http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/state-of-the-un.html

Tricky Stewart: I feel like a certain level of artist has become interchangeable. The truth of the matter is, when you have a great record, it doesn’t really matter who sings it. But the success of the record is totally determined by the artist. When you see an artist that has a big-*ss record, and then they don’t sell no records, that’s because the artist ain’t right. If you mixed that record with somebody who’s a star, then you’re talking about 3 million in sales. So, I don’t think the artists are interchangeable; I think the producers are writing stuff so strong that sometimes you can kind of take for granted that you may not need that star power.

DJ Toomp: I don’t play that sh*t. We the last ones to get paid. They better off paying us up front what we asking. We don’t get the show money. So when the A&R;or the label is like, “Oh, man, you know the budget is this …” they’re trying to have the extra $200,000 left to buy them a house or a Ferrari.

Technology and the Collaborative Process

Tricky Stewart: If you’re working with people that know what they’re doing, the more established artists, they know exactly what to do. It’s bad because [with modern communication] you don’t get to meet everybody all the time, but at the same time you can do more work. Sometimes, you could be doing a guest spot over here on this record, and doing one actually in the studio with someone here, and mixing next door. Technology has definitely made it more convenient to make records. The other day, me, Dream, and Ne-Yo did a record together and we weren’t even in the same place.

Danja: Technology kills the creative process and it makes it easier. The Clutch will write a whole song on iChat. Someone will be in Atlanta, someone will be in L.A. and someone will be in New York. They have their sound studios and they all sing their parts and then they’ll send it and the song will be crazy. They just have that type of formula and that type of chemistry because they’ve been working together for years.

Sean C: People have been complaining about producers just being beatmakers, but that’s what the climate is turning everybody into.

DJ Toomp: It takes away from what we really worked hard to get to. Tip, Jay-Z, and cats who been in the game for at least five years or more understand being in a room and vibing. But this new generation came in just [emailing] tracks. Some new rapper who never heard of a MPC, never has really been in a true studio, and has never seen a record being mixed, that’s how they think it comes together. But they about to fly me [to England] to work on Jay-Z’s new album. So, it depends on the artist. Me and Tip ended up cutting a whole lot of songs in Cali not too long ago. The label would have been crazy, like, “Hey, Toomp, email some tracks out to California.” It’s better to fly me out there and they understand that. We ended up getting a great vibe, just being in a whole other environment. I got about six songs on Tip so far. I’m going to do about six more. It took a minute for us to get it back right, but the love has been there. I’m like a big brother to him. We both just went on vacation; I went and got me a Grammy and started producing other artists and he went and spread his wings on the movie tip. We both had a chance to go and experience different things and still bring it all back like, “Hey, brother, what’s up? I love you. What’s happening?” We covered a lot of things, like, “Hey man, so what did you mean by this?” Just different little things we squared out and got out of the way. You see smiles on everybody’s faces as far as the clique being glad to see us at the studio together again. Dude ain’t really rapping about too much dope and guns no more. Just coming from the heart more than the streets. He’s still educating cats on what’s happening in the streets, but he’s not that actual guy out there putting himself out as the one doing that no more. Man got five kids. It was time, anyway. It’s been proven for years. Whatever a rapper rap about, it’ll show up at his doorstep. You start having a few reality checks and seeing words are very powerful. Cats don’t want to admit that.

Rook: When [J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League] first got together, we had this CD called The .38 Special, which got us hot in Atlanta. It was 38 hot, dope-*ss beats that everybody including Jeezy loved. But now we don’t even give out CDs. We upload it to a server, they download it via a link.

Colione: Every artist has a personal engineer nowadays at their studio or at their house. If you’re an artist with a little clout and you got some records sold, you might have a home studio. Engineers pretty much work as the main music people nowadays for getting tracks to the artist.

Gems on sampling in 2008:

DJ Toomp: Even though you might get eaten up in the publishing a little bit, [sampling] gets you more work. I might not have gotten “Say Hello” on Jay-Z’s American Gangster if I was like, “Hey, man, I don’t want to use no samples, man.” Yeah, that looks good on my discography now. That’s when the man comes on stage, doing my record. As long as you ain’t caught up in that style only, you good. Timbaland does a lot of sampling, but he produces so many records.

Sean C: That’s why I think people complain about the state of where music is as well. I think we need to have a balance of both [sampled and non-sampled beats]. People look at us like we’re aliens because we sample records sometimes, like, “I love your sh*t. Your sh*t is crazy.” It’s as simple as really knowing how to pick the right sh*t to chop up. We’re going to get our money regardless, but we gotta also make sure that this music is correct and that everybody is feeling like there’s still some soul left in music.

And the closing barnburners:

Tricky Stewart: I would discontinue the CD so we could figure out how people really want to get their music, because obviously, they’re over the CD. The music business is so arrogant; we haven’t come up with a more digitally enhanced thing since the CD came out. Maybe what will happen is instead of making one album every two years, people will start making two six-song releases per year so their product is always fresh. The unfortunate part of the business is that the producers are no longer interested in being on albums. If you call me and I could get the single on a lesser artist than being on a big artist’s album, most of the time, you take the single on the little artist because you’re going to get the spins and airplay, and that’s where the producers are making their money. If me and Dream do a record, we only want the single. We don’t even give records up unless they’re the single.

Colione: Personally, I think it’s a new day and age coming where people are gonna drop singles every single time, because personally, digital downloads and ring tones and all this, all these single sales, nowadays you’re looking at, “Oh, he went triple platinum on his digital downloads and his ring tones, but his album only sold 50,000.” So, it’s definitely changing. It’s a big part in record labels’ eyes because when they come give you a deal, they pretty much lock down the digital downloads and the ring tones and stuff for your single.

Tricky Stewart: The future is eventually going to be being the liaison between the talent and the companies because as the pot gets smaller, different departments [at record companies] are going to go. And that’s going to strengthen the producers because the producers are the ones that are the closest to the street and the talent. So, it’ll probably be a situation where producers will have opportunities to be like the Jermaine Dupris and Puffys and Irv Gottis. They’re A&Ring;and they’re producing. If somebody knows what they’re doing and they’re truly qualified, they can still make a lot more money in this business.