During the this cold February month, I had the privilege of interviewing a North Chicago legend. 1320 Megedef has done it all on the music scene and rubbed elbows with some of the best in the business. When I met him, there was definitely a straight talk no chaser vibe about the man. Megadef is all about the business of making custom beats and working with real artists who want to move something. More than that, in an industry where anyone can shine like new money for a second before their gold turns to brass, 1320 Megadef is probably one of the most honest, and forth right businessmen alive today.
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| The man, the music maker, the legend: MEGADEF |
On the afternoon of February 15, 2013, I went to his self made studio/home in North Chicago to learn about the man and his motivations. I learned a lot. And I hope to be working with him soon.
Tell us about
yourself:
I was born in Waukegan and raised in North Chicago. My mother is from here; my father is from
Waukegan. I’ve been doing music since
1987, back when the TR808 was first out.
I’ve been doing music since then.
And I’ve been through various episodes in my career with people and
artist, working with people who didn’t want to work and thought they wanted to
work and that ended up putting me in financial strains because they didn’t want
to put in the work like I was doing.
They weren’t as driven. And I
learned a lot from that. I learned that
if you do good business you keep good business.
So, if there is any kind of mistakes in business then I know to leave it
alone. Because it’s not going to work
out.
If I was just being friendly then I know it probably would
work out, but not when there is business involved. And I’ve noticed that people
don’t like to see people out here doing something. They don’t like to help them because they
might not help them no more.
When I first started, I didn’t have nothing. I just had a dream of doing it, because of
some instances that I had happen in my life.
I found that I had better be more focused on this (dream) more than
anything. So, I dropped everything that
I was doing—cars and all this other stuff.
And I just started buying 2x4s.
I would try to talk to guys and they really didn’t see what I was
seeing, my father was drawing up plans for the space and stuff like that so I
was thinking of this dream in a real way.
So you had a
vision of where you wanted your life to be as opposed to where it was heading?
Right. I wanted to
make a business of myself and I wanted to be happy doing what I loved. So, my father designed the space and I
started getting 2x4s and I had a few artists and stuff. But, they never would pay their dues and
stuff. And I was just asking for like
$25.00, you know what I’m saying, I was trying to get something going. So, I ended up leaving them alone. And then I saved my money and did the things
I did. Then when they came back I didn’t feel I could work with them because I
didn’t believe in them no more because they didn’t believe in me. So that didn’t work out.
So the people I dealt with after that, I had better
experience with. So now, I don’t do
prolonged business. I ‘m not a record
company. I don’t want to be involved
with making sure artists get shows or not.
I am just strictly a producer now.
I try to do all my business legitimately. I like to make sure everybody has their
rights. I’m not the type of person to
going around chasing people and saying this and that. I like to take care of the business up front.
So, I really try to do song contracts because I do custom
beats. I just don’t make beats and try to sell it to
everybody, but I do have beats like that.
Beats that I could just sell for $5.00 or something like that and there
are no rights to those. So, I try to work on what artist really try to focus on
when they are doing a song. I got a guy
who wants me to do three songs with him.
SO I try to do at least 15 tracks for them to choose from so that they
get best out of me and so I’m strictly focused on getting those tracks for
them.
So, that is why my work kind of has a little price to
it. I work out various deals and
such. You know, sometimes the beat is so
good I might want to have different kind of rights to it. So I don’t have to go through any kind of
legal things with it. Other than that,
I’m really just producing music.
Right now, I got a project
with my daughter. My daughter is a
singer. She and I are going to do a
project and one of my main focal points for that project is being original and
not falling into sounding like anybody else.
And trying to make our mark. I
know I’m going to do it with her because she is just a fabulous, outstanding
singer. She is just at that level of
singing that you know I have someone that is going to take me to the top.
Tell us about
Money Tight Music:
Money Tight Music was actually group a guys from the
neighborhood, and we used to all hang together and we were all from various
gangs. And I’m going to go into this
subject because I think it is important:
I am the person that started the saying “NOGO” and I started because back in the day (I think it was the
1990s or something like that) Chicago started coming down here and that lead to
a big gang infusion. Everybody started
to going into different gangs and everybody forgot that we all live here. We all, regardless of anything, he might be a
Gangsta Disciple or something but I still know his brother or I still know his
father. Things aren’t the same from
Chicago to here because it’s small. We
know everybody. So, how can I go off and
do something to somebody simply because he something else. So that’s when I started to say it’s NOGO.
It’s not Chicago, its’ NOGO.
And a lot of people don’t realize no one used to like North
Chicago. We used to be into it with
Waukegan, Zion; all that stuff, all the time.
Now, it’s the most popular place and it is the most desecrated place
because they done tore it up now. But, a
lot of people forgot about that, but I will never forget and I love the
town. I grew up going to the talent
shows. I’ve seen some spectacular stuff
in some talent shows that you would never see on TV. And they were packed! Neal Elementary School talent shows, North
Chicago High School talent shows were packed.
You can’t even do that now!
Another thing with MONEY TIGHT MUSIC is if I get behind
somebody, I got to get behind somebody who wants something. If I’m putting myself behind them, I mean, I
could sit there and make a beat or something but if I get behind them then I
need to know that they are willing to go as hard as I am. I’m not even a performer or nothing like
that. I’ve done shows where I’ve paid
for the deejays, paid for the sound man, did the security and all these other
things, and I’ve got people who didn’t even try to show up with costumes or
gear. No stage presence or nothing. You know, that is the thing with me I want
people with talent. People who are
really talented and who are really driven.
And I’m just really starting to put myself out publicly right now. I’m
getting a website and things like that.
