BROOKLYN LEGEND: Domingo

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK | DOMINGO

INTERVIEW TERRELL “REALIFE” BLACK PHOTOGRAPH @STEEZYMUSIC

When you talk about some of Hip Hops most diverse producers from the 90’s and early 00’s, if Domingo doesn’t come up you might want to think again. The platinum producer has compiled an impressive resume producing for Hip Hop Legends such as Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-1, Eminem, Kool G Rap and Big Pun to name a few. With a couple of decades of music industry experience under his belt he’s a guru of sorts. Validated recently sat down with the Brooklyn Legend to revisit how he came up in Hip Hop, his music distribution company Media Famous, the launching of Famous Beats, Executive Producing Kool G Raps recent album “Last of a Dying Breed” and more. 

VALIDATED: I know we've gone down this road before, but for people who didn't catch the first interview you have a hell of a history. Can you give us some highlights from it? 

DOMINGO: I've been in the game now for about 35 years. I got signed by Marley Marl to do that “In Control Volume II” back in ‘86, going on ‘87. And I was signed for rapping and my contract expired. I used to give Marley demo tapes of me rapping and my contract expired for “In Control Volume II”, so I thought it was it for me and Marley, and Marley was like, “Nah, I love your beats, man your production's crazy. I'm going to bring you into the House of Hits. And as you know, there's an interview I posted with me and Marley up at WBLS. 

Marley was like, “Yo, you're the first producer I ever signed.” So, I was, I guess you could say the leadoff hitter for the House of Hits and shit. But from there a few years later our manager who's name was Francesca Spero, you know, she has passed away since, but she was our manager, and she was going over to start what was called Rush Producers Management with Russell Simmons. And Marley was going over there and took me with him over there. 

So, then I was managed by Russell Simmons and Francesca Spero. I was under the Rush Producer Management, and I mean, if you know about back in the days, Def Jam was where everybody wanted to be signed, everyone wanted to be down with Rush. And, you know, I was lucky enough to be down with Rush, you know what I'm saying. And so, at the time I was working, my Mom’s got me a job in the Board of Education, and I was working for Joseph Fernandez.

I was working in the mail room, getting his mail, bringing it up to him. And when Rudy Giuliani became Mayor, I was one of the first people in the building to get a pink slip. So, the following day, like literally the following day, Francesca called me and was like, and she used to call me “Boo Boo”. She's like, “Yo, Boo Boo, Rakim is working on a new album, he got three beats of yours, he loves them. So, you know, I got you $30,000 to work with Rakim,” so that was it. After that, I was in the studio with Rakim a couple days later in Power Play Studio and everything seemed like a domino effect from there.

Actually, my bad. I worked with Main One before Rakim. And I was working at the Board of Education. I did that album… I think we did that in ‘93, and that was for “Birth Of The Ghetto Child”. And I did a song with Fat Joe, Kurious, Powerule, Main One, and Joe Fatal. I might be getting mixed up, bro, but the timeline is somewhere around that. So, long story short, after doing that it was Fat Joe who told me at that session for the Algo combo, “Yo, I'm working on “Jealous One's Envy”. So now this was actually, yeah, like I said, I fucked up the timeline. It was Rakim, then Main One.

So, Joe was working on “Jealous One's Envy”, and he's like, “Yo, I love your beats. Come to the studio, give me some beats, whatever. I gave him a beat tape and we were in Jazzy Jay's Studio, but Jazzy Jay's Studio was not in the Bronx. It was in Jamaica, Queens in the music building. And I went to the studio, Joe was listening to the beats with Buckwild. Buckwild picked the beats for Joe in the studio. So Buck was like, “Yo, Joe, you got to fuck with this one. Yo, you got to fuck with that one.” And the beat for “Success” was not even a beat. I used to put these little interludes on my beat tapes of samples, and I put the sample there just like faded in and out and Joe said, Yo, what the fuck was that?”

