#221: Meek Mill's Engineer Anthony Cruz

A Waste Of Time with ItsTheReal

ItsTheReal

Music

4.8 • 817 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2018

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome Meek Mill's engineer Anthony Cruz to the Upper West Side to talk how Championships was put together, when he first heard the Jay-Z vocals, how the Drake collaboration came together, how he felt when Meek shouted him out, and how he felt when The Joe Budden Podcast shouted him out. With Meek's videographer Will joining in, we discuss Meek's shining disposition, how grounded he is, how diligent he is in the studio, recording sessions in Los Angeles and New York City, their best Rick Ross stories, and how they spent their time while Meek was away. Cruz gets into his upbringing as an Army brat, moving from Oklahoma to Colorado to Georgia, graduating from Georgia State with an English degree, leaving his job in sales and putting all of his savings into learning to engineer at Full Sail University, making his way to New York where he worked two jobs to maintain while being shut down by studio after studio, and the miraculous circumstance that led to an internship at Roc the Mic. Cruz talks about studying at the arm of Young Guru, how he learned by playing his part and not overstepping his bounds, covering a Jay Electronica session, how OG Juan and Desiree were instrumental in his career, how he and Meek found a one-of-a-kind working relationship, his partnership with A&R Dallas Martin, plus stories about J. Cole, Teyana Taylor, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, Ed Sheeran, Robinson Cano, Why Don't We and so much more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Jeff. Hey Eric. How are you? I'm pretty good. How are you? Doing well, thank you. Jeff,
0:04.2	there is one album and one album only that everybody has been talking about this past week.
0:10.4	Jagged edges, jagged little thrill. There you go, yes. Finally, it's getting the recognition that it is
0:14.8	long deserved. Yes, so when people say, where the party at? The party's in 2018. The party's at a pop-up
0:20.4	shop in Bushwick.
0:21.6	Oh, God.
0:22.3	Jeff, Meek Mill's Championships is the album that I was thinking of. The one that I have been listening to a lot. Obviously, there's been a lot of talk on Joe Budden's podcast. There's been a lot of talk. Elliot Wilson had his event with Meek Mill last night. Crown. but there's been a lot of talk around the Jay-Zverse, the Drake collaboration, but also I
0:42.7	feel like the next biggest person from this album might be his engineer.
0:47.4	Anthony Cruz.
0:48.2	Anthony Cruz, who we have on the podcast today.
0:50.6	And boy, do we get into a lot about championships, a lot about the work that was put in to make this such a fine piece of art.
1:00.7	But in addition to that, we get into Anthony's story because he's not just Cruz.
1:05.0	He's Anthony.
1:05.7	He's Anthony Cruz.
1:06.4	And we talk about his growing up in Oklahoma, moving to Colorado and Atlanta and eventually up here to New York and working with young guru and Mary J. Blige and Neo and getting to be Meek
1:19.0	Mills engineer and all the work that they put in over the years, what they did while he was away.
1:23.4	I mean, it's really a fantastic story. And we also got to talk to Meek's videographer.
1:27.4	Will. And and there's just talk to Meek's videographer.
1:27.8	Will?
1:36.3	And there's just great stories about Rick Ross and the whole MMG and what Rock Nation means and what Atlantic Records did for everyone.
1:38.3	It's a great hour and a half.
1:38.7	Yeah.
	...

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