QLS Classic: Bob Power

Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Yo Yo Yo, what's up?

This is Fante Fantigolo tapping in with another QLs classic.

This week, were gonna take it back. We're gonna take it all the way back. This is almost our first episode.

This is episode number two from September fourteen, twenty sixteen, with none other than the legendary producer, engineer, and musician Bob Power.

Bob talks about.

Working with stats Sosonic, the Angelo, a tribe called quest and none other than our fearless cult leader and sweet tea drink Questlove along with the Roots travel back to one of the episodes that started it all on QLs.

It's Fontigulo. Yeah. Here we are.

Supremo, so supremo who call sopremo some some supremo role called suprema. So some supremo role called suprema. So some suprema role called.

My name is Questo?

Yeah, I am, yeah, this is my show.

Yeah, Love Suprema Supremo something so supremo ro called suprema something son Supremo.

Roll call I am Mantika. Yeah, can't you tell Yeah, go order some food, Yeah, something hungry.

Hey call Supremo, some some Supremo, role called Supremo, Sun Son Supremo.

Vol call Uh yeah, uh Steve, Yeah, chicken palm Yeah, roll call.

Supremo, son something Supremo, roll call Suprema something something Supremo.

Voe come.

My name is Bill, Yeah, I was the first guest. Yeah, and now I'm on the show.

Yeah with quest go Supremo, Son Son Supremo, ro called Supremo, some son Supremo, roll call.

My name is Bill, Yeah yeah, some Alumnama, demon Lumma, some of them Yeah, some of.

No call s Primo, son son Supremo, roll called Supremo, some some Supremo.

Ro call my name is Bob, Yeah, I ain't no jokie.

Yeah is Bob? Yeah? Hi sure my monkey, roll call.

Suprema Son Son Supremo, ro called Supremo, son Son Supremo. Roll call Supremo, son Son Supremo, roll call Supremo, Son Son Supremo, roll call Supremo, Son Supremo, ro call Supremo, some Supremo, roll Supremo Supremo.

Roll. Ladies and gentlemen, Ladies and gentlemen. This is questlove and this is quest Love Supreme. Welcome to our show. How did I get here? I do not know, but they asked me, and I'm here and I'm here for you. Bart a few friends with me to help me explore art, culture, music, food. So my my co host with the co most is Sir Fon Tigelow.

What's going on?

Of course?

Uh?

Formerly of Little Brother, currently of The Foreign Exchange. One of my favorite cats ever, Like more than any book, Your your your Instagram or your Instagram, and your your your Twitter, uh musings and and your wisdom is some of the best reading toilet seat reading.

I've ever done.

Hey, I got to keep Hey bro, Hey, look I gotta keep it.

Really a good book.

Maybe back up the nineties it was Blacktail, but now it's Frantic and my I g I would think about that when I'm crafting my next tweet, I'm like.

This, should I maybe I write this next my tweets. I'm honor to be here, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. Frante is like one of my favorite thinking cats of of of all time. So I'm extremely honest that he's here.

Uh.

Next to Frante is uh Steve a k A sugar Steve. How you doing bruh, I'm not feeling well.

But hello, Steve.

I've known for about near twenty years.

Uh.

Steve was an assistant engineer at Electric Ladies Studios uh and has worked on practically every record that I did in that building. Voodoo by the Angelo, like Water for Chocolate, Common Mom's Gone with Eric abaddu uh oh part and the diabetes the mythology. So I stole the legends that I stole Steve from Electric Lady Studios to be my full time engineer. And so when he moved to Philadelphia, he kind of that my diet. And at the time, three times a day. There was a church that had

What?

Because the House of Prayer like the House of Prayer that was the bread they grew up.

The house. Yeah, the House of Bread.

You know what I'm saying.

You need?

So the House of Prayer, it was on Market Street. It was on the corner Market in Dudley. And the leader of that House of Prayer was Daddy Grace.

Yeah that daddy.

Yeah, Daddy Grace, so you could go to the House of Prayer on the on the you know, they tell plates and you could get like some mother pork chop.

Dams and macaron cheese for like five dollars or guess what.

Guess So the legend, the legend is a legend. I said about I did about three weeks straight like this. This is when I was working. What's the first thing we did together in Philly the Farrell record. We work on Farrell and the Yes Sirs. So every break we'd head to the church, bust a grub, buy two grubs so we have a midnight snack too. So wow, we doubled down on those grubs here. And then like two months later Steve was like, yo, man, Bill Sermon a

We can change that.

Anyway, Bill, Bill is the new Joe Roposo. Who's Joe rop Joe Riposo is the god of children's songs. He wrote many a classic at Sesame Street. Bill's now at Sesame Street. But we met because he's one of the seven UH producers for the Hamilton cast out. You also are Grammy Ward Antony Ward winner for in the Heights. You're a producer of many uh acts. He's a real big shot.

White for nothing deal. Do not have the white corner. You don't have the sugars, right, I don't have the sugar Yet we hang out working on it.

Yeah, okay, I'm honored to be here. Last, but not.

Least, are our boss man, our producer Bill DJ Brainchild? Am I allowed to call you by your government anymore? I guess okay, I'll call you DJ Brainchild?

Or I.

Are you gonna edit this part? I'm gonna leave it all right? Did you just call it a podcast? I'm gonna edit that out on this radio show?

Is this on ladies and gentlemen? I'm not four, I'm not supposed to.

Call this is not a podcast. This is a radio show.

A Miro was me five dollars every time he calls the show a podcast? Should we just have a.

Podcast?

Jar right?

Yeah, I'm gonna be rich by yo.

Man.

I thought about y'all the other day, man, I thought about Steve. I thought about y'all days we were talking about, like the diabetes and stuff. I heard probably the most sad, hilarious, most like tragic shit ever. And this is a real story. I won't name the guy's name. I can't, I don't, but it's a friend of a friend of mine. This really happened in real life. This is recent homeboy mind well, he's not my homeboy, but my friend of mine. It's her homeboy.

Play cousin.

Shit.

Homie like needed a kidney, right, It's like he was fucked up and I guess he got like God betes or something like that. He needed a kidney. No, no, bullshit, need a kidney.

And he was touring at one point with like a major artist, okay, and so this major artist got behind him and was like, Yo, we need to get my man a kidney, like started to go fund me and all this shit, you know what I'm saying, got him on the go fundme.

People gave all this money. So Homie gets on the donor list for the kidney. Like, he gets on the list.

So now all of a sudden, like you know, he's like praising God and everything. So then all of a sudden, we just his like Facebook post change and it's like, oh man, the devil trying to steal my joy Uh, they the devil is a liar like all this, you know, all like the ship that gospel nigga say when they're mad. So it's like, so we're like, what the fuck happened? They took him off the donor list. So then we're like, okay, well why so we go to his instagram.

Ah, check what I had for dinner tonight, whitebread fried fish, and it's like days and days of funk shit and like, and so they determined like, look, we're not gonna you're not living a lifestyle that is whatever.

So I just thought that was amazing.

I've never heard I've heard I've never heard of a motherfucker ig and yourself off the donor list. How the fuck you tweeted yourself off the goddamn dost dude, and like and then if you look at his ig, all the meals like it's it's all bad, Like it's all like whitebread, refine, sugars, fried this.

So the hospital was following him.

Hey brother, it's a new game.

That was a really great story.

Oh man, Yeah, dude, he.

Like his Instagram took him off the fucking Donald list. That is some of the most.

Man.

I like a quest of Instagram rands where like you think it's gonna be like a paragraph and then you like what like, whoa, I didn't know you? Whoa you had some time, which is rare to ship to say.

Toilet the reason why he doesn't have time because he was writing something. I mean like like, that's a lot of little ship happening. Impressed by you, the tom sam like I try to keep my emails that I ride on my phone like five words, yeah, toilet.

Stool music, so it's Fante's tweets and then like really long and right right then as soon as you stand up, Oh man, ain't that ship the worst?

Yo?

Like you stand up, ship be sleep you gotta shake it out, stank leg.

But the part sleep is in the shape for whatever the yeah, right right right, and it ain't the worst ship ever.

Like when you go to a like because I because I have a thing. It's like when you go to a real clean I went to my dealership.

They just work on my car, and they had a it's a new dealership and they got built a new men's bathroom.

And the ship is gorgeous.

Oh, it has its own little like private joint, a pristine joint, or if you go the handicapped joining handicap to.

And like not in the airport, but like in the dealership it was so nice. I was like, man, I'm gonna go wrong on this.

So I was like, I need to put the seat down.

I was like, man, I'm gonna you know what I mean, it's like you fear, It's like how you yeah whatever, you.

Ever live your way in the handicap that little private room, the handicap in the airport, like just in case, like right right right, you limp and then you get down. But the worst feeling though, is like when you sit down and it's a warm toilet seet. Oh my god, that ship is like it's like a s is terrible. I like the cold the cold toilet seat on on the on the bottom.

Have a heatd toilet seat in my house?

What?

Yeah? When I moved into this house, it was the one number one reason I moved in the house. Not only was is it heated? But has his panel over here all right? That like does all kinds of crazy ship like it'll yeah, it'll spoid water up that. I gotta get a drive. Have you been in Japan? I've been years ago.

Yeah.

Game Changer so I keep hearing about that. Dude, I'll tell you what, and I'm pistol.

Can I say I thought outside of the thing, I was like, I'm gonna have to get I was like, oh no, I was taking the ship Amazon, and how much the toilet seat ship costs?

When I moved, I could buy one. And all you know is that's it's like three grand for like the thing. Man. But I will tell you what it is. You can buy like you can, but that's not the same thing, producer Bill, I'll.

Tell you that maybe sixty or seventy percent of all the exchanges between Rich and I or mometa toilet stool exchanges. Matter of fact, all my lists, all my thank yous, oh, all the roots, thank yous, toilet like I have a desk. Wait, that's too much, Yes, let's wait for that. So we are very honored to have uh the great Bob Power in the studio. Give it up. Thank you.

