FROM DA BRICKS

The Program (K-Def & Dacapo) – ‘Free Speech’ & ‘Life Goes On (Instrumental)’
taken from The Article EP (Ghetto Man Beats, 2008)

P-Diddy – ‘Come To Me (K-Def Remix)’ (Unreleased)

The Program @ MySpace

So here it is: part one of an extensive interview I did with K-Def recently. A great interviewee, he sheds light on a whole range of subjects including projects from the past, present and future as well as getting into some of the intricacies of his production processes in what has to have been my most enjoyable interview to date. Audio-wise, as well as the link to the free EP with Dacapo, I’ve also included an unreleased remix that K-Def produced for Diddy. Get that mouse button clicking!

This first part includes discussion of the World Renown LP, the unreleased albums from both Sah-B and De’1 as well as a K-Def’s feelings about the issues surrounding sampling in the contemporary game. In the second half of the interview dropping on Wednesday we cover his current production set-up, approach to digital downloads and even reminisce over his personal favourites from his truly slammin’ back catalogue. To finish off the week, I’ll also be deconstructing one of my favourite beats from the Real Live LP. Celebrate: it’s K-Def week people!

From Da Bricks: Let’s start with some of the projects that you’ve worked on that never saw a full release. Why did Warner decide to shelve the World Renown LP?

K-Def: Wow… at the time I think Warner Bros was dealing with a merge and their rap department basically wasn’t doing that great. It was a subsidiary called Reprise, the urban department they had at Warner. It really wasn’t lifting off the ground, I think they had like The Bush Babees, a couple of other groups… When we had all the albums done, or almost done, I don’t think Sah-B’s album got done but I believe De’1’s album was pretty much done ‘cos I did a couple of other records with him that nobody ever heard that didn’t get released. What happened was that the Elektra/WEA system was shutting down and they were merging with Atlantic and a lot of other companies and at that time a lot of the independent subsidiary companies off the majors were all folding. Sah-B only had a single, but we were working on the album at the time, but eventually they just said that Warner was folding. Nobody really went into depth with it, but I don’t believe it was because of the projects because as far as I’m concerned I really believe the World Renown album was a great album, it had a lot of great stuff and it was for that time. But I don’t know, I couldn’t really even tell you the full 100% reason why it didn’t come out, but what I do know is that the record label itself just went under.

FDB: The Sah-B album must have been pretty close because it states on the back of the ‘Summa Day’/ ‘Some Ol’ Sah-B Shit’ 12’’ that the album was imminent.

KD: Right. I think Atlantic had something to do with it as well, from all the stuff that was going on. I don’t think they wanted Warner to be a rap label, they wanted to keep it more to the movies and the rock/pop stuff. I’m pretty much sure that Marley Marl has everything in the vault still so the albums do exist so maybe at the right time they’ll be released one day. I released the World Renown on my MySpace and I didn’t have the full master copies of it, just an old tape of it. I cleaned it up as much as possible and just reissued it out because I was trying to get it from Marley at the time but we didn’t come to a conclusion on having it released. The year somebody comes around with the right paperwork and the right business maybe the albums can be released. I can definitely let you know that the World Renown was definitely completed, I’m not quite sure if Sah-B’s album was ever completed and I’m pretty much sure that De’1’s album was completed. As far as why they didn’t come out, I don’t know… Marley has it so I think it will just be a matter of when he lets loose.

FDB: With the internet it would seem like the right time to do it, wouldn’t it?

KD: I would think so. That’s what’s selling right now, CDs and albums aren’t selling that much but downloads are of course really big, so I would think that would be the best way to go about it. There’s so much bootlegging and stuff going on, and I think that’s the reason why a lot of stuff hasn’t been released yet, because you release something now and a few months later another country has got the record and is selling it too, so once they can change those laws and fix that, I guess a lot of vintage stuff that happened in the early ’90s will get released.

FDB: How has the World Renown album done on downloads?

