The Low End QnA: Pete Rock Part 2

It’s pretty warm inside of Pete Rock’s house but I still manage to get a chill. Sitting in a discrete corner of his den/ studio is a dusty SP-1200. Getting nosy I lean in to read some words written on a piece of tape: “Grap, touch and die.” More…There will be no fire sale on Ebay anytime soon.

JLB: You and DJ Premier both sample Jazz but there is a difference in your approach…

Pete Rock: I noticed with him he goes for the darker sound, I go for the dark and soulful together. I have some muddy beats, but I like to bring out the soul. My drums are more to the point, his are more hip-hop. I try not to give the kids these days too much heavy snares cuz their ears seem so used to the prepackaged drum sounds.

JLB: So I hear that you’re working on a remix to Bob James’ Nautilus?

Pete Rock: A good friend of mine reached out to me and worked with Bob James. He introduced me to the whole project. The one song that’s been sampled by a hundred thousand producers, he asked me to remix. I think I have a way of doing it. I did Nautilus one way that never came out, so I may use that and add on to it. If I could just have a drum loop going I’d sample that whole record.

JLB: Ghostface got you back on Hot 97 for a minute with “Be Easy” but I still like “The Game” from Soul Survivor better.

Pete Rock: Yeah, that was this orchestra from this famous conductor. Producers have it. If you’re a digger you know what it is.

JLB: You haven’t used the horns as much in your recent productions…

Pete Rock: I wanted to try something new. I was known for that and I didn’t want people to pigeon hole me.

JLB: When it comes to “T.R.O.Y.” Everyone gets into the horns, but the drums were crazy. It’s like the pattern doesn’t repeat.

Pete Rock: I programmed it in segments. I think I had 7 or 8 different drum segments. You just put it in song mode. If CL’s first verse is 20 bars, you make five different segments for a 20 bar rap and put in acrobatic stuff where you think it’s needed. When you put them together that’s what makes it sound phenomenal.

JLB: Do you still filter samples to get bass lines or play them out?

Pete Rock: Yeah, I still filter, but I make my own too, just hum some sh*t in my head and do it on the pads. And the filtered bass lines are just when I’m listening to music, and I hear something, then I use it…The SP 1200 has a channel assignment, I think it’s set-up 18 or something, it has channels 1-8, one and two are filters, 3-8 are separate tracks where you can break up the sample. I learned tricks of the trade and put maybe two samples on one channel. I’d use up a lot of tracks on the Neve board so it helps if you can juggle the music on one track.

JLB: So what happened with the reunion with CL?

Pete Rock: With Corey? Nothing happened. He’s one way and I’m another. I just want to do music and not deal with asshole shit. It’s just about the music and the audience. I don’t care about your materialistic life. It’s bigger than me and you. We don’t gel as individuals. I don’t like him and he don’t like me. When you start getting money and you don’t know how to be humble and be an asshole, then nobody’s gonna want to deal with you. When you work with someone, you just want them to respect you.

JLB: Speaking of respect, you had a lot of issues with your old label BBE…

Pete Rock: Oh, lawd have mercy. They are the worst record label in the world. They f*cked me on a lot of shit. They didn’t pay me my back end on Soul Survivor 2 and they put out Surviving Elements without my permission. Those were left over beats on a hard drive and Eddie took them off of there. The ill shit is when I mastered SS2 they didn’t even want to give me a copy of my own album. They were trying to tell me how to make my music. Ya’ll gave me this deal so I could be me and they violated me. So when I saw Peter Dockwell on a plane I just started spitting on him for being a disrespectful thief. I ain’t put my hands on him. If I did that it would ruin my litigation. Now they trying to put out my best remixes or some shit. The Jeru and Gang Starr shit. Doing shit without my permission and slapping my name on it. I’ve never done anything like that. Selling my old work. It was a wack time to be working with them.

JLB: You saw Eddie again at the release party for Dilla’s The Shining…

Pete Rock: I saw Eddie and spit right in his face. When you disrespect me like that you’re gonna get it back full scale. I went up to the DJ booth, got on the mic and had everybody say “f*ck BBE.”

JLB: You don’t think maybe that wasn’t the right place?

Pete Rock: Yeah, it wasn’t the right place, but he’d been sending nasty emails to my fiancee, the thievery, the hovering over my shoulder. All that just brewed up and it came out. If you feel disrespected and that person is standing right there…it happens. It wasn’t the right place and time, but I wanted to let people know what type of dudes these are.

[Note: Due to legal proceedings, reps for BBE Records would not comment on their past relationship with Pete Rock but in a statement said, "We wish him all the best in his present and future endeavors."]

JLB: You and Jay Dee were really close, what was it like working on “Once Upon A Time,” for that first Slum Village album?

Pete Rock: I remember being in the basement with T-3, Baatin and Dilla, buggin’ out and playing beats. They would rock certain songs in the D and the crowd would go nuts.

[Dilla] was my dog. He came to NY, we hung out. I went to the D with my brother and left me in his studio. He let me know how much he was influenced by me. His mother pulled me to the side and whispered, “you are his favorite.” He was really humble. We could call each other anytime. Dilla would inspire me at times when I couldn’t make a beat. He’d play some shit over the phone and spark me up.

JLB: Do you think there’s a difference between Dilla and Jay Dee?

