Shawn Setaro
[Veteran producer K-Def recently sat down with SOHHH correspondent and hip-hop personality Shawn Setaro on his popular “The Cipher” podcast. Listen to the full interview and check out five gems he dropped during the Q&A.]
On sampling jazz records beginning in the early 1990s:
“I had a variety of things to hear, but the jazz breaks was the thing that not too many sampling guys knew about. James Brown was the main thing, but when I got my hands on jazz, I went crazy with it.”
On the difference between New York and his native New Jersey in the early days of hip-hop:
“Hip-hop started in the parks in NYC, but people in New Jersey were the ones that actually took it to where the world could hear it.”
On why he didn’t have much fun working at Marley Marl’s House of Hits:
“It wasn’t very much fun. I’m from Jersey. I was by myself. I didn’t have a crew with me at the time. Me against the world. I had an opportunity to think about it and say: do I want to go out and party and have fun and trick my money, or do I want to sit here and try to be the best producer ever, while I’m under this guy Marley Marl? I stayed stuck in the studio. It was like being in a cave.”
On the initial response to his track “Real Live Shit”
“That was probably the first track that, before the record even came out, no matter where I went or who I played it for, the response was like being at a metal concert and going slam-dancing and just going wild and crazy. I was getting a reaction from everybody who heard it.”
On the difference between album cuts and singles
“The album cuts are when you [as a producer] didn’t pay attention to the rapper, and the rapper didn’t pay attention to what was going on in the music. He was infatuated with the moment. That’s it. It wasn’t about, am I gonna make a hit record here?”
To hear the whole interview, click here or listen below.
