|
Drawzilla - Stirring The Pot
Interview By: Mina Jasarevic
 Some would argue that hip-hop producers have to work twice as hard than MCs/rappers in order to please. And the list of people that need to be satisfied includes not only those rhyming over melodies, but also the critics, the fans, other producers – yes, other producers, and of course, themselves. Drawzilla is harder to catch than the lucky baseball in a Tampa Bay stadium (when the Rays make a hit, that is). Between hosting press days for his new mix-tape Zilla’s World, and holding sessions with various artists that veer toward him like women to chocolate, it’s a wonder that we even caught up with the producer in the come-up who sat down with us to discuss his latest compilation (and his dislike for the term), making records from top to bottom, and finding similarities between cooking and producing...over some honey roasted cashews and cherry Kool Aid.
Nobodysmiling.com : Many people are still unaware of you. Why don’t you give us a little bit of info and your background?
 Drawzilla : OK. I kind of started out, just you know, enjoying music, just loving music so much…growing up with my family who love music. They played a lot of old Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin…people like that. And just being so into it as a youngster kind of inspired me to start playing instruments on my own. We had a small little piano in my family room – and I would start banging on that thing at six or seven years old. And as time progressed I started getting into the whole aspect of buying equipment and learning how to use it. And then one day, the first record that influenced me to do music was LL Cool J.
Nobodysmiling.com : What record was that?
Drawzilla : It was Rock The Bells.
Nobodysmiling.com : Ah. That’s a classic still.
Drawzilla : Exactly. So as soon as I heard that, I was like ‘I definitely want to do something. I definitely want to start getting into the whole aspect of music. So I bought my first equipment which was a CASIO. I don’t even remember the model but it was an old CASIO. I just wanted to get a feel of what music should sound like.
Nobodysmiling.com : So did you learn how to play the piano?
Drawzilla : Well, eventually I did. At this point I’m not the greatest player in the world, but I definitely know the chords, or know how to get away with other stuff without being a crazy musician like Alicia Keys. I think the first piece of equipment after that I bought was an MPC 60; a really old machine.
Nobodysmiling.com : And it progressed to what? What are you working with now?
Drawzilla : I have an MPC2000XL; I have a Triton; I have a Roland Fantom-X6; Pro Tools – you know the digital one with the software of course. And that’s pretty much it, that’s how I’m able to make music.
Nobodysmiling.com : What did you do with Jae Millz last night?
Drawzilla : Jae Millz actually came out with a friend of mine, this girl named Tony. She’s kind of new in the game, up-and-coming. She knows that I have a lot of relationships with people. She actually kind of hooked that whole situation up. But because of the fact that I do know him from the showcases and he runs Remy (Ma) and you know that we manage Bedtyme which is her DJ so it all kind of fit together. Got him from Harlem, came Upstate, and we recorded.
Nobodysmiling.com : That’s great. Let’s discuss Zilla’s World right now.
Drawzilla : It was released November 19th. Skyzoo’s on it. I got Big Lou from Streetsweepers on it. I got Capone from CNN. Twin Gambino from the Infamous Mobb. I got three artists of my own which is Sic Osyrus who’s got a big buzz in New York City right now. An R&B artist that I just signed named Priscilya Marie from New Jersey. And then I have a female rapper named Dejha B from the Bronx, that I’m developing right now.
Nobodysmiling.com : And how did you decide to even create this compilation?
Drawzilla : That’s an excellent question, I’m glad you asked me *laughs*. Basically, I’m a struggling producer. I need to really get my name out and I realize that the only way I’ll be able to get myself out there is to market myself as an artist. So putting together an album – pretty much a compilation album – (I don’t like calling it that but it is what it is), pretty much putting together this album kind of shows A&Rs and a lot of people in the industry that I have the capabilities of putting together a solid album with variety of different types of talent. If you listen to it, the spectrum is so wide that you would think twenty people created this. Not to brag or anything but I definitely have a unique situation with the way I create because I can do something like a ballad for Mariah Carey as opposed to a track that can be for the old NWA. A lot of people say that but I’m really serious about this album. You can listen to it and get so many types of feels.