They're my My mother has been chilling well for me, and she talked to you into this. I know, you know, just like she gave for all twenty bucks to say that thing about me.

Right, so exactly.

Okay, So she's running out her doll, though I might trouble she get.

Yeah, I gave you the money, so I you know you are. For those that don't know Bob Power's role in music, especially in the realm of classic hip hop, I'll say that you are up there with all of the great creators beyond engineer. I mean, I consider you the fourth beatle. In a try call Quest and.

In De La Soul and the Vinnia called me the den mother. I thought that was real cool.

You were definitely the demon.

Well, you know, I'd like to get stuff done and everybody's just hanging out. It's like, okay, what are we doing now?

So you know, I'm not saying that I'm the most disciplined human beyond earth. Actually I'm the least disciplined human being on Earth, but I disagree. But probably the one thing that I learned in studio mixing with songs is the absolute concentration that the engineer needs UH to to complete such a task. And you never let me live that down either.

I know, all those little things on the credit I used to Bob, could you guys please go in the back Power I mean, yeah, so I mean.

To run off your resume if you are a classic hip hop fan. This this this man as has pretty much engineered and steered uh A mighty ship of of classic records from uh three. Well you did on Fire by the stets of Sonic? Did you do him full gear?

No?

That was my first big thing. Yeah, on fire, on fire, Yeah, to hear it, to hear. Q Tip described when he first heard ghost Stetsa in a nightclub. He said, that was that was a that was a moment for him where he stopped in his tracks and it was amazed at how clear the drum sounded and said, this is what I want to sound like. So are you serious? I never heard that, man, Yeah, because I asked like,

You know, yeah, there was I believe that Shane Favor went away for two weeks on vacation and I filled in and we got along.

You know, Okay, Shane never should have left, man. So oh after that then you sort of eased.

In and it wasn't my own doing. I had nothing to do with it. They said show up. I said, okay.

So when Shane came back and everybody wanted to roll with you and.

Shad, well not really. I mean Shane and I split that first record, and it's funny. I just remastered that for the twenty fifth anniversary release last year. Man, I had no idea what I was doing back then. It was scary to hear that stuff.

But it was funny. So you cringe when you're in your mistress now or.

Only stuff from that far back. I actually sometimes I catch myself. I'll hear a song and I say, you know.

That sounds pretty good. Wow, that's cool, and it's like, wow, I mixed that.

Oh Man, don't you forget tracks that you've done, Like.

I have a I have a cardinal rule to not uh. I will obsessively listen to uh whatever record I'm working on for maybe three months after it comes out, and then I never ever go back. Right.

But like I'm in a clothes store or something, I'm like, wow, I know that song. Oh yeah, I mixed that.

That happens, that happens yesterday I heard a song that I was on. I just amed it and I was disappointed when I found out that I didn't know that you were on it. I was on that I was on that song anyway, So you did h on Fire by Statsu Sonic.

That was the first that Sonic song I ever heard, honestly on Fire because I was I bought it.

This was god. I was like, seven, did you buy it? I actually, yeah, I didn't steal. I didn't steal it. Last week we was talking about like a month ago, right on the last episode.

I don't think I did that whole record, but if I remember on Fire, then I did that song.

Noah, I had that one that was on I remember that one because that was on a K Tail Records compilation.

Then I bought from k Mart.

And like straight up and that was the last song on side one, so that that was a three cent royalty check I got a couple of months ago.

It might be it was a K Tale because it also you said Tangerine Records. Then I really would have just walked down the wall.

It was.

It was k Tel and that was the last song on side one, and uh it also had I don't know.

If you remember mister X and mister Z drink O Gold. Yeah, it was that was on there too.

That it wasn't even the compilation though, like rap Hits or some ship. It was something like corny like and he was like, I gotta have this. It was that was all I could afford because it was in like the bargain box.

So it might have been like three.

Yeah, yeah, it was like three.

I know those takes very.

Cream colored tapes, like the cream you know what I mean, Like if it was like the white tape, the cream color, you knew it was some bullshit.

Actually, you know something, my first Boy Power cassette I stole. Okay, that's appropriate. Appropriate. The reason why I was hesitating to say I was wanted to make sure that the grace period had passed before Sam Goodie presses charges.

I have some good news for you. Sam Goody is no more So I beat the man.

No. I used to work at Sam Goodie's after school, and when I had that that moment when I heard three, the same way that I felt when I heard Nation of Millions, I was like, Yo, these guys are talking directly to me. So I stole the the only copy in the store and I think, yeah, I got fired, but not a week after that, right, I think I think they knew I stole.

It, so they were throwing your ass in jail, man, Come on, would just be fired?

Well, no, I got fired. You know. I like to think it was you know, the Christmas rush was over and they didn't need me in January. But I think they I think they knew that I did that. So anyway, three ft and Rising days Souls dead low in theory. You did people's instinctive travels. You did the first try.

Record half of it? Yeah, I did not do uh three feet high?

Who?

A couple other people there did that. I did a session or two, but I wasn't.

I did not go. So you came dead Yeah, okay, and blue mind state stakes.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

You know, I got really busy as a producer. And then when I said people yeah, and people said, got really pissed.

You know, of course tip they were territory hip. Got really pissed. But it's okay, we're over it now. He was territorial. Let's drop that one.

You know, why are you giving up?

I love the man and I really do as you do. You know, come on, man, Yeah no, because my first week in working with you, I think I maybe that's why you you had the quiet rule, because I think I asked you more about tried mixes than I was concerned about my own mixes.

So I thank god that's part of the twenty year period. That's a big blur to me because I don't remember a thing.

Well, I would that's what we were going to ask you, So I guess I should ask you. Did you Did you come into the saying I'm going to be a pioneering engineer or was it like no, no, no, no, your beginnings, Like what were you you know, in your.

Totally backed into engineering? I uh, you really want to start at the beginning.

Yeah, okay.

I played trombone in fourth grade because it was cool because I could hit the kid in the back of the head in front of me with the slide. That's exactly why I picked it up. They also told me my lips were too big to play trumpet, and I was like, okay, thank you. That's really nice to tell a kid, you know. Anyway, played bad rock guitar by ear in high school, went away to college at a place Webster University. They had a conservatory, and I didn't

They never would have let me in. I don't know how they let me in, but they did.

What year was this?

Nineteen seventy So during the four years that I was there and studying classical theory and composition, I was playing a sort of chilllin circuit in Saint Louis.

And I played an R and B bands and cover the day.

Oh yeah, yeah, you're my favorite pussy, you know, Funkadelic, Yeah yeah, and temptation stuff.

You know.

I killed Papa was a rolling stone man, you know those little ridges on the rubber on the wah wah pedals and keep your foot there.

My shit is worn out. Yeah yeah.

And left Saint Louis in seventy five, did some recording there with different people.

I mean, what were your aspirations in the seventies. I want to be a rock star, man, Come on, guess what you are? A rock star? Come on.

Anyway, moved to San Francisco in seventy five, and this is weird. I ended up getting my masters in jazz. But it's a long story that I really can't tell on the air. It's a sort of checkered story the reason that I got into graduate school.

But we'll leave it at that.

I had let's just say, I had to be on my best behavior for a while and got into TV scoring. While I was there, my dad was a television producer and he hooked me up with some people. So I scored TV like three or four months out of the year for seven years and subsidize my jazz career. What shows did you There was a show on PBS called over Easy. I did a bunch of stuff for Disney, a couple other things, a couple of specials for PBS, and it was cool.

You know.

That was a day's premitty where you had to like score stuff out on score paper and go into the session, lay down the charts and it had to be right.

You know.

There was no you know, because payroll runs when you have a lot of people on the floor.

There were union dates, so it was cool. It was a lot of fun. I wouldn't have made it in the seventies, man it you know, that.

Was premitty, so things were way way different then. So anyway, I wanted to be Bobby Broom or somebody you know, great jazz guitar player.

Was just okay.

Now we're going to get calls people say he was terrible.

He wasn't just okay, And like, did you come close to a a career in being like I was? I was a journeyman.

No, no, no, no, no, no no no.

I was playing weddings in Mezvas, wedding at Best. I haven't got guys, I haven't gotten to the part about the Mafia weddings in Flatbush for for seventy five dollars.

But I'll get there.

And in nineteen eighty two, you know, I had a nice life there. My cash flow is okay because of the scoring work. But I knew I had to have moved to LA or New York. So all my friends were here, had some people in some friends in advertising and corporate communications.

So came back started you really want to hear this?

Yes, yeah, okay, already, No, I'm not that's a problem. I came back to New York, took every gig playing I could. I got really good at sixteenth note octaves because I played on a lot of bad dance records.

Check records. Oh man, I don't remember. I really don't.

That's the twenty years stad.

I don't remember. They weren't Union. I have no idea. You know, I got paid in cash. I left.

And was doing every kind of weird club date gig I could, like I said, mafia weddings out in Flatbush, taking the subway home in a tuxedo with my guitar and my amp at two point thirty in the morning from the junction.

You guys know what.

This was late eighties. It got stolen what I was waiting for the no no, no, no no.

But I was producing stuff overnight at Calliope because it was the cheapest hours, and I was doing industrials for my friends, you know, big corporate communications shows, and the money was great and you got to do really big productions, and stuff just started getting into jingles. And I was working overnight at Calliope, and Chris, you remember Chris Irwin, the guy who wanted to another name, fell asleep at the console. So I finished up and he woke up.

Yeah, yeah, I know how to do that.

I knew how to press record on the tape ma sheet. You know, I'd always asked a lot of questions. I was fascinated by engineering. So this was about eighty five and it was Calliope.

So you know what happened there.

At the same time that I got a following as an engineer there, I got real successful doing jingles, so I was trying to do You remember, I was trying to do jingles during the day and records at night, and it was killing me. And I got a lot of good stuff I was doing, like the postal service, chef boarder d you know, a lot of BMW Mercedes. They didn't give me a car. And then so about I think it was ninety one ninety two, I said, you know, I was dying and I just realized that

Really oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The writing fees are decent.

