J-Zone Studio Video

J-Zone's new album is dropping soon and I can't wait.  As much as I loved Root for the Villain, it's nice to know J-Zone hasn't hung up the mic and MPC.  It's also nice to know that J-Zone still likes his equipment half broken and his attitude curmudgeony.  He's one of several producers featured on this blog who lives the motto less is more.  This video perfectly captures his attitude towards making music and showcases his love of limitations.  Enjoy.        

"I Still Do J-Zone Shit": An Interview with J-Zone Pt. 3

This is the third and final installment of my interview with J-Zone.  Make sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't already.

DJ Sorce-1: Alright, so if there are no memorable cassette digging stories, let’s hear a vinyl one.

J-Zone: It’s in the book, but probably one of my favorite memories is when Vance Wright and I caught a crack head in New Rochelle getting rid of his 45s. He wanted a couple hundred bucks for a few hundred 45s. We gave him 25 bucks each; 50 bucks total. I was maybe 17 at the time, but I knew beats. I was young, but I knew what records had drums. Vance, at that point, was more on the business side of the game. He wasn't an avid sample scrounger like I was. I got half of the 45s, but I got all of the great shit. I gave Vance all of the standard records and shit I already had. I got Ricky Williams’ "Discotheque Soul", which is worth a couple hundred bucks. These records all cost a quarter apiece if you break it down. This guy had shit that I've never seen again, like local private press funk 45s and limited press shit. I got most of my best 45s off of that crack head. That was crazy.

In the 90’s a lot of DJ’s were selling equipment and records. They needed money because they had drug habits or families. This was pre-Internet, so a lot of them didn't know what they could get in terms of price because there was no EBay, Discogs, or Amazon. There was no way of knowing what something was worth unless you were part of this small clandestine group that would know, “ OK, this record has a drum break and it’s super duper rare. You can get 200 bucks for this 45.” Now all it takes is the click of a button. Back then, they didn't know. To get a good price, all you had to do is keep a straight face, like “Yo, I’ll take this shit, and if I don’t want it, I’ll give it to my cousin.” Just play it off like it’s junk and you’re doing them the favor. They were giving records away, and unbeknownst to them, you just got $1200 worth of 45s for 25 bucks. It was cool, because when you had knowledge back then, it helped you get an advantage. Now you can have all the knowledge you want, but everything is on the internet and nothing is sacred anymore. It kind of takes the rush out of when you find something dope.

 
DJ Sorce-1: Yeah, I definitely remember a certain excitement in buying records that weren’t even super rare, just white labels that didn't come out on albums. When I was in high school there was a white label of the Nas and Large Professor song "One + One". I remember when that came out; owning that record where I lived was kind of a big deal. Probably not in a major city, but I grew up in a college town. Now I can just hop online and a song like that is either on a blog or ITunes and I just download it. In some ways that’s cool. But I miss the times when I had something that nobody else had. I could show it off.

J-Zone: Exactly. And for me, at the end of the day, the rarity gets you excited, but it’s really all about the music. I’m not a snob. I have plenty of rare rap tapes that suck. I’ll listen to my EPMD tape more than some of the rare shit. I have some shit that I’ve Goodled and gotten nothing, but the tape sucks, so what’s it worth? I’m sure some jamoke will pop up in a couple of years saying, “Yo, this is super rare, I want 200 bucks for it.” And it’s just a guy rhyming over an 808 and there’s nothing good about it at all. And when that day comes I’ll sell mine for $200, because I don’t keep shit because it’s rare. I keep it because I like it. If an album is rare and I like it, that’s even better. 

 
DJ Sorce-1: I have some non-rare stuff like Murda Muzik on cassette that I’m considering getting rid of. Do you hold on to stuff like that?

J-Zone: It depends. If I got it on cassette first and it’s not something I spin out or something that I really love; I’ll just keep the cassette.

DJ Sorce-1: Can you give me an example?

