Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: All Right, y'all, it's Laia and it's time for another
Speaker 2: Questlove Supreme classic. This week we continue with part two
Speaker 2: of Salaam Remy. Yep and part two Salam talks about
Speaker 2: making it in the music business, helping Amy Winehouse shape
Speaker 2: her style, and he even shares tales from the Latin quada. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that and so much more. So, Let's get ready for
Speaker 2: Part two of Salaam Remy from May Sewod twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Last week, or part one of the Quest Love Supreme
Speaker 3: interview with Salam Remy. We talked about an early work
Speaker 3: with acts like Critis Blow, Nfcrail and the House Rockers,
Speaker 3: and touched upon his work with Fugies, including their breakout
Speaker 3: single the Remix of Napio. Salam also contributed Fujilo to
Speaker 3: the group's wildly successful second album, The Score. We in
Speaker 3: depart one with a question about how the success of
Speaker 3: that album affected the members of the Food US.
Speaker 4: Here's Samsung.
Speaker 3: In hindsight and you know, part family member and part
Speaker 3: outside of looking at whatever do you think that after
Speaker 3: eighteen million copies of that album sold. Did it serve
Speaker 3: them well or not?
Speaker 4: Hmm?
Speaker 3: Not like regrets if you could go back and redoing
Speaker 3: it again, it.
Speaker 4: Whatever, But in the aftermath of it, like I think
Speaker 4: ultimately asserved him really well. I mean, I have this
Speaker 4: thing with artists who who have done ten million albums.
Speaker 4: What happens after that? You know, whether it was Usher's Confessions,
Speaker 4: whether it was you know not many artists have been
Speaker 4: able to come back and having a dull moment where
Speaker 4: they did it twice. I think Black Eyed Peas might
Speaker 4: have done that a couple times in a row.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: For Lauren Hill's career, it was the score into miseducation,
Speaker 4: because I still see the score is almost like a
Speaker 4: frank to back the black or like you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. It's like a movement. Even though blunting of
Speaker 4: reality was there, there was something to follow up on
Speaker 4: that now gave you credibility. It gave everyone the opportunity
Speaker 4: to know your name, so now you had to just
Speaker 4: deliver on your next piece of work, not necessarily just
Speaker 4: have all those pieces. I think it served them well
Speaker 4: to now get their art and their ability to still
Speaker 4: all eat to this day. You know, based upon something
Speaker 4: that came out twenty two years ago.
Speaker 5: Why didn't you guys ever do anything else? Because after
Speaker 5: yeah that, y'all never you were no mis education were The.
Speaker 4: Last thing I did was the Sweetest Thing remix with
Speaker 4: the Swat Saw. Yeah, so that was probably the last
Speaker 4: thing I did. But you know, just in general, my
Speaker 4: conversation and who I am is something that's kind of happy.
Speaker 4: So I wasn't gonna fit into a sad song mode.
Speaker 4: It wasn't gonna work even you know, people talk to
Speaker 4: me about, you know, even my work with Amy Winehouse
Speaker 4: and they're like it sad songs. I'm like, nah, she's
Speaker 4: talking shit the whole time, like maybe in the morning
Speaker 4: when your dick works, or like the lyrics are all
Speaker 4: about their tongue in cheek. You know, Yeah, I cheated
Speaker 4: on you, but I heard love is blind, Like it's
Speaker 4: all smarter. It's not love is a losing game. It's
Speaker 4: not super sad mad records. It's like I'm gonna snap
Speaker 4: on you until you break. Basically, I was trying.
Speaker 2: To get me pumps in my roll call, but I
Speaker 2: couldn't get the rhyme.
Speaker 4: But Jesus, actually that's something I wrote that I actually
Speaker 4: had prior to the meeting.
Speaker 2: This is a story.
Speaker 3: Was trying to get me pumped. Story from right now, dog,
Speaker 3: I didn't even get that. I didn't even get the
Speaker 3: nods yet.
Speaker 4: Basically, this twisted pinky is the story.
Speaker 3: I have a.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I dislocated it. And basically, there's a friend of
Speaker 4: mine who I recently just told three weeks ago where
Speaker 4: the story came from. But they showed up at my
Speaker 4: house with the home girl. They were really drunk. They
Speaker 4: couldn't get anywhere. They got alcohol poisoning. Cool, all right,
Speaker 4: it's cool. I'm gonna go get y'all some water. Next morning,
Speaker 4: I tripped in my staircase. I hit my hand. I
Speaker 4: have my finger in two pieces. I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 4: can't play guitar. I can't play nothing. I'm my only
Speaker 4: broken bone in life. So I'm like, oh, word that.
Speaker 4: Later that day, I'm like, yo, where y'all at? I'm
Speaker 4: at the studio. My fingers twisted? Oh we in DC
Speaker 4: at the All Star game? Word all right? Cool? And
Speaker 4: then the lyrics for that song basically wrote itself. Ouch,
Speaker 4: well that was cute. All there you go?
Speaker 3: How did you I know? I'm quasi okay, See you
Speaker 3: didn't work on Miss Education obviously, What did you do
Speaker 3: between ninety nine and now? It just comes in the
Speaker 3: picture with two thousand.
Speaker 4: And two, two thousand and one and one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what'd you do?
Speaker 4: Ninety nine? What was I doing? Ninety nine? Ninety nine?
Speaker 4: I bought sound Works, which is underneath Studio fifty four,
Speaker 4: so that became my studio base. I was working on
Speaker 4: a lot of my own label stuff. I had all
Speaker 4: my artists went to jail, Major Stress. I had a
Speaker 4: group called Major Stress. One of those people went to jail.
Speaker 4: Ross t has had a nine to six million dollar record,
Speaker 4: so Ross had his whole album done. Ross went to jail.
Speaker 3: Is he still out up now?
Speaker 4: He's We've been out for a long time. But basically
Speaker 4: that happened. Then I bought my studio, and then I
Speaker 4: just started experiment that. I produced a group actually from
Speaker 4: Philly called Live and Direct, these four young brothers who
Speaker 4: sing and did some stuff.
Speaker 3: And what else?
Speaker 4: Ninety nine? Yeah, I worked on Richard Sally before that.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think what else came out around now.
Speaker 4: I was helping Angie Martinez with an up close and
Speaker 4: personal album.
Speaker 3: When you work on it when you work with an artist, like,
Speaker 3: is there any sort of modus operandi that or what
Speaker 3: do you look for when you decide Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: mess with them.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's a relationship with somebody that brought them to me.
Speaker 4: But at this given point, I've kind of crystallized it.
Speaker 4: I'm into people with distinctive voices and what I really do.
Speaker 4: You know, some people are just like, well, I made
Speaker 4: the beat and then I'm now I'm fitting this person
Speaker 4: onto it. I really try to talk to someone to
Speaker 4: get figure out where's the resondents in their voice and
Speaker 4: then also on their lyrical voice. Then once I figure
Speaker 4: out where that is, I'm just trying to get them
Speaker 4: to illuminate and now build music around it. So by
Speaker 4: asking people what's their favorite songs? What are you like,
Speaker 4: what's the thing that you write to all the time,
Speaker 4: everything else, I start getting a picture for who they
Speaker 4: are and who I wanna. I'm pretty much taking myself
Speaker 4: as a fan, like I don't know who you are?
Speaker 4: And now does their voice number one make me inspired?
Speaker 4: Like you know, whenever I'm working with Oas, I wanna
Speaker 4: hear the smoke mouth, I don't wanna hear nah sitting
Speaker 4: on the chair. That's like book of Ram's voice. I
Speaker 4: wanna hear you know, the poison voice. That's where it came.
Speaker 4: I was like, Yo, that sound like you had your
Speaker 4: gold fronts in your mouth and a mouthful of smoke.
Speaker 4: So I wanna hear that little extra energy into it.
Speaker 4: I wanna hear something that really sounds like people at
Speaker 4: their best. And really it's just great voices and then
Speaker 4: the ability to tell a story. If lyrically a bust
Speaker 4: of windows can continue to tell a story. If you know,
Speaker 4: I heard love song when I first heard me, she
Speaker 4: started singing, Amy started singing girl from Epanema, and then
Speaker 4: you know, the first thing we wrote was I her
Speaker 4: love is Blind and Cherry's so they were all about
Speaker 4: like the voices and the story. And then that inspires
Speaker 4: me to now sit down and work on a sonic
Speaker 4: pilote that I feel like you no good companies.
Speaker 2: So obvious follow up question and who's the twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: distinctive voice that you're in that's motivating you that you
Speaker 2: haven't the roots?
Speaker 4: The roots has been the new thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just we're I want to I want to
Speaker 3: come to him with with definite song ideas first, and
Speaker 3: then he can play rich can we get the rap sing?
Speaker 3: I mean, we'll do all that, but we're gonna have
Speaker 3: to have material first, So we're just we've been fishing
Speaker 3: the last two years creating songs, and now okay, so
Speaker 3: we'll bring to him the roots.
Speaker 2: Give me somebody, Wait, can I just ask? Yes? We
Speaker 2: rap a hole land we all over.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I'm still looking for the voices, so I'm still
Speaker 4: open and looking for I heard some voices here and there,
Speaker 4: but I'm just definitely looking for new voices to kind
Speaker 4: of inspire me. I'm at that point though, I'll be
Speaker 4: forty six in a few weeks, and I'm kind of like,
Speaker 4: at fifty I need thriller. So I'm looking for the
Speaker 4: opportunity to be able to take someone who's either around
Speaker 4: already and helped them make that record that now pushes
Speaker 4: it past it. I look at it like how someone
Speaker 4: would have looked at Pharrell prior to Happy and said,
Speaker 4: oh man, you did it all already. Your day was there,
Speaker 4: and he still made the biggest record of his career
Speaker 4: at a point where when somebody wasn't necessarily looking for
Speaker 4: So I still feel like you know now I have
Speaker 4: a blister on my finger. I've been sitting there playing
Speaker 4: my upright base for last few weeks, trying to find
Speaker 4: something that resonates with me first and then resonates with
Speaker 4: my peers, and then resonates with the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I said before the brutes, there we go.
Speaker 3: How did you meet nas now?
Speaker 4: As I met like during that early period of men
Speaker 4: Ncannelly went to junior high together. So when Ock and
Speaker 4: Knives were running around trying to look for deals, I
Speaker 4: would always see Knaves with him. But during two thousand
Speaker 4: and one I ran into him when he was working
Speaker 4: on the album. He had a verse on the Fatty
Speaker 4: Girl song that I don't think ever came out, and
Speaker 4: I was doing a record for the album. Actually had
Speaker 4: the only record that I actually never got paid for,
Speaker 4: Thank you Shark. It was a Beanie Man song called
Speaker 4: Batman Business. So that's the only song I never got
Speaker 4: well yeah, somehow, I don't know how they got away
Speaker 4: with that, But anyhow.
