Someone mentioned that this song reminded them of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Summertime”. And I definitely get that vibe from it. It’s the summer for a little while longer, go out and enjoy it.
And while I’m at it…
Archive for July, 2008
31
Jul
08
Good Times – Video
30
Jul
08
Dropped
Listen to the Audio: Hot 97
It really fascinates me how much feeling people put into a word. I starting thinking a lot about the word “dropped” recently. A few months ago after my former label mate Bishop Lamont told an interviewer I was, ”dropped” from Aftermath. Very shortly after his interview the news of my being “dropped” was all over the net, announced on the radio and even ended up on the evening news in Puerto Rico. People I hadn’t heard from in years called to express condolences after they heard I got, “dropped”.
A few people in my Mom’s building even taped notes on her door to express there grief over my getting “dropped”. My mom has stood by me throughout my struggle to get a record deal and she is really protective of me so that word “dropped” affected her a lot. She called me crying when she heard I got, “dropped”
I explained to her that I asked to be released and not “dropped” but she kept asking me, “Why are doing this to you” I told her no one was doing anything to me but that word,”dropped” had a grip on her. She is cool now but it was hard talking to her during that time. All cause of a word. I’ve attached two conversations about me where people are using the word ”dropped”. You can hear the emotions and the acting out that goes on around the word.
The first is where the rumor of me being dropped started. It’s the Bishop Lamont interview. During the interview Bishop is asked about me and my situation at Aftermath. Bishop sadly says, “don’t quote me but I think he got dropped.”
If you listen you can hear the mock concern about my being, “dropped” The whole, “I am sorry things didn’t work out” story gets going then Bishop goes on philosophizing on my lack of business savvy while dealing with the big Interscope machine. None of this banter is based in reality but it sounds good. Now By no means am I trying to disrespect Bishop or the interviewer. I’m simply pointing out something we all do. We all put feelings on words then create conversation to justify those feelings.
In the next conversation about me and and my being “dropped” the emotions are completely different than the Bishop interview. This conversation takes place Between miss Jones and dj envy from the morning show on hot 97. In this conversation you can clearly hear the contempt with which Miss Jones ridicules me over being, “dropped” You can also hear some anger. All the while Envy plays the role of impartial dj that’s just reporting what he heard. It’s all very entertaining but again, none of it based in reality.
My next example of how we sometimes add emotions to situations and words is based on a conversation I had with my dude Joe Buddens after he was ”dropped” from Def Jam When I spoke to Joe he was wild happy that he got dropped. I actually saw joy and relief in his face as he spoke. Joe chose a different way than most of looking at the situation. He looked at the word, “dropped as opportunity and freedom” That doesn’t make him right, it’s just the way he chooses to look at things.
In the past a few of my friends have accused me of over analyzing things. What do yall think? Am I crazy or do people put way to much meaning into words. please leave comments. Would love to hear from you.
By the way, The reality is pretty simple. I asked to get released because I was told that a few albums had to come out before they could even get close to putting mine out. Dre was kind enough to let me go and we worked out a deal where I will still be part of Detox. I owe them no money and they cut me a nice check for my services thus far on Detox. I am a relevant free agent with offers on the table and have more money from shows, writing and my deal with K1X then any advance I would get from a major label. Most importantly, I have publishing on one of the most important hip hop projects in the history of the genre.
Gotta Love it!
29
Jul
08
The Come Up- First Lickz
The first time I met Sun was on a sweltering afternoon at C Mo Greens studio in Long Island City (Shout to the big homie Jerry Fam!). Lush Life co-CEO and resident asshole Mike Heron and I were splitting a 24 hour studio block down the middle, trying to save a penny or two while pursuing our respective musical joneses.
I’m winding up a rough mix of my last joint when he calls me to the lounge outside the main room. I grab the Henny bottle and stroll over, and see a young dude dribbling a basketball and muttering verses under his breath. “Yo, G this Joell. Joell this is Greg.” We exchange pounds as I give Mike the “Who the fuck is this dude?” grill. “He’s gonna spit over that beat I played you the other day.” “Oh, okayyyyy. What’s your name duke?” “Niggas call me Quick!” he sneered through Sour Diesel tinted slits. “Aiight, show me what you got.” He looked at me with clenched fists, dropping the basketball that he was dribbling, and opened his mouth. Before he could get a consonant out, Mike intercepted laughing, “Nah chill nigga, we don’t do this for free! C’mon let’s get in the booth.”
