“Go Crazy” by Jeezy Ft. Jay-Z

"Go Crazy" was Don Cannon's first placement. Ever. Jeezy featuring Jay-Z, 2005, made at Patchwerk Studios in Atlanta on an ASR-X Pro, and in this episode Cannon goes back to that room on his birthday and rebuilds it in front of you. But first he has to find the record, because the sample is rare enough that he hadn't seen a copy in over a decade.

Finding the record

The sample is "Man Oh Man" by The Impressions, the Curtis Mayfield group. Cannon first heard it on the Dead Presidents soundtrack, the 1995 movie, which he says was full of funk and soul samples he wanted to chase. He went to 5 record stores in Atlanta looking for the original and nobody had it. He ended up on Discogs and found a 45 in Philadelphia, his hometown, from a seller with a Google Voice number who took days to pick up. The record cost $2. He had someone in Philly buy it and FedEx it to Atlanta, and the episode opens with him cutting the package open on camera, hoping it survived the trip.

It survived. It's a B side, ABC Paramount label, and it's cracked in the groove. He samples it anyway.

How the ASR chops differently

Cannon explains something about the ASR-X that shaped his whole workflow. On an MPC you chop, copy to a pad, chop, copy to a pad. On the ASR you sample once and it lands on every key at the same time, so you're just editing the start points. That's why his chops were fast, and it's part of why he never wanted the MPC once he had the ASR.

The tempo was 89 BPM, but he set it to 89.5 to give it a slightly different feel. He only used the sample in 2 places: the drum roll intro and the main loop. Everything else is space for the artist.

The drums, and the DJ lesson

Here's the part producers should hear. Cannon says the original version of this beat had big break beat drums under it, underground style, and it didn't bounce. Someone told him: you're in the club every night as a DJ, you know what makes people move, so why are you making beats that don't? He got defensive. Then he realized they were right.

So the drums on "Go Crazy" are his DJ rendition of the bounce he played in the club, not the chopped break drums he'd been using. His trusty kick from the machine. A clap. A hi hat from the ASR's factory sounds, which he says he doesn't think are that good anymore but they work on this record because they're the original. No quantize. He doesn't use it. He wants the human feel, and only lines things up to the grid later in Pro Tools if he has to.

He built the whole thing in about 30 minutes the first time, and he does it again here in roughly the same time from memory.

The drums under this record are in Cannon's Revenge V1. That's the ASR-X vault: the same kick, the machine hats, the sampled claps, and 38 loops and breaks from the same sessions. If you're trying to get that bounce, don't layer stock drums, get the source.

What it did

Cannon describes playing the finished record for Jay-Z, who told him this one is going to live with you. He describes standing on stage watching 17,000 people sing every word, and admits that even then he wasn't sure he was good enough. This was the moment it became clear he was supposed to be there.

The episode also covers his sampling rule from this era: sample from the bridge or the end of the record, because that's where the good parts hide. And it's the second of 3 episodes where Cannon breaks down his own catalog. For the record that came right after this one, see Mr. 17.5.