With Wiz, K.R.I.T., and DZA, we tried out so much stuff, and I think it’s apparent on the album. I’ve learned that the real art is meeting halfway, somewhere unique for both of you. Why do you think you meshed so well with Wiz, K.R.I.T., and DZA?
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Speaking with Rolling Stone, Gillis offers more insight into the making of Full Court Press, assures fans he’s always making new mashups and remixes, talks about the form’s unexpected revival on TikTok, and more. On top of prepping for the release of Full Court Press, Gillis is getting ready to embark on his first full-fledged tour in nine years - and, yes, his live set will feature some new mashups. I didn’t want it to be too static in terms of the era of the samples or the feel.” “I want it to feel unpredictable, and I wanted that on this album too.
“Going back to my albums or live shows, I never like to have two songs from the Eighties back-to-back, or two songs from the Seventies,” Gillis says. There’s plenty of crate-digger gold, and Gillis even got Nile Rodgers to re-record the stems of Chic’s “Soup for One” for Wiz Khalifa’s solo offering, “Ready for Love.” But Gillis also found samples by contemporary artists like Toro Y Moi and Aldous RH that fit seamlessly alongside the dusty gems from Little Murray and the Mantics, Michael Henderson, and the Turkish artist Özdemir Erdoğan, whose 1977 tune “Aç Kapıyı Gir İçeri” appears on the quartet’s new single, “How the Story Goes.” It’s a breezy 10-song set with three great MCs bouncing off each other, and Gillis’ production feels at once rooted in the warm tones of the Seventies and Eighties, with a few left turns for good measure. While Full Court Press is in many ways completely different from Gillis’ mashup albums, it’s also not so dissimilar. There was a certain camaraderie, it was a very fun, friendly vibe, and I think it comes off in the project.” “They were great sports about just letting it go. “I got to switch the mood up, like, ‘Now we’re going to do this, now we’re going to that,'” he says. The multi-day session took place right before the pandemic, and the very first beat Gillis played became Full Court Press‘ lead single, “Put You On.” That set the mood and tempo as Wiz, K.R.I.T., and DZA hopped on pretty much every beat he played. But when I reached out, everyone was down.” “I thought it would be interesting if I could get them together and do something as a group. “Those guys collaborated early on in their careers, and they started from similar places, but then went to do their own things and have very different lanes,” Gillis says. After a handful of individual collaborations, he decided to try to get all three in the studio at the same time. But the artists he clicked with most were Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, and fellow Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa.
He took on more “traditional” projects as a producer, dropping an EP with the Philadelphia MC Freeway in 2014, and making singles with Jim Jones, T-Pain, and Don Q. As to whether that argument would hold up, no one ever took him to court and most of his records are available on streaming services and YouTube.)Īfter All Day, Gillis stepped back from mashups, but not from music. (For those wondering, Girl Talk never cleared samples for his mashup albums, because he claimed the short snippets he used to essentially create a new work were protected under the “fair use” principle of copyright law.
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