" Live From The Windy City "

Yeah…… As you could have guessed, I’m still cold chilling in Chicago (that explains the lack of updates )….While in search for the perfect beat in the “city of wind” I ran into my beat digging evil twin Big Mattlock…..

Years ago (while on another vinyl mission) I met him while he worked at a fully explosive record store in Seattle (Underdog)…We struck up a heavy conversation about breaks that would bore most people, but beat fiends like myself get hype in situations like this !!!!!

We have been friends ever since….We exchange breaks, secret society Hip Hop info, and all types of other shit….His knowledge of Chicago Hip Hop is staggering…He also ran a studio in Chicago 1995-2002 (EV Productions) that blessed artist like K.R.S.ONE, Planet Asia, Akbar, Diverse, Longshot, etc…..

Before a night out on the town, I decided to ask him a few questions about whatever the fuck I felt like……Pay attention you might just learn something….HAHAHAHA..

1…HHBF-…..Damn Matt, where is all the graff ?….For a city this size, I was expecting to see more roof-shots, freeway hits, and all that other shit….What’s the deal kid ?

1…Mattlock…..It’s out there man, you just gotta keep your eyes open. It’s nowhere near like it used to be at all though. Mayor Daley made it his mission to wipe out Graf and he’s done a great job. I worked on a documentary called “I Write On Stuff” that details a lot of the reasons why graf got shut down in the Chi(search for it online, you may find it).

It’s def starting to come back cause the recession has affected Daleys abilty to pay his fools to wipe it out with the buff trucks. A few years ago you would do a piece at midnight and it would be gone by 4AM. Now pieces are running a lot longer.

Also you gotta check out the hood and not just the train lines. There are tons of pieces running on the South and West sides.

Another thing is you will get a felony and go to Cook County Jail for doing graf. Cook County is no picnic, I know from experience lol. The police are very hard on graf out here so only serious cats will get it in out here. I was in there with murderers and they were laughing at me once I told them why I was there haha!

I gotta give props to TAS Crew, XMEN, PUMA Crew, UAC and all the other crews I came up around in Chicago.

RIP to my brothers KEP XMEN,and TEWEL CAB Crew and all the other fallen graf soldiers.

2…HHBF…O.K. O.K. That’s what the fuck is up !!!! I have heard some of your beats over the years, and you have your own type-of sound going on…Who have you produced for and what type of equipment do/did you rock ?

2…Mattlock…I’ve produced mostly Hip Hop artists like Diverse(Chocolate Industries), Longshot, Juice, Ang 13, Akbar, Crucial Conflict etc…

I’ve also worked with Blues legend Harmonica Hinds and Rob Mazurek from Chicago Underground and Stereolab. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with Jazz greats Jeff Parker and Ted Sirota.

As far as equipment recently I’ve been messin with different software but I’m not feelin it too much.

In the past I’ve had a MPC 3000 midied up to a S950. I also had an Ensoniq EPS 16+ for basslines. I’ve owned SP 1200’s and SP 12’s.

The best thing was my high school had a MPC 60 so I got my start on making beats in 1989. I started DJing in 1987 with my shitty pawn store Gemini turntables so once I got Techniques it was like heaven!

Longshot “I” – Produced by Mattlock…2002