Mannie Fresh (New Orleans, 2011)

[applause]

Jeff Mao

It is our very, very… Our pleasure to welcome a legendary producer, DJ, New Orleans musical legend, Mr. Mannie Fresh.

Mannie Fresh

Thank y’all.

Jeff Mao

What’s up, sir? Thank you for being here.

Mannie Fresh

Man. Thank you, thank you. Thank all y’all.

Jeff Mao

I see everybody’s been sitting in the room has been listening to some of the sounds coming from this little machine over here. What have we been listening to just in the last few minutes?

Mannie Fresh

Some of them was just some beats I did this week that’s what I was playing earlier that came out my MPC [Music Production Controller]. And I got a collection of beats, I don’t know, probably over a year. That’s on here. It’s probably about 200 beats right here. I did maybe, I think, ten this week or whatever. I was amped about this.

Jeff Mao

So a sneak preview of some future hits. Tell us, what do you usually work on? What’s your preferred machinery? What’s your preferred method of creating?

Mannie Fresh

I kind of don’t have one machine that I stick to, but I like vintage machines. I kind of do the [E-mu] SP-1200, first MPCs, the EPS.

Jeff Mao

Still?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, still.

Jeff Mao

After all these years, still?

Mannie Fresh

I’m computer illiterate, basically. I don’t get the new programs. No disrespect to them. I’m just not a Fruity Loop guy. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

What is it about, besides the fact that you don’t want to deal with the computers, but what is it about the sound of those machines that appeals to you?

Mannie Fresh

The SP-1200 is an analogue machine, I don’t know, probably 12-bit, so it gives you that real grimy, grimy sound. It can’t be duplicated. Everything today is digital, is clean. And some songs, they need that. And for me to program, I actually got to touch something. I can’t click on nothing. I got to touch it to feel it, you know? Sometimes I’ll even use electric drums and MIDI them up to the drum machine just to have that real drum feel. It’s pretty much on how you was brought up. I was brought up programming with a drum machine. This era is a different thing, it’s your MacBook and some headphones.

Jeff Mao

So, I guess you sit down, you decide you’re going to make a beat. What’s the first thing you do?

Mannie Fresh

Wow. Most of the beats are, to me, is what I’m feeling that day. It’s an expression of what I’m going through that day. If it’s gloomy, the beat will probably sound gloomy. [laughs] If I’m happy, then the beat will probably sound happy. You know how some people, I guess they have their little creative thing or whatever. I kind of sit down everyday and do beats, so it’s really on what’s going on with me emotionally. That’s what my beats turn out to… Put it like this, I can’t wait until I run out of money, then go back in the studio. A lot of cats, when they start recording it’s like, “OK, I’m out of money so now I need to go do something.” It’s pretty much my job is what I love. I do it everyday all day. You know, I’m in front my drum machine. It’s pretty much an expression of what I was going through that day.

Jeff Mao

Do you start with a rhythm track first, or do you have melodic things in your head that, figures of things that you decide you want to put down?

Mannie Fresh

The crazy thing, a beat could start with me in the middle of the night. I’ll have a bassline in my head and get up and record it and go lay back down and then finish it tomorrow. It’s not really, like I said, it’s not a process. I can’t say I start with drums first or I start… I can have a hook in my head and the best thing I could do is probably write it down so I can remember it tomorrow and then start from there. The whole song might come together. Some of the songs, to me, that’s been the biggest hits… The biggest hits for me probably came together within five minutes. It was just that I was listening to something and I was, “It need one more song,” and it just all came together. I really don’t think I have a process. It’s just, I don’t know, it’s madness. That’s all I can tell you. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

When we talked to Walter [Ramsey], obviously, a lot of the conversation focused on the lineage and the history as far as New Orleans music with the brass band and everything like that. It’s definitely also very true in your family as far as your background. I wonder if you might talk about that a little bit, how you first got into music.

Mannie Fresh

Well, my dad was a DJ, a street DJ. My Christmas gifts pretty much was instruments. I got turntables, mixers, stuff like that. For years I never got it. I was just, “What is that?” And I guess somewhere around 12, I got interested in it, started messing with turntables, started messing with mixers, guitars or whatever, keyboards. From there it just took off. My background is a musical background. And even the heritage of this city is crazy as far as Kermit Ruffins or whatever. We went to high school together. We had band class together, and none of us really took band class serious. We just was in there just doing what we do. It was just kind of like, “OK, this is what you like.” I actually even tried to take piano lessons, but it was more so of somebody trying to teach me Bach or something and I’m just, “I don’t get it.” So that didn’t work for me. It was like, “If I’m going to learn this, I’m going to learn it on my own.” I just think even this city is the soul that go with it. It’s kind of like you’ve got to have your own elements and everything got to be in place. That’s all.

Jeff Mao

When you say your father was a street DJ, what sort of stuff was he doing?

Mannie Fresh

When hip-hop came along, my dad was one of the first people that played hip-hop here. I just remember back in the day, my dad would bring home Battle of the DJ trophies. I’m like, wow. As I got older he started bringing me on the gigs. The first thing I fell in love with was the groupies. [laughs] I was like, “Wow, I think I’m going to be a DJ.” [laughs] I’m not going to even say, music kind of got my interest first. It was just all the attention that the DJ got. It was like, “Wow, the party can’t rock without the DJ, everything is focused around the DJ.” And it’s kind of like, I was, “Well, you know what? That’s the spot where I want to be at in life.”

Jeff Mao

What sort of stuff was he playing around you when you were a kid?

Mannie Fresh

Marvin Gaye. Mostly soul. I could go on for forever with that, on Cameo, R&B music, Run DMC. I remember when “It’s Like That” came out and we had the 12” and my dad played it and I was, you know, literally cursed. I was, “This is the greatest sh-- in the world.” He was, “What you just said?” [laughs] The crazy thing is you can ask anybody who was a neighbor in this city that knew my dad, knew my family, they would be like, “Yeah, they threw block parties all the time.” Anything that was hot around that time he played it. It was just music from the ‘70s to the ‘80s, whatever went on, up until when, like I said, when hip-hop first jumped off, it was kind of like I got introduced to it through my dad.

Jeff Mao

What neighborhood did you guys…?

Mannie Fresh

In the Seventh Ward.

Jeff Mao

I guess then, when did you first start doing your own parties and becoming a part of the DJ community?

Mannie Fresh

Junior high school. I would say my first time doing parties or whatever I was in junior high school. It was kind of like my dad explained it to me, how contracts go and just kind of go out there and fish around. I was kind of doing it around my house, doing block parties. My first gig ever was a house party. We had mad equipment already. I’m not going to tell you it went great, because it didn’t. It’s nothing like having a reality check of somebody going, “You suck!” [laughs] That kind of put me on game right there and made me want to get it together even more so. I would say, truthfully, my first gigs was in junior high school. I started with house parties.

Jeff Mao

When did you turn the corner when people didn’t come up to you and tell you, “You suck!”

Mannie Fresh

I just thought you could just play records basically. I get it. You’ve got DJs like that. It’s like, OK, hip-hop came along and you had all these DJs, like Grandmaster Flash, that was doing breakbeats and that’s what the crowd wanted. They pretty much wanted that show. It’s like, OK, you’ve got all this nice equipment. You’re dressed the part, you got your glove on and all that. Like, you going to be badass, and you’re just dropping one song after another. [laughs] I just got, like I said, a brutal reality check of, “You know what? You got to get your timing together, your skills and all that, it’s not just playing records.”

Jeff Mao

Tell me about New York Incorporated. What was that?

