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phone interview

Brolin: Jazzy Jeff. Jazzy Jeff: How's it going, man? How you doing? I'm good. Good to hear. So yeah, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the new record and just sort of get a peek into your mindstate making it and whatnot. Okay. Obviously this is the follow up to The Magnificent that came out about five years ago. What can you tell us about it? Well, you know what, basically it is a follow up and I didn't want to stray too far away from where I went with Magnificent. I wanted to kind of at least stay in the same ballpark but just show a little bit more maturity, even down with the people that I selected and just kind of stay as much in the same vein as I did on the first one but just show a little bit more growth. Totally. And you're working with some sort of OG cats. You've got Big Daddy Kane on there and C.L. Smooth and stuff and then you also have younger artists like Rhymefest and some of the other artists on there that people may not have heard of. Are those mostly local Philly cats? Well, no, not necessarily. I mean, you've got Eshon Burgundy and the Black Ice who are from Philly. Dave Ghetto is from Philly. A lot of that is just—I try to just work with people that I really want to work with. If it's somebody that catches my ear, I don't care if they're known or unknown, I'll kind of make a mental note and when it comes to do a project, I'll just pick up the phone and be like, "Hey, man, you know, I'm working on this project. Would you be interested in coming in and doing some stuff?" Nice. And were you able to pretty much get everybody that you wanted to or was there anybody that you were calling who couldn't come through? You know what, I really wanted to do something with KRS and it was a scheduling conflict that really messed us up. So hopefully that will be on the next one. I'm really excited about his record with Marley Marl. Yeah that's a good record. Now you're also, in addition to these albums you've done a lot of mixtapes. Is that something that you're continuing to do? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know what it is, like, I just try to keep myself as active as possible, whether it be on the mixtape side or a compilation record or just your own personal album. Like, I really, really enjoy what I'm doing and I'm blessed so I try to just—I just want to keep it going as long as I can. Nice. And you also tour a lot. A lot. You go overseas all the time and I know that you're on the road much of the year. Is there any spots in particular—since you're such like an international DJ, is there any spots in particular that really stand out to you where you always get like a huge response or whatever? Oh, man, I mean, I've been blessed for that to be a ton of places from Cork, Ireland to Singapore. Like, I get a kick out of just being able to go to a lot of these places. I'll go places that it bugs me out, like I'm asking myself, "What in the world am I doing in Hong Kong? What am I doing in Singapore?" And just to be able to go to these places and people enjoy you and it's—you can't beat it. You cannot beat that. Yeah, that's a good gig for sure. Now also I know that you're big into Serato, you were one of the early proponents of that and I wanted to ask you, sort of on the technology tip things have changed so much and so fast just in terms of from going to records to CDs to now people are just cutting MP3s and .wav files and whatnot, is that something that you tried to always stay right on the cutting edge of whatever's new and comes out that you're always messing with or what? Well you know what, I've always been a purist. So I wasn't really in love with the CDJs. What I did like is I loved the fact that the CDJs allowed—because, you know, as a DJ and a producer, what every DJ producer ever wanted was to be able to take whatever they immediately did and play it. Play their own beats out that night. And the CDJ was the first introduction allowing you to do that without getting a test press pressed up and going through all the rest of that but it still wasn't vinyl. And like I said, I DJ for a lot of DJ purists that if Serato wasn't right that they would have let me know immediately. Like, there would have been no way that I would have went out on the road and took Serato if it would have sacrificed any of the DJ culture and because it allows me to basically do everything that I do with records. The needle still can jump. Serato doesn't make you a better DJ. The only thing it does is it makes it easier to carry your records. Totally. And I was all for that. And then I'm sitting there saying that I have to give props to Final Scratch, Serato and all of these other companies, not just Serato because I think they almost single-handedly saved the art of pure DJing because what would a