Apollo Brown is a producer with a rep. When you check out an Apollo Brown album, you know what you are going to get: dusty samples, boom-bap drums, dope beats. He has already worked with a who’s who of top MCs, from O.C. and Guilty Simpson to Chino XL and Ghostface Killah. Now he has teamed up with West Coast veteran Ras Kass for the collaboration album Blasphemy on Mello Music Group. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Apollo and put some questions to him about the new album as well as some of his previous projects.
Can you tell me a bit about Blasphemy? What kind of sound or feel were you aiming for with the album?
Apollo Brown: Just like your typical Apollo Brown, man. I try to get people feeling. I try to give people the most feeling I can give them, because that’s the music I like. If it doesn’t have feeling, then I don’t want anything to do with it. The album has a political undertone, it has a religious undertone, and it’s basically Ras Kass doing what Ras Kass does best, and Apollo Brown doing what Apollo Brown does best, and the two coming together for the perfect marriage. It’s a rollercoaster, man; the album goes up and down, and it gives you a bunch of different feelings, but comes together very consistent. It’s raw hip-hop at its best, man.
What was it like working with Ras Kass? Were you actually in the studio together recording?
Oh, of course, man, of course. I can’t do it any other way. It’s just one of those things, when you’re making a full-length album, I feel like you have to get in the studio, you have to feel each others’ vibe. I wanna see his face when I play him a beat, I want him to see my face when he comes out of the booth, you know, spitting a hot sixteen. We need to be there together to feel each others’ vibe and tell each other the rights and wrongs and give each other our true feelings about what’s going on at that moment. I can’t really do an Internet album when it comes to a full-length LP. Working with Ras was easy, man. We both had a common goal in mind to make good music, and that’s what we did.
You can always feel the chemistry on your albums. You can tell that there’s no verses being emailed back and forth.
Yeah, because I don’t just work with anybody, man, and I don’t just send people beats. I wanna get to know the person that I’m working with away from music. Not just a business standpoint but more of a personal relationship. So that’s what I do with the people I work with, and that’s why it comes natural when we make music.
How did you initially hook up with Ras?
Actually, we were mutual fans of each other, we knew each others’ music, but I reached out to him. We talked, we built, I went out to L.A., he came to New York. He came to Detroit. We met each other out in the Czech Republic. We’ve been hanging out a lot over the last few months, man, and also when making the record. We made the record over the last five months or so. It was easy, man. I just had to hit him up, and he was down from day one.
Do you use the same studio setup to make each project?
Pretty much. We recorded this one out in L.A. Usually, I record in Detroit. As far as the beats, yes, same studio setup. As far as the mixing and mastering, same studio setup. I use three different studios. I always use one studio to record, I use another studio to mix, and another studio to master. And if you wanna count making the beats, that’s a whole other studio. I like to have fresh ears; I use the same engineers for each process. My mixing engineer is the same one every time. My mastering engineer is the same one every time. My recording engineer is usually the same one every time; it was different this time. But I like to have three different engineers, three different sets of ears, and three different sets of opinions and ideas.
What kind of equipment do you use to make your beats?
I use Cool Edit, man, Cool Edit 2000. It’s an old program, came out in 1997—I’ve been using that ever since. I incorporate other things as well like a Roland XP-50. I incorporate a lot of other things, but my core program is Cool Edit.
You are one of the most consistent producers around right now, and you seem to improve with every release. Do you feel you are still learning the craft?
I appreciate that, man. I don’t think you ever master it, man. I’m a student every day. I’m definitely game to learn whatever I can learn every day and soak up anything I can soak up from somebody that knows more than me. I don’t care if you’ve only been producing for one year or three months or whatever, if you know something that I don’t know and you’re willing to let me in on it, I’m willing to listen, man. I’m a student of the game, and I’ll always be a student of the game.
You said before that you have worked with quite a diverse range of MCs, from Guilty Simpson to O.C. and Ras Kass. What kind of quality does an MC have to have to make you want to do a full-length album with them?
