via XXL
XXLMag.com: What was it like working on a record like “We Are the World?”
Nipsey Hussle: It was kind of like crazy to see so many world-renowned celebrities and established artists in the same studio. I ain’t never been a part of something that big. Obviously for the cause, it was for the redevelopment of Haiti, which is a cause that I believe in and everybody that was a part of it believed in. So it was big to be involved and for them to think of me when they called the artists up, being an artist that hasn’t dropped an album yet, and really just building a buzz on a street level, I was honored and humbled by them even including me in it. And like I said to just seen so many different artists from different genres of music, like Quincy Jones, Lionel Ritchie, down to Lil Wayne, myself, Kid Cudi, Drake, Trey Songz, Wyclef, LL Cool J, Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg… I couldn’t quite grasp it for a minute, like, “Wow, this is huge,” but the cause it was for it just goes to show that people are just in touch with the struggle, like nobody is too big for their britches to devote some of their time to something that it is in light of a tragedy on the other side of the world.
XXLMag.com: What was the vibe like in the studio?
Nipsey Hussle: The best word I can describe it was just “epic.” You know obviously 25 years ago [when] they did the original “We Are the World,” I was a little kid for that. I’m 24 right now, so I wasn’t even born for that but Quincy Jones was producing the session so he was behind the board, listening to the tapes, telling niggas, “Nah, go back in, do it again,” so we got a chance to do a record produced by Quincy Jones, that was big… You seen artists like LL Cool J and Jamie Foxx who had a little disagreement in the past, get together on the same record and do they thing. It was just like you would never see this many artists collab on a track, just naturally, so you felt like you was being a part of history just being in there. And like I said, with me being a new artist who ain’t droped a new album yet, being in such good company I just felt honored. I just wanted to show up and do what I do.
XXLMag.com: Did you get to chop it up with any of the other artists, like Wayne, Kanye and Quincy? Or was it all business in the studio?
Nipsey Hussle: Yeah, I hollered at Quincy for a minute because you know me and (Quincy's son) QD3 is real good friends and he produced a record on my project that we gonna keep for the album. Besides from Quincy and anybody that I was a fan of they music or I was big on they work, I just reached out and touched ’em, and hollered at ’em and 90 percent of them were like, “Yeah, man, we know what you do, you killin’ them, keep doin your thing.” I hollered at Kanye, I hollered at Swizz, me and Wyclef is real cool, we did records together. I didn’t get a chance to holler at Wayne, though. I hollered at his manager and he was like, “Yeah, man, Wayne is real big on your shit” and you know me and Drake did a record before so we just chopped it for a lil’ bit. Snoop my homeboy so we was in there… A lil’ bit of everybody. The girl from the Pussycat Dolls (Nicole Scherzinger), I got to chop it with her, she was real cool.
Read the full interview here:
XXL - Nipsey Hussle, The Making of “We Are the World 2010″
