I just get inspired by hearing a lot of Jazz
and Soul and Gospel.
I got a crazy vinyl collection, especially
when I dig.
I dig with some of the best dealers.
However, this did not come from that.
It came from my man Cas.
He’s a crazy kid.
He goes to the library and gets all of these
jazz CDs and studies them.
It ended up being this South African Jazz
CD.
It’s very rare.
Alright, here’s the sample.
The sample is originally [sings].
You can see in this part how precise the chops
are.
Every beat in the chop is like…
Otherwise it would sound like this…
So I basically took out a whole step in the
sample.
The next step was… obviously I like the
bass sound.
The bass wasn’t that loud so I turned up
that swing and made the 808s do it.
It’s like my secret weapon.
I’ll take a sample and melodyne it and take
the main bottom notes and basically put 808s
under it.
Then with those notes it mixes a certain way
and it gives it a different feeling than I
think a lot of people’s beats.
I don’t know that many people who do that.
It breaks down the notes to where it shows
where each note is.
It goes F#...
So what I do is I have all these 808s already
tuned and I went and recreated the bass with
808s tuned out so it’s like…
Now you put that together and it sounds crazy.
Basically instead of playing the baseline
you do that.
Because the base is already in the sample
and it’s low so it’s bringing the low-end
to that note.
I’m doing my radio show and Joey’s like
“Yo, I got a surprise for you.”
And J. Cole walks in and we just kicked it for awhile.
Now it’s a unit now.
I think originally Cole was going to get on
a different record.
I think “For My People” or one of the
other records on the album.
I wanted to drop it in January because all
of our birthdays are in January because me,
Cole and Joey are all born in the same week.
And the hook says “Getting better every
January / it’s very scary.”
And it’s important because we’re all Aquarius
babies.
Next, I found a cool drum break.
And it started real simple with…
And I pitched it and made it go…
And I chopped that up the same way I chopped
the sample basically every beat making it
faster in a different swing.
We were on a plane together actually.
You know we were in first class chilling.
In the corner I set up my own little studio
and I made the beat.
When we got to the airport I tried to play
it for him he’s like “Yo, I’ll listen
later.”
My man Cas came in and played keys on it.
This little keyboard solo part of it.
This ended up being the part where J. Cole
comes in.
He bodied that shit.
“Yo Rob, what’s goodie?”
The last part of the beat I have to give credit
to Joey.
He just sang something and we filtered it.
And that’s the gist of that part.
As soon as Joey does the record, I get hit
up by Nas’ manager like “Hold that, hold
that.
We want that.”
So this is like the second, third time in a year that
Nas has done that.
He wanted “Smoke Break” as soon as 2 Chainz
got on the hit they’re like “We want that.”
I'm like "It's 2 Chainz's." I think him and 2 Chainz had a laugh about it.
Nas man, let’s go!
We got some things in the stash.
That’s up next man.
That would be legendary.
