Hello Underground Dwellers…..Back in the day, I worked with this incredibly talented musician as Director/Choreographer for his stage show & music video produced by Dr. Dre & Eazy E. JimmyZ will be coming to The Underground Experience Very Soon :O))

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CONFESSIONS OF A GLORIFIED SIDEMAN!
“I swear I’ll write more tomorrow…” Jimmy Z
Sep 17 2011

NWA — Straight Outta Compton… then Torrance & Westlake
Posted by Jimmy Z and the ZTribe in Legends, Recording

Tags: China Club, Compton, Death Row Records, DJ Yella, Donovan the Dirt Biker, Dr Dre., Eazy E, Eddie Baytos, EFIL4ZAGGIN, Fuck Tha Police, Fuck Tha Police World Tour, Funky Flute, Gary Ballen, Ice Cube, Jerry Heller, Jimmy Z, Jimmy Z and the Soul Lips, MC Ren, Muzical Madness, NIGGAZ4LIFE, Nig­gas With Atti­tude, NWA, Ruthless Records, Ruthless: A Memoir, Suge Knight, The Chronic

In 1989 I was play­ing with my band Jimmy Z and the Soul Lips at the China Club in Hol­ly­wood to a packed house when my man­ager Gary Ballen came up to the stage and told me Dr.Dre and Eazy E were in the house. NWA had just exploded not only just on the bur­geon­ing Gansta Rap scene but nation­wide with Fuck Tha Police.

Gary had been their tour man­ager on their record set­ting Fuck Tha Police World Tour (just imag­ine what that gig was like — LOL). Gary was also a VP of Easy E’s record com­pany Ruth­less Records… and white… and Jew­ish. I used to say, “hey you fuck!! and “mutha­fuck­aaaaa!!!!!” in my act back then… a lot (still do). So they come back stage and the first thing Dr Dre says to me is “man, it’s not moth­er­fucker! Its mutha­fucka!!!” So I say “I know that mutha fucka!!!! That’s what I’m say­ing mutha­fucka!!!!” We had a good laugh and a lot drinks and hit it off pretty well…

Late Night Ren­dezvous with Dre and Eazy E
A week or so after we’d met I’d given Gary a demo tape of a cou­ple of songs I thought were rap. Livin’ Life A to Z and The Com­pany You Keep. I had totally immersed myself in NWA records and any other rap shit I could get my hands on. I was tryin’ to be dope… not a dope… or on dope… but dope. Which now every white kid in Amer­ica or the world for that mat­ter knows means, “it’s cool.” Well, now you know the rea­son rea­son Dre raps on my album and I don’t.

I was only ten years older than Dre and Eazy and from early on in my career I had hung with a lot of broth­ers play­ing in dives not far from the shit every­body thought was so funny in the movie The Blues Broth­ers but for REALZ with some Bad­daassss mutha­fuckas with all the slang and jive that comes with the ter­ri­tory. But with these guys it was a “whole ‘nother uni­verse” of shit I’d never heard.

So Gary calls and says Dre and Eazy liked the demo and they want to meet that night out in West­lake Vil­lage. Now if you’re not famil­iar with the Los Ange­les city proper, West­lake Vil­lage is way out west on the 101 Free­way past the San Fer­nando Val­ley, past Thou­sand Oaks and just about as far outta Comp­ton on so many scales, as it gets. We’re talkin’ one of the last bas­tions of upper mid­dle class Cau­casian World. I remem­ber Dre’s white neigh­bors sent their lit­tle daugh­ters over once, they couldn’t have been over nine years old, to ask us if we could turn the music down. What a chicken shit mutha fucka… send­ing his lit­tle girls over.

Gary and I first went to his cousin’s house in West­lake Vil­lage. Gary’s cousin is the infa­mous Jerry Heller, man­ager at the time of NWA and Pres­i­dent of Ruth­less Records and the first thing he does is show me his gun. Keep in mind Jerry and Gary are both white and Jew­ish. I often com­mented to Jerry Heller how amus­ing I thought the team­ing up of one the most noto­ri­ous “Gansta Rap Bands” in his­tory and one of the most noto­ri­ously ruth­less Jew­ish book­ing agents in show­biz and Jerry would shrug and say, “It’s not so far fetched. We are two of the most abused and trod upon peo­ples in his­tory.” Hard to argue with that, espe­cially when he’s hold­ing a gun on me… You can read all about what Jerry thinks of things in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy – Ruth­less: A Mem­oir.

Writ­ing songs with Dr. Dre
We set a day to meet at Dre’s house in West­lake Vil­lage. I show up and no one is home. I sit in my car an hour and finally he rolls up in a brand new Corvette with a shit eatin’ grin.

He jumps out of the car and sprint­ing to his front door he waves me to come in. Appar­ently, he was under some kind of court ordered house arrest with some kind of elec­tric bracelet around his ankle. Dre was try­ing to beat the clock and if he didn’t… well LA County here we come…

We go up to his stu­dio and I set up all my shit, saxes, flutes, harps and amps and he…looks them over and says, “How ‘bout the flute?” I’m like, “ok” but really it’s the one wind instru­ment I’m really not that pro­fi­cient on. That day we wrote The Funky Flute. Dre raps on it and I sing and… drum roll… play flute!! Pure genius.

