta Grillz album and I got a deal with Aphilliates and Warner Brothers Music for the Ronnie Mack album, a new artist I just signed out of Atlanta. So I've got like three different label deals opening right now. We're just really working and I've been trying to get these albums out. The Drama album is a semi-success so we're just working on getting another one done.

Pete the Meat: How old are you?

La: Oh, I'm 27. I'll be 28 this year. I was 17 when I dropped my album. If you listen to the lyrics, I was like 17 – 18. I actually say it on there. I was 17 when I dropped my album and then I was turning 18 so I was very, very young. I was like a baby. I was one of the RZA's babies so I was nowhere near their age group. I was just one of the teenagers at the time, but I had been around for so long. I started real early so it's kind of like Kobe Bryant. I was a teenager. I came straight out of high school into the league. So now I'm still young but I'm still a veteran.

Pete the Meat: So you must have been mad young when you knew the whole Wu-Tang before their first album.

La: Oh yeah, RZA and my man Tyrese. I was cool with them when I was younger, before the Wu-Tang album, before Wu-Tang even blew up. We were just neighborhood guys, so then when they blew up they just kept me in the family.

Pete the Meat: So seeing how they did it, you apply that knowledge to what you're doing now?

La: Oh yeah, definitely. To me, Wu-Tang was one of the first dynasties of hip-hop; one of the first real family dynasties of hip-hop - real family. Everybody was somebody's cousin, or I knew him for 15 years, or me and him went to elementary school together, or whatever. However it was, Wu-Tang was a real family that became a dynasty…

Pete the Meat: What did you think about the new Wu-Tang album?

La: I didn't really listen to it because I'm recording and at the same time they was doing the Wu-Tang album I was doing the Gangsta Grill album. I was executive producing the DJ Drama album, I was doing the Willie the Kid album and I had just started recording the La the Darkman album. I have been recording so much I haven't the chance to take out the time to go through the album so I only heard like two songs. The two songs I heard, I liked, but I record so much right now. I mean, I'm trying to get a hundred songs. I've got, like, 90-something songs so I've really been in the studio so much focusing on my project that I really haven't took time to go in and analyze anybody else's project.

Pete the Meat: But you still communicate with them and see them, right?

La: Oh yeah, I just left RZA in California like two weeks ago. But they're my brothers. We don't communicate because of music, you know what I'm saying? We communicate because we're brothers. This is my family. We just be chillin' like go hang out, get something to eat, have a drink. We might do some music but we don't talk all the time just because of music. RZA just called me yesterday, actually. I've got to call him back. We just talk to be talking sometimes and see how each other is doing.

Pete the Meat: What about Vanilla Ice?

La: Oh yeah, that's my homie too, Vanilla Ice. People gotta remember Vanilla Ice was the first Eminem. He was the first platinum white rapper with over 20 – 50 million sold, see what I'm saying? So for me to be chilling with him, he sold over 50 million records. He had a Taco Bell commercial. He was the first rapper that had a doll – the action figure – so to be in the company of those types of guys, that's cool with me. He's a real genuine brother and I'm actually putting some music together for him. Like, I actually was ghostwriting a couple of things and putting music together for him.

Pete the Meat: So are you allowed to be telling me that?

La: Um, I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, he's so cool I'm pretty sure he's not tripping that we write songs together, so you know what I mean? I'm pretty sure that's my homie.

Pete the Meat: I remember on the Surreal Life when he mentioned you.

La: Yeah, I know (laughs). That's my man, yeah. People called me about it and then I talked to him about it, like, two weeks later and he said, yeah, he just wanted to let people know that we're really cool like that.

Pete the Meat: (laughs) Called up Pep on the show saying it was you.

La: (laughs) Yeah. Crazy, right?

Pete the Meat: What else are you working on?

La: Really, right now it's all about the La the Darkman album. La the Darkman coming soon, like, July or August.

Pete the Meat: Who's gonna be on it?

La: Crazy. I don't know, like, we got the joint coming with Akon, we got the joint coming with Twista and Devin the Dude, Willie the Kid. But there's going to be a lot of La the Darkman though. A lot of La the Darkman for real. We're gonna have a couple of R&B joints, like you know, Akon, and then I'm going to do a joint with Bilal. But really it's going to be a lot of La the Darkman. DJ Drama on there. It's going to be crazy. I got production from everybody from Scott Storch, the RZA, Don Cannon, Havoc from Mobb Deep…

Pete the Meat: Is RZA gonna MC on that?

La: Nah, doing the beat. Probably not rapping.

Pete the Meat: Anybody from Wu-Tang?

La: Probably Mef. Me and Mef are probably going to do a joint. Me and Mef talked about doing a joint.

Pete the Meat: And you just released the Notorious L.A.D.

La: Yeah, the new Gangsta Grill with me and DJ Drama. It's crazy. It's like everybody's saying they didn't even know music like that existed anymore.

Pete the Meat: Like I was saying, I think it's because you have the Drama beats but it's still the Wu-Tang sharp lyrics.

La: Yeah, definitely. I'm so much of a poet. I like putting words together. I like making riddles. It's fun to me. I don't even do it for money. I do it for the love and the music and the passion. Everybody has different perceptions. I'm a real generational, traditional type of guy. I'm a classical type of guy. I follow tradition. I pay attention to the legendary people before me, the legendary MC's before me, and I just try to live up to the standards of being a real MC. I'm not really a rapper, I'm a musician.

Pete the Meat: Do you ever find some fans of yours from back in the day aren't feeling your new stuff?

La: Nah, really that's surprising. Like, everybody kind of feels what I'm doing, like it's the perfect timing. The music, the beats, the hooks, the lyrics, it's like it's the perfect timing to me. Everybody really say they feel it totally. Like, they say it's a totally perfect, well put-together Gangsta Grill mixtape - the Notorious L.A.D. mixtape. And I thought it was going to be over their heads, but it's really not over their heads. People are ready to listen to good music.

Pete the Meat: Well, I definitely have to say I was feeling it, man. Is there anything else you want to say and want people to know?

La: Thank you for your time, man and let 'em know, La the Darkman album coming soon and the music is incredible.