Mannie Fresh

New York Incorporated was established by, of course, a guy who was from New York, and they actually moved to New Orleans. They was one of the premier DJ groups, light show, everything. I just pretty much had speakers, turntables. New York Incorporated came with it. They had the ultimate light show. They had all the breakbeats. I really never knew where some of these songs came from or whatever. The guy, Denny D, who was the founder of New York Incorporated, when he first came down, he introduced us to transforming and all that. We didn’t know nothing about that. We just kind of was, “I can blend two records or whatever.” All that was phenomenal. I remember around that time, it was this group called Jam Patrol, Rockers Revenge. I’m just naming y’all New Orleans history of DJ groups. Let me see who else? Brown Clown. A couple of groups or whatever. But everybody decided to have this DJ battle for whatever who would be street supremacy. This was probably in the early ‘80s, and New York Incorporated was just getting established, but the guy, Denny D, he won the competition, and that was my first time actually seeing him but I wasn’t with New York Incorporated. But, after seeing everything that he did, I ain’t going to even lie, I went home, copied it, bit his style or whatever, learned how to transform, did all of that. I kind of got my little street cred was I was from there, I was just going around just taking on anybody who wanted it with me. It kind of got the attention of New York Incorporated. They were like, “This young kid, he pretty much can do everything.” So New York Incorporated seeked me out, and next thing you know, I was rocking with them. That went on for, I don’t even know, probably ten years, ten years strong in this city.

Jeff Mao

Were you known as Mannie Fresh even back then?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, I’ve been Mannie Fresh forever. Fresh is even cool to say now again. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

It came back, it’s been so long.

Mannie Fresh

It came back.

Jeff Mao

One thing I read was an interview with you where you talked about your setup back then doing parties, and I guess it was the prevalent style, not just a DJ DJing with two turntables but with the 808 and the keyboards as part of the whole thing. Very much like how old school cats in the Bronx used to do with the beatbox and stuff. Can you talk about that a little bit, how that came into being?

Mannie Fresh

I just wanted to have something different from just the average DJ. If you see a DJ, normally you see just two turntables and a mixer. I was, “What could I do to bring another element to the game?” So I wind up getting the 808 and I had this Moog keyboard that I got from my dad. The only thing I did all the time was practice basslines. Pretty much I knew any song that came out, I could play the bassline to it. I was like, “I wonder how this would turn out at a party, if I ran beats off my 808 and ran some basslines with a hot synthesizer.” The next you know it just caught on like wildfire. It was to the point where people stopped asking me to play records. It was more like, “Can you turn on the beat box and do that thing that you do?” Like I said, it was the new element, and it kind of changed the hip-hop of New Orleans. It made a lot of other DJs look into it where, it’s instruments, now you’ve got to go hard. You can’t just bring turntables. I think that element right there even gave me, I guess, the guts and everything to produce because it turned into people going, “Man, we like what you doing. Why don’t you try to do your own thing?” Eventually, I started making up my own basslines, making up my own little music and my own drum patterns, and it just turned into producing.

Jeff Mao

What was the first record that you produced?

Mannie Fresh

Wow, man. I would say [Gregory D]. That was “Freddie’s Back” in ’87, ’88, I think.

Jeff Mao

And who is Gregory D?

Mannie Fresh

He’s a New Orleans MC, that’s one of the, I would say, legends in New Orleans or whatever. How that came to be, I was in the studio working for a record label and I was doing some scratching on records, because that was the big thing, was just somebody who happened to be in New Orleans, and they was like, “We want some scratches on the record. Can you do them?” So I did that. They asked me, “Do you know of any MCs, anybody that raps?” I was, “Yeah, I know this one guy that’s hot in the streets.” And Gregory D was hot at the time. He was kind of notorious for rocking talent shows, and he always won the talent show, you know, found him, went high and low to find him and brung him back to the studio. They was, “Y’all want to make a record?” It was like, some kids who never did that, I was like, “Yeah.” “You got a drum machine?” I was, “Yep, got a drum machine.” The rest is history. That’s New Orleans history right there.

Jeff Mao

You guys actually formed a group then, you and Gregory D?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, mm-hmm.

Jeff Mao

And put out a couple albums.

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, we put a couple, I would say maybe three albums. One of them was on RCA. That was probably the first rap record to come out of New Orleans, first artist to be signed to a major label from New Orleans.

Jeff Mao

Even before that, though, the independent stuff that you guys did…

Mannie Fresh

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

There’s a track, “Buck Jump Time,” you don’t have that here.

Mannie Fresh

“Buck Jump Time,” there’s elements of second line [brass band parade music] basically and 808. I just took a 808 and thought of, “OK, what could we do that incorporates this city and the music that came from it?” “Buck Jump” is pretty much a dance that came from New Orleans that, it goes with second line. I couldn’t even tell you the date. I would say it was probably the early ‘90s whenever when we done this song, but whenever this song came on in the city it was chaos. They went crazy.

(music: Gregory D & Mannie Fresh – “Buck Jump Time”)

When you heard that right there.

Jeff Mao

Let’s listen to a little bit of this.

[music continues]

So you’ve got the bassline from the sousaphone and…

Mannie Fresh

Well, the bassline was pretty much like, I mean, the drum machine that I was using at that time had maybe, I would say, four seconds of sample time. The bassline came from one little element, and I kind of had to make notes from it. The horn came from, I don’t even know where I found the hit from, but it was an SP-12 and the SP-12 used the Commodore disk drive that was as big as this mixer [points to DJ mixer], and if you ever seen a floppy disk in life, it looked like a sandwich, basically. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

What would you say is the birth of bounce music in the city? What’s the first bounce record?

Mannie Fresh

Wow. The first bounce record… Well, I would say recorded probably would be TT Tucker. But bounce was in the club way before he recorded it, and the elements of bounce is kind of like, it’s old school New York hip-hop. It’s basically kind of like an MC and a DJ and it’s two break records. From New Orleans is mainly, I would say, 808 breakbeat records. That’s the choice, but it’s more of call and responses, MC, his job is to rock the crowd and keep your attention. It’s going to be riddles, it’s going to be rhymes, and it’s going to be more so, I’m going to say something, and if you learn the song, if you heard it enough, you know what I’m feeling and everything. It was basically the elements of hip-hop, how hip-hop got started. It’s just that down-south we prefer 808 beats. As a DJ, his timing, breaking down an 808 beat, two turntables or whatever it is, just an MC, or some MCs. It was groups, as far as when bounce first started, the elements was kind of like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. You come in, everybody got their parts on time or whatever and all that. It took practice to do these songs, but it was just the raw, raw elements of how hip-hop got started. But it was around before T Tucker. He was the first person that I would say, I wouldn’t even say it was on wax, it was a cassette tape that just floated around this city like crazy.

Jeff Mao

Now, the 808 was the key element to that, something that’s carried through a lot of your music over the years. I guess, but for example, the sort of records you’re talking about that came out of New York in the mid-’80s… There’s one particular, I guess…

Mannie Fresh

Yes. The Show Boys. The song was called “Drag Rap.” It was so popular down- south that it was one verse in this where one of the MCs referred to himself as Trigger Man, but we always did call the song “Trigger Man.” They renamed the song “Trigger Man,” and the crazy thing is, I remember the guys who made the song, when they came down in New Orleans, they didn’t know it was that popular throughout the south, and they was kind of singing songs, actually they got booked at a concert. It’s crazy because everybody wanted to know who it was or whatever, so pretty much the whole city at the concert, they singing all these songs, all the previous songs that they’ve done before this and it’s kind of like you could hear crickets. The crazy thing is, nobody in the crowd even knew it was them. They was just, “Well, who the hell is this? This just some random group they put up here?” They go through three or four songs and nobody is paying attention to them. And then when this song dropped, the club went crazy. The whole spot, damn. I was, “Dude, this song, you can’t do no wrong. You can sing this 12 times.” The nuts thing about this, back in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, you had to play this record at least seven times, at least seven times a night. You know what I’m saying? Really, you had to play this record, and I’m not exaggerating, at least seven times.

Jeff Mao

The whole record or just the break part in the middle?

Mannie Fresh

The whole record. It kind of got into, OK, somebody flipped it over and figured out, “Oh, the instrumental is even hotter.” [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Because it’s drag rap, it’s dragnet rap, right?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

It’s story rap. It’s kind of crazy.

Mannie Fresh

Yeah. From the relationship the song kind of grew. It went to Memphis. You know what I’m saying? It kind of went throughout the south. It went from, well, even the Midwest a little bit. It hit Saint Louis or whatever, and the song just became this phenomenal sample. Like, if you was doing a bounce record, you had to use that song. It was kind of like the crazy thing is the dudes who, like I said, originally made it, never knew the song was ever that popular.

