Another Celebrity Beat Battle brought to you by iStandard @ Don Hill’s. Sean C & LV, Scram Jones, Statik Selektah, Chris Styles and DJ Green Lantern compete with a known track and a new beat. To satisfy the Youtube 10 minute per clip rule I left out the known track and most of the cheering (that shit went on forever).

who do ya’ll think really won?

Emilio Rojas and DJ Green Lantern chop it up in the studio about their upcoming project “The Natural,” and Green puts Emilio on the spot for some bars…the tape’s lead single “Bold And Arrogant,” …

Call me crazy but Rojas would sound kind of dope next to The Kid Daytona. Props to Onsmash.

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”

As Told to Jerry L. Barrow

My man Horse from the Bravehearts is one of Nas’ homeys and he reached out saying Nas was trying to get in touch with us. Then M called me and said Nas wanted us to come and work with him on the Nigga album. We naturally assumed he wanted us to do a song with him, lyrically. So we went to LA with a pen and a pad. We were playing him different stuff we had come up with, and he said “nah, I don’t want to take yalls stuff.” We were playing him the lyrics and hooks. He said, “that’s hot but I need a beat for a concept.” He wanted to get at Fox, or he wanted to salute Farrakhan. Eventually we realized he didn’t want us to rap, he wanted a production. He didn’t say it directly, but indirectly. Every time we would write he would say “that’s hot” and then move to something else. Once we talked and realized he wanted a production, we got in production mode. (Laughing)

Luckily he chose 3 joints. The “We’re Not Alone” joint, I already had it. I just had it sitting in the crate for Information Age, and thought “man, I would love to see Nas spit on this so let me play it.” He liked it, so it worked. “Sly Fox” we made that from scratch. My wife’s cousin came to play the guitar, this cat named 0-1. We added some rock shit, because he wanted to get at Fox. We helped him co-write it and give ideas. I wrote the hook for that. The Farrakhan joint was the last song. He called me the day before and said he needed something for Farrakhan by that night. I went in and did what I felt. I already had done 2 joints so I didn’t think the thirds one was going to make it. I sent it to him at 10pm and he called at 12am. He hit me and said “I already recorded it.”

As a fan of Nas, as a fan of real music, and as a beginning baby producer- that was such a blessing to me. It definitely did not make me cocky about nothing because there are so many things I would have improved on, had more time or more involvement in it. I just respect the fact that he had asked us to do it. I mean I had more ideas; but I didn’t want to burn my bridges. I think the album did good. It went Gold at least. It was a blessing. I am still working on my production craft and trying to do bigger and better things.

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.

Green Lantern is easily one of the most in-demand DJs and producers in the game, but he grew up listening and idolizing Pete Rock, the man behind classics like “T.R.O.Y” and Public Enemy’s “Shut Em Down” remix. The two worked together for the first time on “Don’t Be Mad” from Pete Rock’s new CD New York’s Finest. So in celebration of Black Music Month we were able to eavesdrop on a one-of-a-kind meeting between two of hip-hop’s best producers, bar none.

Nodfactor: Is the song “Don’t Be Mad” the beginning for you two? What’s your history together?
Green Lantern: I used to listen to his stuff when I was trying to make something. It was years ago. I dunno when it was but I know that I’m the only outside producer on Pete Rock’s new album…
Pete Rock: You made a beat that I like, that’s a given. When I make beats it’s to touch the inner soul so when I heard that beat it just did something, made me feel like rhyming. So when I felt like that I said I gotta get that.
Were you actively looking for other beats?
PR: Nah, just came across it. He sent me a couple through email and out of the couple that one stood out the most.
How did you record it?
PR: I did it at home. I got ProTools at home. I wrote it and I wanted him to hear it. I think I sent it to you…
GL: Yeah, I started playing the rough version on the radio [laughs] So I was like ‘this has definitely gotta go on the album now, I’m playing it on the radio.’
PR: It came out to be a real nice mix. He didn’t find the real beat so I had to two-track it.
GL:I never tracked the beat. When you make a beat you have to track out all the different sounds and sometimes I just don’t do that. Partly that comes from not willing to have someone mess with the mix. To have somebody have that kick and that snare—That wasn’t the case here, we trade sounds all the time—I happened to not track this one and he was like ‘let me get the ProTools to this joint so I can do the mix’ and I was like ‘I ain’t got it but I know you can do wonders with that two-track.’ YOU can do it.
PR: And I could tell that he did it in a mode too, cuz when I mixed it it was too perfect.
GL: That was just a classic chop of that sample…

