Just Blaze Tells All: The Stories Behind His Classic Records (Part 1)

The superproducer talks working with Jay-Z, Big Pun, Busta Rhymes, and others.

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Complex Original

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Pound for pound, Just Blaze is one of the best producers ever. The Paterson, New Jersey native worked his way from being an intern at The Cutting Room studios in New York City to crafting the sound for Roc-A-Fella records.

After spending a few years in the late '90s/early 2000s building his buzz (and his skill set) he became a star after producing a bulk of Jay-Z's The Blueprint alongside Kanye West in 2001. Since then he's been blessing us with bangers on the regular.

We got down with the man born Justin Smith to talk about his impressive catalog. In part one of our two part series, we focused on his lesser known records. Instead of exclusively talking about his best known records, we talked about how he got in the game and the beats he made along the way to making The Blueprint.

Blaze told us about how Big Pun gave him thousands of dollars of eqipment for free, how one of his most beloved records has a huge mistake on it, and the time Jay-Z told him he was the best producer in the game.

As told to Jaeki Cho (@JaekiCho).

Harlem World f/ Ma$e & Kelly Price "I Really Like It" (1999)

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Album: The Movement

Label: So So Def

Just Blaze: “I went to college at Rutgers and studied computer science. When I was in college I got the opportunity to intern at a corporate studio in New York City called The Cutting Room. Once I started interning at The Cutting Room everything changed.

“I went from this local studio in New Jersey to being in the same room as Mobb Deep, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli. I got to watch a lot of classic albums get made. During that time when I was at the studio, a lot of the connections and relationships I made eventually turned into opportunities.

“I was never a good salesman. I’m not the salesman type. I was just a fly on the wall. I would soak things up and watch everyone. Most people didn’t know what I was there for. I was just fortunate to be able to watch these legendary producers LIKE WHO? work. I never got in the way but every once in a while, I’d ask a question when it was the proper time and nobody else was around.


 

They started to take notice and were like, ‘Yo, there’s this kid that works in the studio. He’s got mad beats, but you would never know it.’

 

“I was around so much good music being made because of these engineers who were kind enough to let me sit in on their sessions. When I would get off work, I would stay in the studio and work on my craft all night. Like I said, I wasn’t a salesman, so I would just leave the door cracked and hope that somebody would walk past. It paid off.

“I think people appreciated the humility aspect of it, because it got to a point where me leaving the door cracked would lead people to walk in and be like, ‘Yo, what’s that?’ They started to take notice and were like, ‘Yo, there’s this kid that works in the studio. He’s got mad beats, but you would never know it.’ People appreciated that and it made them more curious about what I was doing.

“One day, Ma$e’s management and production company happened to be at the studio and they overheard me working on stuff when they came in. They said, ‘Yo, who manages you? What is your deal?’ We started talking and they wanted to sign me.

“I wasn’t trying to sign to anybody. My thing was if I could do it for myself, I’d do it for myself. Producers like Trackmasters, Teddy Riley, and RZA—those dudes didn’t sign to anybody. What would they sign to somebody for?


 

People weren’t getting the money they should have gotten. Without getting into specifics, I saw two or three contracts where I was like, ‘Wow, he’s only getting that much money?’

 

“That was another thing—sometimes producers who were at the studio would get contracts faxed to them. Since I was the dude answering the phones and the fax machines I would see those contracts. Some of these dudes were signed to companies and I would see some of their deals and be like, ‘Wow, I’m definitely not signing.’

“People weren’t getting the money they should have gotten. Without getting into specifics, I saw two or three contracts where I was like, ‘Wow, he’s only getting that much money?’ Even if I had never seen those contracts, I wasn’t signing to anybody. [Seeing those contracts] only helped reinforce it.

“Also, I couldn’t trust anybody. I was brand new to this and didn’t really have the foundation or team for anything like that. So when the opportunity landed in my lap I thought, ‘I’ve been this far on my own, let’s see how far I can take it on my own.’ Twelve, thirteen years later, here we are.


 

[My first impression of Ma$e was] he was cool. He was definitely a little cocky, but he was on top of the world at that time so the cockiness was warranted to a certain degree.

 

“I ended up becoming good friends with one of [the guys from Ma$e’s management]. He was like, ‘You should come down and meet Ma$e at The Hit Factory on Thursday.’ I said, ‘Alright, let me know.’ So, they called me on Thursday like, ‘Yo, Ma$e is here.’”

“[My first impression of Ma$e was] he was cool. He was definitely a little cocky, but he was on top of the world at that time so the cockiness was warranted to a certain degree. He wasn’t cocky towards me. He just had cocky energy because he was selling records left and right.

