You were just getting started when we met in 2005 or 2006. What brought you to engineering?
It's the classic story. I've always been into music. Growing up, my parents put a huge emphasis on music. My mom played guitar and sang a little bit, so some of my early memories are of her playing some sweet songs on guitar. But they were always listening to cool music. At a young age, that sparked my interest in music in general. In high school, I found punk rock, and that set me on this path of learning how to play instruments and record. I was playing in bands and jamming with friends after I had gotten my first guitar and had put together a "Frankenstein" sort of drum kit. I had some stuff in my bedroom, and my dad eventually bought me a cassette 4-track. It was a Korg CR-4, with onboard monitors and onboard effects, and I would record anybody playing music from my high school at the house. I was working on all sorts of random little projects: From punk bands, to metalcore bands, to small combos with just drums, to a DJ and bass, doing little hip-hop beats. That set me down this path of eventually a whole career, which I didn't know at the time because it was just a hobby, and I was having fun. I went deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.
It's interesting that that's how you started, because one thing I remember – because I come from punk rock background as well – is that you really embodied the DIY spirit. Any time we were hanging out, if a cool idea came up you were always the one who said, “Yeah, we can figure out a way to do that.”
Totally. I think that's where engineering found me more than I found it. Just that attitude and approach towards most things. It's like, “Yeah, let's figure it out. We can get this done somehow.” It's like that to this day. Even in a bigger studio, I'll always run into some weird issue, so I’ll say, “All right, let's figure out how to do it in a cool way.” I guess I never thought about that until you said it, but I've approached life in that way, and it directly correlates with engineering – I guess, my style of engineering.
Moving from those early days, what was the transition like going from that environment into a more structured studio environment? Was that something that happened gradually, or all at once?
It definitely happened gradually. During high school, I found a college that taught recording. I didn't even know that that was really a thing. Up until that point, I had never been in a real recording studio or seen professional gear, let alone had the knowledge of how a compressor or anything like that worked. But I found a college that I ended up attending. That's where I learned and scratched the surface of what professional recording was. And luckily, that college – it was Ex'pression [College] in Emeryville, [CA] – gave us a lot of hands-on time with some of the gear. We used to be able to book eight hours a month. I had a bunch of friends; we would pool our time together and get in the studios and figure it out. We were in there often. That experience allowed me to do a lot of trial and error to figure out what works and what doesn't. Obviously, the instructors were great too, but a lot of it I didn’t really learn until I got my hands on it and was problem solving on my own.
My good friend, Paul Gold, always says, "There's no way like the hard way.” Recording nonstop for years is definitely the hard way.
Oh, for sure. That was serious gear in there. The room that we were in was a Neve VR [mixing console]. In another room, there was an SSL 4000 E/G, a Frankenstein console. It was cool to be able to play with that before getting into real studios years later and reacquainting myself with that gear again.
Was it from that network-building in Emeryville and in the East Bay, as well as the connections that you made from recording all these different groups, that brought you to work with E-40 [Earl Tywone Stevens, Sr.]?
It was a snowball effect. I was working at Guitar Center early in my career, and I had met Kenya Baker, who was a guitar player and producer. He was playing with Joss Stone. Towards the end of my time at Ex'pression, he came around in my life again. He was recording a project, and I ended up being his engineer. That was my first engineering gig. We ended up at Fantasy [Studios] and Studio 880, which ended up being JingleTown [Recording], owned by Green Day. And then eventually he took me to what would become my home at Infinite Studios, owned by my mentor, Michael Denten. It was there that I met E-40. I was interning for a few weeks, maybe even a month, and then I met E-40 at the studio, and he asked me to roll a joint for him.
A great engineering skill!
Exactly. It's a great skill to have. [laughter] A few weeks later, I got a call from Michael Denten, and he said that E-40 needed an engineer. Michael said, “Just go up to his house. He needs to set up a little Pro Tools rig in an existing studio.” I went up there and struggled through the night, because I had never set up something like that before. I probably left around 6 or 7 a.m. He asked me if I could come back a few hours later to engineer; I guess the engineer had skipped out on him. I didn't know it in the moment, but that would begin ten years as E-40's personal recording engineer.
