As the birthplace of hip hop, it definitely feels good to see NYC back on the map. Even with all the energy, there was something special about that 2005-2009 crop that was never realized. In the case of Stack Bundles, his life was cut short and in the case of Max B, he was sentenced to seventy-five years in prison.
Max B is still represented in this current hip hop landscape and is everything but forgotten. Many of the current New York hip hop stars are quick to pay homage to Max B and the Gain Greene movement is still very much relevant. Still, Max B is missed and there are people praying for his freedom.
For their upcoming feature, Complex Magazine visited Max B and they did a jailhouse interview. Here, Max B talked about everything from being in prison to the type of music he is listening to behind bars. Max B also discussed obtaining his degree while being behind bars, music, his first time in prison, and more.
Read excerpts from Max B’s Complex Magazine interview below:
Max B on prison:
Do you feel like your experience in prison is different this time?
Yeah, it’s much different. Back then I was younger. There was a point in my life where I thought, you know, when I came home you couldn’t tell me I’d be back in prison. I had it all figured out. I didn’t, but I thought I did. And bad things just happened, man. Sometimes you can’t, you can’t foresee what’s gonna unfold, sometimes things just unfold in a way that’s uncontrollable… and next thing you know, you’re in a situation that you can’t get yourself out of.I got things goin’ on, but, you know, every day is a fight for survival in here. This place ain’t no game. Everybody think just ‘cause you in prison, like, you know, it’s cool, or I got street credibility. There’s nothin’ in here.
What do you mean?
It’s just nothin’ here. It’s a downer, no positive—nothin’ in here. Only thing you get out of being here maybe, maybe, is like, time to yourself, peace of mind, and even then, that’s interrupted by things around you, cause you got a bunch of other guys in here, you know they probably got their own problems, everybody got their own situation. And you got the officers—they come in, even though they goin’ home at night, they doin time too. There’s never a minute you can sit down, like, ‘Alright.’ (sighs) Naw, it’s always something, thinking about something, or trying to plan, or put something together, or worry about something. It’s a negative spot.Max B on music:
Can you work on music here? Can you listen to music here?
[Sighs] There’s no music to listen to. It’s like, you got radio, local radio stations and stuff like that, but I listen to old stuff that’s more soothing. I don’t really listen to the local rap stations. I listen every now and then. My boy Frenchie, he doin’ his thing, so I listen when he come on, but… everybody else—pffft.You don’t hear any stuff you like?
Not really, naw. I don’t know, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m old-fashioned or something, I think it’s like, all the new music got a certain sound to it. It’s like, you can tell it’s like, 2013. How can I explain? It’s got like a robotic, auto-tuney sound — not just rappers. All new artists got it. It’s like you can tell that this is a new artist, like she’s young, or he’s young, to where, if you listen to like, Anita Baker, it’s just timeless and it’s smooth, and it’s like, you know that’s Anita, and you know that was back in the 80s sometime, and it’s gonna be good from now, til like, 2050.But people can’t send you beats or anything like that? Do you have anything to listen to it on?
No, we don’t got no computers… no CDs, no computers. The computer is like, for law library purposes—nothing online, no e-mail, like in federal corrections. It’s like, resources are very limited, next to none. This is prison, so everything here is like — I know you seen Shawshank Redemption, right? That’s more — yeah, like that. Real Old Testament prison, real old-school, real… [thumps table].Max B on getting out and education: … You wanna get out, you gotta do it diplomatically. Same way you got in, that’s how you get out.
Do you have a plan for that? Stuff you’re working on? Is getting the degree part of that?
No, that got nothin to do with that. The degree is just something I wanted to do for me personally. I just wanted to challenge myself academically. I never been really a school kid, I always got kicked out of my schools, I was disruptive. And I never liked that about myself — I never was able to challenge myself academically. The farthest I got was my GED. I thought that was like a college diploma right there.We workin’ on gettin’ out, man. I got some things in the works. I didn’t really want to talk too much about the case, or my means of gettin’ out. I don’t want to make any promises to people, but, every moment that goes by here, I’m working on getting out. I’m still positive — I believe I’m gonna get out. It might take a couple years, but I have the right resources.
Max B on his music start and first prison stint: How was it that you got into music?
It probably came from, you know, my brother, rest in peace, my brother Eric… when I was staying with my grandmother back in like ’87ish, ’88, he used to go in and out of town… he was into music real heavy. And the last time he left he left me a big sack of cassette tapes. And on these tapes, were, everything, all the DJs — this was back when cassette tapes were like 120 minutes, and Kid Capri and Starchild and Brucie B used to make all the mixtapes. And they used to put all the old music together, all the Frankie Beverly and Maze, and Luther Vandross—all the great artists, they used to mix them up and blend beats and put ‘em together. And I loved my brother, I idolized my brother, so I wanted to listen to what he was listening to. And he used to say, ‘Yo, watch my tapes till I come back, don’t let nothing happen to them.’ And I just held on to them and I learned the music, and just studied and I always listened to the music. It was him that turned me on to like, N.W.A. and stuff like that, and I listened to the music, even though my grandmoms, she was real, very religious—rest her soul, God bless her soul—she was real religious, so I wasn’t really allowed to listen to that type of music in the house. So I would put it to my ear real low and learned to go outside to listen to it, and I started gettin’ in trouble.
That’s where it really came from, just experience. My mother and them, they would be in the room getting high and partying, and the parties I would have at my house resembled the parties that my mother had. Might have been a different drug of choice but, we used to stay up three or four days, partying, we got women in there, we in there doin’ everything my moms and them used to be doin’. And they used to listen to music, and it all stuck with me. So as I grew up and I started making music, all that music just started coming out of me. So that’s why a lot of inspiration comes from around my area, around my hood. That’s why I’m always—when I’m out, I was always in the area, cause a lot of ideas and inspiration I take from my area and what I do every day. I might say something funny, and if everybody laugh I might take what they said and make a record out of it.
Even all the harmonies, too?
I just don’t know where it came from. It wasn’t something I was doing when I was 5 years old, you know? Some people great at the guitar, they great at swimming, they great at sports, they been playin’… tennis, Serena was playing since she was seven. I wasn’t doing rap music, I just started when I was 19 or something like that, 20.But it’s more than the music. I think you gotta be all-around. I think you gotta have a personality. It think you gotta have imagination. I think you gotta have a certain look, to even come into the game. It’s so oversaturated with guys comin’ in, everybody just follow a certain trend. It’s all about originality. Them the people that soar: originality, people with personality, people that everybody love, their character. People buy into your music, they buying into your lifestyle, what you’re saying. So, if you full of shit? Who wants to buy music from somebody’s that’s full of shit? That’s the music on in your ears and your brain your soul, and every day—your lifestyle, you’re using that music.
Before you went away the first time, was there a Max B? Or did that come after your first bid?
No, that was just a name I came up with… that was just something I created, it was all part of the character. That was my persona. There’s an art to this, I believe. I really believe there’s an art to this, I swear. And when you comin’ in this game, you gotta put a character together, what you gonna do. You can either give ‘em you, you know, or you can live in your character. Me, I been away so long, and not been in the ghetto so long, that by the time—when I became Max B, I didn’t know how to switch off Max B. I was always Max B. That’s who I grew into—Max B. Charly was like… [laughs]
