Scheme had the opportunity to sit down with two of the most innovative producers across the board that have and will last throughout hip hop’s numerous cycles. No matter what beat or sound is the “in” rhythm at the time, the legendary Pete Rock and new school pioneer 9th Wonder remain consistant and fresh and when the snap, futuristic and even experimental electronica sounds come and go the soulful boom bap of these two influential trailblazing producers will stand their own ground with SP and Pro-tools in hand bringing everyone back home to the funk.

Scheme: Can either of you remember the first beats you made, they may have not made the radio but can you remember what they were?

9th Wonder: I know the first beat I made was wack!

Pete Rock: (Laughs)

9th Wonder: If I go back and listen to them I’m like ill, but there was enough there to know that I was doing something right. Maybe the drums weren’t loud enough or the sample was off but I wasn’t wasting my time. Some people make beats and you’re like come on man this ain’t for you but I knew if I kept at it I could perfect it, but it was around 1998-99 when I made my first beat.

Pete Rock: I can say around 1987-88 I started dibbling and dabbling and going to sessions. I would go to Marly Marl’s house and was fortunate to see the equipment and the set-ups that these guys had. I was all curious in the back quiet, chillin, observing and taking everything in. At that time I was working with the SP12 which was before the (SP)1200 came out. The first stack of beats I made were all wack in the beginning but I was happy to sample on these machines and being taught by these cats. Once I got the hang of it I was like a kid in the candy store.

Scheme: For the both of you when you first heard each other, what stuck out the most for you about each other’s production?

Pete Rock: When I first heard 9th’s music it was refreshing to hear Little Brother’s first album, it got me on my toes. He was also a cat that was up and coming and me myself I’m always looking for the competition and when I heard this album I knew I had found some new competition. The music was great, I loved the first album and I think there was a couple of underground stuff that he was doing, and then meeting him through my brother it was amazing. It made me feel like I had to get back on my game and do what I have to do.

9th Wonder: I live in the South so there wasn’t a lot of cats that had turntables. I think there was only one or two dudes that lived in the city I lived in with tables. So a lot of music that we heard was either in the videos or the radio. The first song I heard was from Pete Rock and C.L.(Smooth) and it was ‘When they Reminisce Over You’ and it was in the spring of 92. It was a world premiere video on YO-MTV Raps and just the way the video started with the black and white it looked like a movie, like a Spike Lee movie almost. Then the horn breaks comes in and I was like, “What is this?” Then it was so different than what was coming out. What I took from that was…and I hate to sound so cliché and I know this is Pete’s moniker but it was the soul. Like it(hip hop) was either party, party, party or Rakim had that hard street music but nobody had brought the soul yet that connects the generations from the 60’s and 70’s to the 80’s and the 90’s. So it was the soul and no matter what you have whether you have a beat with or without drums it’s all about the feeling and the soul and if you ain’t got that than I don’t really know what your doing and that’s the biggest thing I learned from Pete.

Scheme: Pete you talked about having that connection with an emcee and once you have that connection…

Pete: It’s beautiful man, sometimes I feel it’s magical. The anxiousness of me working with an artist that I love and knowing what’s going to come of it and knowing what I’m bringing to the table it’s amazing and I get this adrenaline rush and a couple of people witnessed it. In like one day I made 10 beats. Right now I’m trying to get back into that and now I’m making a good three-four beats a day which is under what I used to do but I have to exercise to get back to where I want to be. Music is so much fun with a person that you connect with and you sit down and you’re thinking about hooks, writing rhymes and suggesting saying this instead of that and I like to be adventurous when I’m making beats.

Scheme: So 9th for you in that same vein what is that commonality that you find that it clicks?

9th Wonder: Man it’s a situation with some of these emcees you have to coach them like, don’t say it like that say it like this and sometimes its like nah it’s not like this period. There are some emcees that you work with and it’s like soon as they get on the beat it just works. You can’t explain it, it just happens.

Pete Rock: It’s magic!

9th Wonder: It’s magic, it’s exactly that. It’s like I made this beat with a certain flow, feel and storyline, it’s mine already and some emcees can read your mind and say okay I know exactly how to come on this joint. When it happens it just happens that way.

Scheme: How do you guys adapt to that emcee where there may need to be some coaching involved?

9th Wonder: You’ll get some emcees that just don’t like to listen. Rappers have egos, producers have different types of egos. A lot of them don’t want to be lead and it’s like we quarterbacks dog.