KD: For it to be 13/14 years for it to be released… it’s not doing that great. If people know about it, but it just took so long that it was just like, ‘I want to get the album but it’s not my top priority now because it is what it is,’ you know? I had intended to put it out a few years ago, I was going to put it out with Marley, we had somebody that was going to put it out but that didn’t work out. After that, everything just tapered off and died off. I just got frustrated and was like, ‘You know what, I got a copy of it I might as well go ahead and put it out, I know they’ll be a few cats who’ll buy it.’ It’s not the best quality as if it came out the studio fully mastered but it is the full-length songs where nobody else really has it and anybody who does have a copy it sounds terrible. I figured it’s great for history for it just to be out. It sells, but it doesn’t sell a whole lot.

FDB: Am I right in thinking that Seven Shawn and John Doe are Marley’s cousins?

KD: John Doe is Marley’s cousin and me and Seven Shawn are cousins, on distant paths, but we’re related. Basically that was a crazy time right there, John Doe just got out of jail and he said he wanted to do ten songs and hook up with Marley and come out with something. We did ten songs, Marley heard the beats, but wasn’t really feelin’ John Doe at the time and I started messin’ with the Lords Of The Underground right from there. Long story short after that it was all over with. John wound up hooking up with Seven Shawn maybe a year or two later down the line and we started working on their album. Those were the memorable golden days, the mid-‘90s was a great, great time, it was really great.

FDB: So tell me about some of the projects you’ve got coming up.

KD: K-Def is gonna have a lot of tracks coming out this year and it’s not gonna be through no majors, it’s gonna be all independent as far as I’m concerned and it’s gonna be all great, hot material, none of this throw together stuff. A lot of stuff I have from the ‘90s that was never heard before, those beats are gonna get released on certain albums. There’s gonna be a lot of great things going on. I got an album Beats From The ‘90s that will be dropping which is like all the instrumentals for stuff I did in the early ‘90s, stuff I did for Positive K, Artifacts, a lot of good instrumentals that will be appealing to the DJs to actually do blend mixes and have some of that old ‘90s culture that people are still trying to make today. I’m just doing a little bit of everything bro, I’m doing a whole lot of everything. I got so many beats that I’ve been doing. I got sample stuff, stuff that’s just strictly played with no samples at all.

FDB: You’ve mentioned there that you’re taking a range of approaches to composition now and sometimes playing over. What’s your approach to sampling now?

KD: The sampling that is going on now, I look at it like I really don’t try to change my style and I try to keep that same old sound, but use technology and engineering to make it sound clear like today’s music. A lot of people are just using MPCs and machines and that’s how I started at one time, but at some point you got to get older, more mature, you gotta use technology to your advantage and learn new technology. There’s a million and one records out there that still haven’t been used that you have to go out and search for, but a lot of these guys, nobody’s really doing it, but I’m doing it for sure. As far as what I’m trying to bring back, I’m trying to bring back that ‘90s sound but I’m trying to have it where it can go to mainstream because it’s so clear just like any other down south or mid-west record that’s out: it can compete with sound quality but still actually have samples in it.

When I was doing records in the ‘90s… ‘Funky Child’ had like five samples, but you know what, you take five samples that made a classic record for me but I never seen no publishing off it, I never ate off it, and I have to clarify this because people need to understand. If everybody’s keen on that ‘90s hip hop sound then there need to be someone to go to the lawyers and tell them that they need to make a new rule on publishing because in order for you to make those records that you did in the ‘90s then you gotta sample like five or six records in one song and if you do the math, everybody’s taking a percentage of your publishing and you’re not gonna eat. You get a whole lot of props but you ain’t making no money from it. I’ve been doing that for ten years! I’ve been sampling and doing what everybody wanted me to do for ten years on those machines and I didn’t make no money from it. You know why? Because I was just sampling, sampling, sampling, sampling, not knowing any better that there’s a strategic way to sample. A lot of the new guys that I see now, in the last five or ten years, they been sampling, sampling, sampling and they’re not doing it strategically where they can get away with doing it without clearing it. It’s not the same how it used to be and you have to be smarter now, because I know already that you’re not making any money off sampling. There has to be a new law behind that shit, where if you sample somebody’s record the publisher can’t take 50% of the record, they can only take say 30% and give the producer 20% because the producer did the work, you know what I’m sayin’? Until they can come up with that law, it’s gonna be rough, it’s gonna be really rough out there.