Jeff Mao

There’s a story of how you got into music that I kind of can’t believe, so you have to confirm this.

Mannie Fresh

OK.

Jeff Mao

That you were going to college.

Mannie Fresh

Uh-huh. [affirmative]

Jeff Mao

What happened? You were supposed to be at college? What happened?

Mannie Fresh

I can’t believe you found that out. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Where were you going?

Mannie Fresh

SUNO, actually. I was supposed to be in college and I had financial aid, but I decided that I was going to go to California to make a record. I was, “You know what? I’m just going to go to California and take my chances.” Packed up my suitcase, nothing but records or whatever and a drum machine. For two semesters my parents thought I was in college, but I was kind of like in the crack motel or whatever. I took an internship at RCA, when I started programming drums, with a drum machine or whatever, walked into a studio, asked for a job cleaning up or whatever, gave me a job. I used to sit there with my drum machine. And pretty much what used to come through the door was country music, but I remember one particular time the drummer didn’t show up. It was some country music or whatever. So I was like, “I got a drum machine, I can program the drums however y’all want them.” They was just like, “Well what’s a drum machine?” So I wind up plugging up my drum machine, doing like this one beat. [beatboxes simple hip-hop beat] They was, “Wow, that’s close to the drums. That’s all we need!” So for my next, I don’t know, probably three weeks in California, I was programming country music. I was like, “It pays the bills, I’m good with it.” [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Did those records come out?

Mannie Fresh

I don’t even know. I couldn’t even tell you who the artists were. I was just, “What you want me to do? How do you want this to sound? Do you want a drum roll? Do you want a tom?”

Jeff Mao

What happened then with the internship eventually?

Mannie Fresh

Eventually, well, my dad found out first, and being a true dad he was just like, “Look, I don’t want to even be in this sh-- when it comes down.” He was, “I’m going to let you follow your dream, whatever, but don’t say I knew, because your mom is going to find out eventually.” It was kind of like how you have that thing and your mom and them show up at school to check on you? That’s what happened. My mom showed up at school to check on me and she was, “Where you at?” At the time it wasn’t no cell phones or nothing like that. I heard from a friend, he was, “Hey, your mom is out here checking on you.” I’m like, “Dude, for real?” You know what I’m saying? I’m like, “You know what? I guess it’s time for me to come home and tell her the truth.” I pretty much had to come home, break it down. It was like, “You know what? I’ve just been doing whatever my dream was. I really did not want to go to college.” I’m not saying that nobody should take that for what it is, but I knew what I wanted to do in life. I pretty much knew. It was more of, that was my parents’ dream. They was just like, “You know what? We going to put you in school. Do this thing.” I kind of knew. I ain’t going to say “Kind of,” 100% I knew this is what I was going to do. This was it for me.

Jeff Mao

Now, was it through the internship that Gregory D got signed to RCA also?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah. On that internship, I met some good connections with RCA. At first it started out with SWV. SWV was signed to Universal at the time and I did some drum programming on that. At the time, the president was this guy named Skip Miller. I kind of got close to him from everything that I was doing, from cleaning up to doing beats to whatever. I was, “Hey, I’ve got a guy who I’ve been doing some songs with in New Orleans. Would you give him a shot?” He was, “Hey, we’ll give y’all a shot.” The crazy thing is even then I didn’t know about budgets, didn’t know how they work or whatever, and they put us in the studio with some other producers, and I pretty much already knew, with the other producers, everything that they was doing or whatever. When I tell you how a session started out, I always say the guy came into the studio on a skateboard and by the time we was finished he was in a nice Cadillac. [laughs] He pretty much spent the whole budget for the album or whatever, but, I didn’t know what was going on at the time, you know? It was a learning lesson. I wouldn’t take nothing back that happened to me, in all honesty.

Jeff Mao

I also read that you had wound up in Chicago at one point too, working with…

Mannie Fresh

Right after that I wind up in Chicago working with Steve Hurley. Steve Hurley is kind of like the father of house music, wound up doing some programming with him. It was more so, same deal. He wind up doing a remix for me and Gregory D, and he was just, like, “Well, I don’t think I can finish it.” I was, well, give me an example of house music, what it is and what it sounds like. He sent me all these songs and all of them had, [imitates 4/4 beat] “Doop, doop, doop, doop, doop-tss, doop-tss, doop-tss, doop-tss…’ I’m, “OK, another one?” “Doop-tss, doop-tss, doop-tss.” I was, “Anything else?” It was like, “Doop-tss, doop-tss, doop-tss.” [laughs] I was, “All right, I can finish it up. I can probably even put a few rolls or some snare rolls or something in it.” He was, well, you know, “I got these other projects going on. If you could program them drums real quick.” I was, “Man, honestly, I could do this in my sleep.” [laughs] At the time that’s pretty much what house music sounded like. Everything had that “Doop-tss, doop-tss, doop-tss, doop-tss.” There was nothing but a 909 and a clap on top of it. I learned a lot of business from him of, “Hey, man, you’ve got to take care of your business. You can’t just do music.” At a young age I was so in love with music, I wasn’t paying attention to nothing but give me a drum machine and I love what I do. Even then it was big songs. Steve Hurley was remixing Prince songs and stuff like that. I was just, “Well, I’ll do the drums.” And I wouldn’t say he did anything to me or whatever, but I just wasn’t paying attention to how big those songs were. I was just like, “Oh, I love this. I’m just like the programmer or whatever.” Then when you get older and you think about, “Wow, that was the purple dude song, it’s Prince!” [laughs]

Jeff Mao

From there you wound up back here?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

So you decided you’re through with school, through with the internship. You were in Chicago. You came back home.

Mannie Fresh

Yep. Wind up here, started DJing again, back in the club or whatever, doing my club scene thing. And eventually, started remixing. Basically everything that was coming out. If I got a cappella to something, I put my own version to it. It started catching on in the streets of New Orleans. It would be like, “Oh, dude, you got the Mannie Fresh mix. You gotta get the Mannie Fresh mix.” It was getting the attention of a lot of people. It was more so labels and people going, “Hey, you should do your own thing, man, you’ve got something.” Around that time bounce was starting to take off, and it was kind of one-dimensional. It was just like I said, it was the birth of hip-hop. It was just a DJ and some MCs, and I just decided to like, “OK, I’m going to put some music behind this, put some breaks in it, scratching,” whatever and all that, and I think that elevated it to a whole other level. Like, wow, you could really take elements of this, and… Honestly, I was kind of listening to everything. If you listen to “Back That Azz Up,” [by Juvenile ft. Mannie Fresh] it’s really classical music.

Jeff Mao

I was going to say. It had that kind of…

Mannie Fresh

It was kind of like that classic… I was, “Well, what can I do that…” I was thinking that’s going to catch everybody, all around the board. I was like, “If I put this 808 “Trigger Man” beat behind it and I put some classical music on top of it, I think I’ll catch everybody and it will wind up being a big hit.”

Jeff Mao

I guess that’s when you met up as far as the early days of Cash Money Records.

Mannie Fresh

Yeah. The first generation of Cash Money was pretty much more of DJ type records. Cash Money was a bounce label before it was a rap label. It was just all bounce artists, underground bounce artists from New Orleans, and the first generation of it was more, like I said, it was DJ records. It was, let’s just say I took an 808 loop and I found “Wishing On a Star,” [by Rose Royce] the beginning of that, the music. I would loop that on top of a 808 beat, and it’s a hood classic, and put some keys on it. The crazy thing about it was I was the digging-a-crate-type person then. I already knew nobody in this city ever heard that song. You know what I’m saying? It was just like, “Wow, what is that?”

Jeff Mao

From the early days of Cash Money, what sort of artists came in that took it to the next level of what it became?

