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Ask any real hip hop fan for a list of their favourite producers and it's more than likely you'll find the name Organized Noize on it. Made up of Rico Wade, Ray Murray and Sleepy Brown, the Atlanta-based production team are behind the careers of some of the biggest names in music, including Cee-Lo Green and a certain duo by the name of Outkast.
Also responsible for producing TLC's mega hit 'Waterfalls', forming the Dungeon Family, and working on albums by Ludacris, Brandy, Bubba Sparxxx, and Future, Organized Noize, alongside Jermaine Dupri and Dallas Austin, put Atlanta on the map and helped create a sound the Georgia capital could call its own.
Since they released their Netflix documentary, The Art of Organized Noize, last week, the hip hop community hasn't stopped talking about it. Directed by QD3 and featuring conversations with the likes of Diddy, L.A. Reid, 2 Chainz, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League and many more, the documentary takes an in-depth look at the rise of one of music's most modest talents and how they changed the landscape of hip hop.
Taking some time out of his busy schedule to sit down with Gigwise, Sleepy Brown talks the first time he met Outkast, the creation of 'The Way You Move', never winning a Grammy, and he also clears up what the official relationship is between Rico Wade and Future.
How did Organize Noize meet?
“Well, Ray was a producer in East Point. Him and [Big] Gipp grew up together - he taught Gipp how to rap, they had a group called Six Sense. I came from Ben Hill, which was connected to East Point. I was in a popular little dance group called Guess back in the day, so I was kinda known on my side for that.
"So that was in high school, and then Rico was just a little hustler from East Point. After school he’d go to the barbershop and sweep for money and all that. He was a hustler from the beginning. It was kinda weird meeting him for the first time because I used to catch the bus up to the mall, the Greenbriar mall, which is in the middle of Ben Hill and East Point. So I would always catch the bus up there, and there were these two cars that were the same in Atlanta, two Hondas. They had the exact same paint job, it was a two tone gold and black car. Rico had one of these cars so I was always seeing Rico because I would always see that car, and I was like, ‘Who the fuck is this!? I’m always seeing this damn car!’
“I finally met him with this girl I used to date, a girl named Cookie. She was friend’s with T-Boz (of TLC). So we went over to T-Boz’s house, I met T-Boz and she took me up to the corner in East Point to go and meet Rico. So I went up there with them and Rico was working at this hair supply store, selling beauty products and all that shit. He was popular. He was young and making money, you know what I’m saying? He was the shit. So I went up in there, met him, and we clicked man. When I walked up in that store that’s when I first saw Big Rube, the whole crew, Marqueze [Etheridge] - he wrote 'Waterfalls'. We all click, start hanging out and then become friends.
“I used to have a little Tascam drum machine with a little Casio keyboard, and I used to make beats. They were cool but were kinda toy-sounding. I played some for Rico and Rube one day and they were like, ‘Damn! That’s kinda dope.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ It was at this point we clicked on a music tip. So we used to go to the studio and Rico would take some money that he’d been doing his thing with and he’d go in and pay for studio time for me to do my thing, which was Studio 2560 in Atlanta - it was actually Brick’s old studio, my dad’s old studio, where Arrested Development did their album and all that shit.
“From there we became a production team. Then I met Ray one day through working with this producer, whose mother was a famous jazz singer, and he had a set up in his house and he used to let me come over there and work on beats and stuff. So I was over there working on beats and one day he told me, ‘This cat is gonna come in called Ray, he’s gonna grab something and then dip.’ So I’m in there working on a beat, next thing I hear the door open and Ray comes in. He doesn’t even speak to me, he’s just nods at me, then he switches on some equipment and hits the play button and a totally dope fucking beat comes on and I’m blown away like, ‘What the fuck!?’ He then records the shit, cuts it off, looks at me, nods his head again and walks out. I was like, ‘Who the fuck was that!?’ I couldn’t believe it, he just killed it and then walked out on me. Joe told me who he was and we all later became friends."
So it's fair to say that Ray impressed you?
“I knew when I met Ray that I wanted him to be in the crew with us because I wanted him to teach us what he was doing. I wanted Ray to teach me what he was doing and how he did it when it came to samples because I wasn’t doing that kind of thing, I was more an R&B producer that played chords. I can play it by ear, play chords and drums and shit like that. Ray taught me how to sample and listen to bits and pieces of James Brown, and he taught me the history of it all. That’s when we all clicked and we became Organized Noize, then Rico eventually started producing, learning to produce himself.”
So Rico wasn’t originally a producer, it was you and Ray first?
“Yeah, me and Ray were the producers. Rico was more like the manager. He would just pay for the studio time and try and get writers on board and all that stuff. We actually had a girl group called Organized Noize, we had a solo singer, we had all kinds of little shit going on. So Rico was really a manager but of course he wanted to start learning how to work the drum machine and how to produce, you know what I’m saying? He really took an interest in it and Ray took the time out to teach him.”
And the the rest was history?
“Yeah… kinda. Haha.”
When did you first meet Outkast?
"Outkast came into it once we got established as a production team. We had a group called P.A. (Parental Advisory), and we had a deal with Pebbitone, so we met Pebbles and all that and we were looking for a group. And actually this girl that worked with Rico told him about these two guys and she took him to see them. I remember when they first walked in they were different from the beginning because at the time little dudes in high school weren’t rocking bald heads and dressing like that. It was just totally different at the time and that immediately caught my eye. So when they first came in each verse they spit was like 45 minutes a piece, and they kept going back and forth. So we were very impressed with them from the very start."
When did you personally transition into being a singer?
