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FEATURES
Don't mistake this dynamic duo from California as some rookies to the game. They've been grinding for years as
solo artist and producers for some of music's most prominent stars to date. After being away from the forefront
for quite some time, Quik (whom recently dropped the "DJ" from his name) and AMG are back in the spotlight to
stake claim in what was once thiers. The Fixxers have arrived and are ready to fix the game. Can U Werk Wit That?
BM: How did you guys come up with the name “The Fixxers?”
Fixxers (AMG): Well, we thought about calling ourselves “The Flat Tires” first. [Laughs]
Fixxers (Quik): [Laughs]
Fixxers (AMG): Then we thought about being the…umm…
Fixxers (Quik): “The Backyard Boys.” [Laughs]
Fixxers (AMG): …yeah, and that sounded kinda gay. Then our equipment broke down…so in lieu of that, you know, we had to
start working and shit. So we just decided to call ourselves The Fixxers [Laughs]. A big fuckin’ “F” for everybody [Laughs].
BM: You guys are long time friends. What was the process of coming back together to collaborate and do an
album like this?
Fixxers (Quik): Umm, well shit. G, should I tell him the truth?
Fixxers (AMG): Yeah, might as well.
Fixxers (Quik): See, my beats wasn’t hot for a minute. I was out of touch.
Fixxers (AMG): Aww, here we go…
Fixxers (Quik): I needed musical rehab and G was over there focused and going in a new direction. So, I put my drum
machine up and grabbed his coattail and was like, help me. So my dude started playing beats for me and I couldn’t even
bounce to them in rhythm. They were so different to me. I had like a white boy rhythm. I couldn’t get to em’ at first. Then after a
while, I started to relax and let go. Then I started shaking my ass. So, I had to be taught how to make beats again by my dude,
AMG.
BM: You’re new album is entitled “The Midnight Life.” What’s the significance behind the title?
Fixxers (AMG): That’s kind of the work starts. We’re the type of dudes that work through the party. That’s when it get to
swinging. Ain’t nobody bugging you, you’re phone ain’t ringing. That’s the time you can create and be in a zone. I like to work
when muthafuckas sleep. Let me get the upper hand.
Fixxers (Quik): Yeah, R. Kelly was on MTV the other night talking about how he likes to work after hours. So that made me be
like, ok damn we ain’t the only nocturnal niggas around here that make hits.
Fixxers (AMG): You can’t make songs in the daytime man. The sun’s shining. The bitches are out. You’ll be thrown off.
Fixxers (Quik): Yeah, what you gonna rap about? We ain’t The Beach Boys. [Laughs]
Fixxers (AMG): We’re the muthafuckin’ Fixxers nigga! [Laughs]
BM: What kind of sound can we expect on the album?
Fixxers (AMG): Clear. It’s gonna be real clear.
BM: What do you mean by clear?
Fixxers (Quik): The clarity. It’s going to sound good on any cd, mp3, anything. Ringtones. It’s going to be great.
BM: Any artist features on the album?
Fixxers (Quik): You!
Fixxers (AMG): We’re gonna put you on the album. You’re gonna open it up.
BM: [Laughs] That’s wassup! You know I’m an artist by night myself.
Fixxers (AMG): No, No, No. We’re going to have you asking questions and shit [Laughs].
Fixxers (Quik): We’re recording this shit right now actually.
Fixxers (AMG): Don’t think you’re getting off easy.
Fixxers (Quik): Mmm hmm. [Laughs] We’re gonna call you for a clearance in a minute. We’re gonna need your signature and
shit.
BM: Now your 1st single, “Can U Werk With That,” has exploded on the airwaves on both coasts and has a style
that isn’t really comparable to anyone and sounds refreshing. Did you two plan for it to pick up like this?
Fixxers (Quik): No! Who knew? It’s a pleasant surprise for me. But G is calm. He had a clue and I didn’t. So, I’m kinda late. I’m
like a fan. Fuck it!
BM: The song is hot for real. It’s really picking up!
Fixxers (AMG): Good. It’s supposed to. It’s supposed to in a sense where we’re making shit with the times and what’s
happening. So I made it a snap/clap record.
Fixxers (Quik): I like to see girls dance to it. One of my female friends, she from India and shit, she was like, “I love this record!
