Curren$y Dishes On Five Of His Favorite Films

Curren$y is always working. The Jet Life leader dropped five projects in 2013—New Jet City, Live In Concert (with Wiz Khalifa), Red Eye (with Jet Life), Bales (with Young Roddy) and The Stage (with Smoke DZA and Harry Fraud)—all of which were well worth a listen. Not many artists find a balance between quantity and quality, but thanks to Curren$y’s smart lyrics and dope ear for production, he is one of the few who has, and it’s an absolutely beautiful thing.

Through his Jet Life movement, the New Orleans native has set the rap world ablaze transforming himself from a No Limit Soldier to a Cash Money Millionaire and now into a Jet Life Pilot. But Curren$y’s story is no overnight fairytale. Instead, it's a reminder that anything worth achieving takes time, work, and perseverance; a marathon, not a sprint.

This year, Curren$y will be releasing a new project called The Drive In Theatre, which will feature a song called “The Godfather 4.” In celebration of the release, XXL spoke with Curren$y—a noted film buff—about his five favorite movies of all time as he preps for another monster year. —Layne Weiss

The Godfather Part I and II, 1972 and 1974
Curren$y: One and Two [are] my favorites, for different reasons. One, because you got to see what the original Godfather, like, what his idea was, and in Two you see his son trying to one-up his dad, but trying to do it his own way and falling short. That's why it was a lot about hits. A lot of hits Michael put out, some of the people got killed, that he intended to be killed. That didn't go as smooth as it obviously should have. Some hits were botched. And I don't know how many people picked up on that, but, but I did, and I understand it, you know what I'm sayin'?

He didn't even intend on going into the game, and being the Don and running the family. [He was into the range] and all that shit. He didn't plan on doing that, he was kind of forced into it. So it was just something that wasn't going to be done as cleanly as it would have been if he was, like, groomed his whole life to be in the fuckin' mob, you know? Things happen, you know. But he's just growing and you're watching him develop into what you know he need to be.

Every Cheech And Chong Film, 1978-Present
Curren$y: All the Cheech and Chong films are dope to me.

Janky Promoters, 2009
Curren$y: I think anyone in the industry, any rapper, has seen and has fallen in love with the movie Janky Promoters with Ice Cube and Mike Epps. Young Jeezy’s in there for a little bit. You have to check it out.

Layer Cake, 2004
Curren$y: Layer Cake is a good one. It’s the dude from 007 (Daniel Craig as XXXX). He plays a drug dealer. Kinda like one foot in, one foot out drug dealer. I think a lot of people can relate to that. A lot of people are like, one foot in, one foot [out]. Tryna maintain, but still you gotta do the occasional dirty thing to make ends meet. And even though he [XXXX] tried to walk as straight of a line as he could in the crooked game, the consequences are still real and he had to deal with them. So there’s life lessons in that movie. And one of the main bosses in the movie is driving a Bentley and it made me buy one when I was on tour. My leg was broken and I watched that movie on the bus and it influenced that clutch purchase. [Speaking of cars, Curren$y has 13 and is working on a 14th. He says his favorite at the moment is a 1976 Caprice lowrider that he put hydraulics on]