“I never had any issues with him, we did probably six records, two of which made the album and one got while-labeled. I took ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and his group, Harlem World, rhymed on that. After that, it was like, ‘Whoa, who is this guy?’ Then Jay and M.O.P. ended up coming out with that as well for ‘Four Alarm Blaze.’

“I was still working at the studio for the first two years of my career. From like, 10 AM to 7 PM, I was Justin Smith, studio employee. After that, from 7 PM to 9 AM I was Just Blaze in-training. I would sleep for an hour or two and get right back to work.

Big Pun f/ Sunkiss “Wrong Ones” (2000) / Big Pun f/ Prospect “Off Wit His Head” (2000)

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Album: Yeeeah Baby

Label: Terror Squad/Loud Records

Just Blaze: “One of the other groups that I had worked with early on was this group called One Life to Live. They were signed to Mark Pitts, who had a label through Universal called Bystorm. They were the first act he signed. One of the beats I did for them was a posse cut and all of the Bystorm artists were on it. One of them was this guy named Sunkiss who was also very good friends with Big Pun.


 

Sunkiss called me like, ‘Yo, I told you I was friends with Pun. You always thought I was BS-ing you. Pun wants you to call him in five minutes because he wants that beat.

 

“One Life to Live ended up getting dropped and I think the whole Bystorm situation ended up getting dropped from Universal. Once that happened, the song was just sitting there and Sunkiss called me like, ‘Yo, I told you I was friends with Pun. You always thought I was BS-ing you. Pun wants you to call him in five minutes because he wants that beat [which later became known as “Wrong Ones’].’ Sunkiss was like, ‘Pun said to call ASAP.’

“I called him, we spoke for five minutes. Later on that night, I was at his crib in the Bronx. Me and him, we clicked real quickly. He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. I’m sure it wasn’t like that 24/7, none of us are, but he genuinely showed me a lot of love. He didn’t even really know me, he just liked my beats and liked my vibe. I left his crib bugging because he was such a nice dude.

“Actually, he was trying to put a studio in his house. He had bought a bunch of equipment and it was all just laying around his house. He didn’t know what to do with it. He was like, ‘Will you help me set it up?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, when you ready,’ because he was doing reconstruction on his house.


 

Big Pun said, ‘Take anything you want.’ I left his crib with $18,000 worth of equipment. That was my first time meeting him.

 

“I told him I was trying to build a little studio at my house. He had some equipment from Sam Ash and had a bunch of stuff he didn’t need. I pointed it out to him, ‘Yo, if you got this, you don’t need this.’ He said, ‘You know about all this?’ I said, ‘Yeah, this is what I do.’

“He was like, ‘Yo, let’s make a deal.’ I said, ‘What’s up?’ He said, ‘Whenever construction is finished I’m ready to build this studio, will you help me out?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘That’s your word, as a man?’ I said, ‘Yeah!’ He said, ‘Alright, cool. Take anything you want.’ I left his crib with $18,000 worth of equipment. That was my first time meeting him.

“He directly built my first studio, which obviously played a big part in me furthering my career. He didn’t give me my start, but he definitely helped further things at an early stage. From there, we did three records, two of which are on his Yeah Baby album. He passed shortly after. We never got around to [building his studio] because he died. But that was definitely a big phase in my career, being able to work with Pun.”

Jay-Z “The Dynasty Intro” (2000)

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Album: The Dynasty

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “Once I got a little attention off of doing the Ma$e thing, I was like, ‘I’ll follow it up with something else.’ I had already worked with Big Pun, Killa Preist, Ma$e, Tragedy Khadafi, and I was working with a lot of talented lower-level artists.That grind eventually landed me a really big meeting with Universal Records, which led to me getting connected with Roc-A-Fella.

“From there, the game changed all over again. That was definitely the next big stepping stone, but I still wasn’t in the studio with [Jay-Z]. It took about a year before Jay took notice and started paying attention. Once we did get in the studio, it was like Batman and Robin.

That intro is probably the meanest beat on [The Dynasty]. The fact that I did it and that it was the first thing you heard when you put the CD in, it set the tone perfectly for that album.


 

That singing in the sample wasn’t supposed to be playing every four bars. On top of that, there are two different samples playing that sound very similar, they were supposed alternate. Instead, because the two similar audio signals are playing in tandem, it has a flanging sound... It was a huge mistake.

