[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, guys, it's Angela, the host of Creative Architects by Castos. Today we're doing a little something different. We have a bonus episode from our friends over at The Chop Shop, which is a music production podcast. Join music producers DJ React and Eddie James as they sit down and chop it up with some of the most prolific musicians, producers and audio engineers in the business.
React is a veteran DJ and producer who has worked on projects with the likes of D Twelve, Danon Porter, DJ Ed on Eminem's Shade 45 channel on Sirius XM and was the official DJ for the New York Jets. Eddie James is a staple in the hip hop community who has produced music for multi platinum rapper Jadakiss Joe Budden, Big Daddy Kane, Queen Latifah and so many more.
In this episode that we're sharing today, enjoy this clip of The Chop Shop with five time Grammy Award winning Focus, the son of Bernard Edwards SR. The bassist from the group Chic. It was Dr. Dre who recognized his talent and skills, which is why in 2001, he signed him as a staff producer for Aftermath. Dr. Dre, Beyonce, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson, Pock, the Game, Snoop Dogg and so many more are among the artists that focus three Dots has produced music for. Listen to this episode and more at www.officialchopshoppod.com and stream wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: You are the son of a legend. A legend. And I have a quick little story about your father, mr. Bernard Edwards, super duper producer. One of the illest basses that I've ever heard in my life. A guy who really changed my life, so to speak. Like for real. Like those records that he was a part of with Chic from Sister Sledge.
If you want to go in the 80s, early Eighty s, the David Bowie Records, he literally resurrected, along with Niall Rogers, his partner Diana Ross's career. I believe she didn't have many records until that Diana record came out.
That's what I think. So here's the funny thing. When I was younger, me and my brother, we would act as see the guys on the album covers. I saw Ray Parker Jr. And know, I was like, I want to be Ray Parker Jr. My brother was like, Nah, he was older than me. He was like, I'm Ray Parker, and you pick one of the rest of the guys, right? I was like, all right, I guess I'm somebody in Radio, whoever. And then there was, you know, and then Brothers Johnson, but let's get yeah. So I already knew my brother was like, going to say, I'm Niall Rogers. He found on the credits that the guitar, like the league guitar, and that's what he wanted. So I was like, I'm the other dude. Because I'm looking at the album cover and it's like, two dudes in that one room, the black and white one with the ladies. And I was like, all right, I guess I'm the other guy, he plays the bass. But I was very keen to the bass, so we would grab, like, mom's brooms and shit, and I had the bass and I was just like, yo, I'm Bernard Edwards and I'm down.
We'd be in the crib. I'm dead serious, bro.
But the music, it made a connection with me as a DJ. The first record I ever Djed and scratched was Good Times. That is a fact. My first DJ routine was good times. So I always identified with pops, with your pop. But it makes sense because when I hear your music, I always feel a connection to it.
You wear many hats. You are a bassist, right?
[00:03:51] Speaker C: I would never say I'm a bassist, but I play bass a little bit.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: He's being very modest, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not my father, but listen, come on. I've heard the records, man. I've seen you get down, too. Like, I've done my homework throughout the years before we even met. And I was like, man, he's nasty. Multi instruments, people. Your music, the chords that you play, the goosebump chords, you know the chords. Yes, sir. And then when you're chopping samples, you are hip hop. Your connection with the records that you choose and flip the way you flip them are just crazy, too. A lot of instrumentation, man, that I just admire. Can you just give me just your origins or your starter kit when you started? I already know that you are fly on the wall. I've read that you were fly on the wall at your dad's sessions. But let's fast forward just a tad bit about your beginnings with hip hop music because I'm interested in that as well.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: My real roots, of course, being the son of my roots are in R B. That's my first love. So, of course I heard more of the commercial stuff, but I didn't fall in love with hip hop until I heard this record from Public Enemy called Bring the Noise. And I fell literally in love with hip hop. And that's when I started doing a different kind of research. Because at the time, even when I was making R and B, it was always hip hop undertones.
