DJ Drama and Don Cannon

Rollie Pemberton

My name is Rollie Pemberton. I’m your host for the evening. Welcome to the Atlanta Mixtape Gods Round Table on RBMA Radio. We’re going to be speaking to two legendary mixtape DJs.

DJ Drama

Cut it out.

Rollie Pemberton

DJ Drama. Give it up. Come on. You don’t have to be so quiet.

DJ Drama

What’s up? What’s up?

Rollie Pemberton

And Don Cannon.

Don Cannon

What’s up? What’s up? What’s up? What’s up?

Rollie Pemberton

I’m going to start just with the most obvious thing I can think of doing here. Mr. Thanksgiving, Dram Cruise, Dram F Kennedy, Barack O-Drama, Rich Homie Dram, and my personal favorite, Optimus Dram.

DJ Drama

Optimus Dram. How’s it going?

Rollie Pemberton

Not just the names, but a lot of great quotes. I’m going to be kind of connecting through some of the quotes. The first one that comes to mind, it’s from “Riot” and it’s off of 2 Chainz’ T.R.U. REALigion.

DJ Drama

Right right, that’s a good one.

Rollie Pemberton

“This shit right here feel like LA, April 29th, 1992. You don’t know? Look it up.” My first question is ...

DJ Drama

Got to teach the kids.

Rollie Pemberton

How do you come up with this shit?

DJ Drama

Honestly, I just feel like what mixtapes have always been and what they become... I came from a place of listening to mixtapes and listening to my favorite DJ do shout outs and put on stores and shout out their connects and things like that. For me, it was like when we got to a point where we were coming into our own, I’d say around ‘03-ish, it was about taking things, taking the formula that was already there before us and putting our twist on it. Part of that twist came at a time when Jeezy’s tape came. It was about, like, let me put some personality on top of just regular shout outs. People have heard that before. Let me put some talk into it. I basically, in the simplest form, just go off the music. I go off the music that’s given to me. Beyond that, I know for me it was like, my favorite artists, when I think about the greats, they’re all, in their own ways whoever it may be, from all spectrums, from Hov to Em, all bring us into their personal lives.

That was something that I always wanted to ... I felt like okay, people are familiar with DJ Drama, so regardless of what’s going on in my life at the time, here’s a mixtape, here’s a platform for me to speak because I don’t rap. Maybe it’s because I’ve always kind of sort of wanted to, I don’t know if I wanted to be a rapper, but here’s my platform to get my shit off, you know what I’m saying? I can’t curse, no? Okay, all right.

Rollie Pemberton

We’re going to curse a little bit.

DJ Drama

Okay, all right. I’m going to keep it clean. For me, it was just that I go off the music. The song’s called “Riot.” The song was crazy. For me, it was like, “Damn, what can I say that’s fly that’ll take this and not...” For me, it’s like, for people not to look at it like, “Okay, he’s just talking on records.”

Rollie Pemberton

You know what it reminds me of? It’s kind of like a professional wrestler. You got like a Ric Flair swag.

DJ Drama

Right, most definitely. There it is. That’s what I felt like I brought to DJs on mixtapes a lot, was the personality side of it, outside of saying, “Shout out to so-and-so. Check my man down on the south side.” That’s real. When I think about that, that’s pretty fly. The song’s called “Riot.” This is how it makes me feel. It makes me feel like April 29th, 1992. There’s some people that probably have heard that song that might’ve been at a certain age that didn’t know what April 29th, 1992 was, so you go look it up and then you see, “Okay, he’s talking about the Rodney King Riots.” Song’s called “Riot.” There it is.

Rollie Pemberton

That’s kind of like the Jay-Z “Google Me” on the “Drug Dealers Anonymous.”

DJ Drama

Exactly. Jay-Z told me to Google, so... A lot of people like my “Shut up” on that jawn too.

Rollie Pemberton

Right.

Right. You were talking about, who were some of the DJs who inspired you as you were coming up. Both of you.

Don Cannon

Green Lantern is one. DJ Clue is another. Kid Capri for his skill. DJ Chubby Chub is one of the favorites. That’s pretty much it. As a young dude, I was watching Envy and Absolut, because they pretty much had a lock on the game. Where I wanted to be in the game was with Green Lantern, really. That’s where I really kinda patent my style from.

Rollie Pemberton

When it comes to the mixtape DJ being a personality, I feel like, for me, yeah, it was like Envy and Clue. They really locked down the game for a while there.

DJ Drama

For me, it was definitely, my first ever, I say this all the time, DJ SNS. He set my path into being a mixtape DJ. Of course Clue. Doo Wop made a tape called 95 Live, which was revolutionary at the time. He was the first person that I can remember that had freestyles specifically for his tape: Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes. Those tapes, that time.

Don Cannon

Tony Touch.

Rollie Pemberton

Yeah, I was just thinking of Tony Touch.

DJ Drama

Tony Touch. He came with the 50 MCs, the 5 Deadly Venoms. One thing that I don’t feel like I do enough when people ask me that question is give credit to Green Lantern and Whoo Kid. I’d say from ‘99 to ‘04, ‘05, before our reign, for me, all we did was, whether it was Green Lantern and his creativity or Whoo Kid and his marketing genius and the way he changed the game from just a mixtape to 8-page panels and sponsors. It was just larger than life. When Whoo Kid and Green Lantern dropped, me, Cannon, and Sense would be like, “Oh man.” We would just be belittled because it was just larger than life. Specifically, what those guys did with artists, too, when it comes to the tapes. What Green was doing with Em and what Whoo Kid was doing with 50 and G-Unit. When Tip came along for me, that was like, okay, here’s my opportunity to go in a direction that I wanted to go in. And you know we’re from Philly, so a lot of the mixtapes I grew up on, per se, were all East Coast-driven for the most part.

Rollie Pemberton

Speaking of that, a lot of people, they’re more likely to associate you guys with Atlanta. How does that connection happen? How does that Philly to Atlanta? Where does that come from?

DJ Drama

Clark Atlanta University. We came down. I came down to go to school. Cannon came the year after. The first year I came, I met DJ Sense. We sit in the same dorm together. We were both from Philly. We kind of just clicked, you know. We were doing a lot of parties. Around that time I wasn’t even ... My mixtape hustle was kind of ... It wasn’t the staple of what I was accomplishing at the time. Cannon came the next year, we met pretty much on the CAU/AUC campus and that was our world. That was our life. I mean before we were known all around the city, before we were known all around the country and all around the world. We were known in the AUC, whether it was a CAU party or Morehouse, Spellman, Shawn DeMorris Brown, you know what I’m saying. I mean our goal was to pretty much conquer the campus in a lot of ways.

It’s a great place to be at that point in your life, especially at that time, because ... Not so much now, I haven’t been over there in quite some time to spend time. When we were going to school, you had to come through the AUC. I mean, Hov was on campus, Nas was on campus, 50 Cent was on campus. Mace was in school when we were there. Outkast, like everyone. You had to come through the campus. It was actually a shop that this woman named Audrey, she had a store on campus, right below was a pita shop that I worked at, Audrey, because she was on campus, and this was a time of the mom and pop stores, you would have to come through Audrey’s and all the artists would be there and sign autographs and CDs of that nature.

That’s how we got down here really. It’s a vibrant city, it’s a city with a lot of opportunities. A lot more opportunities than Philly. I would definitely say that respectably, but we never left.

Rollie Pemberton

What you were saying about Clark, the black college connection. It’s kind of like an untold story when it comes to DJs because my sister and I, we went to Hampton …

DJ Drama

Envy went to Hampton.

Rollie Pemberton

Yeah. Envy at that time …

DJ Drama

You know who else went there? What’s his name? Bieber. Oh, Tay James. Tay James went to Hampton, too. Justin Bieber’s DJ.

Rollie Pemberton

Pooh Bear?

DJ Drama

No, not Pooh Bear, but Tay James. He’s actually his DJ.

Rollie Pemberton

Okay.

DJ Drama

Yeah, he went to Hampton. I had met him there when he was in school. He was like, “what do I need to do?” I was like, “Man, just hustle and grind.” I gave him some motivation and he turned out to DJ for one of the biggest artists in the world. You’re welcome Tay James.

Rollie Pemberton

At one point, did you guys realize that mixtapes, DJing, it was a legitimate way of making it into the music industry? When did you feel ... What were the moments where you felt like it was real?

Don Cannon

That’s a tough one because as we were working, we never really ... I never had like a thought process to it. We were just doing it, you know what I’m saying? At that time ... We could say now it was a way to make money, it was a way to brand, and it was trying to figure out how we get to the next level by working with the artists. Just a fight not to be a salesman and to be a spokesman for the rappers that was coming up and the producers that was coming up. That’s where we were fighting to get to. It’s just hard to do that when you’re on the grind coming up. People are putting their whole career and life in your hand to become the next star. The fact that they came to Dram’s house in [inaudible] and rapped in the bathroom, sat on the couch and waited outside to be a part of it, just made me feel like we was on to something at that time.

