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the making of Nas - It was written album @ Complex
The Making of Nas' "It Was Written"
BY INSANUL AHMED, ROB KENNER | MAY 25, 2012 | 12:10
How do you follow-up a classic hip-hop album? How do you balance commercial appeal with artistic ambition? Is there a way to be mainstream while still having one foot in the streets? Those were questions that weighed heavily on the minds of Nas, his manager Steve Stoute, and producers Trackmasters as started making Nas' sophomore album, It Was Written.
Although Nas' debut album Illmatic is still considered one of the greatest rap albums ever recorded, it was initially a commercial flop that failed to go gold in it's first year. In the interim between his first two albums, Nas connected with a young go-getter named Steve Stoute who began managing the young rapper. Fearing Nas would end up like Kool G. Rap—an acclaimed rapper who never sold a ton of records—Stoute had a grander vision for God's Son and saw him a Billboard force as well as a street poet.
To help bring their plans to life, Stoute teamed Nas up with Poke & Tone a.k.a. Trackmasters. Although the perception was that Trackmasters would water down Nas' sound—they were after all known for producing big hits like Mary J. Blige's "Be Happy" as well as The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy"—their roots were firmly in hardcore hip-hop with production credits for Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J, and Kool Moe Dee. Plus they had a plan; they'd put hard hooks on melodic records or they'd give their beats a hip-hop block party feel.
In the end, all parties were vindicated once the album was released on July 2, 1996, debuted at #1, and went on to become Nas' best selling album while also featuring some of his best songs. So in order to wrap up Nas' week here at Complex, we got down with all of the major players involved with the album to put together The Making of Nas' It Was Written. Find out how Nas originally wanted to make the album with Marly Marl, how The Notorious B.I.G. influenced Nas' album in more ways than one, and how Nas was still very much in the streets when he made this album.
As told to Rob Kenner (@Boomshots) & Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)
Epigraph
“The things I was seeing happen, these things were written. These things were written in the Bible, in the Quran, and on the walls of Egyptian and Roman buildings. These things were written about the kings and queens that have come and gone. These things were written about great men, about poets, and about killers. All these things that happened, have a meaning. Everything that happens segues into each other. These things are all supposed to happen. There’s a meaning to life.” —Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones
The Players:
Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones a.k.a. Nas (Performer)
Jean-Claude Olivier a.k.a. Poke of Trackmasters (Producer & Excecutive Producer)
Samuel Barnes a.k.a. Tone of Trackmasters (Producer & Excecutive Producer)
Steve Stoute a.k.a. The Commissioner (Nas' manager)
Christopher Edward Martin a.k.a. DJ Premier (Producer)
Albert Johnson a.k.a. Prodigy (Performer)
Before The Album
Nas: “I wanted to make a street album with Marley Marl. I looked up to Marley as an inventor of so many styles of hip-hop music. I love what he did with Mama Said Knock You Out with LL Cool J. And being from the same hood, the second album had to be with Marley. So I started off with Marley Marl.
“I went in there and we went to work but Marley lives kind of far away. It always seemed like a mission to get there for me. We didn’t work every day, we picked the weekends. I didn’t [always] get out there either—I was getting in a little trouble here and there around my ways.
“After a while, some of my songs would appear as promos on the radio with all kinds of niggas rapping on them. And I didn’t even finish working on the song for my album. Like, I had a song called ‘On The Real’ that I didn’t finish. I was coming back to finish it and before I could, I’m hearing it on the radio with people rapping on it. I couldn’t understand that. I was hurt and I knew I couldn’t work like that.
“I had to rethink my whole album and figure out how to do it. I didn’t know what to do at that point because if I couldn’t do it with Marley, I didn’t have a plan B. I had to figure out something else, so me and Steve Stoute sat together and we had a meeting.
Steve Stoute: “I started working with Nas in 1995, in preparation for that album. I didn’t know Nas before that. I went to the projects looking for him without an introduction or anything. I just drove up to Queens and started asking for him and his brother Jungle pulled out a gun on me.
“He was like, ‘What are you doing here? Why are you asking for Nas?’ They thought I was a guy from another project because I was a big guy and I had a Lexus. It was just the wrong situation but I worked it out immediately.
Nas: “Steve Stoute had done little things here and there in the music business so he’d been around but no one knew him. I saw him as fresh legs to run around this business with me. He wanted it more than anybody else. He was smarter than everybody else and we knew what we wanted to do. He was Cus D’Amato, I was Mike Tyson.
I went to the projects looking for Nas without an introduction or anything. I just drove up to Queens and started asking for him and his brother Jungle pulled out a gun on me. “He was like, ‘What are you doing here? Why are you asking for Nas?’ - Steve Stoute
“When I started working with Steve Stoute, he managed producers. We had a vision to take it bigger than life. There’s a thing called sophomore jinx. I had to make sure that we blew people out of the park. I started hearing my style in a lot of people after Illmatic and I knew that I had to be 1000 notches above Illmatic or go home. That’s what we attempted to do.
“I guess I was lazy with it but Steve Stoute and Trackmasters didn’t just let me put out anything. They cared; I didn’t care. They were like, ‘Come on, the whole world is waiting for your next album more than they were waiting for your first album. Your first album came in and you charted low. It was good for a rap album with no big commercial records, but now the whole world is waiting for your second album, so take this shit seriously.’”
Steve Stoute: “I thought that Trackmasters knew the sensibilities between songs that were getting played on the radio and still had a credibility that a rap song needed. They could walk that fine line creatively. Nas knew that I represented Trackmasters so he trusted that. That’s really about it. Nas always trusts me.
“I had the unfortunate reality of having to make two records after an artist’s classic album. I had to make Mary J. Blige’s Share My World after My Life which was tough and I had to make It Was Written after Illmatic. Those are tough records to make because where does commercial success rub against artistic creativity?
“That was the issue, the honesty with those brands. I didn’t know what to say, honestly, about how to approach it with any science. We have to make a great album, the world is staring at us, you just came off of Illmatic. How are we going to launch it?
“I was 25 years old trying to build awareness for the album. The whole launch strategy with that album was very critical. It’s when I first realized that I was a marketer. The first thing that we did—since it was called It Was Written—was make notebooks. I had people handing out notebooks with the launch date on it. That was innovative, as far as I was concerned.
