I was made aware of Tech N9ne through Vanessa [Satten], you know, the head chick up at XXL. She’s been talking about him for a good couple months. I guess through her experience–from her hearing about him, been going to see him perform, and seeing the reactions, hearing the music and energy–she told me and she told 50 Cent about him at the same time during a 50 Cent shoot, and me being a DJ I took it upon myself to dwell on it more because he’s called my show a couple times over the years. I remember when he called my show when his mother was sick, during that time and then I first started getting to understand who he is because when he called I had never really heard of him, but the phone lines at Sirius XM went berserk. People couldn’t believe that he had called my show and I was like “who is this guy?” Once I heard “Areola” it kind of answered all of my questions.
What was it, just that he would make a song like that?
As I saw the reaction when he explodes and comes out that wall and just starts going crazy with it, and then all the females just start boobing it up, like, boobs everywhere.
Is that something you normally see?
We usually see that: like, one boob here…one boob there, but not thirty pairs of boobs–that’s ridiculous.
So here’s a guy that’s not on the radio generating all this boob response. It must have made an impression.
I mean I woke up when I physically flew to Kansas City to witness his success factor: his warehouses, clothing line, he has all kinds of accessories…it’s crazy! It’s right under our noses. I feel like he’s in a parallel universe and he’s just in his own world and he’s just living it up and we’re just like the idiots and we just don’t understand what’s going on. It just shocks me like “holy max.”
So I guess that was your first impression. Did you see him perform live in Kansas City?
Naw I went to meet up with him to start up the mixtape. I flew there. I usually don’t wait to get down and dirty when it comes to doing mixtapes. If I do one with Snoop Dogg I fly to LA and hang with Snoop Dogg for like two or three days so it’s no different from me doing one with Tech N9ne. I told Tech N9ne I would be there and he flew me out and it was a crazy experience. He was knocking them out like bam bam bam!
Yeah I wanted to get to that. Other than his whole rock star thing he has going on, what were your impressions of him as an MC?
He’s very punctual and the spit factor is crazy. The lyrics you can hear so clear with a certain speed that’s incredible. I understand why his show is so high impact because he really goes in. He doesn’t play no games. The beats that I produced for him on this mixtape, I made sure they were high-impact, crazy situations. Even the Dre beat. He went in hard on a Dre beat and I made it a worse situation by sending that song he did on a Dre beat to Travis Barker, which is like the ultimate monster.
Right.
So when people hear that “Hard Liquor” record which is Dr. Dre and Travis Barker with Tech N9ne–it’s just unreal.
So you’re telling me you had a Dr. Dre produced beat that you had Tech spit on get sent to Travis Barker?
Yeah. Once Tech killed it I told myself: Travis Barker is a good friend of mine, let me give him a call. I say ”Yo, if you get on this right here, it’ll be a nightmare”–especially if he performs it, it’ll be a wrap. It’s just one of those hidden monsters. I haven’t even talked about this yet. This is my first time talking about this, this combination, and people will not hear it until Christmas Day. So it could be like an explosive gift.
So this appearing on Bad Season, this isn’t for–
Yeah definitely on Bad Season…guaranteed.
Wow. That is huge.
And you know what’s so funny? Tech N9ne don’t even know that I did this! [Maniacal laugh] It’s a wrap! This is what I do–I do stuff like this all the time and I change the perception of how people listen to music or how they listen to a certain artist. In my mind I see the artist in his element but I also bring him down to my element–more of a nightmare than how it would be if I told him what to do on a track. Originally I’m a bootlegger at the end of the day–I just sell music. That’s what a mixtape DJ is when they first start out. So in order for me to keep selling what I have, I have to make sure it’s on point and crazy to my buyers, which are my fans. I treat it like a drug deal: give ‘em a little crack here and there, and the fiends will just keep coming, but you got to make sure that the crack is at high-grade–can’t give them shit with roach spray and fucked up shit. You give them high-grade, it’ll be like a nightmare. With this overdose that I created with the Dr. Dre, Travis Barker, and Tech N9ne: a lot of people are going to fizz out, their brains are going to blow the fuck up. I can’t wait to hear it on radio!
Wow. Well we had no idea about this. We knew that Tech did something for Travis’s solo album but we had no idea about this. That’s pretty big.
You don’t even know, Tech N9ne don’t even know, XXL don’t even know!
Did Tech know who’s beat he was spitting on?
Nope. I told the manager about it. He sent me the record and then, the thing is, they want Travis to do a track for his upcoming album, but this whole thing with me and Travis was totally separate from whatever Travis gotten him doing for him for his album. He doesn’t know that I did it, he doesn’t know it was completed. I told him “Let me see if Travis will do it.” I know Travis–once he heard that, he just went berserk. This is going to be one of my hottest CDs this year–and all this came out of left-field through fate. A lot of the stuff that I do that really is historical is really through fate and I think that it was meant for me and him to meet up and get this cracking. I like the fact that he gave me the opportunity to spit on the tracks that I chose. My fanbase, on the other side could feel him a little more crazy. He has his own style and production wavelength but my style is more gutter, east coast–you know, the norm stuff, but I took it up a notch because of who he is. A lot of those beats, we had established artists that can’t fuck with those beats and he just like cremated them–he stepped on them like they were nuts. I was like “oh shit!” So he’s ill yo, that’s all I got to say man. He’s an ill motherfucker, man.
should be good
