It's easy to forget today, but before hip-hop had rappers,
it was just beats.
In the beginning, what we call "hip-hop"
was actually a collection of the biggest, hardest sounds
from funk, soul, jazz, rock, and disco,
with no MCs in sight.
Over the years, producers were seen as solitary types,
reclusive geniuses tucked away in basements,
surrounded by esoteric equipment and mounds of records,
but as techniques and technology improved, and regional barriers fell,
a new breed of producer surfaced,
determined to rock crowds just as hard as they rocked beats,
and to be as famous as any MC.
If you want to talk super producers in hip-hop,
a good place to start
is with one of the genre's most unheralded board smiths,
a producer whose influence was so deep
that he'd inspire a whole constellation of super producers.
But before he could do that,
he'd become a star first by mastering both hip-hop and R&B.
The sound was "New Jack Swing."
The producer was Harlem's own Teddy Riley.
I grew up in Harlem, 129th Street, St. Nicholas projects,
and just made music out of the first floor.
I was just making beats.
We used to go to this club called Harlem World.
I would go there and see Crash Crew, Disco Four Plus One More,
Busy Bee, Lovebug Starski.
You know, at 14, 15,
I'm making records for a bunch of rappers:
Spoonie Gee, Kool Moe Dee, Big Daddy Kane.
They would come up to my place and I would cook up a beat.
We're both from the same projects.
Teddy's music would just be...
I mean, he had some speakers, man,
that would go all the way up to at least...
You was feeling it at least on the fifth floor.
You know, you'd just kind of walk in, and Teddy's working on something.
That was just the daily thing.
The studio was set up right in the living room.
The bathroom was the mic booth.
Top to bottom, it didn't matter who you were.
You going in that bathroom to do them vocals.
I met Teddy at Uptown Records.
He was already doing a bunch of hip-hop.
He knew music, period.
You know what I mean?
So, it didn't really make a difference what the genre was.
You gotta keep people on the dance floor.
That was my formula.
R&B, fusion, pop, jazz.
Put it all together and you get new jack swing.
♪ Now that we found love What are we gonna do ♪
He created a style of music.
That's how influential Teddy Riley was.
New jack swing was important because it merged hip-hop music and R&B.
He was sampling horns and sampling drum loops,
and it was, like,
any rapper could get on the record as well.
♪ One, Two, tell me what you got ♪
♪ Let me slip my quarters inside your slot and hit the jackpot ♪
♪ Rev me up, rev me up My little buttercup ♪
♪ We can tug sheets Snuggle up and get stuck ♪
New jack swing was energetic,
and just commanding you to enjoy yourself when it comes on.
Forget everything, just have a good time.
His popularity was growing,
he was doing it real big,
and Teddy wanted a particular level of focus
that was getting increasingly challenging in Harlem.
The move to Virginia Beach.
What prompted that and why Virginia Beach?
The move to Virginia Beach
was because when I lost my little brother, Brandon,
who got killed in Harlem, and when I got that call
all that was in my mind, because I'm a real quick creator
when it comes to thinking of anything, an idea.
Right then and there I said, "I'm moving."
At the height of his success and influence,
Teddy Riley would leave his Harlem base
for the unlikely location of Virginia Beach.
At the time, it raised eyebrows,
but no one would have predicted it'd start a chain of events
that would change hip-hop forever,
and still be felt on the charts decades later.
Virginia is right under DC and it's right over North Carolina,
so you get a little bit of everything.
It was like a melting pot.
You would hear Southern music,
and then you hear Baltimore club music,
and then you hear bass music from Miami.
There was no hip-hop scene.
It was just going to parties and people DJing,
and you go to parties and you just dance.
Nobody was MCing.
So you didn't think, "I can make a record,
put it out, then it would blow up."
Like, that was something you saw on TV.
We knew we had something,
I don't think we really knew how to cultivate it yet.
Then Teddy Riley set up shop in Virginia
and that opened up a whole door for a whole lot of people.
♪ All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom Zoom zoom and a boom boom ♪
You might see a Lambo going down the highway.
"Yo, you see Teddy's Lambo?" Like, "Teddy Who?"
They like, "Teddy Riley. He got a studio here."
You know, you could ride by his studio and,
"That's Teddy Riley's studio."
We used to stand out in front
and you would see the people walking into the studio.
Like, "One day I want to be able to walk in there
and just be in there with Teddy and work with him,"
because he's a legend.
I was on a mission to build a music scene
and Jimmy Buffett was the only one there.
