Xzibit on linking up with Irish label Greenback Records: "I think it’s going to blow people away"

A coterie of producers, writers, photographers and facilitators are scattered across the control room of Studio One in Grouse Lodge Recording Studios, near Moate in Co. Westmeath. Among the star-studded array of artists to have recorded in the Westmeath studio over the years are the likes of R.E.M., Shirley Bassey, Sam Fender, Manic Street Preachers, Paolo Nutini and more.

Amongst those of us here today, some are standing, some are sitting and some are lying on couches – but we’re all listening to the new album from Xzibit. It’s a rare treat, checking out his highly anticipated eighth album on a titanium soundsystem, in the presence of its creator. Especially when said creator happens to be one of the originators of west coast hip-hop, one of the most influential music movements ever. On the way down, myself and Hot Press photographer, Miguel Ruiz, threaded our way through a stormy Westmeath, past the primeval Hill of Uisneach, swerving left at Killare, and through the townlands of Mosstown and Ballinaspick, before arriving into the Grouse Lodge compound.

We’re ushered through a complex that includes nine bedrooms in three separate renovated stone houses, a gym, swimming pool, sauna, stables and walled garden. We then step into the onsite bar, where stands a welcoming and convivial Xzibit. We exchange pleasantries and he invites us to go across to the studio to listen to Kingmaker, his boss new album, which sounds like nothing else in the Xzibit canon.

Xzibit at the Grouse Lodge. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Some of Xzibit’s crew are working in the control room of Studio One, having just just come off his European tour.

“Get comfortable man,” X offers. I sit into a leather couch beside a floor-to-ceiling glass window for the impromptu listening party. X paces around the room, mouthing the words, grinning widely, laughing aloud at times. There is still a moratorium on elements of the record, such as track-listing and featured artists. But let’s just say, it’s a beast of an album, mammoth and brilliant, a sonic masterpiece that includes some A-list collaborators.

When it ends, I say, “Well that’s the Grammy in the bag, X!” He laughs and simply says, “I’ll take the blessing.” We step out of the studio and I shake his hand, thanking him for the chance to listen to the record. He smiles warmly. In the late afternoon light, he looks chilled in simple t-shirt, sweatpants and runners, a colossal gold chain around his neck, perhaps the only indication of his hip-hop royalty credentials.

And possess them he does, unquestionably. Hip-hop has dominated the mainstream pop culture landscape for decades, and X is one of the form’s originators, playing a key role in defining its sound and sensibility. His debut album, 1996’s At The Speed Of Life, offered an alternative to gangsta rap, while later he became a disciple of Dr. Dre, who he has referred to as “our Quincy Jones, our Chairman of the Board”.

Back in the bar, he shows me side-stage footage of his band performing one of the unreleased songs from the album in Warsaw a few days earlier. Despite the crowd never hearing it before, they are going berserk much to the delight of a widely grinning X. It’s quite the omen for how Kingmaker is going to hit when it finally lands.

BREAKTHROUGH RECORD

The boy who would become Xzibit was born Alvin Joiner in Detroit, but his teacher parents relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico with their young infant son. Their home was filled with music – Motown, Lionel Ritchie, Janis Joplin and The Beatles. The young Alvin studied violin, but there was no tolerance for the sound which would come to dominate his life.

“My parents were very religious,” X tells me. “And they hated hip-hop, so I wasn’t allowed to really consume it. I was also on punishment a lot, so I had to stay in my room. The next best thing to actually listening to hip-hop is trying to write your own raps. It was natural to try to jot some lines down, because I loved it. Also, I would battle at school – at lunchtime, the kids would be in these rap battles. They’d say other people’s rhymes, so that led me to want to stand out and write my own raps.”

Fed on a diet of Eric B & Rakim, Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, Public Enemy and LL Cool J, the young X moved to LA. Whilst working a series of service industry jobs – Wendy’s, a pizza shop, the Original Cookie Company – he became involved in the LA underground hip-hop scene. Mentored by west coast legends, King Tee & Tha Alkaholiks, his gruff and commanding baritone stood out, as did his ability to switch styles and flows while excelling at battle rhymes and storytelling.

After Steve Rifkind signed X to his label Loud Records, things moved rapidly. At The Speed Of Life contained the timeless hit ‘Paparazzi’, while his sophomore record, 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz, brought him to the attention of Snoop Dogg, with whom he featured on the Dre-produced song ‘Bitch Please’.  X’s third album Restless, also produced by Dre, proved his breakthrough record, selling almost two million copies. X appeared on Dre’s The Chronic II and took part in two of the genre’s most seminal outings – 2001’s Up In Smoke Tour featuring Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and Eminem, and later numerous versions of the Anger Management Tour alongside 50 Cent and Cypress Hill.

X describes those events as “life-altering, it would be like reading The Avengers and then becoming an Avenger!”

MOST EXCITING CHAPTER

X is a Renaissance man. An actor who has performed in the blockbuster movies XXX: State Of The Union and The-X Files: I Want to Believe, in addition to the hit television series Empire, he has also starred alongside The Rock in Gridiron Gang; Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen in Derailed; and Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans. The latter was directed by the mighty Werner Herzog, and X also hosted the  MTV reality series, Pimp My Ride.

The next chapter is Kingmaker, X’s first solo record since 2012’s Napalm (the hip-hop supergroup Serial Killers composed of X, B-Real and Demrick have released four albums in the interim). The album is due for release on Conor McGregor’s recently formed Greenback Records, which he co-founded alongside music industry partners Richard Buck and Julian O’Brien.

“I was finishing the record,” X explains, “and I was looking for options to distribute and I got an interesting call – ‘Conor McGregor is going to start a record label’. I was interested, because he’s a very smart businessman and one of the most popular people on the planet. So I was like, ‘Well, let me hear what he wants to do’. Then I heard about the way he wanted to structure the deal.

“He wanted to get out into the market and really promote his artists, and create a platform that’s going to be beneficial for everybody involved. That was very attractive to me. And putting both of our audiences and both of our demographics together is new. I think it’s going to blow people away.”

It’s been quite the trip dropping in on the world of Xzibit, but he’s got to get back to work, which means we must skedaddle. A week or so after speaking with X, Greenback Records released the cinematic lead single from Kingmaker, ‘Play This At My Funeral’, complete with an Alexey Figurov-directed video.

That was followed by an appearance alongside Kodak Black, Dizzee Rascal and Irish acts Eskimo Supreme, Offica and Belters Only, at the Spain debut of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) in Marbella. All of which paves the way for the release of Kingmaker – another top drawer effort from one of hip-hop’s major talents. Indeed, this might just be Xzibit’s most exciting chapter yet...

Kingmaker is due to be released in early 2025.