Chris The Glove Taylor Part 2 interview

[D-Nice]

I2G chilled for a epic 3 part interview with former Death Row/Aftermath producer Chris The Glove Taylor. This is part 2 of a 5 part interview, and in part 2 we discuss the origin of Itchibad Scratch, his role in Xzibit’s 40 Dayz N 40 Nightz album on the track Focus and Xzibit’s work with Aftermath and much more so check it out. Part 3 coming soon.

To check out part one, click on the link below:

illuminati2g.com/site/2011/02/26/chris-the-glove-taylor-interview/

Illuminati 2G is back again with Chris The Glove Taylor, how’s it going man?

It’s going good how about you?

Good. I just wanted to pick up where we left off with our last interview. I just wanted to go back in time again and talk about your time with Death Row and Aftermath.

But first I wanted to go over with you one of your first tracks. Tell me a little bit about how the song Itchiban Scratch came together for you.

Haha, yeah wow Itchiban Scratch was one of my first tracks. That was actually my second track ever. Basically what we did was it was me and another guy, Dave Soares, he helped me put Wreckless together.

He had a beat that he was working on and he wanted me to weigh in on it and I came in and set up my turntables and back then I was more of a DJ then a producer back then. I told him I can definitely touch up the record with the turntables but I told him that I did not bring any records.

He said well I have a box of old records I don’t know if you want to use them, you are welcome to. I went right in and started cutting up records, that is why it sounds so bizzare. Got a hook to it with this kids nursery rhyme, The Duke Of York, and everything else was whatever I could get my hands on. It took us about 3 hours to do the whole thing.

Oh wow. I wanted to then fast forward to Xzibit’s 2nd album, 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz, and the song you did on that album, Focus. I find it funny sometimes that people’s favorite album from Xzibit is Restless and they say it is because of the Aftermath production and involvement on that album.

But in high insight, X had you, he had Mel Man, he had Bud’da and Stu-B-Doo on 40 Dayz. Did him already working with you guys spark the idea for him to work with Dr. Dre and what was it like working with Xzibit on the album.



First off Xzibit is a constant professional, excellent artist and a all around good dude. It was seeming to be hard for him to get to Dre for whatever reason and I guess he went with what he considered to be the next best thing. Bud’da, Mel-Man, myself we welcomed to work with X because he was so talented.

I believe after the work that we did and 40 Dayz making a little bit of chart noise, he was more of a underground artist before he started making some noise on the charts. Then after that for whatever reason, Dre was willing to work with him and they did Restless which was bananas.

Was there ever any talks of Dre signing Xzibit to Aftermath? I look at all the artists that have ever worked with Dre and out of all of them, Xzibit seemed to have the most access to Dre for someone not being signed to Aftermath.

Yeah that is strange isn’t it? He sure did, he had alot of access to Dre without being signed. I believe they just worked out a deal to where Dre would just executive produce his album and not sign him to the label. Dre always had this rule, he would never give away a hit.

He did not want to put out a hit on someone elses label if it was not on his. That is why there are not so many songs that Dre produced for artists outside of Aftermath. For whatever reason the deal was worked out this way and Dre only executive produced those handful of albums. Anything more of that, I had left around the time Restless came out.

Did you ever participate in any of Dr. Dre’s unreleased projects like Helter Skelter or Papa’s Got A Brand New Funk or anything else?

The way we would work is that we would build a song out of a group of songs. So say one day we start working on a track and he would come up with a verse on something else that he really liked alot, it would build from that. He would take verses from different tracks that we were working on and add them to a song or project.

Alot of songs were built like that and it would lead to alot of unrleased product, but when you would release it, it would have the same lyrics as other songs. I worked on tons of unreleased stuff with Dre, like when we were working on a 24 inch tape, the big reels.

Each tape can hold 15 minutes, so we could get around 3 songs on a tape. While I working at Aftermath, I would say I have over 60 tapes full of music that I worked on.

I just wanted to ask you about a couple tracks that you may or may not had your involvement in. First one was Street Scholars with J. Flexx and Dr. Dre.

Nah not on that record. The side projects, Street Scholars, the music he did with Scarface, those type of things.., to get me out of bed and work on something, it had to be big. I was not really interested in doing those things, and there were other producers that needed work and I was not trying to hog everything up.

But for The Firm album, I had 7 songs on that album so I was trying to get in on where the big money was at. I felt like I had paid my dues to where I did not need to do all of that (laughs).

There was a song called Zoom, and there is 3 versions of the song. The original which I believe is Dre and Snoop, then the one with Dre and LL Cool J on the Bullworth soundtrack and then there is 6 In Da Mornin, which uses the same beat, on King T’s Thy Kingdom Come. Do you have any info or idea as to why there are so many versions of that song?







Well I know that the track that is Zoom, I produced it and it was before King T’s album. That was his aftermath album right?

Yeah.

I was unaware of 6 In Da Mornin song.

Well the beat is the same as the 2 Zoom tracks. Dre and Snoop the original Zoom, LL and Dre Zoom on Bullworth soundtrack.

Well let me tell you how that track came together. I was working on that beat and Snoop came in the studio and him and Dre had not done anything in a while so they wanted to do a track together. Snoop was there, Dre was there, Dawn Robinson was there and worked on a hook for it and like you said that was the original.

The Bullworth opportunity came up and like I said we built up songs and the original was not meant for any project. What actually happened was, and I don’t know how these songs leak from the studio, but someone snagged it and the next thing we know, we hear they are playing the song on Power 106.

Wow

They were playing the song ALL THE TIME! I was like how did that even get out, it’s not even finished. That is just off the MPC, that’s not even mixed or nothing. It went from that version with Dawn and Snoop and Dre into the version with Dr. Dre and LL Cool J.

