Mike Dean, the legendary pioneer of the Dirty South sound and producer to 2Pac, Kanye West and many others, recently caught up with fellow engineer Dave Pensado for the latest installment of his series Pensado’s Place. During the interview, Dean discussed his extensive work on ‘Ye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He even gave up a few details about Kanye and Jay-Z’s highly anticipated collaborative album Watch the Throne, saying that “it’s almost done.”
“I think I co-produced…eight or nine [tracks of MBDTF] and played along on those and mixed them,” he said. “There’s three of use who engineer for Kanye. There’s four now: Andrew [Dawson], Anthony [Kilhoffer] and me. We all mixed Graduation together. Then we hand stuff around until it passes Kanye’s approval. Then we had a new guy Noah Goldstein…who tracks all the vocals…[Kanye’s] a special guy…it never gets dull. It’s always something pioneering going on.”
He added, “I’m working on the new Kanye/Jay-Z record Watch the Throne. That’s almost done…I’ve got like four or five co-produced tracks on there, I’m mixing the whole record, supposedly.”
Dean also discussed the trademark Dirty South sound that he helped cultivate alongside the likes of Scarface, UGK, Devin the Dude and many others. He explained that when he was working in Houston, record companies weren’t paying attention to the music they were producing, allowing them to craft an orginal sound isolated from outside influences.
“We were kind of isolated in Houston from the industry,” he said. “We were just down there making those records, locked in the basement. That’s why we kind of got such an original thing going down there, because we were isolated. Until I came to California in like 1995, ’96, we had no influences, just the records we were listening to…it really was just me, Vito, Scarface and just a couple of other guys…that pretty much pioneered the whole thing that turned into the South sound. The South music now is not the same now. The South music now is now slowed down bass music [from the ’80s]…instead of being 120 [BPM], it’s slowed down to 70 [BPM].”
Finally, Dean discussed his work ethic in mixing records while high. He joked that he’s confounded by mixers unable to produce quality work while sober.
“How do guys mix [without] pot?” he joked. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for years. How do you make yourself sound so good when your sober?…It comes from lots of practice…I mean, I don’t endorse the use of marijuana, just for medical use only.”
The full interview can be seen below.
Good 4 any producer 2 watch. Playboy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTZ4jCWEeU4
one of my favorite producers ever,him,n.o. joe,bido,mr.lee highly underrated
I have an interview I’m gonna post in a month on N.O.JOE (dividedsoulsent.blogspot.com)…..The one that never gets the reconigtion. Cool Brother. Respect to the RAP-A-Lot Sound!!!
I miss the Graduation sound.
Vito? Don’t you mean Bido?
You saw that right? Way to clean that up
I once took all of Mike Dean’s roaches and rolled up a fat ass L while interning at Chung King Studios. Cool dude, good weed..
damn this dude made mad fire for ‘face big ups to mikey dean
Mike Dean always been that dude when it came to production and mixing.
Dude doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.
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LOL he called it pot.
What 2pac beat did he make
Smile (Scarface)
Its good to see that HipHopDX editors read TUMBLINERB
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Until I started making music myself I didnt overstand the Importance of Good Mixing.
In some respects you can only go as far as your mixing.
A good song can become a whack song strictly off mixing and mastering.
Trust me I know this first Hand. Taking my shit to the next level for me is as much mixing n Mastering as it’s creating the songs.
These Big artist are lucky as hell.. Look at their resources compare to some one like me In a Home studio, Mixing my own shit.
soundclick.com/showtimeny
that’s a losers mentality, they didnt start off producing with top level shit. they started in their cribs too. ur shitty music sucks.
Watch The Throne need J.Cole on a couple of tracks. He would help make it a classic.