Mannie Fresh

The late, great Magnolia Shorty. She was signed to Cash Money. U.N.L.V., this guy Pimp Daddy, Lil Slim, B.G., early, he was signed. B.G. and Wayne were signed… I don’t know if you kind of googled him, they look like, I don’t know, smurfs or whatever. [laughs] They were signed to Cash Money since they were, I don’t know, probably 12 or something. The early generation and the early songs, just like I said, it was based on bounce music. It wasn’t really even based on rap. This guy, Kilo G, he was a rap artist, Mr. Ivan, also a rap artist, and I guess everybody was bouncing at one time in New Orleans. It just got to the point where it was, “Dude, it’s just way overdone right now.” It was, “What can we do? What’s going to be the next element?” B.G. turned out to be a pretty good rapper. We was just like, “Well, let’s try a rap record, but we’ll try to have bounce elements to it.” The first rap record that came out kind of on Cash Money, was this song called “Uptown Thang” by B.G., and the streets loved it. It took off. From there, it was just like, “OK, I don’t know about this bounce thing.” But Juvenile came after him. And when Juvenile came, it was more his raps were different from anybody else that was doing bounce music. His raps weren’t that call and response type thing. It was more, he had a story to tell. It had story form to it. It was like, “Wow, that brings a whole other element to it.” It was more so of the 400 Degreez album [Juvenile’s third studio album], he pretty much knew those songs. It was like somebody came to you and they sang all those songs to you. When he was rapping them to me, my wheels was spinning, because I was like, “Wow, I’ve never heard nobody from New Orleans with that kind of flow.” If you heard the song “HA,” you already know it was, damn, I’m just looking at him, like, “Damn, wow, I’m thinking of a beat right now.” I was, “Y’all got to sign him.” That just brung it to a whole ‘nother element, because nobody ever heard that before. I think that’s, to me, on 400 Degreez is well, I ain’t going to say most, but one of the, I guess, elite albums from the south. When you think of artists from the south or whatever and you start going into categories, like what would be ten of the hot albums, I would definitely put 400 Degreez in it.

Jeff Mao

Speaking of the roster and the artists on Cash Money who really took it to that next level at that time, you know, with the Hot Boys [Lil Wayne, Juvenile, B.G. and Turk]; I wonder, with the four of them, as a producer, just musically, what about each one of them did you find distinctive? What did each one of them bring to the table in terms of personality or style or chemistry to make that whole sort of clique really and take off?

Mannie Fresh

In all honesty, it wasn’t really about the four of them that made it great. It was more of a team effort that made it great. If you have team, like it feels, there’s really nothing that you can’t do. It was friendly competition with them. That’s what made the songs so great. It was kind of like if somebody heard, if Wayne did a verse and Juvie thought it was, “You know what, man? He killed me on that,” he went and rewrite his verse. Then Wayne came back and said, “Well, man, why did he have to rewrite his verse? I’m going to rewrite mine.” The friendly competition of it made it a great group, and I just think even the elements that they brung, at the time you had Juvie, who was the older guy but he was the lyricist. You had Wayne, who had, I don’t know, his characters that he did and his sound effects were nuts. And you had B.G. who was the streets. He had that street element that was crazy. You had Turk, the dude who all the girls liked. You know what I’m saying? You pretty much had the perfect group.

Jeff Mao

Well, on a track like “We On Fire,” or something like that, everybody rhymes two bars. It’s kind of an unusual structure for a hip-hop song. It’s usually more, you take a verse, you take a verse, you take a verse, but it’s so kind of integrated…

Mannie Fresh

Even with that, it was kind of like, I came from the old school, even though with me producing, and what I used to make them do, I ain’t going to say “Make,” but I was, “Why don’t y’all listen to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, like Rock Steady Crew? Just kind of listen to how they go in and go out; and how they have elements that make the songs so much hotter or whatever.” Even when it came to the Hot Boys, I was, “How can we make four guys sound incredible?” It can’t be, “OK, you rap, then I rap, then I rap.” It’s kind of like, “OK, everybody’s seen that before.” But hip-hop kind of, even though everybody had the element of what I said, the old school rap, we forgot about it. So I was like, “OK, if I can introduce that back with new beats or whatever, it would be hot.” It was more of me taking elements of old-school hip-hop, going, “OK, if I could put new beats over this and y’all actually get it…” Like I said, the rest is history.

Jeff Mao

I’m also curious to know, just from that time, No Limit broke nationally before Cash Money. What was the dynamic between the two labels in Louisiana at the time?

Mannie Fresh

The thing of it is, it was tension. I know you used “Dynamic,” but it was tension, because it was the song that Cash Money put out, called “It’s An Uptown Thang” and “[I’m] Bout It.” Basically, it was like somebody come and visit you and took what you was doing. “Bout It” was hot in the streets, but it was something that Cash Money created. It was more so of Master P at the time was living in California or something, came down and heard what was going on, and it was like, “OK, I’ll take that and I’ll go back.” Next thing you know, we hear this song, “Bout It Bout It,” and it’s nationwide and it’s like, “OK, you’re not going to say thank you or nothing? You just kind of took that and ran with it.” The good thing about it was it made everybody on Cash Money angry and hungry. You know what I’m saying? It was like, “I can’t believe he did that.” It made them want to, “You know what? The only revenge we going to get is we going to have to get on the national level. We going to have to get out there. We going to have to work twice as hard and make songs twice as better or whatever, to get on that level.” Because when “Bout It Bout It” came out it was like Master P was just a phenomenon or something. What he did was, I don’t even know. I mean, y’all know Master P. Come on. Everybody was, “He couldn’t do no wrong.” Anything that he said, it was just like, damn, Master P could breathe on a record. There was the new Master P, and he’s just… [grunts / laughs] He dropped something every day. The crazy thing, I guess, what happened, just like I said, it was more so of he came to New Orleans, which he is a New Orleans native but he wasn’t living in New Orleans at the time. He came to New Orleans and pretty much bit off all the slangs and whatever, it was more what Cash Money created, and just kind of ran off with them and made bank.

Jeff Mao

At the time you’re doing all the music for all the artists on the label?

Mannie Fresh

Yep.

Jeff Mao

During those years, what’s a day in the life of Mannie Fresh like?

Mannie Fresh

I’m kind of still the same way. I’m a studio junkie. I would be, “What time y’all getting to the studio?” That’s me. I’m at the studio. I’m the first one there, the last one to leave. That was pretty much my life all the time. I live, breathe music. If I’m not DJing, I’m in the studio. It’s kind of like nothing really excited me to, I guess, lift my head up off of my drum machine. It could be a murder going on in the room and they just be like, “He’s not stopping what he’s doing. That dude programming drums. He not tripping.” Cash Money sessions was basically a party all the time. The earlier Cash Money sessions, it was drinks, girls, whatever and all that. I guess it never distracted me, because I think certain songs kind of need that element, but it’s really only you and I guess what your focus is. I was always focused on what I was doing, and a day in the life of me is that.

Jeff Mao

Maintaining that pace of having to create that volume of music, you know, doing entire albums for multiple artists at the time wasn’t something that was difficult for you at all I guess then?

Mannie Fresh

No.

Jeff Mao

I’m sorry, go ahead.

Mannie Fresh

I would say, I guess a lot of cats might burn out on it. I’ve always said this: When I stop having fun, then I’ll stop. As long as I’m having fun with what I’m doing, I enjoy it. I guess fun brings creativity, and if you surround yourself with good people, then you’re going to always be creative. It’s like if something is negative in your life, you pretty much got to move it out your life or whatever, or you going to start… To make a long story short, if you hang around trash, you’re going to start smelling like trash.

Jeff Mao

Now, you also made the transition to appearing on records and doing some Big Tymers [Mannie Fresh’s group] stuff. I guess tell us a little bit about that.

Mannie Fresh

Even that wasn’t purposely. It was just more so of, “OK, I’m just rapping all of a sudden.” The next thing you know, I’m, “OK, I’m in front of a camera.” I never set out to be that producer or whatever, “OK, I want to be in the limelight,” or, “I want to be that one,” or whatever. I kind of look back sometimes. It was earlier Cash Money stuff, and I still kind of look like the oddball. [laughs] If you on a sofa and everybody else has got on 12 chains and you’re just sitting in the corner like, yeah, [laughs] They’re like, “Well, what about you?” You’re like, “Yeah, I want to save the ozone layer and the whales,” and everybody else is like, “Yeah, my earrings cost 50.” [laughs] I would say I never really set out to do that. It just came along with everything with music.

