By keepintouch2004
Wed Dec 24, 2003 5:14 am
Things are about to change in a big way
for Cool & Dre. They’ve already been on
the industry map for a minute now, thanks
to Terror Squad, and recently upped their stock.
"We were in Cali ready to sign with Shady Records,
and Jive Records sent a private jet out to get us and fly us
to Philly! Then, we’re in Philly getting ready to sign with Jive,
and Lyor Cohen sends Kevin Liles on a helicopter to try to
convince us to sign with Def Jam!" Dre can barely
contain his excitement when discussing the last 24 hours,
a crazy bidding war that ended with Cool & Dre signing
a $2 million label deal with Jive Records. It’s the kind of story
that you’d only expect to see in a movie. We’re sitting in the 99
Jamz studios, and DJ Khaled is on the air hypin’ up the first
artist on Cool & Dre’s newly formed Epidemic Records.
Dirtbag, formerly known as Jo-Vicious, is a Miami native,
and the industry is lovin’ him right now.
Across town, the owner of a local management company
is getting reprimanded by a friend. "I told you to sign him!"
Later that night, Dre parks in front of Club Level in a
rimmed-up Escalade, and even though the guest list is "closed,"
Dre has no problems getting into DJ Epps birthday party,
escorted by a group of ten girls waiting outside.
A week later, same scenario, different club.
At the grand opening of Benzino’s Club ZNo,
a swollen bouncer is guarding one of the many
VIP areas, holding his position nicely until Dre approaches
with a group of at least twenty people.
The bouncer relents and lets them all pass into the packed room,
where Ja Rule, Dave Mays, and Noreaga are poppin’ bottles.
It wasn’t always this glamourous, though.
First and foremost, they loved the music.
Cool and Dre met in high school in Miami,
and formed an R&B group called Basic Unity.
As DJs, they also had a show on a pirate radio station,
91.9 FM, as DJ Cool One and Dirty Dre.
"We were the first to play dirty south underground hip-hop in Miami,"
says Cool, "We broke Outkast, the Luniz,
Goodie Mob, Junior Mafia’s ‘Player’s Anthem,’ a lot of other records.
We did our thing for a while, but we just felt that it wasn’t our calling."
While they considered other options in the business,
they settled on production.
"It really happened out of necessity.
No one had the cheese to go out and buy $100,000 worth of gear
or rent out a studio, so we decided to go for dolo
and do it ourselves." Heavily influenced by the sounds
of Organized Noize, the two packed up their things
and briefly moved to Atlanta. The move turned out to be
a disappointing one, and with no viable opportunities,
they moved back home to Miami.
Their work on Angie Martinez’ "Take You Home" and Trina’s
"Told Y’all" led to more opportunities, and you now
hear their signature sound on joints from Fat Joe,
Tony Sunshine, Ja Rule, Carl Thomas, Ginuwine,
and 8Ball & MJG. As part of the Terror Squad family,
Fat Joe put them on in a big way.
You can catch Cool & Dre chillin’ beside Joe in the video for
"Play No Games," and of course, they’ve got the coveted TS
pieces. "We’re just trying to work and produce quality songs
that will be around for a minute, ya know? We want to score
movies and do other things, but we always want to make sure
that our production and management company, along with our
studio Record Room, is continually putting out quality product," says
Cool, "We’ll continue to lay our signature Cool and Dre
sound for years to come, that’s the only way we’re gonna be
able to leave the mark we want!"
For those of you trying to create your own signature sound,
here are Cool & Dre’s studio gear recommendations:
What was the first piece of studio gear you bought?
The Ensoniq ASR-10, because we knew that cats like
RZA, Alchemist, Timbaland, and D’Angelo were using it.
We liked the melodies and arrangements you could create,
plus it had all the essential keyboard sounds we needed.
After that, we jumped on AKAI’s MPC series, first the MPC-60,
then the MPC-6011, and currently we’re using the MPC-2000.
It really affords you the opportunity to lay down a complete song
without having to buy anything else. Your creativity alone can have
you up and running in no time.
Okay, what about keyboards? What pieces do you use on the regular?
The YAMAHA Motif 6. We also use KURZWEIL boards
and the KORG Trinity rack along with the PROTEUS 2000.
Are you a Mac addict or doing the PC thing?
We’re definitely Mac addicts. We’ve seen some others use PCs,
but we feel like our Mac rig is more reliable and stable.
We have a Mac G4 933Khz Quicksilver tower and we use
Digidesign Pro Tools, I’m dying to check out the new version 6.
What other gear is essential for you?
For vocals you can’t go wrong with the Neumann U-87 mic.
We also use the AVALON 737 ST mic preamp.