Plus they're all Union days, so you know, you pa, you know, kids, stuff runs for years. I did a thing for chef boyd d sharks, you know, little pasta shaped like sharks. That ship ran for like three or four years, so I was getting checks that whole time.

It was great. Can I ask my producer, are we allowed to play that song?

No?

No, no, we can sing it?

No.

In fact, I think you're going But it was, you know, it was cool. We had to do everything. I did the music, I did the engineering, I did a lot of the playing, and it was just about when they expected the music houses to do sound design as well, so I had to make the sound of the shark. It was animated of the shark fin cutting back and forth through the water. So this was the really early days of sampling, and samplers didn't have a lot of memory,

We can't use that. So anyway, so.

By the early nineties I was just doing records. I was just engineering and then producing records.

So that's about what So you're saying that your side hustle, you're you're you know, make some engineers engineer like that was just an afterthought to you, but you're like changing lives. Yeah, but you know, shit works funny, man, But I don't think you realized you were changing lives as you were doing it.

You know what, man, I wasn't changing lives. The artist working with were changing lives. I was helping them do their thing. I really believe in that. But I read you know, that's important to me honestly, as a as an engineer or producer. It's really important because it is all about the artist, and people lose sight of that, especially engineers, you know, guys who get in and say, oh no, no, no, that wasn't right.

We have to set that up again.

I used to do that.

Oh you you were that sort of stupid yeah yeah.

And then I really, you know, it's really about the artists, the artist when you're making a record. You know this, man, you got to just go there with the artists because that's what makes them special. And if they don't have anything the special to say, you shouldn't be there.

But it seems to me that a lot of us and a lot of people I meet, especially in the music industry, they they wind up in their glory period kind of by accident and it's never by design. Like I never like people people stop me all the time like, oh my god, like you're there, apparent to Doc Severson, I never like you've all people know that. I never was like, you know, Bob, I really want to be late night. He had good hot chops. Man. No, No, I love Doc.

I played with him, funny ties.

With him.

Yeah, he sat in DOCA in Los Angeles.

Yeah, he got down with this. But I'm just saying that, you know, I kind of this wasn't planned at all, and it was never by design. And to hear you say it like engineering was just like it was another gig. But in hindsight, you do recognize that it was historically important that you did this stuff right.

You know, did you guys see Zella, the Woody Ellen movie where he kind of shows up in all these historical.

Yes, yes, which jew are you asking because this quarter says yeah, yeah, so you know, I was just there.

That's a weird car.

That was a car.

Yeah, that's you know, that's one of my favorite records. Oh my god, wa wah Watson, that's everything is him on that Okay, but you know, things happened in strange words. Man, I see well, and I am passionate about what I do.

You know, I'm waving my head up and down.

But I have a quo.

I'm not sure if I missed. Why Why did you choose making records over advertising? Advertisements?

Off? More much cooler.

That's what I wanted to do since I was a kid. You know, I used to sit in my room and early on when headphones first came around, like in sixty four or I got a headphone in sixty four, I used to sit and listen to these records and I look on the back of the records and I said producer and they called mixers remixers at that point, and uh, you know, I said, I had no idea what it was, but I said, oh.

That looks really cool because I really like this record. So that's that's where I got started.

Really, I had almost this exact similar situation. I was interning. When I first started, I was interning at JSM. It was a jingle house, huge, yeah, like and it was beautiful and you've been in there, mm hmm, Like the facilities were great, everything. Everybody dressed nice and smelled good and made a lot of money. And I was also interning at Electricallyity at the same exact time to totally.

You know, there must have been killing you man.

Well not really, I mean it was.

It was more.

Eventually they both wanted to hire me. I had to literally decide the same decision like advertising or Jingles versus rock and roll essentially, and you know, the he chose. I was like, it's it's sort of a When I was doing the pros and cons of it, you know, everything said Jingles. You know, of course hours, the money.

The money, the money, the money, yea, and all the opportunity to write as well.

Yeah yeah, But then you know, I just chose Electrically because I wanted to make records.

It's all the same stuff.

The problem with doing after a while it is, i mean, everybody thinks, oh, must really rob your soul. And I used to say, fuck, you know, I'm a professional. I just do this shit, and I'm really crazy about it. When I'm doing it, I love it. I'd put two hundred percent into it. But after a while I realized it did start to rob My soul, because you just put all this stuff out there and people send it back and say, oh, no it's too green, you know, come on, or we really need it by Thursday afternoon.

So you stay up all night.

Man, you're really dying for it. So you wait till Monday, just to be cool, and you call them me and say, hey, Bill, did everything work on okay with the track? Oh, it's on my desk here somewhere. Let me get to it and I'll call you back. Oh all the time, man, you know that.

Yeah, that happens to us right even now as we speak, Bob, I have to say that you're as you say. The token white Guy stick was always like one of my favorite moments whenever you would do these little skits with Dayla and Tribe and everything. First of all, I mean, would they would you volunteer these services? And they just say go in the studio, go in.

The think the token white guy was me. I must have been out of my mind. You know, everybody was doing bad stuff back then. I think that they did a whole bunch of fake radio ideas or something like that. So I just said, oh, let me go in, let me go in and do it, never thinking that it would really see the light of day.

When you were making that stuff, you know, I guess like a record like Balloon and just even the Tribe stuff. Did you have any idea of where it would go? I read an interview This was a couple of days ago on Waxweatics. They interviewed Cecil and Margleff. They were all the Stevie's stuff and everything, and they were talking about how after they did the Stevie stuff they got hired to do Osley Brothers and it was just you know,

No?

No, no, no.

I think most normal people when they're working on a record, you love what's in front of you. It's I don't take this the wrong way. That's why you get paid with. What I mean is that's why you're there, whether you're the artist or engineer or mixing. It's the coolest thing in the world for the time that you're working on it. It has to be you gotta love it to death. So number one, that's the prime directive. Like Star Trek and No. I get asked that a lot people say,

Here's the thing, though, I think in order for you to produce the results that you did produce, I feel as though one has to submit to I guess the ongoing battle or conflict with a lot of people, especially that early.

In the game between eighty eight, eighty nine, ninety ninety one was actually admitting that hip hop was an art form and not just a fat, an extra check in that sort of thing. You know, man, it took the record business. When the record business really got on board was when they said, holy shit, there's a lot of money in this. I mean, you know, come on, I'm not justing anybody. That's just the way, That's exactly. And my thing was, I like to make great music with

There was.

I don't know if you ran into this, but there was some pushback in the engineering in the studio community in New York because until hip hop came along, the studios were fairly integrated, but it was a jazz scene, and because hip hop was a completely new cultural thing coming up in the streets within a different way of talking, different way of dressing, different way of walking, different way of making music, that even people who were used to

I mean, that's just the people that drift into it, not by design, but.

So there were a lot of people who just sort of saw a bunch of eighteen year old kids coming in the door with dress like they'd never seen people dressed before, and having fun because they're eighteen year old kids, and they got freaked. I think, that's what I think. And I was like, hey, guys, what do you want to do? Because I was learning at the same time, so it was like, Wow, this is really fascinating.

I like this.

Yeah, Well, since you brought it up, is there a client that you had to say no to that you kind of regret? That. Damn. Maybe I should have did that for historical purpose.

Oh man, you have no idea the stuff I've had to turn down. And because I'm I was like really busy. It wasn't because I like, I don't like what can I really talk? I usually don't like to talk about that kind of stuff. Yeah, oh yeah, Prince. Wait, okay, this is a good one.

Guys.

So, so I got married in ninety four, and you know, I was working all the time, and I was burned out. That's one of the reasons that Richard got mad at me at a certain point because I was so burned out. I'd had a vacation plan for like months and months, a lot of money into a European vacation and I said, no, I'm going on vacation.

Richard flipped.

But that's okay, that's Richard. And so I was really burned out. I was working like ninety hour weeks a lot. I had one Friday night home with my new wife and we cooked dinner. I love to cook. I cooked dinner. I had a bottle keyantie. I'm in my robe nine on a Friday night. I had to do it, I'm saying, And.

Yeah, yeah, that was afterwards, Man, that's what we're here for, all right. Let it.

No work.

So I'm home. I'm down for the count after some wine, probably smoked, you know. So the phone rings and it's battery. And I worked a lot with and I still do work a lot with Michelle and Deochella, who's a lovely person and a dear friend. And the phone rings and Bob, this is battery. The studio, I said, yeah, they go listen. Prince is coming in with Michelle tonight and they want

I'm really fucking tired.

I just got out of the shower.

Do I want to go in and work all night with some guy that won't talk directly to me? You know, it wasn't guys, It wasn't that literal. I was burned out. It could have been anybody. It could have been the Beatles, and I would have said the same thing. So I said, no, Wow, yeah, yeah, do.

You know what day that I know what day that that that session took place?

Are you sure?

Yeah, Okay, here it comes come out?

Said it up? Literally it was it was almost literally twenty years ago today today.

How do you know?

It was July third, nineteen ninety six. I looked at up on what song was it? What's email from the Emancipation album?

Ah?

Oh she was supposed to be on that. Yeah, they recorded an instrumental. They recorded an instrumental that night. Uh, like I think he went back and re re recorded. Of course he did.

Yeah, they did that.

So that's one.

Uh, there's some others I can wait, can we at this moment? Prince Dork he no music door.

This is why each the guy's calmed down.

Each person in this room has has a weird super uh kind of ability to recall stuff like that. Anyway, So Prince Yeah.

And there's another one. I'm not gonna I can't name names because it's bad. There's the people are still around. A really huge star of the last fifteen years, I mean really really huge and uh the A and R person who I'd known for a long time, who's real big geese now really big cheese, called me and said, you know, we have blah blah blah, we want you to mix the first record, and I listened to it and I called him back and I said blank, because I'm not gonna say his name was, No, I'm not.

