KY Engineerin Interview: Engineering Drake, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj & More

I'm recording Wayne, and I mean Lil Wayne wanna say I want to say he got there maybe 7 p.m. that day. Now it's 6 a.m. and Wayne's like, oh, I'm alright. go ahead and go on home. But hey, there's this artist named Drake. He's right there on the couch over here. He's been here the whole time. He's been there the whole time. Drake hands me a CD. He's like, load that in. It's the forever beat. And he goes in the booth. Last name ever. First name, greatest. He does that. Wayne hears it. He's like, I'm a rapper too. He's like, you think you about to just come in here and do that and think I ain't about to rap? Wayne takes the stuff, unpacks, and goes in and he does his verse. As many of you are aware, the One More Time podcast is kind of leaving the music part of you know the industry's a little bit. We're moving into film and TV. We're really into it, and that is why we are so thrilled to be welcoming in our guest today. It's Chris Tucker on the pod. Let's go.

Oh, Jesus Christ. How many episodes in a row are we gonna pretend that we're going into film and TV at this point? Until we do it. Okay. Well, anyways, in all seriousness, all jokes aside, we have the legendary diamond selling recording engineer, mixing engineer. We got KY Engineering straight out of Kentucky in the building. Yes, sir. Give it up for me. Give it up for me. Give it up, give it up, give it up, give it up, give it up. I'm giving it up personally. God, we were having so much fun before the cameras turned on. Yeah, well, sorry. Oh, well, we're already pausing. it's been a pause. 2024 is a year. We're So sick of getting paused. Well, we just don't want you him to be giving it up to me. We don't want that, KY. We're giving it up for you. No, never mind. That's not better. Okay. This is uh it's props, props to me. Yes, props to you. Props. to me. Shouts out to you. All right, man. So literally, like, I just saw you post a picture of your custom plaque wall. Yes.

Get the fuck out of town. And you have a hundred of them. How many plaques do you have? So I don't owe them all. Okay. I only have 17 of them right now. Okay, but how many are you eligible to order now that you have your so I actually have a whole list of them literally on my phone. Okay. And now that I'm checking them off, I have 17. I have like 156 more to order. Oh my God. So we've heard the rumors that like they don't just send you the plaques. It is a purchase. Yeah. How much does a plaque cost? It depends. So you and everybody doesn't even do them. So basically you have like a basic one where kind sometimes when you see them and it says like one million, over one million sold, over two million sold. Okay. Gold. You can reorder a plaque with an updated amount. Well, sometimes you have to do that, but you know, it's only so the labels actually have to. So say a song, sometimes you know, have you seen a song and you think like, oh, this song should have been platinum, but now it's just now coming platinum, but it's just because they never actually tried to see what the numbers were. So they have to update it and actually put those in.

But they're only going to do it so much are if you got a team behind you. But basically, you have a basic one, and those basic ones are $500. Damn. Okay. Okay. And then the ones with the super cool artwork and all of that stuff, those could be a thousand to two thousand to three thousand, depending on how big it is. So it actually costs a lot. The plaque companies are that's a jug, bro. They know that you just made so much money off that record that they know they can charge. They can charge you. Shouts out to jewel box platinum, but you know, y'all need to come down on the prices. Yes, absolutely. Y'all are killing us. Or like We, we, the we earned this. We earned these. I can't afford all the platinum records that I should have on my wall. Yeah. This is insane. I would have ordered all of mine by that. Oh my god. I mean, if it was like $100 a piece, I would I would have them all. For sure. So what was your first uh like plaque? I don't know which first one I actually earned, but the first one that I actually got would be the 2 Chainz one. And that was the other thing. I was about to say. True Religion? boats. No, so True Religion is a mixtape, so that's not officially it doesn't count. Oh, it wasn't eligible? Okay. Yeah. That was before he

got his deal. So true religion mixtape got him his deal with Def Jam. And then he put out Boats, which is based on the true story. Yep. And that was his first album, and that went super crazy. Yeah. So when I got the plaque, it was gold, I think. But it's clearly platinum now. Maybe probably two or three. But um but it but that one I actually got. So sometimes the artists will actually give them to you, so they'll pay for them. That's a nice gesture, I think by artists. They need to do that. You're making the most money. You're Like, shout out if you want to show love to your team. Well, the labels aren't making the most money. The artists on the label should actually like pay for it. Yeah, the label definitely should pay for everyone involved's plaque. But when do the label buy the plaque? The label isn't buying us, they're not buying us lunch, bro. The label didn't even buy KY lunch after the fucking I ain't gonna lie, they used to, though. See, that's the thing. See, man, we gotta get back to these old days. What used to happen versus how it is.

Because say if we had a session, yeah. If I had a session, I got 2 Chainz coming in. I'm just gonna use them as an example. But I had 2 Chainz coming in, and we had we were we got the studio set up, and then the next thing you know, they we would have we would have a food budget, and the food budget would maybe be $400 for everybody. Oh so it's like everybody's gonna get to eat. Now there's no food budget, no food budget, no food budgets. Big boys like you wouldn't survive today. You had to fit a fat drink in there. I'm just anytime I can Somehow you squeeze it in. any chance I get, bro. They're not they're not paying for your Uber Eats. I'm just gonna let you know. God damn it, KY. Henry's actually gonna get into filming TV because I heard that they put food on the set. I'm just saying. Like, I love a buffet. All right, man. So obviously, you you know, are just a legendary recording and mixing engineer. By the way, I feel like you haven't even like mentioned. this shit that- come on, bro. Like, let's talk about KY's accolades. There's too many, but like most notably, and like I'll let you correct me if I'm wrong, but like most notably, obviously, is your work with Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz. Yep.

And I would say Jack Harlow, Drake, Nicki Minaj, yeah, made in Tokyo, Derez Deshaun. Yeah, come on, man. Waka Flocka. He gave me the name. He gave me the name. Waka gave me the name. So actually, let me put him first. Waka first, and then Lil Wayne. Right? It was busting at him. Yeah, but but but busting out the intro song. Waka needs more flowers. I agree. Waka needs more. I'm saying it right now. I mean, maybe it's because I'm from Atlanta. I don't know. But like Waka, specifically in the city, at least needs more flowers. Oh, let's do it. Changed my life when it came out. Oh, let's do it. Like it was the it uh it changed my life. No hands. Yeah, that wasn't his record, but yeah. But his record. No hands. It's his record. It was, yeah, it was him featuring. Yeah, no, it was Waka featuring Roscoe Dash and Wale. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's on his album. It's on his album. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's on his second album. Okay. Triple F life. Yeah, and it's incredible. Um, but yeah, so obviously this guy knows his way in and around a studio session, right? Double diamond selling.

Double diamond. Double D. You okay. We said we weren't gonna say it. You said we shouldn't say it, and then you said it. How do you do that? Oh, I I I I set the stage for me to take the light. You just wanted to say the joke. Yes. I think you did a better job. Um, all right, but so I feel like our audience, who's, you know, aspiring artists, producers, engineers of their own, maybe on the music business side, like I think I I want to just get some like studio etiquette shit out the way. Okay. Because I feel like it's important, bro. You're a courteous guy. I've been to enough sessions where I'm like, y'all are doing the y'all are doing the most. Like, you shouldn't be doing that. Like, wow. that's probably not flying. Like, yeah. So let's go through some like as a recording engineer specifically, right? And then maybe we can touch on just generally speaking, all the different people that might be in a studio session. Right. What are some like big no-nos? Like, let's get the like, don't fucking do these things. So, first off, I want to say I'm glad you brought that up because studio etiquette is like the main, I think that's the main thing.

And that's actually how you get a lot of work because most engineers you're gonna start off as a recording engineer. Because who you have to start as a recording because you don't know how to really mix at that point. Yeah. Or you just kind of got to a point where, hey, I'm trying to kind of get these uh guys together and you know, all the different type of stuff. But anyway, um I'm glad, like I said, you brought that up. So I say studio etiquette, I'm gonna start with just stuff that you need to do. And like I said, it's kind of don't mixed into that. Yeah. But I think that you have to just for one, be on time. That's number one. Come on. So if the session starts at eight, can you please be there at 715 at the latest? Yeah. Oh. 7:30. 7:30, yeah. Yeah, go ahead and uh there is no food budget. There is no food budget now, but hey, you can get there early and you can eat your own food. You thought you were getting there early for dinner, bro. I had 7 30 in my head and I was hoping he was gonna be able to do it. But you can do that, and then when you do that, like at least you can go ahead and get you a meal. Yep. Um, you can go ahead and set the mics up, make sure that those are working.

Yep. Make sure you check the speakers. If there's like a, you know, if you get your chain, your vocal chain, yeah, vocal chain, yeah. We need to get the tube tech or LA2A, Neve, or whatever it is you're using. Uh, of course, you know, shouts out to the Avalon. I love that. 73. No, I need the blue one. Give me the blue one. Hey, blue one, I like that. that's what all the artists say. I need the blue compressor. Hey, that's the tube tech. Exactly. They just it blue's crazy. They call it the blue one. So the tube tech. Yep. But um That's the official name, guys. CL 1B. CL 1B. CL 1B, my bad. I said it wrong. CL 1B. So you got that. But um definitely go ahead and make sure all that stuff's set up. That way when the artist comes in, you don't know what type of mood they're gonna be in. So say when they walk in, they might automatically be ready to go. Sometimes they're gonna, you know, they need to get themselves together, whatever it is they kind of do. They might want to eat first or whatever it is they do, they might want to chill, just listen to beats, whatever it is. But sometimes I've definitely worked with artists where as soon as they walk in, load this up. Yes.

So you need to be ready for that. So I say that's number one. Be ready. Yeah. Go ahead and get there early, be on time, and set everything up. Yeah. Be ready. So when they walk in, you're ready to go. Sounds so obvious. One quick note, though, on that. It's like they don't do it. One quick note on that. You make you mixed Welcome 2 Collegrove, right? Yes. So we we interviewed Nolan. Yeah. Recorded it. Shout out to my boy Big No. Yeah. So we had no, we had the recording and the mixing uh folks on that project. And he talked about So now we just need Chainz and Wayne. Well, yeah. And like I don't know any better guy to make that happen, but like we'll talk about that later. But call him right now, bro. He talked about how Chains doesn't, you know, he doesn't want to hear a beat until he's in the booth. Right. Ready to record. And he actually is not in the booth. He's sitting here with us. So that's you're Nolan. Yeah. I'm Chains. You have a mic out here. Right, right here. Yeah. Is that because he's white and you're I don't know. I just I mean, it was easy. Couldn't you look more like Nolan, though. You look more like Nolan. No. You're the only I mean, yeah. Because most because okay. You could be

Nolan. He's Bubba Sparks. I'm still white. He's Bubba Spark. I'll take Bubba. He's Bubba Sparks. That's a Bubba's a legend. I've worked with him. He's been here. Yeah. Just see. There you go. There you go. But yeah, so. Twin. Yeah, so how's it happened? Where have you been? Okay, so how does it happen then? So Chains is in the main control room. In the main control room. A lot of people don't really use the booth nowadays. Booths are dead. What's that about? Booths are dead. Booths are dead. I just think they just lazy and don't feel like walking there. That's the funniest reason. I think they want to be a part of. No, that's funnier. They want to be a part of the energy. They want to be a part of the things that you're doing. Yeah, but it's like we had to both now I gotta put on headphones. Yeah, true. That's that part sucks. Instead of like being able to kind of hear what you maybe need to mix, you know, or do two tweaks by like hearing it in the speakers. Right. And what if somebody's next to me, like that's the crazy thing too, because I guess you had to kind of be like artists, because if you're an artist, you kind of gotta take that one ear off. But um, if you're in the booth, if you want to hear yourself. But um, I guess as me as an engineer, if I'm sitting there, now I have to do that same thing.

