Sitdown With DJ Premier & Pete Rock [VIDEO]

DJPremierblog posted this bonus interview from the DJ Premier vs Pete Rock DVD released in Japan. So much history dropped in this hour-long chat. Required watching if you’re born after 1985.

Among other things Premier talks about making the early Gangstarr recordings like “Words I Manifest” “Jazz Music” and how he got out of his first recording contract with Wild Pitch records that “signed his life away.”

Pete talks about making his classic remixes like House Of Pain’s “Jump Around” and they both talk about working on Nas’ Illmatic.

Sitdown With DJ Premier & Pete Rock from DJPremierBlog on Vimeo.

Sitdown With DJ Premier & Pete Rock from DJPremierBlog on Vimeo.

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Hydrosonics: Aliby

Canada, specifically Toronto has been on a tear in the music industry over the last couple of years. With the emergence of mega stars Drake and Justin Bieber our northern neighbors have staked a claim on the music industry but it doesn’t stop there. The less publicized part of their success stems from the crafters of the songs the nation plays. There’s August Rigo credited with writing Justin Bieber’s “U Smile”, there’s Boi 1da producer behind Drake and Eminem’s lead singles, and there’s 40 the in house producer for Drake, the one who has had as big of a role as anyone else in cultivating his patented sound. Well allow Nodfactor to bring you the next producer from T-Dot that will be taking the industry by storm, everyone meet Aliby.

Nodfactor: First off lets introduce you to the people and let them know what you’ve worked on to date

Aliby: Well I go by Aliby, right now I’m working with Sean Garrett, Jahvon who’s signed to Beluga Heights, Belly, I did a beat and hook for Nipsey’s new album besides that I’m just shopping records and trying to make good music

Nodfactor: How did the Sean Garrett link come about?

Aliby: My manager T. Slack he lined me up with Garrett, said to send him some music and that he was lookin for bangers. He got back to me told me the tracks were cool and I made it a personal goal to build up that contact and just constantly hit him up letting him know if he needed something, whatever he needed I’d send it to him. So about after 3-4 months of building he hit me asking for tracks and I sent him a batch of beats and from there he flew me down to New York and we got in the studio and just started working.

Nodfactor: What’s the studio experience been like?

Aliby: Positive. The energy him and his team have is crazy! Like the second you play a beat Sean just goes nuts, it’s like some Jay-Z shit cause one minute he’s sitting there quietly and the next minute a beat comes on and he’s standing up singing the song, like he’s freestyling it. It really has been an insane learning experience.

Nodfactor: What’s your relationship with Jahvon?

Aliby: I started with Jahvon by doing a single for him called “Hypebeast”. It’s funny cause it broke on to radio in Toronto and we got a lot of mixshow and mixtape love, it was playing in Belgium and across Europe. I’d even walk into a clothing store in Toronto and I’d be hearing the beat for “Hypebeast” mashed up with Jackson 5.

Nodfactor: So it was really organic how it took off

Aliby: Yeah and it’s crazy cause we just put it out as kind of an internet buzz single, I mean there’s no hook, its under 3 minutes, it’s completely anti radio format, I can’t even believe it did what it did. From there he started working with Boi 1da and then he got signed to Beluga and it’s just been hands on trying to put the right records together so we can put out his mixtape “The Look Book”.

Nodfactor: Are you doing most of the production?

Aliby: Na. Jr Rotem, myself, and Arthur McArthur are the main producers on it. It’s an insane situation, I just wanna be in the studio ya know, having Jr Rotem around and Zack Katz they’ve been giving me a lot of feedback a lot of guidance on my sound and where I should take the direction of a record. It’s just been a crazy learning experience with them as well.

Nodfactor: It’s really been a whirl wind of success for you. Your introduction to the industry has been kind of brief, things have happened really fast.

Aliby: Yea since March, that’s when I signed with my manager T. Slack of Bigger Picture Entertainment. I don’t even know where the time went, I look back now and think of when I signed with T. Slack my folder was at like 40-50 tops 60 beats now I’ve got a folder with 400 beats in it, it’s crazy.

Nodactor: So how did you meet T. Slack?

Aliby: I just met him on twitter. I saw him tweet something I worked on so I just hit him up like yo I produced that I’d love to get some music to you. So I sent him a package of like 40 beats and he hit me back like saying that the music was crazy and he wanted to sign me. He really believes in my craft and what I have to offer.

Nodfactor: Let’s talk about your sound. Beyond the usual names like Dre or Kanye who are some of the muscial acts that influence your style?

Aliby: I listen to everything. I always loved Motown, old soul music, Willie Hutch is like my favorite singer from that era. Nirvana was a big influence for me, that whole Seattle grunge scene is a big influence for the rock records that I do. I know you don’t wanna hear the top ones but Just Blaze, you listen to the records he did on the Blueprint, when that came out it was just a turning point for me and music. Even to this day when I sample there’s a bit of that kind of vibe, that energy in a fresh kind of new medium.

