(AllHipHop News) Jay Z’s Fade To Black documentary is a veritable time capsule of the start of the primes of three legendary producers/engineers: Just Blaze, Kanye West and Young Guru. During a recent interview with HardKnock.tv, Guru explains the experience of recording for Fade To Black, what his first studio session with J. Dilla was like and more.
Young Guru produced “What More Can I Say” for Jay Z’s The Black Album and engineered on what was promoted as Jay Z’s last album. Fade To Black was a movie to Hip Hop fans, it was a visual representation of Guru’s “college experience” to the Guru:
It was a fun time. You don’t realize it’s like someone taping your college experience or whatever. It was a really fun time. The only reason we really did that was because at that time no one had seen any of the working of it.
Guru was first introduced to J. Dilla by Dilla’s roommate whom played him Slum Village’s J. Dilla-produced Fantastic Vol. 1. in 1997. According to Dilla, his first studio session with him was mind-blowing but kept it basic:
It was just one of them pure days. It was no other artist. It was just me, Dilla, a bunch of weed, a MPC 3000 and he just sat there and made a bunch of beats for the day.
Guru worked with Dilla again in the studio back in 2004 for De La Soul’s Grind Date album. After stating that his first reaction to Dilla was “it’s like Tribe, but better” and explained how Dilla’s is comparable to the greatest basketball player of all time:
I always say this, he’s like Michael Jordan, because he took the style of everyone and put them all together. He could do everyone’s style, but everybody can’t do his style. He has the West Coast funk. He has the East Coast hop. He has that Midwest Swing. He has all of it. His thing about quantizing would always give the drums his own personal little offness where it’s that last minute. It’s like when the elevator’s closing and you just jump in for the snare to be on time but it’s really late.
Check out the full interview below: