MEECH WELLS & YOUNG JOKER (February 2007) | Interview By: Nima

       Dubcnn is an acclaimed breaking ground for new talent and last year saw the introduction of Meech Wells protégé Young Joker. The Compton lyricist quickly gathered online & street presence with tracks from his recently released, long awaited mixtape "The Takeover." In this exclusive interview we talk to both Young Joker and Meech Wells about the mixtape, the recording process as well as finding out the reasons for its delay late last year and the decision to release it for free download on dubcnn. We also find out about Young Joker's entrance into the game and previous work as well as getting Meech's insight into producing, new talent, Snoop Dogg and the internet.

As always we have both the transcript and the audio for you to check and please feel free to send any feedback regarding the interview to: nima@dubcnn.com

 

Interview was done by phone in January 2007

Questions Asked By : Nima

Meech Wells Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here

Young Joker Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here

Full Interview In Audio : Here

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Dubcnn: We’ve hooked back up with Meech Wells and his new artist Young Joker to discuss the latest mixtape; “The Takeover.” Wassup Ya’ll?

Meech Wells: Wassup my nigga, what’s crackin?


Dubcnn: Trying to see what’s going on with ya’ll?

Meech Wells: We up the lab working on the second mixtape “Mayhem” working on tracks and putting it down as usual!


Dubcnn: First of all how did you hook up with each other?

Joker?


Dubcnn: Yea

Meech Wells: I hooked up with him just through the streets just basically keeping my ear to the streets, ran into him, he spit to me, came by the studio and it was fire and took it from there and started working


Dubcnn: Why did you decide to take Joker under your wing?

I feel he has special skills, I mean I liked his voice and i'm into rap that, with the voices – getting back to the voices. He’s got the voice and the persona and he’s hungry…he had my door and he was knocking on it; that nigga would sleep outside if he could – dudes real hungry that’s what I like about him


Dubcnn: Cool, the next couple of questions are for Joker

Meech Wells: Hey Joker, they wanna talk to you…

Young Joker: Hello?


Dubcnn: Whatup man?

Young Joker: What’s good, what’s good what it do what it do?


Dubcnn: How you doing man?

Young Joker: Pretty good, pretty good


Dubcnn: Your right here on dubcnn live right now

Young Joker: Ok ok ok, how ya’ll doing right now on dubcnn? Everybody that’s supporting me, thank you, cause without ya’ll I wouldn’t be me, thank ya’ll - I work for the streets till you fire me! One love to all of ya’ll no matter where your at eastside, westside northside, southside, black, white, no matter what colour, whatever it is – thank ya’ll


Dubcnn: Tell us where your from and how you came up?

Young Joker: I’m from the Westside of Compton, born and raised, then I started rapping when I was 15 , was in a group with Spitfiya, we did a little something and from then on I started to fall in love with it and then ran into Meech and from there it just started to take off and lift of the ground and now we got the shit together we lifting up.


Dubcnn: Is there any released material from you from before you hooked up with Meech?

Young Joker: Yea, I had a few things; I was working with Laneway over there with Black Tone, with Quik and them, I worked with them for the Mausberg Connected II album, few things with some young cats, different people I have worked with have got me ready for the level i’m at now.


Dubcnn: Lets get to the mixtape, “The Takeover” tell us about the recording process of the project

Well the recording process was pretty swift, it was already in the making, what was the weirdest part about that was, a song that we have on there, a song that was the first song I did with Meech in the studio and the first bar of it is “Young Joke, the takeover, ya’ll fucking with Meech, making it big with Young Joke riding the beat” – and from there it was like, for some reason we was like, lets do “The Takeover” and we went back and from there to there the process has been pretty smooth, we going through hell just to get it out, but material wise, audio wise we swept through – we done with the mayhem and we still moving!


Dubcnn: So its all original production by Meech?

Young Joker: Yup, all platinum!


Dubcnn: So what are you talking about on the Mixtape?

Young Joker: Um, basically “The Takoever” is to open the game up for me, a lot of it if you listen to it is like – going 95 – that’s like me, that’s my life I mean “The Takeover” the song itself - the anthem for the mixtape – if you listen to that its just “The Takeover,” I been pushing, I been pushing and no one wants to open doors so you gotta kick them down so its “The Takeover” so when “The Mayhem” falls right behind it that’s the little bomb that you roll in the door you knocked down that sends everything haywire and then the album drops “Heaven Sent” which moves everything back out.


