One on One with Quincy “QD3” Jones III: Production, 2pac and Hip-Hop Politics
www.uannetwork.com
Interview by William Hernandez
Quincy “QD3” Jones III is a renaissance man. He immersed himself in b-boy culture back in the early 80’s. During the mid 80’s he moved to New York and worked with T La Rock who took him under his wing and the rest has been history. Having the innate talent to produce in his genes from his father, Quicy Jones Sr., he has produced for an array of noted artists since the early 90’s. The list includes LL Cool J, Naughty By Nature, 2pac and Too $hort. Since the late 90’s he started his own multimedia company called QD3 entertainment. That has released several high quality hip-hop oriented documentaries such as Thug Angel, the BEEF series, and The MC, just to name a few.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him recently. He told me how much he enjoys reading Urban America Newspaper. He also discussed his experiences with the documentaries and his plans for the future. After interviewing him, I can say that I finally came full circle after a two year quest to get him to commit to this. I’d like to thank Alisha at QD3 Entertainment and QD3 for taking time out to do this interview. I hope you readers enjoy reading it as much as I did.
UAN: How did the Thug Angel documentary come about?
QD3: It started with my relationship with Pac. His passing had a big impact on me and I wanted to do a legacy piece on him to kind of rectify that legacy and to show how well rounded he really was. I think a lot of things you see in the media are kind of trying to two-dimensionalize him. So we wanted to make him three dimensional and show his full range because he was a real read brother. He was prepared to be a leader, the best equipped artist we’ve had in recent times. We just wanted to show that by doing the piece on him.
UAN: How did that lead to the BEEF series?
QD3: Basically after he passed away we wanted to show people the impact that these situations had on the people who were really close to the artist, so kids wouldn’t look at it as a spectator sport. Each BEEF has a different topic we try to focus on. The first one was a general overview of all the BEEFs, why they happen and how the media plays in and all that stuff. The second one was about business disputes on how doing bad business can lead to BEEF. The third one is about the Southern struggle. It tends to show you why BEEF would tend to arise in the South … One of the reasons that we found is due to less opportunities in terms of the labels. It’s not like you have Warner, Atlantic, Elektra, Universal all right there like we do in LA or New York. It seems like there is more intense competition and also more independent game. We kind of cover those situations. We got Lil’ Flip vs. TI, Lil’ Scrappy vs. the Police, DJ Drama breaking down the whole mixtape scene and all that stuff.
UAN: Talk to me about your company QD3 Entertainment?
Q: QD3 Entertainment is a full service urban media company. We’re looking to be the Viacom of the urban space in terms of media. We’re working on feature films, feature documentaries, straight to DVD stuff. We also recently launched a channel with Comcast.
UAN: Why did you shift your focus from producing music to making urban documentaries?
QD3: Basically after doing the Pac one, it kinda bit me with the bug because it had more colors to play with. When you’re doing music all you have is 24 tracks that you mix down to 2 tracks. It’s all pretty much the same formula: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, ending. With the film you got sound design, you got sound effects; you got music, color corrections. You have all these different things like editing graphics that you can add to it to paint your picture. It’s like a bigger tool box and I kinda like that. Also, as a music producer, unless you rap, you’re just making beats over and over and over and you’re not really saying anything to the masses. I think if you work somebody like Pac, that’s cool. But there is only one Pac you know what I mean? I think with documentaries it offers the person behind the camera to tell a story without trying to speak and I like that.
UAN: I ask this to almost every producer when I interview them about some songs they’re known for. I want you to tell me the history behind them.
QD3: Okay.
UAN: Written On Your Kitten by Naughty By Nature (QD3 remix).
QD3: Basically they were looking for a remix for Written On Your Kitten. I think Latifah had recommended my name and Kay Gee. It was before I had done any real big records. I did Justin Warfield and some more underground stuff. I was real excited about the opportunity and I remember sending Written On Your Kitten back to them. When you listen to that beat it sounds like a straight loop or a sample or something like that. But every single component on that record is all original. It was designed to sound like that. I was feeling real good about. It was one of my first breaks basically.