As far as the 6 In Da Mornin track on King T’s album, I have never heard it. You just brought news to me because even though it was a unreleased album then that means I had 2 tracks on that album as opposed to 1 because I did another song on that album called That’s Drama.

What happened was as usual, and this always seems to happen to tracks that I am working on that they would get leaked. I produced the song That’s Drama and next thing I know, they bumping the song at the swap meet. I don’t even know why that song made it because it leaked so fast. I will have to send you the original, you have heard that song before right?

Yeah, it’s been a minute since I listened to Thy Kingdom Come, but I remember the track.

Yeah that was a smoker!

Yeah I will send you 6 In Da Mornin, it’s the exact same beat and you can even hear Dawn Robinson on it as well. I remember listening to it and saying this is the third time I heard this beat. I remember hearing the Dre and Snoop version on the radio.

Yeah we did Zoom, well the original did not have a name or a hook and like I said within a week it was on the radio. After that, LL heard the song and loved it and LL decided to do some strange singing on the 1st verse instead of rapping.

(Laughs) Right

Which I believe for whatever reason if he would have rapped the first verse, that shit would have been crazy!

Yeah

Once he did the singing, it was whatever after that. Not to mention Dre said Zoom zoom zoom and that caused 16 new writers to be attached to it because the zoom zoom zoom song lyrically was the same as Rump Shaker from Wrecks N Effect, which had samples from some Motown song and they had 10 writers.

So ALL THOSE WRITERS got attached to that song that me, LL and Dre did.

Oh wow!

Now mind you me and Dre did the track and Dre mixed it. I am expecting 50% profit off of the song right?

Right

After they got finished handing out all those copyrights, I might have got 12.5%, maybe. I was probably closer to 5% to be honest with you, I don’t remember the exact number but it was such a small amount that it really upset me.

I bet.

I did not sample anything on that song, and you always hear stories about producers saying there is no sample on a beat but best believe if you did, you gonna have to give credit. And in this case, if I sampled Wrecks N Effect, I would have expected a split like that, but for that to come from Dre saying zoom zoom zoom and the next thing I know I am down to around 5-10% and that really hit me hard.

That song all parties attached to it got paid alot, it just split so many ways. The album went platinum so it was a decent royalty rate but it got slashed! That is just all from learning experience bruh but yeah I have thousands of tracks in the vaults.

Back in the day, the early years of Aftermath, there was a artist on the label named The Last Emperor. Did you ever have any involvement in his album while he was on the label?

Wow, you pulled one outta nowhere there. Yeah Last Emperor, I don’t recall what tracks I did but yeah I will have to do some research on that one. They might like I was explaining before, taken a track we were working on a meant for say Sam Sneed or someone and given it to him. I do remember he was tight though.

Yeah he was a beast. There was a song on the Aftermath compilation called Fame. Was Busta Rhymes originally supposed to be on the track? I know Dre had mentioned something about that.

That’s funny how that worked out too. Before I signed with Aftermath, between leaving Death Row and Aftermath I was not working with Dre. I walked away from Death Row before he did and that track was actually for another rapper that I was working with.

I recorded the track and prepping it for vocals and my boys talked to me about going over to Aftermath, well it did not have a name at the time. They told me to come over and it was not like Death Row and Dre had complete control over it.

At the time I said maybe but I really was not thinking about it at the time. I finally went and talked to Dre and he made me a cool deal, but I wanted to let Dre know that I was still working on music and I still had it. Because I knew if he thought I was rusty or lost it, he would not bring me back.

I let him listen to that track, and as soon as he heard it, he said it was tight and he had a idea for it. He mentioned RC who was the lead singer from my group, Po Broke N Lonely. If RC was gonna be on it then I knew it was going to be all good.

I did not know RC was signed with Dre at the time, but that was how that song came together. It was definitely a forward thinking project, the beat was one way and the vocals were another way, but as far as Busta Rhymes to answer your question, I do remember Dre saying that he thought Busta would sound tight on there.

Remember this was before Put Your Hands Were My Eyes Can See so he was thinking that he would fit. Busta was working heavily with A Tribe Called Quest and Flipmode Squad.

Stay tuned for part 3 of our interview with Chris Taylor as we talk more in depth about Aftermath, his thoughts on RC and how he was ahead of his time and more.

*Sidenote- I did play 6 In Da Mornin for Chris and after listening he did remember the track, just was not aware it was used on Thy Kingdom Come

[Giesuz]

Thanks! Really interesting read, i wish he'd open his vault for us

[Will_B]

King T - That's Drama is a super dope track


So I guess Dawn Robinson got no cheddar for co-writing Zoom, as she got replaced by Traci Nelson on the released version and received no writer credit whatsoever.

[Giesuz]

So I guess Dawn Robinson got no cheddar for co-writing Zoom, as she got replaced by Traci Nelson on the released version and received no writer credit whatsoever.

business as usual by dre

[sms130]

From what I've gathered, (I think Dre might have touched on it back at that time) Death Row refused to clear Snoop to appear on the song. Since Snoop couldn't get cleared for that song, the idea later came for Dre to work with LL and it was on from there.

[UCC]

I liked LL's singing part, sounded dope... interesting combo as well at the time, Dre and LL

[dubsmith_nz]

Good read, props on that. It'd be interesting to hear what he has in the vault

[Black Excellence]

great read. glad to hear what really happened behind the scenes.

[HighEyeCue]

I liked LL's singing part, sounded dope... interesting combo as well at the time, Dre and LL

yeah I think I remember seeing LL on an interview saying that Dre would produce his next album