Dubcnn: Ok, you were also on the last E-White mixtape with Meech Wells, are we gonna see you working with E-White in future?

Young Joker: Um, no. I’ll probably never work with E-White again but we did do a lot of work together – pretty cool cat, pretty cool, guy but different things done happened so I’m pushing forward with my career and working with Meech


Dubcnn: Ok, so tell us about the Dubcnn Anthem you recorded with Bad Azz & Sly Boogy?

Young Joker: Oh yea man, we went through like three processes with that, cause we had like one guy supposed to be on it, another guy supposed to be on it, another guy supposed to be on it so we had to change the hook a couple of times and go back and forth with it but it was the business – I’m well connected ask dubcnn! It’s pretty dope though, I love working with Bad Azz, I love working with Sly Boogy, all the families you hear on there – that’s family right there! Only one of them I don’t deal with that’s E-White but everybody else is family right there. [Download the Dubcnn Anthem]


Dubcnn: Are there any collaborations we can expect in the near future?

Young Joker: Yea, I’m working on something with Jayo Felony right now, of course a track with Bishop [Lamont] and a track with Juice [BWS], we also being looked at right bow by Def Jam and Warner Brothers so look for the album coming soon too – [inaudible conversation with Meech Wells] – oh yea and with Tyrese – there’s a few things that’s popped up so we just bringing the stocks up even more. It’s like, get ready for the album, this “Mayhem” is coming, its crazy, its out of this world – I’m gonna go ahead and do some songs over the phone when we’ve finished doing this “Takeover” promotion - but this “Mayhem” with DJ Skee is crazy, I guarantee, the west is like, its gonna change the whole west, its something new, its different!


Dubcnn: Ok man, can we holla back at Meech?

Meech Wells: Dub!


Dubcnn: We were talking about “The Takeover” mixtape, you hooked up with DJ Warrior to release it but ended up releasing it for free on dubcnn; why that?

Meech Wells: Well, the fans have been waiting too long and we were getting too much, sometimes negative feedback on it not coming out, making us look bad so we was like, it’s a mixtape not an album and there seemed to be too many politics with it, so I just wanted to release it, get everything straight and let everyone see this is a real artist, that we ain’t playing, not some fly by night shit, somebody just trying to do something, we really put that together and so wanted to get it out there to peoples – I started to make some friends on the forum and I’m cool with Dubcnn and i'm trying to just give back and show that people can do music and be dope - you can do music and give it up I mean, we just starting off we can give some stuff to the fans and sure enough, they love that, I gave that too them and i'm getting nothing but appreciation – except a few haters but not on my threads but you always gonna have that – its all good!

By me just talking to the fans and seeing what they want and talking to the people on the forum and you just start growing a love for them just like, everybody looking and hungry for some new shit and yea, dubcnn’s a nice place to go.


Dubcnn: You’ve been releasing exclusive unreleased material on dubcnn from you and Snoop Dogg, can we expect new Snoop tracks on Meech tracks soon?

Meech Wells: Yea, yea, that’s my nigga right there…we just have no way to reach out to each other so hopefully he listening to this and that its all love and he knows how we do it and we back on, I got alot of stuff in the cut ready to go – when we said “The Takeover” we ain’t trying to take the whole game over but trying to bring something new to the game while still working with people that’s dope like Snoop, The Game and people making noise down here and to take notice of what we doing but yea I’m definitely lining myself up for Dogg when the time comes.


Dubcnn: So who else can we see you producing for in the future?

Meech Wells: Well there are like four other acts at Warner Brothers, they want me to do some stuff with Jay Rock, and couple of other dudes over there, Talib Kweli, I dunno if that’s gonna happen, but they expressed an interest. I’, working with Juice on a couple of things and Game is gonna pick up on that and get on something so I’m probably gonna be working with Game next time and hopefully all the things will work back out with Dogg and the situations over there and i’m also building up another couple of other acts from the ground and just…not waiting on nobody at the same time.


Dubcnn: Tell us about the song you did with Bishop Lamont and Young Joker?