You can dance to any part of it.” She started shaking her ass and I was like, Yeah! Then she started shaking her titties and
moving her pelvis so I was like we need to make more of these records. [Laughs]
BM: Quik, I’ve been following your music ever since the “Quik is the name” album. What a lot of people don’t know
is that you also have been doing a lot of production and ghostwriting behind the scenes as well. Can you speak
on that?
Fixxers (Quik): Well you know, I love writing. I love writing and making music. I love working with different people and just
showing them some of the little tricks that I’ve learned. You know, for their vocals to sound better, for the music to sound better.
I just like to see people raising their game from the technical side of it. I go to the studio with someone like (Dr.) Dre and he
actually listens to me you know. That tells me that the good doctor thinks I’m important. You know. I don’t take none of this for
granted. I’m grateful.
BM: Now together you guys have also worked with a lot of new artist production wise. Can you name some of the
most recent?
Fixxers (AMG): We did a song with Jim Jones for the record. We did a song with Yung Joc for the record. We got T-pain on
the record. Possibly Cee-Lo, Too $hort, and maybe one other person. We’re going for the street ghetto vibe. That happens to
be pop records, pop music. It’s like we jumped back on at the right time when hip-hop is so huge and it needs something cause
everybody else don got their bread and are huge. So it’s our turn.
BM: Being that you’re both from the west coast, how do you feel about seeing a resurgence of west coast rap in
the mainstream? A lot of west coast artist don’t get the push they deserve these days.
Fixxers (AMG): I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think their not making the right records for the market. There were those
time where west coast records were huge. And I hate to fuckin’ say west coast. This is rap music and I don’t like this shit
divided. It gives people a chance to diss it before they hear it. You know you got a lot of people with good messages, good
songs, good movements that if you put a jacket on them, they’re not going to get heard because certain people don’t like
certain music. You know. You got certain people who don’t like down south shit. When we first made the record people was like,
“It sounds like a down south record.” Bitch! That’s whats happenin’! [Laughs] Youknow what I’m sayin’? When the west coast
shit was happenin’, everybody wanted a west coast beat. Everybody got fat off that. You know what I’m sayin’?
Fixxers (Quik): That era passed on. So, we got stuck on that “More Bounce To The Ounce” sound.
Fixxers (AMG): Yeah, more gangsta funk. Come on with it. But, it don’t sell no damn records. They already done heard it from
the best. They done heard it from Snoop. They done heard it from Dre. They done heard it from Quik. Who’s going to do it
better than them? Nobody! You can’t.
BM: Do you ever think the west coast will take over again?
Fixxers (AMG): I mean you gotta understand that there’s gotta be a change in direction in what type of records they make.
You can’t sit their and only make funk records and think you’re going to get the whole market. That ain’t what’s happenin’! Hip-
Hop is about what’s happenin’. It’s about what the fuckin’ young people like. If they don’t like the funk records no more, then that’
s just what it is. These muthafuckas crump dancing and shit. You can’t do that to a G-funk beat. You can’t do it to a laid back
groove.
Fixxers (Quik): I’ll say this. The only thing you can do to a west coast hip-hop funk beat is fast forward to the next beat.
Especially now. I mean I don’t even like it.
Fixxers (AMG): And it’s not even dissing! You gotta understand that we made them records that when you couldn’t dance to a
Dre beat, we made them records. You wasn’t partying to NWA. You were listening to it and trying to be hard like them. But we
came with the party records that broke the mold of that sound that you calling the west coast shit. You know what I’m sayin’?
Fixxers (Quik): We were an intrical part of the dance movement on the west.
Fixxers (AMG): Party shit. That’s what we do. We don’t shoot and kill people. We party. There’s another element to this shit.
We got a whole bunch of Kanye West niggas out here that ain’t been heard yet. Ain’t no Roc-A-Fella out here yet. We’re the
next Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam or whatever company you want to talk about. We got the history. We got the track record. And we got
the hits. We gained our respect.