J-Zone: I’m going to hang myself by saying this, but it’s just my opinion. Somebody gave me Midnight Marauders on cassette, and that’s fine, because I wasn’t a big fan of Midnight Marauders. People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm was my favorite Tribe album. Midnight Marauders, I liked it, but it wasn't like, “Oh shit.” It wasn't one of my favorite Tribe albums, so having it on cassette is enough. If I ever need to put a song in a DJ set I can rip it through Pro Tools and make an MP3 of it. It’s not like I need the album cover nice and big or I need the CD for pristine quality. But albums I’m crazy about, I usually try to get them in all three formats if I can. I won’t go hunt an album down on cassette if it’s like a Midnight Marauders. Whichever format I can get it in first is what I’ll keep it in. I have Tim Dog’s Penicillin on Wax on tape and vinyl. I had the CD but I lent it out and never got it back. Now I think it’s worth about 50 bucks. 

DJ Sorce-1: Holy shit! I have it sitting in one of those stupid CD binders in my apartment.

J-Zone: Yeah. It’s super hard to find. You can’t find that shit and I had it when it came out on CD. So I have doubles of the vinyl and one copy of the tape, but I can’t find it on CD. That’s my favorite hip hop album of all time and I want it in all formats so that no matter where I am, I have access to it. Doing an all vinyl party? Ok I got it. Using Serato? Ok I got it. Need it for the car? Ok I got it. Need it form the walkman? Ok, I got it. 

DJ Sorce-1: Yeah I’m checking Amazon right now. A new copy of the CD starts at $91.65 and used copies start at $25.61.

J-Zone: I might get a used one. 15 years ago was probably the last time I saw it. Another thing that’s cool about the different formats is that the album art is sometimes different. Like if you look at the Peoples Instinctive tape on the inside flap, Tribe looks like they’re on a ledge, kind of looking down. I have the vinyl of that album and I haven’t had the cassette in years. The vinyl doesn't have that photo and I don’t know about the CD because I never had the CD. So if you’re a nerd for album art, try to get an album in as many formats as you can.

(Editor’s Note: At this point of the interview, I Google the picture J is talking about. He also looks it up as we continue.)

J-Zone: Wow. That’s crazy. That’s by my house! I just realized that. That building is Rochdale Village. That’s right up the street from my house. That’s wild. That picture brings back memories. I haven’t seen that since I had the tape version. I always thought People’s Instinctive was there best album because that’s how I discovered Tribe. It was so different than everything else that was out at the time. The Low End Theory was more accessible and a lot more street kids liked that one because it had something for everybody, as did Midnight Marauders. Peoples Instinctive was kind of bohemian, which usually wasn't my flavor, but I loved it, and I loved the videos. “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” is one of my favorite videos. 

DJ Sorce-1: J, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about tapes. Are there any last tape recommendations that you have for my cassette heads reading this?

J-Zone: Yeah. Going back to one of the tapes I mentioned earlier, I like the MC Sergio one, Making A Killing. That has bonus cuts that aren't on the vinyl that never came out on CD. MC Serigo was on Warlock/Idlers records. He’s from Brooklyn. He came out in 89 or 90 and his producer and DJ was Backspin, who went on to do beats for Leaders of the New School and Busta Rhymes. Backspin did beats on both Leaders albums and he did shit on Busta’s first solo album. He was Sergio’s DJ and producer back then. They had a click called ISP (Ill Squad Productions) with Cut Master KG and Dollar $ Bill. They were just a bunch of guys from Flatbush that were in the same crew. Making a Killing was very generic for the time. It had funky samples, battle rhymes, and wasn’t very well mixed, but it has a campy appeal to it. Kind of what an indie album would sound like at the time.

A sincere thank you to J-Zone for taking the time to talk to me.  If you haven't already, make sure to pick up a copy of his excellent book Root for the Villain.  I highly recommend it to anyone who checks my blog. 

If you are interested in checking out some J-Zone music, click here.  

"I Still Do J-Zone Shit": An Interview with J-Zone Pt. 2

During the first entry in my interview series with J-Zone, J broke down how to sample off of cassette for all of the SP-1200 users out there.  For the second installment, J talks about some of his favorite tapes from his personal collection.  Be on the lookout for Part 3, coming soon.

DJ Sorce-1: Do you have a Top 5 list of rap albums that are only available on cassette. 

