Yes indeed! My latest interview mixtape, STORYTAPE #3 – Posse Cuts, is finally here. Listen to a collection of some of the most legendary posse cuts in rap history while you read the stories behind them, featuring interviews with ten undisputed hip-hop legends I had the honor of speaking with back in the ’10s. It’s the third release from my STORYTAPE archival series. Let’s go!

SIDE A

Wu-Tang Clan “Protect Ya Neck”

Raekwon: That one right there is definitely a classic song. It’s one of my favorites. That’s really my first time of hearing eight cats on one record, number one. That’s the introduction of our careers right there. That record definitely made the biggest statement for us.

That record was put together crazy. When we got in the studio it’s like we were rhymin’ to another beat. That’s how RZA works. He may think of something right after he makes the beat and go back and re-tweak the beat though. I didn’t rhyme to that part of the beat when I was rhymin’. It was just a different bounce, but at the end of the day, it was definitely just one of the illest songs ever made in my eyes.

It wasn’t no order. When you hear us say we witty and unpredictable it’s for reasons like that. Only because, we understand RZA’s a beat maker, but at the same time RZA is a composer, so he was just playing with things and trying different things. So that was really scrambled together as a record. Like, probably the only one that was there with him helping him co-produce at the time was Dirty if I’m not mistaken, ‘cause Dirty had a lot to do with the production back then off the first album.

Being from Staten Island, the forgotten borough, this is what gets us excited. This is what makes us feel like we underestimated or underrated, so it was about smashing anything and everything that come in our way, but we definitely wanted to be heard the right way.

Main Source ft. Nas, Joe Fatal, and Akinyele “Live At The Barbeque”

Large Professor: I always had that drum loop, the “Nautilus” drum loop. People sampled that record a lot, but to be right there with it, and just get the drums out of it without all of the bells and all of that, at that time, it was amazing. Like, “Oh shit, you got just the drums out of ‘Nautilus’?” It was tough.

We had recorded all of the album. The album was done. And we had this last song to do. It was the last session. This was it. We had tried to hook it up other times. Nas said a rhyme on it when we were at another studio, but it just never really came together. There was another studio that we were working at, and it was like we were trying to get a little extra in at the end of a session, and I threw it up, like, “Yo Nas, see if you got anything for this.” So he put something down, and I’m sure it was tough, but the whole idea of it just didn’t come together.

But this session, I threw the bassline in the beat, and we were all there. Times before, it was like, we were just practicing when I would throw that beat up, because it was just the drums. This time, it was like, “This gotta count.”

I wrote my verse right there. Fatal had a combination of dudes collaborating with him on his verse. Ak was always ready. And Nas, he always books and books of rhymes. So he took this piece of this rhyme, and that piece of that rhyme, and put it all together.

We used to wild in the studio. G Rap kind of started that with us. In the studio in general, dudes used to be on some real wild shit, getting their puff on and drink on, partying, the damn speakers blaring loud. That’s where that chorus came from.

It was crazy with “Barbeque” because, that was the last song, and so like a month or two later, the album was out. There was no in between time. It wasn’t like I had time to go around the way and play it for people. It was like, “We got it in the can, it’s good.” As soon as we finished that, we were mastering, and then it was like, it went straight to the radio. We were like, “Yo, this is it!”

For all of us in general when the album came out, it was crazy. And Nas was like a huge highlight on that joint. And then he started getting his shine on, with Bobbito and Stretch Armstrong, going up there and gettin’ busy.

I met Nas through Joe Fatal, and he had a friend named Melquan that he was getting up with. Nas wanted to record a demo for himself. His mother was funding him to go record a demo. And at that time, my name was kind of ringing bells, like, “Yo, there’s this dude out in Flushing that’s making these crazy beats.” Fatal was putting that out there. So I had to show and prove.

One day, Melquan and Fatal set it up, and I was coming out of high school, coming down the steps. And them and Nas came by in the cab, like, “Yo, we’re gonna make that happen.” So we jetted back to the crib, I got my machine, and jetted all the way out to some studio Sty In The Sky Studios in Coney Island, Brooklyn. I made the beat right there, and we recorded the demo. I forgot the name of it, but it was dope though. We had other demos from that time too that were ill, like “Top Choice of the Female Persuasion,” and “550 Fahrenheit.” But they never came out.

