The Mighty V.I.C. – The Unkut Interview

Photo: Alexander Richter

Not sure how my extended interview with The Mighty V.I.C. from 2008 slipped through the cracks, but after using a couple of parts of it I never got around to transcribing the entire three hours that we spoke over a couple of days while Vic ran errands. As before, the full version will be in the Unkut book, but here’s an edited version which covers the major points in his career. V.I.C. discusses how he began interning as a recording engineer at Power Play in the late 80’s, before joining The Beatnuts and working with Godfather Don under the Groove Merchantz banner and later recruiting Mike Heron to create the Ghetto Pros.

Robbie: How did you get started in music?

V.I.C: I started deejaying when I was fifteen years old. I was at the local bagel shop and one of the local kids who worked at the bagel shop showed me a mixer. I was in the tenth grade and I remember being home, sick at the time, and the guy came over after school – and after he was done at the bagel shop – and showed me how to DJ. From there, I found out you can actually go to school for engineering. I was like, ‘You can go to school to edit?’ So I did that a short time after. I went to an engineering school in the city, which I learned zero from, and I started interning at Power Play. That’s where I met Ivan ‘Doc’ Rodriguez, I met Norty Cotto, Patrick Adams – the guy that used to play on all those Eric B. & Rakim albums. At that time there were guys like Just-Ice recording there, you had KRS-One, you had EPMD. Hurby Luvbug used to record there too, Salt ‘N Pepa, Dana Dane, Kid ‘N Play.

G Rap used to live around my block, and just before I started producing I had an RZ-1 Casio. I gave G Rap the loop for ‘Truly Yours.’ My set-up was an RZ-1 Casio drum machine. I had a turntable so I would play a loop and put a beat underneath of it and hit the drum machine at the same time and record it like that onto a boom box. I remember playing the actual 45 to G Rap – he came to my basement, he heard it and he was like, ‘Yeah! Let me get it!’ That’s how ‘Truly Yours’ came about. Marley did it of course, but I gave them the loop. It’s funny ‘cos Polo went around telling everybody he gave the record to Marley. You remember Large Professor’s people, Vandamater? Vandamater used to bring records to my house and that’s how I started getting put on to samples and stuff. Vandamater saw Polo and he knew the story already, so he set Polo up, ‘Where’d y’all get that loop from? ‘Truly Yours’? That thing was crazy!’ And Polo’s like, ‘Yo, that was my record! I gave that to Marley.’ Vandamater’s like, ‘You lying…’ in his mind. [laughs]

Did you engineer anything before you started producing?

I did something with Norty Cotto, which was a dance album on Tuff City. I did a beat and he liked it and he just wanted to add his flavor and put it onto his record. My experiences there were first interning, then assistant engineering and then producing there. After I stopped interning I got a job at Chemical Bank, and then a woman asked me what did I go for school for? I told her I went to school for audio engineering. So she’s like, ‘You went to school for music and you’re working at a bank? Why would you do that?’ It just hit me that day, I was like, ‘You’re absolutely right! I’ve been working here a couple of years, I’m gonna get myself fired!’ So I would walk in late, when they’re opening up the bank, and they’re looking at me like, ‘What the heck is going on?’ I would be short a few dollars every time – maybe $30 $10 here and there – finally, two weeks later they called me in the back and were like, ‘Hey, we have to let you go, we don’t know what’s going on with you.’ I was like, ‘Oh, OK.’ Wow, it worked! I got myself fired so I could collect unemployment, so this way I can collect my money and still try to work with the music. That’s when I started doing ‘Ladies Can I have Your Attention’ and started working at Hit Factory.

How did you meet C$ Money?

