By Odeisel

Long before “A Milli” took pop music by storm, Iowa-bred producer Bangladesh was pounding out hits for Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Missy and Kelis.  Since then his stock has skyrocketed, garnering him placements with Beyonce and Lady Gaga. With rumors of not getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his work on “A Milli,” he returns to the label to produce, not only on Nicki Minaj’s album, but also for new Weezy Cory Gunz banger “6 Foot 7 Foot.” Why would he ever work with them again? Bangladesh explains why among other things when we sat down with him. Here are the results.

Planet Ill: Iowa is a long way from anything anyone would think about Hip-Hop. How did you get into it?

Bangladesh: Just like any other inner city kid, man there’s a hood everywhere. Hip-Hop’s a universal language. No matter where you from there’s hood everywhere. I come from the hoodest of hoods.

Planet Ill: You put in a lot of work before “A Milli.” What was the difference between working with artists back then in how they perceived you (then vs. now)?

Bangladesh: It’s just more of a branding thing now of connecting the face with the music. I think the internet has a lot to do with things now. Back then, that wasn’t the full focal point of Hip-Hop. I think it was going through the labels more back then so if you weren’t in the videos or if you wasn’t doing the typical things to be out there as a producer, didn’t nobody know you. With the access to the internet now, all the outlets that we can do ourselves independently, it’s different. It’s good to capitalize on it; brand your company and keep shit going.

Planet Ill: The music is a passion. How annoying is it to have to deal with that[branding]?

Bangladesh: It’s not annoying; I think it goes hand in hand. The music is a brand itself. As a producer, you have to find your sound. You have to create a sound that is your sound. I was fortunate enough to come up at a time when there was real innovative people making music, so I studied producers that knew how to make a sound of their own.

When you make something important like that it becomes  a brand already because other artists want that same stuff, so it’s a brand. You know you go into the store and you see somebody wearing something and then you go to the store and get it too. “Man I want that too!” So when I did “A Milli,” everybody wants the Bangladesh on the beginning of the beat. “Man whatever you do put that Bangladesh on it.” That’s branding.

It kinda happened on its own. When you’re a producer that has a sound, that’s branding already. Regardless of how many blogs you do or all that, it’s branding when you create a sound all your own. It’s not something you can go over here and get it. You have to go to this specific person to get this brand. It’s something that develops over time. Once you have that sound, you have a brand.

Planet Ill: There were issues with Ca$h Money before and there were rumors that you weren’t paid for “A Milli.” Why go back?

Bangladesh: First off, it wasn’t rumor, it was the truth. Basically, because there’s progression being made. There’s changes being made in their business operation. So once I got word of that, once I got word that all moneys will be paid back, owed back, and prior work and work that you do in the future, there will be no problems because their business affairs have been turned over to other people that’s going to be responsible enough to dispense the money like it’s supposed to be done.

It wasn’t even a Wayne problem. I fucks with Wayne; I like Wayne. I think he feels the same about me. It wasn’t even like I intentionally gave him this track or was seeking him out. He wasn’t on my radar to be honest. Just because of the relationship that we really didn’t have, and he was locked up.

Planet Ill: As a producer and as a man how do you deal with that? They may have new management but Mannie Fresh was raised with them. Turk was raised with them. BG and all those other guys ar on the outside looking in. How do you work with confidence knowing that peope who were family with them are on the outside looking in?

Bangladesh: Everybody’s situation is different. I think the difference is that they were really signed over there; they were on paper. That changed the game. I’m a freelancer , I’m more to myself I’m my own contractor. You hire me, I come in, I produce for you. I’m not under the umbrella; I’m not signed to you. When you’re in a situation like that, when you’re signed under somebody, they kind of have the upper hand on you already; that’s just how it is. Nine times out of ten, them be the ones that’s done the worst. The ones on paper.

Me being free, and me being an established artist I would have thought that this could never happen, because it’s never happened before. I’ve been in the game for a minute. But to look back at the history of Ca$h Money, it’s obvious to the eye, like if you do THEM dirty, you don’t really care about ME! That’s obvious. But to move on, my attorneys told me one thing, and this publisher told me the same thing. So I’mma listen to them. And I see results. I see changes being made just because I wasn’t scared to say what I said. That kinda changes games when you stand up.

Planet Ill: You can suffer in silence or you can get up on that bread.

Bangladesh: Yeah man. It’s just some real life reality man that you have to face. I’m a realist, I’m not just some industry dude. I’m in the game but as far as knowing the connections and the plays and [being] in the building? I’ve never been successful that way. I’ve always gone against the grain, go in the back door. Doing it how I do it. I figure it out myself. It ain’t like I’m in the building and I’m being put on by this big figure that has all this power. It’s all a learning process man; it’s like trial and error. That’s really the only time that I’ve been in a situation like that

Planet Ill: Your production style lends itself well to what Wayne does on the microphone. He’s a very unstructured artist as far as bar count. What’s the difference bin producing for someone like that versus a Ludacris or a Busta Rhymes who are more precise?

Bangladesh: I think it’s just the approach. I don’t even think…I think you’re thinking about “A Milli” when you say the bar structure is different…any other song’s gotta be structured

Planet Ill: You can hear, in the way he puts his rhymes together that he’s not writing that down. You can tell which songs he’s writing and which ones he’s not.

Bangladesh: Yeah, definitely. It’s just an approach. “A Milli” was definitely freestyle. That’s because his approach when he heard it, he treated it like a mixtape joint; like it’s a big street record. That’s what he’s saying to himself when he hears it. So he just went in a booth; whatever came out, came out.

Now after you do that, because you don’t think it’s going to be a big record, and it becomes one, now you’re like, “Damn!” Now you know how to do it, cause you just seen it, how big it was going to be. Once “A Milli” was the biggest rap song, you like, “Damn, I figured some shit out then. Now I can make this look like I did it on purpose.”

Planet Ill: You don’t think that poisoned “6 Foot 7 Foot” to a certain extent? “6 Foot 7 Foot” is a bit more conventional than “A Milli.” He barred it out. He rhymes his three verses and then Gunz comes on but you don’t think that knocked the chaos out of it?

Bangladesh: No. Because that’s how I wanted him to do “A Milli.” When I heard it, I didn’t like it. It might sound crazy, but when somebody’s creating, you anticipate something. Anticipations are set already so your mind is made up. “Yeah this is gone be a big record right here!” that’s what I’m thinking. It’ gonna be a big record, big hook, blasé blah. Formal structure. So when you’re not physically in the studio with each other, and you get the music back that you sent somebody, and it’s not what you expected it to be, it fucks you up.

It ain’t saying that it’s bad, it’s just off the rip, you’re fucked up. Like, “Man, I thought he was gone do it like this.” So I’m thinking he really depreciated the potential of the song. And that was his approach. When he was in interviews, I hear him say, “I didn’t think it was gonna be this, I didn’t think it was gonna be that. I was just rapping on it. It sounded like some street mixtape shit.” He said it. And that’s everything I heard, when I heard it. Without me hearing him say that.

So us being creators, we kinda know what each other’s thinking. I wanted him to approach “A Milli” like he did “6 Foot 7 Foot.” So when I heard “6 Foot 7 Foot” I was satisfied because he seen what “A Milli” did; now he could prefect it. Once you did something great, you want to out do it or do something as good. People put pressure on you to tell you that you can’t do it no more or you need that again or you need this.  So you gotta do it, like you should have did that, the first time. But I can’t really say that he should have done “A Milli” like that, because it may not have blown up like it did. But that’s the beauty of music.

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