Today, New York artist/producer J. Cardim will be releasing The IN Crowd in conjunction with his Dice Music Group and The New Music Cartel. A tagged version will made available via the NMC sites, but fans interested in supporting Cardim can purchase later this month on iTunes.
As of HipHopDX’s first featured DXnext artists (August 2007), J. Cardim spoke to DX from Brazil about The IN Crowd, which features D-Block, Juelz Santana, Ludacris’ Detox reference track and more – including some shelved Ol’ Dirty Bastard material from 2005. With such a dynamic career and diverse sound, Cardim has escalated, but still remains true to his introduction.
HipHopDX: It’s been almost a decade. How do you compare the excitement of getting your first placements with the likes of Jean Grae and company to the excitement of, as your press release says, potentially contributing to Detox?
J. Cardim: Well, Jean [Grae and I worked together] in 2004, so its been about six years. Its funny, you would think that the [Dr. Dre] Detox [work] would be way more exciting then the earlier stuff… but back then I didn’t really know anything about the industry, I had just been doing beats locally so the first couple times someone with a name and a budget says they like your music its very exciting. Don’t get me wrong, the Ludacris [reference track for] Detox was definitely exciting, but at this point, I know how the industry is so I try not to get amped about anything until it’s for sure.
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DX: Tell me a little about the “Your Favorite Rapper’s Favorite Producer” moniker. Who bestowed that title upon you? Do you think other producer’s will get their feathers ruffled by such a claim, or is 2010 more about, “I’m not cocky, I’m confident” mentality?
J. Cardim: I don’t think so. At the end of the day, there are two types of music: good and bad. Hip Hop shoots itself in the foot with all of these walls. You don’t see Rock bands saying, “We’re from New York, fuck southern bands” or “Fuck the west coast bands.” Actually, the Gudda Gudda track on the project is a sample beat I could easily hear Joe [Budden] or Sha [Stimuli] on, so hopefully with that and a couple other songs on the project, I can help break down some of those walls. As far as people being lyrical or not, as long as the artist has presence and adds to the track, I’m happy. Not gonna lie though, it’s always nice when a great lyricist rips your beat.
J. Cardim: Well in 2005, Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s posthumous album was supposed to come out on Dame Dash Music Group and Clark Kent was the A&R. Clark wanted me to do some beats for the project, so he gave me the whole album acapella, and said “Do a couple of these.” I did ‘All of the Time’ and another one with N.O.R.E. on it. He really liked my versions and to my understanding was planning on running with them. Unfortunately, that situation fell apart with Dame Dash Music Group, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s album was never released. At this point, five years later, I figure good music is good music and the fans deserve to hear what O.D.B. might have sounded like in 2010, so this is my take.
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J. Cardim: When we first started in 2004 and 2005, my beats were 90% sample beats. I was making album tracks, not too many single-type beats. I would say around 2006 to 2007, I started to become more of a keyboard producer and definitely by ’08 I was doing a lot more commercial and Pop-type production. I still make the sample beats, but I pride myself on being a diverse producer. I want to work with everyone and create different sounds for them. As far as the hustle goes, it’s much easier now that people know my name a little bit. It’s all on the computer now though, its about staying relevant on the blogs and Twitter, etc. When I first started it was more like going to shows and giving out beat CDs, or waiting outside [of] Def Jam [Records] or the Atlantic [Records] building trying to catch artists as they leave and give them a CD [or] get their info.
