For Black Music Month, let us revisit when Hip Hop (and more) producer Just Blaze shared some of his recording secrets and talks about everything from the Jazz great who still prank-calls him to what it was like showing up in New York City with $40 in his pocket.
Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
What's Up, Everybody, It's Sugar Steed from Team Supreme. June marks Black Music Month.
We often speak.
About it on Questlove Supreme and we've had some of the legends responsible.
For the recognition on the show.
Every day this June, we are running a different episode from the QLs archives to honor the tradition and intent of Black Music Month. This week we are focusing on some of the great hip hop conversations in the ULS catalog. Our leader Questlove has a new book out called hip Hop Is History. Check it out at questlove dot com. This is a conversation with just Blade, who has been a leading hip hop producer in DJA for over twenty five years.
Suprema sub Suck Supremo, roll call Suprema sub sub Suprema, roll Suprema Supremo, roll call Suprema So Supremo.
Roll Quest Love heard stories, Yeah, legends getting busted, Yeah, hashtag ass.
Vaughn Yeah or ass dusted.
Supremo, roll call Suprema something Supremo, roll.
Call Fonte's in the building. Yeah, funky rhymes.
I bust.
Yeah.
If you see my friend Just Blaze, Yeah, don't give him any dusts.
Supremo. Roll to hear that.
Sorry, sure, roll call.
My name is Sugar, Yeah, Sugar Steve, Yeah, Just Blaze.
Yeah, no problem, roll call no um on pay bill. Yeah, I'm gonna break it down up. Yeah to Just Blaze.
Yeah.
And the NPC four Housing.
Ro Supremo, Supremo roll call, Supremo Son Something Supremo roll call.
Boss Bills in the house. Yeah, still broke as a mofo.
Yeah, but I'm still going to ask just yeah for a hookup at Polo.
Supremo, Supremo roll call, Suprema Suck Sun Supremo roll Call.
It's like, yeah, oh boy, I'm ready, Yeah for Just Blaze.
Yeah, it's baby roa call Suprema No, Yes, Supremo.
Roll No years online, Suprema son som roll call.
My name is just Blaze. Yeah, I'm great, No years, no one that I still brock from state to state.
Wait, roll call, roll call Suprema Son.
Suprema Ladies and gentlemen, no problem, yeah, Steve.
Yes, Steve actually came up, like why you said rhythm No, no, no, that was your best That was your best rhythm.
We're all high right now. Thanks, it was amazing.
I feel bad, he said, no, yeah, and then we didn't me to death.
I didn't. I had a sixteen ready son.
I didn't realize. Yes, take over the production, but of course you have the producer.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Quest Love Supreme only on Pandora. Please welcome our guest Justin Blaze. What's your middle name, Gregory? Justin Blakey Blakery.
It's the Weed.
It's it's Steve, you know, gentlemen, uh one, one of my favorite producers, one of the loudest producers, I mean, the era of the loudest drums ever. I felt ended with just place for real, like bring the drums back, bro. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome just Plaze to the show. Indeed, just since you, I feel are like the difference between your era production and the era of some guests that I've been on the show is I feel like your your second generation Renaissance. Okay, So, thus you were a fan of the original Renaissance crew, the tips of the large professors of the Pete Roxy. You grew up you know on their music before you. So thus I feel as though that makes you probably a student like a fan.
You're you're, you're, you're a suit of.
Renaissance rap, and you know, I feel as though it's time for you to let us know what time is.
Do you guys know what time it is? What it is?
This time? You do?
Ladies and gentlemen, It's time for another round of.
Justin Blaze, Sir, tell him what the game?
You name this?
Snare? Oh?
Oh?
Special edition, special edition. This is scrutinizing, all right, fifteen snares? What's this snare? Oh, I'll do it again to name it.
I can never remember the name of this one either. Yes, there you go. What's this.
Meters again? Oh? I used it on game? Yes, I can remember the name of it. But I know the break. I've used it the zillion times. No, no, no, I'm tripping. I know I've used it. I have the break.
I just.
South Side movement say the world. Yes, yes, Joe, yes, Joe text Popois to.
M M. I know that sport, Yes, that was sport lightning rod cool mean gang.
Oh, I know that Hey fellows some people sally so that woman man be a man. I didn't I didn't even that happened. Just just keep going.
Now you're gonna get cocky, motherfucker.
Heads. Yes, God made me.
The last one. H Actually that's not fair. It is you, isn't it.
I was about to.
Say this is the one that.
I say. I just had the song.
Yes, I inserted myself, as I do with everything in life. But I thought, but the thing is it sounds I thought, motherfucking no, they wanted to loose me. One of the biggest almost near like roots melt down fist fight things was that they.
Meaning not me.
They wanted to keep the Clyde stubble Field h soul bride. But I was like, no, I wrapped uphold and so I thought me and Russell Elevado worked on that ship for like now.
You fool me.
I was always thought that was what that's what that was, No man, and I kept doing the roles at the end. Let people know it's not I mean gus me. Anyway, There's going to be four other rounds of this.
There's no problem breaking. So I used to win this game.
I know you, you and I are like this right.
So, like on the radio, Z one hundred used to have a morning show where they used to do exactly this, and this was mymas used to drive me the schools every morning. We listened to Z one hundred and the would play a half of a second of a song and we would, you know, in the car amongst ourselves. We would play the game every morning. So fast forward a little bit later. There was a point where it wasn't Hank eleven and Halfpipe, but it was another one of the underground radio shows at the time. I was twelve. I was eleven, eleven or twelve, and they used to do exactly this, and I won six weeks in a row because.
When you guessed the one second.
Yeah, one second, and it wasn't a stare. It's just like they play a second of a song. But I was too young to actually win, so my mother used to have to accept the prizes for me. So it got to the point and then and then mister Magic and I was doing it on in show for a while. I won that four weeks in a row. It got to the point where they were like, justin all right, you put your mom on the phone. I want I want to set a cold chilling glasses. I want tickets to see that R and B group of boys. Wow, remember that you might remembered had a song called Rabbit stew Yeah, I won that CD just every week for like two month straight. I was winning off of doing this.
I've heard you sell the story before, and that is partially the reason why I started bit you guessed, because based on you.
Know, hearing him. Yeah, here is snippets. We'll do more later.
Yeah, I'm kind of going off off of off script more than I normally do. I kind of want to continue you and I just came from uh about south By Southwest, uh months ago, and I more like weeks.
Yeah, we my fault. You know, time doesn't exist with me, that's true. But you.
So when we were eating you you declared something that totally blew my mind.
Uh.
There's two teams. There's Team Bizarre Ride to the Far Side and Team Lab Cabin. No, no, well team even then even then there's a battle, but there's there's Team Bizarre Ride to the Far Side versus Team ninety three to Infinity.
Guess what team just plays plays for?
Hell? Yeah, thank you? Thank you?
Wait you too? Yeah? Yes, wait you too?
Yeah, I mean listen, Bizarre Ride was wait anyone on my side?
I am?
I mean it doesn't matter because it's me, but I am she has to.
Be on your side. No, no, no, no, I'm never on his side.
I didn't hear Bizarre Right to the Fire Side until twenty ten, to be wait, honest, that's seven.
Yeah, I know, I know.
I heard it later than that.
Really really, you're wait, y'all got something commented you listen to it fully as an album for the first Yeah, for the first time.
I heard it for the first time as an album when the box set came out.
When You Get Out, that's when I got it.
So like for me, I heard, are you motherfucker like.
The record? Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't that I didn't like this thing I used to Well, at the time it came out, I didn't have money to buy up everything, and I didn't have time to steal everything like I wanted to.
So, like it was pick and choosing. Far Side just wasn't catch up you. You purchased records before you were born.
Right right, But like Far Side just never. I mean I had I had passed me by twelve minutes. That was all I really felt like I needed exactly.
So for me, what it was was I've been jaking since I could walk little, whatever money I had went to records. I got to pass me by twelve and you had to get that as a DJ. Aside from that, what was the other single? There was the remix Other Fish and I got on the Fish, which and I love both of those records. There classic records to me. I'll tell you it was two things. A something didn't compel me to go halfway with that album. And secondly, but neither one of my local record stores had it on WAX. I didn't buy some of these and tapes Infinity came on had then it was only on one as most albums were back then as opposed to double a triple vine. So for me that time, by the time I got to listen to it, I didn't hear it in the era that it mattered. Now. On the other hand, it was a whole different animal for me. It was dudes that definitely rhyme different, but they still had an East Coast sensibility about them, so the beats still kind of rock like, even though they're rhyme patterns and I did we're different. I'm not saying they didn't. I just I didn't have I didn't have access to it back then. Right, But now that said Lab Cab in California, it's one of the best albums ever, and I will argue to death for Lab Cab versus.
All Right, yeah, Early are born in seventy eight, right, yeah, yeah, eighty four? Like yeah, Margaret, I'm born in eighty four, Margaret, you know that?
To me, that doesn't really I don't know if that plays a factor for me, at least personally, because so this morning, I'm talking about records that came out when I was four years old and known verbatim. But I know him from back then, so it wasn't like I missed the just completely missed that error. I just missed that album Were.
You in the Club? Because I think the reason maybe it got to me was because I was in the club and they were playing in the club in DC, Like at ther.
Were you going to be in the club at ten years old?
It was I was fifteen.
I mean, yeah, exclusive, everybody knows that.
Put on.
It's weird. I don't like.
The thing was is that when the Your Mama video came out and they played a lot on video music jukebox, I kind.
Of dismissed him. I was like it was slow.
It was nothing new about substitution that I haven't heard before, substitution to break.
Uh.
But when I heard for Better for Worse, that was the one that was.
That was just a goddamn revelation to me, and I told him for Better for Worse was the reason why we put Scott Storche in the roots because Richard Nichols's partner, aj Sons Simmons, he was our stretch Armstrong and Babeto of Philadelphia. So Drexel Radio was where we got our real hip hop because by then, like Poara ninety nine was just like anti you know, less rap, you know that sort of thing. So you know, when he got the record, he was like a state of Emergency's like, yo, I think we slept on the forest side. You got to hear this record, so we like it was dead of winter. We got in that car and listened to the ship and when for Better for Worse came on, like I can only describe it as if you ever seen like the Parliament Motor Booty Affair commercial or just the color, like the shit sounded like water, and I can't explain that. Maybe it's the first time I actually heard offender Rhodes up in the mix of it. But when I heard that ship, I was like, Yo, this ship sounds like water, like we need That's what we needed.
Our ship.
And so Richard's like, yo, a white kid living on my floor at my house him and then he came in next day.
I was like, can you sound like this?
And Scott just started playing the Roads and it's like you're in the group. Well, yeah, that's where you say that, and I'm La Cabin either because I.
Seem from me, Lab Cabin was more of a revelation for me just production wise as well, like, uh, the song, the songs were great, but for me, the production on that album.
I'll say when I when I first heard Bullshit was that the first time I really heard Dyla. We we were doing a show with the Far Side and this is when the album just got done, and like when Lab Cabin had just got done. Yeah, okay, so like we just started. Actually, do you guys have a Cat's Cradle the North Carolina and it's in car Bro Okay, so the Far Side and Roots are doing a show at the Cat's Cradle and whoever was doing like the local college nighttime hip hop joint. We opened for the Far Side, so they came to scoop me to take me to the College station, and I wanted to stay just to see Far Sides intro because you know, they had one of the best stage shows ever, like the energy.
There's this four men.
It was like watching bad brains on stage, Like they were just like all over the place crazy.
And you know, I saw the intro.
They came out to uh do do uh Ronnie Laws, Uh uh yeah, pressure pressure Sensitive is the album, yeah, title title wave tight Wave. So they came out to that, and I thought, oh, okay, that's that's that's a good intro. And then I got in the car, but because the door of the club was open, you can hear the vibration, you know, you hear the vibration of eight to eight outside the club, and dog, all I heard was we were literally outside the about to go on the highway. But I kept hearing the vibration of Dyla's kick patterns and it sounded off and I made them stop the car and I ran back to the car the club so I can open the door and listen.
And I was like, yo, it's like a drunk three year old.
Did this shit, and I'm trying to describe to the roots, like yo, that new Forest sid song has a kick pattern that's like it sounds real messed up. And the next night I was like, who did that shit? And they explained like this kid named JD and that sound like you know.
They worked on but I was interning. I might have been assistant and journalist at that point. They spent some time at the Student I used to work at Where did You First? At the cutting room and eighty eight Keys was working with them at the time. I don't know if any of the records actually made that album, and he was working on them during that time, so a lot of those songs they were bringing up while they were in there working. So I would say that was probably my first time hero between that and Well, I guess no because The Busters the Coming came out before that bron But yeah.
The Coming was ninety six. The Coming was ninety five. Ninety five, damn it was ninety five.
So I want to say the Coman is the first time I had heard, but I didn't really know who he was or you know.
I was on Mass he was on Skills first album too. What was that ninety six. That was That's the first time I can remember hearing him on that album. He was on He's on Skills, first album, going down the Jam and Skills and.
Yeah, there's the third.
I go back and listening to the album.
There's actually a song on the coming. I didn't know that he did that. The l and that song did. Yes, he did. That was back Spin, which one which one would keep it moving, Keep moving.
That was on ram Page's cousin.
Credits. Yeah, it's credited to the Uma. Really, yes, and when you listen to that snare, it's you.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking of the other posse he cut, the Deaf Squad meets Flipbow Squad. That's what I'm thinking of. Okay, that was back Spinea.
Yeah, and it's it's like I didn't even thought about that.
I don't even thought about who. For some reason, I always assumed that Backspin did that because of the drums. Now, but now that you mentioned it, it makes it makes sense.
I didn't even know that that was he did it, Like I overlooked that.
In my you know what, I hear it all that.
Right, that there was a Yes, I'm looking for it as we speak.
It's not I'm not just keep it, keep it moving along. So you said you were DJing since you were four like around that.
Yeah, so what was your household like that you had access to those records?
Like, how did you?
So in my house it was it wasn't just my house, but it was my family unit in general, my family at the time pretty much all lived in the same city, and me being the first baby in the family. Uh, you ended spend a lot of time, you know, with your relatives, spending the nature big cousins, household weekends and things like that. So in my immediate household, my pops, uh was a jazz organist, taught himself how to he reverse engineered reading music. He knew how to play, but didn't know how to read. So he would get the sheet music to songs that he knew how to play and see what was happening on the paper and then say, oh, so when it says this, this is the nope that I'm supposed to be playing. So he kind of reverse engineered reading music.
Wow.
So he always had Casio keyboards and Yamaha keyboards aside from his Thomas organ, and you know, he would let me play with him and that's kind of where the making music bug really first came about, because we had like then Casios had uh the drum pattern loops drum, yeah, the loops, and you can actually you could you could have on the base side you could hit a bass note play. So there was that. And then his Thomas organ was one of the ones that had the drum pads in it, or drum pads on it. They weren't there were more like chick lick computer keys and there was no sequence there, but you could tap a kick a snare how I had and all that, So that there was that. And then my aunt was an avid collector of like late seventies and early eighties fulk in R and B. Spent a lot of the standards, sheryln Earth, putting fire and stuff like that. But I used to spend a lot of time at her house on the weekends as well, and I would just sit there and take all her records up the sleeves and have them all out on the wood floor. And she was walking into the room and be like, what are you doing with my records? Like they were out the sleeves just and I'm just sliding them across the wood look at yeah, look at the LA fascinated bout labels and the covers. And then so around that same time, I had an older cousin. He's seven or eight years older than me. This was right when New York Mixed show became a thing. So you had Red Alert and Chuck Chill Out on Friday and Saturdays on Kiss and then you have Mister Magic and Mollie Maw on UH one on seven on Fridays and Saturdays. So he had I might have been six ish at the time. He's maybe the twelve ish, so he had he had a boombox and his sister had a boombox. So on weekends I would stay by his house and we would uh listen to both shows at the same time and record them and then just wear that tape, both of those tapes out for the next week. We had no money at the time for more cassettes, so we would just record over last weeks show. Eventually, you know, I got a little bit older, we started archiving things, right, But so I remember like when when they premiered Salt and Pepper the Showstop, or when when when Red played U Disco three Fat Boys for the first time, Like so That's what I'm saying. Like, I didn't really miss a lot in terms of their early things. I was there for all of that. And what my cousin would do. He lived run a corner from a record store, So what he would do is he would buy all the twelve inches. As they got old and the albums would drop, he would give me the twelve inches. So like Suckers comes out, and it's like that comes out, and then the self titled album comes out, so he gives me that single. Who didn't he horn a House of Rock comes out? Then their album comes out, he gives me that.