EPMD ft. Redman and K-Solo “Head Banger”

Erick Sermon: I made “Headbanger” for Ice Cube. But I never got the chance to give it to him. That was the last song before “Crossover” was made. 

We were in the studio one day, and we needed a crew record. So I threw the beat on. And we started yelling. The session just went that way. The beat made you amped. I was just so aggressive. I was thinking about The Bomb Squad when I made that record.

We had it set up like a Temptations thing, with the four mics set up. Just screaming. It was hard to EQ that record because you had the leakage like back in the day. But we did it that way, and it came out fine and made it very exciting.

That studio’s not there anymore, Dave’s Rockin’ Reel. But we thought the album was done because we thought we had the single before “Crossover,” so we recorded that and just wilded out, thinking it was our last record. I don’t know where that came from. We were just yelling, and thinking about Onyx too. 

Russell and them wanted to put that out as a single. That record was huge. Because once the album came out, that was the record that was picked up. Plus, it was Redman. Reggie was the excitement. His “Headbanger” verse was like, “Yo, who is that?!?” 

Run-D.M.C. ft. Pete Rock & CL Smooth “Down With The King”

Pete Rock: That was a great opportunity. I thought I was dreaming actually, because I used to be a big fan of Run-D.M.C. I remember buying their records when I was only eleven years old. When the opportunity came about, I thought it was a great idea to help get those guys back on the charts. That’s what I did.

Jam Master Jay, R.I.P. man. He was the realest cat. He would show up at my mother’s house, unannounced, and when I would go to the front door and see it was him, I really, really, literally thought I was dreaming. He’d be like, “Come on Pete, let’s go finish working on the song.” I would hurry up and get dressed, brush my teeth, wash my face, comb my hair, and go across to the basement and start making music.

A Tribe Called Quest ft. Sadat X, Lord Jamar, and Diamond D “Show Business”

Diamond D: Skef Anslem was an engineer at Jazzy Jay’s studio on Allerton Avenue in the Bronx. That was home base. Jazzy Jay’s the one who put me on. I call Jay the teacher. I would just go up there and be up under him. He had all the breakbeats and original shit, and I was a beat head. So just to watch him put together beats here and there, it made me want to get my money up and get a sampler. 

I met Tip at first up there. We sat and talked about beats, and just connected. I told him I liked his music, and he said he was feeling my shit. We were both in Zulu Nation too, so it was that whole umbrella.

Somehow I wound up at Battery Studios that day. I didn’t come down there to work on the song, I just came through to hear them working on the new album. This was around that time where Grand Puba and Lord Jamar started having their friction, and I think Puba didn’t show up for the session. Tip said, “Yo D, if you got something, you can jump on here.” And I wrote it right there on the spot, and I kept my verse within the concept that Tip had on the hook.

Shout out to Stu Fine from Wild Pitch. I had a little gripe with Stu, but looking back on it, I should have been on top of my paperwork. Now that I’m older and wiser, I see that. But I definitely threw a rock at him on that.

It was definitely a good look. I already had my deal, but being on that album helped people know who I was. 

Lord Finesse ft. Sadat X, Large Professor, and Grand Puba “Actual Facts”

Large Professor: That was dope. Yeah, Finesse called me up, he was on Penalty. We were cool, we were always cool. He said, “Yo, roll through to the studio, I wanna put you on this joint.”

I came through to the studio, and Sadat was just finishing up his verse. Finesse was sitting there, and was like, “Yo, jump on this. You can write right now.” So I wrote my joint up, got in the booth, knocked it out. And I was like, “You like that joint right there? That shit was aiight?” And everybody in the room was like, “Hell yeah!” And I was like, “No doubt.” Nas was the king of that. He would be like, “Yo man, that was aiight?” And we’d be like, “Hell yeah!” We’d always be buggin’ even if he wasn’t sure if we would like it.

Then, Finesse dropped his rhyme. Puba wasn’t there, which is why I was like, “He’s probably somewhere out in Aruba.” He was always missing. That was a little inside joke.

