The Villain In Black - MC Ren

As much as they are deservedly praised for their roles in creating a completely different genre of Hip Hop, the members of N.W.A. have by and large stayed in the spotlight by reinventing themselves. After his death in 1995, Eazy-E posthumously looms larger than he ever did while alive. Ice Cube can still spit classic verses, but he’s also remade himself as an A-list actor, producer and director. After releasing two classic albums, Dr. Dre sits atop the Aftermath Empire with Eminem and 50 Cent as his multi-platinum pupils. Hell, even DJ Yella pads his bank account by directing and producing porn. So what ever happened to MC Ren? Aside from a few stellar but sporadic guest appearances, “The Villain in Black” has maintained a relatively low profile over the last decade.
A conversation with Ren yields talk of picking his kids up from school, visiting the pyramids at Giza and fond memories of his N.W.A. days. Is this the end? Hardly. Before “The Doctor” and the “Don Mega” left N.W.A. to pursue solo success, it was Ren who cornered the market on reinvention. He received his own platinum plaques for Kizz My Black Azz and Shock of the Hour. The latter saw him trade his N.W.A. persona for an equally fiery and introspective one after converting to Islam.
Now, removed from the spotlight, Ren is up to his old tricks. He’s got his own movie plans, and he continues to embrace the contemporary artists who catch his ear. Furthermore, Ren now operates on both sides of the mic as an emcee and a producer. Not that any of this should come as a surprise. After all, Ren already did the reinvention thing back in the '90s. This is RenIncarnation.
HipHopDX: Everyone’s got their own N.W.A. stories. When I was in elementary school, my mom busted in on me listening to “Dopeman” and gave me the worst beatdown ever. Do you get a lot of those stories?
MC Ren: Yeah, man. I get a lot of the same type of shit. It’s just like how when I was little, we used to sneak and go listen to Richard Pryor. We used to get in some serious trouble for that shit [laughs].
DX: Good to know we were carrying on the tradition.
MC Ren: Yeah, man. Those tapes kept us coming back.
DX: You weren’t too far removed from those times when you started rhyming, and there were a lot of other groups from Compton putting out music when N.W.A. formed. Did you ever do anything with Mixmaster Spade, Toddy Tee, or Rodney O and Joe Cooley?
MC Ren: Nah, it was N.W.A. from the start. Before everything tripped off, [Eazy]-E signed me as a solo artist. This was around the time he first put out “Boyz N the Hood” independently. From that point on, he just snatched me up and put me in the group. Every since the beginning, it was N.W.A.—not knowing that shit was going to get as big as it did. Like you said, there were a lot of people out. So the chances of us just blowing up the way we did…that shit was unbelievable, even to this day.
DX: Given that, how far did you think it would go when you guys were signed to Macola and selling tapes out of the trunk?
MC Ren: When E put out “Boyz N the Hood,” Macola was who we took it to first. Even though we ended up dealing with bigger companies later on down the line, that shit was big to me. It was like walking into Def Jam or any other major label. We used to go up there every damn day. So I’m seeing these people in the music business that I think are really big. I was pumped up, and I really thought we were on our way. But looking back at it, it wasn’t until we got with Priority Records that things really got big. That’s where I was like, “Okay, this is it right here.”
DX: I read an old interview, where DJ Yella said Eazy-E was notorious for forgetting the lyrics to some of his songs. As the author of “Eazy Duz It,” “Radio” and “Ruthless Villain”, is that true?
MC Ren: Nah. Most of the time he had the words right in front of him, so he’d never go in the booth and try to do the songs from memory. He’d just go in there with his paper and bust the lyrics. If somebody wrote him a rhyme, we’d just give him the paper. He’d go in there, and we’d coach him on how to say that shit.
DX: After N.W.A. became a household name, the FBI stepped to you guys with a letter regarding “Fuck the Police.” You guys got them back on “100 Miles and Runnin’,” but what was your initial response to seeing the letter?
MC Ren: Shit, we was happy! It was free publicity for us, and we weren’t even trippin’ off that letter. It was the record company and the [executives] who were scared. A letter? That was nothing.
I was watching [N.W.A.: The World’s Most Dangerous Group], and Cube was talking about that letter. He was like, “Man, we’ve dealt with all kinds of shit, and y’all tripping off a letter? It’s not like the letter has a mouth. The letter can’t jump up and just shoot up everybody in the room.” He said it just right, because that’s exactly how we all felt.
DX: True. Since we’re talking “100 Miles and Runnin’,”what made you sample The Warriors. You know the breakdown where the chick starts talking, and then she goes into Martha & The Vandellas just like in the movie?
MC Ren: Yeah, Dre put that in there. He used to do all the fill-ins. Actually they had somebody come in there and say that part. It sounds like the clip from the movie, but they had somebody come in.
DX: So, just out of curiosity, are you a fan of the movie?
MC Ren: Hell yeah, I love The Warriors. I remember being little and watching it back in the day when that shit first came out. That shit is hard. I’ve got the DVD somewhere around here. Everybody likes that movie. It’s classic, and that shit is comedy.