So he would give you the twelve inches because he had he had the album, so he's like, I don't need the single. He didn't think about it, like it plays better as a twelve.
Inch, you know what I mean. So then and then in terms of the actual DJ anything, I'm listening to these guys scratch records on the radio and I'm but I'm not really sure what it is that they're doing. I'm thinking they're taking the needle and rubbering across the actual wax. So then we actually we had this conversation on our group chat the disco I'm sorry. The Crash Crew in Fantasy three both had the same melody as first year rocking on the radio, so right, well, Fantasy three was first Sylvia heard the melody. Jack didn't ye so, but but they came out pretty much back to back.
So he.
He had a one time table in his room. He plays the trick coman. He's like, you want to see me make a record, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it. So he plays Fantasy three and then he stops it and puts he had the Crash Crew record right underneath it, so he took the Fantasy three record off and just put the little down the Crash Crew and I'm like, oh my god, this was the same mellot. I'm thinking he's doing something, not realizing he's just playing two songs. But then his older sister had a one of those eighty star rack systems, and at the time it was a push button operated like the selector input selected was a was a Each one had its own push button, so you would push a button for cassette, push a button for turntable, push a button for radio whatever. Long story short, she had two. I want to say there were Fisher turntables in there and if you pushed a phone on one in PHONEO two they could both play together. So he takes he had a copy of Thriller. She had a copy of Thriller, so he takes beat It. It takes both copies of Beat It and starts one right after the other. So it's going boom boom cat Gat boom boom got gat boom boom cat Cat boom cat cat making the drum stutter. So it was pretty much all downhill from there, Like I became obsessed with with records and yeah, exactly, and then I would I would say, you know, I'm Cassio comes out with the s K five, which was liked my no my one of my best friends growing up down in Virginia. When I used to steal my aunt down there, he had a SK one and it was cool, but it was still just you put one sound in it, and it was that. That was that s K five. You had drum pads and four seconds of sampling time. So right around that same time, that same summer, actually, I think is when my aunt bought me Nations Are Millions, one of the only cassettes I've bought because Sam Goodey didn't have the vinyl so that Christmas, my best friend's sister gets to SK five. We jacked her for it.
Christmas, I was gonna say, did you steal like records or you stole her keyboard?
NOI stole her s K five, damn. But then I'm the reason I bring up Nations Nation the Millions is because I'm realizing that these records I'm finding in my mother's addict are on this public enemy record, and I'll never forget the day I realized that what funky drummer was? I found a forty found of a drummer, a funky drumber forty five, and.
You grew up in a funky drummer forty five household? Yes yeah, your mom's official.
Yeah yeah yeah, like like all of that, like Isaac all pretty much all the breaks, all the commercial but not like the stuff that they used to play in the park and the stuff he had to date for but anything like that was on stacks. James Brown involved, Isaac Hayes whatever, all those breaks and she it was like three boxes off that I found in the addict was when I was When I was young, Attict was a forbidden zone. You didn't go up there. Unless you had permission from my moms, because it was it wasn't a finished attic. It was like stuff everywhere. So I but I went up there anyway one day and found a box of records. I started bringing the records down and I'm realizing, I can make these beats that from here on this public Enemy records have the SK five and I have these records. And we had a thing called the Star Studio, which was it was it was a scam. It was basically a double cossette recorder. And what it did was it allows you to record to the left side of the tape and the right side of the tape signal wise independently. Right but true, that's two tracks, right, so you can have a song playing on one side and then record a vocal to the other. I used to make these things on SK five and then on the other side, me and my brother would rap right. And as you know, I don't know how far that to the story you want to go, but that was the beginning of me even realizing what making music or making beats. You would see that that verage you had to do it all. You had to wrap, you had to write, you had to break, you had to do everything. So it was really all of us in our little crew kind of all kind of attempted to do all of it, and eventually some of us just got better at one specific thing.
Incidentally, where were you born, Hackensack, New Jersey?
Okay, but I grew up in Patterson Cool but yeah, So it was like for me, I was pretty good with the hands of graffiti. I was decent with the breakdancing as well. I used to get busy and then it was DJing and rapping and making beats, so the djang and production things. But I excelled out, excelled at the quickest, and my rhyms were decent. But I'll never forget the day my brother turned eleven. My cousin has taken me to one hundred and twenty Fish Street for the first time, so I must have been well, not just turned ten, so I think I was twelve. He's taken me to go to record shoping one hundred twenty fifth for the first time, and I'm playing one of our beats on a cassette and we were having a rap battle in the back seat with my cousin's driver and I rhy and then he rhymed. He sent this front that blew me out of the water, blew mine out the water, and I hung up the rhymes. After that, I just said, right, so what we're gonna do is I'm ana beat Pete Rock and you're gonna bcl Smooth. And I actually found a demo that we probably made when I was like fifteen and he was eleven or or about twelve. I posted it on SoundCloud. If you look at the picture on it, we think we're Pete Rock and seals move when you listen to the beat, I'm actually cutting up, just rhyming with BIZ and I'm using a I'm using a cannibal alete. I looped up a capricorn Capricorn because yeah, you couldn't tell us people was in Pete Rock and cel Smooth.
Okay, yeah, because you were fourteen by the time.
Yeah yeah, exactly right around like fifteen and shit.
So weird, man, that's some crazy shit.
But that was my life period, Like I didn't know anything else.
So when did you get your first drum machine? Like, okay, I want to do this right, So I had was your machine a choice?
I had the Roland. Remember they used to make the Doctor rhythms, So I had a do R six sixty and then Lexicon, you know, Lexicon makes the we verbs and the delay unions. They scammed everybody and made it called the jam Man, and they marketed it as a sampler to make beats on. But what it really was was just a delay that you could sink to MIDI. So you would put a loop in there to sink to middy and you could start and stop it with your computer or whatever you were sequencing with, but you couldn't say anything with it.
You can what year does this mean the jam Man?
Oh maybe ninety two ninety three Bob said something about this.
It's Bob Power. Yeah.
I also believe that Marley A. Y the earlier version of this, like one of the like even I think that nobody beats the bis break.
He did it through I can sink right. So that Christmas that year, whatever year it was, Roland comes up with this thing called the JS thirty and it was kind of like looking back, it was called the Sampling Workstation. Looking back, it was kind of like a very very low budget answer to like an npcin kind of thing, so relatively relatively little budgets. It was twelve hundred dollars. So all I wanted for Christmas was that didn't think I would actually get it because it was twelve hundred dollars.
How much were MPC or like yeah, I was like, yeah, twelve.
Hundred and twenty four ninety five back then. So I skipped the one thing seeing the Soul to Soul video and Nelly what's his name, Nell Hooper Hooper is on stage and back to life and he's got the Mac that's for a keyboard.
I remember that.
So that was like and I got we had gotten a computer. I used. I used to computer computer program as well. My dad was a computer program for a living and he was a keyboard just as I. So I see Nelly playing the Mac or playing the keyboard connected to the Mac, and I'm like, you can make music with computers. So beg mom to take me to software et cetera. And I walked in and I'm like, I need the program to that you make music on a computer.
Wait, I'm like, I'm laughing because of how influential videos are, uh, in the life of a kid watching it and then you see something that could just be for show because you that's it. I watched Prince like do you remember the Bad Dance video where he had like the laser dis and.
I Prince got scratching.
When cdj's came out, that was the first thing I thought of, was Prince in the Batdance video. And it was in Speaking of which also the very first thing that my mom has ever got me. I skipped this as well, was the Radio Shack Realistic mixer, the PA mixer. It was a four channel with a no fader and only had up and down switches. Right, So I see Terminator X in the Bring the Noise video and he turns out he wasn't even really the guy doing the scratches on the records anyway, but he was their show DJ. But he's doing in the Bringing Noise video there's appointment there on State somewhere and he's back spinning two records and he's only using the up and down faders, not using the cross fader at all. So I'm thinking at the time, as is this impressionable kid Tornadox one of the best DJ's ever, These public enemies DJ. He doesn't use a cross fader, so the mixed writing is the one without the cross fader.
Oh no.
Mixer.
They later added across had cross Face. You're listening to Course Love, Supreme and just Plaze. Here is sharing, uh, the origin of his story with us and New cross Faders. Hey, actually, since we're at it, let's go around to.
Drum Fields. Are you ready?
I might not be as good drum now.
This is easy, okay, come on, Hey.
What is it? Parliament is the problem to?
All right, I'll do it right.
I don't know, Yeah, I've never actually never heard I've heard it you Oh well listen. Yeah, I know it's from Shake Your but I.
Never knew what another album I didn't.
I was lated to that one to actually the producer's dream.
I know, and I still don't like you play baby.
I'm all, you're just straight mean potatoes. Be you like to mean potatoes? I like the not the gardens on the side.
It's the same, but it's the same story. We'll go back to the roll to the second in a nutshell. I didn't buy a Poles boutique when it came out because I didn't find but.
I didn't like what's the first thing that lad? I thought that ship was kind of corny. I wouldn't.
I didn't even know that album existed until like maybe five years after it came out.
Really yeah, I feel like it's.
For me personally. I can listen to it now and I understand why it was revolutionary and production. It's not in my go to Four of the Beast, these catalogs.
Ah, I feel that's their being to me artistic. I can't even listen to licenses l anymore. This is kind of grading.
Oh, I love I listened to that well.
I mean, I respect its history, but I mean as a guy who lives for record reviews and a guy who like wakes up at five am to see what Pitchfork gave something some ship like Rolling Stone was my Pitchfork as a teenager, and to see those out of touch dudes give him a lead review and a four star, Like what's the chances of some freddy white boy uh uh, mockery hip hop group getting an artistic.
Come lottery like this, this, this, these accolades.
So you feel like it was undeserved, many and manufactured.
I mean I feel, you know, in the in the and yeah and the pantheon of of of artistic statements. I feel like the Father's nation a million, the sun is three fet hot and rising, and the Holy Ghost is Paul's boutique for the late eighties. Like those three records opened and also subsequently shut shut the door right on. Yeah, you had to be my age at the time, like we weren't expecting an artistic statement from the beastie boys.
Like I was ready for more, just like you know girls. Yeah they're they're brandy mockery hip hop, and I got an artistic statement. You know, he slept on it for me. It was ill communication. That was the one where I was like, I fucked like, that's the one I come back to.
That's when I got back on the train, you know your head.
I wouldn't really on that one. Yeah, they were finding themselves on check yea.
But yeah, I think I thought that there was they were discovering something about themselves that wasn't there before. Here's next, LTG.
Cut cutting it up. I'm actually bad at this. What the hell.
Do you want to play?
Even like he knows this ship? You better know this ship. Oh bust and Loose, Yes, of course I made.
I never cut that one up. As a kid, you ain't into the go go blaze.
You DJ for old black people, like.
Busting Loose is still not in my list at all. I don't I don't play it.
You ain't doing barbecue late of course, come on man, Yeah, we'll talk about that later.
But now what is it? Oh shafton Africa, Oh saff Africa. Wait one more time? Oh I know what this is? Justin blaze? What does this feel?
It's not the shylight it is okay, I'm not trip from the woman.
Last one cars back guaran Yes, yes, so all right, so your.
First official so the drug you tout the drum machine things too, Yes, a s R two.
What year was this?
Right after the Wan? Yes, because I want to say it was rap Pages did an article on him. There was uh, it wasn't a production based article, but they didn't get into that. The ten was the keyboard, right, yeah, that was no, No, the ten, The ten was a keyboard interrat should you either got the keyboard or the rat And then the n s R X was the npc ST.
Yeah.
So yeah, the a s R ten read an article that's what I used, that said, that's what we gotta get.
The s R ten, I shall say to this day, Michael D'Angelo Archer still uses in a s R ten, still walks around Steve can verify this.
I've got some of the floppy disks in my pocket right here. He doesn't know, Yeah, Steve uh, Like he refuses to move.
He feels like it will cripple him if he updates machine, like if you want something modern, which fontaneasy combusted, have any new equipment or it's just that he has some updated equipment, Like there's there was one particular there's one particular Japanese keyboard company that sends him like some new stuff that like he used it on Charade, this keyboard that I wish we had. It's like some it's a very vintaged Japanese sounding machine that really has some cool patches on it. Like his true gift is making patches. Like he will sit there like all all all this pat sounds like that drippy, wet Klimbu thing.
Like he takes the clember passed from.
The a s R and knows exactly how to filter, how yeah, how much reverb to put on it, how much to.
Decay And people realize that a SR had one of the most advanced effects processors at the time. If you ever familiar with the and Sonic DP four that was and that was a standard in studios at that time. That was the effects section of the a s R ten put into an effect shooting.
Really yep, so the same but just more advanced.
It was the same exact thing.
With company that scam and sell you the same ship, but you're like cast now busting apple like I mean, all they did was add one element and.
They took it. They made it a rack mount. Actually the SR the SR version was the DP two like that. That was when they went out of the s R made the DP too. Then they doubled it and made a version called the DP four. It just gave you more effects.
So as as with most beat makers that I know or that are at least from the second generation, like some of their favorite things are remaking, like practicing what if I made this beat or whatever? Like what was the first beat you prat?
Like, okay, how I don't think.
I ever did that. The closest I ever got to it was using the capricorn loop that Pete used for in the house. I didn't but I didn't try to remake his beat. I may be using it not for sale, but just for what you mean, for I just never I never really did that. I don't think I can't remember. I can't recall having ever done that once.
Wow, sockers, because normally that's like the go to practice.
When I see videos of people remaking my beats like on YouTube, and it kind of trips me out, Like, but I get it. If you want to get better, you want to learn how somebody did something, figure how somebody did something.
You're gonna it's it's like a guitar player learn how to play play.
Standard, yeah, or just a ballplayer who watches, you know, video.
There's a lot of chefs.
I know that, like, you know, we'll try to figure out like how McDonald's made, you know, the Big Man.
What I was more concerned about was for me, I think, especially in that formative era, it was more so I was listening to how the records were engineered and trying to because I was working with the ASR ten and a four track, or even before that that roll in Jams thirty and a four track, and I was just trying to figure out, right, I have a drum machine, I have the same samples I see equalizes on this four track. Why don't my records sound as good as the records on the radio. And I'm not understanding the concepts of studios and mastering and mastering. I don't understand any of that. I'm just like I got I got, I got beats, and I got eqs and I got a mic. So for me, it was about squeezing whatever sound quality I could out of the little bit that I had.