 

“Duro, who’s a good friend of mine, mixed that record. Guru used to record everything and Duro used to mix the majority of the records. Now Guru pretty much does both. That was one of the first records of my career and it bothered me for years that I wasn’t present at the mix for it. It’s one of the only Jay records where I wasn’t involved in the mix.

“I didn’t get to hear the final mix before it went to mastering. So there were two separate loops that were playing at the same time and weren’t supposed to be, but Duro didn’t know that. There was no time to do anything about it.

“That singing in the sample wasn’t supposed to be playing every four bars. On top of that, there are two different samples playing that sound very similar, they were supposed alternate. Instead, because the two similar audio signals are playing in tandem, it has a flanging sound. It makes it sound like you’re listening to an airplane or something.

“It was a huge mistake but would I change it now if I could? I don’t know. I would probably want to find a way to fix that but I’ve heard so many times that people love it the way it is. The record has become a classic intro. A lot of people argue that it’s one of the best intros ever. When the people have spoken, sometimes you can’t mess with that. You’ve got to let it be what it is.”

Jay-Z f/ Beanie Sigel “Streets is Talking” (2000)

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Album: The Dynasty

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “‘Streets Is Talking’ was the first record Jay and I ever did together. I made it in my house. I was one of the first people to use Pro Tools. Nowadays, using Pro Tools on a laptop is common. Ten years ago it wasn’t.


 

When Jay-Z told me he wrote to it, I was like, ‘Yeah, right,’ because I had been around him for a year already and nothing had come about. Then, I went to see him two days later I realized he did.

 

“I spent a ton of time and money putting together a rig that might have been able to work. Even Digidesign, the company who makes Pro Tools, was telling me it wasn’t going to work. I got it to work, so I was like, ‘I’m going to try to learn how to make beats on this thing.’

“‘Streets is Talking’ was probably the first beat at that point in my career that I made [on Pro Tools]. It might have been a combination of Pro Tools and the [MPC], I’m not really sure. I made this beat as a test while learning how to use a sample cell card and the many functions of Pro Tools.

“It came out kind of good, so I put it on a cassette. Jay ended up hearing it from Lenny [Santiago]. When he told me he wrote to it, I was like, ‘Yeah, right,’ because I had been around him for a year already and nothing had come about. Then, I went to see him two days later I realized he did. That’s how that record got made.”

Beanie Sigel f/ Memphis Bleek “Who Want What” (2000)

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Album: The Truth

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “I had the beat already done and gave it to Hip Hop, who was the A&R for Rocafella at the time. They heard the record and they just went in, did it, and mixed it. I didn’t know as many people liked that record as they did until I was out one night and I heard it [playing out of] five cars driving past.


 

I always have my reservations about that beat because it had that same scratch sound from the Triton that so many people used to use.

 

“I always have my reservations about that beat because it had that same scratch sound from the Triton that so many people used to use. That always had me a little worried but then I was like, ‘You know what? It’s a scratch sound, it’s in the keyboard. Who cares?’ I just let it rock and it was a good record for that time.

“Everyone [inspires me]. Anybody who was making great music in the late ‘80s and the early ‘90s. Everyone in my age group has the same list. It’s a given already: Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Large Professor, The Bomb Squad, Dr. Dre. It’s the same list over and over.

“There were so many great producers, that’s why there are so many great producers now. The beats that I was working on early on, when I was a teenager still trying to figure it out, sounded most like Pete Rock’s and/or Q-Tip’s. A lot of jazz with really sharp snares and horns and stuff like that. They sounded just like hip hop records in the ‘90s.”

Memphis Bleek “We Get Low” (2000)

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Album: The Understanding

Label: Get Low, Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “That day I was making what ended up becoming ‘Stick 2 the Script.’ Bleek hated that beat, he said it sounded like soap opera music. So then I made the “We Get Low” beat instead. The next day, Jay heard the ‘Stick 2 the Script’ beat and he took it. Bleek was looking at me like I was crazy when I was playing it for him. I was like, ‘Yo, I’m telling you, this is hot.’ Not every beat is for every artist. What one artist hears in a beat, another might not.

“Beans would be in one room, Bleek in another, Jay in the main room. Eventually, [Cam’Ron] and the Diplomats came around and they would be fucking around. It was like a factory. It was how Berry Gordy Jr. had The Corporation or how Diddy had The Hitmen at the height of the Bad Boy era. Everybody was in Baseline [studios] grinding 24/7. I learned to go days without sleeping because everybody would be constantly working.


 

For the tech heads and geeks, back in the day we used to use this signal called SMPTE. It’s been referenced in a few songs. SMPTE was an audio signal that we used to use to keep drum machines and MIDI gear in time with our tape machines.

