thaFormula.com - Now I know you're originally from Toronto, what were you doing out there before you came here?

Marco Polo - I was born like 15 or 20 minutes outside of Toronto. I grew up in that area so I was basically there until about 6 years ago right before I left and went to engineering school. After I left there they weren't really too helpful with finding me a job so I was like "fuck it, I've got peoples in New York," so I moved out here and got an internship at this studio called The Cutting Room.

thaFormula.com - When you were out in Toronto how was the Hip-Hop scene?

Marco Polo - It was alright. You had the usual suspects doing their thing like Saukrates and Kardinal (Offishall). Saukrates and Kardinal and Brass Monk and things like that. At that point I was more of a fan and buying music. So I wasn't really making beats. I've only been making beats for about 6 years. It wasn't 'til I moved to New York that I started making shit as a producer.

thaFormula.com - Did the engineering school and the stuff you learned there come in handy?

Marco Polo - Those schools are really good if you don't know anything. If you don't know anything about the studio it's good to go to one of those 'cause they will teach you all about cables and simple things like that. Did I need to go there to get where I'm at now? Hell no. I learned more interning at The Cutting Room in two months then I did at like a year and a half at that school. They didn't really teach you nothing about production. It's more like, "this is what you do, you plug in a mike here and you press record in a console." But it's like music, at the end of the day it's a lot of creative shit. They teach you a bit of the technical but you just really have to get your hands dirty and be around people doing it professionally and just watch and learn and that's the best way. I learned more doing that shit at The Cutting Room.

thaFormula.com - Who did you watch and learn from at The Cutting Room?

Marco Polo - It was two doors down from Rawkus back when Rawkus was the shit and they were really doing it, so I was seeing Mos Def, Talib (Kweli), and Pharoahe (Monch) all around at the time because it was around the time they were putting out Kweli's second album and Soundbombing 3," almost towards like the end of its heyday. So I got a chance to be in the studio with everyone. I was there for a lot of De La Soul's last album "The Grind Date." I assisted the engineering on that and watched them track vocals to a lot of stuff. I've been in the studio with Common, Pharoahe, Kanye (West) when they just came in to work on stuff or play beats. I did a lot of engineering for Inspektah Deck. I was basically around a lot of people at The Cutting Room. At that point I was doing more of the engineering thing and I would slide a beat CD here and there to somebody, but it was definitely good to get an overall studio experience. Basically I just kept doing my thing there making beats and sliding them to whoever I could and then finally Master Ace came in for a Beatnuts session and I gave him a beat CD and that led to me doing a show on "The Long Hot Summer" album. I did a joint with Masta Ace and Big Noyd. That's when I was like "fuck this let me just focus on production," and the studio was kind of getting slow so we parted ways and I left there and just started making beats full time 'cause that's what I always wanted to do. I never wanted to be an engineer. I just did that to get my foot in the door and make some connects. After that it just popped off in the sense of you know getting the ball moving and working with more artists, then I hooked up with Brooklyn Academy and Pumpkinhead and Block McCloud and me and Pumpkinhead started working on a demo which led to us doing that "Orange Moon over Brooklyn" album.

thaFormula.com - So can a producer make real good money just doing underground type records like that?

Marco Polo - Absolutely not. Hell no. It's just the nature of how things are right now. Independent and underground is different. In the Rawkus heydays they were considered an independent label but if your were signed to them you still had a budget to pay for beats and it was decent too. Say you were an MC, you could probably pay all your producers $2,000 or $2,500 for a track. I'm lucky to get that now for a beat on the Indy scene, cats are struggling and music isn't selling like it should. So on the underground level it's more about just getting a deal and getting your shit out there so people hear so that you can make dope shit. I've never really caked off of a lot of those projects to be honest. I mean with Master Ace we straight up did a trade. He did a song for my album which is about to drop. With the Pumpkinhead situation we just kind of went halves on everything the label gave us. They gave us a small advance and we went halves, but for a whole albums work it was peanuts. I still am doing it mostly for the love but in terms of making a career of producing independent underground artists its not gonna happen, you've got to have a day job.

thaFormula.com - You also worked with Rock Marciano, how did you hook up with the UN?

