Like the cadences Tupac's prolific poetry or Snoop and E-40's slanguage, Jazze Pha appears to have a secret fetish for the letter "Z." Having branded his production with, "This is a Jazze Phizzle production!" tag, the infamous calling card of the Sho Nuff front man might be taking a brief sabbatical.

After realizing he wasn’t going to make it as a rapper, Jazze sat behind the boards and has never really had a minute to look over his shoulder to what could have been. Making music for others has been both productive and financially viable for Jazze. Putting down the mic has not demeaned him in anyway. With humble production beginnings with Ras Kass and Nappy Roots, things spiraled when Pha added "The Princess of Crunk" to his credits. Subsequently, Jazze caught the attention of Cash Money Records, and reportedly sold a fleet of 50 beats at once. Talking hate, developing talent and relevancy..this is a HipHopDX-izzle production.

HipHopDX: Your phone played me "Rio" by Duran Duran when I called you, why that joint?
Jazze Pha: I love Duran Duran. That joint there, their music makes me think about the ocean. It just reminds me of a time when everyone watched MTV.

DX: That was the time when videos starting coming out...
JP: Yeah that was when MTV played videos all day long and now all you get to see is a reality show. How can you have music TV with no music? It should be RTV, Reality TV as that is what it has become.

DX: Was producing always the path you wanted to take as your family are very musical?
JP: Actually, taking courses when I was really young, I wanted to be a singer. As I grew up, people started rapping and I was like, "Wow, look at LL Cool J and Run-DMC." I wanted to rap and sing. But in the process, I was around music and I was learning how to make music but it didn’t ever occur to me that production was a way off life. It was just a way to get my ideas out. I would say that it was the year of 1990 or so where I realized the artist thing wasn’t really working for me and those that were working for me were always turning up late. That was how I started to learn how to work the equipment and once I did that, I just started making music for everybody else.

DX: Saying that it wasn’t working for you, was it easy for you to throw in the towel? Nowadays you see a lot of people that maybe should have thrown in the towel...
JP: It is hard to say when someone should throw in the towel. When you watch those shows [remembering] one hit wonders, you just never know when someone is going to get that one hit and be known and have their life change over one record. You know there are times when it is obvious that someone should throw in the towel.

DX: Do you think it is hard to stay relevant as a producer today?
JP: Yes it is, because as much as we love music and when I say "we" I mean people that are into real music like live bass and strings; you really have to have the resources to go above and beyond what is trendy and what is hot at the time. When you are a young producer, I think it is harder than say for myself. I can go to the simple and the trivial, but that is not where I want to take my music anymore. When you grow, your music should grow. So to answer your question it is hard to stay relevant. When you are a creative person, you believe what you believe, and unfortunately record execs don’t want you to believe anything, they just want you to do what they heard on the last record and what helped them get a billion ring tones.

DX: Being that you have your own label and you are a record exec, is this always in your head when you are working with your artists, that you have to go against the grain?
JP: No, as it is not all about going against the grain. You know we have artists that do the relevant stuff; you know what’s going on in the streets right now. But there is a happy medium of both, as I am going to come in there and do four or five songs on every album. But I don’t make them conform to what I do. The artists that I usually pick have a sound to themselves as I don’t pick under developed talent. I really don’t have time to be developing talent. Every once in a while I will take a project as my baby and develop it, but it is more often that I will take something that is ready to go.

DX: Was Ciara a project you took on as a baby?
JP: Oh yeah most definitely, most definitely and I have another project I am working on from the ground up which is going to be crazy, but I am not going to talk on that.

DX: That’s not fair.[Laughing]
JP: I can’t really talk about it as it is in negotiations and it is someone every one knows and if I bring everyone’s attention to it, there is going to be questions asked.

DX: So what does it take to attract you to a situation where you want to work with someone from the ground up?
JP: It does take a special attraction. I am not as easily attracted to artists as I used to be. Right now you have to really, really scour the earth to find the ones and they only come once in a while. Like Ciara, she is one of those ones. Just take Death Row [Records], there was only one Dr. Dre and there was only one Snoop Dogg and then of course Tupac, he came later, but they were the legendary cornerstones in that label. Continued on page 2 »