Sounding Off With FOCUS

The multi-platinum, Grammy award winning producer has worked with a laundry list of A-List artist. He produced “Where I’m From” for The Game, “Yes” for Beyonce, “Respect My Conglomerate” for Busta Rhymes, and countless others.

DP had the opportunity to sit down with FOCUS and discuss: paying dues, responsibilities of a producer, developing longevity as a producer/artist, Dr. Dre, and much more…
DP: Your father was a great musician, but he did not want you to follow in his footsteps because of how abusive and misleading the music industry could be. What was it that made you go after this industry knowing your father really did not approve of it?

FOCUS: Honestly, it was all that I was around. When you come into this world as a young man your first idol or role model is your father. What ever he is doing whether it is being a fireman or a doctor, it is going to spark your interest. My dad was a producer. I know that he did not want me to follow in his footsteps, but to watch him do it everyday and to hear the music it really pulled my heart strings early on.

DP: With your father being an influential figure in your life at a young age you had some form of guidance. I have had many discussions about finding a mentor in the music industry and I get mixed views about this topic. Some people say mentoring hampers the creativity of the person being mentored because they just end up being a duplicate of the person that is mentoring them. Other people think that mentoring is great because you get solid advice from a seasoned vet. What are your thoughts on mentoring?

FOCUS: I am definitely for it. I wish I had a direct one when I was coming up. I used a bit of my father as well as my favorite producers to develop my idealistic mentor. I do my best to be there for my protégé’s. I open myself up to them. If they need sounds I give them sounds, whatever I can give them as far as EQ or giving direction on a project. I look at mentoring now to be an honor and a privilege for an individual to mock what I am doing. It makes me step my game up to keep on evolving.

DP: The term producer can have multiple meanings depending on the genre of music you are talking about. Do you think the new wave of producers truly understand what being a producer is?

FOCUS: http://soundcloud.com/dynamicproducer/focus-interview-0


DP: Talk to us a little bit about some of the struggles and roadblocks that you have encountered while you were building your brand.

FOCUS: I did a thing called paying dues. A lot of producers are coming straight out of high school and going straight to the NBA. Producers now are downloading FL Studios and becoming producers overnight. Some of them are dope, but some of them need to hone in and learn their craft. If you make 1 hit record and they call you a producer and give you $600,000 for a publishing deal and you are the most sought after guy, then in your mind you feel like you are a producer. I believe that everything that I went through made me the producer that I am today. I am looking to be a longevity producer. You might not hear me every year on the radio, but when I do come out it will be something notable and something that will stand the test of time. I didn’t just come out of high school and all of a sudden I was on. I had to do remixe’s, I had production without my name on it even though I produce the record. At this point in time I wasn’t getting paid anything. It was nights I would go home hungry, sleeping on people’s floors next to the radiator. Nobody has those type of back stories anymore.

DP: What do you think is the key to longevity as a producer? How is it that some producers are here today and gone tomorrow and other producers like Dr. Dre are still relevant 10-15 years later?

FOCUS: http://soundcloud.com/dynamicproducer/focus-interview-1

DP: With you being born in New York, then spending a lot of time on the West Coast, and now your home is Atlanta. How did these different areas influence your sound?

FOCUS: When I break down my sound. The east coast gave me the abrasive hard-hitting drums, having the ability to chop up a sample whenever I needed to. The east coast also taught me about EQ’s, I use a lot of my bottom end and mid range EQ’s from my east coast adaptation. Los Angeles showed me the crazier chords. I guess you would call them gospel chords or jazz chords, you can incorporate them with hard-hitting drums and it is still hip-hop music. That’s why I worked with Dre and did the best that I could with that because it was the perfect sound for me. The south taught me how to bounce. There is no shame in breaking a record down to 70 BPM and playing with the double time of it. So I just throw all those things together and see what I get.

Stay tuned for Part II of our exclusive interview coming soon...​

Be sure to download FREE DRUMS we received direct from Focus for this month's SoundOff, an online producer competition! For more details CLICK HERE!