Che Pope

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Okay, welcome everybody. Thanks for being here. We have with us today as our first lecture of the day, a gentleman who, don’t look at my notes, who is the president of G.O.O.D. Music which means he works intimately with an individual you may be familiar with, named Kanye West, amongst many other artists and creative people. He’s also an accomplished producer in his own right, so would you please welcome, Mr. Che Pope.

Che Pope

Hello, everybody. I know it’s a little early. Let’s wake up.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You’ve spent some time here, haven’t you?

Che Pope

Spent a lot of time here, great city.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What were you doing here?

Che Pope

The Yeezus album, Kanye’s album. He decided to make pretty much entirely here. We spent about six months here working on that album, pretty much straight.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

A lot has been said, sort of documented on that process, but I would imagine you have an interesting perspective on it as well since you’re one of the co-executive producers of that project and label president and whatnot.

Che Pope

I think that album was different than any of the other Kanye albums because he was in a place where, as you know, you guys saw in the Internet, you saw the rants. He was doing a lot of rants. There was a lot of… He was real feisty, I think is best way to describe it. He was very happy with the albums he had done previously, which were My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch The Throne.

As much as accomplished and as strong as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was, he also felt like that was somewhat of an apology, coming off the Taylor Swift stuff and all that so he felt like he had to make the best possible album, best orchestrations. A lot of that album was made in Hawaii and traveling around the world. Watch The Throne was basically made around the world traveling.

With Yeezus, he was back to being Kanye where he wanted angst and he’s into fashion, he’s inspired by Paris. Every week, we visited the Louvre and we’d walk through the Louvre. He’d walk through Paris at night by himself, no security, one or two of us, we’d walk around and look at the architecture. He was in a very feisty place, so it was a great place and it's challenging. You’re making an album, it's challenging when you’re in the studios and you don’t speak French and you’re trying to navigate all of the terrain to make it.

We were even taking the subway every day and different things of that nature just to really get acclimated to the city and really be a part of the city more than being the tourist. It was great. It was a really great experience. I think the result of it is where you hear the angst of the album, the energy of the album, the feistiness of the album, the rant of the album. They weren’t really songs per se. They were audio rants. It was very aggressive album. It was his version of punk, and that came from really being here and being inspired.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Would you imagine that it would have sounded different in a different city or would it have sounded similar because of where he was in his life [at that point]?

Che Pope

It would’ve definitely sounded different but the attitude would’ve been there. This album was started off with Daft Punk so they kind of were the catalyst for the drivers starting off with the textures where that we started with. I think that was a catalyst even for him, even wanting to make the album here. I think he had gotten some music from them and they’d gone in a little bit and that just really inspired them and that was a catalyst for everything. I think wherever we had made it, it would still had that attitude but it wouldn’t have had the textures that it had, so to speak, from here.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

We should talk a lot more about that but I want to do some sort of introduction of you as an individual and what you do. Can you sort of explain what your responsibilities are as a president of G.O.O.D. Music and how is that different perhaps? Because you’ve worn many hats with the music industry over the years. How is being president of this particular situation different from perhaps another situation?

Che Pope

The number one challenge is G.O.O.D. Music is a brand he created. G.O.O.D. is an acronym, it stands for getting out our dreams. It was never really… He’s an artist, he’s a creative. It was never really a monetary endeavor. It was really a way to help artist to give them an opportunity, artist, all artists, not even just music artists, photographers, directors, songwriters, creatives, you name it. A lot of people – Nabil. There’s a lot of different people who have already seen success coming through it, Hudson Mohawke, people you don’t even know of, Arca, have been all birthed through this thing, Big Sean obviously and all the various people. But what my role is it it’s different it's I came in, I’d already been a producer and executive for years, have done this, I've known Kanye for a long time. We sat down. He said, “Hey, I need some help with I’ve got this label, I think. I’ve done a really good job of branding it but I haven’t done a good job really in the business of running a record label.”

What I’ve been doing is really focusing on… We’ve been really focusing on building the label back to being the best… It should be a label that's representative of Kanye West, of who he is as a person, who he is as an artist in terms of innovation and all that.

It should translate into the business that it is. It should be, I give hats off to the XL Records and Young Turks and the various labels, Bromance here in Paris, the different labels that really do their thing, Matador in the US. There’s some really forward thinking labels, guys that really understand this business and where it’s at 2016 and beyond versus sort of the old way of doing business if you will. We all know it’s a new world. It’s a Soundcloud world. It’s a YouTube world. It's a streaming world. You’re not constricted as you once were where to access the US, you had to be, come through New York or LA, to access Europe, you had to come through London.

Now it doesn’t matter where you’re at. If you have the talent, if you have skills. I have kids hit me from Russia on Twitter who I get tracks from. We have producers – [like] Arca’s from Venezuela. It’s literally a global business. I think with the label, that’s part of my role is really bringing it to where it’s supposed to be in terms of not only creatively but businesswise as well

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

There is a public persona that we are familiar with with Kanye, how does the professional behind-the-scenes persona differ? Does it differ?

Che Pope

Number one question I get from people, a lot of people just in my travels I get, “Is he nice?”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Is he nice?

Che Pope

Yeah. He’s extremely nice. He’s extremely nice warm, caring individual. I mean, he’s a very complex individual. He’s very well thought. He can constantly contradict himself, but the underlying goal is that he’s just trying to make good things. He’s trying to work with creatives. He’s never a me, me person. I think there’s a perception of he’s this egomaniac and it’s a me, me thing. When we work together, it’s all about team, it’s all about collaboration. It’s a complete Motown sort of experience, if you will, because it’s constant collaboration.

That’s across the board in terms of what he’s doing. If he’s doing a live show, he has a team around him and they're brainstorming about various live shows, if he’s doing fashion, he has a whole team. It’s a very creative environment, which I really appreciate that because it’s just constant … There’s a lot of what I call disposable music going on. That’s no knock to anybody what anybody’s doing. I just think that we put a little bit more thought into it.

Last night, I may make an awesome track. It might be the best track in the world and yeah, I could’ve put it out on SoundCloud last night but I like to sleep on it, wake up in the morning, listen to it and think about how can I make this better. I feel like that’s what we… That’s our process. I feel like that we still care, that we still try to just explore. I don’t know if you guys know this but you may have heard this, there’s often 10, 12, 15 versions of songs that we have. It’s often months at a time that we may work on the same song. “Bound,” which was one the records that I did on Yeezus that I did with him. There might have been 10 versions of that song before it was ever finalized. It was finalized maybe in the last week of the album. That goes on for every song.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What does it mean to co-produce a song with Kanye West? You may just made reference to many people credited on one individual song and there are songs where you are solely credited along with Kanye. Since that’s a more unique situation actually, maybe you can speak to it later but what is it like when it’s you and Kanye co-producing a song?

Che Pope

It’s good. Honestly, years before I worked with Kanye, I worked for Dr. Dre for a while. And prior to working with Dr. Dre, I was pretty much an individual that work by myself on a record. I may have different musicians I collaborate with here and there but overall I would go in the studio by myself, create a track so on and so forth.

