I somehow thought Jay-Z would be like, 'Make sure this guy never works in this town again.'
CHAPTER 1: THE WONDER YEARS
My mother would make me get her gifts on Father’s Day. She was in the army too. Real militant. I was raised to be well-mannered. She made me go to church every Sunday, made me look after my youngest sister. She made sure I went to school everyday and finished my education before I moved forward with anything music-related. She did her best to raise me well.
I grew up on 120th Street on Manhattan Avenue. When block parties used to go on Fourth of July, DJ’s would play all the Rakim and KRS-ONE. My mother used to play a lot of Stephanie Mills and Anita Baker. When she went to work I used to sneak and be scratching her records up without her knowing. At some point I wanted to know how beats were made.
I used to be signed to this rap group called Uptown Kids. It was me and three of my friends from Harlem. We got signed to an independent label called Big Boss Records for two, or three years, but the guys who ran the label got incarcerated. In the meantime they had bought equipment so I took it and started teaching myself how to make beats.
CHAPTER 2: LIVING BIG WITH BIG L
I was hanging out in front of my mother’s building one day. It was 1992. One day Big L walked by. It was an awkward situation– Harlem is so small, you liable to see anybody. So I said, “Hey, I got some beats. You want to hear them?” And he was like “Alright.” The first beat I played was “Ebonics.” He said, “I don’t want to hear nothing else, I’ll take this right here.” That’s how that relationship started and it was really good. The vibe was great, we kicked it and we laughed a lot. We joked around a lot. Even at my mother’s house he was humble. We made four, five records together. One day he told me, “ I want to take you to California”… that was the last time I heard from him.
When he died, I thought, Is this music stuff meant for me or is this a sign to stop? His death threw me off, like, Damn, we were just recording…“Ebonics” was the first song of mine that was on the radio.
When L passed, and the way he passed, was harsh. It hurt me and it hurt Harlem.
I took a small break just to clear my head and to really see what I wanted to do. Then one day I said, I’m just going to go hard with this music thing.
I didn’t want to let anybody hear 'Pop Champagne' because I thought people were going to laugh.
CHAPTER 3: A DATE WITH DESTINY
I would’ve never thought I’d work with Nas. I just thought that was unheard of. I met a guy name Fuzz, who became my manager. He had a relationship with Nas’ travel agent. At the time Nas and Jay were going through their little situation, so it just happened to be the right time we met Fuzz.
The beat for “Ether” was one of those beats I use to let everybody hear. But one day Nas’ travel agent gave it to him.
He had the beat for a couple of months.I remember thinking, I ain’t anybody, he ain’t going to rhyme on my beat. Nobody knew who I was. It wasn’t like 50 Cent said, “Ron Browz, on the beat!’ [On any of the songs I produced for him].” Only certain people knew who I was, so it was always a fight for me to be recognized.
One day Nas called me and said, “Come to the studio. I want to let you hear what I did with your beat.”
It was my first time meeting him. I came down and he’s sitting around really relaxed eating an apple. I remember having the jitters. I thought, Damn I’m really sitting in front of Nas, the person who brought Illmatic.
He played the record and I’m sitting there in shock. “Ether” becoming a diss record was the last thing on my mind. It wasn’t discussed with me. It wasn’t like, “I’m going to take this beat and diss Jay-Z on it.” I remember thinking, I’m never going to work with anyone in rap ever again…
Because Jay-Z was the best at the time I somehow thought Jay would be like, “Make sure this guy never works in this town again.” But actually it was reversed. Soon everyone wanted to know, “the kid who did ‘Ether.’”
CHAPTER 4: FROM “ETHER” TO SAUDI ARABIA
When I was young I used to hang around older dudes. Some good guys, some bad guys. I grew up with no father, no uncles. The older dudes use to tell me, “Keep doing that music. Do the right thing, the positive thing.” But on nice days? They’d say, “Let’s go get some champagne!” Me and my friends would come along and the older guys would say, “Get a lil cup man, you ain’t never tasted champagne. You never tasted anything like this before in your life.” We’d drink some and be like, “Wow.” They used to do that on birthdays, and holidays, just to make the mood right, and everybody around us feeling good.
I took that concept and made a song called, “Pop Champagne.” During this time, the whole auto-tune thing was popping, so I said, Let me make a Harlem version. I saw Lil Wayne use it, Kanye, 50… everybody was testing it. I wanted to see my own version on auto-tune.
I made “Pop Champagne” on the spot without thinking. I’m a quick producer. Once I get a groove I don’t need to throw a billion sounds to make it hot. If it don’t make your head nod, people aren’t going to like it.
But I didn’t want to let anybody hear “Pop Champagne” because I thought people were going to laugh. So I let some young dancers from Harlem called Swag Kidz, hear it. They were like, “That’s hot!”
I started testing it out on MySpace and YouTube, doing the whole “artist thing.” The record grew. People were writing like, “That song is crazy, I cannot stop listening to it!”
Some would say, “Who is this? Ron Browz? The producer? Is he rapping or producing?” I’m doing both.
I noticed that when I’m playing around with auto-tune, it doesn’t sound T-Pain-ish to me…it sounds Arabian. One day someone put me on a three-way with Busta Rhymes and he’s bugging. He said, “That ‘Pop Champagne’ is incredible…I need ‘something now!”
I said, “I got this, ‘Arab Money’ [song]…I got the hook on it.”
CHAPTER 5: “JUMP OUT THE WINDOW RON”
I remember my friend telling me, “Jump out the window Ron. Give them all you got!” I thought, “You know what? I am.”I took that whole energy and made, “Jumping Out The Window.” On it I’m singing again, taking a chance. And people embrace everything I’m doing.
I know there’s some lil' Ron Browz out there that pay attention to me because I hear ‘em. A young producer came up to me once and said, “Yo Ron, I’m on your heels man.” I said, “You are? I’m glad I inspire you.” Usually people tell me, “Yo, this guy down the block man, he be trying to mimic your style.”
All I say is, “Oh yeah? I’m going to do something that they can’t do. How ‘bout that?”
As told to Linda Hobbs
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