9th wonder interview:
http://www.sohh.com/thecore/read.php?contentID=5199&pageID=3" TARGET="_blank">
www.sohh.com/thecore/read.php?contentID=5199&pageID=3So you´re a new producer who just delivered one of hip-hop´s most thrilling debuts in a while. The critics love you, the fans cheer for you, and hip hop VIPs like ?uestlove, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier support you. What´s your next step? For 9th Wonder, one third of
North Carolina´s Little Brother, you produce a track on hip-hop demigod
Jay-Z´s last album,
The Black Album. With Jay´s seal of approval, 9th is on his way to become a household name. MCs, DJs and record labels: be prepared to catch the vapors.
Has
Nas contacted you about
God´s Stepson?
Nah, man. Not yet. He has it and hopefully he´ll get with me. I got my dream kind of early by working with Jay-Z. That was one of the cats I dreamed of working with because you don´t have to coach him when it comes to rapping and MCing.
As far as Nas is concerned, he hasn´t heard it. He has but I don´t know what he thinks about it. I did the sh!t in a weekend, man. I did that sh!t in two and a half days. ni99as are like you should´ve left it alone. Gimme a goddamn break, its hip-hop, man please. I´m trying to see what he says because I got some sh!t for Nas. It will be very bad for him, his A&R or whoever for him to be like, "OK 9th Wonder/Jay-Z album, and if he´s on the Jay album that ni99a must be dope." Don´t do that. That´s the great thing about Jay-Z he breaks new producers. He can hear talent.
Jay-Z signed
Kanye West and
Just Blaze to
Roc the World Productions when they were nobodies.
Exactly. That sh!t is unbelievable. He liked what they had and he made probably one of the best hip-hop records ever made with Blueprint with three no name a** motherf#@$ers. Trackmasters had a track, who gave a f#@$ about that sh!t? Timbaland had a track, it was OK. Eminem had a track, which was dope. But they shaped the sound of that record and f#@$ed the game up. Now here comes a ni99a like me comes along. He don´t know me from atom, man.
So with the leverage Jay is going to give you, do you see yourself producing for bigger names?
You see Jay has so much power, man. Cats don´t understand. I did the Little Brother record, I did God´s Stepson, I did all the other acts in the Justus League but after that I sold a beat to
Masta Ace for his new album in like two, three months. My next industry sale was Jay-Z. I have not sold a beat to anyone else. I got a lot of calls. Yeah man, you know we want you to remix OC´s new project, and KRS. Cats were hollering at me but never a definite thing, never any follow-ups. So I jumped from Masta Ace to Jay-Z. He´s on top of the rap food chain. Where do I go from now? If I get an endorsement from Jay-Z the rest should be easy. I did a track for Jay-Z doing what I do. I chop records. I´m the vintage sh!t motherf#@$er. I´ll take that slot, which goes back to being the next Pete or Premo.
Detail how the Jay collaboration came to life.
It was the day before Hurricane Isabel came through. Isabel was supposed to hit North Carolina on a Thursday. On Wednesday afternoon, we were getting ready for the hurricane; you know I got a wife and a little girl. I was arguing about music with somebody on the phone. Five minutes later I get a call from my man Jonathan.
He said, "What you doing?" I said, "I´m chilling, what´s up?" He said, "Man, guess who wants to hear beats?" I said, "Who?" He said, "Jay-Z." I said, "Whatever." He said, "I´ll call you back in five minutes."
When he called me back he had Young Guru on the phone. I talked to Young Guru. I told Young, "What do you think I should do? Do you think I should send the beats?" He said, "Nah ni99a come up here."
Immediately I called ?uest. I said
?uestlove, I don´t know where you are but you need to call Jay and tell him that I´m coming up and talk to him. He did call him, he two-wayed him. I came up here on a Saturday morning.
?uestlove put me on train and sent me to Philly and I watched a jam session. Came back, a good friend of mine Sean Don of the
Justus League and his girlfriend live in the Bronx. They came down. My wife and his girlfriend went to see The Fighting Temptations, ain´t that funny. So me and Sean Don were trying to hail a cab to go to Baseline Studios. We got there.