I will say, and a test that probably next to doctor Dre who's the cleanest producer that I know, producer slash engineer, and maybe the combination of a particular era of Tip and Bob and Tim Laith laughing or whatever, you have one of the loudest mixes I know, which is weird because I know that both you and Kanye kind of came up in the Blueprint Battle generation of you know, of the jay z era, whereas like twice in my DJ career that I've been charged with breaking the speaker, it was just Blazo.
No over Kanye Records.
Kanye is the only dude like when his product comes out, I have to re eat, reconfigure, re eq it like almost remastered myself, or turn the mids and the bass all the way down.
Because you know that.
Study famous changed over the years, because I remember when his his focus used to not really be about the If you remember a lot of times this drums would be really small, and that was one of the things that like, he's he's actually to call me about, like how do you get your drums to sound like that? With the wares were with the bass like, that was the thing I remember. I would not get into the specifics, but there were times where sometimes that would become an issue in the studio where it was like, Yo, the track is dope, but the drums seem so small. How we get to the sound sound bigger?
But if you look at the history of hip has changed the millions, drums are small as shit, right, And then I realized, oh they sacrificed. They have small drums, but the noise surrounds it exactly. And so but a lot of your production is like your your your accessory noises whatever, like uh sirens you use and your snares and your loops and the voice like everything is at top level lout, but it never it never peaks, like how do you well.
One thing that uh like that I would always try to do is fun make sure that each each element of the song has its own space, and sometimes you have you can't just do that with pushing the faders of any killing, there's dynamics that come into play too, because I still like to leave headroom at least so that even if you're blasting it, it still doesn't feel like it's overpowered still much. Right, So I'll give you a perfect example. You don't know, those horns are so shrill and loud, and Jay has that kind of nasally tone to his voice, so those those horns and those and his vocals kind of sit in the same frequency range. So we did on that record was we used his vocal as a side chain to trigger a compressor on a certain frequency of the horns, so that whenever he runs it would it would duck that just that part of the frequency on the horns. And then when he wasn't rhyming, the horns were coming coming full.
A certain compression, right, And that's where compression works for you, right.
And it's it's not like it wasn't a matter of making the horns louder or lower. It was a matter of when that frequent his voice is hitting, make sure that frequency itself is ducked on the horns.
So when you when you create a track like that, it was all right, when I first heard it, that was a hard song for me to digest. I almost think it's a good thing when like you're uncomfortable with something because it's so new to you. Like first time I Rebel without pause is like, Yo, what the hell is this? And especially in light of hearing that record during nine to eleven and all that stuff, when I heard it, I just thought, you remember the scene in Casino where Joe Pesci is like, don't make me do this though, and he's like squeezing the dude's uh.
The vice. I always imagine that you don't know by jay Z was.
That was the soundtrack to the Ship, Like it sounded like someone's being squeezed, and like, was that your intention?
Nah? For me, it was just like at that time, it was just energy. That is what I was trying to get across really more so than anything else. It's funny sometimes if you remember, he used to performance sometimes and he would have the flames in the background, Like that's when I was inventioning that moment. A lot of those records, especially during that era and it's still even to this day, but especially that era, I was thinking in terms of performance.
You're seeing the final product in the stadium.
And exactly so I'm seeing like that moment, or I'm seeing when he's doing song Crid and it's just the whole stage is black and it's just the spotlight on him and he's telling that story and a little by little the maybe some imagery in the background on the screens. I would always think in terms of performance, that's why I showed me what you got is the way it is, and why climax is at the end, because that was supposed to be the record. After he does corn walks off the stage, then he comes back with just and it's not a beat, it's just And by the end, everybody's soloing. The drummer's doing his thing, the basis is doing his thing, the guitar players with the key up that that's why that record is like that.
So did it frustrate you that that song came so early and not later in the sequence.
Yeah, a little bit, but it should have been something towards the end of the album more so than at the top. But the way it starts is also good. But us to have at the top of a project.
I was gonna say, in in the case of I mean illmatic kind of ruined the the idea of one person watching everything so on on an album like The Blueprint, which is essentially an illmatic on its own.
Well, I mean it's you, Kanye, Timberland, Scott, uh, who else? Bink?
Yeah?
Right?
So who really gets final say on? Like, well, it's just start here, like who has his ear as in let me sequence this?
At that time, I would say a lot of that would probably have been because Gool wasn't around, was cool around, you know, Chauncy was done after the Dynasty album?
Or who was engineering? I remember the Chauncy story. Well, there's many of those, the one with the up a tape or something.
There's a lot of things. And then he tried to sue Yes, yes, a couple of years ago for seventy five million for a whole I don't know what the number was. Chauncey was the engineer on the Dynasty, the Dynasty album, maybe some of Volume three. Okay, that's a whole other set of stories. I figure what it was. But basically he had a bunch of copies of the Masters and had been storing them at a storage space in la I think it was Key in California. For since he got fired, which was after the Dynasty album, and then came back and tried to sue j for a bunch of Oh no, he tried to claim ownership partial ownership of publishing and masters.
Why did he get fired?
He just kept messing up badly.
Okay, wait, how do you know this?
I think he told the story, told stories on Twitter, because when it came out that he was trying to take action, I was like, oh no, no, no, let me set a few things straight here, like he was not writing anything.
He was not. He wasn't He doesn't own the masters. I actually have a lot of the Masters myself. He might have had copies or clones because that was right when we were we were doing the hybrid of two inch to in digital, so a lot of stuff was getting bounced back and forth. It was just a mess, and he was really trying to portray it like he was the driving force behind the sound of Rockefeller for some years, and he was not. He's actually the reason why a lot of records have mistakes on him. Do this go back to the Dynasty album. Listen to get your mind right.
Right, that's the one that because of him.
No, no, that's no, it is that your chick is in a mono because of it.
Whoa to the beat?
Listen to the beat? Hold up, no, but is uh what was I saying? Oh yeah, listen to get your mind right. You'll notice the chorus is performed differently every time. Sometimes it starts, yeah, you're not a fly. Fly the hooks. So really there's three hooks. Each one falls in a different place. Same thing with can't be life. Listen it can't be life. Go back and listen to that record with that in mind, you'll see that the hooks don't fall in the same place every time. So it was things like that, and then he you know, back then he used to have the slave two inch wheels together, so if you have forty eight tractionally slave two machines together. We were doing stuff from pro tools and the dumping into real to mix from real. Duros getting the tapes because he was mixing that soundtrack where we were finishing at baseline, and every set of reels that got that Durro got, the sink was off, so like none of the reels were coming back SYNCD up. So he put the two tapes up and he used to be playing a lot of sink.
And and.
And eventually it came to eventually it almost came their hands at one point because Daryl told about himself and uh dar wants to tell so I'll let him do it. But yes, Droyl told about himself on the phone, very matter of fact. He didn't you didn't. He didn't flip on him. He just told him about himself and hung up the phone. Charles, you come to deliver and delivers the tapes and it is ready to scrap and it didn't happen. And I'm just sitting there in the room like whoa. That escalated very quickly. It got shut down as quickly as it happened.
But but and how does that translate to a guy like Jay.
Jay's like one of those guys that, to me, like doesn't care how something happened.
So of course he's gonna look at you like, well, you're fucking up right.
And because he's looking at how do you explain to him that, like, look, he didn't line it right and this is not my fault.
And I'm trying to maguyver.
I think we kept j out of it a lot. He was aware that things weren't right, but he wasn't really getting to the specific because we were getting handled between me Guru and Duro. You know, we were making sure that he got handled regardless. So he might have known that there were problems, but it didn't get to the point I didn't get back to him to the point where he felt like he had to address or intervene.
Well, it was the person that had to lay this the SmackDown, say oh, you're fired.
That might have been hip hop. Maybe Okay, it might have been a hip hop because the thing is, Chelsey liked that all that stuff aside. I liked him as a person, and he and I got along, and he and hip hop got along very well as well. So I want to say it was hip hop. I probably had to have that conversation with him. But how do we get here?
I'm kind of fault, We're kind of we're kind of asked backwards? Isn't this? So? I noticed that every major producer that gets put on has.
To go through the initiation of getting ganked first, like going under the tutelage of someone never happened.
You didn't apprentice under any.
Never by o g's by teachers. But people who put me on were the DJs and producers that I group listening to you like that was school for me. I didn't, I can't.
I moved first, but you want so I moved you up.
With forty hours in my pocket, literally at forty dollars.
When you said that, I heard the introduction of welcome to the jungle in my no no, no, no, no, no no no, him walking on like forty second street like looking up.
So my uh.
You know my old manager, Nesa, she was We know each other since high school. She went to n y U uh got got She got an internship with the cutting room, ended up becoming like the studio manager. Gave me a shot at the internship for a week, but she was kind of close to managing the studio with Dave, the dude that owned it. I always wanted to intern, but I was in school. She didn't want to just bring me in like that out of nowhere. You remember that girl Jane Doe tip short blond here. Jane was an intern. She gets the stomach flu. This is during my winter break from Rutgers. So NASA calls me and she's like, yo, so what if our interns is sick? Do you want to come intern for a week? Because she's to be able to stomach flu. So I'm like, sure, the opportunity of a lifetime for me, I come do that week. Jane calls the following Monday. I just I just got signed to em I I'm not coming back, So they are you want to stick around for a while. I'm like all right, cool. So it was kind of supposed to be a temporary winner break kind of thing, and then the night manager ended up getting fired for some just some mother some nonsense, so they needed somebody to take that position. They needed a night manager.
They need, like right away, where is the cutting room located? I feel like it was right.
Next door to Platinum Island and Rockers, So six seventy eight Broadway.
Okay, we did cut there.
Okay, I'm trying to figure out, like where that's my Ladelph half life location.
That's where do well?
No door was that Platinum Island next door? You guys worked at Platinum Mountain, all right, okay, and so Dory, your door was that Platinum Oultin. I was next door at the cutting room. So night manager gets fired. They come to me ask me if I want the job. I'm like all right, that means I gotta leave school. Basically, you know, I want to say I was two and a half years and I was studying computer programming. I wasn't really happy though at the same I wasn't happy in school. At the same time, I'm I'm at Rutgers, so I'm in Newark a lot. So I'm like finding my way into DJing at open mics and baby play my beats at open mics, and dudes like the artifacts are showing up. Bradman came through once or twice outside as well, there or a lot. It was a spot called the Pipeline, was the open mic that did on Wednesdays. So that era where it was like, I'm not really happy with school. Rutgers had just hired a bunch of foreign professors and no disrespect to them by any means, but their accents were so heavy none of us could understand what they were saying in the classes. So you're sitting there like and you're studying complex things like Calculus three and you know, in computer programming, and the dude, this one dude African guy, we will all just sit there and look at each other in the class like what he's saying at all? And then it was an Irish dude whose accent was also so heavy, Like so I'm getting discouraged by school. I'm starting to do these open mics because I'm meeting people locally in NewYork, and it started to become more human to me. Up until that point, everything that I had done was kind of in my own world, you know, with my friends, my local friends, DJing. I'm DJing little things here and there, you know, in my city, of becoming the man in my city, but nothing outside of that DJ just you know, so I'm selling local mixtapes. They're starting to make a little bit of noise. I'm kind of known as the dude on my side of town. But you know, in that era especially, you have a lot of dudes that sell dreams, you know, especially the young kids. Like I remember going to this one dude's house who was actually an old friend of ours. I didn't know that anybody could just call the record and get a press kid, right, So he's walking around talking about how I can't hang with Puffy, that he drink too much baileies, like that was just his thing. I'm hanging with this drink and I'll go to his house and he would have all these what I found out brivalized years later were press kids. But he would have all these folders sitting out across the table with the logos and our artist pictures and bios. But it's all just press kids, like anybody can get them. But he was making it seem like he was working with all of these artists. And you see the logos, you're like bad Boy or Arista Uptown whatever. Right, so, and there was another dude name Peter Pan. Yeah so, but so anyway, just point is this, It wasn't really real, right, you know, at that point. And then I'm just trying to catch all the important parts being in Rutgers and then being in subsequently being in Newark, and I'm seeing dudes like the Outsiders, dudes like like the Artifacts. This is when Jersey Raps popping the first wave of it, you know, like kind of like righte like post Flavor, Yeah, exactly like them used to show up. And I remember being there one day and one of the dudes, young Z and Rod Digger are on stage raym and none of them know who I am. I'm playing beats in between the intermissions.
How are you playing beats without the technology of the being invented?
Yeah, we just had tapes, had the beats on tapes. So I'm DJing, but I'm also just playing tapes, and that was I was playing tapes during intermissions. So I'm playing a beat and I remember Z was like, I went to put a record on Framing Roan two and he was like, no, put that on the beat, put that beat back over. Whatever that beat was that was just playing, And I was like, it became real in that moment, Like somebody who has a record deal, whose records I have bought, an established artist, wants to rhyme on something that I made. It's not my homie from down the block. It's not a dude I go to school with. And on top of that, it became a human because up until this point, all these guys were guys you see on TV, you hear them on the radio, you buy the records, you study their album covers. You know, I'm an album art geague. So that's where these guys lived in those boxes. All of a sudden, he's a human being and he's you know, it's a real thing. It became tangible in that moment. So around that same time, another guy that I went to college with had a local crew called a BHA and they were making a little indie records here right there, and I started hanging with you know, running with them a bit, and from that point on it just became more human. So this is right at that same time when Jane Doe uh leaves leaves, I get the internship. I then become the Nightmare. And another thing I actually ended up right when Steaks Is High. Chemist Steaks Is High was MOS's premiere, right, yeah, big Brother Bik, it was right. So I'm doing an open mic I think in East Orange. Rod Digga had signed to at one point to violate it through Q tip and a kid called Roots was doing her demo and and oh I just caught that. So yeah, kid called Roots is doing her demo and it just and this was maybe like my second week, you no, maybe I've been there for about a month or so. I'm dj ning an open mic in East Orange. Digger shows up and I never spoke to her during that time, and I just slip the open mics right previously when I was in college. So she comes, she's like, I recognized you. Wrestling was somewhere. I didn't even gonna get it at the studio when you were working with Q Tip whatever whatever. So we have a little conversation and then most just walks in and does big Brother beat, and then I play a beat. He's like anybody out of beats. I played cassette. He rhymes on that. So all of a sudden, it was like just it wasn't happening on records, but was just happening organically.
So just it was kind of like, so, when was your first beat that you landed?
No mace, like my first real beat for that that anybody ever bought. I gotta check what song I really like it, the one when they get shot out of the cannons, Blinky blink, blinky blink.
It was only.
So what happens is at this point, I'm working studio for maybe about a year and a half, two years, and I'm starting to thinking, all right, things are happening, but they're not I'm not making any money. I should probably maybe start considering going back and just finishing my last couple of specials at school. Whatever. So one of the things that I used to do, because I'm not a good salesman, I like to sell myself. So what I would do is when I would get off work. I would just go to whatever room was available, make beats, work on records, and leave the door crack so people would just walk past and hopefully be like what is that? So whatever, it would have happened here and there. You know, nothing ever, really uh came about from it. I developed a few friendships with some A and rs and a couple of artists that way, but nothing ever came out of it. But then one day, Mace is working in the next room. They're sequencing a sampler. I forget what it was, a bad Boy sampler or something, and he had to fix something on it. So I'm making sure to play my music extra loud because they were floating right in the hallways. So this dude comes to pokes his head the room and he's like, what's that And I'm saying, that's just something I'm working on. He's like, who are you? My name is just just what just just? Your name is just just And I was like, no, it's just just My name is Justin. So he's like, all right, blame me some more beats. So I blamed some beats. I don't know who he is. I just knew he's connected to them somehow. So you know how Mace used to always reference to a kudahudah love.
Yeah.
