86 Witness is a deeply personal album for producer Small Professor. He and Sean Price were already working on the project before P’s death in 2015, making this a genuine Sean Price album, not something stitched together from disparate, archived sound files. Its a worthy tribute to one of the sharpest writers in music, and a fine addition to the catalogs of both artists. We recently spoke to Small Pro about how the album came together.
The album wasn’t really that long in the making…most of it was done in 2015 before P passed away, and a few features and bells and whistles were added after his passing up through the end of 2016. It’s just been a very long time coming.
How was it put together? Did you get to work with P in the studio before he passed, or have you had to work through vocals and construct it piece by piece?
The album was constructed mainly through the internet – sending verses and beats back and forth to P’s engineer. I’d send beats, he’d send back a rough demo, and I’d do additional changes once I got his vocals…that’s how the whole album was created.
There must be a certain amount of pressure that comes with producing an artist posthumously and making sure you do justice to their legacy?
I definitely felt a little pressure but this was a bit different than your usual posthumous release because I knew P thought what we had done so far was quality, so I felt like if it was good enough for him, I’d be ok with however it was received upon its release.
The album has 1986 as a running theme. How did that concept come about?
The 1986 theme was accidental at first… Matt Diamond (Coalmine Records, 86 Witness Executive Producer) and I started noticing the year popping up via references in P’s rhymes, and so we started to add our own 1986 ideas into the mix, including the title.
Sean’s widow Bernadette has been very hands-on in making sure her husband’s music is respected. Did 86 Witness get her blessing?
86 Witness was released as a partnership between Coalmine Records and Duck Down Music – the latter of which Bernadette has worked closely with since P’s passing, so her blessing was received.
Lastly, what are some of your favorite personal memories of working with P?
My favorite memories of working with P were our few phone calls, where we pretty much just talked about rap and our kids. Our relationship was mainly a musical one, so the most thrilling thing was getting new P verses in my email that only two other people in the world had heard to date. He also almost snapped at me once because I switched his verses around without his permission, but he liked the end result so much it didn’t matter [laughs].
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86 Witness is out now. Purchase here. Follow Small Pro on Twitter. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.