Nobodysmiling.com : When I heard the cuts from the mix-tape, it reminded me of something Hi-Tek would do – not a comparison in terms of sound but in terms of purpose for he is very diverse as well.
Drawzilla : Hi-Tek is one of my favorite producers. I actually had the privilege to meet him in Arizona because we do a producer conference with G-Unit every year. We’re doing the next one in March. And Hi-Tek was on the panel, I was able to kick it with him for a while.
Nobodysmiling.com : How was that? Did you ask him any questions?
Drawzilla : You know what? I’ll be honest with you. I know this sounds crazy but I was a little intimidated by him.
Nobodysmiling.com : Were you?
Drawzilla : Yeah man ‘cus he’s one of my favorites. He’s up there with Pete Rock and Premier and all of them. Premier was also there too but I wasn’t really able to ask him a whole bunch of stuff. I did tell him (Hi-Tek) that one of my favorite records is Sun God by Common; that, he did.
Nobodysmiling.com : He’s so humble; and approachable.
Drawzilla : Very quiet too.
Nobodysmiling.com : Yes. Are you hoping to work with him in the future, perhaps?
Drawzilla : I would love to; if I had the opportunity, definitely.
Nobodysmiling.com : You said that you learned how to make records from “top to bottom”. Can you explain that?
Drawzilla : Basically, what I really mean by that, if you call yourself a producer, you gotta really understand the definition of it. The producer is not just the beat-maker. A producer really orchestrates the session from the beginning to end. Meaning that, he lines himself with the artist, with other musicians…tries to find an excellent engineer – because the engineer plays a huge role in a complete and solid record.
You want to get it to a point where everything sounds right sonically. The artist is hot, everything is arranged in the right way. If it’s a singer on the track, the chords match the melody of the record…there’s a lot of stuff that’s involved in order to make sure that that record is done. And it’s a process. And people think that when you make a track that you’re a producer – and you’re not. There are lot of producers out there that actually don’t even make the actual track and still credit themselves as the producer. Diddy’s kind of an example of that –
Nobodysmiling.com : I was just thinking that.
Drawzilla : Yeah, I mean it’s truth and he’ll tell you that. He’ll tell you in a minute that he doesn’t play anything. He doesn’t understand how to actually play instruments. But he has a team – he actually established The Hitmen all over again – they did six tracks on the American Gangster album. What he did was he got back with his old dudes, you know LV and Mario Winans and all these dudes; put ‘em all together and kind of like got in the studio and vibed with them.
Mario Winans is an excellent keyboardist. So he’ll bang on the keyboard, LV will bang on that MPC, all these musicians will be in the room and he’ll say to the people ‘I like that, I like that; no, take that out’, and he’ll kind of orchestrate the whole session as a director would do.
Nobodysmiling.com : Very good point. What do you have to offer to hip-hop as a producer and how do you compete and distinguish yourself from the producers we just mentioned such as Hi-Tek and Premo?
Drawzilla : The interesting thing is that I don’t really believe in competition like that. Like in this industry, I think there’s enough room for people to do what they do and do it well. I’m not really trying to compete with anybody, I’ll be honest. My producers that I know, I actually fellowship with them. ‘Cus I believe that if we feed off each other, we can make each other better. So the competitiveness, I don’t even get involved in.
Nobodysmiling.com : How about the distinguishing?
Drawzilla : I can do a ballad, like a solid R&B ballad, and then turn around and do something that’s hard for somebody else. Not many producers can do that. They don’t have that type of ability to be able to play chords, you know, come up with the chords, come up with the bridge, with an entire arrangement on the ballad side of things and be a producer with an R&B artist and know how the chords should go, the melody, the harmony, all that. Like a lot of producers don’t even understand harmony; they don’t know what it is. So being able to do that and then come across and be able to do something for Ice Cube, I’m able to do that.
Nobodysmiling.com : Right. You were a chef before. I’m curious how you went from cooking to producing?