So I was like, "Wow, I can really do something here."
So I say, "You know what? Let's develop talent shows,
where we can find talent."
How many of y'all think you got some talent?
Most of the singers that would sing Luther Vandross,
you know, the whole high note, the "Apollo" high note,
you know, and you win.
I ended that. You're not going to pick the Luther Vandross guy.
It's not gonna take the high note to win this talent show.
It's gonna take talent. Hidden talent.
It's time for our next performers.
Give it up for Pharrell and Chad, The Neptunes.
And I wrote down to the judges,
"You're gonna pick these guys right over here,
The Neptunes.
This is the winner."
Pharrell Williams and I,
we started out in the gifted and talented program at school.
I was playing saxophone.
There was a lot of tenor sax in pop music.
You'd turn on MTV, and you'd see the guy with the...
and I wanted to be that guy.
Pharrell Williams was playing drums.
I remember Pharrell organizing the drum line to play "Bonita Applebum."
I had to set up a lab at my parent's house.
I had an SK-1, and a four-track studio
and just started banging out beats,
and Pharrell was rapping about, like, nature and science fiction.
And we had, like, four songs that we played at the talent show.
They won the talent show,
and the prize was to record a song with Teddy.
Even though that was the prize,
it wasn't really happening, you know?
Teddy was a busy guy, you know?
A lot of cute girls, a lot of fast cars.
I kept telling him,
"You gotta do something with these guys."
And Teddy took it seriously and he signed them.
Teddy was definitely a mentor.
Just to see him work was amazing,
because he was an engineer and he would layer the drums.
We got the chance to make music with some of the acts that were in there,
and we had a chance to write for Wreckx-N-Effect.
They knew how to just go right into the studio
and just work on music, and they just kept making beats.
That was the development. Hands-on.
Pharrell was the guy to write my rap.
Pharrell was like, "Yo, I could put something together, you know?"
I was like, "Bet. Do it."
That's how Rump Shaker was.
So he went, "We're gonna do a little thing like this."
♪ Ji-Ji-Jiggity Jiggity, yes, it's Teddy ♪
♪ Ready with the one-two checker ♪
♪ Wreckx-N-Effect is in effect but I'm the wrecker on this track ♪
♪ 'Bout the honey shakin' rumps And they backs in ♪
♪ Booties of the cuties Steady shakin' but relaxin' ♪
♪ The action Is packed in a jam like a closet ♪
♪ Beats bound to get you up, Cold flowin' like a faucet ♪
"Rump Shaker" was a hit.
That song ran, like...
As soon as you hear that horn, man.
♪ Check baby, check baby One, two ♪
It was a rap.
I had no clue that was Pharrell.
I just found that out, like, within the last two years.
You're talking about someone fresh out of high school,
writing the anthem for the summer of 1992.
♪ All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom Zoom zoom and a boom boom ♪
♪ C'mon just shake your rump ♪
♪ All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom Zoom zoom and a boom boom ♪
♪ C'mon just shake your rump ♪
Yeah, it was pretty dope.
It totally propelled us,
and Pharrell as a songwriter and a producer, and it kind of...
We just wanted to build from there.
Pharrell and Chad decided to part ways with Teddy.
You know, they were ready to charter unknown territory.
They were ahead of their time,
so I understand Teddy Riley not knowing what to do with them in '92,
because it already sounded like 2012.
I remember Pharrell saying, "Yo, come here."
He plays this joint that they in there working on,
"Yeah, it's the great space coaster.
You know, I got my laser in my holster."
And I just remember listening, like,
"Wow.
They really believe this Neptune shit. Man, they really on this thing."
Our production style, it was really influenced by the '70s.
We were recreating samples, or sampling ourselves.
And we just wanted to be different.
We aspired to make people feel like they were on drugs, or on substances,
just from the music alone.
Into the intergalactic.
♪ What, what, what, what, what, What, what ♪
♪ Yo, we light a candle Run laps around the English channel ♪
♪ Neptunes, I got a cocker spaniel ♪
♪ We on the run now, You know it ain't no fun now ♪
♪ And where I go, Yo niggas can't even come now ♪
Ah, man, that shit... When people heard that song in the club,
it sounded like an explosion.
It was so futuristic.
It just felt so fresh and strange and weird and, like,
just completely new.
And, at the time, everybody in New York was just like,
these two weirdo dudes from Virginia,
like, do these beats.
And I just remember thinking, like, "Virginia Beach? Like, what?"
