UG Rap Community

INTERVIEW BY: Leon Bailey

WOS: What's going on with you guys today?

Tomar Williams: Aww man, we doing pretty good man. Just staying busy man.

WOS: State your names so that the people know.

Tomar: My name is Tomar Williams

Salih Williams: I'm Salih Williams

WOS: For people who do not know who Carnival Beats are, why don't you give me a brief bio.

Tomar: Basically Carnival Beats started back in the early 80s from a family band with brothers and sisters- four brothers and three sisters. My father wanted a Jackson 5 type thing. We did a lot of live entertainment playing. The whole family was basically born and raised here in Texas. Myself was born in Phoenix and Tomar was born in Vegas. We were living in Victoria (TX) at the time doing the local gigs around town and talent shows. We all decided that we needed to move up with it, so we came to Austin. Austin was a bigger city and also the capital (of Texas). The whole club scene was jamming. We started performing as a band here in Austin. We did a lot of cover stuff; we were like a cover group basically. We were writing some stuff, but we were basically doing the cover stuff.

WOS: How long have you been producing for?

Salih: Carnival Beats Company came basically after '91 when I came back from LA and we started to say, 'let's get this production team together man.' We did a lot of playing and we just decided to put it together as a writing standpoint. Carnival Beats wasn't the name then but the whole idea was there.

Tomar: Yeah the whole foundation was there. We really wanted to do it- not as performers or entertainers- but we wanted to take on the role as producers. We could have both sides of the music world.

WOS: What made you decide that you wanted to do production for a career?

Salih: I guess what happened during the rap scene down here- it really started jumping off when DJ Screw came up on the scene. He was back in the early 90s and was really doing his thing. Big Moe and the whole Wreckshop crew had got together around that time in the early 90s. We was just peeping the whole market- we wasn't really shooting anyone any tracks or nothing- so when we did one night me and a friend got a chance to go to a show and meet Wreckshop and them a little demo or whatever. Big Moe then came out with the "Barre Baby" off of that demo. There were a couple of tracks on there that he liked. Right when the "Barre Baby" came out we was like hey let's call ourselves the Carnival Beats. That song really got a lot of airplay. It was like 50,000 spins a week or something like that. That was really our big first commercial hit. We were local but it was a big commercial hit. The album did real good underground. It did about 200,000 and it was called "City of Syrup." I think we had three joints on there. We did 'Purple Stuff' off of the "Purple World" album. That was pretty cool and he did his thing over at Capitol. I think that it just didn't work. Some companies work and some don't and they just didn't work with what we were trying to do and I think that was the case with Wreckshop. We gotta keep moving forward and that's when we decided that we needed to hit the streets a little more.

WOS: How did "Still Tippin'" come about?

Salih: As we were doing Dirty 3rd Record they had asked Mike Jones to come through and do a verse for one of their freestyle tapes. Mike wasn't actually there, but I had a chance to meet Michael Watts who had the vocals on CD. He was like give me a beat and you know how that goes. On the particular CD, it had "Still Tippin'." Still Tippin' did alright- it didn't really blow up by ear. People were jamming to it. It took a while for people to catch on because the song been out on almost three years. That song was servicing the underground for a minute. Mike Jones first hit he had was a song we produced called "Cuttin'" That was on an old underground CD. That jumped off and that was like his first hit out here. That's what really got his name poppin' out here. They got the deal with Asylum and Still Tippin' just started blazing then.

Tomar: I think the initial spark was when they called and said that the video was going to be on BET Uncut. The first time we saw it, we said, 'man this may be a big record.' From that moment, it was on BET Uncut it just exploded. In Texas, it was like the song was rebirth all over again. The same energy that you got when you first heard it was back all over again. It was kind of crazy.

WOS: So what are your thoughts on everyone paying attention to Texas as of right now?

Salih: There is a lot of stuff that's been done and a lot of unknown names man. It just happened that your Lil' Flips and Slim Thugs done made it to the next level.

WOS:So tell me about some of the artists you're working with.

Tomar: We are working with our own artist and his name is NAC. He is from a small town down here named Nacogdoches, Texas.

Salih: He's pretty hot. He got the looks and he got a nice little thing cracking with on the vocals. We really want to start developing acts that's locally around us. We feel like there is so much out here man. I hope that within the next year we can have something popping with him.

Tomar: We got someone overseas right now that we're working with- MIA from XL Recordings. Got a single with her and hopefully featuring Bun B on it.

Salih: Hopefully we can get him. We just waiting on how his schedule is.

Tomar: That's another joint that we got coming out real soon.

WOS: Did you produce Bun B's new single?

Tomar: Yeah, they played that on the radio and it's real hot.

WOS: How did you hook up with him for the track?

Tomar: We got a call from Bun B's manager requesting a single.

WOS: With the success of those tracks, have a lot more artists came at you for tracks?

Salih: We are working with a couple of other people. We had some cats come through from Houston and I think they with the Roc A Fella camp. I'm trying to crack something off for them. We also did something with a cat named Dirtbag Single.

Tomar: I think it's called "Crusin In My 64."

Salih: Dirtbag got Jazzy Pha on the record- Mannie, Smurf, Cool & Dre. We got the single and it's cool that they allowing us to let us get these singles man.


Check Part 2 Of The Interview This Thursday.

For more info on Carnival Beats, please check out http://www.carnivalbeats.com/

Hab die heute bekommen! Ist cool, aber CD-R!!!