“Another tactic we did was I would give everybody parking tickets. I took NYC parking tickets and I copied them and printed them out. On one side was a parking ticket and on the other side was the release date of the album. Everyone thought they got a parking ticket and then it was just promotion for a Nas album. [Laughs.]
I guess I was lazy with it but Steve Stoute and Trackmasters didn’t just let me put out anything. They cared; I didn’t care. They were like, ‘Come on, the whole world is waiting for your next album more than they were waiting for your first album. Your first album came in and you charted low. It was good for a rap album with no big commercial records, but now the whole world is waiting for your second album, so take this shit seriously.’ - Nas
“Another thing I did was, I actually made a mixtape called QB’s Finest. I took three classic beats and put Nas freestyles on them. I inserted the mixtapes into a subscription of The Source magazine. So everyone who subscribed to it, got the magazine but it had a mixtape in it with Nas’ freestyles. What I was trying to do was set the market up. Just because we have Lauryn Hill singing doesn’t mean that Nas is not still on his llmatic shit.
“I was nervous all the time. I was mastering and Q-Tip said to me, ‘You’re killing his career.’ I was so nervous about that. Q-Tip was so important, Q-Tip was like, ‘This ain’t it.’ Q-Tip [had a big role on Illmatic] but he didn’t produce on It Was Written. Nas is an artist’s artist. My whole thing was I didn’t want him to end up being like Kool G Rap.
“I went into thinking about the launch strategy. I thought he had much more potential than Illmatic because I felt like everybody liked Illmatic but they just wanted him to stay there. But the record had not gone gold at that time. I just want to see this guy win.”
Tone: “In ‘96, we had just finished Soul For Real’s album and we had Mary J. Blige out. Nas had always been a friend of mine since ‘Back To The Grill’ with MC Serch. At the time, I was a rapper and Nas was a rapper. There was kind of like a rivalry thing between us. I think there was a small part of just getting used to that. Also, me not being a rapper anymore and producing now, and Nas trusting me producing tracks for him. That was big on his part to look past that.
“At the time, we were managed by Steve Stoute, who was also looking to manage Nas. In the conversation Steve had with Nas, he said, ‘You know, once you’re in with Trackmasters, it tends to produce the record.’
“That didn’t really sit well with Nas because Nas was known as an underground rapper and we’d had a lot of mainstream success. In the beginning it was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. But Nas agreed to give it a shot and we were all excited.”
Poke: “We felt a lot of pressure because Illmatic was a benchmark in hip-hop. The thing about Illmatic wasn’t the records themselves or the album, it was the movement behind it. So how do we make it that?”
Tone:“We both managed to ignore the criticism that people started to give us because here we were going in with Nas and we were going to make radio records with him. But Nas didn’t really know what we knew, which was that we come from the underground. We come from Kool G. Rap, Big Daddy Kane, The Real Roxanne. We come from that era. That’s what we do.
I was nervous all the time. I was mastering and Q-Tip said to me, ‘You’re killing his career.’ I was so nervous about that. Q-Tip was so important, Q-Tip was like, ‘This ain’t it.’ - Steve Stoute
“You’ve got to understand, Nas is used to dealing with producers like Large Professor, Q-Tip, Premo, where they’re giving him raw hip-hop. Our whole thing was raw hip-hop is good—and we love it—but it has to have enough of an appeal to get the people in the stores to buy your record. Not just your homeboy on the block.
“One of the main things that we thought about was producing Nas and making it so that he doesn’t lose credibility. The word ‘sellout’ was a big word, back then. If you got labeled with that word, as a rapper, you were finished. So we had to make sure that we could get him stuff that was middle-of-the-road—that radio could understand and that the hood could understand.
“Once Nas got comfortable and we had a gameplan on how to make this album, things started to magically come together. We knew that, in doing this album, we were going to have to bring in other people, like DJ Premier, to make it a broad enough album so that people don’t say that we tried to make this guy a commercial rapper.”
“Album Intro”
Produced by: Nas & Trackmasters
Nas: “That was my idea. It just came to me, it was like, ‘How could I not do it?’ That time period was when great rappers were quieting down and here are these new guys. Me being one of them, that was my story.
“If you listen to the beginning of Ready to Die, Biggie tells you a story. We had stories to tell because we had to explain what we were doing because how are we here now? We had the greatest rappers that could rap dominating the ‘80s and now here we come, so you had to say who you was.”
If you listen to the beginning of Ready to Die, Biggie tells you a story. We had stories to tell because we had to explain what we were doing because how are we here now? - Nas
Tone: “Nas wanted to portray this whole symbolism of being taken out of handcuffs and being set free, so to speak. So we were taking the N.W.A. approach, with the interludes and all the sound effects and theatrics of what it was, so it felt like he was actually in that situation.
“All the sample stuff and the music, that was pretty much our concept. The way we would do it is, we would introduce songs to Nas—some with hooks, some without hooks—to get him comfortable, so we could articulate properly the vision that we were all trying to accomplish.”
Steve Stoute: “We all worked on the album cover together but it was Nas’ idea. He started as a kid and then we showed him with the same shit as a man. There was no fly album covers that were thoughtful before that. The Illmatic cover didn’t inspire Biggie, Biggie jacked it. That was it. Then after that we went right into some great work for I Am... we molded his face with King Tut.”
“The Message”
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: “That was inspired by my position, since my first album had great success. There were lots of new rappers coming in the game and lots of us were making noise. You had Jay-Z coming, you had Raekwon branching off to be solo from the Wu-Tang, you had Mobb Deep coming up. You had Tupac going crazy. You had so many different artists and things happening in hip-hop.
“It was just a real serious point in rap. It was crazy back then; everyone was lyrical, everyone would battle you, everyone had a crew. Crews back then wasn’t only popping bottles, they was popping pistols too. I hadn’t really been shot [like I say in the song] but everyone else around me, so I was their voice.
It was crazy back then, everyone was lyrical, everyone would battle you, everyone had a crew. Crews back then wasn’t only popping bottles, they was popping pistols too. - Nas
“I saw Jay-Z driving a Lexus with the TVs in them. I got rid of my Lexus at that point and I was looking for the next best thing. It wasn’t a shot at Jay but it was just saying that’s the minimum you gotta have. It’s not a shot at him but he inspired that line. It wasn’t necessarily a shot at him but because the song was a shot at everybody, he fell into that. But he definitely inspired that line.
