WITH KISHIGIRLS ON THE RED CARPET //// INTERVIEW BELOW BY Shireal Renee
Grammy Award winning producer Easy MoBee is one of the greatest producers to have entered the world of hip hop working with some of the biggest names in the industry today, like Biggie, Tupac, P-Diddy aka Puff Daddy and Jay-Z. He’s even worked with the R&B legend Miles Davis, The Lost Boyz, Craig Mack, Big Daddy Kane, Busta Rhymes, Wu-Tang and many more. His resume is thick no doubt about it.
After having the privilege of speaking with the man behind the music, one truth stood clear, he is still a man. Even with all the awards, acknowledgments and praise Easy Mo Bee was one of the easiest people to talk to. He was genuinely engaged in our conversation, revealing intimate details about his career and his love for hip hop – how his family and environment inspired his love and remains to keep him grounded.
He opened up about the friction that came about with him and Puffy and admitted that the situation that happened so long ago still wore on his heart. One thing that he wanted to address was the need for people to overcome negative situations and find a way to still work together so that we can avoid the “Biggie, Tupac outcomes” that so often are plagued on the hip hop community.
Easy Mo Bee is not only a great producer he is a great man who has made an enormous impact on hip hop and is responsible for so much of the music we classify as classics in hip hop today. Now working with Platinum Ice Records he is ready to lay down some more bangers to keep his name ringing on all the major credits being printed in the industry. Keep your eyes open because if you don’t watch closely you will miss how swiftly, Easy lays down hits.
Interview by Shireal Renee
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Shireal Renee: Easy Mo Bee, how did you come up with that name?
Easy Mo Bee: I got it particularly because of this MC in the group Treacherous Three, Cool Moe D, who was so innovative with his style and speaking patterns. Everybody else had kind of like a humdrum, predictable flow. He came in and he innovated what he was speaking in rap. People don’t give him that credit, but he pioneered rhythmic ways of speaking. I use to love the Treacherous Three because of him, I just thought at the time he was a dope dude, and he just single-handedly – in my opinion introduced something new to the game. I liked his name, and I wanted to name myself after him or something similar to him because you can’t just outright take someone’s name.
Shireal Renee: Yeah. (Laughter)
Easy Mo Bee: So his name was “Cool”, so I said I’m going to be another adjective so I’m going to be “Easy”. He was Moe, I said drop the E. He was “D” because of his last name, and I said I’m going to be “Bee” because my nickname is Boobie. My family calls me that.
Shireal Renee: Boobie?
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah that’s my name right now, if I walk through Lafayette Projects in Brooklyn somebody going to see me and be like “Yo Boob, what up boob?” That was my nickname, so it really was supposed to be Easy Mo Boobie, but that’s too long plus it sounds corny.
Shireal Renee: Yeah.
Easy Mo Bee: So I said Easy Mo Bee.
Shireal Renee: That’s a dope story though; I would have never thought you would have said that.
Easy Mo Bee: (Laughter) I mean I seriously looked up to them back in the day. Those dudes were then, and they still will be today – my heroes. I saw them the other night. I have the privilege to be at functions or events and when I see them they come up on me and tap me and say, “What’s up”. I’m real thankful that I still can appreciate the music because it’s a lot of people who just give up on them and move on from them. But the music is in my blood, I’m going to be that dude eighty-nine in the wheelchair still tapping out.
Shireal Renee: (Laughing) In the nursing home? You mentioned that you wouldn’t consider Cool Moe D a rapper, you consider him a MC. What’s the difference, how do you separate those two things because a lot of peple consider themselves a MC, so why do you say it’s different.
Easy Mo Bee: I mean a rapper raps about topics, fixes on that topic and raps which is a verb anyway, but we’ll get into that a little later so I won’t be jumping around all over the place. A rapper fixes on a topic and he makes a song about that. A MC to me is someone who has the ability to freestyle. And a lot of their lyrics are usually focusing on their skills as a MC and then you have a rapper who is someone who raps about thuggery, guns or whatever. It’s hard to say. I’ll tell you the main thing that will separate a MC from a rapper. A lot of MC’s have the ability to freestyle.
Shireal Renee: Who would you consider in this generation of artists a MC? Do you feel like they still exist?
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah, I saw a couple of them on stage the other night, my man and he gets much respect from me because we both do the same thing, my man Large Professor. He is an MC. Grand Poopa, they was up there rocking, to me those are MC’s. It’s something about the content of what they rhyme about but it’s hard to say, it really is hard to say. You know what, let me get a little bit deeper and just say, “What’s the difference between hip hop and rap”.
