EXCLUSIVE BOW WOW INTERVIEW: Beware of Dog!

After a decade of dropping rhymes fast and furious, the youngest rapper to ever hit #1 is throwing in the towel and turning his scent towards the Hollywood Hills. But before he takes his final bow, BOW WOW is jacking rap and marking his Icon territory. Here the top dog welcomes his haters, wags his tail for the big girls and promises that his bark is just as bad as his bite.

Why is your new album called New Jack City II?

The title really just came from the movie New Jack City starring Wesley Snipes [and] Allen Payne. Their relationship was a mirror image of me and Jermaine [Dupri].  We let the business come between us.  You know what I’m saying? The business overcame all the fun stuff.  It kind of blinded us, so it made us go our separate ways. They were best friends and they let the foolery start to get to them.  And they had their way of making money which was “The Carter” [The “Crack House”] and our “Carter” was So So Def. That’s how we made our money.

That’s really nice. You are comparing So So Def to a crack house?

Ah nah.  We call it Part 2 because if Wesley Snipes never killed G-Money they would of got back out and continued what they were doing so it was kind of like we were taking off where they left off.  We let the foolery and the nonsense get in between us and that’s something I never thought would happen.  And it was just like what happened in the movie.

How is it working with Jermaine now?

I got more freedom to do whatever I wanted to do with this album.  Jermaine’s just there. He makes the beat and then I’m on my own.  For the first time nobody is holding me back, saying what I want to say or doing what I want to do. I’m definitely more hands-on than I’ve ever been on any other project.  I think the only other project I was this hands on for was Face Off. 

The last time we spoke, you told me you were retiring after Face Off. Now you’re coming out with New Jack City II and saying you are retiring again. Is this true?

Yeah, I want it to be. I really don’t… I think that for me, at the end of the day, it’s all about me and what makes me happy.  And for me I feel more free when I get the chance to do movies.  I just feel like the only thing that hasn’t changed so much is the BS that comes with it.  I just don’t need it in my life. I really don’t want to deal with it no more. So I told myself that I wanted to dedicate myself to this album and go hard for this one like I’ve done for every last one of my albums. I’m definitely going to tour.  But, I don’t really see myself getting back into the studio no time soon after I finish this album.  I see myself taking the whole Hollywood thing by storm and just focusing on my film work.

 You had a guest-starring role on HBO’s Entourage.  How was it being on set?

I loved it. I loved it because it’s one of my favorite shows.  Aside from that the guys were just cool. I had a lot of fun. They embraced me. They didn’t make me feel like an outsider. As soon as I got on set, they made me feel right at home, as if I had been on the show a million times before, you know? I’m even on the new season of Entourage. For me that’s what it’s really all about. I was just happy to be a part of it and it wasn’t like it was just handed to me. Mark Wahlberg told me to come out and audition. I auditioned and I guess I was the best man out of the group.

 You had to audition for Entourage like everybody else but you don’t get scripts just thrown at you?

Oh yeah I do. But the ones that get thrown at me I feel like it’s an easy fetch unless it’s like a really, really big movie. Like for Fast and the Furious, I didn’t have to try out. For Hurricane Season, I actually went out and auditioned. When it came to Entourage, I had to go ahead and read for it, too. I don’t mind auditioning. I had a lot of fun doing it. I don’t mind competing, because I am a competitor. So if I gotta go in there and prove it, I am just going to go 10 times harder with my material and make sure that I come out on top.

Entourage is about an actor and his entourage. Tell me about the antics of Bow Wow’s entourage.

To be totally honest, I’m pretty much by myself. That’s how I always am. I’ve always been that way, even when I was growing up. I never was one to have like 10 friends, 13 or 15 friends. I was solo. There are different reasons, you know, like my best friend he has this job, and my other friend, he has this girlfriend. When we go out, we might go out of town to Vegas or something but other than that, everyone is out on their own. Everyone is too grown to have fun now. [Laughs]

Everyone is too grown to have fun but not you?

Yeah, everyone is too grown to have fun now. I’m like the most immaturest one of the group. But it’s still really hard to bring everybody together. Everyone is like 23-years-old now. All of my boys are with their girlfriends. They are living that other life so it’s kind of hard to bring them out of it sometimes.

Your boys are all “wifed up.” Are you dating?

Nah, I’m chilling right now, to be honest. I’m not even… I mean hopefully one day it will come. That’s why I want to stop rapping. I’m ready to hopefully one day have a girl to do all those type of things, but right now, I am just tired of my business being out there and everybody wanting to question me and ask me questions like who I’m with, who I’m not with, rumors and bloggers. So now I just reframe from that. I just keep everything private. But I’m single, though.

You have a new song called “Big Girls.” Is this an ode to girls with curves?

[Laughs]Nah, that’s for big girls. My fan base is 95% female. I love all women. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t want every woman in the world to try to holla at me. It doesn’t just have to be the fine ones or the model ones. It could be the big ones, the ones that’s not-so-cute. It could be the ones that are okay, or it could be the ones that are ugly, to some, you know what I’m saying? A ladies’ man is a ladies’ man, so I love all ladies.

When it comes to the ladies: the bigger the better?
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Photo Credit: Mark Mann