 

“For the tech heads and geeks, back in the day we used to use this signal called SMPTE. It’s been referenced in a few songs. It’s an anagram—I forget for what—but SMPTE was an audio signal that we used to use to keep drum machines and MIDI gear in time with our tape machines.

“To make it really brief, you may have a drum machine that only has eight outputs but you have twenty sounds coming out of it. So each sound has to have its own output, which means you have to record them on separate passes.

“How are you going to keep everything in sync? You’re obviously adding a few sounds, starting over, and adding more sounds to the tape machine. You had to record in passes so you had to have something to keep the big tape machine in sync with your MIDI gear whether it was your MPC, your ASR, or whatever. So, SMPTE was basically a way to keep different pieces of studio gear in time with each other.


 

If you listen to ‘We Get Low,’ you’ll hear me play the SMPTE sound on the keyboard. I took it and made a sample of it. It was just a cool idea at the time, but Guru would always say, ‘That’s how I knew you were ill. When I saw you use SMPTE as a sound in the beat and actually play it on the keyboard.

 

“The beginning of ‘Mental Stamina’ on Jeru’s first album is a good example of SMPTE. Primo used to use it sometimes. That’s what SMPTE sounds like. That was the tone that used to keep all of our studio gear logged in. So I had the idea of, ‘What if I used the sound of SMPTE as an actual sound in the beat?’

“If you listen to ‘We Get Low,’ you’ll hear me play the SMPTE sound on the keyboard. I took it and made a sample of it. It was just a cool idea at the time, but Guru would always say, ‘That’s how I knew you were ill. When I saw you use SMPTE as a sound in the beat and actually play it on the keyboard. That’s when I knew that you knew what you were doing.’

“The day I met Guru was the day I made that beat. That wasn’t over at Bassline, it was at a studio called Mirror Image. At Bassline we had this engineer who was making a lot of mistakes and causing a lot of problems for us. So we knew we had to get rid of him, but we weren’t sure how we were going to go about it or who we were going to replace him with.


 

I remember being like, ‘Yo, I just did a session with this dude named Guru with Bleek and he seemed to know what he was doing.’ He was a younger dude and he knew his hip-hop. Back then, there were engineers who knew hip-hop but there weren’t a lot of engineers who lived it.

 

“I remember being like, ‘Yo, I just did a session with this dude named Guru with Bleek and he seemed to know what he was doing.’ He was a younger dude and he knew his hip-hop. Back then, there were engineers who knew hip-hop but there weren’t a lot of engineers who lived it.

“There was Duro, Bryan Stanley, and Pat Viala and that was pretty much it. They were all locked down doing different things, so when we needed a new engineer I remember saying, ‘Yo, I just met this dude Guru. We should snatch him up and make him our engineer.’

“I remember having that conversation with Hip Hop and he was like, ‘Word, word we’ll make some calls.’ We waited until the end of The Dynasty album, because he was recording The Dynasty album for us, but as soon as we were done with that we brought Guru in and he’s been here ever since.

Prodigy f/ Bars & Hooks “Diamond” (2000)

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Album: H.N.I.C.

Label: Relativity Records

Just Blaze: “I had known Prodigy for a number of years, tracing back to The Cutting Room. Me and P-Rod were always really cool. He used to come to my house and I would show him how to make beats.

“He had that group Bars & Hooks at the time. I was helping him put that record together. He was alright [at making beats]. It wasn’t great but he’d never made a beat before. Me and him would just go to the house and I’d show him how to make beats.


 

People hear ‘Just Blaze’ and they think it’s about weed. [The name Just Blaze] was a running joke with the guys from Harlem World...Originally, they were saying my name should be Just Hot and I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’

 

“Looking back, it’s crazy that I used to have Prodigy in my crib. My girl’s sitting there, making dinner, and he’s just sitting there on the keyboard trying to learn how to play keys. There was no smoking in my crib, so he definitely wasn’t high. He was cool.

“We had done a bunch of records already. That was just one of many he wanted to use for the album. We did about five records with Bars & Hooks and when we did that one, he was like, ‘I want to use this one for my album. The rest of them will be for Bars & Hooks’ album.’ We mixed it on a Neve console and I hate Neves. I like the way they sound, I’m just not comfortable.

“People hear ‘Just Blaze’ and they think it’s about weed. [The name Just Blaze] was a running joke with the guys from Harlem World. It was between Huddy Combs—Huddy 6 rest in peace—and Super Sam. Super Sam was another dude who was down with Ma$e’s management team at the time.

