QDIII  (February 2005) | Interview By: Justin

      Dubcnn.com back with ANOTHER interview! Justin hooked up with the legendary QDIII for a video interview, where he told us about his long career, from working with 2Pac, his experiences with Suge & Tha Row, to all his DVD's like "Beef", "MC" and more that he's doing, the transition from Sweden to the States, making Menace II Society, the future of his film company and much more. We have both the transcript and video for you to check and feel free to send any feedback regarding the interview to: justin@dubcnn.com



Huge thanks to QDIII for taking time out to answer the questions fans wanted to know! (Interview was done by camera in February of 2005)

Questions Asked By : Justin

Filmed By: Justin

Edited By: Inspire


Full Interview In Video : Here

QDIII Dubcnn Shoutout: Here

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dubcnn.com: This is Justin and we're speaking on behalf of dubcnn.com and we're here with QD3 in his QD3 entertainment offices, and why don't you give a little brief introduction of yourself before we start off the interview.

Basically my name is QD3, also known as Quincy Jones III, and basically I've been producing music for like twenty years. Started out in Sweden as a break dancer, and then moved to New York in 86 and worked with T La Rock, Special K, and all them cats from the old school. And then about 88, 89 I moved to L.A. and hooked up with Dre's camp, and did a bunch of records under him or whatever. And then when Cube left NWA, I left with Cube to work with him. One thing just led to another. I ended up working with Ice Cube and all these other people like LL, Latifah. And then I also did film and television scoring, did Menace to Society, Fresh Prince. You know just a little bit of everything, and then when Pac passed away, I wanted to do a documentary on his life kind of to justify his legacy. And when that happened, I was just going to do one, I just fell in love with the medium, loved the whole documentary format, and meeting new people and stuff, and kind of just transitioned into the film. And I'm not really doing music anymore.

dubcnn.com: You are releasing a series of twelve hip hop DVD documentaries. and so far you've put out half of them so far. I was wondering what else we could expect from your line?

What do we got coming up next...we got one called "The MC", that's crazy.

dubcnn.com: The "Why We Do It" one?

"Why We Do It", exactly. What we did is we just took all the dopest MCs that we could find like KRS, Kanye, Biggie, archival footage of Biggie of course, and basically sat down with them and had them like just talk about what they do. Not like from an artist point of view, just like straight person to person. So its like if you want to be an artist or if you want to know what's going on in their minds, or if you have anything to do with hip hop, its like the definitive look into what they do. Because when we do "Beef", I think people have their guard up a little bit you know what I mean, because it's like they're talking about something that they don't know how its going to come back, and with "The MC", they're just talking about what they love, so they just gave it up, so its really insightful. Even though I've worked with a lot of these guys over the last twenty years, I still learned like a lot of new things about them in "The MC", because it was such a candid conversation. Its real insightful like that.

dubcnn.com: Do you have any other DVDs in the works or planning on being released in the future?

We got "MC", we got "Beef 3" coming out. We got Lil Flip, Game, Yukmouth, TI, MC Eiht, DJ Quik. We got a lot of those beefs in there. That ones going to be hot. That might be the best one.

dubcnn.com: Alright looking forward to that. For the "Beef 2" DVD, You've actually filmed footage of the Eminem and Benzino beef and it was on promotional copies. However, you also share the same distribution company, Image Entertainment, as the Source cds, and the beef clip never made the final cut. I was wondering if you could speak on the situation.

Basically what happened with that was, what we' re doing here is we're documenting history you know what I mean, and we feel like hip hop culture's history is just as important as World War 2 or whatever, so that's what were doing. Obviously we want to do everything accurately, so when somebody calls us up and lets us know that something isn't accurate or that they feel that it needs to be altered because of accuracy, you know we usually try to get it right. So with that one we didn't have time to really get it to that point by the time the release came up. Because like I think in terms of us moving forward, we want the artist to feel that we are portraying things accurately. Otherwise, the series doesn't mean anything. So that's all that was, just out of respect of the artist. Certain people felt that that section wasn't accurate so until we get it right, you know what I mean. We don't change the film based on peoples feelings necessarily. If there is some factual inaccuracies, then that's another story. We take pride in that shit.

dubcnn.com: When you first moved from Sweden to New York, how was it working for Sleeping Bag Records and collaborating with people like T La Rock and his little brother Special K ?