I said, “That's just a sample.” And he was like, “Yo, take that shit and make a beat right now, like, take it right now, make a beat.” And I had my ASR 10 on me, and I made the beat for “Success” right there in the studio using that sample off the cassette. And that's how we did “Success”. So, from there I met KRS One in a Fat Joe session, Big Pun was there too. And Pun heard the beat for “Dream Shatterer” on that tape and Pun was like, “Yo, let me get that beat bro.” And I loved Pun… The only verse I haven't heard Pun say in the studio. That was the one that's on Joe's album… “snatch the moon out the sky, and blow the sun away”. When I heard that, I was like, “Yo, this dude is ill.”

And me and Pun always got along. We always got along, we joked around, whatever. So Pun, I gave Pun that beat, and he was like, “Yo, whatever you do, don't sell it. I want this beat. I don't know for what, but don't ever sell it.” I said, “I honestly made that beat in like five minutes, so I really didn't think much of it.” You know what I'm saying? So, then KRS came to the session. I met KRS, “Yo, like your beats. I'm working with Channel Live on the project. I'm working on my new album, “KRS-One”. I want you to be on that.” Gave them another beat tape and “The MC” was on there. Now Chris tells me to meet him at Rocket Rehearsal Studios in Manhattan.

I meet him there. He plays me the beat for “The MC”, the beat he picked. And he's like, “Yo, and I'm going to pass the tape to Channel Live.” I'm like,
“Cool.” So, Joe, hears the beat for “The MC”, Joe was like, “Yeah, why you ain't give me that?” I was like, “No, that was on your beat tape. You didn't pick that. Well, Buckwild didn't pick that.”

So, from KRS, I worked with Channel Live. Yeah. I worked on several songs for Channel Live. A couple came out as singles, but it was for the album that never came out. I believe it was Gavin Convention, or Jack the Rapper, one of them… And my man Kevin Mitchell walks up to me, I didn't know him at the time. He's like, “Yo, you Domingo?” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Yo, Shaquille O'Neal heard “Jealous One's Envy”, the stuff you did for Fat Joe. He wants you to come to his birthday party in DC next week. Can you make it?” I'm like, “Get the fuck out here.” He's like, “Nah, for real. Shaq really loved what you did. He wants to meet you.” So, I'm like, “Bet, give me your number.” And he's like, “Yo, here's the info for the party and I’lI see you in DC.” I'm like, “Aight, cool.” So, I called him a couple days before like, “Is that offer still good?” “Yeah, you coming?” I'm like, “Yeah, fuck it.” I go down, me and my engineer Cus went down there, and it was wild because, you know, I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn, and here I am at Shaq's party, Mike Tyson standing right next to me. 

And he had just got out of jail for the rape charge, and I was looking at him like, wow. And then he goes, “What's up man? I see you, I'm from East New York, Brooklyn, I know you from there too.” He goes “Yeah, no doubt. And then he walks away.” So now I go downstairs because they're like, “Shaq wants to meet you” and like a kid, I'm still bugging.

This is nuts you know what I'm saying. Because I didn't expect none of it. This was like seriously a domino effect, bro. So Shaq, I'm walking towards Shaq and all these bodyguards come around me like his bodyguard like, “Yeah, yeah, where you going?” And I'm like, “Nah. I was told Shaq wants to meet me and he sees me and he's like, “Yo, nah, he good.” And I'm standing here looking at him. This is nuts, bro so then he's like, “I love what you did, man. I need you to come down to my house.” I'm like, “What?” “I need you to come down to my house, I’m working on “Can't Stop the Reign” and I need you at my house. You know, I'll get you the plane tickets. I'll set it all up through Kevin, let's get you down there.” And bro, I swear to you it didn't register with me until I was on the plane, not a private plane, regular Delta, whatever. And flying and I'm like, “Nah, this can't be.” It was like, you know, because what I strived for was finally coming to fruition.