J-Zone: Cassette only stuff...hmm. There definitely is cassette only stuff, but it’s usually cassette and CD only or cassette and vinyl only. But just cassette? Excluding the obvious shit like the Hieroglyphics ones that came out on cassette only, like Casual’s EP, the Baritone Tiplove tape comes to mind.  The album is called Livin’ Foul. It was re-issued on double vinyl like four or five years ago, but it was a super limited run. It was cassette only until 07, so for 15 or 16 years it was cassette only. Livin’ Foul is definitely my number one pick.

Baritone Tiplove is like J-Zone and Chief Chinchilla or Madlib and Quasimoto before they existed. The real guy’s name is Phil The Soulman. He’s a record dealer from Philly who I bought breaks from in the 90’s. He’s also known as Phil Most Chill. Baritone Tiplove was like the Chief Chinchila or Quasimoto of Phil Most Chill, it was his alter eager. I had never heard Livin’ Foul until 04 when he sent me a couple of cuts from it. When I listened to it I was like, “Yo, I gotta hear this whole thing.” (Editor's Note: You can read Phil Most Chill's write-up on the making of Livn' Foul by clicking here.) 

People always said that when I did Chief Chinchilla, I was biting Madlib and his Quasimoto album. But in reality, I was biting Baritone Tiplove. I don’t know if Madlib knew about Livin’ Foul, but that was the original Chief Chinchilla or Quasimoto. It was really well produced. I’ll say it on record; it was on the level of The Bomb Squad and Public Enemy in terms of production. Production wise, it was as good as Fear of a Black Planet. A label called Easy Street put it out. I don’t even know if they ever put anything else out. They might have done one or two other releases, but they weren't really accustomed to dealing with hip hop, so they kind of didn't know what they had on their hands. 

Livin’ Foul came out in ’91. The Biz Markie lawsuit had just happened and that album is chock full of tons of samples. The label basically panicked because of the lawsuits and didn't want to put that shit out on other formats. I remember Phil telling me it had something to do with the samples he used, so they made it some low key shit that was only available on cassette. I can’t imagine that shit getting out of the East Coast at all. It probably came up in batches of one and two in certain record stores, but the cover is so crazy that you would probably bypass it and think it was a joke or something. It just fell under the radar. I’m surprised that record hasn't caught on more with today’s generation that goes back and looks for stuff. It was the precursor to so much stuff that blew up later, whether or not we knew that we were borrowing from it. 

DJ Sorce-1: Obscure regional tapes have become very popular on Amazon and EBay in the last five to six years. Do you have any tapes that fit that mold?

I also have a bunch of regional shit on cassette. The Ichiban label had a lot of stuff that I don’t remember ever seeing on CD. Albums like the 1-5 Posse’s Lifestyles of the Young and Crazy. That had some really good production. I've never seen the CD; I've only encountered the cassette. 

 
The region that a group came from helped determine the format of an album. By 1991-92, vinyl was becoming strictly a DJ thing. Looking back before that, hip hop albums always came out on vinyl. Then in 91, 92, and 93, CDs really started to take over. Around 92-93, a lot of the albums that came out were promo only for vinyl. The emphasis was on CDs and cassettes, so vinyl production slowed down.

If you take a group like Gang Starr, they were gonna have it on vinyl, because the DJ’s who were into that kind of shit, they requested it. But of you were someone like E-40 coming out with an album in 1994, the single might be vinyl, but you’d do a couple hundred promos of the album on vinyl and that was it. Or they would do what Rap-A-Lot records did with the hot wax, where you’d take the six best cuts that you could play out, and that was it. A lot of those regional groups, if they were coming from someone in the south or Midwest where there wasn't a heavy vinyl culture for hip hop, they might avoid vinyl altogether and only do cassette and CD. 

Some of those regional things were only on cassette. It just depends on the region and the time. I have an MC Sergio album that didn't come out on CD. I know Warlock records, a lot of their stuff didn't come out on CD. I don’t think the Krown Ruler’s album did either. The Jungle Brother’s album did eventually, probably because of demand. But labels like that weren't focused on CDs. A lot of times bonus cuts were on cassette and not on vinyl, so you had to get the tape to get all of the songs. 

I would say cassettes started to fade in maybe 96-97. The last time I remember everybody buying the tape for something was Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Everybody called it the purple tape because of its purple shell. Slaughterhouse was yellow, Illegal’s tape was red; those tapes had the color shells. I have Cuban Linx on vinyl. Everybody I knew had the cassette. All the DJ’s had it on vinyl and all of my friends had it on cassette. That was 95. By the times Iron Man and Wu-Tang Forever came out, everybody had the CD. 