“There was a moment where it wasn’t just about being a fly guy with money, it was, ‘I’m still in the streets, I still got one foot in the streets.’ We were all gunning for that position or gunning people off of us trying to take our position. That was my position on ‘The Message’ like, ‘Yo, back up, everybody.’”
Tone: “I was at home watching the movie The Professional one night. The movie went off and the song ‘Shape of My Heart’ by Sting came on. I jumped up and said, 'Oh my God.' At the time, there wasn’t no Internet so I ran down to the record store, found out who made it, went home, and chopped it up. That was different for hip-hop at the time. It was actually the first time we experimented with Latin-feeling guitars.
“'Shape Of My Heart,' that’s a love song. You don’t get any more pop than that. Using that sample with Nas, it was like, 'Wow. Where are they going with this.' So it was a very popular sample, with a pop artist, and now you’ve got Nas rapping on it.
There was some undertones with him taking little jabs at other rappers in that record. [Laughs.] The 'Lex with TV sets, the mininum,' that line was directed right at Jay-Z. Jay was fronting hard with the Lexus in his videos and there was a little rivalry brewing. - Tone
“I brought the beat to the studio one night. It was at the end of a session, at Chung King, and they were like, 'What do we work on next?' I threw the cassette on and the intro had Nas really stuck because we got the intro from Scarface, which was really big for him. He was listening to it but when the drums kicked it he went bananas. He jumped up like, 'Oh my God!' Instantly, he knew the rhyme for the record.
“It took me a minute to really realize the picture he was painting. I was so caught up in the flow that he was putting on it that I didn’t even listen to what he was actually saying. The picture he on 'The Message' that was incredible.
“There was some undertones with him taking little jabs at other rappers in that record. [Laughs.] The 'Lex with TV sets, the mininum,' that line was directed right at Jay-Z. I’ll say it since they’re friends now. Jay was fronting hard with the Lexus, at the time, in his videos and there was a little rivalry brewing. It hadn’t really started yet, but it was brewing.”
Poke: “He definitely was referring to New York as a whole with that one king line. And I know 'Lex with TV sets, the minimum' was definitely at Jigga-man. Nas is very subliminal. You would have to read into it to know that he was even talking about Jay.”
“Street Dreams”
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: “That was basically what I was around at the time. Guys wasn't diving into the music industry trying to get paid off music, they were still hustling. I had one foot still in the street so I was the voice for the people I was hanging with. It didn’t matter what this guy and that guy were talking about, I was talking about reality.
“I wasn’t doing the songs and then going off to my mansion and never seeing anyone anymore. My ride to the studio and back was still in drug dealer cars. I was still way in a place where I didn’t need to be. I was hanging out all over Queens, Brooklyn, Harlem, parts of the Bronx. Everywhere.
“[I sang the hook on that and] I was definitely the first guy from my era that was singing. People wanted to hate until Biggie sang ‘Player Hater.’ He stopped any hate that was about to start. When they saw him do it, they were like, ‘Okay, I guess this is the way things are going now.’”
I wasn’t doing the songs and then going off to my mansion and never seeing anyone anymore. My ride to the studio and back was still in drug dealer cars. - Nas
Tone: “A lot of people don’t realize that Nas was really one of the first rappers who opened that door and made it okay to sing. On Big’s very record, he was singing the hook. Nas opened the door for that. Nas is a very melodic guy. He always loved to do things like that. Even on 'Black Girl Lost,' that has nothing to do with us or Steve Stoute, that’s just him being creative and bringing out who he really is.
“We also tried to incorporate original hip-hop. If you listen to original hip-hop—like Crash Crew and all those guys—they were all singing. So we tried to incorporate that type of feel on record. It isn’t that they’re trying to be Luther Vandross, they’re just harmonizing. They’re giving melody to the record. So you can sing along when the hook comes, as opposed to just being on stage and pointing the finger and trying to just rhyme. You get the audience interaction when they can sing the record along with you.”
Poke: “At the time, Tupac had come out with the same sample. We had no idea he was doing that. Some people ask, 'Did Tupac take that idea from Nas, or did Nas take that idea from Tupac? What’s the deal with that?' They were just being creative on the West Coast and we were being creative on the East Coast, it just so happened to play out like that. That was a total coincidence.”
“I Gave You Power”
Produced by: DJ Premier
Nas: “I was around a lot of guns then. Guns were in my sleep, in my car, in my home, guns were on my person, guns were on my friends. That’s how much they were around. There was so much around me that I rapped about it. It’s crazy to think about that today, but it was my reality. It was in my head 24/7."
Steve Stoute: “My biggest job back then was trying to manage Nas and Premier to get back in the studio. They would never, ever go into the studio. It was always a headache trying to get Nas and Premier to go in the studio together because of idiosyncrasies with their scheduling or Premier would not like the sound, he’d go listen for a while, and Nas would do the same thing. It was always like trying to put a collar on a bumblebee trying to get those two in the same room."
DJ Premier: “I was on tour with Gang Starr and I was just getting back. I was going right back out to go to Japan. So I didn’t have any time to make any other beats for It Was Written. But Nas said, ‘I want to make a record as if I was a gun.’
“We started messing around, trying to figure out what he’s going to do, and we finally figured out a way, because he said, ‘Maybe I should do a skit where I drop the gun and somebody else finds it.’
“And that’s how it all built, and I said, ‘You know what? Instead of making this a hard mean shit, let me make it sound sad.’ Because he said I’m going to be the gun talking about being tired of all the stuff I’m doing to people. That’s why I put that emotion behind it.”
I always wanted to take the part off the record, where he goes, 'It’s like I’m a gun.' I didn’t want him to give the hook away. I always wanted him to take that out but we never took it out. - Tone
Steve Stoute: “When I got them in the studio to work, I didn’t go to the studio because those two guys work so well together—all anybody else in the room does is take away from it. It’s about getting them in and getting out without them leaving. I got them in and I didn’t hear anything, I came back and he played me ‘I Gave You Power’ and I couldn’t believe it.
“There was only one cassette tape and I stole the cassette to it to drive around and just listen to it. He never would have cared about stuff like that but he loves that song and he called me and was like, ‘Where the fuck is my tape?’ I drove back to Queens to give it to him.
“[In the song,] Nas stutters and he makes a mistake but they kept it anyway.”
Tone: “I always wanted to take the part off the record, where he goes, 'It’s like I’m a gun.' I didn’t want him to give the hook away. I always wanted him to take that out but we never took it out."