When I started working with Dre, I would say I was introduced to more of the five people in the room [scenario]. It might be Dre, Scott Storage, myself, Mike Elizondo, and then that’s when I really realized how good other people were and you're in there with five of their all-stars and then the best in the middle of the thing, you sort of … That gets you … I felt like that was great preparation for any experience.

Moving into Kanye’s experience, that is moving into the unknown because as much as I thought I was prepared for it, you can never be prepared for Kanye. You can do your best and be ready but he’s always gonna surprise you. He’s always going to be unpredictable. He’s always going to disrupt and even when you think you finally figured it out, he’s still going to disrupt that. I think for the first two years, it was definitely sparring, really learning and understanding each other and how to communicate with each other. We definitely had our moments like any creatives you do.

As far as when it's just me and him doing a record, I still have those moments where I might have an idea that I’ve created myself. I’ll give it to him and he’s really liked it or something then he’ll just touch it and then that’s done. Those moments are very few and far between. Usually, Hudson Mohawke might have worked on it. Mike Dean might have worked on it, Jeff Bhasker might have worked on it. No I.D. might have worked on it. Noah Goldstein might have worked on it. It’s very seldom that it's only me and him that do a record.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Let’s listen to something somewhat recent from this year that you worked on with Kanye.

(music: A$AP Rocky ft. Kanye West – “Jukebox Joints” / applause)

Long song. You kept saying it’s too long. Long song but an interesting song to talk about, you said.

Che Pope

It's real interesting to talk about.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Quite simple, deceptively simple, or simple?

Che Pope

Yeah. To be honest with you, we wanted to make it more complex. That was ASAP, shout out to A$AP Rocky. I love working with the kid. He’s just truly fearless in the studio. I like that when I’m working with someone, someone who’s just open-minded and jut just free. That song actually started in Wisconsin. We were actually out there working with Justin Vernon from Bon Iver, if anyone knows Justin and familiar with Bon Iver, he’s got an amazing studio in Wisconsin and it was an amazing experience.

He and Kanye brought together very interesting collective of folks from Kendrick, A$AP, myself, Mike Dean, Common, to Bon Iver, to the lead singer of Arcade Fire whose name is escaping me right now. It was just a really, really amazing experience and then Justin and his team. Literally, maybe 5 in the morning one day, A$AP’s like, “Che, I know you got a bunch of soul samples.” He’s like, “I want to make a jukebox song.” Unbeknownst to me, that Kanye had actually already given him a track that I had given Kanye so then we just ended up adding onto it. I didn’t know it was going to be that long. You got to let the artist be themselves. I love soul loops like anybody else but I also like movement and songs but he’s got this artist that she works with, Joe Francis, that A$AP had told me a story about.

Where he had met him out on the street at one in the morning playing on the street in London. He was like this kid sounds like a sample. I want to put him on one of your samples and I want to create this jukebox kind of sound, a record like almost kind of like I’m just at some place and I'm just hitting the jukebox. That’s the song. Who knew you could do something like that in Wisconsin?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You’ve said you prefer to be in the background to some degree.

Che Pope

Completely.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Why is that?

Che Pope

I came along in the era of the Timbaland’s and the Pharrell’s and the Neptunes and the super producers. They were great. You had Swizz Beats, you had Timbaland. They were such large personalities. I’ve always been very low-key. It was really all about the music for me and the journey of the music more so than the celebrity. Even now, I tend to turn down press to do a lecture. I prefer to do a lecture and work with young people and talk to people and that - versus doing an interview on a magazine or something of that nature. That’s just been my personality I think from the door.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Where are you from originally?

Che Pope

Boston, Massachusetts, if anyone’s familiar with Boston. Gang Starr, Guru.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Ed OG.

Che Pope

Yeah, the Almighty RSO.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You moved to Virginia.

Che Pope

Yeah, but I went to college in Virginia which was a very unique time in Virginia at the time. Jay-Z was down there hustling. Diddy was throwing parties, Diddy went to Howard and he was coming down and throwing parties in Virginia and Atlanta. Teddy Riley had moved from New York. Teddy Riley - obviously a big music producer at the time, and set up shop in Virginia Beach. Pharrell and Chad were in high school figuring their stuff out. Timbaland and Missy were from there but then they went up to Rochester with DeVante from Jodeci. But what happened surprisingly, and this was by no means a plan… I had no idea, I actually did music kind of for fun. It was one of those things I did. I go to school for music. I’m from Boston, Berklee [College of Music] was right there.

I thought about going to Berklee but I wanted to get out of Boston. Virginia at the time became this melting pot of all these people coming through. You had so many artists coming through. I met Naughty by Nature, Tribe Called Quest was big at this time. I met all these guys. Without knowing it, I’d actually sort of moved into a melting pot of musicians and future hall of fame musicians and producers and executives from the Diddys to the Jay Zs. And I'm meeting all these people, just hanging out at the basketball court, I'm meeting them at the club, I'm meeting them at a restaurant. You’re interacting with these people.

A friend of mine gave some music to Teddy Riley, and he tracked me down. By the time he found me, I had more music and so he literally left the room and comes back with a contract. True story, the first thing he said to me, “This is not a good contract.” What I liked about it though, he was very honest about it. I signed the contract. Naturally, I was a junior in college so it was like a great opportunity because I don’t even think at that point I even believed doing music as a career for my life was even possible, so spending time with the Teddy Riley’s of the world, the Kay Gee from Naughty by Nature, the RZA from Wu-Tang, Diddy (Puff then. I knew him as Puff).

What that gave me was the belief and the confidence in myself that was possible and I think that alone realizing you guys are here all in this room because it’s what is possible. It is possible. I’m living proof of it. One minute you have no idea like you’re trying to figure out, you’re in college like, “Damn why am I going to this class? I really don’t even like this class. I don’t like this major, but I don’t know what other major to do.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You were a finance major.

Che Pope

I was a finance major, yes. Wow, what a life that could have been. I think just the belief that instilled in me that this is possible, then after that, you feel powerful, you feel like Superman because no matter what obstacles you face, whatever pitfalls, ups and downs you face, whatever Lauryn Hill’s you run into, you feel like anything is possible.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What do you think craft-wise was the most important thing you learned from being around Teddy Riley?

Che Pope

Oh, how to make a song. I definitely was a beat guy, like you heard. That’s funny because I joked about that with A$AP. I said, “You’re taking me back to 1988 right there with that song, where I would make a four-bar loop and just all night just four-bar loop.” So Teddy was like, “Okay, that’s great for 30 seconds. Let’s make a song.” Teddy was great because you’re talking about a real producer, a real songwriter, so he definitely always instilled [in me that] everything was about the song. So that was great. It was great experience.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Then, you came under the tutelage of another producer, back up in New York?

Che Pope

Yeah. It was funny because I don’t know who was tutoring who. I think we both were. He’s talking about Wyclef Jean. I met Wyclef after he just coming off the Fugees album and the success of the Fugees album, and so on and so forth. I think we both, at the time, were just fearless. Like we just had no fear of whatever.

We would just literally say, "Okay, that kick doesn’t go with that snare, and that bass is out of tune with that guitar, but fuck it, let’s go.” Out of that, became Destiny Child’s “No, No, No.” Out of that, “Ghetto Supastar.” Out of that, came his Carnival album - these records that we just literally made. He had this Upper East Side apartment. It was a really nice apartment. We just threw a bunch of equipment in and there was really nothing else in there and we would just make tracks all day long.