It was dope, that was incredible. I came from Sweden, I was like a little rap fan. I remember leaving thinking that if I could work with one rapper like say Big Daddy Kane or KRS, then I would just come back and take a day job and be cool. I had no idea it would lead to all this, and things definitely didn't happen as fast as I thought. But I just got caught up. Originally I would have thought that working with T La Rock would have been it, "Okay like cool now I can go home", but I was like "I need a little more". It just kept on becoming a little more. It was incredible because I was in the middle of the Bronx, came from Sweden to the Bronx, where hip hop started. Living there with T La, so it was like my foundation. And that was in the golden era of hip hop in 86, so it was like right when Shan was out, KRS One was out, we used to go to their concerts, Kool G Rap, it was incredible. I'm like sixteen years old just making beats for my heroes so it was incredible. We used to roll to all the clubs like Roxy and all that stuff back in the day. It was like going to college for hip hop, at the birthplace with two of the pioneers of the game. It was incredible. I was just up in the pad making beats for them all day long. Paying rent with beats and stuff, it was cool.

dubcnn.com: Working with such legends, what did they teach you, and how did they influence you?

I mean some of the things that happened, like me and Special K would just walk around the Bronx, show me all the landmarks, like Fordom Road, and all the parks where they used to do the battles and stuff. We went to a few block parties. So we used to go...they used to show me all the landmarks, all the old clubs, Latin Quarters and stuff like that. I guess they... since I just came from Sweden, they were teaching me also the slang. When I came I had broken English, they just put me up on all the game. Plus too, we were in the Bronx, every city has its own like little things you have to adjust to, so they put me up on all those things. It was just my introduction to America really you know what I mean.

dubcnn.com: How was the transition from the New York to the L.A. scene with you meeting people like WC, Ice Cube, NWA, Ruthless?

It was interesting, because coming from New York, I'm like with the founders, so I'm like "Okay this is it". Then I came to L.A. it was a whole other scene. so it took like two years for me to really understand what was going on. But the crazy thing is, as I hooked up with Dre when I first got to L.A., didn't even really know, it was before they really blew up. I was trying to gauge the whole gang thing, they got palm trees, things looked like totally different. It didn't really look ghetto, so I couldn't really understand it at first. In the Bronx, we had shot out windows and it was crazy looking especially in the 80's, and then when you come to L.A., you got palm trees, everybody had cars and rims and jheri curls and stuff. It was a different side of the culture, but I'll tell you once I started working with Cube and all them, it was a quick conversion. After that I'm playing the west coast now. It was kind of cool, because I had the opportunity to really live and experience the golden era of both places, so that was dope.

dubcnn.com: While living here, like when you first initially started living here, did you have to adapt your production sounds to like the L.A. West coast hip hop music so that its compatible?

A little bit, but that actually kind of happened by accident, because when I first moved here, L.A. didn't have a sound yet. It was being formulated right when I got there when N.W.A. blew up. so it was like a slow transition from them copying New York to being themselves. Right when they started being themselves is right when I moved here. So it was kind of like a slower transition, but I adopted to the west coast sound when I started working with Cube. There was this one record that I sampled right, it was kind of like a east coast record. It had a west coast bass line to it, so I sampled it and used it on Yo Yo albums. Cube was like, it was straight hip hop though, Cube was like "Look man they won't clear this sample. If you can come in today and replay it live, you got 4 hours." I was like "Man I want to be on the album." It was one of my first big artists, I ran to the studio and had Stan the Guitar Man play it. It ended up sounding incredible. It was gangster, it was pimped out, it was like some suave house type shit. From that day I never sampled again, so that's when I converted to the west coast. I had been a backpack producer for damn near years, and I just accidentally came into the gangster thing. That was the first song where I got great reviews, and that was it, started making money from there.

dubcnn.com: While in California, you also started working with 2pac. In a recent XXL article on The Making of Makaveli, you spoke on the production of "To Live and Die in LA" and stated that recording with 2pac has changed the way that you look at making music. What sort of influence did he have, and how did he change it?

For me personally ?

dubcnn.com: You personally.