“Originally, they were saying my name should be Just Hot and I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ Somehow, from there it went to Just Blaze. I didn’t like the name. When Harlem World came out, they put Just Blaze on it and it sold 500,000 copies. I said, ‘Alright, let’s keep it.’”

Busta Rhymes “Street Shit” (2000)

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Album: Anarchy

Label: Flipmode Records/Elektra

Just Blaze: “I made that when I went to go meet Busta for the first time. I was hot at the time, so he reached out. We ended up forming a really good relationship. He showed a lot of love.

“He called me and was like, ‘Yo, want to help me?’ So I went to Baseline and made two beats, that was the second one. He had already sold Jay Dee a mix, but he wanted mine to be the one that Jay Dee mixed.

“Busta was dead set on having Jay-Z and DMX on the same song. Originally, he was going to leave Jay on “Street Shit” and have DMX on “While We Die,” but he really wanted to have them both on the same record. X had already recorded vocals on the other song, but he was stuck somewhere in Arizona so they couldn’t get him to re-spit new vocals on my beat.


 

Busta was dead set on having Jay-Z and DMX on the same song. Originally, he was going to leave Jay on “Street Shit” and have DMX on “While We Die,” but he really wanted to have them both on the same record.

 

“I was so hype. I was like, ‘Yo! X, Busta, and Jay on my record?! It would be insane!’ I still love that song, regardless. It’s a great record. I did a lot of records for Flipmode [Squad] that didn’t come out. I probably got a whole album’s worth of songs from Flipmode. We did a ton of records that Busta’s still sitting on.

“[Busta’s] cool. He knows what he wants, but he respects the producer’s vision. He takes direction very well, but he’s also very strong-willed about what he wants to do. He’ll let you do you, then he’ll go back and add his input and chop it up with you about it.

“It also depends on how much he knows you and how much he respects you. I think that’s the same with any artist. If they respect you, they’re going to take your word for the most part. If they don’t know you, they’ll probably tend to be a little more hands-on with it.”

Busta Rhymes “We Got What You Want” (2001)

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Album: Genesis

Label: Flipmode, J

Just Blaze: “Did I do [‘We Got What You Want’]? I’m looking at the lyrics right now on Youtube. Wow, yeah. It says that I did it. Oh yeah, I remember this song. That came out? That’s funny, I had to read the lyrics to remember it.”


 

I think Busta and I had on the same thing in the studio that day: We both had on Pink Panther Iceberg sweater vests and we both had on light blue Timberlands.

 

“That record had a really weird, ill bounce to it. Busta is always trying to find different, weird things to do to stand out. So that was one of those beats I made just messing around. I didn’t intend for it to come out and Busta overheard it.”

“I was going through a CD at the time and I skipped past it. With rappers, whenever you skip past something, it always ends up being what they want to hear. He was like, ‘What’s that?’ I was like, ‘It’s nothing. I was just messing around.’ He told me, ‘Play it!’ So I played it, and he was like, ‘That’s it. We’re doing it right now!’ He called Chris Lighty and everyone in the room and I was just like, ‘Oh man.’”

“You know what’s funny? I think Busta and I had on the same thing in the studio that day: We both had on Pink Panther Iceberg sweater vests and we both had on light blue Timberlands. Super random, but I do remember that.”

Busta Rhymes “Everybody Rise Again” (2001)

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Album: Genesis

Label: Flipmode, J

Just Blaze: “There were definitely bangers on Genesis, but overall I think Busta was trying to figure out his next move. It was his first album away from Sylvia Rhone and the Warner Bros. system in general, and he was acting a lot at the time. He was trying to get re-situated. ‘Everybody Rise Again’ was my favorite track.”


 

There were definitely bangers on Genesis, but overall I think Busta was trying to figure out his next move. It was his first album away from Sylvia Rhone and Warner Bros.

 

“I liked it from a musical standpoint. The chords that I played on there were very dark and classical sounding, but the drums were knocking. We mixed that in Vancouver, and I remember never being happy with the mix.”

“He was working on a movie at the time in Canada. It might have been that Halloween movie. He was shooting that, still recording, and working on mixing the album at the same time. I wasn’t really familiar with that room.”

“Part of getting a good mix is knowing the room you’re in, and I didn’t know that room well. The drums definitely didn’t knock the way I wanted them to, but I love that beat regardless. That’s definitely one of my personal favorites.”

Jadakiss f/ Cross, Drag-On, Eve, Infa-Red, Sheek & Styles P "It's Time I See You" (2001)

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Album: Kiss tha Game Goodbye

Label: Ruff Ryders, J

Just Blaze: “I was hot at the time, and Jadakiss wanted a beat from me. It was crazy because [the Ruff Ryders] had beef with Roc-A-Fella. Some of the shots on that record I think are directed at Roc-A-Fella.”