Rollie Pemberton

Is that ... How often is that a part of the process where the recording actually is taking place at your crib?

DJ Drama

In those times, it was a lot actually. I mean, the first time I met Tip was at my crib. He came over. I had gotten a phone call, and just like, “Yo, I got this new artist, and I want to bring him through, give him one of your mixtapes.” I didn’t even know how the guy who turned out to be Jason Geter had even had my number.

It was a lot of people came through that crib, it’s crazy. That whole area’s been gentrified, but our little hut still sits there. Jeezy came, Lil’ Jon came. That was how the Gangsta Grillz drop was born. It was actually born there. We were doing a lot of things very closely with these artists. You got to think, this was at a time that, you know, none of us are where we are today. We’re all at very early stages. When I look at it, it’s always so interesting to me. When you say like, “When did we know,” or like, “When did you know this mixtape was my way into the music industry” ... For me, it was like I saw people do it before me. Clue went platinum, Flex had 2, 3 gold albums. It wasn’t a mold that was ... That didn’t seem obtainable, but when you’re in it, you don’t even really realize the history that you’re making at the time. Looking back on it like ... I loved what I did so much. For me it was like to put all my all into it.

I grew up ... I always knew that when I looked at DJs, and I ... Coming up I was like into everything. I used to watch old DMC battles. Whether it was Roc Raida or A-Trak when he was a young boy winning battles. I was into everything, but it was something special about the mixtape DJ because I felt like when I went various places they were known just outside of the DJ that was on the radio, or was the man at the club at that time. That’s where I put a lot of my efforts into, but the story’s kind of like ... I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel like certain things are meant to be. When it comes to how history is made and how music is made, and who would ever though these kids from Philly would come to the south and change the mixtape game. The culture not only in the south but, just, period. It’s like when me and Tip were coming up, or we were working with Jeezy, giving him beats and making tapes. I don’t think I knew how special it was for some time because we were right in it, still living it.

Rollie Pemberton

I want to take a quote that you said on Jeezy’s The Real Is Back because I think, is very relevant to right now. “We wasn’t the first to do this mixtape shit, but after we showed up, shit ain’t been the same since.” Right?

DJ Drama

Right.

Rollie Pemberton

You’re talking about the Clue tapes. You’re talking about Flex tapes. The thing I notice...

DJ Drama

Well, not them specifically.

Rollie Pemberton

No, no, no. Sorry, sorry. No, I’m not going to ...

DJ Drama

Nah, nah, nah. I know what you’re saying.

Rollie Pemberton

I’m not going to put words in your mouth there. In my opinion ...

DJ Drama

Just a general, just the mixtape game.

Rollie Pemberton

You’d see a mixtape and it would be like the hottest tracks of the time. Before anyone else had them. I feel like with you guys, it became ... It kinda synced in with the artist led mixtapes.

DJ Drama

Yeah. Again, there’s a pre-50 Cent and a post-50 Cent of how mixtapes work. We came up in the post 50 Cent era where the demo was dead, the mixtape became almost mainstream albums, and people like Jeezy, and Tip, and Wayne gave us those... Not gave us those opportunities, but presented spaces where we could continue in that legacy of what the mixtape had become.

Rollie Pemberton

Is that like the concept behind Gangsta Grillz really?

DJ Drama

Yeah, because when Gangsta Grillz first started, it was a compilation tape. Gangsta Grillz started as the hottest songs in the south at the time. There were two of them that, you know, like that, one and two. Nah, I’m sorry, there were eight or nine of them. Nah, there were 16 of them. It was just that first few were just that. They were compilations up until T.I. Lil’ Jon came in and hosted a Gangsta Grillz and then when the opportunity presented itself when Jason Geter was like, “I got this idea, let’s do a all-T.I. Ground Hustle Gangsta Grillz,” that was when Gangsta Grillz changed from the hottest songs ... Which at the time was still popping in the streets for the Gangsta Grillz brand, but then here’s the option to the hottest songs. Here’s something all totally new music that you can’t get nowhere else but right here from this brand. It just became the staple. Once those first few tapes started to take off, it was like everybody needed and wanted one.

(music: Young Jeezy – “Trap or Die”)

Rollie Pemberton

The integration between the artist and the DJ, that was a big thing that I noticed in your tapes. That wasn’t happening really before. Whereas he is shouting you out so much. The drops are coming together, it was just like, wow this is legit. That’s what I felt when I heard it.

DJ Drama

You are right.

Rollie Pemberton

Can you tell me anything about the experience of making that tape?

DJ Drama

I remember the first time, matter of fact, I think it was in that room over there that Jeezy first played me “Trap or Die” the song. That was the first time anybody had said my name in a record. I was super hyped. We came from the school of being technical, like being real DJs. Sometimes you have, or you’ve had in the past, mixtape DJs who kind of ... Mixtapes or mixtape DJs weren’t always “DJs” that come from the crates and records and parties. I remember, I even went through it for a minute, especially when I was hot as fish grease, specifically for mixtapes, people didn’t know if I could really rock a part or how well rounded you are. That for us was our way of still showing skill. Being part of projects that were super heavy in the streets per se. Still get our shit off.

Rollie Pemberton

Where’s that assumption come from, mixtape DJs might not necessarily, not be able to DJ a party?

DJ Drama

It comes from the era of the exclusives. It came from the era that Clue transitioned and changed the game. It used to be ... Mixtapes come from people almost being live at a party recording themselves and selling them in the streets. For everybody to listen to from the skate key. Super back in the day. The era of the exclusive came in. When the era of the exclusive came in, that’s when people started looking it at it like, “Y’all just pushing buttons. You’re not really DJing. You’re just playing a song fading it in fading it out. It’s not about the skill anymore. It’s just about whose got the hottest songs.” That’s when some of that changed in the mixtape game. What was important to the consumer, it no longer was about showing off skills, it was about who had the hottest newest records that you couldn’t find anywhere. We kind of tried to take the best of all those worlds and intertwined them.

Rollie Pemberton

Word. In my opinion before Jeezy... he had “Can’t Ban The Snowman” then first album came out, Let’s Get it Thug Motivation 101. I still feel that Trap or Die is a more iconic release for me. I’m wondering what did that mixtape do for Jeezy at that time? It came out after his first album, that’s the thing.

DJ Drama

No it came out before.

Rollie Pemberton

Did it?

DJ Drama

Yep.

Don Cannon

Streets Iz Watching. Trap or die.

DJ Drama

He had an album out called Come Shop With Me.

Don Cannon

Yeah, Come Shop With Me. That was two a double album.

DJ Drama

Then he went ... We did Streets Iz Watching. That was our first tape. That was really where the buzz started at, Streets Iz Watching. That was where “Air Forces” was on. What’s this song with Bun B called? We get money over here? That record ... That was when the Jeezy craze started. By the time Trap or Die came he was already fish grease in the south, in Atlanta. They were touring off Streets Iz Watching. Trap or Die is the first tape ever. This is facts, I don’t want anybody to argue with me. This is facts. Before that it used to be whenever the store got the tape. That was when it came out. Trap or Die had an actual release date. There was no mixtape before Trap or Die that had a release date. January 25th 2005. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember ... Because we had a party, there was a DVD. It was bigger than life at the time. Jeezy doesn’t even get a lot of credit for being one of the first people to do that visually. To put visuals along with mixtapes.

Don Cannon

Add the merch, the Snowman shirts.

Rollie Pemberton

Those Snowman shirts.

DJ Drama

Trap or Die shirts.

Don Cannon

That was one of the biggest things that came out at that time.

DJ Drama

I think all that led up to Thug Motivation. I feel like Thug Motivation as an album stands on its own legs. Trap or Die as a mixtape stands on its own legs. I know for me, I couldn’t go nowhere in the country, and I was on tour at the time with T.I., I couldn’t go nowhere and not hear Trap or Die. Chicago. LA. Philly. New York. Florida. Memphis. It didn’t matter, everybody was playing Trap or Die.

Rollie Pemberton

Just for me, I’m from Canada, I’m from Toronto. The first time I really became aware of hearing the word trap, even in a mainstream way at all, for me it was Outkast’s “SpottieOttieDopaliscious.”

DJ Drama

We killed that. I thought you were going to say Tip or Jeezy.

Rollie Pemberton

Obviously trap music. Really, Trap or Die, you’ve seen the shirts everywhere. It was epic. The Snowman shirts. What was it like when this ... Now trap is so, has become this mainstream term. What was it like when that underground hustling culture first started hitting the mainstream? What was the vibe like? Especially here in Atlanta.

