soulhead: Was Troop your first remix?
CK: No, the first was for a group called Seriously Fine. I knew I could do it. The label trusted me. Then with the Troop joint, being friends with Timmy and Merlin, they trusted me. I did it, and it was a number one record, gold and platinum single. So afterwards, I did a bunch more.
soulhead: How did you get on the radio playing on WBLS?
CK: Marley Marl asked me and that was it. Marley was a friend too. And, when you a DJ, one of your biggest things is to get on the radio. You don’t know that YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE ON THE RADIO, but at the time I did. I loved it in the beginning, but then they started trying to put restrictions on me. And I was like, ‘I’m creative. This is why you hired me.’
soulhead: Marley once told me there were a lot of restrictions on you guys.
CK: Yeah, and I adhered to none of them. One day, I got a Public Enemy record right out of the studio. Actually, the same night I did the Troop remix, Public Enemy gave me a copy of “Welcome to the Terrordome.” I went back to the room I worked out of, recorded it on a reel-to-reel and went right to the radio station. That was the first record I played. Two minutes into the record, the red line rang, ‘Get that record off the radio! Get that shit off the radio!’ I was like, are you serious? You don’t even know what this is. He said, ‘We ain’t playing no Public Enemy.’ I didn’t take it off, though. Shit was hilarious.
soulhead: People don’t understand how hip-hop used to be so limited on the radio. So you were DJing on the radio, DJing in clubs, I guess you didn’t care much about sleeping or anything?
CK: Up until I was thirty-three or thirty-four, I only got about two hours sleep a night, starting from age thirteen. The one thing I think a DJ should do is study the music. You can’t be a great DJ if you don’t know the music. The idea is to know everything about it. I studied music so much, I didn’t sleep. I listened to every record possible to try to put together mix schemes and a musical flow of ideas for when I was DJing. I always just wanted to sound better. So I studied the records so I would have a better flow. I never really slept.
soulhead: You used to spin at the classic hip-hop club Union Square. That was a wild place, from what I understand.
CK: I’ll always be thankful to Grandmaster Flowers for putting me on, but Red Alert giving me a gig at Union Square was what changed my career. He gave me the 1:00 clock spot at Union Square. There was no more line outside, the club was packed and Red was like, ‘Go ahead Clark, do what you wanted to do.’ So, to this day I look at Red like a figure glowing in the sky for me. And he’s never acted like, ‘Yo, you owe me.’ Everywhere I go, if someone asks me to speak about something, first thing I do is thank Red Alert.
soulhead: What drives you?
CK: To be one of the best DJs on the planet. But Red Alert let me show it and people knew. At that point, I took over downtown. If a new club opened, the first person they called was me. The era of Jessica Rosenblum, her first hire was DJ Clark Kent.
soulhead: Talk about your time at Atlantic and the people you worked with.
CK: MC Lyte, Audio Two. I did Lyte’s demo in my basement. She had a friend and her friend was my friend, and she kept telling me about her friend and I invited them over. When I heard her rhyming, I thought she was dope, so I made a beat on the drum machine and we made the demo for “I Cram to Understand You.” The one you hear on the record is not the one I made. I just did the demo.
soulhead: What other rappers did you work with at the beginning of their careers?
CK: Besides Jay? Das EFX, Future Sound, Original Flavor. Akinyele, Nas, I was going to sign Mobb Deep before they went to 4th & Broadway. I was going to sign Nas, but he didn’t have a demo. You had to have a demo, but Nas wouldn’t make a damn demo. This was right after Live at the Bar-B-Que, and I was like, ‘Yo, I want to sign this guy.’ What do you mean you don’t have a demo. It’s funny, because one day he said on a record, ‘Clark wouldn’t sign me because he just signed Das EFX.’ I was, you don’t remember why. You smoke too much, dawg, why you tell that story and you know it’s not true. Who wouldn’t want to sign Nas.
soulhead: How did you first hook-up with Jay-Z?
CK: The first time I met him, I was with Jaz-O at Marcy; Jaz is one of the best MCs I ever heard. He introduced me when were at Flesh Gordon’s house and I heard them rapping and I knew Jay-Z was the one. The first day I started working at Atlantic, I started looking for Jay. I was calling all over, calling Jaz and others. Me, Jaz and Jay did shows together all over New York City and wherever we were, we murdered shit. But, Jay was doing what he was doing and the rap game looked corny to him.
soulhead: Was this after “Hawaiian Sophie” and “Originators?”
CK: Years after. He had too much money. He looked at rap like it was corny. Rappers wanted to be like him, but, when I convinced him, things began to roll. Had him writing rhymes for other people. Put him on remixes, even if the company didn’t keep it.
soulhead: One of my favorite beats of yours is “Cashmere Thoughts” on Reasonable Doubt.