Then, we did the video. That was nice, man. That was a booster for me, because that was in between projects, right when I was getting that Geffen project together.

D.I.T.C. “Day One”

Diamond D: That was a beat I had, and Show liked it. Then I played it for everybody, and everybody liked it. It was something we all agreed on. I don’t think everybody was there at once. It was built together in pieces. I do know I laid my verse first—next time I heard it, it was basically done.

The last time Big L came to my house, he had a magic marker, and he did a quick “Big L – 139th Street” graffiti throw-up on my wall. A week and a half later, he was murdered. So I cut it off the wall and framed it. Common signed it, and Hank Shocklee’s signature is on it too. That’s real special to me.

When any family member passes, there’s a lot of pain. I really don’t talk about it. But dude was one of the brightest stars. It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t able to see his record go gold.

Del The Funky Homosapien ft. Souls of Mischief “Worldwide”

Del The Funky Homosapien: That was basically like one of them joints where everyone gets a chance to spit. A lot of times, we’d be making shit, and there’d be hella heads there, and everybody would want to get on it. So we’d make room for everyone to rap on there.

Anything we were doing on the album was just a translation of what we were really doing, outside of making records. That was just a representation of what we did. We made hella joints like that, but that was just one that got out to the public. The job of recording shit is to capture what’s really there. So that’s really what we would be doing. And that wasn’t something we had before. We made that in the studio, even though we made it like we weren’t in the studio. It just happened to be that we were making a record at that time. 

I don’t think that much thought went into it. We were happy that we were making records, but we did it the same way as when we were making demos. We knew it was going to be for the album, but so what? We treated it the same way as if we were making a demo. But it was great that we were getting paid for it now. “For doing this shit? We do this all the time.”

Busta Rhymes ft. Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and Roc Marciano “The Heist”

Large Professor: My boy Rashad Smith, he came to me one day, and this was right after my father had passed away. And he said, “Bust wanna see you in the studio tomorrow.” I guess he had told Bust that my Pops passed. Everyone was cool with my father, because when they would come through to the crib, he would be there. Like he’d even be puffin’ Ls—you know, come in the room like, “What you boys doing?”

So Bust was like, “Yo, Rashad told me everything that was going on with you. Play me some tracks.” And that’s when he had the Wall Street studio, under the Brooklyn Bridge. And he would be going in between rooms, and I was playing beats, and he’d have one ear to that. He was truly multi-tasking.

So I played the beat for “The Heist.” And Roc Marc, who was Bust’s man from L.I., was sitting there with me like, “Yo, that shit is dope.” Roc kind of spearheaded using that beat for “The Heist.” He was like, “Yo, play that when Busta comes in.” Then Bust came in, and he was like, “Yo, play that shit again!” And I played it, and Bust was like, “Yo, lay that one.”

It was crazy, because there was an MTV Cribs where they were doing Wu-Tang Clan in Cali, and Bust is a visitor. And he’s playing “The Heist” beat. He’s like, auditioning it for them. Because when he first heard the beat, he was like, “Yo, I’m gonna get Ghost and Rae on this. Watch.” So I saw the Cribs shit, and he’s playing “The Heist” beat, and this is before the shit was done, so I’m like, “Oh shit. This is crazy.”

Next call was like, “Yo, come to the studio to mix this joint down. I got the vocals.” And that was it. To hear that, being such a Wu-Tang fan, it was crazy.

Heavy D & The Boyz ft. Kool G Rap, Grand Puba, CL Smooth, Big Daddy Kane, Pete Rock, and Q-Tip “Don’t Curse”

Pete Rock: That’s family. That’s where I got my start. Heavy D is my cousin, this is where it all began, ever since I was nine, ten years old. I’ve been DJing since I learned how to scratch at seven years old. My cousin Floyd, Hev’s older brother, taught me. 

They had a little crew called Classy Rock Crew, and I was the youngest DJ, but you know, I couldn’t really go out to the parties they were doing late night. But you could catch me in their basement trying to turn on the equipment and practice DJing. Me and my homie “Easy” Lee Davis, he would help me perfect my scratching, be on time, and make sure I knew the speed.