It was just a level of fearlessness. I think what I liked about Clef, though, was the same thing that I spoke about earlier - like when you get with a new artist, anything is possible. You got some Middle Eastern tabla drum loops with some Creole. Anything was possible.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Was that the sort of take away craft wise from being around him, do you think, or was it something else?

Che Pope

No, definitely that. I still have that to this day. I think if anything I think I left Teddy with a little bit maybe a little too structured so getting in with Clef after Teddy was a great experience because then it gave me the wildness again. I think that’s followed me through my whole career.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So then after this number of years - I don't know if it’s years or year, but for this period - working with Clef, then you started to work with another individual involved with the Fugees.

Che Pope

Yeah. From Wyclef, I met Lauryn [Hill]. It was very organic experience. We met, and we began talking about music before we ever did any music. It was great. I think we just had like-minded viewpoints in terms of creating music: what we felt our relationship to music, our similar backgrounds. She had very educated parents. One of her parents was an educator, one of my parents was an educator - very similar journeys if you will.

At the time, coming off the success of the Fugees as well, she was interested in producing. She really wasn’t a producer, so it was like, “Well if we work together, then you can help [me]. I have the name, I have the success. You’re a beginning producer, you’re learning. You have this experience from Teddy, you have this experience from Clef. Let’s partner up.”

We partnered up and we started working. The first song we did was a songwriter who at the time was signed to Arista Records named Andrea Martin, who’s still a good friend to this day. We did a song - the remix of a song, actually - called “The Best of Me.” That was the first song that me and Lauryn ever did together, and we did it in her attic.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, typically, how would it work? Are you working alone? Are you presenting ideas to Lauryn? Do you sit in a room together and come up with something from scratch?

Che Pope

Yeah. That one started with literally just me and her sitting in her attic. The first one we started was a remix, so we had a song to play with and flip. It was literally me on an MPC and her right next to me. We just literally did pretty much the whole record, then we took to the studio and finished it.

Then we did the next record, Aretha Franklin’s “A Rose Is A Rose.” There used to be a bass player called Vere Isaac from the Bronx that I used to use a lot. He had the best-sounding bass. It was me, him and Lauryn. I brought him on “A Rose Is A Rose.”

It was a really organic thing to just sit in her attic - at the time that was still her parents’ house in Jersey - and we would just mess around and build a song - and the next thing you know, we’d finished in the studio.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How was it when things started for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill? Was it more or less the same? There were other people involved as well at that point.

Che Pope

She did a record with Common. She had me come to the studio with her when she was working on that, and that’s how I met James Poyser. James Poyser’s one of the members of The Roots on the Jimmy Fallon show if you guys ever watch the Jimmy Fallon show. I don’t know if they get that over here or not, but James Poyser and ourselves struck up a friendship. Me and James were really close. He’s one of those super talented Philly guys. [Lauryn] also knew this guy Vada Nobles from her neighborhood, so she wanted me and James at her disposal 24 hours but we were also doing other things, too. Me and James weren’t available to her 24 hours so that’s why she brought in Vada, who had these two twins that he worked with. It was almost like two teams. I like to say the A team and the B team.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You were the …?

Che Pope

No disrespect. We were definitely the A team.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

As a creative experience, how special was this?

Che Pope

The creating of the album was an amazing experience. It was about a year-and-a-half out of my life. You feel like you gave blood like everyday. We sat in a room and we started the record. It was me, her and James, and first thing she said was, “I like soul music, I like reggae music, and I like Wu-Tang. Let’s go.”

Literally, one of the first records we made was “Doo Wop.” I don’t know how “Doo Wop” came out of that equation, but one of the first records that we made was “Doo Wop.” It was just great from there on. It was a very liberating experience with her because I think she’d had those similar experiences with Wyclef in creating the Fugees album: where there were no boundaries, and the only boundaries that she gave me with her album were those are influences; as long as you included references to her influences, she was open to anything. It was a very amazing, really organic experience.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I don’t know if all those ingredients are evident in this song, but this is from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It’s something that you certainly worked on.

(music: Lauryn Hill – “To Zion” / applause)

Che Pope

That’s a good one.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah not bad, not bad. So you just were saying, as the music was playing, that there are some technical things happening there in addition to just the structure of the song.

Che Pope

I’m glad that you actually picked that song. That’s a good one to talk about because it still boils down to that same thing. It’s a very sentimental song and I’ll speak to why. It felt like just two friends getting together, just hanging out and making a record. We never thought about the playing field that we were on.

Whether you’re in the NBA or just playing at the playground, I think that when we create we still feel like we’re just playing at the playground. Then, later in life, I’m glad that people can appreciate it and that it was successful and all that. It takes me back to that moment.

My wife is here. She isn’t usually with me when I travel and do these lectures, but she’s here today. And it’s funny that you played that record, because we used to have this [situation]. When we first got to New York, she had this little brownstone - like a bottom-floor brownstone - and at the top floor there was a little studio available that I rented for my music studio, if you will, that had no air-conditioning. New York summers get very hot and humid and when you have your equipment in there, it gets even hotter. You could literally only work in this room for like 15 minutes at a time before you’d incinerate yourself and the gear.

“To Zion” was made in that room when I had like 15 minutes where I could get in there, leave, come back for 15 minutes. “To Zion” was made out of that. Sometimes I would just sketch at home, and sometimes I would just sketch in the studio. I played it for her and she started crying.

At first, I was like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was that bad.” I was like, “I thought I liked it.” She literally started crying. I was like, “It’s not that bad.” She was pregnant for majority of the album and she was like, At first, I was like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was that bad.” I was like, “I thought you liked it.” She literally started crying. I was like, “It’s not that bad.” She was pregnant for majority of the album and she was like, “No, I've had this song idea for my son. Everybody’s been telling me to get an abortion, and so on and so forth. I didn’t know what the song was going to sound like, but now I do.”

That’s just two friends getting together in a room and making a record, not even knowing the possibilities of what existed. I think that record became [that record] because we're like, “Ooh let’s have a harp. Ooh, let’s bring a choir in,” because we didn’t know any better.

But speaking to the technical thing of it. She was pregnant when she was singing this, so [when] she did all these vocals I think it was very intense for her. At the end of the song, you hear these vocals she’s doing. I think she was a little overwhelmed after she did them and she just needed to go into another room, so she said, “Take those vocals, put them together and when I come back, play it for me.” I literally sampled all of her vocals and chopped them in the MPC. What you’re hearing at the end of the song is me playing that and triggering [her vocals] from an MPC. I think she had just done too many vocals. She was like, “I don’t even want to begin to think about it. You just do it, I’ll come back in and listen, and I’ll tell you what I like and what we [need to] change.”

