From the school of the sly, wicked and the slick, now everybody can hear the truth about a producer named Quik in this extensive interview with the legendary west coast producer born and raised in Compton. With eight studio albums and over two decades of artistry and production, DJ Quik has exemplified a responsibility in music via his salutary and innovative style of production that is noted for having elevated hip-hop music.
“What I did and Dre did is, we made it to where the producer could be the oral architect as well so I gave a lot of people that freedom because I’ve seen a lot of producers start taking the responsibility of their mixes into their own hands so they can sell themselves,” says Quik. For himself, “it’s all about nuance, dynamics and stereo imaging,” and wanting “to see the music like I’m watching a movie in a sense,” explains Quik adding, “I like to put those layers of depth into my music so that the records don’t just go away [and] because I’m a stickler for low noise, I brought the quality of recording up,” which has led to the producer being “credited with having effected hip-hop in a positive way music wise.” [45:00]
And as actual vinyl ‘records’ have largely gone away, Quik states, it has created an “emotional disconnect [and] people don’t feel as attached because there is not a warmth in that music; there’s not something as attractive in that music outside of it being a catchy hook.” With the advent of mp3s and file sharing, Quik explains, “it’s actually a percentage of the music that you really hear; you’re hearing a clone of it in a sense … because they took the analog out of it [and] unfortunately for some of the new generation, it’s why they don’t have the longevity that we have [and] I just think people need to embrace the analog side of digital. ” [16:40]
And with that established longevity dating back to 1991 with his debut album Quik is the Name, the 40 plus year old artist today feels “there was a loss in catenation between the artists from our error to the new error.” The music industry’s barriers to entry were far stronger in the ‘80s and ‘90s prior to the technological advances of the Internet in recent years. “When the internet started to pop, it was fair game for a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise meet the criteria to be a big artist on a major label,” states Quik recognizing, “they blazed their own trails … but it don’t seem like they catenated with us the same way we catenated with the forefathers before us that are actually the reason we are in business today.” [14:50]
Hence the removal of the analog sound coupled with the ease of dissemination via the mp3 format and the Internet, Quik feels “like music’s being raped for financial gain.” Of today’s current endangered musical landscape the Compton native surmises, “I don’t think people know how hard it is to put records out in this musical climate. The way the record business, the industry changes. I’m an artist and I’m a musical purist; I’m doing it for my legacy, I’m not doing it to get rich quick but when it comes to music I never equate music to money; I always do music because I love it and I want people to love it too.” [31:35]
And putting money over music has always been the mode of operation for Quik who references Ice Cube saying, ‘Quik makes better records for free and for mix tapes and for radio then he does on his album.’ After a pause, Quik states, “I thought about it. He’s right. I love seeing other people blow. I’m a deejay; I always wanted to play the Jam Master Jay roll. I didn’t want to rap; I wanted to make beats and scratch. And I ended up hypertrophying the production side of it and I became a producer so it’s actually more fun for me to be in the studio.” [39:15]
And perhaps it was the studio session he attended two years ago which hip hop fans with excruciating eagerness still anticipate. “We went in the studio; we really did try, [Dre] didn’t come though. Snoop called everybody, Battlecat, Pooh, I came up there with some music,” reveals Quik of the studio session for the long awaited Dr. Dre Detox album. [35:45] “I heard some of the music like two years ago and I was surprised at how adventurous he was about to be, I was like ‘you’re expanding your range, I’ve never heard you do rhythms like this before and where you’re drawing your inspiration from,’ it was clever,” says Quik affirming, “That’s Detox I wanted to see.” And of the project overall Quik surmises, “He’s got hit records. I don’t think he cares about the music as much right now more than his family. The reality is, even with me, sometimes you hear a bigger calling. Who knows where he is going to go from here.” [37:25]
But of an earlier studio session which Dre was in attendance that did yield a hit record, Quik reveals, “I had all these drums sounds that I knew were hot but wasn’t nobody checking for me at the time. I gave [Dre] those sounds. It’s not even the sounds, it’s about hot you use them and Dr Dre just had a crazy technique that day when he did that In Da Club” sh!t” [3:50] And of his unaccredited production work on the 50 Cent hit record which launched the now diamond selling status album Get Rich or Die Trying, Quik laughs, “I think my unaccredited production has furthered hip hop more so than my credited production.” [39:15]
The untold additive DJ Quik influence for numerous records extends well beyond just the In Da Club record. “Sometimes I’m humble to a fault to where I like to give other people credit for things that I did,” offers Quik while realizing, “I’ve always been a team player but the reality is that I have to accept that I took a lot of roads that nobody else took and blazed some trails that made a lot of sense. In looking at it that way, I think that my voice actually was heard and did make a difference.”
Even more than a difference, it made music better. “Music was always supposed to get better. Even though there is on twelve notes on any instrument, it’s how the individual using them to carve his own niche,” believes Quik. “So with the whole idea of being responsible, I think you have to strive to do something with more quality just so that you don’t let our music die and don’t bastardize it and don’t molest it. We cared about music so much that we buried our mistake records. That was responsible.”
