Chamillionaire Flows Freely on 16 Bars

Chamillionaire is a one-two punch of hitmaker ('Hip-Hop Police' and 'Evening News') and fly freestyler. Check out his molasses-thick flow in this 16 Bars segment, and read an exclusive interview after the jump.

What is your recording process like?

When I'm getting ready to record a new album, I basically try to be in creative mode. I'm not just creating a song, but trying to come up with a creative concept. I have to stay interested in the music. I'm a melodic person so a lot of times, I listen to the track and then decide what it's telling me to say in the hook. I like to do a lot of sing-song type hooks. That sets the direction for each song. And with the album, I just try to do something different than I did last time.

'Ridin' touched on police profiling. What type of issues will you cover on your new album?

On the new album, 'Ultimate Victory,' I'm talking about a lot of current events [including] the controversy surrounding the "N" word and hip-hop in general, the war, my view on politics and a lot of little hidden gems. That's been my whole goal: to try to get people to know Chamillionaire, the man behind the name. It's hard getting people to make a connection with an artist nowadays. I want people to connect with me. Last time, I had some deeper messages in a couple of songs and people never remember them. They remember the ringtone songs or the singles. This time I made the whole album moral, so that if you listen to the album, you get the idea.

What do you say to those who believe southern hip-hop isn't lyrical enough?

Well, I guess there's a lot of ammunition out there. There's a lot of songs that come out of the South that are pretty simple, but that's generalizing a region. It's crazy that people would think that everyone [from the South] is one-track minded and simple. Of course major labels sign a lot of acts that do the same kind of music, but there's more out there. And I'm definitely one of the artists that's trying to prove that.