What album was that? It's good to flag it because E-40 releases 13 albums a year. [laughter]
For sure, our output was heavy through those ten-plus years. The first album was a double album called Revenue Retrievin’.
Yeah. The Day Shift and Night Shift versions. [The two albums were released at once. -Ed.]
Yes, that was my first credited work. What was interesting about my time with E-40, is that up until that point I hadn't done that style of engineering. Obviously, 40 is the biggest rapper from our region. It was intense going into it because it was high stakes. I had to figure out, on my own, how to record that style of music. We were in there with heavy hitters, producer-wise. One of the first producers I worked with up there was Willy Will [William Hodge II] from Atlanta, and he had pretty high standards. I had to pick it up quick. Directly after that, Rick Rock [Ricardo Thomas] came in. These are guys that I looked up to already, from their past work. There was a lot of pressure. I had to do it, and I had to do it quick, because: One: I wanted to keep the job. And two: these are heavy hitters. I did it, but it was definitely trial by fire!
Was it new engineering to you, in terms of what you were asked to do and the type of tools you were using? Or was it new in that the recording was more decentralized and some of it happened at his house and some of it happened on the road?
It's definitely a little bit of both. Up until that point, I was used to recording musicians in the studio.
Go in, set up mics for a band, let them play, mix those tracks, and done.
Exactly. With hip-hop, at least with what we were doing, it was very sample-based as far as the production goes. A lot of it was either played on [AKAI] MPCs or keyboards – MIDI, which I hadn't had a lot of experience with up until that point. A good deal of it was getting two-tracks of beats from producers, and eventually them sending stems over – or what we call stems now, which is essentially just tracked-out files. A lot of it is just one microphone and the artist. If there are other artists involved, they take turns on the microphone. And flying in files. But also, the recording style was so different. There's so much hands-on with the recording, as far as working Pro Tools like an instrument. Especially with the way 40 records; he would record just a few bars at a time. It's not like I could do one full take all the way through and call it. It's a lot of recording this, moving this file, moving that file, adding an effect, making a chop and screw, making a beat drop, and doing this quickly. It also involved imparting production of my own into it by making things interesting. It's one thing to just be recording over a beat, but you enter a new world when you can turn it into something cool. It forced me to be a lot more creative in my engineering style.
You were learning how to maximize the way this guy worked through adaptive processes and working quickly, while keeping the energy up. But you were still being asked to do a lot of on-the-fly editing, on-the-fly effect placement, and that type of thing?
Yeah, 100 percent. There's a whole flow that goes into it. Sitting in front of the computer, essentially controlling the vibe, a lot falls on my shoulders as an engineer. I’ve got to know when to stop the music. Even when no one's recording, I’ve got to know when to play the music or at what volume, and I have to anticipate this based on reading the energy in the room.
That's producing, man.
Exactly. Especially because the producers, or the guys who make the beats, aren't always present. A lot of the time it's the artist and the entourage – people who help contribute to ideas and lyrics – just vibing out in the studio. I have to control that in a way that it doesn't get boring. I’ve got to keep the energy rolling. In a session the vibe is so important. If there's not a good vibe, it comes across on the microphone, I believe. The art directly reflects what is happening in the room at the moment. It can't be overstated how important it is as the role of an engineer to keep that going.
Was it ten albums or ten years that you were working with E-40?
Probably a little bit more than ten years, because I started with him in 2009, shortly after I graduated from Ex'pression. We went up until the pandemic. Once the pandemic hit, we didn't know what was happening – like everybody – so he wanted to put a halt on things. I was forced to pivot at that point, because I had to still figure out how to make money since we weren't in the studio every day with 40. Also, touring had stopped. At some point, when I was working with 40, I felt almost a little stagnant. We were doing so much of the same style of recording that I needed something else to keep me interested in music and keep it exciting. Around 2016, I went and got a job at a club in San Francisco, the Boom Boom Room, because I wanted to tap back into live sound. That is where I met Fantastic Negrito [Tape Op #150], who would eventually take me in as his recording engineer as well. I was working with him and E-40 in tandem, and I would eventually go on the road with Fantastic Negrito. My first tour was with him. But all of that stopped during the pandemic.