The chemistry is big, and I don’t work with anybody that I’m not a fan of. Conviction, man, conviction is big. I want the MC to really believe in what he’s talking about, in what he’s saying. A great delivery, great content, and just having that enthusiasm and that conviction behind your words that make people feel it every time you spit. That’s really big for me, man. That’s probably the number one thing.
The “Lose You” track on Dice Game samples a Carolyn Franklin song, and it’s one of my personal favorites. Are these tracks that you were aware of at a young age or things that you have found when digging for samples?
I dig all the time, man, and I just collect samples. I kinda stockpile samples. I put them on my external, and whether I’m traveling or I’m at home, I just go through them and find things that fit the sound or fit the mold of what I’m going for on an album and work on it. That definitely fit the mold of what I was going for. I love going to dig and I love just chopping up a sample, man, creating my own melodies and making people feel certain ways when they listen to it. I don’t dig much on the road; I dig mainly at home. I make beats on the road every now and then, if I’m gone for a long time, like Europe or whatever. I don’t really dig on the road. I’m in Detroit, so I have everything I need right at my fingertips.
Are there any particular places you go to dig?
A big spot for me is Record Graveyard; that’s a spot that I love digging at. I got a couple of other spots that are kinda secret that I can’t really divulge. Street Corner is a good spot to go dig. Record Graveyard is a great spot, man, and it’s near me, but I got a couple other spots that not too many people know about.
What do you look for in a sample? Is there anything in particular that catches the ear?
Just the feeling, man, the feeling of the song, the feeling of the notes. The instruments: I look for a lot of organs, I look for horns, just instruments that kinda catch my attention. When I’m looking for a sample, when I’m digging, I’m not listening to the record, I’m looking for key words on the back like “crying” or “lonely,” you know, “depression,” “tenderness,” stuff like that. Things that kinda stand out that I know might have some good feeling to it.
When you are making a collaboration album, do you give the MC any direction on topics or what a certain song should be about? Or do you let them interpret the beat in their own way?
Nah, I don’t like babysitting MCs, man. I don’t want them to babysit me. I don’t want them to tell me how to do something, so I’m not going to tell them how to do something. We’ll come together and when I make a beat, a lot of the times I’ll put a hook on it, and it kinda tells you where to go with the beat anyway. Even the feeling of the beat kinda tells you what to do, where to go. The beat will speak to you, and it’ll let you know what to talk about. The MCs I work with, they’re professionals, man; they do this for a living. They know what they’re doing.
I read an interview that you did around the time Trophies dropped where you said that the full album was recorded in sixteen hours. Do you always tend to work at a crazy speed like that?
The way I do things is get it all recorded. The recording process is usually a short process, getting something recorded in a week or so, because it’s already written. I give the MC months to write the album, to write what they wanna write and do their thing. And then we get together in the studio and record it. Usually, I’ll block out a week of time in the studio so we can record the album. It just so happens that O.C. came in and got like twelve songs done in eight hours, and then came back the next day and in four hours he got the rest of the album done. And it was just ridiculous, but he’s been doing this for like twenty-plus years; he knows what he’s doing. He’s pretty good at one-takes. But, yeah, I try to get things done in a decent amount of time. You don’t wanna take too much time making an album, you know. You don’t wanna take a year, two, three years making an album, because your moods change, your tastes change. Things that you recorded early on, you may not like any more. You’re gonna want to re-do something or change something, or you don’t produce the same any more, you don’t rap the same any more. A lot of stuff happens within a year so I like to get albums done in four to five months.
How long did Blasphemy take from start to finish?
We took about five months to make that album from start to finish. I like to make the albums in a quick amount of time but still have the same quality; you don’t want to sacrifice quality. Take longer if need be but you don’t want to sacrifice quality and I don’t think I do. Ever.
Are there any of your projects that you wish had gotten more shine when it dropped? Any that you feel were overlooked at all?
All my projects got a good amount of shine; I wish that maybe The Brown Study got a little more shine. Brown Study and Daily Bread, I wish those got a little more shine. It actually picks back up a little bit, they’re picking back up. People are going back in to my catalog and looking for things and listening to stuff that I’ve done before, people who are just now learning about me or just now coming up on Apollo Brown music. So, yeah, it’s starting to do well again, but I wish those two got a little more shine because they’re amazing albums.