It was Hev’s idea to make that type of song. He used to make those type of fun songs. We used to always play around in the house and rap. But we had perfected our craft to a point where Hev was getting signed to major labels and putting records out. Hev came up with the concept, and it was his idea to get the people on it. He went out and got Kane, Q-Tip, all the people that were basically hot and on top at that time. He thought it was a great idea to engage them on the beat.

That was actually the first time I rapped on a record ever. I never used to write at all. I wrote “Don’t Curse” myself, but I didn’t consider myself a rapper. I didn’t feel I did too bad of a job writing that.

SIDE B

Ghostface Killah ft. Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, RZA, and Masta Killa “Assasination Day”

Ghostface Killah: I was going into a slump during Ironman. I found out I was a diabetic around that time, and I was just stressed out. My mind wasn’t all the way there. Certain joints I couldn’t really catch. Like the one I had with Masta Killa and Deck and RZA and them on, “Assassination Day.” I couldn’t catch it. I let it live, but like, “Fuck it, I’ll back out of that one,” and kept it moving.

To me, Ironman is dark. “After The Smoke Is Clear,” and the last couple songs at the end. Even the Mary joint. It’s down. Even “Assassination Day.” They’re dark. And I was mad as a motherfucker, but I couldn’t do nothing about it after it was wrapped up. They were like, “Yo put it out there.” Then Nas came with I Am.. after that, and he had nice, colorful joints. But it was what it was.

LL Cool J ft. Keith Murray, Prodigy, Fat Joe, and Foxy Brown “I Shot Ya (Remix)”

Fat Joe: That shit was the craziest collabo. LL Cool J was my idol. He was working in the next room with the Trackmasters. This is when I was doing my second album. And Tone from the Trackmasters came to my session, and heard my second album with “Fat Joe’s In Town” and all that. And he was like, “Oh shit, you’re killin’ it. I’m doing this remix for LL, you wanna jump on that?”

He played me the beat, and I was like, “Oh my God. What the fuck?!?” I just went crazy on it. And LL Cool J was the biggest nigga on earth, so I was hoping he kept my verse on there.

That song was legendary, because that was the first time anyone heard Foxy Brown. Her swag was out of control, with the “ill ta-tas” and all that shit.

Everyone was together at the video. It was incredible. And I had Pun on the left of me, and Armageddon on the right. That was the first time the world ever saw Big Pun.

That beat was so hard, and it was LL. At the end of the day, with no disrespect, it could’ve been just me and him. But nah, Keith Murray was the hardest nigga out. Prodigy killed it. It was stupid.

LL Cool J ft. Method Man, Redman, DMX, and Canibus “4,3,2,1”

Erick Sermon: That record was originally done by Trackmasters. But I didn’t like that beat. The beat was a club record. So I said to Kevin Liles, “Give me the record. Let me do something with it.”

Nobody was in the studio when I made that record. The rhymes were already down, but the order of the rhymes was wrong. I put Red and Meth together, then DMX afterwards.

I used the same beat as Busta Rhymes “Put Your Hand Where My Eyes Can See.” All I did was change the bass line. The shaker, the high hat, the kick, the snare is all “Put Your Hands.” Everything was moving the same way. None of the Trackmasters beat is in mine. Their beat was a loop of an old ’80s record.

Then, after I remixed it, and LL heard Canibus’ verse, he did a different verse. He had another verse before that. That was part of the record, as far as them battling, but I just put it together how I thought it should sound. And it became a smash hit record.

DMX was dangerous. I heard him already on the Cam’ron record. I knew him, but I met him and Ja Rule afterwards. I knew Canibus, because he wanted to be Def Squad. He used to say “Def Squad” in all his interviews. He was down with us. He’s on Murray’s album. Before he got with Wyclef, he was with me. But it never went. The Lost Boyz had him under contract, and there was a whole big thing. But he was shouting Def Squad for a long time in the beginning.

*IP Note: Master P appears in the video version as well.

DMX ft. The LOX and Jay-Z “Blackout”

Jadakiss: We were heavy Ryders now. We got off Bad Boy, we’re home sweet home with Ruff Ryders, able to ventilate, say anything we want, comfortable in our skin. We were going to Cali for a month, or a few weeks or so, for a video or something. I know we were going to be over there recording. And that was the first song we got in there.

