By Odeisel

Why make a Hunger For More 2? Why should the fans care about that, and what exactly is Lloyd Banks trying to connect to from this old album to forge the spirit of it’s sequel? These are questions that we asked Lloyd banks in part three of Back To The Beat. We question his motivation to continue rapping and also what is the difference in approach between his albums and his mixtapes.  His answers may surprise you. Part 3, the penultimate installment.  Let’s go.

Planet Ill: You do a lot of mixtapes. How different is the approach from building a mixtape to building a record? With the volume of work that you do, how do you keep the good stuff for the record?

Lloyd Banks: I think the craziest artist doesn’t really do a good job differentiating. You don’t dwell on a record. That’s one of the other things that I was told in my career. Don’t sweat a record. Jam Master Jay told 50, “Don’t sweat a record. Don’t be on it to the point where you don’t move on to the next record.” The biggest thing, and the best advice I can give an artist? Have three [songs] don’t have one. When “Beemer Benz or Bentley” drops, everybody wants to know what’s next. It’s never enough. What you do is never enough. Just know that.

I think the biggest difference between and album and a mixtape is the fact that an album can take anywhere from six months to a year of preparation before it comes out. A mixtape you can speak on something immediately that’s relevant. Like if Obama gets elected I can put out a song the next day called “The Election” or “The Decision” whatever it was and speak on it immediately and it’ll have an impact that you can’t capture six months later when an album finally comes out and it’s in the stores.

The mixtape is more about current content and freedom to do music without any barriers; any rules. You don’t have to have a chorus in a set spot, you don’t have to have a bridge where it would normally be. You don’t have to have a specific amount of bars, you can do a whole 50 bar verse if you wanted to. Conceptually, you can play around a little bit more. You know who you are as an artist sometimes, you can show that through your album but then you can do features and show different parts of who you are. If you can do an R&B record you can show that on somebody else’s joint. So I think that’s what mixtape does. It’s like practicing, like free throws.

Planet Ill: After all the money, seeing the world, selling all the records, what is there to hunger for? What’s fueling that hunger to have a Hunger For More 2?

Lloyd Banks: I never was the type to just be content. I just wanted to do more. I think the business savvy of G-Unit, when they think about G-Unit they think about the whole entire enterprise and all the multi-million dollar deals and everything and I think that overshadows what got us here. I think people forget how much we love music. Regardless of the “gangster” aspect or whatever. We’ll be the first to tell you all that goes off. I’m in the studio all the time, I love what it feels like to make music. I love what it feels like even more for people to accept it and embrace it. I don’t think that that’s going to go anywhere any time soon.

[pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Y33Pu1mEA&feature=player_embedded[/pro-player]

I think rappers are like boxers, they never know when to stop. I don’t have the same desires that some artists have, like some people don’t never want to give it up. At the same time I don’t feel you have to have 200 years in Hip-Hop to have a 20 year dominance or something that feels like you been doing it that long. I’m only on my second album this is my third album coming now. I feel like I’m capable to put out 3, 4, 5 more albums before it’s all said and done. I’m not good until I don’t have to rap. This is still a job to me and if I don’t rap, my bills won’t get paid. So I’m definitely not wealthy. Just rich.

Planet Ill: Why should the fans care about the Hunger For More 2? Everybody’s coming out with their Cuban Linx 2s and their part 2s. What part of the Hunger For More are you trying to connect with?

Lloyd Banks: You know you got your whole life to make your first album. But the fact is you can’t get it all out in 14 songs. That was my baby man and I know before anybody the importance of that album. I know how big it was for me and who better to go up against but yourself? Like you mentioned the Cuban Linx part 2, I bought that record also, big shout out to Raekwon for the success he’s had on that and to do it from an independent place is a whole ‘nother thing. You just reminding people who might have forgot. Your fan base grows with you. When I was 19 and 20 rapping it was people there that’s my age now. They might step outside the box and listen to a new artist and things like that.

Like you got Reebok Pumps on. I remember when I was playing ball and those were out. They mark time. The Air Force 1’s those passed the test of time. It’s not a fluke; it’s not something that came and went. I feel like I got a concrete cult following that’s always gonna stick by me. So this is my gift to them and at the same time I think it’s a big and broad enough album to gain new audience with the youth. I think that takes you from an artist that has that steady consistency to an artist that can potentially be a superstar because you found a youth following. You appeal to that youth market and it’s weird; it’s crazy.

I just left earlier, I went to a basketball program in South Jamaica Queens, I.S. 72 which was my junior high school that I played basketball in since I was11 years old. And I got a chance to see all the kids there and they know me now, they run up to me and go crazy and some of them are only 8, 9, 10 years old, which means when my first album came out they was babies. How could they know me now? It’s because of word of mouth, you know their older brother or sister saying, “This is what it is boy!” just like my father told me that Big Daddy Kane is the best. Whether I liked it or not, that’s what I heard. And then I started listening and listening and I was like, “Kane is the best!” and then it was like, “Rakim is the best.”

So I think the challenge is to remain relevant regardless of everything else that’s going on. You got football season starting up again, you got basketball season starting up in November. It’s not just rap everybody has a job to stay relevant and have significance of their own.

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