Don Cannon

I don’t know. What would you say is the first time really after Trap or Die we started seeing trap everywhere?

DJ Drama

That was what Atlanta had become almost. Trap was the sound. That was what everybody wanted to make. Trap, it was a place. It was a real thing. It was common for our backyard. It was a regular thing per se. I started to see what it was becoming, I’m not going to front, I definitely have to say with Gucci. I really started to see a transition... when the hipsters... Gucci crossed a lot of spaces and places and people with his music and with his definition of trap. What he was doing. I think that was when I started to see, “Whoa, this is kind of out there.” When I started doing hipster parties. Under The Hipster party in ‘07, ‘08 with Diplo. What should I play? He was like, “Man, play Gucci!” I was like, “Oh yes. This is serious.”

Rollie Pemberton

He did that tape with Gucci too. The Furprint. The World War.

DJ Drama

I’ve done plenty tapes with Gucci.

Rollie Pemberton

I’m saying, when Diplo did the remixtape. You don’t know about that one?

DJ Drama

Oh he did. That’s dope. That’s hot.

Rollie Pemberton

It was a Mad Decent one. Around that time.

(music: Lil Wayne – “Cannon (AGM Remix)”)

For me the Dedication series really is where mixtapes, artist mixtapes really became an art form. It went to the next level. For me it’s equal to when The Sopranos came out and people are like, “TV is equal to movies.” That’s what it’s like for me. What was it like making Dedication?

DJ Drama

I feel like I can drop the mic at any moment and don’t say shit to me. I made Dedication (laughs). Again, living it. When I made Trap or Die I remember asking myself, “What am I going to do next? I can’t top this. There’s nowhere to go. What am I going to do next?” When we did Dedication and I think the stars were aligned from the artwork to where Wayne was to the space that I was in. When, we were all, me, Cannon, and Sense, we all played a part in all of the tapes. We just had found niche, our formula. Wayne was a mixtape guy. He was doing the Squad Up tapes. He clearly was familiar with me by the time we linked up. I didn’t know what he was going ... I just was like, “Yo, let’s do a tape. We got to do one.” He was like, “All right, bet.” You know what I’m saying? Matter of fact, met him here at Patchwork for the first time. It was me, him, and Cortez in the B room over there. I brought him a bunch of beat tapes and what have you and he had some stuff on his own. I was still on the road at the time and I had to ... Actually I don’t tell this a lot.

They were going to put the tape out without me because I was on the road. Yeah, they were going to put the tape out without me. I was like, “Nah, I got to get this shit done.” I made sure to get it ... There’s actually another version of Dedication floating that’s a little different from the DJ Drama Lil Wayne Dedication and there’s even some beats that I switched up on the tape because they gave me some a cappellas. Wayne was just in his bag, man. He’s a special guy. After we did the first one, when we ran into each other again, it was just like, “It’s time to ... Let’s go again.” We both was ... Dedication 2 to me is the epitome of what a DJ and an artist, like you said, mixtape can be. It was something special. Everything about it, it’s almost flawless when I think about it.

Rollie Pemberton

You know what’s interesting about that mixtape is you and Lil Wayne have equal billing in the title, which is rare. Usually the artist wants to take the DJ and make them hosted by. It really represents how it’s kind of like an equal partnership, right?

DJ Drama

Yeah. Somewhat.

Rollie Pemberton

Yeah. Was this one of the ones maybe that you recorded at your house at this time or was it a studio you picked?

DJ Drama

I think we did it at Cannon’s crib.

Don Cannon

Yeah.

DJ Drama

Yeah, we did it at Cannon’s crib. Put the tape together. Majority of the music we had... went through a bunch of the records and I had sent him some beats and everything. The dope stuff about Wayne’s tape is ... again, I was taking some of my skills outside of being a mixtape DJ. For instance, I would write out a script of questions that inquiring minds would want to know, as if I was doing an interview, and I would have him go in there and read them out. You get certain tidbits from Dedication about what people wanted to know about Wayne. Clearly if you listen to the first one, you hear the story about how he almost signed to Roc-A-Fella. On the second one I asked him what’s his favorite TV show, which went into the Sports Center record. That was the first time people really knew that that’s all he watched is sports, you know what I’m saying? There’s... Jewel’s on that. As we were putting together, I went to Miami to ... It was Khaled’s first video, “Holla At Me.” The industry all migrated to Miami to go to the video and Wayne was almost finished. I went to Circle House and I played him the “Cannon” instrumental and I was like, “Yo, you want to do this?” He banged it out that night. That was the last song recorded for Dedication 2.

Rollie Pemberton

Wow. It’s amazing to hear the story of actually where these tracks are recorded because for me, just as a listener, for some reason I have trouble placing them like they’re in a studio. It’s like they’re beyond, just recorded a natural way.

DJ Drama

No, he’s not a human being. He’s different. He’s different, the way he gets it done.

Rollie Pemberton

You were saying how you contribute some of the beats.

DJ Drama

Yeah.

Rollie Pemberton

Where are you getting these beats from?

DJ Drama

Instrumental CDs. Yeah, at the time, a lot of instrumental CDs and just records that we had. A lot of the records sometimes will come with instrumentals. Yeah, just coming up with ideas. I remember for Dedication 3, me and Sense were at the radio station and I was just going through my computer like, “Yo, I need to get ... What should I have him rap on?” Something kind of classic. I was running through stuff and he was like, “Yeah, give him that.” It was Lil’ Jon and Too $hort “Couldn’t Be A Better Player” which became “Dick Pleaser,” which I just named “Dick Pleaser.” I don’t know why, it just sounded fitting, which almost pretty much became a song. I wound up going to the Bay Area months after Dedication 3. My man Big Von was like, “Yo, we play this on the radio. Play that in the club. That goes up,” you know what I’m saying? That was just, again, just being in the moment.

Rollie Pemberton

Another thing that I like about this series, the Gangsta Grillz series, it’s an opportunity for artists to do something that they don’t normally do a lot of the time. I think one of the best examples of that is Pharrell. He did the In My Mind: The Prequel, 2006. It was one of the first times people really took him seriously as a rapper. I feel like with some of those Wayne tapes, obviously there were the Squad Up ones before, but really this was when people were like, “Oh, shit.” This isn’t the kid.

DJ Drama

No, Dedication was the changer for that, man and the Pharrell tape. Kids come up to me to this day and tell me they were raised off that tape. It’s crazy.

Rollie Pemberton

How did that Pharrell one come together?

DJ Drama

I had known Pharrell ...

Don Cannon

I meant to say that’s one of the most diverse tapes that we did. Just him being able to rap on so many different type of beats.

Rollie Pemberton

He’s on all those Wu beats.

Don Cannon

You see what I’m saying? I never thought he would send those back in a million years.

DJ Drama

I remember when we first did that tape, that and the Little Brother tape. People were fretting on it, like, “What? Pharrell, Gangsta Grillz? That doesn’t make any sense. Gangsta Grillz is for T.I and Jeezy. It’s not for Pharrell.” I was like, “All right, watch this,” you know what I’m saying? I had met P through Tip, through them working together, so that’s how we established our relationship. He just called me one day and was like, “Yo, I think I want to do a mixtape.” I was like, “I’m glad you do,” you know? (laughs)

Don Cannon

For sure.

DJ Drama

Yeah, “I’m glad you do.” Yeah, that one was crazy. He takes all the credit for the beats. That was all him, you know what I’m saying? He chose a plethora of jewels that people love to this day. It was a great project. It was exciting, you know what I mean? Gangsta Grillz was the biggest brand in the streets. It was Pharrell. It’s the one and only mixtape he’s ever done, you know what I mean? Definitely he was really ... He had something to prove. I think that’s what it is, like you said. It gives people the opportunity to really just go for it, you know what I’m saying? You don’t got to worry about ... Times are different now because the mixtapes are in a different space, but then you didn’t have to worry about certain clearances or what was going to go or make it to the radio. It was the opportunity to just stand on a table and stick your chest out, you know what I mean? He definitely did that, one hundred percent.

Rollie Pemberton

Something I’m just kind of learning just as we’re talking here, people perceive Gangsta Grillz as it’s this southern rap thing despite the fact you guys are from Philly. The more you talk about the way that you put these together, it really just sounds like old-school hip-hop. It’s on that flex a little bit but it’s with the new music.