Once we put the beat up and we’re writing, it’s whoever. I may have finished first and said, “Let me go in.” That always brings inspiration in case someone can’t finish, or they’re stuck in the middle. After I lay it, that usually gets the kinks out for the other two or whoever else is on the song. We’re able to generate and make the chemistry like that. 

When I like the beat, I write on the spot. Sometimes if don’t really like it, or it ain’t clicking, it may take me a few. But for the most part, for the last ten years, everything you hear came right there.

Hov was moving around touring. If you hear his verse, he was kinda sick. We were catching him in transition before he went to London. And X was already in beast mode. Second album right? Yeah, he had the fire under his ass.

Jay-Z ft. The LOX, Sauce Money, and Beanie Sigel “Reservoir Dogs”

Erick Sermon: Well, my boy Pop had the idea to use the Isaac Hayes record. He took the record to Rockwilder, and Rockwilder put whatever he thought was dope on there. Then, they brought it to me. Then I went to Mirror Image and did my beef-up to it too. So, the original came from really all three of us. 

I was in the studio across the hall from Jay-Z. My boy Bernard went over there and said, “Yo, Erick made something for you last night.” Just lying to him, whatever. And there were two records of mine that he did. 

One was a Maxwell beat that was looped, and that one. He rhymed on both of them. The other one never came out because Maxwell didn’t clear the sample. So there’s a record out there that’s dope that we never heard before. I don’t have it, because that studio—I forget what studio it was, but it’s shut down. Doesn’t exist anymore.

I was there for the session. That’s why he’s saying at the end, “Put some more beat on that joint!” But the song was already five minutes long. Nobody makes records like that anymore.

I didn’t know everybody. I didn’t know The LOX, or any of those people like that. But it sounded dope the way that it came out. They just kept playing it over and over and over again. I didn’t see everybody rhyme, just Hov. 

Nobody knew that was going to be a big album. Nobody. People were very skeptical about that record blowing. Hard Knock Life blew Jay. But Jay even said on the intro that he was going to pass the torch to Bleek. Hov was already frustrated about what happened to his last album. He was mad. So that Hard Knock Life record took him to where he’s a billionaire now.

“Reservoir Dogs” is phenomenal as far as posse cuts. And “4, 3, 2, 1.”

Jadakiss:  We were just flying in from a LOX show and we landed at LaGuardia or Newark or something, and they called us like, “Yo, Jay-Z wants y’all on his album.” We went to the studio with our luggage. That’s when we first met Sigel. He said, “This is Beanie Mac” and told him to rhyme for us. So we smoked some weed, listened to him rhyme for a while, then laid “Reservoir Dogs.” At that point, we were really feeling ourselves, like we them cats. We were expecting calls.

There’s always competitive air in the room, but the peculiar thing about that was that only me, Beanie, and Sheek laid our verses. I’m not sure if Sauce Money did. But Styles came back the next day or the day after, and I don’t know whenever Hov laid his verse. So it’s never all the way fair unless everybody lays it right there. There’s some sort of cheating going on. But it’s all good.

Fat Joe ft. Nas, Big Pun, Jadakiss, and Raekwon “John Blaze”

Fat Joe: That was a classic collaboration. It was around the time when everyone was getting together. N.O.R.E. came after that with “Banned From TV,” and his shit was crazy too. I just wanted to get the nicest niggas in the game.

Also, Pun was behind that. Pun was like, “We gotta get Nas and me on the same track.” He wanted to get his favorite rappers on a song and go crazy. So we had Jadakiss, Nas, and you know I always got Rae. We all got together.

To me, Pun had the most legendary verse. “Even if I stuttered, I would still sh-sh-shit on you.” That shit was crazy! Everybody was in the studio. Nas was there. I think Busta Rhymes was there, just hanging out. It was fun.

We’ve always been fans of Jadakiss. He’s hot now. I just dropped a mixtape with a song with Jadakiss. He’s one of the best that ever did it. We got him on board, the young gunner. And he went crazy.

Then Raekwon starts off his shit like, “My sons cool out, don’t beef yo….” Rae was like, “It sounds like everybody’s battling on this song.” That’s why Raekwon came on like, “We all family. Why is everybody sounding like they’re taking this personal?” 