It’s crazy because when it was time for me to do Rakim, I had a discussion with Marley and I said “Yo, I know I've been under you all these years, but I want to spread my wings. I want people to know who Domingo is. And he gave me the blessing, like, “Go ahead man, do you, get it. Whatever you need from me I got you.” So, from that point, it was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So now I land in Orlando, there's this big fucking limousine standing there. I mean parked there and the dudes standing there with my name and I'm like “YO!” cause when you come from the hood seeing all this shit!

So, then he's like, “Yo, Shaquille doing a Pepsi commercial today. He told me, take you wherever you want to go.” I'm like, “Yo, I have never been to Orlando. I have no idea… take me to the hotel, I'm good. I don't know what to do.” So he took me to the hotel then the next day I was at Shaq's house recording, and then I met Peter Gunz there.

I met Lord Tariq, that was the first time I ever met them. And this girl, Blue Eyes, who's a singer and a couple other producers were there. But it was an experience, bro. And I'm grateful, and it's crazy cause when I was leaving Shaq's house, actually I had a gold chain that said ‘Derange Funk’ and he tried to buy it off of me.

He would constantly be like, “Yo, gimme that.” I'm like, “Nah, it's not for sale.” And it would just be bugging me out because my Mom’s knew I was a troublemaker. You know what I'm saying? Like I never sold drugs in my life, never did drugs, but I've done other shit that got me in trouble. You know what I'm saying?

So, my mom’s didn't believe when she seen me driving a Q45 and all that, she was like, “What are you doing?” And I'm like, “Nah, this music shit really jumped off.” She didn't really catch it until my younger brother… Shaq, was his idol and he was like seven years old, and it happened to be his birthday and I was sitting in Shaq's kitchen with Shaq, and I said, “Yo, you think you could call my little brother for his birthday? He's a big, you know, you’re his idol.” He got on the phone with my mom's. My mom was just like, “Yo!” I said, “I'm telling you this what  it is.” So, the next day my mom's is like, “You think you could get one of my best friends, such and such, you know, an autograph basketball? And I'm like “Nope.” She's like, “Why?” I say, “Because you weren’t believing me.” I said “You thought I was doing, you know, dirt.” But yeah, man, and then man from Shaq that's when Pun got his deal right after that in ‘98 and then Buckwild. A lot of people don't know Buckwild did the original “Dream Shatterer” that they couldn't clear the sample cause of Puff, and Puff had paid, from what I was told, Puff paid Barry White not to clear that same sample that Black Rob used for I forget the name of the song, but it's the same exact sample.

And so, Pun called me and was like, “Yo, the beat that you gave me three years ago. You still got it?” I said, “Pun it was yours, I never touched it.” He's like, “Do me a favor and meet me at Access Studios and come get this dat.” And it was the vocals, to “Dream Shatterer”. And it was crazy because when I dropped the vocals onto the beat, there was no tempo change, it was like that shit just married right to the vocals, the drops and everything that I did fell in place when I gave it to Pun. 

So that tells me that Pun really probably wrote to that beat, my beat because it was just too easy how it just went right with it bro. And then Pun, we met up in “The Cutting Room” with my man Nasty, the engineer and Pun redid his vocals in one take… in one fucking take. And then he fell asleep right after that. I mean, that’s what he would do, you know what I'm saying? 

VALIDATED: That's cool. So, to get to the present you actually produced Kool G Raps Album ‘Last of a Dying Breed.’

DOMINGO: Yes. 

VALIDATED: I know y'all got a history together, but how did that collaboration come about? 

DOMINGO: Well, basically, I took a hiatus from producing when I launched Media Famous because I felt like I've been there, done that. I don't really need to prove myself from producing no more. You know what I'm saying? And G Rap did a deal with Ewing Sneakers for an album, and my man Jeremy Beaver over at the National Hip Hop Museum in DC was talking with the owner Dave at Ewing about revamping the album. So, he was like, “Yo, we should get Domingo. Let's present it to him, see if he's interested, because you know, he knows G Rap, G Rap and him are like family and let's just see if he'll do it.”