Jeff Mao

But the Big Tymers were hugely successful too, though.

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, but the Big Tymers, even the raps that I was saying, most people were, “Well, did you think of that or whatever?” I was, “No, I just said what I felt that day.” You know what I’m saying? It’s like even right now if I go in the studio, yes, there are some things that I’ll write down, but for the most part I don’t write them down. I just kind of say what I feel. And I feel like that’s the best songs anyway, you just being true to you. I’ve never said that I could rap, never said I was the MC, but I’m good at rhyming. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Of those years, what do you take from that experience of being with Cash Money and helping build it to what it is still today, which is a huge entity in the music?

Mannie Fresh

I don’t have no gripes with Cash Money, because Cash Money is pretty much the label, and I know in my heart, it’s my DNA or whatever, to a certain degree, you know, I helped build it. You’ve got to look at it. It’s like planting a tree. You start with a seed, and then you grow. I look at it like a lot of artists that I’ve done songs with early in their careers, they come from me. That’s good enough for me, to know that, “Wow, you had a hand in that guy’s career.” He started somewhere and you did your job. Look where he is right now. It’s kind of like something that Jay-Z said, “If you really made me, then make another one of me.” Basically, what that means is, I don’t really feel like I was a one-hitter-quitter or whatever, because that could go on and on. After I left Cash Money, Jay-Z’s first hit was with Mannie Fresh. A couple of T.I. hits was with Mannie Fresh. I’ve done some big songs for some big people, and God-willing, I’m going to do some more. I don’t have no gripes with them. It’s business. That’s what it is when it came down to Cash Money. I was so in love with music, and I’ve said it in interviews, I wasn’t paying attention to my business, and I wasn’t really paying attention to what it was generating. When it got time for it to count, it wasn’t like they stepped up and did what they were supposed to do.

Jeff Mao

What kind of terms are you on with folks from the label nowadays?

Mannie Fresh

We speak, that’s about it. It’s like, “Hi, hello.” A quick, “Hi, hello.”

Jeff Mao

What sort of advice would you pass along based on that experience?

Mannie Fresh

I would say, definitely in this, you have to pay attention to your paperwork. Don’t get caught up in that trap of, “I love music so much to…” Well, I would say this, let me rephrase that. Don’t do homeboy business. Homeboy business is, “That’s my boy, he would never do me that.” Yes, he would, because money is the root to all evil. Some people can’t handle it. You could grow up with somebody, and these are guys who, like I said, I grew up with, been knowing them pretty much all my life or whatever, but when money came, things got strange. And I say that to anybody: I can’t do homeboy business no more. I’d just rather you just pay me for what I’m doing and I’ll give you what I owe you and we good. Other than that, we can’t really talk about it because like right now, there’s some guys in here that’s friends with somebody for a long time or whatever and you’re thinking about doing something, but when it really comes to you saying, “OK, I’m going to bring my attorneys in,” and they’re like, “Why you got to do that?” Because you have to do that. That’s what it is.

Jeff Mao

Emotionally, how did you sort of adjust with that change in your career?

Mannie Fresh

I would say emotionally it hasn’t done nothing to me. It’s a learning lesson. Everything in life is a learning lesson. On top of that, if you sit around and pout about stuff, you’ll never be who you’re supposed to be in life. You’ll never get where you’re supposed to get. So I just look at it as a stepping stone, just another obstacle I’ve got to get over, and keep it moving.

Jeff Mao

I also kind of wanted to touch on one thing, just in terms of the way the music was being interpreted at its height with that Cash Money stuff and the stuff coming out of the south in recent years. For a while anyways, people up north would get defensive or feel territorial about how hip-hop from down- south had more or less taken over and become more or less the popular form. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that, because you obviously have so much reverence for the history of the music. How did it make you feel to have sort of like, all the New York people, whoever, griping a little bit about the guys down south coming up?

Mannie Fresh

See, what had happened was, [laughs] while everybody else was beefing, the south was making songs about, I guess, partying or whatever and having a good time. The east and the west were so busy with “I hate you” and “I hate you.” While all that was going on, we started making records about, “You know what? Hey, we just want to have a good time.” And good-time music just started taking off. I don’t even see why nobody else can’t figure it out, what happened. They just like, “Well, the south kind of just came through here and took over.” Even right now you still kind of have those beefs from the east and the west. It’s like, “Wow, if you all figure it out and stop beefing, it’s almost like y’all can get back on.” The south is kind of like, the home of the independent label. We know how to hustle, like our life depend on it. You know what I’m saying? We going to talk you into buying records, if we’ve got to aggravate you to the point of, “Hey man, buy this tape, buy this tape.” And we come from that, from selling them out the trunk or whatever. Everybody else is looking for that hand. They’re like, “OK, we need a label to do this and we need to get set up, we need to do this and all that.” That’s like talking, I don’t even know, gibberish, to me. If I go to a label and they say, “Well, we’ve got to set up your video and we need this and we need that.” I’m like, “Why? Why do we have to do that? We could just put it out and see what happens. If it don’t work, we going to put another song out.” That’s kind of like the south model. We just keep putting records out until something sticks. Everywhere else is more of, they take it as, “Well, you’ve got to have the proper setup, you’ve got to have somebody to work the record, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that.” That’s your job. You’ve got to do all of that. You’ve got many faces down south. You’re the CEO, you work the record, you’re the DJ, you’re all of that. [laughs] I think that’s the difference. Most people down south, their life depend on, and the bills and everything else depend on, them selling them records, so they’re going to find a way to make it happen.

Jeff Mao

I wonder also, just with this particular city, just with how S&P [Social Aid and Pleasure] clubs have that sort of tradition of community and people sort of coming together; if that sort of just is something that’s also, around here anyways, ingrained as far as people supporting local musicians and acts and hip-hop crews.

Mannie Fresh

That’s all down-south. I just gave y’all an example of homeboy business, but we do have one good thing kind of like we’re artists in the south. We leave the people who we need to leave out our conversations out. It’s kind of like, if I went to David Banner, I could get a beat from David Banner. I don’t need to talk to somebody at his label or whatever or nothing like that, because it becomes confusion when I got to talk to who before I talk to you? He could just tell me yes or no, and collaborations down-south kind of happen, “Oh, you in my town, what you doing? Let’s go to the studio.” And that’s all it is. I’m going to give you back that favor. “I’ll do your song, you do my song.” There’s no paperwork or whatever, and that’s the good thing about down south. You’ll have somewhere where, let’s just say I could probably never get a song from Mary J. Blige without paying Mary J. Blige. She’d be like, “I don’t care who you are. I need my money.” The good thing about down-south, and we really care about our art, it’s just like if an artist fall off and you really like him, you’re going to do everything that you can do to help him. You know, we really care. “Hey man, you had a bad album? Anything you need from me, I got you.” Especially if I’m a fan. You know, it’s like, OK, you’ve got elements from that guy too. You took some of his elements to make your music. So I think we have that element. We have that over a lot of other artists coming from the east and the west. We actually don’t put the politics into when it comes to artists. Even around here, I could go to Trombone Shorty, “Hey man, I’m in a studio.” I could go to the Stooges [Brass Band], “I’m in the studio right now, I need some horns.” I could go to the dude who’s shooting right now, they did my video. I just called them up, “Hey, dude, I’m ready to shoot a video.” “Where do you want us to be at?” You know what I’m saying? It’s real life. They actually really shot the video. They was like, “Hey, give me this camera and we going to do it.” And I was like, “I’m going to have the camera then.” And we shot the video.

Jeff Mao

Now, yesterday you told me you were on the set of Treme [TV series], right?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

Tell us a little bit about your perspective on the show and what your involvement is.

