Mannie Fresh is the iconic producer that laid down the sonic blueprint for Cash Money Records. With his unique personality and sound, he’s transcended the term “beat maker” and permanently ventured into legend land. Well, getting a legend to give his Top 5 Dead Or Alive can be tricky, but Mannie Fresh is so awesome….he gave much more.
Check out Mannie Fresh’s Top 5 Dead or Alive Producers!
AllHipHop.com: Could you give us your top 5 producers?
Mannie Fresh: Producers?
AllHipHop.com: yeah
MANTRONIX
Mannie Fresh: Probably would be Mantronix, one of them,.
AllHipHop.com: Aw shoot, that’s a first, okay. Lets go then!
Mannie Fresh: Well if you got a couple of Mantronix songs you would know, even my patterns and stuff is based around it, his energy and that music was just always energy you know. It was something that always kept the party started and what I totally liked about it he took the focus off of the Emcees, like you could be a horrible emcee but if you got one of his beats you could (laugh) then on top of that he was one of the dudes that did variety . He did Just Ice, he did a couple people, he did, what’s that chicks name? Joy Sims. He did R&B as well, he was like one of the first producers that was a Hip-Hop Producer that was doing all of that.
AllHipHop.com: Very diverse. He had a lot of electronic type of sounds.
Mannie Fresh: Yeah, exactly. He had from freestyle songs, you know he was one of the very first to really do that.
T-MIX
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AllHipHop.com: What about T-Mix?
Mannie Fresh: T-Mix. T-Mix is the dude that did all of the Suave House stuff, all the early 8ball and MJG stuff. And of course if you didn’t know he was the one who did a lot of the stuff after I left Cash Money, his name ain’t never surfaced on the song (laughs) (Editor’s Note: Tristan “T-Mix” Jones would go on to sue Cash Money for $2.2 million in 2009.)
AllHipHop.com: Right, he gets the ghost production credit
Mannie Fresh: Right. But If you want to know the history of it T-Mix is the one who did all of the early 8ball and MJG stuff and Suave House but you knows he’s one of the dudes that only Southern Producers would know. During that time there wasn’t no recognition unless you just knew who he was.
JUST BLAZE
Mannie Fresh: Just Blaze, I’m a fan of dude, what he do establishes just crazy to me.
TIMBALAND
Mannie Fresh: Who else would I think in this lifetime, dead or alive, probably Timberland. Yeah I mean this dude wont go away so (laughs)
AllHipHop.com: Right, he’s the master of the pop and Hip-Hop world. He actually abandoned rap pretty much, well at least he said it.
Mannie Fresh: Well yeah but you learn a lesson in everything cause at one time they were saying the same thing like “Timbaland is missing. Where is Timbaland at?” then all of a sudden he came out and you know…
AllHipHop.com: yeah, that’s true.
Dr. DRE
AllHipHop.com: And what about Dre?
Mannie Fresh: This dude is all around to me he just found phenomenal samples and he forced you to do your homework in Hip-Hop because you wanted to know where that song came from. What the history was and all of that and it hasn’t just started off like that, its been going on. Even the mixers in the early 80’s this dude was doing, you would be like ‘this dude is on top of his game’
AllHipHop.com: Yeah I just found something on the internet with Dr. Dre and he was blending, I think it was “Hey Mr. Postman” with Kraftwerk or something. I mean it was crazy, it was like the first blends or mash ups or whatever they call it in the earlies of the early and he didn’t even have his face showing, he had on like a Doctor Suit or something showing. It was actually real wild, back in the 80’s
Mannie Fresh: Yeah, he it was surgery back then around that time when dude was in his suit. (laughs)