UAN: You Know How We Do It by Ice Cube
QD3: That was crazy because he had left a message for me: “Yo! This is Ice Cube and I’m looking for beats.” I was like “What? Ice Cube wouldn’t really call me!” I thought it was a prank call so it took me a week to hit him back. When I finally hit him back he’s like “Come to my house and play me some stuff.” and I was like “cool.” I roll out to his pad when he was still staying with his mom on Crenshaw and 108th. He was like “Get in the car and we’ll talk some things and we’ll see what we can do together.” I played him like six beats: Ghetto Bird, Make It Ruff; Make It Smooth, You Know How We Do It, and a couple of other ones. He was like “This is exactly what I’m looking for. I want you to do most of my album.” I was like “Wow!” one of best moments of my life right there. To this day [Ice] Cube is one of the people I respect the most because he’s someone you can look to as a mentor and stuff. Because he handles his business and like he was right inside of you, acting and producing it. Working on his album and on his label acts all at the same time; it was just effortless. He handled the business personally. I’ll never forget the opportunity he gave me.
UAN: How about working with Too $hort?
QD3: That was another honor in a sense, because at the time Too $hort was mostly working with in house producers such as Ant Banks and all them guys. He had seen Menace II Society where this piece that they played Ghetto Bird came out in the beginning. He wanted that beat and I just sold it to Ice Cube. He said “Fly out here to Oakland and we’ll see what we can work out.” I got out there and I remember getting there. It was exactly how he had played the picture in his songs, album covers, etc. He painted the picture. Anyway it was an honor working with him because it was a closed circle; I think me and [Sir] Jinx at that time were the only ones working with him from the outside. I remember he had drank a bottle or two of Hennessey and he was killing the blunts. He kept hurrying me up saying “You got to catch me while I’m in the zone.” I was like “cool.” The beat got out and there was something wrong with my equipment. We had dropped it. He got on the mic and barely kept his eyes open and laid the verse non stop all the way down. I was like “Okay, that’s cool”. He rewound it back and told the engineer to mute the track and he laid the verse again. He told the engineer to un-mute the track and when he did that, basically, it was perfectly lined up. They sounded like perfect doubles. No matter how twisted he gets, he is a consummate professional. He directed his own vocals. He didn’t need any input.
UAN: How about working with 2pac?
Q: Pac was just dope. A lot of producers want to tweak certain things with the beat; they want the beat to be perfect for the artists to start rapping over it. But Pac, he was a volume player. He just wanted to work and keep the vibe moving. If something wasn’t incredible, just finish the song and move to the next. It was no time wasted. That’s why he has so many songs around. If I wasn’t laying down the beat, Johnny J wasn’t laying down the beat, [Dr.] Dre, DJ Pooh, DJ Quik. It was all six of us in the studio at the same time. You feel me? It was Suge, Snoop, 2pac, DJ Quik, DJ Pooh, Nate Dogg, The Dogg Pound. Everybody on Death Row was there all the time. It was a creative situation. With all of the negative things people have to say about Death Row, the creatively it was a dream because you had all the best players in the game all in one room at all times.
UAN: Speaking of 2pac. In an interview I did with Mopreme Shakur, I discussed with him how he felt about 2pac’s songs being altered and he thought it was wrong. What’s your take on it since you were also very close to 2pac?
QD3: I used to care, but I don’t really care anymore because each generation has a different way they would want to receive certain things. If that’s what they have to do to make this generation listen to him then that’s what they got to do; whether it’s right or wrong. I think eventually there is always an opportunity to re-release the originals. So there is really no love loss. As long as at some point they release the originals I think it’s all good. It’s about keeping Pac relevant. Some of the moves may not have been positive. But, hey man, I’m enjoying the time that I had with him and all the other stuff. I’m completely satisfied with everything.
UAN: Has any of the work that you did with him been altered?
QD3: You know what they (Interscope) let me do to it. So if it was altered, it was done by myself. They might be like “You want to try something new?” I was like “Cool, let’s do it.” The way I look at it, if Pac was alive he and I would have been working together regardless. If I change it, that’s what he would have done because he didn’t tell us what to do. Me and Johnny J were people that he trusted.
UAN: I remember reading that you made Evidence of Dilated Peoples and Joey Chavez catch that production bug when they were younger.
