PF Cuttin

One of the first things the pandemic infected was our routines. From work, to school, to social events, those old, familiar ways we once knew are ancient history. It’s a strong statement to make considering we haven’t even been living in this new universe for a year. But things done changed. Most of us have come to terms with the fact that life has been forever altered. Some have not and desperately cling on to the hope that things will go back to normal. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, there’s no denying that we’re playing a whole new game.  

When I started this blog at the beginning of the year, I was physically sitting down and conversing with the hip-hop community. I wanted direct access to the people who shaped the foundation of the culture because there’s an intimacy in having an in-person conversation that can’t be matched by a telephone or Zoom interview. I’d worked out a plan after strategizing my approach for months and it was off to a good start. As you probably guessed that plan has been altered. So, I had to reevaluate some things before I could move forward. I did and here we are. Speaking to someone through a computer or telephone device might not have the same effect as the alternative, but it gets the job done. 

PF Cuttin got Black Vinyl Brews back in the swing of things and I couldn’t be more grateful. The East New York native and hip-hop veteran has been at the center of the culture’s best moments. He’s not only one half of Blahzay Blahzay, but also an engineer and producer that’s undoubtedly worked on one of your favorite projects in the last 25 years. PF Cuttin never stops, so I was fortunate enough to steal some of his time last month. I hope he enjoyed our conversation as much as I did. 

BVB: Have the pandemic restrictions been affecting you?  

PF Cuttin: I mean, thank God I know how to save bread, but I mean yeah, of course. It affects every working DJ’s livelihood. I just started spinning again last week. The last time before that was March. So, you know, all the bread in between that time is missing. But you know, thank God things worked out and I’m here, man. I’m surviving, going with the punches.  

BVB: The pandemic hasn’t stopped people’s creativity. I see everyone doing live sets on Instagram or spinning on YouTube. What do you think about these new online venues and will they continue even after we get back to physical spaces? 

PF Cuttin: Me personally, I was using YouTube, Ustream, OBS, all that, way before the pandemic. I was online on a constant basis for like seven years, doing my radio show, East NY Radio. And yeah, I mean it’s great, it’s great to see all these creative people on there doing their thing, you know? The question is will they continue to do it once everything goes back to normal? 

BVB: I want to talk about East NY Radio, specifically your process for picking new music because everything is so oversaturated. I’ve heard you describe how you go through music, keeping what you like and trashing what you don’t. But I’m curious about how you even get here. Are you online looking for new music or are people sending you stuff? Is it a combination of both? 

PF Cuttin: It’s a combination of both. I get a lot of stuff [through] email and I sit there and download everything. I don’t care, whoever it is, I download it. And I sit there, and I listen. I give them eight bars. If it’s a long intro, I give them eight bars after the intro. If it catches my ear, I listen even more. And if I like the song, I include it in my playlist. That’s how I usually do it. Almost every day I [also] go online, just to see what’s hot, what’s popping. I run a search on rappers’ names [to see] if they have something coming out. I do that like four times out of the week. Emails don’t ever stop though. They’re like all day, every day, Monday through Sunday, which is good, which is what I wanted. My email is out there for that reason. 

BVB: Do you ever get frustrated with the process? Sometimes you have to dig through a lot of garbage to get to the gold.  

PF Cuttin: Yeah, I do. It frustrates me almost every week. There's times where I'm like, I'm not doing a fucking show today. Shit is horrible. You know what I'm saying? I just sat here for four hours, went through all these MP3s and I pulled out 22 records. Like, what is this? A half hour show now? You feel me? But I got to fight myself on them. Let me go through these joints again. Maybe I overlooked something or maybe I didn't play something the week before I should have. And that's how I usually do, you know, do that every week that way. 

BVB: With technology, everyone has a platform, but not everyone should have a platform. 

PF Cuttin: You’re right, 100%. 

BVB: It just makes the searching process exhausting. I mean it’s exhausting for me as a fan. I can’t imagine what it’s like for a DJ. 

PF Cuttin: It’s very exhausting. That’s the right word for it. […] But you know, with the bad, there’s good. I complain about it, but I like it. The day when I don’t care anymore, it’s over. I’m done. I’m not fucking with this rap no more. Fuck it. “What’s hot in opera?” When that day comes, it’s a wrap. But I don’t feel that way. I look forward to doing it. And you know it’s just my opinion, it’s just my selections. PF Cuttin didn’t play your record? Fuck it. Joe, the next DJ, will. Just continue to go out there and create. I don’t knock nobody. If you ask me why I didn’t play your record, there’s two reasons: A, I didn’t get it and B, I heard it and I didn’t like it. And I’ll tell you the best way I can. I want the same honesty for me. Not everybody plays PF Cuttin production records, but I love that. It makes me go back in the lab and [say], I gotta make something for this guy to play or this girl to like. That’s the way I look at things.  

BVB: I’m thinking about all the releases from this year and there’s been some heat. I was just listening to Labba’s The 9 and that’s one of the best things I’ve heard.  

PF Cuttin: I love that album. I picked out all those songs. Labba has another three albums sitting here in my studio that we recorded. And I said, this [record] has to be the first hot nine. And those are the first hot nine that I picked out.  

