Young Buck, “Look At Me” (Originally Published May 2007)

With G-Unit sales gone south, the NYC crew turns to its Southern representative to bring the numbers back up. cutting through industry to focus on his powerful new album, Young Buck says it's his time to shine.

Interview: Sean A. Malcolm
Images: Jonathan Mannion

It’s a cold, rainy February night in New York, and David “Young Buck” Brown is seeking attention. Outside the NYC hotspot Club Stereo, leaving a listening session that was more like a party, Buck leans his entire torso out the window of a jet-black Suburban as it skates off on the slick concrete. Apparently, he has something important to get off his chest.

“Buy my album! March 27!” He shouts. “And always remember: Fuck the police!” Buck’s in a good mood. Boasting bombastic tracks like “Say It to My Face” and “Buss Yo’ Head” and the tuba-driven thwomp of first single “Get Buck,” his sophomore G-Unit album, Buck the World, just had a club full of industry heads, DJs, bloggers and leggy models roaring approval. A common response to Buck these days—and one that has the 26-year-old Nashville, Tenn., native amped about his chances selling records.

There’s a lot riding on it. Buck’s known as the “Clean-Up Man” around the G-Unit camp, and there’s something of a mess for him at the moment. The once mighty crew hasn’t cracked the platinum plateau since 2005. Last year’s releases from Mobb Deep and Lloyd Banks caught bricks (267,000 and 322,000 units sold, respectively), and even the 512,000 Tony Yayo sold two years ago was seen as a stumble. Following up on the cool million Buck’s debut, 2004’s Straight Outta Cashville, sold, this album looks like a test: Does anyone at the label, other than founder 50 Cent himself, have legitimate commercial staying power?

You know there are many men hoping not. The exiled G-Unit soldier The Game, with whom Buck shared a tense, chaotic encounter in Las Vegas amid the NBA All-Star Game festivities. Dipset chief Cam’ron, whose beef with 50 recently spilled into a video for Buck’s song “Hold On.” Jimmy James Johnson, who Buck famously stabbed with a dinner knife during a fracas at the 2004 Vibe Awards in Los Angeles.(James had punched Dr. Dre, who was instrumental in bringing G-Unit into the Interscope Records family. Buck pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to three years’ probation in December ’05.)

But Buck’s trying to get past all the “bullshit,” as he calls it, and concern himself solely with “real life.” This summer, actually, you’ll be able to watch that life on MTV2, as he’s slated to do a reality show called, like his album, Buck the World. He’s expanding into the business world, too, having started a label, Cashville Records, and signed his Tennessee homies the rap trio 615 and West Coast vet C-BO to recording contracts.

An hour after the listening party, the man who’s calling himself the “CEO of G-Unit right now” settles into his chair in a room at the Dream Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and tells us what’s on his mind. Watch him do his thing.

Can you speak on what happened at All-Star Weekend when you ran into The Game?
Any day, bruh. You know, if any real nigga—any individual, period—has a problem with anybody and they have a chance to see that individual they have a problem with, instead of leaving that place without any kind of moment of, you know, words or any kind of confrontation or anything, then I think you’re not really representing yourself, or not representing your situation. So for me, that was the first time me and Game had ever been in the same domain, in the same building, in the same eyesight of each other, since all of this bullshit that you getting from G-Unit and from them with the bullshit beef. So for me, it was pretty much like, we doing all this eye-contact shit across the club, let me go ’head and see if it’s a problem. And what I did was, I went to the stage, and I told the DJ to play one of Game’s records. And what I did, I didn’t diss Game or jump on the mic and start rappin’ and sayin’, “Fuck you, Game,” or disrespect Game in no kind of way. I just pretty much told Game and everybody in the building, “Look, if there’s a problem for anybody with me or my crew, then right now is the time to handle that. You know, straight up. If not, let’s get to the money. But if it’s a problem, let’s get it on…” After two, three minutes, Game started making his way down the stairs with his entourage, and the security at the club interfered and kinda like pushed him out the club and shit. So I don’t know if he was coming to get it on or give love. All I’m saying is I made room for whatever it was going to be. Being the fact that we in the same building and it’s been a lot of tension with this bullshit. So you know, if there ain’t a problem, we gon’ show it ain’t a problem in front of these people. If it is a problem, we gon’ show it’s a problem in front of these people, too…

