I had left the group and I got my own studio
upstairs from where The Roots recorded, Sigma Sound.
And I was working with this girl Jill Scott,
she was working at Urban Outfitters at the time.
And she wanted me to help her make some music
for her stuff so she could get a deal.
We came up with this song, “You Got Me.”
It was pretty much all the way done and Questlove
came in and said, “I have to have this for
our album,” for Things Fall Apart.
It was 1997.
I gave it to them and I was assuming that
Jill would be on the record, and at the last
second the label decided to throw Erykah Badu
and we won a Grammy.
What was the process for you to come up with
that beat in particular.
Obviously there was add-ons after the fact,
but to start it, I just came up with these chords.
Jill and I did it...
I call it Lennon and McCartney style, where
we sit at the piano, I play, somebody has
a pad, we create melodies, we create chords,
and then the production comes second.
We have a generalized tempo in mind, and a
feel, so I just programmed the drums around
that, and bass...
Emulated a bass guitar on the keys.
Then Hub came in and he replayed it after
The Roots accepted it.
Then Questlove, as well, redid the drums with
the same pattern that I created.
And then he came up with this idea for the
end of the record to put jungle music, the
drum & bass break in there, then took it a
step further and attempted to play it live.
What’s it like, everywhere you go, you’re
hearing the song?
It’s a hugely popular song.
It’s crazy, I have a story about that.
I remember, in Philly, driving around in my
car, and even though we were successful somewhat,
in the fact that we had a song on the radio,
it hadn’t hit to us financially.
I remember I saw somebody in the car playing
the song and they pulled up next to me, and
I was stressing out how I was going to pay
my cell phone bill or something stupid.
It was just like, “You know what? It’s going to be good.”
