Murder Dog Archives


	Interview with hank shocklee by Pigballs When you were producing Public Enemy did you work alone or with a team? I work with producers and train producers. So I worked with Eric Sadler, and I worked with my brother, Keith Shocklee, and Chuck and Terminator and Flava. A lot of the techniques that are bein used today, we developed a lot of those techniques back then. Now because of what we’ve done, the equipment manufacturers have incorporated a lot of the things that we had to do on our own and invent. They are featured on the machines now that other producers can use. You were with Public Enemy from the beginning? I created Public Enemy. Me and Chuck created Public Enemy back in ’88. How did you meet? We worked at neighboring colleges together, me and Chuck. I found Chuck, we was at a party and he did an announcement, and I really liked the way his voice sounded. From there we just started workin. We came up with Public Enemy because we wanted to make a statement, not just in the Rap industry, but in the music industry. At the time there was no consciousness happenin in music. Similar to the way the times are now. We wanted to bring an awareness of identity on a world level. We created Public Enemy and we knew that we wanted to keep it street, we wanted to keep it grimy. We knew that it was not going to be easy to like. We wanted to be rebellious. We felt like Rap wasn’t getting any major treatment. We felt victimized by that treatment. Back in the days, Rap was taboo. Rap was "oh my god, what is that nonsense." It was terrifying to people. They thought it was a fad that would pass in a couple of years. Exactly. And settin that groundwork, that to me was the essence of what we brought about. We started the first Rap producing camp with our Bomb Squad. After that you got the Bad Boy team, Master P had his crew. Dr. Dre had a camp. We created that whole crew element. Before then it was all solo producers. We created The Bomb Squad, that crew is the model that everybody uses today. We found that it was more efficient to crank out records as a crew than as a solo producer. And we wanted to control our own sound. We didn’t have any other producers on our project. Right now so many artists just buy tracks from the hot producers, they don’t have their own sound. Right. Everybody’s using the same producers, the same beats. So you’re not getting a feel of any individuality in music. Dre is still doing it the way he did it back in the day, the way we did it back in the day. If you notice, his records have a unique sound. Cash Money does it like that. They have their own sound. Master P has his own sound with the producers that he has. It’s so important that the music has a unique sound. And that’s going to be more prevalent now. It’s gonna come back to that now. That’s why, when we put the 9.17 Family out, they have one producer, they have their own sound. That’s why I thought you had something do with the production. As far as me havin something to do with it, I didn’t create it, but….when I started producing, the only reason I produced was because nobody was doin what I saw needed to be done. I didn’t produce because I wanted to be a producer. I’ve done a lot of things in music. I was a publicist for Def Jam Records. I’ve worked with the Beastie Boys, LL, Run DMC. I’ve worked with a lot of different artists, and one of the things that I bring to the table is I have an incredible vision. I can see where artists need to be. There are a lot of producers out there that are getting no attention. There are a lot of production camps that don’t get exposure. Now my job is bringin a lot of those cats to the forefront. Being a major influence on Rap production, who would you say are some important Rap producers? Of course Dre. Production for me, there’s levels. I’d have to say on the top level I really like what Dre and Timbaland have done. Those two cats are in a different zone. Then there’s a bunch of cats that are happening right now, like Rockwilder, Neptunes, Hi-Tek, Jay Dee, Rico Wade and the Organized Noize camp. I’m lovin Mannie Fresh. There’s a lot of producers that I think are doin really good work. It’s really hard for me to say who I respect. I respect a lot of them. I respect what Eddie Stokes is doin. I respect what Lil Jon is doin. It’s so many that I can’t say them all. I don’t think that the producers is the issue as far as problems that I see. I think the problems come from the record labels. The record labels are not allowing the producers or the artists to expand and be artists. There’s so much pressure on them to produce hits. There’s more to artists and more to records than hits. A lot of records may not be hits, but good albums. That’s the way I saw Public Enemy. You were not trying to create