Yeah, So this was coolest partner, the cool tot silent partner in the company. So he was like, Yo, where you at on Thursday? And I'm like here working, So you're working. I'm like, yeah, this is my day job. He's like, come in the hit Factory on Thursday. So I go to the Hit Factory. He's like, matter of fact, we give you an idea, you know, an audition popcorn Love. I'm like yeah. He's like, take that loop it up, put the scratches and whatnot on it. Put He's like, do all that, trust me make So I probably end up picking it as his first single. And I'm like what He handed me the key, like the golden ticket, like you see, like a nice guy do this.
Wow.
So I did it that night, went to Hit Factory that Thursday and playing it for him and as soon as he heard it, he just started jumping around the room. This is the Yeah, this is the single. This is the single. And my man was Sam. He looked over at me like I told you. I didn't preface it with him, Like he didn't say I had somebody making this beat. He was just like he gave me the Allue and Joe when the record came out, I was like, yo, putting pluced by just blazing. Super said like because it was it was his idea. He literally strew me the value. Didn't ask for no money or anything.
All right, So I gotta figure out how you wound up at Baseline Studios and so fast forward.
I'm the maze thing happens.
You know.
Matt Fingers MM short redhead kid, one of my best. He used to have an indie label called Guests Wild back in the days. Mike Zoo had most a couple of records early stuff like that. Anyway, he had a relationship with Penalty Records with Mayhem and UH Martin Morton.
Okay, so he.
I'm talking about one day because he was a clan at the studio as well. He's song from Mace and I'm like yeah, He's like for real. I'm like yeah, He's like, you'll give me some beats, So again, not trying to get anything out of it. He takes a cassette gives it to a man at Penalty. This is right when they were finishing Norway's album and that led to UH me working with they had just signed half a Milk.
Okay, so.
Now I'm in the story with half a milk. So that was kind of like the main thing wasn't a fluke. We just did it again. And then from there I met Killer Priest, did a couple, which is how I ended up here in this building. You know, back then met Killer Priest, Tragedy Kadafi. So I'm working with a lot of dudes that I respect, that I like, but it's not dudes that are selling to the records. And then Matt pun I thought it was a print call. It wasn't.
First I'm notice is Pawn and I'm like he never never sounded like a regularly and being on the phone.
Like cal on my crib and the brox what So I'm like, so I'm like, all right, So I go to his crib, played him some beats sam Ash, I want to say it with sam Ash at the time, I just wipped them off and sold him a bunch of studio get he didn't need. He was modeling his house. He was trying to build a studio in it. So I'm looking around the house and I'm like, well, you got a D eighty you got D eighty eights, so you don't need a that's and you got a O two R so you don't need a Maxi Digital eight bus like they double. So whatever, right, So I'm just I'm just on the strength, just telling him, you know, like he's like, if you don't you want to stand this stuff? I said, yeah, I engineer. He said, all right, So when I want to build my studio, would you come and help me put things together? I said, here, no problem. He said, all take whatever you want.
Wow.
So he ended up building like my first studio, like inadvertently gave me everything I needed to get started in the crib. So now I can crank out beats twenty four to seven. I got everything at the crib, I can record, I'm doing everything in the house, but I'm still working at the cutting room. Bruce Hornsby was a big client of ours, and he used to print call me all the time.
Used to figure out, man, that's crazy.
So me and h Bruce was working I think with David Byrne I think at the time. So they're working on something and they were. They were working at at the studio for quite some time. So being that I was a dude, who helped him with a lot of things. Being helped me and us, Me and him developed the report. So sometimes he would hold studio. He'd be like, Hey, this is uh, you know Joe Blow from Galaxy Records. You want to offer you offer justin a record deal. Just be like, God, whatever, Like what do you want? Bruce like in that kind of relationship, So.
I can tell her this story is about to go.
So I'm at I've told a story of bits and pieces of it. I'm trying to speed to it. I told total bit of it before. So fast forward a little bit later. Bruce is still pranked calling me. I meet Dino from Universal right when Rock was finishing up the eighteenth let and Cannabis had they had just signed Cannabis. I forget how I met him, was a chance of meeting, but he gives me the sales pitch.
Yo.
Uh, I played in like forty beats and I walked in with a beat CD. Nobody had a CD recorder at the time. We're not common. I literally probably was just me and a hit factory, meaning in a hit factory the only people who had them, and I walked away a CD, which automatically He's like who brings beats on a CD. So that quarter is on. So we go through the music. He loves it. He gives me the sales pitch. He gives me the Gilbert Godfrey and gas face. We're gonna make you a big, big, big, big big one big Reacher.
You know.
He's like, I got Cannabis, I got rock Kim, I got this, I got that. I never hear from Dino again after the whole sales pitch. So I get a phone call about to two three beats later, uh at the studio. So I went to the phone studio. Can I speak to Just And I'm like, yeah, this is him. So, my name is g Roberson. I work for Rockefeller Records. I'd like to talk to you about a couple of things. And I'm like, Y're all right, Bruce, what do you want? I'm like, how does Bruce know what Rockefeller Records is? This is whatever? And I'm like, so I'm playing, I'm going back and forth with it, and eventually I just hang up the phone. So then the phone rings again, like, hey, I got disconnected. I was trying to speak to us. My name is G from Rockefeller Records, and I'm like, oh, okay. So he's like, yeah, so you know, I was at Universal. I had a meeting with Dino two weeks ago, and I have this artist that I'm trying to sign named Billy Bathgate and he doesn't have a demo. He's like. So he's like, you know, my artist doesn't have a demo, but I've been doing it, just taking him around to different labels and having him roy I'm Live and Youno played your CD and we want like we love, I love, like for what I heard out of the twenties, it's like ten no I love. And I'm like okay. So he's like, so what's up and he's like, well, I'm working on a deal for Bathgate. On top of that, I just started as an A and R Rockefeller Records, and we're trying to build a production team. So I'm like, okay, so how does this relate to me. It's like, we want, we would like to talk about being part of the team. Can you come down to the office. This is when their office is. I think we're on fifteenth Street, like you're Union Square somewhere. So I go to Dave. Dave was the owner of the studio and he's like oh, Dave, I gotta go. Jay Z's label just call. They wouldn't have a meeting, he said, But you just came back from lunch break, and I'm like, I just got a call from jay Z's record label. You talking about lunch breaks. So he's like, just go go, So I leave, go to the meeting. They're like, so basically want to do a production crew. You this kid we just found called Kanye West Rock Wilder and but rock wider o their buck.
Wild and Rock was supposed to be part of the sign production and.
K Rob from k Robin Ramel. Wow, they were we were gonna be rock the world, that is what they were gonna call it. And and yeah, imagine how crazy that would have been. So it never happened. The you'll never happen. Uh. But we ended up just having a good working relationship. I never signed a Rockefeller. I just we we worked well. They paid me a lot of money. I stuck around. You know they would do They would pay me in advance for like like down the line. Well, I'm getting a little bit ahead of it. So the first thing they give me is to work on a Mills album. Yeah, so I engineered that album. I co produced the few of the songs uncredited, but just you know, and UH recorded in track the whole thing. That was also the first time anybody rockefed I ever even heard of a recorded on pro tools. They didn't know what that was. So Bill ran out of She ran out a budget, she couldn't buy no more to tapes. Something. We got this thing called pro tools. We'll try it. Yeah, So so I do her whole album and UH did one, one or two things with Bleak and beans. Jay wasn't paying me any attention. We get to the end of the Bill's album. Here's a song that I did with her. He says, who's on that? Who's that dude on the song? Or that was Bathket We put bath Gate on the record. He's like, taking did the classic goal? Take him off? I'm getting on this? And who did the beat? Oh? Just oh yeah? He got better? All right? Cool?
Telling come down.
Like the tell him come down the baseline.
So he got better.
So I gave him. I had given him a cassette of what the Becoming Streets is talking like by chance two days before. I didn't give it to him. I gave it to g or Hip, who gave it to him. Get a call from Lenny. Yo, he's he's cut. He just cut streets watch or Streets is talking likelast night, and you want you to come to Baseline bring some more beats. And then the story that I told a million times, I made stick to the script while he was in the booth recording, parking lot pimping. He comes out the room and I play him stick to the script and he's like, yo, when did you make this? I'm like, just now in the headphones. He's like, but I was in the booth. I said, yeah, I just made it real quick, you know, chopped up loop, played the keys, whatever. And that's when he was like, alright, stick around And that was pretty much it. And then I guess a year and a half later or two yearsly, I ended up owning Baseline.
At its height. What was the typical day at Baseline, Like chaos.
Was depending on whatever you're talking about. By the time, like dip sent had come around and everything, Yes, it was pretty chaotic for a lot of reasons. But I mean just even schedule wise, because like you have all these guys and these various crews in there, and there were the cruise cruise.
You have your room. Does Kanye have his room, No, it's it's just it's two rooms.
So it's the room, the main room in my room.
He makes ministress on baseline. And so we was in the big broom.
Yeah. Yeah, So they were in the A room and I was in the B room. So Bleak was an early bird, So Bleek might get there by eleven, a M Jay might show up around two, dip set might show up around eight. Beans would show up in at four in the morning. Not to be in troublesomewhere. So literally like a twenty four hour factory. And you're all, yes, that's exactly what it was.
Answer this for me.
How did none of them? How did none of them stop you from giving uh? Uh cool mean gang.
To Joe button?
Yeah, Joe, But how did they not stop you?
So I'll never forget that day. I'm at what studio was in La the same studio Ya was leaving when he had the accident sound something, and I forget the name of it, but I'm in there. Uh it say it was a two room facility. We had both rooms. Water room is me making beats. The other room is a state propping a bunch of dudes, uh working on an album or working on different projects. So I come up with the pumping Up idea that night. I came up with it as a follow up to rock the Mic for Freeway and Beings. So that was my vision, like Rocked the Mic had kind of just had its run and starting to wane. I think Flip Side had maybe just all no, Flip Side hadn't I don't know flip Side had come out yet. It was rock the Mic was on Stay Property, so yeah, Flip Side I hadn't come out yet, So Pumping Up was supposed to be to follow up to Rock the Mic. Now in Freeze case free will pretty much wrap to anything that I give him. At that point in his life, Freeway would have wrapped to anything anybody gave him. Literally, I had him rapping on Casey and Jojo all my life. Still is It sounded like a good idea at the time. You know, it didn't come out for a reason. But yeah, yeah, it's called my piano. I'll find it in sentences, so my piano. So I'm in there, I make the beat. Freeways was ready to like tell me when to wrap, and but Beans was kind of like, uh, I think he might have been heavy on the lean length this time, so he kind of was just like, so he leaves, and then a bunch of random rappers just started coming in, like local La dudes who are like fans and just you know those dudes that somehow ended up in your session and trying to you know, get on your records. So I won't name names, but there was just one who was just like, I had to turn the beat off now, like, but he came in and started writing verses. I was like, oh, yeah, the beat has to just stop. So I stopped the beat and I started making as One from Blueprint too, and I was, this is gonna be the Rockefella song that everybody gets on. It's a Rockefella song. There's nobody else. The other artists just kind of sending that. So I started making as One and then we ended up recording that I gave the Young Guns there, I think because young Guns started with the Sneath book out the cut out, the cut I figured whose routine I jacked? It was somebody's part routine that I had jack. Yeah, so that's what that's came up with. That idea. Gave that to young Guns. They start, so you're coming up with the hooks to hooks, sometimes rhymes, sometimes I'm rewriting rhymes, you know, it's it's always something. So that pumping up beat goes away. So now we're Blueprint Too era and this is like the first time that Farrell and Ja really really locked in, like for just coming up with the record after record after record. So I'm in the beat room doing what I can really do, just in there working. I remember the pump It Up beat mm hm. So I go, I go to jail. I'm like, yo, did hear a song? He's like all right, So he comes in like five minutes later, he's like, yeah, that's mean. But I'm finishing this for our record right now.
So if he finished, excuse me, miss over now, I want.
To say, it was all tonight. Yeah, I'm talking about please. I love that. That's that's I love that song. I mean in general, the Forrail records and they were all dope.
It was like if pump It Up was on Blueprint two, that could have made a world.
So actually the record that he was working on ended up not being used. It was where he first did to come get someone. He took the wrath came around. He did that another on another frail beat, which I just found recently.
M M.
Yeah, because I have all the tapes, you know, so sometimes I justkim through the server and see what I find. But anyway, so so he goes back to do the Peril record and he kind of was just like, yeah, that's nice, you know. Like now, Jay's like that sometimes if he's focused on I've seen him do that to other people in regards to me, like I'm finishing this dress record right now, I gotta i gotta go back in the room. So I didn't. I didn't take offense to it. But it's funny in retrospect. So moving on from that, pumping up comes out ends up becoming you know what it does. It's a huge record. Jay walks in the room one day, he's like, Yo, that pumping up is crazy. But next time you come up with something like that, like playing motherfucker, you do let me know about that. Like you know the things that I never We never had a structure where it was like I owe them first, write a refusal. But you're not an idiot. You know where certain records are supposed to go, and they knew that. I knew that, So it was never really a thing who.
A skater because when he does it on that organe Scan.
Don't worry Scan, No, I'll give it back soon.
Sc was your nickname or something, Scan Dollar.
It was a clues manager. It was close. It was cluesman. Scan was basically, uh, clues manager, but that's a desert storm was clue dur escape.
I see.
So, and Joe had his affiliation with Uh. You know, Skane was the one who bought Joe to death chair. So it's kind of that connection. So give me that beat. Don worry Scane, I'll give it back, right.
So that's what.
So when I told Jay that, he was like, you did, I'm like yeah. He's like, nah, I remember you said I'm gonna go do this for real record. He was like, I can't remember that now. Then he went and recorded his verse that was that.
Okay, So I feel like we're jumping all over the place, which is we're very unmarrrored to dude.
Back to the beginning. So when you were a kid, yes, we can do it. No, well okay, well what about your work with mad Lyon?
Wow?
Wow?
Actually well no, no, no, no, no, no back up, because I think this is something that this this room doesn't know you're responsible for the club classic?
Uh shake that ask girl, how are you? Yes? How are you responsible for that?
So I didn't do the original original version that was tap rest in Peace Dude from Baltimore. But the interesting thing about what was happening at that time in Jersey what later on ended up becoming known as Baltimore club music, which then became, uh, you know, over time a Jersey club. We had that influx happening, but then we also had a lot of stuff from Chicago that was coming in. So like the casual stuff shout out to Curtis h a lot of that stuff was starting to infiltrate, and it was basically the beginnings of the primordial soup of what became Jersey Club.
So, okay, so is Jersey club? Of course you're gonna say yes, most of you all beat me down for it. Is Jersey club an actual, legitimate, recognized genre genre.
That's a question because I didn't know a subject.
What's the difference between Jersey Jersey Baltimore House. Well, I know the difference, I know House, but I.
Feel like there you can't mention Jersey club without mentioning Baltimore House. But I feel like the Jersey Jersey Club has become its own thing, the way they programmed the when they chot the samples, when they do certain studies, it's become its own thing, like it's becomes its own thing.
So whereas the think the James Brown Marvel with Link Collins think Loop is.
Not as prominent in Jersey Club anymore, so that breaks it's all right. So like obviously all the Jersey Club records you have to think loop or at least the tambourine, the shakers or the tambourines in there. I feel like there was a certain point where it got away from that and it was more about the bottom the base pause and that pattern that boom boom boom, boom boom boom. Both of those records are still based on that. But what I'm noticing with the younger generations that are doing it now, It's not something that I can necessarily put in the words because I never really analyzed it from that standpoint, but the way they are truncating and stuttering and flipping out of their samples, there's definitely a distinctly different way that they do it in Jersey versus how they do it in Baltimore versus how like some of the dudes that are doing it in Philly, like a like a Sega for example. Are they all do it a little bit differently? And that's not something that I could really quantify or put in the words how it's different.