Speaker 3: Wait had an album, was.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: I had a copy? Yeah, that was the That was
Speaker 3: the Chicken Grease drum and Spanish guitar era.
Speaker 4: I ain't like that exactly A song on that album
Speaker 4: something like that from I think right basically, but during
Speaker 4: that time, so I ran into the nods in La.
Speaker 4: He's like, yo, you got any beasts on you? He
Speaker 4: was kind of out there just laying low, and then
Speaker 4: I sent him he came to you. Well, I saw
Speaker 4: him at that session, so I'd already met him before
Speaker 4: and passing the New York. But I saw him at
Speaker 4: the session because I was there to record Beanie Man
Speaker 4: and our recording. It was like during Grammy week or
Speaker 4: something like that, and then he was at the studio,
Speaker 4: so he was like, Yo, what's up? Oh dad, Yo,
Speaker 4: you know another calf from New York? What's going on?
Speaker 4: You got anything on you? So I gave him whatever
Speaker 4: beat CD I had with me. Then he exchanged beam
Speaker 4: two way numbers and then he he was like he
Speaker 4: texted me like, yo, I need some murder music, something
Speaker 4: that sound like whatever it was. So then I created
Speaker 4: what became what Goes Around. I sat in the studio
Speaker 4: and messed with my organs and roads and pretty much
Speaker 4: composed that track, and then I sent him that maybe
Speaker 4: a couple other joints, and then when he heard it,
Speaker 4: he was like, yo, I don't have anything that even
Speaker 4: feels like this because once again I was on his
Speaker 4: jazz musician even like when he talks about omatic, he's
Speaker 4: like he wanted stuff that musically put you in a
Speaker 4: mood and then put the drums to it, not just
Speaker 4: something that was like running quick like g rat So
Speaker 4: the what goes around was that, And then he came
Speaker 4: back to New York and we started recording.
Speaker 3: What do you think about his I mean much has
Speaker 3: been said about from every hip hop stand on the
Speaker 3: internet and many a chat board about his choice of
Speaker 3: music right not matching the greatness of his words or
Speaker 3: whatever like them not meeting. So I mean, at the time,
Speaker 3: were you figuring out, Okay, this is finally a chance
Speaker 3: for me to give him what he needs or.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I was there. I mean this
Speaker 4: was like the Nosal Domas album was just out, So
Speaker 4: the Notional Domins album wasn't anyone's favorite NAS album at
Speaker 4: that time. I think that, you know, it was the
Speaker 4: leftover whatever happened, you know, still for me, I was
Speaker 4: still and hate Me Now mode, which I always look
Speaker 4: at it and go who and hip hop actually got
Speaker 4: away outside of part time Sucker by carres One, but
Speaker 4: actually rhyming on something that sounded like that. But you know,
Speaker 4: as hip hop purists heads, by the time we got
Speaker 4: to it was written, and I was like, there's no large,
Speaker 4: there's no primos, no tip like nothing of Dad. Okay,
Speaker 4: there's one primo. Like I didn't get enough I liked.
Speaker 3: Did you asking why he didn't?
Speaker 4: Well, the reason why I think that during it was
Speaker 4: written time he wanted to start. It was written with Mally,
Speaker 4: so that's where on the Rail and True dialect came from.
Speaker 4: And then Malli played it on the radio, and then
Speaker 4: he was upset because Mally played True or on the
Speaker 4: Rail with you know, put Screwball or whoever on it.
Speaker 4: So then that's when he was like, y'all need to
Speaker 4: find producers. So then he went to got with track
Speaker 4: Masters and they built what they built, which you know,
Speaker 4: to be honest, if he didn't ever go and make
Speaker 4: himself into a platinum artist one way or another, he
Speaker 4: might not still be around. So he did, you know,
Speaker 4: follow the series. He followed his instinct and did whatever
Speaker 4: it was he wanted to do with that. But I
Speaker 4: also also he felt like everybody else was roming in
Speaker 4: his flow, so he had to find a way to
Speaker 4: do something different, because if he just kept vombing in
Speaker 4: the same flow and everybody else was, it was wearing
Speaker 4: it down. So I mean, from my perspective, it was
Speaker 4: just like, all right, yo, we never linked. We both
Speaker 4: had similar tastes. We both will go rebel without a pause.
Speaker 4: We would still listening to an album and go oh
Speaker 4: not story to tell us my joint Like we still
Speaker 4: picked the same We both know what you want to eat,
Speaker 4: all right, cool fried chicken, macari and cheese canny yams.
Speaker 4: Like we the same. We have like mirrored kind of
Speaker 4: lives and even a lot of the musicians that were
Speaker 4: in his dad's band or the same cast that I
Speaker 4: work with all the time. So I don't know. If
Speaker 4: I had a perspective like I'm gonna do this, I
Speaker 4: was just like, it'd be dope if we did some stuff.
Speaker 4: And at one point, like the night when the night
Speaker 4: before the uh Lauren Hill Unplug was recorded, she came
Speaker 4: down to the studio while we were there and played
Speaker 4: us all the songs. So that's the reason why she
Speaker 4: was hoarse.
Speaker 3: She was pretty mu.
Speaker 4: She plays us a lot of songs and no point
Speaker 4: did you go wait, wait, wait, save you she wanted
Speaker 4: to let me hear the song. So it was dad,
Speaker 4: it was getting late, and he left and then that
Speaker 4: was that. But you know the bottom line is that
Speaker 4: was part of the recording being out.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 4: But then she was also like, you know what if
Speaker 4: my voice cracks, it cracks, you don't like it.
Speaker 3: Be out of it.
Speaker 4: Yoh, you don't like me unless I pay this makeup
Speaker 4: artist and that headdresser, then you don't like me. You
Speaker 4: like what I just paid for. That was that. But
Speaker 4: my point is with nas, I just think it was
Speaker 4: us also finding the chemistry to where we he's able
Speaker 4: to come to me with idad. Yo, let's I was
Speaker 4: listening to Bitches Brew yesterday, were all right cool, and
Speaker 4: I called my dud Yo got the bass clarinet, and
Speaker 4: then we just go all over there, y'all was listening
Speaker 4: to some Bessie Smith or something like that, and then
Speaker 4: I would just go in that direction. So we have
Speaker 4: loads of records that were just musically matched in that way.
Speaker 3: And so are you able you're able to make beat
Speaker 3: to a real time in front of your client?
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh man, I'll do that most of the time. Actually,
Speaker 4: that's most of my records are either while they're on
Speaker 4: the way or coming down the hall, or because I'm
Speaker 4: taking off of what they're saying. I'm actually vibbing off
Speaker 4: of their energy and what they're talking about, and I'm
Speaker 4: asking him what do you like because I'm trying to
Speaker 4: figure out what notes actually resonate with them that's going
Speaker 4: to get them writing. And sometimes you know, with nas
Speaker 4: if he likes a particular beat, he'll write twelve verses
Speaker 4: to the same track and then I'll move him around
Speaker 4: and start building new tracks to him.
Speaker 3: Answer something for me, and this is nerdsure what drums
Speaker 3: did you use for for Zonatte? I can tell that
Speaker 3: is that a James break? This of course it is
Speaker 3: because the bongos sound so familiar. I was never once
Speaker 3: had occur to me. Just spin it backwards to you
Speaker 3: can hear what it is man.
Speaker 4: But basically I mean that that's been funny because the
Speaker 4: standard world loves or hates that record. There are stands
Speaker 4: who hate that record like that was part of the
Speaker 4: I hate what Salaam does with a conversation. I'm telling
Speaker 4: you there's a lot of people that that that was
Speaker 4: like basically that that eraror But for me, the two
Speaker 4: things one. I never put my name on records, so
Speaker 4: when you hear him yell my name on it, I
Speaker 4: wasn't there. They mixed it without me, So I never
Speaker 4: would do that. I wouldn't let him do that because
Speaker 4: I feel like, if the record's gonna be dope, then
Speaker 4: like it because you like it, not because you said
Speaker 4: my name. So I don't tag records. I don't go
Speaker 4: I'm gonna make you dance like I want the record
Speaker 4: to make you dance, not actually tell you that. And
Speaker 4: it wasn't mixed that. And then Kate Slave was in
Speaker 4: the room when I was actually making that track, and
Speaker 4: it was the same day like when I may probably
Speaker 4: get down, So I was just sitting there messing with
Speaker 4: different James vibes. And if you listen to how Noad
Speaker 4: sounds on the record differently from how Jungle and Wiz
Speaker 4: sound on the records. Some people have different films of
Speaker 4: Brave Hearts, so they sound, you know, jungles versus this
Speaker 4: wizard that. But if you actually hear him cutting straight
Speaker 4: across it with his k solo type flow, you kind
Speaker 4: of hear more like what the record's rough really felt like.
Speaker 4: So the drums were crispy, and popping. The bass was
Speaker 4: on it, but it was me just being backwards, poor
Speaker 4: Reverd meets pe That's what it was.
Speaker 3: I've never been in a chat room where they said that, you're.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've seen it on Okay, play it before seriously Yeah,
Speaker 5: probably yeah.
Speaker 4: Damn that's the world. But I mean, just in general,
Speaker 4: our work isn't really about beats all the time. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it's about different levels of song. And the reality is
Speaker 4: Nas picks his albums based upon what he said, not
Speaker 4: based upon who had the snare of the week, And
Speaker 4: if the beat is too loud, he won't even actually
Speaker 4: rhyme on it, like it sounds like it's yelling at
Speaker 4: me turn it down.
Speaker 3: Yo. It's something some like successful platinum rappers hate loud
Speaker 3: music or loud drums. I think Jay once told me
Speaker 3: once like, you know, like he doesn't want anything to
Speaker 3: upstage his voice outdo him. Okay, So they go more
Speaker 3: for base than for big ass yeah, and.
Speaker 4: For NAS's moves and chord changes and other stuff. Because
Speaker 4: once again, a lot of you know, outside of Tupac,
Speaker 4: who would stack his vocals with six tracks or fifty,
Speaker 4: who might do a few Jay or Nas, they most
Speaker 4: of the time, have one vocal track, one vocal track
Speaker 4: that's telling you everything you got to hear at whatever
Speaker 4: tone he wants to tell it.
Speaker 3: Them that's stacking your voice, rhyming on. I hate when
Speaker 3: that's that.
Speaker 4: It's it's a sound for that. That's the t I
Speaker 4: that's the certain people will do that.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm saving the best for less. All right, Well
Speaker 3: damn let me get because Jasmine too. I want to
Speaker 3: get to I gotta get to that. I gotta get
Speaker 3: to Amy. Got it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 3: How did you just?
Speaker 4: How did you even like Amy?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 4: I did a record for Left Eye during that two
Speaker 4: thousand and one period, that solo record. Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: a record called Black Party.
Speaker 3: Yeah you.
Speaker 4: Probably did Block Party. It was.
