Exclusive Interview with QDIII Part 2 of 2
Producer - Soundlab
Interview Date 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, February, 2002

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Interviewee: Producer……………………… Quincy "QD3" Jones III
Interviewer: HitEmUp.com Founder………………… JON PETERS
Transcription: Courtesy of Della AMARU Delgadillo & AMARU'S Legal Freelancing

HitEmUp.com Q: I heard you have your own production company that develops artists and producers, can you tell us a little bit about that?

QD3 A: Ya man, I've got a camp of young cats um, like ranging from like 17 - 30 who all - I pick them like basically - I try to find producers who don't do just one style of music, no what I mean? Cats, like - I have a 17, 18 year old producer; I'm sorry, that plays bass guitar, keyboards. Ya know, he writes songs arranges vocals and engineers all his own stuff. And is really all around talented so that like when the times change they can with it ya know. Basically, they develop their own acts and the pitchin' the labels and selling the labels and stuff. They kinda, it's like it's one production company with several productions company's within it and they kind of run themselves and do their own thing, ya know?

HitEmUp.com Q: Are you accepting demo tapes for that?

QD3 A: Ya, absolutely.

HitEmUp.com: After the interview, I'll get your address for that and put it up and maybe people will want to send you some stuff.

QD3: Ya, definitely. Because basically what we try to do is find the right producer and match them up with the right artist. So that they can do album projects ya know, so it's all cohesive and I'll be pitchin' the labels.

HitEmUp.com Q: What other projects will we see from you in the future?

QD3 A: On the film side?

HitEmUp.com Q: On all sides, music and films.

QD3 A: You know we got the Tech9ne record, have you heard of him?

HitEmUp.com: Yeah.

QD3: Ya, Tech9ne is one of the artists that we developed, um, he's pretty different. He did a song with Pac back in the day as well. And then um, I'm working with this rapper right now, Young Dre; 

HitEmUp.com: uh-huh.

QD3: Who I just hooked up with who's off the hook. You know to me, he's got the same spirit as Pac in a sense that he had a hard life and - but he's got that spirit, ya know what I mean? He's enlightened and he's got lyrics that go beyond just the little two-dimensional thug thing ya know what I mean? And um, we have a girl named Tiffany on the R&B side. She's probably gonna sign with MCA and another neo sole cat by the name of Venus Brown. And that's the roster right now.

HitEmUp.com Q: What other artists do you see yourself working with?

QD3 A: What other artists?

HitEmUp.com: Ya.

QD3: Um, as far as rap? 

HitEmUp.com: As far as anything. As far as all artists.

QD3: Like who would I want to work with?

HitEmUp.com: Who would you want to work with or who will you be working with other than the people you mentioned.

QD3 A: Mack10, Scarface, and uh Xzibit, um on Mack10's new album. I'm suppose to be hookin' up with DMX's people today, ya know what I mean? So, that's two right there that I'll probably work with but to tell you the truth, I've really been sinking my teeth into this film thing. You know, I do the score for them, for the film, produce them and coordinate everything as well, Uh I gotta say it's something that I enjoy almost more than doing music because not only are you doing your music for the piece but your also able to get like messages out there and kinda like validate the art form and I think that a lot of people look at hiphop and they try and kinda box it up where MTV puts it, and I think there's so much more there, especially with people like Tupac, who had a lot to say and had such a great mind and then they like diminish it to like a two-dimensional gagster rapper and I think that's really unfair so that's the reason why we did the films to add another dimension to the whole art form but especially to people who were misunderstood so it's been like a very rewarding process and doing records is great but it's not quite as stimulating, your only dealing with one element.

HitEmUp.com Q: I heard you signed a big film deal.

QD3 A: Ya, we have a deal to do 12 films and each one of them is gonna have its own soundtrack.

HitEmUp: That'll keep you busy.

QD3: Oh, ya! I gotta tell ya I'm lovin' it.

HitEmUp.com Q: What is your relationship with the Outlawz?

QD3 A: With the Outlawz?

HitEmUp: Right.

QD3 A: We cool, ya know uh, we were cool when Pac was here and then when Pac passed away, they would come to my house a lot. We got a nice little library of songs that we did and we were just kinda like recording two or three songs a day like the same way we did with Pac, ya know what I mean? Uh, throughout the time you know maybe one a year or something we'd hook up and do songs. And if there's a project that I'm working on, I try to put them on there if I can and so we real cool.

HitEmUp.com Q: Are they gonna be on this soundtrack for this documentary as well?

