[Breakdown] Brown Bag Allstars - Brown Bag Season Volume One (Exclusive)

Producer, emcee and allstar J57 lets the stories behind Brown Bag Season Volume One out the bag in an exclusive track-by-track run down of his groups latest album. A mixed bag disected and digested, some joints being old, others newer, all of which are some of 2011's strongest material to date. Enjoy.

"Brown Bag Seaon Vol. 1" is a double-cd compilation of rare, unreleased and remixed tracks. Canadian DMC Champion/Juno Award Winning producer, DJ Brace, put this project out on his label, Nostomania Records. Majority of the songs recorded on Disc 1 were leaked in 2009 during our Brown Bag Season blog campain, where we leaked 1 or 2 songs a week from May to November. We spent a good 6 months beforehand gathering beats and recording "Brown Bag Season". Don't get me wrong, a lot of these tracks were written and recorded in one week, but we only released tracks that we felt were good - we cut 2 songs that we can all agree were not up to par.

Disc 1:

PayDro Brown Bag Season Intro

(Produced by J57 & DeeJay Element, vocals by PayDro)

One night after working at Fat Beats (R.I.P), PayDro & I went over to DeeJay Element 's studio to hang out, drink some beer and work on beats. That night was particularly boring because the rest of the Brown Bag AllStars were on the road with Marco Polo & Ruste Juxx, they were in Rochester, NY that night - I had to stay back to work at Fat Beats since DJ Eclipse was on the road, too.

As soon as PayDro (aka Pedro Pagan) & I get to DeeJay Element's, Element answers the door with a record blaring in the studio and says, "Yo, you gotta come check this sample I just found. It's pretty crazy!" I immediately started looping the sample on his turntables. Element then chopped the sample up - I layed down the drums then we started creating the melody on his Akai MPD-24.


Within minutes we had the beat sounding nice, so we let our friend/World Famous Fat Beats intern, PayDro, hop in the booth and record a skit. Little did we know it would turn out to be the intro for the project.

The Agenda

(Produced by J57)

This track came about when my homie Shake from 2dopeboyz texted me asking for 2 exclusive BBAS tracks for their "Empire State" mixtape. So we all agreed that one track should be produced by me and the other by The Audible Doctor. Audible Doc and I sent eachother our newest/best beats that we had laying around and we both decided the beat used for ''The Agenda'' and for ''In His Shoes'' were keepers. Actually, we planned to use the ''In His Shoes'' beat on the debut BBAS album, but opted to use it for the 2dope mixtape, being that they've shown us love from day one and that they're still top 5 biggest hiphop blogs on the internet. Period.

Got It All

(Produced by DJ Dyllemma, Cuts by DeeJay Element)

DJ Dyllemma interned at Fat Beats and was a good friend of ours since the beginning of BBAS back in late '07. We never knew how dope his beats were, til one day, he played Audible Doctor his latest work and Audible Doc hit us all up like, ''Brown Bag needs to use a Dyllemma beat.'' And we all agreed.

Uglyface

(Produced by marink)

This beat was one of the first marink tracks that we decided to use for "Brown Bag Season". We recorded to it and had no clue what to call it, since it was just a ''dumb out'' track with no hook. Audible Doctor and I both say ''little did he know'' at some point in our verses (not planned), so we originally were going to call it ''Little Did He Know'' but then (I think) Soul Khan wanted to name it Uglyface becuase this beat makes you do the uglyface when you hear it - everyone agreed.

Dumbin' Out

(Produced by maticulous, Cuts by DeeJay Element)

It must have been around 2am, day 2 of shooting our debut video "Undeniable (Audible Doctor Remix)" at Fat Beats, when I checked my email and saw that our good friend/Fat Beats OG, maticulous sent some beats over for us. Maticulous is pretty much a big brother to everyone in BBAS since our early days at Fat Beats, so we were all psyched to hear what he sent over. The first beat I played was hilariously titled ''Hercules Lunchbox'' (the beat for Dumbin' Out) and we all agreed within seconds to use it.

The Workhorse

(Produced by The Audible Doctor)

There really isn't too much of a story behind the making of this song, but this song is important to BBAS. This was the track that got DJ Premier into our music.


Once the OC & AG in-store at Fat Beats was over, OC and DJ Premier stuck around and talked by themselves. DJ Dyllemma then put on his iPod while everyone cleaned up the store and put on ''The Workhorse.'' OC and Premo walked over to Koncept who was throwing out the garbage at the time, and asked who was playing. The rest is history.