Marco Polo - Actually I met him through Masta Aces' engineer. His name is Filthy Rich and he plays my beats for a lot of dudes that come in the studio and Rock happened to be one of the cats that came through and he ended up giving me a call. He was like "yo what up I heard your track, we should definitely build" and that led to us starting to work together. The first time we hooked up was the Pumpkinhead remix which didn't really get out there that much. It was the "Swordfish Remix" that came out on wax, and then after that we did a joint together for my solo album. Ever since that we've been in touch. There have been talks of me and him doing a whole album and I really hope that happens 'cause he's one of those dudes that I feel is just slept on as an MC. I think he's one of the dopest MC's out there right now. That UN album was slept on. I tell people about that album everyday. That's a diamond in the ruff right there especially in these times. That shit is crazy. People need to know about that album. I hope they re-release it or something. I do my best to tell people about it. But me and him are definitely gonna do a whole project one day and I'm hoping it's sooner than later 'cause I've been wrapped up in my album and he's been wrapped up in what he's doing.

thaFormula.com - Now you also worked on the recent Boot Camp album right?

Marco Polo - Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing I have done to date that's really gotten out there. I did there single called "Yeah." I did 3 joints on the album. I'm really proud of those joints. It's was an honor to work with Boot Camp and Dru Ha and get down with Duck Down on that project. So cat's can definitely check for the album, it's called "The Last Stand" and it's in stores now as well as the 12". I've been receiving a lot of good feedback for the "Yeah" joint. Me and Boot Camp mesh real well so it was kind of a natural progression us working together.

thaFormula.com - For you, with the way production is constantly changing every year, how do you keep your sound while trying to stay up to date?

Marco Polo - To be honest I'm very in tune with what's hot and what people think is hot and at the end of the day I listen to the music and that's about it. I just kind of do what I do and what I want to hear. I don't really try to change my shit up. It's funny you say that because I recently got a new lawyer and they actually represent G-Unit and a lot of the really big cats and we had a meeting about shopping some of my beats and they were automatically suggesting how I should use less samples and this and that and its crazy how things work man. To me its like when you get to a certain level where your shopping to majors, uh the moment you got to think about not using samples and this and that, I think it affects the music severely.

thaFormula.com - So when they ask you that, what do you do in that situation?

Marco Polo - That's a good question to be honest. My first reaction is "hell no, I'm gonna do what I do." But they're not doing it 'cause they are assholes, they are doing it because I'm their client and they want whets best for me and they want me to make money and you know on a publishing level straight up if you use less samples you make more money, so I got to respect what they are saying and to a point I even got to think about it now. Do I execute now and start making beats with less samples and more involved with like synth keyboards? I don't know and I have yet to cross that path where I feel I need to do that. For me right now I'm more interested in getting some placements. If I have to sell some beats that have crazy samples to bigger artists and I lose my publishing, fuck it I'll do it just to get my name out there just to show that I can work with these dudes.

thaFormula.com - Is it hard to even get in that door to even have them listen to your beats?

Marco Polo - It's not as hard as it used to be because a lot of these cliques like G-Unit, and Rocafella are smart. They have a lot of A&R's in the street checking out for the new hot shit. I've had people from G-Unit get at me and I have sent beats to them and they go to the Beat Society's which I perform in and a lot of my friends that produce perform in and they have their ear to the street, so if you just kind of stay in your zone and make hot shit, someone's probably gonna hit you up and least to check out your shit or get a beat CD, so its definitely not as hard as it used to be. Now to make a placement and start selling beats, that's a whole different story.

thaFormula.com - So that's the reason why you got the lawyer then?

Marco Polo - I was recommended to this firm by my boy DJ Eclipse who DJ's for Non-Phixion and has the "Half-Time" show. That's my homie and he hooked me up with this lawyer. The whole reason I did this is because she is brokering my deal for my new solo album which obviously is gonna lead to them helping me shop beats and many bigger things which is actually a great look for me. So that's how that came to be.

thaFormula.com - So what are you currently using to make beats right now?