I think Dre says my name 50 times in the song. Apolo­gies for the video qual­ity, but it’s all we’ve got… It was a fun shoot — LOL.

The next song we wrote came about from my answer­ing machine at home. I’d just sep­a­rated from my first wife and was wast­ing no time get­ting back on the scene with the women. Every time I’d get some crazy mes­sage from a girl I’d call Dre and say “Hey, I got another one…check it out.” We’d laugh and then finally after the 20th one he says “bring those mes­sages to the stu­dio and we’ll make a song with ‘em.” Hence the next song Phone Sexxx. When you lis­ten to that song please keep in mind every one of those mes­sages is real from my old style mini tape answer­ing machine. You can­not make that shit up. LOL What I dig about the song is the rhythm and melody of the verses Dre wrote for the black girls to sing. It really is a very sophis­ti­cated piece of writ­ing. Now the lyrics were another story. The girls sing this:

Call me when you need some­one for sat­is­fac­tion
When you’re all alone just reach for your phone
You got the num­ber, off the bath­room wall
Do your­self a favor, give Jimmy Z a call

And then I come in with a deep, Barry White type voice saying

For Phone Sexx, baby… Yeah, just reach out and touch.
Let your fin­gers do the walkin’.

Pure cheese. But it was sooooo damn funny at the time.

We were falling down laugh­ing with tears in our eyes, crack­ing up too. But after a while I’m really get­ting sick of hear­ing my name in these songs. I swear my name was lit­er­ally said close to 50 times in two songs. I brought it to Dre’s atten­tion one day as diplo­mat­i­cally as I could and he just barely gave me a side­ways look from the record­ing con­sule and as he went back to mix­ing a track said, “Shut the fuck up, you’re gonna be famous & rich… and you gonna be fuck­ing Apol­lo­nia!”

I sighed and just stared at the wall. I really just wanted to make a funk, R&B, Blues type record. Who was I to argue? He wasn’t the house­hold name yet at the time that we’ve come to know now doing Dr. Pep­per com­mer­cials and stuff like that, but he was a very suc­cess­ful pro­ducer with Num­ber One records on the charts as we were work­ing on my album. And we still hadn’t got signed to a record deal yet… soooooo… I shut the fuck up and had fun and worked daily for over two years with one of the most tal­ented cat’s I’ve ever worked with.

Eazy E was one crazy mutha­fucka… and funny too. One day I had just pulled into the Ruth­less Records park­ing lot and saw Eazy stand­ing next to a brand new beamer, a 750i with all the trim­mings. It was just one of his 20 or so cars.

He calls me over and asks me if I could get down to the record­ing stu­dio Audio Achieve­ments in Tor­rance to record some flute and sax on an NWA album they were work­ing on that even­tu­ally became EFIL4ZAGGIN or back­wards NIGGAZ4LIFE. Of course I said sure and he pops open the trunk and the smell just about knocked me over. He must have had at least a kilo of chronic in a big bag in the trunk and he grabs a big hand­ful and says ‘ya want some…?” I was won­der­ing if this was sup­posed to be the pay­ment but I just took it and said “Thanks, bro” and fig­ured I’d work it out with Gary and Jerry later.

When I get to the stu­dio the first thing I see is this big white biker look­ing dude behind the desk who turns out to be the stu­dio owner Dono­van the Dirt Biker. I intro­duce myself and he says that I would have to check in my piece (gun) at the desk before I can come in. I say all I’m packin’ today is a tenor sax, flute and some harps… I thought he was going to frisk me. You would have been amazed at the arse­nal behind that desk some days and nights. After becom­ing part of the crew and see­ing what went on in that stu­dio in the ensu­ing months I under­stood the wis­dom of this rule

Soon to be an inter­na­tion­ally known thug and bad boy record exec, Suge Knight started hang­ing around dur­ing the mak­ing of my record. One night he comes barg­ing in our ses­sion laugh­ing about a drive by shoot­ing he’d “just done” on the 405 Free­way on the way to the stu­dio. As I came walk­ing out of the main record­ing room into the con­trol room he shot me one of those looks that can kill and said, “Sup, Jimmy Z??” My stan­dard reply was “I’m cool.” That’s about all we ever said to each other. I really didn’t want to hear too much of what Suge had to say or else I might find myself in court… or worse!