I'll Remain

(Produced by Tailor Made NYC)

Tailor Made NYC aka Scrappy is a very well known person in the NYC hip hop community. He grew up in the same building as Bobbito Garcia, for god's sake - everyone knows him. He did promotion for just about every big indie (as well as major label) release for many years.

Scrappy's one of the select producers that I would play my new beats for every week at Fat Beats, and listen to his as well. He had a bunch of beats that we wanted to use, but this one made the most sense with our style.

Crumbling Down

(Produced by Mr Green)

We became good friends with Pace Won & Mr Green in mid to late 2008. They'd chill with us after hours drinking at Fat Beats, freestyling with us, playing new tracks, etc. Mr Green emailed me this beat and I immediately knew the whole crew would like it. We were originally saving this song for the debut BBAS album, but we knew the project needed some unreleased stuff that was high quality.

What It's All About

(Produced by DJ Dyllemma, Cuts by DJ Brace)

This is one of those tracks where we wanted to break up the madness of us "just spitting 4 16 bar verses" by trading off 8's. Brought in the wild and crazy guy, DJ Brace, on the cuts and it's a wrap. The original title was "Who Punched the Baby?" Nah, I'm just kidding.

All I Do

(Produced by marink, Cuts by DeeJay Element)

Now THIS was the first beat that BBAS recorded to from marink. Again, we knew marink for quite some time from him working at Nature Sounds and hanging around Fat Beats with us, mostly on Sunday's with me and Soul Khan. Soul and him were originally going to do a full project together but that got sidetracked and BBAS stole all of his incredible beats. Funny story - DeeJay Element asked me what he should scratch in the hook, and I told him to scratch some "shit talk" cuts...turns out that was my bad. But the cuts still sound dope, even if he didn't scratch anything having to do with "All I Do." Yup, that was my fault, El! haha.

In His Shoes

(Produced by The Audible Doctor, Cuts by DeeJay Element)

I explained this in ''The Agenda'' breakdown, but one thing I should note for this track is, one of the biggest on-going inside jokes in BBAS is to make fun of me saying "Walk a mile in his shoes." DeeJay Element used it in the hook (which sounds dope) but when he informed us that he used it, he said, "I cut up J's accapella - walk a mile in my shoo-hoooos." Yeah, we can't mention that song without atleast 3 people over emphasizing the ''shoes'' in my line. Kinda hilarious in all honesty.

Does It

(Produced by marink)

So, I recorded my verse first as soon as I got the beat from marink. A good month later the rest of the crew wrote and recorded their verses but decided to make it a subject song. Thanks guys. Thanks for making me the odd man out. Haha, nah, that was my decision to keep the verse the same because it worked so well on that beat - I really didnt want to re-write this one. Audible Doc was like "It'll be like one of those old Wu tracks where it's a subject song, then the last verse is a shit talk verse but it's still dope." I was like, "Wu? You sold me!" Oh, and shouts to marink for not spelling his name with a capital ''M'' - maticulous, too.

Larry Norris

(Produced by DJ Goo)

DJ Goo is a real person, folks. He is a live and well. I get like 2 or 3 people every week say, "Yo, is DJ Goo real? I never met him, etc." Goo is our brother and lived in Brooklyn for like 4 years before moving back to his home state of Arizona for a VERY dope engineering situation. Goo is an incredible producer, DJ, engineer. He interned at Fat Beats for years and is an original BBAS member. He moved back in '08 and I still talk to him every other day. That's family. Just wanted to give you insight on that. Oh, and shouts to Ari "Thugs" Raskin on the bass on this beat. Goo worked at the legendary Chung King Studio a few blocks away from Fat Beats and worked very, very closely with Nas, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, 50 Cent and like 20 other huge names.


Ok, so we got the name Larry Norris randomly. Big surprise.


Our good friend, Critical (emcee from Sweden), hit me up and said he was coming to NYC in a few weeks and that he is about to buy a big boombox on e-bay. He asked if he could have it sent to me and he'll pick it up when he gets to NYC in a few weeks. I'm emphasizing the few weeks, because it turned into like 2 years ha! I said yes and had him ship it to Fat Beats, because I'm never home and we all would have everything shipped to Fat Beats because one of us would be there at all times to sign for it.