Going to say it.

Yeah right, well this record me. So I said, you know, do you really think this record's ready? Because it didn't sound ready to me. It sounded like you know, demos with the drum machine and stuff, and it was like huge, huge, huge career that goes on to these days this day and you know that.

I mean, can I talk about an active career? Oh, extremely, top of the heap, top of the heap, talking about what didn't sound what constitutes because I believe.

Your feeling towards Brown Sugar as well. When you heard the demos, Oh no, no, these demos were killing. We chased the demos on that we chased. We chased the demos on that we chased the demos on Michelle's first record.

They were ferocious.

Chased the demos on Erica's record, but it didn't quite sound like a record, you know, And I think that at that point. You know now, because there's certain big figures I'm not going to name names. You know, kind of scratchy and thin and small sounding is kind of okay again, but at that point people I didn't think people wanted that, you know, so so yeah, anyway, there's a.

Bunch of stuff.

You know. I had to turn down that thing recently because of school, and it really the H word. It hurt me more than anything I've actually had to say no to.

But I teach it. I want you now.

So it turns out that your crunch week was the first week of school, and uh, the children they signed me first.

You know, I mean, we could talk about it.

I so wanted to do that. I begged Bob to kind of take the load off Tim Latham because Tim was also uh engineered the Hamilton record, and Bob and Tim worked on I mean, they were in my mind, you guys were like great tag team partners. Fricking crack. Yeah, you guys did try together in the roots together.

It was a Jewish Irish comedy to him. Yeah, and Tim is a funny guy.

He is.

Yes, I took over the jew part of that, I think, Bob. All right, man, thank you for represent.

All right, So let's slide Let's slide it back to the beginning because I know that Q Tip in his excitement over the ghostets of record. That was a moment for him, and I have to admit, like, those are four nineteen eighty six. Those were some loud ass drums, which I have a problem. What's that problem is that? Man?

You know, I mixed stuff and then I listened to it two weeks later when it's too late to change, and I'm.

Like, oh my god, what did I do?

And I just somehow I hear the drums being real loud your first record. Man, When I listened to it after it came out, I said, oh my.

God, I really fucked this up. I can't believe I did that.

No, I don't know.

I mean, no, drum I listen.

If I listened like, if I listened like a listener, it's like, wow, that's really rocking. But if I listened like a mixer, I'm like, what did you do?

See?

But that's what?

Yeah, that was the best I remember hearing thistatic and like und like nothing else that will.

Guys and still do exactly the same thing as you should, And two weeks after I still say, oh my god, what did I do? But yeah, Jewish exactly.

But the thing is is that, especially with before we started working with you on the organics records like whenever I would do these rough mixes and I would have the drums up ungodly loud, you know, band members and everybody just think like, oh, you're ego Mania. You just want to hear drums loud and turn everything else down. And so I kind of felt relieved that you were enforcing and saw a world in which the music could

The voice is the center of the record. Everything you do on a record should be there to support the vocal. But still you can have the drums loud and if you know no, I'm serious, if you know what you're doing, you can make room for everything at the same time. So yeah, I mean it just it's one of those things.

Them back up again. You're right about that, Yeah, you're still right. So I mean, not like it was a scientific thing, but he said it changed his life. And basically like this guy has to engineer our stuff. So I mean, what were the can you go into the early days of working with tribe and.

You know, you have to remember that technology was really primitive then, and.

Wait before you start, and did you track these records or did you try Did you track an engineer or did you just engineer? No? Both both.

I tracked him, mixed a lot of stuff.

Now, the stories I hear from most engineers that I that I ask these questions, they often say, like, you know, maybe like Eric Sadler, Public Enemy. They would always praise him for going past page six in the Sampler's Manual, whereas everyone just be like, how do you turn it on? How you sample it? Or just give it to the side engineer and he'll loop everything up for you, Like.

Well that was that was Actually that's really interesting because back in those days, the quickest.

Way to move ahead was if you really had you been MIDI shit together.

For those people who don't know, MIDI is the computer languages that computers and synthesizers you used to speak to each other, and no one it was a wild West. Number one, shit didn't work the way it was supposed to. Number two, nobody knew how to use the stuff. So if you knew how to use the stuff, especially assistance, you could move up really quickly.

The SBX eighty yeah, I mean, oh my god, what a nightmare a sink box.

So yeah, and I you know, I've always been sort of a tech geek. I really am fascinated looking under the hood on stuff. So it helped, you know, problems.

Would they walk in like these records, like all right, Bob loop this up?

Yeah yeah, And but you know, both Tip and Ali early on sort of started figuring it out, and the large professor hip Tip to the SP twelve I'll leave was one of the first person people I know to carry around a little uh mac, you know, the all in one things with the little tiny screen.

Wow.

And he used op code and so they would come in after a while, they would come in pretty prepared. Sometimes I would take this stuff in the other room in logic, the room in the back, yeah, and kind of just slip it around a little bit and hopefully not take the funk out of it. But in the beginning it was so primitive. I mean, samplers didn't have

Yeah. Did you do any hip hop before Stetsosnic.

Maybe at Calliope, I don't know, I don't know, maybe okay, Yeah.

So I would hear of these primitive sampling techniques, especially like with the deaf sand people at Chunk King, where they would what's the process where you take the tape and get a pencil and you loop? Yeah, you make a tape loop. Can you describe that process?

Because what you do is record your two bars that you like, don't boom, don't go, and you cut it and you you splice it together and make a tape loop. Now, obviously that loop's going to be at about twelve feet long, much too big to fit on the tape machine. So you stand back with pencils emulating tape guides and you hold them so you have the proper tension on it. And you're standing like twelve or fifteen feet away from the machine with like two pencils that are acting like

Be able to do this, and they did it perfectly.

God, yeah, let's kill it.

Let's kill her.

So yeah, at first, when sampling happened right after that first wave of hip hop, when we first started hearing samples on records, the sampling time was like a second and a half maybe on the sp one or the twelve. No, the Achai six twelve was actually the first one we used, and it had these little quick discs of proprietary sort of mini floppy format that you saved the stuff on.

Drum by itself.

Chris at Calliope used to use an electro Harmonics one shot and when you unplugged it, that was gone. Forever you would sample something, you got it on the tape. There was no way of saying saving it. You unplugged it and you just did something else.

Yeah, so you're sick. Okay, so you're saying, now, when we did Melon, my man, the first time we worked together and we engineered at Mello, my man says, Took, I know that we started at twelve in the afternoon, and you were very disciplined. You were out of there like seven seven pm. So no, maybe you start at ten in the morning.

I probably had another session, man, I don't know.

No, no, it was Christmas. It was Christmas Eve, but like home getting his robe.

But I do, but.

I do remember that. Okay. So I was told by other people that yeah, you know, you can mix two songs in a day. So it's like, wow, we're mixing one song a day.

And he's very meticulous on you know, each track, Like each track he spends a good twenty to maybe forty five minutes. Like yeah, and that's so wrong.

I don't do that anymore.

But go ahead, well, because you know, we have technology now that speeds up the process, like we did phrenology.

Record time, I know what I'm doing. Was Oh yeah, no, I'm serious, man.

I was like, okay, really got to get this right. So you're Jedi mind trigging me.

Yeah, okay, now see I thought you're just a mad genius that no I'm believe a microwave mixing, and you wanted to slate it was I was really into it. I work in concentric circles now. I don't like to get bogged down on any one thing. I'll go through everything on a real cursory level and then go back and spend a little more time. But I don't work in a linear fashion. Ward, the kick drums got to be perfect, the snare drums got to be perfect because you lose the context.

You know that. What yeah, okay, well it sound a little revisionous to me because.

No concentric circles.

Man, you were the most disciplined engineer I've ever known. I was out of my mind. Man, what can I say? Okay, well, I think you're doing false honesty. I don't think the CD baby. My whole point was that if you were tracking on primitive stuff and it had to sound perfect, then that took a lot of time.

So you say, nah, now you can't do that.

Man.

You know, when you set up a session, my thing I tell my students you get it sounding pretty good really fast, you know, because the energy of the people sitting on the floor is the most important thing.

This is what I want to know the special things about the Native Tongue Records, the Tribe, the Daylight, Jungle Brothers. Did you do okay?

You did this straight up the jungle before some of the early stuff, and then one really bad one.

Yeah.

I just want to say he took Alan smithe or one of the last you were Robert Powers, Yeah.

Oh wow, he took he took Alan Smithy. Uh. JB's with them. You know something, though, I went back to that record, it wasn't as bad as it maybe seventeen eighteen years later and it was. It was kind of rezid ish like it was. It could have worked in the right year.

I just don't it could have been an okay record in the right year, because apparently.

That was the one that that wasn't even the record they wanted to put out. Apparently it was crazy. But I feel like you put the record out that you want to put out.

It's like, uh yeah, if you're if you're big cheese, you know the other than that, the record company says, no, that's not good enough.

We don't hear any So the record company just took the record and said this is what it is. I don't know exactly what happened on that. Yeah, I mean they did remixes to what they did videos, so I didn't see any committed to her. Yeah, and you made the record, yeah that she ain't make it. So yeah, that's that's going to be an interesting I have a lot of questions about Mike. He actually lived not too far from me though.

Mike's a good guy.

Both good guys. Yeah.

I talked to Africa once every ten or twelve years. It seems like somehow, I don't know.

Well, the one thing that people rarely mentioned about these records is how I mean they're really three dimensional. And you know, because hip hop is so full of caricatures, you rarely get to see the flesh and blood of people. And I felt with the skits that were on these records, it kind of just armed the listener because they really showed that these guys had goofy sense of humor. But I always wanted to know because it always sounded so

Up and no, but there were mics open because we were doing rhymes and stuff, and you know, somebody says, I want to get on the mic your press record.

You know, it just always felt like a reality show, where like, you know, that's good artists at work. Serious seriously, So how do you, I guess as a well, two questions.

