DJ Muggs Tells All: The Stories Behind His Classic Records (Part 2)

The legendary producer talks about his work with Dr. Dre, GZA, Mobb Deep, and more.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Last weekend, we dropped Part 1 of our DJ Muggs Tells All feature, where he broke down the stories behind the classic songs on his group Cypress Hill's first three albums, including an in-depth look back at their beef with Ice Cube. He also shared behind-the-scenes details about the making of timeless hits like House of Pain's "Jump Around," and how remixes with the Beastie Boys and U2 came together.

In Part 2, we continue with Muggs' production career as he creates more monster records with Cypress Hill, and also branches off to record his Soul Assassins albums with legendary artists like Dr. Dre, RZA, GZA, Mobb Deep, Goodie Mob, and Kool G Rap. And we talk to him about his new electro-influenced LP Bass For Your Face, and how his collaborations with fire spitters Danny Brown and Roc Marciano have given him new inspiration for future hip-hop endeavors. He also reveals that he has upcoming material dropping with Meyhem Lauren and Action Bronson

Find out which artist's session got interrupted by an armed robbery, what music video Muggs regrets filming, and what superstar used to hang around Muggs' house during the early part of his career. This is real rap history, raw and unfiltered.

As told to Daniel Isenberg (@StanIpcus) 

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Dr. Dre and B-Real "Puppet Master" (1997)

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Album: Muggs Presents The Soul Assassins Chapter 1
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “The Soul Assassins record was, instead of me trying to give beats to people, I wanted to bring them into my world. I was never super excited about selling a bunch of beats. So I was like, ‘I’m going to get everyone to rap on my records.’ Then you own the property. And I like creating albums from beginning to end.

“But [it wasn’t just about my records]. I ended up doing a record with KRS-One for his album. And through this project, I built a relationship with GZA, and ended up doing his record. I built a relationship with MC Eiht, and ended up doing three or four songs for his album. So the whole process [of making the Soul Assassins album] opened up a lot of doors for me. Good people.

“Anyway, so I did this beat, and I thought it would be perfect for Dre. So I played it for him, and he was like, ‘Dope. What’s the concept?’ Because Dre’s big on concepts. He was like, ‘Let’s come up with the hook, then write the song.’


 

I think once they put [the video] on BET, and people got scared, it just stopped everything. And I think the record did about 350,000, but if we just did a regular hood video, we would’ve had a platinum album.


 

“So I had the idea for ‘Puppet Masters,’ because between us and them, we’re kind of pulling the strings of the artists, and controlling a lot of the things that are happening in the music business. I had another concept too [but I don’t remember it]. So I went into Dre’s studio, and he kicked me a couple rhymes, and finally I was like, ‘That’s the one.’

“So he went in and recorded the rhyme, and he killed it. And the hook was already done. Then B-Real kicked his shit. At that time, Dre wasn’t rapping on anyone else’s music. He was liking what we were doing. And we were fans, so there was mutual respect.

“When it was time to do the video, Dre came down to the video, and he was like, ‘Man, you guys handle your business,’ because there wasn’t forty people there chillin’. He thought it was cool. I might have made a mistake here, because I didn’t want to do video in the hood. I was so burnt on that at this point.

“So I got Dean Karr, who did the Marilyn Manson videos [to do it]. I said, ‘I want you to do this video.’ He said, ‘How far do you want me to go?’ I said, ‘Go for it. Do whatever the fuck you want. Make it sick.’ He was like, ‘How about the Devil against a Pope. The ultimate ‘Puppet Masters.’’ So I got there, and I was like, ‘Whoa, they made B-Real a Devil, and this guy a dark-ass Pope.’

“I think once they put it on BET, and people got scared, it just stopped everything. And I think the record did about 350,000, but if we just did a regular hood video, we would’ve had a platinum album. Because right that time, it was after Death Row, and Dre had started Aftermath, and the first thing, ‘Been There, Done That,’ had came out. It was kind of a weird time for Dre.”

