EXCLUSIVE!! NEW INTERVIEW WITH RU1 RECORDS ARTISTS..BLACKOUT AND RESPONSE!!

What's RU 1 Records all about?

Response: Loyalty, family and business.

Blackout: RU 1 Records is about talented business men getting together as a team and making it happen. Everybody's got a certain position. I'm one of the artists, so my position is to make great music. But we are a family and we hold each other down.

How are you doing things differently from everyone else and where do you see yourselves in the hip hop arena right now?

Response: The album is not about murder, killing people and shooting bullets. I'm not impressed with street creditability. I'm more impressed with letting the people know who I am as an artist, where I come from, my story, my life and my art.

Blackout: As far as the grind we go hard and take our hustle very seriously. As far as the music it's different. We bring everything. We got songs for the ladies, older crowds, streets we got music for everybody.

Atl and Brick City...That's a great combination... how did you guys get together?

Blackout: I came up north back in the day when my moms had to move due to work. Around '98, we used to go to (Response's) basement. He had his DJ set up and mics so we used to rap and make tapes. We clicked off from there but we weren't a group. He had his people I had my people. Through the years we were doing our thing separately and when he got over to RU-1 Records he sent me the invite.

Response: (laughs) We smoked a lot in high school. One day it came across I was like you rap? He was like yeah. I used to be the DJ then I really started to get into MC side. Time went on and RU 1 Records became our home.

Where do you see ATL in the game today... And how are you going to make RU 1 the name in the industry?

Blackout: ATL is definitely going their thing in the game. Ludacris, Usher and TLC Atlanta has given the game a lot of talent for years now. What I do is I have a lot of ATL is my style and in my music I'm an ATL artist but my style is so versatile that I can adapt to any vibe. We make music for down south; up north and west coast we make music everybody can feel good music.

With the game the way it is right now... Where do you see the hip-hop market going?

Blackout: As far as me personally you don't sell as much unit and your suppose to sell due to bootleggers. But you still got to promote yourself right and get the people familiar with your music and movement. But the love as afar as fans and people who love the music that's still there.

Response: The game is very much more internet based fans are mostly digital downloads. Even if your distribution does not have the reach of say Russia the internet allows your music to be available to those fans.

How does it feel to be independent?

Blackout: It feels good but at the same time its twice as much work. There not a big label behind us taking the load but still our staff is all business men. So I feels go to put that work in and build us up all we accomplish is due to that we independent so we work twice as hard work ethic.

Response: Great you don't have to answer to nobody. Its good but it also bad let me break it down. It's good because you make the decision for yourself, your not limited to what you want to do, you can be however you want. The bad part is it all falls on your plate if you put out $20,000 for a event and you only make $1,000 that's $19,000 is out your pocket. Independency is good if your willing to accept the negative end of it as well.

Where can the readers reach you guys and listen to your music or buy your albums?

Blackout: Definitely on the website www.Ru1records.com and www.myspace.com/responseandblackout you can check out the music and buy the CD's or the mp3's

Response: We have www.myspace.com/responseandblackout we have email the responseru1@hotmail.com, www.rulrecords.com, www.ru1radio.com , and the brand new www.ru1lation.com .