♪ What, what, what, what, what, What, what ♪
♪ This is the life, y'all Of a superstar ♪
♪ Fly ass mansions and a million cars ♪
♪ Gotta get the cash yo And it's live or die ♪
♪ The Neptunes and Noreaga The limit is the sky ♪
"Superthug" really put Pharrell and Chad on the map.
That record kind of just, blew everyone back.
Like, "Where did that sound come from?"
And everybody started knocking at their door at that point.
"Southern Hospitality" with Ludacris,
"Shake That Ass" by Mystikal,
"I Just Wanna Love U" by Jay-Z.
They were producing for everybody.
You think about how successful they were becoming during that time.
But, to take two guys from Virginia Beach to national prominence?
It changed everything.
Like, "Grindin'" is one of those anthems for the state of Virginia.
♪ The world Is about to feel ♪
♪ Something that they've never Felt before ♪
♪ C'mon ♪
♪ From ghetto to ghetto, To backyard to yard ♪
♪ I sell it whipped un-whipped, It's soft or hard ♪
♪ I'm the neighborhood pusha ♪
♪ Call me subwoofer, 'Cause I pump bass like that, Jack ♪
Virginia had another side that people hadn't seen yet.
It was gritty, man. It was an inner city. It was rugged.
The Neptunes came up with our answer for that hard shit.
I think a rumor has it that Jay-Z actually wanted it.
Pharrell was like, "Nah, I can't give you this one."
The Clipse, they weren't trying to make New York hip-hop,
but they were making hard street shit for street people.
"Grindin'" was the hardest shit out. Period.
♪ Grindin', cousin ♪
♪ I got wholes for a dozen Even eleven-5, ♪
♪ If I see ya keep it comin' ♪
I got the opportunity to be in the "Grindin'" video,
and it was just passing that torch.
I brought new jack swing, they brought The Neptunes sound.
I mean, The Neptunes were already super on fire.
What they showed was that you can create a sound
that just crosses all genres.
That's why the Neptunes, to me, are the first superstar producers,
because they started out, you know, doing, like, hip-hop.
They've worked with every kind of artist, every genre,
and they were able to still go in there and make it distinctly "Neptunes."
I think it showed the legitimacy of hip-hop finally being accepted.
You don't just get to work with Britney Spears.
You don't just get to work with Justin Timberlake.
They're going to get the best producers in the business to work on those projects.
They wanted full-blown hip-hop.
I think that's why it worked for Justin, why it worked for Britney,
because they didn't try to water it down.
"I want it like that."
At one point, they had...
I think it was 60% of all music
that was being played on the radio was produced by them.
So, you could listen to 20 songs,
and 12 of those motherfuckers was produced by The Nep...
It was insane!
I mean, they changed the face of music.
It's not a lot of people that can say they did that.
♪ Niggas better stay in line ♪
♪ When you see a nigga like me shinin' ♪
♪ Grindin', Grindin' ♪
One of the hallmarks of being a super producer
is having an unmistakable sound.
And even as their beats ran the charts,
a Neptunes beat always sounded like a Neptunes beat.
They didn't cross over to go pop,
they forced pop to cross over into hip-hop,
and that was huge.
But The Neptunes weren't the only ones in Virginia making freaked-out hip-hop
that would change pop.
Pharrell had other talented friends,
and he pushed them to follow his path.
- Thank you so much. - Alright. Thank you.
I'd love to start with some of your early days,
when you made your first beat.
When I made my first beat, I think the equipment I was using
was my mouth, just me beatboxing.
You know...
Pharrell and I grew up together,
like, you know, his family, my family.
Pharrell is like the big brother of us.
He always been different.
You know, he always had vision.
I was fortunate to be a part of some of the vision.
Me and Tim, we were in a group with our homeboy Larry together:
SBI, Surrounded By Idiots.
I came up with the name.
Pharrell ended up joining the group for a while.
"Magnum the Verb Lord, opening the door."
♪ Magnum the verb lord Opening the door ♪
♪ My third eye's for thought travel Tickling the core ♪
But, then, you know, Pharrell,
he saw a different path, you know?
He was always trying to move the world forward,
as I was, with sound.
At the time, Missy was in a great group called Fayze.
They had a song on the radio, called "First Move."
And I remember telling Tim, "We have to meet these girls."
A week later, a friend of mine calls and says,
"I got these girls I'm working with: Fayze."
I said, "What?"
I'm like, "Yo, y'all gotta meet this guy that I work with named Tim. He's dope."