But I didn't want to be a hip hop producer. I wanted to do R-B-I thought I could sing and everything. Well, you can't. No, but when I really started digging and getting into, like, KRS, he's one of my favorites. Him and Scott LaRock, Eric B and Rockham, all the stuff that I came from New York, like the boombap stuff, and I heard Public Enemy and I lost my mind. I lost my mind. And their sound, the Bomb squad, hank Shockley, Keith Shockley, like, Eric, for them to turn around and do what I called beautiful chaos because there were so many pieces in just one beat, and somehow it worked together, and they just intrigued me.
They're the reason why I fell in love with X Clan, and it just kept going on and on. Like that sound, that aggression. Then going to NWA and Ice Cube and stuff like that. That aggression is what got me into hip hop.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: That Bring the Noise record, I believe, came out in maybe 87.
There was a lot of hip hop before that. So you didn't make a connection with the message or even Run Rakim no matter what.
[00:06:49] Speaker C: I heard it. Yeah, they asked consumers this question a lot, and they say, when did you fall in love with hip hop? That's when I fell in love.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: You see what I'm saying? I get it. I understood it. I was able to make beats. I connected with it. It wasn't a passion or a love of mine until I heard Public Enemy and my boy was playing the record, my boy Black, and I remember him just putting it on. He had a twelve inch and I lost it, bro.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: I lost it. I remember like it was yesterday, especially that record, because it was on the Less Than Zero soundtrack. And I understand that because the first album maybe took me a whole another twelve years from the first time I was introduced in 1980. So it took me 92, and it was a low end theory for me. Yeah, but the PE record was amazing.
I had never heard anything like it. The Bomb Squad was definitely I identified with it, too. It actually blew my mind what they did. If we go to who sampled it or whatever and look at just Public Enemy, you're going to get like 1000 samples, man, and then like 100 samples or maybe even 50 to 100 samples in one record that they were using. Just incredible. You were all R and B prior to how did you get into production? I mean, were you in the church? Were you playing instruments at church? Obviously, your father is who he is. Were the instruments always around? When did you start actually beat making, too? I want to know the early I.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Started making songs when I was six, so my father, he had forty five S.
I really was just intrigued with music, period, all facets and formats of it. So he had a 45 collection, and I'd rummage through that at three or four years old, five or six, you know, you start writing your little ABC type songs. And my love for music started around six and at eight years old, in second grade, I'll never forget it. We moved from Jersey to Stanford, Connecticut, and I missed a year of schooling, so I had to start second grade again.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, second grade.
[00:09:04] Speaker C: I was no, well, when we moved from Jersey, I was in second grade and we moved to Sanford, Connecticut. And that's the first time I had to do placement testing. Oh, yeah, I failed that thing.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Oh, man, I keep it a horrible.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: I failed the placement test, so I had to do that again. But anyway, when the teachers start asking you what you want to be, I already told them I wanted to be a music producer. At eight years old, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be in the music industry. I never wanted to do anything else.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: That's pretty prolific.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: At eight, I never wanted to do anything else. I was in every band in my school. We had a lower school band, a middle school band, and an upper school band. Because my school was a college prep school.
I played drums in all the bands.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: And Pops definitely being who he was, sometimes parents either do not want their kids to be involved.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: Yeah. My dad, we had a den where his office was, and in the den, he had a Fostex four track. He had your react.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: First of all, buddy, that's our running joke at the chop shop. Either was a Fostex or a Tascam, but Fostex came before. Yeah.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: So we're seven episodes in. You're the 7th person. Every single person who came on this show has either had a Fostex or a Tascam. A tascam four track.
Yeah. We got the T shirts, too. The four track T shirts. That's dope. Yeah, that Fostex was that thing was a lifesaver. But I mean, before had I was a product of Radio Shack, so it was the realistics the realistic double.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Had everything on the pause button. Yeah.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: It couldn't afford anything else but realistic. Yeah.
[00:11:10] Speaker C: My first mixer was a realistic with.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: The up faders, too.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Yes, of course.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: And then they had the terribly whack one with a crossfader, and it was really tough, and it had a little click in the middle of the fader, like, what is this? I was like, this is terrible.
[00:11:28] Speaker C: They weren't making it for us. We know that.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: No, they were not. They also had an echo chamber, too. I bought the echo chamber. It was really on when I had the one, two y'all y'all y'all yo. Having the echo chamber back in the days, you were doing something, but big time.
