The Making of Curren$y's "Pilot Talk II"

On "The Day," a track off this year's Pilot Talk, Curren$y boasts, "There is not a adjective to describe how I work/Hard is not enough, brother, I'm tougher." That line crosses our minds when we bump Curren$y's Pilot Talk II, which drops today, because it reminds us that at least some rappers live up to their word. PTII is Spitta's second album this year, and he's got another two albums already lined up.

Although he's made sacrifices to make this record happen—forgoing sample-based production due to the independent nature of his label, DD172—the album finds Spitta in the midst of yet another burst of creativity. To document it all, we cut through a thick cloud of weed smoke and got down with Curren$y, Ski Beatz, and most of the artists involved in the project to create The Making of Curren$y's Pilot Talk II, a track-by-track breakdown of his album...

As told to Dominic Green (@DOM_iZZO), Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin), & Jordan Martins (@Jordan_Martins).

Airborne Aquarium

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Curren$y: “Ski did a crazy beat and I fuckin’ rapped about a bunch of shit. At the end I named it that. I mean, the song isn’t about a flying aquarium, you know?”



Ski Beatz: “It was me, Curren$y, and Little Stevie—Steven Baker, that’s Dame’s nephew. I was going through samples trying to find something ill. And Little Stevie heard this sound and was like, ‘Yo, that’s dope!’ And Curren$y was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds like some Sea World shit. Like some dolphin music.’ So we chopped it up and the [my house band] The Senseis came in and played on top of it. Curren$y dropped those lyrics in and it was a match made in heaven.



“Sometimes I’m searching for tracks, and he might hear something, and he’ll say, ‘I like that sound.’ Then I’ll try to make a beat out of it. But most of the time, I’ll just make a beat that I think that he’ll rhyme on and say, ‘Yo, I got a track. Check it out.’ And he’ll come down and listen to it and say, ‘Okay, that’s dope.’ Then he’ll start writing. But I have no idea how he titles his songs.”

Michael Knight

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis
Curren$y: “David Hasselhoff portrayed one of the coolest people I’ve ever seen. He had a talking Trans Am, wore a leather jacket in the dessert, and he wasn’t fuckin’ hot—thus he was cool. He had massive hair, which is why I’m not cutting my hair. He got the chick every time. You know the show is only thirty minutes, so within that time he saved the world and had sex with some chick he didn’t know from the previous episode, so he is baggin’ a new bitch every fuckin’ time. So fuckin’ Michael Knight. How can you argue with that?”

Ski Beatz: “I’m actually a co-producer on that. Well, me and John Cave of The Senseis. He just started playing this guitar lick, put it down, and we tracked it out in the computer. I basically treated it like a record, and just took it and chopped it up, added drums, and gave it a hip-hop feel. It’s dark, but at the same time there’s something about it that attracts you to it. It’s hypnotic. Definitely a taboo beat.

“I always make the beats for him. I know exactly what I think he sounds good on, and nine times out of ten he feels the same way. I don’t just make beats. I don’t have a list of beats that I play people. I make a beat for you.”

Montreux

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Curren$y: “Marvin Gaye performed in Montreal—in 1980, I believe—and I got the shit on DVD. It’s fuckin’ amazing. The beat got some of the instruments on it that reminded me of ‘You Sure Love To Ball’ by Marvin Gaye. He didn’t perform the record, which makes me sad. There was a lot of amazing shit going on at that place and at that time and that’s why I named it that.



“That Montreux DVD was the first time I actually sat down and watched him perform. I used to see my parents watch shit like that, but I never paid attention. But I watched it and the way he conducted himself on stage, it shapes the way I perform. When I started watching that DVD, it was the same time I was working on This Ain’t No Mixtape. I wasn’t really performing. I had come into my own and by the time people were checking for me performance-wise, I had already found my niche and Marvin’s shit so it was legit. I’m always excited to hear people who like my stage performances, so I gotta let them know where I picked it up.”



Ski Beatz: “Curren$y said some lyrics on that like, ‘Al Jarreau in the third row.’ And he was like, ‘Yo, if you actually look at video from that concert, Al Jarreau was actually in the third row.’ I bet you he watched that footage earlier that day or something. So I just started digging through the crates. I found some ill shit, chopped it up, and The Senseis came and we just re-embellished it and recreated it. I don’t remember none of those samples because we took them all out. The sample’s just the idea, like, ‘This is the vibe I want.’ Then The Senseis come in and recapture that moment. Then I do what I do to it.”