Marco Polo - I stay on the MPC 2000XL and I use that with a mixer and a turntable and a shitload of records and that's It. I make all my productions on the MPC and I don't really rely on anything else. When it comes time to record obviously I got my Pro Tools set up for recording and mixing. I don't really use Pro Tools to make my beats or any computer shit, it's all just records and the MPC.

thaFormula.com - So let's get into your upcoming solo album "Port Authority," how did you get started on that?

Marco Polo - It all started with the Master Ace joint like 3 years ago and basically straight up, he had no budget left and he really wanted to use the beat from me and at that point I wasn't really stressing like "oh shit, you ain't got no money, you cant have the beat." I was trying to make it happen. So I was like "it's all good just do a song for me, I can use it for something and you can have the beat," and that just started my album. From there I kind of went crazy and just kept going and hitting up a lot of people and it's finally done and it's gonna come out May 15th, 2007. It's called Marco Polo "Port Authority" and I'm totally on the "Soul Survivor" tip like Pete Rock did except I'm not rappin', I'm just doing the beats.

thaFormula.com - So who is on the album man?

Marco Polo - I have Masta Ace, O.C., Ed O.G., Large Professor, Kool G Rap, Sadat X, AG, JuJu from the Beatnuts, Rock Marciano, Copywrite, JoJo Peligrino, Kev Brown, Wordsworth, Buckshot, Supastition, I've got DJ revolution doing cuts on the Large Professor song, and Critically Acclaimed. Basically its a compilation of artists who have done it and artists that I think are gonna be the next and this is kind of a good mesh of the old and the new and its just fucking good Hip-Hop man, I'm really excited about it.

thaFormula.com - It's nice to see Large Professor on there...

Marco Polo - Yeah that song is insane, I'm really happy with how that shit came out.

thaFormula.com - So you basically did all the production on it?

Marco Polo - I did every beat on it. I had everything planned out ahead of time in terms of beats 'cause I'm not really a fan of sending someone like 20 beats and being like "yo pick one, rap on it and send it to me and ill put it on my album." I kind of had visions for every person. So I handpicked every beat or maybe narrowed it down to 2 or 3 that I thought would be dope for a certain artist, and presented it to him.

thaFormula.com - So was it harder to put together a compilation album like this with so many artists then you thought it would be?

Marco Polo - Oh god it was such a pain in the ass. It's been the hardest project I have ever worked on just 'cause when you're dealing with a lot of rappers and their schedule and timing, you're waiting on them and it took a long time to finish. Unless I was in a situation financially to really pay a lot of people, I don't know if I would do another one. I have to see what the response is to this one. But yeah it was tough man, 'cause I wasn't really working with a budget, I had to do a lot of trades and a lot of cats looked out for me.

thaFormula.com - That's a good lineup for not really having a budget man?

Marco Polo - It came out alright man.

thaFormula.com - So did the Boot Camp work help you out a lot work wise?

Marco Polo - I mean it definitely helped in terms of people checking for me and wanting to buy beats. Other projects I'm on, uh I'm on Sadat X's recent album, I got joints on ED OG's new album, I got a joint on the Away Team album which is Khrysis and Sean Boog, I'm on J-Lives new album too, but in terms of anything really big like major label like a G-Unit or a Jay-Z nothing like that has really popped off for me yet. Mostly because I don't really send out beats to that world just 'cause I'm stubborn in my thinking and I just expect that my type of sound is really not for them, but that's bullshit 'cause it is. Hearing Jay-Z's new album and the type of beats he picked from Just Blaze is like, I got shit like that and I can definitely see myself getting into that realm.

thaFormula.com - So your album is dropping in May?

Marco Polo - Yeah I'm signed to Soulspazm/Rawkus so its gonna be Rawkus' first release of 2007 and a return and to... to be honest this is more of a Rawkus album then what they've been putting out. No disrespect to the other artists, but I really feel that if Rawkus were smart they will kind of run with that whole vibe like, this is what you come to expect from us. I mean basically you could just put the Soundbombing 4 title onto my album and it would make sense 'cause it's just a compilation of different artists rappin' over boom-bap Hip-Hop shit which is what Rawkus did so good back in the day. So yeah man, the single is gonna be with Kardinal Offishall, a song called "War" and the album is "Port Authority" dropping May 15th, 2007.

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