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4/1/2009   You’ve been working with Trae on his next album. How’s it coming?  It’s coming good. He has a good buzz going in Houston. There’s a lot of good producers on the project.  How did you first link up with Trae?  It was pretty crazy. He actually linked up with me. It was kind of scary if you think about it. That guy was kind of following me. I was always seeing him at different events and he was hitting me up but I wasn’t picking up because I didn’t know who it was. He was texting me and telling me to call him. Three of my friends hit me up the same day telling me that Trae was looking me. They gave me a different number that wasn’t the one he was hitting me from and wasn’t the one on his MySpace. I hit him up and we’ve been working on music ever since.  There was one track in particular I had done that he wanted tracked out. He wanted the tracked out version of and that’s how it started.  Once that first song with Trae was done how did you see your stock rise in the Houston area?  Houston is a real small community and people talk to each other every day. There’s three degrees of separation. Everybody talks. I think everybody was talking and that’s how my name got out more. Most of my time before that was spent making beats and ever since I started working with Trae I was able to get a lot of my inventory off that I had been stacking up over the years.  You’re also working with other artists that are coming up like Killa Kyleon and Smitty. How long did it take you to get noticed?  To be honest, man, I was making beats and I’m from Houston but I was living in New York and in the Bahamas and last year, I think it was in July, it was my first time coming back to Houston and it took that time to get all those tracks out.  Being from Houston but living in New York and the Bahamas can really give you a diverse sound. How do you balance the sounds of those three diverse places?  I’m pretty much 50/50 with sampling and fully composed stuff with no samples whatsoever. “I Am Houston” with Trae, there’s no samples in that except for the T.I. track. I use Reason and I also use Pro Tools and just a lot of different programs.  How are you able to give Houston artists what they want while not being confined to the Houston sound?  I think it just comes from moving around a lot. I don’t have to worry about that. I maintain three residences – one in Houston, one in New York, in the QB projects and I also have a little crib in the Bahamas. I don’t just stay in one place. I listen to different music and different producers every chance I get.  Where do you see Houston hip-hop going in the next few years?  I think the sound of Houston right now hasn’t gone mainstream yet. It’s called the New Hou. Trae is at the forefront of that, the New Houston movement and you have some guys like Killa Kyleon and some others involved. There are several cats and I can go on. It’s not just your stereotypical Houston music. We can still reference the old stuff but there are real lyrical cats coming up and they keep it true to their real surroundings. Cats are getting real lyrical out here.  What’s it been like working with Killa Kyleon on his Gangsta Grillz mixtape?  Oh, man, Killa, that dude right there is a beast and he’s a real hip-hop head right there too. He’s the total package. He has lyrics, humor and sometimes he gets serious with it. He knows his hip-hop history. He’ll ride around listening to Big Daddy Kane and Spice One and 9th Wonder. A lot of people don’t know but Kyleon used to draw a lot of artwork on Screw tapes back when he was a kid. Nobody really knows that. He told me in one of his sessions. He’s a real hip-hop head and he has history behind a lot of the shit that he’s doing, man.  What kind of potential do you think he has right now?  I think he can kill it. I really think he has the potential to kill it. His Gangsta Grillz mixtape is mostly original beats. He has beats from that dude P.A. who was a producer for C.T.E. and did some of the big tracks on Young Jeezy’s The Recession. There’s me and some other producers. It’s pretty much original beats on his Gangsta Grillz. It’s pretty much an album.  You’re also doing some work with Swishahouse. What exactly are you doing with them?  I’m working with the first Latino signed to Swishahouse, my partner Lil’ Young. He has a serious buzz in Houston. It hasn’t went national yet. He just inked the deal and I’m just making a lot of beats for their artists.  Who do you think can carry the torch for Houston artists?  Trae is about to ink a major deal with someone. You’ll know. He’s about to ink a major deal. I think he’s just laying out because really, the independent game is real nice. I don’t know. Trae, Killa Kyleon, my partner __, Spark Dawg…He’s from Killeen, which is pretty close and he was signed to Scarface and the Green City movement. He’s also affiliated with DJ Clue and Desert Storm. Magno has been rapping with Swishahouse for a long time. __. Kiotti has big star potential and big songs.  Can you take us through the making of a Cy Fyre beat?  Really, man, I just zone out. I get in there and I get started in Reason. Some days I just start playing some records or I just start messing with some melodies or some chords. It really varies. I make so many beats. Sometimes I just start with something and come back to it maybe a month later.  You already talked about Reason and Pro Tools, but can you tell us about all the equipment you use?  I use Reason 4 and Pro Tools. I have several M Audio controllers. I run through those like crazy. That’s pretty much it. I’m about to get Logic. Everybody’s been talking about that.  What’s the next move for you?  I’m working on a lot of placements with some major labels right now. I don’t want to put them on blast right now but soon you’ll know everything. I’m doing beats for a lot of major labels and a big shout out to Phat Gary, DJ Primo’s manager. I met this dude the last time I was in New York a month ago. I just went up to Headcourterz. He let me in and I played him some beats and he was like, ‘Damn, maybe we can do something.’ He tried to get some beats to Luda but Luda was done. Big shout out to Phat Gary. Gary’s a real dude and he’ll probably be mad at me for putting him on blast, so my bad, Phat Gary, but you’re my nigga though.

By Brian Kayser

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