I have to give a shout out to Q-Tip because he inspired the song. A lot of the song came from me listening to A Tribe Called Quest before, and then doing things like featuring jazz legend Ron Carter on bass and things of that nature. That’s [Carlos] Santana playing guitar on the song. I can’t remember the harp player’s name right now, but we had this legendary harp player come in and play. Same thing: that fearlessness and that ignorance of not knowing better, just being like, “Let’s get Santana on this,” not knowing whether he’d say yes or no. But it was just like that to me. Being hip-hop is being like, “Hey, you coming down Herbie?” Like, whoever. You just wouldn’t care. That’s the result of that song.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So you are officially credited as a co-producer on this track.

Che Pope

To this day, I still say this, make sure you have a good lawyer, “Make sure you have a good manager. Yeah. This album was my first real … I guess I had some niggles in terms of what this business can be with Wyclef, but nothing compared to what happened at the end of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. There are record such as “To Zion” that were done, and [then there were tracks like] “I Used to Love Him,” which is the song with Mary [J. Blige] that I made in my own Brooklyn brownstone, that weren’t even made in the studio. Literally no one else made those tracks. I didn’t even have publishing on them when the album came. Literally no publishing.

I think I did seven records on the album: seven or eight, at least seven. [These] records were just created from scratch in the studio [by] like literally maybe me, James and her, and literally at the end of the record there was no publishing for me and James. We felt so violated. The other guys - Team B, we’ll just call them - I give them credit because they weren’t as personal about the music as we were. Or maybe they were, I can’t speak for them. But I think that for me and James, it was not only just a musical journey. It was a spiritual journey, too. I don’t consider myself religious like that, or whatever, but it was such a harmonious experience making this record with her at the time.

To this day, I still say this, “Make sure you have a good lawyer, make sure you have a good manager.” I did not have a good lawyer, nor a good manager. I had a really good guy who was a friend who managed me, but they didn’t do what their job was [meant to be]. I was still too green to really handle the business of it correctly. I was emotional about the project because, obviously, I had spent a year-and-a-half of my life, every day, in the studio, countless hours on end, working on this one album. I think I was a little too close to it.

We were taken advantage of business-wise. A friend of mine represented the guys who sued, Londell McMillan. He called me one day. He said, “Che, you need to be in this lawsuit. You know [that] you’re getting robbed. You need to be part of this lawsuit.” At that point in time I wasn’t ready to be in it, so I chose not to be. James as well, for his own reasons. They were working to resolve the situation and then, before you knew it, with whatever happened with Lauryn and her departure from the music business and everything else happened with her, she really checked out and it was too late to sue.

No disrespect to those guys. They definitely were big contributors to it, but they got paid. I think they got paid about a settlement of about $5.6 million. Me and James did not. But, you move on. It was definitely a hard lesson, but it was a lesson nonetheless and you move on. I attribute things of that nature, of being a part of those things, in that journey to my journey why am still here 23 years later.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you speak to Lauryn directly about any of this at any time, after you learned that you were not given full credit for your work?

Che Pope

Only one time. Even then, it was more of, like, a sort of dismissive type of conversation: where it was like, “We’ll figure it out.” Then after that, she just checked out and there was no more access to Lauryn. There’s really no more Lauryn at that point. It was managers and lawyers who stood in front, and then they begin to change and disappear. It was like, “Who’s representing her? Who’s working? What’s going on with the label?” Then after that, I just let it go.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

As a young person, a creative person at this point in your career, you’ve just contributed to this hugely successful creative triumph and the rug has been pulled out from under you. So how did you decide what to do next and where to go?

Che Pope

The number one thing I’ll say [is that] I went on to educate myself about this business. I became an executive of Warner Bros. Records under the tutelage of this producer named David Kahn, who was head of A&R at the time. David Kahn was responsible for producing everyone from Fishbone to Paul McCartney, so I mean [that he is a] really amazingly brilliant guy. I used to call him a nerd genius, because his knowledge in the studios is as great as his knowledge about the business.

The great thing was that my office at the time - I still lived in New York - was in the Rockefeller Center, [and] directly across from my office was business affairs. There couldn’t have been a better position to be in: where literally every day I could go talk to the lawyers, the masterminds of this business. I learned everything there is to learn about a record contract and about publishing. I stress to you guys: learn everything there is to learn about this business because the way you get taken advantage of... Sure, there are people out there who want to take advantage of you, but you can’t be taken advantage of if you’re educated. If you’re aware. You cannot be. You just know too much. If you choose to sign something that you know is not good, then that’s on you. But at least you know better.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You produced some groups in Europe. You became an executive. You studied under the tutelage of a gentleman named Hans Zimmer.

Che Pope

I did. I just showed up on his doorstep. That’s the other hip-hop thing. You just don’t care, you’re just like, “Hey…”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who is Hans Zimmer, for somebody who may not be familiar with his work?

Che Pope

A legendary German composer. What happened was [that] I had actually scored this film called Whiteboyz, which was this really funny film.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Danny Hoch, Bonz Malone.

Che Pope

Yup, yup. Danny Hoch. This director had just come off this movie Slam which was a poetry movie that was really popular on an independent level, and [then] he did this movie Whiteboyz which was a really funny movie. Danny Hoch was this one-man comedian kind of thing. A one-man show, if you will. They sort of made a movie about it. I scored this film knowing absolutely nothing about scoring films. It was fun. It was a great experience. I was like, “Oh, let’s just go [do] the same thing: being hip-hop, not knowing any better.” I just showed up on Hans Zimmer’s door one day like, “Hey, I want to score films.”

He’s like, “Who are you?” After I was able to talk him out of not having security remove me, we spend time just talking and hanging out. We formed a bit of a bond and a relationship at the time. I didn’t live in LA. Each time I went to LA I started hanging out with them more, [and the] next thing you know, I ended up working over there. It was called Media Ventures at the time. His company is called Remote Control now. Same thing: it’s like a creative collective of composers, from beginning composers to very experienced composers, and was a really great environment for me because it really introduced me to computer music.

What Hans lacked as say maybe a John Williams, who was a classically trained composer (even though he had composition experience), he is a huge fan of Kraftwerk so he had synth experience. He was a really great synth programmer and all the stuff. He was one of the first people to really embrace technology and computers [for] doing movie scores. Coming from the hip-hop world, the urban world, it was ASR’s, MPC’s, SP1200s’s, turntables. I mean some people did sequence with MIDI, but a lot of times I would just sample myself and then chop what I played, and things of that nature. Computers were somewhat of a daunting thing back then. This is 2000, 2001, something like that. So all these guys - you went into these rooms and all these guys had racks of samplers. Like there would be 15 samplers and I’d be in there like [gawks]… I mean it’s just very intimidating atmosphere with a lot of Germans speaking German. There was a lot going on.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

We know the feeling.

Che Pope

There’s just a lot going on. You have people buzzing. I wasn’t used to that. Maybe I'm used to more of like Wu-Tang and 22 dudes in the room smoking blunts, so I guess it would be the same for them. But that’s what it was. It was the equivalent of that and sort of getting past your fears. Challenging yourself and maybe coming to a great experience. I was there for about two-and-a-half years.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How did that experience prepare you for doing things like this?

(music: The Game – “Higher” / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What's that Detox thing [that] he’s talking about?

Che Pope

I don’t know. I heard a rumor about that. I think [that] one of the things that was great about the Hans [Zimmer] thing was that experience in that world over there is [different to that] in hip-hop. A lot of times we would need a sound effect, so we’d go digging for records. In the composing world, if they wanted a 15-year-old Korean kid playing spoons, they would literally bring in a 15-year-old Korean kid playing spoons and sample it.