Like, because now I got say if it's the producer right there and he's trying to, yo, you should tell him to do this, and I'm like, What? Yeah, so annoying. So now I had to be like this. Yeah. So I hear you, and I'm listening to this guy over here. Yeah. So it's kind of distracting to a certain extent. But um So, how much interfacing is happening with a producer in the room? Well, a lot of times, depending on, because we have two different things, and I always had to break this down. But you have beat makers and you have producers. Yes. Metro Boomin is a producer. Yes. You know, and then you have a lot of beat makers. Yeah. Not every not every beat maker is a producer, not every producer is a beatmaker. Yes. So, because say, like a Mike Will made it. He makes beats, but sometimes he actually doesn't make that beat, but he produces the song. A lot of times. A lot of times. He's got a whole team of people that make fire beats on the side. But he knows that he's gonna grab it, He's got the ear. put it together. He knows how to put that stuff together. 100%. And then you got some guys say, hey, I just know how to make a dope beat. I don't necessarily know how to kind of guide you as an artist to make it a hit.

Yeah. And so those guys are what sitting quiet in the session, or they might not even be in the session. They might not be there. Yeah. Yeah. If you're a beat maker, you're probably not there most of the time. With Mike Will, you know, the difference is if you hear the Mike Will tag, he probably worked on the beat. If you hear the Eardrummers tag, he probably just produced it. Produced it. Yeah. Is that a real thing? Yeah. Wow. For sure. Good job, bro. Sure. But yeah, all right. So Mike Will, too. Hell yeah. So, you know, back to kind of like some studio etiquette suggestions. So, like number one, be ready, be on time. What else are you going with? Um, let me see. What else would I go with from there? Um, be focused. Yeah. Because you gotta understand, like, I don't know how it is now because I'm I'm actually just more of the mixing side, so I've been doing that for maybe seven, eight years now. When's the last time you recorded someone? Seven, eight years ago. Really? Yeah. Wow, you you just I don't record it. You don't do it. I love that. I strive for that. I'm strictly mixing, and of course, we'll get into that later on, but you know, just other stuff that I do outside of even just being in the studio physically. Yeah.

But um, yeah, be well, when I was recording people, like I said, you you know, say you come in, say a Waka session back in the day. It might be 20 to 30 people in there. Damn. So guess what? They're having a great time. You're not, you have to be focused. You need to be focused. Yes. When they're taking shots, do not take a shot. I always do. That's why you're not KY engineer. But if you if you can focus, you gotta do that. I can though. But guess what? Guess what though? If you can, then guess what? Do your thing. Thank you, KY. Don't do that, KY. But my thing is, my thing is my thing is, at least for most people, don't do that. Don't take the shot. Do not take the shot. You're not going to be able to do that. I mean, and even if you smoke. Some people get drunk off three shots, bro. Like, I'm a tank. I mean, even if you even if you smoke, don't do that. Because guess what? That actually fucks me up. You might actually, like, get to a point where something's going on and you're like, yo, I'm so high that I don't even know what's going on. You don't want to be that guy because then guess what? That artist is going to be in the booth and he's mad at you now.

And speed is so important, right? Speed is in the nut that'll go to number three. Okay, because yeah, you can't be speed. You need to be fast. Yeah. And if you're a little too you might be a little slow. You might be a little slow. They might be like, yo, I'm ready. And and like I said, I pride myself for like that. Was one of the things for real. Like with a lot of artists, why they wanted to work with me because I was so fast. That's it. That's the one, man. That's the thing. Talk about that. That's the thing. Because you will miss a vibe. You will not catch a vibe because you were trying to find a plug-in or you were just confused or you were stoned. Yeah. Something will happen. And a lot of times too, especially now with a lot of artists not writing, they're coming off the top of their head. So they might got a line in their head and you need to hurry up and go. They'll forget it because they don't have it written down. They don't have it written down. And the fact that it took you 20 seconds to hit record. Too long. That's too long. I forgot the line now. Yeah. Because they're high. Yeah, now as the artist, I want to come out here and beat you up. And being able to playlist and do multiple takes uh, you know, at once. Like uh let's try this line seven times.

You got and then and then you know you do seven takes and they're like, let me hear uh take three. When you do eight takes, it's like And guess what? You got to be able to go back to that one. keep them don't delete playlist. Exactly. Playlist. And if in your head you had to kind of or if you need to you need to write it down and hey this is a take because say like an artist like Nicki Minaj when I worked with her she would record her verse ten times yes and then she would go down them so we would list to them and it's crazy because she actually really knows so she would be like yo from the seventh take that I did take the fourth bar from that one so you guys are comping yeah we're comping together but she knew she knows though she's in the comping process the seventh take take the fourth yeah I killed it on that fourth one that's crazy for that line yeah yeah and then the the fifth line the fifth bar oh yeah that one came from the third take whoa yeah She's crucial that's crazy yeah well that man shout out to I mean Queen Nicki for sure I'm a barb it doesn't surprise me that she's that it doesn't surprise me that she's that like in tune with yeah you know her process and shit she's smart yeah yeah because obviously she got to be where she is but um yeah damn did you have any well you didn't have anything on the the uh most recent project um I worked with her like early young money days I actually met her at Hot Beats studio which was a dope ass studio over on uh 14th of Spring Street legendary studio RIP Hot Beat it actually needs yeah RIP Hot Beats and shouts out to my boy Russ man he the one that gave me my start whatever but a lot of people came from Hot Beats man like I was actually talking to a friend the other day and I I I feel like Hot Beats needs a documentary. Yeah because it was that dope like I mean that's an early Drake that's Wayne before Carter III um that's yeah dedication.

That's future. Dedication III was recorded in there. You worked on that. I've worked on that. Come on, man. I would say, like I said, future before. I mean, he already had Dirty Sprite out, but he wasn't the future that you know. Yeah maybe uh I want to say he did Tony Montana in there. Two Chains was titty boy. He was still actually not even doing solo tapes at this time. He's in play of the circle. Play circle, yeah. Come on, man. God, I used to love that double bag. Justice League, Producers, C note. Yes. Um willpower. Willpower. Like, I mean, I can literally kind of just keep going with like all these people that were that came to Atlanta from other places and were like just here trying to figure it out. Bro, how am I just hearing about hot beats? I feel like a fucking poser. We've talked about Hot Beats on the podcast. Have we? Yeah. I don't even think I someone fucking fact check Henry right now because I don't think so. Okay. Oh, anyways. All right. So place, no place. So anyway so I I think, you know, any other just like more general studio etiquette type of shit, right? Because you're, you know, you know, especially in the in the recording engineer role, you're hearing like producers in the room, homies in the room, girls there, artists there.

You're kind of seeing and hearing like the whole thing unfolding. So is there any like advice for just like more generally speaking? You basically kind of just said it because honestly, you hear a lot of stuff, but guess what? You don't hear it. Whatever you hear, you don't hear. Mom is the word. Shh. Damn, that that's tough. That's it, right there. So it's tough. Gotta know. when to shut up. Because think about it. Like, okay, say, because honestly, even us being engineers, we're kind of therapists too. Yes. So you as artists, honestly, like say if you have a family, you're probably with me more than you're with your family. 100%. Yeah. If you were like really locked into what you're doing, you you're with me more than you would with your family. If you're doing Lil Wayne type sessions. Lil Wayne sessions are they could be a day. It could be a little literally full 24 hours. So he's with me more than he's with his kids. For sure. And so guess what? It ain't like he doesn't love his kids, so he's gonna talk about his kids at some point, or he's gonna get on the phone with them, or he's getting on the phone with his girl, or whoever, whatever it is going on. But guess what?

You don't hear that stuff. And you don't take that outside of that room ever. Damn. Like, I mean, I have a lot of stuff that I would never ever, ever, ever, ever ever ever say. Engineer artist confidentiality. Yeah. And the crazy thing is, I mean, maybe now, maybe some of these engineers probably are signing NDAs. It's very possible. But I've never signed one, but I'm just a real guy, so I would never take things. And then sometimes too, you don't even understand. Like, say if you're working with artists, maybe you're not a dude that's like kind of hip to what's going on in the street sometime. And you might work with two dudes that are opposing to each other. They're they're ops. Both of these dudes are ops. But I work with both of y'all. I'm cool with both of y'all. But at the same time, I wouldn't be like, yo, dude was in here talking about you last week. He just made a diss song on you. Yo, yo, I'm about to play it for you. And it's not even out yet. And I'm about to play it for you. And then now you just started a whole thing. You're recording with the blood, and you got a session with a crip right after. That's that they don't even. Isn't it more like okay? We're not gonna get into that. But no, so like like so for you, 24 hour sessions sometimes, right?

Like I I could never, I I couldn't physically do that. Like, so was that tough for like, you know, were you able to do those easily Were you on cocaine? Yeah, I mean, like, what kind of performance-enhancing drugs were we on to get through full day sessions, bro? Like, you know what I was on? What were you on? Getting my bank of account pumped up. That's right. He just saw the dollar signs, keep going every hour that turned over. He was snorting money. Yeah, snorting money. Snorting Benjamins. Rolled them up. Yeah. Yep. But yeah, just motivation, honestly, too, because also like I just knew where I kind of came from. And that I mean, we were grinding and I was doing it for free. Yeah. So why can't I do it and I'm actually getting paid? Yeah, so I mean, you know, obviously it's in your name, KY Engineering. So like, you know, you're from Kentucky. What's like the most Kentucky thing about KY Engineering? About me? Yeah. Oh man. My name, I guess. Yeah. Okay. I'm from Kentucky, so I represent. And I I did that on purpose because when I first kind of came in the game and I was coming down here to Atlanta, people were just like, Kentucky, oh, you from Kentucky?

Like, it was just like this big thing. I don't know anyone from Kentucky besides you. People didn't. Swear to God, you're the first person I've met. But see, now that's not as much of a thing. What have you met to say though? Yeah, no, I didn't know that. But that's not as much of a thing to say now, though. It is. I just said it. I just said KY. But hey, man, we are here now, though. Well, I haven't met Jack. Well, we got Jack, we got ESTG. I haven't met him yet. We got Bryson Tiller. I didn't meet Bryson yet. Bryson, really? Yeah, static, rest in peace of the legend, static major. I didn't meet Static, man. Rest in peace to him, for sure. Bryson Tiller is from Kentucky? Apparently. Yeah, I thought he was Canadian. Seven Aurelius. Shouts out to him. he's a dope producer that made a lot of the Ja Rule, Murder Inc. beats, like Ashanti and all that stuff. Uh-huh. He's from Kentucky. Nappy Roots. They I always say that they're kind of the I guess they're the first rappers to get on from Kentucky. So those are the homies. I give them that. You know what I mean? And I know you've been over to Atlantucky. Yeah. Atlantucky. Atlantucky. Yeah, for sure. No, you've been there. So good beer. You're drinking some Kentucky beers just in Georgia.

I yeah. I didn't even know. It's got that Kentucky love in it. And we make bourbon. It's Atlant before Tucky, though. You know, so it's kind of Atlanta first. Because we here, we here. And Nappy Roots is a bland group. They got they got people from Georgia and from Kentucky. And it doesn't, it sounds better than what Kentlanta. Yeah, that does Kentlanta. That sounds sound. Atlantucky. It was a marketing move. Exactly. I don't think it was a preference. I mean, I don't really. Let's just say it was a preference thing. Shout out to my boys. Yeah, for the other man. Yeah, man. Um, but but so like you seem to have just such a special place in your heart, though, bro. Like for Kentucky. Like you put like so much of your, especially recent content and just anything, you're either like rocking, you know, fucking UK apparel. Got to. Right? Like talking about Kentucky, like putting on for their, you know, the state. Like, is that a big like mission of yours? Yeah, for sure. And like I said, it's really always been that from day one because one of my main things, even though I'm not an artist, I'm an engineer. My main thing was it's like when I listen to music, man, I like hearing stories of where people are from.