Nas: “I was struggling with the fact that people wouldn’t get it [that’s why I said I was a gun in the intro]. I underestimated that the audience thinking they wouldn’t get what I was talking about. They were telling me, ‘They gonna get it.’ And I’m like, ‘No, they’re not going to know.’ So I kept it there.”
Tone: “Sometimes Nas gets in this mode where he doesn’t want you to change anything. We were so far along in the album that he was feeling so good about the album, that he was like, 'Yo just keep everything the way it is.' The album was special, at that point, because that was one of the last records. So he was like, 'Nah, we’re leaving everything the way it is.'”
“Watch Dem Ni**as” f/ Foxy Brown
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: “Things were getting a little dangerous. I was hanging with a lot of dangerous people and I think my brother told me, ‘Watch them niggas that’s close to you.’ I just took it from there and made it a song. That’s the one foot still in the street album. They pulled me over and I got arrested at that time in a Lexus, I had no license and I had a gun on me. They took my car and they arrested me. That’s what was happening to me at the time.”
Tone: “At that point, we were also gearing up for The Firm’s album. So that was a way strengthening the Nas and Foxy relationship. That had a jazz sample from Earl Klugh and some strings, so there was a lot of things going on melodically that didn’t make sense for Nas. So after Nas finished the record, that’s when we went and got Fox. We had a strategy: If the music is too melodic, we’ve got to put more hard stuff on top of it.”
Poke:“Right. To dumb it down, so it doesn’t sound so pretty.”
Foxy’s the best female rapper to ever do it. As an artist, obviously you’ve had better artists. But as a female rapper, no one could touch Foxy. - Tone
Tone: “Exactly. And if the music is too hard, we’ve got to put melodic stuff on top of it to bring it back up. That was how we kept the continuity of the album, to try to make it so that it has a hard appeal but it’s broad enough so that it doesn’t discourage white America.
“Foxy’s the best female rapper to ever do it. As an artist, obviously you’ve had better artists. But as a female rapper, no one could touch Foxy. Foxy was really the first one that really would challenge a male emcee. You didn’t want to fuck with her because she had the attitude, she had the voice, tone, and she really understood the drug game and the streets. She was very clear about the things that she wrote about.”
Poke: “Not to mention she had a real pen.”
Tone: “Yeah. She wrote all of her own stuff. I mean, obviously Jay-Z ghost-wrote some of the radio stuff, but all that hardcore Foxy stuff, she put it down. Working with her, when she’s in the studio, she’s an absolute beast.”
Poke: “Getting her to the studio was a whole other thing.”
Tone: “Yeah, but once she’s there, it’s a wrap. If you get her in the studio, you’re getting a record. She’ll pen a verse in 10 minutes.”
“Take It In Blood”
Produced by: Live Squad, Lo Ground & Top General Sounds
Nas:“I met Stretch by some dangerous cats that I was hanging with. They put me with Stretch who they were cool with. Stretch became my brother immediately. He wasn’t really recognized for the great work he was doing with Tupac and the hardcore records he did with his own group Live Squad with his brother Majesty. Stretch and I hung out all the time, almost every day.
Stretch dropped me off at home and went home and he was killed. He produced ‘Take It In Blood’ and ‘Silent Murder’—the irony. It was the last work he did. - Nas
“Stretch was really hurt by Tupac. I would hear him talking about how Pac was so mad at him because Stretch was with Tupac when he got set up and robbed in the studio lobby. Tupac was mad at everyone after that. I felt bad for Stretch because he really had a lot of love for Pac and he couldn’t believe that Pac thought he had something to do with it.
“Stretch dropped me off at home and went home and he was killed. That was a real great guy. He produced ‘Take It In Blood’ and ‘Silent Murder’—the irony. It was just a messed up moment for me. It was the last work he did. Very sad.”
Tone: We actually didn’t have the multitrack for that record. What happened was, Stretch submitted the record and then passed away so we had to finish the record for him. That’s when we came in and we didn’t have the multitrack, so we were trying to finish it on cassette.
"So we put our thing on it but we tried not to take away any of the original elements that he already had on the record. Nas already loved the track but Nas was also giving a tribute to him by doing the record.”
“Nas Is Coming”
Produced by: Dr. Dre
Nas: “I’m a big fan of Dr. Dre. Dre came to one of my shows when Illmatic came out. I did a show at a club that Prince owned called Glam Slam West in L.A. It was one of the illest L.A. clubs back when someone would always get shot outside but important people would be there and it would always be live.
“I came onstage holding a cognac glass of Hennessy and a cigar in my hand—that was my style in those days. Someone told me Dre was there, I went to see him after my show and we kicked it. He wanted to work since back then and I was a big fan."
Steve Stoute: “Working with Dr. Dre was something that I thought was important for marketing the album and trying to do something special to go to a level higher than Illmatic. So we felt like, ‘Hey man, let’s go get Dr. Dre.’
Dr. Dre had been basically on hiatus. No one could hire him. Just after he stepped away from Death Row, no one could even find him. [I found him because] I’m the commissioner, that’s my job. It was a big deal, it really was. - Steve Stoute
“And Dre went on record saying that the best rapper he thought in the game was Nas. He was on BET or MTV and he said, ‘Nas if you’re looking at this, I want to work with you, man, you’re my favorite rapper.’
“But Dr. Dre had been basically on hiatus. No one could hire him. Just after he stepped away from Death Row, no one could even find him. [I found him because] I’m the commissioner, that’s my job. It was a big deal, it really was.”
Nas: “When he did Dr. Dre Presents...The Aftermath he called me and I got on a song with him and a few people called ‘East Coast/West Coast Killas.’ I just saw right there, Dre wasn’t about the drama, he was about making records so we stayed cool.
“People were talking about this East Coast/West Coast shit but Dre called me and was like, ‘I got this record for you.’ He played the sample over the phone for me and I went crazy. We just wanted to show that a New York rapper could rap on a Dr. Dre beat and it’s all love. That was our position on that one.
“I recorded in Dre’s house. Dre had a banging studio in his house. It was real chill, just how it sounded. It was just banging beats, real energy, not a lot of people there to distract us. It was just us, happy to work together.”
Tone: “What that spun off was Trackmasters and Dr. Dre doing The Firm album. That’s how that whole relationship came about.”