Sampling is getting expensive but is it better sometimes to take the raw original rather than replaying?
PR: It’s always good to do it raw but in the game we in today we gotta play stuff over. If you have a sample that’s dope and the artist likes it… but if we can’t clear the sample you gotta re-do it.
GL: With the technology and replay guys, I got three or four replay guys that are just amazing. With plug-ins and all that it can sound better than the original.
When do you decide that this sample sounds too good and I’m putting it out anyway?
PR: That’s the greatness of being independent. There are some songs you can’t clear and you make a decision, screw that. This is a dope song. And when the audience reacts to the beat you say screw that and give it to the people.
How much do you have to clear classic breaks? For example 914 uses the Skull Snaps drums , but everybody and their mother has used it.
PR: Well with sample clearance you do have to clear that stuff cuz its noticeable drums. IT’s one of those drums people always be using. The kick, the snare, the hi-hat. If you’re an anal producer like me each snare sounds different. Each hi-hat and kick sounds different..
GL: Those are the people record companies hire to be musicologists to say “I know that snare, that snare is….”
That’s the Meter’s snare…
PR: Right. I’m glad you used Skull Snaps as [an example] because that’s just one of PLENTY.
GL. As much as Impeach The President has been used and chopped up and redone, in the early days when it was just SP-1200 it had a certain EQ to it. “Top Billin” sounds way different than if you were to sample it right now directly.
PR: The original don’t sound nothing like it…
GL But if you know those sounds you’re gonna be able to hear it whether its filtered, chopped up or EQ’d You gotta be on top of your game, or else you gonna be in court.

How much digging do you still do in record stores and how much do you get off the ‘net?
PR: I try to dig like every other day. Everyday is impossible if you have a schedule to abide by. If you’re traveling and out of town in places like Chicago or D.C. they got record stores that are dope. You take an hour or two and end up spending five or six.
Do you find it helpful when you have the compilations like “Dusty Fingers” or does it make it too easy?
PR: It’s for the lazy producers that just wanna snatch something but sometimes I’ll snatch something off them things. But I like finding the originals. I feel like I have something more valuable. They’re not putting the originals back out there.
GL: Sometimes the digging has moved online a little bit. There are blogs out there that post these rare records that you’ll probably never find in your digging hunts. But somebody has digitized it with the album cover…this is not for sampling, it’s for audiophiles that just appreciate the music. That’s a whole other form of digging now. It still comes down to how you use it anyway.
Of course. But a copy of “Smiling Billy” was going for a ridiculous amount of money at one point but every body has the file now.
GL: If record collecting means something to you then it will [matter]. I have a copy of Bob James’ Two with the titles blacked out from back when you used to cut up Mardis Gras and didn’t’ want anyone to know what you were cutting up
PR: I gotta copy of Bob James’ Two made in Jamaica. That bugged me out.