Goodie Mob "Decisions, Decisions" (1997)

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Album: Muggs Presents The Soul Assassins Chapter 1
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “I was a big Goodie Mob fan. I flew them out to L.A. to do the song. Played them the beat, and Cee Lo wasn’t feeling it. Cee Lo’s a musical guy, so he was used to the Dungeon Family. Very musical, very soul, very funk. Gipp spit on it. Khujo, T-Mo, and then here comes Cee Lo, who didn’t like the beat, [and he spits] the sickest fucking verse. Maybe his sickest ever. Then when [his verse] got ‘Rhyme of the Month’ in The Source, he was like, ‘Larry, it’s not as bad as I thought it was.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, motherfucker! I told you that shit was sick!’

“That rhyme was so ill, that’s why I pulled the beat out. I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me, dude?’ The emotions I felt from that rhyme when I pulled the beat out and was listening to what he was saying? Any year, and period, that rhyme is timeless.


 

Marley Marl and Pete Rock, when they had their show [on Hot 97], they played it, and they pulled it off [before it was over]. They didn’t get the South [over a New York style beat]. And that was my thing, to put them over that type of beat.


 

“I think Marley Marl and Pete Rock, when they had their show [on Hot 97], they played it, and they pulled it off, like, ‘What’s this shit?’ They didn’t get the South [over a New York style beat]. And that was my thing, to put them over that type of beat. We were the second group [to mix the New York style production with out of town rappers].

“The first was obviously when Ice Cube came over with the Bomb Squad. That was New York and L.A. That was like, ‘Wow, this is some new shit.’ Then us, and me being all into the New York shit, and Cypress being in New York and L.A., and mixing those styles. So we pulled the Goodie Mob into that from the South over a New York style beat. And I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do a whole record with them.’

“And I built a relationship with them, where I did ‘Inshallah’ for them [on their Still Standing album]. That was ridiculous. Rico Wade played the whole song. Beat was sick. And I did a couple other songs with them for the Bamboozled soundtrack.”

GZA and RZA "Third World" (1997)

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Album: Muggs Presents The Soul Assassins Chapter 1
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “I had a homie named Bigga B, who did all the Unity [concerts] out of L.A. He worked for Loud at the time. He took Wu-Tang on their first promo tours, and he worked with Mobb Deep and everybody. That’s how I met Mobb Deep for the Soul Assassins album. Me and RZA had already known each other because we worked together on the Temples of Boom [song ‘Killah Kill Niggas’]. So I was like, ‘Fuck, I gotta get these guys back in the studio.’


 

[Ghostface Killah] was in there, and Ghost was feeling it too. But RZA was like, ‘You got enough of the Wu already, son. You got enough of the Clan on here.’


 

“So we got GZA in the lab, and he [normally] doesn’t write very fast. But he wrote his verse in one night. RZA was [surprised], like, ‘He wrote that in one night?’ So we got in the big studio, $2,500 a night, and we were kicking it. And [Ghostface Killah] was in there, and Ghost was feeling it too. But RZA was like, ‘You got enough of the Wu already, son. You got enough of the Clan on here.’ So RZA wrote his shit. Then GZA spit his shit. And RZA was like, ‘Yo, I’ll be back tomorrow,’ because GZA came so hard on his shit [he probably wanted some more time to come correct]. And he came back the next day with that and killed it.

“I learned so much making that album, because everyone works in different ways, and they all bring a different energy. But the end result is what we’re all about. And where they were was like, ‘Tell me if you see this.’ Like, with the rap, they want you to visualize what they were saying. And both of those dudes rhymes on that record are so visual.

“B-Real was gonna get on that Wu-Tang record too. But I was like, ‘Yo, we can’t have this turning into a Cypress album.’ So I made a second part of the song, where RZA is talking about this battle, and B-Real continues the battle. If it was just one song and not a whole album, it might’ve ended up being [a posse cut with B-Real and Ghostface on it too]. But I’m glad it ended up how it did.

“Then GZA did the video, we shot it in Connecticut. Straight military shit. It was so fucking cold. But we shot the video, and it came out dope. I love that record.”

Mobb Deep "It Could Happen to You" (1997)

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Album: Muggs Presents The Soul Assassins Chapter 1
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “I was in the studio with Mobb Deep the day before we recorded with RZA and GZA, and the beat for [‘Third World’] came on by accident. And Prodigy was like, ‘Yo, I want that one!’ But I was like, ‘Nah, I made that for RZA and GZA.’ And he was like, ‘Aww, why you play it for me?! Don’t play me nothin’ you’re giving to other people.’ [Laughs.]