If they wanted an African hairdresser who sang, they’d fly in an African hairdresser who sang. “Higher” was great because I was just making samples at the time. It came from clanging the inside of a piano. I don’t know if any of you guys have experimented with playing the inside of a piano and things of that nature [before], but at the time a lot of people had DATs. I don’t know if you guys even heard of DAT players. I had a little portable DAT player and I was just inside the piano, making sound effects. I took it, chopped it up and made a beat out of it. “Higher.” There’s a little Dre in there, too. He’s great with orchestration, that guy. That Dre guy.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It’s very cinematic sounding. So that was The Game, “Higher,” off The Documentary album.

Che Pope

That was originally for 50 Cent. We originally did that song for 50 Cent. 50 Cent wrote the hook, so it was just the beat and a hook, but The Game was the project that was up first [and] so 50 Cent contributed to it. That was before they fell out. That was one of the [The Game] records he contributed to and still, to this day, is one of my favorite records. A little-known fact about this record: at various times in Kobe [Bryant]’s career, there’s [been] times where he pick songs that so, when he scores, they play in the arena. This song was the song he had picked when he scored 81 points.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

At Madison Square Gardens, or in LA…?

Che Pope

No, it was in LA.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Okay, little-known facts about Kobe Bryant and Che Pope. There is this thing that you’ve obviously experienced quite a bit to this point in your career which is collectives working together then. After Aftermath, you joined G.O.O.D. Music, and you made reference earlier to this phenomenon of there being many people credited on one individual production. I wonder if you can just share some insight as to why that is, because you’ve obviously been in the situation where not enough people have been credited on a production. Is this just simply compensation for that from an administrative sense? Like, is this a karmic sort of thing, or is this just how the world works now?

Che Pope

I like to think it’s a little bit of both, but it’s definitely a testament to Kanye West: meaning [that] this kid was a very accomplished producer that, as you know, could do it all himself. We know that. That’s how the way he came up: spinning, challenging himself; locking himself in the room and doing 10 beats a day by himself. When I first came into the Kanye situation, this was a guy who had already been at the top of his game. And he had his team. His team was really Mike Dean, Jeff Bhasker, Anthony Kilhoffer and No I.D.

Everybody in their respective positions was also very accomplished. Jeff’s one of the top producers in the game now. Mike Dean is one of the top producers in the world. No I.D. is still a big producer and one of the top executives in the world, so everybody at their respective positions were already really good. So I was kind of like, “You’re pretty settled here. You’re pretty good.” He was like, “No, it’s constant.”

It’s constant, meaning that the door is always open for new ideas, new talent. I just really appreciated how he championed that. That was just a necessity for him. I fed off that, because the latter part of the Dre situation had been challenging because he was not putting out music. I think at that point I still had almost like [how] a vampire needs blood. I still had that need to create music and put music out. I wasn’t done. For years, the last 3 or 4 years, Dre wasn’t putting out any music. A little bit of Eminem here and there, but even then he had less and less involvement in that. It was very stifling and confining.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Just out of curiosity, I know we’re not talking about Aftermath necessarily right now, but why no music released from Dr. Dre? This has become a running joke for decades now.

Che Pope

Two things. One is I think he was protective of his legacy. I was surprised at how aware of his legacy he [was] because he really doesn’t give you that impression. He doesn’t really talk about that stuff, and so on and so forth, but he’s always told me that, even from the day we first met. “I’m never going to put anything out if it’s not special.” I don’t know if Compton is special, but it is good. I mean, I don’t feel like that’s a knock to his career. I don’t feel like it’s like when somebody comes and they do one of those albums, it's like, “Oh my God.” But I definitely feel like it was a credible album. Do I think we could’ve made it better if I was still there? Yeah. But he was very aware of his legacy and I think because I’d ask him (when I first started working with him) about the Rakim thing, and so and so forth, I said, “Well I was waiting for you and Rakim,” and he said, “If it’s not amazing, I’m not putting it out.” I think that’s way he sort of does his career.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Not to derail your thought process, but you were talking about Kanye and your role as far as facilitating things, when you already seemed to think he’d got a team set.

Che Pope

Yeah. I can literally remember listening to the Watch The Throne record. Me and Kanye had been meeting, and this was literally just before the Watch The Throne tour. We had been doing a number of meetings and I literally remember driving in LA and listening to “Otis.” And it's like: as much as I’ve known that sample, and I’ve chopped this sample up before, I was still listening to it and just being like, “Wow.” It was just fun.

To be honest with you, I wasn’t intimidated at all about the situation. I think at that point, coming off the Dre thing, you definitely still feel like you’re a Jedi. You know what I mean? You definitely feel like you have the skill set, but at the same time, he’s coming off Watch The Throne and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. To this date, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, to me is still one of the epitomes of just amazing production from a hip-hop perspective.

The first record we worked on together was “Mercy.” I had “Mercy” in my pocket. I met this young producer named Lifted in Phoenix maybe eight months before that, and he had this track. I just said, “Let me hold that.” I held it, we got together, and me and Kanye worked on it and it became “Mercy.” If that’s the first thing that we do together, I knew [then] that we were good.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So you didn’t join as president of G.O.O.D. Music, but eventually…

Che Pope

Yeah, eventually. We discussed it and it was just like, “Let’s just start, be creative and we'll just go from there. We'll make records, we’ll talk, we’ll spend time together.” I knew him, but I didn’t know them as far as like really knowing someone. I knew Don C really well. I knew Gee Roberson really well. So I think that in the first year or two it was really getting to know Kanye: so we knew each other, but [also had] mutual respect.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned “Mercy,” but I don’t want to lose time here. We talked about this just a little bit earlier, so let’s just get into it.

(music: Kanye West – “Bound 2” / applause)

Che Pope

Good video. Did anybody see the video?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You said earlier (I don’t know if it was here or upstairs) that this is one of the first things that you gave to Kanye at the beginning of the process of doing Yeezus.

Che Pope

I gave this to him when we started Yeezus. That was prior to one of his rants, so I didn’t know where his mindset was. I think I was like, “Oh.” Once I heard the rants, I was like, “Okay, maybe that’s not for this record.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Is that part of the process? Like, timing the music submission to the nature of the rant?

Che Pope

I think that, in general, timing is everything when you’re working with artist. Especially if you’re a producer and a songwriter, and it's like, “All right.” Even for now, “Bitch Gotta Have My Money” is a perfect example. That was written by this young writer named Bibi Bourelly, who’s German. [She’s one of my little, young artists. She’s really special [and] talented. The original track was done by this kid Deputy who signed to Roc Nation, so that had been given to Rihanna, [but] it was completely overlooked. Completely not listened to.

Then when we worked with Rihanna, we brought [Bibi] in. Literally, the first session we had, we brought her and the song got played again. I think it’s just the timing of it. [Rihanna] just caught it and heard it. She walked around the room, thought about it and next thing you know, it’s her song. I do think that, with an artist, it is the mood. It’s was going on with their life: what they want to talk about, what they want to speak about, does this texture; this something where their head’s at right now. So sometimes we have records that we bring back three years later that maybe was just three years too early for that song. Then it gets used.