Shireal Renee: Alright.
Easy Mo Bee: Ok, hip hop would be the noun and rap would be the verb. Like hip hop is scratching, it’s the beat, it’s the noun. And rap is a part of it. You understand what I’m saying?
Shireal Renee: Yeah I do, I do. Being noun is the thing, and verb would be the action of what comes out of it.
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah. Let me answer this too. I said a rapper would be like thuggery, gangster this and that, where a MC concentrates more on lyrical skills but that’s not always true. I think back to people like Grand Master Cash and this one and that one and saying lines about cocaine or whatever but it all goes back to that noun and verb thing.
Shireal Renee: So tell us a little bit about what your life was like growing up in Brooklyn.
Easy Mo Bee: Ok, let me start from a little kid. I was born, and I grew to the age where I can hear and understand. And I noticed that my father kept music on in the house, all kinds of music, jazz, blues, and gospel. You know soul. I was always drawn to him when he was playing the music. So my father was playing all these James Brown 45’s and Etta James, Motown, Al Green, I’m soaking it all up. Ok they start bring turntables and the speakers out into the street for what they call a block party. So with me already loving music I had to run back there and see what was going on. I go back there and see a dude with two turntables and a mixer in the middle, and he’s switching records going back and forth and there was no true rap yet. It was just MCing, which is really abbreviated for microphone controller. There were no real raps yet, they were just going back and forth, “yes yes ya’ll switch the beats ya’ll”, and I was like “Yo that’s fly!” But further down the line it goes more into poetry. I’m watching these dudes and I’m like I need to have what they got. So I told my mother I wanted some turn tables, she wouldn’t buy them for me so I got older and put together my own little mixing setup and in junior high going to high school I’m buying my own records. I’m coming home, dropping my books running to them turntables getting good at it not realizing I’m becoming a DJ. You listen to music long enough, you want to make it. I played music long enough, and I felt the urge to want to make beats. Right around that time I lived in 411 Lafayette Projects in the back, AB and them were always harmonizing in the staircase and they wanted me to be their third rapper and singer. They had this idea since all three of us could rap and sing, and they needed the third person to have the three point harmony. I told them I’d sing and harmonize with them but I didn’t want to rap. It was just one night where madness was going on, fire trucks, police cars and everything in the projects and right around the time AB and them wanted me to rap. And I got so frustrated off of what I was hearing outside my window and I wrote my first rap. I wrote it and they liked it. That’s how I became that third rapper. Now AB went to high school with Big Daddy Kane, and I started hanging around them, Biz Markie and Mr. C who already lived on the eighth floor of my building. So AB kept telling Kane that I had some beats and he needed to check them out. He finally came and checked them out, and the beats he checked out became two songs on his second album. So now I have something to say I officially had commercialize
Shireal Renee: You were young, that’s great to have a commercial record out.
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah it was 1989. But after those two songs, and mind you Rift and I was already doing our things before Kane stuff came out. After that came out we ended up grabbing a deal with A&M, so we had a one album deal to do with A&M records. That right there established us and put us in the game. So we do-op singing over beats and rapping and nobody was doing this, it was innovative. Right after the Big Daddy Kane stuff a whole lot of people were coming to me for beats and productions. This dude named Melqwan had a rapper who he wanted me to do beats for him because he liked what I did for Kane. He brought him to my house and he said “Yo this is The Genius”, and I want you to do some beats for my rapper. They come in the house and they got this idea, they wanted to take martial arts and hip hop and fuse it together. I’m over there on the beats looking at them like yeah, alright sure. I’m listening to what they rapping and way before the formation of Wu-Tang in like 1990 Genius and ODB came into my crib and I still have the cassette demos with them rapping and talking about this thing called Wu-Tang and all of that. And it sounded good, but I wanted to know what it was all about. So Melqwan lands Genius a deal right on the same label that Kane is on. I did ten songs on the album, my brother LG is a producer also and he did four or five. I basically did the whole album. I got a thousand dollars a track that was ten thousand dollars. I said yo, cuz I needed to be able to work full time on my music group and being on the corporate job was getting in the way. I said if I take this ten thousand dollars and put it in the bank and just work real real hard I can quit my job but I’m going to have to work real hard because I can’t let that ten thousand go down. Well ever since then I have been struggling to make sure not to let that ten thousand go down.
