He’s Unleashing an Experiment

CHICAGO —  “Things are moving 1,000 miles a minute,” rapper Xzibit says excitedly backstage at the Allstate Arena, just another stop on his tour with Limp Bizkit, Eminem and Papa Roach. He’s juggling two cell phones and a pair of two-way pagers while talking to his manager about a new DVD documentary.

But there’s a widespread suspicion in the music industry that Xzibit’s pace will speed up with the release Tuesday of “Restless,” an album that could elevate the L.A.-based artist to the superstar strata of rap.

Although Xzibit’s first two albums were critically acclaimed, they combined to sell only about 360,000 copies in the U.S., according to SoundScan. But this new collection from Loud Records should be different.

“I think he’s grown a lot, and having Dr. Dre [work with him] is a recipe for success for a great MC,” says Rich Isaacson, president of Loud Records. “He’s also been out on the road with all of the top artists . . . and it has inspired him. He’s created his own good luck by working hard and being so talented. He sells his record better than anyone.”

Indeed, the celebrated Dre’s presence on the project as executive producer is a cause for much of the building buzz, as are the guest appearances by Eminem and Snoop Dogg. Another strong player in Xzibit’s corner is manager Doug Goldstein, who also works with Axl Rose and Guns ‘N Roses.

Sensing that his time is at hand, Xzibit (born Alvin Joiner) has been laying a foundation for the album with a series of concert appearances, which is why he has accepted the opening slot on the rock-dominated Anger Management Tour. Besides his own 20-minute set, he joins both Eminem and Limp Bizkit on stage.

“This tour is exposing me to a different audience,” Xzibit, 26, says a few minutes after his set, his red T-shirt drenched with sweat. “It feels good to play in front of an audience like tonight’s, where there had to be 13,000 people in the arena already for the opening act. You don’t see that all the time.”

Despite all the buzz and his unwavering confidence, Xzibit knows that nothing’s certain in the pop world. “You know you’re going to do something big, but the extent to which you’re going to do it is still up in the air,” he says. “No one can pinpoint where we’re going to land. This is like a weird science experiment, for me, anyway.”

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Part of the experiment that Xzibit talks about is working with a new production team.

Xzibit’s first two albums, 1996’s “At the Speed of Life” and 1998’s “40 Dayz & 40 Nightz,” were both produced chiefly by members of Tha Alkaholiks, a much-overlooked L.A. hip-hop collective.

But after an explosive performance with Snoop Dogg on the Dre-produced “B Please” single last year, Xzibit has been working steadily with former N.W.A member Dre, appearing on the producer-rapper’s own “Dr. Dre 2001” and Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP,” a mega-selling album largely shaped by Dre’s distinctive studio craft.

“A person’s dream is to have Dr. Dre do their album: Xzibit has that,” says Sir Jinx, who has produced another N.W.A alumnus, Ice Cube, and who worked with Xzibit on the “Restless” album.

Yet working with Dre hasn’t been an entirely smooth ride for Xzibit. Dre’s reputation as a perfectionist seems to be well-earned. “I would make a song that I thought was complete,” Xzibit recalls, “then, Dre would make a comment like, ‘OK, now we’ve got to make it into a record.’ I’d be like: ‘It’s finished.’

“This is the longest that I’ve ever taken to make a record. But, the process that Dre takes you through, it allows you to actually have a song that won’t just sound good for a couple of weeks. It sounds good for a long time.”

Xzibit would work on a song, then let it sit, sometimes for weeks, before working on it again. This allowed both him and Dre to evaluate the song and tweak whatever was wanting. It’s a lengthy process that caused the album to come out almost a year after its initial release date.

In addition to Dre, there are West Coast icons DJ Quik and Battlecat, as well as East Coast stalwarts Erick Sermon and Rockwilder. That makes it the first rap album since Ice Cube’s “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” in 1990 to feature such prominent producers from both the East and West Coast throughout the entire album.

“This is my ‘Chronic,’ ” Xzibit says, referring to Dre’s watershed “The Chronic,” a 1993 album hailed as a major music moment in that decade. “This is what’s going to set the pace.”

