CNN Classics: Capone-N-Noreaga On Making Their Key Records

Noreaga: “At the exact time that we was dropping the record, it was really Puff Daddy’s shiny-suit era. Everybody wanted to 'wave their Rollies in the sky.' We were the exact opposite. We had on army fatigues, Timberlands, and hoodies. The craziest thing was we were in direct competition with the shiny-suit era, but the person who actually produced it was a Bad Boy producer, Nashiem Myrick and Carlos Broady. It was actually recorded in Puff Daddy’s house! 

“The dude Nashiem Myrick, he’s from Queens. Tragedy Khadafi knew him. When we found out that he produced 'Who Shot Ya?' we were fans of his. But it was definitely weird when Nashiem suggested we record in Puff’s studio. It was weird because we were used to going to the studio and leaving Phillies papers on the floor, drinking and throwing the bottles, and throwing cigarettes everywhere. But this was very much a controlled environment. There was a very strict no-cigarette policy, very strict no throwing things on the floor. And we were straight off the block and we didn’t know no better. Back then, we didn’t know less is more. We thought more is more. I would bring all my dudes from Lefrak, Tragedy would bring all his people from Queensbridge, and Capone would bring all of his people from Queensbridge. It was just ridiculous. 

“In the studio, that’s when I realized Nashiem is an excellent drinker. We would be in there from eight to eight and he would drink Hennessey the whole time, maintain his composure, and make a hit. Yo man, I call myself a drink champion, but I haven’t hung out with Nashiem lately so I don’t know if I deserve that title. But I didn’t care about the drunkenness, I cared about the hit. 

“This is the totally honest story: They was like, ’Nore you got to do the chorus.’ I said, ’No problem! I love doing hooks.’ [But] I had absolutely nothing for the chorus. I simply looked to the right and to the right was a reel that said T.O.N.Y. Nashiem and Carlos Broadway had a company called T.O.N.Y., which meant Top of New York. So I was looking at they reel, because back then we had the two-inch reel, and the reel said T.O.N.Y. And I just took the words, 'T-O-N-Y, invade NY, multiply.' This was not genius. I did not think of it ten years prior. I just looked at the reel, I saw the T.O.N.Y., and I thought that sounded dope so I added to it. Years later people would be like, ’Yo that was so genius!’ But in all honestly it was just so random. 

“At the time, 'T.O.N.Y.' was Biggie’s favorite record. I think Nashiem just did an interview where he stated that. Nashiem’s story was that he played the record for Big and Big didn’t like it. But then we took it and laid the vocals to it, Big loved it. I believe 'T.O.N.Y.' was Big’s record, I’m not sure.

“[Biggie] called me [from LA] and he played 'T.O.N.Y.' and he said, 'The minute I get home I’m going to lay my verse for the remix.' And to tell you the truth, me and Big knew each other but we didn’t know each other on the calling level. I never called him, he never called me. It was weird to get that phone call out of the blue. He didn’t even ask me if it was okay, he just told me he was going to lay his verse for the remix. But instead of being hyped about Biggie Smalls being on my record, the first thing I said was, ’How did you get this record?’ Because we hadn’t put 'T.O.N.Y.' out at the time. He was like, ’Soon as I get home I’ma lace this.’ But he never got to lay the verse. 

“The crazy thing is, in the Notorious movie, they show him when he was in L.A. and he was making those phone calls. One of those phone calls he made, I swear I was one of those calls. I actually went to go see the movie and I got chills when I seen him making those phone calls. I would say the 100 people he might have called, I was one of those people.”

Capone: “That song actually came about in a way where we was trying to mess with Bad Boy and get a great big buzz going because Puff was the man at the time with production and everything. No matter how shiny-suit Puff was, he still had the hardest artist in Big. Big was doing shiny suits too. So what the fuck? Big is soft? Nah, it was just the era. But we knew in that era you had to fuck with Puff Daddy to win. You had to fuck with Puff some way to get that co-sign. Puff was so major. 

“Then the reason why we wanted to work with Puff also was just how we came in the game. We made the song 'L.A., L.A.' for a Bad Boy mixtape that Puff said he didn’t want to use because of the beef. But he said, ’I’ll never forget the fact that you came to the table and tried to hold it down.’ So when we needed a favor, there was no problem for us to get Nashiem on the track. Not saying he owed us, but he knew where our heart was and we knew where his heart was. His heart was in great music. We hollered at Nashiem Myrick and he came through with his boy Carlos Broady and they put the beat together. 