Shireal Renee: Ahhh, that’s so hot!
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah, I got a thousand a track, and it would be embarrassing to me today but that was my first that I threw in the bank. I quit my job, and that’s when projects like the Miles Davis doo-bop came about.
Shireal Renee: How did that feel working with Miles Davis?
Easy Mo Bee: That was cool, by that time I had management over with Russell Simmons at his RPM. He had Rush Artist Management, and then he had Rush Producer Management. He had created it for the management of producers so I was over there. And the girl that managed me was Francesca Spera. So one day she came to me and said, “Listen Boob, Russell’s been talking with Miles Davis and Miles wants to get into some hip hop. So they sent over a bunch of stuff and let him listen to it.” Out of all the producers stuff they sent over do you know out of everybody he picked me?
Shireal Renee: Oh my God, that must have been so crazy!
Easy Mo Bee: And then let me tell you how the steps were happening, how everything was important to one another. Guess what got me the gig with Miles Davis?
Shireal Renee: What?
Easy Mo Bee: True Fresh MC by The Genius.
Shireal Renee: NOOOO.
Easy Mo Bee: I know you bugging right?
Shireal Renee: Yeah.
Easy Mo Bee: It took this cat from the 50’s to like True Fresh MC, for Miles Davis to be like, “could I do that for him”. I said, ‘if you want it, yeah’. And he said he wanted it. It was crazy because if I didn’t do that Genius song I would not have gotten that gig. So the Miles Davis thing happens and halfway through he gets sick and he dies. And the album wins a Grammy for best R&B instrumental performance.
Shireal Renee: So now you’re a Grammy winning producer – wow.
Easy Mo Bee: All this happened from like 89 to 92 in that short amount of time. Back then it was something called the Grammy curse. Around that time when anyone won a Grammy their career was finished. In the early 90’s to win a Grammy wasn’t something to be proud of. Not if you considered yourself real hip hop head.
Shireal Renee: Oh word?
Easy Mo Bee: Now everything that “rappers” – notice that I said “rappers”, do is based on winning that Grammy. But the Grammy was shunned on at that time.
Shireal Renee: Because now they are commercial right?
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah, I’m up there getting a Grammy and they like, “that ain’t real hip-hop”. One of the best things that could have ever happened to me happened after winning the Grammy. My manager asked me did I know Puffy? I didn’t at the time. She’s told me that he was Andre Hurrel’s intern and he’s got an artist that he brought to Uptown and they need some beats for him so I told them I was going to send you by to play some stuff. I went up there and meet this Puffy dude that I had always heard about, but didn’t know much about. When I get up there, and play the beats he loved them. My manager told me he called her after the meeting and thanked her for sending me because he really liked me, he thought I was dope. Now Puffy puts me and Biggie together in the studio. The first song we did was called Party & Bullshit. And that went towards a soundtrack at the time for a movie “Who’s The Man” with Ed Lover. See what people don’t realize is Biggie was signed to Uptown first. There wasn’t even a Bad Boy yet. Then when Andre Hurrel and Puffy split that’s what compelled Puffy to start Bad Boy Entertainment. At that point he officially signs Biggie, and the first producer that Biggie went into the studio with was Easy Mo Bee, me. The first song we recorded was the title track “Ready to Die”, the second song we started working on after that was “Gimmee Ya Loot”. Then we went on and did “The One”, “Warning”, and “Friend of Mine”. During that same time Puffy had an artist signed to Bad Boy called Craig Mack. He had me do five songs for him.
Shireal Renee: You did “Flavor in Ya Ear right”?
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah some of those songs were “Flavor In Ya Ear”, the second single “Get Down”, and then three other joints of mine that didn’t become singles. But those first two were the first two out the gate. And mind you, “Flavor In Ya Ear” put Bad Boy on the map. I still have the clipping from Billboard. “Flavor In Ya Ear” sat sixteen weeks at number one on the hip hop charts back then. And then many more late years later, the only record to top that was Missy, “Hot Boys” remix.
Shireal Renee: Ohhh, ok.
Easy Mo Bee: Another group over at Uptown was The Lost Boys. They wanted me to work for them, the first track we did was “Beemer and The Benz”, then we did a song with Criag Mack, he denied it and passed it off. Then we did another joint on there, and two of them were singles. Then we got “The Coming”, Busta Rhymes. And “It’s A Party” featuring R&B group Sharnay. One of my favorite beats I ever did was that one for Busta Rhymes. It’s a lot going on with that beat.