Pete Rock: (Laughs)

9th Wonder: We throw the ball to you, you don’t throw the ball to us. A lot of them don’t like to swallow that pill and that’s a bigger pill to swallow. You have to get the emcee to trust you and if they don’t trust you it will never work and you’ll fight with an emcee until they’re like oh I get it but the producers are the ones that can hear the end product.

Scheme: I’ve spoken with a few artists and producers and when it comes to digging they often say they pick albums based on the cover. Do you both use that process or is it something different?

Pete Rock: Well everyone now brings a player like me when they go to a record store. I’m into the 45’s and I’m really digging hard for those. I have a lot of albums and I still dig for those. I just went to Puerto Rico and I got some nice Spanish stuff. There’s some people that don’t dig and it’s still funky but the raw sound of hip hop comes from sampling and when we find out that there’s other things available than James Brown it just makes you want to go and find that. Or you want to find the ultimate beat or put people onto something you found. That’s how your beats sound great by doing the work behind it.

Scheme: 9th is your process the similar?

9th Wonder: For me it’s covers. For me you look at covers and it’s like there’s got to be something dope on this. It’s funny when you talk to producer’s in a room they don’t pull a record out and play and say, “Do you have that?” They pull out a record cover and say, “Have you seen this?” There have been times when Pete and I have talked and he’s played a song for me and I was like, “Where did you get that from?” His explanation is, there’s a Leroy Hudson record and it’s a record where he’s laying down wearing a white suit so we explain the records by what’s on the cover.

Pete Rock: Yeah (laughs)

Scheme: Do you ever hear tracks that come out and think I would’ve done it another way?

9th Wonder: You know what I hear more of, because I’m bias and I’m a producer. I hear beats that my brothers and his producer gang will give out. There’s nothing worse than a beat that you hear, you’ve heard it before and they give it to an artist and the artist jacks it up. It’s a let down and it’s not your fault. A lot of people don’t understand you can tell an emcee to take this beat, but if they don’t want to take it they’re not going to take it. So it’s not necessarily up to us what the emcee picks. So when people are like I wonder why 9th, Pete or Premo didn’t do this beat and you played 50 beats for them and they don’t take one what else is there to do? The consumer might think ahh that’s not really a hot 9th Wonder beat but I played them all this stuff but he wanted this one which you(the consumer) get to hear. So that’s another disappointment when the rapper won’t take things and you end up taking the fall for it like you have that n*gga a weak beat.

Pete Rock: And not to interrupt you 9th but that’s a good point that you make because not a lot of artists have the ear we have and everyone has a different ear. They hear it another way and we lay it down the way they want it and it doesn’t drive your soul as much as the way we originally did it.

“North, South, East, West cats really ain’t working to make any records, now their working to be Hollywood and to be seen and the image and the foundation is the music.”

Scheme: Speaking of chopping up beats Pete you just mentioned a sample that had 9th’s name all over it. In either one of your minds has there ever been a track that has been chopped to the point where you can’t chop it up anymore?

Pete Rock & 9th Wonder: Yup!(laughs)

9th Wonder: A lot of stuff that Dilla has done you really can’t mess with it anymore. Like there’s some stuff that Pete…like you know what Pete is good for nah not good great for? Taking the best part of the song, like you can hear a song that he sampled and you can go through the whole song and he’s taken the best part and once it’s gone it’s gone. You can do anything else about it. With a producer’s it’s a race and he gets the money part of the song.

Pete Rock: Thank you brotha (laughs).

9th Wonder: It is what it is. (laughs).

Pete Rock: Stepson really got me hype, I was really into that and I like the 9th Wonder – Nas combination. I mean I like good music, I like to put the cd in my whip, you know what I’m sayin? There’s no creativity in the new stuff it’s just slapped together and it’s like come on man, you didn’t work that hard on that beat did you?

Scheme: Pete on your new album NY’s Finest you talk about the South and everyone was hating on it, but at that time when the south was at it’s peak because I feel that it’s bubbled down a little bit what were you feeling at that time and 9th you can speak on it as well.

Pete Rock: I feel like at the time there was more to the South when I met Little Brother but you were hearing more of the mainstream South you weren’t hearing the soul South and 9th and them brought the soul. The producers are real, real important especially if you’re in a group and egos are flying around but producers are going to do music and that’s that. What about you 9th?

9th Wonder: Man, I remember a time when there was good music coming out the South in the late 90’s and then just across the board and I hate to just pin it on the South but people across the board got lazy. Cats got comfortable and it was like I can do this, sell a lot of records and people like it and I really don’t have to work? Ahhh…why don’t I so more of it and cats ain’t even workin man. North, South, East, West cats really ain’t working to make any records, now their working to be Hollywood and to be seen and the image and the foundation is the music.

