- And do the MTV bizzle, dizzle, yeah.
Fo’ shizzle, my nizzle.
- So, tell me a little bit about your transition from Chicago to New York.
- Well, for a long time, people was 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.”
But, you know, you got your family out there,
I got my girl out there. I have my group out there.
I felt like I had a responsibility to the city to stay there
and help try to make it blow,
but then, it’s like —
it was straw after straw, until the straw broke the camel’s back.
I had two artists.
One artist ended up leaving me, getting signed and didn’t get any beats for me.
Then, I had another artist, and I signed him to my company.
And then, he ended up leaving.
And when he was telling me he was leaving,
my landlord came upstairs and was like,
“You have too much traffic in your house. You’re evicted.”
So, I was like, “Man...”
At that point, if I wasn’t ready to leave by then —
so, I really thank God.
That’s another one of the situations where
I knew that there was a light at the end of the —
automatically, when that happened, I said,
“Oh, I see what’s happening. God don’t want me to be here no more.”
So, I grabbed all my stuff up,
just threw it in a U-Haul.
I ain’t even tell my landlord I was leaving, like,
’cause he would’ve been on some nit-picking,
probably would try to take my whole security deposit and all that.
And I just drove to New York.
I hadn’t even seen my apartment. I ended up driving —
I got an apartment in Newark.
So, you know if I went to Newark,
I definitely hadn’t seen where I was moving.
And earlier, like two months before that,
I was in a car accident, where my Expedition had flipped over three times.
And like, you know, I guess it was meant for me to
be here or something, for me to walk away from that.
So, that was a blessing.
So, while I was out here, I didn’t have a car.
So, I used to just take the New Jersey Transit,
and I’d pack up all my stuff,
pack up all my DATs,
and put ’em in a bag and just walk over here to Baseline [Studios].
And that was the key right there,
being able to walk up into Baseline and play these rappers these beats.
And I remember, it was Beanie Sigel’s birthday,
and I came, and I played a bunch of, like, soul beats.
Like, we had soul beats here and there,
but I had a bunch that I was building up.
Just like, from the success of “[This] Can't Be Life.”
I was like, “I need to make some more stuff in this vein right here.”
So, I’m playing Beanie some beats,
and he gets this smile, like, “Yeah, it’s hot.”
You know what I’m sayin’? But he had to go.
So, I don’t know, he’s going somewhere for his birthday.
So, now, Hov [Jay-Z] came in.
I remember, he had a Gucci hat on, like the fisherman joint,
and [Kyambo "Hip-Hop" Joshuato], my manager, who definitely saved my life,
was like, “Yo, play that one beat for Hov.”
Then, it came on [mimics beat].
Then, he was listening to it, like, “Ooh, s**t. It’s crazy right here.”
Then, it got to the chorus, and the chorus was like,
[Singing] “Ain’t no love, in the heart of the city.”
And he’s like, “Oh! Oh!”
He’s doing his face like that.
Then, he’s like, “Well, play the next beat. Play your next beat.”
I play another beat.
He’s just sort of like, “Yo, man. You’re a soulful dude.”
And everything that Hov is saying is, like, in stone,
that I will never forget none of these words,
‘cause I’m off the train, I’m from Chicago, I got $10 in my pocket right now,
and I’m just having the opportunity to play these beats. So, I’m —
you know what I’m sayin’? I’ve had different so-called hit records
and everything up until that point, but at this point,
it’s like I’m just —
this is, like, the moment of truth for me right here.
So, now, I play another beat.
Then, I play another beat.
Then, I play this one beat, and it was like,
[Singing] “Never, never, never, never change. I never change!”
Yo, he took his hat down. He was like, “Ooh!”
[Laughs]
I was like, “Yo, maybe he like ’em! Maybe Hov might buy this beat!” [Laughs]
So, he was like, “Yo, put them joints on CD.”
Then, he left out, right?
I was like, “OK. I’m putting these on some CDs, we’ll see what happens.”
So, then, two weeks later, ‘The Blueprint’ was finished, right?
So, basically, at that point,
everything started rolling. Everybody’s like,
“Yo, man, I heard you had half ‘The Blueprint’ album. I heard you did half of Jay-Z’s album.”
I couldn’t even believe it myself, at the point when it was happening.
Then, I started connecting.
I knew my people, Dead Prez. I knew just different people,
and I got my dawg, 88-Keys, one night.
He said he’s having a rapper come up here,
just to play him some beats he had to play.
So, the dude walks through the door, and it’s Mos Def.
So, I’m like, “Oh!”
So, I didn’t have no beats on me at that time.
I think I was trying to rap for him.
He was like, “Yo, whatever, whatever.”