We walk into the main room and the engineer (Shout out to Maxzzzz the original Cabesa de Plastico!) hands me my work DAT. He loads up Mike’s beat as Quick walks into the booth. After a few starts and stops, Quick shakes off the first timer’s apprehension and lets it go. What I see for the 45 or so minutes that it takes him to lay down his 3 sixteen bar verses, hooks, bridges, and ad-libs, is a young beast in the booth unlike any that I’ve seen or heard at that point in my career in rap music. Now believe me, I’m not the one to throw hyperbole out on general principal, but this kid really had something special with him. I’m not sure if it was the Ginsu sharp details in his darts, or the subtle phrasing that turned innocuous streams of consciousness into compelling observation, or the nigga’s voice: an N Yitty Cipher combo of a ringmaster’s halting boom and a hustler’s gritty tone. Whatever the fuck it was, I knew Mike, Dennis and this young lion from the streets of Brooknam were onto something. It was only a matter of time………….
This is a year old but this shit still knocks.
Both songs off Free Agent. Y’all know who hip-hop supports.
Last March I had the opportunity to travel to London to rock.
I love London! The girls, The clothes, The Real HipHop Fans that aren’t
trying to battle you, the respect for art and music. Most importantly, If
you don’t stunt they don’t stunt. My kind of town.
Here is some footage of me rocking on my dude, DJ MK’s show on Kiss.
By the way, my dude Semtex from BBC 1xtra will be featured on my new album,
FREE AGENT, very creativly. We make art.
22
Jul
08
Joell’s Cameo In The New LL Vid
LL Cool J ft. The Dream – My Baby
A few weeks ago Dennis got a call from someone at Violator telling him that
LL wanted me to do a cameo in the video for his single, my baby.
To say that call caught us off guard would be a huge understatement.
I didn’t think LL knew who I was. Long story short, after making a few
calls to make sure it wasn’t a prank by one of the assholes we hang out with
Mike and I drove downtown to a club in the meatpacking district (pause).
When I got there LL and his manager Claudine Joseph showed me mad love.
It was dope cause LL saw me from across the room and came over and dapped me
crazy so all the the video girls was like, “who dat?” Gotta Love it!
Anyway, check my cameo at 1:31. Its wild short but it’s me, BITCHES!
21
Jul
08
Joell Interviewed At Unkut
Robbie from Unkut.com talked to Joell earlier this year. The interview is reprinted below.
Check the original post for some rare Joell songs.
Robbie: You recently got an XXL cover. That’s a good look, man.
Joell Ortiz: Yep, I’m hyped about that – even though they’ve got me looking like I’m a million pounds, and I’m really not! Shit, it’s all good. That’s my first cover.
I heard that new song you did with Smif ‘N Wessun. Are you doing many features right now?
Actually man, I remember when we first did that shit, that shit was sounding real fun, but when I heard the finished product with Rock’s vocals I was like “Wow!” ‘Cos I didn’t hear it with Rock’s vocals on it, so when Rock had did the chorus I was like “Oh, that shit’s crazy!” I don’t really do too many features, but Smif ‘N Wessun are dudes I listened to growing up, so I got up with them. That was really dope.
You were in LA a couple of weeks ago working with Dre, right?
Yeah, I’m just working on the Aftermath record. I was working with a couple of different producers, it wasn’t just Dre. I was also working with this R&B female who’s signed over there. I’m always recording, brother, whether I’m in LA or New York. Whenever I go somewhere I’m trying to record and get recognized. That’s how I move.
Did you roll to the VMA’s with Dre for his appearance?
Nah, I don’t really do too many of those kinda things. Until the time is right, I don’t wanna be a spectator. I wanna be up there trying to hold something up myself. I don’t feel that’s my place yet – my place is the studio, so that’s where I pretty much live.
I also wanted to talk to you about some of your earlier work when you went by Jo-Ell Quikman. How did the 2001 Rawkus single come about?
That was my boy Mike Heron, who’s my manager now. He had a gig up at Rawkus and he had just got wind of the record. He was working with this dude V.I.C.- they was called Ghetto Pros – and I did a record with V.I.C. and he was like “Yo, this one here is a pretty good. I’mma pitch it to Rawkus”, and they bit and we put that out. We got a pretty good response from that. It was a one record deal, and after that me and Mike hit the studio hard, and that’s where we sit today.
There was also the “Street Knowledge” single on Hydra in 2004.
Wow, you know about all those early records, huh? [laughs] Yeah man, that was a classic. That’s vintage Joell, man. On those records I was going by “Quikman”. After those records I got some good feedback and some responses, I realized that I had to become Joell Ortiz, because my situation in life started becoming real and I started seeing things clearly, and I just wanted to go by my government name to let people know that I’m a real person, man.
Wasn’t “Humble” meant to be on Hydra as well?
I just did that to talk shit on a record. Just to fuckin’ rhyme over a hard beat. My boy MoSS is putting that out. It’s crazy that you mentioned that. You’re doing you’re homework somehow – you’re secretly finding things out, huh Rob? [laughs]
Mike said that you’ve “got the Purto Rican community in a fuckin’ headlock”. How important is that to you?
