Power 105’s DJ Clue and Scoop B Radio host Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson in New York City. Photo Courtesy of: The Brandon Robinson Brand
Check out DJ Clue and Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on Scoop B Radio
The NFL and NBA’s season are literally around the corner. That means one thing: the release of Madden 18, NBA Live 18 and NBA 2K 18 video games are a fast break pass and a 2-minute drill away from releasing.
Over the last ten-plus years, the NBA 2K franchise has established itself as a premier hoops platform. This year, EA Sports has made a comeback with their release of NBA Live 18 and James Harden as the game’s cover athlete. One of the coolest features of the game is a mode that allows you to play with WNBA teams; the first of its kind and according to my buddy Brian Mazique at FORBES Magazine, by way of Chicago the game’s soundtrack is pretty solid!
Speaking of soundtracks, I’m always enamored by the evolution of video game soundtracks. One of the catalysts of that was NBA Live 2003.
The game had Jason Kidd on the cover and the game’s intro, ‘It’s In The Game,’ was performed by Fabolous with DJ Clue producing the track. “You know it’s funny I was just thinking about that today,” DJ Clue told me on Scoop B Radio.
“I was thinking about how, I think I saw James Harden say he was on the cover of the new Live. So I was thinking: ‘Man it wasn’t too long ago that I produced the intro to Live and it had rap on it.”
Added DJ Clue:
“I think that sometimes you get caught in the moment and you don’t realize how big something is that you are doing.”
The track and video was pretty legit!
“They gave me no restrictions on how to be with sound, but they gave me sound effects that they wanted me to actually incorporate into actually beats.The whistle, the feet squeaking, the dunk, they gave me all those sounds. So I was in the studio, I was doing a beat and I came up with the beat and they came up with the rap and I had to go back and put the sound effects in from what he was rapping about.”
That he that DJ Clue is referring to was Fabolous.
Fabolous’ wordplay on the track was insane:
“‘I’m the crowd favorite and I believe the fans love the way I finger roll it with either hand, my handles pull it through presses plus I can play the lane and block shots like bulletproof vestes.’
How the heck did Fab turn the plural of the word ‘vest’ into his own wording? Years later he’d do it again in his song “Breathe,” when he changed the plural of the word ‘mask’ into ‘maskes.’
But I digress!
“It was a cool experience,” Fabolous told me in a recent interview.
“The whole video game, I actually got to visit the EA Sports headquarters and got to see the stuff behind games; the real geeky, techy side, that was even cool. It was really, really, really a cool experience.”
According to DJ Clue, not only did he take part in the producing process of the game, in the NBA Live 2003 game, EA Sports created a creation of the DJ Clue if you put a special code in. “If you typed in the code ‘Mixtape,’ I personally came up in the game as a player you could play with a 96 rating,” said DJ Clue while on Scoop B Radio.
A 96 rating Clue? Don’t let current NBA players hear that!
Apparently EA Sports crafted the Power 105 dj’s likeness after Tracy McGrady, who will be a minted an NBA Hall of Famer in a couple of weeks at the NBA’s Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Make sure to check out DJ Clue’s interview in its entirety by clicking here. Not only did DJ Clue discuss NBA Live 2003, he also discussed his infamous ‘Clueminati’ and William M. Holla Drops before the start of songs.
“I have always heard people talk about the Illuminati,” said DJ Clue.
“But it was, I wanted to try and put my own little twist to it. So I came up with Clueminati, Clue Fargino you know all those names, just to keep it interesting. You know Fidel Cashflow, you know.”
DJ Clue also discussed what it was like working with Mariah Carey on tracks like “Thank God I Found You Remix,” a track that DJ Clue produced:
“Mariah is a super perfectionist man,” he said. “So she wants to make sure that when she does vocals that it are done right. She definitely is that person that if she wants you to hear her music it has to be right. She isn’t playing around.”
Clue says Working with Tamia on the So Into You Remix with Fabolous challenged Tamia in a good way: “I feel like I pushed her,” he said.
DJ Clue weighed in on why Jay-Z doesn’t write his lyrics down: “I think Jay started doing that because I think it helps him remember songs,” said DJ Clue.
“There have been times when we have been on stage when he first started. He would be on stage and he would forget a line or two. He would tap me and be like: ‘Yo what’s the line?’ I think coming from that he would just sit and be like: ‘yo maybe if I just memorize it better if I just sit and say it to myself over and over again.. He used to get in the car and be like: ‘yo give me a day or two. He would ride around with his driver and make up his lines. He would call me up and be like: ‘Oooh I got a line.’ That is how it would be.”
He also says Puff Daddy has a pretty good routine while in studio:
“I think with Puff working with him; when I would go to Daddy’s House [his old recording studio] he would have Total in one room working, then you would have BIG working in another and then have Craig Mack working in another room. He would be bouncing from room to room working on songs; it was crazy! Je would say: ‘Ok I’m working with Total in one room and then be back in an hour, he was going for it. He had a movement, he would be there all times of the night, working on songs. Puff’s work ethic was serious!”
DJ Clue also discussed his own business ventures like his DJ Clue Ap, his forthcoming documentary and his no-tie shoelaces that he has called Clue Lace. The partnership that he and business partner, Randy Parker, a fellow DJ who goes by the stage name DJ ESSO is successful so far. “It is definitely the first no-tie shoelace,” DJ Clue told me.
“If you have kids out there, you know how strenuous it is when you get yelled at to tie your shoelaces. You don’t got to do that! These are the no-tie shoelace. They are flexible, they are dope. They are good for kids in sports. You don’t want to stop the game from the moment on the court because their shoelaces are untied, or trip over them. You can set them one time and it will never go loose. They look stylish too.”
There are about 12 varieties of his laces available.
As for DJ Clue’s forthcoming documentary he told Scoop B Radio:
“It is going to take you into different phases of my career,” he said. “The start, obviously you have to go into Queens and check out mom’s crib and the place it all started at. Different times when I was producing with different people, my different travel, of course. It is going to have my trials and tribulations and that kind of stuff. It is like any story. You have to make sure you focus on the good and the bad and all the positives and all the negatives. We want to have it well-rounded so that people can really understand the story and know where the grind came from.”
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[…] Appearing on an episode of Scoop B Radio that aired at Power 105 last week, DJ Clue broke it down. “It is definitely the first no-tie shoelace,” DJ Clue told Scoop B Radio’s Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson. […]