Pete Rock: That’s what’s most important.

9th Wonder: Music controls society and controls people’s lives whether people like to admit it or not music is live. So if the music is jacked up how do you think…

“Black people let television tell them what hip hop is and I know it’s become a lot of things that people didn’t want it to become and it’s like it’s embraced more by other people than it’s own people and that’s not only for hip hop music that’s for Black History period.”

Scheme: The people…

9th Wonder: Yeah so how do you think the people are going to act?

Pete Rock: Well jacked up right now, there’s a lot of people jacked up off this wack music that’s being played. I ain’t saying no names but to me there’s no foundation and the lyrics there’s nothing that can be said that’s important and there’s stuff going on out here in the world. They’re a lot of things that happened that need to be expressed and told in another way.

Scheme: So 9th, I’m going to touch on a subject and I already know your answer, and that’s why I have Pete here. So with your relationship with C.L. Smooth when you saw 9th step away from Little Brother what went on in your head?

9th Wonder: I wouldn’t say step away but go ahead.

Pete Rock: It happened to everybody it didn’t only just happen to me, I just feel bad because we we’re one of the first and that it affected a lot of people in the game which I’m sorry for but some people don’t realize what they do and the bottom line is I’ve moved on from that. I’m just here, accept my music or you can kick me in the butt and tell me to go home. You know what I’m sayin 9th? (laughs)

9th Wonder: The crazy thing about it is, when the whole Pete Rock and C.L. thing went down C.L. really went there about some things and it’s like why? I was in L.A. one time and I was on the phone with Pete and I was like don’t worry about it’s all good. Then it turned around and happened to me and I mean you just have to weather the storm. Maybe it goes back to the whole producer controls a lot, the producer has priviledges that rappers just don’t have and stuff like that. It is what it is, you can handle or you can’t handle it and I didn’t make the move I really didn’t.

Pete Rock: I’m nobody’s father, I got two kids of my own and I can’t tell a man what to do and how to do it I can advise him and it’s not up to me its up to them. I still choose to be here in the game and contribute.

Scheme: How important is travel to the influence of your music?

9th Wonder: Whether you talk about music, life, education or anything it’s a good thing to be worldly. The more you see the more your mind can expand. So whether from an educational standpoint you go here from a musical standpoint you can pull from different musical influences. This is how we do it in Japan, the U.K. or Brazil, and it really helps from the standpoint of record shopping.

Pete Rock: With me it’s going around the world seeing different things. Picking up different ideas and learning and listening to other sh*t, besides James(Brown), Barry(White) there’s just other sh*t. That’s what makes me want to dig harder because there’s always more and that’s what keeps me going.

Scheme: For both of you in your travels, what have you noticed to be the differences and commonalities in hip hop on a global scale?

Pete Rock: Just how Japan loves the culture I mean really to the point where the know words to your songs on stage and they want you to do all your old albums. Just the love they have for different hip hop places other than New York., North Carolina or Atlanta it’s just different. The attitude is a little different it’s a little more appreciated and we need to get back to that in New York.

9th Wonder: It’s a good thing and it’s a bad thing, it’s good to see other cultures get into hip hop the way they have like I didn’t know I would go to Japan and all the Japanese kids everyone would have a copy God Step’s Son, that was kind of crazy. The bad side of that is but it hurts when you come back home to the United States and Black people don’t even care. That’s disturbing for so many reasons and we have such a misinterpretation of what hip hop really is. Black people let television tell them what hip hop is and I know it’s become a lot of things that people didn’t want it to become and it’s like it’s embraced more by other people than it’s own people and that’s not only for hip hop music that’s for Black History period. Every nation and Ivy league school knows more about Black History than we do. It’s nothing new, but it still hurts.

Pete Rock: Yeah definitely it’s just a big chess game and being versatile with music it’s like you can get with the times and do what their doing but do it in a way where people can be like this sounds different and not sounding the same all the time and that’s what we need back on the radio is that soul element and the balance that it needs.

“That one song made me feel so crazy inside that I started crying but then when the beat was made it made me feel even worse(laughs) and the horn and everything was real soulful and it was real emotional.”

Scheme: Do you ever feel that it’s hard for people to except your growth as producer’s and beatmakers when people haven’t grown themselves? For example they meet you at the Listening or Soul Brother but when you come out with Dream Merchant or NY’s Finest it’s hard for them to accept your changes because they haven’t grown in their personal situations themselves?

