A Jamie Foster Brown Interview

 
Boy, you don’t know how exhilarating it was for me to talk to my guys from Naughty By Nature. They were some of the most exciting celebrities that I’ve met in my publishing career. Back then I kept telling folks that they and all of the young rappers are our children. We had to embrace them, not wish they would go away because their pants hung too low and some of their language and messages needed to change. Sister 2 Sister said get in there, let’s look at their whole selves and let’s duke it out with them about their messages. And they embraced Sister 2 Sister just like these three in Naughty By Nature. And that’s how we all become stronger. We’re serving up all three of the naughty ones—Treach, Vinny and Kay Gee—in this issue beginning with Treach. The OPP rapper reminisces about his friendship with Tupac, his rocky marriage to Pepa, and what he’s learned in life. He’s now the father of six kids with one ex-wife and three babymamas in his life. What happened between Treach and Pepa? What are his thoughts on the Chris Brown and Rihanna situation? He also gives us a recipe for gang members to stop killing. He’s now realized he no longer wants the single life: out “every night, club running and doing all that. You want to go home with somebody that you love, you trust, that you got a family with,” he told me. 


 
“One thing that I love the most about her is that she takes my kids under the wing like they came from her womb,” said Treach. Who is he talking about? The family feud is over between Treach and Kay Gee, and Treach gives us the scoop. By the way, he says Sister 2 Sister is so sexy that dudes wanna read it too. There’s that and lots more in Treach’s part of our Naughty By Nature throwback into the future.

 
 
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Jamie: Hey, what’s up, what’s up?

Treach: What’s going on, mama?


 
Jamie: Are you still my O.P.P.? [laughter]

Treach: Yeah, you know me.


 
Jamie: What have you been doing? A lot of movies, traveling, performing, what?

Treach: Yeah, all of that. All of that. Gang of movies: Art of War 3 is the new one that’s out on DVD. I had a little role in 50 Cent’s Before I Self-Destruct that just came out. Sticky Fingaz from Onyx, he’s got, like, the first hip-hopera. Like, everybody’s dialogue in the whole movie, they’re rhyming.


 
Jamie: Really?

Treach: It’s called A Day in the Life. That’s on DVD right now.


 
Jamie: How did you get to be doing all that? 

Treach: We came through [Latifah’s company] Flavor Unit. But actually, who put me in my first movie was Tupac, and that was Juice. Because Flavor Unit was grindin’ so hard with me, like wanting me to do different stuff besides the rapping, so I actually read for the part of Bishop in Juice. And, you know, I was reading it like I was reading the paper. I ain’t know nothing about no acting. 


 
Jamie: I remember.

Treach: I ain’t know nothing. So Pac actually went up in there and read the same time I did. He goes up in there and he’s throwing chairs and cussin’, and I thought he was fighting. I was about to jump up in the room and handle some things with him. I’m like “Yo, you alright?” He was like, “No, yeah, yeah, I’m just in there for the role.”
 
Jamie: You all were so close, Treach. Remember when he helped you out in California? He told me that story—that he had to go out to California to help you because the West Coast guys were acting kinda crazy with you. Remember that?
Treach: No. But actually it was like a funny thing because it was me, Pac, Grand Puba, Snoop—all of us. This is like in the early, early days. Snoop wasn’t even really out yet.


 
Jamie: Mm-hmm.

Treach: And we had just went to a comedy spot out there. And what had happened, it was just some gangbang sh@# that went on. Like, the week before that, some guys had got into an altercation with another gang. So that following week, they just came up in there, and since they got into it, they wanted to get it on with anybody, whether it was who they was with or not. We just so happened to be up in there. 


 
Jamie: I thought Pac told me that he stopped those guys from messing with you or something.

Treach: Naw, it’s like we had our backs on; we fought together. But the thing was, with help from him, we set up different meetings with the homies out there. And they let us know they didn’t come intentionally after us or whatever. It’s just we got in the wrong spot at the wrong time. So he, like, set up a sit-down and all this, that and the third. You know what I mean? So it’s like East Coast and West Coast; whether it’s my territory or his territory, we always had each other’s back, 100 percent. 


 
Jamie: How crazy was that East Coast-West Coast stuff? And nobody owned a piece of property nowhere.

Treach: Yeah, I mean, once the Vibe magazine had Biggie and Puff on the cover and it said East versus West, you know ni##as is going to say, “Oh, it’s on? It’s a war? Okay. Wait till I see one of them out here.” Because they ain’t got nothing to live for in the streets. That’s what they do; they bang for life. So it just put every artist from either coast in jeopardy. It threatened everybody’s life.


 
Jamie: I know you were upset about that too.

Treach: Yeah, very upset. Very upset.
 
 
 
Find out how many kids Treach has now, and if he'll ever get married again, when you read the rest of the interview in the April 2010 issue of Sister 2 Sister. In the meantime you can check in on Vinny and Kay Gee.