Yeah. And and that was one thing, like, that's what made me move to Atlanta. I was listening to Outkast and just all this stuff, and I'm like, yo, this sounds cool. Like, they're talking about uh East Point and Hetland and the low. It's like when I came to Atlanta the first time, I like wanted to see these places. Oh. And so I was so happy when I saw that intersection. I was like, my life just changed because I was immersed in my world. Like the Players Ball video, like right from kind of for Hedlin and the Low, they were like in the cemetery. Yes. But that's like right down the street. Yep. And it's like I gotta drive back to see this stuff. So I just wanted to like people know where I'm from. You know, like we we got something special too. So I wanted people to know where you're from, and I wanted to kind of dispel all those rumors of just oh, it's backwoods, and you know, cousins sleeping with cousins and no shoes. There's a little bit of that. I mean, it may be in the mountains. Okay. Maybe definitely in the mountains. But I'm but I'm from Lexington, and then you know, and of course you got Louisville. Yeah.

So those are city cities. It's not hey man, don't hate it. No, I'm saying they're real cities. Like those. I'm hating on the mountain folk. Well, I love the mountains. Shouts out to Paintsville, man. So have you been to the Shouts out to Ashland. Okay. So have you been to the Kentucky Derby? Yeah, I've been there a lot of times. Really? I've probably uh so it's actually two kind of derbies. So, you know, we we had the we have the hood derby. Okay, what is that? The hood derby is we don't actually go to the real derby. Okay. But we bring out all our dope ass cars, and we got the systems, we got the paint jobs, you got the rims, and we just ride up and down. It's almost like a Freaknik. Oh. But you're just on the street and you just people you might just be in traffic. So no horses. No horses, no, no horses at all. Except for the few stallions running around. Okay, yes. If you get what I'm saying, I I don't really know what you're saying. If you get what I'm saying. I think I might. It's a few stallions.

A couple of Megans. Okay, Megans. It's a few of those running around. Okay. But no real horses. All right, all right. So that's the hood. That's the hood derby. That's the hood derby. Is that the derby you used to go to? That's the derby you used to go to. We never thought about actually going to the real derby. Okay, so then fast forward, you've gone to the real. derby. Fast forward, I went to the real derby. Okay. And it's a cool event. Like you can dress kind of quirky. Of course, you have your suits on, but and you know, the girls have their hats. That's kind of their thing. You know, with the big hats. And like it's literally girls right now that are working on their hats like six, seven months out. Wow. That's crazy. Like my derby hat. That's crazy. I gotta have my derby hat. And guys, this was a fucking trick question, all right. This dude was in the Churchill Downs motherfucking music video. Like, what the fuck, bro? Legendary day. Our guests sometimes hold back the good shit, bro. That's a left. That was a trick question. I knew you were trying to. Did you know I knew? Well, I had to I had to take him to the hood derby first, though. I know, but then even when I said, like, oh yeah, so like then you went to the real Derby, right? And he's like, yeah, and like they work on their hats. I'm like, K what?

I don't give a fuck about their hats, bro. You were in the fucking Drake and Jack Harlow Churchill Downs music video. You were like with him in drama and shit. And like that was that was a legendary time, man. Like, shout out to Jack. Jack made that happen. Um, of course, I've worked with Drake, so for me, it was a full circle moment for me working with Drake and knowing him before he even blew up, before he even dropped so far gone. Wow. To helping Jack get to where he's at. And me not having that was one thing I loved about Jack, which I'm sure we'll probably talk about him a little bit more. Let's talk about him right now. But but so one thing I loved about Jack is that if I introduced him to somebody, he would take it and make it his own thing. He's not really, okay, this is I introduced him to Drake, but guess what? He took it and made it his own relationship. So that was one thing that I loved about Jack because you had to do it because you can't just I can't just hold his hand. Like I didn't, I didn't want to call Drake and say, hey, get on a song with Jack. Jack made that happen on his own. I didn't call Jack. I mean, I didn't call Drake and say, hey, come to Derby and shoot the video for the song you did.

Jack made that happen on his own. And that was one thing that I loved about Jack. Like said he'd take it and make it his own thing and make build his own relationships. But that day was crazy, man. Like, for one, it's already derby. And then you gotta. It's already just monumental. It's already monumental. A yearly event. It's a yearly event and it's monumental. Yeah. And then for Drake to be there and we're shooting a video. It's insane. Never happened before. No. Drake's never been there. Drewski was there. Yeah. Shouts out to Drewski. Yeah, I saw some behind the scenes clips too. Like people were getting pretty lit, actually. Like they get they were. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna do that. You know, I don't really drink the mint juleps, but you know, that's like the mint jewelry drink. Yeah. Um, of course, you know, you have your burber, and then you can drink whatever you want to drink. And then I'm not a big gambler, but hey, I'm gonna bet on these horses. Got to a couple down. Throw some down, you know. Pick an underdog. You're here. You're here. And then, like I said, the whole thing is you can kind of get dressed and wear some stuff that you normally don't wear. So your suit was fly, bro. Appreciate it, man. Yeah, I went pink pink, you know what I mean? That was St.

Laurent, too. I just had, you know, just in case y'all didn't see. That was St. Laurent. Yeah. I know, and you know, it didn't, it didn't say St. Laurent. So I gotta, you know. I'm a Saint Laurent. It was it. I'm I'm glad you said it. Yeah, I'm gonna say it for you. Yeah, he was about to hold back about the whole story, and now he's like, it's St. LaRon's suit, baby. Let's go. And the crazy thing is also I normally really don't do videos because I'm yeah, how many have you been in? More than one. A lot. A lot. But I I guess I'm kind of saying that. But honestly, the videos I have been, I could have been in a way more. Yeah. But a lot of times I'm real kind of laid back dude. And you know, I like to let the artists kind of do their thing. Yeah. I'm in the I'm behind the scenes guy. But Jack always kind of does ask, like, yo, I want you to be in my video. Like, you know, he just you know, looks at me as OG and, you know, I helped him out. So he I I'll kind of hop in it for him, but I ain't gonna lie. That was one, he didn't even have to ask me. I was gonna make sure I was in that one. Yeah. It's in Kentucky. Jack, I mean, in case you weren't gonna invite me, I'm coming to the Derby and I'm in the video. Well, he invited me.

I I knew before. I know, I'm just playing. But so how did y'all obviously I know the Kentucky connection, but like how did you actually meet Jack? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, what's the origin story there? So I had a friend named Dip. He's from Kentucky. And when I first moved to Atlanta, he was kind of our manager, and he was managing some other groups uh wells named Black Coffee and uh Rob Jackson. They had major deals at the time. One was signed to Motown and one was signed to Ersta Records, which I don't think Are Steven exists anymore. Now they got swallowed up and replaced. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But um anyway, that's that's so he was a part of our management team when we first moved. And of course, he's just still in the music or whatever, and he was like, yo, you need to check this kid out. Because I'm always looking for like the next Kentucky artist. Like I like I said, that's my whole thing. Like, I want to I want people to see where we're from. And I know I can only do so much because I'm an engineer, so I don't have that voice. You need to hear us. You need to be with these headphones on and vibing out, you need to be in your car. But um he anyway, he's like, yo, you need to check this kid out.

He sent me a video, which the name of that song was called Ice Cream. Uh Jack, I think kind of took it off his uh his his uh YouTube, but if you you really look hard enough, you can find it. Yeah, okay. But um, that's the first video. How old was he at the time? Jack was 18, 19. Okay, okay. Yeah. So I seen that video, and then I ended up clicking on another one that was called Riding Around Town. And I just like both of them. Like, I mean, it was this white kid, and he had these glasses, he looked quirky, but it's like the music had a vibe. He was rapping dope, he had good lyrics. Yeah. And I was just like, man, yeah, just link up with him. So I ended up following him on Instagram, hit him up, brought him down here to my studio that I had at the time. It was called Bass. Bought him there, and they would just come down maybe for three or four months. They were just coming down. He would come down with his team, him, Urban, Two for One. That was the two for one, is basically his producer. Urban's his photographer, slash best friend. And he would bring them down and they would come and we would just work. Yeah. And then eventually I was like, man, you know, we need to kind of get off these weekends. You need to move.

Yeah. And he, it's kind of crazy because literally within a month, he called me and was like, I'm ready to make that move. Help me get set up. So I helped him find a place. He did that. And they was working, you know, they had to a little job. They worked at Chick-fil-A for a little for about a month or two. Oh no. Basically, I end up uh kind of getting him with uh DJ drama, Lake and Canon over a generation now. Yeah, damn. So he worked at Chick-fil-A, but then he got a KFC uh brand new. Yeah, he traded on it. Yeah, one of the chicks. But you know, we gotta we gotta go with the you know he's gonna be a good one. I know he's that's the home team, that's the home chicken. I mean, and then it made sense. It made sense once you seen the bucket with his face on it. I know, but it's like I'd rather have Jack as the colonel than the colonel. That's pretty good. Come on, man. But bro, I'ma just say it, man. And I don't think this, but like a lot of people fucking hate on Jack, bro. I mean Whack Harlow is a is like a popular nickname, bro. Hey, what do you say to people that are that are hating on Jack? What's your response?

Uh I mean, uh hopefully I can cuss on her, but fuck him. Fuck him, bro. Fuck him, man. I mean, at the end of the day, man, people always gonna hate on stuff that wins. It's like honestly, if you don't have haters, then you're fucking not winning. Yeah, that's facts. That's so that's the biggest fact. Yeah, you're not winning. I will say though, say it, bro. You're I'm surprised you're gonna say this. Yeah, I won't. I don't know. I I love Jack. I love everything about Jack. I think he's a great dude. I think he can rap his ass off, but I feel like some about I just feel like he can make better music most of the time. I'm I'm okay. I'm gonna say this. I'm in the middle here. This is perfect. He's capable of making better music. I'm gonna I'm gonna say this. Have you ever heard the song Tyler Hero by Jack? Yes. It's one I like that one. What? So I'm I'm just he says basically the people that hate on him the most, do what? I don't remember. Look just like him. Oh, the white people don't like him, bro. Interesting.

Is it whiteies that all hate on him? I don't know. Mostly. He's not Eminem. I don't tell you now. Like his why isn't he Eminem? The biggest part of his fan base are black women. Interesting. Is that why he's going for the whole like I'm so sexy guy character? He's just a sexy guy. No, no pause. Keep running. Resume. Yeah, resume this. Oh my God. Yeah, man. I I just yeah. He's great songs, but the albums uh seem to have like fluff for me. I don't know if it's the production or I think. Did you listen to Jackman? It's so good. Yes. Don't even try it. Okay. Better. Guess what? We're in a business. So he needs to make hits. But at the same time, Jack is like kind of a backpack rapper type rapper. Oh, yeah. So, like, if you ever listen to any of his albums, he always has like a song named after a street. What should that be like Baxter F or River Road? Those are kind of like his more intro introspective songs. And basically Jackman is a basically an album full of those.

But that's really what he wants to do. But guess what? At the same time, we need first class. We need loving on me. Um, we need loving on me, he's going stupid. We have to cash out on nostalgia, is what it is. It's the labels. You gotta have those hits. Because I mean, think about even like Eminem. He always had the name songs to be like the real Slim Shady Army is. It's like Stan. But those are quirky Stan, you know, this, you know, quirky songs. But uh, if you listen to Eminem's albums, he had his substance in there. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, but if he had to give you these quirky songs, because those are gonna sell. Oh, let me diss these boy bands and these girl, yeah, pop girl stuff. Let me do that because it's gonna, you know, those are gonna be the hits. Is Jack just a function of the machine? No, I just think Jack is just he's very calculated with what he does. Like, put it like this by the time you see something, Jack's probably thought about it for months. I believe that. Yeah, I definitely think he's a smart dude. And he wraps his ass off for sure. And he does. And but sometimes, guess what?

