Being the underdog has its perks. As one of Houston’s top MC’s it was assumed that Chamillionaire would be one of the first to blow up nationally. As Houston grew more popular however it didn’t happen. Paul Wall, Mike Jones, and Slim Thug all began to gain recognition as Chamillionaire played it more low key. I can even remember Vibe asking in its infamous column in the back of every issue if “Chamillionaire would ever blow up?”

While his peers from Houston were all over MTV and the like Cham was slow burning his way to gold status with Sound Of Revenge. He hit gold and then dropped the Grammy winning “Ridin’”. Chamillionaire blew up. He quickly went platinum, won a Grammy, and became the hottest rapper out of Houston if not the game period.

Sixshot.Com’s Jon Michael sat down with the mixtape messiah to discuss his originality, why he won’t listen to demos, and the price of fame.

Sixshot.Com: All right man, you’ve won a Grammy, went platinum, and are one of the most successful hip-hop artists out. You have Mixtape Messiah 5 coming out. My question is this. After all that you’ve accomplished why do you still continue to put out so many mixtapes and quality mixtapes at that?

Chamillionaire: H onestly man it’s really a case of out of sight out of mind. A lot of the people at the major labels continuously want you in the spotlight. What I’ve realized is that it’s the groundwork that keeps you on even where you get where you wanna be. I feel like a lot of people forget that. There are still people in Houston who are finding out everything about me. I’m doing this for the fans man, strictly for the fans. This comes out of my pocket and you can find it in the streets and find it at flea markets, this is for the fans. They love it and a lot of people love my mixtapes more than my albums.

In a sense fans disappoint me sometimes because it’s a lot of work to do what I’m doing and I don’t get that full support so if you’re gonna support me then support me all the way. The website costs money to keep up and I gotta keep making that music because they love the fresh content. That’s what I do when I put a tape out; you know what I’m sayin’?

Sixshot.Com: What you said about fans not returning the favor sometimes, does it get frustrating when one of your mixtapes will be buzzing hard everywhere and then the album sales don’t match the hype?

Chamillionaire: I think that the mixtapes are just so good. It’s crazy when I put out a mixtape. The lines are out the door and I feel like sometimes the fans get spoiled. They get real spoiled. When I first started rapping it was more freestyling and like I said the fans are getting spoiled with this mixtapes and they just expect so much from them. They want a lot. When you used to look at an artists website it used to be a little page but now you scroll down and you the blog, all this information, videos, it’s crazy. They just want more, more, more, and more and it’s hard to keep giving them more man. There’s no major labels paying for this and I have to pay for the engineers, the studio, it’s a lot man. Everything that you hear I paid for out of my pocket.

Sixshot.Com: Speaking of what the fans want, how did you feel about the response to your second album?

Chamillionaire: I really don’t know man. The line in hip-hop that everybody is always talking about is keeping it real but I don’t want nobody anywhere saying that anymore. Once you try and keep it real with who you really are it feels like the fans get mad, you know what I’m sayin’? (Laughs) So what am I supposed to do? Pretend to be somebody that I’m not? If I did that then they would probably be happy. Everybody’s always making gangster records or whatever and I don’t believe it all man.

50 Cent told me one time and this was a real thing to say, he said that your real life starts when your rap career ends. He said that to me and it really stuck with me. It made a lot of sense because I could have a hard time separating this business from my real life. If I’m in a bad mood and somebody comes up to me I can’t show them that. I have to pretend to be in a good mood. I always have to be happy for my fans. It’s all about entertainment and that’s the one thing I been trying to fix.

As far as the album I tried to keep it original. I mean you don’t hear me running out there and trying to put T-Pain on every record or trying to copy him. Right now it seems like everybody is trying to copy everybody and to me that’s frustrating. I may look like a rebellious person because I do what’s different sometimes. Unfortunately I feel like some fans missed it. A lot of people said the album was real political. They heard the single and it was like their whole mind state shifted. I wasn’t even the one who picked the single but I’m not really gonna just sit here and talk about the past. I don’t want to point fingers at anybody. I take the blame for any and everything that went wrong.

Sixshot.Com: Another thing I was curious about is your originality. You’ve always been real lyrical which isn’t real indicative of where you come from. You’ve been doing your own hooks. Were you always this type of artist? Did you always stand out and do things a little different?

