By Odeisel
When you are curating a culture, which is what we do here, it is important that you give as much light as possible to its true architects. We don’t fawn over the past or glorify cats that aren’t good anymore, but we will always show love to real contributors to the Hip-Hop way of life. DJ Muggs is an OG whose relevance has not waned even as he surpasses two decades in the music business. A man of many hats, he’s been on tour as part of the legendary rap group Cypress Hill, as well as Rock megastars like Metallica and U2. Planet Ill is very proud to bring you part one of our in-depth interview with DJ Muggs. Definitive.
Planet Ill: You’re from Queens, New York. Decidedly East Coast. When you got with B Real and Sen Dog, how did that energy coalesce?
DJ Muggs: It was an interesting time, too you know because me bringing my East Coast influences and their West Coast style, and mixing it together in a pot, it was interesting and it made everybody like it. Prior to that, Ice Cube had did a record with the Bomb Squad which was great, you now the success of that. The L.A. Posse had gone out to NY to work with LL Cool J. I don’t know anybody else prior to that that was in it and the times were interesting because it was like when MTV was cracking.
Being out here and being out in L.A. in the hood, you really didn’t get a sense of what the other city was about unless you had seen Colors or you seen a Rap video but you didn’t get the information quick. I used to bring records back and forth and they would be like, “What’s this?” A Rakim record would take MONTHS to get over here.
Gangbanging? New York motherfuckers was like, “How can ya’ll gangbang? What’s that stupid shit in L.A.?” Khakis and Converse and New York was about some other shit; about being fly and money and shit. But more videos, channels opened up, more internet; information started spreading quickly. Now you know the slang, you know the words within a fucking hour. If you had information? And you had access to it? You had a little bit of a slight advantage over some people.
Planet Ill: You mentioned Ice Cube. Outside of your House of Pain production, you were on The Predator. The production style that you introduced, with that low bass, you opened a new door; you added something new to Hip-Hop production. How did that style develop?
DJ Muggs: Just sitting down and toying around with sound, man. Putting a few records and it just catches your ear. Why? I don’t know. Accidents happen and you just stumble across things. When I got into the game it was like you gotta emulate to learn. But then while you’re emulating and learning, you have to find yourself and bring something new to the game to keep the game alive.
There was a word back then called being a biter. It was taking somebody’s style and if you was a biter, you couldn’t get on stage; you was getting booed. You couldn’t pull records out, you was getting shit on. You had to dress original. You couldn’t use nobody else’s slang. You couldn’t use another sample somebody used for a beat; you was getting murdered. But now if somebody bites, and you say something to the guy who took shit, it’s like, “Ah you’re a hater. Let me get my money, it’s just a hustle.”
This ain’t a hustle man this is art. This is a fucking artform, this ain’t a hustle. A hustle is some shit managers do, something that goes on in the streets. Get your money? I can see what ya’ll are talking about, but if you’re wack? You suck homey and that ain’t hating because you really suck. Hating is when you’re dope and I’m shitting on you because I’m jealous.
Planet Ill: You’ve been DJing and you’ve been across the worlds and seen different things. You’ve been with rock groups, rap groups. When you’re on the road with these different elements, how does that compare? Like when you’re on the road with Cypress Hill versus House of Pain or U2…
DJ Muggs: What’s interesting about Cypress is one night, we’ll be out with like Massive Attack or Bjork, the next night we’ll be out with The Fugees or Nas and another night, another city in Europe, another festival we’d be on the stage with Metallica and fucking Slayer and shit. We pretty much can go places that most rap groups can’t. Groups like Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys, the chosen few, Wu-Tang, we harness that Rock & Roll energy. Our music is Hip-Hop but we bring that special energy.
People would be like I don’t like Rap, but I love Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan. And that’s the shit I’ve learned from Public Enemy and watching DMC and watching early LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys. The early DefJam crew all had that. It was Rick Rubin bringing that energy.
Planet Ill: How different is the role of a DJ from the role of a Producer?
DJ Muggs: When I’m producing a record, I’m in the studio making the track and actually writing the beat. Depending on who the artist is, When it’s Cypress Hill or something, then I’m helping with the hook, making sure the flow of the rhymes is right; making sure the cadence is good, all the way down to what the videos look like, to what the artwork looks like to what the stage show looks like because I want the stage to look like the artwork and I want the artwork and everything to look like the video so everything is cohesive.
Sometimes, I make a beat and I send it out and people rap on it, send it back and I mix it. Those are a couple different ways. A lot of people send out beats and they don’t even mix them they don’t even touch them no more. I’m like, that ain’t really producing, that’s beat making. In regular music they call that a songwriter. In regular music there will be songwriters and producers where the producer necessarily doesn’t write the song, but he’ll produce the record where the song writer writes it. In Hip-Hop they might call that ghostwriting but no that’s just songwriting and producing; that’s the way the standard music industry is set up.
When it comes to DJing, it’s more hands on controlling the crowd; creating the vibe and the tempo for the party or the atmosphere, wherever you’re at. Sometimes you make a record, that ain’t coming out for six months. A party is instant; it’s right there.
Planet Ill: How do you feel about these celebrity DJs? Has DJing as an artform been so diluted by technology that you can just stick somebody famous and just give them a laptop and let them rock the party?
DJ Muggs: Yeah, everybody’s becoming a DJ because it’s cool. Everybody wants to be cool; nobody wants to be a nerd, right? So it’s cool and it’s really easy because you have access to music. You can go on iTunes; you can pretty much go on iTunes top 200. You can find a DJ search his name, practice for two days and go play a party. And if you’re a celebrity, people want to pay for a celebrity because people will come through the door to see the celebrity. They don’t care who’s DJing as long as they get to hear that other top 40 songs they want to hear. That’s one aspect of it and that’s what technology has created; it made it easy.
But on the other side, technology is creating a whole new avant garde movement of DJs that are using technology to create things you’ve never heard and new vibes so it’s working both ways.
The cream will rise to the top; the wack shit’s going to fade. It’s not going away because it’s always been there. It’s been there since the disco days when we used to walk by those fucking R&B parties and be like, “I’m not putting on a fucking suit and tie to go to no underground spot.” As shit gets popping, there’s always a new underground. I just tell my boys look this is technology, don’t be an old bitter man use it to your advantage, show up to these parties and just be better than these motherfuckers and show them how things go. Without talking; just be better.
Anybody can do a top 40 party, I mean I can teach my mom to do a top 40 party. But go play a show with kids that love music and come out to see you? You can’t play top 40 music, you gotta play original beats? You playing avant garde forward-thinking, forward-moving music? A lot of it’s instrumental shit? Then you better have skills and you better have stage presence. And don’t be looking at your computer.
