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25 Years of Fat Beats: Q-Unique, Ill Bill and J57 Interview

In the second part of our series celebrating 25 years of the iconic Fat Beats, we speak to Ill Bill, Q-Unique and J57. Each artist worked at the New York store, and here reflect on their time there. Don’t forget the Fat Beats 25th Anniversary show in Los Angeles takes place tomorrow – see here for tickets. And if you missed our interview with DJ Eclipse earlier this week, catch up now.

 

How did you wind up working at Fat Beats in the first place? I know that DJ Eclipse was the connection for a lot of staff there.

[Q-Unique] I asked Bobbito if he knew of any job openings and he put me in contact with Eclipse.

[Ill Bill] Yeah, E was my DJ, so he was the plug. I had a bunch of experience working in streetwear and skateboard retail and when I heard Fat Beats were hiring, I wanted in.

[J57] It was early September 2004 and I was at an event in NYC that the homie DJ Concept was spinning at with DJ Amore from Fat Beats. Concept came up to me towards the end of the event and was like, “An intern slot opened up at Fat Beats, would you want me to tell Amore you’re interested?” I was like, “Hell yeah!” And so he introduced me to Amore. She set up a date/time for an interview, and I came through (nervous as HELL) and bodied the interview. I started interning in late September 2004. I believe there were over ten interns in total fighting to get hired. I would come in early and leave late for each shift I worked. Amore and Maticulous took note of that and told DJ Eclipse about it. Eclipse was on tour for most of my first months interning but when he came back, I was rescheduled to intern on the days he was in the store, which lead to me getting hired in May 2005 once an opening came up. It changed my life forever. And I guess I wasn’t a shitty intern haha. Tremendous thank you to DJ Eclipse, DJ Concept, DJ Amore, Maticulous, and of course DJ Jab!

As artists yourself, did you look at working at Fat Beats as a way of promoting your own shit, or more of just a way to get fully immersed in the hip-hop scene and community the store managed to cultivate?

[Q-Unique] To be honest I didn’t fully understand what I was a part of, so at times I took it for granted. And coming from the Rock Steady Crew and getting Zulu lessons from Bam in the middle of the Bronx River projects, I guess I felt there was no topping that as far as a Hip-Hop experience is concerned. Looking back now, I wish I would’ve handled the experience of being at Fat Beats better than I did. That isn’t to say that it was all bad. There are memories of being there that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and people that I got to meet that I normally wouldn’t even cross paths with. Looking at it now, giving it a definition, after becoming a member of the Rock Steady Crew, Fat Beats was the next best/incredible thing to happen to me as far as my Hip Hop experience is concerned.

[Ill Bill] At the time I didn’t really give all that much thought, but looking back now, probably a little bit of both. And also to learn the music business from the retail side of things. The marketing and promotions, the in-stores, the street teams etc. I just wanted to soak it all in, and that’s what I did.

[J57] I helped start Brown Bag AllStars around ’07. We started recording songs in September at my man Jesse Shatkin’s studio. He formerly went by Belief. We released a few loosies for us to put up on our MySpace pages. Back then, we went by JLOG1C (my name at the time) featuring The Audible Doctor & Soul Khan etc. A few of those songs later ended up on the first Brown Bag mixtape, The Brown Tape, which dropped in September 2008. Once Brown Bag became “a real thing,” I then started going absolutely ham promoting us subliminally to customers, by strategically not telling them I was in Brown Bag. We pushed hundreds of copies of our first project (which was a CD only release for the first year) out of Fat Beats and everyone always came back saying they dug it. That’s when I’d tell them I was in the group, who I was, our MySpace addresses to look up, I’d grab their email address, etc.

Did being around so much talent coming through the doors inspire you as an artist, and to keep pushing your own skills to be as sharp as the competition?

[Q-Unique] Yes 100%. It kept me on my toes. Not only the people coming through the doors but my coworkers as well. Think about it, I was working with Breeze Brewin’ from the Juggaknotts, Ill Bill & DJ Eclipse from Non Phixion, Mista Sinister from the X-ecutioners, Cypha Sounds, Max Glazer and a bunch of others that were super talented and well versed in hip-hop.

[Ill Bill] 1000%! The NYC underground hip hop scene practically lived there. For me, working there felt more like chilling in my living room at home then working at a job. DJs like Premier, Clark Kent and Funkmaster Flex were regulars. Anybody from LL to Snoop to Q-Tip to Pharoahe Monch to Eminem could be at the store on any given day. You never knew who you’d bump into when you were there. It was trippy and inspiring as fuck.

[J57] Absolutely. I started rhyming in late ’99 and making beats in early ’03, so at a young age I was around legends and big name artists that I idolized from so many years prior. It really made me feel like I could one day do this music thing for a living. It also made me put a LOT of time into sharpening my blade and honing my craft. I wanted to impress them with what I was creating. I was in a group called TNK/The Kill World prior to Brown Bag and we were working on a project and collaborative stuff within the group. We made tons of songs during that era that we had on our MySpace pages but many more songs that never saw the light of day, because we were really young and still learning how to create music; working on phrasing, double entendres, studying the art of the sample chop, etc. So me being at Fat Beats absolutely made me have to step my game up as an artist and a producer, before I could really tell people I was an artist or a producer. I respected the culture and the art form too much to not push myself further.

Working in a shop that’s stocking your own music meant you probably, and understandably, nudged customers towards that. Was it a buzz to see people buying stuff you helped create, and did you ever let people know you were involved in the records?