Fixxers (Quik): We got a sound too. It’s funny. When people first heard the record, they were so closed minded that they didn’
t even want to give the record a chance. They were so judgemental. They saw the names on it, Quik and AMG, and was like
aww shit here we go. Our people were like just listen to it. Some people even hated it before they heard it just to let you know
how one-sided people can be. Finally when they actually listed to the record they called us back screaming like, “Man! I played
and I was dancing before I even knew what I was doing! I was moving and shit, my shoulders were moving.” And we’re sitting
back like, “Mmm hmm.”
BM: I ain’t going to front. When I saw who was on the song I was a bit hesitant and thought it was going to have
that old west coast sound but, when I played it I was like “Wow, Ok.” Then when I saw the video, I knew you guys
were doing it.
Fixxers (AMG): Did you see the label that’s on the record? Dirty West Baby! It’s a different element. That’s the name of the
company. It’s a different sound.
BM: Quik, in one of the lines from the first single you say “You can find me up in GA showing off my LA.” Did you
recently move to the “A?”
Fixxers (Quik): No Comment [Laughs].
Fixxers (AMG): Would that be bad if Quik moved to Atlanta?
Fixxers (Quik): If that were the case, how would that affect you or my fans or anybody?
Fixxers (AMG): Would you feel like he’s no longer a west coast rapper if he moved?
BM: I don’t know. I’m kind of on the fence with that one.
Fixxers (AMG): L.A., Southern California, the market is so big out here. There’s so many people here that they never leave.
They can’t get out of this element.
Fixxers (Quik): That’s it. I was getting ready to nail that one. They’re stuck.
Fixxers (AMG): Out here it’s like Groundhog Day. A lot of people are living in the past. You can’t live in the past and be
successful in the future. You can’t do that. It’s virtually impossible.
Fixxers (Quik): Plus if you think about how things work here as far as regions are concerned, there’s about 40% of the music
that’s in the pop world and the upper echelons of the hip-hop world that aren’t even exposed to the people out here. So, if you
think about a writer out here or a young hip-hop artist, he’s going off of “Man I’m about to bring the west back.” That’s his thing
or his movement. Then the first thing he’ll go off of is a old Snoop record or a Dre record automatically. You know what I mean?
I’ve been hearing that a lot through kids mixtapes and demos and that’s a good idea but you’re only going to bring it back for
your neighborhood. You’re doing music for your region. We don’t even get MTV Jams in certain parts of Los Angeles so there’s
a lot of music that our people aren’t exposed to. They don’t know where to come from when they start writing.
Fixxers (AMG): It’s a lot of them that grew up in that era and it’s so prevalent to them that they kinda don’t want to know
anything else. You know. I hear a whole bunch of south hate and I’m like how are you going to hate the south? We all got
cousins down south. [Laughs] This is just Hip-Hop music. This is rap music. It’s supposed to appeal to everybody. Don’t be mad
because you couldn’t get on the train when this shit was smokin’. You know what I’m sayin’? They think it’s going to happen
again. It came from the 80’s when it was a lot of gang bangin’ and drug dealing. That’s where the energy of those rhymes came
from. Now these young dudes think they can rhyme about smoking blunts and how their rims spin and sound hard on it and
think it’s going to work. It don’t work like that. We done did it already. Done deal. We did it the best. It’s over.
BM: So what advice would you give a young person trying to come up in the game right now?
Fixxers (AMG): Stay true to Hip-Hop. You gotta follow the market. I’m not going to sell oranges when apples are in season.
You know what I’m sayin’? I’m not going to make no money. I’m not gonna put on bellbottom jeans when straight legs are in
fashion. I’m not gonna get no bitches.
Fixxers (Quik): That’s right.
BM: Will there be more albums from The Fixxers in the future?
Fixxers (Quik): Yessir!
Fixxers (AMG): Why not? We didn’t form a group to go solo.
BM: What’s next for you guys at this time?
Fixxers (AMG): Well we’re still working on the album. We got some tour dates lined up. We already did an episode on Nick
Cannon’s new season of Wild’n Out. We did the Boost Mobile concert. We did a bunch of TV shows and we’re working on a
reality show right now to catch us putting the final touches on the album and to get to know more of what we’re about so we can
put that on your tube. Hopefully I think the show may be called “Grown Man Rap.” We’re not going to be pigeon holed into
being the same niggas.
BM: Anything else you guys would like to add to this interview?