QD3: Evidence was my neighbor for 3 years when I was living in Venice. I remember he had hip-hop coming out of his window. He was like 10 or 11; a little kid. I remember Everlast came by one time. We were working on the House Of Pain album. Evidence came by asking if that was Everlast and asked if he could sit down on a session. I was like “cool.” He sat down on the session and three months later he came back asking me how much I would charge him to record a demo. I did it. It was Evidence, Joey, and Will. I. Am from the Black Eyed Peas. They were a group back then. They might have been called Three the Hard Way. The rest is history. I didn’t think Ev[idence] would stick to it that long. The other person Evidence introduced me to was Alchemist, who was a rapper back then. I signed Alchemist to my production company back in the days. That was the group that later turned into the Whooliganz on Tommy Boy. It was a cool experience.
UAN: Talk to me about the Letter To The President documentary you did.
QD3: It’s a movie designed to make our generation realize that there is a political connection to hip-hop. We just have to look. We have a part about hip hop investigation units, freedom of speech, a little bit of everything. It takes the blame off of us in some ways. We didn’t invent crack. We didn’t bring the guns in. It shows exactly who did. The upcoming projects we have is one called Black & Blue which is about the hip-hop investigation unit. We follow the guy Derek Parker who launched the unit himself and was later fired because he got too close to the rappers. We followed him for a year and he took us to all of the different places: where Shyne shot up the club and told the story. It take you into that world from a cop’s perspective on surveying the hip-hop community.
UAN: How do feel about your father doing the score for the new 50 Cent movie?
QD3: It’s cool. I thought it was interesting. Because we’ve had a lot of conversations about hip-hop and for him to jump onboard somebody else’s project and collaborate, that’s cool. 50’s an incredible artist in my opinion. It goes both way that they ended up working together.
UAN: Any last words?
QD3: Humm; Any last words? I would like to say I appreciate everybody picking up the product and supporting what we do. It’s a pleasure. Basically everything we do is a project of passion in a sense because this a culture that allowed me to blossom and find my personal destiny. So anything I can do to give back to this culture is a blessing. That’s it. People can go to our website at www.qd3entertainment.com and www.qd3.tv
www.uannetwork.com
Interview by William Hernandez
Quincy “QD3” Jones III is a renaissance man. He immersed himself in b-boy culture back in the early 80’s. During the mid 80’s he moved to New York and worked with T La Rock who took him under his wing and the rest has been history. Having the innate talent to produce in his genes from his father, Quicy Jones Sr., he has produced for an array of noted artists since the early 90’s. The list includes LL Cool J, Naughty By Nature, 2pac and Too $hort. Since the late 90’s he started his own multimedia company called QD3 entertainment. That has released several high quality hip-hop oriented documentaries such as Thug Angel, the BEEF series, and The MC, just to name a few.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him recently. He told me how much he enjoys reading Urban America Newspaper. He also discussed his experiences with the documentaries and his plans for the future. After interviewing him, I can say that I finally came full circle after a two year quest to get him to commit to this. I’d like to thank Alisha at QD3 Entertainment and QD3 for taking time out to do this interview. I hope you readers enjoy reading it as much as I did.
UAN: How did the Thug Angel documentary come about?
QD3: It started with my relationship with Pac. His passing had a big impact on me and I wanted to do a legacy piece on him to kind of rectify that legacy and to show how well rounded he really was. I think a lot of things you see in the media are kind of trying to two-dimensionalize him. So we wanted to make him three dimensional and show his full range because he was a real read brother. He was prepared to be a leader, the best equipped artist we’ve had in recent times. We just wanted to show that by doing the piece on him.
UAN: How did that lead to the BEEF series?
QD3: Basically after he passed away we wanted to show people the impact that these situations had on the people who were really close to the artist, so kids wouldn’t look at it as a spectator sport. Each BEEF has a different topic we try to focus on. The first one was a general overview of all the BEEFs, why they happen and how the media plays in and all that stuff. The second one was about business disputes on how doing bad business can lead to BEEF. The third one is about the Southern struggle. It tends to show you why BEEF would tend to arise in the South … One of the reasons that we found is due to less opportunities in terms of the labels. It’s not like you have Warner, Atlantic, Elektra, Universal all right there like we do in LA or New York. It seems like there is more intense competition and also more independent game. We kind of cover those situations. We got Lil’ Flip vs. TI, Lil’ Scrappy vs. the Police, DJ Drama breaking down the whole mixtape scene and all that stuff.
