Dubcnn: Helter Skelter, what’s the history behind that with you? Dre was talking about this record, before it came out were you supposed to be on that.
N*gga, me and Dre are so tight that I can get on any record that he put out; I just refuse to sit up under Dre like some of these n-ggaz. As far as n-ggaz not coming out I feel I get a better play from Dre because I don’t rely on Dre, so yeah I was going to be on Helter Skelter. You want to know some sh-t? At the time when DOC told me the record was going to be called Helter Skelter I felt really disrespected, but at the same time them n-ggaz broke me off really, really nice. I was getting paid for doing what I was supposed to. Dre hadn't put the record out yet and DOC told me straight up that he wanted to name the record that before Dre could so that was the only motivation behind that title.
Dubcnn: From that record, were some of those tracks old Dre tracks?
No, that was all me. I was in the studio for 8 months thinking how I can shock the world. The only thing I used was the original beat that came in by itself on the Brand New Formula, because Doc requested that. I just looped that instrumental, but all them drum breaks and all that was all live sh-t. I hired some of the best musicians I could find to play. The bass lines was live, the saxophones were live, the congas was my sh*t. 80% of helter Skelter was all live drums. We just mixed the sh*t out of those motherf-ckers!
I had five hundred thousand dollars so I didn't have to work, EVER! *laughs*. I ain't got to watch my mouth; I’m the captain of the ship. DOC gave me the keys and the concept of what he wanted and I created all that. He wanted to use a couple of old Dre tracks though and Dre put an injunction on the record which I was like God Damn there is a God thank you. Cause I don’t want to steal nobody music we ain't got to do that. There was one track he wanted to use called "The year after", bringing us back to the two faced n-gga Sean Thomas the keyboard, I let him hear the song and he played keyboards on the original song so he went back and told Dre before the record came out. At the time I was pissed of at him but I should have thanked him because that gave me a chance to remix the record.
Dubcnn: Did you ever get to hear any of the stuff Dre and Cube had cooked up?
Ahh, yea, fa sho! When I get to kick it with Dre I hear all kinds of shyt that shyt was dope, my n-gga.
Dubcnn: Do you know anything about a record called 'Gimme 50 Feet'?
No, When Dre do records he never really knows who the beat is going to be for; if it was for 50 Cent, Ice Cube, Em or whoever you know what I'm saying? So I might have heard the beat without anybody on it, but as far as a song ‘Gimme 50 Feet’, I don’t know anything about that. Dre don’t title his records while he is working on them.
Dubcnn: Do you know how far along they were with that original record.
I believe Dre told me that they didn't get to far cause conflict of whose label it was going to be on and certain things that Dre didn't want said and Cube wanted to be viewed as boss cause he is a boss, but the word I got out of Dre is basically they didn't get to far. They couldn’t work out the specifics.
Dubcnn: I know they had Natural Born Killaz, but I didn’t know if there were anymore?
Yeah they had a few more, but I don’t know the titles of any of them, but those motherf-ckers were ridiculous! They were dope!
Dubcnn: There are a lot of cats who would love to hear those tracks! I’ve wondered why, in this day and age, we don’t hear too many, if any, Dr. Dre tracks leak out.
One thing about Dre, if you let a song leak, you’re f-cked. He will cut your ass off. So being around him is a good spot for a career. He was having too many songs leaked. I heard recently that this cat Crooked I wrote a song for Dre and let it leak online and now Dre ain't going to use it. That is a great way to f-ck up a great publishing check!