Famous

Produced by: MonstaBeatz

Curren$y: “I did that at home two times, actually. I recorded it at home and we gave it out, mixtaped it for free. I wanted to put it on Pilot Talk II, but to make it new, we had to play it over with a live band and shit. So I went back to New Orleans and recorded it again.”



Jean Lephare of MonstaBeatz “‘Famous’ is a record we worked on a while ago and we got a great response. He had been doing it at a lot of his shows so he decided to put it on Pilot Talk II. It has a real laid-back vibe. We cut that one in New Orleans at the Haunted House. That’s what we call our studio, you know...since we’re monsters. [Laughs.] We mesh well with Curren$y. We have a good chemistry and every time we get together it’s a good formula. It’s simple and it works.”



Deelow of MonstaBeatz “‘Famous’ comes off of our Monsters On Mars album that was on iTunes. We had to remake it over for Pilot Talk II so we called up our people to play the horns over the Sade sample. It was just awesome. We got that new beat and Lord it was hot. We even did the air over that’s on the sample. That’s us making it sound like air, it was crazy. [Laughs.]”

Flight Briefing f/ Young Roddy & Trademark Da Skydiver

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Curren$y: “This is featuring The J.E.T.S. It’s just me and my homies, you know? I was stupid high, chillin’, and I was rappin’ about the shit I do all the time.”



Brady Watt of The Senseis: “Dame actually rented an ill house for us upstate, an hour north of the city. It's in the middle of nowhere—you've got to drive down an ill dirt road to get there. We were up there in the wilderness. For a while we were going back and forth doing sessions up there just to catch different inspiration and kind of get away from the city. There's a lot of people around The Dojo, people constantly dropping in. This was secluded. We were definitely in the zone up there. We were there for a few days at a time, straight banging out beats. We did a lot of stuff for The Senseis’ album there.”



Ski Beatz: “That house is pretty much like the second Dojo. It’s got lots of rooms, great equipment, so we just record. Curren$y didn’t like that song at first, but he did his verse on it. He said what made him love it was when Trade and Roddy got on it. There’s no chorus on that. It’s just flight instructions from a stewardess giving flight briefings. So we threw that in. When I brought the song back [to DD172] I didn’t want to use the [stewardess] sample, because I didn’t want to have any problems clearing it.



“Amanda Diva actually redid that stewardess sample for us. Amanda was in the studio, she comes around every now and then. She’s like our distant cousin, she’s down with us for real. She was just painting the wall, and I said, ‘Yo Amanda, you want to try something?’ And she said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I need you to re-say this, just like that.’ And she said ‘All right.’ So Amanda read it verbatim and did it her way. It sounded perfect. It reminds me of some A Tribe Called Quest shit.”

A Gee

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Ski Beatz: “We were going through some Marvin Gaye records. And Curren$y let me hear this Marvin Gaye record and said, ‘I want this kind of vibe.’ I can’t remember the one he played for me. So I was like, ‘That’s cool, but listen to this Marvin Gaye record.’ I played him [‘Come Live With Me, Angel’]. So we reworked it, restructured it, got that same feel, and we came up with ‘A Gee.’



“We’re independent and we don’t want to be trying to clear shit when we don’t have any bread to clear it. And we want shit to come out right away. That’s why we [re-work samples]. Most of the time, if we do use a sample, we usually break that bitch down and change it completely to where you would never know where it came from. And then, boom, it’s a record.”

Real Estates f/ Dom Kennedy

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Ski Beatz: “Brady Watt came up with an incredible bassline, killed it. He came up with this sample from...I don’t know where that shit came from, but nobody will ever know. [Instead of digging in the crates] I got digital crates now. [Laughs.] I got probably like 80 gigs [worth of music]. I find music, get ideas, but I’m not sampling just for the sake of the beat. I’m sampling to get ideas, so I can bring it back to The Senseis, and they can hear it, and put their spin on it. That’s the sound that we created right there. And like Dame would say, it takes me out of my comfort zone. I’m used to sampling, and putting it out as a sample. But to be able to just take a sample and do your thing with it, and have dope musicians come in, and they look at it from their perspective, it just turns in to a whole different thing. It’s definitely a new challenge for me. But I’ve got help. I’ve got the band, The Senseis.



