When Dre and I started making the 'Straight Outta Compton' record, every day on our way to the studio, we would listen to the 'It Takes A Nation' album.
I would love to have Mystikal on Strange Music when he gets outta jail.
I never really focus on writing for other people, to be honest. Every song I've ever written was for me to sing. Maybe if I'm writing for a rapper, but I'd still write it as though it was for myself and then sometimes I'm actually asked to do the part.
I think it would be different to work with a guy like Kanye West or Jay-Z, those guys are so phenomenal, but just to work with a rapper, I don't think is really my thing. I really like songs, like true songs. Like indie songs.
I would collaborate with James Franco as a rapper any day.
I'd love to work with Drake. I got Drake beats.
As with all the other rappers I've worked with, Biggie and I shared common ground. Even though Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Chicago, we came from the same 'hood.
I first heard Trouble in 2008. At that time I was on my grind, trying to work with all the next-up artists. I had sent him a couple beats; he had done a couple songs. We was always around the same age.
My fondest memory of Tupac is my father producing 'Toss It Up' for him when I was 7 years old and hearing that.
My taste for rappers is very high. I've only worked with, like, Pac and Jay-Z and Scarface.
The South Side loves me - I've got a song with Jermaine Dupri - and I've got songs on the East Coast and songs on the West Coast. Now, if I could just find me a rapper from up North.
So sometimes if I'm working with a rapper, like Ghostface Killah or Nas, producing usually means, in hip-hop, that you make the music. You make the beat, and you give it to them. And they write the rhymes.
People in the record business would say, Well, Pras, you know, you haven't been out in a while, maybe you should get today's hottest producer or rapper to do something.
Right after high school... the first time I ever recorded music was with a rapper, a friend of mine, and I would just be like, 'I'll sing your choruses.' So I would sing his hooks and he would go in there and rap.
