Five Sounds With Just Blaze

Just Blaze's long and illustrious career stretches back to the 1990s. In that time, he's earned eight Grammy nominations, pioneered "chipmunk soul" music, and worked with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and pop music, including Kanye West, Eminem, and Beyoncé.

We recently had the honor of chatting with Just Blaze for our Five Sounds With series. Read the full interview below to learn more about what it was like working on five of his favorite and most iconic records.

Kanye West - "Touch The Sky" (Late Registration)

I am super honored to be the only producer outside of Kanye on that album. I cannot tell the story as to how the record came about in terms of like, what happened the night before, but one of the cool things about our relationship was that Kanye would always call me and say, "Just, how do you get your horns to sound the way that they do?" And I'm like, "Bro, I don't know. I just do X, Y, and Z!"

It was mostly due to the fact that I had the equipment that I had access to, right? At the time, the biggest secret weapon behind that song was the Roland VP 9000. They don't make it anymore, but it was used to stretch the sample out, and then run through my SSL console.

By this point, I owned the Baseline Studios SSL 4000 G+, which allowed me to get the horns to sit as loud as they did without being overbearing. That and an old Drawmer gate. We triggered the Drawmer gates by the kick drum and we gated the mid-range because we wanted to make sure that the vocals would cut through. My kick was so strong, we had to make sure that the mid-range still cut through.

Kendrick Lamar - "Compton" (Good Kid, M.A.A.D City)

The Compton man! For that album, we sat on the idea for that—and I'm not even exaggerating—for about eight years. It took a second, to be honest. We mixed that record on the SSL AWS console that I bought from VK and ran the master bus output through the Fairman Mastering compressor, which you don’t see at all these days. That was a recommendation from Ryan as well. I’ve been trying to find the matching EQ, but that never pops up either! Ironically, that was the first time that Dre and Kendrick met each other, was finishing up vocals on that record.

Eminem - "Cold Wind Blows" (Recovery)

Oh, that's further back. That was me working at Eminem's studio, where I got to meet a lot of the Vintage King crew for the first time back in 2010! I walked in like, "Hey, you guys got cool stuff!" They're like, "Yeah, we got all the cool shit!" And I didn't know what that meant until I walked out, you know, $20,000 lighter.

I will say, the monitors that they sold me, which I ended up buying that day—I think it was a pair of Genelecs if I'm not mistaken—were stronger and made more sense for me than the Augsburgers that Em had set up in his room. I ended up finishing the rest of that album on the Genelecs, for sure.

The two big singles that I did from that album I came up with in my sleep. I'd be half asleep in Bassline, which was our old studio, and wake up and call Paul, who was Em's manager—still is to this day.

It's funny because sometimes people are like, "Oh, I did this in my sleep. Yeah, I wasn't even thinking about it." No, I literally came up with those in my sleep! I woke up and I was like, "Hey, we should actually finish these," and woke up. I literally came up with "No Love" in my sleep, unintentionally. Next thing I know, three weeks later, we're shooting a video for it.

I say that to people who ask me, "When you're listening for breaks, you're listening for beats, what do you want to sample?" You never know where it's going to come from. You never know what it's going to sound like. But you'll know it when it hits you.

One of the things that I always say is, "Your inspiration can come from anywhere at any given time, whether it’s one from when you're a kid to being an adult. The biggest reason behind my success has always been my mom supporting me and saying, "Hey, are we going to the grocery store this day? Are we going to the equipment store this day?"

Her taking me to watch turntables, her taking me to watch DJs—if it wasn't for her and her supporting me being able to watch these guys, you and I would not be having this conversation. It’s the truth. I mean, she's a part of everything. Like, she's been to more Grammys than I remember.

She's like, "Justin, you took me to see Mick Jagger!" And I'm like, "Yeah." She's like, "I was gonna throw my bra on the stage!" And I'm like, "Yeah, Mom, you're not 16 anymore!" So it’s always cool. Like, she's been my biggest cheerleader from day one and I will never forget that.

Beyoncé - "Freedom" (Lemonade)

Beyoncé is a producer in her own right—a lot of people don't realize that. She came to me with her vocals and a sample already done. All she needed me to do was produce it and make it right. It took me probably two days to do that, and if I'm speaking honestly, that was mostly all in the box. I didn't anticipate it sounding as big as it did.

I think the only hardware I used for that track was the Avedis E27 EQ on the drums, which was something that Ryan recommended to me years before, and they had been sitting in my house for forever. That's what we ended up using for the drums, but the drums actually drive that record. We did not expect it to come out the way that it did, but if it wasn't for her initial idea, we wouldn't be having this conversation, probably.

Nelly - "Roc The Mic (Remix)" (Nellyville)

Alright, so the Nellyville thing is kind of a cheat. I was able to win a Grammy and get 6 million sold off of that track. Nelly did a remix to Roc the Mic, and he wanted to put it on his album and he wanted me to mix it. I'll be honest, I did that in 10-20 minutes at Quad Studios.

Here's the thing, the existing record was already out, but I wanted to make sure that the vocals cut through. We actually did that through effects more than anything else. I put up a two-track and tried to mix it again using the recall, but it didn't work. So I put up my two-track of the beat that I had coming straight out of the ASR-X, and we processed all the vocals out of the RMX which, is still out to this day. Somehow it still ended up working out.

I’ve had a lot of close calls throughout my career. I hope that, ultimately, it can all relate back to VK and help people understand that it is the music, not the gear. The gear will help us get to that point, but ultimately it's your ear and your gear. Use whatever you have to get to the point that you need to get to because —whether my mom supported me and bought certain things for me, or not—I’d still be here.

If you’re interested in purchasing any of the gear mentioned in this blog, contact a Vintage King Audio Consultant via email or by phone at 866.644.0160.