So we drive over to Virginia Beach.
Missy hears Tim, and that's it.
They worked with each other from that day on.
Tell me about meeting Missy,
when you started to notice a chemistry, creatively.
Was that right away with her?
Chemistry is something that you can't pinpoint or talk about.
You gotta feel it and see it for yourself.
Music will always feel music. I am music.
Music is going to feel its soulmate,
and she was my soulmate.
Missy and Tim were like Batman and Robin.
Tim would be producing, Missy would be writing,
and that would be like, all day.
That was their good time.
Tim didn't like leaving the studio. Missy didn't like...
They didn't like leaving the studio, man.
Me and Timbaland are most definitely trying to put Virginia on the map.
We just trying to take music somewhere else.
Everything we do, we try to make it futuristic.
As a producer, I considered myself as different.
I just... I fall in love with tones.
The frequency of sound, and how I space it,
it's for my liking.
At that time I was like,
my music is maybe not ready to be presented to the world yet.
Because I'm just a little guy from Virginia.
You know, I don't know much, don't have much.
Missy taught me how to fight and never give up on my gift.
She was the one that gave me the voice to believe in myself,
and told me how dope I was.
Teddy Riley was a big influence.
If sonics was food,
he brought the ingredient, the flavor out.
Just made me like, "Man, I gotta get my stuff to sound like that."
You know, and as I'm trying to get my stuff to sound like that,
I'm creating the sound.
♪ I'm just a bachelor ♪
♪ I'm looking for a partner ♪
♪ Someone who knows how to ride ♪
♪ Without even falling off ♪
When I first heard "Pony," I lost my mind.
"Pony" was insane.
Like, insane.
You never heard nothing like it.
♪ If you're horny let's do it ♪
♪ Ride it, my pony ♪
Built from stuttered drums, a beat-boxed bassline,
and cartoonish sounds,
"Pony" was the world's introduction to Timbaland's singular sonic palette,
but Tim and Missy's unique alchemy was just coming into its own.
This is Tim, right here. The man behind the music.
He real quiet, he real shy.
That mean he's a murderer.
Making "Supa Dupa Fly,"
did you guys know that you were going to make something
as influential as it ended up being?
We just knew it had to feel good. We young.
We want to party, we want to make people dance.
Missy was a dancer. She liked to move.
We just needed to bake the right cake.
Missy would make me go through a hundred beats,
and, "No, we're gonna do it better."
She knew how the music was supposed to sound,
what she wanted to do.
She had the whole vision.
She always made me think forward, like,
"Is this really what we got, or do we have more?"
♪ I was looking for affection ♪
♪ So I decided to go, ♪
♪ Swing that ♪♪♪ in my direction ♪
♪ I'll be out of control ♪
♪ Let's take it to perfection ♪
♪ Just you and me ♪
♪ Let"s see if you can bring-bring-bring The nasty out of me ♪
What Tim provided for Missy,
was a safe place to be herself.
She found this partner who understood how to help her bring that out,
because he was just as out there as she was.
You know, they would talk about not listening to the radio
and not being exposed to outside influences,
and having to go inside their minds to find their sound.
And "Supa Dupa Fly" was the result of that.
♪ I be the B-R-A-T, her be Missy ♪
♪ And we some bad bitches Who be roughin' it up ♪
♪ I'm the B-R-A-T, her be Missy ♪
♪ And we some bad bitches Who be roughin' it up ♪
I mean, Missy was really like, a "What the fuck?" moment.
Not only was she a dope MC,
but she was so uniquely her own,
and she was so smart, in terms of her visual representation.
"I'm not gonna look like an R&B diva.
You know what? Put me in a fucking black garbage bag,
and blow me up so I look like a space creature,
and everybody's going to love it."
She is singular and unique.
I don't think there is an artist, then or now,
who sounds like, feels like, Missy Elliott.
♪ Sock it to me like you want to, ooh ♪
♪ I can take it like a pro you'll know ♪
♪ Do it long bro with a back stroke ♪
♪ My hormones jumpin' like a disco ♪
♪ I be poppin' mats like some Crisco. ♪
♪ And all you gotta say is that Missy go ♪
♪ And when you say it though I want it moved slow ♪
Saying Missy and Tim are super producers is an understatement.
Just their production style sounds like it's from another time.
Almost as like...
they went on a spaceship with Marty and Doc,
and got the idea for how to produce the music from somewhere else.
Maybe it's a VA thing.
