DJ Toomp's track record reads like he's a hip hop Chauncey Billups: Kanye West's "Good Life," "Can't Tell Me Nothing" and "Big Brother" (swish!). T.I .'s "What You Know," "Motivation," "U Don't Know," "24's," and "Be Easy" (swish!). Young Jeezy's "I Love It" (game over!).
But even with all the champion beats, the Atlanta uber-producer who gave T.I. (or is it T.I.P.?) his drooly-commercial sound - and is now working on tracks for President Carter's highly anticipated American Gangster album - has a lot more on his mind. In an exclusive sit-down interview, Toomp opens up about why 50 Cent's album "Curtis" didn't outsell Kanye's "Graduation," how the industry has changed, and why he no longer works with T.I.
What are you listening to right now?
When I start my day off I listen to classical and I get my mind together. I love the instrumentation, but I just love listening to it, it's real soothing.
Do you even have time to keep up with new music?
Believe it or not, sometimes I don't. When I do, most of the time it's me watching music videos.
What's your conclusion concerning the back and forth sales battle between Kanye, who you worked with, and 50 Cent?
I bought Kanye and 50. That was some of the best marketing in the world. When you get down to it, all of [their albums are] distributed by Universal, so they had a great day and a great week.
How real was their beef?
It's definitely competition. It's hip hop. It was definitely real. It's not like Universal called Kanye and called 50 like, "Make sure y'all have y'all albums done at the same time." It's just that one album got pushed back and one got pushed forward. So we really finished Kanye's album faster than we thought, but 50, I think he was supposed to have his album done a long time ago. so he just ended up being on the same day. We were just like, "Forget it, go on and market it, take it there, hip hop needs that, the music business needs that."
Why didn't 50 sell more?
I don't think he went wrong. That man has made some grown man moves - he's in the 100 millions. That's a hell of an accomplishment, especially for someone from the streets for real - you got cats from his hood that don't even like him and still say how thorough that man was out there.
But it's just like right now, we're at war. Within the last year, like 97% of the people you know can tell of a close friend or relative who has been murdered by a gun. And it's a stress period. Money is kind of messed up out here to a degree. It's music that makes you feel good about yourself.
Kanye was able to reach more people. I was thinking a lot about the beats and stuff on 50's album; when you get more into guns and stuff, a lot of people ain't really trying to listen to a lot of that violence stuff. Even I know a lot of street cats who aren't trying to listen to a lot of that stuff.
50 claimed he didn't sell more because of promotional problem.
But it ain't even marketing; it's just about the album itself. I mean, if it's all about the marketing [when it comes to] whose album was the best, that's not even real. At the end of the day, you might have somebody who's only going to have 40 percent of the marketing that a big artist have, but if his album is hot, it might take longer to sell - but it's still gone sell once the word gets around. After 200,000 people buy your album, that's enough people to spread the word to another 200,000 and say, "This is nice, you need to go get this," whether you're marketed good or not. People just want to make good music again. Make music that feel good. Like "Stronger," everybody walking around Manhattan right now, on this earth, can relate to "Stronger." Then you got "Good Life"- everybody wants the good life. And Kanye's a marketing genius himself, outside of being a great artist. Even while we were working on the album, he was telling me about all kinds of ideas, from the time I met him really. I sat in [on the Graduation sessions] and gave my two cents and put in on a few mixes and stuff. [But] Kanye has great engineers and just good people, like, real seasoned ears in the room. Sonically it was just right.
When did you and Kanye originally meet?
In like 2002 when we was working on T.I.'s Trap Muzik album. That was before he [Kanye] came out as an artist, and at the time that I met him, I was already respecting him for what he does, and he learned about me later on, like, "Whoa, you're doing that many songs? So you're the one who really gave T.I. his sound." But we never really just hooked up. And one time, me and my manager Bernard came up here [to New York] for a meeting and we missed the plane and decided that we'll just hang around for a little bit. So Gee Roberson [Kanye's manager] was like, "Yo man, come down to Sony studios and just kick it, freestyle, just see what ya'll can come up with." Next thing we know we had real chemistry. So he [Kanye] was like, "Yo, I'm coming to Atlanta." So when he came to Atlanta, I was able to load a whole lot more music in him, because when I was up here all I had was a laptop and that really wasn't enough. So I was like, "Yo, if you come to my city dude we can do some real production. I got some nice exclusive studios we can go to, real comfortable." So we posted up like four days out of the week, maybe five, and he'll go do some shows and come back, and [we'd work on production] like four days straight.
What went down with you and T.I.? You're completely absent from T.I. vs. T.I.P.
I mean, I worked on four albums with the guy. But then after ten years, sometimes you start looking at things and say, "Aight, let's see the growth chart. Wow, Grand Hustle has grown! You got movies and a lot of endorsements, whatnot... Toomp, what did you get out of that? I don't have any records to put on the wall. I haven't been seeing any plaques, no type of achievement. You know, I've seen a few checks. But I'm like, 'Can I grow with ya'll?'" You know what I'm saying? So with the Grammys, [T.I. and I were] nominated the first time, then we win the next time, and [T.I.] has proven himself since day one. But I don't know. After ten years, you would think it would have came out better when it was time for [me] to work on that album.
We decided, if we can't come to no agreements, ain't no use to doing it. And I was kind of confused on the split personality thing [with T.I. vs. T.I.P,] like, "Wow, hope you don't let that up, because it'll make you seem like you're an act other than a real person." I'm still wondering how he gone come back with a new album. Like, who's he gone be, T.I. or T.I.P.? And how he gone go about choosing that and not making it look like, "This is a character I'm in." He should come out with a Clifford Harris album.
Did you like T.I. Vs. T.I.P.?
