When you think of an upcoming battle rap you think of two raw MC's preparing to spit it out round for round wanting battle rap supremacy. Now my hip-hop fans did you ever think you would watch a battle where an MC would have you laughing all crazy? I'm pretty sure you've heard of the comical battle rapper Serius Jones from Englewood, New Jersey.
You are probably with familiar with Serius Jones's classic battles with Jin from MTV's "Fight Klub" and the hyped Smack DVD battle with Harlem's Murda Mook.

So what's really good with the cat Serius Jones since all of that? You might be surprised as HHNLive.com hooks up with Serius Jones on his latest hustle. Serius Jones gives you the deal on his world wide fan base, why many battle rappers are not quick-thinkers and the current state of "Gangsta Rap". Was his battle with Murda Mook something personal? And he tells why he makes moves like checkers and chess, like he said just "King Me".

Q: Now tell me how does it feel to have a rep in the game known for killing cats on the battling tip [laughs]?

SJ: I mean it's funny to me because this is really something I just do. It seems so dynamic to other people because it's visual. Battling somebody for money is something the average top-selling rappers can't do. You get a lot of fame for it, but at the end of the day I'm more about my music which is funny. It's really a blessing because when people hear my music they hear the level of talent I'm coming in the game with. It's way deeper than just battling.

Q: To me that's what makes you different because you funny and you be spitting at the same time?

SJ: You have to be an entertainer, especially if you battling. Nobody really wants to hear that "I'm tough and I'll kill you" shit. That's not really going to make somebody react. It's got to be cleverly put together with some kind of value in it; otherwise it's going to be screaming for nothing.

Q: Right and to me you brought fun to the whole battling thing.

SJ: Right that's my whole twist of getting people involved with my personality so they can kind of relate to me. That's all people want to do at the end of the day. Whether it's battling, whether it's music they want to feel they can relate to you. Now the crowd is with you versus you trying to win the crowd.

Q: So what made you decide to pursue a rap career in the first place?

SJ: I was down south and just basically fucking around with my boys freestyling on some drunk high shit. I was just the average dude playing around with it and it started to get to the status where people thought my shit sounded hot. People was looking at me with that "You a rapper" and I'm like "man I ain't no rapper I'm just playing". It was kind of like a dare when somebody dared me into a rap battle for a prize of like 500 dollars. I entered it and ended up coming in second place against these so called professional rappers. It was then that I really saw it like "Damn maybe I really am good at this". This dude I met at the battle was this guy named Needlz. I hooked up with Needlz who is now like a 40 or 50 million platinum producer. Back then he had just started making beats, so I hooked up with him and went to the studio made a couple songs that sounded alright. It was the hottest shit in the world as far as I was concerned so I was like maybe this is something I need to be doing. That's when I fell in love with it right there and from there it was on.

Q: I see that you went to Florida A&M too?

SJ: Yeah that's where I was at. Everybody knows that Black colleges are known for being party schools. I was down there partying having fun with the girls, getting drunk just enjoying the whole night life aspect of college and really didn't buckle down and do no college shit. That was a blessing in disguise of me going to school, but college ain't for everybody. I was always a smart dude; I always thought I can go to college. I thought that I was going to do the sports thing, that's why I really went there. I used to play basketball and that didn't work out so it seemed I was just there.

Q: I feel you; you know I go to North Carolina A & T right now?

SJ: Oh yeah, well you know exactly what I'm talking about [laughs].

Q: Now when you be battling cats it is crazy, do you background check cats or something?

SJ: [Laughs], nah not even. The only person I knew I was going to battle the same day was Jin. Everybody else I didn't even know I was going to battle them until that day. It's not like you got time to know who you are going to battle. I mean you just have to be a quick thinker and a lot of people just don't think quick. Me personally at the end of the day it's all about wit, just being quick with your tongue. It's all about spontaneous thought and being able to have a war with words. It's really mental, because someone can be throwing all these insults at you and you have to think of something before you get to the battle. You thinking "What this dude might say about me", that way you can take whatever he's going to say about you and flip it on them.