“The funny shit about it is that the original beat to 'T.O.N.Y.' ain’t the beat that made the album. The beat that made the album had a little bit of Big’s insight, a little bit of Puff’s insight. When they was doing the beat after we did the record and recorded the vocals, all of us liked it but didn’t think it was as powerful as it could have been. So Nashiem took the beat to Puff and Puff kind of went in and was like, ’Yo add this! Add that!’ And that’s where you get the dude Sean Brown who say, ’Allah Akbar.’ And then it became a banger. It became undeniable.”

Noreaga: “To tell you the truth, we didn’t know if the West Coast was dissing us or not. We wasn’t sure. I just remember a dude from my hood, his name was Chaz, had the Dogg Pound album early. We thought he was a genius at the time because he had all the records two months prior to the albums coming out. Back in the days, they used to give the DJs the record two months prior to the record dropping. [Chaz] figured out a way to be on the DJ list, and this is a regular hood guy with no industry ties. So he played it for me on the way to Stretch Armstrong’s house, and he asked me if I thought they were dissing us. This is way before the video, two months prior to 'NY, NY' [actually] dropping. 

“So we went to Strech Armstrong’s house with Mobb Deep and we were thinking of a record to do. It was originally done for a Bad Boy mixtape. Back in the day, Bad Boy was hiring DJs to do their mixtapes; they hired Clue, Envy, and for this one they hired Stretch Armstrong. And we was sitting at his house with nothing to do. I asked Stretch if he had the 'New York, New York' record, and we all sat back and listened to it but we couldn’t tell if they was dissing us or not. That’s why if you really listen to 'L.A., L.A.,' the concept is dissing them but the actual song has no disses at all. The thing was, as we was listening to 'New York, New York,' we couldn’t find no disses from them either. So we just figured we’ll respond the same way they attacked us.

“We recorded it the same day. Mobb Deep came. We had a whole bunch of underground tapes that were circulating in the Lefrak/Queensbridge area. So Prodigy had already wrote his rhyme, 'Get word back to Noreaga.' He already had that rhyme. I was just sitting there like, 'Wow!' And he stepped to me and he was like, 'Yo kid, I’m really a fan of what you doing.' And he had my name in his rhyme! I was like 'Oh shit!' I was honored.

“I didn’t even think Prodigy was going to come to the video shoot, I thought he was going to stay away from it period. But that week Tupac released 'Hit’em Up' and he said, 'Don’t you dudes got sickle cell?' or something like that. And Prodigy was furious. He was calling us like, 'When we shooting the video?!' 

“The craziest part was Prodigy’s record label felt his verse was inappropriate and told him to take his verse off the record. That’s why if you see the 'L.A., L.A.' video, Prodigy doesn’t have a verse in the video because he said 'JFK on my way to L.A.' He was the only person indicating a diss. So his label took him off the record. And the final verdict of that was the only person Tupac actually dissed was Prodigy, the person who took the verse off the record. I always thought that was ironic as hell.

Capone: “That song came about when we seen an opening, like 'You know what? We got to get on. And we can’t get on by just sitting around and waiting for it to happen, we got to make it happen.' That’s what we did. 

“I mean, I felt really upset. I was pissed off because they came to my hood and kicked down the buildings. They didn’t go to Lefrak, they didn’t go to South Jamaica. They came to muthafuckin’ Queensbridge and kicked down the buildings. So when I heard the record I was pissed. I wanted to fuckin’ go choke the shit outta Snoop Dogg. Him and Kurupt’s ass. But at the end of the day I knew what I had planned and what I wanted to do. But we can’t win, Snoop Dogg is Snoop Dogg. But now that’s my big homie, that’s one of my best homies. I would never disrespect big homie. But at the that time I might have punched him in his face ’cause I was trying to get on. I might have done anything at that time. 

“In all actuality, the main objective of the song was to start a drama because we had to get a buzz. That record made us to the point where people were like, 'These guys right here is going to make a mark in the hip-hop game.' That song got us a Source 'Unsigned Hype.' When 'L.A., L.A.' came out, people never knew how we looked. But when we got that 'Unsigned Hype' and we shot the video, people were like, 'Oh, that’sCapone-N-Noreaga.' 

