Trackmasters Tell All: The Stories Behind Their Classic Records (Part 1)

[mortuus est]

Throughout the late ‘90s and early 2000s, you couldn't turn on urban radio without hearing a song produced by Trackmasters. Comprised of Jean-Claude “Poke” Olivier and Samuel “Tone” Barnes, the New York-based duo started out in the music business in the late ‘80s (back when Tone was a rapper known as Red Hot Lover Tone) and went on an incredible run of hits. Today, their discography speaks for itself.

They worked with everyone from legends like Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, and LL Cool J to pop rappers like Will Smith to commercial darlings like Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., and Nas. Along the way, they also made R&B smashes for the likes of R. Kelly, Mary J. Blige, Destiny’s Child, and Mariah Carey. Not to mention the fact that they helped usher in acts like Soul For Real, T.C.F. Crew, and a pre-bullet wound 50 Cent. Needless to say, these guys got hits for days.

They’ve also got an undeniable chemistry—one they possibly honed while spending years playing Run and Gun at local arcades back in the days. Maybe that’s why when we sat down with them at their studio in NYC's SoHo neighborhood, they were able to finish each other's sentences when recalling classics from their catalog. What else would you expect from guys who’ve worked together for over two decades?

In part one of our epic conversation, the duo talked about getting in the game, the last days of Cold Chillin’ Records, and the rise of Bad Boy Records. They had plenty of stories to share, including how Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs (as he was known back in those days) was the master of taking credit and a hilarious story about how Steve Stoute became their manager. They also revealed the secret production technique behind all of their hits and how they were never properly credited for making hip-hop classics like Biggie’s “Who Shot Ya?” and Method Man’s “You're All I Need to Get By” remix. Get ready for your history lesson.

Trackmasters Tell All: The Stories Behind Their Classic Records (Part 1) | Complex

 

[Ian1362]

Do they talk about ripping off The Beatnuts?

 

[Stress Welker]

Won't read until Complex can publish an article or list properly.

fukk all that clicking just to see what's next bullshyt.

shyt pisses me off.

 

[mortuus est]

lol some of you guys really got a problem with the way complex have their shyt laid out huh

 

[Hannibal Fox]

lol some of you guys really got a problem with the way complex have their shyt laid out huh

Be honest, it's terrible.

 

[Icewatermetallik]

Damn back in the day Trackmasters came with some heat.....they basically made It Was Written and had so many other classics....

In the early 2000's they just kinda faded out......what happened to them?

They still make beats?

 

[mortuus est]

Be honest, it's terrible.

i think its alright tbh

 

[mortuus est]

Damn back in the day Trackmasters came with some heat.....they basically made It Was Written and had so many other classics....

In the early 2000's they just kinda faded out......what happened to them?

They still make beats?

check this Trackmasters production discography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mortuus est]

Tone: “[Founder and owner of Cold Chillin’ Records] Tyrone 'Fly Ty' Williams’ nephew O.J.—who I grew up with—called us and they asked if had anything for him. That’s how we got into the Cold Chillin’ building.

“Before we got to work with G Rap, we worked Roxanne Shanté and Cold Chillin’ gave us a production deal for a group we had called Little b*stards. They gave us $7,500 for production for Little b*stards.”

Poke: “Fly Ty was seizing the moment of what he would call ‘birthing us.’ He was like, ‘I birthed those guys! Those are my dudes!’”

Tone:“Plus he was getting us for like $1,500 a record.”
Poke: “Kool G Rap got a 2-for-1 deal because that’s how we were in the beginning. Remember, we were fans of everyone we worked with.”

Tone: “We were super G Rap fans. We always wanted to make records for rappers’ rappers. G Rap and Kane were the rappers’ rappers. If you made a rapping record with them, that’s it. You could hang up your fukking MP and say, ‘I’m good, I did everything that I wanted to accomplish.’”

Poke: “These were all artists that we grew up watching. We always wanted to work with them. We wanted to make records for that whole Cold Chillin’ crew. Like, ‘Give me any one of those rappers, we’ll make records.’ Who didn’t want to work with them? We had the opportunity because we were Fly Ty’s little guys like, ‘Yeah, this is my little producers. These nikkas is nice.’”

Tone: Meanwhile, Sir Jinx was doing G Rap’s album. Jinx was a big name because he was working with N.W.A and Ice Cube. We were like, ‘Wow. Jinx is on there.’ As G Rap was working on his album, we had made some ground as producers. Fly Ty believed in us and he told G Rap, ‘You really gotta go in with these guys.’”

Poke: “So we got in with G Rap and we gave him ‘On The Run’ first because he did a video for the song. Jinx had produced the album version of the song and people were complaining like, ‘This sounds like an N.W.A album. It doesn’t sound like a New York street record,’ and ‘What the fukk is this L.A. shyt?’ That’s basically where their mindset was at the time.

“So we’re like, ‘Give us some acapellas, we’ll get busy.’ They gave us the ‘On The Run’ acapella and it became ‘On The Run (Remix).’ That became the record because the one he did, we wasn’t fukking with that.”

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p85ETt61xmc]Kool G Rap & DJ Polo - On The Run [Dirty Al Capone Remix] - YouTube[/ame]

 

[KENNY DA COOKER]

Props on the Article....i really wanted to hear how the "MESSAGE" was produced..which is the first track TONE and POKE did for the IT WAS WRITTEN lp...intresting story:

]“So what happened with 'The Message' was I was at home watching the movie The Professional one night. The movie went off and the song ‘Shape of My Heart’ by Sting came on. I jumped up and said, 'Oh my God.' At the time, there wasn’t no Internet so I ran down to the record store, found out who made it, went home, and chopped it up. That was different for hip-hop at the time. It was actually the first time we experimented with Latin-feeling guitars.[/IMG]

damn........he was taking shots at JIGGA .....early!!!

 

[mortuus est]

Dont sleep on this people, its an interesting read.

 

[Ziggiy]

Track masters discography is highly underrated. I sometimes wonder what a 2000's era Trackmasters/Nas reunion LP might sound like. He hasn't fukked with them musically since what.....Nastradamus?

 

[Kaydigi]

“They played me the original version of the song, the one that RZA did. No disrespect, but I said to myself, ‘This shyt is wack. What the fukk am I going to do?

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

which song was that refering too?

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

trackmasters is fukkin outdated to shyt..