“Affirmative Action” f/ AZ, Foxy Brown, & Cormega
Produced by: Trackmasters, Dave Atkinson
Nas: “I wanted to put together a song. AZ was my man and he told me about Foxy Brown. He drove me to Brooklyn to meet her at her house. I wanted to put the whole Firm thing together and she fit perfectly. We did that song and I just wanted to show that I had a crew that was ready to go in and make music.
“That was the first song that we ever recorded and from there, I just saw the future being albums, tours, clothing lines, Firm athletic wear, we had all those meetings and all of that shit. But the politics of this manager, that manager, this label, that label. It just got in the way of what I thought could have been really huge. At the same time, it was just cool to do it.”
Nas met Foxy at the studio and she just was in love with him. She always looked up to him, she was always in awe of him. - Steve Stoute
Steve Stoute: “Nas was just so antisocial back then, he loved the idea he just didn’t like to work with anybody. Foxy was always coming around the studio. I had Tone from the Trackmasters sign Foxy. He found and discovered her. So she would always be around us so Nas met Foxy at the studio and she just was in love with him but it’s not like they fucked or anything. She always looked up to him, she was always in awe of him.”
Tone: “Well, one of the producers that we had under us [named Dave Atkinson], he’s one of those producers that likes to do records without samples but make them sound and feel like samples. The problem he was having was that it would always feel like there was a played instrument. So we had to do what we had to do to keep the feel of it being hip-hop still, because it felt like an orchestra.
“So we took it, started dirtying it up, and making it as grungy as possible. Once we got that element and we played it for Nas, that’s when he was like, 'Yo this sounds like a Firm record. This is The Firm’s kick off joint.' That set the tone and the sound for what The Firm was supposed to sound like.
“Nas always wanted to get his crew together, so he had been calling it The Firm for a minute. We had been trying different members out. We actually had 50 Cent in it for a little while. It just didn’t work out. We actually made a record too.”
Nas always wanted to get his crew together, so he had been calling it The Firm for a minute. We had been trying different members out. We actually had 50 Cent in it for a little while. - Tone
Poke: “Yeah. The record was out! It came out on mixtapes and the whole cycle. It was crazy. It was 50, Nas, and Nature. In fact, Mary J. Blige was going to be a part of The Firm too at one time. It was just a conversation. She came in, we entertained it. She did a record with us and Nas that we put out with Mary singing on it and everything. Nore slipped in there, Mobb Deep. We kind of made it like, a real Queens thing. That’s why we tried to put 50, because 50 was from Queens, as well.”
Tone: “Not to mention that we were trying to get 50 out there. [Laughs.]”
Poke: “We were trying to promote him, he was on our label, at the same time.”
Tone: “It was like family. It was like Nas and AZ were the big brothers, Nature was the cousin, and Foxy was the little sister that gave everybody headaches. So it really was like a family.”
“Black Girl Lost” f/ Joel "Jo-Jo" Hailey
Produced by: Trackmasters, L.E.S.
Nas: “It’s just who I am, it’s just how I felt. At the time, I read a lot of Donald Goines books and Donald Goines has a book called Black Girl Lost. The writer just blew my mind and I just had to do a song like that.
“It was an honor to have Jodeci. Jodeci was the hottest shit out, I love Jo-Jo’s voice. I love K-Ci’s voice too but I thought to have both of them on it would be overkill on the record. Jo-Jo was with it, he was cool as hell, he came and did it.”
Poke: “L.E.S. was one of the producers that we were working with. We all came in, and L.E.S. had who knows how many beats, it’s just endless. At the time, we had a lot of hard records. So now, we were trying to make records that we could cross over and show a different side of Esco, and that’s where 'Black Girl Lost' came from, because now, we started getting into the records that we need to get out there to cross over. So that’s how that record came about.
“Who can we find that was hard enough to put on a melodic record, because the record is so melodic, we need somebody hard. It don’t get harder than Jodeci. So we were like, 'Okay. We need a hard singer. Let’s get K-Ci.' So that’s how that marriage came about.”
Nas: “I was still working on ‘Black Girl Lost Part II’ when it leaked. I make sequels to records but we don’t plan to put them out unless they are the records. I was working on a sequel to ‘Shootouts’ and a couple other records from that album too. I was working on another song, ‘Small World Part II.’ I don’t really have sequels, I did ‘N.Y. State of Mind Part II’ so that’s the only one I put out on a record.
“My other sequels never made an album. I never released them because they couldn’t top the first one. If I could top the original then I would put it on an album. ‘Black Girl Lost Part II’ would have originally been on the album but I never got back to fixing it and I’m too busy with other records. I don’t see where it could fit.”
“Suspect”
Produced by: L.E.S.
Nas: “L.E.S. is from my hood, we knew how to grab a sound that came from that hood. I feel like the beat on ‘Suspect’ came from that hood and it was just hanging out with the fellas and rapping.
“People say that I attempted to make a commercial record. I don’t know how to make a commercial record. I make records with producers who are producing bigger records but when I get on it, I feel like I always bring the streets to it. I feel like I’m the balance between commercial and street.
People say that I attempted to make a commercial record. I don’t know how to make a commercial record. I make records with producers who are producing bigger records but when I get on it, I feel like I always bring the streets to it. I feel like I’m the balance between commercial and street. - Nas
“I feel like I’m one of the only guys who can stay underground and make sure that the mainstream knows me. That’s been a balance that I’ve been balancing my whole life. That album is a great balance and I think if you can do that, then you’re saying something. To me, that’s what we’re all trying to achieve.”
Poke: “Initially, because of Nas working with Trackmasters, we didn’t want to give people the stigma that we were going to sell this guy out because we’re fans first. We come from making records for Kool G. Rap, Chubb Rock, Big Daddy Kane. We come from making those hard-ass records.
“So we wanted to show the world that just because we had triple and quadruple platinum records, that doesn’t mean that we’re trying to make records that sell out. We were just trying to make good music.
“We were pretty much trying to prove ourselves. Initially, we had a bunch of hard records, but we didn’t do what we usually do. So that’s when we started bringing in the continuity. Plus, we didn’t want Nas to feel like we were giving him all radio records. So that’s how it transformed.”
“Shootouts”
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: “We had a great time working on that record. They weren’t just producers—they lived with the songs, they pushed me, they stayed on my case, they wanted to complete records. They celebrated when we finished.
“They were excited about making records and beating everybody. That’s what we did on that album and they were able to do records, they’d give me the track and I’d make it street. ‘Shootouts’ was based off some true shit. I added some imagination but it was based on the life of me and my crew.”
