Money Power Respect

Producing is not `looping up a record.' That don't make you a producer. All these cats sittin' at home with they MP-3000s and they new 2000s and they SP-12s and they 950s thinking they producers, they sadly mistaken. They're mad because they feel like [anyone] can rhyme over a loop. Okay, then rhyme over a loop. But when it doesn't sell, ask yourself why."

Deric Angelettie is reclining in a sofa seat in the MIDI room of Daddy's House-mentor Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs's Midtown Manhattan recording studio-but he may as well be kickin' it on a park bench in his native Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Looking up from beneath the brim of his Yankees baseball cap, sipping Hennessy and Coke from a plastic cup, the 29-year-old Bad Boy Records producer of monster hits like Puff's "It's All About the Benjamins" and Mase's "Feel So Good" can afford the condescending words his gravelly voice unleashes. After all, Angelettie's whole crew is famous.

"Let me see you go up in the studio, coach vocals, mix a record, and add all the necessary shit you need to get them three thousand eight hundred [radio] spins a week," he says. "Puffy can do that. Deric Angelettie can do that. Stevie J. can do that. Nashiem can do that. Ron Lawrence can do that. That's what makes us producers."

Confidence breeds jealousy. And if hip hop has achieved anything over the past couple of years, it's been the introduction into the general populace of some beautifully succinct "envy" vernacular. "Hate" is one such word. Never before in pop music history has an entity of music manufacturing been so playa-hated (at least by hip hop purists) as Combs's Bad Boy Entertainment family. Charged with everything from recklessly promoting materialism to possessing rudimentary vocal skills, Bad Boy chart toppers like Mase, the Lox, Total, and the Puff Ryder himself are often pegged by haters as lucky stowaway passengers on the career of Bad Boy's lone, truly genuine, Titanic-size talent: the eternally great Notorious B.I.G. But the most common charge levied at Bad Boy by hatin' hip hop hedz is a moralistic one: that the label's "Don't worry, be happy-and dance!" aesthetic and lowest common denominator musical approach have killed hip hop's creativity and imagination. ("[Working with the Hitmen] helped my career," says Queens, New York-bred MC Mic Geronimo, whose recent single, "Nothin' Move but the Money," was molded by the HM. "My fans got to hear me over some tracks that I might not usually come with.") An abundance of remade hits (the unfortunate, huge-selling Bad Boy hip pop remixes of classics like the Police's 1979 "Roxanne" and the Jackson 5's 1970 "I Want You Back") and reused sample loops (affectionately known in the production world as jacks) have only fueled these accusations. As the dedicated studio rats behind Bad Boy's Billboard bum-rush, the Combs-managed production team known as the Hitmen stand directly within the crosshairs of such hate. Ten members deep and growing, their success rate is undeniable, with the batallion members' names having appeared, both alongside Puffy's and on their own, on virtually every hit, remixed or otherwise, that the label has generated.

And Bad Boy is only the beginning. As commissioned mercenaries outside the label, they've coconstructed hit singles for the likes of Jaÿ-Z, the Isley Brothers, L.L. Cool J, Mariah Carey, MC Lyte, New Edition, and SWV. Even if you've never heard of Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, Steven "Stevie J." Jordan, Nashiem Myrick, Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, Carl "Chucky" Thompson, Daven "Prestige" Vanderpool, Mario Winans, Jeffrey "J-Dub" Walker, Anthony Dent, or Richard "Young Lord" Frierson, you've heard-and most likely danced, partied, or bullshitted to-their ubiquitous work.

"To truly be original," says Prestige, 23, "you'd have to listen to no music and you'd have to be away from the world." A longtime staple on the fledgling beatmaking circuit, the bespectacled Brooklynite got down with Combs's collective two years ago. Most recently, he's laced Jaÿ-Z with the Foxy Brown/Babyface-assisted smash "Sunshine," a track built on the foundation of the Fearless Four's "Rockin' It."