Even the most rappy rappers, you can't just always just super rap. Because the super rap's not gonna sell. For sure. Even take like a Drake. You need a hook. Okay, he just dropped, you need a hook. But he dropped for all the dogs. Of course, Drake's gonna sell well. But it wasn't received well. It wasn't. And then guess what he did? He came back and he dropped the scary albums, which was kind of a deluxe, really, of for the dogs. But those were all rap tracks. Taken way better by the public. Taken way better by the public, but guess what? It didn't do. It didn't super boost the numbers. Yeah. It didn't super spool. It didn't chart. I mean, it might have like a lot of people. Well, some of it because it's Drake, so it'd be like a week. It was yeah, but it wasn't like his usual. Because guess what? When Drake dips into his rap bag, we love that. Because I want to hear the bars. I want to, I mean, I want to hear Drake's album that's all bars. Yeah. But guess what? That's not gonna sell as well as if he gives us some Allen joints. Some key key. Some we need some Kiki. We need some stuff where he might got some corny lines, but it's like it's catchy. You know, those two a lesbian girl, me too.

Hey, but it goes up. So it goes up. I actually like that bar. So so man, I'm I'm so confused, right? Like you have reached double diamond selling recording and mixing engineer. Like so, you don't produce though? Well, like what's I guess it would almost be kind of how I said like the beat maker and a producer. Yeah. So a producer can also be an engineer. I know. So are you producing? I don't physically make beats. I know, that's fine, but I just but I I've literally from day one, I've been producing without me even knowing I was producing. Yeah. Because me as an engineer, one thing that I've always tried to pride myself on is building my own soundscape and stuff to I don't even really like to say engineer, actually. I always say sound architect. I'm a sound architect. Okay. So that's what I mean. Should we start the interview over? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, let's just want to. Chris Tucker. KY KY sound architect. You should probably drop engineering out of your name then. I mean, I'm just saying. It doesn't ring as well. I don't know. It doesn't. I know.

But okay, yeah. So like that's something you pride yourself on doing. But like, are you assuming the producer role on records these days? Or I do that anyway, because overall, I'm kind of the mesh between the producer or the beat maker and the artist. So when I get these records, I'm taking them and making them things. And when I was recording, I was really even more producing because I'm sitting there with you. So I'm telling you, say, say if I'm working with Future. Yeah. Future, say the beat's five minutes long. Future will wrap down this five-minute beat five times and just be saying stuff, just trying to catch a vibe. And then you take that and you make you say if I take that first take, kind of almost like I was saying with the Nicki Minaj, I comp it. So I might take a cool bar that Future said from the first take, and then I take another cool bar and put it behind that. And it kind of makes a it'll make a song. Yeah. You know, it'll make a song. Like I might be able to find a cool hook out of things that he just said. Man, which I kind of did um on uh uh motherfucking right.

That was a song with uh with Chains and Wayne. Yeah. Mike Wheel made the beat. Motherfucking right. Yep. Mike Will made that beat. So you did the, yeah, because that you made the hook. Like, I've done that with artists, and it's 100% production. Right. But but we don't always get the credit for that. So how that song, how that song was done though, yeah. Okay. So how the song was done, though, Mike Will actually came in, and you know, I know you hear can't. So Zay Toven ended up putting some extra production in it. So he played the keys, but when Mike played it, it was all drums, was no melody in it. But Change just loved it. Mike was actually happened to be there. Chains goes in the booth. He's just saying a lot of different stuff. And I just kind of take it. They just like, oh, you know, not really even thinking about it. Because I don't want to say they were playing around, but I mean we're kind of always playing around, just trying to come up with an idea. That's how it happens. But um, he does that, and I take it, and I make that motherfucking write a hook, and I take the first verse, and I kind of make a second verse, but it's like I really kind of don't have enough. Chains ends up later on, end up coming back and really finishing that verse. And then Zayetovin ends up putting all those keys and stuff like that on there.

But basically, I took something and I made it something. That's producing. Yes. I think what you just said is a huge fucking gem though, just about like our audience recording over like unfinished beats or whatever, right? Like I think like recording over something with just drums and then having someone come in and post produce a lot of the like you know melodic elements. I don't know that our audience is doing that that much. A lot of a lot of beats these days, you know, when they show up in your email, beat makers and producers are trying to impress artists, so they end up putting a whole bunch of shit in their beats. Well, that's too crowded for vocals. And you know, because they just want to like they want the artist to hear something that immediately jumps out of the speakers and sounds amazing, but there's and it ends up being too much. There's no room for the lead instrument, which is the vocal. So, you know, just having drums and having a good rhythm with all the room in the world for vocals can be inspiring, I think. And I tell producers all the time when they're making their beats, just don't go super crazy yet.

Like I said, give them something, really just the drums, and maybe you can do it, give them one, two melodies. Yes. Where they can kind of differ differentiate, maybe the hook from the verse. Yeah. Cool. Maybe you got an intro different part. But don't go super crazy because you actually will confuse the artists, and they won't even rap on the beat. Yeah. I think I think it's too much. You can do it after. I think beat makers could just stop using lead sounds altogether. I don't think you need a lead. All these like producing, all these plugins that have like a lead category, where you're putting in like a lead synth, just don't do it. Yeah. Hot take there. And I mean, like I said, I mean, maybe you can do it, but just do it after the artist does their thing. Has the vocals in it. And that's that's what I'm saying as a gym is that like a lot of producers, or sorry, probably more so titled beat makers, are sending artists beats and they're almost, it's almost like a take it or leave it deal. Yeah, because they're like the beats done. Yeah, exactly. And they're not skilled enough even it's an actor. Yeah.

It's like it's this so the artist won't rap on it because the beat is too busy. I've heard so many artists say I don't like this beat because that one sound. Yeah. Yeah, it can it can literally disappear. It's busy. It's easy to it's just like if it was, and I'm thinking like, damn, if I was the producer, I would immediately just resend this without that sound. Remove the sound. Yeah. Move the sound. And I mean, like I said, if you really want to make a dope song, people don't realize, like, yeah, sometimes you could spark some magic and you just happen to the artist goes in the booth and you already got the beat, and the beats just kind of already where it needs to be. And the artist says some dope stuff and you don't do anything else. But for the most part, a lot of these hits, I mean, they're worked on. I mean, the producer made the beat, and maybe it's kind of open, not really finished. The artist does their thing on top of that beat, and then the producer gets it back again and let them kind of add some stuff on certain little words, maybe that they said, or oh, this is cool. Add that, and then you know, I get it, and I kind of make it a sound to me as the engineer. I kind of make a sound around it. Yeah, and that's a hit record. So post-production. Yeah.

And and you know, so I'm not a lot of that going on now. It's not enough. And it's my favorite part. Yeah. I love that shape. And the producers look, the producers love it. Like, oh man, you gave me some vocals. Like, the best thing you could do for a producer, really, is send them a cappella. Yes. Oh my gosh. We just interviewed we just interviewed Super Mario, and he said the same shit where he'll love asking an artist to send him just raw vocal stems and let him literally like change the whole fucking song. They might have recorded those vocals to some other dude. Exactly. Because you can try and make a beat that sounds cool, or you could try and make an entire song. Yeah. You can try and make the song. For the producer, it's like, oh, at least I now I got something that I kind of gotta. And because when you're just making a beat, you don't have vocals, you just trying stuff. You're mumbling and like rapping along to it yourself, trying to hear it on there. Yeah. But it's like if I already got the vocals, oh, I can do this cool thing when he says this, or this what he's saying is kind of giving me this vibe. Let me do that. So why do you think more people aren't doing it like that? Well, a lot of times, I mean, you have to have the uh you have to have that relationship with the artist for one for them to even be sending you a cappella.

Yeah, I gotta trust you. They gotta trust you. Yeah, they gotta trust you. Like the artist's not just sending off the a cappella to some random dude that says, Hey, send me a cappella. It seems, I guess I get it, but I'm also it's also I think it's also just laziness in this generation and how easy it is to make music to crank out a song, right? That's what I think. I think it's more that to be like this song's done, let's do another one instead of taking the time. Just because we even talked about it as far as like the the demand that's placed on artists to crank out music at such a like you know, high volume, right? I think that's only for certain artists. Yeah. Depending on who you are. But what about up-and-coming artists? Do you think oh up and coming, do whatever you want to do? And you need to probably release as much music as possible. There's no uh I'm gonna wait uh two years. Yeah, it just can't be. It can't be Playboy Party, can't be Frank Ocean. Dude, it's even up and coming. You had to you have to get there and then you can do that.

Yeah. Then you you can drop every three years. You drop every five like a Kendrick or something. Right. But you had to be there. Yeah. You have to be there. So so as someone who's, you know, fucking double diamond selling, right? And and you've mixed countless, countless records. Like, how much of mixed engineering is technical, right? Like the super technical side of it versus like the just the feeling of what sounds good. So I mean, you do got kind of got two sides. So for me personally, I take the side of feeling more so than the technical. Yeah. Because I never went to school. I'm I'm self-taught. I never went to school for engineering. I actually learned all the technical stuff after. I learned how to actually use all these programs and all that stuff first. So for me, it's a feeling. And also I think for me, with the feeling is I've lived these songs before. Like, or at least a feeling. Because of course these the songs that I'm mixing, they're new. But um, I've I've had that feeling to where oh I've I've been in the club and I've seen how a song like this can make you feel. So I need to kind of what can I do to bring that feeling to this song?

And that's kind of how how I kind of operate with a lot of songs are. Maybe you was chilling with a girl and it's a slow song, and I remember that that situation with that girl, and it made me feel a certain way. She let me hit, so I mixed that song right. Right. So I but I got a s I got a song. I got a song that now makes me feel like that, like that moment. So of course that song's not that song that I was listening to, but I want to take that song and I want to get that feeling. So I'll mix it to kind of get that feeling. So I'm more of a feel person, not necessarily technical. Of course, I know I don't want it to be distorted. Some stuff, some distortion is cool, depending on what it is. But not like uh it's distorted to where it's like just doesn't sound good. Yeah, yeah. But um, I'm more so of a feeling guy. And I always used to use this uh thing, I won't say it as much, but I always used to say a ghetto mix. And what I mean by that is because I when I first came up, like I said, I don't know, oh, I need to take the lows and make them 175 Hertz and negative 60 B's and turn the highs up and to the 500 and add some and take some of the mids out and it's hilarious. It's hilarious because the people that didn't know the rules and mixed shit wrong are the people that set the new standard of what sounds cool.

Like the people that didn't know the rules and broke them on accident. Because I made a sound from that. That's I made a sound from that. That's cool. Like literally, like, and and so I kind of just stick with that. Like, like I said, now I do know the more technical stuff, and if I need to do it, and every song is gonna be different. So say if it's uh it's a song that got an RB hook and it's kind of a radio song. Like take song um Transparency with Usher on um that I we did on Collie Grove 2. Yeah, that's more of like a radio record. It's Usher singing on it, the beats kind of smooth. So yeah, I want that to sound as crispy as possible. Um, because that means a little bit more. Yeah, now I'm gonna go technically looking at the DBs and the Hertzes and all the fucking whatever you're saying. I'm really in it, man. The low end's not clipping. Yeah, I'm really in it. This is a smooth song, the bass is smooth, the kick is smooth, you know, all that stuff. But then when I got a trap song, or no, this is going to the club, oh let's distort this thing a little bit. Let's let's it doesn't have to be the most polished 808. It doesn't have to be the most polished kick.

