About three quarters through HipHopDX’s lengthy interview with 88-Keys, the phone randomly cut off. “I talked your [phone] off,” Keys joked via instant messenger. The Long Island native is definitely long-winded, but as a veteran of the music industry since he was 14 years old, he’s got tons of stories to tell. Forming a friendship and business relationship with a local record collector/vendor after meeting them in a quest to buy Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine, he started going to record conventions and rubbing shoulders with Hip Hop legends. Even his stage name was a result of Large Professor calling him such in a casual freestyle after seeing the man at the keyboard.

Once Keys actually started producing records, he laced Black Star’s seminal “Thieves In The Night,” and would go on to lace heaters for both Mos and Talib, Musiq, Pharcyde and others. While his discography doesn’t remotely amount to his years of work, things should be different after this year. June will see the release of The Death of Adam: a narrative-based, primarily instrumental album that uses features from Kanye West, Shitake Monkey, and others to show the power of the vag. Read on to see Keys talk about his upcoming LP, expand on his friendships with the likes of Q-Tip and Kanye West, and give historical behind-the-scenes accounts of what would become legendary Hip Hop moments.

HipHopDX: Was Black Star's “Thieves In The Night” your first placement?
88-Keys: My very first placement was a remix for this group called Network Repz. The original song was called “Collabo,” my song was called “Dos Collabo (Hip Hop’s Delight).” I was pretty psyched about it, because with the remix, they added Bahamadia to it. And she was pretty big, at the time she had an album out. I believe KRS was supposed to get on it, but that didn’t happen. Me and my man Nat had a group, ACG Live, and we got on the hook doing background vocals or whatever.

The thing is, they actually bought the very first beat that I ever made on the equipment I use today, which is the [Akai MPC 3000]. By the time they received that beat till I got to the studio to lay it down, I had improved immensely. My beats still weren’t ill like that, but they were way better than the joint they picked from me. So I was kind of begging them, like, “Nah, I’ve got other joints, listen to this.” They’re like, “Nah, man,” they just went with what I had originally had, which was my super wack DJ Premier bite. So that was the first joint I got credited for that I got paid for. I got shorted by Nervous Records, or whoever was running it at the time, but I was just happy to get money for a beat. That was mind-boggling for me. Then maybe a year later or so, I did “Thieves In The Night.”

DX: How’d you link with Mos and Talib?
88-Keys: I linked up with Mos through my good friend, Shawn J Period. I used to go to a lot of sessions with The Artifacts, and at the time, Shawn J Period was working with them, and Duro, who’s now “Super-engineer Duro,” who’s recording mixing the album and Platinum Island Studios in New York City. So I would go there and hang out just to get the vibe and see professionals at work, and see what the goings-on was. So Mos would eventually start coming by. It’s funny, because I’d say “What up” to Mos, and he’d say “What’s up,” but he never used to acknowledge me other than the initial meeting. I saw him every now and then, and he would just be in the room, I’d be in the room…we’d stare each other down for like half a second and keep it moving or whatever. So I’m looking at this guy, like, “Oh man, this guy is trying to play me, and he’s a nobody just like me.” So eventually, at the “Stakes Is High” video shoot, Mos was there, and I was trying to get up in the video. Again, I have to repeat, I was a nobody, so ain’t get no love shown this way. I gave Mos a beat tape, back when the actual tape cassettes (were in), with my 30 second beat snippets. He called me a day or two later, and he’s like, “Your shit is dope, your shit is dope.” And the next time I saw him in the studio, it’s pounds all around the room. [Laughs]

DX: Did you record that track in the studio with them?
88-Keys: That’s a funny story. Kweli picked the beat from me, and he was saying he had an idea for the song, that him and Mos were recording an album together, and that he wanted a song for the album. I’m like, “Cool, let’s do it.” … I’m like, “I’ma hit up Mos, to see what’s good.” Come to find out, Mos didn’t like the beat at all, but he was doing it as a favor for Kweli. I was living with my parents at the time, I had my equipment in the basement in Long Island. These dudes took a cab all the way from Brooklyn—this was foreshadowing of baller status, I should have peeped it back then—but they took a cab all the way from Brooklyn, Kweli had a son who was like one year old at the time, almost in the middle of the night, on some seven o’clock shit. One of my sisters babysat Kweli’s son, and we went to the basement. Kweli already had his verse written, and I had a four-track recorder with a little BS microphone, so I recorded the joint, and after Kweli laid his verse, he explained to Mos what the song was about, and his inspiration for the song was a book called The Bluest Eye. Mos did a complete 180—I don’t even know if he liked the beat at that time still, but he liked Kweli’s rap and how the whole joint came together—so not only did Mos write his verse, but he wrote a 44-bar verse that he was pretty adamant about not shortening it. Me and Kweli are looking at him like, “He’s buggin'. That’s not a 16, Rawkus ain’t havin’ that.” Mos was like, “I don’t care. All this is staying.” Continued on page 2 »