“Then I played [the one they ended up using], and Havoc liked that shit, so Havoc set it off. So he kicked the first verse and the hook, then Pee came in and did his thing. And I remember their A&Rs Schott Free and Matt Life came in, and they didn’t know it was for my album. They thought it was for the new Mobb album, so they were pumped up. This is ‘96, so I guess they were working on Hell on Earth. Then when they found out it was for my album, someone at Loud was like, ‘This ain’t gonna come out.’


 

Their A&Rs Schott Free and Matt Life came in, and they didn’t know it was for my album. They thought it was for the new Mobb album, so they were pumped up. This is ‘96, so I guess they were working on Hell on Earth. Then when they found out it was for my album, someone at Loud was like, ‘This ain’t gonna come out.’


 

“But Bigga B was at Loud, and he was like, ‘It’s coming out.’ Bigga B went to UNLV and played football with Suge [Knight]. He was bigger than Suge. He died of a heart attack, passed away. But he made sure it all happened. That record wouldn’t have happened without him. He’d [tell artists], ‘You gotta come to the studio. No, the studio’s booked, you gotta be there.’

“They were cool in the studio. Lotta 40s, lotta weed. When I walked in, Havoc was asleep on the drum machine. You know when you walk into someone’s lair, and there are like ten homies in there, like, ‘Who the fuck is this?’ But everyone was cool. Havoc laid his shit quick. Then when Pee went in to lay his shit, and someone was asleep in the vocal booth. And he was like, ‘Yo come on dun, wake up. I’m trying to lay my vocals.’ [Laughs.] And he kicked his shit, and we listened to that shit over and over.

“I could have put in bass lines and started producing the song more, but there was something about it raw. Just drums and a loop. There was the one keyboard I played, and then maybe total six tracks of music. That was it.”

Cypress Hill "Dr. Greenthumb" (1998)

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Album: Cypress Hill IV
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “So for the fourth Cypress album, coming off of Temples of Boom, I was like, ‘We gotta make this hype again.’ I came up with that beat, and when B-Real wrote the song, I thought it was amazing. I was like, ‘Wow.’ I wanted him to not talk about weed so blatantly, and hide it, cleverly, so we could actually have it on the radio.

“I had the concept for the video, which was a play off Little Shop of Horrors. It was the #1 video and #1 song in Europe, but I think we had a bit of a hard time with the weed stuff on the song. It kept us from getting a lot of airplay in the U.S. We got bumped a lot in L.A., but a lot of the feedback we got was, ‘It’s too much weed. Too many weed references.’ We tried to weed them out, but then there were blank spaces in the whole fucking song.


 

It was the #1 video and #1 song in Europe, but I think we had a bit of a hard time with the weed stuff on the song. It kept us from getting a lot of airplay in the U.S.


 

“That was one of the last really, really Cypress Hill singles, with that Cypress vibe. B killed it. The flow is sick. I don’t know where he came up with that. He impressed me on that one.

“The first four Cypress Hill albums I love. I grew bored after those. It becomes like auto-pilot. You don’t have to think about it. It’s so easy. And it was keeping me away from doing a lot of other things I wanted to do. There were a lot of opportunities, producing other people’s albums, and doing movie stuff, that got shut down because [of my commitment to the group].

“Those are my boys, and I wanted to keep it going. We always said, ‘We’re never gonna stop. We’re gonna be Led Zeppelin. We’re never gonna quit.’ We didn’t want to fall into the shit that [all the other groups typically would get into that would lead them to breaking up].

Prodigy, KRS-One, Method Man, & Kam "Bulworth (They Talk About It While We Live It)" (1998)

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Album: Bulworth The Soundtrack
Label: Interscope Records

DJ Muggs:Bulworth approached me to do something for the soundtrack, and they wanted a posse cut. And they were like, ‘Who do you want?’ And I was like, ‘Why? I can get anybody?’ At the time, we were getting $100,000 for a song. The budgets were ridiculous. So I was like, ‘Prodigy I’m feeling. KRS-One for sure. And Method Man.’