And they approached me on it. I listened to the album, and the album was basically done. But some of the beats they didn't… like I mean, I don't have a comment on other people's production with an album because it's just me, you know what I'm saying? But I basically threw the pieces apart, like a jigsaw puzzle and put it all back together with the proper hooks, singers, we added my man Nems in there on the album. There were no features at all, it was just straight G Rap. But for the respectful way of saying it, it lacked a little something musically… so they asked me to revamp it and I did. 

VALIDATED: You added that Domingo touch.

DOMINGO: Yeah, I guess not because everybody that hears it is like, “Yo, this is like one of the best G Rap albums in years.”

Because I was working on it since February and just quietly because you know, I'm not one of the people to brag on the internet a lot. I do everything quietly. But it was definitely a task because I had to listen to the songs and then G Rap in this album raps in a certain cadence, he was experimenting a lot with his flows. But me being a producer, I'm like, “No, you sound good like that.” And he called me like “Motherfucker I'm off beat!” I'm like “No, the way you, dada dada dada… like no dude I'm telling you.” That's what we were going through. And this is my dude that's like family, so it was all love.

And G actually told me on the phone, “Yo, I'm really happy it's you doing the album. Like I'm really, really happy it’s you.” I said, “Nah, no doubt.” He even said, “Yo, in the 30 years we've known each other, this is the first time you've ever done a whole album for me.” You know, because G's had albums come out, I'm never on there.

So, people, you know how people are, they always got something to say. People would hit me on social media, “Yo if you that close to G Rap how come you're not on his album? You not really that close to him.” And my reply, “I don't need to… guess what? I could get G Rap on the phone, you can’t!” But yeah, the album actually comes out in October. It does not come out August 26th, so there was a mix up in promotion, I guess, whatever. That's not my part but the single comes out with Big Daddy Kane, August 26th and everybody that heard it so far likes it. 

VALIDATED: That's dope. The album features Hip Hop greats like AZ, Big Daddy Kane, Gorilla Nems, Royal Flush, and the Late Great Sean Price. How did you and Kool G Rap decide on the features that made the album?

DOMINGO: I would get it done and then G would be like, “Oh, okay.” No actually for Nems, G loves Nems. I told G, “Yo, we going to get in the studio with Nems.” G actually made it a point to be in the studio with us. AZ was discussed. I called 38 Spec and was like, “Yo, Spec, I’m working on this G Rap album.” Spec was like, “If you need me, I got you.” G was there, Spec showed up to the studio and he spit his shit, I swear to you, in like 10 minutes and was gone 10 minutes later. He parked his car right outside, left the car running, came in, boom, boom, boom and was gone. And Flush did his thing. Who else? Oh, Vado. Vado did his thing on the Flush song with G. He probably has one of my favorite verses on the album besides just Sean Price, you know?

Yeah, Sean Price verse was something I had for a few years. And when he passed away, you know, me and Sean was very close, very close. I was one of the last people that spoke to him before he passed away. And you know, Bernadette could tell you that and I had this verse that I was sitting on, and I called Bernadette. No, actually I texted. I messaged her and I said, “Listen, you know the verse that Sean says my name?” And she's like, “Yeah, I think I remember it.” I said, “Yeah, I need to use that, I’ll do whatever you need. You could keep all the publishing or you could, whatever.” And she was like, “Okay, cool. You could do it.” I said, “It's for G Rap.” She said, “Because it's for you and G Rap, okay, cool.” And that song… Bodied!  Also you didn't mention Al Skratch. Al Skratch is on the album. And I could tell you this song, which is produced by me and my man Tony Rock, my man Tony Rock, and me produced it together, and Tony Rock did the majority of production.

I just tightened everything up. Like I told you earlier, before we started the interview, I don't take credit for shit that I didn’t do. But that song, it's going to be the sleeper of the album. Cause everybody hears the album, but then when they hear that song, there's a certain chant that Al Skratch does in there that I guarantee you the street's going to be chanting that shit.