Nas did change his verse like two or three times. But I never heard it again. I never thought anybody ever heard that. I thought that shit was like, lost. We flipped the beat too. We wanted to change it up.

N.O.R.E. ft. Big Pun, Cam’ron, Jadakiss, Styles P, and Nature “Banned From TV”

Jadakiss:  I think N.O.R.E. or somebody from his camp reached out to me for that. Sheek was in Puerto Rico at the time, and me and Styles just went down there and did the in and out thing.

I write it and get the topic or whatever, and then we lay it with blanks. He’ll go in or I’ll go in first and lay it with spaces, like I’m spitting a rhyme with holes in it, and then he goes in and finishes it. We perfected that now. We used to go in there with two mics set up and rock it like that. Now we leave the spaces, because we don’t have the flexibility to just hook another mic up.

It had that feeling. The Swizz beat was up-tempo, and you already know N.O.R.E. is a ball of energy. You know, Nature, N.O.R.E., Pun, The Lox, Cam, you can’t really lose. I listened to all of their music, but yeah, Cam is my homeboy, Pun was my homie, Nature, all of them. That was just easy. It always makes it easy to work when you got a relationship.

Pete Rock ft. Prodigy, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon “Tha Game”

Pete Rock: That was from me being on the label, on Loud, and everyone hanging up at the Loud office. Up there, there was a lot going on. Pun, Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang—it was actually the best rap roster at that time. And I was grateful to be a part of that. I used to always be up at the Loud office. 

One day, Raekwon was up there, and we just kicked it. I played a couple of beats, and we figured out that I would use him, Prodigy, and Ghostface on the song.

There’s not really a story behind the beat. I just heard the loop real quick and put it down. Everybody killed it, nobody more than anyone else. That’s why the song is so historic. Everyone is on one level. People were blown away.

Prodigy, KRS-One, Method Man, and Kam “Bulworth (They Talk About It While We Live It)”

Muggs: Bulworth approached me to do something for the movie, and they wanted a posse cut. And they were like, “Who do you want?” And I was like, “Why? I can get anybody?” At the time, we were getting $100,000 for a song. The budgets were ridiculous. So I was like, “Prodigy I’m feeling. KRS-One for sure. And Method Man.”

Prodigy wasn’t in the studio, so I sent the reel to him. Method Man and KRS-One recorded the same day in New York. KRS ripped it. Then Method Man came in and sat down and did his vocals. That was the first time I saw someone do that, sitting on a high-ass stool, spitting.

The last verse was supposed to be somebody else. I can’t remember who it was. But we ended up getting Kam, a west coast cat to kind of juxtapose it. He came to New York and did the vocals. It ended up working out really well.

I did a remix that didn’t end up coming out, but it was sick. They changed the song title, because originally it was called “Fuck a Rap Critic.” The label was scared to do it. So we called it, “They Talk About It While We Live It.” Method Man said that line on “How High”—it was a good line.

The Notorious B.I.G. ft. The LOX “Last Day”

Jadakiss: We were still pretty much in the hood, probably like a nice day like today, chillin’ on the block. We get the call, “Yo, y’all gotta go down to Daddy’s House, B.I.G. want y’all on his album.” Everybody’s looking around like, “What?!?” I guess we hopped in a cab, or whoever was driving, however we had to get there. 

The whole Junior M.A.F.I.A. and B.I.G. was there. It was a beat produced by Havoc, so the beat was already knockin’. B.I.G. was like, “What y’all wanna do with it?” We just sat there, smoked, drank, and it came out. 

I had another rhyme before the actual one that was on there. I said it to B.I.G., he was like, “Nah, I need you to come harder for me.” Alright. Went in there, and wrote that right there, and that was it. It was beautiful being in the studio with B.I.G. And then to actually be able to record with him for his album was like a super honor.

That was a self-accolade for us. We felt we made it once B.I.G. told us we were nice anyway. Like, “Yo, y’all got it.” That was the push out to the world that we needed.

Special thanks to all the artists and publications that made these interviews possible.

Check these out too: STORYTAPE #2 – Fly Features and STORYTAPE ’95.