 

They were like, ‘Who do you want?’ And I was like, ‘Why? I can get anybody?’ At the time, we were getting $100,000 for a song. The budgets were ridiculous. So I was like, ‘Prodigy I’m feeling. KRS-One for sure. And Method Man.’


 

“Prodigy wasn’t in the studio, so I sent the reel to him. Method Man and KRS-One recorded the same day in New York. KRS ripped it. Then Method Man came in and sat down and did his vocals. That was the first time I saw someone do that, sitting on a high-ass stool, spitting.

“The last verse was supposed to be somebody else. I can’t remember who it was. But we ended up gettting Kam, a West coast cat to kind of juxtapose it. He came to New York and did the vocals out here actually. It ended up working out really well.

“I did a remix that didn’t end up coming out, but it was sick. They changed the song title, because originally it was called ‘Fuck a Rap Critic.’ The label was scared to do it. So we called it, ‘They Talk About It While We Live It.’ Method Man has said that line [on ‘How High’]. It was a good line.”

Cypress Hill "Rap Superstar" (2000)

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Album: Skull and Bones
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “We wanted to do some different shit. So me and B were like, ‘Let’s record a rap album and a rock album at the same time.’ Because we were both fans of that type of music. But we were like, ‘Let’s put them on two separate records so if you don’t like it, you don’t have to listen to it. You can change the channel. You have options these days.’ So we did it.

“The first single was supposed to be ‘Rap Superstar’ with [our rock song] ‘Can’t Get the Best of Me.’ But we were in a weird situation at Columbia, because we were Urban, and we were Alternative. But if you were Alternative, the Urban department wouldn’t work your record, [and vice versa]. They were two different floors, and they didn’t work together as a team. But we were like, ‘What the fuck? We’re Cypress Hill. We fit under both.’ But they wouldn’t [collaborate].

“So we were like, ‘Let’s give them both something to work with.’ So Donnie Ienner heard [both songs], and was like, ‘That’s the single. ‘Rap Superstar.’’ He starts getting excited, and starts picking up the phone, like, ‘Get into my fucking office right now. This is gonna happen. We’re going to make this happen, or you’re going to lose your fucking job.’ And when Columbia puts their machine behind it, it’s a big thing.

“So I was like, ‘Fuck, we’re not going to get a rock release now? You’re killing the whole fucking plan.’ So I wanted to do ‘Rock Superstar.’ And we went in the studio, got a band, and flipped it. I don’t think when I first did it that B-Real was feeling it, because I was like, ‘I need you to come in and do ‘rock.’ Just that one word.’ And he just wasn’t really excited about it. But he did it.

“After we recorded the song, I drove around for about five hours listening to the song over and over and over. And I don’t know what it is, but you get that feeling, like, ‘This is that shit right here. This is the one.’ It was fun.


 

Eminem was coming over to the house all the time back then. He would be at the house, and we would throw little parties. So we got Em to talk on the record.


 

“And we had hired [Eminem’s manager] Paul Rosenberg at the time, and I was like, ‘Yo Paul. I got one. This is it.’ Eminem was coming over to the house all the time back then. He would be at the house, and we would throw little parties. So we got Em to talk on the record. And we wanted a rap guy and a rock guy, so we got Chino from The Deftones as well.

“Yeah, Em was around, during his first record. The only thing we had [recorded together though] was the shit we did for the Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E. We did a record [called ‘911’], it was real slick. It was us, and Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E., and him.

“N.O.R.E.’s on the rap version too. When we did the video, N.O.R.E. was drunk that day. I wasn’t there, but I heard it took him like two hours to do that part. It was funny. N.O.R.E.’s the shit. I love that guy.

“But this was still not us bending over to get on the radio. It was still us making a Cypress Hill record. That record was inspired by Led Zeppelin, by ‘Cashmere.’ When I went to do the rock version, I wanted to make something like that, or Metallica.

“That record was big. When you get a big record like that, you got another three years to go touring.”

Kool G Rap "Real Life" (2000)

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Album: Muggs Presents Soul Assassins II
Label: Rufflife UK Ltd.