Chamillionaire: I mean I always have. I always have and that’s why the whole chameleon theme really fits me perfect. I never really blended in and I always did what was different. The only thing that I’ve always mentioned in my lyrics and that I’ve always had my mind on is my money. I’ve always been like that. Other than that I’ve always tried to do things different from what everybody else is doing. Even with the hooks that I do by myself. When I’m in the studio I record alone, it’s just me. I don’t have a hundred people in there. Like if there’s no engineer around I do it myself and that’s just where I am right now.

If you go to www.Chamillionaire.com and you see a video I edited it myself. That’s something I taught myself just in case. That’s where a lot of my ideas come from, just me sitting there by myself thinking of something creative. I just like doing things differently. If you wake up in the morning and you do the same things everyday you’re gonna want to do something different and that’s how I look at it.

To just keep doing the same thing over and over again doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t tell you how boring it is for me to keep rapping about how my rims are bigger than my house. There are a lot of fans that still want that on the mixtapes and the albums but I don’t want to do that. If I do that am I keeping it real? You know what I’m sayin’? I might really want to say something but they want me to talk about how much richer I am than them even if I don’t feel like that.

Sixshot.Com: Absolutely, so are you currently working on your third album?

Chamillionaire: Yeah man I got like two albums worth of material and it’s all heat. When I say its heat man trust me its heat. I have a lot of different producers on this album and I didn’t really try to re-create the wheel. I just tried to do what I do best. A lot of the stuff out now is all that bubblegum pop and you have to be careful if you want to be on top of the charts because that’s what’s there.

A lot of artists try to straddle that line between street music and pop music. If you go too pop then the streets won’t respect you, you’ll lose your street cred. If you go too street you might not perform on the charts. It’s a problem that a lot of artists face and that’s why you see a lot of them running out to get T-Pain because they equate that with success. I’m just trying to not over think things. You’re gonna hear the first joint and think it’s hot then think the second, third, and fourth are hot.

Sixshot.Com: What’s up with Chamillitary? What can we expect to see from your label?

Chamillionaire: I have my artist Fame right now. He’s got a single out right now that’s killin’ it. There’s a lot of misconceptions about the label because over the years people have seen me with so many different people but they went their own way or whatever the case may be. Fame is a hard thing to handle man because there are always gonna be people around you that want it. Everybody wants the fame but they think it’s easy to get or something so they don’t really wanna put in the work that it takes. You got so many people around you. Even Soulja Boy is dealing with it right now.

People are always sending me demos and to be honest I don’t even listen to them. I always used to listen to everything to try and find some talent but rap is different and people are different so now I don’t listen at all. My lawyer told me that I can’t even accept demos because somebody could send me a package and then say I stole a song from them later on. I can’t accept them because I could end up in court over it. I’m just concentrating on who I got which is Fame and I got an R&B singer. That’s all I want. I don’t want no other rappers.

It’s hard to find people with the same energy and drive as me so that’s why Chamillitary is gonna be the smallest army in the world. I just wanna be real so I’m gonna be as blunt as I can about that. I always try to motivate people man. You see how I’m just talking in this interview? I’m always like this. Nothing really motivates me except for music and money but I got money so what do I do? Just keep making songs to make more money? If you have 60 billion dollars what do you do with it? What used to motivate me was just the love for the music but this business can definitely change you.

Sixshot.Com: So would you say that the fame and the fortune aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?

Chamillionaire: Yeah definitely man and that’s why my new album is called Venom. I don’t wanna over explain that right now but I’ll say that it slowly changes who you are as a person over time. It slowly deteriorates you because you got the money and you can’t even enjoy it man. They put me in Forbes and the day after that I was getting e-mails from people I haven’t heard from in five years, people who felt I owed them something and I barely knew them.

If I’m going through this imagine what Puffy and Jay are going through and all the lawsuits they must get. Imagine what Eminem and Dr.Dre are going through. I’m pretty low key and I try to mind my business. People wanna charge me a thousand for something that costs fifty because they saw me in Forbes. On the bright side you get to do things a lot of people can’t do and get to go to a lot of nice places. People don’t see how after the music video camera cuts they take the car and the jewelry away.

Sixshot.Com: All right Chamillionaire you got Mixtape Messiah 5 coming out, what else should the fans be looking for?

Chamillionaire: Check the website, www.chamillionaire.com for updates on everything. Mixtape Messiah 5 is dropping and I’m working on the third album as we speak.