iGetMuzik.com Interview: Bigram Zayas – Producer / Recording Engineer
Bigram Zayas is a producer/engineer/musician who has worked with
artists such as Lil Wayne, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, J.R. Writer etc…
Contact:
Twitter
How did you get started in the music business and was it something you always wanted to do.
Well before I started making beats I was a DJ. I started Djing when I was about 15 and did live sets at local house parties and proms. When I was about 18 I started getting more involved with DJing to where I started competing. I competed at home and overseas and won a bunch of major battles – I even toured around with a bunch of major DJ’s including A-Track. In 1998 I won a DJ battle over in Amsterdam and at the turn of the millennium I was DJing for MTV. After that however I put the turn tables in the closet and dedicated my time to producing.
How did you link up with Juelz Santana?
I had a friend affiliated with Skull Gang back in the day (now known as De Niro) and he got me in the studio one day with Juelz. I showed him a bunch of my beats during that session and he thought they were crazy. He told me to come back in 5 hours to get him recorded. After that he wanted me in the studio almost everyday to engineer; however, I didn’t wanna pull back on my production so I got my little brother to take over the engineer position.
I also know you worked a good amount with Lil Wayne – how did that go about happeneing?
I originally met up with Lil Wayne back in 2004 through Juelz Santana. Juelz hit me up and mentioned how Wayne was in town and needed me in the studio. During that session I passed on about 10 of my beats to Wayne and 3 days later he got back to me saying he wanted 9 of the 10.
Of those 9 beats that Wayne took from you – what did that turn into?
About 4 or 5 of those tracks have been released… Fireman, Walk It Off, Open Shop, I – the rest are still on his hard drive.
What’s it like with Lil Wayne in the studio?
It’s really like nothing else. When he’s in the studio he doesn’t sit down like when he recorded “feel me” it took him just 45 mins to drops 3 verses. He walked around the studio, no pad, no pen just rapping to himself occasionally cracking a little smile. He then jumped behind the mic and killed a verse – would then listen to it and then go straight back in and do it again. It was just like god what the fuck I don’t get it.
I know there has been talks between Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana about putting out a new “I Can’t Feel My Face” considering the original got leaked – what do you know about that?
I’m not too sure considering that when Lil Wayne gets out of jail in November he’s gonn be very busy. Between the studio, performances and interviews i’m not sure about that project – I can say though that I was very disappointed the original mixtape got leaked. It wasn’t at its highest quality because a lot of the tracks were still not fully mixed so a lot of the levels where off. The tape didnt show the true quality of their work because the lyrics were there and so were the beats.
What are your thoughts about Lil Wayne going to jail?
I definitely miss him considering its a great feeling working with such a talented artist. I think his time away from the market will be good for him though because one he gets out he’ll be dropping the biggest fuckin album.
I know Lil Wayne will be dropping and EP before he gets out of jail – what do you know about that?
I actually got a beat that’ll be featured on Lil Wayne’s upcoming EP “I Am Not A Human Being”. It’s definitely on some alien shit. I know there were talks of possibly getting Rihanna on the hook but because its dropping so soon, I don’t think there will be enough time for that so possibly Drake or Jeezy.
Do you have any other projects in the works?
I will be putting out an instrumental mixtape entitled “The Carter Report” which will include 32 released tracks of which I worked with Lil Wayne on. I might also put out a second CD entitled “The Carter Era” with all the actual recorded tracks.
When can we expect that to drop?
I should be finalizing that project within the next 3 weeks or so.
What have you been doing outside the hip-hop world?
I actually been very involved in my band called the “Mad Ave Boys“ – we formed about a year ago and it’s really taken off. We’ve played at some of the hottest spots in the city already and have an EP dropping soon entitled “Electric Tape”. We’ve roughly recorded about 15 or 16 tracks and to be honest it was all very unexpected. Defenitly stay tuned for that EP.