I just want the fans to understand what’s real and what’s not… And you know, I can’t act like I’ve always been in the mode that I’m in. In the beginning of this shit, you know, you get your diss records. You done got some of your strongest diss records that I done said about some of these niggas, you know. I played the game with that, but I played the game with me not knowing the situations, if they real or not. So I’ve been able to get hands-on with these niggas, being the street nigga that I am, to see if it’s real or not. And when, if I see it ain’t real, I’m not fuckin’ wit’ it. Jadakiss, we just smoked a blunt together, bruh, and did it big at the All-Star Game in Vegas together.

You were on the radio, on Ed Lover’s morning show, a few weeks later saying that you were willing to squash the beef with The Game.
Yeah, I’m willing to. If it ain’t a problem, we don’t have to act like it’s a problem, period. So if you gon’ call that squashing the beef or whatever, I’m with whatever way you put it. We don’t have to shake hands or none of that. If you want to shake hands, let’s do it. All I’m saying is, there’s room for whatever… Whatever it is, let’s just do it and get to it and get it over with, ’cause I ain’t with the bullshit.

Personally, do you wish that the situation between The Game and 50 did not happen?
Yeah, I honestly wish it didn’t happen, because what that did was make Dr. Dre and Eminem, muthafuckas I look up to, have to analyze a situation and choose sides... That’s bullshit. You know, niggas have differences. But if you ain’t no bitch nigga, then you shouldn’t feel lesser than a man for stretching out about your problems you had with somebody else and trying to get to them. That’s only a manly thing. You not less a man for trying to handle your business in a way to get to the end of a problem. You more of a man, in my eyes, straight up and down. I think you less of a man by carrying out shit that you know ain’t real. Then, you know that you’re fighting and doing something you know in your heart ain’t right. So you’re not being yourself, man.

And really, the beef was never between you and The Game—
Game knows me, and we was cool… At the end of the day, our shit isn’t built on our dislikes for each other, it’s built on the fact of a situation you have with my boss that I’m loyal to. Because I see eye to eye with a nigga you don’t see eye to eye with. 50 gave me the mind frame of how to deal with this industry, being a street nigga. For real, man. And I love him to death for it. But I don’t agree with everything 50 does. I voice it to him, and he loves me for that. Because I’m a nigga that can say, “50, hey, man, I don’t think that was cool, what you did…”

I understand 50, and I understand and respect the position that he in. Now, you know, certain situations, I feel like I maybe wouldn’t handle them the way that he goes. I would probably give a muthafucka a chance quicker than 50. But, hey, that’s where me and 50 different. ’Cause we are two different men… You know, it’s two different type of niggas that you dealing with. You dealing with two bosses, straight up and down, on the same team, with the same heart and the same love for each other, so there could never be a nigga or nothing that could break up me and 50. No words that I could say to you or to the media or anything could stop my relationship with 50 Cent and G-Unit, my crew.

What about the Cam’ron situation. The video you and 50 did for your song “Hold On” is labeled “Cam’ron Diss” in the opening credits. Cam’s name never came out your mouth, but 50 calls him out at the end of the video.
50 took it amongst himself to add the extra preservatives to it and do it how he do it, like that, which, I guess that’s his way of keeping his situation alive... But that was never a record that was intended for Cam.

But we all know how much of a hothead Cam is. If he were to see the video, chances are he’ll put you on blast.
My first reaction to that would be, pretty much, to see how real it is and see what he’s saying in his music. Your actions speak louder than words. But your words determine my actions, period. One blink. I’ve been pretty outgoing about my whole outlook on the situation, so you know, however you choose to judge it is all on you. I’m just here to let you know, as far as that record, it wasn’t an intentional record made as a diss. That’s 50 that chose to get on it and scream and say what he had to say. If Cam chooses to diss and his words are harsh enough, if he says something serious enough for me to pay it some attention, then who knows? Maybe I will.