Fixxers: Dirty West Baby! Watch out.
solo artist and producers for some of music's most prominent stars to date. After being away from the forefront
for quite some time, Quik (whom recently dropped the "DJ" from his name) and AMG are back in the spotlight to
stake claim in what was once thiers. The Fixxers have arrived and are ready to fix the game. Can U Werk Wit That?
BM: How did you guys come up with the name “The Fixxers?”
Fixxers (AMG): Well, we thought about calling ourselves “The Flat Tires” first. [Laughs]
Fixxers (Quik): [Laughs]
Fixxers (AMG): Then we thought about being the…umm…
Fixxers (Quik): “The Backyard Boys.” [Laughs]
Fixxers (AMG): …yeah, and that sounded kinda gay. Then our equipment broke down…so in lieu of that, you know, we had to
start working and shit. So we just decided to call ourselves The Fixxers [Laughs]. A big fuckin’ “F” for everybody [Laughs].
BM: You guys are long time friends. What was the process of coming back together to collaborate and do an
album like this?
Fixxers (Quik): Umm, well shit. G, should I tell him the truth?
Fixxers (AMG): Yeah, might as well.
Fixxers (Quik): See, my beats wasn’t hot for a minute. I was out of touch.
Fixxers (AMG): Aww, here we go…
Fixxers (Quik): I needed musical rehab and G was over there focused and going in a new direction. So, I put my drum
machine up and grabbed his coattail and was like, help me. So my dude started playing beats for me and I couldn’t even
bounce to them in rhythm. They were so different to me. I had like a white boy rhythm. I couldn’t get to em’ at first. Then after a
while, I started to relax and let go. Then I started shaking my ass. So, I had to be taught how to make beats again by my dude,
AMG.
BM: You’re new album is entitled “The Midnight Life.” What’s the significance behind the title?
Fixxers (AMG): That’s kind of the work starts. We’re the type of dudes that work through the party. That’s when it get to
swinging. Ain’t nobody bugging you, you’re phone ain’t ringing. That’s the time you can create and be in a zone. I like to work
when muthafuckas sleep. Let me get the upper hand.
Fixxers (Quik): Yeah, R. Kelly was on MTV the other night talking about how he likes to work after hours. So that made me be
like, ok damn we ain’t the only nocturnal niggas around here that make hits.
Fixxers (AMG): You can’t make songs in the daytime man. The sun’s shining. The bitches are out. You’ll be thrown off.
Fixxers (Quik): Yeah, what you gonna rap about? We ain’t The Beach Boys. [Laughs]
Fixxers (AMG): We’re the muthafuckin’ Fixxers nigga! [Laughs]
BM: What kind of sound can we expect on the album?
Fixxers (AMG): Clear. It’s gonna be real clear.
BM: What do you mean by clear?
Fixxers (Quik): The clarity. It’s going to sound good on any cd, mp3, anything. Ringtones. It’s going to be great.
BM: Any artist features on the album?
Fixxers (Quik): You!
Fixxers (AMG): We’re gonna put you on the album. You’re gonna open it up.
BM: [Laughs] That’s wassup! You know I’m an artist by night myself.
Fixxers (AMG): No, No, No. We’re going to have you asking questions and shit [Laughs].
Fixxers (Quik): We’re recording this shit right now actually.
Fixxers (AMG): Don’t think you’re getting off easy.
Fixxers (Quik): Mmm hmm. [Laughs] We’re gonna call you for a clearance in a minute. We’re gonna need your signature and
shit.
BM: Now your 1st single, “Can U Werk With That,” has exploded on the airwaves on both coasts and has a style
that isn’t really comparable to anyone and sounds refreshing. Did you two plan for it to pick up like this?
Fixxers (Quik): No! Who knew? It’s a pleasant surprise for me. But G is calm. He had a clue and I didn’t. So, I’m kinda late. I’m
like a fan. Fuck it!
BM: The song is hot for real. It’s really picking up!
Fixxers (AMG): Good. It’s supposed to. It’s supposed to in a sense where we’re making shit with the times and what’s
happening. So I made it a snap/clap record.
Fixxers (Quik): I like to see girls dance to it. One of my female friends, she from India and shit, she was like, “I love this record!
