It’s safe to say Rapper Big Pooh has been doing this for a long time. So it’s a celebration to know he’s still going strong with the tunes gearing up to bless the world with his new To Dream in Color studio effort.

Pooh links up with Apple Music 1’s Ebro Darden to talk everything from an upcoming Little Brother film to having more than 20 years to his name. The convo goes long so here’s 6 gems from the discussion.

1. Rapper Big Pooh on Releasing His Most Personal Album To Date…

It was scary. When I create, I just create. I don't think about how people are going to receive it, none of that. But as we started mixing and I started listening, I was like, "Oh, boy. I'm giving a lot." And you just never know how people going to receive that, but the reception's been awesome, so…I think now I’m just sitting back looking at Instagram and social media, period, and just how people, you only see the end result, or what you believe is the end result, and nobody ever tells you how they got there. So it's like math. It's like, "Okay, this is the equation. You show me the answer, I need to see the work." This is me showing the work. It's like everything ain't what it seems, but it ain't all bad. It ain't all good. It's life. It's ups, it's downs, it's arounds. It's how you land at the end. And so I just want people to see that just like, "Listen, I'm still good. I done went through this. You can go through whatever you going through and you can still wind up good yourself." So just sharing the work. That's it. Showing the work.

2. Rapper Big Pooh Tells Apple Music About Collaborating With Little Brother Parter Phonte and Why He Kept The Project To Just 30 Minutes…

If you listen to it in order, it's going do something different for you. I know cats, they make playlists and they bounce around a lot so it's set up for that as well, but it's more musically sonically if you listen to it in order, it flows and has a certain flow to it. Shout out to Phonte. He actually sequenced the album for me, but it's a quick listen. It's 30 minutes. I get in, get out. That's when the ideas stopped coming. I don't force man. I had something that I wanted to do. I had points I wanted to make. I got through them all. I tried a couple different records, wasn't quite working out like I wanted. I just cut them. Give people something that they want to rewind versus something they want to skip tracks on and that's what we've been doing since 2007, it's just we giving you something to say, "Man, it's over already? Let me go on back to the beginning", versus, "Ah, okay. Yeah, no, first time I listened to the whole thing, now I'm going to go through seven, eight, 12, 13, 22", and then that's it.

*Rapper Big Pooh and Ebro Darden link up. Photo credit: Apple Music 1.*

3. Rapper Big Pooh Tells Apple Music About Only Writing When He Has Something To Say…

I got a beat from these cats, The Mercenaries. They co-produced the first single, “LS400.” I love the beat. I'm still going to do something to it, but I love the beat, but I was sitting there and I was like, "Nothing I'm coming up with works with what I have. Set it to the side, don't do it", and I didn't do it. And I had another joint I was trying to get a feature on and it wasn't happening in time, but going back after the record was sequenced, I'm like, "That record didn't even fit anyway." So it just worked out that it didn't work out. So yeah, once the thought is complete, it's a wrap, man. I wrap it up. I don't keep going. I don't make five different versions of the same concept and then pick the best. I don't record like that. We don't take practice shots over here. We aim to kill.

4. Rapper Big Pooh Tells Apple Music What Fans Can Expect From The Forthcoming Little Brother Documentary…

I'll say this. It's not the story people think it is. I think people going to go into it and they going to be focused on the sordid details of why 9th’s not there, why they break up and we get into all of that, but it's more than that. It's more of a complete story and that's the thing. You want to make it compelling for people who don't know who you are. You want to introduce them to you and we felt the pandemic gave us time to reassess what we were doing because we started this documentary in 2018, but this gave us time to reassess and really get the story that we wanted to tell.

*Rapper Big Pooh. Photo credit: Apple Music 1.*

5. Rapper Big Pooh Tells Apple Music About Taking a Chance With His Debut Solo Album ’Sleepers’ in 2005…

A lot of people didn't know at the time I did that record. Phonte, he didn't help with that record, 9th didn't help with that record. 9th came in at the very end, but that was literally me and Khyrisis. I always say that was my coming out party and I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about songwriting just through trial and error, but I just loved the chance I took with that record, because I didn't have to do it. I could have just waited till it was Little Brother time again, but I always wanted to be better than what I was. Every time people hear me, I want them to say, "Damn, he way better than he was the last time I heard him." I don't care if it was a month ago, I want to be better than I was a month ago. So that's probably what I love the most about that record…With that album, I go back and listen, I be like, "Damn, I was trash." I wasn't trash, but compared to where I am now…I cringe because I hear things I could have done differently, words I could have said as opposed to what I actually said and how I put together bars.

6. Rapper Big Pooh Tells Apple Music About The Future of Little Brother…

We going to get some music. I don't want to say it's an album. I don't want people to pull up and it's four records and they'll be like, "I thought we was getting an album." It's going to be some music. It's going to be some music coming. [Ebro: I guess people want to know, you, 9th, Phonte? Will that ever be a thing again?] Nah, that time has come and gone. At this point I think Little Brother just works better, more efficiently, smoother as a duo.