Sir Jinx Talks Dre, Detox and another track with Jay-Z

If you think nepotism is always a bad thing, you obviously don’t know Dr. Dre’s family history in the music industry. It’s relatively common knowledge that Warren G is Andre Young’s half-brother, but lesser known is that Dre also has a classics creating cousin he helped usher into the game, Sir Jinx.

After the then teenager paid his dues by working on demos for potential Ruthless Records signees, (including a then high school student who would go on to become one of the biggest names in the history of Hip Hop), Jinx branched out on his own and as a grown man music maker crafted tracks for a litany of legendary names including Kool G. Rap, Xzibit, Too Short, Public Enemy, Kurupt, Rage Against The Machine, Sadat X, Yo-Yo, Tone-Loc, Toni Braxton, and as one-fourth of WC And The Maad Circle.

Speaking to HipHopDX last Wednesday, (October 6th), Sir Jinx candidly revealed where his relationship with Cube currently stands, as well as what has come of his newfound working relationship with Dr. Dre, (and if a particular Jinx production featuring Jay-Z will make its way to Detox). And finally, the 20-year vet recalled his dog days at Ruthless Records and how the Hieroglyphics crew nearly became Ruthless’ first Alt-Rap signing.

[Below is the transcript for the Dre part, for the full interview where he dsicuses other things click the link at the bottom of this post.]

DX: Since I asked about you and Cube working together again, it’s mandatory I ask about you and your cousin Dr. Dre working together for the first time, ever. So…how’s that going? [Laughs] 

Sir Jinx: Well…I think I already [indirectly] touched on that. [Laughs] Ditto, basically [the same thing as] the Cube environment. These guys are millionaires and they do what they do, and you would have to be a psychic to understand what they go through everyday. That’s why I think inside [of me] I don’t have hate [for them] because I kinda don’t want their position… But, I talked to him, and all the songs that I heard [from Dr. Dre's Detox] was real dope. And the thing that’s funny is, the songs that got leaked were never the songs he was playing [me].   

DX: Just out of curiosity…was the stuff you heard the "Ghetto Techno" that we been sort of led to believe the sound is gonna be for the album?

Sir Jinx: Nah… I remember [in] one interview I said it kinda sound like a sinister Kanye West. Some of the songs sounded like that. They don’t sound like Above The Law – [Dre] did Above The Law, and that album, [Livin’ Like Hustlers], was amazing! He also did The Firm’s album, but it don’t sound like that.   

DX: I thought after “Under Pressure” that he was going in the sorta Kraftwerk direction?

Sir Jinx: That was none of the stuff that I heard. Technically, if you wanna feel what the Detox record was – the direction I feel it was going in – was that song that was [in] the Dr. Pepper commercial. Now I heard that one a bunch of times…with the rap on it, with Slim Da Mobster on it, with it being produced better, without T.I. on it – I think that’s the [leak, the Dr. Pepper commercial song, that T.I. is on… So I never even heard the “Under Pressure” song. [I would have remembered if I had] because I have a song with [Dr. Dre for Detox] and it involves Jay-Z as well. So when I heard [about a Dr. Dre song featuring Jay-Z] I said, “Oh shit, my song got leaked.” It was not my song. [But], the song that I did with Dre, Jay-Z had something to do with [that one] as well… The song that I got with Dre, it’s amazing. It’s a dope, dope, dope song.   

DX: Are you confident [that song is] gonna make it to the finish line [for Detox]?

Sir Jinx: Um…I’m…I mean, it’s just like what Dre want. He wants something that’s original, he wants something that’s brand new, and that’s definitely our relationship in this time and day.  

DX: Can you reveal…any more about the sound of the song?

Sir Jinx: I would hate for me to kill myself.

DX: [Laughs]

Sir Jinx: I’ll just say that I’m glad that [my song] had a little bit to do with Jay-Z, but it wasn’t the [“Under Pressure” record]. It wasn’t that song.

DX: …You guys just did this one song together last year and that was it? Have you guys recorded at all together since?