 
Cars also started having CD players in them. I think a lot of times, the places where we listen to our music steers where the technology goes. I have a 01 Volkswagen with a cassette player and the CD is a trunk loader. It’s such a pain in the ass to put CDs in the trunk that I always listen to tapes in my car, because I can control it, it’s right there. If your car doesn't have a cassette deck, you’re not going go out of your way to buy one. I think cars and portable music players determined what was available to the consumers. It was a domino effect. By 2000, the cassette section of music store was like a piece of one wall of the store. At that point, stores had to look at what was feasible and what people would buy, because they were trying to run a business. A lot of the stuff just got phased out because it was forced out.

DJ Sorce-1: It’s interesting how the popularity of a format goes in waves. Sometimes, I think when media keeps on evolving, people find comfort in defunct media. I’m into movies, and a lot of horror movie fans love VHS horror movies that you can’t get on Blu Ray or DVD. I think some people crave that grimy quality of VHS for the nostalgia it evokes.

J-Zone: Exactly. I have movies on VHS that were never re-issued. It feels like you’re watching it at the time it came out when you pop the tape in. It makes you feel like you’re in 1972 or whenever it came out.

DJ Sorce-1: With defunct forms of media, there is always an issue of maintaining the condition, especially if you actually use it. If you take care of vinyl, it’s pretty durable. I know that with repeat plays cassettes can wear down quickly. Do you convert all of your cassettes to digital so that you have them backed up, just in case?

J-Zone: The valuable ones I do. My last car didn't have a cassette player. A lot of my cassettes, I would run them through Pro Tools, clean them up, make them sounds good, then bounce them down to CD. The car I just got is actually newer than the last car I had and it still has a cassette deck. My 99 Mazda didn't have a cassette, but my 01 Volkswagen has a cassette. So now that I have a cassette player in the car, I've gone back to using tapes. Store bought tapes get worn down so I either dub them to another cassette and use that or make MP3s out of them. For old radio shows and shit, I’ll digitize them. Those can never be found again. 

DJ Sorce-1: Like the old Stretch and Bob tapes?

J-Zone: Even some of those, Fat Beats reissued them on cassette. I have shit I've personally taped off of NYU radio and smaller local stations. I gotta keep that stuff...I gotta preserve it. Over years the tape will deteriorate.

DJ Sorce-1: I love people’s crazy stories of digging in a sketchy basement or some crazy person’s house. Do you have any of those kinds of stories about buying tapes?

J-Zone: Most of my stories like that are about records. There is a place in Queens that’s still opened called Breakdown. I've been going there since I was 12. They’re still open. I was actually in there the other day. I got most of my cassette form there. It looks like an old, used record store. There are records all over the place and they have lots of VHS tapes and strange shit. It has a grimy look, but it’s not like Out the Past in Chicago where you’re like, “Oh shit. I’ll get cancer when I leave.” It’s not like that. I got a lot of my tapes from Breakdown. People know I’m into tapes, so whenever somebody is selling tapes or getting rid of them they come see me. But I don’t have any crazy, life is on the line story about tapes. Those are all about vinyl.

Click here to read Part 3.

"I Still Do J-Zone Shit": An Interview with J-Zone Pt. 1

About a year ago, I asked J-Zone if he wanted to do an interview as a reboot for my "Can You Dig It?" series. To give some new life to the series, I planned on talking with J about digging for cassette tapes instead of vinyl. What I got instead was an hour worth of audio gold that turned into something completely different than what I had originally expected. We talked about sampling off of cassette with an SP-1200, his experiences writing Root for the Villain, and everything in between.

After the interview, life got crazy. I changed jobs twice in a five month span and personal trials and tribulations got in the way of writing. I also struggled with what to do with all of the great material I had. It didn't work for "Can You Dig It?" or the other series on my blog. I considered turning the interview into an article for a magazine, but I didn't feel like a condensed, watered down piece would do J-Zone justice. In the end, I've decided to run the majority of our interview on my blog as a standalone piece. I should have known...I can’t fit J-Zone into a box. 

To make the interview more accessible, it will be broken into segments.  I hope readers appreciate the creative genius that is J-Zone as much as I enjoyed talking to him.