You came from the "set up a band, run everything through hardware" background. Then you spent a lot of years working quickly in the box, simultaneously engineering and producing. The fusion of those skills can be really powerful. Did you get put on any albums before you started working with Negrito?
Yeah, totally. While I was working with 40, I was still working at Michael Denten's Infinite Studios. We were still doing a lot of live band recordings. Some were produced by Larry D. Batiste, who was the musical director for the Grammys for a while – he was bringing in projects. We did an album with John Lee Hooker, Jr., which was a real treat. He brought in some cool players. I was also working with some of the guys from Tony! Toni! Toné!. Elijah Baker, Carl Wheeler, and [John] "Jubu" Smith were doing live instrumentation in the studio. I was fortunate enough to work with those OGs, because they helped keep my chops up as well. Those players are insane. Michael Denten has a great reputation in the Bay Area, and people still use his studio a lot. I think the way I learned how to engineer with E-40, and also using a lot of the skills that Michael taught me, I was able to develop a style of engineering at Michael's which made a lot of guys want to work with me. It was Larry Batiste, I think, who said that what he liked about my style of recording was the way I was able to anticipate what was coming up next. Always being locked in and knowing what the next thing the musician or artist wanted was a huge advantage for me. We could keep it moving because I was able to keep the vibe going without any halting or stopping. I would always be prepared with what I needed. I always try to get as much information as I can going into a session, so that everything's prepped and I'm ready to hit record at any time. There was one session we had with Graham Central Station. Larry [Graham] brought in a keyboard player, because we were doing this jingle, and he wanted him to lay down this this organ line. He came in and was checking the sounds of the keyboard we were using, and I had the track rolling. He came in, one take, just hit it, and was like, “Oh, man. I think this is it. That's the sound.” I was like, “Cool, I recorded that.” That ended up being the take. He was in the studio for five or ten minutes. Larry was elated. As engineers, we want to be so technical. At the end of the day though, creativity is king. If you're not ready to capture that in the moment it needs to be captured, then no matter what microphone, preamp, or EQ you put on it, it's not going to sound as good as it would have sounded if they were ready to go in the moment.
Yeah. A perfect take on a [Shure] SM58 is still a perfect take.
Exactly. Which is why I always have a 58 or an [Shure] SM7 in the room, ready to go, always plugged in. If anybody's ready to lay down an idea or something, it's recording.
What's the difference between working with an artist like E-40 in the studio and working with Negrito?
Fantastic Negrito had some buzz going because he just won the NPR Tiny Desk Concert. I did sound for him, and then his manager pulled me aside at the end of the night and asked if I worked in Pro Tools. I said, “Absolutely I work in Pro Tools. That's my thing.” The next day, or two days later, I went in the studio with him and started helping him work on his record, The Last Days of Oakland. There are many differences, from artist to artist, with any approach to engineering, but there are also so many similarities. I drew on a lot of my experiences with 40 going into the studio with Fantastic Negrito, plus my experiences with everybody else leading up to that point. Always being ready to capture what was spewing out at the moment. Working with Fantastic Negrito, we were so limited in tools. We were working at a small studio that was built in the back of an art gallery in Jack London Square in Oakland. We had an Apogee Duet [audio interface] and some keyboards. We were also doing a lot of MIDI. Working with 40 and those producers had me prepped to work with Fantastic Negrito, because it was also doing so many things on the fly and doing tracks one at a time. A lot of the times it would just be me and Xavier [Amin Dphrepaulezz, aka Fantastic Negrito] in the room together. He'd have an idea, we'd do a couple takes, and I'd loop it on down. The difference, though, is we were building more from scratch. Whereas with 40 it was like, “We've got a beat. We've got a hook idea. Let's lay it. Here's our song.” With Fantastic Negrito it was more like, “Okay, here's an idea for a loop. Let's take this, loop it down for half an hour, and let me freestyle over it and see where we go.” Working with Negrito there was so much unknown going into recording a song. It was very exploratory, and the bounds were limitless. It's a funny juxtaposition, because we were so limited with what we had. We had a couple microphones and an Apogee Duet. All the drums were two microphones: One overhead and one in front of the kit. Same with guitars or whatever we were recording at the time. But it also somehow gave us limitless possibilities. Which goes back to this DIY thing. "How can we make it with what we have, and be really cool?" I enjoy that, because when you have too many tools at your disposal, you almost become crippled by the possibilities.