QD3 A: Which one?

HitEmUp.com: For the Thug Angel documentary.

QD3: Uh, ya know I haven't started putting that together yet, we are starting that like next week.

HitEmUp.com Q: Well, we got a lot of feed back about the interview wanting to ask you questions so I wanted to pull a few right out of the email.

QD3: OK.

HitEmUp.com Q: One visitor wanted to know about the rumors that there were never released video's or tracks like, "Life Goes On", "Thug Nature". Is there any truth to those rumors?

QD3 A: Hey, you know what, here's how that goes; um, with "To Live and Die In LA", I remember when that single dropped, um, we finished the song on a Wednesday night or something like that and the following Saturday he was already shootin' the video and I didn't know about it, you know what I mean?

HitEmUp.com: Ya.

QD3: So, with Tupac, anything can happen, you know. It is very very very possible and I just don't know about it but that doesn't mean, you know even songs I produced, I didn't even know they had a 
video of "To Live and Die In LA" until it came out, ya know what I'm saying? So uh, that is very possible. Because he shot "To Live and Die In LA" in like one day, Saturday afternoon or something.

HitEmUp.com Q: One of the questions, you mentioned Tech9ne earlier, one of the questions here is; what's your relationship with him?

QD3 A: With Tech9ne?

HitEmUp.com: Right.

QD3: At the moment or just over time?

HitEmUp.com: At the moment and over time, I guess.

QD3: Basically man, it was like weird, it was like when people send you demo's it's not like that often that you connect with those people, you know what I mean? But uh, I heard his demo and he was doing that fast shit, uh tedip tedip tedip stuff, and uh, I was like man, uh, if we hook up, I'd like to hear you do a whole song with fast cause he was only like doing it a little here and there, so I  sent them the track for Questions and uh, I don't know if you remember that from the Gang Related Soundtrack and he ran fast all the way through it and I was like damn, that's kinda how he hooks up, you know. I thought he was like the best rapper, I still think he's one of the-- technically one of the best rappers that I've ever heard, ya know, in like terms of how he's mastered the rhythms and everything.

HitEmUp.com: That was a really unique track on Gang Related, I liked that.

QD3: Thanks man. That was like right when Timberlane came out and I was like I gotta try and do something like that. So that was, you know, that was how we hooked up and over time we just stayed in touch and I've never stopped believin' in that he can still be really dope and stuff so, we still connected.

HitEmUp.com Q: What style of production do you use?

QD3 A: In terms of what? You mean equipment?

HitEmUp.com: Just, just your style in general, I guess.

QD3: Um, like how would I view my production style?

HitEmUp.com: Right.

QD3: Um, I don't know man, I change a lot, like I like to do-- my favorite stuff is like "To Live In Die In LA" type slow flavor musical type stuff. That's probably my favorite, you know and that's the style that I identify with and deep, like deep music, more than anything else, you know like uh one of my other favorite Tupac tracks was uh "Who Do You Believe In", stuff like that, ya know? I'll do anything I'll try and put my mind into the artists head and feel what they're feelin' and kinda do something that would fit them, you know what I mean? Um, so, I will say my personal favorite is slow, moody deep stuff.

HitEmUp.com Q: Ok this email says; "Giving your contribution to the music world, I'm assuming that you acted as a mentor and gave Tupac advice; what advice did you give him if any, and what words did he say to you that stood out most in your mind?

QD3 A: I don't think I gave him any advice. *Laughs* Um, um, to tell you the truth most of the songs up at the death row studio's, and um I was just basically just there to provide him with music, uh, the only advice that I gave him was that I would uh, like for instance when we we did "To Live Or Die In LA", I would um, play certain records that were close to those records and I would be like, "I can go home and hook this up right now, what do you think", and he'd be like hell ya, ya know what I mean? That's about as far as it went, other than that I would just do the beats, he would never tell me what to do on the beats and he would write his lyrics and it was like a perfect partnership where he would do his 100% of his part that he dealt with and I would do a 100% of my part and that was it. There's a lot of things that I would have liked to have told him definitely if we would have had more time to decide, you see what I'm saying? Cause I could tell, um, you know, I don't want to sound like I knew what was going to happen or anything like that cause it wasn't anything like that at all, but I could tell that like a lot of people around him were encouraging him to act more and more wild, you know what I'm sayin'? You see, nobody was really telling him to slow down, the more hyped up he got the more they would kinda encourage it, almost like it was amusing to them to watch him, like get more rapped up, you know what I mean? And if there's anything that I would of said to him, that would have been that maybe it's time for you to make your raft a little smaller and watch who you're kickin' it around and make sure they have your best interests at heart, you know, and I'm not pointing anybody in specifically out because I think that a lot of the people around him loved him but, that's something that I would have told him and indirectly what he taught me was, and I took it as advice, was uh, don't think twice about shit, don't think twice, don't sit here and piddle with the base drum and don't like uh, don't think too much about what your doing if one song don't come out dope then throw it away and then let's just do another one, so I never-- like before that I could take like five days to do one beat, and now I'll do a beat in 10 minutes and if it doesn't sound good then I'll scrap it and start another one, so he taught me like, don't force things, they'll just happen when they're suppose to, just go, just roll and keep it in action, so that's what I got from, so indirectly that's the two things.