"A lot of these rock people scream about `originality,' " Prestige continues while flipping through records at a New York vintage vinyl spot. "They're not original. Take Jamiroquai-their stuff sounds like Steely Dan to me. So I wanna question that word original, really."

"If you go back and listen to the albums [we've worked on], most of the songs are not jacks," says Ron Lawrence, picking at his lunch in a sunny office at Manhattan's Universal Records. Along with former Howard University pal Angelettie, the slim 32 year old from East Elmhurst, Queens enjoyed brief notoriety in the early '90s Afrocentric rap duo Two Kings in a Cipher. Now, thumping club and radio staples like B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize," Tracey Lee's "The Theme (It's Party Time)," and the Lox's "Money, Power & Respect" are Lawrence's bread and butter. "There are certain elements in a sample that we'll try to bring out, like the littlest high hat-things that help take the loop to the next level."

"If I get into a situation where I have to use a loop, I have to put my signature on it," explains Chucky Thompson, 29, from his home in Washington, D.C. (He first honed his chops while gigging with Chocolate City-area go-go bands.) Thompson's keyboard acuity and ear for lingering counter melodies helped construct the cornerstones of the Bad Boy sound on albums like Mary J. Blige's My Life and B.I.G.'s Ready to Die (both 1994). "I put myself in the position of the musicians that are actually on the samples. I try to envision me being in a room with them, and just catch their vibe."

The issue for hip hop purists, however, remains whether or not all this studio slickness has overly sanitized an art form once represented by the raw beauty of two turntables and a microphone. "It all depends on the artist," says 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist/producer Stevie J., whose vast range of credits include much of 112's 1996 self-titled debut, B.I.G.'s exuberant "Mo Money, Mo Problems," and Puff's global hit tribute record "I'll Be Missing You." "But I think it's right for rap. Wu-Tang like they beats raw. But I know it's gonna come a time when Method Man's gonna want a track that's gonna be mainstream. He's gonna want to sell four million units, and I think radio is just gonna accept only so much of [the RZA's] rawness."

Despite the blinding track record that has helped the collective live up to its billing, the Hitmen appear perpetually overshadowed by Puffy. Though certainly effective in increasing the luster on his own star, did Puff's master plan also serve to reinforce the Hitmen's individual anonymity?

"At first, the media would say [we were] `Puff's knob turners,' " Nashiem says wryly. "What the fuck is a knob turner? That's some subliminal bullshit right there! And then they started giving us a little props after they seen us putting out hits by ourselves."

For Stevie J., the early adjustment to working on "collaborative efforts" became an issue of proper credit on the records themselves. "There's a lot of times when the track would be finished and [Puff] would come in and be like, `Just put a cymbal here,' and then [he'd get] a coproduction credit," Stevie remarks with a laugh. "At first it was like, Damn! He ain't really doin' shit to be gettin' this coproduction! And then I had to think like, Yo, he put me in the game; he taught me a lot of things. So it was like, Well, I'll take it."

Rumors to the effect that various Hitmen are preparing to or have already stepped off from Puff and Bad Boy have been exacerbated by the formation of individual Hitmen-related production companies and labels such as Nashiem's Top of New York Productions, Ron Lawrence's Ron Lawrence Productions, Chucky Thompson's Chuck Life Productions, and Stevie J.'s Stevie J. Productions (Stevie, for example, will be collaborating with VIBE founder Quincy Jones on film scores for DreamWorks). Though Deric Angelettie recently left his A&R post at Bad Boy to oversee his own Crazy Cat Records label, he vehemently denies any behind-the-scenes unrest.

