Video Interview: Pete Rock & Green Lantern

A few months ago Nodfactor caught up with the legendary Pete Rock and DJ Green Lantern to discuss their song from NY’s Finest, “Don’t Be Mad.” In the process I got them to share their views on samples, remixing, filtering, and everything under the sun. Watch parts 1,2, and 3 below.

JLB

Part 1, The Making of “Don’t Be Mad,” Classic Drum breaks and When to clear samples

Part 2, Making “We Roll,” Truncation, TR-808s and new sounds

Part 3, What makes a remix great and the influence of “Shut ‘Em Down”

On deck: Pharoahe Monch speaks exclusively on the influence of the late Paul C, working with Denaun Porter and his own production

Green Lantern talks Obama, Million DJ March and Rocking With a Band

Green Lantern’s power ring could use a charge. The sleep-deprived mix master is barely audible over the phone but with good reason. He’s been bouncing from city to city moving the crowd as Nas’ DJ on the Jones Experience Tour. But if anything can perk him up it’s the prospect of the first African-American President of the United States.

“This is a historic time we live in,” says the New York native who produced the track “Black President” on Nas’ latest CD. “If I can indirectly have a hand it in that’s really crazy. He’s come a long way and fought for a whole lot of things his whole life and I’m just shocked and amazed that we’re at this point with it.”

Green Lantern was originally scheduled to make a trip to Washington D.C this past weekend to attend the Million DJ March, but scheduling with the tour made that impossible. However, he is still in support of the march’s mission.

“I support the idea,” he says. “Get some health benefits and organize to a point, hold people accountable. There’s strength in numbers.”

Green Lantern is also putting the finishing touches on a Barack Obama mixtape but has taken his time putting it out for obvious reasons. His friend Ludacris was lambasted in the press for calling Hillary Clinton a “bitch” in a pro-Obama mixtape song.

“The Republicans have their agenda which is to test [Barack] ‘That’s your homey, right? That’s your man?’ So he has to go ‘hold up.’ I think it would have been taken lighter if he was already in the office,” says Green Lantern. “Right now he’s under a lot of scrutiny to be the perfect person. But in hip-hop we use aggressive language. By saying stuff like that to a hip-hop audience they’re not flynching. But to larger society where everything is so proper they go ‘oh my God!’”

Nevertheless, Green has made the appropriate adjustments for his own collection of pro-Obama songs.

“I just wanted it to be something that he could stand behind all of the songs,” he says of the delay in making the tape. “I was getting verses from people and had to go back and say ‘yo, this is a little over the stop,’ so I was waiting for the revisions and a lot of them never came. I gotta keep it movin’. I don’t want to put anything out that he can’t be next to.”

Green also talked about the hurdles in rocking a show like Rock The Bells with a live band, as Nas has done at certain stops on the tour.

“I was just a little worried about the sound at the venue,” he shares. “Having all of those different acts and then a band, it’s so hard for a soundman to setup and get a sound check, that’s why it took so long. There was a big gap before we came on. Rock The Bells for the most part is two turntables and a mic. So when you have a bass player, keyboard and drums, all these different inputs have to be leveled before you start playing or else you’ll sound crazy. I was concerned with that but we pulled it off. We’ve been using the band sporadically. We did a show at Webster Hall in New York with the band it sounded better than at Jones Beach.”

After the tour Green Lantern will be promoting shows for the Grand Theft Auto soundtrack that he has produced, but you can check him every Monday night on his “Team Invasion” show on Sirius Satellite radio with host Sharon Divine.

Pete Rock and Green Lantern: Let The Beat Build

Hip-hop is built on moments. Some of them by accident, some of them planned, others are a mix of both. “Pete Rock is coming here?” Green Lantern said when told the Chocolate Boy Wonder was running late to his studio. While promoting Grand Theft Auto 4 with GL The Urban Daily (my day job) asked Pete Rock to meet us at Green Lantern’s midtown studio, but neglected to tell the Evil Genius. Oops. Our Bad. Mt. Vernon’s finest was stuck in traffic but GL shrugged it off. “Come on, it’s Pete Rock! How I’m not gonna wait for Pete Rock?” [Read more]

Nas and DJ Green Lantern Release N*gger Mixtape

That man Eskay over at Nahright.com doesn’t sleep. He posted this link of Nas and Green Lantern’s The N*gger Tape. It’s all one long MP3 but should be worth a listen. Cuts like “Black President” and “Hero” have been leaking for the past few days so I guess this will feed the wolves until the album drops. Download it here.

1. Intro
2. Gangsta Rap rmx.(Prod by Dj Greenlantern)
3. Cops Keep Firing (Prod. By Dj Greenlantern)
4. Hero (Prod by Polow Da Don)
5. Black President (Prod. By Dj Greenlantern)
6.Association (feat. and Prod. by Stic Man of Dead Prez)
7. Legendary (Mike Tyson)..(Prod by Salaam Remi)
8. Ghetto rmx feat. Joell Ortiz (Prod by Dj Greenlantern.
9. Seen it All (Green Mix)
10. Esco Let’s Go (Full Song).(Prod by Dj Khallil)
11. N.I.G.G.E.R. (Slave and Master). (Prod by Dj Toomp)
12 “Be a Nigger too” rmx feat. Dante Hawkins (Prod. by Dj Greenlantern)
13. Surviving the times (Original Cool and Dre Version)
14. Nas Timeline mixed by Statik Selektah (Nararated by Nas)
15. Outro feat. Richard Pryor

DJ Green Lantern: “Of course Hip-Hop Deserves its own Guitar Hero.”

In an up-coming interview with Radio-One’s Theurbandaily.com DJ/Producer Green Lantern spoke candidly about his role in Grand Theft Auto 4, producing for Pete Rock and whether the hip-hop game needs its own game.

“I have no comment and that may be because I have something in development,” Green Lantern teases when asked if hip-hop is ready for its own version of the popular Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games. “But of course we deserve it. If you can have a Rock Band then why not a DJ Hero or an MC Hero, or whatever it would be named because MC Hero [would sound] really corny.”

The popular producer for Busta Rhymes and Ludacris was tapped by the folks at Rock Star Games to host his own channel of original music in the up-coming Grand Theft Auto 4, which is based in his native New York City.

“It’s the first time they put that much responsibility in somebody’s hands,” he says proudly. While he is mum on whether he makes an appearance in the game he adds, “There’s some real legendary, relevant individuals in the game. They have some surprises.”

In addition to his work with Rock Star, Green Lantern was recently featured as the only outside producer on Pete Rock’s New York’s Finest, giving him the beat for “Don’t Be Mad.” He is also currently working on a Barack Obama mixtape with Russell Simmons.

“It’s not like [Obama] is officially endorsing it,” he clarifies. “But I’m going to make it real easy for him to stand next to the music that’s on it. It’s the first time a presidential candidate has had a mixtape.”

As a special surprise, Green Lantern was joined by Pete Rock in his studio halfway through the interview. Keep checking back to Nodfactor.com and the soon to be launched TheUrbandaily.com for exclusive video from that sit-down between two of New York’s finest.

-Jerry L. Barrow