Putting a soft clipper on the master and cranking it up. Yeah, man, we're going crazy. Like, you know what I mean? Like, we're going crazy with it. But like I said, it gives it that feeling because some songs I feel like if some songs I feel like sometimes they could be overmixed. It's really, it literally is a such thing as it being overmixed. Thousand percent. So I I think that's kind of where you have to take it song by song, though. Now I wouldn't say, oh, let me work with Ariana Grande, and I'm gonna make her give the this ghetto sound because that's not her sound. You got to understand who you're working with, what this song is, and make it that. I just think music, man, for me at least, like the reason I wanted to start the podcast was because I am such just a lover of music. I'm just a fan at the end of the day, and it's like for me, it's all about feeling. Yeah, that's all that it's literally all that matters to me as a fan. Like, I know everyone has their own whatever opinions, but I would say for a majority of people, music is so important and such a like big part of like a lot of people's lives because of how it makes them feel. So I think, you know, of course, the technical stuff has to be there.

Maybe you gotta like, you know, pay attention to that shit. But I think the feeling, and that goes for artists making music, and this is what I like stress all the time of like, what are you even talking about? Like, what are you actually trying to make the person feel? And like it doesn't need to be this deep fucking message and concept every time. If it is that like I want a song that's gonna turn people the fuck up in the club. That's the feeling. That's the the thing you're going for. Right. I mean, if that's what you own, because I mean you do have other artists where they maybe don't do club music. But that's what I mean, is that the artists need to be a little bit more clear, and this is like talking just to our community who's trying to like you know, improve. And I feel like the biggest thing that I that I think sticks out about like up and coming artist music that maybe they're missing the mark on, is just I don't know that they actually even have an idea of where is this gonna be listened to. Right. How are people gonna consume this? What is it actually supposed to make people think, make people make people feel? Why are they listening? What do they give a fuck about this for? And and that's why I was bringing up those descriptions of oh, I'm this song makes me feel like that girl I was chilling with. That's what I mean.

It's that was a perfect thing. I'm in the club, and yeah, this this shit is turned the fuck up. And yo, I want to get that feeling. Exactly. And so that goes for the mix engineering, that goes for the fucking lyrics, that goes for the production. Like for me, that's just that should drive everything about the fucking song. Yep. Because I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, like I said, you are supposed to get a feeling. When I listen to your song, I should feel something. Something, anything, like no matter what that feeling is, that be said, I need it. Laughing up, need it, piped up, confused, yeah, curious, whatever the whatever that feeling is. The only wrong answer is not feeling anything. Exactly. And that's when I don't feel nothing, then I'm guess what? That shit's trash. Back to the drum board. And that's where I think a lot of people do miss the mark, though, man. To be honest, is like just kind of falling short on the feeling and like someone the listener walking away with like a very distinct. You almost want to start with that, like at the at the beginning of the I need to learn something, I need to not learn something, I need to just have fun with it. Because some song, a song could actually be about nothing, but it's fine. Exactly.

That's what I mean. That's why you get you know, like some of our audience hears me give critiques and like they think that I think every song needs to be this fucking deep, you know, like super consistent. I don't want to hear that all the time. Nah, I don't either. Most people don't. No, sometimes, but I mean sometimes I do, but you know, like yeah, and you know, some artists they kind of give you both, like, say like a Jay-Z, he give you those songs where he's kind of teaching you some stuff, but then he's gonna give you those songs where hey, we just we're just having a great time here. Like this, this is my club track, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not really even saying much, it's just cool slick lines, and I'm gonna give you that, and and then you know, I'm gonna go back to the song and I'm gonna teach you something. I'm I'm gonna bar it up. Like every song doesn't have to have this big message. You know what I'm saying? Like, I love sexy red. I mean, and I don't feel like I don't feel like she raps about anything. She does. She makes you feel she makes you feel like she makes me feel good. Heck, that's I Ts. You know what I mean? Like, I like that. You know what I'm saying? Like, and if I'm having a good time, it just I'm having a good time and I want to listen to that.

But then when I'm in my moment where I'm like, I don't feel like hearing stuff that's just gonna make me want to party. Then hey, let me let me go ahead and turn on something else. I'm probably not gonna listen to that then. Yeah, I'm probably not gonna turn sexy red on until I'm I'm around some girls or I'm at the club. Late night. She's a PM type type of artist. Definitely PM. Like 9 a.m. sexy red. I don't know. I start in my day like that. You know, then I always like to go with the no rap before noon anyway. That's smart. What do you listen to before noon? 70s soul, 80s. He told me he wakes up at noon, so it's really just rap when he wakes up. So my noon is from really it's uh no rap before three. Yeah. Because I wake up at noon and then I got three hours into three, and so yeah, but I like I like a lot of soul stuff. Um, like says, man, 60s, 70s, man, there's great music. 80s, yeah. Um, 90s RB, love it. 90s rap. 90s is just that's the best era ever.

90s is, man. Of just music, I think, overall, period. I just think everybody was on their shit in the 90s. Like, I mean, even with rock, uh man, pop stuff. I mean, you had your boy bands. I didn't really listen to that stuff, but I mean, there's huge music. I mean, you know, Backstreet Boys in sync, all that stuff. But man, the 90s RB rap, like that's that's the golden era for all music, I think. 2000s to 2010, that was that was a great period, too. I think it it kind of, you know, they kind of rolled the back off the coattails off of it. But that 90s, nothing like it. I'm so happy he just said that's such a hot take. Do you think music's kind of falling off quality-wise? I mean, maybe overall, maybe what's pushed. Because honestly, if you really, I think that it's so much music out here now that if you want to find something that it that'll make you happy, it's there. It's so hard to find it. It's so hard to do it. But you have to dig. It's dude. It's hard to do. And this dude might be like super underground artists. I mean, you know, but I feel like the music is there.

Yeah. But maybe sometimes it's just too much. I know, but we judge it by what's popular. That's what that's where the masses judge. When they say the quality of music, to your point. No, actually, statistically speaking, there's like a hundred thousand times more songs than there ever were in the 90s, like being created. Yeah. So there's actually just as much good music. You have to be a person that's really into it to sift through it to find it. And I don't got time for that shit. No one does. And a lot of people don't. And honestly, a lot of that stuff, because think about it, of course, it's a it's a it's called the music business. So guess what the labels want to do? They want to sell it. That's right. So the songs that are the popular, like you said, they're good on TikTok, good on the uh reels on Instagram, the people putting those songs, those are gonna be the more popular ones. But a lot of the dope stuff is not gonna be the stuff that sells. And that's even kind of the thing with like uh with Killer Mike went in his Grammy. Shout out to him. It's like, I don't even know if that album is gold, but it's like an amazing piece of work. So you think he deserved a win?

I think he deserved a win because guess what? When you think about a Grammy, they're not going for it's not a popularity contest with the Grammys. I do respect that. It's an art thing. Yeah. They're looking for art piece. They're looking for stuff that's gonna hang up on the wall. But sometimes it feels more like a popularity contest, is it not? Nah, because I mean if it was a popularity contest, Mike Killer Mike wouldn't even have been nominated. Bro, MacLemore. Well, that was they messed up then. You picked the biggest thing. They messed up then, though. Grammy history. Because Kendrick Kendrick should have won that. You you picked the biggest snub in Grammy history. Kendrick should have won that. We're never gonna forget that. But see, that's that's one of the things, like I don't know if you know I know a lot of people seen the Jay-Z speech or whatever. Yeah. And I mean, that's kind of what he's saying. Sometimes, hey, y'all get it right. Y'all been getting it right a little bit more recently. But it was a time that they weren't getting it right. Yeah. They weren't. They're like, I mean, Macklemore, I mean, shout out to them. That song was Thrift Shop was amazing. I mean, such a good record. It did what it did. I mean, I didn't personally listen to it. But you had to listen to it.

But it's a lot of people that did. It was everywhere. Good kid is one of the greatest albums ever made in the history. The good kid should have won that Grammy. Yeah. It should have. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, some sometimes I feel like, yeah, they do get it wrong, but lately they've been a little bit more right. But also, I think that was the thing with the kids, because they probably look at it too. Um, actually, a younger guy actually had text me and he was like, yo, he was like, they keep giving the Grammys to the dudes that's 50 and up because you gotta think Nas and won it like a lot of the game. I want to say he won it the year before. Yeah, okay, yeah. Or maybe the two years before. I'm not sure. King's disease three. King's disease. I want to say one maybe won it. I think maybe a couple. King's disease. Maybe he won a few times. Nas was always getting nominated for King's Disease. They're never winning them, though. But he, well, with King's Disease, before the King's Disease, he was never won a Grammy. No, that's true. Yeah. But honestly, like I said, they're gonna go for like the more artsy piece. That's just what the Grammys are gonna go for. Bro, people were pissed. They were pissed.

Because they want Travis to win. Yeah. So many people were like, who's Killer Mike? I was pissed off when I saw the cards. Now, if you just want your artist to win, okay, cool. But say who's killer Mike. So many people, so many the kids don't know who Killer Mike is, bro. We got we got into the biggest argument about whether Kai Sanat, the famous streamer. Yeah, I seen this, I seen what he said. He he said, Who is this guy? He literally was claiming he didn't know him. I was telling Henry, that's fucking bullshit. He gotta know who he is. You live in Atlanta. You live in Atlanta. I think it's like a 22 years old. Killer Mike is Atlanta, bro. He doesn't know who Killer Mike is, bro. But he gotta know who he is. At least even if you don't listen to his music, exactly. You gotta know who he is. Exactly. Because even outside of music, he's done he's done other stuff. Like, like, I mean, even just like I mean, even just on the political stuff. He got a Netflix series. Yeah, yeah, dude. He's done a lot of stuff. Like you know who Killer Mike is. Exactly right. Even if you don't listen to his music, you know who he is. That's what I'm saying.

I disagree. I totally agree. And you know, I try to give, not necessarily him, but I just try to give a lot of younger people pass. Maybe they don't, because Killer Mike has been releasing, but even with just Run the Jewels and stuff, I mean it's underground. So, like I said, yeah. Bro, Run the Jewels is on festivals, bro. But it's underground, though. It's on festivals. More so overseas. They're not they're not charting anymore. Bro, I'm pretty sure Run the Jewels has been on like Rolling Loud not too long. Probably. The kids are looking at Rolling Loud and being like, who's running the Jewels? But even if they came on though, they would probably came on at like 4 p.m. That makes me afternoon set. All right, all right. We don't want to argue about Killer micro. But I'm just saying they were underground. And I mean, even this album that he dropped, he did it underground. So of course he's not getting that pub. And then he's not making trendy stuff. Nah, he's not making it. Like I mean. It's like, not unless you're probably 40 and up, you're probably not putting that on your reel. Nah, or your TikTok. For sure. You're not, you're not gonna put these songs on here. It's like, yo, and you're gonna pick another song. So it's like I get it, because a lot of these kids, I mean, they have grown up to the social media stuff.

And so it's if it's not hitting any of these platforms, they probably don't see it. But killer mic's just been around so long. For you now to say, hey, I haven't heard the album, I could believe that boy saying more than you don't know who he is at the time. Exactly, exactly. Um, all right. So, you know, we kind of touched on obviously you've had a you know long history with Wayne. How did Wayne and your relationship even start? So shouts out to Hot Beats once again. Okay, Hot Beats. Yep, dude. We need that documentary, bro. Yeah, we do documentary. But um, I was working at Hot Beats. I've been working there maybe about two or three years. Just like a staff engineer. Well, yeah, I was staff engineer, but honestly, I mean, so the quick just quick story of Hot Beats. Um, I basically started there when it was one room. Okay. And it ended up building, we ended up building our clientele, and we ended up building to three rooms. So I was the guy that was there from day one. So basically every client that kind of came in there was kind of my client until we built up, and of course, we got other rooms, so yeah, other engineers were kind of getting their chops. But um, anyway, um I it's actually kind of a crazy story.