What came out of VA is creativity,
a new way of music being heard,
and it was the birth of what rhythm is today.
♪ Sock it to me Sock it to me ♪
It might be hip-hop's greatest strength as a genre,
that it observes no real rules.
No sound is heretical.
Nothing is out of bounds.
As long as it moves people and you can rhyme to it,
you're good.
Missy, Timbaland and The Neptunes leaned into that,
and took over hip-hop, pop and R&B
by forgetting everything they knew.
But, sometimes, hip-hop works the other way, too,
and figures out the future,
by obsessively studying the past.
No matter how distant and different its predecessors might seem.
Early '80s Detroit is the techno capital of the world.
We coming up with Juan Atkins, Cybotron, Clear.
I mean, that shit, that's our shit!
That fucking techno is in the water, you know what I mean?
Hip-hop in Detroit evolved with techno kind of in a linear way,
as New York with hip-hop and punk, kind of at the same time.
Same venues, same parties, even.
It was just a mixture of incredible music.
There were no barriers.
And that, ultimately, helped us shape our musical point of view.
Where it was like,
"What genre? Like, is it funky?"
Dilla encompasses all of these ideas.
He incorporates techno, he incorporates Tony Allen,
you know, a little bit of Clyde Stubblefield,
and it's very Detroit.
Techno is a Detroit genre,
as is Dilla.
Detroit's history as a center for both modern
and traditional black music
made it the perfect training ground for the musically curious.
So, maybe it makes perfect sense
that a musical omnivore with a tireless work ethic
would emerge from the D to channel the canon of black music,
via his mastery of machines.
So, I want to ask you about the early days,
when you first met Dilla.
Even early on, Dilla was like,
just different from the kids.
Like, kids had backpacks, he had a briefcase.
You know what I'm saying?
He was super smart, and his talent was crazy.
He'd go like, record shopping,
and he'd get a lot of stuff like, I didn't know the names of.
When I make music, it's straight from the heart.
I want people to feel what I feel.
I want them to feel that energy...
I had heard about Dilla.
Heard he had crazy beats.
So, we met, we went to his house.
He had a little, bitty drum machine,
but those beats were crazy,
and that's when we formed Slum Village.
We grew up in Conant Gardens.
It just so happened that we found a guy called Amp Fiddler.
He stayed in Conant Gardens with us,
which was even more insane.
It's just like, how'd we find this one guy who lets us come to his house?
Some kids he don't know,
come to his house and record stuff.
I was a musician for Parliament/Funkadelic,
and I had my own studio downstairs,
and these kids came to my house
and asked me if I could help get some music done.
And I was like, "Yo, so, what's up? What do y'all want to do?
I'm down for helping y'all to make it happen,
if you got skills.
If you don't have skills, don't waste my time."
And that's when I heard Dilla.
What did you think of what he was putting together?
The audio quality was horrible,
but the skill set behind it and the ear?
Amazing.
He already knew what he wanted.
He just needed tools.
I showed Dilla the MPC.
"This is how you use it."
I said, you know, the sky is the limit what you can do with this shit.
It's just what you could imagine.
He did it all with that damn machine.
Yo, we made this shit in a basement in like, 30 minutes.
Turn the mic up a little. Turn it up.
He always pushed the boundaries.
The drums going off a little bit, you know what I'm saying?
But, damn, that's what's making this funky, though,
at the same time.
It's on enough where it's not like, sloppy.
In an era where you could make everything so perfect...
Yeah, you can quantize everything!
Quantization is assistance of the drum machine.
It just puts it on beat.
The reality is when musicians and real people play, the timing shifts.
There's little imperfections and nuances and expressions that take place,
that you can't get with anything quantized.
That's one thing I learned about J Dilla instantly
from his production was, don't depend on quantization.
Use your instinct.
Don't stay in the box.
There was a distinct difference
between that and everything else in hip-hop at the time.
Deep in the back of his mind,
there was a rhythm that God gave him that was like nobody else.
He made me feel like reggae,
because he was behind the beat.
That made people excited.
And, on the underground, it was like, "Oh, shit, this is dope."
Say "Hell, yeah!"
Word the fuck up.
I was on a Lollapalooza tour,
and Funkadelic was on there,
and this guy Amp Fiddler was playing keyboards,
and he was like, "Man, glad to meet you, bro.
I got this brother, man, he's just like you.
Like, he loves you, man. I can't wait till we get to Detroit,
so you can meet him."