“The first thing was actually [Outkast's] ‘Players Ball’. What it was, myself, Rico, Marqueze, and a guy name Ramone, we had a singing group called the U-Boyz. So I was singing in the group and I was doing all the beats for the group. Then one day Ray was like, ‘Man, it would be dope if we had some shit that sounded like Curtis [Mayfield] was singing it. So he came up with the melody and I was like, ‘Ok, let me go in there and do it.’
“I always wanted to be a singer like my dad. I always wanted to be in music and do the whole thing. That’s just what it was. The transition just came when we started doing more songs. Once we did Society of Soul then that introduced me as a singer. That ‘Players Ball’ and Society of Soul era is where the transition happened. Singing on the Outkast album really did that. Singing ‘Southernplayalistic’ and ‘Funky Ride’ and ‘Crumbling Erb’, I was on that first album a lot, so that convinced me to really wanna go out there and be a singer.”
You have first generation Dungeon Family, that you’re a part of, second generation Dungeon Family, that Killer Mike is a part of, and third generation Dungeon Family, that Future is a part of. Will there be any more generations?
“I don’t know. There could be. It might never stop and keep on going like the Harlem Globetrotters. We might birth a star every time, you just never know, it’s hard to say. It’s a trip because it’s a blessing after all of these years, even with Cee-Lo’s success, Outkast getting back out on the road and Big Boi doing his thing with Phantograms, we’re still here and still getting at ‘em. It’s really great that we’re still out here, still representing, still working and doing our thing. I just wish we’d do another album together.”
Another Dungeon Family album?
“Yeah, a straight Dungeon Family album. I loved the first one but I just wish we’d do another one with everybody on it, all the generations.”
What is Future’s relationship with Rico Wade? Is that his uncle?
“Nah, that’s his first cousin.”
His first cousin?
“Yeah, Rico used to bring Future over, or take him out with him to show him something different. Because Future, you know, he was hard. He was doing things. Rico kinda showed him a whole other light to it. He was actually in a group called Da Connect that Rico had, and they did an EP kinda thing, and after that Future went and did his thing. But they’re definitely first cousins.”
A lot of people believe him to be Rico’s nephew…
“I mean it kinda feels that way. You know what I mean? It definitely felt that way because when he’d come over he was the young’n. We were all kinda his uncles.”
What’s been your proudest moment so far?
“Wow. I think probably doing ‘The Way You Move’. That’s probably the biggest record that I’ve ever done in my life, just me. You know what I mean? Because… well, the way the record happened was Big Boi had a cookout and this producer that we had up under our wing - a guy named Mo - gave Big this CD of beats. Now Big had one of those changers that had like 200 CDs in it, so when I’m sitting in the Boom Boom Room all of a sudden I hear this beat, but it’s not finished or anything like that, but it’s got this little melody on it that gave me such a beautiful vibe on it. I just automatically started humming ‘The Way You Move' to it.
“So I ran out to Big and he was cooking some big ribs and I asked him, ‘What is this record right here?’ He said, ‘I think it’s Mo’s.’ I then said, ‘When we go to the studio tonight I’ve got a hook for it, let’s knock it out.’
“I think that was my proudest moment because I really didn’t know how big that record was really gonna get.’ And to me that record really helped Big. Because he and [Andre 3000] both had big soul records as their singles, and what I didn’t want was for one of them to have a really big record and the other one to not.”
It was a really good balance…
“Yeah, I really wanted a great balance. So when I heard that record I automatically thought Big Boi because at that point I really hadn’t heard what Big was doing with his album. I had heard a couple of things but he really hid a lot of it. But I hadn’t heard any of Dre’s stuff at all. I maybe heard the little jazz break from it outside the studio one time, but I hadn’t heard anything else. I knew Dre was gonna come with something stupid, I just wanted to make sure that as a brother that everything was equal. So I knew that record right there was going to make it equal.
“I loved it because they were both battling each other on the charts. One week ‘Hey Ya!’ would be number one for two or three weeks and then boom, ‘The Way You Move’ would jump up and be number one while ‘Hey Ya!’ was number two. They were going back and forth. It was a trip man! So that record right there I’d say is one of my biggest moments… I mean, I always wanted one of those records like my dad had with ‘Dazz’. You could play ‘Dazz’ now and everybody would start dancing. I always wanted that record, so ‘The Way You Move’, that’s my ‘Dazz’ record.”
And you won a Grammy off of it…
“Well, the album won several Grammys.”
You’re a part of the album though right?
“Yeah. Yeah.”
You don’t look at it that way?
“The only reason I don’t look at it that way is because I didn’t get a Grammy.”
Not even a certificate?
“Nope, I didn’t get nothing. But I was still proud to be a part of it because I was happy for them. I wasn’t tripping, you know what I’m saying? I wasn’t tripping at all.”
But you must have won a Grammy before, right?
“Nah. We’e never won a Grammy.”
You’re kidding?
“We thought we were gonna win for TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’ but we got beat out by Seal for ‘Kiss From A Rose’. We got beat out by the song from Batman. Man, Batman beat our ass.”
So you guys need to get out there and win the Grammy you deserve?
“I mean it would be nice but I’ve gotta be truthful, I don’t really trip on awards - this is very serious. I really don’t trip because when the fans go crazy that's an award in itself, and that’s the God’s honest truth. It would be nice to win one, put it up, sit there and look at it, but at the same time I would already have that feeling because I know the fans love it. When they love it, that’s when I know I’ve won the Grammy. That’s when I know I won the American Music Award. That’s when I know I won that BET Award. You know what I mean? I don’t know how Rico and Ray feel, but me, I’m not trippin’ because I know people that have won Grammys and they ain’t doing shit right now. That mother fucker is sitting up there looking back at them, and they ain’t doing nothing."
The Art of Organized Noize is out now on Netflix.