"There's no negativity in me leaving," he says, as Puffy said when he left Andre Harrell's Uptown Entertainment nearly five years ago. ("I'm not ungrateful for what I've received," Combs told VIBE then. "This ain't no sad ending.") "In fact, it's endorsed. When Puffy assembled us, the first thing he said was, `It's gonna take time for y'all to become what y'all need to become, but at the end of the rainbow, there could be label deals, production deals....' So kill all the rumors. If Stevie J. leaves, if Deric leaves, we're still Hitmen. Our line to each other is, `Once a Bad Boy, always a Bad Boy.' "

However, when asked to confirm or deny the rumors that he is, in fact, leaving the Hitmen, Stevie J. is less adamantly clear about his allegiances: "My dedication is to God and my family. I have dedication to Puff for putting me down, but it also comes to a point where you have to step out and create your own entity. I have to accomplish things on my own and get my own name. I want to see my name in the big lights without Puffy as well as with Puffy."

"Oh, they've flipped out on me," Combs says of the task of juggling his Hitmen. "Stevie J. or whoever will flip out on me 'cause they wanna shine! Everybody's in this to shine! And they deserve to shine. And it's my job as their manager to stay on top of [things].

"But I'm not perfect," says Puff. "Something may fall through the cracks-it may be a messed-up credit. But it's nothing that would ever be intentional. I appreciate the Hitmen. Without them I wouldn't have had the success that I've had."

To trace how the Hitmen came into being, you need only take a glance over your shoulder at the past few decades of black popular music. Dynasties such as Berry Gordy's Motown and Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International carved their place in black pop's Mount Rushmore by way of workhorse teams of in-house producers, writers, and musicians capable of churning out polished hit singles in assembly-line fashion. In painstakingly similar form, Bad Boy represents today's Sound of Young America, the slogan under which Motown operated during its greatest years.

"A lot of times you'll just do [a track], and you'll say, `Okay, it's cool,' " says Mario Winans, 23, of gospel music's neverending Winans family. After his '97 solo album for Motown was shelved, Mario jumped at the chance to join the Hitmen. His slot as stage musician on Puff's recent No Way Out tour as well as his contributions to remixes like the infectious, dancehall-rhythmed face-lift of "Been Around the World" have already demonstrated his value to the Bad Boy roster. "But Puff's made me realize that `just cool' is not enough. It has to be done to where there's nothing else that can be done to it to make it better. If you gotta stay up four days straight-stay up four days straight."

The youngest Hitman at age 19, last year Richard "Young Lord" Frierson chalked up a successful street single in "You Ain't a Killer" for fellow Bronx resident Big Punisher. However, after initially signing on with Bad Boy four years ago, the illy youngsta required some valuable words of wisdom under Puffy's production tutelage before he got the opportunity to work on the big stage.

"Puffy hated my tracks!" Young Lord recalls. "When I first got down, we was in the elevator in the Hit Factory in early '95, and he looked at me and said, `You gotta learn how to dance.' He said it'd help my tracks. [After that,] he had me in the clubs with him every weekend."

It's no secret that Combs has always shrewdly navigated the politics of dancing. Just as his showbiz legend began as a party-promoting student at D.C.'s Howard University in the mid-'80s, so too began the formation of his beat-packing soldiers. Ron Lawrence reflects on these school daze, a time in which some major components of Bad Boy's present personnel-him, Combs, Angelettie, Thompson, Myrick, and Bad Boy VP of A&R Harve Pierre-first bumped heads:

"At the time, probably seventy percent of Howard was New Yorkers," he recalls. "So we brought the music with us; we brought the style of dress with us. And in trying to keep that vibe, we would throw parties all over the campus. You had guys like Puffy and Deric forming their little team as party promoters just to keep that New York spirit alive."

While Lawrence and Angelettie, then going by the stage names Amen-Ra and D.O.P. (the D-Dot arose from that abbreviation), left school to pursue their ill-fated career as rappers, Combs also left to intern at New York's Uptown Records, and went on to cultivate acts such as Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. After leaving Uptown, Combs remembered his old D.C. crew when the time came to embark on his new enterprise.

Times were once hard on the boulevard. Pulling out his wallet, Deric reveals a simple business card-dating back to the late 1980s-adorned with his and Combs's Howard production team logo. In the bottom left corner, his college pal's name simply reads SEAN (PUF) COMBS.

