Meet Disco D

Shouts to the Fiddy for hooking this up – here’s the results of a little email love from 50’s 'Ski-Mask Way’ producer. Disco D breaks down the who’s, why’s and wherefalls…and gives his opinion on the 50/ Game situation

HC: How, if at all, would you describe your sound?
DD: I just write music with whatever emotion I am feeling at the time, really. I just try to make great music alone and even better music with who I collaborate with. Since I work with such a diverse range of artists and sounds I don't try to genrefy anymore, that's really just a marketing tool anyway and there are always exceptions to the rule. Well, I want the exceptions to be the rule.

HC: What other tracks have you produced?
DD: You can peep all my credits at www.discod.com - that's only the shit that is out now or that we can talk about which currently represents only about 10% of what's really going on. Also if you go to the media section you can see some of the commercials and show packages I have scored.

HC: How did you get involved with the 50 project?
DD: My publicist, Michelle Lin, has been down with 50, Sha Money, and the rest of G-Unit since before they blew up. She has a lot of direct artist links so she often shops things in conjunction with me and my manager. She pounded Sha over the head with CDs over the last 3 months of 2004. The week before Christmas I was in Brasil (I live here half the time) and I got 2
voicemails from Sha Money XL over a 4 day period (I wasn't checking my voicemail as frequently as I should have, being in love and all) and that was that.

HC: How did the recording process work ? (i.e. Were you in the studio together or did you send him the beat and work separately?)
DD: This song was taken so late in the album process and I was in Brasil so I just sent the Pro Tools to Michelle via AIM and she burned a DVD and sent it to LA where they were recording. Unless you are in that tight inner circle you don't get anywhere near that camp, but now Sha is interested in more of my beats and knows that in no circumstances will I not be involved in the entire process from now on.

HC: Why do you think he picked your beat out of the hundreds/ thousands he doubt received?
DD: I didn't write that beat for a rapper. I wrote it in October when my girl and I had a little argument due to a misunderstanding caused by my lack of Portuguese skills at the time and her lack of English comprehension. I was in NY and she was in Brasil and we were missing each other terribly and I took all that I was feeling and dug the sample and put that emotion into the beat. Right after I wrote it I bought a plane ticket to go back down to Brasil to be with her. 50 just picked the realest shit he could find I guess.

HC: What did you think of the rhyme he laid on Ski Mask Way?
DD: It's a great story. It reminds me of watching a whole season of The Wire in 3 minutes and 5 seconds.

HC: In light of all the current craziness, what do you make of the current 50/Game situation and how do you think it will affect 50's record sales?
DD: It is still impossible to see how much of this is marketing and how much of this is street, even from the inside. It might have been orchestrated and planned, but what I think really happened especially with the Game (and basically Dre and Interscope beef) is that 50 had a situation he wasn't happy with and he capitalized it and used his weight to shift the situation in his favor. I didn't get a call for this beat until basically a week before Christmas - the first message was pretty collective and the 2nd message actually had a hint of desperation in it. From what I had read was that 50 was basically waiting around for Dre to finish The Game album and when Dre never really ponied up 50 was thrust into a situation of going to almost entirely new producer blood and probably rushed his project. If you look at Get Rich Or Die Trying a large piece of the tracks were either contributed to or mixed by Dre. Here, only one throwaway track which is barely qualified to be the 3rd single. In addition, Disco Inferno (which is still Top 5) was leaked by G-Unit and 50 and blew up with basically no Interscope love (they were focused heavily on Game at the time.) In my opinion, street drama aside, 50 is like a master chess player. Look what he did to Ja Rule, and go to MTV.com and read Fat Joe and Jadakiss's reactions. I predict Fat Joe to not even go gold, and Jada to sell even more next time, because he is reacting the right way. Ja Rule is done. Right now he's on tour in Australia with Chingy - to me that says it all.
Now musically, this album is an interesting animal for me to talk about. The first time I listened to the leaked version, I couldn't even get to my track (Ski Mask Way, song 10 on the album) before I felt the need to turn it off. Now I can listen to it on repeat. Why? Because musicality aside (which has grown on me BTW) this album is VERY interesting to me from a psychological perspective. It's crazy that you basically have a legal 100 million dollar young don. How can you say otherwise? Duke can make a top-selling sneaker with Reebok, owns a piece of vitamin water, put out 2 albums that are the most talked about and bought in the years they come out (I'm making this assumption on the 2nd album because abbreviated first-week sales are predicted for close to 1 million, which is MORE than GRODT did first week) and still have guys around him grimy enough to shoot an associate of a young rival in the lobby of a radio station. Oh yea he has a video game coming out later this year too called 'Bulletproof.'

HC: What's next for Disco D?
DD: I can't really tell you but 5% of the stuff. This month alone the first episode of my self-filmed DVD documentary series called DiscoDVD hits my upcoming web store and I'm getting all the contracts worked out with Apple and Beatport for my digital label. I'm recording with a pop artist even bigger than 50 who isn't hip-hop. The Federation Sound "Gunclap" riddim which features Vybz Kartel, The Clipse, Mad Cobra, Mr. Vegas, Lexxus and more is getting mixed this month and we already have license offers on the table. Two unsigned artists I've been working with, Sara Stokes from Making Da Band 2 (the R&B singer - did 6 tracks with her so far) and Kato (a new rapper from Atlanta - done 6 tracks with him too) both have paper offers. I got beats on hold from tons of labels but I don't speak on that. Oh yea, I got engaged this week too and I'm writing you this from Brasil.

HC: Would you consider working with any UK artists and if so who and why?
DD: Hell yea. What's taking you guys so long? People done had my beats over there. I'm waiting on you guys to catch up. I really wanna record with Kano, Riko and Dizzee and anyone else hot that I don't know about.

HC: How much for a Disco D beat these days, post 50?
DD: Call my manager. Depends on who you are and what kind of rights you want.