Speaker 3: The Super and Over.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was weird. Basically, what happened with that record
Speaker 4: is that La Reid had really wanted her to sign
Speaker 4: up to do that TLC album that was supposed to
Speaker 4: get worked on at that time, and she wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4: So she marked Pittive first. Like he took a break
Speaker 4: after I think Big Past, couple of things, went back
Speaker 4: to school and that became his first an R project
Speaker 4: he needed to do. And then he hit me up
Speaker 4: like yo, you work on different stuff.
Speaker 3: Whatever it was.
Speaker 4: So then we linked and I did the block party record,
Speaker 4: which was for me. It was always a thing of
Speaker 4: I have a theme like with Miss Dynamite with many
Speaker 4: artists where I just need them people to feel like
Speaker 4: they're a regular person from around the way. So that
Speaker 4: was meant to be Lisa's block party in Philly. You
Speaker 4: know the sound of it. What's your name, Lisa and
Speaker 4: where you're from? Ninth Street. It was just supposed to
Speaker 4: be an energy of a block party and having fun
Speaker 4: and come we dance with me ke on Bryce and
Speaker 4: me kind of messing around doing that and you know,
Speaker 4: just even using the Columbus song with the udu drum.
Speaker 4: That's all I track it really is. It's a kick yep.
Speaker 4: So this Columbus song, a du drum and a kick,
Speaker 4: and basically it was just kind of floating on its own. Well,
Speaker 4: and you know, I got somebody to do your It
Speaker 4: was just a play, play around record. So however it is,
Speaker 4: that record becomes her single, and they were supposed to
Speaker 4: shoot it on the block party in Brooklyn, and then
Speaker 4: somehow they go shoot a video somewhere else and it
Speaker 4: doesn't pan out. But anyhow, Amy Winehouse, here's this record,
Speaker 4: and it says, whoever could figure out what to do
Speaker 4: with that record is who I need to produce me.
Speaker 4: They're gonna know what to do with me. So she
Speaker 4: goes mostly unlikely.
Speaker 3: Example of a record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, once again it was Amy's heir where she
Speaker 4: wanted to be, so she was like, that's who it is.
Speaker 4: So they went to EMI Music Publishing in London really
Speaker 4: trying to get to me, ended up getting signed. During
Speaker 4: this interim left eye passes. I moved to Miami. I'm like,
Speaker 4: if it's not good people, good music, good money, don't
Speaker 4: call me. I'm semi retired. Or if it's good people
Speaker 4: and good music, the money's gonna come. So that's been
Speaker 4: my mode since two when I first moved, and what
Speaker 4: I looked after she passed. At the first day that
Speaker 4: I met Amy was May twenty first, May twenty seventh,
Speaker 4: two thousand and two, Leftour's birthday. So it comes back
Speaker 4: around so basically, and that's what it was. She came
Speaker 4: in and got moved, and London convinced me to meet her.
Speaker 4: Just take the meeting, and I was like, just leave
Speaker 4: me alone, No, just take the meeting meet her, and
Speaker 4: she walked in. She had a little guitar and Nick
Speaker 4: Shamanski was with her, and I was like, all right,
Speaker 4: so what are we gonna do? And she pulls out
Speaker 4: a guitar and she starts singing and girl from Epanoma
Speaker 4: and those high ceilings in her room and the whole
Speaker 4: room lit up, and I was like, oh, you can
Speaker 4: sing because from the demos I heard of Amy Amy
Speaker 4: Amy and other stuff. I couldn't tell her phone it
Speaker 4: was another one to be Erica, mime or whatever else,
Speaker 4: and I wasn't really I was like, Eh, leave me alone,
Speaker 4: this isn't it. And basically that's was the start of it.
Speaker 4: And then that day we wrote Cherry and I heard
Speaker 4: Love is Blind.
Speaker 3: When she passed Where were you when you got the word?
Speaker 4: I was in London. I was on my way to
Speaker 4: the house. Basically, she had messed up the tour. She
Speaker 4: was like, ah, I think I messed up the toy
Speaker 4: where she didn't want to go on in the first place,
Speaker 4: So now I can go to Nicki's wedding. Nick who
Speaker 4: I met her with in the first place, was getting married.
Speaker 4: That was the manager that she wrote No Rehab whatever else.
Speaker 4: About but they were in similar in age. She might
Speaker 4: be a year or two older than her, and it
Speaker 4: was like her brother. So it was like, now we
Speaker 4: can go. I can go to Nicky's wedding. Okay. Cool.
Speaker 4: The wedding was on Sunday and at Lucian's house whose Nikaus,
Speaker 4: Lucian's nephew.
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 4: Got there on Thursday. I'm always talking to the security
Speaker 4: guards and they'll just making y'o. I'll go on, eh,
Speaker 4: boss over here, cool, we're having our conversation, and I
Speaker 4: was like, yo, you know what. She wasn't drinking for
Speaker 4: like ten days before that, and she started drinking a
Speaker 4: little bit. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: come on Saturday and make sure she's good. I was
Speaker 4: in Shepherd's Bush, not far away from where she was at,
Speaker 4: but I was like, I'm gonna go and you know,
Speaker 4: make sure she's good before we go to Lucian's house
Speaker 4: on Sunday, just so no mess starts at the wedding
Speaker 4: where she might say something crazy. But it was supposed
Speaker 4: to be all jokes. Cool. And then Saturday, when I
Speaker 4: called me I at the Jerk Chicken spot, y'all want
Speaker 4: something and bring some food. Then he hit me back
Speaker 4: and said she passed. She passed on a Friday night,
Speaker 4: so I was close by and they didn't get a
Speaker 4: chance to d go see her.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us something like dope about amy that
Speaker 2: most people wouldn't know that, like you got to experience
Speaker 2: that you wish that people would know.
Speaker 3: One.
Speaker 4: She's an absolute comedian. It's constant, constant, constant, got something
Speaker 4: smart to say, like every fourth bar of the minute,
Speaker 4: like you're not gonna get past three bars, and then
Speaker 4: she's not gonna say something smart about somebody something. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that was that. And then also she remembers stuff. Her
Speaker 4: memory was like super sharp. So if she remember your
Speaker 4: daughter must be nine hours or Brianna right, okay, Like
Speaker 4: she knew everybody's kids, their names, where all the pieces
Speaker 4: were of people that she maybe hardly saw, but like
Speaker 4: really had a strong memory and sense of who and
Speaker 4: what and kind of her perspective of why super uh
Speaker 4: impulsive and serious. Hey see that song? Can you delete
Speaker 4: it for my iTunes so it'll never play again? Like
Speaker 4: it was that like half her iTunes on a shuffle
Speaker 4: and if something place she didn't like just deleted. I
Speaker 4: never want to hear it again, thank you?
Speaker 5: Was the What did you think of the documentary? Did
Speaker 5: you think was that a good representation of what she
Speaker 5: really was?
Speaker 4: I think the documentary was it was insightful for a
Speaker 4: lot of people who only saw her as you know,
Speaker 4: a mind of herself trouble at a certain point at
Speaker 4: that point. But it was also being able to show
Speaker 4: humanized part of it. But what I didn't like about
Speaker 4: the documentary was that it villainized her father, which you know,
Speaker 4: my friend, Yes, but that was that man's daughter, and
Speaker 4: you don't turn around and put that man in a
Speaker 4: history book on video as but however you want to
Speaker 4: spend it, that's your perspective. So I didn't agree with that,
Speaker 4: and you also don't turn around and say well, but
Speaker 4: then also the Amy Wild's foundation, it's England, didn't have
Speaker 4: any go away rehabs. There were none there, so they're
Speaker 4: actually opening those things. They're doing many different things that
Speaker 4: are possible. You just took the negative and then left
Speaker 4: it at the negative because it suited your narrative better.
Speaker 4: And that's what I don't like about the idea of
Speaker 4: someone else having the ability to taint your story one
Speaker 4: way or another. It's like you know, the truth in
Speaker 4: many different people's eyes is from their eyes. But that's
Speaker 4: not I wouldn't do that. That's not right.
Speaker 5: Oh, how do you navigate just sitting there talking to
Speaker 5: you seem to be pretty laid back, like introverted dude,
Speaker 5: How do you navigate the networking part of.
Speaker 3: The game because you don't seem to be like to
Speaker 3: go out and party and you know.
Speaker 4: Nah, I did that in the nineties.
Speaker 3: That's over.
Speaker 4: I think in general, it's really first things first. You know,
Speaker 4: the reason why I've been in my space creating. I
Speaker 4: feel like the quality of products starts the conversation. So
Speaker 4: there was a point when God moved. My publisher in
Speaker 4: London was like, hey, you don't want to be forty
Speaker 4: with a beat tape? Like what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4: And I really took that on the marrow early thirties.
Speaker 4: He said, you don't want to be forty with a
Speaker 4: beat tape? What are you gonna do? And basically, you know,
Speaker 4: I was like, what was that? You're playing number three again?
Speaker 4: Y'all crazy?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Like you know, I stressed out about it.
Speaker 3: Fore it sounded like the Neptunes on us.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying? That movie you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, So it's going to go through it. But
Speaker 4: basically I just looked at it like, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4: So you know, I attacked the Hollywood side of it
Speaker 4: in my thirties and really, you know, got a splace
Speaker 4: in Hollywood and really got at the movies and you know,
Speaker 4: did the Sex and the City movies and scored Tyson
Speaker 4: and really took some time to learn the whole process
Speaker 4: of what it takes to do that by scoring TV
Speaker 4: shows and different all that stuff. And then you know,
Speaker 4: by the time I was forty, then Amy had just passed,
Speaker 4: so I was like that I met her after my
Speaker 4: thirtieth birthday and she was going before my fortieth, but
Speaker 4: she came and did something. So then I decided to go.
Speaker 4: And you know, don't have my labels as Sony Flying
Speaker 4: Boot a Lot in their Life sign, the mac Wilde sign,
Speaker 4: the Coyote, all those different bands. So I still felt
Speaker 4: like I was taking a coach's job and you know,
Speaker 4: shaping it that way. And then now that I've learned,
Speaker 4: you know, I had to share lead the record by
Speaker 4: own me on my label, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: a billion streams, Oh this should do well. Oh, let
Speaker 4: me see. Oh this is how y'all kind of stick? Okay, cool?
Speaker 4: So now I just understand, you know, I watched a
Speaker 4: lot of Narcos. Pablo will go to Bolletvia and put
Speaker 4: it in cabs and do what he needed to do
Speaker 4: in order to have the product. And if we don't
Speaker 4: have the product, then there's no conversation. There's no reason why,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not even gonna say, America, this planet
Speaker 4: is allowing large black men to come in and take
Speaker 4: their money out of their pocket unless I have goods.
Speaker 2: So so.
Speaker 4: We just went all over the place. I guess the
Speaker 4: most important question is.
Speaker 3: One, how did how were you Amy and Mark able
Speaker 3: to assuming that you guys never were in the room
Speaker 3: at the same time.