Option paralysis. From a room behind an art gallery in Jack London Square you guys worked on Last Days of Oakland and took home a Grammy.
It was fun and exciting. There was no intention of winning a Grammy. When I went into that project with him, that wasn't even a thought in my mind. It's not a thought in my mind going into any project, ever. We're making art for art's sake. Working with Xavier at the time, he was so energized. His excitement for the music was infectious. Every day was something new. He was going for it, full steam. He's an incredible songwriter, so hearing his song ideas, and the framework for these eventual songs, was inspiring. Plus, he has an amazing voice. It was a lot of fun to be in there with him.
That album was not the last time that you worked together and won Grammys together.
That was in 2016, and we worked together all the way up until around 2021, which is when I relocated to L.A. But that was the first of three Grammy-winning albums that we did together that I was an engineer on: The Last Days of Oakland, Please Don't Be Dead, and Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? All of those won Grammys for Best Contemporary Blues Album in their respective years.
What was the impetus to move from Oakland to L.A.?
The thing about the Bay Area, as creative and amazing a place as it is to be, it’s tough to establish a career there as an engineer and mixer because there isn’t much infrastructure to the industry. It’s a lot of independent artists who are doing their thing – which is amazing – but for me, I felt I was ready to take the next step and turn my career into a full-blown thing. I have a lot of ties in L.A. because of working with E-40, Negrito, Elijah Baker, and Jubu Smith. It ended up extending my network quite a bit. The move to L.A., in my mind, was more for me to take the next step in my career, to blow the lid off it, and hopefully make it happen. That was my reasoning, and I did so in the summer of 2021. I’ve opened my own studio, which is a mix room and a finishing room. We do overdubs and basic recording in there. Any other tracking I'll take to other studios. But it’s my personal room that I mix out of.
When you say “taking it to the next level,” what does that mean for you? Did it mean working with a caliber of artist that you weren’t working with before? Is it working at a pace that you hadn’t been working at before? Did that leveling up happen?
The difference is not so much the caliber of artists. In the Bay Area, E-40’s is as big as it gets. It was more to prove to myself that I'm ready to step into the arena with the big dogs. L.A. is where the heavy hitter engineers are at; the top tier who are in this. The infrastructure is much more vast in L.A. There are labels and bigger budgets. A lot of my career, it's been wanting to challenge myself to do more and do better.
What was it like working with Killer Mike [Michael Santiago Render] on the MICHAEL album?
Working with Mike was cool, because he's such a legend in the game. This project was brought to me by Mike's manager, who wanted to give me a shot on these mixes. That coming in the door was huge for me because the project was so fun to mix. There was a ton of live instrumentation by some incredible musicians: Warryn Campbell on keyboards, Dammo Farmer on bass, Agape Jerry on guitar, and No I.D. [Ernest Dion Wilson] executive produced. I felt a heavy responsibility to make this right. We put a lot of time into the mixes, and we went back and forth with revisions. It turned out great and it went on to win a Grammy for Best Rap Album of 2023, which was incredibly validating for me. I spent every last dollar that I had to open the studio, to buy all the gear that I wanted, and to get all the pieces in place – it was a heavy jump for me. This album, for me, was the validation. “Okay, I made the right move.” I don't go into any project thinking, "I want this to win a Grammy." But I go into every project putting my all into it. The fact that I put my all into this and it came out recognized by my peers and the Recording Academy is massive validation that I am on the right path, and what I am doing is valid.
Live instrumentation and a talented rap artist – this is the perfect job for you. This is your experience manifested. It’s all of that wrapped up into one album.
Yeah, it's crazy. Explaining that right now, I realized it. It's like an amalgamation of everything I've done in my career so far has culminated to this. It's not all about me; I'm just a cog in the wheel. Being able to play my part in any of these records has been a huge privilege and honor. I'm so thankful for everybody in my career who has helped me. These victories, they belong to everybody on my team and my tribe along the way. I'm grateful for everybody that was involved in this project, and every project leading up to it. 
