(March 2011) | Interviewer Paul Edwards

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Previous "How To Rap" Interview Installments

Week One: The Lady Of Rage
Week Two: Bishop Lamont
Week Three: Shock G
Week Four: Yukmouth
Week 5: Omar Cruz

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Questions Asked By: Paul Edwards in March 2007

HHow To Rap: How did you learn to rap?

DJ Quik: I used to do little tapes in my house, back in ’85 I used to make cassettes with a little microphone and practice. Fisher cassette deck, funny little fake microphone, recording and playing back and seeing what I sound like. It started from there, I guess from ’85 to ’91 was my little practice period.


How To Rap: So it was a subconscious thing, you never sat down and thought, I’m really gonna practice or anything like that?

DJ Quik: No, I know I heard a 12 inch, one of the first rap 12 inches I ever heard, that I had in my house rather, not that I heard, I mean we all heard “Rapper’s Delight” and Kurtis Blow and all that stuff, but the one that struck me the most was, “It’s Like That And That’s The Way It Is” by Run DMC, with “Sucker MCs” on the flipside I think it was. And I know I got caught in the mix of flipping that record over and over again and enjoying both sides of it. I think that kind of was the impetus too, for me.


How To Rap: Is there a set process you go through when you’re writing lyrics?

DJ Quik: No, sometimes it’s a little random, matter of fact I always think it’s random. Because when you write, if you pay any conscious attention to it then you don’t really speak from the heart, you kinda let the pen go, so there’s no structure. Sometimes an instrumental track might spark me a certain way and might guide the way I’m putting rhythm to words, but for the most part there’s no set structure.


How To Rap: Do you write your lyrics down on paper?

DJ Quik: Yeah, I do, I’m a traditionalist.


How To Rap: Where do most of the ideas come from?

DJ Quik: Most of the ideas come from what I hear, if I hear something I like that’s new on the radio, I’m motivated by it, if I hear something that’s original and old I want to sample it and I’m motivated by it, so I guess I’m kinda lucky in that sense.


How To Rap: How do you come up with the flow and the rhythms for the lyrics?

DJ Quik: The track pretty much tells you what to do. Honestly, I’m a late bloomer to these guys, but I’ve been listening to a bunch of Beatles records lately and I can’t seem to get away from the latest thing, Love CD, and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is like my favourite, I got ‘em all but Sergeant Pepper, the way that album flows is crazy and I listen to the way they did rhythms. I think the advantage they had over us is that they spoke really, really proper English, like the proper way, the King’s English, and that kinda left us behind a little bit when it comes to rhythm and flow and even in etiquette in some cases. So I listen to them sometimes just to see how they would work their words, I like the way John Lennon did things, it was sick. If I’m gonna bite anybody, it’d be him.


How To Rap: Have you been thinking of sampling anything by the Beatles?

DJ Quik: By the Beatles?


How To Rap: Yeah, because I heard it’s very difficult to clear anything by the Beatles…

DJ Quik: Right, right, no—I know that, I don’t look at their music as fodder for sampling anyway, I look at it as kind of a template, it’s like a school of music in a sense. It’s a guideline that’ll help you ultimately make your own great music and make your mark, because they’ve already blazed a trail that’s so wide and vast that people would actually get lost in it, it’s a trench, they made a serious impact. It’s hard to negate that, plus again I wouldn’t sample it anyway because it probably wouldn’t make sense in the scheme of music that we’re doing now. But it’s beautiful none the less, and timeless.


How To Rap: Do you write to the beat you will be rapping over?

DJ Quik: No, not lately, sometimes I’ll just write when I feel at the moment and then I’ll try to find a track that it fits, and if I have to do a little alteration, I will.


How To Rap: Do you tend to write in the studio or at home?

DJ Quik: I write everywhere. I remember an interview I saw a long time ago with OutKast, and it was saying that Big Boi would drive around and write his lyrics, just like driving around the city getting inspiration from just what he sees. I used to do that too, like I’ll drive around in my Lexus just writing lyrics down, whatever I felt, whatever I heard. And in some cases, when you’re on the spot, when you don’t have a lot of time to experiment, I’ll write in the studio, not forcefully, but I’ll catch a vibe and write in the studio. And that’s actually my safe-haven, like those are the records that more aptly become hits because they were done structurally.


How To Rap: Which part of a track do you write first, the hook or the verses?

DJ Quik: I prefer verses first.


How To Rap: Do you find that they give you an idea for what the hook is gonna be?

DJ Quik: Yeah, and vice versa. Sometimes the chorus will set the tone for the verses, but I’m less into that, I do it the other way around. I’m dyslexic when it comes to music, sometimes I’ll do the end of the song first, then I’ll work on the hook, then I’ll work on the verses, then I’ll work on the intro, sometimes the intro is last. Like when I pick up a book, I read it from back to front, I don’t know why, I get the whole story that way.


How To Rap: Is collaborating with another rapper different from when you write lyrics on your own?

DJ Quik: Yeah, you gotta be a little more open when you collab, you have to be open for camaraderie, like you’re sharing this record and sometimes I can be Napoleanistic about it and want to do it my way, tyrant-like. You gotta give up your brain-child sometimes when you share lyrics with somebody, or music.