Mannie Fresh

Actually, I’m playing myself on the show, and what I was doing…

Jeff Mao

It’s not like somebody…

Mannie Fresh

It’s not a character. I’m actually playing myself on the show. The funny thing happened was, if you’ve seen the show you know it has its serious moments and it kind of has, every now and then it might have a little comedy in it or whatever. But it was more so of, they asked me first to do… What did I have to do first? Oh, an answering machine. Basically, it was somebody making a phone call to me about getting a beat. They was just like, “Could you record yourself? How would your voicemail sound?” I was, “Do you really want me to do it how my voicemail?” He was, “Yeah.” But they had a script, and I kind of read it, and I was like, “No, that’s not what I would say.” They’re, like, “Say it how you would say it.” Basically, I want to say I said something, I’m just going to give it to y’all raw, like what I said. I was like, “Yo, what’s up, this is Mannie Fresh and your baby mama’s in the background.” I was like, “On the real, if you’re calling me to borrow money, I think you should just hang up. If you’re calling me and you owe me money and you’re not ready to pay me back, I think you should just hang up.” I was like, “If you’re calling me to spend some money, leave a message. Bye, bitches.” When I did it, the guy was, “Wow!” [laughs] He was like, “You know what? We’re going to write you a couple more parts in the show.” [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Yeah, you got the walk-on part. I asked Walter the same thing with the show. As far as it portraying the experiences of people here, post-[Hurricane] Katrina, what was the experience like for you? Where were you at the time?

Mannie Fresh

When that happened I was on tour in Canada. The crazy thing is I wasn’t really taking that serious, because anybody around here could tell you, we done had hurricane threats so many times until we just like, “You know what? We just going to go get drunk. Nothing’s going to happen.” That was just the attitude we had around New Orleans. Like I said, I was in Canada and heard on the new or whatever, they was like, “OK this is going to be the big one. This one is going to wipe New Orleans out.” I was just like, “Nah, man, we going to be all right.” After the hurricane actually hit, I was, “Man, this sh-- is serious.” So I started making phone calls, couldn’t get nobody in New Orleans, so I go to the counter at the airport in Canada trying to get back home, and this lady just killed me. She was, “New Orleans is wiped off the map.” [laughs] She just made it gloomy, it was just horrible, like she was, “There is no more New Orleans. Nothing. Everything is wiped off the map.”

Jeff Mao

I thought Canadians were nice.

Mannie Fresh

I was, “Damn, wiped off the map?” She was, “Yeah.” To make matters even worse, she was, like, “Everybody drowned.” [laughs] By that time, me and the dudes that I’m with, I’m like, “Damn!” So you start thinking about your family and everything. I was, “Everybody drowned?” She was like, “Everybody drowned. The city is wiped off the map.” I’m like, “Well, fly us anywhere close to New Orleans.” We wind up flying into Dallas or whatever, and I’m thinking, “OK, I’ll finally get in touch with my family.” They’re in Houston. I was, “OK, I’m going to drive down to Houston or whatever.” I started making phone calls, you know, as far as insurance stuff or whatever, checking on my house or whatever, and my car, and they telling me the same thing. I was, “Yeah, I left my car at the airport before I left.” Before I could say anything, the lady is, “The airport, gone. Your car, gone. Where do you want us to send the check?” I was like, “Damn!” Just like I said, I called on my house to check. I was, well, you know, “I’m just calling, if I got to start a claim early.” They’re like, “Your house gone.” I was, “Damn! Really? It’s that serious?” It really didn’t sink in to me because, like I said, I was on the road and if you can’t see something… I remember finally when I settled down, I was watching the news, and I see all these people stuck in the Superdome or whatever. I was, “Man, it is real serious.” I mean, it’s indescribable. I guess that’s when, to me, I would say that’s kind of a turning point for me, because it made me realize that family before everything, because you take things for granted a lot of times. Because at that time, I was cool. Like I said, I had just left Cash Money. I had an album out. I was in Canada. I’d done something they’d never done. I was touring different places that they never been, so I was like, “Well, I’m happy. I’m making good money and I’m doing this.” This happens and you kind of think that that would never happen to you, nobody around you or whatever. Then you see certain things, and I just remember feeling like this dark feeling over me by seeing what was going on in the Superdome. And I was, “This is a city in the United States and it’s getting treated like it was a third world country or somewhere.” Nobody’s really coming to the aid, nobody’s doing nothing or whatever, and to know people, where you could actually… Because pretty much everybody in this city knows everybody, it’s a small city. When you’re watching the news and you actually see a few people that you know stuck somewhere and there’s nothing you could do about it. That’s like family to you as well. Like I said, it just taught me a lesson right then and there. I’m like, you know what? If I could live some more on this planet, I would definitely put my family before everything.

Jeff Mao

How long did you stay in Houston for?

Mannie Fresh

Man, I actually still have a house in Houston. I wind up thinking that I was going to live there. I was like, “Pretty much nothing to go back to.” The silly thing that happened, me being in Houston as long as I was, everybody will tell you here, we had kind of like this shut-out from New Orleans for almost a month. They wasn’t letting nobody in the city or whatever. So I’m thinking, “OK, I started my process. Everything is cool or whatever.” I pretty much live on the outskirts of New Orleans, and when I finally get to go home, I’ve already did my insurance claim and all that. When I finally get to go home, I get to my neighborhood is trees blowing, kids playing, my house is straight. Nothing really never happened. It was more so of I was like, “You know what? I think I’m going to stay in Houston for a while.” I’ve kind of been back and forth ever since, but this is home for me, and anybody around here could tell you, you see me everywhere. I kind of float around.

Jeff Mao

From spending time here, how do you see things have recovered or coming back?

Mannie Fresh

You got places in New Orleans, dude, where it looks like the storm just hit. If you visit it, they going to make it look nice for you. If you stand in this area around here, it looks like a hurricane never hit, but if you kind of go on the Ninth Ward or Seventh Ward or whatever, you would think the hurricane just hit yesterday. There’s a lot of areas where it looks like, like I said, it just hit yesterday. Everybody is, “Where the money went?” But that’s Louisiana politics. Hey, nobody ever knows where the money at around here.

Jeff Mao

I guess, just as far as in recent years, you’ve said in interviews that you’ve stayed a little bit low-key because of certain things, the adversity that you’ve endured. I just wondered if you could touch on that at all.

Mannie Fresh

I guess pretty much with my sister getting, the violent way it happened, my sister pretty much got murdered here a couple of, maybe two or three years ago here, and I definitely right then and there kind of made up my mind that I was done with New Orleans. But I always say through the help of just meeting some young people here… Like, I don’t know, the Stooges, the dude, B-Mike, who shot my video or whatever, his crew… They kinda, I’m just going to say it was more of a blessing. They made me kind of rethink it. There’s still some positive creative people here, but something like that will make you feel that way for a second. I mean, when that happened, just think about it like this: When everything in your life is going good, you kind of think that you’re untouchable. Well, you feel that way, consciously. You don’t even know you feel that way. I kind of had this whole thing of, life is great; you know what I’m saying? Nothing can’t touch me. When that happened with my sister, it put me in a dark place. I didn’t want to do music. I didn’t want to be nowhere around nobody who had anything to do with New Orleans. Because what’s crazy to me, I felt like I knew the streets. I know the streets. I know everything about the streets, so it kind of was like, it came full circle of, it made me conscious of some of the things that I was saying in rap songs and everything. Where I was like, “Damn! This is the same crazy sh-- that I used to say in songs.” But you never think it would knock on your door and come to you. It was more so of me growing up and just… I don’t know. It just changed me as a person or whatever. Put it like this: I’m at peace with it now. I could talk about it. At one time I wouldn’t talk about it. You couldn’t even get me to touch a drum machine or do music or whatever, because truthfully, my sister was my biggest fan. To her I couldn’t do no wrong; anything that I did or whatever. It was just like somebody’s who’s your soul and the closest person to you. If I had something… Put it like this, to hide, you know, because all of us have that, that was the person who I confided in; you know what I’m saying? Not that it was right, but that was the person who I could talk to, good and bad. To have that taken away from you, it’s going to take some time to heal. I look at it like some of the people, the newer people that I’ve met in this city, they’ve been a blessing. They helped me get over that. That’s all I can say. Just from their words and inspiration. Even if I’m on Twitter, I get people that say all the time, “Dude, we miss you, what you doing, man? Come on, man. Get it right.” I see people all the time that send their condolences, that send their prayers, so I’m like, “You know what? It would be wrong for me to walk away from this city just because [of] one person, or one bad seed.” The problem is this, pretty much everybody in this city knows somebody in their family that died some kind of way violently in this city. If nobody don’t speak up or nobody don’t do something, that cycle going to keep on going. And to a certain degree I kind of feel like I am the voice for the young generation, because I think I could be heard a little bit more than they can. A lot of times to diffuse a situation is just somebody opening their mouth, saying something. A lot of people are scared to do that. I feel like it’s times where I’ve been in situations in this city where it’s just, that’s all I have to do is say, “Come on, man. Dude, that ain’t us. We ain’t got to do that.” And it goes away. So, it’s good and bad. As long as your good outweigh your bad, I feel like, “Hey, you’re a decent person to me.”