Shouts out to Titty Boy, aka Two Chains. God, my dog always been looking out for me. Always seemed to be he he looked out for me without knowing he was looking out for me. But basically, Wayne, he used to go record at patchwork, another legendary studio here in Atlanta. He was working there, but guess what you can't do in the control room. Smoke weed. Schmoke. Dude. Patrick were fucked up with that rule. I'm not gonna lie, bro. That's a quick way to lose a whole lot of hot then. Then they're doing fine. Yeah, we're doing fine. I'll tell you doing just fine. So, you know, he gets to the point he he he decides hey, I want to do whatever I feel like doing today in patchwork. He lights up his blunt and they kick him out. Kicked him out. So guess who he calls? He calls a good friend named Titty Boy at the time. He wasn't two chains. He calls up a good friend named Titty Boy, say, hey, I need a studio. He's like, oh man, come to Hot Beats. So he comes to Hot Beats. And at this time, Wayne actually already has his own engineer. Shouts out to Diesel.

That's his engineer at the time. So they come up there, and I'm like, yo, Wayne is in here. I'm I mean, I've literally been listening to Lil Wayne. I mean, me and him, well, I want to say he's maybe two years younger than me, maybe. Okay. But I've literally Wayne's been rapping since he was 12. And I've literally been listening to him since I was 15, maybe. Yeah. And, you know, like The Black is hot. Before that. I mean, I've I mean the first Hot Boy albums. And like, just crazy. Like, I've literally been with Cash Money before they had the big deals and all that stuff. Way before, like I said, Black is hot was like way later. I was already, I've been, I was waiting for Block is hot. So anyway, um, he comes up there, but over the course of me working at Hot Beats, a lot of his friends, MacMaine, Gutta, T Streets, uh, Kia Kid, all of those guys had actually been coming to Hot Beats themselves, working on their own music before Wayne ever came. So when they come, when Wayne comes, they're with him. So I'm able to at least be in the room because I know these guys.

Oh, okay. And he sees them talking to me, but I'm kind of just playing, even though I'm I'm not an intern, I'm kind of playing an intern role so I can chill in here and just hear what Wayne is doing. Cause like I said, he already has his engineer. So hey, you know, you need cookies, Wayne? Uh, you need water, you need candy. What do you think? What do you need, Wayne? I just need to be in here and whatever you need. I just want to sit there and watch. So that happens maybe a few times, and then his engineer Diesel actually missed the flight one time. So when he misses the flight, uh, he's still Wayne's still ready to work though. So he's like, yo, he's not gonna be here at all today. I'll still want to work. So he asked the studio owner, hey, you got an engineer. So he's like, yeah, KY engineers. He's like, oh, I didn't even know you're engineer. I just thought you was just like turn around here. I thought you were just getting the cookies. Yeah, I thought you was a cookie getter. I bet you were a damn good cookie getter, KY. Shouts out the Otis Funk. Okay, yeah. Otis. Big Otis. But anyway, I was doing that, and I ended up being able to work with him and that night. And I was only do that maybe I want to say over about maybe a six-month period.

Whenever he came to Atlanta, I end up kind of just working with him whenever he came here. So were you nervous that first time getting in? Oh, super nervous. Come on, yeah. I mean, I mean, dude, I just want to make sure that's what I'm saying. Talking about the goat, bro. Talking about the goat, obviously. And like I said, for one, I'm a fan of his. And then, I mean, he's like, yo, you gotta work with me. And, you know, I've kind of watched him a little bit, and I see, like I said, the whole thing with the whole speed thing. So it's like, I'm just super nervous. Like, yeah, so what did you notice about his, you know, because you were kind of observing before you got the chance to actually record him. He doesn't write. Okay. And I mean, at that point in time, that's like really, I mean, it's not as much a crazy thing to say now, because it's hardly nobody writes, which they should go back to writing. Jay-Z started it, kinda. I don't want to say he was like, He writes in his head. Well, Wayne kind of does the same thing. I feel like so he's not freestyling per se, where you hear the whole 16-bar verse, and he literally just went in there and did it one take. Right. So I mean, he's kind of doing that too. I mean, he's listening to the beat, going and then maybe he comes up with a few bars and goes in, lays them down, comes back out, and you know, that type of thing. So, I mean, he's writing in his head.

But um So was Wayne punching in? Yeah, punching him. But keep in mind at this point in time, everybody's kind of writing. So I used to always, me as an engineer, it was kind of one of the things like, oh, load up the beat. I know I got 30 to uh 30 minutes to an hour before I can kind of, you know, the artist said they're ready because I'm just gonna loop this beat and they're just gonna sit there and write. And sometimes they might just write a verse and then go in and do it, but sometimes they'll write the whole song. And this is the time where they're doing three 16s, 312s. That must have been so much easier to be an engineer at the time. You're still on the bottom. I told you, I'm gonna loop this beat, and it's great. I'm gonna I'm gonna loop this beat and then I'm gonna go to Perky D's. That's a callback that we never thought. Perky D's. Maybe where you can get your I'd like a large number 30. So I would do that. I would do that, and like I said, I'll watch him, man. And but I was nervous, like I said. But anyway, uh, he did that for maybe three to six months.

And then eventually I was actually recording some other guys, and he calls me one day and he's like, yo, you want to come to Miami for the weekend? And keep in mind at this time I've never been to Miami yet. Um, and he's like flying me down. This is like my first work flight trip. And that weekend literally turned into me being there for a whole month. And really, not even just in Miami, because we end up going from Miami when we went to New York. We went to LA. I'm flying on a private jet now. Like, this is like this is crazy. Like, I'm with little Wayne, and we're flying on his private jet, and we're going everywhere. Wayne's doing his Wayne stuff, and and he's in the midst of working on Carter Three. So that's that's like the first project that like I'm working with him on. So, I mean, Wayne at the time still was clearly like blowing up. Oh, yeah. I mean, Carter Threes is like that's that was the pinnacle of like but he's already yeah, Carter One is out, Carter 2's out, he's already going crazy on these all these features. Yeah, mixed up.

He's already yeah, the mixtapes. So he's he's already there, but like said, you know that Carter Three was the pinnacle, but it's like he's literally already there. I mean he's bubbling over, like so. He could have had any any engineer. I mean anybody he wanna do. I mean, yeah, but so I mean, has he ever told you like what why like what you know, why you but you know, I think the main thing with me a lot of times is that once we can we're talking about feeling, I think that a lot of times I'm even though I'm not a rapper, I grew up in those environments, and I just think that I have a better understanding with them at that time. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, of course, a lot of engineers back in those days, it's different now because I mean now it's like engineers, you know, they they strapped up, they got the strap next to them. They might be a crep, and we got creep engineers now. So what a time to be alive, folks. A lot of crip engineers, and it's just a lot of cool ass engineers now. You know what I'm saying? Like back in the day, though, it was like it was like the nerdy thing. Like you were a nerd engineer. You were that's a nerdy thing to do.

And I just think I was just a cool dude. Like, I was me. And I think that was kind of one of the things it's like, oh, when I come out the booth, and we're not necessarily talking about music, I could talk to him about some other stuff that doesn't pertain to music, and he gets where I'm coming from. So I think that was like the big thing. And for me, I am I am a smoking engineer, so it's like I can actually smoke and you know do what I need to do. Like I said, I'm not falling off. Because if I did, one thing I won't do, I don't drink during sessions. Yeah, never. Like, that's like the worst thing to do. Yeah, but for me, I like to smoke, and I'm not even sitting there just I might roll up two of them, and I'm that if we got a 12-hour session, I'm gonna smoke those just those two. Yeah. Over the course of the 12 hours. Yeah. Are you giving um any feedback? Like vocal production. Oh, lot of a lot of feedback. Yeah. Yeah, you could you could hit that better. Or hey, it would be better if you take that one word out. See, that's what I do. But recording Wayne, I might be like, Well, yeah, how long did it take for you to feel comfortable giving feedback to him? Oh, a little while.

And that was even another thing, I guess we wouldn't even say when we were saying just with the whole etiquette stuff. You as an engineer, I think you know you kind of build up before you even really try to really give them too many pointers. Because you just want to fill out how they kind of do their thing. They don't know you, they're probably used to doing what they do. So kind of just fill out the situation and and interject whenever you kind of need to. Because you don't want to be the dude that just super going crazy. And sometimes you just need to see where idea goes. You need as an engineer, you need to learn that too. Cause say, I've dealt with plenty of songs where the artists, I'm just listening and I'm like, this shit whack. This ain't it. But they keep it. But then by the time they keep going and then they get back to the hook, it's like, oh, this is fire. It makes sense. This is fire. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes you gotta let the idea build too and just see where it goes. Or maybe they finally get to the end and maybe it's still whack. And then maybe just be like, hey, I don't like it. See, that's that's the hardest part for me of of being in sessions, and you know this. He wants to say it's whack immediately. I'm I'm quick, I'm quick drama girl on like this is not going anywhere. You can tell he doesn't smoke.

But but you're good at the but sometimes you let it go too long, though. Well, sometimes you let the trash go too long, bro. I'm not gonna know. I don't want you to do a whole song of trash. But I I know that you go that way. I know what I'm capable of in post too. Like, I know, like no, but it's not about putting recording. Yeah, sure it is. No, of course it is. Oh, it is. It is because also that was another thing that made me a dope engineer, and why a lot of people wanted to work with me. Because sometimes they would do something, and yeah, it might not be that dope. But then by the time I like put that soundscape on it, get my good sound architectural stuff on, it would make it dope. Like you don't know how many times I've literally done that. And even sometimes, even still with mixing, like the song would be decent, but it's like that mix takes it to that. Oh, yeah. No, I know I know what it's like. It's kind of the same thing. I know what a good thing is. Like literally, like it literally will some good engineering can take a decent piece of work. I don't want to say a whack thing because it's kind of hard to really clean up some shit. Yeah.

But as long as it's as long as it's decent, you as an engineer can kind of, if you can kind of add some cool little effects, and maybe you do some stuff to the ad libs, or you you take out a drum here, and you know, as far as the sequencing of the beat, it's like you can kind of make some stuff dope. I've done that plenty of times. Oh, that's true. But that's why I say you kind of gotta let the artists, you gotta know when to be like, bruh, this ain't it. Or just kind of let them get the idea out because you don't know where they're about to go. And I think that's like a cool thing as an engineer, where you gotta kind of have that balance of really just kind of let the artists just get their thing off. And you know what I mean. And sometimes they'll even end up hearing it and be like, all right, I got it off, but I don't like it either. Yeah, yeah. They might agree. So I know you told this story before in another interview, and you even like kind of touched on this when you and I first met in the uh Suave A session. Um, but can you tell the story of like Forever by Lil Wayne and Drake? Yeah, of just how that like happened. So, of course, this is like this is the first night I ever met Drake.

