Tag: No I.D.

A lot of people have been buzzing and talking about Jay-Z and his 13th studio album, ‘4:44’. For those who may not know the album is produced entirely by No I.D. The producer has probably had a career as successful as Hov’s for a producer. Kanye West has called him his mentor and he’s helped jump start the careers of Vince Staples and Jhene Aiko.

Aside from the hits he’s produced (which I’m not naming here for the sake of keeping this brief), No I.D. has served as President of G.O.O.D. Music, while simultaneously being Executive Vice President of A&R at Def Jam. That’s not even half of what the talented producer has done in his long, illustrious career.

Before entirely producing Hov’s entire ‘4:44’ album he worked with the legend on songs from ‘The Blueprint 3’ like “Run This Town” and “D.O.A.” With all the early success of ‘4:44’ No I.D. sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about the album. Read some Q&A below and check out the full story here.

How did you first start working on 4:44?
Maybe a year ago I saw Jay-Z at a restaurant. He goes, “You got any music for me?” And I go, “Nope.” He goes, “What are you working on?” I said, “Getting better.”

The thing that made me want to get better was I heard a quote by Quincy Jones where they asked him, “What do you think about music nowadays?” He said, “four-bar loops.” It really affected me. I said, “Wait a minute, that’s not what I want to be a part of.” So I went and did some studying with the intention of growing.

At what point in the improvement process did you feel like you were ready to take the music to Jay-Z?
I humbly studied and read. I went to people from my friend Adrian Younge to Puff [Daddy] and Dr. Dre. The thing that was holding me was reading a lot of Quincy Jones’ story and his words. He was an incredible producer and musician for so many years but people didn’t really give him full credit because he was in jazz. I understand that feeling. At a certain point, I remember reading that he took some years in his forties to go out and get better. That resonated at this point in my career.

Was there any fear on your part that you would push too far into his life?
No, no, no, no. By this time, we had established the relationship of trust and knowing that what we both were doing was a labor of love. It was at a pure point. He knew what I was saying by playing it. And I knew that it would help him as a human to say it and get it over with and get it out of your system.

So the concise 10-song length was important for that purpose?
Yes. There’s three more songs that are coming out as bonuses. James Blake came in and joined into the process. There’s more coming shortly that’s equally as revealing.

@IAMBNYCE