What is it like eating cereal with bullets as teeth?

Apple Jacks taste a lil’ bit funny, but it’s alright.

[Everybody laughs]

Who is a bigger wanker: Kayne or 50 Cent?

Bigger what?

Wanker.

Fiddy.

Fiddy?

Yeah.

Any reason?

He’s just, he’s just a character in itself.

Okay. That’s hot as hell.

If a serial killer moved next door to you, how would you react?

No comment.

No comment?

[Hell Rell hesitates] Aaay! I live in gated communities, man, so I don’t think I would be unfortunate enough to have somebody move into the neighborhood like that.

Even in today’s world?

You have to be screened thoroughly, the places where we live at, so, I don’t think they’d get passed the screen. So I can’t answer that question.

[Ed note. Hell Rell was recently released from serving two years prison on drug charges and infamously recorded his contribution to the classic Diplomatic Immunity 2 over a prison telephone.]

Hell Rell’s boy: Serial killers where we live at eat up all the Captain Crunch before you get to it.

[laughs]

Why is it that no drug dealer in Bed-stuy who is black seems to listen to Wu-Tang? This is based on some staffers’ experiences. Can you explain to our readers why Wu-Tang might not be kosher background music when slinging in Bed-stuy?

I don’t understand the question.

[ignore lab report: One night while holed up somewhere in Bed-stuy, a few 20-something fulltime drug dealers paid a visit through 12 degrees of an acquaintance. While puffing a blunt with them from the bag they had just sold us, they proceeded to see that we were white and harmless and casually stole 20 CDs from a 150-disc Case Logic while telling us that they were on their way back to the Dominican Republic to see their family. Wu-Tang’s discography— including Killarmy, Killah Priest, Shyheim’s Manchild et al—was left untouched. On their way out, we asked them through a haze why. They answered: Nobody listens to that shit anymore. Ya’ll ain't got any fucking [non-Sean Price et al] reggae, cousin?]

Nah? Should I repeat it?

Please.

[Question is repeated]

Well I think, think, I think your, ah, I think your magazine has a misconception of Wu-Tang. I’m pretty much always in Brooklyn, and all my Brooklyn niggas love Wu-Tang so I can’t…mostly all Brooklyn dudes derived from the Five Percent Nation and Wu-Tang is a Five Percent Nation-orientated group. So I don’t even think that question is relevant to Wu-Tang.

Okay.

Wu-Tang forever!

Corey Haim or Corey Feldman: Who would you rather smoke a blunt with?

Who?

[Names repeated]

Hell Rell’s boy : Them Two Coreys.

None of ‘em.

No?

I don’t share my weed.

If you had to choose…

I would choose no one.

How would you kill Jay-Z if you could get off Scott-free? You know you want to…

Stupid question.

Stupid question?

[awkward tension]

Yeah.

So, no answer to that?

That’s just a stupid question.

About three years ago, we talked to Duke Da God [Dip Set’s cool, semi- incognito manager a la Power to Wu-Tang] on the phone. Duke knew every radio station in Florida and asked our opinion about each and every one for over 20 minutes. That’s not really a question, never mind.

[More awkward]

Jim Jones reintroduced “ballin’” and then there was “party like a rockstar,” which was fucking terrible. What is Hell Rell introducing into the lexicon of rap?

Just basically street shit; just basically gangsterism all over again in its purest form, nah mean? Two-thousand seven! Eazy-E without the monster, nah mean? Everything reinvents itself man, nah mean? You got some people calling Keyshia Cole the new Mary [J. Blige], nah mean? You got some people calling Kanye the new Primo, nah mean? So, I just pretty much consider myself the new Eazy-E without having AIDS and being dead, nah mean?

Koch’s Publicity Dan : Do you have a bunch more questions or can we go do those photos?

Not many more…

Is Lil’ Wayne getting too big for his britches?

Nah. Lil’ Wayne’s just doin’ what he’s doin’ now. He’s hot, he’s on fire, and he’s just losing himself in the moment like Eminem. I mean, you can’t get mad when a person loses themselves in the moment, nah mean?

Yeah.

Have you ever bought a gigantic knife or 100 knives off a late night infomercial?

[Smiling] Nah, nah, never.

Is MySpace owned by a white devil [Rupert Murdoch]?

I thought Tom owned it.

Tom?

I don’ know who owns MySpace.

What did you think about the ending of The Sopranos [ending: camera randomly cuts to black in New Jersey pizza parlor]?

Devastated, I was devastated.

Can you talk about it a little bit?

What do you mean talk about it; as far as it being tooken off?

Just, what did you think of the ending itself, the way they ended it.

Oh, I actually didn’t see the way it ended.

Oh, you didn’t see it?

Nah, I didn’t.

No one dies. It cuts to black in a New Jersey pizza parlor.

It cuts to what?

It cuts to black.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Wow, that is whack.

Do you live by a code? If so, what’s the core tenet of your code?

Trust no one. I live by that code: trust no one.

Cam’ron once said, “Why should I go to college? So I can get out and make 45K a year? How am I going to go to Miami eight times a year with a 9-to-5? How am I going to buy a Lamborghini?” Why did you choose college Hell Rell?

I never been to college.

No?

Nope.

What’s been your closest encounter with the devil?

Jail. Jail. Felt like that was motherfucking Lucifer in itself. Jail, pretty much. Jail.

Back when you slang drugs, did you ever let people who owed you money sell you their souls in exchange for squashing their drug debts?

Say that again.

[Question is repeated]

Nah. I would ask them to offer me their welfare card, so I could go get food and shop with it and then when they paid off the debt I’d return their welfare card. So…

But never their souls?

Nah. I’m not a gatekeeper from Hell or no shit like that. I don’t ask for nobody’s soul. [pause]

Word.

When the interview was over Hell Rell’s Boy says to me, “Yo, next time we need to screen your questions before the interview.” Before the interview started, we agreed to take photos on the rooftop of Koch Records. Afterwards, when I asked if we could go to the roof to shoot, Hell Rell was like, “For what?” I told him we wanted to get the skyline of New York in the background. Hell Rell responded rhetorically: “Do you have Photoshop?” So I asked them if we could get photos of them smoking blunts or something with guns. Hell Rell's boy pointed to the wall and said, “There’s a white wall right there, there’s your background.”

On my way out Hell Rell and his boy kept asking me if I was stoned, and had a hard time believing that I really wasn’t. I gave Hell Rell a pound and wished him the best of luck. He told me good lookin’ and said if I ever needed anything to contact Publicity Dan. Publicity Dan seemed a bit shocked by the entire episode.

This discourse on Hell Rell was written by Scott Mosher and designed by Ryan Speer for ignore Magazine, copyright 2007. Photos taken at Koch Records in New York City by Scott Mosher for ignore Magazine, copyright 2007. A special thanks to Sean Bailey.