Timing is everything. One other question that song brings up is I get a lot of questions about soul samples. I think the surprising thing is that a lot of us play instruments. I think a lot of people don’t even realize that we play, because we use samples so much. In my heyday, the texture of hip-hop was the sample. So even now, if hip-hop is trap right now - like the Drake and Future album is where everything is at, with Metro Boomin and Southside - I think the one thing that those guys can appreciate about what we do is that we’re able to do what they do, but even make it something else.

A result of that for instance is Travis Scott’s album. Travis has been around us and he’s learned how to sort of take a little from here, a little from there. I think what makes us still so relevant is that same thing I was talking about earlier: we put a little extra time into it. I don’t need to sample. I could program 808’s all day long and just give you 10,000 trap beats. I think it’s just finding a way like that same thing. We sort of grew up on, like, finding that groove that’s just like, “Ooh what’s that?”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, I mean, there’s a soul loop in here obviously. There are other elements. And it’s funny because, when this album came out, I found certain people saying, “Oh yeah, that’s the old Kanye sound.” But if you actually listen to it, it’s totally (at least, it seems to me) in line with the aesthetic of the rest of the album. In terms of there being some schizophrenia to it, as far as just different pieces coming in and out that you wouldn’t expect. I don’t know if that’s how you saw it in this incarnation where it finally ended up. It makes sense within the fabric of the greater musical statement to me.

Che Pope

Well, it felt [that way] to me, too, because it rounds out the album. The way the album is - you end up at this place. To me, it sort of just lets you know at the end of the day, he’s okay. I love that record because there’s Tony Williams on that record, there’s Charlie [Wilson] on the record, there’s Mike Dean on the record, there’s Anthony Kilhoffer on the record. There’s No I.D. on the record, myself on the record. There are five writers on the record. Same thing. It's still a village putting together record, even though it’s a track that it started off with just me. Then it becomes all this other stuff.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Just to play devil’s advocate: you say, “Okay, we could work on something for years and bring something back.” At what point is there a first thought, best thought sort of philosophy? Does that ever happen anymore?

Che Pope

Oh, yeah definitely. There can be. Kanye made a record the other night. They actually did three records in one night, so it hits. It has moments that could be scattered but, yeah, he did three records the other night. That was a good day.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You’re not going to play any of them for us right now?

Che Pope

No, no.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That’s cool. Just had to ask.

Che Pope

I like my job.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Now. Is it a conscious effort to have an album be the primary musical statement? We come from an album era, I guess, but this is not necessarily the album era. Perhaps it’s a playlist era, perhaps it’s individual track era, but certainly with Yeezus and even the other G.O.O.D. releases of recent vintage, there seems to be an effort to try to make a statement.

Che Pope

Exactly. Maybe it’s because I’m a little older and come from the album era, and that I’ve always loved classic albums and great albums. I still personally love giving people a body of work. Working on an album is just much more of a daunting task than a song. Not to say...the same challenge remains: you’re making just one record and you want to make a good record, but to make 12 of them that people like is just not…

I go back into that disposable. We are in the sort of short attention span era. I love to make music where maybe it holds your attention longer, maybe a year later. A lot of people have talked to me about Yeezus and how that it took them a year to really digest what was really going on there, and to appreciate what it was.

I love that because... you know what it is? I just can’t get it off in a single. I get to really expand what’s going on in my mind and the collective minds when you put 10 or 20 of us together. We can’t get that off in a song. That’s just too much information coming out, so it has to be a body of work. And then many it becomes a Travis Scott album, or it becomes A$AP Rocky album. It becomes all these other records, too: they come through the filter, The Big Sean record, the Pusha T record; it becomes seven albums out of one collective seed.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Let’s play one more thing – not on G.O.O.D. Music, but a contribution of yours and some of your team [to someone else’s record].

(music: The Weeknd – “Tell Your Friends” / applause]

Che Pope

That was a fun one. Everybody is putting their own version of it out [now]. Drake put his version out, I think Kanye put his version out. Like a lot of my records, that was a Kanye record. Primarily, it’s me, Kanye, Mike Dean on the track. Angelo who works with Abel [The Weeknd] did a little bit of production at the end of it. He did a weird part that I don’t really care for.

Yeah, it was a Kanye song. Kanye was still taking his time on his record. We’re working on it, but it’s getting there. It’s almost there. He was actually supposed to do something with Abel and ended up giving him the record, but Abel had done that already. He’d written a record for us and it was a Kanye record, and it ended up being an Abel record.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That spot in the center of the track was where Kanye was supposed to …

Che Pope

Exactly. That’s where Kanye was supposed to come in. There was still Kanye that the melody. It's actually Kanye’s voice run through a keyboard. That part is a little strange to me. It would’ve been great if Kanye had finished his part and he would’ve been on it.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

As you mentioned, you weren’t crazy about that part at the end. I would imagine that perhaps when there’s 10 or 15 people credited on a song, that’s going to happen not just with yourself, but perhaps with somebody else. How do you navigate that: when somebody says, “Hey, this was something I didn’t like,” or when somebody does not [sublimate] their preference for the team?

Che Pope

That stuff happens when you’ve got a number of busy individuals doing a number of different things, in different cities and countries. Moving around. That was [a situation where] Abel’s in one place, I’m one place, Kanye’s one place and we’re just trying to get the song done. That’s what happened in that situation.

They’re all unique, though. It does happen unfortunately. It is one of those things that’s tricky because you don’t ever want to let anything out of your control. And then if you’re not there for the final say, something could happen, the deadline is reached, it's already out and you’re like, “Fuck, so that was one of those.”

Overall, I was pretty happy with the song. The integrity of what was there is still pretty much there. I thought they shot a cool visual, too. I don't know if you saw the visual. They shot a pretty cool visual for it.

I think that after the Lauryn album, I’ve never really been sentimental about the records [I’ve made] since then. I think that was the last time I was sentimental about a record. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s like a bird that you raise. You healed it and then it flies away. Hopefully it survives, but you just… I’m still sort of sentimental about the process. I mean, that’s the control freak [in me]. I think every producer is a control freak. You never actually want to hand it over. Saying that you’re done is tough. Like, “Oh it’s done,” because normally you're like, “Oh, I could change this. I could do that.“ Like, even when I leave here, I’ve got records I’ve got to finish. Yeah. So you’ve just got to let it go. If you don’t, you’re still stuck.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Does anybody have a question at this point for Che? Let’s wait for the microphone.

Audience Member

Thank you so much for reaching out to us. You’re talking a lot about fearlessness. Have you been in situations where you were fearful in a project, or where there was suddenly like a doubt kicking in, that kind of ruins the vibe or process of stuff?

Che Pope

We always want to do a good job, so there are definitely times and situations where the song just isn’t coming together: you do 60% and your time is running out, you got deadlines, you got album deadlines. There are always those times, but hopefully you figured out hopefully or you don’t do it [at all]. I try not to when something’s really not there. I try not to let it ever be heard as much as I can control it. But yes, that happens. That is a reality. I’d love to say that everything is a swish but, by no means. It’s a puzzle: you have to figure it out or start again. I usually try to figure it out, especially if it’s a good idea.