Yeah, yeah, okay. So, of course, like I said, I'm in there, I'm recording Lil Wayne. We're at Hot Beats. Shout out to Hot Beats once again. Okay. Back at Legendary Spot. But um, we back at we at Hot Beats. So I'm recording Wayne, and I mean, little Wayne wanna say I want to say he got there maybe 7 p.m. that day. And we're just recording, recording, recording. Now it's 6 a.m. and Wayne's like, oh, I'm right go ahead and go on home. So, but hey, KY, I'm packing up. But hey, there's this artist named Drake. He's right there on the couch over here. He's been here the whole time. He's been there the whole time. And um KY's like, ooh. Yeah, I'm like, ooh, let me. And I'm ready to go. That Canadian? I've been here for 12 hours. Yeah. So I'm ready to go. So long work day. It's a long workday. He's like, yo, record Drake. He wants to do something. I'm like, all right, cool. You know what I mean? Like, fine, Lil Wayne. Because Drake's sitting there, and I mean, you know, I I want to say, I don't, I don't, I don't think that was the first time he met Wayne, but you know, he's still pretty new to Wayne. So he's kind of just sitting there just soaking it all in.

He's just sitting on the couch. Clearly, he wasn't talking a lot because you didn't even notice he was. I mean, I don't know if he said anything. Okay. Just being honest. But I mean, that was almost like I told you that was me. Like, I I mean, the first few times I got around Wayne, I'm hey, I got cookies for you. I got Wayne. I got, I mean, I have water. I got whatever you need to keep you comfortable. Okay. So Drake was in that mode. Drake's in that mode. He's just, he's just soaking up the vibes. Yeah. So he's doing that. And of course, you know, like I said, this back in the day. So Drake hands me a CD. Wow. Not a thumb drive, not a hard drive. Not, hey, go on my email and download this beat. He doesn't airdrop it. Compact disc. Not a he gives me a compact disc. Wow. 90 minute. Wow. 90 minute compact disc. Wow. So he gives me that. Um, I load it in. He's like, load that in. It's the forever beat. And he goes in the booth. Last name ever. First name greatest. He does that.

He does that thing. And it's just amazing. And so before Wayne is like still packing up. So he immediately goes in. Yeah, he immediately goes in. Like, I mean, as soon as he's handsome the beat. I mean, you gotta keep in mind that for one, he probably already had it before he even got to Atlanta anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He knew what he wanted to work on. He probably had already even recorded the song. No telling. I don't know. I had to ask Drake. Sure. But he maybe's even probably already recorded it, but he's just going with some of the surefire. Yeah. So he he I load it up. He does his thing. Wayne's still packing, though. So Wayne hears it. And I'm even like surprised because like I said, I'm just kind of looking at him. It's just like, you know, when you kind of just look at him off top, you're not thinking like he's about to go spit some crazy shit. Not at that time. Not at that time. Wheelchair Jimmy. And then keep in mind, I've never seen Degrassi. So I don't, I don't know him at all. Like, literally, I don't. So he does the, he does that first forever hook, and I'm like, yo, this shit dope. Wayne hears it and he's like, yo, he's like, I'm a rapper too. He's like, you think you about to just come in here and do that and think I ain't about to rap?

Wayne takes the stuff, unpacks, and goes in and he does his verse. Damn. And so that's literally like my first introduction with with Drake. Damn, bro. And you know, like uh, because it also Drake, I mean, of course, you know, he has 40 and he has different people, but at this time, you gotta keep in mind, like I said, this is Drake, like where he's they're not flying in your homies. They're not flying in your producer, your engineer. It's like Drake, and maybe he has somebody else with him. I don't remember, but is he even young money at that point? Nah, not fully. Not even. But pretty close. Yeah. Pretty close. That's why he's there because uh Tez, which was Wayne's manager at the time. Yeah, Cortis. You know what I mean? He's kind of bringing it all together. And, you know, of course, Jazz Prince uh bought uh bought Drake to Tez. So, you know, they're trying to kind of bring it all, but it's not nothing official at this time. It's not. So you had you had your selfish moment just then. Yeah. Now I'd like to ask if you remember any stories from We Be Steady Mobbing, the song that I played more than any other song in my entire span of high school, was addicted to this song. It's one of my favorite songs of all.

It still might be in my recently played on Spotify, actually. It's the perfect song. Classic song. Classic song, man. Classic song. Do you remember anything from that? Man, I I just remember for one, Wayne doing it. Uh shout out to Kane. Kane made the beats, Kane beats. Yeah. He's a super uh injured, I mean producer. And so kind of the thing, like I said, uh, I'm also like a I'm a I'm a connector. Yeah. I don't like to use the word middleman, I'm a connector. So I knew Kane Beats from Atlanta. Um I end up I liked his beats, and Wayne would always ask, like, yo, you got beats. So I'm like, uh, hey, I got Kane beats. I just hit up these dudes and get beats from them. Hitboy, the same way. Um, I get these beats from guys. So you tell me tell me you're about to say that you connected the beat to Wayne right now. So I connected that beat with Wayne. I'm happy that. So Wayne goes in, he does his thing. And of course, Wayne doesn't really listen to a lot of different artists. Like people kind of trip when they sit when Wayne says, Oh, I don't know who this artist is, or I don't know this song. He kind of literally do be in Wayne's world.

Like he's just that's perfect. He's just focused on what he's doing, you know. So it's kind of one of those type things. But um anyway, he does his part, and of course, us in Young Money, we listen to we're listening to everybody else. We're not just listening to you. Like, we love you, Wayne. Listening to Gucci. Yeah, we listening to Gucci. So, you know, and then of course, you know, around this time also like OJ the juice, man. We always run it, we run it. Everybody in Young Money be running out and talking about, hey, hey, stupid fruity. Hey, hey! You know, like we would just uh do that like all the time. And Wayne had no idea what we were doing, loved it. Yeah, loved it. But he Wayne's like, well, why you all this A and all that? You know what I mean? And so basically, like I said, me a big Gucci fan. Um, we basically everybody's like, yo, you need to get Gucci on this one. Because they had never done a song before. So we like, you need to get Gucci on this one. And I'm like, I don't really know Gucci at this time. You know, because this is before Waka. So I'm like, I don't really know, I don't really know Gucci at this time, but I know somebody that knows him. And his name happens to be Titty Boy. Oh it all comes back to two chains.

Two chains is the plug, too. Chains? He's a plug. He's the plug, bro. He's a plug. So basically I end up calling him, and you know, I'm like, yo, you know, we we got the song, we want to get Gucci on it. So Titty Boy actually takes it to him and gets him to do the verse at patchwork. He does it at patchwork. And the crazy thing is, which a lot of people don't know, Titty Boy actually had a verse on there. That's what I was gonna say. It's almost impressive that he didn't want it for himself. But so he did, he so the original version of this song actually is Wayne and Titty Boy. Damn. So the fact that he's on there. Your eyes just got scary. So the version, that's the first version. So in order to get Gucci on there, I mean that's kind of why Chains is like, oh, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna personally deliver this song to Gucci. Because keep in mind also, this is like before the times where oh, I can email, I can't we transfer you this. I had to burn a DVD with the session on it. And deliver it and hand deliver it.

So he has to literally, I had to give this CD, I mean this DVD with the session on it to Titty Boy. A DVD, D V D R you D V D R. That's how you you would burn the you burn the session on to this. I thought you just misspoke. You were serious. No, D V D R. No. You burn it on there. I was like, it's called a CD. I burned his session on there. And yeah, I burn that session, I give it to Titty Boy, and he drives it over to Patch. Drives it over to Patchwork. Gets him. I end up getting it back finally. And that's how the song kind of came. And it was kind of crazy, man. Cause I really didn't even want to tell uh Tid at the time that because basically we end up getting it back, and Wayne's like, damn, Gucci killed it. I kind of want to rap more. So he did the third verse. He did the third verse, and then he's like, I want to rap more. Can you can you like can you mute chains? Well, Tit at the time. Can you mute Tit? And I'm like, the hardest mute ever. You're like, this is the guy that made this all happen.

Made it happen. How hard was that? It was very hard. Damn, man. And I don't I can't really remember exactly how I ended up breaking it to him, but I did break it to him before. And uh Tid actually ended up uh dropping his version of it because he had uh I want to say it was on his all eyes on me mixtape. Okay, because I was gonna say, because this was still like free-for-all fucking Yeah, this is a mixtape. Mixtape days where it's like I'm dropping my version, fuck y'all. Uh really. Someone's putting it on that if whether it's the official artist or not. It's gonna be. But nah, that's kind of the story behind it, you know, just the whole thing. Like I said, we were big Gucci fans, and we wanted to get Gucci on there and be cane on the beat. Yeah, Kane on the beat. And like I said, Roscoe shouted out Kane too. He said, from Kane. I sweaty. Yeah, yeah. Kane was Kane was big back then. Shout outs to the city. Yeah, King Kane was he was a super beast, man. I haven't talked to him in a while, but but that's something that I said I used to just do a lot.

And like I said, it kind of the same thing with Hit Boy. Like uh Wayne, he did the uh drop the world beat. Mm-hmm. So I actually knew Chasing Cash. And I didn't know Hitboy at the time. I had met him a few times. Yeah, actually, I did know Hitboy. Now I think about it. But I wasn't like a super contact with him. I was more so talking to Chase Cash. Because you know, Chase the Cash and Hit Boy, they had Surf Club. So they were making beats together. And I just knew Chase, and I'm like, yo, send me some beats. Hitboy just happened to actually do that beat, and that turned into drop the world with MM on it. Crazy. Damn, bro. Well, KY, we could talk to you forever, man. But we've entered a final segment of the podcast. I'm sad. Final. Hold on, man. We just got started. I know, right? That's how I'm saying. That's literally how it's like. You got a booze sound effect over there, man? Yeah, yeah, 100%. Boo him, boo ben. I'm sorry. I don't make the rules here. Our audience's retention does. And we haven't done a part two interview yet, but we need one, bro. If someone needs to be it, it might have to be KY, bro.

Um, but we are gonna have some fun in this final segment. It's called the Rapid Fire Rampage. It's gonna be three short parts. I'll explain them as we go. The first part is a short answer segment. I'm just gonna start firing him out. Here we go. Short answer. Short answer. Nice and easy. Rapid fire rampage. I'm just getting it off. Starting with an easy one. This is a layup. What is the square root of pie? Damn, I don't know. That is the correct answer. I don't know. And I should know this. See, that's dumb stuff that they teach us in school that we never learn and we never use in life. Yeah, yeah. Because I used to know this answer. Did you know? I don't think I've ever known that. I've never known. Yeah, no. It's probably one point something. Well, uh, three point one four. That's pie. What's the square root of it? Oh shit. I don't know. Exactly. It's stupid. That was a joke. Moving on. KY. Give us your top three tips for becoming a diamond selling recording engineer. I know this is gonna sound cliche, but hard work, determination.

Hard work. Determination. That's it. He said fuck your own. Two of them twice. You don't need three. Yeah, we don't need to be. You need four, but you're repeating them twice. Because I mean, honestly, that's really the main thing. And like I said, I know it sounds cliche, and people always ask me how you like, oh, how do I get on? How do I build clients? I mean, do good work, work hard. Speaks for yourself. And determination. Like, literally, don't stop. Like no one wants to do it. I know it sounds crazy, but you got to. I know. That's what I'm saying, though. That's why. That's why it actually is so cliche, but so true. And in an era of content and content marketing where it's so prevalent, like I've been, you know, I've been an engineer by trade for over 10 years, and all my clients are from word of mouth. 100% on that. Mine too. I've never made a business card. I don't have a LinkedIn. Yep. Same. I mean, I don't I don't, I don't know. You do good work. Do good work, and guess what? Those people tell other people. Exactly. Crazy. All right, moving on. This uh segment's called Ideal Audio. KY, we're gonna craft the perfect song.