DJ have done if everyone just said, "Okay, we're going to stop pressing records?" Right, right. We would have been forced to just play everything old. So at least—the whole world is going into an MP3 format. So to be able to take that MP3 format and still keep the purity of a real DJ with real vinyl, even though the vinyl is controlling an MP3, it's still real DJing and I think they actually have prolonged the life of a DJ. Absolutely. Yeah, I wanted to ask you just about DJing culture, in general. Nowadays, the past few years, it seems like there's been more of sort of a spotlight onto producers, whether it's the Neptunes or Kanye or whatever, producers are getting a lot more sort of shine—9th wonder, etc. People are definitely giving it up more for the beats, whereas, at the same time there's still very, very few actual scratches on rap records, that you hear on the radio. Do you worry that despite these advancements and Serato bringing that sort of actual pure DJing back, do you worry that for the next generation of kids that nobody's going to be interested in doing that and just sort of the future of it? You know what, I think what we don't do that was done with us is we don't expose the younger generation to what we had. Sure. You know what I mean? Like, I learned about James Brown because my pop and my brother played James Brown and so I got into the break beats and all the rest of that stuff. We don't play KRS-One for our kids. We don't play it for our little brothers and I think that's a problem. I think we need to expose them to as much as we can just like we were exposed. No doubt. I don't necessarily worry so much about it because I think what we have to do is we have to just continue on doing what we did and just passing it on. That makes sense. I also wanted to talk to you also a bit about Philly. Obviously you rep Philadelphia hard. Touch of Jazz is based there. I have a lot of friends from Philadelphia and all of them are like, one thing that they all have in common is everybody is super proud to be from Philly. Yes. People talk about the cheesesteaks and the Eagles and this and that. Being somebody that's local and represents it, what is the best thing to you about Philadelphia, about living there and being from there? Well, Philadelphia is not an easy town. And I think that kind of keeps people on their toes. You know, Philadelphia has always been a place that if you come and think that I'm just going to bulls*** you, they will let you know in two seconds. And I think this is a place that they don't understand, Philadelphia is the place that boos the Eagles, and they're—you know, and we've gone to the Super Bowl.

So it's a very hard place but they're very passionate. They're passionate about their music. They're passionate about their sport. And it's just like you have to really put forth an effort. And I think that's one of the things that probably has helped me in every place that I've gone because it's kind of like I don't worry about playing somewhere else if I can play in Philly because if I do a bad job in Philly they're going to let me know. Yeah, for sure. Now on the album on one of the tracks you've got—you know, you sample the A.I., "talking about practice," which I thought was great. What did you think about him splitting the Sixers? It hurt. It definitely hurt because as a fan—you know, like the hard part is I don't know if we would have won a championship with A.I. But still, you didn't want to see A.I. leave. You know what I mean? Like, he was a part of the Sixers. He gave his heart and his soul for the Sixers and at the end of the day a side of me was like, "I want him to leave and go win a championship because he gave us all he could." But then you get people that are just like, "It hurts. It hurt. That was A.I.. That was—he was the Sixers." I used to go to the games before A.I. got here and so when he left it was kind of like, "Wait a minute." Yeah, it's definitely tough. Like, "What are we going to do now?" Yep, hopefully they'll figure it out. Yeah, I mean, they will. They will. But it's just one of those things of like, "Yo, it was time to change. It was time to do something." Yep, no doubt. Also I noticed that the cover of the new album is sort of like a take off or an homage to [Italian funk producer] Deodato. Deodato, mm-hmm. Yeah, who's great, I love that guy. Being that you've been in the business for a long time and worked on a lot of diverse projects, have you ever reached out to him or have you guys ever met on any sort of level? No, no, no. I mean, and that's one of the things that I want to do in the future is to kind of start to try to collaborate with a lot of my heroes and not only collaborate but just to kind of let them know and acknowledge. Like, I did some work with Herbie Hancock and it was really, really great to sit and tell him my side.

