High Times contributor Mitch Shenassa and Colorado cannabis rapper BURNTmd recently caught up with Styles P, Jadakiss, and Sheek Louch of the legendary hip-hop trio the Lox prior to their latest tour date in Denver, before they went on to perform at the Amsterdam Cannabis Cup.
High Times: The new video for “No Selfies” combines old-school break beats, cinematic sequences, and some of the dopest verses in recent hip-hop. What was your inspiration for lacing an old-school joint?
Styles P: Louch picked that joint.
Sheek Louch: Producer’s name’s Uneek—this young boy we got—man, he just always come with that…
Styles P: That boom-bap! We try to venture off and do new things, but we try to stick to our roots, never forget what hip-hop’s about, so them kinda joints are mandatory to do.
HT: The Lox keep it real continuously–from your start in hip-hop to full-on mainstream. You’ve kept your core fans’ respect throughout the growth process. As we see the growth happening in the cannabis industry, can you tell us what the key is to staying true to your roots?
Jadakiss: You gotta do what you do! Do what you like to do, and the people will follow you with that. And you also gotta embrace the new shit, it may not be your cup of tea, something you play all day through your household while you’re working out or driving, but you still gotta embrace it. Embrace them in the same way the older dudes embraced us when we got in. I mean, hip-hop is totally different now–we came in, it was more lyric oriented, now you can… it don’t even matter what the fuck is goin’ on…
Sheek: Why? What’s happening with the culture of weed right now? You’re saying it’s changing? It’s expanding?
HT: TV shows… legal stores… business people coming in—it’s crossing over. It’s going from something underground to something that’s big business—and there a lot of parallels to hip-hop in how it’s coming about.
Styles: That’s it. You gotta stick to who you are and do what you do, and do it why you do it. And don’t worry about who hops in on the new—the new technical savvy guy who steps in on some shit. People still gonna respect what you do for the fact of it, that you was organic with it.
HT: Where does cannabis fit in your creative process?
Jada: It’s a BIG part of our creative process. There’s no creative process without cannabis! It’s organic, though–it’s organic, like–that’s just a regular day in the studio.
Styles: That’s how we are. I mean, you know that’s part of the process right there. I mean the vibe is there, the incense like Louch told you, the ‘yak, the real fruit juice, bark, weed, bong, dabs, Bamboo, RAW, Dutch, water, trail mix, y’know what I’m sayin?
BURNTmd: I haven’t heard you talk about puday in a minute—is it still around?
Jada: I just finished it! I just finished the last of it—I might have maybe one gram left.
BURNT: So what’s the new fire though? It’s still the puday?
Jada: I mean, there’s a bunch of new strains but y’know, I’m haze ’til I die. It’s still there.
HT: What are the new strains that you guys are excited about? What do you think about oil & dabbing?
Jada: That’s my new wave—like the oil and the dabs…
Styles: I keep breaking my rigs, man. I’m like a G down on rigs right now, man. But I like smoking traditionally—I fuck with dabs, I like to dab around my crew and personal, because to me it’s like freebasing weed—so I don’t wanna be around just anybody freebasing weed. But from being at the Cannabis Cup, I have a pretty good understanding of where oil comes from, how it’s made, and just trying to smoke cleaner and dab less hot. But then at the same time, you gotta make sure when you fuckin’ with wax you fuckin’ with good people that’s fuckin’ with good wax.
HT: What flavors have you guys heard of that you wanna try?
Styles: If we hear about, we’re hype enough, we’ve tried it. We get to ’em—we’re stoners, man. I’ll tell you what I’m lookin’ for right now though is the Shoreline. It’s crazy. Kiss—three pulls, you high.
Jada: I need some Shoreline.
Styles: I like something that if I hit it and I can get high in four pulls, that’s what I’m after.
HT: Four pulls—that’s your threshold?
Styles: Yeah—four nice pulls and I feel light—that’s what I’m after!
HT: Older New York heads know the piff/haze/puday. It was never widely distributed, but now word has spread to the point where smokers nationwide are trying to find out what it’s about. And there are so many hazes…
Styles: We’re talkin’ about piff because in Cali they got their own hazes—they got their Super Silver Haze and the White Hazes. But Kiss is more of a piff man than I am…
Jada: Puday… piff… There’s different kinds that come in. Like some of em is brown–the brown one is my best one–the Manhattan brown. Put you down, immediately. But, you know, that cat piss–that’s the original–that’s the first one. There’s so many growers in Miami now that they’re rushing to get to the money, so they’re harvesting early sometimes, and that fucks it up. If you don’t get a good first experience with piff–if you didn’t get a good batch–you might be turned off.
Styles: But if you a real stoner, and you do hit the piff… Like people come lookin’ for that piff.
Jada: I had smoked it with Snoop! Snoop had a whole bunch of OG and everything–I had a bunch of piff–I said look, hit that Uncle Snoop–what’s that? “That’s that mothafuckin’ Purple Haze, nephew!” See he knew! His shit’s already acquired, though…
Styles: You know his shit all tight, he’s a connoisseur! But you know, Snoop, dudes like that— they know they get to New York, find a nigga who got that piff! The thing about New York is, we’ve acquired special stoners that are looking for it all, but the general consensus of the population of New York is you gotta have Sour [Diesel] or piff. But actually, sour and haze is, for me, not even the top two strains–they just there for New York, so we gotta rep em as always like they teams, but as a stoner you know we love the OG, we love the [Girl Scout] Cookies… No disrespect to Denver, no disrespect to LA–but San Francisco is number one right now on strains. The Bay—I give the Bay number one on the strains. LA number two. Denver number three. Amsterdam four.
HT: Is this your first trip to Denver since legalization?
Styles: I was here for the first High Times Cannabis Cup in Denver–it was crazy on the streets, too. Actually, it was euphoric for me because I’d just dropped “Float” with High Times, and they had mad High Times “Float” posters all over the place, so for me… Y’know I’m not usually one of them people to really give a fuck about that kinda shit, but I felt flavas. That was the first shit here, too, so for me it was a little euphoric moment in my stoner life.
HT: What was your first time in a dispensary like?
Jada: I was mind-blown. The first time ever being at a dispensary was mind-blowing. It was actually better than Amsterdam–especially being here in the States. Y’know I love going to Cali: the women, the weather, and the weed–already before the dispensaries. And now, when you’re just able to go in there and pick… And a bunch of our good buddies own dispensaries so we get to go in the back, smoke that Cherry Pie when it first came out, Cheese… We just was like testers–you know, like some people go to wine tastings for the day? We go to Cali we need at least two days before we go to the studio or any of that just going to dispensaries and collecting a bunch of bud. So, that shit was mind-blowing to me! It was almost like a dream… like you’re dreaming, but you’re awake!