So I mean, but is this still pulse wise typically one hundred and twenty eight bpms?
Oh yeah, the foundation, The foundation is still the same. The foundation is still the same. Se Man.
I feel like I was on to some where you got Me and didn't complete the miss if you'd work, I feel like the world.
I feel like America, like with you Got Me and with Bombs over bag Dad. I think America is ready for German bass.
But it's like it's the gatekeepers on what it happened.
You think you're talking about it now. I just feel like, I mean, I just I just feel like the breaking out.
I'm praying with this dreat record that the bpms get sped up more and it really start starts a paradigm shift.
I don't hope that this is so hope they gets sped up more. I just hope there's more variants in the bpms.
Well, it's due time, because it's twenty seventeen, and true to my five year theory, with things changing on the sevens and the twos, something new is going to happen to hip hop. According I meant the last thirty plus years that it's happened.
I'm praying that this is it.
I mean nothing against you know, seventy three bpms and I mean now people getting super slower.
No, now it's it's the lean effect. So now it's like a half Yeah, it's like literally one fifty to fifty one bpm.
Do you resent that? I mean not resent that, I mean I know I don't.
Resent it because it actually allows me in DJ sets to have a little bit more fun because not for one reason, but for one of the main reasons being you can go from the super high energy to this total shift but still keep people doing the same bounce, you see what I'm saying, like, and then that allows you as a DJ to get creative with it and say, Okay, I can go from one hundred to fifty and it feels the same, but now the mood has changed, so now I can say, way out of that, it hit the seventy five bpms, and then after that some way fun way you get to one to forty. A lot of the halftime and double time stuff that's happening at least in my DJ sets has allowed me to navigate more courses quickly.
You I, We're just saying, but it's just like, as a person like I can't stand bad segues and DJ sets, so everything has to make sense to me.
I'm the same way. That's why I like, I watched some I watched some dudes, and sometimes I immedtedly get jealous of dudes that aren't that don't mind, just care right, just stopping the music and totally just shifting tempos and moves, and you know what, But the more I watch dudes do that, whether it's somebody that's opening for me, whether it's somebody that I'm playing before and opening for, whether it's a co headline or whatever it is, I watched those from the side sometimes and I'm like, I wish I did not care the way you don't care, because, to be honest, today's audience doesn't care.
I don't care as long as I just want to hear a playlist loud right club.
And when I see that, I'm like, I literally have said to myself countless times. I wish I did not care because that terrible, ugly segue that that dude just did just had put this party on full tilt. Yeah.
We I don't know which year the Roots Picnic it was, but we hired a DJ that was going back from his iPhone to his CDJs.
What was that doing that then? But he but he had them going crazy?
I crazy, right, he had Well, it was like, yo, there's some new shit I just made and he goes to his iPhone and he puts it on the whole place is going crazy right now.
It's it's it's really Uh. Today's audiences have a very different ear and a very different set of standards.
They care more about the end result in the process.
I guess that.
I guess they care more about the end results than.
The process, more so than like there you know, I will say this and this is something that This is an argument that I I had years ago in Australia. I feel like there's this uh divide in terms of what people want from a DJ across general. Like I was at a record spot down Under and I was talking to Homie and UH through that random spot and his wife and we were talking about DJs Uh, this was I guess six, Yeah, it was two thousand and six. So we were talking about DJs that play reissues versus original pressings and bootlegs and edits and just having that conversation. But she said one key thing that made me realize, that made me realize where are actual divide laid? Because she said, when I go to see a DJ play, and I said, that's the problem. You're going to see him like, I personally do not care where do the sourcing it from? Like there's some some sometimes certain peerists, certain types of peers would be like the Serado kids. Uh, when they have when they go into their Serado argument and they start talking about the fact that, like a kid now can just go download all thirty volumes or whatever it is of ultimately beats and breaks and play them. They didn't know what it was like to have to go track those volumes down. And I'm like, all right, I knew what that was like, but I didn't have the struggle of having to discover those break beats and find all the original pressings with right when Bamana was playing in the park, whoever was playing in the park, you know, they used to have to they used to. They cover the records, they're black, the labels out, and then you would hope that somebody from Downstairs Records or Downtown Records, whatever would right, you can sing it to them and say such and such, just play this record that sounds like this and hopefully, hey, hopefully they have it. B hopefully they deem you cool enough to give it to you. There was a lot of gatekeeping, this gatekeeping at every level. So for me, I'm like, wait, why are you worried about seeing him play? I'm worried about hearing him play because ultimately, if he doesn't impress me with what I hear, or if he or she doesn't impress me what I hear, then it's game over. So that's what I feel like. Every generation, the qualifications and ramifications change in terms of what people are looking for.
And even still when you can, like while it's true to the Sorato generation can just download volumes to play them, and you said exactly, you ain't lived with them, like you still got to live with those records. You gotta know why eight bars, why they work, and the record is hot and right, because you can't just play the whole Frisco Disco right, because people will look at you like, what you can.
Get to that pump pumpum, it's it's it's a change. There's very few of those records that you can actually play front Tobacco. You can play UFO front to back. You could play Cavern front to back. You can't really play Big Beat past the break right. You can play a little bit of it, but he sings, But after that, that's pretty much it. You're done.
You know you still got the music.
I used to be that way in the beginning, and then we had a bus accident, yeah, and destroyed Myless Heroes. Yeah, my Headless Heroes was like the first thing in the Yes, two hundred bucks done. And then I was like, nah, I'm spending boot legs from now on.
I have friends, like some of my friends are like some of the bulls either purist or OCD types or purest o CD types that you ever meet, and like they won't make beats from a reissue.
Yeah, I know cats like that too, And I'm like, really, I'm like, why that's weird because I only like in Peace to President, on the boot on the on the Ultimate Beasts Breaks versions, what Kenny Do got the Master to it re isssued it and it's too damn clean.
It's clean. It's too clean.
It too it's not good to me.
I like his I like to play his reissue when I just want to give people a make them do you get that? Like? Or when they just stay here and they're like, yo, this is the same, but it's different.
What did you do? You know?
But like other than that, I don't care where you get it from as long as it's going back to you.
Oh wait, what since we're down the rabbit hole already?
Since you said that, do you ever find yourself whenever your peers are over your shoulder? Do you ignore the audience and then suddenly you're doing it for them? And does that ruin your set?
I try to not do that.
In another way, if Natasha is over your shoulder right and you know you got some shit, it's going to fuck her up right.
Now, you know what? I only I only so a something like that. We're saying, it's like me, Natasha, my other record NERD friends. I will only do that at our party. So at our party and we all know that anything goes, and that's when we really get to go in on each other. Like you don't have this boom. You don't have this boom, or I'll do something crazy like you don't have this boom and I'll play it then. And I have copies for everybody. You get a copy, a copy I do. I do the open things sometimes, you know, like I come out to the moment Monday more often so like, but when it comes to like where I'm working, and sometimes a lot of times, like I do certain types of events that they don't really frequent, but they're curious about them, you know, like if it's like a big d M thing or something like that. A lot of them, like I'm not just talking about Natasha then, but just in general, a lot of my friends don't necessarily frequent those places, but they're curious about what goes on. I'm not gonna go and play like the Ill super Duper Rare, you know, a funk funk boogie record. You know, when I'm in the middle of playing a bunch of turn up music for some kids and doing doing what I gotta do for them.
You know, it's it's not it's so you have more nuanced control.
Yeah, yeah, you guys.
I can't resist sometimes I can't.
I can't do it now. Now Here's the thing. If I'm in a venue or playing a party or an event or a festival where it's kind of more of that, anything goes kind of thing right, and you can throw the curveball and the audience is. There's some places that you will play and people know, people know who you are, they know your taste. If they're coming to see you play, they know that they might get a curve ball. People going to see Rich Pardina because they know he's gonna throw curve balls, you know.
Oh yeah, your status definitely determines how much you can get away from your right.
Yeah. So like if I'm playing a certain place and I'm like establishing myself, Like for example, there are certain festivals that I play where it's like just Blazers playing. We are at that stage and as soon as I you know, my stage could be forty percent of thirty percent full. By the time I get twenty minutes in, i'mout one hundred percent capacity. There are other festivals that I play where it's like I'm establishing myself in this market. So my curveball ability is very low because I'm trying to establish myself here. I'm not gonna be the guy that's gonna all of a sudden be like he was doing great and then he just started playing the theme from the Jeffersons. I'm choosing as an.
Example, like, Yeah, Kate Turna, I don't know you ever seen Yeah, he's kind like that, like he did.
I went and saw him.
He was here a couple it was like last month and his opening set This is a room for the like twenty year old. You know, his opening song was Welcome to the Club by Blue Magic Wow. And I texted that but that was, like, you just that was revolutionary, and they he had him jamming too.
But that's the thing. There are certain people that that certain generations will look to for that. He's somebody that can do that, not because he has the status of being able to get away with curveballs, because he's one of the certain people looked at certain DJs for certain things. Some people look just like, I know he's gonna play a good time, play all the songs. I know he's gonna know when to drop the vocal out so I can sing along, and it's just pretty much a standard good time. Then you have other guys who are known as like the Diggers and I feel like Kate Trnado in a lot of ways is the digger sample.
I he was dropping whispers. I was like, what the fuck?
Right?
It was so people.
That doesn't surprise me at all because I know him, but because I've seen him play and I've watched the fact that the crowd respects him when he does that. Now, it depends on what mark, depending where market we're in. I remember when I was playing, we played a festival together. I want to say it was in New Zealand. His stage was a much smaller stage, but he was able to do that on the stage that music Me and zay Low on the stage that I was playing at that would not have worked because just by the way I'm positioned, I'm positioned on the stage. That's the stage. So it's not gonna work for me.
Wait, since we're talking about DJ tricks and stuff and.
You know, surprises and obscure songs, I think maybe now it's a good time to try part three.
It's part three. I'm going it's a little more advanced.
Oh come on, did that drum roll thing? Was like torture?
No, no, no, no, you did well, you did well? All right, So can you guess these jawns.
Okay, I can already tell you.
I know that one.
DC LaRue vernon.
What just happened?
Hold up very white brothers?
So again? Oh wait? What am I I'll do? Yeah, I'm going to play trying to play.
That's all.
Play, y'all host this show. Y'all should know this ship. I don't want to hear it.
You know.
Now here's the thing. There's something I don't I don't know the original bridge, I know who was used by I better know that I have the record. I don't know what by name?
Okay, we'll try again. I don't know that I have diabetes. I'm I'm out.
A couple of let the Sunshine and by who? How do you know it's let the Sunshine? Because when you played it, you let it go little and I can hear the let this.
I just don't know whose version that is.
It's the three Block singers? Who is this? All? Right?
Then he played that?
Okay?
What is the name?
Is breaks? This version of.
Brace's version of what's the what's the version of Mango Mango meet by by Mandro?
Okay, do you guys know the mango meat story?
Oh am?
I allowed to reveal it.
I feel like since I've done it, I heard that Jeff has been redoing that.
Motherfucker I do it?
Oh gosh, what you thought you.
Thought we were going?
All right? Fine, mango meat?
Can I do it first?
Okay, go ahead?
Can I do it first?
Please?
Go go? What's about to happen here? All right?
Oh?
Wow?
Then I got and I got it.
That might that might traveling?
Wow.
Man, the night he revealed that ship, it was confusion.
What is that?
Realizing the freeways? What is the what is the uh? Oh you still don't know? No, I know, I know, but I just look.
I wanted to ask a dumb question. I guess in the room, but I was somebody listening, mister Blaize, But what did you replace whatever that instrument was for rock?
The mic?
Like, I mean, it just sounds it sounds different, like it's still I can hear the Caden sounds the same, but whatever the it's production.
He tuned it higher and.
There's a lot there's a lot more to it, but that's basically right there.
Yeah.
That was done on the ASRX pro really yeah, randomly, like I had one. The thing I loved about the a SRX Pro was or that the SRX in general was that it was the engine of the sr ten. But it also had built in a built in sound module where you can access patches through RAM as opposed to having to load stuff and through uh A drive or not having to use like a JV ten eighty or twenty eighty or whatever to get your sound. So it's basically right. It was basically all in one machine. Like you had the sampling section, you had your samples, and you also had built in piano patches, basses and things like that, and no drum machine to my knowledge up until that point, had had that all built into the RAM.
Wow.
Yeah, so I started I started trying to I championed it for a while. It was no NPC, but I it was. There was a certain element of portableness.
Of course, right, I mean on that equipment.
So we're not dying.
I know that.
That's the get it together said, that's one.
I never was one of those like switched on back or hooked on box records. Another let the sunshine and by the move machine.
Okay, looked that was I do have that. No, I don't know that one.
Oh congo byte afric.
Oh yeah, no, here Yeah, that's d C LaRue.
Was a squeak? Yeah, that is that a kick pedal or or chair. Yeah, it's things like the squeak of the pedal. Pay whole thing. Oh, play a little bit of it anyway.
That is who is d C LaRue.
Dclu in discreet Industrlet's vernon, vernon, vernon, birch, birch, Get up like that last night?
Actually that was Sylvester. That Selvester sounds like boon. I don't think it is what it sounds like. It sounds like me and the gang, but I know it's not. You're close.
Yeah, it's it's get it by Mandrel. Can you get it?
Get it?
Get it?
Get it? Oh yeah, okay, last.
Together brothers. I used to us to trol people and I would like even I still do, yeah instead of the train. Yeah yeah, but like it wasn't you know, It wasn't until I really like, it wasn't until maybe at some point in the two early two thousands that I realized that's what that was. And now the Train is my favorite bass record because that that that The together brothers, it's so.
Hard, So I never going together brothers better. I don't like the way they programmed that the the no no.
Not that I don't like Together Brothers butt, I mean that's the source. My point is I never listened to Ride the Train from the context of production. I only ever listened to it as that song that drove you nuts when it came on the radio or when the video came over. So once I found the sample, I went back and listened to it, and I was like, for them to take this and making Miami based record out of it, that was like some old like when uh what was a mister Mixer's crew, the ghetto style DJs when they would do things like on mega mixes when they would have no matter how you try, you can't stop. But making Miami bass flip out of that. I appreciated that, like because it's typically Miami based. They were sampling craft work, planet rock, uh, stuff that was already electro. Right when you take something like that together Brothers Record Together Brothers Records, which is when you listen to Alontowa, it's completely different styles doesn't lend itself to bass music. That was kind of like the reason why, like people ask me, like about the sample flips I'm the most proud of, or that I had the most fun doing whatever. Obviously, the Rick James one that you and I, you know, have a history with like that was one where it was like I took some nothing. I hadn't been sampled before. It had never been sampled for that.
It was.
It wasn't supposed to be, hey, look here's you can't touch this. You know it was, but when you listen to, you like, there's something about this that sounds familiar, and then you realize that there's nothing but me chopping it up on the past.
You did it with ignorant shit with the with the.
Nobody ever listened to, but nobody ever listens to people.
Want to quiet did it was well they kind of used vicious on the.
He took like a little bit of it. But yeah, but I mean listening I remember the record. I remember it was the main part, but like the little hook right.