Working with Pac was like, it lived up to everything you could have imagined. Sometimes you hear about people and you meet them, and its like "Oh, okay its cool." But with Pac it was the other way around. "Ok I'm about to meet Pac," and then you meet him, you're like "Oh my goodness." Down in the studio it was like everything was moving so fast, and as soon as you walked into the room you felt that. He was like, "You got the beat already?" If you didn't have the beat ready in fifteen minutes, he'd be like "Psh get somebody else in." That pressure was on like as soon as you walked in. At the same time I also felt like it was empowering in a sense, because when you're dealing with someone who doesn't think twice about shit, then you either jump on board or get out, and that was inspiring for me and I think for a lot of people in there because it makes you feel like you can do anything. I used to be one of the dudes that tweaked the bass, messing around, worrying about shit. I still do, but I usually just fall back on his theory, just do it.

dubcnn.com: How do you feel being one of the only two outside producers on the the Seven Day Theory album? Like while he was at his peak and rise in Death Row Records and just choosing you to produce one of his lead single. How did it feel?

Working with him is incredible. That was an honor but I didn't really consider myself as a outside producer. I always worked outside with everybody. I didn't realize it was an in-house out-house thing.

dubcnn.com: I was just speaking in terms of Death Row Records because you weren't officially signed to Death Row.

Nah, that was incredible, that was incredible. The thing about working at Death Row too is like, a lot of people can say what they want about Suge or whatever. The way that I looked it at that time, for me personally that was like one of the best times as a producer for me personally because it was like you got DJ Quik, Pooh, Kurupt, Jewell Nate Dogg. Who else was on Death Row?

dubcnn.com: Daz

Daz. All in the same studio all the time, so you show up and be like "Quik what you think about this?". Everyone was working together, and to me that was dope. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And Snoop and Pac, and all them cats in two studios all the time that was like a dream come true. So whatever people want to say about Suge, he had everybody working under one roof, and I don't know if that's really been done like that since.

dubcnn.com: Why and how did you go into film production from making music? What made you decide to change?

I think it was when Pac passed away. I felt like some of the MCs or some of the things that I was hearing in music was like a repeat of what we had heard two three years earlier. Usually the cycles are longer, so I was like man, if that is where the business is going, the money started drying up in the music business little bit, not for myself personally, just in general. I just felt like lets try something new. We wanted to solidify Pac's legacy by doing a piece that wasn't just focusing on the same old stuff. And like I said earlier, just working on that documentary made me fall in love with that art form. As a producer you can't really say anything, you're not telling a story, you're just making music. And I'm older now, and after so many years of doing it, you feel like you want to express certain thing. But if you're not a rapper, and you're doing the documentary you can still tell the story and be behind the scenes, but let other people tell the messages. Its dope, its truthful, and nobody is really representing the hip hop generation in the media like that, not the positive aspects. So that's how I saw it, a way for us tell our own history.

dubcnn.com: Where did the idea of Beef actually come from? Did it have anything to do with your involvement in the Cypress Hill and Westside Connection beef, and producing "King of the Hill? track"?

Crazy thing about that track... it didn't no. Crazy thing about that track is that I didn't know what Cube was going to rap about. He just took the track and then boom, and when I heard it I was like "Oh shit". Beef came about for other reasons. It was basically like when Pac passed away again, I wanted to show people that we should really try to not let this ever happen again. We took like one of the hottest leaders, two of the hottest leaders, Biggie and Pac. They could have been generals for us right now, leaders. We lost two leaders, and since then I really haven't seen the rap game recover fully. I think we're just now getting back on our feet. I wanted to show that these situations in some cases, not all the time, because some time its promotional, but in some cases things have a real effect on people, the family, all the people that they were paying for while they're alive. One person gets taken out, you got thirty people on the street again. We wanted to show that, and also show the whole process. You got young and upcoming artists looking at the movie, they're going to look at it "Okay that's how it started, that's what happened in the middle, that's how it ended, that's how they resolved it." So they can see how to avoid things in the future. Where as if you just show the beef real quick and show the violence part of it, they have nothing to go off of, except for they was beefing, and that's it. It was kind of a way to teach and show cats what not to do by showing the whole story instead of just a little part. I didn't want people to get confused and think that we were trying to promote it, because Pac was my boy. It was really to avoid it. Knowing that people want to see beef, we gave it to them in that form, and then sprinkled the lessons in there too.

dubcnn.com: Having done film scores like Menace to society, TV themes like Fresh Prince, and producing tracks for artists like 2pac and Ice Cube. Without a doubt, these are all staples to the hip hop culture. As a pioneer and being at the forefront of the hip hop generation, where do you hope to take hip hop?