CK: That record came out of an alter ego Jay Z had at the time named Cashmere Jones. Him, Jaz and Sauce were going to make a record based off of pimp culture. Sauce’s name was Gator Jones and I can’t remember Jaz’s name. Me and Jaz were guiding the ship. The songs that were being made for that album were crazy. Was trying to capture what a pimp’s theme would sound like.
soulhead: Who did you sample for “Cashmere Thoughts?”
CL: That was Hamilton Bohannon. Ohio Players was from “Brooklyn’s Finest.”
soulhead: People sleep on Bohannan, but he was dope.
CK: Bohannon was the truth, B.
soulhead: How did you meet Biggie?
CK: When 50 Grand was around. I was cool with Un and Just and Daddy-O, and all those dudes. We all knew who he was. He was the fat dude from St. James Place who was a rapper. But when you heard him, it was great; bigger than his rhymes was the way he said his rhymes. They enforced his rhymes. Biggie could say a half ass line and the way he said it, sounded like one of the top five lines you ever heard. I always go back to when he said, ‘The more I smoke, the smaller the Philly gets.’ People thought that line was brilliant, but I thought it was corny. It was more about, how he said it. Such an ill rhythm, he mind fucked you.
soulhead: Tell me about the Biggie/Jay-Z “Brooklyn’s Finest.”
CK: Big wanted the beat. I said it was for Jay, he was like, ‘Naw, you give that nigga everything.’ I was his DJ, and our friendship grew. I called him C Dub. He called me, the R. I was the oldest when we went on the road, I schooled them. Had issues in Boston and the dudes in Boston are crazy. We weren’t scared, but we were cautious. Rappers had thousands in cash. Switch hotels on the way to the hotel. I was Uncle Clark, he was my man. He was my man so much, I lobbied to get him on the record. He really wanted to be on the record. Jay originally called it “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”
soulhead: You produced a few tracks on Slick Rick’s underrated The Art of Storytelling?
CK: Produced him right when he came out of jail and it was super challenging, because he really didn’t care too much for anything that was happening in the rap game. To be competitive properly, you have to care properly. So the record company brought me in as an executive producer, take him into the studio and start working on his album. You’re going to do five songs for him, if it goes any further, we’ll figure that out. They wanted me to take him away. They rented a studio in Bears View, NY. Rick had a cottage, it was really nice. I stayed in the studio, which was like 200 yards from where Rick was staying. It was a nice layout, so I just kept making music, but six or seven days went by and I never saw his face. So, now, I’m like, ‘What the fuck, B, we gotta make the records.’ But, he didn’t like anything. So I said, ‘Look, I have respect for you as an artist. I’m not trying to tell you how your record should be. Why don’t you tell me, how you want the record to be.’
After that conversation, after he explained how he likes music to be, it made it much simpler. Open to his ideas. You want the bass line to be a certain way, fine, we’ll do it like that. There were certain beats he got excited about that I thought were just OK, but because I respected his musicianship so much, it was cool. He could take an OK beat and turn it into a great song. He is incredible, one of the best ever.
soulhead: Producing for Rakim’s first solo album The 18th Letter. That must’ve been a challenge too.
CK: It was, but for other reasons. I had known Rakim since he was eleven. I was a DJ in Long Island when Rakim was standing on a crate rapping. I’m older than him too. He was amazing then. I saw him at PowerPlay when he was working on his first album. It was always love. The dudes he hung out with were Supreme, Rap, Killer Ben, and we knew each other.
When it came time to do the solo album, his A&R asked for music. Rakim liked me, because I wasn’t falling over myself praising him. I was just like, ‘You got some rhymes?’ The only other producer to approach him like that was DJ Premier.
soulhead: What are your strengths as a producer and an executive?
CK: As an executive, my strength is, I really care about the song. Rappers have to be lyrically good; if you’re just ok, I’ll pass. I came from the beginning of hip-hop, when your lyrics made you the best. Rakim was the best because he rhymed better than everybody else. The guys that rhymed the best had great careers. I wanted to work with the guys who were going to be around forever. You can find a song, you can find a hook, you can find a track, but that lyrical ability has to be there. Singers too. Appreciation for the craft is a must. I love music.
I play from my heart to enrich the heart of others, to make people feel. I play with my heart to give my heart. ‘Clark got busy.’ When I’m behind the turntables at a party, I want to change your perception of music.
Michael A. Gonzales has been writing about music since the 1980s. A few of his subjects include Barry White (Vibe), D’Angelo (Wax Poetics) and Lauryn Hill (The Source). In addition to soulhead, he contributes to Complex, Pitchfork Review, XXL, Baltimore City Paper, Philadelphia Weekly and The Weeklings. His essay on the DeBarge family appears in Best African-American Essays 2009. Gonzales blogs at Blackadelicpop.blogspot.com. Check out some of his work for soulhead.