Very In-Depth Speech Interview

Here is an outstanding interview with Speech on his song creation process from a site called Songfacts.com.  I have no concept on how to create a record, but I almost felt like I could do one after reading this- that is, if I had any talent whatsoever musically....  Anyway, here's a choice passage, and I highly recommend reading the whole thing as it's a great read.  

On a side note (no pun intended), if you look at the right side of the page you see a list of the songwriters who have been interviewed, and it looks to me like Speech is the only hip hop artist that has been interviewed.  I think that says a lot about his songwriting abilities.  I also was surprised to hear him say that "Wag Your Tail" is his favorite AD song.  I do really like that particular song, but still, it was a bit of a surprise.  But after reading this, I went back and re-listened to the lyrics and it really is a well done song.  Anyway, on to the choice section regarding Speech learning the ins and outs of the sampling game.

SF: 1991 sounds like a very interesting time to be sampling records. You said you sampled Prince. Now, the actual "Tennessee" vocal came from Alphabet Street?

Speech: That's right. Yeah, it did.

SF: How did you clear that sample? Or did you even have to back in 1991?

Speech: You know, I didn't know to in 1991, the sample laws weren't very clearly set out back then. It was our first record, we definitely weren't vets in the industry, we didn't understand all the game play and the rules. So we didn't ask for permission. I learned as a producer pretty quickly the laws of sampling: it's the wild, wild West out there. So what happened was the record obviously was getting some pretty good heat. MTV had a show called "Buzz Clips," and they added it to "Buzz Clips," and it just became this huge phenomenon. And as the song moved up the chart the album got to #3 on the pop charts. And once it went down, the very week it went to #4, we got a call from Prince's representation. They waited for that song to sell as many possible copies as they could wait for. As soon as it started to go down the charts we got a call, and the Reaper became the reaped. So we got charged for that sample pretty heavily. I paid $100,000 for that word.

SF: The $100,000, was that negotiated?

Speech: It was not. In fact, because we didn't ask for permission ahead of time, they didn't need to negotiate with us. It was either do it, or we pull the record.

SF: So they held all the cards here.

Speech: They did totally hold all the cards.