"When B.I.G. died," he reflects, "it was real trying for us. I didn't really know what to say to Puff. After I flew home, I went and dug in my old stuff, and I pulled out this card. [I showed it to Puff] just to keep him happy and motivated. I carry it around in my wallet with me to remind me of how far we've come."

What what! What what!" screams the voice of Lefrak, Queens rhyme terrorist Noreaga over the A-Room system at Daddy's House. Turning up the volume on the studio monitors until the mixing boards' LED meters peak well into the red, Nashiem Myrick, 28, nods his head; his eyes are closed. A murky collage of abrasions punctuated by a clipped vocal loop and a performance from Busta Rhymes at his most rabid, Nore's appropriately titled "What What" bears little resemblance to the polished, club-ready jams usually associated with Bad Boy.

As we step out of studio A and into another room, Nash signals to a bassist and a guitarist. He pushes them to continue vamping over L.T.D.'s 1977 funk classic "Back in Love Again"-a more typical Bad Boy musical basis-for a forthcoming Spinderella solo track.

"The concept is good [for this song]," he says of the unfolding piece. "If I can get Canibus to rhyme with Spinderella, and they do this `Back in Love Again' sequence....It'll be hot if I can get Johnny Gill to sing the hook. It's a lovin' song to make people happy. That's the type of song she needs." There's nothing that Nashiem can't do from behind the boards-be it hardcore or popcore.

The man behind street favorites like Biggie's "Who Shot Ya?," Lil' Kim's "Queen B@#$h," and Capone-N-Noreaga's "T.O.N.Y. (Top of New York)," as well as Puff's "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and Mase's "What You Want" has obviously come a long way since his stint as Bad Boy's original studio intern-a gig he landed after Stixx en Stonz (his rap crew with longtime friend and Howard grad Harve Pierre) were dropped from Payday Records without a release. Back then, the label's HQ was PD's suburban Scarsdale, New York home.

"Puffy had a little Volkswagen Rabbit back then," reminisces Chucky. "And that was the transportation for everybody. If we had to go to the city, everybody piled up in the Rabbit. [Former Bad Boy President] Kirk Burrowes would be in the backseat with his briefcase, with papers everywhere."

Though Bad Boy's initial 1994 projects, Biggie's Ready to Die and Craig Mack's Project: Funk Da World, received multiplatinum and gold plaques, respectively, Combs saw the need to fortify his creative weaponry. Seeking refuge from the Bad Boy vs. Death Row controversies that loomed during spring 1996, he handpicked the center of his new hitmaking team-Deric, Stevie, Ron, Nashiem, and his production partner, Memphis, Tennessee-based Carlos Broady, along with Daddy's House engineer Doug Wilson-and skipped town to conduct a makeshift boot camp of round-the-clock beatmaking and producing at Caribbean Sound Basin studios in Trinidad.

"There was just so much going on over here as far as all the rumors with the East-West stuff," Puffy explains. "I was renegotiating my deal with Arista, and there was a lot of pressure and stress for me. I just wanted to go away and get back to why I got into this [business]-which is making music."

"It took us four weeks, and every single day it was clockwork," says Lawrence. "By the end of each day we had at least four or five beats cranking. And the result is most of the stuff you hear on the radio now."

Stuff such as "Benjamins," B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize," "Mo Money, Mo Problems," and "Nasty Boy," Faith Evans's "I Just Can't," and a host of other album tracks for various Bad Boy artists. Depending on who you ask, this Bad Boy production core (officially dubbed the Hitmen shortly thereafter) created between 40 and 100 tracks within that month-long trip. No diggity.

"We're learning and trying to get better at what we do every single day," says Hitman-of-the-future Mario Winans. "We don't want to be doing the same thing that we did even yesterday. We gotta make every day a month-jump ahead.

"My goal," he finishes with a snicker, "is I wanna [have us] control numbers one through ten on the Billboard charts." Thought they told you that they won't stop.

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