Dubb Union

Snoop Dogg brings you his new group Dubb Union featuring Bad Lucc, Damani, and Soopafly. Check out this exclusive interview as they talk about Snoop Dogg, the new album, and their deal record deal with Koch.

WHO?MAG: How did the group come together?
DAMANI: It was a concept of three different dudes from three different places coming together. That way nobody can hate on nobody because you got three different styles coming together. The only problem was that I didn’t have any members yet. As the years went by, I ran into [Bad] Lucc in the studio and I heard him spit and I knew he was the perfect fit. I already knew Soopafly and with the help of Phil Jackson aka the honorable big Snoop Dogg, he helped orchestrate and put this thing together and helped it come full circle. That’s how we got Soopafly in and everything cracking.

WHO?MAG: What can the people expect from the album?
DAMANI: They can expect a lot of great music. What I mean by great music is put together tracks by Soopafly, Hi Tek, and a couple of other people you may know such as Teddy Riley and a lot of other people like that. You can expect a well put together, diverse, planned out album. You don’t get to hear a lot of music a lot because people record for the single and we recorded for the whole body of work. That’s a difference right there.

BAD LUCC: I want to add that we gel well. There’s not a lot of groups or people out there that really mess with each other like that. You can tell that when you hear the music or see the interviews or you see us live in action in the street, we get along and we laugh and you see that across in the music. Plus you get three different perspectives from the same kind of views. I think that’s very good and healthy for music right now.

WHO?MAG: Aside from Westside Connection there hasn’t been a group from LA in a while to come together like that. What do you guys bring to the table?
SOOPAFLY: Not really that I know aside from Westside Connection. Us as a group, we’re our own entity. We have a new type of way of making West Coast music, not just West Coast, but all around kind of music. Just because we’re three n*ggas doesn’t mean we’re trying to copy anybody that came before us, but we’re trying to follow in the footsteps of those that came before us and did the group thing. We’re trying to come with three n*ggas that really identify or define the word Dubb Union or Western Union. This is the best we could come with. This is just three n*ggas that are doing creative music.

WHO?MAG: How did you get into production?
SOOPAFLY: Playing piano at church when I was little. Then my dad bought me a keyboard when I was 10. It had a little sequencer to learn how to sequence. Later on, I ran into Dr. Dre and I got into it. I was just a keyboardist for a while.

WHO?MAG: How do you approach to making a beat and equipment-wise what area you using at the moment?
SOOPAFLY: A lot of times I hear something in my head and then I get on my computer and start to fiddle and come up with something until I like it. I’m using Reason 4.0

WHO?MAG: Have you ever had any sample clearance issues?
SOOPAFLY: I had issues but they were in my favor. I had people in the past say that I took this and that and the other. We went to court and proved that it was some way off sh*t. (laughs)

WHO?MAG: Can you talk about a specific story?
SOOPAFLY: I did a song on a Snoop record called “You Thought You Had my Grip”. Some old school rapper, I don’t want to say who it was, I can’t remember who it was. It was like an old school rapper LIKE Grandmaster Flash. It wasn’t him. He said I stole something from one of his records that had nothing to do with my record. I guess they were trying to get some money. We had to go to court and the fact was we had to settle out of court. Even the judge was like “man please! That doesn’t even sound like that”.

WHO?MAG: How did the song “Put the Monkey in It” come about?
SOOPAFLY: Wow! We were over at LT Hutton’s house; Daz and I years ago. We were playing around in the studio. LT had something going on with the drums and he was working on something. We just started building on that beat and just finished it up. We just rapped it right there. We didn’t know what we were going to put it on. We were having fun back then and it just ended up on the soundtrack of “Nothing to Lose”.

WHO?MAG: How about “So Many Styles” on the Dogg Food album come about?
SOOPAFLY: I did a lot of production on the Dogg Food album. That was the only one I really got credit for with myself and Kurupt. I love that song. I haven’t heard it in years. You just reminded me. That takes a n*gga back. I liked that one.

WHO?MAG: What other songs did you produce that you didn’t get credit for?
SOOPAFLY: This is exactly what I mean. Daz and I produced together for years; everybody knows that. I was never signed to Death Row as a producer because I didn’t want to get f*cked like that. Daz helped me out; then I signed to Daz as a producer. What I did was all my stuff was his stuff when we worked together. You understand? I just didn’t get the credit on Death Row. Anything else that I did, I did get credit; produced by Daz and Soopafly, but on Death Row it was just a different story. What made Daz so honorable out of the whole situation was that he always paid me my money. That was why I always stayed loyal to him. Back then, he was the cornerstone of music. I learned how to make my beats and drums all that I learned from Daz. He did all that. The music part when I brought the keys in, I did that part. It was just a perfect combination.

WHO?MAG: Did you ever use the MPC?
SOOPAFLY: Yeah! That’s what we started off on the MPC60. I learned that from Dr. Dre and Daz. Then we moved on to the MPC62 and to the MPC3000. Then I ran into Reason. It f*cked the whole game up.

WHO?MAG: How did you approach producing the tracks on the Dubb Union album?
SOOPAFLY: In a fashion of having a clear mind of new fresh sounds. I got new niggas that are rapping and believing in my music. They have a West Coast sound but it’s worldwide, especially Damani and Bad Lucc got the swag to it. I had to approach my music in the same way to accompany their style of rapping.

WHO?MAG: Who are some of your influences as a producer?
SOOPAFLY: Quincy Jones, Bootsy Collins, and of course Dr. Dre.