Speaker 4: I never saw until Little War shows.
Speaker 3: Okay, how how were you and Mark Ronson able to
Speaker 3: sonically sort of achieve this have the same achievements on
Speaker 3: Back to Black and make it sound like a cohesive record,
Speaker 3: because I still feel like one person produced that record.
Speaker 3: And why in God's name didn't Yeah, the song that
Speaker 3: opens the UK version of the album not make a
Speaker 3: addiction addicted addicted why did that make the American version
Speaker 3: of the album? Because that to me was like my
Speaker 3: favorite song on the album.
Speaker 4: They took it off actually, So for your first question,
Speaker 4: it's Amy. Amy tied the album together all the songs.
Speaker 4: So we actually just recently did a documentary with Jeremy
Speaker 4: who's done like Catcher Fire and all that other stuff.
Speaker 4: The Phil Conns runs, which should be I guess coming
Speaker 4: out sometimes soon. I think he's doing it a can
Speaker 4: in a couple of weeks. But basically all the songs
Speaker 4: that I did on Back to Black were recorded in
Speaker 4: between Frank and Back to Black, So all of my
Speaker 4: songs were really written first. So Addicted and Just Friends
Speaker 4: were written to be Christmas bonus songs for Frank that
Speaker 4: we never ended up doing. So then We're written probably
Speaker 4: the end of three into four somewhere around there before
Speaker 4: everything else. It was written in like probably the end
Speaker 4: of four, and then Me and mister Jones, which was
Speaker 4: originally fuck Rad was around, and Tears Drive was actually
Speaker 4: written during that pair of process as a ballad which
Speaker 4: we sped up later.
Speaker 3: But basically, so your songs came first, and then Ronson
Speaker 3: came in right so.
Speaker 4: Her whole mode, the recording which you know she got
Speaker 4: for me, which was basically we sit down and she
Speaker 4: might be playing guitar or just doing something basic, and
Speaker 4: we would get the whole entire song and then I
Speaker 4: would do the arrangements. So that's how she got accustom
Speaker 4: to writing. So by the time she went to Mark,
Speaker 4: we'd already gone to the record store. We bought the
Speaker 4: five or Ls, we bought the Shangry Loves, we bought
Speaker 4: all the pieces. She already knew these are the things
Speaker 4: that I was around Blank. I was listening to this,
Speaker 4: I'm listening to you all My Destiny by Paul Anko.
Speaker 4: I'm listening to all these different records, and she knew
Speaker 4: where she wanted to go. I'd started doing it when
Speaker 4: she got with Mark. They continued and wrote some more
Speaker 4: and then she was like, well, Dag, I still have
Speaker 4: these songs. I want to use them. So me, me
Speaker 4: and mister Jones, which I had virgins that are kind
Speaker 4: of more jazzy, was like, hey, why don't we put
Speaker 4: a walking guitar on that?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: And then she remember when I was doing bridging the
Speaker 4: Gap for nas that ol' Daro was like chick boom,
Speaker 4: CHICKI boom, So that was kind of she was like,
Speaker 4: let's put the chicken boom in the walking guitar on
Speaker 4: me and mister Jones and then that version becomes that
Speaker 4: tears drawing their own. I just felt like there was
Speaker 4: too many ballads. All Amy songs were written at eighty
Speaker 4: two beats permitted, kind of in similar chord frames, and
Speaker 4: I was like, we got to speed it up. I
Speaker 4: had a multi tue, ain't a mount high enough, and
Speaker 4: I was like, I was listening to it without the
Speaker 4: song on it, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 4: you could sing it over there. She couldn't figure it
Speaker 4: out for the longest, so I ended up singing it
Speaker 4: and then she re sang it over me and then
Speaker 4: we did the whole track over. So that was the
Speaker 4: reason for it, just to give something that was the
Speaker 4: obvious up, up up thing, you know. When we did
Speaker 4: the modulation on the original, she was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: it's gonna sound cool and gang take that off. So
Speaker 4: it was cinarently putting that in pocket.
Speaker 3: Were you using the same studio because I mean, now,
Speaker 3: especially in the age of of where we are now
Speaker 3: with plugins, and really I mean this album being a
Speaker 3: pioneering record and re establishing that nostalgia cure. Even though yes,
Speaker 3: I know that DAP Tone was you know, doing their
Speaker 3: thing for at least like six years with Sharon Jones
Speaker 3: or whatnot.
Speaker 4: But did we use the same studio for walk songs
Speaker 4: and my songs?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: No, I'm just how did you I'm especially for like fuckery, like,
Speaker 3: were you using your studio you always used.
Speaker 4: Or actually at that time all the songs for Back
Speaker 4: to Black the studio that is now my studio in
Speaker 4: my house. She walked into my living room and I
Speaker 4: had two story high ceilings, and She's like, I want
Speaker 4: to sing right here, And I was like what She's like, no,
Speaker 4: can I sing right here? So I basically put a
Speaker 4: kit and put a piano and my amps and everything
Speaker 4: into my living room. So the sound of me and
Speaker 4: mister Jones is the sound of my living room. Wow,
Speaker 4: that is the room. And she's singing standing in the
Speaker 4: middle of the floor with the you know, pretty much
Speaker 4: a forty seven in the middle of the room, a
Speaker 4: little carpet underneath for the drums. Everything is in the room,
Speaker 4: and then we would just move stuff around it.
Speaker 3: I would just I would just never think that achieving
Speaker 3: that that sonic quality was even possible, because even with
Speaker 3: Steve and I at Electric Ladies studios, like, you know,
Speaker 3: one would think that with the you know, some of
Speaker 3: the mics and the amps and the equipment is still
Speaker 3: from when Jimmy Hendricks was there, right, But I wouldn't
Speaker 3: even fathom or think that that sound could be achieved.
Speaker 3: And so honestly, he's telling you make it sound like
Speaker 3: the fifties, Like how long? How long was the work
Speaker 3: processing until you finally found a way to make them
Speaker 3: drums sound like?
Speaker 4: Honestly, I would give a lot of credit to my
Speaker 4: recording engineer, Frank Cicaro. How old is he? Frank is
Speaker 4: probably thirty eight thirty nine now at that time he
Speaker 4: was in his twenties. But Frank was also a He
Speaker 4: liked music. He was a hip hop head and he
Speaker 4: liked beatles. He like everything else. We recorded my songs
Speaker 4: on Back to Black on a through a Digito eight
Speaker 4: using digital performer, Like it was like basically stompbox. We've
Speaker 4: read about how Rick Rubin or different people would get
Speaker 4: a house and kind of record. I didn't have any
Speaker 4: equipment at the house. I had a studio downtown, but
Speaker 4: it was like, okay, we're going to record here. So
Speaker 4: he basically looked around it, and I knew what I
Speaker 4: wanted to hear, and he knew what I wanted to hear,
Speaker 4: and he captured you know, even what we were able
Speaker 4: to do with the Motown replay in that space. It
Speaker 4: was kind of like, you know, musicians was like, how
Speaker 4: are you going to do this? The horns were all done,
Speaker 4: you know, on a what is it the rolling eight
Speaker 4: track recorder sixteen eighty recorded in New York in the room,
Speaker 4: you know, Vincent Henry, who was my ace musician who's
Speaker 4: played on everything from somebody Else's guid to Jiggy to
Speaker 4: whatever else. He would just be sending me horns in
Speaker 4: different pieces, all the flutes and all the arrangements and
Speaker 4: putting pieces together. But the way we were able to
Speaker 4: put it back together, reamp it, put it through some
Speaker 4: music man's still have all you know, my sound works mics,
Speaker 4: the tlms and forty sevens capture it back. But we
Speaker 4: knew what we wanted to hear, So that process, I
Speaker 4: can't say it was hard. It was just about focus
Speaker 4: and knowing what we liked and basically, you know, as
Speaker 4: you know, collecting stuff that feels and sounds like breakbeats.
Speaker 4: So when you're saying, no, get me the greens there,
Speaker 4: and you know exactly why you're going for it, and
Speaker 4: everybody else might just be oblivious. It's a similar process
Speaker 4: of just getting through it.
Speaker 3: But I never thought it was the equipment. I always
Speaker 3: thought it was the engineering, and I just never had
Speaker 3: the you know, until I heard Back to Black, I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, then it is possible to achieve the sound.
Speaker 3: But even then, once, I mean once I figured it out,
Speaker 3: it was you know, like by twenty ten, almost like
Speaker 3: even five six years after Back to Black came out, I.
Speaker 4: Just yeah, I mean we really worked at it. And
Speaker 4: then this stuff that I did, even in New York,
Speaker 4: that kind of has that type of energy for me.
Speaker 4: It was a thing where I was collecting records and
Speaker 4: I always liked the record so my dad was like
Speaker 4: luper vandels. I'm like, all right, cool. But the reason
Speaker 4: why I was sampling incredible bongo band was because of
Speaker 4: the sonics. It wasn't just because King Ericson was killing.
Speaker 4: Then when Michael Wiener gave me a bunch of things,
Speaker 4: I was still trying to figure out. I think I
Speaker 4: might even sent you one one time when we did
Speaker 4: love Steme, I was trying to make the sonic feel
Speaker 4: ass urgent, you know, and that's really what it is like.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Even when I'm recording NAS, I'm trying to get the
Speaker 4: sonic energy. So I'm staying next to that speak and
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm moving. I'm imagining what Paradise Garage
Speaker 4: feels like. I'm imagining what the red zone feels like.
Speaker 4: I'm imagining what the fever sounds like. And if the
Speaker 4: sonic warfare as I call it, doesn't actually hit you
Speaker 4: the way it should, that's as important as the lyrics
Speaker 4: being stronger than the kick. If the lyrics hit you
Speaker 4: the right, waste rebel without a pose, like, how do
Speaker 4: we get back to that? That's intensity in the samples.
Speaker 4: That's also intensity and engineering insensity and the lyrics. It's
Speaker 4: about the way it's all coming together and then ultimately
Speaker 4: how it's captured. If that song had a different mix,
Speaker 4: it might not have ever been what it was. And
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, having that understanding and feeling
Speaker 4: that way about certain pieces of music, I'm twisting knobs
Speaker 4: until I feel it.
Speaker 3: Which leads me to we're getting to the end of
Speaker 3: this journey. But let's start the rapid fire Ship, the
Speaker 3: random questions which leads me to get retarded. Now, yeah,
Speaker 3: with cannabis. Oh he would do that. Yes, that record
Speaker 3: who I thought did though.
Speaker 4: No Ship was funky.
Speaker 3: First of all, what with the Hawaiian guitar thing, and
Speaker 3: it was just it was such a radical record that
Speaker 3: I I liked it, but I was just like, why
Speaker 3: what the hell was all think?
