Havana Green | CEO, Tuffhouse

How long have you been making music?
Since I was 5 years old, so I’ve been making music for over 30 years

What’s your favorite food?
I like rice and peas, and fish

What’s your favorite city?
My favorite city is Duggan. Yes, it’s a city [laughs]

Who’s your favorite artist of all time?
My most favorite artist of all time, I’m gonna go and say…there’s so many good ones in the category. Singular artist? My favorite of all time is Scarface

What musical trend would you like to see end right now and never, ever come back?
Autotune bullsh*t

What’s been your favorite collaboration to take part in so far?
I would say working with, see, French was good. The Lox. Styles P. Wutang was good…I mean, everyone that I’ve worked with has just been spectacular

Who are three artists you would you like to work with in the future?
Nas, Buju Banton, and Scarface

What made you want to be a hip hop artist?
Well, when we set out on this path there was nothing here, so I wanted to create something for Alberta, urban life and urban culture

What’s the advice you’d give to somebody who wants to become a producer like yourself?
Be willing to lose money, but don’t give up. Just keep grinding
How long does it take you to produce a song, on average?
Five minutes

What’s the hardest thing about your job?
F*ckin’ completing all the tasks and getting people on par, and I hate forcing people to do things. So I guess, getting people to do the things I need them to do, and properly

What inspires you, in general?
Life, and just seeing the hard work that we put in

What’s your favorite color?
Blue

What other styles of music inspire you?
Reggae, reggaeton, soca, merengue, machete, African beats

What are three artists you’ve got bumpin’ right now?
Chance the Rapper, ScHoolboy Q, and Joedeci

Are there any myths about the industry you’d like to dispel?
F*ckin’ right there’s myths, a lot of them. Thinking that you can make it overnight, that’s bullsh*t. That you’ll make money without hard work, that’s bullsh*t. That you can record an album in your basement and really go somewhere with it, that’s bullsh*t. There’s lots

Is we finish, or is we done?
Never finish, never done

What do you have coming up that we can all look forward to?
A lot of stuff, but I don’t like telling people anything, any secrets. I like to just make things happen. That’s why I’m the Ghost in the Machine

What, to you, is “Living the Dream”?
When my people stop getting killed, and I can chill back and go home how and when I want, when my son and loved ones are taken care of, and when everybody can just meditate on what’s good, what’s blessed, and just relax. That’s the dream, that’s what makes this real to me

Any shoutouts?
To the homie JD Era, Peter Jackson, the whole Wutang Clan, French Montana, DJ Whoo Kid, Styles P, all my people in Jamaica, Kingston, Panama, my team in England, and most of all – to all my Tuffhouse staff and crew

Bonus Question #1 –  What do you think about the legalization of marijuana?
I think it’s stupid. Because how can you try to legalize something that god put in the land, it’s already legal. And 2, decriminalizing it is one thing but legalizing it and then poisoning the people with GMO or Monsanto or pharmaceutical weed, that takes a medicine and makes it poisonous. We gotta think before we move

Bonus Question #2 – What (brief) words do you have regarding #BlackLivesMatter?
Without black life, there would be no life on this planet. Black lives matter the most, and either you’re with us or against us -simple as that. The human species is greedy and jealous, so all lives can never matter. The only way all lives matter is for us to take note, for instance us in this spot here, we have to matter, so that we can be equal. #AllLivesMatter is flawed, but all life does matter, yeah

Connect with Havana on Facebook