DJ Sorce-1: I have a friend who runs a tape only label. Some of the people he works with say that tapes, when done right, sound better than vinyl. Do you have any opinions on that?

J-Zone: I always say vinyl, but it depends on how it’s mastered. Anyone who’s a collector can tell you that Cold Chillin’ and Tommy Boy vinyl albums are notoriously horrible. My cassette version of 3 Feet High and Rising sounded better than the vinyl, obviously. Usually, I like the sound of vinyl the best. But if the vinyl ain’t done right...cassettes, when they’re in good shape, sound great.

With analog, it will distort a little bit when you pump the volume, but it’s not like digital where if you go over, it will clip immediately. With cassettes, you want the levels to jump in the red a little bit. It almost gives it a sound like it’s compressed or it’s on the radio when you jam it plus two or plus four in the red and it’s jumping a little bit. A cassette where everything is under zero at all times is going to sound airy and kind of shitty. But when you pump it right, it gives it a full sound.

I don’t even think store bought cassettes manage to get the full, maximum sound. On a lot of tapes, they were trying to avoid distortion when mass producing them. When I make cassettes at home, I get the good Maxell and record the vinyl to cassette. You can kind of control the volume and how you pump it. It sounds really dope. If you have a high bias blank tape and you have the record levels jumping in the red a little bit, you can get a really warm sound. With digital, you’re not getting the full dynamics. A lot of times I would sample stuff, and put it on cassette and then sample the cassette back just to get a little bit of warmth to it. I was using an MPC which isn't as warm as the SP-1200. So a lot of times, samples that were really clean, I would run them through a good cassette deck.

DJ Sorce-1: It’s interesting that you bring up sampling cassettes. In Brian Coleman’s interview with Da Beatminerz from Check The Technique, they said they couldn't afford a lot of big break records at the time Enta Tha Stage came out. Some of the samples they used for that album were cassette copies of big time records.

J-Zone: That makes sense. At that time, if you were trying to look for drums and go outside of the ultimate breaks and beats series, you were using drums like “Power of Zeus” or “Get Out My Life Woman”. If you went to the Roosevelt Record Fair, those records would be between 50 and 200 bucks. At the time, I didn’t have a DAT player and CD burning wasn't the thing yet. So I used to go tape samples from people. When I worked for Vance Wright at his studio, he had a lot of records I didn't have. I would tape shit from Vance, take it home, and sample from the tape. I still do that.

When I was making beats all the time, sometimes I would sample Indian music. A lot of Indian music is on tape. You can go down to Indian neighborhoods in the East Village and they have cassettes. There hardest thing about finding samples on cassettes is that you have to listen to everything. You can’t skip around the way you do with records. But then you don’t miss anything. Cassettes never ever fell out of my production process or the way I listen to music. I use cassettes as much now as I did in 89, 94, or 2002. It has never fluctuated or tapered. Obviously, as time went on, you get CDs more because they put CD players in cars. I use ITunes and Serato, so I embrace the other technology. But cassettes have never been obsolete to me.

DJ Sorce-1: I’m curious about sampling from cassette. Before reading the Black Moon interview and talking with you, that was something I hadn't considered. Is this a common thing for producers to do?

J-Zone: I would say now, it’s not as common as sampling vinyl. Back in the day though, a lot of albums would do small issues on cassette. They’d actually be easier to find than the vinyl. For instance, Dorothy Ashby, the jazz harpist, did a record called Afro-Harping from like 1970. I found the cassette for 2 bucks, sealed. This was probably in the early 90’s. It was used on the Mecca and the Soul Brother album. When Pete Rock was hot, everybody was going out and trying to snatch up shit he was using. They figured it had other stuff or they thought they could use what he sampled better. So his samples were in demand. I found Afro-Harping on cassette and I never found the vinyl until years later.

The problem with sampling from cassette is that if you were using the SP, you can’t change the speed on cassette. You can’t speed it up so that you can sample more of it with the SP and you only have 10 seconds of memory. I used to high speed dub one cassette to another so that I could sample the tape’s high speed dubbing. It would sound like chipmunk shit and I’d slow it way back down. I’d actually be able to squeeze more time into the sample by doing that. With the high speed stuff it’s like (makes noise imitating speed up sound of high speed dubbing.) You sample it and slow it down little by little. You gotta piece it down because it’s really fast. I used to put samples on cassettes and just sample the high speed dub process. I would be able to squeeze two loops into the SP-1200, which was uncanny at the time.