I had a funny run in with Suge one night right after Dre’s The Chronic had hit big, sell­ing mil­lions. I sup­pose it was around 1992 or ‘93. I had just got done doing a gig with Gary Ballen, where I got paid in tips. A lot of tips. One of the fun­ni­est, fun gigs I’ve ever had. Gary’s Fuck That Song schtick is price­less. Any­way, I’m at Jerry’s Deli in the Val­ley and my pock­ets are bulging with small bills so I have the bright idea to count the money near the pub­lic phones (remem­ber those? LOL) and bath­rooms. I had seen this tricked out, styling, pickup truck pull in the park­ing lot when I walked in with a brother dri­ving but didn’t pay it no mind. As I’m count­ing all these one dol­lar bills I see these big brutha walk­ing towards me and I got money falling out my hands and pock­ets. I try to stuff all the shit away when I hear Suge’s high voice, “ Is that you, Jimmy Z? I thought it was you out­side. How ya do doin’ bro? You was always cool Jimmy Z. You take care, man.” I said every­thing was cool and then he walks in the restroom. I was stunned. I had never seen Suge so cor­dial. I guess I caught him in a good mood. I couldn’t help but think here I am count­ing small change and there goes Suge dri­ving a new car and liv­ing large off Dr. Dre’s tal­ent. Oh well. That’s showbiz.

A typ­i­cal pro­duc­tion meet­ing at Ruth­less Records
All in all things were going fairly smoothly on my record Muz­i­cal Mad­ness, if you can imag­ine liv­ing in the world of the “Worlds Biggest Gansta Rap Group” could be. There was some def­i­nite ten­sion in the air though. Ice Cube had just left the group accus­ing Eazy E of tak­ing too much of a cut and other com­plaints. The harass­ment of the group by the FBI and other LA police agen­cies was no joke either.

I remem­ber being with Gary Ballen numer­ous times when Eazy would call and say “…they’re pulling me over right now and I ain’t done noth­ing, man!!!” The cops were always pulling him over and I am still amazed how he never got busted with a stash in the trunk.

Dre was get­ting a lit­tle bit annoyed at Eazy E for the deal he was get­ting for pro­duc­ing Ruth­less acts and with Suge talk­ing in his ear every night to start Death Row Records. And MC Ren and DJ Yella were try­ing to get their licks in with solo projects, so the pot was sim­mer­ing. Not to men­tion the racial cli­mate was heat­ing up in Los Ange­les just a bit with the Rod­ney King beat­ing and video.

So one would think with all this shit going on, that the last thing that would be on the minds of the two most pow­er­ful Nig­gas With Atti­tude would be the song list for the album of their new honky sen­sa­tion. But it was.…

One day in the stu­dio, after suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties of Gin and Juice, they started argu­ing about a Prince song Crazy You I’d recorded and whether or not it should be on my album. Soon it was a wrestling match and then esca­lated to an all out brawl with fur­ni­ture fly­ing. Infa­mous Zydeco piano man Eddie Bay­tos was in the stu­dio that day and had the mis­for­tune of walk­ing in when a piece of fur­ni­ture whizzed by his head. He gave me a WTF look and I shrugged and said, “It’s ok…just an Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­tion Meet­ing.”

Per­spec­tive
I’ve never really talked too much about it pub­licly, but I caught a lot of shit from my peers for fallin’ in with NWA back in the late 80’s. I’d been play­ing the blues from the first time I ever played music and was lucky enough to fall in with blues dis­ci­ples like Rod Stew­art and tour the world. It was Rod who first unleashed me on the world and let me blow my brains out in front of them and I will be eter­nally grate­ful. Play­ing black music to millions.

Peo­ple for­get how much rap was hated back then and still is in some cir­cles. And now these same rock n’ roll musi­cians in my gen­er­a­tion who came from black blues music back in the 60’s were punkin’ me off for hookin’ up with what could be thought of as the next nat­ural pro­gres­sion. It felt like I was float­ing away from them.

I came from the world of blues playin’ and open­ing shows for the likes of Muddy Waters, Albert King, James Cot­ton, and Willie Dixon. And all the blues cats influ­enced a gen­er­a­tion of white kids includ­ing the likes of Eric Clap­ton, Mick Jag­ger, Keith and all the rest and me included on how we played, dressed, picked up women and every­thing else.

I believe Rap is like the mod­ern day blues and the influ­ence on white kids, black kids, hell all kids in the world is unde­ni­able. I was lucky to be in the trenches with the likes of Eazy E, Dr.Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella and wit­ness their ded­i­ca­tion and genius and watched them lit­er­ally change the world. Look at how kids dress to this day in baggy low hangin’ clothes. That was NWA. Lis­ten to the beats. That’s Dre.

And when I’d tell my bros I was play­ing with NWA and signed a record deal with them they thought I was a sell­out, an ass­hole and much worse. It was so strange, because it all sounded so famil­iar to what we used to hear from our par­ents and older peo­ple when we were kids lis­ten­ing to the Stones, Elvis, Bob Dylan and Bea­t­les and so on in the 50’s and 60’s.

Rap is so huge today. It’s influ­ence is every­where from com­mer­cials sellin’ soap to tam­pons and the newest cars from the largest car mak­ers, to the clothes all the kids we… And sells the most CD’s.

And white kids are still eatin’ it up along with the rest of them, like we ate up the blues a cou­ple of gen­er­a­tions before and there ain’t nothin’ the par­ents can do about it.

There is another long story about why Muz­i­cal Mad­ness never got the release and expo­sure it deserved that, but you can buy it today used on Ama­zon and see for your­self what the world missed……

And I’m out.… as Eazy E used to say.