DJ Jazzy Jeff Interview
DJ Jazzy Flexes His Creative Muscles on The Magnificent

DJ Jazzy Jeff may be best known as the mischievous sidekick to his onetime partner, rapper-cum-Academy Award nominee Will Smith. But the Philadelphia native, known to his friends as Jeff Townes, is a success in his own right. Hailed as one of the past decade's most influential hip-hop DJs, Townes also spearheaded Philly's neo-soul movement, churning out chart-topping hits for Jill Scott and Musiq with his production company, A Touch of Jazz. But the ever-restless Townes isn't content to rest on his gold records: He's still seeking out new creative challenges. The latest is his solo debut, The Magnificent, which fuses hip-hop, soul, and jazz. Barnes & Noble.com's John Carluccio spoke with Jazzy Jeff about his studio, his solo album, and his good buddy, the amazing Jill Scott.
Barnes & Noble.com: Tell me about your production company, A Touch of Jazz.

DJ Jazzy Jeff: I formed A Touch of Jazz about 12 years ago, and that had more to do with the fact that when Will [Smith] and I were signed to Jive, a lot of our creative freedom was stifled. Will and I always tried to cover the entire musical spectrum because I love all types of music. Once Rock the House came out and we had success with "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," the record company immediately shut everything else down and said this is all we want you to do. We wanted to experiment with a live band, and they wanted us to stay where we were. That prompted me to start A Touch of Jazz and create a situation where I could try and do all kinds of music. It just grew over a 12-year period. For most of that time we were trying to get the business off the ground and make some money. That's primarily why I went to L.A. to do The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It was hard to crack into the production marketplace. We didn't want to do the Top 40 hits. We were experimenting with live instruments for nine or ten years and it was hard to get people to understand that that could happen. Then everything kind of popped after we did Jill's record, Who Is Jill Scott?

B&N.com: After Jill's record exploded, it seems that everyone wanted to work with A Touch of Jazz. What differentiates it from other studios?

JJ: One thing is the creative freedom approach we take. We don't do things by time. We don't charge by the hour. We own A Touch of Jazz, so I don't have to ask anyone if we can keep [the studio] open. So I know I can take a week to do a song if I want to. It's almost like people started to call because of Jill's success. Now they want a song like Jill Scott. So we're still kind of trapped, in that [artists] still aren't giving us creative freedom. The creative freedom we were given to do a Jill Scott record was what made the record. So we're like, why don't you experiment and see if we can come up with something else. If Cyndi Lauper calls, you don't want to give her a Jill Scott record.

B&N.com: With The Magnificent, did you get the chance to show a range of production styles?

JJ: What happened with this record is that I started to get a little frustrated with the success. Once again, you start to feel like you're backed into a corner. What made me do this record was the creative freedom. Once we got away from Jive, I really needed to cleanse myself. When [a record label] tells you, "We really need you to go platinum on this record," there's only so many things you can do, and a lot of it doesn't [involve] trying new shit. Peter Adarkwah [founder of the Barely Breaking Even label, which released The Magnificent] approached me about three years ago and said he was doing a series called Beat Generation. Basically, he asked the question "What makes you [tick] as a producer?" and he wanted me to answer with an album. You don't get that kind of freedom in the music industry today. As much as I'm a turntablist, and I love hip-hop, R&B/soul, and jazz, I didn't want to do just one thing, and this gave me the ability to tap into all of it. Instead of making a record that's going to sell, [my focus] was answering this question. That was the most liberating thing in the world for me 'cause that took it back to when Will and I went in the studio for the very first time. With no expectations and no demands, we went into the studio and did what we felt. With this record, I had no expectations.

B&N.com: Your name is Jazzy Jeff, and you've talked about your fondness for jazz. Do you think that your foundation as a producer stems from jazz?