DJ Sorce-1: Like homemade time stretching.

J-Zone: Exactly. The sound quality would deteriorate, but during that era...There was a small time where sound quality was king in hip hop. I would say after The Chronic came out, everybody got overly concerned with sounds quality. Tribe’s albums were also really well mixed. But I was never competing on that level, so I didn’t care (laughs). By the end of the 90’s, you had Doom and all the DIY shit on Fondle ‘Em that was coming out. That was done on 4-track. Now were in an era where nobody even cares. We’re in an iPod generation. It’s not like you’re making music for jeeps anymore where you’re trying to EQ an 808 or filter something the right way. People just throw shit out. I always try to keep good quality to my music, but my sampling methods are very lo-fi. I never sample in stereo, I sample cassettes a lot, and I never clean my records off before I use them. I just like that whole raw approach.

DJ Sorce-1: As someone who loves listening to a lot of different producers, I do like a lot of stuff that people like Timberland and Kanye make. But I love the gritty sound. Some of my favorite RZA stuff is his early, grimy work. I also appreciated Company Flow’s style of sampling. I think there is an era of people who, if you grew up listening to it, you’re always going to like stuff that doesn’t sound perfect. I know Prince Paul has said that there’s something good about a dusted out sample that comes off of an imperfect record.

J-Zone: Yeah. Prince Paul, The Beatnuts, 45 King...those guys would take those imperfections and make it work.

DJ Sorce-1: The Beatminerz said in that interview I referenced that they were praised for the gritty, dirty sound of Enta Da Stage, which in many ways was due to the cassettes they sampled. They were definitely using their limitations to foster creativity.

J-Zone: Yeah, exactly...making something out of nothing. That album was full of hiss. You could tell they used a lot of cassette and analog. It was super bass heavy, but at times it was really quiet and you knew that if they would have tried to bump the volume it would distort. A song like the bonus cut “Slave” has so much hiss and it’s so low, but it’s bass heavy. If they would have tried to max the volume out, it would have pumped way too far into the red. “How Many MC’s” is probably the only song on the album that is the mix standard. Everything else sounds like it was done on a 4-track, but that’s what made it cool.

DJ Sorce-1: In your book Root for the Villain, you said that you had hung up your sampler. From our conversation, it still sounds like you still make beats.

J-Zone: I really just make beats when someone is like, “Yo J, I need a beat.” If somebody needs a remix or beat, I try to find the inspiration to do it. But it’s not like how it was 10-15 years ago when I was down there 24/7, cranking out shit. It’s very rare that I make a beat. But when I feel the creative juices, I go down and do it. It’s more like a hobby now. The rapping shit, I’m definitely done with. That’s over. But with production, when I feel it, I go down and too something. I’m trying to learn how to play the drums, so that takes up a lot of my time.

DJ Sorce-1: I felt bad for you when I read for you when I read about you giving up on music after so many setbacks. That was sad to read.

J-Zone: Yeah, I just do it for fun. I’m not trying to compete or make the Top 10 Producers of the Year list. I don’t view it as competitively as I used to. I just stay in my lane and do what I do. Technology is changing, the sound is changing, times is changing, but I still do J-Zone shit. I know that and I don’t have any expectations. Six or seven year ago, I would have had expectations. Like, “Why aren’t people feeling the shit that I’m doing?” When you’re trying to compete, you’re trying to make a living, and you want the accolades because you’re a musician.

Now it’s kind of like a hobby. I still take that antique approach to making music. I still have Pro Tools 6.2. I don’t use any MIDI. I have a Moog, but I play everything into Pro Tools. I don’t MIDI anything up. I don’t use any Ableton. I’m still mostly sample based. I didn't update with the times and I don’t want to update with the times. If you’re going to have that kind of attitude, you have to look at it as a hobby. I’m not trying to be with the hottest producers right now. I just do what I do, that’s it. And that’s fine, as long as you don’t expect to blow the fuck up. I don’t expect that.      

Click here to read Part 2.