And today, an even more responsible, and now parental Quik harbors reflections of his music back then echoing sentiments of cultural caution or perhaps regret. “I should have been more responsible had I known that people was really checking for that gang stuff. I didn’t think that kids were that impressionable in New York. That kids were that impressionable in Little Rock, Arkansas; I didn’t know that because I was coming from the little tunnel vision of Compton,” reflects the holder of the key to the City of Compton adding “to see that I could have become a statistic from that place because … of how unpredictable it was.”
[42:45]
But it was the unpredictable genus of Tupac Shakur, which Quik equates it to “being strapped to a grenade or a stick of dynamite,” that also required “a certain responsibility that none of us really used. We didn’t take that as serious as we all should have. When you’re getting high and smoking, you kind of don’t see the whole end game,” explains Quik. [6:30]
And of the game of two lives that the ended on September 13, 1996 and on March 9, 1997, Quik recalls, “Back then sensationalism was what it was all about, so people would misconstrue some of things you said and try and get the fight out of you so they can sell a paper,” adding, “These were two lives of two people that at one point really cared heavily for each other, so it’s just ironic that it would turn into that. It makes me look at my relationships different right now to this day.”[8:50]
And in his career, premature, untimely death of musical pioneers, who Quik counts as his friends and peers, has accompanied his music all but too many times stating, “I hate that, because music is supposed to be joyous and fun, I’m not trying to make funeral marches. But when all my legendary people are dying, you get sullen to it, you get numb.” [10:20]
Now recalling Quikker Said Than Done, his tribute record to Eazy E, he laments, “I should have waited and did something more meaningful. Something original. I should have did a song as if Eazy was still around coming from that point of view and really mimicked his voice. I knew the tricks; DJ Pooh showed me how to get that Eazy E sound. It was a little trick they used to do with a H-3000; where they do a ten percent vocal pitch on his natural vocal, one ten percent up and ten percent down so he had like a triple sounding voice.” [11:50]
Reminiscing about studio sessions with Roger Troutman, Quik offers, “This guy is showing me things I know nobody else has seen. He’s showing Dr. Dre things that got Dr. Dre just befuddled. One of the greatest guitar players I’ve ever seen, I almost hyperventilated when he played 2001 Space Odyssey on an acoustic guitar.” This past New Year’s Quik spent time with Shirley Murdoch, who Roger initially used as backing singer before going on to release albums. “It was amazing what she brought back. She is him; he is her; so it was almost like he is still alive. What he did for that toy. He predicted the Internet with that music. Computer Love was a direct link and revelation of how people were going to express their feelings to people, over computers.” [54:40]
And of the late great Nate Dogg, Quik offered the following:
“He was the assists leader. He took your beat and gave it a personality. He wrote the hooks that all the artist wrote their verses around; he inspired the writers, including Snoop. So having to see him go through what he went through and suffer like he suffered, and that being my boy, it’s personal. He was one of the people that knew what was going on in our industry was wrong. When we were out at The Source Awards and that stupid melee almost started, he was one of the first people that defended me. Me and him just sitting together. ‘Just me and you Quik’, and I’m like ‘just me and you Nate.’ I guess that was the Marine in him. I didn’t even know he was a Marine. He kept that such a secret. Didn’t nobody know he was in the armed forces when he was young. I didn’t learn that until his service. So it all made sense afterwards, he was a sacrificial guy. To me, he is G-Funk music; he invented it. I don’t care; they give Dre, Warren G., whoever the props, Snoop Dogg. Nate Dogg is what made G-Funk because G-Funk is really just a derivative of P-Funk, which was melody driven, which was hook driven; and he was the ‘hook guy’ so he was the glue that held the whole G-Funk car together and he is sorely missed.” [52:15]
And with death having robbed the public ears of future music from these past great artists Quik as the harbinger of sound is “just hoping that our music continues to inspire producers to do what we did. I hope that we have a cycle. I hope that it’s effective enough that even when I have to go cross that road, when I have to lay these old bones down, I hope that my music is not missed on this generation and the next one and the next one. I hope that I hit a Mozart thing. I believe I got another thirty years in me to completely rock. I want to be known like Quincy [Jones].” [52:15]
Author’s Note:
From The Book of David album, Quik extensively discussed the track Ghetto Rendezvous addressing the dark lyrical content and severity of mental illness. “Mental illness is an under diagnosed condition in the Black community. It’s shunned; nobody wants to get their heads checked because of vanity,” states Quik who subsequently served a five month prison sentence after his sister “made [him] mad enough to do something physically to her” which he likened to his own musical death. [27:15]
“If you don’t adapt you won’t make it our with your sanity. There was no creative nothing going on in there because when you’re in there, you’re cut off from the world and you’re in cement. When I was trying to do music in there, all I could hear in my head was white noise. I was out of touch with music and I was afraid I was going to get out of jail and be like that. I was afraid I was going to get out and all of my music was going to be wiped away from my psyche. That’s what it felt like; I was scared to death.” [1:04:20]