Drawzilla : Well, that’s interesting because to be honest with you, I needed a job *laughs*. I went and found a job; it happened to be cooking. I didn’t go to school for it, I didn’t study to becoming a chef. My mom taught me how to cook when I was young; it’s something that I happen to like to do. When I got the position, they kind of train you on how to go about certain things. I kind of knew the basics of how to cook. And it was easy for me.
I was able to get in there and just do my thing. The thing with me is that I like to please people. I like to please a mass amount of people…it kind of transfers from the cooking job to the music. When I was cooking, I was actually cooking for the elderly people like in nursing homes. So I was able to come up with my own little style of cooking so when I presented the food, they loved it!
Nobodysmiling.com : What’s your specialty?
Drawzilla : Lasagna.
Nobodysmiling.com : Lasagna?!
Drawzilla : Love it.
Nobodysmiling.com : Interesting. Are you going after a certain production style? I know you’re versatile but do you seek a signature sound?
Drawzilla : My favorite record on the mix-tape is the “I love me” joint. Kind of going into it but not really telling away from your question…like the reason why I did that concept is because no one has done that. There are no records out there talking about “I love me”. It’s important for people to express themselves like that because there are so many trials and tribulations everybody goes through. And you have to start with you. You gotta love yourself.
You have to understand who you are in order to be able to do other things. So when I came up with that and with the chords in it and the sample going in it – it kind of reminds me of Hi-Tek a little bit, as far as that feel. But to be honest, that’s the type of music I love. I love that feel good, real, raw hip-hop music. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m going after that but that’s my favorite style of music.
Nobodysmiling.com : Interesting enough. You’re a CEO of Inasirkl Music Group. Can you give us a bit of detail of the company and its spectrum?
Drawzilla : Well, the one thing that we do is we let people know what it really is. We’re not a label. We’re a production and a promotional company. It consists of me and J Hatch – we’re both CEOs of the company. And then we have Bedtyme who we actually manage and made him part of the company. And we have A&R Bless/assistant and he’s part of the company also. And we have Priscilya Marie who we signed; a female R&B artist from Jersey. We have Sic Osyrus from Philly, he’s a male MC. And then we have Dejha B, a female MC.
Basically, the whole objective of the company is to really establish ourselves as an independent promotional and production company. We provide services to the unsigned community who needs to get to the next level. We have a new marketing scheme called “get your buzz up”. What that basically is, is because of the relationships that we’ve established over the past four years, we utilize that in order to market other artists. Whether it’s radio, or through showcases…we have relationships with magazines – like yourself - we have all these people we can contact in order to put artists in a better situation buzz-wise. That’s important.
Nobodysmiling.com : Do you guys have a certain approach toward the media and the public in general? I’ve noticed that your management is very approachable and your artists are as well…
Drawzilla : It’s real simple. We’re very humble people and we know how hard it is in this game. We make ourselves very accessible because that’s who we are – we’re in front of the people. People are always approaching us because we’re in the center of it and we understand that the only way you’re gonna be successful in this business is to have relationships.
You can’t go about this business and just think ‘I am who I am, I’ve done this, I’ve done that’….we’ve done a lot. We can easily brag and boast but why do that? We make ourselves accessible to the people so that people can actually get in contact with us – and we have the avenues to do it.
Nobodysmiling.com : You have a radio show, right?
Drawzilla : Actually Bedtyme has the radio show. We actually established the show together at first but we kind of let him control it because he has more time, he has a lot more relationships with people on that level. It’s called Hate Money Radio.
Nobodysmiling.com : Is it online?
Drawzilla : Yes, it’s actually on iTunes.
Nobodysmiling.com : Great. And what is in the plans right now? Any specific artists you’re looking forward to working with? Who’s been in touch with you?
Drawzilla : Besides my own artists, definitely Joel Ortiz. I would love to work with Common one day; that would be a dream come true. There’s a lot of different artists on the underground circuit. I’m just a strong believer in working with people that are not on that level but have the potential of being on that level. Everyone needs that break – as long as you have talent and you’re hungry and you have a lot of drive, I’m willing to work.
Nobodysmiling.com : Thank you.
 (5) Comments | Post a comment »
|
|