JJ: Absolutely. My father passed away when I was ten, and he used to be an MC for Count Basie. So we had old 78s around the house -- Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery. And then my older brothers and sisters were listening to Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Chick Corea, and Weather Report. I was too young to pick the music I wanted to listen to, so I was basically a sponge, and I soaked up all the stuff that was [being played] in the house. And more than anything, I like the improvisation of jazz. That's the same thing with DJ-ing. There's so much improvisation you can do with cuttin' and scratchin' that's reminiscent of jazz music, because it's all about how you feel. You're capturing a vibe and just going with it.

B&N.com: With the early DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince records there were a lot of instrumental cuts, and I expected more of them on this record.

JJ: This record was so liberating for me that Peter and I have plans to do more records. It's funny that you mentioned instrumentals because that's what we're working on now. I felt like, I can do this record and then do a completely different one after that. I'm trying to pace myself because I have time. I'm really into this creative freedom, especially with the way music is right now, where the radio pretty much plays the same 25 records over and over. It almost makes you feel like these are the only records that exist. But then you walk into a record store and you see three million records behind the Top 25 bin. It becomes so much about the politics of what someone pays to get played that we start to lose sight of a lot of the good music out there.

B&N.com: As an artist and producer you've seen both the pop side and the more underground side.

JJ: What a lot of people don't understand is that we didn't ask for pop [success]. I'm not saying we didn't accept it when we got it, but it was weird. If you look at [our second album], He's the D.J., I'm the Rapper, that was a hip-hop album of a different sort. Will was freestylin' and there were beats and cuts on it. Still, we got labeled by the biggest hit that we had ["Parents Just Don't Understand"]. But I've been blessed enough that I can look back and reflect on my happiest time in music. And when I look back, it has nothing to do with success or money. I was happy at the New Music Seminar [in 1986]. I was happy on our first tour with Run-D.M.C. and Whodini. We were living the dream. It seemed like the money and fame issues started to make us feel more down. So many people equate money and success with happiness, especially in the music industry. BBE didn't pay me a lot to do this record, but this was one the best times I've had making a record.

B&N.com: You've said that when you were doing the early Fresh Prince records, there was a voice in your head telling you what to do next. What is the voice in your head telling you now?

JJ: Basically to do what I feel. I do a lot of touring as a DJ. I just came back from South Africa, and that was like hip-hop [in the States] in the '80s. Because of apartheid and a lot of the things they went through, they're just getting hip-hop. We're driving down the street, and these cats were on the radio freestylin' and cuttin'. We drove straight to the radio station and got on with some dope South African MCs. We don't have that kind of energy. It's so much geared towards making money that it changed the [hip-hop] culture. But in traveling, what you start to find is there's a lot of people in the world who like good music. I'm not saying that what the radio plays isn't good. My issue is with what they don't play. You can play Jay-Z, but why don't you play Jurassic 5? You can play Nas and Nelly, but why don't you play J-Live? I want to open up the door to how it was back in the day.

B&N.com: Speaking of J-Live, he's on a couple of my favorite cuts on the album. How did that collaboration happen?

JJ: It was a no-brainer. I've always been a fan of J-Live since his first record that didn't come out. He came down, we sat and vibed and listened to a bunch of beats. I did something on his record, and he did something on mine. Then once he did "A Charmed Life" for his record All of the Above, I had to have it on mine too. Having that open line of communication made me really nostalgic. We didn't talk a lot about business. We just established a relationship to get together and do music and even take it out on the road later. He's probably the most underrated MC that I know.

B&N.com: Tell me about the song "We Live in Philly," which is a spoken-word piece featuring Jill Scott.

JJ: The instrumental cut I wanted to do was like [Roy Ayers's] "We Live in Brooklyn" and call it "We Live in Philly." After having the instrumental, I really wanted Jill to do something on it. But I didn't want her to do what everyone would expect her to do. We sat down one day in the studio, and about three of us wrote down stuff about Philly, like favorite places to go and people from Philly. It was amazing because Jill grabbed this loose-leaf paper, said, "Turn the mike on," and walked in the booth. What you hear is what she did right off the top of her head. Everyone in the room had their mouth open. It was like, how did she piece this dream sequence story together from what everyone wrote down? What I love about Jill is she's one of the realest artists I know. She's very open to be extremely creative.