Shireal Renee: Busta Rhymes is just crazy, you get to really experiment with him because he is just all over the place I presume.
Easy Mo Bee: I love Busta Rhymes. I love his energy; he is a bubble of energy. I’m not gonna lie I really enjoyed doing that “Flavor In Ya Ea”. I went on to work with Queen Latifah, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Dougie Fresh, Wu-Tang, and Mos Def.
Shireal Renee: Tupac?
Easy Mo Bee: Oh, yeah I worked with Tupac, how could I forget.
Shireal Renee: What was it like working with Tupac?
Easy Mo Bee: Oh man, if I said Busta was a bundle of energy, then Tupac was a stick of dynamite.
Shireal Renee: Oh wow!
Easy Mo Bee: He would be up in the studio telling people that already know what they are supposed to do what to do. He had mad energy. He told everybody what to do, and he was super organized. And he came to the studio ready to work. I guess that’s why he left behind so much music. Nobody could sit down and relax. If there was a minute where we were just sitting he would create something to do. I actually had to keep up with this dude in the studio. And he was puffing the weed, so you would think that would slow him down but he was charged.
Shireal Renee: What was it like working with Puffy?
Easy Mo Bee: That’s another man you gotta try and keep up with. He did the same thing Pac did, he would be telling everybody what to do. Sometimes he would do stuff that wasn’t even in his title, like trying to mix and I had to tell him ‘I got it’. He had some cool ideas and Bad Boy wouldn’t have been what it was without him. But let’s not forget Easy Mo Bee opened up that door too.
Shireal Renee: So with that relationship, my understanding is he offered to manage you and do the Hit Man Producer Team but you turned that down?
Easy Mo Bee: Well actually at the time I was already managed by somebody, and he knew who I was managed by. So I told him I would think about it. I never turned him down I just never got back to him.
Shireal Renee: Why didn’t you get back to him?
Easy Mo Bee: He knew I was being managed by someone else. So the Hit Man thing went on, and I never got down with it. But as far as that goes I still was one of the first producers to work with Biggie on an official project. Now I look back and I wonder about it like does Puff not like me because I didn’t take him up on his offer?
Shireal Renee: Why do you think he took your name off the credits for the records that you did? When you remixed those songs?
Easy Mo Bee: Maybe because I didn’t become a Hit Man.
Shireal Renee: I mean isn’t there a bunch of tracks you remixed a bunch of the songs that even Biggie did.
Easy Mo Bee: Oh, you want me to talk about that, I’ll talk about that no problem. I think maybe one of the first real run in’s with Puff happened when we were doing the session for “Flavor In Ya Ear” at Sound on Sound. I wanted to keep the beats somewhat the same but I wanted to add something different. And I remember Chucky Thompson was in the studio sitting up there on top of the file cabinet watching me do this. So we did the remix and turned it in. I was on the promotions list, and they sent the records out to all the DJ’s so when it came to my house I opened it up ready to play it when I look at the record, it said remixed by Sean Puffy Combs, Chucky Thompson, and Easy Mo Bee, in that order. I said whoa, wait a minute what happened here. So my manager and I went up to Bad Boy because I wanted to find out how these credits got like this. I went up there and I asked him ‘what’s this’? And he responds, “what”? I told him ‘you don’t push no buttons and Chucky sat there and watched me do this mix so what’s up with these credits man’? He really didn’t have an answer, so I said ‘please man don’t ever do that again’. I think maybe he felt like I shouldn’t have ever told him that because I noticed after that I wasn’t on anymore projects and I didn’t get called back for a lot of stuff like “Goin Back To Cali”, I wasn’t there to mix it down. I was there to track it down though. “I Love The Dough”, featuring Angela Winbush and Jay-z, those were my songs on that second album. So I tracked the songs, and I remember Big and Jay-Z were up in the studio just pacing writing in their head for about a hour. And then Big came over and said to me him and Jigga was gonna step out real quick and they would be right back – that was the last time I ever saw biggie.
Shireal Renee: What?