That's funny that you say that. because when I started doing music my reason , like you know how everybody has their own reason. You know some people just want to be famous and make a lot of money. My reason for getting into hip hop was more of on a respect level. I wanted to like bring respect to hip hop because a lot of people were saying it wasn't real music. It wasn't considered real music because it didn't have notes and melodies and so I wanted to be the first one to do live songs that were original that were hits for hip hop and that was one thing that I did get accomplished with like "You Know How We Do It" and all that stuff. And then so now the second step would be to document it in a way that raises the respect level as well. It build bridges, so that people that don't understand it can understand it . If you take a murderer, like a little gang banger or whatever and you show what he did, people are going to be like "He's a bad person. What the fuck was he thinking when he did that murder?". But then if you do a documentary on that persons life, you may understand it, "If I went through all that..", not to say that murder is ever a good thing, but you know there is a reason for everything. There is a reason for why hip hop looks the way it does and all that stuff. Its not hip hop's fault, we're not the reason. We just basically want to explain ourselves, and kind of validate why we do what we do.

dubcnn.com: You have worked with people like 2pac and early Ice Cube, who were both very political during their times. What do you think of rappers focusing their music on wealth and materialism, as opposed to social and political awareness nowadays?

I think that today's artists should be more aware of how powerful their influence is, because like Jay-Z can wear a t-shirt in a music video. The day after that t-shirt will be a hot item , like almost starting a trend. Pretty much everything they do affects their audience, and I think to some degree, this current crop of artists could be a lot more conscious of what they put out there. Instead of saying like I know if I talk about these three things that are fucked up, that's going to sell my records, because they're only looking out for themselves. I think at the very least it should be a fifty fifty split because you are feeding these kids. A lot of kids don't have the right type of leadership at home neither, and they may look at rap as their main influence. So if a rapper says something tongue in cheek, they take it as reality. So I think that's the danger in that. Not to say that you have to be hardcore political or speak righteously all the time, but at least balance it out. Treat it as if you're talking to your little brother or son or something. I think that right now it seems like labels and radio feel as if not okay to do that. They feel like Its better to capitalize on the negative aspects. I think that's kind of a problem. Hopefully we can get out of that.

dubcnn.com: You have the DVD "Letter to the President", and you're exploring many social and political issues. What was your motivation and what do you hope to educate your audience with?

"Letter to the President," what we wanted to do is show the hip hop generation that there are a lot of issues that affect you. Like you saw "Fahrenheit 911". Those are the issues that affect all of America. "Letter to the President" shows you what affects urban America. and how we need to just pay more attention . We talk about drug laws, we talk about privatized jail and how that system works. Once you're in the system its really like slavery because they have you working in private jails and doing all thing things that are making people very wealthy. So it's like when you come up from parole, the person you need to talk to about getting off on parole are the same people that are making money off you. So how is that a fair system? "Well lets keep him for another two years because he made us $35,000 last month." Those types and kinds of issues. We talk about hip hop investigation unit. Just all the things that tie into our future as this hip hop generation. I think its a lot more than people think.

dubcnn.com: As having witnessed the passing away of 2pac and B.I.G. from beef in rap, and considering the current state of hip hop which is filled with beefs left and right, what's your take on the situation?

I'll say this man, the battles are probably always going to happen and they probably always should happen. That's just like a fighter getting better at his craft. In terms of street beefs to me, I feel like the music industry should be like a safe haven in a sense, like especially if you are talking about artists that are really saying things. To me we need to preserve the platform, we don't need to lose anymore leaders. Up to a certain point to me its just battling but when it crosses that line, and we lose, lets just say for instance, Jay-Z or somebody, we don't need to lose him you know what I mean? So to me if we can contain it just to records, then it's all good, and I'm all for that because that's just like sparring.

dubcnn.com: What are your ultimate goals as the head of QD3 entertainment, and yourself as an individual?

QD3 entertainment, we want to be like the biggest urban media company. Moving forward, taking advantage of all the technical opportunities. Internet, mobile and all that stuff, and just really be on the cutting edge of what it means to be like a media company today. Not necessarily study television and what's already happening. Focus on what's going on from here on, and just document the culture in an really accurate way. Even do some feature films, televisions projects that are credible, not to judge anybody else's stuff, just want to be the most credible and most accurate. Because you know its not... I feel like its a blessing for us to be able to tell our own history, and having been in the Bronx back in the eighties and came to L.A. just all at the right times. At certain points I was wondering like "Man all this is great, but its all so fragmented, so many different places, Sweden and all this." And now it seems like it's finally making sense because you know I documented things. I was in the position to actually see. I was there with Rakim when he did Microphone Fiend. I saw him record that song. I saw KRS record his first album. I saw Eazy-E record his first album. I saw Dre do the first NWA album. I was there, and I'm just like "Where is all this coming from?" And then now we got this series, its all coming in handy. I remember the people that were there. I remember like pretty much everything. I have the photos to back it up. It seems like it was just meant to be to document it.

dubcnn.com: Having done production for close to twenty years now, and having worked with the best of them, what are some of your most memorable moments of your career?