Pete Rock: I think right now a lot of people are looking for that soul and I’m not going to front when they hear I have an album coming out people get excited because they know what’s coming and they know I’m going to take it there and that’s what they want to hear. They want to hear real music, not this stuff that’s going to run right through but stuff that’s going to last 10 years and stick to your ribs.

9th Wonder: I don’t think it makes that much of a difference. I can hear the difference between Soul Brother Pete and Soul Survivor Pete, it seems like somewhere between 95 and 96 there was a shift and the same thing with Premier there’s Step Into the Arena Premier and then there’s Group Home. You can hear a shift between the Listening, the Minstrel Show and Dream Merchant. As long as the feeling is there it doesn’t really matter what kind of shift it is, there’s a Chronic Dr. Dre and then there’s a Chronic 2001.

Scheme: Pete where were you when you produced Reminicse, the time, the day, what were you going through?

Pete Rock: I was home depressed, my man passed away, we got the news and the whole hood was sad. I was going through a hurting time and to this day I don’t know how I did that beat. I was going out digging one day with Large Professor I saw the record, bought it, took it home and made the beat off of it. That one song made me feel so crazy inside that I started crying but then when the beat was made it made me feel even worse(laughs) and the horn and everything was real soulful and it was real emotional.

Scheme: 9th for me one of the tracks that sticks out for me is Whatever You Say off the Listening, what was going on with you when you made that song?

9th Wonder: Man, it was night-time when I made it back in 2001 and when I originally made the beat and this local rapper was in there when I was making it and he wanted the beat and I let him get on it and he bombed on it!

Pete Rock:(Laughs)

9th Wonder: I was like no, and the day after that Phonte came over and I played him the joint and he was like, “Oh you gotta take him off of that.” And I was like, “Don’t even worry about it(laughs) and that’s how Whatever You Say came along and the rest is history.

“You have to wait until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday to hear some real sh*t? We should be able to hear sh*t like that every night cause that bullsh*t ain’t teaching nobody nothing.”

Scheme: One more Pete, when you made Soul Brother #1 that track it crazy, the way it comes in the drums just knock! How did that come about?

Pete Rock: At that time I was experimenting with all types of kicks and snares. I was wondering if anyone ever put a kick and a snare behind some loop drums. Everybody used to loop up the drums and rhyme straight off the drums which is still funky today because I still do that right now. I just had the idea back then of clashing the two together and it was amazing.

Scheme: If there was one thing you could keep and change about the hip hop music and culture what would they be?

Pete Rock: All the wack songs that came out from the years 1998-2007; all that wack sh*t that they put on the radio, erase that and put soul in it. Put Pete Rock beats, 9th Wonder beats, Premier beats and J Dilla beats and put those beats all over the radio(laughs). You can your average pop records and stuff like that but you have to mix it up and put real hip hop back on the radio. You have to wait until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday to hear some real sh*t? We should be able to hear sh*t like that every night cause that bullsh*t ain’t teaching nobody nothing.

9th Wonder: Nothing(laughs)!

Pete Rock: Yeah all it’s telling people is to get drunk, go out and have sex, it’s crazy!

9th Wonder: Man, I was on a panel one time and Nottz put it all in one basket and said, “Take all them wack n*ggas and shoot’em to the moon.” That’s what he said and I’d stick by that. All the wackness and get rid of it but what I would keep about it is the part about walking up into a record store, buying a record, taking it home, chopping it up and listening to a beat you made for like 30 minutes straight.

Scheme: 9th in a previous Scheme interview you stated if you’re over 32 the Superman is not for you. So to Pete who are you making it for because a lot would say that the music now is being made for the kids.

Pete Rock: I mean I don’t have nothing against making that kiddie hip hop stuff that’s cool for the kids that are like two, three, four, five or six years old. I started scratching at seven so I think all kids should learn real hip hop at the age of seven because that’s when I began to learn about it and that’s how you become someone great in music because that’s how it happened for me.

Scheme: If you guys didn’t have the ability to speak and the only way you could explain was through your music what would you hope that people take from the music?

9th Wonder: For me when people come to me on the street and tell me that they listen to Lovin It. If I wasn’t able to speak I would want people to speak of my music from a feel good standpoint and that I make life music that can be played when people are sad or happy.

Pete Rock: Same goes for me, just hoping people get the soulful rhythms that I put out there and to know how to be when they’re making music. Having that knock in your system and knowing how to make real hip hop music, listen and really study the stuff, how to be your own person and figure out something we didn’t do and do it. That’s how you progress and hopefully the kids learn that.