Speaker 4: So basically what some people do they now call it,
Speaker 4: I think rhythm moole that or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I had a wall of records in my apartment and
Speaker 4: what I say is, grab me three records, and whatever
Speaker 4: three records you grab, I gotta make something. And that's
Speaker 4: the three records I pulled to that day La Boppers,
Speaker 4: Chantey and Biz and I Want You And that's where
Speaker 4: it came from. So I basically had those records and
Speaker 4: I was like, uh, well, want to get retard. That's
Speaker 4: what I picked off of the records. I could have
Speaker 4: sampled something else off the records, but that's what I
Speaker 4: caught and how it fell together.
Speaker 3: Now and recording that, I'm certain that the energy and
Speaker 3: the excitement was in the air because the buzz on
Speaker 3: cannabis couldn't get any hotter. It was like, what the
Speaker 3: energy that Eminem had. I feel like Eminem is the
Speaker 3: and we can't discount the fact that Eminem's whiteness.
Speaker 4: Uh, we can't discount whiteness, right.
Speaker 3: We can't. Just but what I'm just saying, man, At
Speaker 3: one time in nineteen ninety six, there was hope and
Speaker 3: energy in the air that Cannabis was going to be
Speaker 3: the underground lyrical master beast from the East, the Lost
Speaker 3: Boys Joint like was his like his Winter Wars Verse,
Speaker 3: the very, yes, the very Even the first time I
Speaker 3: met Jay through Common, he was like, Yo, I can't
Speaker 3: wait to hear this Cannabis right, can see what he got? So, boy,
Speaker 3: what were your feelings of what went wrong? Would you say?
Speaker 3: That was the first CD I ever sold back to
Speaker 3: the story to d So yeah, well, no, I thought,
Speaker 3: I thought, did that record because I didn't like I
Speaker 3: didn't like that joint?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: It took a minute, but it was just like when
Speaker 3: I heard the Hawaiian Loop and I was just like,
Speaker 3: all right, this is obviously some next ship that I'm
Speaker 3: just not up or you're not ready for.
Speaker 2: So did you kill Cannabis.
Speaker 3: One of the No, that was actually one of the
Speaker 3: only joints Wait knock up.
Speaker 5: That I like, second Round Knockout, but I knew it
Speaker 5: was at least Death Day is All Time, March.
Speaker 4: Night, Your Mom, your first, second, and third ball, and.
Speaker 3: I knew it was over for Cannabis. Like I don't
Speaker 3: know if y'all remember like when they used to have
Speaker 3: the thing.
Speaker 5: It was on MTV and it was like basically they
Speaker 5: would like play a video and then they would have
Speaker 5: like people like talking about it, give their opinions whatever,
Speaker 5: and yeah, it was like a kids of this type
Speaker 5: joint and they played Cannabis second Round Knockout, and I
Speaker 5: remember it was like these four like teenage like white
Speaker 5: kids and they were all like, oh, well, you know
Speaker 5: he's he just sounds so angry and you know he
Speaker 5: just this guy. Just they were like this in the record.
Speaker 5: And when I said, I was just like, it's a
Speaker 5: rap because the hood like this.
Speaker 3: We loved it. That was like the hip hop heads
Speaker 3: loved that record. But when I saw that, I mean,
Speaker 3: my perspective disconnect was.
Speaker 4: My perspective on Cannabis's record. First, I didn't expect him
Speaker 4: to keep that track because we did that one, but
Speaker 4: we all just sol did a record called Doomsday News,
Speaker 4: which was the track that y Cleft used for Where
Speaker 4: Fuji's At years later dan Boom Boom boom. It start
Speaker 4: us off the Eclectic album. It's the first song. So
Speaker 4: that was actually on Cannabis' album. And you know, that
Speaker 4: was a track that at one point hay shokole, you
Speaker 4: know two weade me or something at the time, and
Speaker 4: that'sked me to do beats for public enemy things. So
Speaker 4: that's what my mindset was with it. That was the
Speaker 4: song I actually thought he was going to keep because
Speaker 4: it meant something. For whatever reason, he decided not to
Speaker 4: use it. And I think, you know, Cannabis had beat
Speaker 4: selection issues as far as I was gonna say, but
Speaker 4: basically he always had the lyrics, but he just kind
Speaker 4: of pushed the wrong way with it. And the things
Speaker 4: that I actually recorded with him that people never heard
Speaker 4: was I made him switch his flow. I was like,
Speaker 4: you said, the best m seed died on Martial Life.
Speaker 4: Look how many different flows Biggie has. Now you're just rhyming, rhyming,
Speaker 4: rhyming to the point where somebody, man, there was a
Speaker 4: guy downstairs, he was rhyming crazy. I was just Canna
Speaker 4: bits ignoring him, and then after a while you raperly
Speaker 4: wrapped yourself to a point where no one actually would
Speaker 4: hear how great your lyrics were because you gave it
Speaker 4: to all to us in the same cadence, which was unfortunate.
Speaker 4: And you know, I did a lot of records with
Speaker 4: him that I thought were really dope, but he just basically.
Speaker 2: A way, I don't need to change my flows the lyrics.
Speaker 4: He just he turned into a computer. Really, I mean
Speaker 4: he was rhyming. He was fron of the first people
Speaker 4: I saw that would write their rhymes in the computer
Speaker 4: and be moving around. But it was just like, you're
Speaker 4: so smart. You outsmart yourself to the human connection, to
Speaker 4: the actual ability to really have a conversation in your
Speaker 4: songs on top of being able to rap really well.
Speaker 3: Every cannabis experience I had starts with a starting the beat,
Speaker 3: like him getting on stage, and then like mid first
Speaker 3: wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, and then
Speaker 3: he has to let you know exactly what.
Speaker 6: He said, yeah, because that's the ugi in the movie Surprise.
Speaker 3: It's likest.
Speaker 5: And that's the thing is like, if if you have
Speaker 5: to explain the punchline, then it's not a good punchline,
Speaker 5: if you don't get it, just off rip, if you
Speaker 5: got to break down, and that ship as well. It
Speaker 5: really wasn't That album was one of the many things
Speaker 5: that happened in nineteen ninety seven that just really.
Speaker 3: Killed the momentum that the idea of New York was
Speaker 3: having in hip hop and MC There's Canvas Door.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was their free s I mean, you know
Speaker 4: had successful, right, but that was that was like the
Speaker 4: Cole Kendrick Drake was the Cannabis Norway Freestyle on not
Speaker 4: ainety seven, and they all seem like they had to
Speaker 4: go and just Cannabis didn't keep delivering records. That's all
Speaker 4: it comes down to. You know, having the greatest talent,
Speaker 4: being the best musician doesn't mean you're the best composer.
Speaker 4: Being the best singer doesn't mean you have a good song.
Speaker 3: So is that the producer's responsibility or is that the
Speaker 3: artists respect Sometimes the artist has too much power and
Speaker 3: they just don't want to get out of their own way.
Speaker 4: You know, we all know some really really great talent
Speaker 4: that can't make a record or get it together. You know,
Speaker 4: thirty years in I could play records that I did
Speaker 4: twenty years ago. Wow, this is great. Whatever happened to them,
Speaker 4: Let me try to find them. We drive up the
Speaker 4: right alley, yo, like that, that's what it is, and
Speaker 4: it's unfortunate, but it's real. Jasmine talk about Jasmine. Jasmine
Speaker 4: Sullivan's for me. It's like, you know, kind of where
Speaker 4: I want to be core business, great voice, great stories,
Speaker 4: and then I just got to find a good bassline.
Speaker 4: And you know, I worked with Jasmine when she was
Speaker 4: on Job, when she was thirteen or fourteen, so we
Speaker 4: already had somewhat of familiarity by the time she was
Speaker 4: on J Records, and then Peter Edge really wanted her
Speaker 4: to sing. She cut a version of There's a Song
Speaker 4: that Keon Brice I really did. That was on Nasa
Speaker 4: and the Well on the Shit, and then basically she
Speaker 4: cut a version of it. But then during that session
Speaker 4: we also did Lions, Tigers and Beers as My Ship
Speaker 4: and another song, and basically she sang Lions, Tigers and Bears.
Speaker 4: The idea I was like, all right, hold up, gave
Speaker 4: her a click track and then I just started playing
Speaker 4: around it and then she finished the song to the track,
Speaker 4: and that became my mode of working where she might
Speaker 4: sing me an idea or tell me an idea of record,
Speaker 4: and then I would flush it out.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Ten seconds was like that she had a thing and
Speaker 4: then I just took it, played it, and expanded on
Speaker 4: it whatever she was hearing. But our chemistry was like
Speaker 4: you certain people I have large bodies of work with
Speaker 4: just because we just work together when we work, and
Speaker 4: I probably have forty songs with Jasmine.
Speaker 2: Then no way describe her her songwriting, because I feel
Speaker 2: like that's one of the appeals to Jasmine too, the
Speaker 2: way she.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she just go to the point.
Speaker 4: The reality is that you know, unfortunately, unfortunately, I've been
Speaker 4: able to work with a lot of people who write
Speaker 4: auto biographically. So there's a lot of stuff she said
Speaker 4: in the songs that she either went through or she
Speaker 4: did not. Much of it is just straight up imagine.
Speaker 4: And then now when they're at a really happy point
Speaker 4: in their life for a certain point the song that
Speaker 4: they don't know how they feel about the song, so
Speaker 4: then that's not necessarily what they want to express at
Speaker 4: that point. I'll put it, and that slows down the
Speaker 4: records coming out.
Speaker 3: I'll put it this way. You and I both know.
Speaker 4: The victim who got his card busted.
Speaker 3: We do anyway, No, it's like that and always did
Speaker 3: you work on the second album?
Speaker 4: I worked on all albums. Today.
Speaker 3: I played drums on I don't know if you're an
Speaker 3: Ambell record, that's the one.
Speaker 4: Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They brought me the track and I played. But when
Speaker 3: I was listening to the lyrics, I was.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, crazy redemption song.
Speaker 2: Did she go to that ship?
Speaker 4: Yeah, no she didn't. That's the same person that she
Speaker 4: did the other thing. Well that's all that's that was.
Speaker 3: There's no way that she went through those lyrics and redemption.
Speaker 4: Because the lyrics and redemption one verse is her as
Speaker 4: the person who's doing it, and the other verses her experiencing.
Speaker 3: Oh man, but did herself? Did she go through that ship? Yeah?
Speaker 3: All right. They brought me a song Redemption to you know,
Speaker 3: just put your drums on it. And I didn't bother
Speaker 3: to even listen to the song before I started. I
Speaker 3: just I said, you know, Steve, did you know? Put
Speaker 3: it on the reel and I'm a drum to it
Speaker 3: first take and my jaw was dropping because me and
Speaker 3: Layah new Jasmine when she was sneaking in the Black
Speaker 3: Lily Ages as a ten year older. This is the
Speaker 3: same person to whom like her dad and rich with
Speaker 3: big the club owner let this nine year old girl
Speaker 3: come upstairs.
Speaker 2: This day goes everywhere with her.