Sir Jinx: Well, Dre has a process [with] the way he does his music. If you submit a song, it’s not like you gonna give him a track and it’s gonna end up that way. He’s gonna turn it into a Dr. Dre track. So that [process] took some time… Through last year, [for] maybe four or five months - he [wound] up getting different people to help out with the songs. Then he [came] to me and [was] like, “Guess who might be on it? …R. Kelly might be on it. Beyonce might…” – all these different people… [So] I dunno [what he does after I submit a track]. He just takes it. And…I don’t even want a copy of it. I don’t even wanna be the leak - somebody steal my computer and instantly gets a full Dr. Dre album. [So] I don’t want it. I just sit and enjoy it from [a] bird’s eye view.

DX: But you guys haven’t been like in [contact] with each other recently doing any more music…?

Sir Jinx: Well actually, we did like four [tracks]. We did a few songs… I can do as much [music] as I can, but it’s also [other producers already] there in line that’s trying to get on the Eminem thing, trying to get on all the projects that Dr. Dre has. And excluding our relationship as cousins, I still have to produce hot tracks. So it’s no favoritism whatsoever when it comes to getting songs placed over there.

DX: …I’m still a little unclear as to why it took 20 years for you and Dr. Dre to make music together?

Sir Jinx: Well, I’m my own Saddam, man… I got a chip on my shoulder too. I’m racing the game [too]. Just like he racing after Quincy Jones, I’m chasing after Dr. Dre. So sometimes when you don’t want that crutch, you won’t go there. I don’t need that… And now when I go over there, you gotta get in line. There’s no personal nothing about it. It’s all business, not personal. So I can’t go over there and assume that I’m gonna throw my favorite tracks [into] an Aftermath [Entertainment] environment – get ‘em sewed up, I can’t slang ‘em to nobody ‘cause then I’m going behind Aftermath back…it’s hard. If you make a track for Aftermath, it’s designated for Aftermath. You can’t go shop that. That becomes very expensive. So to try to deal with the Dr. Dre environment and make a whole bunch of tracks - I can’t go take them tracks and give ‘em to somebody else, ‘cause then what if Dre call me from Detroit like, “Yo, where that track at?” [And] I’m like, “Oh, I gave it to Snippy D that gave me $1,500 for it.” So, you gotta [deal with that], and I been doing my own thing [all these years]. I had really no reason to go to the Dre environment because I was working with Xzibit [before he worked with Dre]. We did [seven tracks together for] the 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz [album]. We did a lot of stuff. I work with artists that need to prepare themselves for Dr. Dre. Everybody that I worked with always ended up working with Dr. Dre. I even worked with Snoop Dogg before Dre did.

DX: Yeah, I was shocked to learn that from reading your Producer’s Corner feature that you did Snoop Dogg’s demo when he was 15, 16-years-old. How did y’all link up?

Sir Jinx: Warren G is Dre’s stepbrother, [and] me and Warren G is the same age. So [when we were teenagers] we were kinda both getting shunned on in the Audio Achievements [Studios] – [during] the [recordings for] Dr. Dre, Michel’le, N.W.A., Eazy-E, J.J. Fad, all that stuff that was going on then. Me and Warren G were kinda like the scrubs. And it was a place that was uncomfortable. It wasn’t even cool to be a [Ruthless Records] entourage [member] then. [Laughs] They would dump [on you] and do tricks [to you] and do all kinda stuff to you if you [didn’t] have no work over there... I got shunned so much [it motivated] me to [bounce from Ruthless with Ice Cube and] do Amerikkka’s Most [Wanted]... That came from the intensity of what pressure you had [on you] to be accepted over there.

Source - http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.12544/title.sir-jinx-talks-ice-cube-reunion-another-dr-dre-detox-track-with-jay-z/

When Pocket-lint met Dr Dre - Interview (not about Detox)

New York’s a long way to go for the sake 15 minutes, but when those 900 seconds are to be spent in the company of Dr Dre, it’s worth the trip.

Waiting just inside the door of suite 503 of the St Regus Hotel on East 55th, Pocket-lint’s told that our time slot has dropped by a third. We cross out a handful of the more trivial questions from our biro scrawled spiral bind. Probably not so important to find out if there are any other products that the legendary rap producer will be putting his name to, beyond the Beats By Dr Dre series of headphones that have been launched just an hour ago and the line of cognac he's set to be starting. Might also be best to steer away from nagging about the next album. Okay, so that’s about 10 minutes worth of chat now, what we hadn’t bargained on was the lion’s share of that getting sucked up by Dre’s business partner in the Beats venture, producer and owner of Interscope Records, Jimmy Iovine.

