2 Pistols: 'It's time for me to have a good life'

(andPOP) - Jeremy Saunders isn't impressed.

He's standing in the front row at a nightclub in Florida, watching a local rapper try to spit out lyrics. He looks around—everyone else is heading back towards the bar. Nobody is paying the guy any attention.

Saunders shakes his head and laughs. The rapper catches him—and stops.

"What, you think you can do better?"

Saunders laughs again. "Hell yeah, I can!"

"Okay," says the rapper, holding out the mic. "Let's see you do better."

So that's what he does.

Saunders jumps up on stage, grabs the mic, and performs "Dirty Foot"—a song he wrote just weeks before—and brings the house down.

Flash forward a little while to 2008, and Saunders—who goes by 2 Pistols—has inked a deal with Universal Republic. Now, with the help of Grammy-award winning production team J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, the Florida-born native hopes to ride the charts to number one. His latest single, "She Got It," is already in high rotation in the hip-hop world— it sits at number 7 on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks. But part of the success is, to some degree, thanks to a special guest artist featured in the chorus—T-Pain.

"Usually, you don't really get to work with an artist like that, so it was a real blessing," 2 Pistols tells andPOP about T-Pain, who won a Grammy for being featured in Kanye West's "Good Life." "It was a lot of fun."

But 2 Pistols doesn't want the fun to stop there. He may have already collaborated with a big name in hip-hop, but 2 Pistols has his eyes set on the pop market. He's on a mission to make it big—mainstream.

"I want to get the other side of America, too—not just urban," he says. "I want to get into different genres of music; I want that side to give me that opportunity."

The first person on his list to work with?

"Gwen Stefani."

"Gwen Stefani? Really?"

"She's hot."

"Yeah? She got it?"

"Yeah," he laughs. "She got it."

That was, of course, a reference to the hit single. The song, which also features Tay Dizm, talks about the dirty things he'd like to do with a certain type of girl. But beyond "a pretty set of titties, thin waist, with brown eyes," the "it" factor 2 Pistols raps about is more than just physical. "If you are like, 'I wanna know if I got it'—No. It's in your attitude," he says. "You gotta have self-esteem. Rock with whatever you got to rock with. If you coast back and think you got it—you got it."

One thing 2 Pistol's got is honour. The rapper belongs to a tight-knit crew called Blood Money Union—a clique made up of DJs, producers, lyricists and vocalists who call each other family. Loyalty almost guarantees a spot in 2 Pistol's good book—but it's one of the hardest traits for him to come by. And that's the meaning behind the name of his debut record, "Death Before Dishonor." The title of the album, which is due in May, reflects his personal experiences dealing with tattle-tales.

"It has to do with snitching. People say they would rather die than be dishonoured," says 2 Pistols. "People get the line twisted and say, 'Yo, how can you say you should stop snitching? Our crime rate will be crazy!' But, if we went in together with a plan and you got caught and I didn't, and you told to lessen your consequences, it's not right. If you got caught, you wouldn't want me to tell on you."

But someone did tell on 2 Pistols—back when he was in the drug game. And it cost him, big. He was put on probation and house arrest, and even served time in jail. "[Someone] told on me and I was asked to tell on someone else. But if I told, then they would tell on someone else, and it wouldn't end. So, I just sat there so nobody else got told on. I put myself in that position, so I had to deal with the consequences."

It's the consequences that made him who he is today. 2 Pistols, the father of a little girl, eventually wants to try his hand at acting, following in the footsteps of fellow rappers 50 Cent and Eminem. "If my movement becomes big, like 50 [Cent] or Eminem," he says, "hands down, yeah—I would love to put together a movie." But for every lead actor there's a love interest. Joy Bryant played Charlene in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'." Brittany Murphy played Alex in "8 Mile." So the question is—who will be his leading lady?

"Angelina Jolie," he says. "She got them lips."

If that doesn't pan out, he isn't worried. Sure, there are other side projects 2 Pistols would like to pursue ("I'm going to be the only rapper in the PGA tour, straight up!"), but music is his main hustle. He just finished a promo tour last week, playing shows in Texas, Utah and Arizona, and is preparing for his West Coast Radio promo tour in April.

"I think, at the end of the day, you can put me in the category with some of the best—Lil Wayne, T-Pain, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Eminem," says 2 Pistols.

"I've been through a lot, too. It's time for me to have a good life."