Like, I want to tell Deodato what he meant to me. I want to tell Bob James what he meant to me. You know, "I understand what you may see but I don't think you realize what you've exposed me to and how much we are alike in different areas and different genres of music." And I think I would really love to kind of sit down with a lot of those guys to just really let them know like, "Yo, you've spawned a generation." Totally. Those guys really changed the game, for sure. Yeah. Also, I've got to ask you I know there was some rumors flying around the Internet recently about a reunion, you and Will getting back together—whether it's a tour or an album. Is that just the internet rumors mill or is that legitimate? We've been talking about it. We've been talking about it. It's all—what we're just trying to do is get the schedule but we've definitely been talking about it, that if we can make this happen that will be great. But that's the issue of how can we set aside the time to do this because we definitely want to. Yeah, that would be sweet. I think the world is ready for it, man. You know what's funny—and I think I downplay a lot of what I do. I think I'm really starting to believe that it is because I think the biggest surprise to me, especially with this record, is how many people have said to me, "This is what I've been waiting for." Yeah, no doubt. Like it's almost like there is a side that's missing. And I'm not so much into dissing what's out there. My issue isn't what's out there. My issue is what's not. You know what I mean? And I think what I'm starting to get is there's a whole lot of people that's like, "Damn, man, I really wish that I could got to a show like the Fresh Fest. I really wish that I could have that record that was kind of like it was." So this is the first time that I think I'm really starting to sit back and say, "You know what?" And that's what Will and I talked about. Like, "You know what, maybe it is time." Definitely, man. I think so. I mean, I think—I know that there's a lot of cats that, slightly older cats like myself and yourself, that are a little bit disgruntled with what's being pushed out right now. Yeah. And kind of miss that. And at the same time, there is definitely some younger cats, too, that are coming up as kids and just aren't buying into what's getting thrown in their face all day. Yeah, I realize that. I was telling somebody that the whole downloading thing and the internet, I was like, "You know what's funny? Kids today don't download Eminem. They're not downloading Beyonce. They're investigating." Totally. Like, I've been playing out and it kind of bugs me out that it seems like the knowledge of the kids now is a lot greater musically than I thought. Yeah, it's crazy because they can get anything. So I'm out and you know, I'll play Nirvana and I've got 18, 19-year old kids singing every word of it. And I'm asking myself, "Where did you learn this from?" And what happens is it's kind of like when they get on the internet and they start downloading, they're not downloading the most popular tracks. They're sitting back saying, "Damn, you know, my older brother or my mom always talked about Nirvana. What is this Nirvana s***?" And they're investigating. And I'm sitting there like, "Wow." It's crazy because I think their knowledge of music growing because of the internet. There's so much stuff available there. It's like digging in the crates but, like, the new millennium-style version. Exactly, exactly. Right on, man. Well listen. I've got one more question for you and then I'll let you roll. I know you've got a full plate. For the kids that are coming up right now everybody wants to be a rapper or a producer or have a label and get into the game somehow. You've been doing it for a long time. You've had a lot of success and you've worked in a lot of different angles. What advice would you give to like the young generation that's just trying to sort of get their foot in the door and get started? Surround yourself with honest people, like, extremely brutally honest people. Don't surround yourself with people that just want to tell you what you want to hear because the public will let you know if you suck. So you need to make sure that you have friends and people around you that will look you in the face and say, "Yo, that's not that good." A lot of people just want people around them that kind of will tell them what they want to hear." The "yes" man or whatever. It's like you need honest people. You need somebody that's going to be like, "Yo, dude, you need to go back to the drawing board." So are you going to be doing a big tour for the record now? Well we're trying to set a lot of tour dates now. I've been so much overseas that we want to kind of figure out what we're going to do on a stage and set some stuff up. So I mean, that's the good thing about me is I'm pretty much never home. So I'm going to be somewhere close. I can't stay home for too long and that becomes an addiction and it's kind of like, "Man, I've got to get out there and just touch the people." Totally, man. Well the next time you come out to the Bay I will definitely make it out to your show. Oh, absolutely. I love it there. So hopefully you will see me soon. That sounds good, man. Well, hey, listen, the album is great, and I mean it. And it's great talking to you, man. Thanks for taking the time to do this and good luck with everything. Appreciate it, man. Take it easy, Jeff. All right.