One, where does the line? Where's the line for you between producer and engineer.

If I'm engineering, I'm just there to make it sound really good and help the momentum of the session move forward.

That's the line.

I don't offer artistic ideas, That's not why I'm there. And then when you're producing, it's you know, man, it's producing. Every artist is different. You know, some artists, some artists who you guys know me for working with you try to set the table right and get the fuck out of the way and let them do their thing because they're so incredibly dope, and you try to corral it a little bit so it sounds like a record. And then other people, you know, you gotta build the car

So with the corraling, because that was my that was as my next question. I mean, a regular Dayla Sola did that I mean, I love, I mean a lot of people love.

It's my favorite record. That's my favorite Daylight record too.

But like something like Johnny's Dead, which is fucking hilarious, you know what I mean, But something like that could never happened on a hip hop LP, now you know what I mean?

So like, how do you needs to come back?

But you know that was Paul and Pass okay and Dave also, that was them.

But I'm saying, like how the moments like that get captured where it's not like, okay, guys recording and roll in the same way that.

When you do a take, it doesn't sound like you're playing to a clip. You know, it's just what they do, man, So just happened to be Yeah. Also, that was a much more innocent time, which is why people got away with those skits, is because the whole gun thing, the whole violence thing, hadn't really gotten big yet. It was a much more innocent time. People were just out of high school.

Man.

You also worked. The unique thing about your work is that you work with groups. I mean, now we're in a system in which, you know, the solo artist is celebrated can only be one.

Yeah, and.

And I thought about that, man, that's right? So I know hip hop groups anymore barely, So how did you right?

Right? Singers?

I mean there's hardly any his personalities, but.

How Klezmer music has no groups now either.

But all that said, Earth Winding, Fire Lips, that's all I can say.

No, how how uh? How these?

I mean who would know where their place was and who would be the alpha and who would well you know that, and I'm certain that you've had conflicts of especially when you're a group and there's multiple.

Producers, and well that's when I say, you know, does someone sneak up to you and say, yo, turn that?

Yeah?

I can't do that, man. I gotta be honest with everybody, So I don't do that. So have you had situations where someone comes up to you and is like, yo.

Man, I'd say, we need to talk about this with everybody and I haven't?

Or does it come with you from you first? And sort of an anonymous like no, Well, if it needs you have to play doctor Phil.

You've seen me in the sessions, you know, sometimes stop and say, guys, listen, you know we were talking about maybe turning the high hat.

Up on this part or whatever or losing it ride in there. What do you guys think?

And then I stand back and get out of the way. You know, that's not That's not what I'm there for. I just try to keep things moving forward.

You know.

It comes from paying for studio time myself and not having enough money. You know, you learn to keep things moving forward.

In the studio.

In retrospect, the forward motion of a session is like everything, It's ninety percent of whether stuff comes out of good or not is the momentum of the session.

I think, okay, so the low end theory which I'm gonna get something out of this. I'm gonna get some blood out of the stone, dammit. I mean what was the typical session, like like when songs take a day or like for me, it's like, okay, we jam on something, jam something, Oh, here's an idea, and then we track it Like I mean, how are records made back then? Like would they come in pre production and say this is what I want to do?

By then, Tip and Only we're doing programming on their own. So Tip Pat and SP twelve and Ali had his computer and S nine hundred, so they would come in with stuff. The technology still wasn't that great that we didn't have to mess with it just a little bit.

You couldn't slip tracks.

At that point, you know, move tracks back and forth in time. So if you sampled something and it wasn't quite the feel you wanted, you had to do a few tricks.

To get that to happen. You taught me that sometimes you put it through a delay. Well at the time thing.

You know, now in a computer you can say to the snare, I want the snare to be you know, thirty milliseconds back or whatever.

Back then we used to fake it.

And again this was Chris Irwin who was brilliant. You would synchronize to Simpty on the tape to a timecode.

Can I guess the lynxes?

No?

Almost, but you'd you'd synchronize.

No, you'd synchronize the SP twelve to simptly because the SP twelve was one of the first things to read it and spit out many clock and you'd feed the Simpty through a fifty millisecond delay, so everything that got printed on the record, if it was printed at zero, was actually fifty milliseconds behind the Simpty. And then if you were printing, say a snare, and you say I want.

To pull this up in the field.

You just lower the delay time on the delay and the snare would move a little.

Bit forward in the field. But yeah, there me a few times.

Yeah, very soon thereafter you could slip could slip traps in a computer. You know. That's everything now, that's that's yeah, I see move you know for people who don't know, move traps backward and forward in time. So it's funkier.

When did when did it?

When did it turn? Like? When did the technology? Early nineties?

I think, Yeah, do you remember the first record that you did completely in the box?

Oh?

Man?

See, because I use microphones, I can't you know, get with that in the box. And I still mix even though I mostly in the box. I still have a two bus chain. The stereo mix comes out through some really nice stuff. But the technology is there. I can mix in all in the box and it'll be fine. The technology is absolutely there now, and.

Yeah, you just got to use it. So uh, would you say that brown Sugar was your first foray into First of all, when you were a prochanity welcome to was when you were approached. I was assuming that Kadar came to you to do Brown Sugar Did he just want you to engineer it first? No? No, did you say I want to produce this? You know, I went to the truth.

I don't remember. I don't remember, but uh yeah, I really don't remember. But as you know, with D you played you the music firston Yeah, of course, moving stuff along is half the battle. I still have the four track assats his demos.

That's what I was gonna ask. Do you don't Do you have those the demos from Brown Sugar?

I think Bill does.

I had a fire and most of the stuff got destroyed, but I may still have those.

I'm not sure you had a fire. Yeah, my home, my home in New York was destroyed by a fire about six years ago.

Oh yeah, listen, No, it's good. If it had been my studio with all my gear, I would have jumped off the roof. But the worst thing that happened, I mean, it was bad. It was a couple of years fighting with the insurance company, but no one was hurt. And I lost a sixty five Telly Sunburst with white binding, one.

Of the original ones.

But then you use that on IM I don't know.

I used to use it a lot. Yeah, that's your IMIB guitar.

Yeah, so you know, Dia is one of those artists, and I was learning as I went along. But as you know, Dia is an artist where you got to let him do his thing because that's where the good stuff happens.

It's getting him to do his thing. You said it, I didn't. Well, I mean compared to the other two records. I mean, you made Brown Sugar record time you started what ninety three?

Yeah, but I also made half that record, and I just, oh, you know how to say this? I mean, the world knows it's not You're in a unique situation. I do love d the same way you do, but I just couldn't wait around anymore.

And I also know that he wanted to do it himself.

You know, so, so explain chasing the demo for those chasing the demo is when someone makes demonstration recording of the song, which is not a full on version of the song because they don't have the resources.

But it's just an outline for the song.

But when the demo is like really incredibly cool, you end up making the real thing. But then it's too good and it doesn't sounds cool for a demo, but the demo itself and then people say, well, why don't you just use the demo for a record, because it's too messed up.

It's just you can't quite do it.

But actually, with him and with Michelle on her first record, I would pull stuff off the demos.

If there were multi tracks and there were parts that were really, really cool, I pulled them off the demos. How would you line them up? It was hard, It was really hard. Wait, by this point you had pro tools though, right.

I had a rolling DMAD and the protols sounded horrible at the beginning, and it really didn't work. I had a rollin hard disrecorder. There was also enough sampling time. I could fly shit in, you know, from one tape machine to another and kind of keep punching in and get it right.

You know, just got to work. Yeah, I'll say that Dreaming Eyes of Mine definitely. I remember calling you when it came out and asking, like I thought there was just a discrepancy glitch in the drum programming.

That's so funny, you say that, man, because because everything you know, listen, musicians talk about people's feel and you know, to get things to sit comfortably, you always want to keep the back beat sort of behind the beat, and you want your rhymes to be behind the beat, and jazz playing is behind the beat.

D is in last week.

You know, he's so behind the beat's two weeks ago. So it's funny. When I was flying the vocals with my rolling hard disc recorder, you do it by a temple map, so it's you know, it's going to be correct when you put it in the second verse, it's going to be in exactly the same place it was in the first verse. And it was his background vocals were so back in that I was sure that the gear was fucking up because they were so behind the beating and stuff. You know, that's me on guitar in that song too.

When you're approached. Let's say, like for Michelle's record, which wasn't a out of the box platinum album, but in an artistic achievement, that's my favorite Michelle album. Yeah, well I know, well yeah, both of them. Yeah like that one and then I like Bitter too, bit it was really dope. But do you take when you take these projects on how many of her albums you did?

The first three, I've mixed almost everything. I produced two or three cuts on the first one, and then mixed a lot of other stuff.

David Gampson did.

Most of that stuff, and Michelle did it. You know, there's not a lot of people I know a lot of great musicians.

I know know a lot of artists.

Michelle is one of the deepest artists I know in what way? Come on, man, do I have to explain that? Yes, she is one of those people that just does things really differently from other people and it always comes out really pretty dope. Provision is is way different than other people's way way different. I mean plantation, lullabies, like the way that record is constructed, the way that record sounds, and the parts. It was sort of like hip hop from Mars meets R and B meets Anger.

You know, it was cool. It was cool. You did Bitter as well? Correct, No, that was damn yeah, pretty much.

You know.

I mixed a comfort Woman too, guys. Comfort Woman's great record. It's a great sounding record too. We did that down at.

Chrun King.

It's a really good sounding record too, and I've done a couple with her since then.

Is probably my favorite.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, Okay, I got all of them, the credits. Sometimes that's dope.

So when you make when you make these records, what's your grand achievement, especially when you're not dealing with an artist that I'm certain that Maverick would love her to have had one foot in platinum status and the other foot and artistic achievement. So I'm pretty sure you've had a earful from the A and R people, not back then, not back then.

You know, I only did a couple of cuts on the first record, so not back then they had two lonely hearts or no, what was the sexy one?

Dreadlocks?

You know, but that was also I mean, did you.