“[So for this song] we went through the drums [with The Senseis], Curren$y heard it, and that’s his favorite beat on the album. The hook is a lyric from a Dom Kennedy record. He quoted his lyrics for the hook and turned that into the chorus. I guess told Dom like, ‘Yo man, I used one of your verses for a hook. You need to get on this shit.’”



Dom Kennedy: “Curren$y is one of them dudes I run into damn near every place I go. I had a show in New Orleans last summer, and he had came out. He wasn't performing, but he came through, and then we went out. Then we had a show in Brooklyn, that's where that line ['Do a show out in Brooklyn when I just left The Easy'] came from. The first time we worked together was in Miami during Super Bowl weekend, for the Smokee Robinson mixtape. We had a show, then after that we went to the studio to record. We'll probably knock something out for my next project. Any time I send him something, I know he got me.



“Working with Spitta is pretty simple: He knows what he wants to do and he don't take a long time to do it. I've been in the studio with him to do some other shit, so I know how he works. I just tried to approach it rhyming-wise how he would and just let it flow. He's one of the people that does the laid-back flow, storytelling type of thing—I do that too, but from a West Coast perspective.”

Silence f/ McKenzie Eddy

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Ski Beatz: “That’s a weird record because initially when we did that record it was McKenzie, Curren$y, and Wiz Khalifa. Then Wiz got signed to Atlantic and there was politics with that. And we don’t clear shit over here, so we had to take him off. It was just me playing with some keys. Me playing with this key ref, Curren$y heard it, and said, ‘I like that.’ McKenzie sung on it. Threw a little beat to it. It’s not a standout beat to me, but they love it.”



Brady Watt of The Senseis: “It’s definitely been a collaborative process under Ski, but he's kind of the main visionary. We're just trying to make it as musical as possible. A lot of people are trying to make records that sound like this or that. They want to do certain things to try and impress people to try to reach success. We're doing what we want to do. We’re using our abilities and we know our strengths. We're not letting much limit us. I've been at DD172 since December. With Pilot Talk, the beats were pretty much done. We were like, “Let's just clear the samples.” So what was initially something that was meant to clear samples, turned into our creative process. Now every beat is live musicians, for the most part."

Hold On f/ Young Roddy & Trademark Da Skydiver

Produced by: Nesby Phibs

Curren$y: “I just like being able to put my people in the right position to win. Any chance I get to kick it with my friends and pick up a check is a good time.”



Trademark Da Skydiver: “I just do what the beat tells me to do. I mean, it came out smooth, like everything else we do. When we’re together as a collective, shit just gels.”


Nesby Phibs: “The production for this came from me diggin’. When I was in Atlanta I found the original sample for it, but I don’t like repeating what it was. When I first made it, I had the sample sittin’ there for months and the weekend we actually recorded ‘Prioritize’ from Pilot Talk, I was sitting down with producer Big Chop—a producer from New Orleans who’s a part of The J.E.T.S.—and I kept playing the sample, but didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. So, he gave me a few recommendations on how to approach it. I played with it and it worked out. It was the weekend I got snowed in [in New York]. I was supposed to be there for a day, but I ended up staying for five. Fast forward a few months later, it was a rainy day and me, Spitta, Roddy, and Trademark were in the basement. I threw the beat on and it just came together. We never really try when we do music, we just do it. So when we click clack, he puts his verse, and it just always makes sense.”

Fashionably Late

Produced by: MonstaBeatz

Jean Lephare of MonstaBeatz: “We did the track in New Orleans, then we flew out to New York and we were chillin’ at The Dojo and we put the beat on. We actually laid the hook on that, too, but you know Curren$y did his thing. That record happened really quick, which was dope because it was at the end of the album. They were wrapping things up about that time and we came in on the last leg and did our thing.



Deelow of MonstaBeatz: “When we came up with that song we were like, ‘We gotta give this one to Spitta.’ We called him up and went out to New York and played it for him and he was feelin’ it. I’m also on the hook, but I don’t know if they credited me on there.”