Nodfactor: Speaking of sampling there’s been a lot of controversy this year over the Haddaway sample Just used on Em’s “No Love” record. A lot of people criticized him for it, they argue that sampling should be done in the more traditional sense, say like RZA where you take an obscure sample and tune it to the point where no one can regonize it. I personally feel different I like when producers take a recognizeable sample and just freak it, so what are your thoughts or you have a preferred method?

Aliby: To me if you segregate and divide how your going to be creative, your not really being creative. There should be no boundaries. Sample how you want.

Nodfactor: You have your own company that you’re currently building, Aliby Music Entertainment, are you currently looking for any writers/artists/producers?

Aliby: Yea I’m always interested in new talent, networking with new producers. You can never have enough song writers, unless every song on the radio is yours you’re never going to have enough song writers.

Nodfactor: What would be the easiest way for people to get in touch with you?

Aliby: Just hit me up at [email protected]. Send beats, send songs, whatever, I’m always down to work. Also if you want to reach out you can hit me on twitter @alibeezay.

Nodfactor: What advice would you give to up coming producers?

Aliby: Work hard and never send out music that’s a maybe. Make sure before you press the send button that the quality isn’t 99%. For me in the past 6 months I had to change my mind frame, now everything has to be perfect before it goes. You gotta give it everything, go in. I barely sleep, I’m in the studio all day I’m in the studio all night if I’m not at mine I’m at another studio and if I’m not there I’m traveling to work with artists.

Nodfactor: Anything else you would like to add?

Aliby: The way the industry is if you really really want it you have to devote your entire life. I’m just lucky I have family and friends that understand that.

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VIDEO: Nodfactor.com Year In Review

2009 was a breakthrough year for Nodfactor.com. I’d like to thank everyone who lent their time to impart knowledge and spread the gospel of hip-hop production and DJing and aid in our unprecedented growth.

If you’re new to the site here is a quick recap of the faces and places we covered in ’09. Look out for more in 2010!

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VIDEO: Nodfactor Interviews DJ JS-1

Rock Steady Crew’s DJ JS-1 came through to talk about his new project, No Sellout, his evolution from DJ to producer and what it was like scratching up Dean Martin records on Regis & Kelly. He makes some pretty poignant observations about the business of DJing and making records.

Nodfactor Interviews DJ JS-1 from Jerry Barrow on Vimeo.

In Part 2 JS-1 Talks about working the KRS-One and Ultramagnetic MCs

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DJ Scratch: Can’t Tell Me Nothin’ Part 2

I don’t believe in excuses so I’ll just apologize to you all and DJ Scratch for waiting this long to put out part 2 of our interview. But after you read it you’ll see that it’s just as timeless as his catalog.

Nodfactor.com: One signature of your beats are horns but they’re not like Pete Rock horns. They’re more like stabs.

DJ Scratch: My horns are stabs, you said it exactly. Pete Rock and Large Professor are the masters at horn (samples). They would take a horn and put it in all the pads and fade it down and bring it back up (mimmicks sound) da-da-da-da…I use them as stabs.

They add this dramatic element, which is why I guess you do a lot of album intros. Is that on purpose?

A lot of beats, especially with Busta, I would make a beat and I wouldn’t give him the beat unless he put it for an intro. In that first Busta run a lot of my shit sounded like movies, or a big event was about to happen. I’d tell him ‘you can’t put this shit in the middle of your album. You can’t even rhyme on this shit. This has to be the intro to your album.’ Intros are very important to an album. That’s the presentation of something great about to happen. A lot of my shit sounded like that.

I like that intro to Pharoahe’s Internal Affairs. You mentioned once that there was a “Right Here” Remix with Xzibit?

At the time Pharoahe got sued for the Godzilla sample so that deaded anything else moving from his album. But we did a West Coast edition with the same beat.

Now, there are also three different remixes to Busta’s “New York Shit”?

We did a Midwest remix with Common and Twista, a Dirty South with Three 6 Mafia, Slim Thug and Rick Ross and Rick Ross killed it! And we did a West Coast shit remix with Snoop and Dre. We did a New York Shit Remix with M.O.P. and Nas. I have all of them in my possession except the Snoop and Dre.

It’s funny how and where music ends up. How did you get those tracks on Phrenology?

Rock You - The Roots
I did two songs for Black Thought’s solo and he ended up putting them on Phrenology. For “Rock You”I’m a huge Bruce Lee fan and I was watching Fists Of Fury and I chopped up his whole fight scene: The punches, the kicks, the sword and just made a beat out of it. Just thinking to the left. I have a lot of beats like that but a lot of artists are scared of that and don’t understand it.