I’m keeping it real: I would love to do what I did in the early ‘90s and stay focussed on that with MPs and all that, but I do this not for the money, but to get better at my artform and to let the world know that I’m really good at what I do and that I have a great passion for it, but I still need to make money from it too because this is how I make my money and I’ve always been making my money like this since I was a teenager, you know what I’m sayin’? I can’t do that anymore: you gotta change with technology and that’s what K-Def did. As computers came onto the scene, I jumped right on the computers and started making music on the computers and I used that to my advantage. Now, I feel outta place trying to use an MPC again, it just doesn’t make sense. I can’t make a hit song like I did in the ‘90s, because the first thing I’m thinking is it’s going to take a whole bunch of sample to make this song and I’m not going to see no money. It’s a great record and it’s a hit record and everybody else who made the records in the ‘70s that I sampled from, they’re the ones that are eating from it and I’m sitting here twiddling my fingers with nothing and I did all the work for it. There has to be some kind of way where that changes. I just feel that they’re really hard on producers when it comes to sampling, but people still want to hear them because it’s what they love to hear, and yet producers are getting thrown into the shit every time!

Gnotes – ‘Check Dos’ & ‘Dodgey Bullets’
taken from Rhymes And Beats (Gnawledge, 2007)

Gnawledge Records (stream available for Rhyme And Beats)

Although I’m lacking the exclusive angle here (Tree Beats has already commented on the album over at his spot), I was privileged enough to be able to have the opportunity to chat to Gnotes, an up and coming MC from Boston, about his new album Rhymes & Beats over the phone this week. Although some of the album isn’t exactly to my taste, an overall sense of quality and detail coupled with standouts such as ‘Check Dos’ and ‘Dodgey Bullets’ mean that you’d be a fool not to check it out. The above link will take you to the Gnawledge Records website where you can stream the album in its entirety and if you’re convinced then it’s available on Amazon.

From Da Bricks: Congratulations on the album man, I hope it all turns out well for you.

Gnotes: Thank you very much man, I put in a lot of work on that album and it seems like people are starting to give a good response back, you know what I mean?

FDB: I know you’re from Boston and you obviously have quite eclectic taste in music. What were your early experiences of music?

G: I started playing the guitar when I was ten years old. I was listening to a lot of different music before I started listening to hip hop, so when I was young I was playing punk, garage type stuff and grunge. I really got into hip hop when the west coast thing started blowin’ up, so it was really Dre and Snoop that turned me onto the whole artform. From there, a lot of my influences are from the older cats on the east coast, Pete Rock and people like that. Once I got into it there was no turning back!

FDB: I noticed as well that you have had several releases out before now, but I haven’t ever caught wind of them. Can you talk me through some of those earlier releases?

G: This is the fourth release that Canyon [Gnawledge Records founder] and I put out, but it’s really the second strictly hip hop album. The first album was entitled Broken Spoke, that was a hip hop album cut from the same form with a lot of world influences, but it was kind of just a stepping stone. We put that out in 2004. From then we did a spoken word album that was kind of just a collection of poets who were all competing in slams and stuff, and we had some musicians on it as well. I did quite a lot of guitar on that album. That was primarily Canyon’s brainchild. The third album, Inthrumental, was essentially a hip hop album but it was basically dusty breakbeats with a lot of live instrumentation. There’s no words on the album, it’s strictly musical, some sample based material, lots of live trumpets and I play a lot of guitar and do the MPC drums and so on. So the album before this was essentially a blank canvas, almost lounge music.

FDB: So how did you hook up with Canyon and Gnawledge in the first place?

G: Canyon used to be a journalist and he was reviewing a poetry slam that I was doing, and my Broken SpokeLP was essentially recorded by then. I was looking for a way to put it out and trying to start my own little independent label. Canyon was coming from the other end of the spectrum. He was looking to start his own record company but didn’t really have an artist to work with. The two of us got together and it just worked out really well: we had a lot of the same goals, ambitions and influences. Shortly after we met one another we put out Broken Spoke and travelled to Cuba for the tenth annual hip hop festival, and really just the type of work ethic that he has and the way that I like to work… we just vibe really well together.