Meech Wells: Well they wrote to the track, we ain't made it yet but…Bishop has been in the studio with Dre working on Detox so we waiting on him to finish that and then um, this week sometime we supposed to get at him, imma call him tomorrow and see what’s the biz, the track is hot though, its got some fire and I’m sure they gonna come up with something nice!


Dubcnn: So what’s the next step after this Takeover mixtape?

Meech Wells: We gonna drop “The Mayhem” and like he said “Heaven Sent” the album, we getting some people already interested we just never had the physical copies to let people hear them – when I was at Warner Brothers, they loaded up his MySpace page and showed interest and was feeling what we was doing, we was just working with the tools we had at the time.

Couple of acts they had over there at the time got signed, had they tape in hand, giving it out – we just didn’t have our tape and with all the stuff going on with DJ Drama and a lot of people got shook up, including probably DJ Warrior so we didn’t have stuff in hand on time, but that’s why we released it on there [dubcnn] to get it out to the fans and get that buzz, ya know, we gonna have the copies in the next few days…get all the labels up we also got interest from Def Jam and some other companies!


Dubcnn: What production equipment are you working with right now?

Meech Wells: I’m working with all the plugin latest stuff, GigaStudio, Orchestra Gold, this thing called Colossus, I got a guitarist up here and pretty much the stuff Dre and all those people use, Scott Storch – people gotta step they game up and get on those computers and maybe spend like 7g’s on each one of your computers putting sounds in them, everything is stepping up, sounds are 32 bit so, you know, its getting better, some people think I should be doing the old funk stuff, I got some tracks still in here but things moved on.

50 Cent and people like that changed the game so you can’t come with the same old track from the west and think its gonna blow nationwide, that’s why I get a little flack from some people on the forums who think I should be doing the old funk stuff I did with Snoop, I can do that but everybody evolves, Dre doesn’t sound the same as de did when he first started, I thin he sounds better, getting better and better, people think people should go backwards, I can pull out some old tracks and they’ll be happy, *laughs* I got a gang of old tracks but why should I keep making that? I’m moving on to better stuff!


Dubcnn: Ok man, I feel you. Anything else you wanna let people know?

Meech Wells: Um, man, I’m riding with you Nima, I like how you do your interviews and I’m rolling with Dubcnn and I’m gonna keep hitting them – it was something new to me, I was always in the studio working and never really dealt with the internet so now I’m internet marketing at the same time I’m working in the studio and that’s why people see me on the computer only because my music gear is on the computer too and when I’m working I’m going back and forth to the internet as some of my keyboards are on the computer now.

Keyboards ain’t really on the modules any more, you can use those but a lot of those sounds everybody got, a lot of these dudes come in with really big sounds, like how Scott Storch sounds…its not off modules, its off a computer like a GigaStudio, i’m giving ya’ll game now, I shouldn’t be giving ya’ll but ya’ll my fans and my people so imma give you the game so people that sup and coming, step your game up, you cant be dealing with Fruity Loops and all these little programs and think you gonna make big hits.

I still got my MPC3000 which I started with, that’s 24 bit, everything I got is 24 bit – the sounds and everything are better than me and they evolved. Where I’m at right now, finally with all the pub and all the stuff ya’ll helped me with - companies noticing and they want me to do the same things for they artists and people are downsizing cause they ain’t selling as much now so they expecting us to do it in the studio, mix it and all that in our little studios, and I like that give me a little budget and I’ll mix it all down in my stuff and you wont be able to notice the difference from the big studios and that’s what the companies noticing when they looking at people like us so anyone out there doing they own thing with they own studio and they own gear that’s the way to go, even Dogg do it like that, we been doing it like that since day one.


Dubcnn: Alright man, can you pass the phone to Joker for some last words?

Young Joker: Hello man, you want some last words?


Dubcnn: Yea man before we end this off

Young Joker: Ok man, everybody on dubcnn showing me some support, thank you. Thank you Nima for the interview, thank you Rud for all the advertisements, thanks to the whole dubcnn family. Thank you to everyone in the UK, around the world, cop the mixtape, “Mayhem” is coming soon, watch for that, keep a close eye on the album “Heaven Sent” its for ya’ll, for the streets, I work for ya’ll, so one love and get with me soon!