I don’t want to call out the sample police but you did something really great to a classic on “We Roll.” How the heck did you chop that?
PR: After all these years it’s like I just made the beat. I didn’t do nothing. But other people take its like “wow.” I just added an 808, put a bass line way underneath so its really low, but it brings the original bass line out a little bit on the record. I did that, put an 808 in there and …
GL: You did the damn thing!!
Ya’ll make it look easy but we listen to that song and…especially when it’s a chop.
PR: It’s really about your truncation too to make a beat flow really good. When you chop up the sample and fit it to your comfort. Making sure each piece of the sample that connects that there’s no air pockets.
GL: In like “one shot” mode you gotta assign your outs of whatever pad it is…say you have a kick and a snare, you can’t just cut the kick off. You have to have the air after the kick that leads into the snare or else you’ll have blip, blip, blip… That’s what used to annoy me about mid to late 80s production. Three Times Dope to me was dope, but when you’d hear them kicks and snares it would annoy me cuz it was chopped too quick. It was a learning stage back then. Then it started getting cleaner and cleaner and by 90, 91, 92 you had Pete Rock and Lord Finesse chopping drums then we came in and fucked it all up.
Pete, how do you think your style has changed from “T.R.OY.” to “Til I Retire”?
I just listen to whats going on around me and the hand claps, cowbells. They’re bringing back a lot of those old drums sounds. Now they bringing back all the classic drum machine sounds. I think that’s the dopest idea. We still got old drum machines that’s all broken up and twisted that we gotta keep bringing to the shop. Fuck it, just give us the sounds again..
I saw your old SP-12 in the crib..
PR:I got like four or five of them joints, I got three or four MPs. I love equipment. I love records, DJing.
Have you checked out the MPC-5000 yet?
PR:Naw, I emailed Roger Linn and he told me about the stuff he put in there.
It you really have to understand the manual from A to Z, and keeping reading it. That’s the only way to understand a brand new drum machine. That’s how it worked with the SP.
What are some of your favorites on the new album?
“Don’t Be Mad” the Jim Jones track, the Little Brother, the Royal Flush, the Redman joint…those were some of my favorites.
I saw you had DMC at the video shoot for “Til I Retire.” How was that reunion?
PR:It was like rekindling old shit up. We had dumb fun on the “Down With The King” video set, we toured with them. I used to run around the street buying their records with no money.
Green, what was the first Pete Rock beat you heard?
GL: The “Slow Down” remix and the “Rampage” remix for EPMD. Then “Mecca And The Soul Brother.” The song “Creator” was cool to me but what had me going was the jazz stuff and floating horns, and the bass line.
How do you know when to use a classic break or program the drums yourself?
GL: Sometimes if I’m making something or playing something and want to fill it out I won’t program the drums, I’ll go get a break and chop it because of the fullness of the break, because of the air between the kicks and the snair. It might make some choppy simple thing come to life because its real drums behind it.
PR: You want your drums to sound together, not a loop.
You’re both known for your remixes. What makes a really good remix?
GL: Excitement. If you can make people go “oh shit.” I judge every remix that I ever do off of the “Shut Em Down” remix. The feeling that you get when you heard the original then that came on…that’s it. If it don’t feel anywhere close to that I’m moving on.
I just put a twist on it. This interviewer told me that I was the King of Continuity. When you take three different things that mean the same thing and put them together. If I’m doing something about money, I’ll take the beat from 50 Cent “I Get Money” with Junior Mafia’s “Get Money” that’s a real simple example. Then I’d go and get adlibs from different people talking about money and make it something you want to play 100 times over.
PR: Also listening to the original mix and saying, I’m gonna kill this remix. I’m gonna do something to make their head turn. You always want to top something somebody else did. Not in a disrespectful way,…that’s simple but watch THIS. The Bomb Squad loved me for that, and I love Hank Schocklee…
GL:Yeah, and that was at the tail-end of the Bob Squad era. That was after “Night of the Living Baseheads” and the million samples in a record. “Shut Em Down” original was pretty bare and then here he comes…
PR: With the orchestrated horns, bassline…orchestrated everything…
GL: But it had a Bomb Squad feeling with the floating horns, the sax…
PR: They were a big inspiration to me, Hank and Keith. They just scored American Gangster.
Any film scoring in the future for you two?
Yes, but nothing I can speak on. Marvel is putting out a comic book, sketching me up as a character. I don’t want to say the name yet. Don’t want nobody rushing me for that. I’m excited about that.
Pete, are you still doing the Tango and Cash album with Doo-Wop?
PR! Yeah!
GL: Doo-Wop is super underrated as a rapper. He raps better than rappers that do it professionally.
PR: The stuff we’re doing is the first thing with him doing a lot of rapping.
GL: I’m gonna have a beat on there, they don’t know it yet.
PR: You know you down!
And what about you Green, what’s the next phase of the invasion?
GL: I started a group with an artist named Johnny Polygon. Our group is called The Cleaners, based on the characters in Pulp Fiction and Point of No Return type movies that come in with acid and kills everything. It’s real dark and moody soundtrack music. We’re gonna be doing live shows with a percussion cage on stage with cymbals, an MPC and turntables. It’s just music expanding.

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

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