FDB: You’ve already mentioned about some of your different production roles, for the new album can you break down the production? Is it lots of live instruments, MPC based, and do you still use samples?

G: It’s a little bit of everything. There’s four outsourced beats on the album out of fourteen. Personally, as a musician as well as an MC, I take a lot of pride in making the music. I think you lose a sense of soul when you have producers and rappers who haven’t even met each other paying for music, ya know? There’s a lot of sample based stuff, although I try to chop it and make it as obscure as I can. I have a lot of Latin records, a lot of old Brazilian music, so for example ‘Samba Tryst’ is based around one of those old Brazilian songs. From there, I put it in my MPC, cut it up and put the drums over it, and then almost every track I put live bass and guitar on it as well and as much as I can I get Afro DZ Ak to come and play trumpet on the track ‘cos I feel it adds a lot of life to it. Any track you listen to the skeleton is probably from a sample and then layer it up from there. The sample used on ‘Throw Ya Nickels Up’ is a cello and then I added live bass, drums from the MPC and live guitar. There’s a mix in each of the tracks.

FDB: Obviously you do rhymes as well, so when you’re thinking of the concept for a track is that the rhymes that come first and then the beats or the other way around?

G: It kind of varies with the projects. With this album I really focussed on the music. Primarily what I’m doing now is making a beat and then from the emotion of the music I go from there for the topic of the rhymes. Sometimes the sample I use may give me a framework to go with. For example, ‘Missing You’ was a Charlie Pride sample that says ‘missing you’, so that kind of speaks for itself in terms of direction. I primarily work on the music first, then the rhymes and then go back and rework everything.

FDB: So do you still see them as on a level playing field for you personally? Are you still involved in spoken word at all?

G: The spoken word scene got pretty tired for me pretty quickly to be honest. Being lyrically taut is a huge requirement for me, it’s just that being an instrumentalist means that I want the framework I rap over to have some musical substantiation. That’s the key focus for me. It’s not that I focus less on the rhymes, but I think it’s more important to get the music correct. You know, once I’ve done a song I rework it 15 or 20 times until we get it right, and that’s the role that Canyon plays. He’ll listen to a song and say whether the snares are too loud, maybe I’m emphasising the wrong word or he might question what I mean in a particular verse and then we’ll go back and re-record it. I probably recorded each song on the album at least 7 or 8 times.

FDB: Can you tell me a little bit about ‘Throw Ya Nickels Up’, the first single from the album?

G: That’s a more political track. I try to walk the line between mentioning socially relevant topics and being too overbearing. Music is a celebration and the last thing you want to do is put out a song that’s just a downer [laughs]. You want something that challenges people’s intelligence and avoids just stating the obvious. ‘Throw Ya Nickels Up’ is a politically driven song, I think instrumentally it kind of pointed in that direction. The drums are huge and then once I put the guitar in the hook it just seemed like a motivation for a ‘power to the people’ type of song. There are 4 or 5 tracks on the album that are very politically driven but it also walks the line between mentioning what I do as well.

FDB: You have a lot of collaborations on the album. How did those relationships come about?

G: Afro DZ Ak plays trumpet and he rhymes on one of the tracks. He played 7 tracks on Inthrumental, the two of us met and just instantly clicked. He’s on kind of the same vibe as me, he’s an MC but also an instrumentalist, so he plays piano and trumpet and I do guitar, bass and drums so the two of us have actually worked together a lot and I’m producing part of his album right now. Kabir, who features on ‘Tower Of Babylon’ is an MC from the Boston area who I met through music and is a great friend, very talented guy who has been around forever and put out a number of records. They’re all kind of driving from the peace poem, revolutionary segment of my peers. I have friends who are just straight rappers, a little bit more hood style, but the people I was looking for with this album were socially relevant and intelligent. Noni Kai, she sings on ‘We Can Roll’ is a singer from a band in Boston called The Eclectic Collective and she was actually just at my apartment working with another musician and I was writing ‘We Can Roll’ at the time and I just stole her for a minute and got her to sing and it worked out beautifully in just one take. The final collaboration is Elemental Zazen, another very talented cat from Boston who has a new album coming out soon. He’s actually the MC in another band that I play for, so when I’m doing a live show I’ll do a set with my DJ and then I do a set playing guitar for Elemental Zazen as well.

