Taking
it to the Streets: A look inside the world of hip hop producerWill Roberson
by Keith Hatschek
In an apartment on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, hip hop producer Will Roberson
sits at the mixing station working on a new album with Jimmy Black
AKA Jemini. As a noted producer in New York City – and before
that as one of the most in-demand hip hop producers in France –
Roberson has consistently produced projects that have gained the attention
of artists and labels around the world.
How did you get started making records?
My first commercial release was with a French hip hop group, KDD (Kartel
Double Détente), who were going into the studio in 1998 to
do a new album for Columbia Records (Resurrection, Sony International
#489635, 1999). Things went pretty well and when the album came out,
it was a big hit for them in France, so the success from that record
basically opened up a market for me to work in Paris.
KDD's Resurrection was the breakout project for producer
Will Roberson.
I went there and began
producing a lot of records. Soon after, I signed a publishing deal
with Universal Music and found myself producing French hip hop artists,
French R&B. The funny thing about it is that I don’t even
speak French! I was working basically with rhythms and all the musical
elements, and the artists would explain their lyrics to me, so I eventually
started picking up on the language and began to appreciate their music
even more.
I ended up working over there a lot, flying back and forth, until
9/11 happened. At the time, I was in Paris, and I decided I would
stay put for awhile until things settled down. So I was in Paris for
about 13 months after that until 2002 when I came back home.
Producing in Europe was a great experience for me, because it opened
up my ear to what people around the world would listen to and what
they like. It’s really helped me out, now that I’m back
in America, because I can add that extra little thing to a track that
will be appreciated in a global sense.
Talk about your home studio, Diggin 4 Brown.
Well, it’s in my apartment right here in Manhattan, which for
me is ideal. It serves as a studio, production company, and record
label. Aside from the fact that I don’t have to rent a studio
space or deal with a second landlord, with today’s technology,
I have all the power to do whatever I need to do right here. Technology
makes it possible to work out of my apartment with no sacrifice in
quality. You don’t have to be in a huge studio with a big console
and all the overhead that comes with it.
Sequencing
at Diggin 4 Brown is normally done on the Akai MPC 2500 XL.
I’ve got a Mac G5
running Pro Tools HD. For preamps, I use the Avalon 737 which has
a clean, natural sound. For programming beats, I love my Akai MPC
2500XL sequencer. I use a Korg Triton Extreme for keyboard parts,
sampling and as a controller.
When it comes to vocals, I trust the sound of my Neumann U-87s, they
give me just what I like to hear from a vocal mic. I like to mix up
my tracks so I will usually add in live guitars and percussion, because
I like to keep the textures varied on my records.
Could you tell us about any new projects you’re working
on?
Yeah. Jemini and I are working on a new album now. He’s working
under the name Jimmy Black now, but he’s Jemini from “Jemini
and Danger Mouse.” Jimmy and Danger Mouse collaborated in 2003
on the album Ghetto Pop Life [Lex catalog #5100], which all the critics
loved.
Ghetto
Pop Life was the critically acclaimed collaboration between
Jemini AKA Jimmy Black and Danger Mouse.
Unfortunately, as the
record was breaking, Jemini had to take some time off due to unforeseen
circumstances, and he couldn’t tour or promote the album fully.
They did make an animated video for the track “What U Sittin’
On?” which helped with promotion, but ultimately what happened
was making that album with Jemini planted the seeds for this kind
of a collaboration, one that Danger Mouse carried further after Ghetto
Pop Life with Goodie Mob MC/singer Cee-Lo as Gnarls Barkley on the
St. Elsewhere album, which became a huge hit.
Now Jemini is back home and we are together at my studio working on
the Jimmy Black album, which, assuming all the discussions go the
way we foresee, there should be some tracks contributed by Danger
Mouse added into the mix.
What do the new
tracks sound like?
Well, we’re always trying to push the envelope a bit, in fact,
I’ve got one of our tracks up right now on my website (see link
at end of story). It’s called “Mo’ Money”
and starts out with a Richard Pryor monologue in a church and then
crossfades into the track. That’s the first song to come out
of our collaboration and people are loving it. It’s circulating
now on a mixtape under the Jimmy Black name.