BVB: His lyricism is on point and you just flow together. 

PF Cuttin: Yeah, his cadence, his whole aura. He’s not Nas, but he’s Labba. He’s his own thing. And that’s why I love Labba. When I first met Labba, I already knew who he was. Everybody says he wants to sound like Biggie, but that’s not him wanting to sound like Biggie, that’s the way he talks. It’s not like when Shyne did it or that other cat, Guerilla Black. Fucking atrocious.  

BVB: I want to talk about another important album. Today marks the fifth anniversary of Songs in the Key of Price. I imagine it was a bittersweet release because it came out right after Sean passed. When it dropped, did it help people cope with that incredible loss? 

PF Cuttin: I don’t know man. I don’t know if it did at that time. It was just such a fucked up moment for me. I mean fuck me, his family, his kids, you know. It’s just a fucked up moment. So, it was more bitter than sweet. I remember finishing the album. I was like, yo, we got a fucking monster on our hands. This album is banging! And then the world went upside down. I heard good things about the album, I heard bad things about the album. There’s always haters. I’m just glad that I can say I got to do an album with my friend, even though I didn’t do every beat on the mixtape. But the [songs] on iTunes, I did, we did. We found samples [together]. “Yo PF, do this shit.” Boom. “Yo Sean, you like this?” “No, fuck, this, do this shit.” The [beats] you think are hot, he doesn’t like. The ones you’re going to throw away in the trash, he’ll stop you and be like, “No, I wanna rap to that.” Yeah, I miss my friend. To me it was way bitter man. And it’s still bitter. I still feel sick in my stomach every August 8, every anniversary. It’s just a terrible feeling in my stomach. And if I feel like this, I can’t imagine how his kids feel.  

BVB: It was beautiful to see you all gather for Sean in Brooklyn a few weeks ago.  

PF Cuttin: Oh, not me. I went to that one time and that’s it. Personally, 70% of the people that were there, Sean didn’t even fuck with. That’s straight up. I understand the concept, I understand what they’re doing.  I get it. But I’m not one who believes in throwing balloons every time my father’s death day comes. I don’t go outside and put balloons in the air, I don’t light candles to pictures. I don’t do that. Other people do things the way they want to do it. I went the first year and that was it, man. 

BVB: It seems really intimate, so that’s interesting to hear you say that. A lot people there didn’t know him. 

PF Cuttin: I mean, I can see why his fans would want to go. And it’s cool, it’s fine. It’s dope for them.  

BVB: It’s a different experience for you though because you knew him, and he was your friend. 

PF Cuttin: Totally different.  

BVB: Was the bond you had with Sean immediate or did it develop over time? 

PF Cuttin: It developed over time. It developed a few years after I had produced two joints for the Heltah Skeltah album when they was on Interscope. It was two hot fire joints [and] they couldn’t clear the samples. We’d built a relationship since then, just a friendship really.  And then one thing led to another. He calls me one time at four in the morning, “Yo, PF, I’m tired of this shit.” I was like, “Yo, calm down, come to my crib the next day.” He came and we just started working, man. We did one or two joints, we did one or two freestyles, and that’s how we created the Donkey Sean Jr. Mixtape.  

BVB: As a producer, how do you decide which artists you want to work with? And if an artist approaches you, how do you decide if you want to work with them? What qualities do you look for? 

PF Cuttin: I can’t remember one time that I said, I want to work with this guy, and then gave him a call and worked with him. Everybody that I’ve worked with in my life, from Masta Killa, to Afu-Ra, to Thirstin Howell III, to the Chuck D remix I did when he was a solo artist, to Labba, it just happened organically. Killa lives in my neighborhood.  And one day it just happened. “Yo, PF, you got beats?” Yeah, check this out. Boom. Right there. But when I do look to produce somebody as far as [developing] a new artist coming out, he just gotta have some bars, man. He’s gotta have straight bars, and he’s gotta sound like nobody else. I don’t want to hear anybody that sounds like Ghostface or sounds like Nas. You gotta bring something different to this table of hip-hop. You gotta make the culture grow, not take from it.  

BVB: That’s another difference between then and now. It was all about originality. Now, I can listen to 30 people and they all sound the same. There’s no etiquette anymore, no golden rule. You’re not supposed to sound like the next person.  

PF Cuttin: No rules. They're sampling off hip-hop records, they’re biting straight lines, cadences, and flows. There’s no rules.   

BVB: I kind of have an idea of maybe why that's happening, but I want to ask you about this first. You always talk about being exposed to greats, like Daddy-O, at a young age and that gave you access to a world which inspired your own career. Do you think opportunities like that still exist for younger producers and emcees trying to get their foot in door? 

PF Cuttin: I mean, I'm sure it's out there, you know, it's just rappers who are newer that are putting these other young rappers on now, you know what I'm saying? Like the way Daddy-O put me on and shit, and the way Lumumba Carson did with me as well, and Positive K. Yeah, I'm sure there are rappers out there from the 2000's and now that are doing that with these young producers, I'm pretty sure of it, man. I mean, I haven't physically seen it or can say, this guy learned from that guy, but I'm sure it's still going on. 

