Muskabeatz.

CHILLIN' UP ON THE ROOF OF CHAD MUSKA'S crib in the Beverlywood Hills. You know, that dope spot between Hollywood and Beverly, down by the Hyatt and the Standard Hotel on Sunset. I gaze out across LA, past the beyond-huge Godzilla-size Sean John Diddy commercial on the Hyatt wall and all the way downtown. Shelblack finishes up a chill flick of Chad and breaks out downstairs to set up the next flick of Mr Muskabeatz in front of a wall of dope old beatboxes. Chad sizes up an ollie from the roof to the deck and we head downstairs to the recording studio. This is the same recording studio that was transported to New York this summer and set up in a room in the Soho Grande hotel for six weeks. The same studio that has a voice booth in the hallway outside, right behind the studio door. The same studio where KRS ONE, Prodigy, Guru, Jeru tha Damaja, Melie Mel, Special Ed, Raekwon, U-God, MC Lyte, Ice T, Flava Flay, the Diabolical Biz and Afrika Bambaataa laid down smoking rhymes and blessed flows, over raw Muskabeatz . Ghetto enough for ya? This ain't no fake MTV or BET shit. This shit is by the peeps for the peeps.

Aki-X

What got you into producing hip-hop beats?

Music has been part of my life since day one. Before skateboarding music was in my life. It's something I always have had a passion for. It gives me energy to skate. Whatever energy you get from skateboarding goes into music, and back and forth. From skateboarding I was able to get money and build and get a little bit of equipment. It just snowballed from there.

Skating came first though, as far as you coming up?

Skating obviously was my come up. It's what I loved to do. Even to this day I am trying to balance it. Not just because it's my job but because I love to skate still. Just as much as I love to skate I love to make beats and see an MC recorded on a track I made. It's the same feeling as grinding a 20-stair handrail. It's all the same to me, it's all creation. I like to create things.

How did you hook up with Prodigy?

Each person we hooked up with was a different story Each one was a mad hustle. Prodigy I hooked up with through Alchemist, who is my homie from LA forever, and he produces Mobb right now. He came through to the hotel room and he heard the Biz track and a couple of other tracks we just recorded. I let him know I was trying to get at P--I got a phone call that night. We had stayed up 'til six that morning recording the Biz track. And the next day we recorded like three tracks in one day, it was crazy Then P called us. It was 1:00am in the morning, and we were about to crash out, and P hit me up and was like, "You wanna' do this?" We had just done Bambaataa, U-God and Ice T in the same fucking day, in the hotel room.

For real?

In the SoHo Grande.

You took all your equipment out to New York and built a studio in the SoHo Grande Hotel?

I'm scared to fly lately, since 9/11. I am paranoid. So we drove to New York on a skate mission. I bought a laptop, an audio keyboard and an audio interface. We set it up and my man knew some peeps at the Sam Ash music store out there, and they connected us and loaned us some gear. We set up in the room and started making the hustle that way. Cats came through.

How did cats feel about coming to record in your hotel room?

Cats were hyped and they were like "This is what we need to be doing. We need to be on tour and recording albums. We are wasting time on tour." The way we did it, there was a good vibe and good energy in that hotel room. It was laid back. We could kick back, order room service, and do what we wanted to do. We went out there with some beats and cats would come through, pick a beat and write a flow. Then we would record it in the hotel room. We actually did most of the recording in one week. Some cats busted out in half an hour. Other cats would come and kick it all day and write and record.

What about Raekwon?

He came to LA and we made a hook here. I then sampled that and cut it all up, so all he had to do was come and drop his verse. In 15 minutes he came through, wrote and dropped his verse. It came out just so fresh.

Anyone freestyle their shit?

No one freestyled. Everyone wrote their verse.

Who partied the hardest?

I can't fuck with that. I don't have time to party. I wish I did. I spent the most time with Guru. Guru is a wild one. He's my dog right there. He is the god, the G. That's my homie. Whassup G. Dealing with Biz, he is wild too.

How did you hook up with Biz?

Biz was out here for the Grammies. My homies ran into him in the lobby of the Hyatt. They ran in there to get the ATM and they were like, "That's Biz." He was in the lobby so they said, "My homie Chad Muska is making an album and they want you to get down on it. He was like "Shut up, one for the Ghetto Blaster Grind?" He was always playing the Tony Hawk Pro video game. He already knew who I was, so he was down from the get go.

So these cats have been playing you in the video game?

Some cats knew and had been playing me as a character, some cats didn't know who I was, other cats called back and said, "My little brother or my cousin plays video games," or some shit. A lot of cats had some kind of connection from skateboarding. They had heard of it some way. Then I was letting them know that with skateboarding, we reach out to mad kids, there're mad kids that skate. Some of them are 13, 14, 15 and they might not know the impact Wu Tang or KRS or Afrika Bambaataa made on hip-hop. They might not know the impact of Melle Mel or even the newest cats like P had on the game. When Mobb Deep came out and dropped Infamous, like the impact it had on hip-hop. Without these cats there wouldn't be the Puff Daddys or the Jay Zs or the Nellys. All the people on this album are the people who made it possible for these cats. So I can sort of give back to these artists that inspired me by introducing them to new groups of people who are going to listen and appreciate their music for years to come. We affec t through skateboarding what goes on in this generation.