The package arrives and it's huge (MEGA pause). It was about 3 feet high and a foot and a half wide - a huge bitch to lug on the train (all good, though, Critical ha). So, we're all on the subway going home from practicing at Fat Beats and we're all racking our brains trying to come up with a name for this song that we were going to leak in approx 8 hours - it was crunch time. Nothing made sense namewise and we were sick of having regular titles like "All I Do" and "Does It" etc, we wanted something weird. I look at the name on the package and it was sent from a guy named Larry Norris. I said as a joke while pointing at the name, "Yo, let's name it Larry Norris." Everyone immediately was like, "Yes! That's it!"


One more fun fact: Soul Khan google image searched "Larry Norris" for the graphic that went with the leak track, and found a pretty hilarious pic of a guy named "Larry Norris" from the 60's, holding a baby and his eyes are pretty much closed and his mouth is open like he's on drugs or something. We HAD TO use that pic, too.

Live from the Nine

(Produced by DJ Skizz)

Skizz sent us 2 really dope beats to use. We chose this one and wanted to do a super throw-back from the early 90's type of joint. Soul Khan & I originally recorded a ridiculous (ridiculous in a bad way) hook where we chanted "Yo, we're live from the nine! Yeah, we're live from the nine!" like Onyx or something. Trust me, it wasn't good, so we cut it haha. The song was good, though. We kept it.

See Again

(Produced by marink)

This was one of the last songs recorded for this project. I think Soul Khan recorded his vocals in like early Summer and the rest of the crew, including myself, recorded our vocals in December. Not kidding. We took a while to finish this one, but it came out really, really good. Shouts to marink for sampling Coldplay with this track. Nah, that's not true.

What It's All About (M-Phazes Remix)

(Produced by M-Phazes, Cuts by DJ Brace)

We all have been well aware of how dope M-Phazes is for quite some time and we knew we had to work with him at some point. Audible Doctor and I always listened to his beat tapes in Fat Beats while working and we both agreed on this one banging horn beat to use. We were all set to use that beat...then we found out Pharoahe Monch is using it lol. Ok, so, no chance we're using that one. We had the idea to have him remix a joint for us, since our favorite beat was taken - Phazes killed it. Everyone wins.

The Agenda (Marco Polo Remix)

(Produced by Marco Polo, Cuts by DeeJay Element)

Marco's the man and always looked out for me and BBAS since day one. He even went to our shitty little hole in the wall shows in


2008 when we were just a few months deep being a group. Good guy that alwasy showed support. A remix was a no brainer. I can't remember exactly how it came about, but I think Audible Doctor talking to him and it came up in conversation.


We originally sent him the accapella to the original version of "The Agenda" (which Marco helped me with the bassline a year earlier - fun fact, kids) and he made the beat around the vocals. The remix sounded cool but Marco loved how we sounded on this beat and wanted us to re-record the vocals and make it an authentic remix - we were obviously down.


PS Go check out the video for this track right now on Youtube! Thanks.

Disc 2: DJ Brace Remixes

Like I've said before, DJ Brace is a multiple Canadian DMC Champion, came in number 8 in the World DMC's and won a Juno for Instrumental Album of the Year. A Juno is a Canadian Grammy. His incredible album beat out full orchestras - I kid you not. Brace is a genius.


So, during the Brown Bag Season blog campaign, we had Brace remix "Got It All" and it came out amazing. The feedback was insane and we all knew we had to work with Brace again ASAP. We were all already talking to him on a regular basis about getting cuts from him but that remix sparked the idea for Disc 2.


While BBAS while practicing at Fat Beats the night of leaking "Got It All (DJ Brace Remix)" and were all talking about the crazy feedback, Audible Doctor was like, "I think it'd be dope if he did a full album for us." I thought that was the best idea ever, since I said for years that I wish RJD2 did a full album with an emcee, where he puts crazy breakdowns in between each verse, like he does on his instrumental album, etc. That's pretty much what Brace did - brought our track to another level and I couldnt agree with Audible Doc quick enough. The rest of the crew was down right off the bat, too.


The next step was asking Brace if he was down to remix an entire album's worth of joints, just like he did for ''Got It All'' with those epic breakdowns and change-ups, etc. So, I called Brace and told him the idea and he was like, "Hell yeah! When's the deadline?" My reply was, "3 weeks." He geniuinely laughed at me to the point that I thought he was going to say no, but when he stopped laughing, he said, "Sure. Let's do it." Brace spent the next 3 weeks in his studio, not eating (NOT kidding), barely sleeping, smoking a lot of weed, and creating some of the best beats that we've ever worked with. Brace is a robot. We nicknamed him "RoboBrace."

Brown Bag Season Volume One is available now.