Poke: “We actually put 'Shootouts' out as a freestyle with Nature and Nas on a DJ Clue? mixtape. It seemed so crazy that we were just like, 'Yo lets just make it a whole record and put it on the album.' So that’s what it was, and it was a chance to put Nature out there and stuff like that. Although Nature is not on the final version, he was on the version that we put out. Nas loved the beat and he just wanted to go. He was like, 'Yo I’m going to air this out myself.' [Laughs.]”
“Live Ni**a Rap” f/ Mobb Deep
Produced by: Havoc
Nas: “Again, I just wanted that hardcore, grimey, Queensbridge sound. Since Marley Marl wasn’t producing the current rap albums anymore, I saw Havoc as the next young generation. I felt like it was important to have him. When me and Mobb Deep get in the studio, it’s like family who don’t see each other but are proud of what we become. We’re still fans of each other.”
Prodigy: “We recorded that for Hell On Earth. Nas called us when he was working on his album like, ‘Yo, I want to buy that song from y’all that we did.’ I was real reluctant at first because that shit was crazy hot and that was our Nas feature for our album. He was like, ‘I want to buy that shit.’ After thinking about it for a while, we sold it to him. We figured his shit would be bigger than our shit and it’d be good promotion for us because it’s Nas.
The rhyme that I had on there is actually the rhyme that I [originally] had on ‘L.A., L.A.’ I had took that verse off of ‘L.A., L.A.’ because it was just too hot. - Prodigy
“The rhyme that I had on there is actually the rhyme that I [originally] had on ‘L.A., L.A.’ I had took that verse off of ‘L.A., L.A.’ because it was just too hot. When we did the song ‘L.A., L.A.’ we all was rhyming on it, we all had verses, but when I had wrote that verse, I was like, ‘Nah, I can’t put this on here. This is too crazy right here.’ So I ended up just doing the chorus on that song, and Hav did his verse on there, and that was it. I took that rhyme and I put it on ‘Live Nigga Rap’ like two days later.
“If you listen to the rhyme on ‘Live Nigga Rap,’ I’m talking about California shit. I said, ‘Got links with big cats down in Santa Barbre.’ Nore tried to jack my little style off of that too. That whole ‘Live Nigga Rap’ verse, Nore tried to jack my shit a little something [Laughs.]. If you listen to it, you’ll know what I’m talking about. But it ain’t nothing, that’s cool.”
“If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)” f/ Lauryn Hill
Produced by: Trackmasters & Rashad Smith
Nas: “Being a hip-hop fan and Krush Groove fan, Kurtis Blow was my favorite rapper when I was a kid. He sang ‘If I Ruled the World’ and I thought that was a huge chorus. The movie is more known for Run-D.M.C.’s part and it didn’t really mention the Kurtis Blow part too much because it sounded R&B. I didn’t necessarily love the R&B thing at the time, but when I saw Krush Groove I loved what he was singing and rapping about.
Poke: “The first track we played for Nas was ‘If I Ruled The World.’”
Tone: “We didn’t have a singer on it at first. We played it for him and I don’t think he got it at first.”
Poke: “He was definitely resistant. The thing about Nas is that he’s pure hip-hop. We were trying to cross him over, trying to give him a broader appeal in the marketplace. He got flack for that because everybody was saying that we were trying to water him down. So when we played him the record, he was like, ‘I don’t know.’
“The strategy became lets give him harder records first, so that we can ease him into the radio records. We also tried to make sure that on the harder records, the hooks were sing-along enough that they could cross over to the mainstream. That was the strategy.
“It was kind of like a spoon-fed system to get him comfortable with the strategy that we had and put him out there. After three or four records, he was like, ‘We’re in the zone, right now. Let’s get busy.’
I was supposed to be on the The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill but I never made it to the sessions. That’s one of my greatest regrets with music. I was getting the calls to come rap on the album and something was always happening when I got the call. Lisa Ellis of Sony always used to tell me, ‘Man you f**ked up, you’re supposed to be on that album. - Nas
Tone: "But we were still looking for someone to sing 'If I Ruled The World.' We had to find that person that had hip-hop credibility. Do we get a pop singer? No, that’s not going to work. We had a get a singer that was suitable on the hip-hop side of the arena.
“The only other person that could have sung that was R. Kelly, but at the time we didn’t start working with him yet. But 'Killing Me Softly' had just popped. It started catching on and Lauryn Hill was the one."
Nas: “The Fugees were labelmates, they were friends of mine who used to open up for me in the beginning. I later opened up for them once they made The Score. It was what was supposed to happen. I called Lauryn Hill up, like ‘Yo can you rap this out?’ We were friends like that.
“I was supposed to be on the The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album but I was caught up with whatever and I never made it to the sessions. That’s one of my greatest regrets with music. I was getting the calls to come rap on the album and something was always happening at the time when I got the call. Lisa Ellis of Sony always used to tell me, ‘Man you fucked up, you’re supposed to be on that album.’
“Me and Lauryn were musical peers, we were brother and sister. We looked out and did the thing. They were on tour in Europe so she took the Concorde from London and flew back. We shot the video in Times Square."
Steve Stoute: “I mixed that record 30 times, personally. I wanted to make sure all of Lauryn’s ad-libs were right. Nervousness to make sure that it was going to be right.
Poke: “Nas did a couple of those verses over because it just didn’t work in the concept of the record. Some of the lines didn’t work with some of the records that we were doing, across the board. But sometimes it was just magic and everything worked.
“As an artist, sometimes you get tunnel-vision and you don’t see every other aspect. Nas would always ask, 'What do you think about this? What do you think about that?' and we would give him our real opinion, like, 'Nah, I don’t think that verse will work' or 'I don’t think that line works.'"
I felt like B.I.G. had changed the playing field [of rap music] in a great way. You couldn’t be talking about you’re the Don of the city and your record is only resonating to a couple of street people. If we’re the Don, that means I need mayor Giuliani dancing to my songs. - Nas
Nas: “I felt like B.I.G. had changed the playing field [of rap music] in a great way. You couldn’t be talking about you’re the Don of the city and your record is only resonating to a couple of street people. If we’re the Don, that means I need mayor Giuliani dancing to my songs.
“Stevie Wonder had everybody dancing to his songs, so if I’m going to be great, I’m going to make a great record that you can’t hold back. When I’m on the radio, I’m going to have you singing along, ‘I’d open every cell in Attica, send ‘em to Africa,’ and ‘Imagine smoking weed in the streets without cops harassing.’