Highed Up

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Ski Beatz: “I was making that song originally for The J.E.T.S.’ album. As a matter of fact, ‘Real Estate’ and ‘Highed Up’ were originally for The J.E.T.S.’ album. But Curren$y heard them and took them since he’s the boss of The J.E.T.S. [Laughs.] He took the beats and ‘Highed Up’ was one of them. The crazy horn sample was bananas. He had someone come in and replayed that bitch after Brady called his horn guy in who used a sousaphone.”



Brady Watt of The Senseis: “A sousaphone is like a giant trombone that goes above your head. [My horn guys were] Nadab Nerumberg and Omar Little, they were in here and one guy had his sousaphone touching the ceiling because it’s a huge horn [and a very small room]. But there’s also a trombone and a trumpet on there though. And they switched [the sample] completely around, changed the lines, and it was dope.



“Those guys are all cats I play with in New York. I’ve been playing in New York for a couple of years, playing random sessions with all different people. So I have a little network of people to call when we need them. So when we’ll need a certain type of instrumentation, I’ll get on the phone and call them. It’s whoever can get there first. They all say they’re going to get here in like 10 minutes, so whoever gets here first, gets on it. From Pilot Talk through Pilot Talk 2 stuff like that happened.”



Ski Beatz: “I recall one time a horn guy came...then another horn guy came...then I think another horn guy came. It was just a bunch of horn dudes in the studio like, ‘What up?’ [Laughs.] But we worked it out. In the end I think one horn played on one song, and then the other two played on another song.”

O.G...(The Jar) f/ Fiend

Produced by: Durpey

Curren$y: “I did this in New Orleans and it’s about my weed jar. There is a version with Killa Kyleon. I was waiting on his verse—he recorded it in Houston—and by the time I got it, it was already press and print time so you know how that go. I’ma still put it out, though.



“[Wikipedia says Wiz Khalifia is on the album but] Wiz isn’t on the album. Wiz is my homie but when I was working on Pilot Talk, we had issues with clearance, so this time I didn’t even...you know? It’s not on my homie, but you know how I feel about independence. My dude was in a situation where the right thing to do would be to get clearances and paperwork for verses. I’m hustlin’, man, and everybody who I fuck with wasn’t trippin’. No harm, no foul. That’s my brother, but I didn’t have time to wait on the powers that be to say it’s OK for me and my dog to get down.”

Michael Knight (Remix) f/ Raekwon

Produced by: Ski Beatz & The Senseis

Curren$y: “It was fuckin’ amazing to get Raekwon on the album. ‘The combination made my eyes bleed!’ It’s fuckin’ Raekwon. Dame put him on my shit. Dame played some records for him and he fucked with my shit. And I saw it was legit because we had opportunities to bump heads a few times and not speak about music. We never spoke about doing any joints together. When I finished ‘Michael Knight,’ I thought it was crazy and that Rae would kill that shit. I hit him on Twitter and I was like, ‘Yo, I think I got one for you.’ He said, ‘Cool, send it through.’ I got that shit back in like 48 hours.”



Raekwon: “I'm a big fan of Curren$y. He reminds me of Lil' Wayne. Not that he emulates Wayne, but you can tell they're from the same neck of the woods. He has that southern New Orleans bounce, but at the same token he's got that that East Coast flow, so I just see him mix everything up and make a nice little gumbo with it. He’s a cat representing his side of the world, but still appreciating hip-hop to the fullest. He’s like a young old-timer.



“I was doing business with Dame—we're actually working on a film situation—and he was telling me about Curren$y. I actually met Curren$y two years ago, but I didn't really know him. So I heard a couple of joints that Dame and I was like, ‘Yeah, shorty's definitely got what it takes to be a winner.’ [The whistle on the hook] was something that I was checking out as well. You know, RZA does the same shit, so I guess that's his little energy booster right there. I was out of town [when I recorded my verse] but I was excited to do the joint because he's an up-and-coming cat. I was like, ‘That's my little brother, let me handle it for him.’ I like to embrace all the younger generation MCs that I feel really have it and really want it. I feel he’s a good poet.”