Will
Roberson and Jimmy Black at Diggin 4 Brown Studio.
The album is going to
be called Graphic Arts, which has a double meaning. First, it represents
a sort of homecoming for both of us, because Graphic Arts High School
was where he and I both went here in New York. So it’s a record
of what was going on in our lives in 1984, where we were, how we were
back then. I was from Uptown and Jemini was from Brooklyn. We really
weren’t buddies – there was definitely some tension there.
Second, the lyrics are going to emphasize a lot of visual elements,
they’ll be very descriptive and image oriented.
Over the years, we each
went on to do our own thing in music, each finding success. And after
I came back to America, it seemed natural for us to hook up and make
some music together. I think we may even shoot our own video this
summer and put it out on the internet ourselves to give our fans a
little taste of what we’ve been doing. Putting out your own
video is a good way to show labels that there is actually a buzz building
out there.
So although you are still in production on the album, one
song is available now on a compilation?
Right. Mixtapes are CDs with about 20-25 tracks on it from a wide
range of artists. An artist will pitch his song for inclusion on a
new mixtape which is compiled by a DJ who has a following. For instance,
I work exclusively with a guy name Ron G, he’s a legend and
the pioneer of the mixtape scene. When he was 15 years old, he used
to make cassette tapes, and what he would do is to take an instrumental
from one song and put a vocal from another song on it and blend it.
That was the first time that people heard mash ups.
Then P Diddy took Ron G’s concept and his whole Bad Boy Productions
strategy was based on a Ron G mixtape. On Diddy’s first song,
he shouts out Ron G, saying “Peace to Ron G!”
So anyway, Ron G is the guy that I give my music to first, because
he’s a legend and a multiplatinum producer himself. When you
get right down to it, mixtapes are the equivalent of radio –
but it’s basically street radio. It’s a program. You get
about an hour of music. Sometimes you just get a snippet, maybe a
minute or two of a song and it’s just like being on the radio.
The good thing about it is that people start hearing your music and
it starts a buzz. Everybody can’t get on a mix tape, because
the DJ’s reputation is on the line with every mixtape he puts
out. If you do end up on a mixtape, that’s good. What happens
after that depends on how the people relate to you.
As an aspiring hip hop artist, the first place you have to succeed
is on a mixtape, because that is how you show promise. And you have
to be on them every month, show consistency, to really build up a
following.
Haven’t some record companies tried to stop mixtape sales?
There’s been some action against them, but you can’t stop
it, it’s what people want, and a lot of people just sell them
on the street, hand-to-hand. You plug up one hole over here and the
water comes in on the other side. If there’s a demand for something,
people are going to get it! So I don’t think mixtapes are going
away any time soon.
I noticed that
you have the Oxford plug ins up and running on your workstation. How
do you like them?
Well, I got them two years ago when I was working on the (as yet,
unreleased) Last Poets album. You know that album featured everybody
from Common to Erykah Badu, John Legend, Chuck D., Sticman of Dead
Prez, Doug E. Fresh, and many other contributors. It was like a reunion
every single session. We mostly worked out of Jambetta, a small studio
in the East Village. I found out that the Oxford plug ins gave me
a great deal of flexibility and control without coloring the sounds
we had recorded.
The
Oxford reverb plug in sweetens the drum tracks on "Panther"
by the Last Poets.
For example, on the third
track you can hear on our web site, a classic called “Panther,”
from the Last Poets record, the Oxford reverb was essential to getting
that track to sound right. We did the programming on an old drum machine,
the E-Mu SP-12, which has a really dry sound. We opened up the drum
sound perfectly using the Oxford reverb on that track.
These plug ins have the same character as using an SSL board, the
richness and warmth that I like, without having to be at a studio
paying for that overhead. And I’ll use the Oxford limiter on
my drum bus with a fast attack and a slow release.
I don’t use it excessively though, I don’t like to wash
out my tracks with a lot of compression. Just a little bit. That way
it provides a sound that is natural, more present, so if you listen
to it with headphones, you can almost reach out and touch the drums
on the track. The Oxford reverb has a beautiful sound and lately,
I’ve been starting to also use the Inflator mastering plug in
on my stereo mixes to punch them up a little bit more.