So, then, we get to Detroit. Amp comes on the bus with Dilla,
he brings him on,
and he's smiling ear to ear, with glasses on,
"Yo, here's our tape, man."
He couldn't really talk. Amp was smiling.
They gave me the tape. You know, it was, "Peace."
Then, later, I'm listening to this shit
in the back of the bus with Trugoy, from De La.
I'm like, "Listen to this shit! This shit is called Slum Village."
So, he's like, "Yo, this shit is ill!"
Song two, "Yo, what the fuck?"
I'm like, "It's ill, right?
I'm not buggin', right? This shit is crazy, right?"
He's like, "Yo, dig it. This shit is ill.
Who doing the beats?!"
I was like, "I know, right?
Them beats is crazy, right?"
Like, this shit was kind of like, I guess, what I did,
but way better.
I played it for Questlove, Common.
I played it for Pharcyde,
and I was just talking about him to everybody,
"You gotta hear, you gotta hear."
When we hear this tape,
we're just like, "This is new shit!
Like, there's no drum patterns, there's nothing."
It's like, "What is this?"
We're like, "That's it.
That's our new sound."
♪ Let me freak the funk, ♪
♪ Obsolete is the punk that talk more junk than Sanford sells ♪
♪ I jet propel at a rate that complicate their mental state ♪
♪ As I invade their masquerade They couldn't fade with a clipper blade ♪
Can you talk about the significance of that beat?
Because that, basically... I mean, it was a huge hit song.
It also introduced this revolutionary artist,
producer, to the world.
We told this fool, like,
"Dude, you're gonna get so big, you'll forget about us,
and we'll never get a chance to fuck with you again, right?"
- Wow. - Right? We told him all this shit.
And, at the time, he was in the caterpillar stage,
but he became a butterfly.
♪ Yeah, you know what time is it Yeah, uh-huh ♪
Dilla had just completed work with Pharcyde on the West Coast.
He went and bought a BMW cash,
and he went from his parents car to that.
Like, quick.
Damn, man. We about to lose our homeboy.
You know what I'm saying? He about to move to LA.
What I do is, I make CDs.
Twenty-four beats per CD.
More beats, more exposure, you know?
I'm trying to set it off.
People would be crazy for his next beat CD,
because you didn't know what you were gonna hear.
You got Slum Village, we were trying to get beats.
Then you have Q-Tip, Busta. You had De La Soul.
And people were attacking his beats CD like dogs.
It would be gone, that quick. Like, just like that.
At Dilla's house,
he had the basement done for the studio.
We just down there, working.
I asked him if I could get some water.
He told me right up the stairs, he told me to go in the refrigerator.
And I remember coming up the stairs,
and I open up the door,
and sitting on the couch,
is Common.
No shoes on, just totally relaxed. Just sitting there, chilling.
I'm like, "What the fuck?
What's up, Common?"
You know what I'm saying? He's like,
"Hey, what's up, man? How you doing?"
So I shook his hand,
and I just remember thinking to myself like,
"This dude is a legend, man."
He is Detroit, dude.
And he just got guys like Common, just sitting on his couch.
Like, with no shoes on.
I saw Common's feet, like, as a kid. You know what I'm saying?
- Oh, yeah. - Shit.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to take it somewhere else, too.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I just want all this to be the atmosphere.
He had a tendency to downplay colossal things.
"Erykah Badu's in the basement. What was you saying?"
It's like, "What?
Did you just drop a bomb like that and keep it moving?"
So, I remember being one of the first people
that was informed that he was sick.
It was early on, but you know, we didn't take it that serious,
to be frank.
He downplayed it pretty well.
Yeah, it wasn't 'till I saw him in the hospital, on his birthday,
that I knew how it really was, yeah.
Phone rings, it's Waajeed.
He's like, "He's gone."
"What the fuck you mean?
What are you talking about, 'He's gone?'"
And his whole tone just got...
Probably some of the most urgent shit that I've ever heard in my life.
He's like, "Shoes, he's gone."
When he passed, that was a huge deal.
"He's gone."
Like, "Wait, what?
What did he have?"
Well, he had lupus, a blood disorder, he was going through this."
And so, the story spilled out afterwards.
And then, when it hit you... Like, okay, this guy...
We're not gonna let this dude's legacy, what he stands for, die.
He's your favorite producer's favorite producer.
♪ Now you caught my heart for the evening ♪
♪ Kissed my cheek, moved in you confused things ♪
♪ Should I just sit out or come harder? Help me find my way ♪
♪ Now you caught my heart for the evening ♪
♪ Kissed my cheek, moved in you confused things ♪
♪ Should I just sit out of come harder? Help me find my way ♪
We all looked up to Dilla.