UAN: Talk to me about your company QD3 Entertainment?
Q: QD3 Entertainment is a full service urban media company. We’re looking to be the Viacom of the urban space in terms of media. We’re working on feature films, feature documentaries, straight to DVD stuff. We also recently launched a channel with Comcast.
UAN: Why did you shift your focus from producing music to making urban documentaries?
QD3: Basically after doing the Pac one, it kinda bit me with the bug because it had more colors to play with. When you’re doing music all you have is 24 tracks that you mix down to 2 tracks. It’s all pretty much the same formula: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, ending. With the film you got sound design, you got sound effects; you got music, color corrections. You have all these different things like editing graphics that you can add to it to paint your picture. It’s like a bigger tool box and I kinda like that. Also, as a music producer, unless you rap, you’re just making beats over and over and over and you’re not really saying anything to the masses. I think if you work somebody like Pac, that’s cool. But there is only one Pac you know what I mean? I think with documentaries it offers the person behind the camera to tell a story without trying to speak and I like that.
UAN: I ask this to almost every producer when I interview them about some songs they’re known for. I want you to tell me the history behind them.
QD3: Okay.
UAN: Written On Your Kitten by Naughty By Nature (QD3 remix).
QD3: Basically they were looking for a remix for Written On Your Kitten. I think Latifah had recommended my name and Kay Gee. It was before I had done any real big records. I did Justin Warfield and some more underground stuff. I was real excited about the opportunity and I remember sending Written On Your Kitten back to them. When you listen to that beat it sounds like a straight loop or a sample or something like that. But every single component on that record is all original. It was designed to sound like that. I was feeling real good about. It was one of my first breaks basically.
UAN: You Know How We Do It by Ice Cube
QD3: That was crazy because he had left a message for me: “Yo! This is Ice Cube and I’m looking for beats.” I was like “What? Ice Cube wouldn’t really call me!” I thought it was a prank call so it took me a week to hit him back. When I finally hit him back he’s like “Come to my house and play me some stuff.” and I was like “cool.” I roll out to his pad when he was still staying with his mom on Crenshaw and 108th. He was like “Get in the car and we’ll talk some things and we’ll see what we can do together.” I played him like six beats: Ghetto Bird, Make It Ruff; Make It Smooth, You Know How We Do It, and a couple of other ones. He was like “This is exactly what I’m looking for. I want you to do most of my album.” I was like “Wow!” one of best moments of my life right there. To this day [Ice] Cube is one of the people I respect the most because he’s someone you can look to as a mentor and stuff. Because he handles his business and like he was right inside of you, acting and producing it. Working on his album and on his label acts all at the same time; it was just effortless. He handled the business personally. I’ll never forget the opportunity he gave me.
UAN: How about working with Too $hort?
QD3: That was another honor in a sense, because at the time Too $hort was mostly working with in house producers such as Ant Banks and all them guys. He had seen Menace II Society where this piece that they played Ghetto Bird came out in the beginning. He wanted that beat and I just sold it to Ice Cube. He said “Fly out here to Oakland and we’ll see what we can work out.” I got out there and I remember getting there. It was exactly how he had played the picture in his songs, album covers, etc. He painted the picture. Anyway it was an honor working with him because it was a closed circle; I think me and [Sir] Jinx at that time were the only ones working with him from the outside. I remember he had drank a bottle or two of Hennessey and he was killing the blunts. He kept hurrying me up saying “You got to catch me while I’m in the zone.” I was like “cool.” The beat got out and there was something wrong with my equipment. We had dropped it. He got on the mic and barely kept his eyes open and laid the verse non stop all the way down. I was like “Okay, that’s cool”. He rewound it back and told the engineer to mute the track and he laid the verse again. He told the engineer to un-mute the track and when he did that, basically, it was perfectly lined up. They sounded like perfect doubles. No matter how twisted he gets, he is a consummate professional. He directed his own vocals. He didn’t need any input.
