Did Pete Rock Produce “Juicy?”
Everybody loves “Juicy”. You’ve probably heard it a million times, and you might pretend that it’s played out, but as soon as it comes on at a party, wedding, or anywhere else, the power of Biggie rhyming over Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” is undeniable. Yet despite it’s place in the pantheon of iconic rap singles, most people are unaware of the interesting controversy behind the song’s production credits.
The question over who actually produced “Juicy” started in a 2004 Wax Poetics interview with legendary producer Pete Rock. In addition to saying that Q-Tip took the beat for A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz” without giving him proper credit, Pete said that Puffy more or less stole the “Juicy” beat from him. “I did the original version, didn’t get credit for it,” he explained. “He heard that shit and the next thing you know it comes out. They had me do a remix, but I tell people, and I will fight it to the end, that I did the original version of that.”
Despite Pete’s version of the backstory, the liner notes of Ready to Die list Poke of The Trackmasters and Puffy as the song’s producers instead of Pete Rock. Pete said he wasn’t angry about the slight, but it seemed at the time of the interview he felt burned by several instances of not receiving appropriate credit for his work. “I’m not mad at anybody,” he told Wax Poetics. “I just want the correct credit. Fuck that. Y’all can’t just be robbing mu’fuckas. If you didn’t do the work, I’ma expose you.”
“They had me do a remix, but I tell people, and I will fight it to the end, that I did the original version of that.”- Pete Rock
In a 2008 interview with Wax Poetics the issue came up again. This time it was revealed that Biggie thought Pete was making “Juicy” for his former group mate C.L. Smooth. “When I told him I was just making it for myself, he immediately wanted it. I said sure, but didn’t think much of it,” Pete said.
When journalist David Ma asked if any efforts had been made to get the appropriate credit on the song, Pete seemed more at peace with the situation. His biggest regret was that he never had another chance to work with Big. “Life goes on,” he told Wax Poetics. “I settled and just did a remix for it. Really though, I just wish Biggie was still alive for me to work with him.”
Pete Rock may believe he’s responsible for “Juicy”, but Poke of The Trackmasters had a much different recollection of how things went down during the song’s inception. “Puff said, ‘Yo ‘Juicy Fruit’ is a hot record to jack,’” he told Complex in a 2012 interview. “I went home, we put the shit together, came back to the studio, Biggie rhymed, and that was it. That’s the whole story.”
“Really though, I just wish Biggie was still alive for me to work with him.”- Pete Rock
Although Pete was adamant in 2004 about being the song’s creator, Poke seemed surprised by Pete’s insistence that he was responsible for Juicy. “I don’t know where Pete Rock came from [saying he did the original version],” he told Complex. “Maybe Puff tried to get Pete to do it and maybe it didn’t come out the way he meant it. That could have happened prior to it coming for us to do.”
Poke credits a technique he and production partner Tone coined the “Fadies” as being key in the creation of “Juicy”. According to Poke, the Fadies was a way of picking apart samples and taking out unwanted elements to make the sample sound cleaner. This way, Poke and Tone could sample anything they wanted, even if it had drums and other elements that might clash. “Basically, what we were doing was fading kicks and snares inside of the samples,” he told Complex. “I can play a sample for you and there would be no drums in it whatsoever because we broke the sample up into 100 pieces.”
Beyond the the differing accounts of how the song was produced, both producer’s have different remembrances of Big’s writing techniques or lack thereof. Pete Rock said that Big wrote lyrics all the time. “I was playing beats for him, and he’d be writing constantly,” he told Complex. “He does that.”
Poke, on the other hand, remembered Biggie coming up with lyrics without writing anything down. “I never knew how B.I.G. used to write his lyrics until then,” he told XXL. “I remember playing him the record and he was just sitting there doing nothing. I was like, ‘N**** you doing nothing, you gonna pick up a pen and write?’ He was like, ‘Man, that’s not how I do records. Man, I am writing.’”
“I went home, we put the shit together, came back to the studio, Biggie rhymed, and that was it.”- Poke
Accusations of beat jacking and disagreements over production credits are nothing new in rap music. People remember things differently and other classic singles like “O.P.P.” by Naughty By Nature have seen similar disputes. In fairness to Poke, the album version of “Juicy” that he is credited with producing does sound more like vintage Trackmasters than vintage Pete Rock. That said, Pete isn’t the first producer to take issue with production credits on a Bad Boy album.
In the end, perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
You can connect with Pete Rock on Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter @peterock.
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