[00:11:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: I overheard you just said pause tapes.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: That's how I started getting into looping and sampling and stuff. But I was doing that for especially when I was doing a lot of R-B-I was doing drum loops so that I would have something to play know?
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: But as time went on, like I said, he had a lindrum.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: I was just about to mention that.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Before my father passed, though, he had a really good relationship and an endorsement with Ensonic. So my first taste of a sampler, I can go all the way back. Remember the SD one?
The little keyboard sampler? I had that first.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: Then my pops got pretty much every keyboard that they made, and I had the EPS 16 turbo, and that was my first sampling. I lost my mind. I was sampling everything.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Man, that thing had, like, crazy seconds, too.
[00:12:44] Speaker C: 16 plus. Yeah, that was fully blown out. I had the SD one, I had the DP four.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: What years are we dating on this? Maybe 86.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: No. And Sonic? Well, that would be late 80s, early 90s. Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: 87, 88.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: But still, looking at those and I was like, wow, my father might kick me in the nuts if I ask for it.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: I can believe he had all that stuff.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot of money.
[00:13:13] Speaker C: He had a Profit 600 sequential.
He had a profit. 600. And then he got all that stuff from in Sonic. He was like, I don't play keywords. You could just take it. That was my first, like yeah, that.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Was my first time touching that stuff. I've talked with other producers and we've had debates about the MPs and actually hitting buttons and having drum machines and then sampling with pads and stuff like that. I always found it hard and still to this day, to sample on a keyboard.
It drives me absolutely crazy.
[00:13:48] Speaker C: It's native to me now. Yeah.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: When I see you all get down on it, like, guys who sample on keyboards, it drives me nuts. I just, like, reacts really good with it, too.
I've always found it just hard.
But you had those early drum machines. I mean drum machines, but of keyboards, you were already ahead of the game.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I mean, I had the ASR ten.
Timberland used to kill that machine. Kanye, all of them. Knots kills it to this day.
Jake so I had that machine for a long time. A lot of the first records I was doing was on that.
So when you say that it's hard to sample in a keyboard, switching over to the NPC, it was a learning curve for me.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Really?
[00:14:36] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, it's different because in the ASR Ten, when you sample, it's the same kind of truncation, but still, it was way faster for me to do it in a keyboard than it was to do it in the NPC. I see dudes fly on the ASR, too. Yeah, it was an easy interface. There was not much to it. Right. There was not much to it. You know what I'm saying? So if you were doing little tricks, it just made you doper at having an ASR Ten or working ASR Ten.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: That's interesting. It wasn't even, like, the interface part of it, like the buttons. I just thought that the keys always used to throw me off, like, man all know, just on the keyboards, hitting the samples, as opposed to just having yeah, I guess just because I've always had drum machines.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: What knocks me out the water is watching kids play keys on the pads, on the Ableton push. Oh, yeah, right.
Knocks me out the water. I've seen this kid literally, like, I'm.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Glad you just mentioned that, because this guy right here, the buyer of equipment, Mr. Riyadh.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: I got lucky. This guy buys, I got outbid. I got lucky.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: He just sent me today a picture.
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Of the ableton side story. I was on Ebay, laying in bed, wide awake. Let me put a bid on this bitch real quick. Put a bid in. I was like, oh, I'm the highest bidder? All right, cool. It's like 364. It's like, I'm not going to get it at 364. I woke up, there was, like, 11 hours left. You're still the highest bidder.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: I was like, oh, shit.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: I'm going to shit. And then somebody outbid me. Wound up going for, like, 430.
I do buy a lot of stuff, though.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: He is the buyer of equipment, and then what ultimately happens is I usually buy the equipment from him.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: It's like, I buy it, test it, show Eddie how to use the shit. And then he's like, I'm like, I don't need it no more. He's like, cool. Give it to me. Absolutely.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: I get all the hand me downs, man.
Speaking of early records, when you were with a group called The Tripac? Yeah, it's a rare record I've heard.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: I tried to buy one. Jeez, that was a long time ago.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: I was 1992.
Was that your first piece of vinyl that you were on?