Q: Yeah, because that battle with Jin was crazy, especially with the "2 billion people in china" line you had me dying?

SJ: Yeah all of my battles are legendary. It's classic, because I try to make it like that. I can't be battling and being another guy that raps. If that's the case I'm just another dude. That's not even an option; Serius Jones is about making history. That's why every battle that you see me in that shit is history. That shit is like "I ain't never seen no shit like this before". I try to be the same way with my music. My music will be like "Yo, I ain't heard no shit like this before". That's what it's about with me. I just go in with that mind-state like "Yo, I'm tryna take-over the fuckin world with everything I do". Whether I'm rapping or making a beat just anything I'm doing. Even if I'm bagging a chick I want her mind, her body, just everything. I want it all and that's the way I approach it [laughs].



Q: Yo, my man is serious!

SJ: Yes sir, I got to live up to the name right [laughs].

Q: No doubt, now that battle with Murda Mook was that something personal?

SJ: Nah I didn't know that little dude. I don't like saying it, because it sounds egotistical, but let me just be flat-out realistic. Serius Jones was the best rapper ever as far as the underground freestyle battle scene was concerned. People act like they don't understand and I hate saying it. Last year I beat twelve people in a row and won like 40,000 dollars. I been on B.E.T. and MTV, I got commercials running on MTV and I got fan base crazy. I got fans from L.A. to North Dakota and you can check my myspace if you think I'm lying. This is all off of freestyles; this is all before the world even heard my music. Now that they hear my music it's like "Oh shit, he's not just another one of those battle guys". I was in Red Lobster one time and a fifty year old lady comes up to me like "My son watches you all the time". It's really deeper than one of these other dudes that just got a name for battling on they cousin's DVD. They in the hood with no money and they don't even decide a winner at the end of the battle. Which is little homie's [Murda Mook] whole situation is. At the end of the day that was his big chance to try and get a legitimate deal. He been battling for years and didn't have one deal offer or nothing. At the end of the day it was me in a barbershop in Harlem with about four or five of my people's and about fifty of his people, cousins, little child-hood basketball team, etc.

Q: Yeah, that was crazy about it, because Mook had like thirty of his people's and you still held it down.

SJ: Right, I'm never going to get embarrassed or lose a battle, never! If I lose a battle it's going to be a rigged and set-up event. Everybody that seen that battle know what it is. Like this nigga had a million people doing choreographed set-up punchlines. It was like they went in there and planned out how they going to battle Serius Jones as a group. Things like yelling over people's raps the whole thing. At the end of the day you saw the success that's what I would say about that.



Q: Yeah, because in the third round when they [Mook's squad] was all pointing at you going "Dot, Dot, Dot" that was tripping [laughs]?

SJ: That shit was crazy, like come on dawg [laughs]. That's what people don't get, what those battles are for is just a vehicle for promotion and people talking about me until my album comes out. Now I got the whole damn world that know who Serius Jones is before I even got a deal. I go into things with plans. I don't know about these other people that run around they hood trying to get a rep. I don't have those kinds of issues. What I'm doing is part of a whole plan, a scheme just part of a master plan. It's working good, because I'm having this interview with you, I have five or six interviews a week.

Q: Now you see why I fucks with you [laughs]!

SJ: No doubt and I appreciate it. I'm real humble and I appreciate all the love that I get and at the end of the day you can't fake success. You either gonna shine being a star or you either tryna get shine off another star.

Q: Now back to Needlz, what you like most about working with him?

SJ: Truthfully I ain't just working specifically with Needlz. I got about seven or eight other multi-platinum producers, multi-platinum meaning plaques on walls for years. Buckwild I just did a new song with him and he got over a 100 million records sold. He's worked on every single classic album from "Reasonable Doubt" to "Ready to Die" everything. Any classic album you can name from Biggie to Jay-Z to Nas. These are the kind of people that I got working on my team and it's deeper than just getting a beat from somebody. My vision is to tell my story to the world. Like a lot of these rappers they don't even got no life, all they did was rap when they were little. Me personally I didn't even start rapping until I was a grown man. I had already went through shit and still going through shit while still making great songs. Not the regular "I'm from the hood I sold drugs now I don't want to be in the crack game I'm in the rap game".