DJ Drama

Yeah, that’s what we did. We took a formula that was ... We didn’t re-invent the wheel, you know what I’m saying? We just turbo-charged it and put AMG on the back of it, you know what I’m saying? That’s where we come from. We’re students of the game, you know what I’m saying? In my opinion, as much as it is, Gangsta Grillz is not just a southern brand. Some of my biggest tapes have also been with people like Meek and Fab and Chris Brown, you know what I mean? People from various places, you know what I mean? It was clearly born in the south, but it grew up and then it migrated all over.

Rollie Pemberton

Even one of the more recent ones you’ve done, the Tory Lanez.

DJ Drama

I was about to say Tory Lanez.

Rollie Pemberton

The new Toronto. I live in Toronto and it’s amazing.

DJ Drama

I got to shout out Scarborough.

Rollie Pemberton

The shout outs, I couldn’t believe it.

DJ Drama

Yeah, people were wild about that. Yeah.

Rollie Pemberton

People probably ... Rexdale? Come on. You know Rexdale. How do you know that?

DJ Drama

Come on, man. I got to do my research.

Don Cannon

He lives there.

DJ Drama

Yeah, I love Toronto.

Rollie Pemberton

You’re like street journalists. I got a quote that I’m going to connect here, okay? They ask Gotti, as in Yo Gotti, “Where’s the album at?” Our response, “We been giving you albums. Go ask the streets.”

DJ Drama

Real shit.

Rollie Pemberton

Yet 2007, very curious, I have to ask about this, your office got raided.

DJ Drama

Yeah.

Rollie Pemberton

They confiscated 81,000 physical mixtapes, computers, recording equipment, cars.

Don Cannon

It’s his fault, man.

Rollie Pemberton

Looking back ...

Don Cannon

Hey, man! Hey, man! Look at that guy! (points) That was his fault. (laughs) That was fun, yo. Wasn’t that fun?

DJ Drama

That was a great time. The jail? I never want to do that again

Don Cannon

Never.

DJ Drama

What was the question?

Rollie Pemberton

All for mixtapes. No, but the actual question was just what was that like at the time? You opened up. What was that like, at the time, because you’re bubbling up. You had all this momentum, and it was just like ...

Don Cannon

Yeah. Well, for real, like I said when I said that verse, I meant that ... like you said, Gangsta Grillz, it wasn’t just a southern brand. That took it into another level, which allowed us to do tapes that were unthinkable. We had John Legend, we had Gnarls Barkley. You know what I’m saying, this is unthinkable tapes. Gnarls Barkley, that has to be a bootleg, you know what I’m saying? It doesn’t even sound right, to have a crazy, with a Grammy Award-winning writer song artist like CeeLo Green, and what we were doing at that time, it just didn’t seem right. If I was outside out of the bubble, I would be like, “How?” You know what I’m saying? “How did they do that?” That really changed the game for a lot of things. Just being able to educate people, and some of the companies to protect artists, and gave us a chance to really help them understand our culture in certain ways.

Rollie Pemberton

You know, and that’s a big thing, it was really a misunderstanding.

DJ Drama

It was.

Rollie Pemberton

Of what you were actually doing.

DJ Drama

It was a misunderstanding, but there were also different ... things that were happening, culturally, and in music at the time that made it such a transitioning point, and almost bigger than life, you know what I’m saying? So, yeah, clearly it was definitely a misunderstanding, but it’s also when the story is told, you think about how 2007 became the year of ringtone raps, and no real superstars were born in that year, per se, and then how music almost transitioned strictly to the internet.

The blogs became new mixtapes, that was how people started getting their music, and then with the advent of social media, it was another platform for people to automatically share their music, and their mixtapes, you know what I’m saying? It was just like, I watched in those years after that, the transition of how... and you know, it was also around the time when record labels weren’t selling as much. Mixtapes were showing up in Best Buys and HMVs with barcodes on them, you know what I’m saying? And there were really complicated things going on in the music business that made a lot of people kind of scratch their heads, and if they weren’t paying attention before the raid, they started to pay attention after it.

The crazy part about it is, and I say this all the time, in 2016 mixtapes are bigger business than they ever were, you know what I’m saying? If you think about Dirty Sprite 2, if you think about ... what’s the Drake mixtape? So Far Gone, you know what I’m saying? Take it back to the first one. These are mixtapes, you know what I’m saying? If you think about Metro Boomin and 21 Savage, you know what I’m saying? That’s a mixtape, but the platforms have changed. They’re no longer Canal Street, it’s iTunes, you see what I’m saying? Now they’re distributing it, you don’t got to go to Canal Street or go to the flea market or go... shout to Big Omie, you don’t got to go to Big Om’s stores no more. You go right there.

Rollie Pemberton

It’s kind of like the dispensaries now for weed.

DJ Drama

Real. In a lot of ways, it is, and mixtapes, there’s nobody that’s connected to the culture that’s in anybody’s top ten of recent years, of the last 20-some years, that doesn’t have some connection to a mixtape. Kendrick, mixtape. Cole, mixtape. Wiz Khalifa, mixtape. Drake, mixtape. Young Thug, mixtape. And I could on for days. Jeezy, Gucci, these are all... even Jay-Z from his involvement to signing Clue, to 50, to Puff understanding the... I mean, Puff, everything he was doing when he was at Uptown was some of the same as what Ron G was doing on the mixtape. Putting R&B over hip-hop beats, so mixtapes are the veins of the culture, they’re the veins of hip-hop in so many ways, and they connect so many dots, you know what I mean, and I think that has to be stated.

Rollie Pemberton

I feel like around that time, the mixtape DJ kind of became the new A&R.

DJ Drama

Absolutely, 100%. It was the placement on the tapes, or people were paying attention to artists on who I was doing tapes with. Who we was working with. Definitely, I can agree to that.

Don Cannon

I think that was somewhere of a goal then, too, now that I think about it. A few mixtape DJs all wanted to have some type of A&R, or junior A&R position at a label, and that’s where the skills, where placement of songs, and the drops in certain places is where the ultimate goal at that point was to get into those positions to where we were recognized as ears, you know what I’m saying?

Rollie Pemberton

Obviously, I’m sure this has crossed your minds, but it’s kind of ironic, after this big raid, they make this big showing doing this, and now you guys have turned around, and you’re literally like an A&R. You’re an A&R. You’re managing artists, you guys are heavily involved in what’s probably similar labels that came after you before. I feel like the industry, it’s so focused on streaming to the point where it feels like album leaks, they’re not as worried about it anymore. It’s made this whole music piracy generation kind of redundant.

Don Cannon

Yeah, it’s getting the music to the people, you know what I’m saying? That’s what’s most important now. Sometimes... when we were coming up, our biggest conversation was the sale game. Who sold what, when, where, how? What was the first week? Who had rhyme of the month in the Source? Who had five mics?

DJ Drama

You old as shit.

Don Cannon

I know, man.

Rollie Pemberton

I need my other half a mic.

Don Cannon

I know, man, but at the time growing, now it’s getting the music to the people. To the veins of what they trying to get, and I think that’s what is most important now.

Rollie Pemberton

Okay, well …

DJ Drama

I can agree to that.

(music: Gucci Mane – “I’m A Star”)

Rollie Pemberton

Maybe my favorite Drama line: “I used to be Samuel Jackson. I had too many snakes on my plane, but now I’m Jack Nicholson, ‘cause I’m shining on you niggas.”

DJ Drama

That’s kind of ill.

Rollie Pemberton

It’s amazing.

Don Cannon

That’s a dope line.

DJ Drama

Damn.

Rollie Pemberton

It’s like, sometimes, some of your lines you have more swag than half the rappers out there.

DJ Drama

I try.

Don Cannon

That line right there made me do about 200 push ups.

DJ Drama

Yeah, that’s when I was mad at Cannon.

Don Cannon

I went out and bought a new car.

DJ Drama

Nah, that’s when we was mad at each other, yeah. That was my jab. That was a hard line.

Don Cannon

It was Step Brothers. I touched his drum set. He wasn’t fucking with me.

DJ Drama

Yeah. We finally made it to the Catalina wine mixer, though.

Don Cannon

Right.

Rollie Pemberton

So, tell me about Gucci? Working with Gucci?

DJ Drama

Another one, he’s a special human being. Me, and Gucci, we had known each other for quite some time, and we didn’t really work together until The Movie, which was... I think The Movie came out in ‘08. Yeah, The Movie came out in ‘08, and when The Movie came out was right when Gucci first started his jail stints, because not long after we dropped it he went in. This is also around the time when the music game was transitioning, so it was going from physical copies to people getting them online, or however, because I didn’t even realize how big The Movie had gotten.