I met C$ Money through a mutual friend. Somebody told me, ‘I got this guy who rhymes.’ Somebody always knows somebody. He rhymed for me over the phone and I was like, ‘Wow, this guy is truly incredible.’ Then he hooked up with Chase. Red Alert was all over it, he used to play that every weekend, Chuck Chillout, all those guys were spinning it on their mix shows. They guy who put it out had a good relationship with those guys, but they loved that record, they used to play it a lot. Stones Throw re-issued it a couple of years ago. We had a whole album on them through Crazy Noise, but it never came out. I worked on that record for about a year.

What was next?

I did those records with Renaissance and then I did those records with Smooth Movement, which was Big Meal. That was on Krazie Noise, ‘The Adventure.’ That’s a classic in more than one way, cos I started making all my connections when I put that out. I dropped it off for Bobbito, I gave it Funkmaster Flex, he was playing it. He worked at Profile Records, he wanted to put that record on Profile, he was trying to get it up there. You had guys like Kid Capri playing it on BLS.

How did you get down with The Beatnuts?

I knew Juju from The Beatnuts for a very long time – not through music but through mutual friends. I knew he did music but he thought I did just dance stuff, and I used to invite him over to my house and tell him, ‘You should come on through and stop by, I’ve got a little studio.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.’ He never paid much mind to it. But then he heard the Smooth Movement record on the radio – he had no idea it was me. He went to a local record store and he said, ‘There’s a record, the guy sounds kinda like Grand Puba but I don’t think it’s Grand Puba.’ He’s describing it to the guy and the guy pulls out the Krazie Noise record. He says, ‘Nah, it’s not that, man. That’s a House label.’ The guy plays it for him and he went and bought two of them. Then he shows-up at my place later on, ‘Hey! I didn’t know you did this record!’ I said, ‘I told you a long time ago, come to my house.’ He came over and I knew a little bit about records but that’s when I really started getting into full-force digging and just listening to different music. It was kind of a trade-off. He had a little sampler that he can get his ideas at in his home. It was something he had to trigger – nothing MIDI, nothing with a sequencer – he just used to do it by hand. Finally he’s like, ‘I wanna get me a drum machine!’ I had an MPC-60 so he got an MPC-60. He was showing me how to chop beats and I was teaching him how to use the machine.

When was this?

Around 91, 92. He wanted to make me part of the crew, that was probably a case of, ‘I have these records, you loop them.’ Chi-Ali’s father was their manager.

Fashion wrote most of Chi-Ali’s rhymes on that album didn’t he?

Right, he was doing some writing for him. They used to be in love with Fashion – it was his lyrical skills I guess. I got to do the ‘Lemonade’ remix, help out Ju and stuff like that. I met Kurious Jorge at a party that Gang Starr were performing at, through Powerule. Kurious Jorge came over and was waiting for Juju to play him some beats. He was like, ‘Do you think he’s gonna come? What’s going on?’ He was waiting there for about an hour, and Juju never showed up. So I ended-up playing some beats for him and that’s how ‘Walk Like A Duck’ came along.

So at that time you would all produce under The Beatnuts umbrella?

That’s right, you might not know that I did that song. That’s when I became a member, they were like, ‘Are you gonna be part of this?’ We never really separated the name with a member by saying, ‘This member produced this’. I also did ‘Uptown Shit’ and ‘Mansion and a Yacht.’

You also rhymed on the Intoxicated Demons EP?

I rhymed on the EP and the album after that, but Juju wrote those rhymes and it took me about two hours to spit ‘World Famous.’ When I first started rhyming it was like, ‘Man! Oh my gosh! Your voice is good!’ He was excited, but all the excitement left about an hour later. [laughs] At one point, instead of saying ‘Philadelphia’ I was saying ‘Philly-A-Delphia!’ I must have said it at least fifteen times.

Why did you have so much trouble?

It was a new rhyme to me, I had no time to practice it. It was a little difficult for me – the beat wasn’t the slowest beat and I had never really been in the booth. Jorge wrote the rhyme for me first, then Juju was like, ‘It’s cool, but it’s not fitting the topic. I want it to be more about beat-digging.’ And who not to do a beat-digging rhyme more than Juju? It had to come from a person who experiences it more, and Jorge obviously didn’t look for beats. So he rewrote it right there.