He's a puzzlemaker.
He breaks it all up,
and then reforms the puzzle in ways you never thought possible.
That's Dilla.
You know, the "behind the beat" thing, with him.
The switch-up shit, with him.
How this shit hit at the right time, just perfect.
It was like Michelin star hip-hop.
The motherfucker has just such an incredible feel.
♪ I'm on my J.O. Bullshitting hoping that the day go slow ♪
♪ Got like a friend, What confuses me though ♪
♪ Is kisses when we breeze, Tell me what's the deal yo? ♪
What do you think the music world lost with him passing so young?
Dilla was a leader for styles and points of view.
But, I'll tell you what they gained.
What they gained was the cornerstone
to be able to take it to the next level themselves.
We got to keep it moving.
We got to focus on, "What's the next sound, the new thing?
Most of our geniuses leave early.
They leave us their legacy, and they leave us their music.
And I think the music will live on forever.
♪ Help me find my way Now talk it out ♪
♪ Now you caught my heart for the evening ♪
While the soft-spoken J Dilla was admired by his peers during his life,
it was in death that his legacy grew.
Today, Dilla is globally recognized
as one of hip-hop's greatest innovators and geniuses.
A man who put the soul back into sampling.
But, not far from Dilla, in Chicago,
another sampling savant was at work.
And this soon-to-be super producer was never going to wait for a eulogy
to be crowned a genius.
He was determined to let the world know he was one from the get-go.
♪ Serve base heads by the streets accordin' ♪
♪ Kanye more important than Michael Jordan. ♪
♪ Got this rap game locked, you can call the warden ♪
♪ Give hoes cock, then I'm gone by mornin' ♪
♪ I'm gone ♪
He was probably 15, 16, when I first got wind of him.
He was super confident, but he still had them other sides
that was like a kid just trying to figure it out, trying to make it.
Of course, he was producing people out in Chicago,
and started doing beats for Jermaine Dupri and them peoples.
Samples was, you know, maybe in the beginning
more loops than chops,
but they always had this feel.
The drums. His programming was really...
You know, nothing was gonna be loose.
Everything sounded good,
and he was still a kid.
For a long time, people were telling me, "Man, if you go out to New York,
you could really get your music on, you could really kill the game out there."
I packed up all my stuff, packed up all my decks,
threw it in a U-Haul, and I just drove to New York.
We were going around trying to sell beats in the city.
We were just trying to rub elbows with the hottest.
At least, that's kind of what the strategy was, back then.
But he always rapped and he made it so you knew that he rapped.
You know what I mean?
In A&R meetings, with CEOs of labels that he...
He would hop up on tables.
He'd let you know,
"Yo, I got hot beats, but I got them lines."
Kanye as a rapper.
What did you think of him initially, as a rapper?
I didn't...
It took a while for Kanye to find an identity.
Nobody at the labels believed in him.
But, as a producer... Oh, man, people respected.
Once he had the respect, he wanted the win.
I was an A&R for Jay-Z.
Kanye, he would constantly send me stuff.
He was just like, "What do I need to do?
Like, what type of music? What type of sound?
What do Jay need?"
I tried to give him advice, what we were working on
for The Blueprint album,
when we were kind of shifting into more of a soulful vibe.
And the next day, he was like,
"Check this beat out."
He's playing "H to the Izzo."
I said, "Send me this beat, Jay gotta use it" you know?
Wow.
He was like, "You sure?"
I was like, "Send me that right away." And Jay used it.
HOV done bobbing his head to it.
♪ H to the Izz-O, V to the Izz-A ♪
♪ For shizzle, my nizzle, Used to dribble down in VA ♪
I called my Mom, I said, "Mom, we about to make it!"
♪ H to the Izz-O, V to the Izz-A ♪
♪ For shizzle, my nizzle, Used to dribble down in VA ♪
It was like a vibe was set for that first Kanye record.
'Ye ended up producing six songs for the album:
"Never Change," "Ain’t No Love," "Song Cry."
Jay went around playing it for Timbaland, Pharrell,
and people were just tripping.
Every time they came, it was like, "Whoa."
The sped-up soul sample...
That sound, man... It was progressive, new.
He championed that lane.
That was his staple sound.
Kanye had showed me this tattoo with like,
you know, these records that he had done.
I was like, "Man, you better get longer arms."