Shout to my man Jason Brown back there, we had kind of created this distribution system before the raid, it was impeccable, you know what I’m saying? After, around the time The Movie came out, the tapes were just moving on their own, kind of. It was just organic, and I started getting these gigs in various places, and that’s all people would talk about to me was The Movie, and I was like, “Man, shit’s huge.” “Photo Shoot” was on that tape, and it was a lot of records on that tape, and Gucci’s just nonstop with it. He’s a mixtape DJ’s dream, you know what I’m saying? Because his recording process, and just the way he wants to drop music. There’s been very few that have done it like him, Shout to Wayne, Shout to Future, Shot to Doug, Shot to Uzi. Gucci, I feel like when it came to actual mixtapes, Wayne had certain tapes that he did per say and there were other tapes that, were just, all the songs he was putting out compiled into one. Gucci would really come out with a tape once a month. If it wasn’t with me or the other DJs he had been doing tapes with.

The Movie kind of started our rise together. I’m not going to front, like, at that time Gangsta Grillz had kind of leveled out somewhat, you know what I’m saying? That was a time when I almost felt like people had almost tried to count me out. I credit Gucci a lot for keeping the brand hot. He got it hot as fish grease, by the time we did the Burrprint and everything it was back on again. I think Gucci had been quite the underground celebrity and trap star and everything. I can definitely say The Movie was a big take, it was DJ Drama and Gucci Mane. Which was like, “OH! Drama and Gucci, I cannot, man gotta get that.”

Rollie Pemberton

That was another one that was very inclusive between you two, and the shouting you out on the tracks and stuff. It’s very conceptual. A lot of these Gucci tapes are heavily conceptual, from beginning to end. People don’t give him enough credit for that.

DJ Drama

Absolutely, he’s one of the most creative, and forward thinking people that I know in the music business.

Rollie Pemberton

2010, Gucci came out with The Appeal, in my opinion it didn’t really hit it the same as the mixtapes.

DJ Drama

That’s not just your opinion. I think that’s fact.

Rollie Pemberton

The same year, Mr. Zone 6, which I think is one of his best releases overall ...

DJ Drama

I think “Making Love To The Money” was on that tape.

Rollie Pemberton

It’s amazing, I feel like that’s a common issue with artists who are big in the streets but they also have these label deals. I couldn’t understand, why does that happen. Is it the label is pushing artists in a certain direction? Are they not letting them put as many street songs? Things are different now obviously where, Gucci, the album he just put out could have been a mixtape.

Don Cannon

It’s the limits. We were talking about earlier, people don’t know the half that it takes when you go to a label and have to clear a record. You go through so much legality and things that you have to abide by. It just makes it a bigger headache. Putting the albums together ourselves, you’re thinking its all good because you make together this big body of work and it’s amazing. Then you take it in there and it’s like, “That’s not going to happen, that’s going to happen.” He’s not clearing it because the label is mad at us for something else. On a mixtape Gucci could say, “Man, I want Chris Brown on there” and be good. When you go to the label, when he signed with Epic or RCA, something they didn’t do with Adele and somebody else affects the way that they conduct business. All the legal stuff kind of tears away and really waters down the music. It just offsets what happens.

DJ Drama

The mixtape is like playing at Rucker, you can try out your trick shot, and then you like, they went crazy for that. I might have to try and take that to the game. That’s why a lot of times records start on mixtapes and end up on albums. It’s the way that, all right well, this is my mixtape, if it works, if people are... something pops off of it, you look like you knew what you was doing. If it doesn’t you be like, “Oh that was just my mixtape.” It created that avenue for artists to try to get they shit off, and be like I’m going to put this on here and see what sticks and then lead into the album from here.

Rollie Pemberton

I always wondered about that. When there was a song on a mixtape and it ends up being a single on an album. I think there are cases where it was like, “Oh check this out, it’s going to be the lead single for my album.” How many times and mixtapes you would make that something just pops off and everybody is like, “WHOA,” and the label is like, “I want this”?

DJ Drama

That’s definitely happened plenty of times.

Don Cannon

75% of the time you know and the other 25% of the time you don’t. There’s been records that we picked and we were like, “That’s going to go.”

DJ Drama

“That’s What’s Up” off of Yo Gotti was originally from the mixtape. “I Told You So.” “Air Forces,” numerous records.

Rollie Pemberton

Now that Gucci’s free, I’m wondering are you guys going to do another Gangsta Grillz?

Rollie Pemberton

I hope so.

Don Cannon

Hell yeah.

DJ Drama

Definitely, I don’t see why not.

Rollie Pemberton

You heard it here first.

(music: Rocko – “You Ain’t Even Know It”)

That was “You Ain’ Even Know It” from, it’s hard to say this title, by Rocko from Gift of Gab 2 Hosted by Don Cannon. You could tell it was hosted by Don Cannon, because you put about 3 or 4 drops in the beginning of that song, you knew it was hot.

Don Cannon

The thing about that is, a little secret, when me and Rocko got together, that was supposed to be my record. I was about to introduce myself as a DJ on these guys level, putting out a real album. It didn’t feel right, I just was like lets put it all on the tape. It was a big record but I was like, “Man I’m not ready to do the work for that yet. I’m not ready,” you know? We just had so many conversations about stuff like, music and what’s going on. He was like, “Man, the Gift of Gab is what we supposed to be doing,” so we wound up doing that tape. I knew that record was going to be it, I just was like, man let me just tag it up, because that’s going to be everywhere.

Rollie Pemberton

What did that feel like, having such a huge track like that?

DJ Drama

It felt good, and the thing about it is, if you notice, there was no talking on that tape. I did that purposely I was like, “Yo, I don’t want to talk on the tape, I just want to see how the music lives.” As my first, I was really trying to make albums. I was really trying hard to A&R and make albums and not be in the billboard on there. Talking so much shit and, I just wanted to make sure that song was as big as it was.

Rollie Pemberton

There was the controversy with Rick Ross’ verse on that track too.

Don Cannon

It’s crazy, I overlooked it. When the tape came out I was like, “Damn, what’s going to happen now?” Later on, you figured out what it was. That’s when I saw the future of Rocko collaboration, this is going to turn into a best of both worlds situation.

Rollie Pemberton

You also are behind one of my all time favorite mixtape covers, it is Young Dro, with an amazing title as well, R.I.P I Killed That Shit. Let me show the crowd here (moves laptops). I’m wondering, what is the importance of the cover, the aesthetics, the image?

Don Cannon

That’s the first thing you see. When you ride down Northside Drive and you see SremmLife 2 on a billboard it has to be the best appearance. That’s what I was trying to figure out, going from 2008 where do we go with mixtapes? How do we make these more exciting? I was one of the first people that brought the video element into mixtapes, and breaking it. I felt like Dro was the perfect person being animated, you know he did a tape with Dro. I was like you know what, we need to take it to another level. They know what you can do but if you’re in a room and hear him on a mic, it’s two totally different things. If you sit with Dro you’re going to be there for 4 hours, and you’re going to have nonstop fun. How do we get a chance to bring that to people?

Being animated, he is serious about how he can rap really good but how is this cover going to bring the animation on how he is on a daily basis? He is actually burying a rapper, on the cover. I thought that was genius, he was fashionable, he always wore the best clothes. To wear a suit and have a shovel and burying a rapper. I think all those things, I was trying to get this personality into the tape. It’s just him on the cover sitting on a car or money on the ground. I just wanted to take it to another level. You know what I’m saying?

Rollie Pemberton

What about you Drama?

DJ Drama

You know covers are key. It’s always been ... I think about the graphic designers that I work with and the importance of just the visual of it. For me that was something, early on, even when it was still tapes, I just wanted to... this was the first representation, and I guess for me it was, looking back on it, it was like people don’t know who DJ Drama is so, I have to make it look as visually acceptable and pleasant to the eye that’s going to grab them because they don’t know who I am. They can go buy a DJ who is known’s tape before they buy mine so, what’s going to grab them? OK, visually, what they see.

For me that was always... I am not going to lie, in Atlanta, at the time, the DJs that were most prominent here weren’t on that, they didn’t have covers, they had So and So Number 64, something like that. That wasn’t an Atlanta thing so, that was how I could separate myself from the rest of what people where doing in Atlanta. They were pretty much selling off of who they where and their track listing, and track listings are always important, almost just as important as covers, but I was like, “OK, I want my stuff to be visually acceptable.” I feel like we were definitely, in Atlanta, we were the first to do that. People weren’t doing covers in this city, and then they took on their own life. I mean, with Dedication, as impeccable as the music is, everybody knows what the cover of Dedication looks like, or what it means. I’ve seen new kids from Chief Keef on down to these kids emulating what The Dedication cover is. I’m like, “Wow, it’s gotten to the point that time has passed where they’re now emulating mixtape covers, which is dope.”

I think that’s... when you look at it, once things started going all online, there’s no actual physical copy so, there’s a science to what grabs people’s eye. When you go to iTunes there needs to be ... All they’re seeing is a little box, so what’s going to make them visually catch on and then go outside of just going specifically look for something? That’s how I still look at it to this day.