Why is it called The Beatnuts on the spine instead of Street Level?

That was probably Relativity, another Peter Kang special. A lot of things went wrong with that label! [laughs] The album is definitely Street Level. It was just a screw-up on their part.

Why did you move on?

I kinda stopped going to the sessions. Fashion came back – I don’t know if he felt I was trying to take his spot in the group? Obviously I wasn’t. I don’t think it was the best relationship. Someone had told me, ‘Just watch it, he talks a little bit behind your back.’ Talking about my relationship with them like I was just trying to use them, trying to get my name out there. You can see if someone is trying to make a name for themselves or whether they’re trying to really be down and take a group of people as his family and just having a great time doing music. Their road manager, Ric Man, he used to tell me, ‘You need to start coming back to the sessions. There’s really no direction – they’re just drinking, smoking a lot – a lot of work doesn’t get done. It’s becoming more hanging out’. I’m telling you now – I did the A&R job that the A&R was supposed to be doing in the Intoxicated Demons.

You mean keeping the ship on course?

I felt at one point, when we were first recording in the city, I felt like there was too much joking with the engineer. Great guy, I actually know him from years back. It’s Jerry Famolari’s brother. Great sense of humor, but I felt it was too much joking going on and I said, ‘We need to go somewhere else.’

Studio time isn’t cheap, right?

Yeah! It may not physically be coming out of your pocket, but it’s coming out of your budget! They’re gonna recoup their money. At that time they weren’t grasping that concept, and it became a little problem. That’s when we went to Jersey. We were working with Pete Nice at the time, we did some music on Dust To Dust and there was engineer by the name of Rich Keller, and we started working with him, out of his house. He had one family that used to rent, he used to live upstairs and then on the basement he had his studio. He used to have Onyx recording there, a few people. Before the basement he rented out a house and he used to have his studio in the front porch and we used to record vocals in his bedroom. It was great.

So the EP finally got done at Rich Keller’s place. Fashion was locked-up and he came out towards the end of the EP. I was run out of there twice, out of that little crew. The first time by their A&R at the time. He saw that I was doing his job – which I was doing! I got that record done with them, then when it came time for mixing, he says, ‘I heard from Peter Kang that he doesn’t want you coming in to any more of the mixes. He said that the work doesn’t get done with you there, that you joke around. It’d be better if we just went in and concentrate, there’s not enough money in the budget.’ Dude, I did your job for over a year! Then with Fashion there’s all this stuff, acting like I’m not supposed to be part of ‘em? That’s when I started parted ways. When I did the Nas remix? That’s basically the time, when I started doing Groove Merchantz. But I was still doing some Beatnuts records – Fat Joe ‘Misery Loves Company,’ from the Don Cartagena album – that’s me. By the time of Stone Crazy they were kinda doing their own thing. I still would go to sessions a little bit, then they asked me to mix the rest of the songs that were left because they were going to master the next morning.

You worked on Al’ Tariq’s album despite having a strained working relationship initially?

Because now he’s not threatened anymore, he’s not part of The Beatnuts, so it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s work!’ I think everyone deserves a clean slate, let’s see what you’re about now.

Tell me about the Groove Merchantz.

Starting of the Groove Merchantz era I was working on Bas Blasta with Steve Stoute and Kid ‘N Play, they had the label from RCA. It was a completed album but RCA decided not to put it out. Even in that era I was getting work like Mi Phi Mi. [laughs] Me and Juju went out to Memphis, to Tennessee and did some work with him. It was strange, one time he opened up for Sade! It was very different to what I was doing at the time, that was also through Steve Stoute. Then I had the Kid ‘N Play, Houseparty 3, where I did ‘Bounce’ with The Beatnuts. It’s cool to work with people like that, especially if you’ve seen them come up, even if they’re not at their peak. That’s when I first started working with Kid, and that led into the Bas Blasta stuff.

