Some leaked excerpts from his XXL cover story courtesy of his buddy 50 Cent:
With all the hype surrounding your comeback and with the terrible state of the record business, the hip hop business in particular, do you feel like you’re coming back to save your label, or hip hop as a genre, or even the music industry as a whole?
I don’t know if I feel like I’m coming back to save anything like that. I mean obviously,if I can you know save the label and help generate more money for that, that’s great too. But the truth is, i get bored just sitting around. I’m ready to be back out there. I love to be respected for the music that I make and that’s what I’m in it for. The beautiful thing about this record is, I don’t expect it to do anything… Money is not necessarily something that I need anymore, so I’m doing it because I want to do it. I’m doing it because I want people to hear the music and like the music.. if people like it, cool. If they don’t they, don’t. I certainly would like the benefits of what would come with it. If it could help generate more money for the label then that’s good. But at the end of the day, it’s just about the music.
Pictures of you came out last year where it looked like you’d gained a lot of weight. You’re back looking real chiseled now. What happened?
I gained a bunch of weight in my time off. I got lazy. I was eating a lot, just because the pills make you feel hungry. Then just this past year, I got clean, I got sober, and I started running. I had a knee surgery last year but as soon as I could, I hit the treadmill. So I run every day. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been up to 10 miles a day. I’ve been trying to really push myself. Just to see how much I could actually run, but I don’t know what the f**k I’m doing. At the end of the day, I’m an addict. So I have addictive behavior. So I’m obsessive compulsive about a lot of things. I’m obsessive compulsive about my music. I’m obsessive compulsive about working out. I can’t do nothing in moderation. You’d think that the the signs like all the addiction runs in my family, I would have been a little more hip to that. But I just… I guess I wasn’t.
Besides Dre, you’ve been working with 50 Cent again too. How is your relationship with 50? He’s going through this whole battle with Rick Ross, with this Pimpin’ Curly stuff. how do you view all of it?
Mine and 50’s relationship has always been the same. It’s always been good. If anything, we’ve gotten closer in the last few years. 50 will just come to my house and stay the night. Stay the weekend in one of the bedrooms and just hang out. And we talk about s**t. I mean a lot of our talk is about music you know. But we just - we talk about s**t and we just make jokes and hang out. It doesn’t always have to be about business. You know, he’s going through this Rick Ross thing which is kinda his thing. I guess, you know, at the moment, it’s just let 50 do 50. I think that the Pimpin’ Curly s**t is f**kin’ hilarious though. I’m sorry, to me that’s when 50’s at his best. When he’s doing the funny s**t. In real life, 50’s a f**kin’ clown man. He’s actually a really funny dude.
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