And yeah, I mean let me see, Al Skratch, AZ… AZ, shit is tight. Vado… who else is there? Oh, Lil Dee’s on the album. I don't know if you know Lil Dee from Coney Island. He's on one of the songs and my man Folkland LOS, is on the song with Flush and Vado, but he's just doing the hook. That's my artist from Pittsburgh and that's it. And everything else is G Rap. Oh, and Big Daddy Kane. Yeah. Kane actually called me today like, “Yo, I like that shit.” I was like, “All right, cool.” But there was another version of it. Yeah. I'm like a perfectionist, bro. I got a bad habit, I guess I listened to this shit too much and then I started nitpicking at it like, “I think that could have been better” or “I think that sample…”, “Nah, let me do it again.” And they had to actually be like, “Yo, stop and just leave it alone.” 

VALIDATED: Well, I would think that's a strong point, that's how you got to where you are… By, you know, nitpicking and making sure it's legit. 

DOMINGO: Yeah, but when Kane green lighted it for me today, Kane was like, “Yo what happened to the other beat? The one I rhymed on?” I said, “Well, I really didn't like it no more.” He's like, “I wish you would've told me, bro.” I was like, “Yeah, but I didn't want to bother you man.”

And he's like, “Yeah, but I like it anyway… actually I love it better than the other one.” I was like “Aight, good as long as you like it.” As long as I got the green light from him, G loves it… G loves the way the album came out, you know what I'm saying? As long as those elements love it, I'm good.

VALIDATED: So, is it true that this is actually his last album? 

DOMINGO: No, it's not his last album. I have no idea where that came from. You know even in certain interviews… I don't think they've aired anywhere, like on the internet, social media, like little clips. It's not his last album. G's one of the goats, bro. And he's not in love with the game, like a lot of these OG rappers, they do it because they want to do it, but it's not like the love is still there. Because with G Rap, this is my opinion, not what G has told me... I feel G doesn't get the flowers he deserves because he's nicer than a lot of these rappers, bro and a lot of them took from him. Not in a bad way, you know, like, “Hey, yo, I love that flow. Let me experiment with it.” And a lot of them admit it, G Rap is the one that inspired them. So, G doesn't get his just due in my opinion. 

VALIDATED: I agree. So, you're launching Famous Beats, a members only beat marketplace where people can get exclusive access to beats from famous producers. What motivated you to move in that direction and what can you tell us about it?

DOMINGO: Well basically me and my man Jeremy Beaver at the National Hip Hop Museum, we were talking, and I wanted to launch… because back in the Myspace days, I was selling beats online. It was me and only Rockwilder at the time. And Rockwilder had “Rock Beats” and I was just selling beats. I really didn't have a website. And then I launched BeatsForTunes.com , and I made six figures, like a decent amount of money doing it. So, I was one of the people that consulted with my man Abe over at BeatStars when he was launching it. He called me because he was Vice President of Ingrooves Universal. Remember I told you I have a deal over there.

VALIDATED: Yeah. 

DOMINGO: It was because of him that I had my deal with Universal Distribution, and he called me one day and he is like, “Yo, I want to pick your brain.” and I said, “What's up?” He's like, “I'm thinking about launching this site called BeatStars, What do you think?” And I said, “Oh, it's a dope idea.” And I say, “There's room out there.” And I gave him advice. I gave him enough advice that he ran with it. You know, now he is in Forbes Magazine. I'm not saying I'm the only one responsible, but I did consult with him for that because I was successful selling beats. I made almost a half a million dollars selling beats while everybody on the internet was talking shit.

