As promised yesterday here’s the second part of my archive interview with Easy Mo Bee – the final part will follow tomorrow.
BEHIND THE BOARDS WITH EASY MO BEE (PART TWO)
In the first instalment of this in-depth look at the career of producer Easy Mo Bee, the Brooklyn-born music man spoke about his introduction to Hip-Hop, the experiences of his group Rappin’ Is Fundamental and his earliest work on Big Daddy Kane’s 1989 sophomore album, “It’s A Big Daddy Thing”. Having established himself within Hip-Hop circles, Mo Bee quickly rose to prominence outside of his core audience thanks to a Grammy-winning 1992 collaboration with jazz visionary Miles Davis. The New York native would return to his rap roots in the mid-’90s with unforgettable results, helping lay the musical foundations of Puffy’s then infant imprint Bad Boy by producing classic material for both Craig Mack and The Notorious B.I.G.
In this second part of our interview, Easy Mo Bee discusses how his input on the debut album of Wu-Tang’s Genius indirectly led to his partnership with Miles Davis, and how Big Daddy Kane almost ended-up being given a beat which would go on to become one of Biggie Smalls’ crowning moments.
Know your history.
“Yeah, that was the second project I worked on before The Genius became the GZA and before Wu-Tang. The Genius album didn’t really blow as well as it could have and I think the main reason for that was that, at the time, Big Daddy Kane was king over there at Cold Chillin’. So the Genius was not going to rise above Kane. People weren’t really thinking about the Genius like that yet. In 1990 Kane would have had his third album out, “Taste Of Chocolate”, and people were still big on him. But “Words From The Genius” was the first entry into the industry of any Wu-Tang member and what a lot of people don’t realise is that me and my brother LG produced that entire record, except for the single “Come Do Me” which was done by Jesse West, a homeboy of mine. I did ten songs, LG did three. After The Genius came other things, like a lot of people don’t know I remixed the last 3rd Bass record “Gladiator”, which was on the soundtrack of the film with the same name. But I did some interesting things with that record. I always felt that a rapper sounded funky when he doesn’t rhyme ahead of the beat. To lag is to be funky. It’s the difference between how Kenny G plays saxophone compared to Grover Washington Jr. Grover Washington has more soul because he’s more laidback and everything isn’t totally syncopated and perfectly on the beat. I always felt that a rapper’s voice is like an instrument and you gotta be funky with it. Big Daddy Kane did that. Rakim did that. To me, MC Serch and Pete Nice didn’t really sound like that on the “Gladiator” record. So we set their vocals back a millisecond behind the music so there was a delay which made them sound funkier to me. I did that to plenty other people and they didn’t even realise (laughs). I never even told ‘em. Then after Big Daddy Kane, The Genius and 3rd Bass, I started getting more work like the Miles Davis project and the remix of LL Cool J’s “Pink Cookies….”
“Miles Davis was always riding the wave and trying out things that were brand new. One of the only things that he hadn’t done up until that point was Hip-Hop. The story that was told to me is that Miles went to Russell Simmons, told him he wanted to do Hip-Hop and asked him if he had any producers or beats he could use. At the time Russell had RPM, which was his management company for producers. So the whole roster at RPM was submitted to Miles Davis. I won’t say the names of the other producers because to this day I still respect a lot of them. I was just fortunate enough to get picked out. I was still living in the projects with my mother and one day she answered the phone and this voice says, ‘This is Miles Davis. Can I speak to Easy Mo Bee?’ He said he wanted me to go over to his house and we set up a little interview. I remember he asked me if I wanted anything to eat and out of nowhere I asked for some fried chicken. Miles called up his chef and was like, ‘Cook Easy some fried chicken.’ I was buggin’. This was when he was living at Central Park West in a real nice apartment. We started playing my beats and Miles was picking the ones that stood out to him, like the track that became “The Doo-Bop Song” single. But what actually made him choose to work with me over everybody else was a track I had on the tape that had been submitted that he thought sounded real ‘Public Enemy-ish’ and sampled Kool & The Gang’s “Let The Music Take Your Mind” (mimics beat and horn pattern). That track was actually The Genius’s “True Fresh M.C.”. Miles said, ‘I want you to do that on my album.’ So we started working on the project and everything just gelled. Never did we disagree, collide or clash in the studio. He even gave me the pleasure of naming every track on the album.”
“I learnt to respect professionalism in the studio. When he was ready to record you just had to be ready to go. He’d be halfway in the booth and would start complaining the engineer was taking to long to put the track on, like ‘What the f**k y’all doing? Let’s go! I wanna play my sh*t.’ He wasn’t angry, he just wanted to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. Something else I learnt from Miles was that, while a lot of people might think of him as a perfectionist, he showed me that not every little thing always has to be perfect. It was amazing to sit back and listen to that “Doo-Bop” album because even though it had the elements of Hip-Hop in there, that really was a jazz record. I really couldn’t believe what we’d created. It sounded so beautiful to me. The album came under heavy criticism from both jazz critics and Hip-Hop critics, but I don’t care what anybody says, “The Doo-Bop Song” to me was the perfect marriage. And to think, I made a smooth jazz track that was originally derived from EPMD’s “You’re A Customer”. I always loved that record. But EPMD never changed the bassline, so when I made “The Doo-Bop Song” I wanted the drums to move the same way, but I wanted the bassline to change (mimics bassline pattern). We were the first to sample that record to my knowledge.”