Walking into the sitting room of the suite is something closer to going onto a film set. One end of the cream Regency style quarters is taken up by a lighting rig, beaming an over-bright spot onto the sofa at the back wall, and the only thing that shines back brighter than the ivory upholstery is a ring of thick cut diamonds wedged about the bezel of what would probably be a Rolex if it were possible to actually read the face of the timepiece but for the blinding shards of reflection.

Wearing the watch is one Andre Romelle Young, founder of the West Coast G-Funk sound, Grammy Award winnner, one time co-owner of Death Row Records and also known as Dr Dre. In his mid-40s, he’s definitely aged from the inside cover picture of his last album, recorded over 10 years ago now. To his credit though, the man’s been working out. Still Dre, still broad shouldered and even more barrel chested than any photograph could tell, but no hint of what appeared to be a little too much of the good life in times gone by. He sits perched on the edge of the couch in a pair of black jeans and matching black long sleeve top, fingers knitted in a barricade between him and Pocket-lint. If we didn’t know better, we’d have said he looked nervous.

To his left, half his size but occupying just as much space at the other end of the sofa is Dre’s business partner, old time record producer with just about all the top US stars you can think of on his label - Jimmy Iovine. You couldn’t pick two more different looking people - Dre from the West Coast, large set with tight cropped hair, broad, generous features, a frame to match and, as it turns out, rather quiet; Jimmy: short, slight, wiry, with what hair he may or may not have permanently hidden under a baseball cap and a mouth-hurling Brooklyn born vernacular at a rate that makes you wonder how he finds the time to breathe.

Both greet Pocket-lint with a firm handshake and sit ready for battle, slightly more confrontational than the friendly chat we’d been hoping for. There’s one thing on their minds and that’s to sell Beats By Dr Dre. We’ve already been warned not to ask them personal questions. This interview is to be firmly based on the products and just in case we’d forgotten, there’s a Beatbox sitting on the glass coffee table between the two sides of this meeting.

“You want a cookie?” asks Iovine with a face so straight we can’t help wondering whether he’s taking the piss. 43 seconds already gone and we’ve no intention of eating up any more time trying to find out.

Question 1: If you gave someone a set of Beats and you had one song to play to them to convince them to buy a pair, what would it be?

Jimmy: “In Da Club by 50 Cent. It was actually the track we used to tune these products by. We chose it because if you look at the wave form of it, it’s like a sandwich from Carnegie's Deli. It’s just packed full; so thick with lines all over the place that it covers all the ranges that we need sound equipment to be able to perform on. Then I would go to rock songs like any great U2 record (an act which Jimmy produced) and then one that I use to tune it is Here Comes my Girl from Damn the Torpedoes (Tom Petty also featuring on Iovine's CV). We have to make sure it works on different genres. Once we set it on In Da Club then we also make sure it sounds great on rock and pop - Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance is another good one.

Dre: “Yeah, one of the other songs I like is Human Nature”.

Jimmy: “Billie Jean, I listen to as well. That has a great bass profile”.

PL: And are those the songs you would listen use to test out any music kit you bought for your home?

Dre: “Absolutely, those are the songs. Human Nature, I feel, is a perfectly mixed song. One of the few perfectly mixed songs. That song and definitely Billie Jean - and a couple of Nirvana songs.

PL: Which ones?

Dre: I really like (laughs), as funny as it sounds, there was a song that Nirvana did called Stay Away. I really like that and Smells Like Teen Spirit, but Stay Away wasn’t a big record, not one of their more popular songs but I really like it.

One or one and a half questions down, if you count the follow up, and 3.27 gone says the Pocket-lint dictaphone on the table below. We want to ask what other music the Doc’s into, we’re dying to find out about his upcoming album, Detox, but there just isn’t the time. The clock is ticking and it’s strictly business.

Question 2: If you could give a set of Beats to one person in the world, dead or alive, to show them how great they are, who would you pick?

There’s murmurings from both men as their eyes search the hotel room beyond the cakes and drinks at the back for any answers to a question they’ve clearly never considered. 10 or 20 seconds of our precious time later...

Jimmy: “That’s easy for me, John Lennon”. - a man whom Jimmy worked with.

Dre: “Oh that’s good. I’d have to go with Michael Jackson.”

PL: “Why?”

