As a new group Cali Swag District has had an amazing year with their now platinum single “Teach Me How To Dougie.” The four-man group (C-Smoove, Yung, Jay Are and M-Bone) hail from Inglewood, California and were discovered by former Death Row artists Big Wy and Dairold Potts.
The single “Teach Me How To Dougie” has made a major impact across the country with everyone from Kim Kardashian to Wendy Williams wanting to learn how to “Dougie.” Now that they have a deal with Capitol Records/Checkmate Entertainment the group is ready to hit us with their second single. The buzz cut “Where You Are,” which samples Michael Jackson’s 1972 hit, “I Wanna Be Where You Are” is making the rounds but the official video for “Kick Back” just debuted.
The group’s debut studio album, The KickBack, will be released on February 15, 2011 and Jazzy F. spoke with member C-Smoove to find out if Cali Swag District are for real about having longevity.
It was the first single that we recorded as a group. We just did for fun to test our luck and once it hit Youtube it just spread like wild fire. The comments told us where the people was listening to us were from so we knew that it was spreading across the country. We performed it in Hollywood for the first time and the views started going up by the thousands.
Do people ask you “Teach Me how To Dougie” all the time?
Teach me How to Dougie is like the million dollar question right now. People ask us how to Dougie all the time. In the airport, bathroom it don’t matter we can be anywhere and people ask us that.
How did you guys link up with Doug E. Fresh?
The official dance came from Doug E. Fresh with the hand movement so that is where the name came from. The first chance we got to sit down with him we did. It was only right for us to link up with Doug E. He appreciated the movement and has been very supportive.
How have your lives changed since “Teach Me How To Dougie”?
We get a lot more respect from a lot of people now, even people that we didn’t kick it with or talk to wanna be our friends now. Everybody talk about the money and cars but we appreciate the amount of respect that comes with the success.
Do you think celebs being fascinated with the Dougie helped with the success?
We appreciate all the celebs supporting the Dougie, which has helped out a lot with spreading the word about Cali Swag District. [That] allowed us to have a platinum single.
How do you guys feel about people saying Cali Swag District and “Teach Me How To Dougie” are not Hip Hop?
When people say that, we ask them ‘what do they consider hip hop?’ If people feel the music and can dance to it, whats the difference? We’re not a bubble gum group. We got music that can go over the heads of teenagers as well. We don’t trip off people trying to call us a one hit wonder because we’re not. We can get lyrical but the people can’t see that with “Teach Me How To Dougie.
What sound can we expect from The KickBack Album?
We don’t have too many features and we went with in-house production Disko and Poly Rob. We recorded the album before we had a deal [so] we touched on many different genres of music to show our range and let em know we can spit on the mic.
Can we Expect Cali Swag District to be around for a while?
“Teach me how to Dougie” has been out for about a good year and we trying to move away from that and let people see that we can really get it in on the mic. We know the Dougie gone be there but we got tons of music ready to show people that there is so much more to Cali Swag District.