“That should be mainstream, that shouldn’t just be in the streets. The whole world should hear my voice, hear my point of views in my street language. We turned the lights on. I showed them I could put on a Gucci suit with Wallabees and that’s the streets but the streets to the next level.
Steve Stoute: “The song was a step away from what you heard on Illmatic. That’s why in the beginning of the ‘If I Ruled The World’ video, Nas does the rap from ‘The Message’ first, then he snaps his fingers, and the song starts.
“Even though it had Lauryn singing on it, I didn’t want people thinking the only thing the album was representing was singing and topics like ‘If I Ruled The World.’ So, at the top of that video, we ran a pre-roll of 30 seconds of him spitting some hot shit from ‘The Message.’”
Poke: “The song has a Whoudini sample and then we just took the 'If I Ruled The World' hook from Kurtis Blow. Nas came up with the 'If I Ruled The World' title, and that’s when we were like, 'Yo that should be the whole hook.'
“We were one of the pioneers of, 'Yo lets make block party records.' Like, what DJ’s used to do, back then, they used to just put on instrumentals of an R&B record and emcees used to just rap over it. So we had that whole mentality of let do that. That’s when everybody started going sample crazy because we started doing that stuff and it was working at radio.
We took the concept of block party records and tried to put it on wax, and now all of a sudden we’re sell-outs because the record sells a lot? It made no sense. I would think that you would give it up to us because we’re paving the way for rappers to sell more records than they ever sold before. - Poke
“[The whole ‘sellout’ label] made no sense to me. Like, if you sell more than the regular album, than you’re a sell-out. That’s what the mentality was.I think the stigma about selling out is how many records you sell because if you listen to all the beats that we made, they weren’t sell-out beats. They were hip-hop beats or they were R&B records that a rapper would rap on.
“I don’t think it came from what beats you made or if a person was singing because in the beginning of hip-hop, that’s what it was. It was singing with R&B records like 'Another One Bites The Dust' or 'Good Times.' All of those records are the records rappers used to rap on at block parties and DJs used to blend and mix. That’s what we used to do at block parties.
“We took the same concept and tried to put it on wax, and now all of a sudden we’re sell-outs because the record sells a lot? It made no sense. I would think that you would give it up to us because we’re paving the way for rappers to sell more records than they ever sold before. Prior to that, for rap acts, it was like, 'You’re going to sell platinum? That’s not going to happen.'”
Nas: “When we white labeled it, people didn’t get it because they didn’t know why I had someone singing. They didn’t know it was Lauryn Hill because they just white-labeled. But when the record took off, that’s when people were starting to catch it like, ‘It sounds like Lauryn.’
"When we finally released the record to the radio and let them know that it was Lauryn, it was like, ‘Oh shit! This shit is real.’ We worked on ‘If I Ruled The World for probably two months. We were able to take it to the next level. And then I fixed all those haters with the next album with ‘Hate Me Now.’”
“Silent Murder” (Bonus Track)
Produced by: Live Squad, Lo Ground & Top General Sounds
Nas: “I like the sounds that I heard in the movie 48 Hours and I wanted the steel drum sound. I wanted to put some of that on top of Stretch’s beat so I got someone to play what I wanted to play on top of it and the track just always put me in the zone.”
Poke: “The only reason we couldn’t add any more records to the album was because there were already too many records. At some point, we were making records and just throwing the records out because we had so many of them. That’s the only reason why some of the records didn’t make it.
“You’ve got to try to paint a full movie and not paint a full movie with excerpts. Leave them as bonus stuff that we throw out on the side. That’s what we tried to accomplish, not anything more, not anything less.
At some point, we were making records and just throwing the records out because we had so many of them. That’s the only reason why some of the records didn’t make it. - Poke
“Also, from a publisher’s standpoint, publishers only collect off of 12 records. Every record after that, you’re cutting into other people’s publishing. When you have a number of producers on an album and you have 22 tracks, their publishing starts getting cut down. That becomes a publishing nightmare. So we started scaling down when everybody was like, 'Yeah lets put more tracks on the album.'
"Lets say you have a producer on there who had a record that basically shouldn’t have even been on the album. He’s getting paid because of everybody else’s success. So a lot of A-list producers were mad like, 'Yo you’re on this album for a free ride.' So they stopped that and tracklistings started to get cut down to between 12 and 15 tracks. And that’s where it stayed.
“Half of the guys were putting records on their album just to be putting them on there. Why put it on? Just take it off. It’s almost like a bitch with too much makeup. Like, 'Bitch, take some of that makeup off.'”
“Street Dreams (Remix)” f/ R. Kelly
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: “When I got the track, I wanted Denise Williams—who is one of my favorite singers—to sing on it. I reached out to her and I was trying to write the song first. I saw R. Kelly becoming more of a hip-hop singer and when I called him, he told me he just did ‘I’m Fucking You Tonight’ with Biggie. I was like, ‘Damn, I wanted to be the first rap dude with an R. Kelly hook.’
“Biggie beat me to it but Biggie’s song didn’t come out yet so I beat Biggie to it because my song actually came out first. It didn’t stop nothing. Biggie’s record was the better record but I still was just happy to see Robert."
Poke: “There was actually two remixes, and what happened was, just to make a more radio friendly version of it and that’s what we did for that particular remix. But there was another underground remix that we made that was even harder than the original.
I was like, ‘Damn, I wanted to be the first rap dude with an R. Kelly hook.’ Biggie beat me to it but Biggie’s song didn’t come out yet so I beat Biggie to it because my song actually came out first. Biggie’s record was the better record but I still was just happy to see Robert. - Nas
“When we went out on tour with Chubb Rock—I was Chubb Rock’s DJ and Tone was Chubb Rock’s hypeman—we were on tour with R. Kelly for the 12 Play. So we used to play basketball with R. Kelly everyday for four months.
“So we kind of got to know each other on just a cool-out basis and we would just play basketball, every single day. We used to put the buses in a square and that would be the basketball court, and we’d just play basketball. So that was how we got to know Rob.
“Then—Barry Hankerson who was managing Timbaland at the time—said to Steve Stoute, who was managing us, 'Rob never works with anybody, ever. But he likes your guys. So lets try to get them in the studio together and see what we can do.' The first that came of that was 'Street Dreams.' We flew to Chicago, Rob did the hook, and it took like 15 minutes.