[00:17:00] Speaker C: Yeah, that was my first endeavor. Everything the group I was in before was called BNPC. Black by nature, proud by choice.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Oh, you're really on some X clan shit.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Oh, bro, don't get it. Yeah, like, if you would have heard our sound, like, everybody that I used to produce back in the day, it was all my boys from downtown Stanford. And the other reason why I learned how to rap, there was this kid, LB. That at the time was like my best friend. And we locked in, and he was super dope.
He had a dope flow and he had a great voice. So I kind of learned how to rap from him. And then as time went on again, producing kids that I grew up with, my boy Cliff, he used to go by Mr. Nasty. He's the one that taught me how to flow, and he's the one that took me through that whole native tongue era.
He was super into the native tongue. So, like Tribe Called Quest, we would actually have sit down debates and class about it.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Still doing it to this day.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: Yeah. No matter what. Any kind of music like that, I call it smart music. You know what I'm saying? It means everything to me. Those are the things that make me feel something, you know what I'm saying?
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Moving forward to Aftermath, when did you make the move out to La, or how did you make the connection?
[00:18:22] Speaker C: It was crazy because I came out to La with my partner back then, and we were producing a group called Tall Dirk and Handsome. And that's what got me out to La. Because I had the files for the song. It's a track that I did a couple of songs, and there were tracks that I did. Came out to La. And it was all love.
We're producing these records, everything's cool. And then me and my partner fell out. And so I literally started going from couch to floor, different places. And I stayed out here for a little while. And I was working with a group called the Lunatics. Oh, yeah. And I was with them for some years. I came out back in 93. I came back out and I stayed. And once I stayed out there, I started just meeting different people. Long story short, Omar Gooding, who was friends with my son's mother, she told them that I did Beats and I started producing his group at the time. And then he introduced me to Jason Weaver. Jason Weaver turned around and was building a whole production camp in Atlanta. So now all of a sudden, I'm moving from La. To Atlanta.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:19:37] Speaker C: And in moving to Atlanta, I was producing this kid named DAX that was signed to Boob Two Productions, and I did his whole demo. And his people had ins to Dre, so they wanted to sign him over at Aftermath and gave Dre the music. And the first thing that Dre did was put us in the studio, and they were working on a soundtrack for The Wash. Oh, yeah. And Dre said, yeah, if y'all can, if you want to. He was like, there's a spot open. Get a song. And we went in the studio and we made Riding High. That was the one and only record we did. And I got on The Wash soundtrack, and then Dre was like, yeah, I'm building a new production team, and if you want to be down, there's a spot for you here. And I was like, man, you ain't saying nothing.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:21] Speaker C: Nothing.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: It's just crazy because I've spoken to a couple of other producers, like Ski. Ski came on and Sean J period sean, yeah. That just moved completely and did a 180 with lifestyle. I always find it amazing that you guys are brave enough to leave your roots and go across the continent, basically to follow your dream and see it through. Were you terrified, by any chance? Because la it's humongous. Like just moving from New York and home where it's safe. And then even still in the late 90s, early 2000s, people were still cooking up organically in New York. Pendulum didn't really switch. Was it different for you, being as.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: Young as I was? I wasn't moving in fear. The only thing I can say is and this was a fault I was moving more in desperation. I was trying to find where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there. And so I was trying to do a whole bunch of stuff all at the same time. And it's funny that my name is focus. The only thing I was really focused on was making music. But if you saw me, I was everywhere. I was kind of just doing everything. So when I finally got with aftermath, it just became home. That was the first time I could kick back and just be like, this is home. This is it. I've made it. And even then, I didn't kick my feet up. I just was like, oh, if I'm going to do anything, this is where I want to be. But I wasn't scared. Like, even the cultural difference from new york to la. I don't think it was fear. I lived in englewood familyhood. I lived in hoover hood. I've lived in rolling 60s hood. I've lived in all of these places. And I think that number one, the people that I lived with big shouts out to everybody that let me cop a squat on their couch know, live in a crib. They've always been supportive and I never was in danger. You know what saying?
[00:22:20] Speaker B: So I was just going to mention that because moving from new york to out west, you really had to have a solid yeah. To live in those mean, like, you know, I have FAM out there know, if I didn't have FAM, then, you.
