When Dres was working to get signed, he and Mista Lawnge of Black Sheep were planning several meetings. “One of the meetings was with this guy named Lyor Cohen,” he recalls during an appearance at Take it Personal.
“He’s paying us not attention,” he remembers. “It’s almost like we’re not there…He’s like, ‘I don’t have time for this shit. I’m not gonna be able to listen to this until July.’ It’s March. I was like, ‘You don’t need this demo, then. We’ll be signed by then.'”
The next day, Cohen called Dres’ home saying a limousine was on its way to pick him up. Def Jam wanted to sign them. When Dres asked if he had listened to the music, Cohen said he’s only heard that it’s “phenomenal.” Dres asked Cohen to turn the limo around, rejecting the deal. “At the end of the day, you have to pick your shots,” he says.
Black Sheep would go on to release 1991’s A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing and 1994’s Non-Fiction. Their debut would spawn the group’s most successful hit, “The Choice Is Yours (Revisited).”
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Cohen is an industry executive who has worked with Def Jam, Warner Music Group and who recently launched his new imprint, 300.
During the interview, Dres also talks about an early interaction with Rakim and how this made him quit a job he held for only a day. Dres says he was the office manager at a studio and Rakim happened to be working on music there. Rakim came out of a session and asked Dres for a lighter. Dres says he quit that same day. “That’s not how I wanted Rakim to know me,” he recalls.
RELATED: TIMELESS: Dres Revisits Black Sheep’s “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing”