DJ Muggs: “I was in New York, and we got in the studio, and he just kind of chilled out, and was kickin’ it with some girl in the other room, and really didn’t write nothing. And then Mike Heron, who was the A&R guy at that time for Rawkus, he was dope, was like, ‘Yo, I would’ve told you that you can’t work with G Rap like that. It’s a waste of your studio time.’ So I was like, ‘Can you get the vocals done for me?’ Because I had to go back to L.A.

“You know, everybody has the way they work. And I guess he does his thing the way he does his thing. So I sent the reel, and [Mike] got the vocals done for me. And he sent them back to me, and I was like, ‘Damn!’ He fucking killed it. The more I talk to people through the years, this song comes up as one of their favorite records.


 

The more I talk to people through the years, this song comes up as one of their favorite records.


 

“Then, I gave him beats like that for his next album, but Rawkus wanted to give him some commercial shit. You heard that album. It was like, garbage. They should’ve just stuck with [who he is]. He ain’t a pretty dude. They tried to make him all glamorous and it’s like, ‘Come on. It’s Kool G Rap, dog.’ I gave him some sick shit, but they never used any of the songs.”

GZA "When the Fat Lady Sings" (2000)

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Album: Muggs Presents Soul Assassins II
Label: Rufflife UK Ltd.

DJ Muggs: “After we did the first song, everyone was like, ‘You and GZA need to make an album.’ The second one, we did it downtown, I forget at what studio, but someone in the studio had beef with somebody. So some fools came running up in the studio with like eight or nine guys with shotguns and Uzis while we were recording.

“The engineer came in, and was like, ‘They got guns outside!’ [We didn’t hear anything] because the music was so loud, with the opera music. I look up, and they run in the studio, and grab this one kid over here, and slap him up. He was some kid that was in there, not connected to me or GZA at all. It was something [related] to the beef with Mobb Deep and Tru Life at the time.


 

Some fools came running up in the studio with like eight or nine guys with shotguns and Uzis while we were recording.


 

“Some of the Mobb Deep guys were my friends, and [I invited] Infamous Mobb to the studio that night. So when we got to the studio, we had seen Tru Life, who’s a super cool cat, and said what’s up. Then an hour later, the Mobb Deep guys came, and I guess he was like, ‘Oh, where did these guys come from? Are they trying to roll up on me?’ So some people ended up coming in the studio [as back-up].

“The thing was, me and GZA were in the studio, and nobody even looked at us. But the surreal part about it was the music was at full blast, and it was opera music, and fools are running in the studio with guns, and the music’s on, and there’s a lot of weed, so I was like, ‘Whoa.’ And GZA just went, ‘This is Wu-Tang.’ And it happened in about a minute, then they left, and I turned the music off and looked at GZA like, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ Then I turned the music back on.

“Most of it happened in the lounge. Some other kid got pants’d. He was standing there. I saw these kids with them, it was fucked up. Some of these youngsters had come with them to the studio for the first time, and they stripped them, and had them sitting there with dirty underwear. I almost started laughing. That was a crazy night. It was all good though. Everyone called us the next day like, ‘Sorry you guys had to be there. But these fools were violating.’

“I got the song done, but I never got a second verse. I got the one long verse, then GZA was like, ‘I’m done.’ [Laughs.] He tried to write some more, but he was done. So I ended up having to take his one verse, which was 24 bars, and cut it in half. It never had a hook, so I just threw the chick on there, like, ‘When the fat lady sings, it’s all over.’

“We did the video, and kept the military theme from the first one. But we tried to do it like we were in Saudi, on some French, foreign legion type shit, lost in the desert. We filmed it in the desert in California, where it’s so hot, like 115 degrees, and your sweat dries before you even know, and you get so dehydrated. You just gotta keep drinking water, because it’s so hot, you’ll just faint if you don’t.”

Cypress Hill "Lowrider" (2003)

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Album: Stoned Raiders
Label: Columbia
DJ Muggs: “That was probably the only Cypress album I didn’t like, Stoned Raiders. It was like, we done did everything, and I didn’t want to do the same thing again. I wanted to try something different. That’s the type of personality I am. So I was like, ‘Let’s make more of a West coast sounding record,’ which ain’t my forte. ‘Let’s try something different.’