“Oh, Domingo’s broke. Oh, look what he's doing, garage sale for beats.” No, Domingo was killing it, and nobody understood that. And some of my peers in the game, not going to mention names, but I know they were talking a lot of junk about, “Why is he doing that? He's ruining the game.” But down the line, those same peers were calling me, “Yo, how you doing this? Tell me, I need to make money.” I'm like, “Yo all fair in love and war, bro. You got to do what you got to do. I did what I had to do.” Me and Rockwilder dominated, I mean, Rockwilder made more money than me. I admit it because he had Rock Beats. And then when I launched Beats For Tunes, I was a few months late.

But I was still successful. So, jump to now, I was thinking about an arm of Media Famous. Well, I didn't buy it, my partner in Famous Beats, Jeremy, bought the domain, and it wasn't cheap. So, the site is built already. We just waiting to launch it because we in negotiations with known producers. I don't want to say names in case anything doesn't go through, but trust me, these are producers that people are going to be like, “How did you get them to do this?”

I've got one of the most legendary producers agree to be down already, and that was an easy phone call. You did this for me, now I want to do this. And he was like, “Talk to me.” And hopefully it'll launch before the end of the year. Like I said, we just want to get the ship tight before we launch it. 

VALIDATED: One thing I've noticed about you since our introduction is that you’re just wired differently. It just seems to me like you’re always thinking about the next move and how can you do something different, and it amazes me. How is it that you are able to continuously come up with these great ideas? 

DOMINGO: Thank you, bro. I appreciate that. And it's crazy because yo, we discussing some things that I literally just discussed this morning with my childhood friend. Like me and him was talking. I said, I've been up since 4am this morning bro. “Like yo’ I just  woke up, I'm staring in the dark, looking around like, “What can we do to make this shit blow even more?”

It's like I'm constantly thinking, but I've always been left field, like outside the box, like okay, everybody else is doing this. I want my own lane. Some of the shit I do might look crazy, for instance, like when I wanted to launch the distribution, right? Nobody wanted to help me, bro. Nobody in the music industry that I know from executives to artists. I was like, “Yo, I want to launch Media Famous.” I've owned the name Media Famous since 2014 but I never thought about doing distribution. So everybody was like, “I don't know. You got DistroKid.”

I'm like, “Listen, if we do this for $9.95…” It's the lowest price because that's how I killed the beat game and like I said, I never sold drugs, but I took the hustlers mentality of if you sell your product lower, you going to get more sales than the next man.

So, with the beats I was selling beats mad cheap, bro. That's where I came with, “All right look, I'm going to come in at $9.95, we're going to do this unlimited…” All I heard was, “This is not going to work. You're crazy.” I’m like, “Okay, but I'm going to do it anyway.”

VALIDATED: But sometimes that's how you have to be.

DOMINGO: But if you notice who lowered their price recently? TuneCore with $14.95 and unlimited releases, unlimited distribution and artists keep a hundred percent of their royalties. Where the fuck you think they got that from, bro? Come on man, I was the first one to come out with $9.95 unlimited releases and keep a hundred percent of your royalties. Now all of a sudden everybody's on keeping a hundred percent of your royalties, but their problem is they got hidden agendas inside all of that, I don't. So now that's when I started with, alright, well we going to do this marketing and shit, but we going to take it over here. So, I'm always thinking outside the box, bro. And yeah, I come up with ideas like my web dude, my man Gordon, who built Media Famous. I'll talk to him for like an hour and try to convince him, like, “I'm telling you if we did this!” He's like, “You're out your fucking mind, bro.” And he'd be like, “tThere's nothing in the world that can make that happen.”

You know, certain things. But like right now, I bought MediaMall.io and we got a MediaMall being built for the Metaverse. Like an artist can buy a kiosk, like kind of in the mall, buy a kiosk. Here's your music, put your videos up or whatever you want to do. So, it's being designed and it's coming out dope. 

VALIDATED: And that's how you take a vision and bring it into fruition.