Do all Night?

No?

Wait, why y'all have like that song Don't Exist? That was a top ten hit. There's a connect that was a melon camp.

There's a disconnect between Michelle and the pop music juggernaut. You know, she's definitely in our that deserves to be out there and everybody needs to hear her and resources have to be put behind her. She is not necessarily the artists that you expect to play, you know on Hot ninety five, you know I'm.

Gonna keep it that way too. No, no, make it hot ninety five.

That's just three.

That's a great middle finger. Okay, christ loves Supremeka Hot ninety five.

Keeping it.

But no, you know that it's like record companies. If there was an economy of scale, which there is now, that allowed artists to make records, and that the company didn't need to sell millions of records to recoup or keep their doors open, it'd be cool. But there's not a lot of places like that. They need to keep the scale that they run. Those he's on they need mega hits. You know, I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

So, did you ever have a client in which, like, you know, once the mixers went home, then suddenly.

Yes, And I've heard and our people say to artists after you know, kissing their ass up and down for two years, sending the limos for them, Champagne, go into the office, I don't hear any hits, go back and write me some hits, which is like the most crippling thing you could ever say to anybody. You're not good enough. Go back and make yourself good enough. Oh that's helpful, you know.

Jesus. Yeah, you've heard that, man, Come on.

So, but I think the same thing could be said. I remember you saying one time the zach obviously can be true. Like when y'all signed with their Jam and Jay was like.

Yes, don't make it, don't That was even bigger problem. I was like, oh god, now we gotta get eight and Pitchfork. No.

But that's a good situation when they know who you are and sign you because of who you are.

But I don't want them to use that as an excuse to not to want to promote us.

You know what I mean.

So it's like this is that that's a kind of reverse bizarre paradigm work. Yeah, don't make any hits whither or away in obscurity.

I'm the champion. You're so successful, all right. So yeah, well your your production and chasing demos and seeing the product through and Erica as well. We're doing bad duism. I mean, did you the way the way you sold me to d I have to mit and I always tell the story, well you wanted me to play on ship, damn motherfucker. And this before Ron Carter had a change your heart.

And he had no change your heart. He closed the door really fast on that one.

It's like, what's the song called No, I'm not doing it? Yeah?

I called him. And Ron's actually a good guy. He's you know, he's prickly, but he's a good guy and he's a musician. And I called him and I told him all about this stuff, and I said, blah blah blah blah blah, he's a really great artist, really unusual blah blah blah around By the way, you have to let me explain, and I will explain after I tell you.

But the title of the song is shit damn motherfucker. No, you just had to do that, didn't you.

And no, I didn't want to mess with him, you know, and have him come in for that. And I tried to explain, I don't know what he is, but he said in nobody's book? Is that a good phrase to me? Motherfucker? So no, and I tried to explain to him. I mean, it's it's sort of a woe is Me thing. It's somebody with their head in their hands saying, oh.

No, how did this happen to me?

He's not calling anybody else that, But it didn't matter. He's on smooth though, right, No, Larry Grenadier, He's fantastic, is unsmooth?

Hmm? Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, I love that song.

Nobody.

You know, people sleep on that song I love smooth. Oh yeah, that song on that record. No it's not, it's not it's great.

I uh, I shouldn't tell.

I'll wait till Dee gets here to tell the when we get by story? Did I reveal that on the board? Hold on hold, if we're gonna get d in here, it's gonna be like twenty already booked him, all already already booked him.

He booked him three years ago. Show up next month?

No, sorry, we love you, D. What were you saying?

Uh?

Steve oh So?

Who ended up playing bass on ship?

Damn?

I just thought of that.

I didn't actually have a question.

It might have been Larry Grenadier. It might have been D's sample bass, because he was really good at that. I mean the stuff he got out of the EPs sixteen was really good.

It sounded great. You know something, what still has the same He still fixes it? Who fixes it? Ben? You know we did a show? Still has the same floppy discs?

He has such a technophone?

Man, Wow, not really, I mean he has new stuff, especially like flip phone. He has an iPhone.

Wait, you're talking about as R ten? What did what did you say? E?

P E P S sixteen it was precursor. But but the architecture is the same.

Yeah, so that was before the ASR.

He has a he has the same brown sugar stuff in his apartment right now. Yeah, like the same flop.

Guys.

That's the mark of a great artist.

You know.

They can sing Mary had a little lamb and you go, oh my god. You know, it doesn't matter what they have. There's such they have such a strong stamp as an artist that they could use the most primitive thing in the world and you go, my god, that's so cool.

It's like all those times I used to say, you know, listen to Luther Vandel sing the Telephone Book, you know, yeah, yeah.

What did the road sound come from?

It?

On?

That sounds like it's underwater.

It was mostly out of his EPs we called we called the flying jet patch.

We uh, we we use some we.

Use some live roads. And also if you put the roads in they used to be called.

A pant scan.

It was actually an analog piece of gear that pants something back and forth really fast. You can do it in the box now too, and it gives a road kind of like a watery kind of sound.

Yeah, still has it. Yeah, it's like a dripping water sound. Yeah, yeah, wow. He calls it flying V. Okay, he calls it his flying V. Why be like guitar flying V? I don't know, but it's it's always and he's flying put up a fly patch, you know?

So did he create that patch himself or is that a sound.

In the boat.

He did a lot of editing the stock sounds. Yeah, but again, I mean he could take anything. He could take the most primitive, silly sounding thing and do something incredibly cool makes it.

You know that.

Yeah, I'm my witness to that. Wait, wait, while we're on this subjec I got I got a phone call last week that was painful to get, which was yet another illustrious New York City studio is shutting down and MS yeah, I keep moving my equipment from studio to studios, studio to studio, and.

Even where do we do at Hamilton Avatar? I was at Avatar and heard about I'm.

Sorry, and Avatar is shutting down to.

Avatar is selling.

They're waiting to They're waiting to find a person who has enough money to keep it a studio. You know, the footprint of the building is worth you know, fifty times as much as it is as a building now in the studio.

Yes.

Wow. Well my question is you know now that studios are becoming a relic of yesteryear. I mean, to work with you is to you know, to see you send these massive cases to the studio, like working on commons, like order for chocolate record, like you'd send these giant property property of Bob.

Power, like like my cartage was five hundred bucks just to get the stuff there. You know.

Yeah, I mean you you were carrying a lot of outboard gear. Yep.

But I guess.

In the middle of the decade, did you eventually just start doing pro tools and pro tools only or No.

I made a commitment to becoming a veteran in the box mixer about eight or nine years ago, and not because of commerce, because that actually that's why I should have done it, because I saw what was going on. I just saw what technology was becoming and realized that did I want to be in step with technology or not? And I love technology?

So you had to learn all over?

No, No, no, I just said you can be I've been mixing on consoles for years. I did that, okay, I said I could be a better in the box mixer. So I just started, and I love it. I wouldn't look back. I'm in my own room all the time. I almost never see my clients like a mirror. It's fantastic.

Where's your room? You have a room? Oh yeah yeah?

Steve a Dabo Shelter Island Sound has a medium sized room on twenty seventh Street.

I have the other side of the floor. We found the floor together.

He did a lot of early Suzanne began shown Colvin and stuff. So I have my own room and anything I record with one microphone. I got a great microphone collection, I got great microres. We put up the microphone in the room going headphones, and I'm really really happy or as a practitioner now than I've ever been.

If I never set foot in a big studio again, it's fine. I know it sounds weird. You don't miss it at all?

No, not the fruit plates in the you know what's funny. I always made jokes about that. When I first got really comfortable my own place. The first thing I would say to people, I said, you know what I thought I'd missed the fruit fruit basket?

Yeah, but do you know what it means that?

I mean?

The fruit basket is yeah, but he can bring in his own fruit, you know, to his to his room.

But it's almost like it's it's like a minute from a hotel.

Yeah, exactly, it's like somebody else's clean towels. It's really nice. But my mixing situation, my speakers and I sit in exactly the same position every day.

You know, I don't have to move from studio to studio.

I love it.

My results, my work is better than ever man.

And I still use an analogue chain on my stereo mix but all the individual things, no inserts, just pro tools.

Okay, So how did you decide to, you know, bring teaching into.

The fora like?

Uh?

NYU approached me about eight or nine years ago, and I started out as an adjunct teaching class here and there, and again my mother gets around.

They must have talked to my mother.

No, not like that, man, No, not like that.

I knew, I knew you were going to go there.

I just feel like your mom should be the next guest. She's a shill.

She's a shill for me. But they made me a professor a couple of years ago, and you know, I'm still working on the outside of about thirty forty percent of my work is still mixing.

Now what are you teaching that? Everything? Production?

I consider myself a utility infielder, Like if they need me a third base, I can do it. I teach the sophomore production class with my associate and boss, Nick Sensano, who's great he's been doing he worked with Public.

Yeah, yeah, he's my next guy that and.

It's really great. I mean, imagine, after a lifetime in the record business to be in a position where the only reason you're there is to help people, that's all.

You know. Uh, you don't get paid more if you do better, you know, it's or if you have a hit. So it's great, but are they interested in the level of production that you are? Is your forte the the non microwave production.

The yeah, well because now kids are just using like fruity loops and right and able to But yeah, that's right, guys, the same principles whole true. It doesn't matter how you get, you know.

I teach. They have me in positions teaching.

The things that I know how to do, analog recording, all things recording, mixing. I teach an arranging class that I develop, which is fantastic because as you know, The biggest problem in most people's records is bad arranging chops.

So it's great, it's great.

Range, man, I need to enter this class. Well, you know, guys as a grooves are great, but no as a mixer. You know, if the records well arranged, it's great to mix. If it's badly arranged, you're just fighting that the whole time. And in the modern world, the arrangement is as much your choice of instrument and the timber that instrument as it is departure plane. I mean, it's not nineteen sixty two anymore. We do things really differently. There was a

Okay, oh yeah, Maggie is also one of my star students. Yeah, she's great. She's fucking dope.