 

I wanted to try something different. That’s the type of personality I am. So I was like, ‘Let’s make more of a West coast sounding record,’ which ain’t my forte. ‘Let’s try something different.’


 

“So, I think we got Kurupt on a few songs, Kokane’s on a couple songs. It’s more of a West coast sound. But I wanted to make a record that represented L.A. And the band War has a song “Low Rider.’ So I wanted us to make a record called ‘Lowrider,’ inspired by War.

“I didn’t like the video. I don’t know who the fuck did the video, but it was cheesy as hell. It should’ve been black and white, and dark. At that point, I was bored. We were all coming to the studio, working 9 to 5. But we’d come in at 12, and leave by 5, and it was like, nobody was inspired. We just kind of threw it together.

“But we did it because [we were working with] million dollar budgets. Every time your record went gold, you were guaranteed a million. It was kind of a weird time for me personally. But we went in, and did the record, and that was that.”

GZA "Exploitation of Mistakes" (2005)

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Album: Grandmasters
Label: Angeles Records, Method Recordings

DJ Muggs: “For forever, everyone was like, ‘Work with GZA.’ So I had gotten a little distribution deal, and I started Angeles Records for about a year, and said, ‘Let me put out some records. I’m tired of fucking dealing with these people.’ So I called GZA and was like, ‘Yo, I got a little budget. You wanna do this record?’ And he was like, ‘Cool.’

“So he came out to L.A., and we did the record in two weeks. And RZA came in, and was like, ‘How’d you get him to do the record in two weeks?’ Because I guess RZA, when they did that first album, would go all the way to Manhattan, hang out all day, come back to Staten Island, and he would still be on 4 bars. But he did it.


 

RZA came in, and was like, ‘How’d you get him to do the record in two weeks?’


 

“His concepts are ridiculous. Like, ‘How the fuck do you think about this shit?’ So I had these beats, and some of them were demos that I wanted to finish and produce more. But he was like, ‘Nah, nah. I like them raw.’ Like, ‘Exploitation of Mistakes’ was just [drums and a piano loop]. I really like that one.

“That album was fun to make. You know, you get numb to the money. The money numbs you. So stepping away from the [Cypress Hill] situation again, I got to be creative again. And that was the first step, sitting in the studio with GZA, making whatever, no demands. Making beats out of the SP-1200 again. I pulled from old samples, and made new stuff. One or two of the beats were off of a DAT tape from six years before that. I would just play random shit for GZA, and he would pick the beats, and record the songs, and we banged it out quick.

“I remember [him laying down ‘Exploitation of Mistakes’]. It was fucking ridiculous. The whole story with the ‘two individuals, pulled from a lake/Inside a vehicle...’ You hang on to every single word. It was so visual. And every day before we recorded, we drank Guinness and played chess. And that’s how we got the title of the album. What’s the highest level you can get to in chess? The Grandmaster. So in terms of what we do, we’re Grandmasters. So from there, it was like, ‘I want every song title to have a name related to chess.’”

GZA "Queen's Gambit" (2005)

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Album: Grandmasters
Label: Angeles Records, Method Recordings 

DJ Muggs: “With that one, he went in, and wrote down the name of every [NFL] football team, and wrote a song about women. Again, it was like, ‘How do you think of this shit?’ A lot of times, you’re like, ‘Oh, I could’ve done that, or thought of that.’ But really, how did he think of that shit? That’s the shit that inspires you, man, at another mental level that you can’t even fathom.

“That was another simple beat. He came in, and I played it, and it took a minute. I saw his notes. He had all the teams listed, and was working it out. It was more of a puzzle, instead of just sitting and actually writing it. I saw him putting it together, with little pieces on the paper, moving them around. I think he left two teams out. I didn’t hear it, but some kid [commented somewhere] like, ‘You left two teams out!’ Fucking kid went and figured it out.”

Bun B & M-1 "Gangsta Shit" (2009)

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Album: Intermission
Label: Gold Dust Media
DJ Muggs: “After the second Soul Assassins album, I was thinking of doing a third. But I didn’t. But I found all these old verses laying around, so I put together a compilation called Soul Assassins: Intermission, which meant, ‘This is the break until we figure out how we’re gonna come back.’ Actually, what became the next Soul Assassins record before that was the GZA record, which was Muggs with one artist. Nobody was really doing that at the time, but now I’m starting to see it a lot. I might do it again with this Meyhem [Lauren] and Action [Bronson] record. I’ve got a bunch of songs with them done. That might be the next one in that series.