There as well, or even like the uh, the t I Rihanna live your life where it was like everybody knows that record from the fact kid on YouTube doing this. And the funny thing is now it came about in almost the same exact way. You know, I did the Rick James things from my MySpace page, like trying to figure out a way to just branded, like, hey, this is my actual page. So I forget what I was trying to brand, but it was the same thing. We make a track out of something ultimately ridiculous, but trying to make something incredible and cool out of it. And I don't know if it was for like, it wasn't Friends her or something, but it was something else from that early Internet era, and it just so happened and Tip called me right after I made it. Well, as we were making I'm yo, this could actually be a song. So I started writing a hook to it, and it just so happened that Tip called me like right after I laid the references, and I was like, yoh, I had the opportunity to get a Justin Timberlake on a record, because I guess Justin Oda he owed Justin o him a favor forgetting on something. So originally it was that's why it's all false sett of a demo if you ever hear the demo's all false sett of because I was referencing as Justin Timberlake. But then Rihanna came into the picture and we ended up going with that because it made more sense for her to be on that record.
Okay, now I gotta jump all over the place. Since you mentioned Kingdom Come, I wish someone was there to work on the hook writing process of those three songs, which the show me what you Got.
I'm not mad aged show me what you got, but just for it was the way got killed it. It was the wave. I didn't mind the way people don't wave.
But here's the thing. Black people don't wave, right. But I'll tell you what. I don't play that, but I play festival I don't, or parties or bigger parties. I don't play the whole record, but I play it up until the wave and every but everybody wait, okay, anyway, it was like, so I think I actually stole something from mster c When when when the record first came out, and how someone was running back to back to back to back and missus got hype and started doing the hands up and wave to the left, wave to the right way. So for me, that's the perfect way to get out of that record, because everybody does it. They all in white people, black people, whatever. Now now that it's an older record. At the time, it might not have worked.
It works now.
I think the resistance to show me what you got was more about at that point, it was just too much God damn Hove. At that point it was like, I think anything would have been overkilled.
Which is funny because that was his come back out.
Yeah, he came. Yeah, he was silent for yeah.
But I mean it was still I mean it was still the bad Yeah, the back I mean, you know, don't I think anything.
Would. I mean, it was too much of it. And this is the thing.
Whenever he snickers on his record, I hate that snicker because it's like that, that is the all right, you ever watched you ever watched.
You?
Ever watched you?
Ever watch uh the Chappelle extras where Charlie Murphy's describing the guy that says you fucking wore on Yeah, and now that this gets Yeah, he has a friend. He has a black in that insults you to the point where you just want to beat the ship out of him. He has a way of saying, you fucking moron, and he turns into a white person saying it makes you want to fuck him up. That's what does that j snicker. It's not even like the two like the Tupac snicker. What was the Tupac I mean no, I don't.
Like, I don't know about the Tupac snicker being a thing.
I mean no, Tupac always.
It's supposed to be smart, but it's never as menacing as Tupac think it is in his head, Like I think his mind Tupac thinks would be like the super Villains.
And I never even noticed. I never even know the snicker is a thing. Get I know the Jada, that's the Jada.
I love this.
All right, here's the super Rappit. We're never going to get to your career. Sorry, that's fine.
So one of the one of the most amazing things I've found out that Bill and I found out teaching at NYU.
Does the world even know that you teach at n YU with me? Or do I teach it n YU?
Or do I just hand out papers if you weren't there would class be as smooth as possible?
Hell no, Yeah, this is the black laugh? Is this is this the theory? Okay? So it was the whole class about the black laugh? No, this is actually really interesting. It's amazing.
So what I didn't know was that in general, emotions were illegal during slavery period. I mean, even with your parents you're like, you better not cry for I give you something to cry out, or you know, you can't get angry at someone or whatever.
But you also couldn't laugh. Laughing was illegal slave time.
You were Sassin, so it was just keep your head down, do you work, No crying, no laughing, no whatever. So the slaves had to invent uh some sort of device so that they can express emotions if they want to cry or scream or some then. So the idea of a barrel laughs comes from a place. They built a barrel, filled it with water, so if you felt yourself wanted to curse out your master or laugh at a joke or something, and then one get fifty lashes, you would duck your head in the water and laugh to suppress the sounds.
And that's when a term barrel laughs comes from.
That's where it comes from now where it's relevant into terms of entertainment. The very first spoken word, or I guess the first recorded material for black people was a song called the Laughing Song, and I guess it was the fuck the police of its day, because it's like, well, I'm recording a song, so you can't give.
Me lashes or put me in jail. For laughing. So ha ha, it's the ha ha ha song or whatever.
And so one of our teaching assistants, Amalia Amalia, she did a study and in her study she noticed that.
Laughing on any black records is never laughing. It's an expression of pain. So when Stevie like the.
Invention of Michael's he he is from Stevie wonders maybe your baby, which is about betrayal, so he just most of James Brown's grunts hot or either laughing is uh an exclamation term or it's a villain term, like I got you, motherfucker, what you gonna do?
It's it's never just a genuine, genuine, hearty laugh of joy.
Or her laughter on any and she has. She's done a study of like one hundred years of recorded music in documentary.
Now is that class.
Turned me out of find a laugh?
Yeah, Jenny, Literally every laugh she has is either villainous or an exclamation.
Or an ironic Yeah, not one, all right, So I can't even backsell it. So this is the Laughing song by George W. Johnson from eighteen ninety.
Eight Robert Song by George W. As I am, I was coming around the corner, I had some people sad, it comes down the dog here, it comes this by you know, he is like a snowflower. His thousand is like a strap at open rules here for gaps. Then I laugh.
How was that recorded in the very first.
You know, how was recorded or what it was recorded on?
I mean, whatever it's I mean, I wouldn't say that, yeah, it's it's on acetate. I wouldn't even say it's during the time period that what's his name was? Yeah, that low Max was going around recording people. But I don't know the history. I can yeah to another, but anyway leading back, leading back to JA yeah, yeah, but I just never.
Yeah his laugh. It's like being called a moron.
What I'm gonna do?
I'm sorry, Yeah, it's just it irks me. But my whole point was that I felt.
It got short one. I think people were just ready for the j backlash to go down. It was time for it, and to Oh my God and and Kingdom Come could have used way better hooks, and but I still felt the thing was I sold him. I told him to start that record with those three songs because in my head I wanted his comeback to be like the updated two thousand and six version of America's Most Wanted.
I described, like yo, these three records.
And but see you know the things that he had his own other other vision, like he wanted it. He'd always wanted to do a project with Dre.
And if you look like every all their collaborations are fail Like Dre the first watch It Too was dope.
That song wasn't really, but he came up on that verse.
Dre tried to mix those records. He didn't know, he didn't bother trying to make sure me what you got. He tried to mix Kingdom Come and not You. They had this thing where they were like they had done deal with Dre, where Dre was kind of supposed to help oversee the album and also do the mixing. They knew they know how hands on I am with my stuff. Dre knows that. But I said, you know what, it's Dre. I can't argue with that, you know, like if he says is he wants to do cool. I knew it was gonna happen. I know I was gonna get a call m H. And that's exactly what happened. I got a call like yo, because because Dre has already me and Dred already tried this with when we were working on games first album, you know Dre oversaw right, No, No, the first album we had like Church for Thugs, Yeah one a second album. So like Drey had already tried to mix my records. And because it's Dre, I'm never gonna say no. You can't attempt that, you know, like that's it's tray. And Dre has probably one of the the best ears in the hip hop as it relates to his sound. He knows how to make his sound sound amazing. But he called me and say, I don't know how you do what you do with these crazy bass frequencies and these super high in horns like part I tried to make it. It's not happening. Uh, come get on the plane. And I went out to LA and fixed the game record and it wasn't even a long process. It was just I know how I EQ what IQ exactly. And then with with Kingdom cod was kind of the same thing, like I never I never at this point I was you were doing files and I never was the type to send files out. Again, it's Dre, I'm not gonna say no. And I remember Jay Brown being like doing this solid. You know, I know that you're you know, you do your own stuff and you're your own factory. But we're trying to do this deal with Dre where he mixes everything. I said, all right, fine, sending the files, get the same call, Yo, it's it's not coming back right like I heard just rough, you might as well just.
Have just do it.
Because all he was he what he was trying to do was retreat my It's like, what just I already have the demo here, so let me just fix that up. So the day that they sent me the files back and j was coming to approve or listening to the mix and see if he was cool with it, was the dad played him, show me what you got m and he, because I had to mix up for Kingdom, come in the b room and then I like, I have something else you need to listen to it.
I play time. Yeah.
I want to say this was maybe the last thing that he did recording wise. At Baseline. We mixed. We mixed Blueprint three at Baseline, but he didn't record it the other there. We just bought the files back and.
Mixed it Baseline. Still no.
Baseline. I had the Grand Closing two thousand or eleven, Waito eleven, twenty eleven. So I did the great clothes on What was the last thing worked on there? That is a good question. I'm gonna have to get back to you on that. I want to say Blueprint three was the last thing. I want to say I actually worked on there, Like there might have been a few other random things that came up here and there before I finally closed the doors, but the last full project that was worked on there, like the entire Blueprint three was mixed there.
Okay, now I'm gonna get back in the DeLorean and go back to.
Let's go back to the shake that ass thing.
Actually, that's why I was saying it because I got it.
So I didn't make the record, but I was in my in my neighborhood or in my local market. I would say I was one of the guys that, like can I guess, helped break it. So I had routines that I would do. Back then, you didn't have twenty Jersey House records to play because it worked twenty of them or twenty Baltimore House records at that time. So I used to have a whole team that I used to do. So one night I used to do. I used to do a roll skating rink and from nine to twelve was roll skating and then from twelve o'clock on we would shut down the skating rink and it would just be people dancing on the skating rink. It was all ages. I was maybe like sixteen when I was doing at the time. So one night we got little bit of money together and we had Wendy Williams host Wow and uh, mister c was gonna be the DJ. Because the party started doing pretty well, so we were able to, you know, get a little bit of money together and start booking people. So Whenny Williams comes down to the host, Carhart Dad like she could have been an extra in a Youngster's video or what she was, car Heart down from top to bottom like Scully or shut out Stretch. So she comes down and she's doing her whole thing. I'm still DJing, and I know that missus he's about to do his thing. So I'm like, you know, I've always been a type to kind of respect the headlining DJ, but at the same time, like, this is my party, so I'm gonna throw out so my things. I knew that he was gonna do the hip hop thing. He had never really been exposed to Jersey just house culture in general up until that point, because it's very different from what's happening in house in house clubs in New York.
Gotcha.
So I do my usual Jersey house thing, which is really just the mix of the Chicago stuff, the Baltimore stuff, some of our local Jersey stuff, some of the Detroit tech noow, and I ended with this routine that I used to do, where I used to do a mix, a blend of shake shake, shake that ass. And the whole time, he's just kind of in a corner, like you know, being the celebrity DJ, just watching me, waiting to get on. He's just coming whatever. I play that and he immediately is just like, wait, what's this? As soon as he heard to opening dum dump done done done, like the Bounce called him. Then he looks at the crowd and he sees with the crowds when we had just moved the crowd onto the skating ring, so now everybody's dancing. He just watched what's happening, like, Yo, this is amazing. So I get a phone call from stage information that night we uh he hits me the next day, he said, I need that record or that song that you have. I need to do something with this.
So who is the original artist on that red.
He passed away a few years ago, so I bring him. I bring him a copy to the Cold He's like, oh, we meet the Cold Chilling offices. This is when Cold Chilling still add offices. So I go to Cold Chilling. Now, me as a kid who grew up on people in my age, grew up on like, you want me to come to Cold Chilling. So I called my older cousin, You'd be right over to Cold Chilling the next day or I actually a couple of days later, and I give him the record and he literally gives me a copy of every single record that came out on Cold Chilling, from the inception like the Prism day to then sealed, yeah, sealed, brand new, unopened. So it's like literally like three boxes worth and doubles of everything a man.
So I'm including like the looks like a job for Big Daddy Kane and everything where I want to interview.
That was that was? That was, That was post co chill, because that was that was.
But Chilling was like was it was? It Prince of Darkness, I think was.
But but then like because I'm new when I'm young, or because I'm so young, they like, wait a minute, we should play start playing them some of our new records. They're trying to kind of guinea pig me to be like the kid A and R. So now I'm going to cold Chilling and like they they had signed a group called the Brooklyn Zoo. Had nothing to do with Dirty but they were called the Brooklyn Zoo. And he plays they play me the video and they play me this song, or they play me the video and I'm waiting for the Wu Tang symbol to pop up, and it doesn't pop up, and then the video's over and I'm like, well, where's the Wu Tang symbol? I don't know even I'm a kid, like you play it. And this was right when UH returned to the thirty six shames that come out, So I'm like, where's the Wu Tang symbol? There wasn't one. I'm like, but they're called the Brooklyn Zoo, you know, Like it was just so that I walked up with the Brooklyn Zoo twelve inch too. It was just you know, like but it was just that surreal experience of I'm at the CoA chilling offices and I've just been giving this entire catalog on wax. So that's actually the first time my name ever appeared on a record was when mister C did his version of shape that ass. If you look at the bottom of the twelve inch it's his big being up to my man DJ just from Jersey. So like, to me, I had made it. You couldn't something my name was on a record, period, Like it doesn't matter that it was a tape kings pressing, it was a record, but I'm like, I'm like, Mom, look, She's like, who's DJ Judge from Jersey. I'm like, that's me. But like I still ask you today. I have a framed copy of that record, like just because it's one of those reminders, like my first time ever my name was ever on a record was It wasn't even a record that I produced, but I knew I had a big hand in it, and that record ran New York radio in clubs for god knows how that's I heard.
So all right now I'm skipping the Matt Lion.
That was a really random thing. I don't remember how it came up. I don't remember how it came up. Chris had just gotten a job at Reprise.
He was like the right he was forgot Chris.
Office this dude named thorough maybe a through something like that, and then he gave a line a deal. I don't remember how the initial like how it happened, but I end up like my first time ever in l A, like being flown out to l A birecty. My first time I set foot in California was being flown out to do this mad Line album. And a lot of stuff that I was doing was very orchestral at the times. A lot of string arrangements, uh, a lot of horn arrangements, timpane stuff like that. And his idea was he was trying to do like a Conan inspired album like Yes, looked up Mad Lion Predator or Prey Predator p r e D. Like instead of Predator is Predators.
A Predators the nineties?
Right, we wore Prey album?
God Yeah wow?
Like his talking voices very it's close to close to his rap bush. I did like eight records for him. It was my first time ever seeing like a lump sum of money like maybe like something like almost one hundred grand check or is that in cash sign of I got a check from Warner Brothers. But then I forget what. I forget what the situation was. But I want to say, maybe there was a white label of one of the records that we did that I ended up getting because I was still in a record pool at the time. So I get like by a copy of my own a record at the record pool and it just has produced by mad Line.
Mm hm, and I'm like, sure, yes, you did this record.
So we were on you know, we we We're on the phone.
He manned.
We talked about it. It wasn't he didn't give me the industry run around. He didn't do it. You know, we talked about it. He was like, listen, you know, gave me his opinion on it. I gave him my opinion on it. He said, well, how about this, how about we just make it the Madline and just play his album. I said, no, it doesn't doesn't need to even be that. I just want to be properly try for what I did. And from there on that we had no problem at all. Funny enough, that was actually all That album is the first time auto tunes have actually used on an R and b record, Wow, what year is that? I don't know it was before because Sheriff did it. Obviously that was the first one. And then I want to say, and then Jennifer Lopez had it on. I think maybe if you Want My Love or something like that. We did a record with Total, did he explode?
Am I the only one that really likes Total? I appreciate Total for what they were, what know theirs? The first album was JAC Sitting Home. I tried. Look they had on there called rock track.