[laughing] Yeah man, I’ve got ‘em goin’ crazy! Since [Big] Pun, outside of Fat Joe, there’s really been no Latin icon in the hip-hop community. They’re just embracing me with open arms right now, ‘cos I’m running around just having a ball, and letting people know that Spanish dudes do hip-hop too. Don’t say “Yo, he’s nice for a Spanish rapper” – just be like “He’s nice!”
Have you got any comment on the T-Ray / Mike Heron situation?
T-Ray thinks he knows me somehow. I was like twelve when I was brought around to him. He doesn’t know Joell Ortiz, he doesn’t know Joell Ortiz. He’s only met a little kid that was 13, trying to rhyme.
I remember there was an internet contest to make a beat for you a while back. Was that for the old mixtape?
No, it actually was for this album, and we ended-up working with some of the winners. Frank Dukes had sent in some beats – I believe he’s from Sweden. Dude’s were sending in some heat. It was real hard to pick from, but we narrowed it down and we picked a few. We got some good stuff outta that one.
“125 Grams Part 5″ killed it. How many parts are there going to be?
Aww man, I did eight of those! I put a few of them on the album, a few of them are gonna leak during the album – I’m just gonna be sending them out to raise the standards and let people know that sixteen bars just isn’t gonna cut it anymore [chuckles].
You got Big Daddy Kane on the “Brooklyn” remix. Was he your favorite Juice Crew member growing up?
I’m early nineties – you feel me? I’m Big L, RIP Big Pun, early Nas, Raekwon Purple Tape, Smif ‘N Wessun. That’s the era I come from. I would be lying if I didn’t say that my favorite rapper is Jay-Z.
It’s good to hear that some real lyrics coming back after all these “Speak and Spell” MC’s.
[laughing] I understand, brother. I’m a fan first – then I’m a rapper. I’m a fan with a deal, I haven’t been excited in a long time, so I’m not gonna disappoint anyone with this album. If you wanna know what you’re gonna get on this album, it’s hard beats and emceeing – that’s just about it. If you wanna press the rewind button again, if you wanna say “Ohh” and “Ahh, did you hear what he say?” then this is the album for you.
Why do you think record sales are down right now? Is it because of so many weak albums, or something else?
Two things work in this game – you either follow suit, or you don’t. Both of them will work, you can’t coast in the middle. You can’t be like “Well I’m underground but I gotta give ‘em a commercial one” – it’s not gonna work that way. You feel me? You’ve either gotta be all the way commercial, and doin’ what they doin’, running around in videos and all this stuff, or you’re just gonna like “I don’t do that” and then you’re gonna have all the people that be like “Exactly! I agree”. That’s what I do. I just rap. I don’t target the club, I don’t target the radio – I just target the beat. My job is to rip them to the best of my ability, so that the joints you hear from me on the radio or in the clubs are loved by the DJ’s – they’re fans. They’re not directed at anyone.
Damn, so no token Dirty South songs huh?
Ha ha! Nah, man. No knock to the South, but that’s just not my thing. I’m a New Yorker, I came up on New York rap. That’s just how I do it.
Did you do much battling coming up?
I really only did one battle. I did NBA Live, an EA Sport battle, which I won throughout the US. That’s how I landed a song on NBA Live 2005 (”Mean Business”). But I never really did the battling thing, outside of my block. You’ll always have some ciphers on your block where you gotta be like “I’m the man on my block! Don’t forget that!” but I was much more of a recording person, trying to do my songs.
Air Max or Air Force Ones?
It depends on the situation, man. Yesterday I had Hush Puppies on! I mix it up real crazy sometimes, I ain’t one sneakered out.
“Brooklyn Bullshit” was my favorite cut off the album. That must’ve been great to work with Show.
Yeah man, when Show came through the studio he actually came through like “Yo man, I got a couple of beats I want you to hear. I know where you’re trying to go with this.” He played a couple, then when he got to “Brooklyn Bullshit” I was like “Hold up! This beat right here…that shit just brings something out of me.” I just wrote the record right there. I wanted to make it hood, but funny and catchy at the same time. I’m probably gonna be working with Show in the future, on some new shit.
Nice. What is it about Brooklyn cats that makes you guys stand out?
You know what it is, man? The competitive nature, that’s just different in itself. Not just music, you understand? I could just be standing in a store and be like “Oh, dude tries to crush his outfit? Man, he can’t dress better than me. What is this guy? Crazy?” We’re competitive down to the littlest things. “Oh, that’s the potato chips that dudes is eating now? Them shit’s is corny, man” [laughs] We’re just competitive about the littlest shit, so with music we over-critique ourselves. I guess that’s why sometimes the product sounds the way it sounds, or may come across the way it comes across, ‘cos we’re so hard on ourselves out here in Brooklyn.
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