DJ Quik and Problem on Making Timeless Rap, Remembering Prince
As we were recording it, these musicians were still in the studio. They started to come in, so it was like a party. My guys started to gather around the equipment, and we all started to just jam together, and my engineer, having enough wit, started recording our accompaniment. How we just jammed like a band. It ended up taking on a life of its own. Things that people don’t do any more. Everything is so synchronized, quantized [today].
Problem: This is the one spat we had on this project. We only had one disagreement, which was this song. And me being the new — “You know, I think we should edit this track.” He hopped up out his seat, “No! That’s not the way we do things.” I was like, “You know what? You right, I’m outta here.” [Laughs.]
What does Rosecrans bring to hip-hop, in 2016?
Problem: The calls that I’ve received as an artist — Snoop, Tyrese — the fact that they say it feels so good to hear music like this from Quik. I got that several times. People were holding me up, like, “How in the fuck did you get him to do this with you?” [Laughs.] I had someone tell me “I’ve been trying to get a beat from this nigga for 15 years, how’d you get a project with him?”
This is the only genre where it’s frowned upon to age gracefully. We’re going to change that shit. I’m going to sample old records from old hip-hop people, and we’re going to throw them together like they do in rock, and how they do in country music.… I’m going to a Snoop concert until he’s 88. And I’m gonna be there in the front and I’m gonna sing them songs just like my momma gonna see the Temptations.
Quik: If I can add too, we bought records from good people that made records back in the day when we were kids. And these guys were old — they were old on the album covers. Receding hairlines, big bushy mustaches. We didn’t care, it was good music. So when I became a producer, it only made sense for me to sample all of those great records that I listened to growing up, that my mother used to make me go buy. So when my first album came out, Quik Is the Name, so many people got paid off of the album, from Betty Wright to Herbie Hancock to Parliament-Funkadelic to Roger Troutman, all these people got paid because I wanted to pay them. I was paying them back for their music. Even Blowfly. This was music that moved me as a kid, and these guys were all in their 40s and 50s when they were doing this shit, outside of Betty Wright.
But for the most part, when you look at hip-hop today, you’re shunned if you have gray hair in your beard. No matter how you sound. Like Ice Cube said it best, you can rap as long as you’ve got teeth in your mouth and a tongue that operates, you can rap. There shouldn’t be no age on it. If you’ve got something to say, and you’ve got an expression, then you should express yourself. That’s what our music was about.
And you lengthened my career too, Problem. To be honest. They was looking at me like, “Yeah, he’s a legend. That’s old school hip-hop. He’s in his 40s now.” Where do you go from there? I didn’t get a second job. There’s no plan B for me. It’s all about this fuckin’ music. You made it relevant to younger people. And the thing is, I don’t sound old on the record.