DX: Yeah, that was my next question. Your clientele seems to be incredibly diverse, from 50 Cent and Freeway to One.Be.Lo and Evidence. You don’t ever find yourself making beats for specific people?
JO: I don’t really think about that stuff after I create something. The reason why I still do underground stuff to this day is because that’s where I come from, and that’s where my heart is at. That’s the shit I grew up listening to and loving. As long as I feel I can make something that…I let it land where it lands. Certain people will fuck with the beats I do for 50, but what’s funny is that I give those same beats to other people. [laughs] I think people think I’m giving them a certain CD or whatever, but it don’t really work that way. I just seen Brother Ali, and I actually gave him the beat that was on 50’s album, with Mary J. Blige. He’s like, “I wrote something to it, and then I heard the 50 album.” I’m like, “Oh shit.” Sometimes it just works that way. I just think it’s natural. I’m pretty much going to do anything I like. If I’m feeling whatever the person’s bringing to the table, I don’t really care. Once I create the music, it’s sort of out of my hands—it’s about what they bring to it next, because I’m only doing half of the work. 50 will approach something different than a One.Be.Lo [click to read] will, or an Evidence will, or Young Buck will.

DX: How is the G-Unit production team formatted? I read this entire thing about how it’s all put together…
JO: From what I can tell, there is no system. [Laughs] You send your music to whoever the A&R is, 50 gets the stuff, he doesn’t know who does what, and he raps to whatever he feels. That’s why you’ll see people pop up that nobody’s ever heard of, or might surprise you, because he’s just going off of what he likes. He’s not just going off of just because Timbaland did it, or somebody else. Whereas a lot of people in the industry work that way, they only want to work with specific guys that have hits, and they follow the formula for that shit. That obviously makes sense, but I think he’s doing something different by getting new people opportunity and just going off of the music, because at the end of the day, that’s all that should really matter to you, what the sound is. But I don’t even know what the “G-Unit production team” is, honestly. Sha is my manager, so obviously I’m affiliated with it, but I don’t have a deal with G-Unit. I can produce for whoever I want. I guess I’m looked at as a G-Unit producer, but I don’t get a paycheck from them every month.

DX: While researching your discography, I realized that I’ve been bumping your shit for years, but had no idea of who you were. I had Encore’s album Layover, which you produced most of. Then on De La Soul’s The Grind Date, you did my two favorite joints, the Common joint and the MF DOOM joint. Now I see that you did “Betta Ask Somebody,” and that’s crazy, because I think a lot of people are in that same situation of knowing a lot of your beats, but not knowing you did them. Are you comfortable being the cat in the background, or do you want more name brand recognition?
JO: The whole reason I’m interested in having more name brand recognition at this point is because I have an album that I’m getting ready to put out. So just for the purpose of trying to sell that, that’s why I’m doing this interview. I’ve got to put myself out there more. My approach with all this shit has been, if you make the right music and you make dope shit, people are going to find out about it. I can tell people about stuff that I’m working on or what I want to do, but in the end, people are going to go to my discography, and everything’s going to speak for itself. I think it’s dope that people have no idea I did a lot of these songs. People have no idea I did the John Cena record, I don’t necessarily publicize it. Sha didn’t even know I did that, until about a year after he was managing me. I think some people like to talk about it, but I would rather let the music speak for itself. If you’re consistent and you make hot shit, your name is going to keep popping up, and they’re going to have to respect that.

DX: What’s the word on the album?
JO: I’m on my way to the studio to finish mixing it right now. It’s looking to come out in the fall time, on Rhymesayers Entertainment. It’s basically a collage of all the shit I’ve been doing. I just get to make the decisions on what rolls and what doesn’t, and that’s been a lot of fun. I’ve got everybody from DOOM, to Freeway, to M.O.P., Elzhi, Royce, pretty much everybody I wanted to get. It’s some real super Hip Hop shit, I made it a point to do that. … It came together pretty well, actually. I’m happy with it, so hopefully, people are going to dig it. … Everybody I worked with was somebody I knew personally, so I didn’t have to go pay people a bunch of money or none of that shit. It just came together naturally, and that’s what it is. Hopefully, people will hear that. Rhymesayers is doing it; I feel like they’re the premier indie label right now. I’ve done a lot of business with them, I like the way they run their ship, so it seemed like a good fit for me. Continued on page 3 »