Jeff Mao

Sort of on that note, you’ve also said, as far as reassessing your priorities, that you are, quote, “Too old for bling now.”

Mannie Fresh

Yeah. [laughs] Hey, if that’s your thing, do it. But I feel like at this point in my life, there’s a lot of things I’m kind of… Mature. [laughs] I’m too old for that, dude. On top of that, I guess, like I said, if it’s you, go do it, so be it, but I don’t think I want to be somebody in a club where somebody’s like, “What’s wrong with that old man? Why the fu-- you got on 12 chains and three earrings?” [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Now, you obviously still produce and you have your label, Chubby Boy.

Mannie Fresh

Yes, sir.

Jeff Mao

Working with new acts and maintaining that obviously and working with other groups and established acts as well, but you also, I guess, did you ever stop DJing?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, I did stop DJing but even more so now, I’m DJing more than I’m doing beats. I’ve been DJing, man, that’s all I can say is, it’s been a warm welcome. I’ve been everywhere. The crazy thing is, like I said, if I go somewhere, they’re like, “Hey, we want you back two or three more times.” I always say this, DJing is helping me understand what’s going on in music right now, because I was kind of off the scene in my own little world for a second or whatever, so to get back into clubs and DJ or whatever, I feel like I’m falling in love with hip-hop all over again.

Jeff Mao

I know you played in New York about a month ago.

Mannie Fresh

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

I wasn’t at the gig, but I heard from a lot of people that there was a lot of excitement around that gig, a lot of excitement.

Mannie Fresh

Yeah, man, the crazy thing is, it went down. I would say that was my second time actually meeting Drake, and for him to come out and MC, I was just like, “Wow, this has got to be something big.” When he first got to the gig, he was kind of like, “Dude, I grew up on you. I love your music, da-da-dah,” and he was just chilling behind me. He was, “Man, it’s killing me.” I’m like, “Here, man, take the mic.” [laughs] Even to meet some people, I’m still a fan. Some cats will play that cool role and be like, “Man, it’s all about me.” If I like you, I like you. I’m a fan. Even with him I was, “Dude, I’m a fan of your music. I love everything that you’re doing. Keep up the good work.” I’m sitting there telling him stuff that fans I guess like do or whatever. I’m like, “Man, number 13, go hard.” He’s like, “Man, what’s number 13?”

Jeff Mao

I do want to make sure that folks get a chance to ask a couple questions. I’m sure that people have things they want to ask Mannie, so I’m going to open it up at this point.

Audience Member

Who is Mantronix?

Mannie Fresh

[laughs] Mantronix was actually a producer from New York, and if you download some of his music, I promise you, you’ll hear a lot of elements from Mannie Fresh. Well, I kind of like took some of the things that he did, like he’s telling me some of the songs, “Fresh Is The Word,” um, “Bassline,” but he was way ahead of his time. This dude was way, way ahead of his time. But he was from New York. He was one of the dudes who first did snare rolls, triplets with the hi-hats and all that kind of stuff, but he was big in New Orleans. I don’t know if nobody else got it, but we loved everything that Mantronix did.

Audience Member

A lot of people are familiar with undercutting DJs and stuff like that. I didn’t know nowadays that recording budgets and stuff have been cut with major labels. Do you deal with that at all? There’s all these young kids producing off Fruity Loops and stuff where they can get something for free from somebody else instead of paying, you know?

Mannie Fresh

Well, dude, I’m glad. I wouldn’t have thought of what you just said, but I’m so glad that you asked that question that you asked, because, honestly, what’s going on is you got like a lot of young producers right now, and DJs, but I’ll start out with the producers that’s doing beats, that’s real talented kids, that the beats are incredibly hot, but… They killed the game. That’s all I can say. They killed the game by giving away music, giving these little cheap prices. You know what I’m saying? If you’re thinking that’s getting you on, that’s not getting you on, because basically what labels are doing, when they finished with you, they moving on to the next kid that’s doing that. I mean, there’s no loyalty in this. It never was with a label. Pretty much to say, “I’m going to sell a beat for $500,” or whatever it is that you’re doing, art that took time to perfect, somebody who I guess worked on their craft the same way you worked on it and you’re giving it away for that? That’s nuts to me. To undercut somebody is either they want it or they don’t want it. Good music is going to stand up on its own. I don’t really feel like you have to say, “Well, if he’s charging three, I’ll charge two.” That’s crazy. Either they want it or they don’t want it. You’ve got to look at it, at the height of this, and this wasn’t too long ago, I would say probably three or four years ago, you had producers that were getting like 70 to 100 grand for a song, and now it’s trickled down to $500. How does that happen? That’s amazing. Basically, I know some hot producers, I won’t say no names, but what they charge for beats is crazy. It’s like, “Dude, y’all pretty much killed the game.” The thing of it is right now they going, “Well, who can I shop my beats to?” I’m like, “Well, the labels done with you. They’ve moved on to the next person that they did the same thing to you.” They pretty much was like, “OK, we’ll get some beats from you right now because you hot. On the way out, we going to meet somebody else and tell him the same thing.” And you got to think about it. This is some real game I’m going to give you right now. Why would you give T.I. a beat? T.I. has money, you know what I’m saying? You don’t have to do no favors for him. You don’t have to do no favors for Lil Wayne, none of that. It’s not a good look. Like, if a label tells you, “Oh, it’s a good look to do this song because it’s Lil Wayne.” You’re like, “Fu--, Lil Wayne can afford this.” That’s not a good look. It’s more so, “Y’all can pay me for this. This is a major artist. I’m not going to give him nothing.” I’d rather not even do it, because it’s the guys who fall for that that’s messing up the game. Because truthfully, you have people that can afford, like he could have came out of his pocket and paid you probably more than what the label would have paid you, but I refuse to let somebody tell me, “It’s a good look or it’s gone,” I guess further my career to give away something to somebody that’s already established. He can pay for this. He’s already established. If y’all want it, y’all will pay for it, but if you give it away, you’ve got to think about everything that’s going on right now as a producer, as a DJ or whatever. A lot of people are not getting the credit that they deserve. If you did a song that somebody tell you is a good look but your name going to get on the next one, that’s bullsh--. [laughs]

Audience Member

You mentioned earlier that you work with Steve Hurley. Now, with the progression of hip-hop, now it’s becoming a lot with house music; do you see yourself following some of that transition?

Mannie Fresh

Yeah. A lot of my gigs are more so pop gigs right now. I’ve been doing a lot of clubs that’s pop, and I kind of feel like truthfully, pop is going places that hip-hop is scared to go right now. They have more to talk about, basically. Hip-hop is one-dimensional right now. It’s more so of, “We’re going to make a song about how rich we are,” sh--. This is like, “All right, damn, somebody done that. We can’t keep doing that.” But, you know, you have different elements of pop music that’s going on right now, so I’m open to everything. I don’t know. If polka jump off right now, I’m in there. [laughs]

Jeff Mao

Stay away from polka. They eliminated it from the Grammies, we’ve heard earlier. When you DJ the gigs, do you bring your machines, do it the same old way from back in the day?

Mannie Fresh

Yes, sir.