DOMINGO: Yeah, and it's coming out real dope. I'm hoping it'll be done by October, hopefully… I have no idea how to build any of that shit. So, we just find the person, pay him and I just sit back and like, “Okay, you do it, don't ask me shit because I don't know what it is. I think of these crazy ass ideas, you bring them to life, not me. And you believe me.” I drive my man Gordon crazy all the time. Like with the new design of MediaFamous, I literally called him last week and said, “Do you really think it was a good idea to change the site?” He's like, “Domingo, get off the phone with me because I fucking took two weeks doing that and now, you're asking me was this a good idea?” I'm like, “I don't know man.” He's like, “You think too much, bro get off the phone.” 

VALIDATED: But that's how you stay top tier… It’s got to keep going. 

DOMINGO: Yeah, and you know what, I appreciate that comment though, bro for real because you know, Joel Ortiz said it to me when I was doing the album with him. He goes, “Yo bro, you're so passionate about a lot of this shit.” Because I'm all about the independents. I'm not really about majors. If I could help the independent artists win, I'm good. Let's win. I'm not worried about Snoop Dogg. No disrespect to him. I love Snoop, but I'm not worried about that tier of artists. 

VALIDATED: Yeah, so you recently mentioned on social media that you own a writers share in Drake's song, ‘’All Me” and you went on to say, “Does that mean I wrote for Drake? Not at all. You need to understand the way the music business works, and every song on this planet has writers. It does not mean the artist is any less talented.” Can you elaborate on that? 

DOMINGO: Yeah, so to clarify it, I own 15% of the song, “All me” with Drake and 2 Chainz. I won an ASCAP Award for it. I got a big ass plaque sitting on my wall for it. But what happened was Drake sampled “The MC” and I knew nothing of this, how I found out was I got a letter from ASCAP talking about, “Hey, we're going to honor in LA for the song “All Me”, and we want you to fly to LA…” This was in 2015.

Not “We're going to fly you”, but “We want you to fly yourself here.” So, I actually didn't go because I think I was working on something. I was like, “I'm cool.” but they sent me the plaque. That's how I found out. I did a little research, and I found my name on the song. I never met Drake in my life, never spoke to him, but I give that dude a thousand percent respect because he did it right.

If I sample a song by you, the right thing to do is credit you. I might not give you no money, but if I credit you and give you publishing, you are going to get money. So, I was getting royalties for something I never even touched, and during that time, just to show you how crooked this game is, I got a phone call from a lawyer. He got my number through connections at ASCAP, and he was like, “Yeah, listen I understand you own a percentage of Drake's “All Me” song, I could get you more.” I said, “First of all, how did you get my number?” “Well, ASCAP… whatever.” Alright, cool. I said, “Why would I sue him?” I said, “He did the right thing.”

He's like, “Oh, but you need 50%.” I'm like “Nah, my man I'm good.” I said “Lose my number man.” And he was like, “I'm telling you, you could be getting more money.” “I'm good because that man did not have to do that and he did that.” So I own 15% because he sampled “The MC”. KRS owns 15% too! It says it on there, Lawrence Parker, that's KRS. So, by him doing that, I'm a writer. Now when I said artists have a lot of writers, I mean the same thing: if an artist samples somebody, they become a writer if they clear it. That don't mean they wrote the lyrics.

That means that they were credited as a writer because of whatever participation they did in the music. For instance, go back to G Rap's album and remember I said, my man TonyRoc Beats helped me on one of the productions, so he gets a writer's credit because he helped, even if I sampled him, that's still him helping.

And mind you with the Drake song, til this day, I still don't know what the fuck he sampled because I listened to the song over and over and over and I can't find it. But I ain't going to argue with you dude. I got a plaque, I got royalties, I’m good! There’s writers for everything bro. If I'm writing some lyrics and I say, “Yo, I’m stuck on a word like, wonderful”, and you go “Terrible rhymes with wonderful.” Oh, word terrible... 

