Lainie: It’s with Tommy Mottola, who’s reinvented the whole idea of Casablanca Records under Universal/Motown, and your group and M.V.P. (Most Valuable Playas), along with Stagga Lee which I know has been playing around New York lately and getting hype than I see a lot of the Latin faces, I’m happy to see that as a Puerto Rican. Thank you very much. I was watching MUN2 and I was like, I know that body, I was like oh my God, it’s Robbie Rob. And the next thing you know, phone calls were going and everybody’s like confirming it was you, and we were like wow, it’s incredible, you’re back. Tell us what you’re doing.
Clivilles: Well, when David passed away I pretty much walked away from the music industry.
Lainie: The whole music industry?
Clivilles: Pretty much, yes, there were just rumors that I wasn’t ever going to make music again because David was the musicmaker, and just a lot of bad things. And I kind of just got pissed off, like anybody would, and instead of proving myself like Puffy do when the Notorious B.I.G. died, I kind of pretty much walked away and took some time to live a little bit. Because me and David were working basically fifteen to twenty hours a day, and watching him on the hospital bed, you know, dieing after winning all the awards and making millions of dollars and building… You know, he never enjoyed his money, and I kind of learned a lot sitting there watching him, you know, I learned about friends. I mean, David was the most well-liked person in the music industry, everybody that I read a magazine says they knew him or…
Lainie: Yea.
Clivilles: News to me, but everybody was his friend, everybody was his brother, but I realized in the hospital bed, when he was passing away, that no one came and visited him. I can count them on my hand, the people that visited him. And that affected me mentally, to be loved by so many people in the so-called music industry, and then to spend your last days in bed with no one visiting you, not even sending you a card, that kind of affected me. You know, like ‘what was I doing this for, you know, how much money can you make before you say ‘that’s enough?’’
Lainie: Right.
Clivilles: And the combination of, you know, the reaction of what I was hearing from the music industry and experiencing David passing away and no one being around, really, really affected me and I pretty much walked away. You know, I took my, as they say, my little white cloth with the stick, packed all my money in and pretty much walked away and, to think for a while. And it took me a long time, you know, between the estate and dealing with all that, you know, companies and separating all them. I just decided to take a break and take care of all that stuff, because I knew that if I would do a project and mess it up because of all the pressures I had and dealing with everything that was going on, if I messed it up that would be kind of proof for someone that really, really doesn’t like me to say you see, I told you. So, I kind of took a break, bought a house, moved away from New York City for a while, moved up to Westchester.
Lainie: You Disappeared?
Clivilles: Exactly. And I kept my studio in the Village all these years, and just took my time and paid all the bills and…
Lainie: You did a really good job of going underground.
Clivilles: Yes, yes, I just, no parties, no nothing. I didn’t go to no parties, no interviews, no music, nothing, just pretty much brought a house, brought some furniture, took care of business. I mean I had some successful businesses, I did have Herb Powers come from the Hit Factory and I opened up a mastering lab, which did very, very well for two years, and then he went back. And it was just about three years ago that I said, you know, now it’s time to make some music. I always felt that, when I left it was all about, if I was as talented as I thought I was, that it didn’t matter what time or when, if I felt that I was hot at making records that I could do it again. And that’s pretty much what I did, I took a bet on myself and I said look, you know, I’ll take some time off and if I’m really, if I really have that talent and passion, you know, I’ll do something worth people seeing again. And seven and a half years later I decided, I met Stagga through a friend of mine, Max Bowese who produced the record with me, and I met Stag, I met the whole group. There’s about seven members and I met everybody throughout the year, it was just people that wanted to do something and, you know, we pretty much became friends, who ever I was dealing with, we pretty much became friends and I threw them in the studio and I tested their passion and Stagger was the one that stuck out to me the most. He was the one that I felt really wanted it and really had the passion, and he was away revering, Eminem had just come out and I felt that in hip-hop there needs to be more than just Eminem as far as a while MC or a Latin MC.