“DJ Mister Cee always used to tell me about this guy Biggie. He had two emcees he was checking out at the time. One was MC Outloud, who later became part of Blahzay Blahzay, and he also had a tape of Biggie. Cee was always telling me, ‘This dude is the next big thing. I want you to meet this dude.’ But I never actually met Big through Mister Cee, even though he played me the demo that had Big rhyming over various breakbeats. Now, Puffy was over at Uptown Records working with Andre Harrell and they were getting together the “Who’s The Man?” soundtrack. Before I even knew about the soundtrack my manager told me that Puffy had a new artist called The Notorious B.I.G. he was trying to put out on Uptown and he wanted me to play him some music. Puffy fell in love with my tracks and actually called my manager back after the meeting and said ‘Thankyou for hooking me up with that guy. I didn’t know he was so dope.’ It was funny how “Party & Bullsh*t” was made because the track was finished before the lyrics were ever put to it. I’d taken the track to Biggie and he liked it but I told him I had the idea of putting the Last Poets sample over the top from an old routine of theirs where they say ‘And you know, and I know, ni**ers love party and bullsh*t…’ Biggie was like, ‘Yo! So hook it up…’ I’d always wanted to use that sample on a track.”
“Kane’s probably not very happy that I let that out in an interview with XXL, but he knows it’s true (laughs). When I first made the track I had Kane in mind because he was someone who always used to love to embody that whole Isaac Hayes / Barry White thing. So I was like, ‘Okay, I got him now.’ When I played him the track he was like, ‘Play the next beat.’ I said, ‘Are you sure? That’s Isaac Hayes I’m sampling, man.’ He said, ‘Play the next beat.’ Then I went up to Bad Boy, played it and they wanted it.”
“Right, which is exactly what I was trying to do because around that time, no disrespect to Kane, there was speculation about whether he was falling off. He was under heavy criticism. I felt like, ‘Yo! Take this beat and let’s put it back on track.’ That “Warning” beat to me is Superfly, Shaft, Black Caesar and all those movies wrapped up into one. I was trying to create that whole vibe. But Biggie picked it and I knew we’d made a banger as soon as I left the studio.”
“He was dope, but let me tell you, he kinda scared me a little bit because to me he was different to anybody else I’d worked with up to that time. Around 1993 what else was out? A Tribe Called Quest, Naughty By Nature, Leaders Of The New School, Redman. Biggie sounded, in my opinion, like the roughest thing in New York. Nobody else I was working with was rapping that way and talking about topics that to me, in the beginning, were sometimes a little too graphic. He was extra hard. When we were recording the first album I’d be like, ‘Yo! You mean to tell me that’s the direction we’re going in?!’ (laughs). Lyrically he was the hardest dude I’d ever worked with and it was kinda new to me.”
“Before then the meanest, roughest thing we had coming out of New York was Kool G. Rap. And let’s remember that at the time the gangsta style wasn’t completely accepted in NY because people thought anyone doing that was copying the West Coast. But do you remember Kool G. Rap’s “Live And Let Die” album from 1992? That was the hardest record out of New York at the time. He had records on there with titles like “Two To The Head”. We were like ‘Whoa!’ because we were used to hearing that sort of stuff from an N.W.A., but not from the East Coast.”
“When Biggie stepped up like that it was kinda new and for him to get what he was saying across there had to be a certain soundtrack behind him. I heard they went through a lot of producer’s beats before recording “Ready To Die” but they picked me. From what I understand, I’m the first real producer Biggie went into a studio with. Before that he’d been making demos in people’s houses. So I had the opportunity to start at the beginning with him. He used to tell me all along, ‘Yo! This is my clique right here, Junior M.A.F.I.A..’ He always had these crazy wild young dudes in the studio with him. He told me, ‘Yo! I got Lil’ Kim to. I’m telling you we’re getting ready to do it Mo. I want you to produce all my groups.’ Unfortunately that was never able to happen.”
“I thought the album flowed well and that the combination of my tracks along with those from the other producers really gelled. But of course you know I sat there and listened to my joints over and over (laughs). I played “Machine Gun Funk” so many times. I was thankful for the Notorious B.I.G. project because after winning a Grammy with the Miles Davis album, people might’ve thought I didn’t have anything raw left in me. They might’ve thought I’d gone commercial. So to follow Miles Davis and come from leftfield with Biggie probably made a lot of people say, ‘Yeah, this dude got something.’
“Yeah, and to this day, I don’t know why, but my name never comes out of Puffy’s mouth…
“It’s interesting that you say that because a lot of people don’t realise that Craig Mack came before Biggie. The “Flava In Ya Ear” single was released first. I shopped that beat around to a bunch of people who passed on it to (laughs). But I think that to this day I never ever got my proper respect at Bad Boy. For some reason my name just never comes out of Puffy’s mouth and I’ve always wondered why.”
Ryan Proctor
1 response so far ↓
quan // January 14, 2009 at 11:32 pm |
hey, my first time here. excellent, excellent interview. i hope you got more like this in tow