Rollie Pemberton

You know it’s pretty interesting how time... it’s amazing because, younger artists like Chief Keef, or something, he would say he is heavily influenced by Gucci Mane and the way you’re saying with people emulating the covers it’s like the same way people used to be like, “Oh I need to be a baby on the cover.”

DJ Drama

Right, right. That’s real, same thing.

(music: Lil Uzi Vert – “Do What I Want”)

Rollie Pemberton

So that was “Do What I Want” by Lil Uzi Vert, from The Perfect Luv Tape, and he’s a rapper who is signed to your company Generation Now and Atlantic Records. How did you guys discover him?

DJ Drama

I’ve answered this enough times, it’s all you. I’m going to be quiet.

Don Cannon

The story is told but, I was DJing in Atlantic City, I’d just did a deal with SKAM Artist, which is an agency, and they put me in the Bellagio. I was riding down, driving 50 miles to Atlantic City from Philadelphia and I heard a song on the radio. It was just like a regular freestyle, whatever, so I was like, “What is that?” And we was riding a car and I think my cousin Kief was like, “That don’t sound like nothing else.” And I was like, “Hmm” (agreeing) So, I called the radio and it was DJ Diamond Kuts, which is one of our buddies, and I was like, “Who’s the kid you’re playing on the record?” She said it was Lil Uzi Vert and I was like, “Look, I’m in Atlantic City but I want to meet the kid when I come back.” I was supposed to fly from Atlantic City out and I wound up driving back to Philadelphia and going to ... first I met him on South Street and I was like, “Damn, I ain’t gonna be able to hear no music.” He was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna meet you on South Street.” He didn’t know who I was at the time, he was like, “Man, I ain’t meeting a stranger in my crib.” He like, “On South Street.” And he brought a goon with him and it was funny because I had my mom with me, and I pulled up and he’s like, “What’s up?”

I didn’t tell that part of the story but, he was like, “Oh yeah, I got a studio I record at in Philly.” He is like, “Come by, listen to some joints.” So I wind up going by and listening to some records and just the feeling that I got from the records, I hadn’t had that feeling a long time. Working with Jeezy, he is one of the artist that has energy records. They make you want to do multiple things, from working out to driving, to smoking, to picking a pot and doing a lot of things so, I felt like, “Damn, this is the next energy.” And I just felt like it was there. What he was doing, his recording process and I just watched it and I went back to Atlanta and I was like, “I found him.” And I pretty much just told Drama...

DJ Drama

And a little background story, we had come to a place and a space where we was like, “Yo, we’re not missing no more artists.” That was at that point in our respectable careers, Cannon being at Def Jam, me being at Atlantic, but beyond that just the artists that we had seen come through our doors, some of who we feel like we had missed. We was like, “Yo, this is the thing that’s our goal for going forward.” So when Cannon came back and said that, I had never heard a song a day in my life but the confidence that I had in my man and his ear and what I know that he’s already told me was going to be the shit and it became. I said, “Run it,” and it was that simple.

Don Cannon

And just being at Def Jam, being in there and lifting up the hood and looking up under things, being at Atlantic, you start to learn and say, “Man, we could do this.” We’ve already been doing it, we’d bring in an artist but not, per se, get credit for it but it’s not something we took and built from the seed all the way up. I was like, “Yo, this is our chance, you know, for round two.” Round one we had an artist named Willie the Kid and I though he was one of the best rappers that I had heard at that time, and it was something that I wanted to bring to the table, just being from college.

Sometimes time don’t let, it works things out for the better and I was like, “We are not missing this one.” I felt like, it was already as we’re talking about it, people are already reaching out to him so I’m calling like, “You know, look, I talked to everybody, we would like to bring you into the team, show you what we can do. Come on down.” He’s like, “Yeah, Kanye just called me.” And he’s on the phone with Kim Kardashian, that’s a lot to compete with us so it was like, you know, again, we’re in the salesman pitch trying to figure out if this the right home for you. Obviously, he chose to be a part of a great team and I think the rest of it is history.

Rollie Pemberton

I feel like Lil Uzi Vert, he represents a transfer of influence from Atlanta to the rest of North America but back again. He’s Philly, like you guys, and I feel like it’s almost this reversal of fortune because, it represents everything you guys have done coming through here, coming back there but it’s created this whole new thing. To me it reminds me of 50 Cent, how he actually came here, recorded “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” and it was like, “Oh he’s a New Yorker but he sounds southern.” And this is the same feeling I have of Uzi. I’m just wondering what you think of the idea of different regions influencing each other?

DJ Drama

Well before Uzi was popular and people used to ask me, “What’s he sound like?” And the simplest way I could explain it to people at that time was, “He is to Philly what A$AP Rocky was to New York.” I didn’t know how to technically explain it. Then I just think that people have to understand and realize that we’re in a space and a place where it’s a melting pot of what a 19 year old, a 20, 21 or 22, etc. has as his influence, who he’s very vocal about. How important Marilyn Manson is to him, how he used to love Mike Jones and Ying Yang Twins growing up. He’s a kid from Philly, so, besides that, clearly at his age State Property was the hottest thing going in Philly. You could not not be a fan of Sigel and Free and the whole gang. Then, again, Philly’s always been known for, being spitters.

Here’s a kid who, in my opinion, people haven’t even started to understand his greatness. To bring him to Atlanta and put him in an atmosphere where he’s around people like myself and Cannon and Thug and ... I took him on tour last year with Khalifa and Fall Out Boy. He had a record out with Carnage, which he gave to Carnage and it became, “What Do You Want?”, which was Uzi’s first, really big record. I put him on stage in front of 15,000 every night for two months. That’s a hell of a way to get your chops up to perform.

For me to watch him now and watch where he is ... And I don’t ... He was always very stern on his vision, his music and the way that he wanted to do things. I remember, even at the time, there was a point in time where Luv is Rage would have been a Gangsta Grillz. Then he came to me and said, “I don’t want it to be a Gangsta Grillz.” I said, “No problem.” I mean it’s not about me. It’s about what you want and how you want to do it. I think me and Cannon were even, we were on the same wavelength of not, I don’t want to say, overshadowing it, but not going around and saying, “Yeah, I want you to meet my artist.” We’ve seen that plenty of times.

Rollie Pemberton

It happens a lot.

DJ Drama

Yeah, it happens a lot, and you know, we didn’t want that. You know what I’m saying? We wanted, you know, there’s still people to this day that will be like, “Wow. I didn’t know.” Yeah, we didn’t want you to. You know what I’m saying? And if you did, that’s cool. You know what I mean? It’s special, you know, and those type of things don’t happen all the time. With his gift and our resources, it makes for a great ride.

Rollie Pemberton

Okay, well, I’ve got one more question for you, but before that, I’ve got one last quote.

“Mixtapes will never die and I’ll be the President. Come impeach me.”

DJ Drama

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rollie Pemberton

I’ve noticed that there’s ... The gap between an album and a mixtape, it’s getting smaller and smaller. Nowadays it’s hard to tell the difference. You know, an example I would use is A$AP Ferg’s Ferg Forever. It feels like as much of an album as Trap Lord did, but it’s a Gangsta Grillz tape.

Then you’ve got these Spotify playlists now, which is like the new mixtape in a lot of ways, doing these huge, huge numbers, and it’s like artists they just want to get one song on one of those playlists.

DJ Drama

Shout to Rap Caviar. [inaudible] what’s up?

Rollie Pemberton

Rap Caviar, yes, doing numbers. In today’s musical climate where do you see the future of mixtapes going?

Don Cannon

Well, I think before we go into that, what you were saying with Ferg, I think a lot of the rappers’ bucket list is to have a Gangsta Grillz before they die. We’ve noticed that. Coming in this new day and age, a lot of them are like, “Man, I know I’m doing albums, but I have to do this. I grew up wanting to do this. I looked forward to this. I was even waiting in line to do this.” So it’s a lot of that being displayed now that people are just ... It’s a lot of people just still just, “Yo, I always wanted this.” That’s where the mixtapes is ... The last little gap you’re talking about I think will be everybody that just wants to get that done on a bucket list before they move into the hills where nobody can call them on the phone.

