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4/17/2006 What's up? I'm good, man. Everything is lovely. What have you been up to lately? I've been working hard and I got some stuff that's about to hit the streets. I got the Encore DVD series. Imagine my mixtapes transformed to DVD format. There's freestyles, up-and-coming artists…I'm also working on some production and I've already done some production that you already know of, like the Nas and Lauryn Hill "It Wasn't You." I'm working with Alicia Keys' company. The first song I ever produced was the Run-DMC song with Method Man and ever since then I've been going at it hard. What's your radio situation right now? Right now, I don't even want to talk about it. I don't want to put something out there yet before I should. I've been featured on Shade45 "Rep Yo Set" and the regular station. I'm in talks right now to do some other stuff, but I can't really speak on it right now. What would be better for you, New York radio or satellite radio? If you could have both, it would be great. New York is the greatest place to be on, but at the same time when you're on XM or Sirius, those are up-and-coming avenues for DJ's like myself to be heard. I would love both of them. What's your relationship with Nas? I started working with Nas in '98 for the "I Am" album. I did the intro on that album. That was my introduction to working with him. I did some tour dates with him as his DJ. I've been working on production for him. It's a great situation with Ill Will Records and Def Jam. I felt like the Nas "Living Legend" mixtape was heavy in the streets and I worked very hard on that. That turned out to be a very tight project. How did you go about putting "Living Legend" together? It was a case where he was in transition to doing a bunch of different things, so it took a period of time to work on it. We had to sit down and figure out how we wanted to represent. He did a couple of freestyles and we remixed a lot of songs. That was a great project. How did "It Wasn't You" with Lauryn Hill come about? I had some vocals and I was working with the vocals. They were from an earlier time. I did the track and the rest is history. Have you recorded with Nas for his album? I'd rather keep that one up in the air for now. Have you heard anything off "Nasdaq"? Mums the word on that one. I can definitely tell you there's some heat out there. Are you the best blend DJ in the mixtape game? I definitely feel there are a lot of DJ's out there that may be more popular than me, but I feel that when it comes to blending in the mixtape game, I'm definitely more talented than a lot of dudes out there right now. What's more important, the talent or the fame? It's a combination of the both, but I think the talent will always come through more than the fame. Talent will always stay with you. That's why I put so much time into my mixtapes so they have longevity. My tapes never sound dated. My old tapes can still bang today where a lot of tapes from '94 sound dated now. How do you do your blends? The first thing I try to do is get into some mood music. The mixtapes are about giving people your mind-state. That's why I'll play some Mobb Deep or something like that to get into the mood. Then it's straight work. It's crazy because sometimes you may have an accapella but no instrumental for it, so you have to make your own instrumental. The people may not always know where I get a beat from, but where I get my instrumentals and accapellas has to stay a secret for now. How do you put your tape together? I normally have at least two CD's worth of mixes and I try to get the best feel for them when I ride around. When I ride around, I listen to two CD's of mixes and weed out the ones that don't sound the strongest. "Rap Phenomenon" featuring Biggie seemed to put you on the map nationally. That was a classic. Both of the "Rap Phenomenon" mixtapes were instrumental to me being recognized on a national level. Popularity is definitely important. The awareness that there are still blend DJ's doing their thing brought a lot of people and attention to what blend DJ's can actually do. The tapes are a promotional tool and I wanted to show my talent and my skill and market my product to get into more hands than it normally would. That was the approach that we took on those CD's. That's the approach I take on every tape I put out now. Do you get the respect you deserve? Yeah, definitely. Rest in peace to Justo. I'm the winner of two Justo awards. I definitely receive a lot of respect in the game. I have no qualms about that. What's up with your artist Dramills? He's Lost Boyz-affiliated and he's definitely incredible. You will hear him on all my upcoming mixtapes. We've been getting a lot of support from radio. He's the truth. What are your goals for Dramills? We're working on the album right now. We're trying to get him some collaborations with a couple different people and we're trying to get him heard as much as possible. Are you working on a Dirty Harry album? I would like to. I've worked with Alicia Keys, Nas…It would be great for me to put an album out one day. Who do you want to work with next on the production tip? There a lot of people I want to work with. I just did something with Papoose. There are a lot of Down South artists that I want to work with. There are a lot of people that are really putting it down. I want to work with anybody that's doing Hip Hop and keeping it true to the game. How important are R&B tapes to you? That's where most of the good samples and vibes come from. I put out "Dirty Luv" and I'm on part four right now. I did the first one with Angie Martinez and I did the last two with Alicia Keys. So many good Hip Hop songs came from these R&B CD's. You have to follow your roots. Hip Hop has transformed some of these songs. You have to take it back to where a lot of good Hip Hop records came from. What's next for you? I want to put out a project with a couple other DJ's. We're talking now. We want to do some projects that would be big like "Rap Phenomenon." I have a tape that's going to drop in a couple of weeks and I'm still working on the beats. What do you want to say to everyone? Check me out. I've been in the game for over ten years and I've really been putting it down. Real recognize real. I've worked with a lot of different people and I have a lot of different things to bring to the table. Whenever you're checking for Dirty Harry, just remember that I'm going to bring it to you real.

By Brian Kayser

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