SameOldShawn: You had an affiliation with Rawkus. How did you fit in with that whole Rawkus crew during their heyday?

R.A. the Rugged Man: Well, I at the time was the most famous one that they knew, because I was the little veteran. And then Talib, Mos Def, all those guys were kind of on the come-up. So they were always like, "Yo, R.A. the Rugged Man? I know who that is!" I was, like, the older cat. That's crazy, right?

So they just hit me up. And I didn't fit in very well, obviously. I was more rah-rah rowdy crazy, and their other stuff was more peaceful, spiritual. Well, I guess Thirstin Howl III fit in there with me, but we didn't really fit the whole scene of a Rawkus. Rawkus was more like that Afrocentric type of...even though it was run by a bunch of rich hippie kids

SOS: Including Rupert Murdoch's son

RA: Yeah. That was Rupert Murdoch money being pumped in. I said that on the damn MF DOOM remix, me and DOOM. And I said, "They devils from underground to..." -- I forgot what I said. "They're devils from mainstream to underground hip-hop," or something. Something like that. I said, "Jive supported apartheid and Rawkus was Rupert Murdoch," you know? Because Jive was a South African-owned label and had parts of the whole apartheid thing, supposedly