After all of these years you’re finally putting out an album. Tell me about, “Something To Spit To.”

It’s something I’ve always wanted to put out there. I’m putting some class A grade shit and make it different from all the other instrumental albums out there so I put skits on the album. The concept is that all of my producer friends and DJ friends are calling congratulating me for putting out an instrumental album and my MC friends are calling mad that I’m giving away these beats. After every beat there’s a phone call. Premier starts it off congratulating me and then LL calls in saying how I can give away these beats after I’ve charged him all this goddamn money for a track. I have DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Just Blaze, Diamond D, Alchemist, Kid Capri, Clark Kent, Spinderella, LL, Busta, DJ Cocoa Channel, Bumpy Knuckles and Da Beatminerz. All of these people are on this album are my real friends that I respect.

The DJ Premier drop they use is my voice from a skit on a Gang Starr album when everybody called in, “Aight Chill.” That drop has been used for everything with me saying “Premier-Premier-Premier-Premier” so he’s returning the favor. That’s my dude.

I sent out an email at around 1pm to everyone that’s on my album telling them to call this number and give your thoughts on me doing this album. By 8pm everybody called and did what I asked them to do.

You get asked to test a lot of DJ equipment before it comes out. So what are your thoughts on Serato?

When they first came out with Serato I wasn’t fuckin with it because it wasn’t accurate. For example, if you were scratching a record the cue point would move. It would drift. After like five updates they made a program in the Serato so you can adjust it to respond like real vinyl. I didn’t start using it til I started DJing for Puff. A lot of the stuff he wanted me to play wasn’t available on vinyl. He’d want me to play instrumentals of Biggie and No Way Out and I had to learn it while I was on tour. Even now I haven’t converted all of my vinyl to MP3s. The Serato shit is good, but it has its good and its bad. No you don’t have to carry crates of records but the bad thing is that it’s computer based and computers crash no matter what.

Fortunately mine hasn’t crashed but also, the main bad thing is that every body and their mother thinks they’re a DJ. Don’t get me wrong, the more DJs the better. But there are DJs now that have never owned one piece of vinyl and they’re getting booked over real DJs. And the new wave is these damn rappers that are becoming DJs because of Serato. If Jay-Z wanted to become a DJ right now he would get booked before me, DJ Premier, Jazzy Jeff or Cash Money. Not because he’s a dope DJ but they’ll hope he performs some of his songs. He could be a terrible fucking DJ. That’s part of the power struggle now. My whole thing is if rappers, if you’re gonna do this DJ shit, respect it. Respect this house. Ya’ll don’t respect the DJs when they’re DJing for your motherfuckin asses. You don’t want to put the DJ on the record cover, you don’t want to give the DJ royalties, or sign them to the same deal you have, but now you want to become a DJ because your career is over. So when you come over into our realm just respect this DJ shit.

Why haven’t you done more mixtapes?

The main reason I didn’t jump into the mixtape game is that the public makes more money off of your mixtape than you do, which didn’t make sense to me. I’ll make a beat for somebody and when it sells I get revenue, publishing, royalties. That lasts forever. You put out a mixtape and the only money you get for a mixtape is when you sell the master for x amount of dollars. But they take it and sell it out of their stores and make way more money off of it than you did. For example Kid Capris’ 52 Beats mixtape that he made 20 years ago is still selling and he don’t get a dime. They got Clue tapes from ’95 still selling over there and he don’t see a dime off of that. I do a beat and I get royalties for ever. I get licensed in a movie and that’s more money.

I’ll do one once every two years or so when I do one I want it to last. Like the EPMD Handle Your Business mixtape, people already have them but you flip it in your own special way. The concept mixtapes last forever.

The crazy shit is that I remember when mixtapes were actual mixtapes. When I found out that the mixtapes were done in the studio like a song that’s when I got turned off from it. DJ Clue is the dude that took mixtapes to a whole other level. Everyone needs to thank him. He didn’t start it, but he made it mainstream. But I went to one of his sessions and there was no turntables and dudes was recording like it was a regular song. They was like “hold up, I fucked up, punch me in.” It wasn’t even Pro Tools then, it was a two-inch. It’s a mix session, not a mix tape.

So when will we finally see this documentary on your life?

It’s hard because I’m still filming. I have twenty year old footage. The only reason I didn’t put it out is that I didn’t have enough current footage and my quest hasn’t stopped. So I got footage from me DJing for Puff and Snoop on the Puff Puff Pass tour, the TV show. I’m starting to buckled down and edit and should have something by the fall.

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DJ Scratch: Can’t Tell Me Nothin’, Part 1.

Interview By Jerry L. Barrow

I had one regret as editor of Scratch magazine: not getting the man with the mag’s namesake his much deserved cover. [Read more]

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Who Did That Beat? Drawzilla Is Raising The Standard

[Read more]

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