You can dance to any part of it.” She started shaking her ass and I was like, Yeah! Then she started shaking her titties and
moving her pelvis so I was like we need to make more of these records. [Laughs]
BM: Quik, I’ve been following your music ever since the “Quik is the name” album. What a lot of people don’t know
is that you also have been doing a lot of production and ghostwriting behind the scenes as well. Can you speak
on that?
Fixxers (Quik): Well you know, I love writing. I love writing and making music. I love working with different people and just
showing them some of the little tricks that I’ve learned. You know, for their vocals to sound better, for the music to sound better.
I just like to see people raising their game from the technical side of it. I go to the studio with someone like (Dr.) Dre and he
actually listens to me you know. That tells me that the good doctor thinks I’m important. You know. I don’t take none of this for
granted. I’m grateful.
BM: Now together you guys have also worked with a lot of new artist production wise. Can you name some of the
most recent?
Fixxers (AMG): We did a song with Jim Jones for the record. We did a song with Yung Joc for the record. We got T-pain on
the record. Possibly Cee-Lo, Too $hort, and maybe one other person. We’re going for the street ghetto vibe. That happens to
be pop records, pop music. It’s like we jumped back on at the right time when hip-hop is so huge and it needs something cause
everybody else don got their bread and are huge. So it’s our turn.
BM: Being that you’re both from the west coast, how do you feel about seeing a resurgence of west coast rap in
the mainstream? A lot of west coast artist don’t get the push they deserve these days.
Fixxers (AMG): I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think their not making the right records for the market. There were those
time where west coast records were huge. And I hate to fuckin’ say west coast. This is rap music and I don’t like this shit
divided. It gives people a chance to diss it before they hear it. You know you got a lot of people with good messages, good
songs, good movements that if you put a jacket on them, they’re not going to get heard because certain people don’t like
certain music. You know. You got certain people who don’t like down south shit. When we first made the record people was like,
“It sounds like a down south record.” Bitch! That’s whats happenin’! [Laughs] Youknow what I’m sayin’? When the west coast
shit was happenin’, everybody wanted a west coast beat. Everybody got fat off that. You know what I’m sayin’?
Fixxers (Quik): That era passed on. So, we got stuck on that “More Bounce To The Ounce” sound.
Fixxers (AMG): Yeah, more gangsta funk. Come on with it. But, it don’t sell no damn records. They already done heard it from
the best. They done heard it from Snoop. They done heard it from Dre. They done heard it from Quik. Who’s going to do it
better than them? Nobody! You can’t.
BM: Do you ever think the west coast will take over again?
Fixxers (AMG): I mean you gotta understand that there’s gotta be a change in direction in what type of records they make.
You can’t sit their and only make funk records and think you’re going to get the whole market. That ain’t what’s happenin’! Hip-
Hop is about what’s happenin’. It’s about what the fuckin’ young people like. If they don’t like the funk records no more, then that’
s just what it is. These muthafuckas crump dancing and shit. You can’t do that to a G-funk beat. You can’t do it to a laid back
groove.
Fixxers (Quik): I’ll say this. The only thing you can do to a west coast hip-hop funk beat is fast forward to the next beat.
Especially now. I mean I don’t even like it.
Fixxers (AMG): And it’s not even dissing! You gotta understand that we made them records that when you couldn’t dance to a
Dre beat, we made them records. You wasn’t partying to NWA. You were listening to it and trying to be hard like them. But we
came with the party records that broke the mold of that sound that you calling the west coast shit. You know what I’m sayin’?
Fixxers (Quik): We were an intrical part of the dance movement on the west.
Fixxers (AMG): Party shit. That’s what we do. We don’t shoot and kill people. We party. There’s another element to this shit.
We got a whole bunch of Kanye West niggas out here that ain’t been heard yet. Ain’t no Roc-A-Fella out here yet. We’re the
next Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam or whatever company you want to talk about. We got the history. We got the track record. And we got
the hits. We gained our respect.
