https://www.complex.com/music/2014/09/mannie-fresh-interview-the-making-of-cash-money/
Juvenile “Ha” (1998)
Album: 400 Degreez
Mannie Fresh: “'Ha' was the last song for 400 Degreez we added. I felt like we needed one more song that needed to be raw, it can’t be something we thought about. He was like, 'I got something, but I really don’t know if they ready.' I was like, 'Let me hear it.' He started saying, 'Ha,' and I programmed the beat real quick. I was like, 'Dude, this is the song. This will be incredible.' He was like, 'You really think so?' It was that scary moment as an artist when you feel like you might have gone too far. I was like, 'No dude, I love everything that we’ve done on 400 Degreez, but we haven’t done anything like this, and nobody’s ever heard anything like this.’
“Usually if we was working on an album, I did beats right there on the spot like, 'Give me your rhymes so I can feel my beat patterns close to whatever it is that you doing.’ It was almost like this old school James Brown approach, if I had a bass player, somebody doing horns, it would start off with him rapping. Then I would do the beat, next thing you know the bass player joins in, then I’m telling somebody these are what the chords are, and before you know it, we’re done with that song and we’re moving on. [Laughs.]
“To me, it’s easy to do a bunch of songs because look at all the music we got in the world. You got classical, jazz, funk. All you need to do is go listen some of that and you’ll come up with ideas. Nothing is truly yours, you’re going to get an idea from something. You got some people who say, 'I came up with that all by myself,' and I’m like, 'Really? Those are Marvin Gaye chords.' There’s so much stuff out here that you can get great ideas from and put your little twist to it.”
Juvenile “Ha” (1998)
Album: 400 Degreez
Mannie Fresh: “'Ha' was the last song for 400 Degreez we added. I felt like we needed one more song that needed to be raw, it can’t be something we thought about. He was like, 'I got something, but I really don’t know if they ready.' I was like, 'Let me hear it.' He started saying, 'Ha,' and I programmed the beat real quick. I was like, 'Dude, this is the song. This will be incredible.' He was like, 'You really think so?' It was that scary moment as an artist when you feel like you might have gone too far. I was like, 'No dude, I love everything that we’ve done on 400 Degreez, but we haven’t done anything like this, and nobody’s ever heard anything like this.’
“Usually if we was working on an album, I did beats right there on the spot like, 'Give me your rhymes so I can feel my beat patterns close to whatever it is that you doing.’ It was almost like this old school James Brown approach, if I had a bass player, somebody doing horns, it would start off with him rapping. Then I would do the beat, next thing you know the bass player joins in, then I’m telling somebody these are what the chords are, and before you know it, we’re done with that song and we’re moving on. [Laughs.]
“To me, it’s easy to do a bunch of songs because look at all the music we got in the world. You got classical, jazz, funk. All you need to do is go listen some of that and you’ll come up with ideas. Nothing is truly yours, you’re going to get an idea from something. You got some people who say, 'I came up with that all by myself,' and I’m like, 'Really? Those are Marvin Gaye chords.' There’s so much stuff out here that you can get great ideas from and put your little twist to it.”