The Groove Merchantz wasn’t like a production team where we had to do everything together, it was just a fun thing, like, ‘Let’s just do some beats together’. We got to do some remixes for House of Pain, for Nas. It’s funny ‘cos I get these cheques that say ‘Groove Merchantz’ on them from BMI and stuff like that, and it’s like, ‘OK, I can’t cash these – I don’t have a bank account called Groove Merchantz!’ [laughs] I’m tryin’ to get in touch with ‘em, ‘Listen, it doesn’t exist! It was just a name that I was using, doing business as.’ I’m getting these checks and it’s like, ‘OK, that’s nice, but I can’t do anything with ‘em!’ It was just a fun thing, like when MC’s get together and they collab on records. Not too many people were doing it at the time, like back in the days when jazz musicians used to get together. That was the whole thing with Groove Merchantz, and even Ghetto Pros in the beginning.

Godfather Don is quite a character. I’ve been trying to track him down for a while.

Godfather Don is quite a character, man. And a bit eccentric! He’s funny, he’s a good guy to be around. Very talented, the guy is kind of bizarre. The way he does beats and the way he uses an MP[C] is like no one I’ve ever seen. I know people use their MP just like a musician uses their bass, but this guy is like a complete band on the MP. It’s ridiculous! He’ll have the littlest piece, this little sample. You’re playing the pad and he orchestrates this incredible groove and you’re wondering how and you try to imitate it and you’re just like, ‘How’d you do it, dude?’ It’s like you can’t even explain it to yourself. One time I wanted him to lay down this song and he gives me this disc. I told him, ‘Hey, I don’t think the sequence is working, it’s not right.’ He was going to come down to the studio and I’m just hitting the button like, ‘I don’t understand! All the pieces are here? What did you do?’ I still couldn’t comprehend it. He truly is a master with that MP, and I’m talking about the old MP, the 60.

You mean instead of having his kick, snare and bass line separated he just had little sounds?

Yeah! He won’t even have a bassline! He’ll have a little bass tone that sounds like crap and then he’ll put it through something, filter it. He’ll have a couple of little sounds and all of a sudden you hear this groove! ‘OK, where are the other sounds coming from?’ It’s bizarre. You’re almost looking around for another sampler. ‘OK, you’ve got something hidden until the table or something, cos I don’t know how you’re doing it?’

How did the connection with Hydra Entertainment come about?

I’ve known Jerry and Mike for a while, twenty plus years. Jerry was actually rapping at one point [laughs] I bet you nobody in the world knows. I’ve done demos for Jerry which he probably has stored away in a safe deposit box somewhere and doesn’t want anyone to hear it. I’ve known Jerry since he was in high school, I’m a little older than him. I was consistently doing a lot of work with Hydra.

Before that he was releasing dance music on Sneak Tip, right?

Right, I knew Jerry when he was doing the dance music stuff. The guy I met Jerry through [Jose Segura], I was doing dance records with him on Dope Slap. Jose worked with Jerry doing more of the computer stuff like working with the graphic designers with the logos and stuff like that. This is before he was putting out dance records.

What was the first thing you did with him?

First I started doing breakbeats with them. First, original stuff where it was just drum beats, loops. Jerry wanted to put those things out. Then I remember doing instrumental tracks, Sack of Soul and stuff like that. Before that, I think Screwball may have been the first thing I recorded. We were recording in Power Play – I recording that record before Hydra had a studio.

The ‘Screwed Up’ single?

Yeah, all that stuff. ‘Take It There’ was a Quincy Jones sample and there was one before that.

What was the story with the Big Meal single? Juju did one side and you did the other.