FDB: You’ve toured with some big hitters recently like Devin The Dude and CunninLynguists. What was that experience like?

G: It was great man. Devin The Dude is one of my favourite MCs so the opportunity to do anything with him is great. Obviously he’s a much bigger blip on my radar than I am on his. I saw him a couple of days ago in Boston and he’s an unbelievable cat, a great person to work with, just a really talented guy. It was just a pleasure. As far as touring and playing shows goes that’s my love, so being able to rock a show with the CunninLynguists who I’ve been listening to since I was 16 is a big step forward for me to be able to get my name in the same ring as people who I listen to.

FDB: Is there any potential for collaboration there do you think?

G: Yea, I mean Elemental Zazen has already worked with Kno from CunninLynguists as he produced like three songs on Elemental’s album that’s coming out. Much like anything else, a lot of this business has to do with networking and I really do hope to have Kno make some tracks for my next album. The more people I meet in the game who are further ahead than me and more established than I am the better. They all seem to treat me with respect because they know I’m coming from a pure place with the music. As long as I continue to put out quality work there’s no reason why I couldn’t get some bigger names on my next release.

FDB: In a more general sense, what do you make of hip hop at the moment? Do you still have a lot of time for people making music now?

G: I think if you talk to any MC who is cut from the same cloth as me the first thing they’ll say is ‘fuck the industry’ and stuff but I think if you look at any music whether it be punk, rap, rock, folk or whatever the stuff we are spoon fed through MTV and the radio is garbage, so ultimately it’s up to the listener. If you love the music then you find other artists who aren’t being shoved in your face with huge cars and half naked women on it: you can find beautiful music. The thing with hip hop for me is that the way it is marketed is really destructive socially. Essentially what you have is a black artform, and I realise I’m saying this from the perspective of a white MC that is now characterised by really strong stereotypes and destructive messages being sent out about the urban community that is being consumed by wealthy, middle and upper class white kids who kind of see it as their dose of reality. Unfortunately when you look at the music the labels are putting out it really just perpetuates a lot of stereotypes and a lot of negative things: that’s my biggest problem with it. But you know if I’m in a club out dancing and I hear a commercial song it can sound good, there still needs to be a niche for that, but it’s shame that it strangles everything else with stereotypical rap bullshit. I don’t hate it, it’s there and it exists in all genres. It’s a testament to how powerful hip hop can be that it’s on loads of commercials and I still have a lot of hope and I think the listenership are getting tired of all that bullshit too and seem to be leaning towards more emotive, constructive and positive music.

FDB: Obviously your main point of focus at the moment must be Rhymes & Beats, but have you got other projects lined up?

G: Canyon is out in Spain at the moment on a Fulbright scholarship and his project is to record a multi-lingual, international hip hop album kind of tracing the roots of human migration through Spain and how that affected its music. So I’m actually going out there to record an album with a bunch of MCs from Spain, France, Morocco and really all over Europe and we’re starting that in January. Beyond that I’m doing other production work and playing with my band so I’ve still got a lot going on.

FDB: I wish you the best with it man.

G: Thanks man, peace.

Not only has it been a pleasure talking to artists of late, I also think that the increasing interview activity in the blog scene in wider terms is an interesting indication of the ever-growing profile of online hip hop spots. It’s good to see artists taking the time to engage with the internet heads… long may it continue. I’ve hopefully got a few more in the pipeline in the near future, so stay locked.

Make the most of the remainder of your Sunday: beer, TV and a comfy sofa is the order of the day round my way. That’s what Sundays were made for, isn’t it?