Speaker 3: But all right, you know she does she does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, some of that was also metaphorical. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: was like the rock, I know that I need you.
Speaker 4: I wasn't supposed to be here, but I need that rock.
Speaker 3: Like that's not I get it, but it's just still
Speaker 3: the fact that this ain't the year on my mind
Speaker 3: all the time. Your hair is very I'm just like,
Speaker 3: she's a mature like, you know, so what what are her?
Speaker 4: Just her goals and.
Speaker 3: What she wants because I also know that she feels
Speaker 3: a certain way that the world's embracing Adele who is
Speaker 3: her age and not her And yes, besides the captain
Speaker 3: obvious reasons, well she's mentioned that, you know, we're well
Speaker 3: I don't even know if she's on social media anymore.
Speaker 4: She will pop up once every month or two. I mean,
Speaker 4: the thing is right now, I mean I was around
Speaker 4: a few months ago. I just think she's happy, you know,
Speaker 4: because when many people when they get to work and
Speaker 4: when they're really young, at some point they want to
Speaker 4: catch up on life and not necessarily revolve their life
Speaker 4: around of recording or touring schedule. So from what I
Speaker 4: can capture, that's just where it's at. And she has music,
Speaker 4: like you know, we got together for a couple of days,
Speaker 4: and chemistry wise, stuff comes up all the time. It's
Speaker 4: just is that the priority is this record right now.
Speaker 4: You know, I think some music's gonna come out really
Speaker 4: soon though, but in general, you know, yeah, could you
Speaker 4: do that insecure? All right?
Speaker 6: Cool?
Speaker 4: Great, she would just do it, But it's Jasmine's pen
Speaker 4: is next, next, next level. And I think for me
Speaker 4: it was the thing where when I first worked with her,
Speaker 4: you know, the labels like get Harold Lily and get
Speaker 4: this person in and I was like nah. And by
Speaker 4: working onliness and then Bush your windows, they were able
Speaker 4: to see that her pen was better than everyone else's.
Speaker 4: The same with you know, helping Lawrence Penn from Fuji
Speaker 4: time into where it became, or helping Miguel you know,
Speaker 4: who had written many songs, but kind of helping them
Speaker 4: focus on different things with all I want to use,
Speaker 4: helping Jazzmin be able to folk Amy. You know, Amy
Speaker 4: had different people that wrote you send me flying stuff
Speaker 4: with her, but her pen was better than everyone else's.
Speaker 4: And you know, I kind of playoff. I asked the
Speaker 4: right questions while we're recording to help people kind of
Speaker 4: do it, and then I make them do it on
Speaker 4: their own. And sometimes it's challenging that they get mad
Speaker 4: and don't like it, and sometimes they actually rise to
Speaker 4: the occasion.
Speaker 3: When you walked in earlier, you talked about working on
Speaker 3: Miguel's new record, which is a total He was not
Speaker 3: the artist I expected him to be, Like when when
Speaker 3: he first came out the bet again, I thought it
Speaker 3: was just a regular R and B artist. Okay, you're
Speaker 3: on and he's stepped outside of that box. So I mean,
Speaker 3: how did how did how did he manage to do that?
Speaker 2: Like is?
Speaker 4: I think once again, it was just seeing all the possibilities,
Speaker 4: you know, from all I want is you toime that
Speaker 4: wasn't necessarily who he was. Miguel Haben signed since I
Speaker 4: think he was fifteen or sixteen, and he did Quickie
Speaker 4: and Sure Thing, which were you know, his number ones
Speaker 4: while he was still in another production deal years ago.
Speaker 4: So by the time he was really getting a chance
Speaker 4: to make his record, it was really Kaleidoscope Dream and
Speaker 4: we actually did how Many Drinks and All I wanted you.
Speaker 4: This is the first day I met him. When we
Speaker 4: first start how many drinks, He's like, it's two R
Speaker 4: and B. I don't want to be in the Donelle
Speaker 4: Jones land. I'd rather do something else. Give me something
Speaker 4: like guitar he was, and he said he didn't want
Speaker 4: to do that, so he was like, yo, give me
Speaker 4: something with guitars. So that's why I did the all.
Speaker 4: I gave him All I Wanted You track, which I
Speaker 4: originally made for ce Lo, but it was just like
Speaker 4: his guitar is yes, So then he went for it
Speaker 4: and it became what it was. And it was still
Speaker 4: like him trying to find hmself because he's like this
Speaker 4: so East coast and that's you in Mark with that
Speaker 4: New York I'm from the West coast. All right, cool,
Speaker 4: here take this Lyarry Shiffer beef, you know. And that
Speaker 4: became Kalidescope dream because I gave him the d beat
Speaker 4: equivalent of the opposite, and then he Kalidescope dream and
Speaker 4: then he played the entro the Parliamental. But the end
Speaker 4: of the day, his signature, j'all todate is a Dawn,
Speaker 4: which is all produced by Miguel. That's him, you know,
Speaker 4: in his studio closet room, you know, in a late
Speaker 4: night just zoning, and you know he has one of
Speaker 4: those before I let go ad libs at the end
Speaker 4: where people just know that song down to a certain
Speaker 4: point and he's developed into that. And then you know,
Speaker 4: his last album, wild Heart, he did a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff that maybe wasn't received the way he wanted it to.
Speaker 4: But that's part of, you know, the creative, long term
Speaker 4: process where you just make a record or y'all don't
Speaker 4: hear it yet, Okay, cool, y'all get back to that one.
Speaker 4: Take another one here, here's where you are now. So
Speaker 4: you know, skytt Walker has been something different and come through,
Speaker 4: and Chill was just me pushing him, you know, he
Speaker 4: didn't feel like recording, and I went and sat on
Speaker 4: the kit and started just hitting the sticks and being funny.
Speaker 4: And then eventually I was like, let's put on SoundCloud tonight,
Speaker 4: what tonight, let's go and then he, you know, I
Speaker 4: got him to do it a few days later, but
Speaker 4: we put it up and it's been there for a
Speaker 4: couple of years. But still people like the song. They
Speaker 4: like what they like and you can't stop that. So
Speaker 4: two years later, Cool Cold's on it. It's the new single,
Speaker 4: the video shot. All right, Cole, that's great. But for me,
Speaker 4: Miguel still hasn't even really hot all of his potential yet.
Speaker 4: He's still four albums and he probably got another five
Speaker 4: or six in them.
Speaker 3: When you did Mac wild Stuff, I was still calling
Speaker 3: them Michael Lee from the and I was when he said,
Speaker 3: like I was working with Salon m I'm like, I
Speaker 3: was like, yeat out of here. I never knew are
Speaker 3: you going to continue to work with him? And how
Speaker 3: are you able to convince him when he could have
Speaker 3: easily uh, you know, going young?
Speaker 2: He know the good shit though, right.
Speaker 4: More than anything else. How we first thinked that was
Speaker 4: I was in LA when I met him, and then
Speaker 4: he would always come out of studio and we'd be
Speaker 4: talking about the lack of duck sauce in LA and
Speaker 4: just like real you know, missing New York basically. So
Speaker 4: he would come by and I was a fan of
Speaker 4: him from the wire, but he was out there doing
Speaker 4: nine on two or zero, but he would come by
Speaker 4: my sessions while I was working on Miguel or C. J.
Speaker 4: Hilton or whoever else. He'd just be around me doing
Speaker 4: stuff and I heard him singing on something that I
Speaker 4: think worked with Warren Campbell worked on this record called
Speaker 4: Cold that he had and I heard and I was like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: your voice is getting there. And he had some ability.
Speaker 4: But I was also jumping off my label at Sony,
Speaker 4: and I was like, all right, cool, here's the one
Speaker 4: two punch. If you can sing these records, then I
Speaker 4: can cut an album on you in a month. Everybody's
Speaker 4: gonna love you because you came from TV, and you know,
Speaker 4: we can jump it off real quick. And that's basically
Speaker 4: what I did. Over the Christmas holiday. He cut on it,
Speaker 4: He wrote Hanny, he sang a Rico love song, a
Speaker 4: faunt La Roy's song, and he nailed it. And I
Speaker 4: just brought him down to Miami for a couple of
Speaker 4: days and he showed more than you know, anyone's potential
Speaker 4: thought of him. So I was like, cool, soon as
Speaker 4: you finished TV in March, we're gonna cut your album
Speaker 4: in a month. You're gonna shoot some videos and then
Speaker 4: I have you done before you gotta go back to TV.
Speaker 4: And that album became what it was, but it also
Speaker 4: was definite Grammy nominated, and it felt right. And also
Speaker 4: it's just like a stamping time. That's how I feel
Speaker 4: about it. You know, at that time I stopped kind
Speaker 4: of doing records, but I just really felt like it
Speaker 4: was a good expression of how we felt about New
Speaker 4: York r and being also caught at a time when
Speaker 4: everybody in New York was like Atlanta's taking over. He go,
Speaker 4: Eric be for president, every be for president. Oh, mav
Speaker 4: Deep puts my favorite joint. And then what I did was,
Speaker 4: instead of sampling the old records, I went to Primo,
Speaker 4: I went to Pete. I went to Havoc and was like, nah,
Speaker 4: you're gonna produce it with me, get your disc out,
Speaker 4: and now cut them a check rather than paying a
Speaker 4: sample for something else. So Primo went back to the
Speaker 4: disc and got me the group on pieces and reprogrammed it.
Speaker 4: Pete pulled out s P twelve hundred discs. We did that,
Speaker 4: you know, Havoc redid that beat. That wasn't actually the sample,
Speaker 4: but we was able to kind of put it together.
Speaker 4: And then they got their points, they got published, and
Speaker 4: they got new bread and that to me was also
Speaker 4: me you know, paying back my computing, paying back my
Speaker 4: community because if I would have cleared a sample, they
Speaker 4: still would never seen the check.
Speaker 3: Off of it.
Speaker 2: But Mac was still and he was the perfect artist
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day he had the
Speaker 2: link to Wu Tang. He had that, and then he
Speaker 2: had an It was like, oh that.
Speaker 4: When the first time I went everything. When Meth came
Speaker 4: to the studio to do the hook on on the album,
Speaker 4: he was like, who's been messing with him? I was like,
Speaker 4: what you mean, Like who you been messing with? I'm like,
Speaker 4: what are you talking about? Things like like who who's
Speaker 4: been doing this stuff? I was like, oh me, He's
Speaker 4: like because I heard some stuff before. It sounded like
Speaker 4: he was in a little, you know, rat house with
Speaker 4: his boys. It sounded like a whole other level. But
Speaker 4: once again I saw the potential on him, like he
Speaker 4: still has more potential than these actually he realized. And
Speaker 4: then his last project, After Hours, is something that he did.