Q: Yeah...people are getting tired of that shit and we need something new.

SJ: Yeah man like that shit is wack now "Okay we know". We know you're a hustler and getting money on the block. It's almost like anything else I don't wanna smoke the same weed everyday for the next five years. Niggas need to switch it up and add a different flavor to it or something.

Q: Right, we all from the hood but we need somebody to change the game.

SJ: Right and that's the thing. The people that's rapping "I'm from the hood" they not rapping to us they rapping to White America and the mainstream that supposedly don't know anything about the hood. It's like everybody know now, that was new back when N.W.A. came out. My whole twist is I been through everything a nigga can think about. As far as college, fighting court cases and going to jail. Working in corporate America, hustling on the corner and working in the barbershop. I've had a very abnormal life on some next level shit and I been through all kinds of shit. That's the reason why I can make songs and talk about all kinds of shit. This gives me more personality than the average nigga, because I have trials and tribulations that made me the nigga I am today. I got all kinds of songs where you don't know where I'm going to come from and you can't predict me. You can't expect "It's Serius Jones it's gonna go like this", you ain't gonna know what the fuck it's going to be like and that's how we keep shit next level. The same way I start off a rap you might be like "Where is this nigga going with it and within the next twenty bars you like Oh shit". That's the same thing I try to do with everything I do. I cop jewelry...I'm not gonna cop a chain the whole industry has, that shit is corny. I'm gonna do something original where someone be like "Oh shit I never saw that before".

Q: I see you been on the grind too with you knocking off 8,000 mixtapes.

SJ: Yeah that was back in the day, that was one of my first mixtapes. I had a group on First Ave. My partner Clipse from Trenton, NJ he was the truth, he was the one that got me started. When it comes to the battling shit he was the one that put me on, cause I didn't used to do that. He was spitting so crazy that I had to step up. I couldn't be in a group and people be like "That's Clipse and the other guy". That's what really made me step it up and he still is around. That is going to be a whole different aspect of Serius Jones.

Q: So what's some of the new music you got out now that fans can look out for?

SJ: The "King Me" mixtape I got out now is not even a mixtape. "King Me" is like a street album, because it has my original songs and original production. I moved 5000 of those in a month and I'm not even pushing that hard, because I'm trying to get distribution for it from an independent label. I'm actually talking to a couple of independent labels right now so that's gonna take everything to a different level. I'm shooting videos off it, I'm getting radio spins across the world and this is all independent. That's going to do a whole lot of numbers and that's an introduction into what's going on with me. When it comes down to it I'm gonna take it to a real major push. Up to now I'm spending my own money, my publicists, lawyers, managers it all comes out of my pocket. It ain't no "We got big-time investments" or none of that. That's the difference people talking about they getting money and what they doing in the streets, but I'm spending my own money to do the shit.

Q: Don't worry about it you'll get it all back.

SJ: Yeah God-willing you know. That's the way I be on it and at the end of the day I'm gonna take my career in my own arms. This is why I did "King Me" and it's basically stating I make moves like checkers and chess all cross the board. You mine as well king me as I made every move that you can make to get to that spot. I'm on national television, I got the streets on my back and it's just love. I got to put in as much work as a dude in my shoes can put in. That's what the statement of that is and we got another tape coming out. That's going to be more like a mixtape with freestyles and all that called "Serius Business". We going to finish that in a couple of weeks...it's sky's the limit man.

Q: That's what's up you doing your thing. Anything to say to www.hhnlive.com readers and what fans can look out for next?

SJ: First of all I want to say I appreciate all love and support. From every hood, every country and anybody that's reading this. At the end of the day this music is a gift and a blessing from God. A lot of people get turned off, because they think I'm cocky and shit...nah I'm confident that I'm the best at what the fuck I do. I appreciate it and make sure to log on to my website www.lifeisserius.com and www.myspace.com/seriusjones. Check out some video footage of me, be on the look-out for my DVD and commercial that's going to be airing on MTV.