HitEmUp.com: That probably explains some of his problems with Dr. Dre's production. 

QD3: Probably. Probably, I learnt from Dr. Dre I mean so I was in there like EQ and the kick and he was like come on man lets go and seen producers in the studio that would come in and he would hear the track and he would be like, "Oh man I love this artist, record it to tape and they would take like more than 20 minutes to put it down to tape and he would be like, "fuck it man, pack your shit up" and you have another producer come in, it took too long you know; or if your sitting in the studio and there would be like three people that were suppose to write like one of his tracks, but by the time he got his first verse done, they'd still be on their first like, line. He'd be like, how much time you got left to write in your verse, and they'd be like give me another five minutes or somethin' and by the time he finished his whole song with three verses they weren't even done yet and he would just record without them.
And that would happen at least twice a day. People were sitting there looking real upset like, "damn", so he was just that quick, so to him it was all about the just keep movin' , we don't have time to sit here and really tweak everything, let's go. Whatever the last words of your verse was, was the name of your chorus, and keep rollin' and if you don't like it just throw it away and keep going. So that's why he had so many tracks. Cause he just kept mashing in the studio, there was no filter and no limit to what he could do in one day. Like, right when everybody is ready to go to sleep, their all drunk and high and everything, he'd be ready to do one more song, always.

HitEmUp.com Q: OK, this person hadn't heard your sister talking about Tupac since his death and he was wondering if your sister is gonna be on the DVD, will she?

QD3 A: Ya, she's in there.

HitEmUp.com: She'll be on the DVD?

QD3: Ya. 

HitEmUp.com: OK.

QD3: My father is on there as well.

HitEmUp.com Q: That's the end of the questions here, is there anything else you'd like to add to the interview?

QD3 A: Um, basically, in regards to the film, I would say that I hope  that the people get the DVD, only because the way we laid it out is, we went to jail and got an interview with Mutulu, you know what I'm sayin'? And Mutulu was one of the people as you know that Tupac really respected and who learnt a lot of his depth from, you know what I mean? Besides Afeni and Leila Steinberg, Mutulu was one of the people where he really got his knowledge from, ya know what I'm sayin? You can-- you watch the Mutulu interview and you'll understand where Pac came from. It just clicks completely, and he tells you the story of how Tupac would get harassed by the F.B.I. in school; and him and his sisters would have to, you know, be like quiet when they were kids and you learnt how to keep secrets early and all that, so, if you don't get the DVD then your gonna miss out on a lot of the back ground of Tupac, so basically we put together the DVD like a class on Tupac. So if you watch the bonus footage first and then watch the movie you get just like you know him it's like you know everything about this guy. We have interviews with Johnny J, private stuff, we took clips of Tupac and put it in the movie but in the bonus footage we put the entire interview, see what I'm sayin? We got the entire interview when he was 17 years old in Marin city, a half hour and forty minutes of that of him talkin' bout his whole life there. And you can see how he changes from there to when we have the interview with him on the gun range, shooting his guns and he was like way more thugged out and this was like in 93', see what I'm sayin? So, if you watch all the bonus footage and like you'll really really get a feel for him and after that, watch the movie and you basically feel like you know him. Cause you'll be catchin' him raw before his was into hip hop and all that stuff, and then all throughout times and we have friends adding you know, like Leilla Steinberg gives a reading list on Tupac, so you get to know what books he's read and how mentally prepared he really was to be a leader and a politician and all that stuff so it's the whole picture of Tupac not just focusing on the murder and all the cliché's that ya kinda already heard about, ya know what I mean?

HitEmUp.com Q: OK, thanks for your time.

QD3 A: Good day!

END

Part 2 of 2