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LINA |
Phatmag: Who was the producer?
Lina: T-House
Phatmag: Has he produced anybody else that we would know?
Lina: No actually to tell the honest to God truth, I haven't really told anyone this because I haven't really been asked the question or even thought about it but he started out really producing when we met and that was like only two years ago. He is very new but I call him autistic.
Phatmag: Are you saying artistic or autistic?
Lina: I'm saying autistic you know like rainman? but he looks normal, his head kinda big though. I tell him he's autistic cause he can remember phone numbers, you know like Rainman rembers phone numbers, he remembers everything when he does a track he'll be in a car somewhere and he'll get home and do that track in like ten minute's, If he hears something it stays in his memory so when I have my samples and my beats he went home and called me about an hour later with the track playing along and I screamed because I had never heard it done like that. And when I talked to people they were like what kinda music do you do? and I would say we'll I do r'n'b but I really wish that I could do some standard jazz, some swing,, and they say like that's crazy.
Phatmag: So, you didn't get your deal because of a big name producer, did your manager get you the deal?
Lina: I got my deal, my manager was my friend at the time
Phatmag: So your manager wasn't an established manager either?
Lina: Well he had producers that didn't blow up, he had no real connections because he was like you know in L.A a lot of people know the industry, his connections was limited. When I met him, to me he was a manger because I'm from Texas and I saw him in the studio and he was managing these people but they weren't really doing anything, so he began to believe in me and it was kinda like the three of us that all came together and put our heads together. I believe that I had the most connections because I had written with producer after producer and worked with Tyrees and all that but I was very limited I really left my house I lived a very sheltered life I didn't go nowhere, I didn't go out or networked it was just from working with producers they got to know my name in the town.
Phatmag : Is Lina your real name?
Lina: Yeah Lina, they knew me and so as far as writing and when we did the sound that just all sought of came out of nowhere people came out of the woodwork, coming to the studio in our house, that's where we have the studio.
Phatmag: So, what exactly would you call your music what would you class it as?
Lina: It's Jazzy, swing,, its Jazzy hip hop Swing.
Phatmag: have you got a name for it?
Lina: yeah I always say jazzy hip hop and I always say swing.
Phatmag: So what inspired you to write okay you've talked about girls and guys but really what inspired you to write?
Lina: I like to write songs that I feel is gonna make a person feel good about what they may be going through, I like to write inspirational stuff. I didn't really get to do it that much on this album as far as like 'Enemy' I felt that was very important for black men you know to know that people do except you just for you and that I'm a women and understand the trials and tribulations of being a black man especially in a predominantly white society and so that song to kinda like bring women to the thought process of thinking about, if you were a man and you had all these pressures on you to be this and just how hard it is actually to be a man, it's easy to be a women, I mean I'm a women and a lot of women may get upset about that but it's pretty natural to be a women cause you don;t have to worry about having this strong image and men naturally are strong and don't like to be perceived as anything else, even gay men still wanna have some kinda perception of strength. And "women step up" that song is for women saying don't accept nothing that don't feel right.
Phatmag: Are you completely happy with your album, are you 100% happy?
Lina: I am 95% happy because some of the songs I did so long ago that I just wanted to do over you know cause I did it in our little studio. I can't complain because they basically let me do whatever I want they picked certain songs which I felt I wanted to hold back and go redo again cause I've already done a whole other album.
Phatmag: Silly question's time, okay, do you remember your first boyfriend?
Lina: Yeah I beat him up, in fact he looked just like you, I beat him up because he kissed me
Phatmag: He kissed you and you beat him up?
Lina: Yeah I was eleven, well I didn't know how to express myself I knew I liked him but I grew up playing with boys and thinking I was a boy. I was my brothers guinea pig I played football I climbed trees,
Phatmag: When was your first real boyfriend?
Lina: My first real boyfriend, I was seventeen.
Phatmag: Did you love him
Lina: I don't think so, cause when I broke up with him I didn't care and I was actually with him until I was about eighteen and a half. But I broke up with him because this girl wrote me a letter.