Fixxers (Quik): We got a sound too. It’s funny. When people first heard the record, they were so closed minded that they didn’
t even want to give the record a chance. They were so judgemental. They saw the names on it, Quik and AMG, and was like
aww shit here we go. Our people were like just listen to it. Some people even hated it before they heard it just to let you know
how one-sided people can be. Finally when they actually listed to the record they called us back screaming like, “Man! I played
and I was dancing before I even knew what I was doing! I was moving and shit, my shoulders were moving.” And we’re sitting
back like, “Mmm hmm.”
BM: I ain’t going to front. When I saw who was on the song I was a bit hesitant and thought it was going to have
that old west coast sound but, when I played it I was like “Wow, Ok.” Then when I saw the video, I knew you guys
were doing it.
Fixxers (AMG): Did you see the label that’s on the record? Dirty West Baby! It’s a different element. That’s the name of the
company. It’s a different sound.
BM: Quik, in one of the lines from the first single you say “You can find me up in GA showing off my LA.” Did you
recently move to the “A?”
Fixxers (Quik): No Comment [Laughs].
Fixxers (AMG): Would that be bad if Quik moved to Atlanta?
Fixxers (Quik): If that were the case, how would that affect you or my fans or anybody?
Fixxers (AMG): Would you feel like he’s no longer a west coast rapper if he moved?
BM: I don’t know. I’m kind of on the fence with that one.
Fixxers (AMG): L.A., Southern California, the market is so big out here. There’s so many people here that they never leave.
They can’t get out of this element.
Fixxers (Quik): That’s it. I was getting ready to nail that one. They’re stuck.
Fixxers (AMG): Out here it’s like Groundhog Day. A lot of people are living in the past. You can’t live in the past and be
successful in the future. You can’t do that. It’s virtually impossible.
Fixxers (Quik): Plus if you think about how things work here as far as regions are concerned, there’s about 40% of the music
that’s in the pop world and the upper echelons of the hip-hop world that aren’t even exposed to the people out here. So, if you
think about a writer out here or a young hip-hop artist, he’s going off of “Man I’m about to bring the west back.” That’s his thing
or his movement. Then the first thing he’ll go off of is a old Snoop record or a Dre record automatically. You know what I mean?
I’ve been hearing that a lot through kids mixtapes and demos and that’s a good idea but you’re only going to bring it back for
your neighborhood. You’re doing music for your region. We don’t even get MTV Jams in certain parts of Los Angeles so there’s
a lot of music that our people aren’t exposed to. They don’t know where to come from when they start writing.
Fixxers (AMG): It’s a lot of them that grew up in that era and it’s so prevalent to them that they kinda don’t want to know
anything else. You know. I hear a whole bunch of south hate and I’m like how are you going to hate the south? We all got
cousins down south. [Laughs] This is just Hip-Hop music. This is rap music. It’s supposed to appeal to everybody. Don’t be mad
because you couldn’t get on the train when this shit was smokin’. You know what I’m sayin’? They think it’s going to happen
again. It came from the 80’s when it was a lot of gang bangin’ and drug dealing. That’s where the energy of those rhymes came
from. Now these young dudes think they can rhyme about smoking blunts and how their rims spin and sound hard on it and
think it’s going to work. It don’t work like that. We done did it already. Done deal. We did it the best. It’s over.
BM: So what advice would you give a young person trying to come up in the game right now?
Fixxers (AMG): Stay true to Hip-Hop. You gotta follow the market. I’m not going to sell oranges when apples are in season.
You know what I’m sayin’? I’m not going to make no money. I’m not gonna put on bellbottom jeans when straight legs are in
fashion. I’m not gonna get no bitches.
Fixxers (Quik): That’s right.
BM: Will there be more albums from The Fixxers in the future?
Fixxers (Quik): Yessir!
Fixxers (AMG): Why not? We didn’t form a group to go solo.
BM: What’s next for you guys at this time?
Fixxers (AMG): Well we’re still working on the album. We got some tour dates lined up. We already did an episode on Nick
Cannon’s new season of Wild’n Out. We did the Boost Mobile concert. We did a bunch of TV shows and we’re working on a
reality show right now to catch us putting the final touches on the album and to get to know more of what we’re about so we can
put that on your tube. Hopefully I think the show may be called “Grown Man Rap.” We’re not going to be pigeon holed into
being the same niggas.
BM: Anything else you guys would like to add to this interview?
Fixxers: Dirty West Baby! Watch out.
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