[00:22:38] Speaker C: Know I made my mistakes, though. Don't get it twisted.
I made my mistakes. I mean, when I first came out here, I was rocking white tees and blue jeans with the pant rolled up, but the pant leg rolled up. But the thing about it is I was always rocking timberlands. So I'm living in inglewood familyhood and what set you from and you hear that from across the street. I'm like, I don't know what the hell that means. I don't know what that means. And then the bad thing about it is my old partner, he used to say cuzzo a lot. So when I came out here and I would say cuz, the homie that told me not to say it again said it so forcefully, I think he knocked it out my vocabulary for the rest of my life.
Yeah, unless you gang bang. I was like, okay, got it.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: But even that, too. You were in those aftermath sessions that just came off the heels of dre breaking free from suge. You were in the studio session. Did it ever in the back of your mind like, yo, he's still hot streets with this whole suge and his people.
[00:23:54] Speaker C: I'm going to give you two things I've never talked about before.
Suge was coming in the studio looking for dre, and I would just be in was in when I was working at can am, suge would come up in there and be throwing doors open looking for dre. And that was my first real introduction to who suge was. And it was nothing really crazy, but I'm going to give you this. I don't think I've ever said this in any interview prior to Dr. Dre I was working with Mike Conception, and I was part of the grand jury production teams. Yeah. So if anything, I knew more about the street stuff through Mike than Dre. Yeah.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: I mean, that's super street.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Yeah, Mike brought me through.
He brought me through a couple of hoods, and he showed me how thorough he is. Mike, literally, we drove through Nickerson Gardens, and I was like, yeah. I was literally slumping in the chair.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Like, what did I get myself?
[00:25:07] Speaker C: Mike gets love everywhere. Shout out to Mike Conception.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Absolutely, man. Salute.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know why I thought about that, but earlier today, when I was just driving, I was like, Man, I just wonder that was that part of time where things were really hot. You know what I'm saying? So that's crazy. I could just see a young Focus like, you want to keep on the keys or chopping up a sample in this big 600 pound debit guy.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: What up? And then walk out.
He did it for some days.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Man, I'm just so glad that you were in collateral damage.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: I was literally I made it a.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Point to grab your producer homie.
[00:25:54] Speaker C: The thing about it is, nobody and I think that that was one of the things that I always kept anonymity in my career. Nobody knew who I was. They didn't know what I was doing, who I was like, Records will come out. They didn't know who I was. That's why the story that I told on the God show about the kid telling me that he was me, that was a real thing, because I wasn't anywhere. Excuse me. Even when Dre mentioned me, he just mentioned me. There was no nobody excuse me. Nobody knew who I was. So it was really kind of crazy.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's another crazy story. There was a fake Focus on the day. Focus had a meeting at Def Jam, and the guy told him he was Focus. Told you he was you.
[00:26:37] Speaker C: Yes, he did my song.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah, the 112 joint.
[00:26:41] Speaker C: And it was very serious.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah. That's crazy.
There's so many records, and I know when I hear as a producer and a DJ, when Aftermath sound changed yeah. It became a little bit more musical and a little bit more drum heavy, and the basses were heavier. I knew. Well, we were always looking on credits, and I seen your name. Was it easier to work with talented producers around you? I talked to other producers and I heard a producer tell me who's by himself, does amazing music. But he told me that the minute he started doing music with other musicians and other producers got a little easier. How was it at Aftermath when you were with Khalil?
What was it? Fred rec all those guys.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Fred still around here.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Speaker C: Being honest, man, when I first got to Aftermath, I was in the studio by myself. So all of the years that I was signed, from late 2000, early 2001 to 2008, I was a producer that worked for Aftermath. I worked for Dr. Dre.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:57] Speaker C: So being around when the era of DJ Khalil and Danon Porter and Dawan Parker and so many there were so many people.
