DJ Jazzy Jeff Interview
words: gill published: cmu 63, jul 2002
Although everyone and their wedding DJ boyfriend
knows about Jazzy Jeff’s exploits with Will Smith in
his Fresh Prince mode, few may know what happened before,
after and underneath the recording of tracks like ‘The
Girls Of The World Ain’t Nothing But Trouble’
and ‘Boom Shake The Room’. Now Jeff has a new
LP ready to drop, ‘The Magnificent’, a smooth
hiphop journey packed with collaborations. CMU spent time
digging history and talking future with the master:
“I was really big as a DJ in Philadelphia,
and Will was really big as an MC, but we were both in different
crews. There were parties all the time. Every Weekend there
would be a block party or a house party. Then one night there
was a party on his block where I was DJing, and the MC that
I used didn’t show up, so it was just perfect timing:
he came in the basement and was like ‘hey wassup, mind
if I grab the mike?’ and he got on the mike and there
was this natural chemistry between Will and I from day one.
From there everything happened so fast: we had a deal, then
a record, then we were on TV.”
After successes such as ‘Parents Just
Don’t Understand’ and frequent cameos on ‘The
Fresh Prince Of Bel Air’, when Will went to Hollywood,
Jeff kept to his original script and set up A Touch Of Jazz.
“Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
and The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air funded A Touch Of Jazz, which
started in 1990. Just like any person starting out in business
you make a ton of mistakes, and Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh
Prince payed for those mistakes; but it was something that
I really wanted do – production has always been my passion.”
“My musical taste is extremely wide,
and I didn’t just want to do hiphop records, I wanted
to be extremely experimental; so it became an outlet for me
to try out new and creative things.”
A Touch of Jazz may not be a household name, but Jeff’s
production house has produced some of the most inspired names
in hiphop; and ATOJ has been particularly important in the
creation of the distinctive Philly Sound.
“When I felt like quitting, I would
just think ‘what if tomorrow’s the day?’,
because one day there was just a record, the next day we had
a TV show, so I stayed positive.”
“And that day kinda came with Jill
Scott – suddenly we got the success we wanted. But we’re
not just driven by commercial success – ATOJ was there
for ten years before that, and we were about doing interesting
stuff – things that interested us. There’s a lot
of guys in their basements who are incredible – no one
knows about them – but they are doing really interesting
stuff.”
Jeff’s real talent is twisting his production style
so that it seems tailor made for each of the diverse range
of people he has worked with: everyone from Floetry to Michael
Jackson have enjoyed his touch:
“As a producer, you have to marry everyone
that you work with. You have to sit down and get to know each
other as best you can, because it is your job to enhance them.
A lot of people come to philly and say ‘we want what
you gave Jill Scott’, I say ‘I can’t give
you what I gave Jill Scott – it’s hers. I can
give you something, but it’ll be different. And taking
that approach has always helped.”
It has to be said that this album feels
like a cornerstone in hiphop production: with its lush slick
smooth beats and tight rhymes, through to the forward-thinking
jazz/hiphop fusion. The album features collaborations with
J-Live, Baby Blak & Yams and Jill Scott – surely
this must be his magnum opus.
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