Audience Member

This fearlessness, I mean. By doing a new idea and pushing it through, I'm sure it just comes and you just do it, but are there situations that you get confronted with (maybe externally) that can ruin that?

Che Pope

It’s hard to be fearless. If you look at the charts, if you listen to radio and you see what everybody’s doing, it’s hard to be fearless because you may not work again. We may do a track and everyone else is over there, doing what Max Martin’s doing or what MetroBoomin’s doing. So you have to come with something completely different. Like for instance: there’s nothing on Abel’s album that sounds like that, so for us to give them a record like that is kind of bold. The fact that he embraced it is a testament to him. I felt like it was great that he took a chance on it. He’s already called me. He’s already starting his next album. He’s already called me and said “Che, I need five of those [beats].” It was the fearlessness that started it.

Audience Member

Hello, hi. When you talk about fearlessness: I feel like when you’re fearless like that you start to have this belief, and you collect people around you that have that same belief and support your belief as well. When you make these bold decisions, when you let that bird fly… You say you’re not that sentimental about when it’s gone, but does it affect you in any way when the bird doesn’t survive? Does it make doubt your boldness or your fearlessness?

Che Pope

No.

Audience Member

No?

Che Pope

No.

Audience Member

It’s gone.

Che Pope

Yeah. Crash and burn. I live my life the entire way. I’ve only ever done it that way. I don’t know any other way [to do it] so I don’t think I’ll ever change from that. Obviously if you take too many right turns and it’s not working, and you’re getting lost every time, maybe you should take a left turn. You may change, but the general DNA of the formula never changes.

You have to have confidence. You definitely have self-confidence because any time [that] you're doing something creative, there’s always going to be haters. There’s always going to be people saying “Oh, change this, do that,” so you have to have a confidence and be like, “This what I’m doing,” you know what I mean? And that is hip-hop, too. That is punk. That’s the DNA of where I come from. It’s definitely that. Whether it’s street or urban, coming from the city, I don’t know. It’s an innate confidence: like, fuck it.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Audience Member

Hey man. Firstly, thanks for giving us “Higher.” That’s some crazy shit. What I wanted to ask is, from your perspective, what’s changed over the last few years to allow us within hip-hop today (especially for the upper echelon artist) to allow for such free, boundary-pushing albums like Yeezus and To Pimp a Butterfly? Nevermind the social message of it - the actual music of it is way, way beyond what one would think a huge mainstream or popular artist should be releasing [today]. People are accepting it and really opening up to these amazing, musical albums.

Che Pope

It becomes the belief. When you have that belief, then the people around you start having that belief. A good example is Kendrick with To Pimp a Butterfly. The owner of the label [Top Dawg] is very strong-minded individual and Kendrick is a very strong-minded individual, so their whole team has a very strong belief of what they’re doing. I think [that] for any movement you need that. When you and your people believe it, it definitely helps when you put it out there.

The Kendrick example is a perfect example of what you're talking about because he was just coming off such a successful project (and a commercially viable project) to incorporate being around Flying Lotus and Thundercat, and really make a definitive stance of “This what I’m doing, this is what I’m talking about.” At the success that he’s at, that’s a very bold [thing]. The only other person I really know that really did that is D’Angelo, with Voodoo.

Audience Member

But even with Kanye with Gesaffelstein on the album. That’s like, if you think of it out of context, that really doesn’t make sense. My dad is listening to some of Kanye’s last albums but I’m like, “Hey dad, here’s Gesaffelstein,” and he’s like, “What the fuck man?”

Che Pope

That record alone is it got King Louie from Chicago and Gesaffelstein from Paris: the journey of the world. It was just great. Honestly, the challenge of it was just amazing. I enjoy making records period. When you go in, you do some studio [time] like, “Let’s make a hot record” - but when you really set out with a sort of unknown, I feel like it’s going in the Arctic. Can we survive this? It was one of those type of deals.

Audience Member

Hi. You were talking about how from a label perspective and a business perspective, it’s a streaming world. The business has changed a lot in the last decade or two, but when you talk about doing heaps of versions of tracks - that kind of sounds like a heyday type of process, where there’s time in the studio to explore and things like that. Can you describe - even at your level, where you have a lot of time and a lot of resources - how the process of making a record (other than the technology of course) has changed over the course of your career?

Che Pope

I mean - the reality of the resources is that there are less of them. I think there was a heyday - especially in the Kanye world, like, let’s go to Hawaii. We did Cruel Summer. We were in the Lanesborough Hotel in London with seven studios set up, with the royal family staying the floor below. Those days are over without just being basically just embezzling money, but technology as we know has made everything more accessible. What you can do on a laptop and what you can do in your own space, in your own home, is so much more than you can do in the past where you had to go to a studio.

The studio is much more accessible now. It’s still great to go to studio sometimes, because you can really hear loudspeakers and you don’t have to worry about your neighbors or whatever, but I think it’s just much more accessible. I mean, I was on a 10-hour flight here and I was able to just work the whole time, and the lady next to me was looking at me like I was crazy because I had a full studio set up. That’s where it comes to.

But the business of it is that the resources are not the same. What we were doing with the budget in late ’90s and early 2000s compared to what we do now is night and day. You have to be a little bit more creative with the finances in terms of really maximizing what you’re doing. Obviously, you have people like Kanye, Madonna and Rihanna who won’t show up for days, but in general, at the new artist level - no, we can’t do that.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Audience Member

Hi.

Che Pope

What’s up?

Audience Member

Cool. You obviously work with lots of artists. My question is that, as a producer, how can you expand your individuality [in order] to share with other artists? Because sometimes I feel like I have an idea and I want to do this, but when I’m collaborating with people I have to let it go. You can do whatever you want, but I’m kind of frustrated sometimes. How can you manage that in collaborating with people?

Che Pope

Are you talking about collaborating in the same room? Or are you talking about just giving it to someone?

Audience Member

Yeah, the same room. Like, making music with other people.

Che Pope

I don’t know if you participated in song camps and things of that nature, but I just think it’s a dialogue. It’s good to know the people well. If you get to know them - like go out to dinner, go have lunch - go talk. Communication is definitely important. I was in a song camp in Seoul, in South Korea. You have very strong personalities in there and everyone had their own levels of success.

You had these Norwegian writers that were the top [of the game] and have 15 number 1 K-Pop records, you had some amazing Korean artists, songwriters and producers, and you have very confident US people as well, so it was definitely a butting of heads. But you try to find a middle ground that you think is the best for the song. It is the art of compromise. It is psychology, too. It’s also knowing when to step back and when to be strong for your idea.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Audience Member

Hey. I’m deeply, deeply curious about the process behind the “Bound 2” video. I’m not trying to sound sarcastic or anything.

Che Pope

It’s simply the vision of Nick Knight, the photographer. He’s a very amazing fashion photographer. I don’t think he set out to make this really comedy video, this campy thing, but that’s what it ended up being. Creatives also sometimes have very majestic mission. When it started and they were discussing the idea, I was present when they were just brainstorming. It didn’t sound like what it ended up being on film [as], so I don’t think that’s what Kanye set out for. But I think he’s okay with a result of it. Same thing with the “Hotline Bling” video. I don’t think Drake expected to make a thousand memes about himself.