Speaker 4: We did love in the nineties when he was doing
Speaker 4: the breaks on, so we had like some project, some
Speaker 4: songs we didn't put out, and then you know, he
Speaker 4: was moving on to doing other stuff. So he did
Speaker 4: his Body and Clive record with Wild and he had
Speaker 4: his after Hours record that he wanted to put out,
Speaker 4: and I was like, you know what, just go ahead
Speaker 4: and do do it your way. But I still you
Speaker 4: know again or yeah for sure, for sure it's like
Speaker 4: no low Bro basically and he's still passed through. Y'all.
Speaker 4: Gota come to Miami and vibe with you or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. I probably seeing them all.
Speaker 3: Okay, how did Hiatus? How did you discover them?
Speaker 4: Uh? Deep Prosper actually Deep Prosper, Deep Prosper people. Deep
Speaker 4: Prosper actually brought that to me and was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: there's this band. Theyre on band Camp. They kind of crazy.
Speaker 4: You know, you're doing some stuff with your labor, SOY
Speaker 4: tell me for something there. And I was basically walking
Speaker 4: around Sony going if I had a young Amy winehouse,
Speaker 4: where am I going to put that out? So I
Speaker 4: went to the master Works Jazz Classical department and Chuck Mitchell,
Speaker 4: who was at VERB and did many different things and
Speaker 4: work you know, at downbeating things over the years and
Speaker 4: was a great writer and as well. I was like, look,
Speaker 4: I want to bring back Buddha records, cause Sony, your
Speaker 4: own Buddha. But they didn't have it for the world.
Speaker 4: So then I was like, well, since you can't do Buddha,
Speaker 4: let me do Flying Buddha, which was you know, flying
Speaker 4: Dutchman meets Buddha and Hi. This was you know, they
Speaker 4: didn't want to do a deal with anybody, but they
Speaker 4: wanted to work with me, so that was just something great.
Speaker 4: That way, I was able to pick up what they
Speaker 4: already had and talked Tomahawk, sent it to Tip, who
Speaker 4: doesn't like most stuff. He surprisingly said he wanted a
Speaker 4: rhyme on it. Cool. I was nominated, and then for
Speaker 4: their second album, I was able to kind of get
Speaker 4: in and I didn't really mess with them too much
Speaker 4: on a let them record. I was going to say
Speaker 4: there was a lot in there all over that the
Speaker 4: album is like, you know, there was basically I took
Speaker 4: all of our schooling and everything we ever know and
Speaker 4: poured it in one record. They got it off their chests,
Speaker 4: but at the same time, it was so much being
Speaker 4: there and Breathing Underwater still got nominated, and you know
Speaker 4: Drakes and Drake's sample and Drake's sample the beginning of
Speaker 4: building a Ladder, which is the only two things that
Speaker 4: I messed with them about. I made him recut and
Speaker 4: breathing underwater till it felt like what I saw them
Speaker 4: doing boiler and on the rooftop. That's really their performance
Speaker 4: and building the ladder.
Speaker 3: You know, the intro wasn't right when you get a
Speaker 3: group like that, like are you ever afraid that you'll
Speaker 3: take because what makes them unique is that they're not pop,
Speaker 3: that they're not easily digestible. But it's also like, do
Speaker 3: you feel like, oh, I wouldn't be a smart producer
Speaker 3: if I didn't tell them this is a hook, this
Speaker 3: is sixteen bars, this is.
Speaker 4: I think it was partially that, And I mean they
Speaker 4: really want to be their own thing anyway, so they
Speaker 4: didn't really feel that type of pressure For me. Sometimes
Speaker 4: Napal would definitely be like, I don't want to make
Speaker 4: pop songs, but my thing is like do I do?
Speaker 4: That's the way I kind of look at it with them.
Speaker 4: If we go to Stevie's do I do all those
Speaker 4: notes in the middle of the hook? Cool? That sounds
Speaker 4: like something Hiatus might want to play. So a little
Speaker 4: less return the forever, a little bit more do I do. Still,
Speaker 4: they're going to be who they are and really be
Speaker 4: musically pushing the envelope at all times, but if we
Speaker 4: could still get something in between it that actually, you know,
Speaker 4: sticks it, because ultimately Knockamaraw was great, but it was
Speaker 4: love You a whole bunch of times in the middle,
Speaker 4: and nobody really knew that she was talking about something
Speaker 4: a lot deeper than that. But it was like, hand
Speaker 4: on my doling, love you, Okay, we know what you said.
Speaker 3: That was it.
Speaker 4: So you know, they have other songs that they'll develop
Speaker 4: to it. That's the way I feel about it. You know,
Speaker 4: in the album of two, I don't think any artist
Speaker 4: just nails their whole life. They kind of got to
Speaker 4: get to that point. And now they're at the point
Speaker 4: where you know, they're recording now and it's gonna come
Speaker 4: out different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Lung was my record on that. On the
Speaker 3: Choose Your Weapon that was.
Speaker 4: That album is just like it's like it's a double album.
Speaker 4: To me, it's like every song has three different changement
Speaker 4: moves and changes. But they also they took a lot
Speaker 4: out of them, so now they'll probably do shorter packages
Speaker 4: and have more because they still you know, they found
Speaker 4: dedicated fans who will sit there for three hours and
Speaker 4: not know all the words, but they will try their
Speaker 4: best to and we just got to sit and watch them, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm amazed by their actual overall talent and
Speaker 4: then also what they get out of just being for
Speaker 4: them on stage. They kill it most of the times
Speaker 4: they don't even have background.
Speaker 3: Are there any artists that you regret not working with
Speaker 3: that you should have or you know, any close calls.
Speaker 4: I'm just had to do and it didn't happen or nah?
Speaker 4: I think that the only thing that, like I say,
Speaker 4: is that sometimes things don't happen when they could have.
Speaker 4: I can't say that there's real regret. You know, some
Speaker 4: of the most talented people I've met I haven't gotten
Speaker 4: a chance to make records with. You know, there's an
Speaker 4: artist called We put out an EP called House of
Speaker 4: Cry by a girl named Cry in Chicago, probably one
Speaker 4: of the most talented, savant level people I've ever met,
Speaker 4: just as far as engineers, records themselves, sings octaves and octaves,
Speaker 4: but just marketing wise, I couldn't pull it together as
Speaker 4: a label to make her management Dad management all of
Speaker 4: it work. But at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 4: I have sixty songs someone that I felt like still
Speaker 4: give me goosebumps. At first note. You know, across the board,
Speaker 4: I think that there are opportunities where some people just
Speaker 4: don't actually meet their mark, and hopefully at some point
Speaker 4: they will.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's almost like a lot of Sugarman's out there online.
Speaker 4: House of c I EP is out there. Oh ok,
Speaker 4: it's actually is really strong. Did we miss anything? I meant, well,
Speaker 4: there's gazillion things you've done that we didn't go. Did
Speaker 4: you do the Ziggy uh?
Speaker 3: Toss it up?
Speaker 4: The low Key remix? That was all jiggy stuff I produced.
Speaker 4: That was my first group. That Dad was basically like,
Speaker 4: you going to school. So I was in school for
Speaker 4: business management, and I was like, well, I need six
Speaker 4: months off to do this album. So after that, if
Speaker 4: I don't get no work, I'll go back to school.
Speaker 3: I never went back.
Speaker 4: So that was my first full project.
Speaker 3: So the roots album, no.
Speaker 4: Stream of thoughts, you know, the flow of it.
Speaker 3: Well, we didn't reveal.
Speaker 2: Everything, all right, cool, I didn't understand.
Speaker 3: We just let that slide past the five people. Great,
Speaker 3: thank you. Anyway, this this damn near a double episode. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Jesus got a two week episode. Anyway, salim yo man,
Speaker 3: this is this is probably this is one of my
Speaker 3: I love these. I didn't know you do that did
Speaker 3: that episode where you know and and for real, man
Speaker 3: like seriously, like just as a kid like growing up,
Speaker 3: whenever I saw salam remy remix on a record. It
Speaker 3: so just thank you for all you did.
Speaker 4: You know, And it's so crazy you just said as
Speaker 4: a kid, because I'm sitting on sometimes I feel it
Speaker 4: and some times I feel it.
Speaker 3: Like I'm thirty.
Speaker 5: I'm thirty nine, So like work them many like super
Speaker 5: Cat Dollary my baby, but you get it y hot.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was like ninety two. I was thirteen. We
Speaker 3: also have to get you on Chat with Sugar, which
Speaker 3: is even which even deeper rabbit hole of information of music.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, we like that. Wait, speaking of Instagram, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you and Steve. You and Steve do something very weird.
Speaker 3: Your Instagram is nothing but just clips of the moment.
Speaker 3: First of all, how high level clips?
Speaker 4: You just take them off YouTube and YouTube sometimes daily
Speaker 4: motion just looking for sometimes I'm actually searching on Instagram
Speaker 4: just by hashtag.
Speaker 3: I was about to say, run out of ideas, like.
Speaker 4: You know what it was for me over the last year,
Speaker 4: I really felt like it was just at that thing
Speaker 4: you know, we get to a point in life where
Speaker 4: we made a lot of records and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: why am I making these? You know, when I'm working
Speaker 4: with artists, I'm making records to Oh, so what do
Speaker 4: you want? Or you liked it so you don't like that, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm catering to them. I'm cooking for them. And I
Speaker 4: needed to get to a point where if I'm just
Speaker 4: making what I want to make. Erase the black boy,
Speaker 4: he raced the white boy, and this is just me
Speaker 4: hearing it. I wanted to find my baseline. I wanted
Speaker 4: to figure out where it was. So then I looked
Speaker 4: at it like core business, great voices, great baselines, great story.
Speaker 4: So I just started looking at different people, Marvin Gaye,
Speaker 4: Dennis Brown, the people I really liked, and then looking
Speaker 4: at just watching clips of people sing to see what's
Speaker 4: coming out of their mouths singing. I'm still looking for
Speaker 4: that voice. I'm looking to be wild by somebody who
Speaker 4: can do it, but that also knows how to tell
Speaker 4: a story and write it. So that's really where it
Speaker 4: was born from. So I just stopped putting pictures of
Speaker 4: myself online, which that haven't been in it since last
Speaker 4: year May and then just continue to feed music and
Speaker 4: talk to me through that firewall. I mean talking about
Speaker 4: that then social media. It ain't really got none to say.
Speaker 3: But as we get further and further away from the church, right,
Speaker 3: do you think it's even remotely possible now for those
Speaker 3: unique voices? Like for me, like I love drum so
Speaker 3: much because he has a voice that's like when I
Speaker 3: first it's like old dirty bass or whatever, like just
Speaker 3: a very unique sounding voice.
Speaker 4: Do you feel as though like it might sound different
Speaker 4: because it's mustache, I'm just playing drum.
Speaker 3: No, But I've been like, no, no, no, not feeling
Speaker 3: to find unique voices. I'm looking for that.