DX: Niggaz4Life would be the last N.W.A. album, and afterward we heard a lot from Dre and Ice Cube about Jerry Heller skimming money off the top. As someone who stayed with Ruthless, did you experience that too?
MC Ren: Everybody there had experiences with that shit. A lot of people had problems with it, and a lot of people had problems with Jerry. When it was just us from the group together out on the road or something, we’d voice our opinion. We’d ask, “Why is he getting paid this amount and we’re not?” That’s where a lot of that tension and all that other shit came in. It all started over that.
We felt he didn’t deserve what he was getting. We deserved that shit. We were the ones making the records, traveling in vans and driving all around the place. You do all those fucking shows trying to get known, and then you come home to a fucking apartment. Then you go to his house, and this motherfucker lives in a mansion. There’s gold leaf trimmings all in the bathroom and all kinds of other shit. You’re thinking, “Man, fuck that.”
Everybody knows what happened. A lot of times you see Jerry talking about that shit, and he’s acting like George Bush or [John] McCain—like nothing wrong happened. He’ll say some shit like, “Everything was alright. They got what they deserved.” And I’m like, “Man, c’mon.” We were supposed to get super paid off of the first album, as big as it was and as many copies as it sold. But we didn’t really know the ins and outs of the business side, and certain people did. Those were the ones who took advantage of everybody.
DX: Cube and Dre were both on bad terms with Eazy before he was diagnosed with AIDS. Did you and he get to talk before he passed?
MC Ren: Yeah, we did. It was a time when we weren’t even talking. Everybody was doing their own thing. I remember he called me, and he was telling me about this and that. Then he started talking about getting N.W.A. back together. I was like, “Yeah.” Then he asked me to get on his album, and that was the last one he did, Str8 Off the Streets of Muthaphuckin’ Compton. I agreed, and we hooked up at his house. Me, him and Yella did [“Tha Muthafuckin Real”] [click to read]. We were all talking, and he was talking about everybody hooking up to do the N.W.A. thing. Right after we did that song, that was the last time I saw him. I heard he was in the hospital about a week or two later, and then that was it.
DX: Considering all the drama that went down, why stay with Ruthless after that?
MC Ren: It was a lot of shit going on, but after he passed, I had a lot of meetings with everyone who was about to take over. At the time, that’s where I wanted to stay. I had been there so long, and I didn’t want to go somewhere else and have the label put me in the mix with their other artists. They told me I could still do whatever I wanted to do. At that time, a lot of labels weren’t doing that. They’d bring people in to try to change your image and all that. Ruthless was like, “Shit, just do you.” So I just kept putting my shit out.
DX: There was a lot of young talent on the label then. You had Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Black Eyed Peas, Kokane and Baby S. Were they all looking up to you as the OG?
MC Ren: When Bone was recording, I wasn’t really around for a lot of the studio sessions. I would be off doing some other shit. A little after that, I was on tour with Bone. We kicked it, and I got a chance to meet a lot of them dudes. It was cool, and it’s nothing but love to this day.
DX: Did you ever see the potential in any of those acts to become as big as they eventually did?
MC Ren: I really saw it in Bone. When Eric was still alive, he had other artists. But he was putting his everything into Bone, and they were really tight. He was so pumped up over Bone. They did exactly what he thought they were gonna do, but he didn’t get to see it. They really blew up, man. So, yeah, back then I definitely saw the potential in Bone.
DX: I want to get into your solo work for a minute. Around 1993, you dropped Shock of the Hour, which was different from anything you had done as a soloist or a member of NWA. What was your frame of mind going into that album?
MC Ren: Man, Shock of the Hour was just me coming into Islam. I had a lot of new ideas, and I had a big perspective on life. I looked at everything different. When you listen to that album, I recorded the first half right when I was thinking about falling into the Nation of Islam. Then the whole second half is songs I made after I fell in. I was like, “Okay, let me go.”
But I didn’t want to make the whole album like that, so I said, “Shit, I’m keeping everything I did.” I let everybody hear what I did on the first part, and then the second part allows you vibe to what I was doing at the time.
DX: Yeah, you definitely get the sense of growth and the impact of your conversion as the album progresses. A few years later, you converted to Orthodox Islam right?
MC Ren: Right.
DX: This is a little off topic, but a few weeks ago, we asked a few emcees to speak on the passing of Imam W.D. Muhammad. What was your initial reaction?
MC Ren: Man, I was shocked. I didn’t even know, but my wife saw it on the Internet. I was just like, “Damn. I ain’t seen nothing on the news or anywhere else.”
DX: Exactly.
MC Ren: They didn’t show him one time. You feel what I’m saying? Nobody talked about it, and it didn’t even make the news. They show so much bullshit on the news, and you’d think his passing would’ve at least been on there. We’re talking about Elijah Muhammad’s son Wallace. Come on, this is Warith Deen. But that’s how the media is. Everyone acts like they’re scared.
DX: I just had to sneak that in there. We couldn’t get anybody to weigh in on it that week.
MC Ren: Well you’ve got me.