 

It was fun for me [pairing these artists up]. It was like comic books, where you’d be like, ‘I want to see Batman fight Superman.’


 

“It was fun for me [pairing these artists up]. It was like comic books, where you’d be like, ‘I want to see Batman fight Superman.’ It all comes from that. I met Bun, he was hanging out with my boy, so he was starting to be around a bit. Then I was in Texas, and Bun was in the studio, and I played him some beats, and he laid that down. Then one of my homies reached out to M-1, and was like, ‘We got Bun B on this record. Wanna get on it?’ Figured he would be good for it, because it was some gangster militant shit. Then there was no hook on it, so I just grabbed a line to put in there.

“It was ill, because I had spent about a week in Texas, in the studio and stuff, making beats. And while I was there, I started to like the music more, all the chopped and screwed stuff. You see the lifestyle, and you listen to the radio, and hang out in the clubs. It was a really good time for them, right before they did The Source cover with all the Houston artists on the ranch. Houston was popping off the time [we initially recorded that song].”

Danny Brown "Headfirst" (2013)

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Album: Bass For Your Face
Label: Ultra Music

DJ Muggs: “The Danny Brown record is more of a party record. I chopped his vocals up and put a lot of breaks in it. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. I have a couple other mixes that are simpler, but this is more experimental shit.

“That was actually a verse that Alchemist had. He was doing an Alchemist remix. And Al was like, ‘You should just do your own song with that.’ So I reached out to them, like, ‘Would it be cool to use this as a collaborative thing?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’

“This record comes from a hip-hop spirit, and it has sounds from glitch, sounds from reggae, sounds from electronica. It’s me pushing music forward, and experimenting. I used lots of different production techniques while making the record, to make it sound like the future, now.”

Roc Marciano "Absolem" (2013)

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Album: Bass For Your Face
Label: Ultra Music

DJ Muggs: “I linked with Roc Marciano through Alchemist out in L.A. I love his shit. He didn’t give me a title for the song, but I called it ‘Absolem,’ because that’s the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland smoking opium. And the song is real smoked out. I had this idea for the video, where we’re in an opium den smoking weed, and the caterpillar’s in the video, and we think we see him, like we’re hallucinating. I just never got back to L.A. at the time [to shoot it]. I hope we still get a chance to do it, because I love the song.

“I’m trying to make a point here, that this is a hip-hop record, with futuristic sounds and elements. No EDM fuckers are going to play this or like it. Everyone is like, ‘This is Muggs’ EDM record.’ But it’s not dance music. The reason I signed to Ultra is because of Patrick [Moxey], who managed DJ Premier for twenty years [and started the label]. So when I was up at Ultra, I was like, ‘Yo Patrick, I want to make more of a hip-hop record.’ And he’s like, ‘Do that.’

“But some of the A&Rs up there were like, ‘This ain’t dance enough.’ Because they’re used to David Guetta, and all that other shit. I’m like, ‘Come on. This is what this is. This is what my interpretation of this is.’ It’s about the sounds. I made Roc record for [the hip-hop heads].


 

Right now, my favorite MCs are Action [Bronson] and [Roc Marciano]. Those guys are making me want to make music. I want to make hip-hop more than I have in the last fifteen years.


 

“In a perfect world, it would be dope to make a whole record with Roc Marci like this, and just bug people out. I think I did a good job of bringing the energy he has in his records with this sound. He’s the shit. I was lucky to be able to work with him.

“Right now, my favorite MCs are Action [Bronson] and him. Those guys are making me want to make music. I want to make hip-hop more than I have in the last fifteen years. The hip-hop shit I’m on now is [sick]. I went in and made like 40 beats in 30 days.

“Then I went to Al’s, and I was like, ‘Here’s four for you guys. And here’s four for you guys.’ I played them beats that are like, you know, nobody would want that beat but me, and maybe like, RZA. But they’re like, ‘Yo!!!’ So it’s like, they’re making me want to make music. It’s a good time right now.”

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