Speaking on the question, I think that it would be cool as we do throw-back sneakers and everybody’s doing throw-back shirts in style and fashion, I feel like the first rapper, in my opinion, to do what 50 Cent did on a higher level with mixtapes would be a throw-back in mixtape world, to stop giving us original music and freestyle like Wayne does on “No Ceilings,” but just in a better, you know, maybe it would be A$AP Rocky teamed with Wayne. And do best-of-both-world mixtapes. J. Cole and Kendrick, but not only original music, just rapping on other people’s beats, because that’s something that I really miss. The technicality now, just got to a point where we might have to wait for Kendrick and J. Cole, because a lot of legal stuff going on. I rather they just take a bunch of beats, rap. Future and Jay-Z. Somebody team up. They haven’t done those yet. Maybe Trey Songz and Chris Brown. Just a team of them, I think that would be the future, because that’s something that’s really going to be legally hard to do on the album side sometimes.

Rollie Pemberton

You know, I was reading an article in The New Yorker, was an interview with Mike Will Made It, and he was talking about the problems he’s been having getting his mixtape out. He’s like, “All this clearance, clearing samples and doing all this.” You never used to hear that. It brings me back even more old school, where it was like the Biz Markie trial. Like the De La Soul putting every track on a track. I would love a throw-back to that.

Don Cannon

Yeah, it’s a bigger business. Everything is monetized now.

DJ Drama

Period. That’s what it comes down to.

Don Cannon

I just feel like somebody needs to be the first to do 50,000 CDs on the street or jump drives or however you want to do it and say, “Yo, this is the super-team: Lil Uzi, Rae Sremmurd, Travis Scott and A$AP Rocky.” That would be the posse mixtape.

Rollie Pemberton

Like the New Rio Gang tape.

Don Cannon

Exactly. We need those. Those haven’t happened yet.

DJ Drama

The labels are going to want to monetize it.

Don Cannon

Hey, they gotta throw it out. He’s going to take the fall for hip-hop again.

Rollie Pemberton

Can you tell me, what’s the next one? What’s the next Gangsta Grillz?

DJ Drama

What’s the next Gangsta Grillz? Gucci Mane, shit. I don’t know. I got a couple things up my sleeve.

Don Cannon

I feel Travis Scott is coming.

DJ Drama

Naw, we was supposed to do one, remember? Days Before The Rodeo was supposed to be a Gangsta Grillz. There’s been a lot of tapes that were supposed to be Gangsta Grillz, but I think a credit to the brand is that people still want to do it, in a day and time when you don’t technically need a mixtape DJ anymore.

I said that in an interview the other day. Mixtape DJs have become somewhat irrelevant, and I didn’t want any mixtape DJs, or any DJs, to take offense to that, because I was the one out here waving the flag, making sure the culture still stayed alive. I definitely didn’t want it to die on my back. After I said it and I thought about the run that Esco and Future are having right now and the success that Esco is having. There is a whole new generation that are looking at Esco the way some may have looked at me 10 years ago, and be like, “Wow. You don’t have to be the rapper. I can be Esco. I can be a DJ and be the coolest DJ on the motherfucking planet.”

I think it’s still here, but clearly, again, a phoenix arose from the raid that happened with us and it became ... Again, mixtapes are the very most important piece of it, it’s the artists and the DJs wanting to get the music to the people. That’s what it was about in a lot of ways. When you think about the success of So Far Gone and Section.80 and then these companies smarting up and saying, “Woah, we need to get in business with this. These things are doing numbers.” You have all these platforms that are now so invested. It went from DatPiff mixtapes who were offering some real numbers to artists and DJs to the bigger platforms coming in and now being their competitors. I see it only getting bigger in a lot of ways. It’s great to me, man. I think to watch somebody like Uzi be able to put out his projects and get directly to his fans firsthand, that’s what it’s about. That’s where we come from. That’s what I come from as a DJ. We’re the medium between the music and the people. Here, take this. This is new music. We want to get it right to you, however. If you buy it, if you bootleg it, we just want you to have it.

Rollie Pemberton

Word. I’m going to open it up to Q & A. If anyone has any questions.

Audience Member

What do you feel like is missing in music right now?

Don Cannon

More collabs. I feel like we’re starting to see it in the producer world. You know what’s going to happen in the artist world. Like I said, there’s going to be some super groups coming for those that can get along and not worry about competition. I just feel like it just feels right. It feels right for Thug and for Travis Scott and Quavo to have a six-song mixtape, or it just feels like that’s coming. You see 808 Mafia, Metro, Sizzle do tons of beats together. Mike Will collab with Metro.

These things are inevitable. I feel like that’s the new wave. I feel like people want to hear that. It’s not just one song on the radio, like “The Key to the Streets” where there’s Trouble, Gucci, and the Migos. I feel like people want a project, and it makes it good. I was watching the other day the Def Jam tour with Jay-Z and DMX and Ja Rule. It seemed like so much fun, man. I wish I was a part of that just watching the performances.

Snoop and Wiz, you see what I’m saying? This is what’s happening. The next collab situations makes room for tour, it makes room for more situations for Kanye to... Watch The Throne, idea passed down to everybody. I feel like that’s the next level of hip-hop, in my opinion.

Rollie Pemberton

What about you Drama?

DJ Drama

I don’t know if I feel like anything’s missing. I feel like when I think about the mood or the vibe or what I want, I can go a lot of places to get my fix, per se. I think we’re in a very creative space. I think creativity and lyricism is better now than it may have been five years ago, per se. In my coming up, you couldn’t really sound like anybody else. You could be influenced by them, but everybody was way different.

You can make it in this world and be somewhat of a baby of somebody else. I miss the days of my rappers being larger than life. It’s so acceptable. You can reach out and touch them in so many ways. I miss the fact of them almost feeling untouchable, so I like an artist that keeps somewhat of a mystique around them or doesn’t overdo themselves with interviews or write their every emotion on Twitter or something like that or be on Snap every day. I don’t want to know your flaws. Or talk about them in the music. How about that?

I don’t know if I feel like anything’s missing. I think there’s people that come along and change culture and change the direction of music, so I don’t think that’s ever going to stop. It takes somebody to say, “Okay, everybody’s on this. I’m going to come this way.” It’s just about being true to themselves, but because of the outlets that people have now to present music, the flood gates are wide open, so there’s something for everybody.

Audience Member

I’m familiar with Jack Frost, the smack DVDs, come up DVDs, so on and so forth. As an aspiring producer, do you feel like that raw essence as far as having cats in the street freestyling over my production perhaps, do you think that there’s still a lane for that, seeing as everything is internet-wise?

DJ Drama

When you say in the streets, what do you mean?

Audience Member

You literally see Reed Dollaz or [inaudible], they just on the streets. It is more the essence of hip-hop, as opposed to flashiness.

DJ Drama

Is that still relevant?

Audience Member

Yes. That’s what I’m asking.

DJ Drama

Yes. I don’t know if I think the actual DVD format of how they were doing it is relevant, but I think people always love the rawness or stuff that feels organic to them that’s not forced. I had this conversation the other day. If you turn on the radio, they play the same ten songs, but why are they playing the same ten songs? Because the majority of people don’t really listen to the radio for more than ten, fifteen minutes. They listen in their cars.

People have phones and there’s so many different resources. You have so many options and choices. People didn’t have that many options and choices back in the day, so you were forced to listen to what was on or the CD that you had. You can go anywhere with your music or you can put on Spotify and be put onto something new.

I think anything that comes, if it feels right to you, you should do it. You shouldn’t worry about if it matters to what’s going on around you or what have you. You just got to do what feels right to you and let the people around you help you with those decisions. You’ve got to lend the ears. People around you have to lend their ears and their thoughts and their opinions and see if you’re onto something.

Don Cannon

I think you should start it. I think you being a producer, that’s also what I was talking about of a throwback situation of what we used to do. I feel like I miss, personally, Smack DVD. If we got a chance to have that over again and give it to media outlets and social media, it will gain some type of culture relevance now, you giving your beats and running up on Thug and having him rap real quick in front of Patchwerk in front of his Bentley.

That’s something we didn’t get a chance to see yet. We saw them freestyling in the front of their house on the block. Now, we got so many outlets. As you’re talking about it, you’re doing it on Instagram all the time. I see a black youngster, he’s flashing money, he’s talking. Imagine if the beat was on and he was able to rap right there in front of you.

I don’t know if anybody’s paying attention to the So Gone Challenge that everybody’s picking up. That’s so creative. I feel like that wave is next. There’s your opportunity to get something going with what’s going on right now.

Audience Member

The biggest question that I have is how can we, as DJs over in the AUC or any college, take advantage of what’s now in college? When I say that, I mean, back in 2005, AUC was completely different. It was alive with energy. Now, you’ve got to be somebody in order to make some noise. What’s some of the things that we can do?

Don Cannon

We messed that up, by the way.

DJ Drama

First of all, I wasn’t in school in 2005.

Don Cannon

I was.

DJ Drama

No, you wasn’t.

Don Cannon

I went to school for ten years.

