I have this girl named Donya, she is so hungry it's scary. Like she calls me every other day, sometimes she calls me like "yo listen to this rhyme." I mean, she's so dope, she doesn't even sound like any female that's rapping, she's real raw. I'm putting my emphasis behind her right now, and I also have other artists that I'm trying to develop, and then myself.

You co-produce a couple of tracks. Is that something you wanna do more of? Get into making your own beats?

I like to produce at times, but, I like being a rapper, as opposed to being a producer, because I don't feel like I'm a real producer. I just, you know if I hear a sample I like I loop it up or whatever but I'm not an innovator, I'm not trying to take Preemo's job, or I'm not a threat to the Ayatollah and everybody else out there. My main emphasis is just to keep trying to earn my respect as an artist, as a lyricist, as one of the best

lyricists. I want my respect more than anything.

Everybody knows about your history with Nas. The media has blown it up a lot, and it seems like something you're pretty much over at this point, but you address him on "Love In, Love Out." What do you say in that song that you haven't let out before?

"Love In, Love Out," it's not a diss record and its not a disrespectful record, So, that's the difference. If you read some of the reviews, they're all favorable about the song. You know, like one magazine said "Cormega handled it maturely." So, its like, that's the difference, as opposed to me being mad and just venting on the record. It's not a mad record.

You also have a ton of rare, or unreleased material floating around - some of which turned up on that Hustler/Rapper CD. Do you have plans for another collection like that?

I mean, I ain't the one who made plans, you gotta talk to the bootleggers, you know what I'm saying? Like I be turning on the internet sometimes, I see one guy has a 4 CD collection of Cormega CDs (laughs) I'm like, for real? I ain't even know I had 4 CDs worth of material! I was trying to holler at homeboy like "okay, you screwing me, you fucking me out of my money�send me a copy let me hear it."

The internet definitely adds a whole new dimension to that scene.

That's how I knew, that's when I started learning my value as an artist, because, some artists that are constantly bootlegged, I mean, put it like this: my album just came out in 2001. But prior to that there was numerous Cormega bootlegs. So it's like, I had to say, what artist with no record out has had as many bootlegs as me? That's when I started realizing that there was a little market.

As somebody who's very familiar with bootlegging, what's your take on the internet, MP3s, all that kind of stuff? People burning cds and putting them up on ebay. Does that piss you off or just reinforce that heads are jonesing to hear your stuff or what?

I mean, it reinforces it, but it's not good. Especially for an independent artist, you know what I'm saying? Because every penny counts, cuz it's my penny. Like I read the internet, the last album, people will talk about it like "yo this albums is incredible, I downloaded it but after that I went and bought it." Stuff like that, I respect that, but then, I hate those people like, they don't even buy people albums they just wanna criticize you and this and that. Like come on man. And then, they claim that they love hip-hop, and then they wonder why their favorite artists aren't making albums. Their favorite artists aren't making albums because there's not a market, and they can't