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