“That video was real. We shot that shit with only a little bit of money, thanks to Stretch Armstrong and his pops who believed in us. Everything done to make that record work was done to make a mark. We didn’t want the video to be us kicking down L.A.’s buildings, the building was to make sure muthafuckas knew where we was from. That’s why we shot the video in Queensbridge and threw niggas off the 59th Street Bridge. That was Tragedy’s idea [to throw people off the bridge]. He spent a lot of time wrapping that rug up and all that shit. All types of shit like that. A lot of people that didn’t see that video and are just seeing it are like, 'Oh y'all muthafuckas was crazy!'

“I look at it now, it was crazy because I was mad pissed off then but I love the record now. [Laughs.] Not only do I love it because it was a groundbreaking record for us and them, but it kind of bridged the gap between both coasts in the long run. Because Snoop was eventually able to perform 'NY, NY' out here, and we was able to go to L.A. and perform 'L.A., L.A.' That shit was amazing. This was like in ’99 or 2000, only a few years after the album. They gave this a boiling hot reception, not even warm. They look at it like in a kind of intricate way we was bigging L.A. up. The funny shit is so many people jacked the 'L.A., L.A. the big city of dreams' thing and threw it in their songs. It was just crazy to have New York mutahfuckas saying 'L.A.' At the time, they may have wanted to throw bottles at us. Two years later, time passed and they had time to understand what it meant to hip-hop. But I wouldn’t have gone and performed that shit in ’97. Hell, no! [Laughs.]”

Noreaga: "I believe me and Trag was hanging out somewhere and we heard this record. It was an Arabic song. I think we were getting some heroes and the Arabic dude in the store was playing the record and dancing. And we was like, 'Tell us where we could get that.' I think Trag actually found the record, I don’t remember how, but he did and we brought it to Havoc and the rest is history. 

"It plays the exact same way on 'Illegal Life' as it played, but we just added Havoc’s drums. But the people who actually made the record probably don’t know that we sampled it. They probably could indicate that there is some sounds on there but the way Havoc touched on it, he took that sample and made it his own. But back then we didn’t even knew how to clear a sample, especially one like that. Back then I didn’t know what an A-side or what a B-side was. All I knew was that I wanted to rhyme. That’s all I wanted to do." 

Capone: "'Illegal Life' was the first single off the joint. But the funny shit is, with The War Report I wasn’t home for the actual promotion of the album. I got locked up right after the recording. I got locked up even before the album was handed in. I saw my first promotional sticker in jail. They had to stick it on my notebook and send it to me. I couldn’t have stickers, so they stuck it on a notebook. That’s how they used to send me my promotions. 

“I actually have the 'Illegal Life' reel at my house. I got like four reels off The War Report. What happened was when we went to Def Jam and Def Jam bought us out, they also had rights to some of our music. Somehow when they did the deal with Tom Sliverman they gave him access to the old War Report music. To all our old catalog, basically. I had to go find something, so I went to where Tommy Boy kept their reels and shit. So everything CNN I seen, I took, because we was leaving the label. So I got 'Illegal Life,' 'Stick You,' 'Black Gangster,' and one more that I forgot. I’m balling right now, because if them songs ever pop off, I got the masters! I just took them. I could have took Jay-Z’s masters, whoever's masters was in that vault I could have took and they would have never knew. The label knew I took them. Of course they called me up and I denied every bit of it, 'I ain’t take shit!' But they don’t bother me about it no more."

Capone: "We don’t even know how the album would have sounded if we was trying to be professional in the studio. The studio was a straight zoo. Every day. As long as my man Big Los was in the studio, it was a zoo because Los gets drunk and does some dumb shit. Every day was a movie. And that’s another day to remember, like the day he spilled Henny on the boards. 

"Big Los, he was like a mutual of ours. He was from Queensbridge and he was from Lefrak. He was well-known in my projects, and he was well-respected in Lefrak. It wasn’t like he was just my friend, he was Nore’s homeboy too. Like I had my own homies, and Nore had his own homies, and he was the one who was rooting for both of us. He was just a real drunk and crazy guy. 

"You know when you drinking, the number-one rule in the studio is don’t leave liquor on the board. If that shit spill on those big SSL mixing boards, they cost like $50,000 to fix. We was in Unique Studios and I think we was recording 'Black Gangsters' and he spilled [liquor]. I remember that night Los was drunk and he was wilding out, we was calling him a 'Black Gangster.' We didn’t have to pay totally but they was definitely beasting. The label had to give up a couple dollars, but not no $50,000 or nothing. But at the end of the day they made it that with Capone-N-Noreaga, there’s no drinking or smoking when we record. Obviously, we didn’t stay there long."

