Hood Mentality

This was co-produced by Teak "Da Beatsmith" Underdue. The producer told Worldwide Rap and Hip Hop Music Lifestyle Network about how he created the song's beat, in particular the guitar riff. He explained: "I got that sample off of Eddie Kendricks who used to be from The Temptations. The song is called 'Can I?' I had it for a long time, maybe like a year or two. I knew that I wanted to do something with it, but everything is vibe, so I sat on it for a while. One evening last year I said, 'F--k it' and just took the guitar sample, chopped it up and put it in the MPC. I kind of wanted to have a Southern feel to it but I still wanted it to be gangster. I put some Southern 808 drums with it. The high-hats picked it up. I made sure the bass-line kind of crept and then I matched that with the guitar. Then I put a big orchestra hit behind it. I'm a big 70's cat so I wanted to give it a 70's feel, so I play a flute solo that comes in during the 2nd half of the verses. Then I added a little bit of keyboard to mellow it out. That's how the whole beat came together and to be honest with you, it took like 20 or 30 minutes to make. It just came all together. I sequenced it in Pro Tools and put a mix on it and as you hear it on the album, that's how I sent it to Cube."

Teak told Worldwide Rap and Hip Hop Music Lifestyle Network about the flute sound that he added to this track. He explained: "I've been a jazz musician since 13. I kind of understand how all of the instruments should work. With that song, I know how a flute texture should sound like and how a real flute player would play it, so I just played it on the keyboard. I tried to match that like a real flute player as much as possible. Sometimes if that doesn't work, I'll call a real flute player to come in and do the exact same line or even improvise."