That night I had 89 beats. I had four beat CDs, the first one had 29 beats. We came in and sat in the poolroom, talking to Jay-Z´s bodyguard. Then
Guru came in, dapped him up. He said, "We´re mixing down a song, I´mma come back and get you and let Jay hear your sh!t." scared as f#@$.
He said, "He´s ready for you." Then me, Sean Don and Jonathan walked back there. Jay was sitting on the countertop with a CD player. I said, "What´s going man?" He said, "You come highly regarded by Ahmir. He told me to say what´s up. Word up man let´s hear what you got."
I got to track three he was floored. I played one joint, and he looked back at Guru like . I´m sitting in front of him. I´m pokerfaced the whole time. After it was done I said that´s it for the first CD. He was like, "first CD?" I said, "Yeah I brought three more." He was like "what?" I said, "I´m not lying man." He said, "How many beats you got?" I said, "I got four beat CDs. You heard the first one." He said, "I can´t listen to beats all night, man. What else you got? Before you do that go back to three, six, nine, ten." He started labeling them. Every time he heard a joint he looked down at the number. So we went back through the CD and he said, "I got number 19."
When he´s in Baseline he turns those sh!ts up loud. He´s like "Yo turn it off." He´s like "What´s your story, man?" I told him where I was from, who my group was. He was like, "Man, I haven´t heard a beat CD that consisted of stuff like that. What you doing tomorrow?" I said, "What I need to be doing tomorrow?" He said, "How long you here?" I said, "How long I need to be here?" Mind you, on that Monday September 22, we were supposed to be leaving to go on tour. He said, "Aight, Monday, Tuesday we can get down." He jumped off the counter and I stood up with him. He said, "Congratulations." I said, "Thank you." He left but 30 seconds later he busted back through the door and he like, "yo man, can I have that beat CD back? I gotta get that joint to ride home too." I gave it to him and that was it.
You also chilled with
Pete Rock. How did you get to meet him?
Grap Lover heard The Listening from Spinna who heard it from Groove Attack who heard it from J Rawls. So Grap Lover got the album and went home for a Jets game one weekend. He let his brother listen to it. They listened to it four times straight through. They called Phonte Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2002. Phonte called me and said, "What ´cha doing?" I said, "I ain´t doing sh!t." He said, "ni99a, hold on." He calls his voicemail and clicks back over, "One new message sent today at 2:52 P.M.: ´Yo, yo what up? I´m trying to get in touch with Little Brother. This is the Soul Brother No. 1 Pete Rock.´ Me and him are on the phone and I´m like, "play it again." We were just silent on the phone. I called half of the Justus League that night to play it for them.
The next day Phonte quit his job. That Thursday Grap Lover had e-mailed me so I e-mailed him back. I called him and we talked for two hours. I got the story on how the Das Efx remix was made, how "Shut´em Down" was made. I got all the cla**ic stories. He said, "I live in Maryland but I´m going home today to be with my brother in Mount Vernon." He said, "man why don´t I call you when I get there." I said, "aight."
That was like 1 o´clock that day. The phone rings at like 9:30 P.M. I look at the phone, sh!t said Greg Phillips. I said, "Hello." Grap says, "What´s up 9th? I got someone that wanna talk to you." Pete said, "what up, baby?" Maaaan! We talked for 30 minutes. That was the realest conversation I had in my life with a rap ni99a. He was like "I heard that joint ´Speed.´" He started beat boxing the joint. He said, "You in my veins boy, you in my veins." I said, "When can I come see you?" He said when you wanna come? He´s like I´m trying to f#@$ with y´all on my next
Soul Survivor project. Call me when you wanna come."
December 20th we had a show in Charlotte. We left, stopped by Maryland picked up Grap. Saturday night we were in Spring Valley across the bridge going to Palisades to Pete Rock´s crib. That motherf#@$er played beats from 9:45 P.M. to 5:30 in the morning. We stood there like five jacka**es and listened to all those beats. He did sh!t like this. He brought out records and it´ll be some crazy French sh!t. Then he´d point at the record and it´ll break out into a sample he used. We were like, "ahh sh!t!" The night after that we slept downstairs in the basement. Phonte slept besides two SPs. The next night we went to
Marley Marl´s crib for Future Flavas. I was like man it cannot get better than this. A year later I ended up playing tracks for Jay. It´s been an unbelievable ride.
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[ This message was edited by: fahfee on 02-11-2003 06:39 ]
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