Capone: "We don’t even know how the album would have sounded if we was trying to be professional in the studio. The studio was a straight zoo. Every day. As long as my man Big Los was in the studio, it was a zoo because Los gets drunk and does some dumb shit. Every day was a movie. And that’s another day to remember, like the day he spilled Henny on the boards. 

"Big Los, he was like a mutual of ours. He was from Queensbridge and he was from Lefrak. He was well-known in my projects, and he was well-respected in Lefrak. It wasn’t like he was just my friend, he was Nore’s homeboy too. Like I had my own homies, and Nore had his own homies, and he was the one who was rooting for both of us. He was just a real drunk and crazy guy. 

"You know when you drinking, the number-one rule in the studio is don’t leave liquor on the board. If that shit spill on those big SSL mixing boards, they cost like $50,000 to fix. We was in Unique Studios and I think we was recording 'Black Gangsters' and he spilled [liquor]. I remember that night Los was drunk and he was wilding out, we was calling him a 'Black Gangster.' We didn’t have to pay totally but they was definitely beasting. The label had to give up a couple dollars, but not no $50,000 or nothing. But at the end of the day they made it that with Capone-N-Noreaga, there’s no drinking or smoking when we record. Obviously, we didn’t stay there long."

Noreaga: “Nokio from Dru Hill, I forget how we linked up, but he was saying he had a record for us. We took him serious, but we didn’t take him serious. But I started to learn, especially after working with Pharrell, that people that is not necessarily gangsters or thugs make the best street music in the world. So instead of me saying, 'We’re not going to do it,' or 'We’re not with it,' we was just like, "Fuck it"—we went to the studio and he played 'Y'all Don’t Wanna.' 

“I think Nokio guided Capone with the hook a little bit, and it was just a rap. I believe I was supposed to sing the hook at first. So I was like playing around [in the beginning of he song] saying, 'Yeah, why don’t get me to sing the National Anthem?' I was just trying to be funny. [Laughs.] 

“After we had already recorded 'Y'all Don’t Wanna' we didn’t use it. And then DMX beat us to the punch when he dropped 'What These Bitches Want' which was basically the same melodic sound and the same type feeling [and also produced by Nokio]. We was like, 'Wow, we played ourselves.' We had the record, we were sitting on it, and we actually didn’t throw it out. But it was easy from there. We could have been first but we lost that opportunity. 

“So many people feel like they know what it takes to make a hit. But I’m going to tell you the truth: nobody really knows. It’s always luck or it’s just up in the air. No matter how long you been in the business, nobody really knows.”

Capone: “That song right there that was a Def Jam move. Def Jam brought that to the table. We basically record everything ourselves, but then sometimes the label will bring something to the table: 'Yo, I think this is a good idea.' 

“Nokio was doing work with them and we needed a banger. Nokio’s my homeboy for real for real, so he brought that to the table and it became a banger. [I knew Nokio] from being on the label together. I was actually a Dru Hill fan, I’m not even going to front, I liked the music. And the first time I met Nokio we got mad cool. He smoked like I smoked and he did what I did. So we got mad cool. 

“[The paralyzed fingers I rap about are] my index finger, my middle finger, and my ring finger on my left hand. I’m a lefty but I write with my right now. That’s a long story [how my hand got paralyzed], but that’s what a bullet will do to your ass. [Getting shot] was basically [me] being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you know, you got haters and when you doing good people hate. I got shot in my arm and it came out my back. When it went in my arm it bypassed all my nerves and it threw my shit out of whack. But at the end of the day, I’m still here. 

“I learned to write with my other hand. I couldn’t sign autographs, Nore had to sign autographs. I couldn’t write rhymes. I said, 'Fuck it.' I learned to write with my other hand. There’s no telling what else I can do in life when my back is against the wall. It took me about a year or so [to learn] but now I write as well as I used to with my left.”

Noreaga: “We was starving to work with Premier. We was so starving to work with him that I think we paid him all his money up front. He was like, 'I want this amount.' We were like, 'Here!' And this is the first time we paid somebody up front. And it’s the first time we ever waited. Premier had us waiting for a good four to six months. To this day, Premier doesn’t give out beat CDs. If he makes a beat, then he makes it deliberately for you. It’s not like if you don’t want it, Nas or Mobb Deep could get it. Nah, if you don’t like it then it gets erased.