Why is the rest of G-Unit sitting on the bench for this one? History has shown, with The Game and Ja Rule, that when 50 is beefing with his enemies, all of the Unit is doing the same. Why the silence from you, Banks and Yayo?
We’re not saying nothing until anything is directed individually. I haven’t heard nothing from the rest of the cats over at Dipset directing theyself toward G-Unit. It ain’t no room for us to jump in and create something between two guys that, to me, really, really ain’t nothing… Let’s get back to real life—this situation has no real-life meaning behind it. There was no bullet shot. Nobody been hurt behind this beef situation. This is all created from words. And we all know that old saying: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Isn’t that the attitude, though, that got The Game kicked out of G-Unit? Are you worried that 50 will read staying on the sidelines as disloyalty?
50 knows all my reasons for doing what I do, ’cause I do the math on what’s going on around the other crew and the whole situation. Me and Jim Jones happen to be on the same page with each other, so that allows me to do the judgment on the interaction from the other side of it, you know. And in this particular situation, Jim Jones reached out to me and was like, “Yo, Buck, I don’t think the situation is gon’ last too long, so I ain’t fuckin’ with it.” So for me, you know, I don’t think the situation is gon’ last too long, so I ain’t fuckin’ with it.

Okay. Let’s switch course. There’re two Dr. Dre beats on your new album. Going back to the incident at the Vibe Awards in 2004—there’s a perception that you might have leapt to Dre’s defense just to get in good with him, so you could get beats from him.
Real talk: Honestly, I didn’t even know that was Dr. Dre tangled up… I know that a lot of people may feel like my whole relationship with Dre was built from that, when it wasn’t. Me and Dre already had a relationship before the situation ever happened… I was backstage, and I saw the commotion through a monitor. When I ran to the front of the stage, I honestly thought 50 was down there tangled up. I looked and see, “Oh shit, it’s Dr. Dre swinging on this nigga!” And Dre ain’t got no business having to swing on nobody, for the fact that he got soldiers like us and for the fact that he put too much muthafuckin’ work in—and his fuckin’ wife’s in the building. How dare you niggas?! How dare you niggas, ever in your life, try to ever disrespect my nigga?! Not only him, but the man’s wife is in the building. I will fuck one of you niggas up for that! And that’s where it was.

Looking back, would you have done the same thing again?
I’d do it again. If I had to repeat it twice, I would do it over and over again, bruh. But what I would do different is get a sharper knife.

I would do different is get a sharper knife. Wow. Really?
I did beat my case, though. Cost me a lot of money to stay out of jail.

True. Does that make you feel like a Teflon Don?
No, it don’t. It let me know that I can go to jail. It don’t make me feel tough at all. It lets me know I was slipping, ’cause I got caught. Next time, I need to be a little bit better with what I do.

Let’s talk about the early response to Buck the World. It must be extra satisfying, that positive feedback, considering that it’s been a rough time for G-Unit lately. Sales have been down. Your people are really relying on you, right? Calling you the “Clean-Up Man”?
Yeah. You know, I feel like I delivered a good record, in a good time. Where, you know, a lot of people had doubts about the Unit… A lot of people gave us the flak. You know, like, “Y’all are not in existence no more.” A lot of people almost feel like G-Unit is not here. You got a lot of artists coming, doing they thing, but they feel like the game is theirs, almost because they’re looking over here and judging the momentum of the crew off the sales. So when I say, “Clean- Up Man,” I say, “Okay, y’all can’t handle this real-life nigga.” As well as me from the sales, ’cause I’ma outsell everybody, period. Period.

Even 50?
I’ma outsell 50 and everybody at this point. What I done realized is the streets understand who I am now. And there’s more people than I would ever thought would understand who I am. So it’s exciting for me to actually see, you know, what my true numbers is gon’ be, as far as sales from my album. But I can honestly say that I’m going to outsell everybody. From the passion that I have in me. It’s a bold statement to make, but I’ma do whatever it takes for me to maintain making good music. And making good music is always going to allow me to outsell you, straight up and down.