“It’s a little blurry now, but at the time there was tension between the two camps. Jay and X were obviously cool back in the day, so I don’t really know what the issue was. Oh! It was between Beans and Jadakiss. That’s what it was. I forgot about that.”


 

It was crazy because [the Ruff Ryders] had beef with Roc-A-Fella. Some of the shots on that record I think are directed at Roc-A-Fella.

 

“Obviously, that’s long squashed, but I gave them that beat right before it popped off. By the time the record was done, I had unwittingly given them the record that they were throwing shots at Roc-A-Fella on. They were subliminal though, so I don’t think anybody was paying attention that closely.”

“I was never really happy with that record when it came out. If I had that beat and that sample now, I would destroy it. Back then, I was still figuring things out. Even though it was cool, it would’ve been that much cooler if I had gotten another crack at it a year later. For that time, I thought it was hot. It was a standout record on the album, that’s for sure.”

“We’re all constantly learning, but that particular sound that I eventually became known for—the big horns, the hard drums and the vocal chops, which I eventually mastered—I couldn’t make that record along the way.”

“I gave him the Pro Tools [files] to that beat, and they mixed it without me. So I was never crazy about the mix, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. You liked it, and I know a lot of other people did as well.”

Beanie Sigel “What Your Life Like 2” (2001)

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Album: The Reason

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “That’s my favorite song on that album, and maybe my favorite Beanie Sigel song period. It was the second-to-last song on the album. Melodically, I’ve always loved that record. Actually, I’ve started to do it over. I was going to do it over for Marsha Ambrosius for the Late Night Early Mornings album, but we never got to it.”

“It was ironic, because somebody else wrote that record and sent it to her. I was sitting next to her when she got it, and I looked at her and was like, “What?” It’s one of those things where, like Guru says, ‘Rap is an art, you don’t own no loops.’”


 

It was ironic, because somebody else wrote that record and sent it to Marsha Ambrosius. I was sitting next to her when she got it, and I looked at her and was like, “What?” It’s one of those things where, like Guru says, ‘Rap is an art, you don’t own no loops.’

 

“I feel like I own them, even though I don’t. I love that sample so much. I love the musicality of it. I love the harmony, the notes. The sample itself is just a beautiful piece of music, and it’s a disco record too. It’s not a soul record, even though it feels like it. It’s straight up disco.”

“Right after the part that I sampled is played, it goes into the whole disco thing. That’s what hip hop is all about though. It’s about finding that one break in that record that you would never expect to find it in and catching it the right way. So even though I don’t own that sample, I have great affinity towards it. I love it.

“That era is probably the peak of me digging. I was going record shopping four times a week and spending five to six hundred dollars every time. I was probably spending two or three thousand dollars a week on records back then. I did that for God knows how long.”

“That’s how I built up the bulk of the core of my record collection. I’ve always bought records. I’ve been buying records since I was a kid, but the core of my collection came about from my digging around that time. I don’t want to add up how much money I spent on records from 2000-2005, because it’s probably a house full of money.”

Beanie Sigel “Beanie (Mack Bitch)” (2001)

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Album: The Reason

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “I’m sure beat nerds will know what I’m talking about, but that drum pattern is actually a derivative of the Barry White record that they used in ‘All About The Benjamins.’ It was Love Unlimited ‘I Did It For Love.’ I didn’t make that beat with the intention of it becoming a song, let alone his first single.


 

Timbaland had a record that he wanted to give to Beans with that hook. Beans liked the idea for the hook but he didn’t like the beat that Tim did. So Hip-Hop just hit Timbaland like, ‘Yo, can we get that hook?’

 

“I was messing around with that drum pattern, and I never intended for it to go anywhere. ‘All About The Benjamins’ is obviously a classic hip-hop record. I was just in a room playing some keys on it. I practically lived at Baseline, so it wasn’t like every record that happened had the intention of going to somebody.

“I work in the same way that a writer might sit there and write down ideas in his house just to see what happens, or an artist might start with random lines, shapes and drawings not necessarily intending for it to be an actual painting or picture. A writer might not intend for it to turn into a book, or a songwriter might jot down melodies not necessarily intending for it to be a song. It’s just second nature. It’s what we do.

“Hip Hop, who was A&R’ing Beanie’s album, came in and heard it and remembered that Timbaland had a record that he wanted to give to Beans with that hook. Timbaland was on the hook, and Beans liked the idea for the hook but he didn’t like the beat that Tim did.