Audience member

First of all, I’ve got to say I remember Mantronix. All day. When I heard that I kind of jumped, [looks around] “Who knows Mantronix?” One thing I wanted to ask and you mentioned a lot of the young cats coming up, potentially killing the game, whatnot, but yes, they are still talented. Three or five names, I don’t know, that you feel, some young producers coming up, that you’re personally feeling whether we’ve heard of them or not.

Mannie Fresh

I would say Drama. He does a lot of stuff out of Atlanta. Shawty Redd as well, he does a lot of stuff out of Atlanta. It’s some people who, I mean, I don’t think get credit like they should get. You’ve got this guy, T-Mix, he did all the 8Ball & MJG stuff. He did some of Lil Wayne’s stuff when I left Cash Money. It’s a lot of tight producers that own the dudes out of Houston right now, Beanz N Kornbread. You’ve got a lot of them that’s tight. You got to look at it too, what hip-hop, where it’s going at. If a group right now, like let’s just say it was five people or whatever, walked in here right now, you probably wouldn’t know none of them because it’s not marketed like that no more. Like, even producers, it’s more so if… The people who I name right now, if they were sitting on a sofa with me, you wouldn’t know them, because it’s almost like that’s the way record companies want it to be. They don’t want you to get too far, where you can start naming your price and doing certain things and whatever. I just think it’s a lot of producers I know, just cats that I meet that might play me some beats, and I’m like, “Wow, dude, you got something that’s going on.” The people who stand out some kind of way, you figured out a way to market yourself, you figured out a way to get yourself in front [of] people to know you and what you’re selling. It’s almost like you’ve got to sell an image as well as a beat. I’ve hung out with, like you saying, some guys, the younger guys that’s supposed to be at the height of their game and we might go to a basketball game and somebody’s, “You’ll take a picture with me?” I’m like, “Take a picture with him too.” You know what I’m saying? Because I don’t want him to feel like, “Who’s that?” I’m like, “It’s the dude who did such-and- such, he did Waka Flocka [Flame].” They’re like, “Who is that?” You know what I’m saying? [laughs]

Audience Member

Could you talk a little bit about your transition of your sound and how it evolved from the Gregory D era to the bounce era to the Cash Money era and then I guess ‘till now. Also, you’re sort of responsible for getting me interested in rap in general.

Mannie Fresh

[laughs] I really wouldn’t call it transition. I guess some people say that or whatever. It’s more of I kind of go with what’s going on. I don’t really say it’s a transition or nothing like that. There’s more of, “OK, this is what I think it should sound like, this is what it is.” ‘Cause truly, I haven’t changed my drum kits in, sh--, a decade, you know what I’m saying? But they still work. There’s some things that, if it’s not broke, don’t mess with it. I see elements of me in a lot of songs or whatever. I look at it like this. I came from, I guess, the generation of when you knew a producer. You don’t know that now. I hear songs right now that are so scary, where it’s, “I thought I did that.” You’ll hear sh-- like, “Damn, that sounds like I did it.” You’ve got to check yourself, where you’re like, “Damn, that’s my hi-hats, that’s my snare rolls,” and there’s no thank you attached to it! [laughs] It’s more so of, I guess where I’m at right now, I’m not saying that I’m changing, but I what kind of makes me not want to do the same song is, I keep hearing the same song. Even though I know it’s what I do, it’s to the point where it’s like, “I don’t really want to do that. I want to try something else.” You know what I’m saying? It’s like hearing your hi-hats, hearing your snare rolls or whatever, even though you know that’s your thing, if you hear 18 songs like that, I’ll try something else.

Audience Member

Touching on what he [points to other audience member] said before about the younger producers, now that most people are doing digital downloads and not buying CDs, not really reading album credits, how do you see that affecting younger producers that are getting on bigger tracks being able to grow their career without people really knowing who they are, like back in the day, or even producers doing entire albums for artists like they used to do?

Mannie Fresh

I just think that as a producer you’ve just got to work twice as hard. You’ve got to figure out a way to market yourself, you know? The game change, it’s the gift and the curse. The Internet is the gift and a curse. To a certain degree, alright, you’re losing by downloads, but at the same time, you’re winning because you can reach the whole world on the Internet. As a producer, you have to figure out a way like, how can I stay in touch with people? If you’ve got to sit there and, I don’t know, tweet messages all day or whatever you got to do to get people to know you, you have to do that. You just have to work twice as hard. You used to, when you made a big hit, it was a big deal, the producer that was attached to that song. That’s not a big deal no more. People are just like, “Well, nobody don’t really care about you. We just want a hot track or whatever.” I think you got to brand yourself. If it was a hot song, there’s no way in the world you’re not going to let me do an intro on it. I’m going to kick, scream and holler. If you’re saying, “I’m doing this song for Michael Jackson and y’all not going to let me put a Figgie Fresh in there, sh--, it ain’t going down.”

Audience Member

So currently, who are you a fan of, unsigned or maybe a legend now? Who are you listening to?

Mannie Fresh

I’m kind of old-school, dude. I’m not really even listening to music right now. I’m not even going to lie to you. I’m a DJ, and I got to play songs, but honestly, I’m not really feeling kind of what’s going on right now. I could give you my reasons for it. At one time hip-hop was, you know, it was a teacher. You had Public Enemy that brung you pro-black music, you know what I’m saying? You had N.W.A., that was your gangster music. You had Slick Rick, that was a storyteller. You had Cash Money, that was your blinged-out, whatever. You had different elements of hip-hop. You had Nas, that was the deep dude that taught you certain things or whatever. Now it’s just so one-dimensional, so it’s almost like you hear the same song. It’s like, “OK, I’ve heard that before.” The next song I play is the same song. So it’s really like I’m just being honest with you. I’m not really feeling music right now. I pretty much, when it comes down to what I listen to, I listen to old-school rap. When I’m by myself or whatever, I’m listening to some old-school rap. That’s what’s going on with me.

Jeff Mao

I heard you also say, make an observation from doing some of the gigs, how a lot of kids surprise you, which kids come up and recognize the old school classics as opposed to the audience that you were hoping, maybe…

Mannie Fresh

Yeah. I could give you examples. I’ve done gigs where I’ve DJd and it’s, I don’t know, Buzzard Nuts, Arkansas, somewhere, and I’m just like, “All right, y’all not going to know none of these songs. I don’t even know how I got the gig or whatever.” They telling me sh--, like, “Dude, play this, a B-side song or whatever.” I’m just like, “Damn! Really?” You know? It’s shocking. You can’t look in the crowd and know what somebody is going to like. You just can’t. Like I said, it’s been places where I was just totally shocked, whatever, where they was like, “Hey, we want you to do a Mannie Fresh old-school set.” I’m like, “Well, what’s a Mannie Fresh old school set?” They’re like, “Bounce music.” Like I said, this is Buzzard Nuts, Arkansas. Bounce music? And they know all the songs! I’m like, “Wow, this sh-- is crazy.” I mean, it’s shocking to me, the people who… Even in New York, when I did the New York thing, they was just like, “We kind of want you to do your music, do your set.” So even when I did my set and I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve been to New York before,” did shows or whatever, but I’m like, “OK, this is going to be some down-south sh-- that only we would know.” The crazy thing is I play underground sh-- and they knew all the words to it. It was just like, “Don’t even go nowhere else, stay down- south.” It was amazing to me, because I’m like, “Wow, I’m in New York. This is hip-hop, where it started from.” The crowd is like, “Don’t go nowhere else, stay down-south.” I was like, wow. That was crazy to me.

Jeff Mao

Alright, I got one last question for Mannie Fresh, then we’ll wrap it up. Mannie… The Asians want to claim you, man. Who’s Asian in your family? Who’s Asian in your family? Come on.

Mannie Fresh

[laughs] I’m with y’all. Somewhere down the line, I got a couple of Asians in my family.

Jeff Mao

All right. That’s what I wanted to hear. Ladies and gentlemen, Mannie Fresh. [stands]

[applause]

Mannie Fresh

[stands] Thank y’all, thank y’all, thank y’all, thank y’all.