Pete Rock: Dilla is like the now version, the weirdness, the samples. The way he would do his shit was like, what? Jay Dee is the quiet cat in the Ummah making all the beats doing De La’s “Stakes is High.” Dilla is the Madlibish side of him. The Jay Dee part was his rhyming too. The way he’d make certain beats. He was cleaner. Dilla was the ill side of him. It was like Jekyll and Hide. He was just doing anything. I loved it. I’m listening to the work side in Donuts. The work was fuckin’ immaculate. The way he chopped shit and arranges shit and how he plays basslines was ultimate. I never knew he was sick, never told me…I found out through the grapevine.

JLB: You mention Jay Dee being Dilla’s rhyming side, but what about yours?

Pete Rock: I just do it for fun. I never took it seriously. But what I do take serious is the music. When I’m makin my music I want to make sure the right person gets on it. I gotta secret project with one of my DJ friends that can spit really well. It’s gonna be called Tango and Cash. I just got a beat from Dilla’s mom that I’m rhyming on. She’s doing a Dilla mixtape. Karriem Riggins and them are working on it out in L.A.

After this interview Pete Rock came up to my office and I did my impersonation of Bobbito Garcia where I played the track and Pete Rock stated the facts:

“1,2,3″ Boot Camp Clik

That’s an MPC beat. You would think it came from an SP. They had a beat CD with my beats and sent the song back two-tracked. I mixed it and it was done. I engineer to a certain point but they had their own engineer. I told him ‘here’s the EQ, keep them at these levels and you’re good.’

“T.R.O.Y”

The guitar in the beginning is a funk group from Jamaica, Beginning to End. We put the echo on the horns. There are things we did to make people ask questions. We EQ’d it with the mixer before I sampled it, that’s how I got the drums to sound like that. I muffled the part with no horns and that’s me going “ooooo” in the chorus.

“Down With the King” RUN DMC

Those same sounds came from the Tom Scott album.

“Carmel City”

I got the Rhodes from Milt Jackson. We did a version to this that no one knows about with Vinia Mojica singing the hook.

“The Game” f Raekwon, Ghost and Prodigy

This is one of my sh*ts right here. The opening is from Flash Gordon, when I was on Loud these dudes gave me the utmost respect. The only one that wasn’t in the session was Ghost.

“PJs” f/Raekwon

This is off the new album. This is a song I wanted to do…I had this beat made and it’s just been sitting there for a couple of years. The intro is from an old school 80’s rap record “Its Your Rock.” That was one of my favorite records.

“Jump Around” (remix), House of Pain

When they dropped the original they immediately called me. I did this and “Down With the King” in the same session.

“Jussumen” (remix) Das EFX

You can’t chop Lodi Dodi now. Sample clearance is a motherf*cker on that record! I’m never touching that record again. It’s such a classic record and they don’t want nobody f*cking with it.

“The Yearn,” The Lost Boys

I loved doing this video. Freaky Tah was still here. It was a great time.

“Juicy” Notorious B.I.G

I’m not really mad at Puff for that. I’m really only mad that Biggie isn’t here and I can’t do more stuff with him. It’s not my typical style, but when Big came to the crib I just had the drums playing from Ntume’s “Juicy Fruit.” He was like, “What’s this Pete?” When Big was there, Puff was there…he saw the record spinning…it’s all good. I should have just known better. It was just a learning experience.

“Fly Til I Die” Talib Kweli and CL Smooth

I was in a good mood that day when I made this record. I put a lot of compression on the track to get all the noise out, so it sounds cleaner than usual.

“Fakin Jax” InI

That was fresh from the break up with CL. That first verse was talking about him. You can’t call yourself family then turn around and bite the hand that feeds you. That’s how that song came about.

“Be Easy” Ghostface

I went out to Staten Island and some studio on a dead end street. The first beat CD I played he picked 8 beats. We made 5 songs and he used 3. Somebody tampered the mix on this. It’s not Ghost’s fault though. I had more bottom on it. They flattened the drums a little bit. The kick drops out.

“Verbal Murder” f/ Common Pun and Nore

I got the Fat Albert shit off the Halloween Treats record. It sounds like its coming off the cartoon.

“Back On The Block”

This is when I tried to give CL a chance to rekindle himself with me. It’s something we did for Japan, but a lot of people in the U.S got wind of it.

“The Rap World” f/ Large Professor (from the High School High Soundtrack)

I did the drums, the bassline and the “Nautilus” chip you hear in the background. Pro added the “let me hear you say” and “in the world.” That was a collab that when it was finished we were like “oohh shit, son. You wanna rhyme on this?!” I hope we get to collab again. I’d love to.

“Once Upon a Time f/ Slum Village”

I showed him a few tricks like sampling two snares together. His ear was sharp.

“Revenge” f/ Grap Luva

Damn, you got this? I’m only on the hook on this. I did the beat. It’s the Tony Yayo sample but I just chopped it, [ Roberta Flack's "Feel Like Makin Love" used on "You Know you Don't Love Me." ]

“G’s Up” Jim Jones

Jadakiss loves this beat. The intro is Dionne Warwick. When they play this in Harlem the reaction is crazy.

“Let It All Hang Out” Adore

He got signed to Atlantic and that was the first and last you heard of him. He was one of the first solo white boys to rhyme.