You know, the world has completely flipped for Maggie. I mean, the hits are off the charts. There's a feeding frenzy going on right now trying to.

Get her signed. And Maggie's has a real good head.

On her shoulders, and she won't be swayed by all that stupid shit that comes her way. She's and you know what, I have to say that there's any number of students that are just as cool as that. We have people doing just the coolest thing. There's something that people heard in Maggie's voice. You know, she almost sounds like Joni Mitchell singing over electronica.

But yeah, and it just sounded like her.

I really liked what for Real said and since that it was singular, like he couldn't even give notes on it because.

It didn't sound like anything else, nothing else.

It was really her own world.

But I have to say a lot of students there are doing incredibly cool stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, this is the first year in which I felt intimidated by some of my students, Like, Okay, I need to learn from you, Like I'm taking this job so you can teach me stuff that I don't know.

Listen, that's part.

Do they do that you sometimes?

No, they don't test me. I mean like do they know about your history and that stuff?

Yeah?

Yeah, And the classroom to me, and I'm really serious about this is a three hundred and sixty degree thing. The information flows both ways, and if both parties aren't super engaged while we're in there, what a fucking waste of time, you know, not just a waste of my time, wasted their time.

So it's great.

The students are great, the people I work with are fantastic. First real job I've ever had, first time I've ever gotten a paid regular paycheck from any company other than my own. And uh yeah, I still get to work, and they actually tisch the arts division at n YU wants you to stay active in the field, so I I need to work and I still enjoy working. But uh, just because it's school and in theory, I'm full time there.

That's my first responsibility. Do they make you turn in a massive syllabus at the top of the year. Oh yeah, I've had to red and the player.

And it's the weirdest word in the world to say, you feel like you're silibi. Yeah, okay, I thought that was just like me to make sure that I knew I knew what I was doing.

No, my health teacher in uh In college used it. That was first place I heard it. It was right after he was discussing gon aha.

It was in my human health And wait a minute, man, my ship is it's.

I think syphilis cyphilized letter totally.

So what is your goal when you what is your mission to when you do teach this class, because the thing I I enjoyed about teaching is.

The enlightening part of things, and it's the small things that enlighten them the most and really engage them.

But you know, I hate the whole idea of like I have to quiz.

Them on this and know the finals and that's bullshit. And I said the first day, Look, you know, I don't believe in grades, but this is ny U. So we got to do things a certain way. If you're not here because you really want to engage with this material, you're spending a lot of money. And you know, I mean, I don't dis people or anything or blow them up, but that's I I believe really in that we're all discovering.

This stuff together. It sounds, I know, it sounds like I was from the sixties, and I am.

You know.

I love the process of you know, discovering things with them, you know, I yeah, I believe the same thing. But you still have to give grades. Yeah, and that's I'm not even going to get into that. I try to be really objective about it. I try to take what I like and don't like out of the equation. So

I was going to ask you, what, so, what is the difference between you know, someone like a Maggie that like shines and then just those kids that kind of flame out?

Like what what do you see? There is no difference.

You know, some people the most almost all of the students that are there do something that's really really cool, as you know, having the perseverance to stick it out for the long run.

I get sidetracked, you know.

Are you aware of the effect that you have on them as like a mentor, because I find that I have. I don't know how you feel about this, but like I had teachers, two of them, particularly when I was in high school, that were totally instrumental in my life. I feel like teaching, once it gets down to it, is one of the most important things people like us can do.

Yeah.

I tend to sort of not think too much of myself, so I try to keep that thing out of it. But no, listen, if there's one thing, If there's one thing. If there's two things.

I can teach them is be a decent human being and engage engaged with what you do.

I won't say be serious. I say, if you're here and you're doing it, engage. It's like playing music. You know, you're not sitting there playing the chart like this. You got to engage with the music. So that those are the things that What about the decent human being part? Can that be optional?

Listen? Do you really want to be in this class?

Do you tell them and encourage them to mix very quietly? Because I believe it or not, I do that now. I tell them to mix at reasonable volumes. You know, your ears do really funky things when you listen to a loud music for a long time.

And they lie to you.

So if you can mix at volumes, I turn it up every once in a while to check ship. I gotta sell.

I checked the bottom. I'm mastering now, so I got to.

If you can you master your own stuff. Isn't that dangerous though?

Sometimes, but most of the time it's good. I've gotten really good. You don't think you need fresh airs to Sometimes I do, but but you know, people want to deal.

Can get her name?

I cut it all in.

Wait, did you think of Joe.

Bill also is the Joe Raposo of Sesame Street. So and I always put you up Joe Reposo's name, So film a school micer was who I was. Refra was brilliant guy.

Yeah, yeah, but I encourage them to mix that volumes sort of like you're talking to somebody from two feet away. That's where your speakers are gonna be the most accurate. And the biggest part of it is you obviate the negative effects of the room. If the speakers aren't very loud, the back of the room is not going to be bouncing around at you.

So that's a big deal. So what Bob and are explaining to you, of course, a love of supremers that are like scratching your head right now is uh.

If you look on discogs dot com and you turn up look up Bob Power's name, you'll see a lot of variations of nicknames that I've given them on various roots albums, such as Mixed by Bob.

Guys.

I really can't hear the mix, guys, Bob guys, I really really need to hear this, guys.

And Bob it's bad enough that it's now five forty six am. I do do I have to put off with the talking guys power anyway, My point is he left out to shut the fuck up. Bob taught me that the best mixes if if your mix sounds awesome on shitty speakers. I mean, that's why studios speakers like Jenolis or Yamaha NS tens they were there to give you. Even Thriller was last minute mixed on like a clock

One of the early engineers I worked with when I was scoring TV, we always talk about what's a good mix?

What's a good mix?

And he's now a nuclear physicist by the way, he got smart, but he said he said the best thing I've ever heard anybody say. It said, a good mix is something that doesn't sound too terrible anywhere.

Right, You're right, Well, there's a generation now. I mean, I won't throw him under the bus, but I've had a few conversations with Kanye's people about their engineering tactics, which you know, I feel like his music. I feel like his music is made for no. This is my point. When I saw the Yeaser show at MSG and I happened to be within twenty feet of the speakers, then I realized, Oh, all these songs were created with this

You know?

The guys would shake their heads like you won't imagine the level of loudness that he makes the speakers when he's engineering in the studios. And I was like, well, always thought you were supposed to make it quiet. And especially because most of us consume our music now on MacBook pros and these, you know, tiny computer speakers, you would think that whenever I listen to you know, his stuff on the iPods or my computer, I'm indifferent to the music and it affects how I perceive that record.

Listen just about anything sounds good when you crack it.

Didn't you just say that loved musical? Your ears will lie to you.

Your ears lied to you.

And also, you know, a really good mix should hold up at a bunch of different volume. The musical balances, internal balances should stay somewhat the same. Looking at it like they want to shoot, They all like you, sucker, And I'm just saying.

You know, if if, if, when you play music loud and you start playing tricks on, you kind of explains the last fifteen years of clippings.

Nah, that's real. Well, yeah, I assume that nowadays people just mix it loud and don't give a regard to it's just gonna get played in the club inferior, which you would think that most people would mix for their iPhones, their cheap car systems.

Yeah, but also if somebody says to me, I really want this to pop on the radio, I'll go a certain direction with it. You know, it's just but again, in a perfect world, you want something that sounds pretty good everywhere.

And yeah, yeah, do you still not hardpan your base? That's another lesson you taught me. You said that the groove and the record will skip.

Yeah, that's an old record thing. You'd never put anything with a lot of bottom on one side because when the needle has to make the big excursion, it'll pop over into the next groove.

That's an old school thing. Same thing with sibilants. You know.

The biggest issue, one of the biggest issue in modern records to me mixing is people don't DS enough. The fucking essays on the vocals will take the enamel off your teeth.

Yeah, stuff like that. You know whatever, any one thing in the tom inks right now?

Is there a.

Did they have a DS plug in?

Pretty serious? Yeah, there's a gazillion of them. And the cool thing is you can make them do anything you want.

I love the digital world, man.

I you know, people say you missed the way things used to be. I said, yeah, I missed the budgets, that's all. I miss everything. You can get so much closer to what you want to hear?

Now?

Am I allowed to ask you what was your moment?

Like?

What was your.

Oh, how much my biggest payday? Yeah? Like I don't mean the exact amount, but like, what was your We really.

Want you to do this record?

Bop out?

You know, I have management for all that time and he was just making my deals. So but you know, as a producer, you know, and this is one of the things I teach my students is that you don't get paid a cent. I mean, you get paid advances, but until the record company makes their money back, you don't get paid your royalties. But say they make their money back after they sell one hundred and fifty thousand records. Well, one of the things you want your contract is that

That for me.

No, no, no, well yes, and I know, seriously, I never touched my record money because non, it's like paper money. I mean, we sell respectively.

But I don't know if it's a good thing that DJ Questlove is monetarily more valuable then Quest Love has ever.

Been as a studio musician or a producer or drummer.

You know, but I don't.

I don't mean Carlturally speaking, I'm just saying that I kind of live in life now where like my value is, my monetary value is in places other than where you thought, which is kind of a mind fucker, which is made me the the equivalent of Bob Power Engineers. I was about to say, that's like the story for everybody.

Man, Yeah, that's that's my thing. Hits is not a lot of times. It's not the thing that you think or that you may even thought it was going to be.

But do you resistant or do you embrace it?

No, wanting to make a lot of money is not a reasonable objective, I think. No. Honestly, being able to live decently and decently and do.

What you love with people you really like, that's payoff. That's real. You just turn it back to Kumba moment.

What is what is your favorite funk out of man? I played that kombay A?

You have ever what's your thing?

Which you've seen that Jacket Wilson thing when he's live on television? You guys ever seen live clips at Jackie Wilson. Oh my god, because he's saying stuff that's kind of like Kumbaya. But he is so incredible, not like kombay a.