DJ Drama

I didn’t even come up in that era that you’re saying, so that right there, I can tell you don’t think about it that way. When we was in school and we was doing what we was doing, we were feeling, “Man, when’s our turn, man? All these guys before us is out here in the music industry doing their thing. What’s up with that? When are we going to get our shot?” I remember feeling that way, looking at the people that graduated before me that were making real moves in the music business, and us feeling like, “Damn, we here on campus.” I’m going to tell you, bro, there’s no better place to be. I don’t care what time, space or period that you went to. You’re blessed to be in the AUC right now. We did it, right there. If I could do it, you could do it.

When I think about it, I really don’t think my career would have went in the same direction if we wouldn’t have been there, because it’s an amazing place to be. You’ve got young people of color from all over the world ... not just the country, but all over the world ... that you can get your talent off to. I definitely think the fact that I was hustling mixtapes in the AUC, and people were going home and taking those tapes back, and people were like, “Yo, what’s that?” It was like, “Oh, it’s a DJ from school.” That mattered. It mattered. You being there, don’t think about what it was like when we was there, or ‘05, or none of that. You’re in a great space, you’re in a great time, and you got it. You there. You can do it just like we did it.

Don Cannon

Some things never going to change, neither. It’s the AUC. I don’t know if they still have Market Friday, or Thursday, whatever ... that is the platform that made our career, because it shows your talent across the board. Now, what you don’t have is CDs ...

DJ Drama

Guess what you don’t got to do? Carry crates! .

Speaker 2: Don Cannon

That right there is where people come in and say, “Yo, you a good DJ. Where can I find your stuff?” “SoundCloud. Here, playlist, listen to this.” Now, that’s going to help you become what you are. That’s not going to change in the AUC. That’s notorious.

DJ Drama

You got to own the campus.

Don Cannon

Yeah, you got to own it. Once you have that, you’re good.

DJ Drama

There was a record store in Atlanta called Earwax, and I used to try to always get my mixtapes off in the store. I would come back every week, and they would just be sitting there. A friend of mine who worked in the store told me that time, and I used this for my career, “The way movements are made is start from inside, and work your way out.” And that’s just what we did. Like I said, before I was known in the city, I was known in the AUC. I was an AUC DJ, and then I was known in Atlanta, and then I was known in the South, then I was known in the States, then I was known around the world. That’s just how you got to build it. It’s a great place to be, because you have so many people from DC, from Florida, from New York, from Louisiana, from Texas, from the Bay, from LA, from Scottsdale, from the islands right there at your party. You can’t get no better than that.

Don Cannon

It’s Oak Hill. You’re LeBron and then you go to the big leagues from there. That’s how I feel.

Audience Member

I just wanted to say, as far as things that Capri did, Funkmaster Flex, you yourself, and Khaled now, is that the plateau of DJs now, and how big can the DJ get, if that’s the current plateau? I just wanted to ask both of you where do you guys see the next wave for a DJ, and what’s the biggest obtainable goal for you guys now?

DJ Drama

President.

Don Cannon

Yeah, president. I think that’s the ultimate goal, is to be the president, or have your own. There’s nothing like having your own and building. It’s great to work for a label and be part of a system, but having your own as a photographer, as a painter, as a DJ ... The ultimate goal is to be put in a place where your business or your brand is one of the best in the world, to me.

I feel like Kid Capri’s first thought process was to do a DJ album and be a dope producer, because he did make beats. Khaled is trying to become a brand to get to the next level where he’s the president of Universal Records. These are all goals. There’s so much you could do. Me, it was using the DJing platform to be a great producer. A lot of things came along with that ... A&R, partnership, radio. It’s so many things now. Back in the day, it was like you have one step. It was like DJ, producer, okay, you capped out, and then you went back to DJing. Now, so many things you could do. It’s endless.

DJ Drama

Yeah, I think it’s about shifting culture, and being a part of pop culture, whether it’s Gangsta Grillz, or whether it’s Flex’s bomb, or whether it’s Khaled’s Major Key. Just being a part of culture, whether it’s Calvin Harris or Diplo ... I think when it comes to DJs, the sky’s the limit in so many ways. The finances is endless, the capabilities and the doors are endless, and I think that as we’re going on, just like the rest of the world, the bigger we get or the bigger others around us get, it only is there to inspire another generation. I just be proud to be part of the lineage, to know that I’m going to go down as one of the greatest hip-hop DJs ever. When the conversation is told, our names are going to be in there. I just wanted to get my name on a flyer. I never knew none of this was going to happen.

When you love what you do, regardless of what it is, I don’t think you ever stop. It’s about challenging yourself and it’s being exciting. Thankfully, hip-hop is a very competitive sport. You want to bust everybody’s ass every year. You can win a chip last year, but I’m coming back next year to win another one. With that, it’s like, “All right, everything I’ve done, that shit’s cool, I appreciate all the accolades, but that’s old. Lil Uzi! Watch what we do next.” There’s so much to accomplish, and there’s so many doors that are opening, it’s incredible to see. It makes me feel like I ain’t did nothing yet.

Audience Member

My question for you guys was ... this can be earlier, in your AUC come-up, this can be now ... can you delve into the connection between the artist and the DJ, and how that partnership has been so crucial? You can talk about an artist that you may have met, and how that changed both of your guys’ lives and dynamics.

Don Cannon

Hmm, that’s tough. In school, that’s all we want to do, is get next to an artist, and help them accomplish their goals. That was my mindset, and I’m pretty sure that was his mindset. Coming up, he was DJing for a group in college, and I was just looking for an outlet. Now, if you reverse the role, and say that I’m already DJing in a club, and the artist is trying to build a relationship to get spins or get into a pocket where other DJs recognize him, those relationships were always good and have to be strengthened, because we hear so much stuff on a daily basis. If you walk into Pink Pony, just believe that two, three hundred people already came and brought a song, a beat, an artist, a bottle of champagne, stripper ones. Like I said, on this side of the fence, we’re always looking for new talent to help build the relationship to go to the next level, but the flip side, just make sure you have a unique approach when you going towards the DJ artist relationship. It’s funny because yesterday I was in a Whole Foods, and this dude’s first approach, he was like, “Yo!” Put his phone right, grab my ear, and I was like, “Yo. That’s how you do this?” He’s like, “Oh, I’m Stick’s friend.” I was like, “Hold, bro. Let’s start over. How ya doin’? I’m Don.” He like, “Oh man. You know, I just got excited, and, you know, I ain’t have no chance in hell I thought I was gonna meet anybody like you, so I just wanted a chance to.” I was like, “But you gotta learn how to do the approach.” Once we had a conversation, I wind up listen to his music, you know what I’m saying, and it was pretty good. But you got to learn to build a relationship in a different way. You just can’t ... people got to the point where they felt like DJs are boogee, or they got the big art up, and that happens because of the approach. So it makes them kind of shift, and I think sometimes that has to be strengthened. Definitely, but it’s always going to be there. It’s always DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince. It’s always Eric B and Rakim. It’s always Drama. T.I’s always ... Khaled, Rick Ross, it’s just always going to be that way. It’s just natural, so I feel like we need to get back to that, but having a better approach to make everybody comfortable, and every party to be able to work together.

DJ Drama

When me and Tip started really doing what we were doing, I was like, “Okay. This is, you know, this is what I been waiting on. My chance to like, kind of link with the artist.” I definitely think that the fact that my come-up was attached to TI, and attached to Jeezy, and attached to Wayne, like that’s important. You know what I mean? I don’t take that for granted because when I look at, like he said, Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff, and Whoo Kid and 50, those guys created a outlet for me to kind of do what I do.

Now I don’t think it’s ... it depends on where one wants to go as a DJ, per se, or what one wants to accomplish as an artist, but the one thing I tell people all the time, and I been saying for years, yo, sometimes, if you coming up and obviously there’s been numerous success stories about this, but you don’t need to do a Gangster Grillz. Come up with something... special that we have like Esco and Future. You know what I’m saying? Like that means something, and just like it was special with me and Jeezy, or Holiday and Gucci. That’s what hip-hop is built on in a lot of ways.

I was watching The Get Down last night. I only got to the first episode, but watching him as he said he had the final wordsmith, and he got up there with Flash, and did his thing, like MCing and DJing are two ... the foundations of hip-hop. That’s not going to change. But it’s also then, from that I’ve been able to establish and create my own lane and avenues, and here we stand on our own two feet. But those years were very special for me because I knew that this is it. This is my opportunity to be what I grew up wanting.

Rollie Pemberton

Great. Well, I think we’re going to end it there.

DJ Drama

Cool.

Rollie Pemberton

Thank our guests.

Don Cannon

Thanks for having us.

Rollie Pemberton

DJ Drama, Don Cannon. Thank you very much.

Don Cannon

All right. Absolutely.