Another pause. “They, in my opinion, were the greatest at what they did”, says Jimmy. Dre nods, and that’s as much explanation as we get on the matter. 4.36 on the clock

Question 3: Apart from the Beats series, what other gadgets are you into?

Jimmy: “Well we differ quite considerably here. I like convenience. When I walk or run or whatever I want a song around my head. If I’m at a hotel room, I want that (he points down to the Beatbox). It depends on what I’m doing, I like the convenience".

Afraid of Jimmy going off on one about the Beats By Dr Dre products - a speech we heard at the press conference and one he’s threatened to embark upon once already during this interview - we decide to avoid a follow up and instead turn to Dre.

Dre: “I’m not really a gadget fan. All I do is check emails and use my iPhone. If I can’t use something in the studio, then I don’t care”.

Walls tumble down inside Pocket-lint’s head. “I’m not really a gadget fan” echoes about our mind as a mental list of questions and fantasised conversations on everything from video gaming to iPad apps is eradicated by an imaginary red pen. Stunned for a second, Jimmy senses weakness and starts in on the spiel he said on stage at the afternoon event.

“You know, I just took my $8000 Tannoy system and I replaced it with that”, he says pointing back to the Beatbox. “It took me 15 years to put my system together. I bought the speakers there in the shop in Oxfordshire or wherever it was but all I’m listening to at the moment is this”.

We’re not going to argue with him on the virtues of a modern $400 iPod dock with no sub-woofer next to a classic, all wooden set up worth 20 times as much. He might be telling the truth, but the fact is that we’ve not had the opportunity to put the Beatbox through its paces, nor the invitation to go to Iovine’s pad to make the comparison.

“Last question”, calls the Beats By Dr Dre PR representative from behind us. The counter on the recorder reads 6 minutes. We’re not going to waste the last of it arguing about the time.

Question 4: How do you feel about digital music? We heard what you said before at the press conference and there’s obviously a strong feeling about it...

“No, it’s a fact”, interrupts Iovine. His opinions on file compression all too clear from this afternoon's speech at the Best Buy Theatre on Broadway and one of the reasons he and Dre have decided to launch products to make music sound better. We continue.

But at the same time it gives people access to more music that maybe they didn’t have before. So, how do you feel about them listening to these files through your carefully tuned products?

Jimmy: “Access is one thing. You’ve got access to food but if it’s bad, it’s bad”.

PL: “Right, but people have got to eat, haven’t they?”

Jimmy: “If they want eat and throw up really quickly they can eat bad, rotten food. Access...access..is...I don’t...I’m not afraid of the access...”

There ensues a flow of answers to a question we didn’t ask. The conversation bends round to talking about the deal between Beats By Dr Dre and HP to make a special range of Envy notebooks with a bigger proportion of the internal space given over to audio circuitry and larger speakers.

“...We’re not saying we have to do every computer. We’re doing 5 million of them with HP that sound better than any other computer in the world, and if I was somebody and I’m going to buy a PC, I would by an HP PC because it sounds better. They cost the same and the prices are competitive. If you’re going to use your computer through a home system, your stereo system, right now it sounds like a portable radio or portable television”.

Seconds remaining on the clock and Iovine manages to sidetrack himself back on topic and finally come up with an astute answer that a clearly clever man has been managing to hide from himself for a good minute or two.

“With Beats By Dr Dre it means that at least two parts of the digital music chain are now right - they have Beats headphones and an MP3 player which is probably good. The files are going to get better. What we’re doing now from Interscope’s side is we’re shipping better files to Apple for iTunes. We’re upgrading the files and they’re working on theirs to make them better. So, you’ve got a file and a computer, MP3 player, a set of headphones or good pair of speakers that are true, or not so much true as sound the way the musician wants them to sound. That’s a good ecosystem. So you improve as many parts as possible and maybe soon the journey from the artist to your ears will be as the music was originally intended”.

“So what’s next”, we ask, “Beats By Dr Dre encoded files?”

Dre nods with interest but, again, it’s Jimmy who replies. “All you need is to get close to the original file and Apple’s getting close to handling that. We’ve got to build quality. The rest will come”.

“Damn, it’s cold in here”, says Dre as he leaves the room to get a jumper. 8 minutes and 21. The interview is over.

Source - http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/36017/interview-with-dr-dre-jimmy-iovine

Jim Jones Speaks On Dipping With Dr.Dre

Dipset leader Jim Jones has shared a few details surrounding a self-leaked photo that hit the Internet last week featuring Diplomats and Dr. Dre together.