AK Skillz – ‘East To West’
taken from One Life Ta Live 12” (Tru Criminal, 1996)

Eddie James – ‘My Thoughts’(Unreleased)

Seth Marcel – ‘Hardcore’ ft. Aki
taken from So Necessary(Unreleased)

Eddie James @ MySpace

When I wrote my recent post on three producers who I wish I’d heard more from, little did I know that it would lead to not one, but two interviews with the artists I mentioned. I’ve waxed lyrical on two occasions about Eddie James’s work here at FDB on the sensational AK Skillz 12” from ‘96: both ‘One Life Ta Live’ and ‘East To West’ are truly slammin’. I had the pleasure to talk to him last week, and I really appreciated his openness and friendly, upbeat manner which made it a true joy.

From Da Bricks: As I said to you the other day, that AK Skills 12’’ has been one of my discoveries of the year. Does it surprise you that 11 years later someone living in the UK is writing about it on a blog?

Eddie James: You know, it’s funny because Skills [director of Tru Criminal Records] called me up and was like, ‘Yo, you’re never gonna guess what I’ve seen. There’s this blog, and it’s about you!’ You never really know… I knew that I was doing something special back then. I talk with Just Blaze who I met essentially through MySpace, and we had met a couple of times before but he didn’t know that I was the guy who did that record. I asked him for some advice, and he was like, ‘Is this the Eddie James who did ‘East to West’ on Tru Criminal?’ He remembered my name from then even though he didn’t remember who the other artists were. I haven’t actually heard ‘East To West’ or ‘One Life Ta Live’ since ’97/’98.

FDB: Can you talk me though the construction of those songs?

EJ: I was using an MPC 60 through college and I was a part of a group called Channel Three, kinda like Main Source in a way where we were all DJs and producers. When I graduated from college I couldn’t take the equipment! Syracuse is about four hours from the metropolitan NYC area, so when I moved back down I copped an SP 1200 and the 950. The problem with the SP1200 was that it didn’t have a lot of sample time, maybe a total of about ten seconds. For ‘One Life Ta Live’ I multi-pitched a note from a Minnie Riperton song or something like that. I just took the keys. Part of my thing is that I’ve always been known to have drums: neck snappin’ and clean. If you listen closely ‘One Life Ta Live’ reminds me of a Pete Rock track, and the high hat is one that got used a lot, taken from an O.J.s’ record called ‘Give The People What They Want’. Listen to that record and you’ll hear the high hats, that’s where everyone used to rape them from during the early ‘90s.

FDB: It’s interesting that you’ve picked Pete Rock because the producer it really reminds me of is Buckwild. Would you say that’s a fair comparison? Has he been an influence on you?

EJ: Buck is my friend man. There were only three producers responsible for the Tru Criminal movement: myself, Buck and Domingo. I really loved Buck’s production on the AK Skillz track that was on the EP. It was a hard, hard record.

‘East To West’ was one of the first times I ever used the 950. It was simple, the drums were hard and the melody was soft. My father was a jazz artist and so I got a lot of my influences from his records. Pete Rock flipped the same sample and he used to play my record followed by his on the Future Flavas show with Marley Marl. We did the same thing with it, filtered it and let it run. AK was great on the vocals again and it feels like we were doing something special at that time.

FDB: Whatever happened to AK Skillz? I heard at one stage that he’d done a little time in prison. Is that right?

EJ: Yea, he did some time. AK was a strange guy man. He was good people, but he was the type of person that would talk in riddles all the time. You never really knew what the hell he was sayin’! [laughs] When it came to rhymes he was incredible. He reminds me of Nasty Nas, but you know the early stuff. If you listen to his verse on ‘Live At The BBQ’ it really reminds me of AK, you know the Queens rappers, they have the same cadence. Unfortunately, the streets are the streets and some people can’t get out of it. I haven’t spoken to him in about eight years bro. I wish him well, wherever he is.

FDB: How did you hook up with the Tru Criminal label and get your start in the production game?