He's rapping... very well on that album. He got great lyrics, but it's nothing like the first, second, or third album. Lyrically he's doing his thing, but it stops right there, to me.
Can you see yourself working with T.I. in the future?
I mean, I can see myself working with anybody in the future.
But it seems like you're in a totally new dimension right now.
But I wanted to take dude [T.I.] there. I heard an interviewer say we couldn't come up with nothing. That was because I had some stuff that sounded like 2008, maybe 2010. Even "What You Know," it took awhile for people to jump on that beat. That track was almost two years old. And I was like, "Damn, am I too far ahead of these people's time or what?" But how me and Kanye work, he's always thinking ahead. Like he's way, way . . . [he's] a real futuristic type dude. And I'm a visionary as well. So that's why "Big Brother" . . . that track is fresh out the oven. That track was no more than 12 hours old. Like I had just laid that. And I flew up [to New York] and brought it like, "Hey y'all, Jay, Kanye, Jay Brown, everybody, here it is." And I just played it.
What did Jay-Z say to you?
I kept in contact with him awhile back, and he definitely told me he respect my sound. But this time he was like, "Yo man, you showed your ass. It's time to go to work." Like, "I'm waiting for you... what's happening?" And then Jay Brown reached out. So I sent him [Jay-Z] a few joints, but I was like, "You know what, you'd get a better deal and I'd feel better if you just really let me sit with you and that way I can give you some direction." Because a lot of the beats I play, I can hum the beat or even the rap pattern. I can give you the blueprint on how the pattern should go, what type of hook should be on the song, but if I'm sending you the track and I'm not there to present it to you...
I can see the whole thing. When I'm making a track, I can see the band, I can see the drum play, I can see the horns, the strings. Like, "Put them to the left, lower strings, put them to the right, trumpets in the middle, brass on the far right, grand piano, on this side"... so it's like I see it.
How do you choose artists you work with?
I'm real intuitive. I'm a spiritual person, real grounded. So when I'm in a room with a person, I feel their vibe. And I see what you bopping your head to, and boom, I might play 50 beats on my iTunes, which I really have four or five hundred to play. That's giving them a chance to say, "Oh, hold up, go back to that one." If you come to me, I'm gone play at least 50 beats. I'm seeing what [an artist is] bopping their head to, and I'm able to say, "Ay man, this is what I hear on this track." Then it's, "Which [beats] do you want?" And [sometimes] you don't see them again, and I have to give the beat to a whole other artist and the track is gone.
Have you ever had to do that?
Hell yeah! Like "What You Know." Everybody had "What You Know." Benzino had it, Baby, Eightball & MJG, a few cats had that track. And then I took it to T.I. and he jumped on it immediately, within five minutes.
How is music changing?
Of course the game went through stages, but now people are really starting to respect music. They love melodies. Some of my best melodies come from vibing off of ol' skool R&B and classic rock, or classical. Like I'll slip a Barry White or Minnie Riperton in and just ride to that all day. But there's some stuff out there I do respect, like that boy Souljah Boy. The song isn't really my favorite but I respect what that man has done. A young kid put his beat together, believed in himself enough to put it on YouTube, and that man's life changed dramatically. That was a real grind. And there's a lot of people till this day who may envy him, like, "Aw man, he can't rap," or "He can't rap as good as me," but naw - that's a whole other movement. It's about to be a whole other industry out here right now; and that's going to be the ringtone, and that's going to be almost separate from the music game. Like you have And 1 basketball, you got extreme sports that are not like the regular basketball, you got arena football. So that's going to be a whole other genre of music. I mean, I listen to everything that they play on the radio, but some of the stuff I'm not gone say is my favorite. My nieces and nephews might like it, but I'm 38 years old. I don't try to critique [some of the music on the radio] especially when I see the reactions of other people. How I look being like, "Man that's wack!"
You look like a straight Grinch seeing the whole crowd going crazy over something, and you get on the mic and say, "That's wack!" Listeners outweigh what your opinion is.
You're very behind the scenes as a producer. When "Can't Tell Me Nothing" came out, everybody thought Kanye did that. Producers like Timbaland and Pharrell are seen, but you're not.
I've never really been like that. Of course, when I was younger I was in a few of the Luke videos back in the day. A lot of people around me would love to see me do that, would love to see me run up onstage at the Grammys. If it's necessary, if I'm called upon, like "Hey Toomp, come up here man" - like you know how Big Boi called L.A. Reid up onstage like, "Man we got you"? If it's like that, it's cool, but I'm not just running up there. I'm not like that. Remember that movie Paid in Full, about the three guys out of Harlem? AZ was crazy rich. He was the richest one out the bunch, but guess what, you didn't even know it. I love that. The people I grew up around, from my dad to my uncles, I learned a lot from them. I learned to stay up under the radar. But the thing about it, I love for my music to speak for itself. I've been doing this 22 years.
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Comments
1.
se ashe says:
great article..always glad to see positive press about Toomp
November 12, 2007 at 1:14 am
2.
Stoney1124 says:
I wish I could sit down with DJ Toomp and just talk about making music. He's one of my top three prducers along with Dr. Dre and kanye West...Do ya Thing Toomp.
October 13, 2007 at 6:54 pm
3.
tgoss says:
Feelin toomp as a beat maker...but after the comments on T.I.....u should consider killin yourself toomp...u may have been out for a long time but if it wasnt for T.I. you would'nt be shit!
October 12, 2007 at 3:35 am
4.
Crillz Beatz says:
I respect ur art and ur grind big hommie. Keep doin ' what u do!
Crillz Beatz
www.myspace.com/crillzbeatz
October 4, 2007 at 2:52 pm