Yes. We're literally talking about Jelly Roll Battle cat like, all of these brothers, we were all just serving a bunch of music. You know what I'm saying? So Knots, everybody, we were just there serving up a bunch of music. Jake Won when I left in 2008 and I came back in 2013, that's when I came back as a producer with Dr. Dre. That's when I became part of the team. That's when it became different. The whole because I've never worked in the studio with another producer. I never worked. Like, if you turn around and you jam with somebody, I mean, ten to one, they would be an instrumentalist or whatever, but I never co produced anything.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: My first time doing that was on Compton.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: That was my first time. And Dre introduced me to that. He was like, Man, I want you to be part of the team. He was like, I don't want you just to be sitting in the room by yourself. He was like, It's time for you to stop doing the same old thing and expecting new results. It's time for you to try something new. And so I was all for it.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: I'm glad you made that point because I was first introduced to you from our late friend DJ Swell May. Rest in peace.
[00:29:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: He introduced me to you, and we were talking from time to time when you were back in Atlanta. Is it okay that we talk about how you left, quote unquote, Aftermath? You just told us that you came back out with the Compton, but I was introduced to you when you were doing your own thing in Atlanta.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: What happened?
[00:29:44] Speaker C: I got lost. And there's a point in, I think, every real man's life where you have to do that man in the mirror thing and when you look at yourself. And I've always had insecurities, but I didn't like what I saw internally. I didn't like what I saw spiritually. I didn't like what I saw. So I literally went back to Atlanta to get my feet back grounded. Like, I was drinking heavily.
I literally was just messing up my life. I think I was the heaviest I've ever been in my life. I was almost 300 pounds when I left La. So everything was just self destructive. So I went back to Atlanta to find some grounding, and I started getting back into my spirituality. I started getting back into physicality. I found out that I had some ailments and things like that. So there was a lot of things that kind of sat me down.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:43] Speaker C: And when. I finally sat down, I got clear minded.
When 2013 came around, it was really time to get kind of back on the ball because I was doing so much underground stuff that, you know that once you're out of sight, it's out of mind. And so it was a blessing that Dre even had the door back know, so that I can come through again.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Well, why wouldn't he? Because I'm going to tell you right now about those underground years real quick.
This is when I became a super fan of your music. And it's okay, man. Like other producers out here, man, it's like macho, whatever. I am a super fan of focus. I came across your album, mixtape, whatever you want to call it, music of the Misinterpreted. First of all, the most incredible music. Flips instrumentation, lyrics I've heard you spit. It was definitely the realest for me, the realest rhymes that you ever wrote. I felt a connection to you.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Thank you. I actually felt, without knowing you, what you were going through, so to speak.
You wrote it all. You said it all on that album. And then those underground records, they weren't underground. Underground you talk about. You were working with legends, little brother, Slum Village. You and Slum Village, you guys have a really special relationship as well. Speak to that a little bit. How'd you meet Slum and T?
[00:32:17] Speaker C: At the time, one of my old friends, Tahim Cannon, used to manage them. And so he made the connection between my music and their music, and me and young RJ really just hit it off. That was really dope. And T three L-A-J like all of those guys, we just hit it off and we started making music together. I actually met Ella J first before I met the rest of the guys. And Ella J was on my first endeavor, which was called Dedicated.
I met him again through Tahim and then I just started working with Slum Village especially. That was kind of it wasn't the lowest point, but it was a low point because I was know, nobody wants to hear my music no more. Nobody cares. So I really just got into a really creative place, and I was deconstructing how big I constructed. The way I created, I just deconstructed it. And music of the misinterpreted was that deconstruction? It was literally like I was looking for ways to challenge myself to create, and that's what that record was.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Such a beautiful album.
[00:33:25] Speaker C: Thank you, bro.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: I know I've asked you a million times, but you got to rerelease it.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: If I do it, I'm going to remix it.
And I'm talking about aesthetically. You ever listen to your old stuff and be like, that one thing? Yeah, it's a split hair.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: I understand. Everybody wants their stuff to be a certain way, and if you get a second chance at it, but sometimes you.
[00:33:51] Speaker C: Should just leave it, roll with it.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, because when I listened to was it Idols and Idols and Role models. Idols and Role Models, man, just as raw as they come.
You can go and find yourself somebody.
[00:34:16] Speaker C: I'm out here raising a daughter now, and I was told girls were easier, but since she got here, I've been looking brown.
That's one of my favorite ones on there.
I just got goosebumps as love. Thank you. I mean, listen to this episode and
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