Speaker 4: There's still something that I feel like is uh tribal
Speaker 4: for me, for all of us, there's still a level
Speaker 4: of you know, they'll have my Tata salad uh concept
Speaker 4: where I just like know you go to any person
Speaker 4: that label, say I made a record, call who made
Speaker 4: the Tata Salad, and maybe black person in America's on BIB.
Speaker 4: We're gonna sell for million copies. They don't know what
Speaker 4: I'm talking about. Doug Morris, Clive Davis, Jamie Van Newson. Cool.
Speaker 4: But if you go to the most Black American people
Speaker 4: and go. This is basically how I kept live alive.
Speaker 4: On Jasmine's first album, Peter, It's tatuside leave it alone.
Speaker 4: What do you mean? This is something that I feel
Speaker 4: that's a butt of oather and some Sam Spoon. It
Speaker 4: was not a jam that you're saying is a number one.
Speaker 4: It's not a copyright, but it's something that's making me
Speaker 4: know that she knows where I know. She's giving me
Speaker 4: something that takes me home. And when we hear those songs,
Speaker 4: when we hear the songs that are on our barbecue playlists,
Speaker 4: when we hear that music that resonates with it, when
Speaker 4: we hear cranes in the sky, what is that? Where
Speaker 4: did that happen before? I don't know where it happened before,
Speaker 4: but it feels right. It's under my skin. I think
Speaker 4: that that's what we're missing. As far as even the
Speaker 4: analog conversation, the analog no motion that happens with musicians
Speaker 4: is that, you know, sometimes when I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: show writers or you know, I'm doing camps in my house,
Speaker 4: sometimes I'm like, everybody's sing amazing grace. Just pick a
Speaker 4: note and we just sing. Now, put your hands out
Speaker 4: while we do it. We just feel it. There's something
Speaker 4: else a resonance, and vocal is a resonance, and the
Speaker 4: sonics is resonance and the music that needs to happen
Speaker 4: deep man. Yeah, so I mean just just within it.
Speaker 4: I just feel like that there's something sonically that happens.
Speaker 4: It's how I feel about when the organ hits this
Speaker 4: at a certain time. I want to still feel open,
Speaker 4: but I also need that movement because if I ain't
Speaker 4: getting that thing, No, I like this. This hern level
Speaker 4: of music that's gonna take me somewhere. Wow, Ox Tell
Speaker 4: Gravy Brown got something dogs. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3: Oh bru, I thank you very much for coming on.
Speaker 4: Question, thanks for having me. I'm the opportunity to run
Speaker 4: my mouth.
Speaker 3: Man, this is my favorite moments you know, of the
Speaker 3: history of the show.
Speaker 4: Learn It's like, we could probably do another with like
Speaker 4: five hours if I'm still asking you questions, but we'll
Speaker 4: get to that.
Speaker 2: Give them one.
Speaker 3: Just please, I have one more question. No, come on,
Speaker 3: you guys want me to ask this question, because what's
Speaker 3: the what's the like We're going to have a hip
Speaker 3: hop pioneer from New York and not as.
Speaker 6: Oh god, I can see you a hole that ship.
Speaker 4: Latin Quarters.
Speaker 3: They would clown me because I would always have Latin
Speaker 3: Quarter questions for all of our mid mid classic era
Speaker 3: hip hop acts, and they got tired of me asking
Speaker 3: Latin Quarter questions.
Speaker 7: All the different people always kind of tell more or
Speaker 7: less to say, yeah, jacket, I.
Speaker 4: Can tell you you have. I've been quarter a couple
Speaker 4: of times.
Speaker 3: I played for real.
Speaker 6: Because a Mexican boys.
Speaker 4: He is she worked Latin Quarter. I've been there twice
Speaker 4: when my dad was on promotion. So then he would
Speaker 4: take me with him. No, I saw, you know, take
Speaker 4: me up to be a let's see mister magic. You know,
Speaker 4: I gotta get something the red alert. So I went
Speaker 4: in the Latin Quarter. Paradise was outside at the door.
Speaker 3: STEVEE D.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like fourteen thirteen fourteen. I was the
Speaker 4: ice cap. I had a Curtis blow record out.
Speaker 3: I was bad.
Speaker 4: But basically uh Stevie D from Foursome D's was there,
Speaker 4: and the mank Jerry curls on top, fade earrings in
Speaker 4: his ears, everything.
Speaker 3: He had a twelve hair style.
Speaker 4: He had a bodyguard with him pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 4: His name was Katon. He looked. It's like a basically
Speaker 4: strong orangerting colored coat, light skin, almost like a freckle
Speaker 4: faced redhead dude. But mad Cock diesel because you know,
Speaker 4: Latin Quarters was really rough. But stevd from forsles what's
Speaker 4: going in there? You know that? I guess it was
Speaker 4: right around ten the lovetime, maybe just after that I
Speaker 4: walked upstairs. You go up turn around because also I'd
Speaker 4: always like being over there because the arcade was right
Speaker 4: underneath what the Latin Quarters was, So that block there
Speaker 4: was an arcade, and that where you can pretty much
Speaker 4: walk through between Seventh Avenue and Broadway underneath where that
Speaker 4: was at. And whenever we were at studios in the area,
Speaker 4: I'd always want to go to the arcade. But anyhow,
Speaker 4: we get up in the Latin Quarters. I see scott
Speaker 4: Land Rock standing downstairs by the booth. I see Eric
Speaker 4: b I see Bizz Red Alert's up in the booth.
Speaker 4: My Dad's like, stay right here, I'm gonna go get
Speaker 4: Red Alert. The record. Red Alert teases the beginning of
Speaker 4: Rebel without a pause, Brothers and Sisters. He sees some
Speaker 4: kids running from the back like yo, he about to
Speaker 4: play it. He about to play it. They get over
Speaker 4: to the dance floor, brothers and sisters. I don't know
Speaker 4: if this World's coming to Rebel comes on. That's probably
Speaker 4: one of the first times I'm hearing it and the
Speaker 4: kids in the middle of the dance floor doing like
Speaker 4: the crazy dances to revel without a pose.
Speaker 2: No no no no no no no no. So Lom
Speaker 2: had a question for you. We remember we have you
Speaker 2: said before we get out, you can at least get
Speaker 2: one of his three hundred out.
Speaker 4: I was just saying, what's your questions?
Speaker 3: Yes, I'll have some music ready for you to critique.
Speaker 2: And let him ask you. You don't know what he about.
Speaker 4: Even going there. Actually it's something a lot more. I
Speaker 4: heard a story about you doing something with your drum technique,
Speaker 4: whereas in you were slowing tapes down crazy and then
Speaker 4: speeding them up with a really big kick. But I
Speaker 4: wasn't really clear on your process of doing that, Like
Speaker 4: was that like something that you developed? How did you
Speaker 4: arrive at I'm going to slow this tape.
Speaker 3: Speeding, only very speeding, because once I discovered that Prince
Speaker 3: was very speeding his voice on Erotic City, and really
Speaker 3: Stevie Wonder was very speeding his voice on maybe your
Speaker 3: baby early roots demos or back when we were Black
Speaker 3: to the Future. I had my dad's task him four
Speaker 3: track thing. I realized, like, oh, I can slowly drew drones,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I guess I was being a
Speaker 3: you know, the a pseudo. I was trying to figure
Speaker 3: out like techniques to get a better kick sound. So
Speaker 3: I'll say, for like a lot of the do you
Speaker 3: want more record, I would I would play the initial
Speaker 3: drum tracks at at a at a higher was I
Speaker 3: p s of Steve? Yeah, yeah, the higher and then
Speaker 3: and then we and then it was low. I mean
Speaker 3: it really didn't. It only served me well for you
Speaker 3: got me, you would slow it down. You totally blinked yourself.
Speaker 2: You said we would go high and then we would.
Speaker 3: Oh and then slowed down normally.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, it's too saying you got me is
Speaker 4: where you crystallize it, because it actually worked to the
Speaker 4: level where you wanted to. It got all the way through.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's not the natural snares down. I very
Speaker 3: speeded the tape down, and you got me that I
Speaker 3: always wanted you to, well just all of it, the
Speaker 3: whole thing. Once Jill and Scott did uh Jill and Scott.
Speaker 3: That's funny. I was going to details.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: Jill and Scott did the initial track to a click track,
Speaker 3: and then I came in afterwards to to drum to it.
Speaker 3: At first I did it normal, and then it sounds special.
Speaker 3: So then I very speeded the tape slow and drummed
Speaker 3: to it. And then when we played it back at
Speaker 3: normal speed, it sounded like a higher pitch. And then
Speaker 3: when I was like, oh I could do drumming bass,
Speaker 3: this is out. It's like my favorite. Thank you. It's
Speaker 3: not my favorite, but you know.
Speaker 2: Like when can you do part two to that song?
Speaker 2: Like can you finish it? And it just really go in.
Speaker 3: I've done it before. I did it on Break You Off.
Speaker 3: I did it on Water Break You Off. My trick
Speaker 3: will Break You Off was I didn't want y'all to
Speaker 3: think that we were like being greasy R and B.
Speaker 3: So at the mastering session, I was like, yo, just
Speaker 3: give me two days and I said I got to
Speaker 3: add three more minutes of this song to wash away
Speaker 3: what you thought was the greasy R and B. So
Speaker 3: so because the version break You Off, that jurrel At
Speaker 3: is all right. There's eleven versions.
Speaker 2: That was a good story, and.
Speaker 3: Jerrel Avert actually gave the better performance. I will say
Speaker 3: that somewhere. Well, shit, I don't know. Maybe the phrenologe
Speaker 3: reels have burned too.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like a lot of a lot of universals
Speaker 3: reels and old movies like Lot number five, which unfortunately
Speaker 3: is the I guess he said. The letters P through
Speaker 3: T got damaged. So we lost all of do you
Speaker 3: Want More? We can't find do you want Way? I
Speaker 3: can't find three songs on I can't find no Great
Speaker 3: Pretender episodes or uh.
Speaker 4: Uh if you've seen it.
Speaker 3: Probably yeah, I can't find the two inch reels, nor
Speaker 3: the dats nor the half inch reels. Oh wow, so yeah,
Speaker 3: like pretty much we owned the masters to those songs. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think about like yeah, like thirty I think like
Speaker 3: thirty three of our reels got this story and a
Speaker 3: lot of do you Want More? And so as far
Speaker 3: as like extras and yeah, that's not happening with your
Speaker 3: answers some how you feeling definitely now, we definitely got
Speaker 3: two parts of it. Anyway, Thank you, thank you someone
Speaker 3: for coming, Yes, thank you for having won't we have
Speaker 3: a boss? Bill on paipe Bill Sugar Steve star of
Speaker 3: Chat with Sugar, Sugar Network on the Sugar Network, our
Speaker 3: own Ted Turner, Fonziegelo and it's like, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: Quest Love. Uh, And this is Quest Love. Why do
Speaker 3: I sound so tired? This is Quest Love Supreme And
Speaker 3: we'll see you next go around.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.