How To Rap: You’ve worked with some of the best rappers around, do you ever pick up tips from them?

DJ Quik: Believe it or not, no, because I didn’t have a lot of time to do introspection with them, because I was always running the board! So I didn’t have time to be like, “how do you...?” I didn’t have time to interview them, and that’s what’s wrong with me I think, I never have time to interview the people that I work with. It’s kinda always like- “let’s get this song done, ah, you think this is a better idea? No, oh you don’t like that? Ah man, alright that's cool, just that, put something right there when I said that, ok you got it, alright man, we gotta go catch a flight, take care, bye!”


How To Rap: Is producing a track and also rapping over it, harder, because you have to play two roles rather than concentrating on one?

DJ Quik: No, it’s two different hats. When I’m writing the music, I have certain pattern of thinking, when the music is sufficient, I’ll stop, take 5, and put on another hat for writing. I won’t even think about it, I’ll subconsciously just switch over to the other pole, and start writing to the track.


How To Rap: When you’re producing a track for another rapper, do you have any input in their rhymes and how they deliver them?

DJ Quik: Only if they ask me. Like once I remember Snoop asked for a lyric, he was writing, he was like, “nephew...” you know, in a Snoop way that no one can emulate, he was like, “I need an idea right here nephew, what you hear right here?” and I was like, damn! The fact that you would ask me, I’m honored, I’m a fan and you’re one of the best rappers of all time. But for the most part, I’ll really think about it, like if it was me rhyming, what would I say right here and make it flow to the next line. I’ll give him a line and if he likes it, he likes it, if he doesn’t, he doesn’t, but in most cases they like it, because it’s something I would say myself, it’s not corny, it’s definitely timely and it fits.


How To Rap: Do you ever go in the booth and just freestyle?

DJ Quik: Sometimes I do and the freestyle will dictate how the final product will be. At that point you’re just open, you’re open to creativity and keeping it in rhythm is just like thinking fast, thinking on your toes, sometimes the magic comes out of that. Some of those lyrics we’ll keep, some of them we’ll give more structure or whatever. I guess that’s more rare than habitual these days, I mean just going in and trying to freestyle.


How To Rap: Do you memorize your lyrics before you record them, or do you read from the paper?

DJ Quik: I read them from the paper, until I get them memorized, because if I’m reading from the paper, you can tell that I’m reading. We call them “scratch vocals,” like you do a guide vocal, where you’ll try to get it the way you want it to be, listen back to it, put the paper away and try to learn it from hearing your voice—repetition, hearing it over and over. Then you get relaxed and me personally I go in there without the paper, get comfortable in front of the mic, and I’ll act it out, like I’m having a conversation with a person, as opposed to like I’m reading a rap, reading a rhyme to them over a beat. There are some people who do that swell, so I don’t say that mockingly, maybe they either think faster or they read a little bit ahead. But for me, I like to put the paper down and be free and say it like I mean it, like I’m performing it live.


How To Rap: Do you record a verse all in one take, or do you punch-in different lines and put them together?

DJ Quik: I don’t like punch-ins in verses because you feel that and that’s not cool, I pretty much don’t like patching together, doing composites of a verse, that’s like... that’s so cheap, and it doesn’t sound natural, I like for it to sound fluid. But if I do something, like if its 8 bars, and it’s hot, and it’s only at the exception of the people in the room, because I can’t be the producer and the artist at the same time, if I’m in the mic booth, I can’t go in there and critique myself in the control room. So I have a group of people that I trust to tell me what I should do and what I should not, I’ve gotten into arguments a couple of times about what I wanted to do over and they were like, “no, that’s fine, you’re tripping, that’s great, just punch the end and get out of there,” and it’s like, “but that’s cheap” and they’ll be like, “no, it’s cool.” And if I do it, I’ll live with it for a while, and then when everybody’s gone, I’ll go in there with somebody else and do it the way I wanted to do it, which is finish it all the way through. And sometimes they don’t even notice… I guess I’m a perfectionist and I think that probably comes from being a little bit obsessive about the shit, and lately, the good thing is I haven’t been obsessive compulsive about making a hit record—if it’s not good, it’s just not good, I don’t try to pretty it up, we just scrap it and move onto something else now, which is better for us all.


How To Rap: What do you think about today’s MCs, compared to older MCs?

DJ Quik: I think they’re more put together. I think it’s more of a group effort, on account of the record company or whoever production company they’re signed to, I don’t think it’s too much different. I don’t think that the goal and the intentions are different, I just think that the faces are different, the sound is different, it’s definitely a more minimalist sound out there. And I think that some of them don’t really concentrate on what made us great artists in our time, and that was that we were performers as well.


How To Rap: What advice would you give to people who are learning how to rap?

DJ Quik: Follow your heart if you can, and if you can afford it, get the equipment that suits your level in the game, and that you can afford and have fun just entertaining yourself with your songs first. If they don’t entertain you, don’t be fooled, don’t lie to yourself, and don’t try to pass that shit off to anybody else—if it’s not good, it’s not good. The key is to entertain yourself first, at least with me.

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