We both collaborated on that. He helped me out with my side and I helped him out with his side. We recorded that stuff at Juju’s house. That was actually supposed to be for Rawkus. The ‘Put ‘Em On’ was for Rawkus through Ghetto Gold and then they didn’t want to put it out. Bobbito also wanted to put it out on Fondle ‘Em, but we ended up doing it with Jerry.

Who was Big Meal?

He’s actually the original Dr. Butcher from ‘Men At Work,’ he’s the first Dr. Butcher. I guess that ended-up falling into character with G Rap, cos the next G Rap album, the Dr. Butcher as you know him – Drew – he ended up being the last Dr. Butcher. But the one that’s on those ‘Men At Work’ records and all that? That’s Big Meal. That was a name G Rap came up with. This is him telling me, he helped out with some of those productions a little bit but he never got any credit. It’s a Marley thing.

You also got to work with Rakim?

I was working with Ron Lawrence from the Bad Boy camp, he was one of the original Hitmen. He was up at Universal visiting Hurby Luvbug and he heard that they were working on a project. Next day he called me and said, ‘Rakim wants one of the beats,’ and the next day he called and said he wants one more. I laid down the beats, then Rakim would lay down the vocals and then he would send the two inch and we would add whatever we’re gonna add. It wasn’t like we got to sit in the session with him. I’m telling Ron Lawrence, ‘This hook is not good! You’ve gotta tell him!’ He’s like, ‘How are you gonna tell Rakim to change the hook?’ He changed one of the hooks, the other hook he was just sold on. On one of the versions they put Canibus, but they took him off cos it sounds like he’s just killing him. It sounds like he was going at Rakim. You can’t have ‘The Master’ and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘This guy just destroyed The Master!’ [laughs]

You worked with all the Terror Squad after that. Did you have a good relationship with them?

I met Joe first and then it was Pun. Cuban and Triple Seis were from Pun’s crew, so I met them after. Pun was a fun guy to work with, really humorous. He would keep you laughing. Very talented, he was so creative, and sometimes with creative people it’s almost a fine line between bizarre – at some things. He’s a really nice guy but pretty bizarre on the other hand. Just the way he rhymes, the way he did things. ‘You’re rhyming off beat.’ ‘No, no, no. That’s the way I wanna rhyme!’ True artist’s are gonna be an artist. Big Pun’s ‘Brave In The Heart’ came out after the fact when he did Endangered Species, but that was supposed to be a Hydra record. When I met Terror Squad was around the time I was doing the Ghetto Gold. I was doing the Black Attack records with Correct, ‘My Crown,’ Rawkotiks, and then I started doing records with Cuban and with Seis so they could come out on Ghetto Gold as 12”s, but they never came out. Those were Ghetto Professionals records that came out through Rawkus. The Ghetto Gold label was almost like the Black Jazz logo, the guy called up Mike and said, ‘Cut that out! Stop using my logo!’ [laughs]

At the later part of all of that, when I was doing the Terror Squad album, that’s when I started doing the Ghetto Pros thing. I recorded another record with Tariq and them [Missin’ Linx], ‘M.I.A.’ The same sample that Dr. Dre used for ‘Next Episode’ a couple of years after. It did so well for Fat Beats, I wanted to do a little EP compilation album and they were willing to do it. Richie was running Fat Beats at the time and he was working on the Big L stuff with Mike at Rawkus. I started recording, I showed him a few songs that I had and he was like, ‘I’ll advance you some money.’ So I got some of the guys from Terror Squad to start recording my Ghetto Pros album. Then T-Ray heard the songs and was like, ‘Hey, I can do something bigger!’ In reality, I could have been into volume 10 or 15 by now! Who knows.

The Mighty V.I.C has in recent years provided musical scores for various MTV and E! Network programs such as ‘Pimp My Ride,’ ‘Punk’d’ and ‘My Super Sweet Sixteen,’ and is developing his own music library company.

This interview is also available in the limited-edition book, Past The Margin: A Decade of Unkut Interviews, available here.