Audience Member

I think he did.

Che Pope

You think he did? Oh, well maybe he did. He’s a smart guy.

Audience Member

It’s one of the greatest videos ever, the “Bound 2” video.

Che Pope

Oh, it’s hilarious yeah. I enjoyed it. I just thought it was funny to begin with - and I actually thought that’s what he was going for to be honest - but he told me later that it wasn’t quite what he was going for.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Che Pope

Sure.

Audience Member

Hello. My name is John Pope, no relation or whatsoever. I just wanted to ask about working with different collectives over the years. What have you found as the common thread that makes for the most conducive environment? Maybe it’s related to his question about conducive environments for working on stuff. Especially for people like myself. I’m sure it’s true for a lot of people around here, who are used to working alone.

Che Pope

In three of the situations they were very, very strong personalities. There would be one very overpowering strong personality meaning there’s Kanye, there’s Dre, and there’s Hans who had very, very definitive opinions and thoughts, and so and so forth. In those situations, when you’re collaborating in something, there needs to be a final decision. You have someone who says, “It’s like this, this what it is.” In other situations where it’s more of a completely equal playing field, then it’s just give-and-take. It’s definitely give-and-take. You win some, you lose some. At the end of the day, though, I think my common thread [is that] it’s just always the song. That the end result is a good song.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Audience Member

Hi.

Che Pope

Hi.

Audience Member

Thanks very much for speaking. When you mentioned Dr. Dre being protective of his legacy and being very aware of it for a long time, I’m curious as to what Kanye thinks his legacy is? As somebody who’s quite emboldened in how the speak about their work and their feelings, and what happens in their life, is there anything he is really protective of? And does he have an idea of his legacy that we haven’t already heard yet?

Che Pope

I think what he’s protective of is just being a champion of creatives. I get it, too. If you’re a creative and you don’t navigate the financial world, it’s so tricky. Some people get it: where they know how to write a business plan, they know where to get funding, they know what jobs to take and strategically maneuver. The majority of creatives don’t know that. The number one question I get from creatives is “How? I want in, how?”

I've gone to school. I've done this. I’ve done that. So I think what he wants to be, what he’s protective of, is just the creative community period and being a voice for people who just have ideas, dreams and thoughts. And still… where people aren’t just giving up on it, where trying to find ways to… I hear a lot of people talking about his sort of trials and tribulations in the fashion world as a celebrity, and so on and so forth.

One of the reasons [that] he speaks on it is [that] he’s just trying to illuminate that, even with that level of success, it’s still that difficult as a creative to just try to be creative. A lot of what we deal with on a daily basis is just trying to find ways to do it better: being able to bring more people along and more people in, more opportunities and things of that nature. Which is very daunting once you’re dealing with the financial realities of the record labels, investors and banks, and so on and so forth.

You sit down and brainstorm with your friends, and you’re sitting here like, “Oh, while he’s away we can do this, and we can bring in these people,” and then you get with the financial people and they just crush your dreams, so to speak. I think what he is is a voice of is still that fight. That’s what he’s protective of. Obviously, he thinks he’s Michael Jackson. I mean, he is in his own way.

Audience Member

I think that he thinks he’s Michael Jackson, too. As a slight follow-up to that: having worked with Dre on Aftermath for a long time and being part of a legacy-building label and collective, when you hear a classic Dre record you think of it as a classic Aftermath sound. What is the G.O.O.D. Music sound?

Che Pope

You can go back to the G.O.O.D. Friday series and all that kind of stuff. It’s always just that shit. You know when it’s some good music stuff. We drop it and it doesn’t matter who it is on the team. It’s always a little fresher than the rest of them. It is, I mean it is. That’s not really debatable.

Audience Member

Cool, thanks.

Audience Member

It’s been a pleasure listening to you speak. I’m always curious to know about where people turn from musical consumer to musical maker, particularly in this age where you can make music on your phone. At what point did you sort of transition into music-making? And was it based around a piece of technology like an MPC? What was your transition from being a listener to a maker?

Che Pope

I have a friend - you may know him, G Spin. He’s the program director at one of the big stations in New York. Since he’s a year younger than me. I think that since he was 13-years old, he’s had turntables. I was never really that good at DJ-ing, so I think my response to [that was] like, “Okay you got the turntables,” so I took some piano and some drums and was like, “Let me try to make some music.” But it was the same thing. It was still more hobby-esque. It wasn’t really something I set out to [do].

Audience Member

It just happened...

Che Pope

No. It’s definitely just organically just kept … I didn’t even have gear for a long time. I would just go and use other people’s gear, and it got to the point I started getting better on the stuff than they were.

Audience Member

At what point did the finance major happened?

Che Pope

Same thing like I said: I had parents that were academics, so they were definitely pushing the college-structured lifestyle [on me]. I will say this - shout out to my pops. He was very supportive of it. Not everyone was, but he was very supportive of me trying it and he’s like, “Hey if it doesn’t work out, go back [to school].”

Audience Member

I’m sure he’s very happy now.

Che Pope

Yeah, he’s good.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Audience Member

Hey, Che.

Che Pope

What’s up? Jabba!

Audience Member

I was wondering…

Che Pope

By the way, that’s one of my young cats who’s doing this thing right there. That guy.

Audience Member

I’m a bit afraid about this journey because I feel really the most important parts, and the most free parts, are when you're just beginning and when you've become fully established. I really don’t want to change my ways, in any way. I want to just be as free as I can for my whole life. Is that possible? Because once you’ve entered the middle phase, I feel like you’re not the top dog and you’re not nobody, so it’s difficult to be free in a way.

Che Pope

I think you got to do a similar thing. Hudson Mohawke really had a team around him that was strong enough for him to be himself. That’s the way you'll be able to be yourself, because you still have to balance out the business of it. You still have to do what you do.

I don’t want to blow up his spot, but this is Lil Jabba. Everyone: if you don’t know him, he’s an incredible producer and writer as well as painter who will be embarking on the unknown. It’s guys like this that I come across that keep me excited about doing this. He played me some stuff that was just like, “Whoa, what the fuck was that? Yes, I need to know more.” And here we are.

But yeah I think you have to have people that are willing to protect your creativity around you and support it. Then that’s how the vision doesn’t get distorted. If you don’t have those people, then you will have people like, “Oh do this, change it, oh we got Apple ad” … and you will succumb, so to speak.

Audience Member

Also, on the painting note: you said that you and Kanye were checking out the Louvre everyday. Was there any particular wing or paintings that you guys were really vibing with?

Che Pope

It was a lot of the early religious stuff. I do know exactly. I’m trying to think. It was more the early religious stuff that he really kept revisiting. For me, it was definitely just the foreign cultures. Cultures that I wasn’t aware of that had all this art. Even some of the Middle Eastern stuff. Things that I wasn’t aware of. I think it was more the discovery of all of this art that I had never seen, or with bits of various cultures I might have not known about, and just expanding on that. I think everyone took a different experience out of it. We all ventured. It’s so big.

Audience Member

It takes days.

Che Pope

Yeah.

Audience Member

Thanks.