Exclusive Interview With The Renegadez(cashis)

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Exclusive Interview With The Renegadez

Orange County might not be the first place you'd look for up & coming rappers. The Renegadez are on a mission to change that! The group, consisting of Young Cashis and Rikanatti, are originally from Chicago but moved to the West Coast to focus on their music careers. They have just released their new mixtape called "Stars with Stripes" not too long ago.

The Renegadez hit up Westcoast2k to discuss their group history, their new mixtape, as well as future plans. Check out this exclusive interview....




[ Listen to The Renegadez drop for Westcoast2k ]




Westcoast2k: Can you give a little introduction on who The Renegadez are and where you from?

Cashis: The Renegadez is Young Cashis and Rikanatti. We from Chicago, but we represent Orange County. Rikanatti does all the beats and he flows, and I just come with the gutter type rap shit.

Rikanatti: Basically what The Renegadez is all about, we try to change the face of Rap music. We feeling that we gonna be the ones that help bring the West Coast back. One person can't do it by themself, so it's gotta be a whole bunch of people. The game is lackin' that real ryder music, everybody wanna be so soft. I'm not disrespecting that, but Rap music started off in the streets and that's where it really needs to be. When I go sit down and make a beat, I'm coming with that gutter shit. And I know that's the shit that Young Cash can just lose his mind to. And what he spit, you can feel it. So this Renegadez thing is a movement.


Westcoast2k: Is that how you started off, as Cashis and Rikanatti?

Cashis: Actually when it started off, it was 4 people. Our homeboy is in Atlanta doing his thang. He took a different approach, but we still cool with him. And the other one was my girl Monique. She got shot up in June 1999. There's a lot of references to her through our music. Now we just keeping her name alive. She was the real street of the clique, she was making sure we bring the street music back to Rap. But we're on the grind. Rikanatti is servicing everybody and anybody that's coming out of Orange County with tracks right now.

Rikanatti: And we're doing collaborations right now. We didn't really do a whole bunch in the past. We got a song called "Guns Clappin" that features Roscoe, Kurupt, Jayo Felony, and Tris Star. We got other songs with Sly Boogy, one with JMG and Kokane. But now we're branching off to the New West Coast. For this mixtape we had Bishop Lamont do some drops for us, Spit Fiya did something for us, we did some songs with Problem from Compton. I just hooked up with Techniec and Dynamic Certified. I just did like 6 beats for them. So we're really focused on getting our name out there, and we're working with other artists. Because like I said it takes more than just 1 artist to bring it back, it's gotta be a whole Coast.


Westcoast2k: What's the Hip Hop scene like in Orange County?

Rikanatti: Man, right now it's a beautiful thing. It's a lot of underground Hip Hop, but it's a lot of street rappers also. Cause Orange County is big, it's a large place and people are really responsive to the music out here, they waiting for somebody. We're trying to be for the O.C. what Snoop is to Long Beach.

Cashis: And not even just black artists, you got Mr. Vick, you got a whole lot of people that's holdin' down Orange County. We're just trying to do our part.


Westcoast2k: Do you get a better response in Chicago or out in Cali?

Cashis: Out in Cali is where they hear most of our music. We had our first joint "Watch Closely" out in Chicago. But we got little spots poppin' up in New York, Jersey, and Philly. So we're trying to work the whole Mid-West and Southern region also.


Westcoast2k: So would you say that you're one of the leading artists in the O.C. right now?

Cashis: I say we are the leading artists in the O.C. right now. Period point blank. That's not in a bad way, but we're the ones that's making moves for everybody else. And we bring in every artist that we run into that's Orange County, that got any type of sound to them. We're doing tracks and we're trying to get them out. We're probably the ones from Orange County with the most connects, and we're in the best position to blow, out of everybody.


Westcoast2k: How did you guys hook up?

Rikanatti: Basically we met back in High School when we ended up having a class together. And we had things in common, but when we first clicked up we weren't really even on no Rap shit, we was on some other shit. But I was kinda getting into it, but Cashis wasn't into it at all. But we used to always kick it and freestyle on the block. And then I got him to come down to a studio session, and from then on we realized that we had talent. We started working at it, and then it just blossomed in to The Renegadez.


Westcoast2k: You released a independent project called "Watch Closely" a few years ago. What was the deal with that?

Rikanatti: Man with "Watch Closely" it ties into a long story. How we even got the name "Watch Closely" is cause the O.C. is not really known for rappers. So we was telling the world to watch closely what we're about to do. While we was recording the album, Cashis got locked up. He caught a case, and what happened was we bailed him out. And once we bailed him out of jail, we started recording like crazy. We recorded the album in like 6, 7 days. So we started recording because he probably was gonna have to serve some time. So while he was out on bail, we recorded the whole "Watch Closely" album. And then he ended up doing some time, and I was just getting everything mixed and mastered and getting ready to push the product. The streets was real responsive to it. They even got copies out in Africa. So the album is like a O.C. classic. And that project was actually what got Def Jam to take interest into us.


Westcoast2k: And then you got the brand new mixtape. Speak on that real quick.

Cashis: Man, "Stars with Stripes". That's the bidness. This is us maturing, niggas ain't going to jail anymore. It's still a whole lot of bullshit going on, but niggas is focused and really concerned about making this music shit a career. With "Stars with Stripes" it was easy as hell. We just went in there, Natti had an incredible line-up of beats. We was just knockin' shit out. We had probably like a 100 songs, and we narrowed it down to 20. We started to put it out and people was feeling it. But the title "Stars with Stripes", everybody is talking about they got stripes. You got to certain places and niggas say they got stripes. We're not saying that we're celebritys, but as far as around here in Orange County, we stars of our area.

And we only wanted to reach out to real niggas that we knew of. You know, like Kurupt, Jayo, Roscoe, Tri-Star, Sly Boogy. It was only a couple people that we met that we was really feeling, that we could put out there. And the project came together perfect. To me it shows the direction that we're going. We got songs for the radio and for the streets. We got the clubs out here going crazy with this song called "Take You Home".

Rikanatti: And also, we're really connecting with the New West. Of course you got the OG's like Kurupt and Jayo Felony, they been putting it down for years. But Young Tri-Star, Roscoe, Bishop Lamont, Spit Fiya, they all showed loved. Mo' Dav from 100.3 The Beat showed love. Chico from Chico & Coolwadda showed loved. This West Coast thing is lovely right now, it's a lot of unity going on right now. And "Stars with Stripes" is really where we're trying to take the game. So "Stars with Stripes" is showcasing West Coast talent, and show that we try to bring lyricism back into the game. Everybody complaining that there's not lyrics in the game, so we really took notes of that. The West Coast got real lyricists out here.