I remember it was like having having good songs and giving good performances are two different, right, And what I appreciated about Total is that I felt they worked within it. I felt that they were accessible. They were the girls next door. They sound right your cousin Tanisia's singing.
And I don't think I ever tried to be anything more than you know, like So we did the Remember we did the record. It was it called I don't remember what it was called, but you look up mad line Total, it'll it'll come up. But we did the record, and I'm gonna try something right after. I already I was using pro tools, you know, early on, so I knew about the auto tune effect, so I put auto tune I think on pay the Dark Pan was the dark Skian girl put Auto two on her. She was like, what's that? So I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna put all on all their vocals, all her background.
The first of the second album.
This is One Mad Lines was featuring featuring Total, so we did I did the bag speaking. That's another funny story that that doing that record is how I met Joey Longo, Pal Joey this but this was when Thong song was out and okay, so wait they used drums from Earth People. So I walk into Unique, Wow the dam I'm doing this session and I look at my uh track sheet and it says assistant engineer or by session, assistant Engineer's gonna be Pal Joey. And actually it might have just said Joey Longo because that was just real near. So I'm in the room and it's just, you know, this white dude a little bit older than me, you know, you know what he was talking about. And I started putting on are you Pal Joey, like the Pal Joey and he's like, you know who I am. I'm like, you know Earth People? Soho krs like I was just I was so wide I did so I was like, why are you working here?
Wait?
Can you stop the story? Yeah, I know pal Joey from all the Kras credits. Pal Joey did motherfucking so host hop music.
Yes, that's what I'm saying, Yes.
In a conversation.
Now, yeah, I think you should have got it.
You think he probably got a pretty good check because Mark Ronson sampled him well, credited him on the uh the last record that the the.
One that sounds like hot music.
So so so I'm like, I'm I you know, looking back, that was a crazy thing to ask. By the time, I was just like, he's a hero to me. And when I hear thongs so he has aside from Hot Music, his other classic house record is Earth People Dance, So he had a bonus beats version on the flip that the DJ's used to rints crazy. So yeah, So at the end of Thong song, I remember it changes and it gets a little bit more foreign to Flourish. They're using pal Joey's drums. So not only has this done done amazing classic records, and at the time, I'm thinking that all of my heroes are living, rich and lavish and are doing are well to do whatever. So I asked him, why are you working here? He's like, well, I wanted to learn about engineering and I needed a job. So I'm like, but you realized that, like your drums are sampled in the number one record in the world right now, you don't need like why are you working here? And I was just so that was my first time meeting somebody that was a hero mine, but meeting them is just in their regular life. And he was like, you think I can get some money for that, and I'm like, dude, yeah, those are clearly your drums, your program drums, not a loop you found and no, this is your program drums are on the biggest record.
Wow, I'm mind blowing this. Pal Joey Yes, ah damn that's Earth People.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm sorry, it's Earth People.
So dude, I'm just the random Sorry. I met Pal Joey and kind of like was like, yo, dude, talk to this lawyer. You can go get some money next time. I don't know the exactly outcomeing, but like next time I saw him look a lot happier and it was like yo, yeah, so you know, I'll stop the story there but I think he was doing he did okay, uh made out okay over that. But anyway, Yeah, so that Lion situation was the first time that I'd ever made a little, a nice little trunk of money up front at once. My first time in LA. Uh was that? My first experience in Boystown in LA. I have a great Boystown story. I was talking about Westwood. I don't know it's like the actual Boystown area of LA. Okay, I didn't know what Boystown was.
You're the roots in nineteen ninety four when oh wow, I have a I got a better one though. This is we're about to get off the air now.
It was this was my second my second time in l A. I ended up in anybody who's familiar with La over next time you're in l A, you know that I hop on Sunset.
Yeah, Halloway Drive.
Right next to that is the Halloway Motel. So the night of the Grammys, I ended up having to stay in that hotel. Why, not knowing what it was.
I'll give you the short It's the cheapest hotel on the not just.
It's not even a hotel. Bro It's a place where wait.
A minute, wait by the air.
Yes, this is what they rhyme about, like thing of the Bristol Hotel by cool. So it's wait, it's crazy because it's like, Okay, I see the Roscoes, I know where the I HOPI.
It's literally right next to the eye. How I'll give you the shortest version possible. So this is my second time. This is my first time in LA on my own, just being there. Me and and hip Hop went to La. I think we set up some meetings or whatever.
Hip Hop Kanye's manager, Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so we're out there. We're both dumb, young we do you know, We're just out there. So this was we were out there while the Grammys were happening, so we kept We're only supposed to be there three days. We kept extending the stay, and the hotel's found with that they're getting money. So the day of the grammysh price, the price just the rooms aren't even available. So there the Grammys comes and I called out to the front desk like, hey, so we're just gonna extend our stay. I'm not going to the Gramies. I'm They're like, oh, sorry, well that room has been sold out since last year for this day, Like and I'm like, all right, so can you help us out? Like we need to stay here. We don't have a plane to get back home. So they called all their other hotels like you know in LA trying to find rooms. They couldn't find a room, they had their rooms available. They start calling other hotels just to try to help us out because we've been staying there for like two weeks, so they were trying to look out for us. Long story short, there are literally no hotel rooms in l A at all period. It's the day of the Grammys. There's nothing. You're also talking like maybe like two thousand. So a lot of those you know a lot of those newer hotels that are in l A now, like those they don't exist back then.
This is when records were actually said pre R and B.
They just none of it available. So so me and uh, uh that's see, I forget dude's name. What was the what were the what was the crew behind Sunshine Anderson's uh.
Who was City and uh Mike City producer before I.
Forget dude's name, but he was like the guy that kind of ran their crew or was like, oh they had him maybe start with a jay he he he was the industry dud at the time he was popping. I remember what his name was, kind of irrelevant. He was having So I'm skipping around. First of all, my homie mo Betta comes and picks me up mh one of my old homes from the bed. So we're literally driving around La trying to find our hotel. That's the reason why I bought dude up to some chinadis, and dude was because he would start a Grammy party that night. Hip Hop was gonna help him with the party. So a hip left like, ya gotta go help homeboy. Can you try to sort out the rooms? I'm like, yeah, we'll figure it out. At the time, I don't know how difficult it's gonna be.
Uh.
We check out of the room. Hip goes and does what he has to do. The party is on at I think the House of Blues on some like that was right off Sunset or whatever. So I get uh, we go around at every hotel, nobody has anything. We plastic place, the Holloway Motel and the Science that's vacancy, right. So we get there and it wasn't even like a front desk. They had like a or the window. They had a window so sign number.
Two bulletproof class all you need so hard keys.
You have any rooms. He's like, well, unfortunately, guys, we only have doubles. I'm like, well that's great because there's two of us. So he doesn't know that hip, but he sees me and mo bet he's in my homie. He's like when you know, He's like, unfortunately. I'm like, wait, but no, doubles are fine. There's two people. We need two beds. So there's a jar sitting right next to him. I don't look at the joh I'm thinking it's like lollipops, candy. I don't know. But I'm looking around just the neighborhood and there's a lot of prostitutes out here, right whatever. I'm just kind of this is my second time in La, my first time really on my own, so I'm just getting the laying the land. Wow, this is I guess this is the hooker area.
I don't know. So they're like pancakes. I get to the whole time.
I get it in and it's it's a The room is clean. It's you know, bare bones, but it's clean. So I'm in there for a while and I'm like, I said I'm nobody. So I'm just like, the Grammy Red Carpet is happening. We're watching it on T I'm watching it on TV. Hip Hop is doing his thing, you know, gallivanting with Homeboy at the setting up for the hard rock calf or the not the House of Blues drunk.
What album is out that you're is this blueprint or this is pre pre all of that, like two thousand.
Maybe maybe a mill Maybe that's probably it. Maybe a mill. So I'm like, well, hip hop is having that party, but back and get into that or always having a party. Hip Hop is back and get into that. So I go to get in the shower.
So I.
Start showering. It's like, yeah, I think this is something.
Do you still have what you caught that night? I don't need to switch seat.
Actually, I think this is the fear that we can all relate to. And the shower and middle middle lather mid the water shuts off, there's no water. Yeah, what do you you do? So? And I had like I literally just stepped in waters on me, soap up, water stops.
And I'm like the timer on the shower, what do I do?
So I kind of I'm covered in soap like it's you can't really just tabl it off because then it's just I had no choice. So that right after that, the rings got the front desk or the front window letting me know that there's been a water main break in the area. There's no water anywhere in the area. So I wipe. I'm still sticky with the soap filleb all over me. I get dressed, I'm like, what do I do? Uh Like, I'll just go to the iehop. Can't go to hop. There's no water, so I hop was closed, so I was just gonna go back to the room. So I'm sitting on the in the room, sitting on the bed watching the Grammy red carpet, still covered in soap, you know, but like sticky and whatnot. And then all of a sudden, I hear coming from the next door. So I'm like, oh, I guess, so somebody somebody's getting it in, so I need somebody is lucky that I notice. I hear many voices. It wasn't just like a male and a female moan, or a male and a male moan, or a female and a female moan. It was just some all types. I'm like, so That's when it really hits me, like, yo, I'm in like a hotel motel, like the hotel motel, and I run back out to I run back out to the front desk and it's closed, but the jar is still there, or the front window, but the jar is still there. And I realized the jars are actually it's what's where the jar, what's in it is. It's not lolly pops, it's not bubble gum. It's packets of ky and kind of so I'm like, right, So I'm like, well, so now I'm just I'm walking around. Remember I said, I noticed there were a lot of hookers out, So that's what I'm realizing. That's when I'm starting to realize what area that I'm in, Like, and I'm staying at a motel that they're all coming to through their business in. So then I try to I'm like, you know what, I'm sticky, I'm covered in soap. I had dreads at the time, so my dreads is all soap and watered up everything. So I'm like, you, I know where the House of Blues is, So I was just gonna try to walk towards there. Maybe I can just get into the party somehow. But then I realize how I look, And then I look at the line and I see the line is down on the block because it's a House of Blues Grammy party in LA And I realize I'm not getting into that, but I'm gonna try anyway. But this is really before cell phone was even really like where I had a cell phone. I want to say, a hit baby did it. I'm like, I don't know what to like. I don't know what to do with this point. So I roamed Boystown for the next couple of hours. Oh wow, and just not you know, what do I do with that situation? So eventually I go back to the hotel. I realize what it is now, water comes back on I you know, finish the shower, so I lay my jacket on top of the bed. I don't get in the bed and I just lay there. So hip hop finally comes in like six thirty in the morning, and he's tired. He's been at this party or like they probably went for food after him, god knows what else. So I come like half asleep, but I see him going to pull the sheets back and get in the bed. I'm like, no, I don't get in the bed whenever you do not get in the bed. He's so confused, like he gets in the bed anyway. I'm like, dude, stop, like to sleep on. Do you see what I'm doing? Do you guise where we're at? You see to drive condoms in ky you know at the front, there was no wow shout out to search. So uh, next morning, uh mo, better finds uh you know, now the grand people are leaving. So the next morning we find a hotel. Oh but then I don't really know that this is traditionally supposed to be an hourly thing and if you stay over there, like check out time, it's still like nine a m. Because nobody goes through those places in stays. So I'm getting the phone calls and dude is a very effeminate and his medisms on the phone, So I'm kind of like just kind of like, yo, whatever, dude, because he's like it was checkout time. I'm like, yeah, whatever, click because I'm I'm activating. I'm tired. If I've had the worst of the night from hell, I just want to sleep inside. Know that I have another hotel room. So dude calls again a little bit later, still, you know, being effeminine, and I'm just like, you gotta get up. I gotta get up, I gotta get up. Hip hop had left righty because he was going to try to find another hotel room. So dude calls one more time and I'm like, hey, yo, we're we're about to be out in fact to be found a hotel room at this point. Next thing, I know, about five minutes later, the banging I'm not doing baby, and it's I hear that same with feminine voice. So I opened the door like ready to like make it the thing. And the dude is like six foot nine diesel my white beaters, his muscles, got muscles, and I'm like, sir, we'll be right out.
That episode.
I bet you.
Man, Let's let's go somewhere. So okay, so sigon, yes man, what happened with that record? Like I'm now that it's like over and what endless delays? So wait did it come out?
It did come out, came out twenty eleven.
I got that mistake with Jay Electronic means.
Lord of Mercy Side was brought to me by like when Sycamore was first trying to figure out what the an R game was. Whenever he wanted to work with me, Like, and I used to just see Sycamore around and be like, who is this dude? Like I'll be in Chicago, and the next I'll be in Cleveland, and I'll be in Chicago, Sycamore is there. I'll be in Cleveland the next day he's there, and I'm like, you know, he was just trying to I was on a road with Jay and Fifty at the time, so Sick was kind of just like finding out where we were playing at and popping up in every market, just trying to make a name for him. So so took a lot of control him. He wanted to do the an R thing. So he brings me a bunch of artists. One of the artists he brings me aside off, So I'm like, yo, kid's kind of nice have him coming down to the studio. Gave SI about four records or four beats. I'm gonna take these home and let me know, you know, bring me back what you come up with in the meantime, Like you know, he'd had his Warning Shots mixtape out. He had literally like a a a crazy binder full of press and whatnot already. So I'm like, all right, I think, you know, the kid has some stuff popping. Uh, letsten to me. He comes back with. You know, in terms of the music music he brings back is not mind blowing, but it's good considering he just went home and one night wrote four songs and brought him right back to me. So I'm I'm still debating, like what we can do with this, If we can make it into something, he's coming around baseline more. I'll giving him more music. Within a week of that, word starts to spread that we are, you know, hanging out before we could even do the bidding war thing or anything like that. Atlantic comes right to the table, like, so we heard just plays working with a notice name Sagon and Ge is involved, and hip hop is involved. So we wanted didn't hear, didn't hear a song, didn't hear a demo, heard nothing. They just saw the names on paper, just plays, Sagon, Gem Robinson, hip Hop, Rockefeller. Go like, why why would we not a part of this? And because of the way his buzz was at the time, at least in the underground and throughout New York, I think they thought they were getting like the next fifty cent right, and it wasn't that His music wasn't that and so me, you know, being young in experience in that field, just was like, oh they hey, we don't even have to make a demo. They just wanna sign up because it was involved great looking back to my the worst things you could ever do. You already know that. And on top of that, G and hip hop are gonna be in the building at Atlantic. Now I kind of want to say that this might have been their entry point into Atlantic or this was like happened right after they made their way into Atlantic. So you have, you know, two of your very good friends now being the heads of A and R at the labels. Like it's a no brainer. You know, it's a win win for everybody. And as soon as we sent them the like so things are bubbling and I knew something was up, and like we gave them the first record was it Pain in My Life with Trey songs on it, which they didn't lift the finger to make it happen. We did it, got the record played or it's playing out seven, it's playing on a few other markets. Videos being played on b et. He uh was hosting rap City for a week or what. I don't know if he was on it, he had a regular series of like rotation like PSAs that he was doing on MTV, and I want to say he holds in Rahap City for like three days or something. All this is happening when Painting My Life drops. None of this is from Atlantic. This is either from pds or music directors whatever. Being a fan of him, a fan of the music. It wasn't me calling in favors. It wasn't us calling in favors. It was all happening very organically. So we're looking at the label like, hey, this is happening on his own without you guys lifting a finger. How about you lift a finger?
Do you know? How about it?