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah, that was the last time. But anyway I was there to track the beats for Life After Death album that night, the two for “I love The Dough” and “Goin Back To Cali”. So I waited for them to come back and I told D. Dot I had another session the next morning so I had to go. The songs got mixed without me, and I didn’t get to witness Jay-Z and Biggie do they thing. It was so crazy at that time because I produced Big and Pac separately and together. I produced Biggie first and Pac found out and wanted to work with me. We did a song called “Runnin From The Police”, and it got knocked down to “Runnin”. I witnessed both of them being in harmony and when that session was over everything was cool between them. Then I started hearing things about beef, and I’m like what happened man? All I remember was we were in the studio and everything was cool, then something happened that caused the two of them to start going at it with each other and I think we know all the rest. It just became a big sad mess. I’ve always wondered if Puff was jealous or mad that I worked with Pac? All the music Biggie and Pac did got done right before all that beef starting happening. So I always wondered about that, if he was mad that I was working with Pac?
Shireal Renee: So have you and Puff talked since then? Or is there any bad blood between ya’ll?
Easy Mo Bee: He don’t really make himself available, he’s not the easiest person to get to now-a-days. I mean if I seen him I would love to talk to him.
Shireal Renee: And ask him what happened?
Easy Mo Bee: Yeah because it’s on my heart and I want to know what it is. And plus all of that about me coming in the office asking about the credits and all of that misconstrued stuff maybe it’s something we need to talk about. This is the first time I’m being open in an interview because maybe it needs to happen. Let me say this right here, that whole going against each other thing, for instance with Big and Pac, that’s what ended up taking them out of here. A lot of artists got to stop beefing with each other, the lyrics can’t always be about beefing. We gotta get back to making some real records, some real music. We gotta start respecting each other, communicating with each other, and we gotta start getting money together.
Shireal Renee: Yeah.
Easy Mo Bee: And if we were getting money together we need to get that money together again.
Shireal Renee: You know to me you’re a living legend and you’ve worked with just about everyone. How do you keep yourself grounded because like you said you were right there in the beginning, you are a hip hop legend.
Easy Mo Bee: When you say grounded what do you mean?
Shireal Renee: I mean to me this is one of the best interviews I’ve had the opportunity of doing, and I’ve never met you before but I really feel your passion. You seem very genuine, and don’t seem like you’re big-headed. So what keeps you just Boobie? How do you stay that person?
Easy Mo Bee: You know what I learned, and I was just thinking about this, you have to think about what you originally want to do this, what were you eating, who were you hanging with? You can’t forget things like that, even if it means going back around the way, or being around the same people or listening to the same music. I’m not saying be stuck in the past but do those things that made you do those things in the first place. We have to do that. I started from my father playing records, and the first time I started taking action being a DJ. That’s my first passion so now I’m spinning again. Hip Hop is the rap, the beats, the break dancing, the graffiti and all of that. Being a DJ is still an element of that. I think I just try to continue to do all the things I use to and frequent the places I used to so I can keep that same feeling. After all this time you gotta think what keeps you motivated? I have seen TLC rocking at the Hard Rock. What keeps them motivated? I gotta make sure I love this thing here, I gotta love my records. We gotta do that man.
Shireal Renee: More recently you’ve gotten involved with Platinum Ice Records, tell me what’s your affiliation with that.
Easy Mo Bee: AB met Tommy and Casey down in South Carolina and then they formed Platinum Ice. And AB came to me and said, they can’t do it without me and they have to have me on the beats so now they got me down south doing beats. And we’ve came up with some really nice stuff. And most recently, we have Black Box Records, shout-out to my man Damon Jackson. I’m trying to do all I can and still keep it hip hop.
Shireal Renee: So what about Easy Mo Records?
Easy Mo Bee: Easy Mo Records that is dissolved. I don’t want to spend too much time on that but it didn’t pan out the way I wanted it to, keeping it real honest with you. But as you can see it don’t stop me, Black Box is the move, Damon what’s up I see you.
Shireal Renee: That’s what’s up. So final question, what is a quote that you live by that really influence your life every day?
Easy Mo Bee: Let me see. The devil is a liar.
Shireal Renee: That is beautiful.
Easy Mo Bee: Everything is a struggle and the only thing that can stop is negative energy that can even come from you. You have to stay positive and keep it moving, otherwise you are a failure and we can’t fail. What did Jay-z say? “I will not lose”, I have that same concept. And if you gonna be in hip hop it’s about competition. You have to have a competitive spirit, friendly competition.
Shireal Renee: Well I’ve kept you on the phone for over an hour and a half. This has been the best interview I’ve ever had the opportunity of doing and I have to thank you.
Easy Mo Bee: It wasn’t anyanything but a conversation between two people. I enjoyed every minute of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-24huGBMQ4
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