I was trying to say a rap over a beat, ’cause I’m like, “I want Mos Def to know I could rap.”
You know what I’m sayin’? [Laughs]
And it was sounding real, real weak over the beat I was rapping it over.
I was like, “Man, I should’ve picked a better rap,”
’cause, when you meet a rapper —
I was in the same shoes as somebody that would walk up to me now,
or walk up to any of these rappers, where you got one opportunity to
say your best rap that you think is gonna
impress this specific rapper the most, you know what I’m sayin’?
And that didn’t work, you know what I’m sayin’? Whatever I was spittin’,
but then, he’s like, “Yo, you got beats?”
I’m like, “Yo, man, I’ll play you beats,”
and I was telling him about “The Takeover,” ’cause he got Jack Johnson.
So, he was really into rock stuff.
I was like, “Yo, I got some more stuff like that.”
I didn’t have nothing else like that.
You know what I’m sayin’? But I went and made some more stuff.
So then, I think, maybe a week later, I played some beats for Mos,
a bunch of, like, joints I had that was in that vein, you know what I’m sayin’,
of stuff that I thought he’d like.
Next thing you know, Mos Def got five beats.
Know what I’m sayin’? So then, I go to the studio to play Mos some beats one day,
and he wasn’t there,
and this dude was in the hallway.
He was like, “Yo, you here for Mos?”
I looked up, and it was [Talib] Kweli.
He was like, “Yo, man, what’s up? You Kanye West?”
I was like, “Yeah, dawg.”
He was like, “Yo, you could play me some beats?”
I’m like, “Well, I had a CD here. It’s for Mos.”
He was like, “Come here. Just play these beats real quick, dawg.”
So, I walked in. I played some beats.
Now, I got Kweli’s first single.
I got three joints on his album, you know what I’m sayin’?
So, it was happening like —
I felt like God was just walking me.
God kicked me in the ass to get out of the Chi.
God put me in situations where —
it wasn’t like I was going out, like, “Yo, let me try to meet these artists.”
Like, I wasn’t even thinking about who I was —
all the time, really, I was just thinking about how I was gonna get my record deal.
You know what I’m sayin’? So, it just so happened that
he was putting me in situations where I was able to eat and able to build these relationships,
because I feel like Mos helped me get my record deal.
Like, I did a song with him, which is my first single,
and it’s a “Two Words” joint that’s crazy.
It’s me, him, and Freeway.
And I had a bunch of crazy songs for it,
but when [Damon Dash] heard that, he was like, “Yo.”
When I met him, I first heard —
’cause I was supposed to go to a bunch of different labels, man.
Like, it got to the point, after ‘Blueprint,’
a bunch of labels wanted me, you know what I’m sayin’?
And [Roc-A-Fella Records] — it always never seemed like I could be at the Roc,
because of my subject matter and everything,
and he’s not in the same exact vein as the rappers that y’all are used to hearing,
but now, we’re expanding, you know what I’m sayin’?
And I expanded the music I was doing,
’cause I was doing very creative stuff, but then,
I’d be giving Hov and [Memphis] Bleek and Beanie
all these gutter beats that people really like.
So, it’s like —
why not just rap over the beats that people like?
You know what I’m sayin’? And still say what I’m talking about.
So, one day, I’m playing this stuff.
I just wanna play some songs up at Baseline,
and [Cam'ron] was in the studio,
just to see, like, “Man, is my stuff worthy of playing it around these people yet?”
Because people used to diss my stuff, like,
”Man, you always pick whack beats to rap over. You’re trying to be too different.”
So, I played it, and Dame heard it.
He was like —
[sighs]
“Yo... OK, play another one. Play another one. Play another one.”
I played another one. He’s like,
“Yo. Yo, it’s not even whack! It’s not whack. Actually, it’s kind of dope. Actually, it’s kind of hot. ”
You know what I’m sayin’?
“It’s kinda hot. Yo. Yo, you ain’t signed with Capitol [Records] yet, did you?”
I was like, “No, I ain’t signed with them yet.”
He’s like, “Yo. OK. Play another one.”
So, I played another one.
He’s like, “Yo! Yo! Cam, whatchu think, though?
You think we could do like a ‘Chronic’? It’s like an East Coast ‘Chronic,’ dawg. Dawg, see, you could be like” —
and then, he started just going into the whole —
the rest of what my career is about to be right now.
And the difference —
like, Dame was like, “Yo, it could be this or that, but he could just rap. He rap like a regular rapper.
He rap like a real — he rap better than the average rapper.”
You know what I’m sayin’? So, now,
’cause of Hip-Hop, Gee [Roberson], ‘The Blueprint,’ and Dame,
I’m over here with the opportunity to get my music out,
which is what I wanted since third grade, you know what I’m sayin’?