Like they were like, well, how do we do this? How do we sell this? And this is right when they're starting to This was that same year that they made all that money selling ring tones for the first time, So they're looking at this like how do we sell ring tones of this music? This is socially conscious, actual like real hip hop, how do we sell this? And I'm like, well, you know, you guys are a label. You've been selling records for you know, one hundred years now, and that's no slight to them. That's just really what my attitude was, like we've if I can't, if the music can organically find its way to MTV b et ninety seven, most of the other with the exception of it, like we were get was getting played in Boston, was getting played in Miami, it was getting played in Chicago. All this is happening without any of us calling it any heavy favors. And with that, you guys, they were not lifting your finger. Imagine what can happen if you guys did. And they just never did. And then they it started eventually became a parent. They just didn't know what to do with it. So at that point, I'm looking at it, all right, let's figure out to get out of this contract. But to Craig Coleman's credit, Craig was Craig admitted that and was still trying to find ways to make it work. He still, like it came time to be forecast budget, he was still, you know, going letting it happen. We needed a Jay Giles band sample cleared, which nobody had never really sampled Jay Giles. You know, he personally made the phone call to like the manager. Then you go to sample clearance house. They he personally called a manager made it happen, you know, and while he's trying to put his best foot forward, size getting frustrated at the delays and things. So he started to speak out against the label and then he was like doing things like five page my MySpace posts rentingas Atlantic. I'm like, dude, I'm trying to get these guys to either put up more money speaking finishes, to feel way to do it, or let us go. You keep doing this, You're pissing them off, Like it's gonna make my job harder. Would you either get the album finished or get out of there? And at that time, there was so much transitional stuff happening at Atlantic, which are you already know all about that? Just the process of getting out, even after they agreed to do it, just took god knows how long.
I mean, we were able to get out of our stuff like quick, but like Apathy was that at the same time.
It shit took like three years.
I remember trying to Apathy. He was over there too, And you know, I think with us they had it. They had they hadn't They invested a good amount of money. Like what I did. The first thing, one of the first things that I did was all the producers that had been helping him and supporting him, like guys like Scram and Alchemists and stuff like that. I went back right to those dudes and was like, I can't pay you for your old beats, but I'm gonna give you all you guys song deals. So I'm paying Scram Jones for three beats up front before he's even made them. I'm coming to Alchemists and said, I'm paying you for two beats, like the same guys that helped develop that sound. I want you guys to be the bulk of this album. Buck while same thing. So I'm giving dudes checks before I'm even hearing beats. And for the most part, all that worked out. But that said Atlantic had put out so much put up so much money, they weren't about to just relinquish it without having their right exactly. So by the time they worked out to return and everything else, now we had a position where his buzzes died. So it's like, all right, now we're freedom. We have freedom. We can put the record out how to who wants to buy it now? So we kind of had to get him back in the habit of putting on material. Mace tam s getting him on the road, finding any distributed for the project, for the project, making sure that all those sample clearances, the things that Atlantic had set up in good faith, were being transferred over to the new situation. I have to, like Jay had given me a feature for the album, and now I have to you know, hit Jay and be like, hey, it's still coming out. I want to make sure we're still good, you know, and all the guys, like all the talent that was on the album, like just like Fat minus Scoop doing the intro misinfo, doing skids, screen learning and doing skits like because it was kind of set up like a radio broadcast, getting on touched with all these people are making sure that like hey it's been five years or four years, but you know, I make sure that we're still good on our clearances. So a lot of that was really the lay of doing it, and at the same time him, you know, getting his buzz back up. It was definitely a learning experience, I think, one that you know, you kind of have to go through to know what mistakes not to do or to make over things that I go for the next time around.
So it was five years later, like we started that out, I met SI, I took over, like officially officially took over baseline and O three, I want to say, side came around, uh by and I mess.
Sicamore n O three the same year that I bought. But so I want to say, ci I had to start coming around in oh four, middle four, and we were working and like the deal probably happened by late O four early oh five came out in two thousand eleven, So that's six years later.
So let's talk about another frustrating project. JA Electrolysis elects.
His train is running on schedule?
What what schedule?
That's his favorite saying my train is running on schedule.
Was the last time you had a conversation.
With him, a real, real, real conversation, or like that, we had contact, a real conversation. It's been a while, Like when when Carrie Fisher died, we had a conversation. It wasn't about music. It was about carry Fisher.
You cite you too are Star Wars.
We was just like sci fi guys in general, you know, so so uh that was a conversation. It wasn't a lengthy conversation, but it was a real conversation about so real stuff. Just about life in general and things like that. I want to say after after being Swiss, did did the back and forth thing he d m me super hyped wanting to work.
Where is he in the world right now?
I don't know he's I want to say, if I remember correctly, though, one of the last times we did have a real lengthy conversation, he had told me that he had bought a house. It was either in New Orleans or in Texas. It might have been in Texas, maybe so he'd be closer to his daughter. Maybe it wasn't like New York and it wasn't in LA. I want to say that. If it wasn't in New Orleans, it was I think maybe in Texas. You know, Jay's always been a nomad. Like it's funny enough, you know, actually how I know James through Shot. It's funny how many things Shot is randomly behind. But yeah, so het y'all got this kid. He's amazing lyricist, great artist, doesn't know a thing about the business, doesn't know how any of this works. You need somebody to take him under his wing. I'm not that guy, you know. I wanted to bring him to you. In the meantime, something and me and this has been in the game days when you ahould talk on a Yeah, somehow Jay ended up stealing my am screen name from Shad Yo Okay.
I was thinking as you were talking about this, I was like, I wonder if I should share this story about the time when Jay okay, So he's legendary for this ship. Yeah, you tell you his first so no, I mean it's it's to.
Be honest, It wasn't that much of a story, like because I was already aware of him from the shot, because we shot had already prefaced the conversation, and me and Mashad had spoken about him a few times. I wasn't necessarily surprised when I heard from him, But then I realized he didn't like he was just looking Overhad's shoulder or at his computer when when was didn stole my screen And I always figured if he stole probably I doubt that Whi's for shot? Are we talking about?
He's done Biggie's woman chance? Uh. He was kind of the he was the gutter of of the of Puff's hip men. He did all I mean, I mean he did do one try. Yeah, I mean he did it like.
He's one of those guys that could bounce around like.
He'll do Ladies Night for Little Kim, but then he'll do dreams for Biggie, you know what I mean. So, but wait real quick.
So during the eight uh campaign and period for Obama, like when all of us were going heavy doing all that stuff, one of the greatest pranks I was ever part of because Jay and I got cool one day he just aimed me two got my aim and we became fast friends that way. And he convinced me two kind of go to my celebrity room to play pranks. And I don't know if I should reveal this, you should absolutely he he uh somehow managed to get Obama's aim name before Obama thought to you know, like back in two thousand and eight, you weren't thinking of okay, let me get my Gmail name, my AOL name.
My son Obama on a name he got.
He got it on Aim and uh brilliant.
First he pranked a Dallas Maverick person to thinking that he was Barack Obama.
Wow.
Then it sounds like then we got Jonah Hill, which to this day I'm not sure Jonah Hills forgiven me for.
But the best one of all.
Was not wet. You're reminded me of hold on, hold on finished.
I can only imagine with oh my god, I mean, you know, to this, to this, to his credit, that's when I knew. Actually, I think that's also what subsequently ended my days of being on AIM.
I used to always be on AIM.
I remember they kind of punk me out of it, like I stay inside the solitary confinement, I don't go out to the general.
I remember he tried that with me one time, proposing as Scarlett Johanson.
Genius. I got about this his genius level finess.
I'm telling you, he had nods, nods, engaged so convincingly.
It was the most vulnerable I've seen him.
He said something prolific, didn't he said, like.
I mean he was just like he was so touched and for that the and it was and it was and the way the way that he did it.
I was also like, oh, j might be a sociopath, like like this is some this is some uh what's the will Smith six degrees? Since it was the level I've seen him in situations, just switched characters where he can talk the whitest of the rothschild white and the g of the gutter and.
Then all of a sudden that so very quickly. Now one thing I say about Jakes, He's a social engineer.
It was it was at that moment where I realized that the way that his brain works is just on some next level.
So what's going on with him? Man?
Like? What the exhibit any fun fact exhibit DE was sponsored by Guitar Center. We have a Guitar Center thing.
He all, I went to Guitar Center, I see Apple Store, make it the music Like, that's just real.
What happened was, uh, you know, they do their catalog of their circulars whatever, like once every season. Mm hmm. So it was a twofold thing. They wanted to have myself and an engineer and an artist on the cover of that particular season's catalog. My homie, Mike, Mike Chev who was uh yeah, he was so Chev had some kind of insights the Guitar Center, so he hooks up, where's going to be me and him on the cover. And then obviously Jay's are connection. I know Shave through jaz No, I know Shat through ja Electronica. Yeah. Like so when I said I'm saying, I'm tking about electronica, I'm talking about Hope, I'm talking about so long story short. Guitar Center, UH does this thing once a year where obviously most of their employees are aspiring musicians or whatever, DJ's producers, whatever, they are songwriters. So they do a compilation every year of their employee's best music to contest. Whoever makes the best fifteen songs makes the compilation. And this year they wanted to feature something from an established artist, that artist being me. So the idea was, Okay, we'll make a song that'll be you mean Jelec trying to call make a record that will we featured on the Guitar Center compilation. So they bring Rolling into the mix, and Rolling basically says we want to sponsor the making of this record. So they basically just opened the vault and said pick whenever you want. There's no limit to what you want. So I got about the yead of the things. There was not much that I really needed it from Rolling, but like the new June that, like every keyboard they had that was coming out that year, like the guitar synth that they made, like anything they had that was hot. At that point, I was just like, I want one of everything, and within a week we had an all to the studio. None of it was really needed, but it was just all right, cool, appreciate it rolling. So I'm gonna say what it was all sudden done was probably about thirty five forty grand worth a year that they sent over. So we do the cover of the guitar set of Circular. It's already been shot, it's about to come out. I'm trying to find Jason. We could do Exibit A. I can't find him. I filed to Detroit because I knew he was gonna be in Detroit, went to shaves Crib, tracked him down, and we ended up doing Exhibit say in chavs Attic Wow. And a week later you could walk into this is before anybody really knew who he was yet, you could walk into the Guitar Center and get a physical copy of Exhibit A for free, just for walking into Guitar Center with like artbreak and everything.
So we do that.
With you know, there were a lot of different conversations about what we could do, you know, whether we like at one point that the idea was for me and him to kind of like be a group. You know, I'm I'm primo he's guru, you know that kind of thing, like an actual duo. I went through a lot of different phases and then uh, he would come in baseline just hang out. It was funny, actually, Sagon actually kind of felt a little bit of a way when Jay first came around, right like and his thing was kind of like, yo, who is this guy? Like all of a sudden, you know you you know, like we're trying to get my project right and and this guy just comes down of nowhere and now the intentions on it, it wasn't like the tension was ever away from side. I just think he kind of looked at it like, can we get my thing?
You're no longer the bill of the bar or he ring, and and it wasn't And.
That wasn't the case that oh Jay was just coming by like all some hanging out and eventually they ended up becoming friends and you know, they're good. You know that That was just kind of the first couple of days of just like yo, who right, just trying to figure out who to dude is. So that was also just kind of the process of me and Ja yetting to know each other as or you can know each other as people in general cause up unt to this point, a lot of our community, you know, keeping we would speak a lot for a week or two, then he would disappear, or I'd get busy or whatever. So this is the first time that we were in each other's company on a regular basis, NonStop for quite a while. So out of that comes Exhibit See, which has many people who were listening to this probably or another story like that was actually we were trying to take it back to the days of when dudes would do promos for DJs. So exam was supposed to be a promo for Angela.
Ye, oh my god, what's up with all these women classics?
Yeah, so that's actually that the exact same kind of things. So that's why if you listen, Angelae used to have a show call of the Morning After. That's why the end of Exhibit See, I say the Morning After World premiere.
I thought that was gonna even title that out right, So now.
So we did the record of the idea was do the record take it to the Morning after the next morning and just premiering on there. Jay fell asleep. He fell asleep in the studio. I wasn't one hundred percent in love with the mixed yet and it ended up going from being like I think it was supposed to be a minute long to a now a five minute song. So we just decided to let go of the uh that idea of it being a promo for Angelo, and the record just kind of sat around for a while, you know, my hard drove. So I was going to Tony Touch I Shaved forty five and I'm like, yeah, I can play, like all right, my usual you know everybody you know, it was like I did this record, did that record? I don't want to do that again instead of play a bunch of records I've never played before. It was one of those records. And as soon as I played it, like the phone lines lit up. PD's calling into the room like what is this song? People from other stations in the building are walking into Shave forty five, like yo, what is this? And it just became kind of became a thing. Had I never played Tony Touched the show that night that record, but I might.
Guitar Center.
We're talking about, I might have never even played any Worlds, you know. So I play it, you know, it does what it does, and it becomes like the first time in years that you're carrying real hip hop at three o'clock in the afternoon on New York Radio. It was anything that hadn't happened in a while.
So I mean, it's.
What is.
What do you think it's gonna take or at this point it's just too far.
I don't know. Like here's like Jay, like he's an ideas guy, like I will point him a most proably gonna be a group. So I had I had, so I have three jen trying to come most death records. They did three records. I had them. But it's like then that was then it was another another idea that it was a different idea. There was a different idea. Then j comes a law or Hope comes along. Was to do the deal and was kind of like I guess his thought process initially was if I bring Jay and then just place comes with that mm hmmm, because people were looking at us, you know, as being affiliated, which I can't understand why he would think that. But that wasn't necessarily you know, it's like it doesn't kind of work like that. That's that's like somebody assuming that they signed you, they bring you into work on a movie, and you know, like and I come along with them, you know what I mean, Like it's we're still to right. So Jay's at this point now in London a lot he's working on the album, and you know, I get to court like from you know, from like come by the house. So go by the house. We square every away, everything that we need to square away in terms of my involvement with the album. So I fly out to London, We get a I'm speaking to a lot of stuff, but you know, we get a good amount of the Corley album. He had demo ideas already, so I took those touchdows up, worked on a few new records, didn't exhibit g I think, and h maybe like two more and kind of just got the album to a certain point and that was it. I don't know what happened.
And ago.
In twenty seventeen. Now this was maybe twenty twelve.
Yeah, damn, get me wrong.
I could be wrong. Way Yeah it might. It might have been thirteen.
There was a large professor record the Angelo by the album.
From Let me think about this. I'm trying to see, like I'm trying to figure out what else was happening.
You still feel like you're waiting for a doctor. Dre record, even though it came out.
That record is not doing but that record is not that's not that's not the one that happened. I remember when I started getting calls like for them for me to come out and work on that record, and I'm like, but they're like, this is a whole different thing. Like I've heard. I would to say probably the first a little bit of the very first Detox because that was one of the first people he called and he was doing it, so I heard a little bit of that. Then he went and wiped all the.
Tapes, like literally literally literally, word has it.
There is one debt that is in a location, yeah.
Just in case, like he passes one.
No, he doesn't even he doesn't even want that. I think there's another person who has this. Dad. I could be wrong, I could. I know there is there is a remnant of something. I don't know who has it. He put it that way, it's an engineer.
But I do.
But the word is. I remember hearing those songs early on, like Usher's Throwback was supposed to be a Detox record. It was supposed to be about him leaving the game. Oh you're gonna want me man? That was the whole thing.
Oh wow, what.
That was a detox?
Right?
Look, we can get just lost in these stories forever. We got to stop the show. We're going over her a lot of time. Thank you very much.
Just players give it.
I won't be having fon take at Lah myself lost and unpaid Bill and Sugar Steve paid Bill.
Yes, but he's the richest of all of us. Just look at him us his question signing off, what Love Supreme? See all in the next go Rep West.
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Bendora. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.