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Born in Detroit but reared in Albuquerque, Xzibit developed an early enthusiasm for rap that was met with resistance from his parents, who are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“They found an LL Cool J tape and broke it,” Xzibit says, relaxing backstage. “It was a real challenge to get hip-hop music on a regular basis. I would sneak and listen to it in the middle of the night. It made me strive for it even more.”

During his early teens, Xzibit and his schoolmates would rap for each other during lunch. Where others would simply recite the lyrics from such popular rap acts as Audio 2 while a classmate created a beat by pounding on the table, Xzibit had his own agenda.

Xzibit didn’t want to just listen to such favorites as Kool G. Rap & DJ Polo, Big Daddy Kane and EPMD; he tried to be like them, writing his own rhymes.

“I went home, wrote [my own lyrics] and brought them to the table the next day. Cats were like, ‘Whose stuff is that?’ I was like, ‘It’s mine.’ That started everything.”

In the early 1990s, Xzibit moved to Los Angeles. While hoping to hook into the city’s lucrative rap scene, he stayed at a friend’s house in Venice and worked at a car wash.

In the evenings, Xzibit performed at open-mike events at Ballistics, a now-defunct hip-hop club. The crowd loved him, and a mutual friend introduced him to pioneering Compton rapper King Tee, the leader of the Alkaholik family. Xzibit made his first appearance on record in 1995 on a track on King Tee’s “King Tee IV Life” album.

A year later, the rapper released “At the Speed of Life,” his hard- hitting debut on Loud Records. The album was marked by production much rougher than the smoothed-out sound typically associated with most Los Angeles gangsta rappers.

But what also set the record apart was Xzibit’s performance. He was a rapper’s rapper, releasing a relentless onslaught of confrontational lyrics that focused mainly on his rhyming prowess.

“The basic idea when I started on my first album was to be a lyricist,” he says. “That’s still the basis of Xzibit’s whole focus of making music. I’m not a producer. I think I’m a good writer. As long as I enhance that, I feel like I can maintain and keep my credibility.”

For rappers, credibility is paramount. What makes Xzibit distinct is that he can rap with a gangster act such as Snoop Dogg, an underground act such as Spontaneous, an offbeat act such as De La Soul and a rock act such as Limp Bizkit without changing his rapping style, and still be accepted by each one of those artists’ very different audiences.

“I can do it because it would be different if I were getting on these tracks and people were making me look bad,” he says. “But I get on the tracks and show diversity, that I can get flow with anybody and still keep my composure, where some cats have to go out of character. . . .”

“I got brought into a situation where I just stayed myself with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and all of them. I didn’t start rapping like any of them. I brought my own flavor to the table.”

And that approach picked up avalanche-like momentum once Xzibit appeared on “B Please.”

“I knew that that was going to be the beginning of something extremely huge.”

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Whereas Xzibit’s first two albums had a traditional hip-hop sound, “Restless” features a decidedly West Coast flair. Dr. Dre, Battlecat and others use a lean, crisp style that sounds cleaner than the grimy feel of his earlier work. But Xzibit remains constant, boasting with ferocity and purpose.

Still, the ambitious rapper isn’t just looking forward to hit records. He wants to branch out with his own management company and label. Once he’s finished promoting “Restless,” Xzibit intends to start working on those plans. One of the first releases on his new label, Open Bar, will be by the Golden State Warriors, a super-group made up of Xzibit, Ras Kass and Saafir.

Xzibit’s friends say that his business acumen has increased exponentially over the last few years.

“I’ve seen him get more studious business-wise, understanding the game a whole lot better,” says Montage 1, who joined Xzibit on the Anger Management Tour. “Now he has the knowledge of show business, so he’s completed the whole business circle.”

Manager Goldstein encourages Xzibit’s ambition. He wants him to think long-range and globally rather than simply the U.S. rap market.

“As soon as you see him, you know that there’s no contrivance,” says Goldstein. “Offstage, he’s the same guy that he is onstage. He’s the real deal. My goal is to have Xzibit playing in the U.K., Germany, Japan, anywhere he can. I think the music is so good that it should be exposed to the rest of the world.”