EJ: The guys who ran Tru Criminal were my college buddies. We all went to Syracuse together and they kinda brought me along with them. I’m actually from Syracuse so I wasn’t actually in the tri-state area so it was hard for me to get a hold and compete with the producers. I used to DJ a lot in battles and stuff like that, and I knew I could do the scratches that Jazzy Jeff was doing and I carried that approach over to production. If your beats didn’t sound remotely like Pete Rock, Extra P or Ali Shaheed Muhammad then you really wasn’t doing it right. It wasn’t like I was bitin’, but any person who says they’re not a reflection of somebody then they’re fucking lying.

FDB: I guess that’s the nature of all art. There is always a basis on things that have gone before.

EJ: Take someone like Timbaland. He’s one of my favourite producers but there’s someone in the UK he’s jacking samples from: I don’t think anybody is truly original. I’d like to think of myself as a good collage of a lot of producers.

FDB: How come the label released such a limited amount of material?

EJ: That whole movement came at a time when things were changing. The music changed around ‘97/’98: I’d say Puffy really fucked shit up! Really, that’s when underground records started becoming really underground. Tru Criminal actually got a deal with New Line, and received some national coverage on some Rush Hoursoundtracks.

For me, I started to produce for some other groups like Born Suspicious who were Derrick Coleman’s cousins from Detroit. Derrick was also a friend of mine from college. Those records were alright, but nothing really to go crazy about.

FDB: It’s clear from your MySpace and your more recent material that Dilla has been a big influence for you. What do you think it was about his production style that made it so special?

EJ: The first record of his I ever heard was the ‘She Said’ remix for Pharcyde. That record really hit me. As well as that there was Beats, Rhymes & Life, which to me was a fucking incredible album. A lot of people say it’s too dark for Tribe, but that album is incredible. I knew there was something different about their sound: the melodies were still the same but the basslines had more sub-bass that really attracted me to it. I checked the insleeve and saw that some cat called Jaydee had been involved in the production. My old manager used to work for Jive Records and I can remember meeting Dilla years ago at Battery Studios while he was working on the Keith Murray record. He had a sense of not really giving a fuck when it came to basslines and drums. I used to quantise my drums just to be on the safe side but he was the first producer to not really do it and if you listen to his music the bass kicks are sometimes a little bit off or maybe the high hat, but always on time and the basslines were just incredible. I’d never heard anything like it, and from that point on I was a fanatic. I finally wound up meeting him again because we recorded at the same studio in Detroit. He was a constant professional and just a good person man.

The music speaks for itself; the guy was way ahead of his time. Everybody is using the hard kicks and the claps now but if you listen to the Slum Village albums he’s rockin’ those same claps that everybody eventually used. The D’Angelo Voodoo album uses a clap that ended up on everybody’s records like three years ago. The Trakmasterz ran that clap to the ground! I saw him work as well and at the beginning it sometimes looked like a song wasn’t going to work but when they were finished they were incredible.

FDB: According to Discogs your output is limited to that Tru Criminal phase, but what else have you done between then and now?

EJ: Since then I’ve gone onto work with the likes of Jadakiss, Joe Budden, Obie Trice and my cousin Seth Marcel on On Point Recordings owned by Derrick Coleman. Seth is one hell of an MC man. I was working on a project with him that started in 2000. I didn’t really do that much between ’97 and then. I was still working in the industry, I worked for Def Jam for a while, and I just compiled a library of beats. It’s not like I hit hard times, but it was just a funny time and a lot of guys didn’t want to hear the backpack shit at all. People were sampling big ‘70s records and I just wasn’t with that shit, but I was always producing. Unfortunately the Seth Marcel record was never released. About 2003, a lot of money was spent but no real results followed so it never came out. I did a couple of remixes, like I did a Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ remix, and I worked with R Kelly’s old group Public Announcement; I did a remix for them that featured Big Daddy Kane. It’s just been a case of odd production jobs here and there.

I’m now working with someone called Candice Jones, and I think she’s going to be that one. It’s kind of funny, you go full circle from hip hop to R ‘n’ B but I keep the same approach to making music now as I did in ’97. She’s gonna be my claim to fame, for real. I’m doing about 50% of the upcoming album, and I think she’s also working with Raphael Saadiq on the project right now. There’s also somebody called Sinatra who I’m gonna be working with and he is definitely going to be somebody.