You know? Like, "You just started."
What did you think of his rhymes, his skills as an MC?
I wasn't thinking of him as a rapper. Look who I was around.
JAY-Z, Cam'ron.
I thought he had guts,
because he would walk into Baseline, and I'd be wanting to hear music.
He would just play shit, like, with him rapping,
in the mix of all of us.
And I'm like, "You got a lot of fucking nerve,"
and I liked that.
If I could rap anywhere near the caliber of my beats,
I would kill the game.
Murder the game.
He would play a beat for Jay, and then he would jump on the table,
and rap to everybody in the studio.
He was very animated. He was driven.
I remember walking in the studio one day,
and Kanye was rapping his heart out for Jay-Z.
Jay was on his two-way, Jay was making calls,
Kanye just kept rapping.
Jay was filing his nails.
He was doing everything but listen to this kid rap.
And I was, like, "Yo, he's alright.
A little weird, but he's alright.
He can rap."
I think the thought was just, "Give him what he needs,
get him in-house,
he'll make music for everybody,
and he'll do his thing, too.
Whatever.
I told him to make an album and make it a compilation,
because you know, with your beats and all of us on it, it's gonna go gold.
And I'm the newest member of the Roc-A-Fella team.
When 'Ye got signed,
it was a struggle of trying to make people believe
he was a real artist and not a producer-rapper.
That was, like, the stigma, but he was doing a lot of production.
He was kind of overworking himself.
First time I ever met Kanye, he was working on College Dropout,
and he was like, "Yo, Will.I.Am, Black Eyed Peas!"
I'm like, "Yo, let's collaborate."
And he left the studio that day,
and that's the day he got in a car accident.
My whole life changed.
I remember looking in the rear-view mirror,
and seeing my jaw cracked in three places.
He breaks half his face,
but he was just so determined to get his music out,
he recorded a record while his mouth was wired shut.
You know, I'm talking to him,
He like, "Yeah, man, I got this song."
He can't even barely talk, like, "I got this song."
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
He's like, "You gotta hear it."
I'm like, "You're mouth is wired like, ain't your jaw broken?"
But, he was rapping through the wire.
♪ Bad night right place wrong time ♪
♪ In the blink of an eye His whole life changed ♪
He immediately knew the path he wanted to take as a rapper.
You know, he gave up that ambition to fit in.
I think it was when he found out who he was,
and began to tell his story,
that it became magical.
Who does that? You know what I mean?
Goes through that trauma,
mouth wired,
makes Through the Wire,
and gave Roc-A-Fella a different look.
You know, it wasn't just about one way or one style.
After the accident, he did that record and released that record,
and he couldn't leave LA, because of the pressure.
He couldn't fly for a long time.
So, we got a big corner room in the W hotel.
We set up the studio there, went full mode and finished College Dropout.
College Dropout really represents a shift in the culture.
You could actually be articulate and intellectual, and not be a gangster,
but still be fly and have jewelry.
He used to say, "I'm the first guy with a Benz and a backpack."
It showed the individuality of somebody saying,
"Look, I'm not compromising or doing anything what's out there,
I'm doing what's true to me."
That's what he did with "Jesus Walks."
That was something that broke barriers as well
because nobody of that magnitude has every released a song like that.
I believe in Jesus, you know what I mean?
So, I'm like, "Oh, this is cold."
The delivery, how he put it together.
♪ So here go my single, dawg, Radio needs this ♪
♪ They say you can rap about anything Except for Jesus ♪
Everything that Kanye was doing was important because no one had done it,
and it was just gutsy to step into hip-hop in that moment,
and to be that way, and to have that point of view.
And he had us behind him.
The whole thing is, y'all people out there,
they're saying, yo, they like the way I rap.
Man, y'all done messed up, boy.
Because, it's over with, now.
Now we in another era where anything goes.
I'm gonna give Kanye that credit.
Anybody can be anything to me now.
For years, the attitude in hip-hop towards rapper-producers was,
"Pick a lane, because no one is good at both,"
but super producers ended that.
Kanye, Missy, Timbaland, The Neptunes, and Dilla,
didn't share a sound, but they did share an approach.
They were hip-hop auteurs.
Songwriters, beat makers and performers, all rolled into one.
It was an empowering shift in hip-hop,
that allowed these auteurs to spread their sound across hip-hop,
across genres,
and across the charts.
And, for a while, the super producers became hip-hop's new king makers.
That is, until the new breed of rappers came in,
and flipped the whole game on its head.