How was working with Afrika Bambaataa?

People need to know what Bam has done for hip-hop music. Like pioneering the DJ side of things to inspiring all kinds of hip-hop out there. Like Tribe, Jungle Brothers and De La, they would all go and try to listen to Bam's album collection.

He's the Godfather of hip-hop?

Exactly. He is the godfather of hip-hop. He is an important person in this world. He is like the Pope of hip-hop or something.

He freaked it on that "Fake" track on your album?

Ha! Ha! That song is just slamming. Nobody expected that. He picked a beat and blessed it so hard. I ain't really heard Bam doing that P-Funk Funkadelic shit before. That shit was hot. He wrote that shit in half an hour. That whole song.

So you are working really with hip-hop's founding fathers?

It's more like, this is shit I grew up with and listened to, and shit I racked. It's not just the founders of hip-hop because we have P and Wu Tang in there. To me it's key people in hip-hop who made a difference.

I saw Jeru skating in the video.

Jeru is a cool muthafucka. He came through and got his skate on in the hallway. He got his Cairo on. Jay was chilling because he quit blazing.

Have you cut the soul, drum and bass and punk off the album?

It says on the billboards you have all that on the joint but the album is all hip-hop. I put that on the billboards because I am a producer, man. I produce all music. I am gonna produce Paulo Diaz' album after this and he is all involved with live musicians and recordings. It's basically like I am inspired by all music.

What producers inspired you to become a producer?

Rick Rubin.

You got the Brad Digital animation in the Muskabeatz video?

Yeah! Brad Digital. He's the homie. He came through and did a little Flava Flay animation. He did Redman's animation too.

Why are you pissed off with the skateboard industry?

I don't want to talk too negatively on a situation because that just makes it more negative. Skateboarding is in a very weird state right now. You have a lot of' corporate companies coming in and getting involved. And you got all these people trying to buy into it now 'cause it's big. You see it change. When you are part of skateboarding and you see the magazines like 20 pages thick and there's like 10 skateboarders in the whole state and you look where it's at now, it's obviously going to be different. A lot of people are trying to run skateboarding who aren't real. They aren't skateboarders and they don't know what the flick is really going on. I just want to see real skateboarders get back in control of' skateboarding and where it's going and the stage it's on. All this X-Games/MTV fucking fake shit showing what skateboarding is and what it isn't. People need to remember what skateboarding is--it's having fun with your homies and keeping real to what we have and keeping real to skateboarding. It's not some thing you can explain, but every real skateboarder knows what I am talking about. We all just got to be careful of where it's going. It's getting out of control and it ain't to us anymore what it used to be.

Peeps need to skate or rap for fun and that's it, right? The money is just the afterthought?

We need to focus on it just being fum and kids need to go back to that, and not have every kid skating just to get sponsored. If you are going to get sponsored and it's meant to happen then it will happen. As long as you stay real to yourself and stay true to what you believe in, then it will shine through in anything you are doing. Whether it's rapping or skating.

Is the corporate dollar going to fuck up the skateboard industry?

Ecko bought Zoo York. You have all these corporations coming in and buying out all these hardcore skateboard companies. Billabong just bought Element, and what you have is, "Well, we invested millions into this, so we need to see it come back in the sales and profits." So these companies go and sell Element to every mall store in the world, every chain store, and so what that does is hurt the mom and pop shops and puts them out of business, the core skate shops that were here when magazines were only 20 pages. So then skateboarding takes a fall. They sell all this large unit of product all across the world, then the mom and pop shops can't afford to compete or buy inventory like the mall shops, so skateboarding dies. The sales ain't going on in the mall shops, so the mail shops go out of business, and the big major companies ain't having their sales. So the big major companies pull the plug on the skateboard companies and that company goes out of business, and you end up killing the whole flicking skateboard industry Deadly consequences, man. That's why we've got to keep it real to the hardcore shops even if they can't move quite as much product as the mall store. We got to help them develop. As appealing as all this big corporate money is, you have to be aware of all the consequences if they step in 'cause they will flick it up. All they care about is the dollar, money and numbers. And at the end of the day when the numbers aren't satisfactory they will pull the plug on skateboarding.

How do you have time to do Ghetto Child, Shorty's, and Circa?

It's fucking enough to make someone's head split in half. I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. It's a hustle. I'm just trying not to spread myself too thin. I got a lot of things I am juggling right now from Circa to Ghetto Child to 1,2,1,2 Records to Shorty's; a lot of projects. One person can only do so much. I am just trying to focus on all different elements. It's hard.

Any rappers in the skateboard industry you wanna work with?

No. But seriously. I want to do a little skate project just for cats, like anybody who does music in skateboarding just bring 'em together. I got a track with Quim already I got a track with Harold. I got a track with Mike Wright and Harold together. People got to hear that shit. Skaters got to hear that. I want to put a little skater homie shit together for the skateboard industry.

Props?

Project Street, Block and Lofty. Big props to them. They set up shop in the hotel in New York with us for their movie Project Street. To everyone man, all the homies. Yeah, Add X hooking it up, Xceptional Entertainment. Shelby Woods, Angel Biotek, 'Frisco, I seen you when I first came out to 'Frisco. It was way back. I was just lurking then, checking out EMB.