hits, you were creating classic albums. There’s a lot of groups like that. There’s a group from Atlanta called Ghetto Mafia. I don’t think they have hits, but they have great albums. The Youngbloodz have a great album. The music has gotten to the point where we’re so hit oriented that we’ve forgotten to think about the project. And it’s horrible. I like a lot of the hits that are out there, but when I buy the albums I’m disappointed. You want to put on an album and listen to the whole album. Get the whole feel of the music. Exactly. Outkast is a group that just recently you’re startin to get hits from them. But they’ve been makin great albums year after year after year. You can play their older albums now. Goodie Mob, you can play their old albums now. You’re not waiting for that one song, you like the whole album. This record industry that’s hit driven is basically destroying the music. What they’re doin is shortening the life of a lot of artists and producers. Cause not every producer is a hit oriented producer. Some producers make great records, but they’re not tryin to make the flavor of the month. And so while you’re lookin for the hits you end up havin producers compromise their style. I think that production is something that you don’t compromise. I think that if you want the Neptune sound you get the Neptunes. If you want Mannie Fresh’s sound you get Mannie Fresh. You don’t ask the Neptunes to give you a Mannie Fresh record. Because people are lookin for those hits, they want Mannie Fresh to give them the Rockwilder hit. But everybody has their own different zone. I think Bosko is a good producer. He hasn’t really produced any hits. And I don’t think Dr. Dre makes hit song. Dr. Dre makes hit albums. That’s the direction the music needs to go. Instead of hit records, have hit albums. Because I’m tired of skimming through records. And I’m not skimming through because I don’t like the producer or I don’t like the artist. Some producers don’t work well with certain artists. A lot of people think that a producer can work with any artist, just because you have a hit. When you listen to Public Enemy the whole album has a certain mood. That comes from the music you’re playing. It comes from the attitude of the producer. If you throw a Cash Money type song on there in the middle it would kill the album. Totally destroy the mood. Because Cash Money’s mood may be different from Public Enemy. What’s happening with a lot of groups is they’re throwin everybody in together. They’re sayin, OK you give me that sound, you give me this sound….and they’re hopin they’ll get a hit. Yeah, you’ll get a hit record, but a lot of times the groups are not becoming hits . Right. The group gets two records and then they’re dropped. They’re gone. And there’s nothing for them to look forward to. There was a time when you used to grow with an artist. You want to get all the Tribe Called Quest albums–- And see how they grew, how they moved from album to album. De La Soul, you grew with De La Soul. Now you’re not growin with any of these artists, because every one of these records are what I call disposable. The minute they stop playin ‘em on the radio you don’t really wanna hear them. I still pull out my old Public Enemy albums and play them. Because we didn’t go in there tryin to make a record for radio. We didn’t go in there tryin to make a record that an A & R person had to like. We didn’t care. Russell Simmons hated our records. He didn’t like our records. I mean, he liked the records after they started selling. But Public Enemy didn’t sell right out the box. It probably wasn’t his taste, and that’s OK. But nowadays there’s so much pressure to sell on the first record. You gotta sell 100,000 in the first week, otherwise you’re wack. I don’t think that’s true. I think that music is still a taste issue. Sometimes you got to hear something two or three times in order to like it. To me if I hear a record and don’t like it, but keep playing it and grow to like it–that artist has an original sound that you never heard before. Exactly. Anything that’s new and original is not gonna be liked at first. You gotta keep playin it. That’s why back in the days we had more diversity in the music. Cause right now everybody is doin the same record, poppin the same beat. That’s the reason why when we did 9.17, that’s the same process. That’s a record that you have to play a few times before you can appreciate it. The sound you came with in Public Enemy never got outdated. It’s funny, when you’re doin something from your heart, that stuff never gets old. When you’re doin something tryin to please somebody else, if I’m doin a record I think you’re going to like, more than likely you’re not gonna like it. But if I just make a record that I feel, then you could maybe