His name resonates with a ring of reverence. He’s clearly someone to be regarded with a great deal of respect and perhaps even some degree of awe. He ministers to the masses through his music and honors the memories of the masters through his message. His flock is a group of renegade rappers known as Syndicate – comprised of members of the Crips, Bloods and other gang affiliations — and with him leading the way, they are determined to remind us all what rap music really represents.

“We’ve been tagged as the NWA of 2004,” says Pope in his New York-drenched accent. Coming straight from the streets of Harlem, Pope is not some quirky rapper who has taken on a gimmicky persona for himself. Pope is the real deal. “I got my name from the old timers,” he explains. “Those who earned their stripes in the ‘hood decided to call me Pope, which was the name for a fellow who had the same type of street credibility that I’ve had throughout my life.” 

But Pope shuns the bloodshed and street fights, choosing instead to make words his weapon of choice and fake, overly-hyped rappers his targets. And, as a four-time winner at the Apollo Theater, it’s clear that his skills have not gone unnoticed. 

With the release of his cd, “Love and Bullets,” Pope will once again display his incomparable skills on the mic. 

 “’Love and Bullets’ is just like the book Love and War and it definitely has a lot of personal stuff going on,” Pope explains, “but it’s right out in the open. You know you get the love side of the artist just throwing out his point of view about ladies and situations and girls and all that kind of stuff and the bullets – well that speaks for itself.  It’s definitely the hard edge type of stuff. It’s not a versatile album, like straight from the left to the right. It’s actually straight up the middle.” 

The first single from “Love and Bullets” is “Pope,” an uptempo, fast-ripping self-introduction that sets the stage for the remainder of the 16-track album. Some of the standouts are the naughty “Oh Yeah (I Like Dat),” a song “for them girls that make shirts look like skirts,” the strip-club-inspired “Ow!,” the dark-alley-watch-your-back anthem “Villanz” and “911,” a song about the September 11 massacre. 

The raw, uncompromisingly real stories and situations described on “Love and Bullets” are a true depiction of the hard knock life that Pope has lived since he was a young child in Harlem, raised by his mother and “the streets.” 

Drawing on his name, Pope says he considers himself a true leader of hip hop. “Someone once said to me, ‘There’s God, there’s Jesus, and then there’s the Pope.’ Two of those nobody can really see while the third one is the closest they can get to it….In my head as a rap artist, I see KRS-One as someone who is respected and called — so to speak — the God of hip-hop, the manifestation of that is Jehovah, that’s Jay-Z, and now you have the Pope.

DOWNLOAD EXCLUSIVE TRACK HERE:
WE FAMILY –  MP3 (WRITTEN A FEW MONTHS AGO AFTER HIS MOTHER PASSED AWAY)

Lyrics For We Family:

Verse One
To my family I want you to know, before one of us go, to all the ladies that I loved before, to all the money’s in the hood that I call my bro’s, I might not show it but I want you to know, things crazy in my life people’s same as yours man, it be’s like that just go on and roll man, I can’t see the power in being a poor man, picking up garbage, or being a doorman and we don’t agree always, my mind most of the time on crime always, real people got your back always throughout the storm, spring and winter summer days, whatever, things don’t always work, person closest to your heart you can will leave you left hurt, in the army of life we all put in work, cause we family man.

Chorus

Cause we close like that
Whatever
Cause we family man

Verse Two
I don’t want to wish anyone back from the dead, they got to be in a better place, least better than here. Times want to bring to back though.
The days go by so fast and good nights who don’t want them to last, till the blast from the cannon turn the present to past, write about in the future thinking about the past, much don’t change, when anybody pass, time is real, don’t get gassed, grab a piece of life, cause time will pass, do you, for time tick off on your ass. I aint tryin to change the world, we are what we are, we all a little greedy, we all a little needy, we all a little selfish, we all about gimmie, know myself how bout you, feel me? Learn a lot about yourself livin off the streets, all in it next minute you gone, don’t sleep! The reaper gona eat from the ghetto middle east back to the street, bout dead or alive we still family.

Chorus
Cause we close like that
Whatever
Cause we family man

Verse Three

Sometime you sit back and think you anit got nobody, right? Look to you left and right people sittin there, straight for you, gotcha back like what, you know.
I anit got a lot so I give what I got, you give me your last, down to the last drop. You always down to the roll, ready to pop, you’s a real G man, that’s why I call you pop. 
To my seeds that grew, now we walkin around, to all the new life, that just touched down, when I’m not around, know that I’m always down. When you need me the most, I can be found. See Pope aint perfect, I try my best, I gotta be me, can’t be nothing less. Failed a couple, now passing the test, became a man, laid mom to rest. Before I can’t see you and you can’t see me, what we always was and will always be, like air water and dirt don’t matter, all walks we will always be, family man.

Chorus

Cause we close like that
Whatever
Cause we family man

Forever Syndicate man…

For more info:  http://www.phatstaxx.com

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