“So Hip just hit him like, ‘Yo, can we get that hook?’ I don’t remember if he sent the beat to Tim and he sang it, or if Tim sent the files of him singing and we fit it to the beat. I think it was the former, which is interesting because we kind of took his hook. I mean, we didn’t take it with any ill intentions. He obviously had to sing it over, so I guess he was cool with it. I never expected that.


 

I was a studio hermit so a lot of times I would have records out that were rocking and I had no idea that they were getting played in the clubs, or on the radio, or that they were in heavy rotation.

 

“It’s funny because, I forget that people really like that record. When I DJ I never play it, but I was playing a set in D.C. this past weekend and I said, ‘Ah, let me just see what happens.’ I was playing a set of my old records and people went nuts.

“I forget because, when that record came out I was so in the hole. I mean I was in the hole of Bassline, not really going out anywhere. I was a studio hermit so a lot of times I would have records out that were rocking and I had no idea that they were getting played in the clubs, or on the radio, or that they were in heavy rotation. I was a robot just doing what I had to do.

Beanie Sigel f/ Scarface “Mom Praying” (2001)

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Album: The Reason

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “That’s probably the first record I mixed totally in Pro Tools. We were still mixing analog at the time. Everything was running through the console. That was the first record we tracked into Pro Tools, and we mixed it all in Pro Tools.


 

Kanye [West] actually called me about that record one day like, ‘Yo, did you use this sample?’

 

“It sounded decent. That was before plug-ins were really where they’re at now, in terms of their sonic character. Plug-ins definitely didn’t sound as good back then, but we made do with what we had at the time. We had to mix the record quick.

“Kanye [West] actually called me about that record one day like, ‘Yo, did you use this sample?’ and he played it for me and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s ‘Mom Praying’.’ He had just written a song and done a beat to it. He was tight because his song was really good, but he scrapped it because I had just done it for Beans. I actually heard the song. [Kanye and I] were both on the Harlem World album.”

Beanie Sigel f/ Jay-Z & Rell “Still Got Love For You” (2001)

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Album: The Reason

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “I always liked that Issac Hayes loop. It had been used a million times. Smiff & Wessun with Mary J Blidge, and then Biz ‘Make the Music,’ Tragedy Khadafi did with ‘Grand Groove Pt. II,’ I mean I could go on and on.”

“It’s one of my favorite breaks of all time, but I hadn’t had a chance to flip it. They wanted to do a sequel to ‘Where Have You Been’ on The Dynasty album. I was like, ‘I think I got something for that.’ I wasn’t really sure where it was going to end up, but I did it anyway.”


 

On a technical/geek side of things, historically whenever anyone has used that break they always use the first four bars. I wanted to use all eight bars of the entire piano solo on that record.

 

“That’s a classic break beat. Everybody who was around in the ‘80s remembers that break. So when they heard it, they were just like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ At Roc-A-Fella there was never a big plan. We were at the studio every day, so it was just like, ‘Let’s just go in and make some hot shit,’ that was the formula.”

“On a technical/geek side of things, historically whenever anyone has used that break they always use the first four bars. I wanted to use all eight bars of the entire piano solo on that record, which in this day and age with Ableton and other time-stretching software, is pretty easy.”

“Back then you didn’t have the same kind of technology, so with the way I had to program the MP I had to do constant tempo changes for the entire second set of four bars. The timing of the loop was all over the place.”

“Sometimes when you’re sampling a lot of records and looping things, you can only chop things up so much. If the original band is going off beat or if they speed up or slow down, you couldn’t just take it and stretch it the way you wanted to.”

“I kind of had to play the MP like a turntable, and make the MP tempo speed up and slow down in tandem with the inconsistencies of the original sample. So it took me all of two or three hours just to get that right. Once we got that going, it fell into place quickly.”


 

We had just put in a new speaker system in the basement of Baseline. It was a $60,000 sound system, custom designed, and Beans blew it. Beans blasted that beat so hard he blew them out the first night we got them.

 

“We had just put in a new speaker system in the basement of Baseline. It was a $60,000 sound system, custom designed, and Beans blew it. Beans blasted that beat so hard he blew them out the first night we got them. The whole thing about that system is that it wasn’t supposed to blow, so the company had to come back in and retooled it so it never happened again.”

“Beans was there all night and actually fell asleep. I don’t know how you do that. He fell asleep with it blasting, and that’s how the speakers blew. That was a crazy night. We had literally just unveiled that new wall of speakers, and they were dead 12 hours later.”