Steve Stoute: “I was proud of myself. That’s when I knew I could do it as a marketer, as a record executive, as a manager, the whole thing. That’s what my skills culminated.”
Nas: “I saw R. Kelly in a different light. I saw him with chains on and I brought the big chains around him. I called him the R&B thug and he later made a song called ‘R&B Thug.’ That was my man. We got down there and he was cool as ice, he was so easy to work with. He was fast and brilliant and when he jumped on, he had no problem.
“When we shot the video, I talked to some of the street dudes out there in Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini-Green—when it was still standing—two of the roughest neighborhoods in the nation. Hype Williams was crazy as hell so he didn’t mind shooting the video in Cabrini-Green. It made it easy for R.Kelly because he wasn’t the guy you see coming out everywhere so we figured if we were in Chicago, it’d be cool.
Later, Rob was like, 'Yo I need a rapper on this record.' Since we were cool with Jay-Z, we were like, 'Yo, lets get Jay-Z.' When Jay came to do the rap, that’s how Best of Both Worlds came about. It’s funny how life works. - Poke
“After a while, the street guys said they wanted to see more R. Kelly and they wanted to see him show love. Robert came out, we hung out with the guys in the projects, smoked with them, drank Hennessy with them and shot the videos for the kids in Chicago. It was a beautiful day.”
Poke: "While we were there, Barry and Steve cut a deal like, 'Yo lets get your boys in with Rob to give him some uptempos.' That’s when we went in and did the R. album and 'Fiesta' and all of those records. Then formed a relationship.
"Later, Rob was like, 'Yo I need a rapper on this record.' Since we were cool with Jay-Z, we were like, 'Yo, lets get Jay-Z.' When Jay came to do the rap, that’s how Best of Both Worlds came about. It’s funny how life works and one thing leads to another.”
Aftermath
Nas: “It some of the greatest times of my life and Steve’s life. We saw so many people come about and then vanish from the business and we knew we were here to stay. We knew if we got in a little bit, we were here to stay. We’d kick the wall down and we’d stay. The record kicked the wall down for us.
“That album was one of my proudest accomplishments. I’m very proud of that album. It’s been hard for me to compete with that record because times have changed and I’ve changed through the years. I just wanted to do different things but that record right there was one hell of a record.”
Poke: “What really took it over is that when the album was actually released and the numbers came back. That’s when it dawned on everybody that this wasn’t a crossover system. This is the system of selling as many records as possible.
“[When the numbers came back we felt] beyond vindicated but still scared. I remember being in the house and I got this phone call, and Steve was like, 'You know how much he did the first week?' and I was scared to hear the number. I was just like, 'Don’t even tell me. We bricked.' He said, 'Yo we did 268,000.' I was like, 'What!?' It was just an amazing feeling.”
Steve Stoute: “When It Was Written came out, it stayed at #1 for four weeks in a row. We beat Alanis Morissette for four weeks in a row and she was the hottest thing on the earth. We sold three million albums. I still have those plaques.”
I remember being in the house and I got this phone call, and Steve was like, 'You know how much he did the first week?' and I was scared to hear the number. I was just like, 'Don’t even tell me. We bricked.' He said, 'Yo we did 268,000.' I was like, 'What!?' It was just an amazing feeling. - Poke
Poke: “I remember driving up 125th Street and every car was bumping 'The Message.' I was like, 'Yo I’m hot, right now!' [Laughs.] It felt good because we always wanted people to feel like we were the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis of hip-hop. Like, we create stars. We create big movements. We’re not just fly-by-night producers.”
Tone: “We needed each other at the time. Nas gave us that official stamp, like, 'These guys are real producers. They’re doing an entire album. They can really make it happen for somebody who has already had success.' And what Nas needed was someone that could take him to the next level to cement Nas the icon and not just Nas, the rapper with street credibility. So it worked out well.”
Poke: “That was always our goal and we tried to keep that concept in people’s minds, where we could go and do a Will Smith, then do a Nas, then go do big R&B records, and then big pop records. Not many producers can say that they can do the full spectrum.
“Doing It Was Written, it was a milestone in our careers because we wanted to feel accepted. When you have other rappers saying, 'Yo they’re about to fuck Nas up,' and they’re rappers that you look up to, it’s like, 'Oh my God, we’re about to be finished.'
“People feel like Nas is almost like their baby, like he’s the rapper of all rappers and you don’t want to see that tarnished. Now he’s in the hands of the Trackmasters? 'Oh my God. They’re going to fuck him up. These guys make pop records.'
“Nas and Big were my favorite rappers. We had the opportunity to work with both, which was an amazing thing for us. Not many people can say, 'I worked with Nas and worked with Big and gave them smashes.' So when we had that opportunity, we tried our best not to fuck it up. [Laughs.]
We needed each other at the time. Nas gave us that official stamp, like, 'These guys are real producers. They’re doing an entire album. They can really make it happen for somebody who has already had success.' And what Nas needed was someone that could take him to the next level to cement Nas the icon and not just Nas, the rapper with street credibility. - Tone
“That album is a classic. It stands up against any other classic hip-hop album. It was the benchmark for what Nas is capable of.
“He could also make big pop records that are also still considered hood records, and it’s hard to paint that picture. It also opened so many doors for him because it allowed him to express himself and nobody would look at him crazy for trying things.
“It allowed Nas to breathe and it gave him room because now you have a new audience that didn’t know anything about Illmatic, he got those fans, too. Those crossover fans were like, 'Illmatic? What the hell is that?' They went back after It Was Written to buy Illmatic. There were spikes in Illmatic’s record sales because of It Was Written.
“Illmatic sold 500,000 units, It Was Written sold 3.5 or 3.6 million. He gained five-times his audience with It Was Written. So he became Nas, like, 'Oh my God.'
“After that, people started giving us a little more respect, like, 'Oh these guys aren’t fly-by-night. They know how to create albums.' We never wanted to be the guys that if you want a hit single go to these guys. We wanted to be the guys that executive produce your album and you’re going to sell five million records. We’re better at painting big pictures. It’s hard to paint a big picture with just one single.
“Prior to that—even though we worked with Biggie, Mary, Soul For Real as well as Kool G. Rap and Big Daddy Kane—when we started making big records, everybody started thinking, 'Oh, these guys make pop records, not hip-hop records.' So after that people saw that we could do both sides of the spectrum and they started accepting it.”