Your absolute perfect song. You can give me any engineer, maybe maybe yourself. Any producer, two producers, whatever, and any artists, any songwriters, whatever you want to do, craft the perfect song. Alive or dead, too. What are we doing? Damn, you took it even farther with that one. I know. Um leveled it up there. Let me see. Let me see. Engineer first. We're gonna go with that. And I would like to have guru. Ooh. Jay-Z is engineer. Oh shit. I'd like to have Guru and I would like to have Mix Bali. Both. Ali and Guru. Yeah, we gotta have both of them on the book. Damn. You know, you take half the board, guru, and you take the other half, I think. So we'll have both of y'all together. Ali EQ. Yeah, we'll guru compress. Yeah, guru compress. So we'll take that. That way, you know, just take me out of the equation because I love those guys. Super amazing dudes. So I have both of them as my engineer. Producer. I want to have Kanye with Manny Fresh. Ooh.

No one's brought Manny Manny Fresh back. With Manny Fresh. Okay. Because I just think that would be cool. Like a Kanye feel on a Manny Fresh type bounce. Yeah. That would be different. That would be different. It'd be different. All right. Who's hopping on this shit? What artist we getting on? Let's get like a hook artist. Oh, yeah. Let's get the hook first. Let's get the hook. Because that's that's like the most important part. Yeah. Who's on the hook? Man, there's so many dope hook writers. But I want some melody. So I think I might roll with like a, and this is gonna sound crazy because it's not even a rapper or anybody does rap, but I just love, but I want like money long to do the hook. Ooh. Like money long to do the hook. Just because, you know, like I said, I think it'll be some cool melody. You know what I mean? And but also I want somebody with those melodies to kind of help her with it, like maybe on some rap stuff. So then maybe I take Josie. Ooh. So Josie and Money Lone together on the hook.

How can you lose with that hook? It's already a win. Yeah, that's a win. But let's go verse one, verse two. You can only have two verses because this is 2024. Only two verses. I mean, am I trying to get like what am I trying to do? The hit? Am I going for a hit? You're trying to make your favorite, so you tell them. Well, I need I'm gonna need Drake. I'm gonna need Drake. Because he's I just feel like whatever, no matter what the song is about, he's gonna say some fly shit. Yeah, facts. Definitely. And he's gonna take it to where it needs to be. So I need Drake. And I don't know if I really want them to do a song together, but I just would like to hear Tupac there too. Ooh. We got it. It's a good song. But I just love I love Pac, man. And you know, uh, I think Drake could take it over the top. And maybe if it's a girl song though, because Pac has some dope girl songs. You're right. No, absolutely. You're right. That's dope. So maybe it'll actually work. I think that will work. I think it'll work. Drake and Pac. And it's on a Yeah and many for some. And if I had anybody to actually, so I'm I still need to add one more person, though. Okay.

Because I got Money Long and Josie on the hook. And you said that R Live, so maybe I can have Aaliyah sing this up. Ooh. Wow. Like they're all layered. Yeah. Kind of thing. Crazy. So it'd be like Drake featuring Aaliyah and Tupac. Damn. Produced by Manny Fresh and Kanye West. Mixed by Guru and Ali. And a mixed by Ali. Come on. Um KY, if you were an app on your phone, which app would you be? That one, whatever you're thinking of. That's a good question. Because I was thinking, I was thinking um, I was thinking mail. Ooh. Because I like emails. Because most of the time in the emails, it's like a check there somewhere. Okay, yeah. He's a communicator. Yeah, I like to, you know, see what's going on. And you know, you get deals in the email. Yeah. And it's like, I feel like, you know, I give good deals. That's where the action happens.

And like I said, most of the time it's a check in there. Right. But it's also at the same time, it's like laid back. So it's like you don't want to be there all the time because it's true. You know, and I'm a laid back dude. So I I'm maybe go with male. Okay. I like that. I go with male. KY, you can invent a plug-in for engineering that does anything. What does your plugin do? So I like to I like to kind of get on like I like stuff to be different. So I think whatever the plug-in is gonna be, it's gonna be something that's quirky. And maybe it'll bring like so. One of the things I did with Young Money, I I created this thing, like the chops. You know, you had to stutter, I call them chops, but you have to Nikki really kind of took it and ran with it mostly. But I kind of created that for Wayne, and we end up calling it the Young Money Chops because everybody in Young Money did it. So Yeah, Nikki Big Juice. Yeah, Big Juice does it. Yeah, he goes crazy. Goes crazy with that. Yeah, he's amazing. So, but I think maybe the plug-in to do that, and then it'd just be like quirky sounds.

Like maybe you could take it and it adds like an automatic, like robotic kind of sound, or you know, just quirky stuff. Like you would be like maybe spare moments where you would actually really be able to use this in a real world song. But I feel like when you used it, it would be like the dopest thing ever. So you can do it. But it would definitely be more of a yeah, it'd be like that'd be actually a good name, too. Unique of it. You want to go in on this? Yeah, listen, that's true. I know some engineers. Are you cutting me out of this shit? Yeah, I'd take 75. That sounds like a deal. All right, yeah, we'll talk about it. Um moving on. What is one engineering lesson that took you way too long to learn? Oh maybe how to track beats. Because you gotta keep in mind, see, it's it through we transfer or drops the files to you one by one. Like organization.

You gotta remember back in the day. You were losing things, bruh. Hey, and I mean, like, keep in mind also producers weren't making a beat with a computer. Right. They were doing it with NPCs, and then you had to have the MIDI chord run from their thing to the computer. And then hopefully the producer had at least a blown out NPC, which had an eight out, which eight out is you have eight outs. So that means I can do eight sounds at one time. Yeah. Which sometimes it wouldn't be eight because say if the song, I mean, say if a sound is stereo, that's one and two for one sound. Or if they use like a sample, all of the instruments are on one track. Right. Yeah, stuff like that. So, you know, you got that. And so basically, it just it just was a lot. It took a long a lot to kind of learn that MIDI and then had to do it. And then I once I end up figuring it out, I end up figuring, like I said, it took me too long, but I figured it out over time. Oh, just track out like eight bars of the beat instead of the whole beat. Or the producers used to do song mode. So the song mode would be basically them inside of the NPC, kind of doing a hook, what they thought the sequence of the hook would be, a sequence of the verse.

But no, we're just gonna take it, we'll just do the whole thing. Let me get eight bars of it because that's probably normally how long it is, maybe 16 at the most if you want to be safe. And we'll take that, put that in Pro Tools, and then I will just sequence it once we get it into Pro Tools. But I say that took me too long because I did probably years of just letting the producer do a song mode, and if that's something we would do, because you never knew how long the song was gonna be, so maybe we'd do that for five minutes. So you hope that they they just track it out exactly how the arrangement's gonna be. Oh, for sure. But most of the time they would do that because it was on song mode. And they're producing it, and so they have an idea of. Yeah, and it's like, yo, do it how I said it. Yeah. Kind of thing. Okay. Um okay. And now it's like full circle NPCs are coming back and shit. Yeah, it is, but at least they're doing it still through. So you wouldn't know that they did it on MPC because they're not gonna track it through that. True. They're gonna put it back in their Pro Tools. Or Pro Tools. FL or FL, yeah, whatever they're in. For sure. So they can still at least give it to you fast. Right.

Okay, last one of the short answer. KY, what is your favorite curse word? Bitch. Part one. We're gonna go with that. Part one. Bitch is probably our third most popular answer on that. Yeah, it's kind of underrated, actually. I say it goes fuck shit and then bitch. I would say our most popular. I grew up listening too short, and you'd be like, bitch. It's cool. And then, you know, like, you know, sometimes people just be bitches. They do, they do. So many times. I think I'm a shit guy. Yeah. Oh no. You are a shit guy. Say if something's happening in Pro Tools, like, you know, if you get like the little spin wheel or the spinning ball of death, that's what I like to call it. Bitch. Yeah. So yeah, that I'm gonna have to roll with bitch. Fuck is fuck is a close second, though. Shout out autosave, by the way. Yeah, shout outs onto save a lot of great music. And sometimes they do uh I don't know, man. Computers just be doing what they want to do sometimes. All the time. The second part is called the this or that portion.

I'm gonna give you two choices. You pick one. Coming out the gates with this first one, bro. Drake or Wayne. Oh my god. Woo-hoo. We see we need an option like on Drake Champs where they like you can say both and you take a shot. Or you can say neither, yeah, and yeah, exactly. I would take a shot. Okay. Well, I ain't gonna lie. I'm gonna have to go with Wayne just because I mean I've literally been listening to him, like I said, since 14. I was gonna say, bro. And I mean, you know, that you know, Drake is Wayne's uh project, exactly. So there's no Drake without Wayne. We're gonna go with Wayne. Hooks or verses. Hooks are more important. But I mean, if you're not really saying anything in this verse, I'm probably gonna cut it off. But I think for the world, I'm probably had to go with the hook because that's what you remember first. Hook by hair. So hook. EQ first or compress first? Compress. Fab filter or waves? Waves.

That was the incorrect answer. That was the only thing. I know the random man. And I, you know, I I've rocked with the I rock with the fab filter, but I'm a I'm a waves guy. That was there first. It was. That's why it's outdated. Anyway, barbecue or teriyaki. Oh, barbecue. From the South. Faser or flanger. Flanager. I'm a big flange guy. Flange guy. Toby McGuire Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield Spider-Man, or Tom Holland Spider-Man. Tom Holland Spider-Man. He was good. Give it to the kid. Rich or happy. Happy. Zero to a hundred hertz. Sorry, zero to a thousand hertz. Or a thousand to ten thousand hertz. Zero to a thousand. He's a low end man. Yeah, I like that. Same here. You know, we in the south, man. We told you. You know, it's that feeling. We get we need that. We need that. I can actually do without the highs. Let's take a auto highs out. Fuck it. Slow pass filter. Everything.

That's the 40 sound. That's what Drake came up on. Yeah, man, listen to it. Just cut all the high-end. Yeah, let's do it. Put the voice there. Um discover new artists or binge your favorites. I love discovering new artists. More of that. And finally, melt all your plaques down to liquid or retire from the music industry. We're gonna have to melt those plaques. There's more plaques coming. Yeah, we're gonna get some more. He also has only got 17. He could just order the other 140. It would save him a lot of money. I might need to uh get a loan so I can get the other one. Yeah, yeah, we should. I'm wondering what you think the bank would do that if I walked in and said, hey, loan me 30,000 so I can order plaques. I think if you showed him your resume and I was the bank, I'd be like, take double. So yeah. That's cool. I like that. This last part is the word association. Kway, I'm gonna say one word, and you just tell me the first word off the top of your head as fast as you can. There's no correct or incorrect answers. You are only judged on speed.

Starting with hip hop. Oh shit. Legendary. Compressor. LA2A. Snake. In the grass. Pizza. Pepperoni. Reverb. Big sound. President. Obama. Gas. We Valentine. Ooh, I like that one. Um two dates. Oh God. He's double dipping. He just outed himself. I think this is coming out on Valentine's Day. The day after Valentine's Day. Alright, cool, cool. Yes. The two dates. I like two dates on Valentine's. That's cool. Pro Tools. Wouldn't be anything without it. Zombie. Apocalypse. Lexington. Birthplace. Master.

Oh. Slave Master. Oh, God. I was thinking like mastering the audio. Oh, God. Well, this is me, though. This is me. No, we don't. Like I said, there's no incorrect answer. Future got a song called Slave Master He does it's kind of hard um moving on Influencer corny but not corny Atlanta I don't want to say I only keep saying legendary but just it's a legendary city Lil Wayne Silver Fox Let's go Silver Fox himself the sound architect KY Engineering in the building if y'all fuck with this interview as always please like comment subscribe follow us on Apple Podcasts follow us on Spotify Podcasts leave us a five star review god damn it do it give it up for me again give it up for K yeah give it up for KY give it up for KY Let's go and until next week Henry what are we doing getting out of here baby fuck out of here peace light one more time one more time one more time one more time