“After we got that rectified, I think it was Beans who came up with the idea to make it a follow-up to ‘Where Have You Been?’ That whole song happened within a day or two. Jay and Beans put down their verses, then Rell came and did the hook, I went in and played a live bass over it and that was it.”

“There’s certain break beats that I always identified with growing up or that I felt strongly about, so it was cool to have produced a track with that sample and have two of the best emcees rhyming on it. Although it’s been done a million times before, it was one of those things that you can cross off like your life checklist. It was like, ‘Aight, flipped that sample. Done.’”

DMX “I’ma Bang” (2001)

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Album: The Great Depression

Label: Ruff Ryders, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “Folayan Knight, who used to A&R at Def Jam, was X’s A&R. She was like, ‘X is looking for beats!’ So, one day I gave her that beat. She was like, ‘X loves it. He wants to do it.’ I think he was working upstate in Albany at the time, so we hopped on a plane and went upstate really quick.”


 

DMX handed me a blunt, and I’m like, ‘I don’t smoke.’ He said, ‘DRINK?!’ I was like, ‘No.’ He said, ‘What’s wrong with you producers?!’

 

“I walk in, and he’s got liquor in one hand and weed in the other. He handed me a blunt, and I’m like, ‘I don’t smoke.’ He said, ‘DRINK?!’ I was like, ‘No.’ He said, ‘What’s wrong with you producers?!’ I was like, ‘Nothing. Why does there have to be something wrong with me? Because I don’t smoke or drink?’ He was like, ‘Ah, I don’t know about you,’ but then he started laughing.”

“The original name of that song was ‘Just Blaze.’ The hook was, ‘Let it just blaze, let it just blaze! Let it just, let it just, let it just...’ but I was like, ‘Dude.’ Then, he killed the ‘I’m a Bang’ hook. He was mad cool. I’d only met him that one day, and I never saw him again or after. That was the only time we ever met.”

Jay-Z "Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise)" (2001)

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Album: The Blueprint

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “The magic in that album was that it was done in three days. ‘Lyrical Exercise’ was done for The Blueprint as well, but he left it off. Afterwards he regretted leaving it off, because it leaked and it was huge. That’s why it ended up on the The Blueprint 2.


 

We had to send out the artwork ahead of time and he couldn’t figure out how he was going to finish up the song. Jay-Z only had one verse and it wasn’t until after we sent out the artwork that he said, ‘Oh, I know how to kill it now.’

 

“At the time when we did the artwork and the track listing, we had to send out the artwork ahead of time and he couldn’t figure out how he was going to finish up the song. He only had one verse and it wasn’t until after we sent out the artwork that he said, ‘Oh, I know how to kill it now.’ So we used it for the album, but it couldn’t be on the official track listing.

“Everyone knows I made ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ for Ghostface. I’ve said that a million times, everyone knows that. ‘U Don’t Know’ was a work in progress. I had tried to do the beat a few times, and I couldn’t really catch it. Then it finally clicked for me one day, and as soon as it did Jay just went in and recorded his vocals.

“Jay built on that song little by little. He didn’t do the whole song in one shot. He did the first two verses and then a week later added more. Then he came back a couple of days later and did a little bit more.”

Jay-Z “Song Cry” (2001)

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Album: The Blueprint

Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Just Blaze: “‘Song Cry’ is probably the most complex song on there. Originally when I did it, I had straight drums and that singing sample all the way through. I literally had 96 sample traps in that beat. If you listen to it, it sounds seamless. It sounds like one long smooth thing but that’s literally 96 sample chops all being triggered in that beat.


 

Jay-Z called me and told me ‘Right now you’re the best producer around.’ Then he called Timbaland and said, ‘Yo, you cool but Just Blaze is the best.’

 

“When Jay did his verse all the way through, I went back and did the whole beat over. When he heard it, he called me and told me ‘Yo, you’re the best. I want you to know that. Right now you’re the best producer around. Nobody can take that from you and I’m glad you stuck around.’ Then he called Timbaland and said, ‘Yo, you cool but Just Blaze is the best.’

“He was so floored when he heard the way I redid the song and made it so much bigger and more intricate. I made it into an actual record. You would really have to hear the demo version to see how different it became. The vocal lead is the same, but musically it was a much more raw experience.

“When I was making that beat, two different girls from Def Jam walked in and was like, ‘Oh I like this,’ and the song wasn’t even done yet. That’s when you know you’ve got something. Girls generally don’t walk in looking for beats like that. One day if I can dig up the demo version though, I’ll let it out.”

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