How much has the
local music scene changed from when you started up until now?
It’s changed a lot.
It’s a lot more movement. It’s a
lot a more movement and there is a lot more venues that artists can get into
because there used to didn’t be any venues around here. You got local bars and clubs and stuff like
that. That’s cool, and I love stuff like
that, but I haven’t seen anyone really step it up.
You know I watch this Kid Rock show—you know I watch things
about people and see how they do things.
Kid Rock was so in depth about himself that when he did shows he made
shows that made him look like he was already there. Meaning, like he was already famous.
He had big lights and pyrotechnics and he made sure he
fulfilled his thing. He just didn’t get
up on stage with his band and rock and stuff like that. He made sure that you were entertained and
had a good time. So when the record
companies came to see him they had no doubt that this man could do it. That is what I’m trying to get at. Because I believe that if you make one good
show you can make another good show. And
another one and another one.
That’s why I go back to North Chicago talent shows, and I
saw how these guys had worked hard to make their shows perfect. ROBOTRON
made their makeup and stuff made sure that their curtain was black. You know, just small stuff that they could do
when they didn’t even have no money.
But, they made sure that these little few things were right so that you
had this big picture of them dancing.
You don’t look at them like damn that’s tin man or something. No, you are looking at them like damn they
getting off! They jamming!!! You’re never focused on the individual; you
are entertained.
How much has the
local music scene stayed the same?
That’s basically what’s really stayed the same. No one is taking it to the next level. Like the Afro fest, everybody just gets on
stage. You know, you don’t see nobody
coming in—like I be seeing guys talking about they got females and all that
stuff. You don’t see them with no
females on the stage with costumes or anything to make the statement that they
are not just coming out their just practicing, you know that they really out
there trying to give somebody something.
And make sure they see you as entertainers. So, that is what really hasn’t changed. Nobody has stepped it up.
I’ve been talking
to different artists at various levels in their craft since I started blogging
about NOGO. Some would say it is
difficult to step it up out here.
It’s not. You know
why? Because proper preparation prevents
poor performance.
You think so?
I know so. Because if
you say to yourself you’ve got a year or even say six months, that’s time. That means you’ve got time to get prepared. Meaning that, it doesn’t matter if you don’t
have all the money, what money do you have to make that? Like I said about ROBOTRON, they lived in the projects. They didn’t have a lot of money and
stuff. So they may have went and got
their shoes one week and then the next week they went and got their shirts. But in the end they got it done.
Don’t make it so big that you can’t do nothing. They’ve got prices up here and they’ve got
prices down here. Get what you can in
order to get what you want to get so that you can get the next thing.
Jermaine Dupree told me people want us to give them a
million dollar contract and they ain’t spent a thousand dollars or maybe 500
dollars in the studio themselves. So you
want us to put all this money in you and you don’t even know what to do. We are going to waste money on you because we
have to show you things. You know, you
ain’t experienced, you’re not getting out there.
Everybody’s not
DIDDY.
Nah. And everybody’s
not a workaholic. They don’t work. They
don’t believe in it, they want the instant success. You know, and you got so
many people now especially with African Americans, it used to be everybody
wanted to be a ball player. Now
everybody wants to be a drug dealer, or they want to play basketball or be a
rapper. Nothing , no doctors,
obstetricians, etc. That’s all you hear
from most African American men. Just
those three sections, right there. Never
education. It appalling to me. And the reason why I say that is because
everybody wants to fill a shoe but no one wants their own shoe. Meaning that, just because you’ve seen somebody
else do it now you want to do it, but you never were determined to do it
yourself. Where is your determination at
for what you want to do?
Who’s stopping you?
I’ve let no artist stop me. If I
let an artist stop me I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing right now. Because if you quit that doesn’t make me
quit. That makes me strong cause I know
if I do that then I fell off too.
I get mad at people who say to me, “Are you still doing
music?” I say I’m not you. I‘m going to
keep doing whatever I’m doing. I feel
successful even if I hadn’t made it.
Because I’m still doing it from the strength of where I used to be
at. So I’m good.
Where do you get
your inspiration from?
I get it from my past.
I get it from my own personal passion for music. Then, so many gifts have been given to me
that for me that it’s been a life for me for all times.
I remember, back in the day, I wanted a TR808 so bad that I
stole one. And what happen was, a guy
that was in the group with us, who happened to be my girl’s cousin, gave it
back to the dude. He was trying to get
in good with the guy, so he gave it back to him. And that erased my karma.
The next day, my cousin come up the street and tells me he’s
got something for me. I say “what”. He gives me a receipt. He tells me, it’s a TR808. All you have to do is you have to pay $127 at
Gans Music sign the papers and it’s yours.
Right you know what I’m saying. So it was instances like that that help me
stay driven and the past is something I keep in my mind to help me move
forward.
Any advice you can
give to the novice producers out there?
The production thing really getting big now because it’s so
easy now. And I like it too. But, I
just want to see be inventive. I know you can’t make it in this industry by
trying to check their way in, but most people who make superstar status have
something original about themselves.
Like TI is from the south, but you don’t hear him like that,
he has like a broader approach. HE can
represent the hood, but he doesn’t have to a total representation because he
can say it in other ways that marinate the other people. So he can distribute his message and make
sure other people can pick up no matter what they into. That’s why white people
like it. Because they can apply it to
themselves.
Because music is an international language, so if I don’t
know who you are and you saying something to me I can get my own interpretation
of it. And if it applies to me then I’m
good.
Buy, mainly, we need some people to step it up and take it
to that NOGO sound. Make it a mark in
and of itself.