feel what I’m feeling. I can’t capture what you’re feelin, but I can make a record that I’m feelin. And when I make that record I can only hope that you feel what I feel. Those are the records that live on. Those are the classics. That’s why the Public Enemy albums are still in the top albums of the century. A lot of new producers will benefit to hear what Hank Shocklee has to say. They want to do new stuff, but I think a lot of them are a little nervous that they won’t get accepted. The beauty of being a producer, you have to be able to stand out on a limb. You gotta be ready to accept bein wack at first. If you’re not comfortable with bein wack at first, then this is not the game that you should be in. Some people have the advantage of bein great at the beginning. But if you listen to all the hottest producers–Timbaland was wack for his first year of doin records. Nobody was buyin a Timbaland beat until he hooked up with Aaliyah. And Timbaland was makin beats for years before he made that Aaliyah first album. Nobody was feelin him. He had an original sound and he stuck with that sound. He didn’t just give up and say, Fuck it I’m gonna do some of this Gangsta shit that everybody else is doin. No, because not everybody can do it. Some people can do that Gangsta shit really well. Some people can’t do it. Nobody can do what you can do. Some people don’t have the strength to keep doing what they’re doing. They compromise their style trying to get accepted. As it happens, when those guys change up the fans that they did have leave them. That’s the same thing that happens with artists. A lot of artists have a unique style, and they’ll come out on their first record with that unique style. But if they don’t get the acceptance that they was lookin for, first thing they wanna do is "A & R wanted me to change up." Then they become more like everybody else. Now you’ve lost your fans. And once you’ve lost those fans, you’re not gonna gain no new fans. Fans is something that you work towards. You don’t just get fans, you have to gain the respect of fans. Are you still doing production or not? Yeah, I’m back. I’m doin production again. I’m creatin a new Bomb Squad. I got a couple of people that I’m workin with that I think are really good, that I’m bringin up. From New York? Yeah, they’re from New York. What’s up with your brother Keith and with Eric? Eric is in Florida. He’s married, he has kids, he has his own thing. My brother also has a family and he’s doin his thing. They’re doin music, but I guess it’s more at their pace. With me, because I initiated everything, I still–I love what I do. I love this. Yeah, I’m doin production again because I’m feelin it again. That’s another thing that producers need to do. You don’t always have to be pressured to produce. Sometimes you can just take a chill and listen to new things and get new experiences. Because so many people get burned out to a zone, because they keep tryin to push it. Production to me is something that you have to have a thirst for. You have to have a point to prove. I don’t just produce because I wanna produce, I produce because I wanna do something that I think needs to be done. And it’s fun again for me. I have a purpose and a mission. I wanna prove that I can do it all again. I wanna prove that I can come back from baseball, like Michael Jordan did, and come back into the NBA. And I feel like I can do it, because I see what’s lacking again. What’s lacking is originality. What I wanna bring back is something that’s real original. Do you think you would ever work with Chuck D and Public Enemy again? I’m open. Is it likely? I don’t know if it’s likely only because I don’t know what they’re into right now. Right now I’m really feeling like bringing back a whole new style. And I wanna work with new rappers. There’s a lot of cats out there that have that mentality of back in the day. That are thirsty. I want you to be thirsty. I want you to have a point to prove. I want you to have a point of view. I’m not just lookin for rappers that are gonna have the same lyrics that everybody else is kickin. That’s already there. I wanna create the new Public Enemy.
			BG solid crew wolf town recordings narcocorrido x-ecutioners spice swizz beatz paris c-bo nelly the grind family dead prez brotha lynch hung dayton family wc NAS mike mosley kottonmouth kings fat joe lil jon & the east side boyz david banner insane clown posse too $hort dirty DJ screw DLT E-40 eastsidaz eightball fredo ghetto mafia jt money st lunataics mac mall pastor troy petey pablo project pat rass kass sammysam the shinin shocklee tech n9ne the click xzibit bg a-damn-shame doc fifty cent jt the bigga figga proof zion bone crusher fiend freeway technine bravehearts Chingo Bling Diplomats Killer Mike State Property Willie-D