[Q-Unique] Sometimes I did, and sometimes I would pretend that the Arsonists was just a cool new record. I would do this to see what the real reaction would be with a customer listening to the song without the pressure of knowing the artists is standing right next to them. Get a true reaction.

[Ill Bill] Yeah, it was alotta fun turning people on to my own records and alotta my friends’ music too. I definitely met a ton of fans and signed a ton of records over the years I was there. I even ended up doing a monthly hip hop 12” singles column for Strength Magazine for a couple years. We were serving the community, and it didn’t feel like a job. Most of us would have done it for free! The only reason I left was that my music started taking off and I had to bounce, otherwise I might still be there now.

[J57] Ha! Well, I kinda answered that in question two but to answer the other part of the question: Yes. By 2009, it was insane to see people walk into Fat Beats and ask me to autograph their Brown Bag or Homeboy Sandman or even J57 vinyl that we had in stock at the store. Like I said, I started working (interning at first) there in ’04, so I went a solid five years where no one who walked into the store either knew, or cared about me as an artist in the slightest. I was “the guy behind the counter that always recommended dope shit to listen to,” which I was happy with being for the first maybe three years. It was extremely surreal in 2010 when I would come back from my lunch break and Eclipse would be like, “Jimmy, those people over there just bought a bunch of Brown Bag stuff and they want you to sign it.” I couldn’t even see straight, it felt like I was being Punk’d haha. Grateful as hell, man.

I always remember one time in the only hip-hop record store that came close to having the same atmosphere as Fat Beats; Mr. Bongo in London. It was around the time Eminem dropped “My Name Is”, and a guy came in asking for a record he’d heard by someone called “Zam Zany”. The staff knew he meant Slim Shady but made out they didn’t, and he went away empty handed. I’ve heard similar stories of Fat Beats staff giving customers a hard time if they didn’t know their hip-hop shit properly. Was that true?

[Q-Unique] Yes at times, speaking for myself, I wasn’t always cool with customers. Not something I’m proud of or think is funny. I’d like a do-over on that.

[Ill Bill] We were worse [laughs]! We didn’t really give it much thought back then, but yea, we were a little heavy-handed with the customers at times. The biggest ball breakers in the world of retail anything were the homies at Supreme. And Fat Beats had a similar vibe in alotta ways. The motto of the store was “Either buy something or BOUNCE!” hahahaha. We ran a tight ship.

[J57] Was that true? Ummm…I wanna plead the fifth on that one hahaha! Nah, I’ll keep it a buck with you and I can ONLY speak for myself; if someone didn’t know their stuff but acted like they were “too cool” or that they were “Mr. Hip-Hop” and would try to school us (like this one guy we referred to as “Mr Detroit”) I would be happy to son them real fast, but I feel like that only happened maybe two or three times in total because almost all of the people came in to the store, walked in with a love and respect for the culture, which till this day, I will give people like that the shirt off my back if they needed it, because Hip-Hop music is my life’s purpose.

Quick backstory on “Mr Detroit”—this guy used to come in and ask to look at any CD that came out by a Detroit artist. He’d look at the back cover and hand it back to me or Audible Doctor saying, “Yo this is the homie, I’ll just get him to give me a copy.” We had to call him out on it by saying, “If thats your man then why don’t you support him and buy the CD?” [laughs]. Yeah there was almost no other cases of that, that I can think of off the top of my head during my time at Fat Beats.

Q-Unique; speaking of Eminem, I’ve always liked to the story of Paul Rosenberg hustling copies of “Just Don’t Give A Fuck” personally in the store, just before Em broke through. That must feel pretty weird looking back now?

It just gave me the example that if someone truly believes in something or someone, they’re going to do whatever it takes to make something special happen, and he did.

The last day at the New York story has gone down as being an epic event. What are your personal memories and highlights of that day?

[Q-Unique] The massive amount of people showing up and paying respect, all the Hip-Hop superstars coming through, getting the Arsonists to do a set with me, my album Between Heaven & Hell dropping so it was a part of the last releases for the store. And…my son making the final purchase, a Run DMC 12-ich of “Sucker MCs.”

[Ill Bill] It was a really sad for me personally. Like I said earlier, I practically lived there for years. Non Phixion used to rehearse for shows there after closing time. It was truly the end of an era. After Fat Beats closed permanently, I can’t say the trek from Brooklyn to Manhattan was as interesting to me anymore. For those that experienced it, there will never be another place like it. Hopefully we can keep that vibe and energy going in other ways though, like we’re doing right now.

[J57] Man…I’m STILL exhausted from working that day nine years ago [laughs]. I’ll put it this way, I’m covered in sweat in all of the pictures of me working that day, and with good reason. It was a long day. A bittersweet day. Real somber, honestly. Kinda nerve wracking for me because I knew that I was going to be a “full time” musician living in the most expensive city in the country. I was blown away by all the press, camera crews there, legends that came in to rock, etc. It was the perfect way to end such an incredible era.

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The Los Angeles Fat Beats 25th Anniversary show takes place this Saturday (August 10) at The Regent Theater, featuring Dilated Peoples, Elzhi, Tha Alkaholiks, Blu & Exile, J. Rocc and many more. Get tickets and find out more here. Follow Q-Unique, Ill Bill, J57 and Fat Beats on Twitter here, here, here and here, and Instagram here, here, here and here. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.

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