Would you ever consider making a second album with an MC that you have already worked with, like a Trophies 2 or Dice Game 2, for example?
I definitely would. This is something we would sit and talk about. I know the MCs that I’ve worked with are doing their own solo projects respectively, so I’m working on my own thing, but I’m sure one of them, we’ll come back together and do something, yeah.
You dropped a couple of other projects in the last year or so… The Brown Tape was your vision of Ghostface Killah’s Twelve Reasons to Die album. I read that you were given only the vocals to work with?
Yeah, I was given the vocals to work with, and then I had to pretty much score the vocals, man. It was crazy.
Did you have to change up your beatmaking process for that project?
Yeah, it was definitely backwards, man. Usually, you make a beat and somebody raps to it. I had the vocals and I had to make the beat to the vocals. I didn’t know the BPM, I didn’t know any of that, so I had to literally make the beats around those vocals and try to make everything fit. It was crazy, man, scoring vocals. It was a very hard album to do. The bars weren’t exactly traditional. It wasn’t like sixteens and eights; a lot of stuff was all over the place, so it was definitely a hard album to do, but it came out great.
You also dropped the Thirty-Eight instrumental project. It’s got a real smoky ’70s feel to it and it’s a really cohesive piece. Would you say that it’s up there with your other instrumental albums?
I love instrumental projects, man. I think they’re great. Sometimes they get used for the wrong things, but other than that, I love listening to beats, and that’s why I make them. I know a lot of other people that love to listen to beats. That’s why I put out Thirty-Eight. Thirty-Eight is a little more themed than the other ones, it’s dirtier. A lot of those beats were actually intended for Roc Marciano. That’s why we gave everybody the 5-inch vinyl with the two songs on it, just to give you a little teaser of what might have been if we did put an album together. I’ll probably end up doing another instrumental album in the next couple of years; I try to do one maybe every three years.
Cool. I wanted to ask about the Gas Mask album that you dropped with the Left. What happened to the track that featured Kool G Rap? It doesn’t seem to be on any of the digital versions online now.
There was a track with Kool G Rap, yes. We had a couple of issues with that song, with the sample. So we ended up having to take it off a few things, man. All of the physical pressings and everything still have it.
In an old interview, you mentioned not wanting to limit yourself to only hip-hop music. Have you made any ventures outside of hip-hop as of yet? Is that still something you want to explore?
I’ve done some R&B stuff and some soul stuff, but I was actually just talking to someone today. I definitely want to do a gritty soul album. I really want to do a soul album; it’s just finding the right singer. The right singer that complements it, that’s the problem so far. A lot of singers are really clean. I don’t want a clean singer; I want a really dirty singer. So trying to find that is the issue, but it’ll get done. It’s something I wanna do.
I know you said before that you are a fan of Ras Kass’s older material. Do you listen to much hip-hop in general?
I do, man. It’s funny because when I’m in my truck driving around, I’m usually listening to a lot of ’80s alternative or a lot of ’70s soul. I don’t listen to as much hip-hop as I used to, man, just because I’m in it, and all I do I live hip-hop. So when I can get away from hip-hop, when I’m not working, making beats or whatever, I try to listen to other things and listen to other music that I enjoy.
Are you planning on doing any shows to support the Blasphemy album?
Oh yeah, of course, man, we got to. We’re going to wait for the demand to get up a little bit and let it marinate in people’s heads, and we’ll definitely be doing some domestic stuff and then we’ll go overseas. I’m always overseas, so we’ll definitely take a ride over the pond and do some shows.
What has the feedback been like so far?
Oh, the feedback has been amazing, man. The response has been overwhelming. Everybody loves the album so far, everybody has a different favorite song, and everybody is on board, man. I expected a good response, but I didn’t expect such an overwhelming amount of responses. It’s been a good ride.
Have you been working with any other groups or MCs at the moment? Any future projects that you can speak on?
I have other projects, yeah, definitely, other things that I’m working on, but I can’t really speak on them yet. But it’s gonna be a good year coming up, this year is already a good year, but next year is gonna be a good year as well.
Blasphemy by Apollo Brown and Ras Kass is out now on Mello Music Group
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