While confirming having worked with Dre, Jones admitted that it wasn't definite their collaborated records would be featured on the upcoming Diplomatic Immunity 3 album.

"Well, we did some work with Dr. Dre," Jones explained in an interview with radio host Deanna Cruz. "We did a few songs with Dr. Dre the other day. We had a great studio session. So we'll see, we'll see what that turns into." (Hot 106.3)

Dip Set In The Studio With Dr Dre

Dip Set on Dr Dre? One of those collaborations that on paper, can’t go wrong, can it?

There have been rumours about who Dip Set would be releasing their third album with since the crew got back together earlier this year, Interscope appeared an early, if surprising favourite. Almost out of nowhere though Dr Dre’s Aftermath label was mentioned but given Dre’s mentoring of 50 Cent who’s had problems with Cam’ron, not much was thought of it, but Jim Jones today Tweeted a picture of the crew in the studio with the good Doctor stating “Just finished our 1rst session wit Dr.Dre incredible #dipsetbitch”
 

Source - http://www.rwdmag.com/2010/10/dip-set-in-the-studio-with-dr-dre-signed-to-aftermath/

Dre Says Eminem/Jay-Z Shows 'Inspired' Him To Work On Detox

When Dr. Dre surprised the crowd  at Eminem and Jay-Z's historic first Home and Home Tour stop in Detroit, fans greeted the elusive rap king with epic chants of "Detox!" after he spit memorable bars from his last LP, The Chronic 2001.  During a recent sit-down, Dre said the warm response motivated the beatmaster to hit the lab and get his much-anticipated and long-delayed follow-up into the hands of those screaming fans.

"Being on the stage with Eminem and Jay-Z was one of the most incredible feelings I've felt in a long time. It inspired me, it made me want to hurry up and get back in the studio and put more effort and more work into my own project," Dre told MTV2's "Sucker Free" on Wednesday during an event for his latest successful venture, Beats by Dre.

The much-lauded producer said rocking the stage with his protégé-turned-pop phenomenon, Eminem, and his "Under Pressure" collaborator, Jay-Z, validated his current efforts and demonstrated that more than 10 years into the wait for Detox, hip-hop heads are still hungry for more Dre-helmed bangers.

"The response from the people out there was just incredible," Dre said. "It let me know that I still got love out there and I'm not wasting my time in the studio with what I'm doing, with the music or with all the Beats product that we're putting out."

After stacking hip-hop hits for decades, nurturing the careers of superstar MCs such as Snoop Dogg, Em and 50 Cent, releasing two almost undeniably classic solo efforts, 2001 and 1992's The Chronic, and shaping the way the latest generation of rap lovers hears music with his Beats by Dre headphones, the Doc has crafted a game-changing legacy. Even boasting that singular résumé, the deafening shouts from die-hard Dre acolytes still excite the rap icon.

"I can't explain it," he said. "It's an incredible feeling. It's not something that can be bought. You have to earn it, and it just made me feel just amazing."

Source - http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1649124/20100930/dr_dre.jhtml

AZ Says The Firm May Reunite, With Or Without Dr. Dre

In an interview across the pond, AZ says The Firm reunion is a possibility, even if Dr. Dre isn't on board.

AZ let HipHopDX know a lot about his future plans when we spoke with him back August. Now, he is still speaking on his forthcoming project, Doe or Die 2, and he is also revealing information about a possible Firm reunion.

"It's a possibility," he told Hip Hop Chronicle UK. "Talks is in the works."

When he revealed that twenty percent of The Firm isn't on board, he went on to insinuate that Dr. Dre was one person who wasn't on board.

"With or without [Dr. Dre], it still might happen," he added.

But for now, his sights are set on Doe or Die 2, an album that will be released in 2011. To prepare fans for that, he is dropping the fifteenth anniversary release of the original Doe or Die next month.

"Right now, what I'm putting out is the fifteenth anniversary on November 3. I'm going to continue working on Doe or Die 2. That'll have to be a classic so I'm putting that out next year sometime."

Source - http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.12422/title.az-says-the-firm-may-reunite-with-or-without-dr-dre

Dr Dre & LeBron James Power Beats Commercial (Video)

Watch the video again for the second time, this time focussing on the background music only. Could be Dre's music.