UAN: How about working with 2pac?
Q: Pac was just dope. A lot of producers want to tweak certain things with the beat; they want the beat to be perfect for the artists to start rapping over it. But Pac, he was a volume player. He just wanted to work and keep the vibe moving. If something wasn’t incredible, just finish the song and move to the next. It was no time wasted. That’s why he has so many songs around. If I wasn’t laying down the beat, Johnny J wasn’t laying down the beat, [Dr.] Dre, DJ Pooh, DJ Quik. It was all six of us in the studio at the same time. You feel me? It was Suge, Snoop, 2pac, DJ Quik, DJ Pooh, Nate Dogg, The Dogg Pound. Everybody on Death Row was there all the time. It was a creative situation. With all of the negative things people have to say about Death Row, the creatively it was a dream because you had all the best players in the game all in one room at all times.
UAN: Speaking of 2pac. In an interview I did with Mopreme Shakur, I discussed with him how he felt about 2pac’s songs being altered and he thought it was wrong. What’s your take on it since you were also very close to 2pac?
QD3: I used to care, but I don’t really care anymore because each generation has a different way they would want to receive certain things. If that’s what they have to do to make this generation listen to him then that’s what they got to do; whether it’s right or wrong. I think eventually there is always an opportunity to re-release the originals. So there is really no love loss. As long as at some point they release the originals I think it’s all good. It’s about keeping Pac relevant. Some of the moves may not have been positive. But, hey man, I’m enjoying the time that I had with him and all the other stuff. I’m completely satisfied with everything.
UAN: Has any of the work that you did with him been altered?
QD3: You know what they (Interscope) let me do to it. So if it was altered, it was done by myself. They might be like “You want to try something new?” I was like “Cool, let’s do it.” The way I look at it, if Pac was alive he and I would have been working together regardless. If I change it, that’s what he would have done because he didn’t tell us what to do. Me and Johnny J were people that he trusted.
UAN: I remember reading that you made Evidence of Dilated Peoples and Joey Chavez catch that production bug when they were younger.
QD3: Evidence was my neighbor for 3 years when I was living in Venice. I remember he had hip-hop coming out of his window. He was like 10 or 11; a little kid. I remember Everlast came by one time. We were working on the House Of Pain album. Evidence came by asking if that was Everlast and asked if he could sit down on a session. I was like “cool.” He sat down on the session and three months later he came back asking me how much I would charge him to record a demo. I did it. It was Evidence, Joey, and Will. I. Am from the Black Eyed Peas. They were a group back then. They might have been called Three the Hard Way. The rest is history. I didn’t think Ev[idence] would stick to it that long. The other person Evidence introduced me to was Alchemist, who was a rapper back then. I signed Alchemist to my production company back in the days. That was the group that later turned into the Whooliganz on Tommy Boy. It was a cool experience.
UAN: Talk to me about the Letter To The President documentary you did.
QD3: It’s a movie designed to make our generation realize that there is a political connection to hip-hop. We just have to look. We have a part about hip hop investigation units, freedom of speech, a little bit of everything. It takes the blame off of us in some ways. We didn’t invent crack. We didn’t bring the guns in. It shows exactly who did. The upcoming projects we have is one called Black & Blue which is about the hip-hop investigation unit. We follow the guy Derek Parker who launched the unit himself and was later fired because he got too close to the rappers. We followed him for a year and he took us to all of the different places: where Shyne shot up the club and told the story. It take you into that world from a cop’s perspective on surveying the hip-hop community.
UAN: How do feel about your father doing the score for the new 50 Cent movie?
QD3: It’s cool. I thought it was interesting. Because we’ve had a lot of conversations about hip-hop and for him to jump onboard somebody else’s project and collaborate, that’s cool. 50’s an incredible artist in my opinion. It goes both way that they ended up working together.
UAN: Any last words?
QD3: Humm; Any last words? I would like to say I appreciate everybody picking up the product and supporting what we do. It’s a pleasure. Basically everything we do is a project of passion in a sense because this a culture that allowed me to blossom and find my personal destiny. So anything I can do to give back to this culture is a blessing. That’s it. People can go to our website at www.qd3entertainment.com and www.qd3.tv