“The crazy thing was I remember Premier telling us that his little brother was like the biggest CNN fan, so I guess we had an advantage because at this time Premier was as hot as fish grease. He was the hottest thing on the market so he had a waiting list like the welfare line. We didn’t even get on the phone with him. He just got the money. I remember right before he actually gave us the beat we was going to ask for our money back. We were like, 'This is ridiculous, you got us waiting for too long.' 

“But then he told us to come to the studio. He was in the studio with us and he played us three or four bangers and was like, 'Oh, we like it.' And he was like, 'Nah you don’t like it.' And he erased the shit right in our face! I mean three of four times. If he was playing the beat and we didn’t go 'Whooo!' and were just like 'Yeah, this is good.' I swear to you, he erased the shit right in front of our face if he didn’t get the reaction he wanted. When he played the beat he wanted us to jump up in the air and be like, 'Whoo!' 

“He had the skeleton for 'Invincible' but he didn’t have it all and he had a few other choices. And obviously when he played 'Invincible,' we was like, 'This is it!' We was at D&D studios, he would step out for a minute. We stepped out. And he put the touches on there and we came back and it was done. We were like, ’Finally!’ We wrote our verses right then and there on the spot. 

“The first line that comes, ’Yo Melvin Flynt drop, my whole collasso stop/I can't believe I fucked up and made a half-ass album/My excuse is, my pops just died, and I ain't wanna make music/My pops just died.’ Well, it was so much on my mind and I wanted to be honest with the fans. It wasn’t even about dissing my last project, or dissing myself, it was just about being honest. That’s just how I felt and it was so much on my mind, it wrote itself. Premier played the beat, I sat there and wrote the rhymes, and I was like, "Let me get this shit off my chest." What better way to get it off my chest then a Premier beat? I was lucky enough for the world to feel that. 

“But you see Eminem took my shit, right? Eminem just said, 'Let’s be honest, that Relapse album was ehhh.' I’m like, "Yo, I respect you, Eminem, but you know where you got that from." [Laughs.] There’s never been another rapper on planet Earth that dissed himself. I was the first person to do it. It was just something that was on my mind the same way it was probably on Em’s mind. You throw out a product that you’re not proud of. And you know at the end of the day, you have a job to promote it, you have a job to try and sell it. But deep down inside you wasn’t 100% feeling it. 

“At the same time, people come up to me like, ’Melvin Flynt is your best album, nigga!’ And I don’t argue with them. But it wasn’t about the material for me, it was about my heart not being in it. To this day, when I walk down the street, people will just drive up and be like, ’Yo! Melvin Flynt is your best album!' And then get in their car and roll off. Like there are people who take it personal with me! But I was just being honest, something I thought I owed the fans. Something I thought I owed myself.”

Capone: “Premier was basically our homeboy. That was years in the making. Premier wanted to be on The War Report. But when we was recording The War Report, we couldn’t afford him. When it was time to do it and things was right, it was time to do it. But getting Primo was hard because he had a million projects he was working on at that time. But he came to the table. Primo is never going to send you a bunch of beats, he’s going to send you one beat and you're going to run with it. And when we got that one beat it was like, 'Yes!' 

“We was recording in D&D a lot so we had to see Primo. I remember it being grimy because it was D&D. At D&D you don’t sit on certain chairs, all the walls [got] graffiti, it’s roaches everywhere. It’s foul! It’s the foulest studio you can record in but it has the best sound. 

“I like to write about a lot of shit I see. [That’s why you hear,] 'For my niggas in the bridge, with the $50 dollar Panasonics on the black gates.' Back then tapes was the shit, there wasn’t no CD players. They had these little black Panasonics that was like $50 dollars. QB and most hoods in NYC had these little black gates. And these little black gates, the radio handle fits perfectly over three of the top parts of the black gate. So your radio sits there all day, you don’t even got to put it on the floor, you can just chill on the bench and have your radio on the gate and just ride it out all day. That’s where I came up with the Panasonics on the black gates. If you go to any hood right now you’ll find somebody with a radio on the gate. It might not be the same old black Panasonic, because they got mp3s and CDs and all types of shit now. But back then, that $50 dollar Panasonic was the shit. And if you was a real hood nigga, you already know that that radio was so easy to take apart and put together, so a lot of people was hiding they work in there. And I don’t mean they 9-5.”