BVB: I just wondered if there's some opportunity for the older generation to bridge the gap between them and the younger generation and share those words of wisdom. 

PF Cuttin: Right. I mean, the question is, do they want to listen though? That's another thing. They just think they know it all, man. I have recording sessions and I mix people's joints that I don't even know. And I don't even see their faces. They send me their files online. I mix and master it and send it back. And when I do that, I'm not PF Cuttin. I mean, I'm PF Cuttin, but I'm George the engineer. I don't give my opinion. I don't give any critique. I don't do none of that. I just make sure I give him the best mix I can. And they're happy. Now, if they ask, that's a different story. 

BVB: Then you’re going to give it to them. 

PF Cuttin: In a professional way, you know. Not being an asshole, just so they could probably learn from it. 

BVB: How did you get into engineering? 

PF Cuttin: From years of spending money in studio, you know, behind the engineer while he's messing with my music and just asking. If I'm looking at what he's doing and then if I can't figure out what he's doing, I ask. I ask questions. Yo, what's this? What's this? What's a compressor? What does that do? It does this, it's for that, you know. I'm like, oh, okay. And I just gather information through [the] years and back in, 1998, I got my first Mac, it was a Mac G3 with an accelerator 500 card. And I was using the Digi 001 rack mount, eight ins and eight outs and that's using Logic 4. That's how I started recording. Just trial and error, you know, learning how to curve my ear from analog to digital. 

BVB: Before you started DJing and producing, you said your father put you in music school and you had formal training on the drums, which isn't always necessarily the case for folks. Did that come in handy when you were learning how to DJ and produce? 

PF Cuttin: It definitely came in handy with DJing and definitely handy with producing. Drum school taught me bars, taught me how to read notes. And I applied all that to DJing, you know. Timing is everything when you're DJing and same thing with drumming. I used to come home [and] my homework from drum school was to put your headphones on and play whatever you hear on the radio. And I would do that for like hours and hours and hours. And I was pretty good as a kid. I was in a school band, all that, all that good stuff. But I got bored of it fast and you know, hip-hop, man. I wanted to do hip-hop. I was like, hold up, there's already a hip-hop band [and that was] Stetsasonic. I'm not playing drums no more. Fuck it. I want to make beats with a drum machine. 

BVB: Especially being surrounded by the cats you were surrounded by.  

PF Cuttin: Yeah, fuck that. You know, I convinced my dad to sell the drum. The drum set that he bought me, which is a five-piece Ludwig, clear fiberglass and Zildjian cymbals. He sold it, I believe if I remember correctly, to Blahzay. His uncle had a church. And I sold it to them and I bought a drum machine and bought some other equipment, a mixer. And that's how it got the ball rolling. 

BVB: Tell me about upcoming projects you have in the works.  

PF Cuttin: Well, right now, through the pandemic, I've been stacking beats, you know. I have a few ideas in my head, one being an instrumental album and the other being maybe a sequel to Opium, [the] O.C. album. Did you hear the opium album with O.C.? 

BVB: Oh, of course. 

PF Cuttin: So, I was thinking of doing another one. Don't know what to call it yet. I don’t know if it would just be with, O. It might be with O. and a few other people. I was thinking it out, stacking beats towards that. And also, I've been mixing and mastering a lot of people's projects. Illa Ghee's next two albums. A lot of independent artists, new artists like people from Arizona. There's an artist named Wisecrvcker. I just did like two of his new albums. I mastered and mixed. I'm working with Rim Da Villin. I just did a joint for this new album coming out as a compilation album. I'm working, man. Just, you know, continue to do what I love, man. 

BVB: I look forward to all of that. Opium was one of my favorite albums that year. I mean you and O.C.?! Forget that shit. 

PF Cuttin: Thank you. Who do you like right now? 

BVB: I'm really a big fan of Jay Royale. 

PF Cuttin: Jay Royale is dope. I just played like three of his songs on Thursday’s show.  

BVB: He be bringing the heat! I’m really into Baltimore right now. I don’t know if you know Ill Conscious... 

PF Cuttin: Yeah, Ill Conscious, man. That’s my dude. I had him up on a show. I was so fucking amazed. This dude, yo, he did one of the best freestyles on my show ever. Like fire.  

BVB: That dude’s the truth.  

PF Cuttin: I would like to do a project with Ill Conscious. He's so fucking ill. He spits so much flames and you can hear everything he's saying. 

BVB: What about you?  

PF Cuttin: I mean, yeah, I like Jay Royale, I like Estee Nack, I like Mooch, I like Riggs. I like John Jigg$. Of course, the Griselda family. I thought that single was dope with Premier. I mean, yo, to be honest, you know, I sit through a lot of bullshit every week, but I've been able to pull out some joints and there's artists out there that's really working, man. I like the Flee Lord. There's a lot of dope shit out there.  

BVB: I agree. So, we gotta keep digging. We've got to get past the garbage to get to the gold.  

PF Cuttin: Keep digging, bro.