I also do music for television; I’ve been doing that since 2004. I license music for different shows like the Oprah Winfrey show, CSI, MTV Cribs… different avenues bro!

I got a wishlist of people I want to work with in the future when I finish my projects. I got the right person to broker my tracks now in Skills so I’m trying to get on some bigger projects. More soulful, you know like Angie Stone, hopefully Bilal and maybe Common, so I’m just trying to get with the right guys.

FDB: How do you view the culture in this phase of its development? Where do you see it going from here?

EJ: Hip hop is definitely not dead! It can’t be dead. Kanye sold damn near a million copies in a week. Two months prior to that Finding Forever was the number one record in the country. I mean Finding Forever? Common?! Two weeks after that Ear Drum was number two. However, things have changed man. The A & Rs pretty much want to be the fucking artist now, and they glorify some of the fucking shit coming out now. I guess it’s a reflection of our youth right now; I DJ and sometimes I find myself playing bullshit records. All that South shit I just can’t get with it at all. I like some of it, I like T.I., I like Jeezy because they keep it real gutter and I can believe them, you know what I ‘m sayin’? I like UGK and Eightball. I can fuck with that because they’ve been doing it for a long time but all these other guys, I don’t even know their names, but it’s fucked up. But then you look on any corner, every ‘hood and the suburbs and this is what young people are listening to man. I guess my shit is old now, our shit is old. Finding Forever and Ear Drum, there’s the hope right there. Common sold like 200,000 records in the first week, that’s pretty amazing.

There’s only a couple of producers in the game now who I’m really checkin’ for. I still think Dr Dre is amazing, I don’t care what anybody says. His shit is always cutting edge, his drums and basslines are crazy, you know that theatrical hip hop that he does. I put him high up on a pedestal. I think Madlib is absolutely incredible. I heard bits of the Percee P jump off, I got the India Beat Konducta album. It pisses me off all the Dilla fans who hit him up on his website like ‘we miss you’ and ‘you were fucking God, but where the fuck were these people when he was alive and doing it. It’s the same thing with Madlib, he’s big amongst his community but to the masses it’s like, whatever. I guess you’re never really nothing until you pass away. It is fucked up.

FDB: Just to wrap things up Eddie, I know you’re a family man now. How has that affected you as a musician?

EJ: I appreciate you saying musician because I like to consider myself as one. I had to cut the sampling out because a couple of times I did do some work and I got taxed on it and in about 2002 I started playing keys. The whole family thing really hasn’t really changed my approach because I find myself still listening to the same shit. The good thing is that I’ve matured a lot and I think my music is now as mature as it’s gonna get. If you listen again to ‘One Life Ta Live’ or ‘East To West’ I had the same approach: if it’s ’97 or 2007 I still have the same approach. I call it ‘hard love’, hard drums with melodic keys and that has always been my approach.

I had a death in the family when my son Morgan passed away in 2005. The record on my MySpace page called ‘Perfect Angel’ is dedicated to him.

FDB: I’m really sorry to hear that.

EJ: It was a crib death, and if there’s such a thing as rock bottom then that’s it. I guess if I can get through that then I can get through anything. My music has gotten a little more meaningful now, and with the next body of work I do you’ll see a growth in it. It’s still gonna be the same hip hop shit, R ‘n’ B or whatever. Children will do that to ya. As long as my four year old keeps bobbin’ his head when he comes in the lab then I know I’m doing alright.

FDB: It’s been really great to talk to you Eddie.

EJ: It’s good to talk to you too man, stay blessed.

Let’s hope we hear more from Eddie in the future and that he gets the recognition he deserves. I’ll be hipping you to anything that he drops, and make sure you go and check out his MySpace and show him some love. Damn shame that Seth Marcel joint never made it out: ‘Hardcore’ is real tasty street record. Props to the man for sending me over some of his unreleased material as well; I hope you enjoy them as much as I have been.