But I will now look at it.

Your love keeps lifting me. You gotta see this clip. He's doing it live on television. You could have made a record out of it.

It would have been great. I'm on it. I will look. I gotta know what is your your own personal desert island disc Like, if when all's said and done, what is your artistic crowning achievement? I'm by power and I did. It would be one of my own records.

Man, it wouldn't be one of my own records, it would It would be Lewis Armstrong and the Elephantzgerald Duet's no.

No, no, no no. I mean as far as your achievement, your achievement is concerned, like what are you most proud of having done the last day of whatever session?

It was proud of being a decent human being and doing decent work.

I always just got there positively.

Know what's really going on? You know he's really did, but he's trying to save it now he's trying.

To save it.

But what a dick.

I don't want the bad stories, but I'm just saying, like, you know, a crowning achievement, like Okay, I.

Did that there's a lot of Man, every record I've ever worked with I love worked on I love.

I'm serious. It's like your favorite bread the Roots, every roots record. Dude, I wasn't even hinting. I forgot you worked on the Roots.

Sure you did.

Man, No, I'm thinking like what.

No?

No, I honest to god, I love every record I've.

Ever Well, what's the record? Okay, maybe what's the record? I'm curious to know what's the record?

That?

And hell, maybe all of them go follow this category like something that you finished that maybe you didn't think you're gonna fish like something that the process.

Was really say that, Sugar, Can we move on now?

Okay?

Maybe maybe maybe this might clear up of me this question better. If you had to listen to one song that you worked on right now, which one would you choose? Like a gun to your head, Bob, you have to play one of your songs right.

The song from Comfort Woman that Chris Dave plays on Love song number is that it where the drums start out really far away and then they come towards you. It's like an up tempo reggae thing.

Okay, opening so.

Really reggae flavor.

Yeah, I know, I can't think of the name because the names on the love song Umber one, that's the one I'm trying to get. So you're your Michelle work is your No, I'm serious, man, I like the friends that do with everybody, all right.

You know.

You work on that that got deep six and should have came out. I can't name names, Prince.

I've had records that people have redone, which is no. You know, anybody as a producer knows that sometimes you make a record, sometimes people don't like it and they redo it.

You gotta live with it. It's like being a musician.

But I've had records that have been redone where the redone one was really bad.

Not a remix, but no, no, just you mean one of those iTunes.

And gag records.

No.

I tuned like a like a playover, like oh my god, yo, yeah, like you'll go to heat Wave and then like, oh, it's like they re recorded this. I felt for Black like Black Ivory redid they did and it's fucking horrible. But I bought the album. Yeah, I brought the bad version was spinning in concerts like how come tips version don't sound like this? But it seems like yo, that that's not the verse that he redid it like I fell for that ship.

Let's talk about real Desert Island any records I wanted to earth Winding Fire's greatest hits in the super Fly soundtrack. It does not get any better than Freddy's Dad is like possibly one of the pinnacles of music.

That scares me, having heard Freddy's Dead when I was two. When the modulation goes to the horn thing, well, yeah, scares of I can't detect say nothing.

I want.

I want to see the mission statement that says I'm now I'll just sing on my own goddamn radio shows, as opposed to it's not a contract, Bill be coming off like the principal and back to the future Alphae is a slacker. When I was a kid, that that modulation used to always scariest modulations, always kid, right, what about the what's going on?

They go like to a tritone away if.

It modulated and not Golden Lady by Stevie, but like, and that's the one thing they cut out of my Rock and Roll Hall of Fame speech when I inducted Hall of Notes, was you know the end of Sea's going We're just stays in there's now and then it goes here point under the blankets.

That's some Hollywood ship right there. You know, that's the cheap shot. You know, go up a half staff each time in the out course.

That's like a harp glist.

Going into a new section. Well what I call the sucker punch of orchestration.

I would turneth whenever Sea's Going came on. When I was a kid, I turned on all the lights.

I never thought that.

I wasn't allowed to touch my dad's radio, so you know, I never knew that modulations.

All the time.

You know what else scares me? And I know Bill Steve wants me and tell the story. You ever watched Tiktac dough tick tech dough now a long time.

I remember there's a game show. There's a call television. There's a game show called tik Tac though, I remember that, okay, speaking well, whenever you pick the center square, they give you a two part question and then sort of scary Jeopardy music to give you thirty seconds to think it over. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, scared Jesus, I remember that. I remember that, guys.

I got to tell you about this building my dad was a television producer in the fifties and sixties, and we moved from Chicago when I was four, in like fifty three or four and fifty five, and I was in one of the studios here because he did Mister Wizard. You guys don't remember, Yeah.

You know mister Wizard, but don't know.

I don't.

I remember mister Martindale.

I remember now what it was, this the mister Wizard that.

Was on what you call it?

Right?

How we were there?

Well, you know the villains from What's Happening, But you don't know.

I probably know if I see it.

I just remember mister Wizard because like mister Wizz, I will watch.

It and he would do experiments and stuff and it was just like well, and I would try to do it, but I never had none of the ship.

Did you need it?

Anyway?

I was in this building in the studio when I was five years old and I got kicked out because I had a cold and I kept kept coughing. My mother had to take me out of the studio. So this is my triumphant return the studio.

Mom.

In reading your wiki page, Bob, just the things like studied classical composition and uh, a master's degree in jazz. Now when when you started working that was awesome? Eat a Chinese peanut.

Or something, discussion seaweed.

Yeah, So like this this knowledge of classical music and jazz and then and then suddenly you're in the world of samplers and tribe cald Quests and day La soul and and so now I watched I watched Quest sampling a lot, and he's tuning his samples. So now did you bring a lot of that stuff to hip hop?

Yes?

And no, making sampling more musical, yes.

When we had to, But no, because I also realized that the ethic was often contrary to that, and I didn't want to suck it up. But the low end theory, I mean, we spent a lot, a lot of time on stuff like that, like tuning and timing and things like that.

My my more general question though, is like how did you apply your real world classical and jazz experience to those projects.

There's different gigs, man. If you're on a jazz gig, you play jazz. If you're on a poka gig, you play the poka.

So you didn't so you No.

I wanted to help the people realize their vision it was not about me.

I guess I'm asking if you applied that stuff to the world of sam you.

I think everybody, every practitioner in the world, applies everything they've ever ever seen to everything they do.

You know.

There was no direct line, There wasn't any straight lines. But of course, yeah, yeah, I think.

So, because they were using a lot of jazz samples.

Yeah, I mean, it's musical sensibilities, that's all, which is why the drums are always so loud.

But they were then the stuff they were bringing to you that they were bringing to the sessions that they had done prior. Did you find that that stuff was already the way they wanted it?

Sometimes, so we had to work, you know, early on, especially before technology caught up, we had to tweak things a lot.

Yeah, so, emir, like the.

In a lot of hip hop'tensional clashing going on, right and then and then there's this whole idea of tuning the samples so that they make more musical sense.

So where is that that was?

I believe that's Bob's entry now with uh Nix Susanna who works with Bob at n Yu.

Being the.

Works, he's my boss. Okay, what a preck.

Nick love your guy.

I was like, clean that up.

No. Yeah, So Nick the Santo's uh you know, his his his the beauty and in his work was it was like throw everything on the wall and see what happens. And you know, Nick did practically every Bomb Squad associated album from Nation to Millions to Fear of a Black Planet to America Yes he dies, Unberser and Black Teenagers. And a side note, Nick said that they would.

Pre sequence all their things like they did no fading and no cuts, nothing was automated, so everything was pre programmed.

Wow.

And I got to see the note production note sheets from Nation to Millions and like, I mean they were literally like at four minutes and thirty two point five seconds, here comes the one, two, three, four, five six kick it from base Heads to Like they pre programmed everything so as you heard it, that's how it was. Like. So that's why Eric Sadler gets a lot of a lot of praise there. But yeah, I mean your entry was basically to strip it down and to bring it forth, and it made it louder.

I guess the less elements you have now, Knicks mixes are crowded and noisier, but everything's compressed and small. But that's also pe you know. Like, guys, what I do is exactly like being a musician. And you play the gig. You don't play your chops. You play the gig, you get there what the music is playing, and you play the music. You don't play your own shit.

You know. So you never had scratched once, like when you first a lot. I'll let you relaxations like where's the fourth bar? A lot A lot. But you know that's part of learning, man.

It's incumbent upon one as a practitioner to kind of understand the ethic of.

The music that's going on. You don't make it come to you. You have to go to it. Such a wise man. Okay, another thing, Bob, Bob, do you have the cane out there? Did I live?

It's next to your walker? That no, Bob?

When you worked on loew In theory, that was awesome. Okay, Bob, you could. I could keep you for another twelve hours, but let's come back and do it again. Yeah, let's save something for three years from now.

Bob.

I want to thank you very much. I appreciate everything that you've done for music, for me, and for the culture. Hashtag for the culture.

I can say exactly the same about you. Thank you man, I appreciate it all right.

Uh.

I always feel the need to end these shows with lessons. What do we learn from Bob Power? We learned that we will never hear any conflict stories of none of his artist ever.

Never.

If you work with Bob Power, I think your reputation is safe. Well, he won't allow you to do anything salacious in his studio sessions anyway. So you know, I was hoping to get like one, you know, leaders of the New School tribe fight story or something, but that that wasn't happening. Classic class act is protect class and is my mom as well. Uh yeah, so shout out to uh. I've learned that Bob Power uh protects all of his clients and loves them very very much. What else did we learn?

He also gives them most of all the credit for all the work. You know, really kept emphasizing that, Yeah.

He kind of made me feel important when I knew good and well that you know Bob was making on Like Bob would never let you touch a button, like you would have to present a case, get a lawyer. Just to add a little, just to add a little.

Reverb to a song.

It was like, I don't know if it calls for that dam here anyway. This is a Questlove of Quest Love Supreme. Be safe, ladies and gentlemen. I hope to see you now. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode. It was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.