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DJ Paul recently visited New York City to celebrate the release of Good Wood NYC's Lord Infamous Smoke Kit. Designed and curated by Paul and Good Wood, the smoke box pays tribute to Lord Infamous and his contributions to the hip-hop community.

Lord Infamous, who passed away last year in his sleep of a heart attack in Memphis, started his career in the early 1990s and helped form the legendary group Three 6 Mafia. This past Halloween, the currently-named Da Mafia 6ix (which no longer includes co-founder Juicy J) released a project titled Hear Sum Evil mixtape that featured unreleased verses from Lord Infamous.

XXL chopped it up with DJ Paul during the Good Wood NYC event and spoke with him about the Good Wood smoke box, his funniest memories with Lord Infamous, Paul's upcoming music and hot sauce and much more. —Roger Krastz

XXL: What’s the funniest moment that you had with Lord infamous?
DJ Paul: Man, I had so many funny moments with Lord Infamous, but the one that always sticks out in my head and that me and Juicy J always talk about it is that one day Lord Infamous was up in the studio and he was really high and Juicy asked him, "Man, what you eating?" and we both looked at him and he said, "Juicy, I’m eating some Chinese," and we just died laughing because of the way he said "some Chinese." And he just kept saying it, so we were dying laughing in the studio. That was the funniest right there, but he has millions of funny stories.

How did the partnership come about between you and Good Wood NYC for the Lord Infamous Smoke Kit Box?
My publicist, Dove, she hooked it up. So she told me about Good Wood NYC being a company to team up with, so I got on the phone with Richard and all of them and we talked about doing some different DJ Paul stuff and Mafia 6 stuff. But we ended up bringing out the Lord Infamous Smoke Box first because his birthday was coming up and we just thought that would be the proper way to do it, and it came out great. The funny thing about it is that they made the box purple on their own and that was Lord Infamous’ favorite color. Like, he was a big Prince fan and Purple Rain.

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What would be your favorite Lord Infamous track of all time?
“Where Is Da Bud,” because it was the only track that me and him collaborated together on the beat. I always made the beat and he wrote the songs, but in that particular song, he knew how to play the guitar a little bit. So in that particular song he picked up the guitar and played the bass line, so I got on the keyboard and I replayed it and I put all the samples and all the drums behind it and that was the best one and the biggest one.

And the best part about that song is that it never had a video because it came out in like 1991, when making a video was worth $200,000. But we just decided to shoot the video when we worked on Da Mafia 6ix album recently for that song and that was the last video he shot, and he died a week after that video came out. So it was great to have a video to his biggest hit, for him to see it. And he called me one day and was like, "Paul, we got one million views on WorldStar," and I told him, "Ricky, you looking at it wrong, that’s 12 million views." [Laughs] That was a great moment.

I’m sure Lord Infamous has unreleased material that we have yet to hear. Are there plans of releasing that material in a Lord Infamous album in the future?
We’re not planning to release an album, just more stuff on Da Mafia 6ix project and my solo album that he did. You’ll definitely hear that soon and there’s a few versions of new material on Da Mafia 6ix album that came out on Halloween.

When can we expect new music from you?
The new DJ Paul solo will come out next year, and I have a bunch of EDM remixes coming out because that’s one of my main ways I like to eat these days. It’s fun going to DJ the gigs and having all the crazy chicks all over the place. It’s fun.

How’s the cooking coming along?
Cooking is coming along great. I have a hot sauce coming soon, so we got the BBQ sauce out right now, the all-purpose seasoning called "On Everything" and then the hot sauce dropping next year. We just created it and it is fire.

Related: Good Wood NYC x DJ Paul Launch Limited Edition Lord Infamous Smoke Box Kit
Three 6 Mafia’s Lord Infamous Has Reportedly Died, Rappers Tweet Condolences
DJ Paul Confirms Lord Infamous Died At His Mother’s House
DJ Paul On Lord Infamous’ Legacy And What He Meant To Hip-Hop

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