Words By Khalid Strickland
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t keep it funky, so I’m going to drop a self-incriminating dime.
My interview with super-producer Dame Grease went beyond The Smoking Section’s requisite fifteen minutes. It actually clocked in at twenty-four minutes and nineteen seconds.
Indeed, I went against the grain, but when you’re chopping it up with the maestro who created “We’ll Always Love Big Poppa” by the LOX, you can’t just interrupt him at the fifteen minute mark and wrap shit up. We’re talking about Dame Grease, the man who produced 13 tracks on DMX’s 4X-platinum debut album, It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot. The guy who hooked up Freeway and Jay-Z with that hard-ass beat for “Big Spender.” The sensei who taught Swizz Beatz, another sample-free producer, and paved the way for his pupil to shine. Listing Dame’s lengthy resume alone would take more than fifteen minutes. LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Kelis, Kay Slay, Dipset and T.I. are just a few of the artists to grace Dame’s diverse instrumentals. If Dame Grease wants to talk about the Hollywood flicks that he’s scored (Exit Wounds, Cradle To The Grave and Never Die Alone), I’m letting him speak his piece, to hell with overtime. Hopefully Chief Gotty won’t strip me of my TSS badge for being a loose cannon, ala Dirty Harry (“I’ve had enough of your renegade shenanigans! You’re off the force, Strickland!”).
When I arrived at Grease’s state-of-the-art Lot Musik Studio, I was greeted by Donny Goines, the Harlem-bred rapper who’s been grinding like a madman, online and in the streets. Cool dude. Grease produced the tight first single, “I Am Moving”, from Donny’s upcoming album Minute After Midnight. This is one of many projects Dame Grease currently has on the market. Aside from contributing bangin’ tracks to the latest albums by Styles P and Hell Rell, Grease’s own cohesive compilation album Goon Musik is in stores and on iTunes right now. Goon Musik features talented emcees from Mr. Grease’s Lot Musik imprint, such as Meeno, Messiah and Bigga Threat, unloading bars of raw over his street-saturated beats (Although ex-Dipset affiliate Max B. makes an appearance on “Connecticut Kush”). Grease himself contributes a few bars as well. Loaded in the chamber squarely behind Goon Musik is Dame Grease’s other LP, Sour Diesel, which boasts a fearsome line-up of seasoned emcees; Pusha T of the Clipse, Sheek Louch, Freeway, DMX, Drag-On and the aforementioned Styles P all put in some heavy work.
Before we re-cap the rogue interview that broke the fifteen-minute mold, I’d like to send a shout-out to Cynamin Jones, a woman who’s definitely on her game, for making it all possible. Good lookin’, ma.
TSS: With a title like Goon Musik, it doesn’t sound like you’re trying to chase the mainstream, MTV-crowd. While everybody else is chasing the limelight and looking for that next commercial, why’d you keep it street?
Dame Grease: It’s more of a cult following type album. In the music today… there’s underground Hip-Hop, there’s mainstream Hip-Hop, there’s pop Hip-Hop; there’s different types of music that we all do. At the same time, Goon Musik actually is a descriptive of the music that I’ve always done. Like DMX’s first album is goon music. My beats are goon music. So it’s self-explanatory. That’s why even on the album, as my vocal presentation, I’m not rappin’ or spittin’. Like I tell everybody, I’m a hood narrator. So I’m just really telling a tale and usually the guys come on after me and go in. I’m more like the narrator figure.
TSS: Aside from the obvious financial gains, is there anything you’d like to accomplish with this album?
Dame Grease: This album was actually not put to be the big first-week selling album and all that hoopla. This album is not for that. This album is like a classic type of album that’s going to go along a timeline with the other music we put out. There’s going to be volumes. ‘Cause a lot of my music for now is going to be primetime. You got “Big Spender” with the “Hey, Big Spen-der!” (vocal sample) which (sounds) real big. You’ve got my song “Sour Diesel”, it’s real big. A lot of my music I’m doing like that big. But my element where I come from is street music, hard music. So I always got to keep a balance. That’s why I got to make my Goon Musik serious, then go to the mainstream and do big songs with big artists.
TSS: The very first compilation LP you did, Live On Lenox was distributed by Priority Records, which is basically a major-indie label. How was that experience for you and what have you learned since then?
Dame Grease: It was a super learning experience. Real talk, based on the triumphs and failures of Live On Lenox, it’s been a super learning experience for me as more than a producer, but as a label owner, because I own Vacant Lot Records. As a label owner (it helps) to understand different aspects of retail, radio promotion. As far as street promotion and underground, that’s our rock, that’s where we come from. As far as mainstream promotion and having it lined up with the timeline of hyping the album, all that’s a learning process. Now when I do a Goon Musik album, this album’s actually on a so small-but-large scale. Because it’s more of the learning process that I used from Live On Lenox and I’m using that same pattern and process with all my albums… which is actually the Vacant Lot Records way. It’s been a beautiful thing; I’m not going to cry over spilled milk. Thank God for all blessings. You’ve got to learn from everything and make it beautiful.
TSS: What do you think you’ve contributed to the production game? When you listen to the music now, do you hear influences and things that you’ve done?
Dame Grease: It’s cool that you asked that ‘cause I’m a producer that respects other producers. I put on an instrumental mixtape, for the respect of the producers, with all my instrumentals. After that…this is a quote for Easy Mo Bee, a producer I look up to; he’s an O.G. in the game. Me and Easy speak all of the time. And he told me, “Grease, you know what? You originated the strings in the game. You originated all the strings and all the horn-type of things that everybody be doing and different types of things”. I’m like, “You’re right, Easy”. I know I do it, but it’s cool when another person recognizes it. ‘Cause in this game, some producers will be like, “You originated that”. I tell Easy, “That jazz, hard-drum thing? You already know (you originated that)”. Like Timbo, he got his thing and shit. That’s cool.
TSS: Back in the days when you wanted to make beats, you’d have to spend an enormous amount of money on equipment and studio time and such. Nowadays, that’s not the case. Now, you can download a program like Reason and put a studio in your computer, so you get a lot of overnight producers. Do you feel that the accessibility to equipment helps the game or waters the game down?
Dame Grease: As far as people wanting to do things, you never want to block or hate on that. That’s a good thing. But it does water the game down a lot because…even now a lot of artists, emcees…the choice of production they’re choosing…they’re going back to distinctive production. That’s why I’m doing my thing ten years later. When you use a lot of the same programs, you got a lot of the same sounds. So it be that hot beat, (people) are like, “Who did that hot beat?” Like fifteen muthafuckas; it’s the same beat, actually. That’s cool, but as far as longevity with them guys, it’s not ever gonna be that.
The music game has changed. It’s not on that prosthetic sound. It’s back to more Read the rest of this entry »
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