Hip Hop producer Just Blaze who made a big splash in the music industry during its golden hay day of the early 90’s. The New Jersey-born producer, has been relatively quiet on the production front in recent years, largely trading life in the studio for life on the road. Now Blaze is eager to get back into the studio after a May European tour finally wraps up.
“Being on the road and being on stage, playing festivals, has been giving me more of an itch to get back to exploring my other creative side: being back in the studio, producing and writing,” he tells Billboard. “Sometimes you just need to take a break from it so you can get hungry and do it again… [Now] I just want to get back in the studio and work.”
Last month, West Coast OG Snoop Dogg posted a video of himself in the studio with Just Blaze and Neighborhood Nipsey Hu$$le, leaving fans to speculate, after hitting at new album possibly hitting store shelves Summer 2016. According to the producer, he and the Long Beach Movement founder have been working “extensively” on new material for the upcoming project.
“For me personally, I love all the experimental things that he’s done the past few years, like the Bush album [with Pharrell in 2015], the album with Wiz [2011’s Mac & Devin Go to High School soundtrack], the Snoop Lion stuff [2013’s Reincarnated],” Blaze says. “But my personal favorite albums from Snoop, besides Doggystyle, obviously, are albums like [2002’s] Paid Da Cost to Be Da Boss, Rhythm & Gangsta [from 2004], where he kind of goes back to that Snoop personality that we all first fell in love with. And I was very excited to find out that that’s the direction he’s taking with this album. And just coincidentally, some of the stuff that I’ve been working on lately just kind of felt like an updated version of that old Death Row sound, kind of an updated G-Funk. I just started working on these tracks and they had a lot of those similar elements, just felt like newer versions of that feeling.”
“With me, I just like to be involved in a project whether it directly benefits me or not,” he says. “So if somebody has a great song and I have ideas and I feel like I can make the song better, I’m going to offer those ideas. But I think that’s kind of all been part of me and [Snoop] having a better working relationship. The final scope and definition of the project remains to be seen, but I’m just excited. I’ve always been a Snoop fan since Doggystyle and The Chronic, so to get a chance to work with him a little more extensively than just, ‘Here’s a beat,’ has been great.”
As for new music with other high profile artist like old friends Jay Z and Kanye West — Blaze, told Spin last week he has “at least two albums’ worth of Jay Z material sitting in my vault” — and didn’t mention much more about the material, finally saying. “Nothing I can speak about right now,” but for us to fans to just stay tuned.
Speak On It!