|
By: Sirion “Industry
Insider” Sewell
Q: Now, a lot of people
respect y’all car game, do a lot of people respect your car
game out here?
MF: Oh, yeah. This is a
car city, these dudes are wild with it. It’s the way we were
brought up. If u wanna see some fly sh*t, you just come to
the club out here. If you go to the projects, you’re gonna
see some sh*t sittin' on some dubs, 22’s, all that.
Q: What was Mannie Fresh
like in High School?
MF: I’m the same way I’ve
always been. How you get me right now, that’s probably me in
High School. I’ve been doing music since Jr. High School so I
lived and breathed music. This is me. It was just on another
level. The way I look at it now, is that I’m just getting
paid for it, because I love what I do.
Q: What can we expect to
hear from new Cash Money artist, Tina Marie?
MF: Tina Marie is like a
legend and somebody like that is a legend in her own right.
When I do songs for Tina Marie, I do them as a fan. It won’t
be nothing close to a Cash Money sound, you can’t touch her.
You gotta leave Tina the way she was, the way everybody knows
her. So, don’t even look for Tina Marie to be on some o’l
“Bling Bling” type stuff. Like I said, she’s a legend in her
own right. It’s kind of like a challenge to me because when
you think of Cash Money and Tina Marie, it really doesn’t fit,
so it’s like, we gotta make that fit.
Q: Looking at the
Billboard Charts, seeing all of these down south artists on
the list, why would someone want to pick up the “Birdman”
album?
MF: The south is love.
The south is family. You have consumers that look at it like,
“oh, it’s just too much stuff out there.” I think down south,
they don’t look at it like that. They support it. Not to
knock anybody, you can have a good start and fall off. You
can step out on Billboard at number one and go down hill. I
don’t look at anybody as competition, I really don’t care
who’s out right now, I’m just doin’ my thing.
Q: How did you feel about
Baby working with different producers on his album?
MF: It was mostly my
idea. I was like, “man, people is hollerin’ at you, go get
it.” Besides that, it’s time for Cash Money to do different
things anyway. In order for us to be a business we gotta
change and people gotta change. You can look for that from
here on out. We’re probably gonna have different producers
and feature artists. We ate, just within our “family” for 4
or 5 years, so its time to do different things.
Q: What type of equipment
do you use to create your beats?
MF: I use a lot of old
stuff, man. Sh*t older than you: Moods, SP1200, I’m not
really up on too much new stuff. I also use Junos and
a lot of old keyboards, I always did. If it’s not broken,
then I don’t fix it.
Q: How much do u usually
charge someone to produce a track?
MF: It depends on, what’s
my relationship with you. If I like you and I’m feelin' you,
it might not cost you nothing ‘cause I’ll get it on the
backend. If your work ethic is there, it might not cost you
nothin’. There are a lot of kids that are trying to get
somewhere and that are hungry like, “I’m trying to do it” and
maybe they got screwed in their deal. I’ll help you out. But
if it’s strictly business it could be anywhere from
$50-100,000 and if I can get away with getting $100,000 from
you, I’ma get it.
Q: What advice would you
give someone looking to do what you do?
MF: My advice is: You
gotta think, if you’re in this industry, how many people
approach you everyday and ask you to take their demo or to
listen to their beats. To me, that’s not a good idea. So if
everybody is closing the door on you, my thing is to just do
it. You ain’t gotta wait for nobody and the way things are
right now with technology, its really nothing to cut a
record. Everything is digital these days, so just do it.
Stop waiting around for somebody, put it out independently, if
need be. You’re responsible for yourself, so if it don’t go
good, you can’t blame anybody but yourself.
Q: What do you do in your
free time?
MF: Steal cars. Naw, I’m
just playing. In my spare time, I’m probably messin’ with
cars. I love cars.
Q: Who are your favorite
artists to work with?
MF: I don’t know man. I
don’t really work with nobody. Probably just myself and Jazze
Pha.
Q: How did you hook up
with Cash Money?
MF: We’ve been knowing
each other for forever. Everybody in this city knows
everybody. Basically, I was in a bad deal and I was working
for a record company at the time and I got tired of being
beaten and just said, “I quit”. So we got together and said,
“lets start a record company, lets be serious about it, leave
the streets” and the rest is history.
Q: What made you want to
start rapping?
MF: The world. Our fans.
I wasn’t really bent on rapping. We started out doing intros
on everybody’s album. They said, “yall got something” and
everybody liked it, so I just took it and ran. I wouldn’t say
it’s rapping, I kind of just speak my mind. It just so
happens to rhyme, that’s all. I’m not a rapper though, all
that takes skills. I’m just doing me.
Q: What projects are you
currently working on?
MF: Birdman Vol. 2, TQ’s
album, Tina Marie, Boo&Gotti, and Mikkey, I got a lot of
stuff.
Q: How long does it take
you to produce a track?
MF: Anywhere from 15
minutes to an hour.
Q: What artists would you
like to work with that you haven’t had the opportunity to work
with yet?
MF: Give me Grandmaster
Flash, somebody like that. Gimme the old school cats and I’m
cool, like Run DMC or somebody like that.
Q: What elements do you
need to have a successful label?
MF: Definitely teamwork.
If you don’t have a team, it’ll never work. A lot of labels
get caught into, one person makes the label; it’ll never
happen like that around here. It’s kind of like, what you put
your label as, when you speak of Cash Money, you don’t speak
of Lil’ Wayne of the Big Tymers, those are the groups, but
overall, it’s Cash Money. That’s what you get, then you get
the groups. It’s teamwork. Dedication, patience and prayer,
that’s it.
Q: There’s a group in New
York that is trying to help artists get better contracts. Can
you have a successful label and still be fair to your artists?
MF: Yeah, but you gotta
have a good relationship. Just from us growing into a label
and coming into this, you live, learn and you improve. I
think anybody that gets signed on as a new artist, should have
to go to a class. Before you even get signed, you should have
to attend a class, so you’ll know what to expect, know what
you get and know all the breakdowns. At the end, you should
know exactly what’s going on. When we first came in the game,
we were so hooked up on friendships, that nobody was worrying
about what I was making, opposed to the CEO, and that causes
problems. In corporate America, you could never even get to
hangout with the boss, that’s just not gonna happen. Opposed
to hip-hop, your CEO might be your friend as well but at the
same time, it’s his company and he’s gonna make more money
than you. So, somebody needs to tell them what’s going on
right then and there because then the jealousy factor and all
that come into play. So, I think that when a new artist signs
on, there should be a class first, before you even do
anything, letting you know, this is the deal, this is what
goes on, we hangout and all that but this is your percentage
and all that.
Q: When you create a
track, do you ever do any pre-production? How do you figure
out where the drums and the horns come in?
MF: I basically just make
up tracks on the spot. That’s the way I work. I never do
pre-production or anything like that, I just make‘em right
there on the spot. My thing is that, I listen to a lot of old
music and one day I might be feeling Marvin Gaye, so the song
may come out sounding like Marvin or Michael Jackson or
something. It just depends on my vibe that day but I get a
lot of ideas from just listening to songs.
Q: Where do you think your
love of music comes from?
MF: I think it came from
my dad being a DJ, me always seeing him so into music and
always being surrounded by it. Seeing him made me want to do
it.
http://www.CashMoney-Records.com
http://www.Umusic.com
*Some questions
contributed by Mike James (Plush Magazine) & Felecia Johnson-LeBanc
(Murder Dog). Thanks guys!
|
