My Life With Hip-Hop #1 (DJ Mickey Knox)

So earlier this week I get a call from my dude RKitech, who is a dope producer and emcee, we start talking about doing a mixtape together of original joints and getting features for it which we quickly turn into an album, we approach the label about it and its a go. I’m pretty psyched about it, we make all the calls we can for 16s and to see who’s available for studio time and what not and come up with a dope roster, I don’t wanna say names until the records are recorded just so I don’t look like a liar, know what I mean. Did I forget to mention that RKitech is a member of the Hit Squad and has produced records for PMD, Keith Murray, Erick Sermon, Black Rob and others. So I get to the studio today and RKitech tells me we got Keith Murray, I’m like “great, when can we get him in?” And RKitech tells me “he already laid his verse”. So Tech plays me the joint and I’m blown away, the beat sounds as if all instruments were played live, very dope. Murray kills it like I knew he would, and so does RKitech. So we start thinking of who else we can get on this record and we come up with my dude Kaleber, a very dope emcee from LI. I call Kaleber and he says he’ll be up within the hour. While we are waiting Tech plays me a track he just made earlier in the day. The drums on this record are straight boom bap shit with some strings laced in which gives the beat a little more streetness to it. After a blunt we continously listen to it cuz its so effin dope, that’s when Kaleber walks in. He immediatley starts nodding his head to the beat and we inform him that he can get on this record as well. So we loop the beat and Kaleber sits there quietly for about 15 mins. He thens stand up and says “I’m ready”, mind you he has not put pen to paper at all, so we set up the point in the record where he’ll lay his verse in pro tools, give him the head phones, and he steps up to the mic. He starts rhyming and half way through he stumbles over a few words, we quickly take it from the top and he nails it in the next take, very cool, after he lays his doubles and ad libs we listen to the track a few times. We then all agree that I have to laydown cuts for this record in order for it to sound complete, which will take me some time cuz I’m really picky about that kinda stuff. We then play him the Keith Murray record that he came down to be on originally and he’s blown away. He listens to Murrays verse, RKitechs verse, and asks for the beat to be looped. Again, after 15 mins, Kaleber says “I’m ready”, we get the record ready and he proceeds to lay his verse. Again after 2 takes he gets it in and finishes, doubles and adlibs. We listen to the finished product and we agree it all sounds good. From the time he arrived to the time he left the studio, it took Kaleber a little over an hour to write and lay 2 verses for 2 different records. I was very impressed by Kalebers level of lyricsm and professionalism. Check him out myspace.com/Kaleber, you won’t be dissapointed. So we have 2 records done for the album, can’t wait to see who else comes through for this.

Ill keep you posted

-Mickey Knox