Working with Too Short, because working with him, like remember what you were saying about Death Row before? Working with Too Short I know for a fact that he never used outside producers, and I think he only did it twice, and it was me and Sir Jinx, and I was real happy about that. That was a good experience, working with him was just dope, just the way that he handled his business and everything. Just hella experienced, it was like a honor. Tupac of course, I already went through that. LL was incredible, because L was like an athlete. He's athletic about his shit, everything we did, he was calling me in the morning "Lets go!". We'd get into the studio, he had been there 3 days straight, sometime he would even go home and leave us in the studio and come back. So it was like a grooming process, and he just really showed me how to handle your business, and be athletic about what you do. Don't try something and give up real quick, you know what I mean, just stick to it. And lastly Ice Cube, you know just working with him. Same thing he was like a mentor, and he was just so organized in everything he did. He had all his rhymes in a notebook printed out, so he would come in, "Ok let me hear some beats." and he would just put the beats to one of the lyrics and boom. Or if he had artists, you know same thing, he had everything organized for them, give them sheets so they just rapped it, so everything was real smooth, and he would handle his business and do the creative all at the same time. So Cube to me is like unrecognized in some way for how dope he is as a businessman. So those are like four people that I will never forget.

dubcnn.com: Growing up in Sweden, living all over, how has it changed your perspective and views on the hip hop culture. Do you think growing up in Sweden influenced the way you look at it?

Probably. Probably because I know most of the Europeans or most anywhere in the international they're more into like the real aspects, like the real culture aspect of hip hop. They still respect Kool Herc. They still respect Rock Steady to some degree. And they're like.. and they just seem to just know more about history than they do here for some reason. Maybe because they get less of it so they study it more. So for me I felt like by the time I got here, I had read everything, I was reading every fucking liner note. I was a fan of the engineer, that's how into it I was. In that way I felt like i was almost a bigger fan than anyone here. and really really really loved the culture of it. We were thirsting for it. We would only get the records so we had to find everything else, so it was cool. The crazy thing is when I got here, it was like a perfect match, because we were already up on everything. Just a few language barriers, but that was it. Hip hop is universal man. It wasn't really such a big transition coming to New York at all, but L.A. was huge.

dubcnn.com: Last question how did your father influence your direction in music?

I think he influenced me like indirectly by always doing so many different things. You know how some producers might just have one sound or one job, that they produce records and they produce this one type of records. He'll produce jazz, disco, pop, Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Frank Sinatra, whatever. And then go from that to do films, television, you know what I mean. So just seeing that automatically widened my horizon of what's possible to do. That was crazy. He was always stressing don't just do hip hop, just mix it up, keep mixing it up. He was the one that encouraged me to do movies scores, TV scores, just to get all your...Its like if you're in the gym, you're not just going to lift with one arm, one muscle all day long, your going to lift with everything. That's kind of how he explained it. Like if you're going to the gym, fuck with all the weights, so that's like film scoring, music, dabbling with different genres of music. Just learn it all.

dubcnn.com: Are you actually focusing into any genres as of right now?

I did some pop stuff growing up in Sweden, did some rock stuff, did some trip hop, a little bit of everything. I ain't got no shame in the game. I'll try whatever.

dubcnn.com: Lastly if there is anything else you want to share that we haven't spoke on already.

Nah, other than that QD3 collection that's going to be end up being a box set, so that's what we're working towards right now. We got six films done, we got about five more almost finished, and then one more left. Box it up as a box set, and ideally we would look at it as the definitive box set of hip hop.

dubcnn.com: When can fans expect that to come out?

Probably middle of next year. We got couple features in the work, and we also have another film called "Black and Blue" which is about the hip hop investigation unit. All about that, how the cops surveil rappers. We got a lot of cool stuff coming. We basically, like DUBCNN, we see ourselves as the CNN of the hood and the hip hop generation. So like when you watch the History Channel or VH1 it'll be the same thing but just for hip hop.

dubcnn.com: QD3 we appreciate the time you're taking out to speak with DUBCNN.

Fasho!