You a writer! That's how that works. So honestly family, a lot of people think they know about the music business, and they don't know about the music business. I'm well versed in the music business, 35 years. I know my shit and the only thing I won't do is I'm not going to argue with people on the internet. There's a lot of people on the internet that think they know what they are talking about, and they don't. You know, so I guess that's my answer. 

VALIDATED: But as far as writing in general, you know, in other genres of music, the artist is not frowned upon for having co-writers, songwriters, et cetera. Why do you feel it’s frowned upon in Hip Hop? 

DOMINGO: I got no idea, it shouldn't be. If there's writers, so what? Beyonce don't write her songs. Jay-Z's written Beyonce's songs. That don't make Beyonce less of a talented singer. So, it is really not a big deal. This whole “code of this and code of that” in Hip Hop because everybody wants to keep it street, keep it this, keep it that but they got no idea how this works. And I guarantee you those same people that frowned upon it, if they got a record deal and they said, “Well, Alicia Keys is going to write your shit.”, they going to let it happen bro. So, it's not a big deal. I don't see why people make it a big deal.

You know, Alicia Keys writes her songs, but there's also writers that help her out. Like I said, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, don't write their shit. You don't see nobody going, “She's a phony.” They sing right along with her… but only in Hip Hop do we hear, “Oh, you got ghostwriters, you whack.” How about there’s people that collaborate together and get some good music to you. Just worry about that shit. It's the most opinionated genre of music. 

VALIDATED: No, that's true. I think part of that is because we have a hard time separating the MC part of it, from the making a record part of it, the industry part of it. At least that's how I see it.

DOMINGO: I mean everybody got their opinion. I don't feel like you're wrong, or anybody's wrong, but saying, “I don't like an artist because he has a ghostwriter.” Okay! Then don't like him but you've probably listened to that artist and if you didn't know they had ghostwriters, you'd probably be okay with it. But let's just be real, you really don't know who has a ghostwriter and who don't. Like a lot of people didn't know G Rap wrote for Salt-n-Pepa Pepper, a couple of songs. Nobody knew that, but did that make Salt-n-Pepa less of the Superstars that they are? Nope.

VALIDATED: I know that you were working with Nems. How did that come about and what are y'all working on?

DOMINGO: Well, nah, actually Nems and I haven't done anything. Only thing that I did was a freestyle. He freestyled over the homicide beat years ago. And me and Nems been cool for years and I've never produced for him. He's on G Rap's album. That's probably the first time but when this whole "Bing Bong” and “Don't Ever Disrespect Me” blew up I took the initiative. We did the billboard in Manhattan and just ran with it to help push. I had in no way blew him up. He blew up on his own. But you know just to show the support, I'll support whatever if it’s something that falls in our lane that I know I can help. Especially if it's someone who I got mad respect for and love for, and just show it to them. 

VALIDATED: I think it's dope that you’re one of the few left that actually see Hip Hop as a brotherhood and I definitely think that's something that's missing.

DOMINGO: Absolutely, bro. There's too many artists beefing with each other for nonsense. 

VALIDATED: So where can the readers find you on social media? 

DOMINGO: Everything is @BeatsByDomingo on Instagram. On TikTok it's @MediaFamous, it's the business account. There's also @MediaFamousMusic on Instagram, but my personal stuff is @BeatsByDomingo on Instagram and Facebook. I have Twitter, but it is rare that I use Twitter. I just never was a Twitter fan. If you see me on Twitter, you know I'm bored. 

VALIDATED: Do you have any last words? 

DOMINGO: If you’re an independent artist and you’re looking for music distribution, MediaFamous.com is $9.95 a year, unlimited releases, keep a 100% of your royalties. And we got the best artist marketing services in the game. Ain’t nobody touching us and its price effective so you can afford it. And if you can't afford $9.95 a year, then you don't need to be in music for real because nothing is free in this world, but $9.95 is affordable. You know what I'm saying? But MediaFamous is marketing distribution. Give us your media, we make you famous. We've helped a lot of artists and we're going to continue to help independent artists. And that's it. That's my plug.