Do remember! Cluminati! Clue, Clue, Clueee, New S—t! and of course the evil laugh. All of those are memorable drops made famous by the influential DJ out of Queens, DJ Clue.
DJ Clue started his career in the ’90s where he went from flooding the streets with the mixtapes he put together while still living with his parents to signing a record deal with Jay-Z‘s Roc-A-Fella Records to becoming a mainstay on New York City’s radio airwaves on Power 105.
Since, Clue has enjoyed a bit of a resurgence thanks to a younger generation of fans: he’s been featured on the Grammy-nominated Clipse comeback album Let God Sort Em Out and J. Cole‘s surprise Birthday Blizzard ’26 EP featuring four freestyles over classic Clue tape instrumentals like Diddy‘s “Victory,” Black Rob‘s “Can I Live,” Biggie‘s “Who Shot Ya?” and the LOX‘s “Money, Power, Respect.”
The Cole tape was well received by fellow artists and fans alike with Jay bringing it up in his recent GQ interview and Travis Scott telling Clue that he enjoyed it when they ran into each other at FanaticsFest, with Scott telling the Queens DJ, “Yo, that Cole s—t was hard.” And while Clue has done some recent production for rappers like Lil Wayne, Sleepy Hollow and DaBaby — with more producer credits in the works — he teases that’s he’s dropping something soon, but avoided going into details.
The legendary DJ came through Billboard’s New York City office recently to talk about the rappers that have reached out to him, the underground versus the mainstream and how he first got started.
Check out our conversation below.
Had anybody reached out to get on a song or to clear your voice to sample before Cole and the Clipse did?
People usually want me involved in that type of stuff. Like when the Clipse reached out, Stephen Victor met with me to play me some s—t that Pharrell wanted to do, so that’s how that came about. And then me and Cole have been talking about doing a freestyle a long time ago, off one of my old beats from The Professional.
Just one freestyle? And how long did it take to put the tape together with Cole?
Right. And I had to go pull one of my old DAT tapes to burn the instrumental, but he never ended up doing that. He then just called me out of the blue like, “Yo, I’m gonna send you some s—t. Tell me what you think about the idea of doing a mixtape. So after he sent the idea, I told him to give me a couple days to live with it and get in my zone. Once we came up with the plan to put the mixtape together real quick, I kind of was like — because remember, the weather was bad and we were in the crib — so we were talking about titles, and I was like, “You know I did one called Birthday Blizzard ’96.” We then just kind of went back and forth, he knocked out the freestyles, sent them to me, and then I kind of had to get back in that bag, you know?
I was gonna ask if you had to go back and listen to some of your old s—t.
Yeah, word. I had to make sure I was emulating the vocals right. I feel like my voice is a little bit different.
Wanted it to sound a little dustier?
I wanted that authentic sound.
Those are your actual vocals on the Clipse record and not a sample? Talk a little more about that process.
They played me the tracks and Pharrell had sampled them and put them where he thought they worked at, you know what I’m saying? So that’s how that went.
Were you in the studio with them at all?
Nah, not at all.
That was all email?
Right.
So how about the artwork for the Cole tape? Because it looks like I could walk outside and cop that on the corner or in a barbershop.
This dude named p:type did some of my mixtapes, so they took the whole scheme from that to give it that authentic look.
Let’s get into the beats he chose. For someone that’s familiar with your tapes those are beats that everybody was trying to rap on when they dropped. How did you feel when he sent you the freestyles?
Classic. I mean that’s some authentic Clue? s—t for real. What a lot of people don’t know is when Cole was first trying to get on, he used to come around to hang with me and Skane Dolla to just vibe.
He was in Queens at St. John’s.
Right. He was a hungry artist trying to get on type s—t, you know? He used to play basketball with us. Matter of fact, he joined my gym at Chelsea Piers after he started rapping. He would come hoop with me in the gym for a long time. I’ve known Cole for a while before he was even lit like that.
You guys already had a rapport.
Cole walked my daughter into her Sweet 16.
I didn’t know the connection was that deep. I remember when Push and Malice played the album for some media and DJs, and talked about needing to have you on “Inglorious Bastards” specifically. How did you feel when they reached out to you?
To be honest with you, a lot of people have reached out to me to do s—t throughout the years because I feel like that era is just nostalgic. People always say that the energy I brought is missing from the game type s—t. I supposed to do some s—t with A$AP Ferg, I was supposed some s—t with A$AP Rocky, a lot of different people have reached out to me to do s—t, bro.
I’ve felt this way for a while and wanted to asked if you notice how the underground influences the mainstream. Do you think that’s always been a thing?
You think underground influences the mainsteam?
I do, of course. Do you disagree? I think you look at Tyler’s Call Me If You Get Lost with DJ Drama and Playboi Carti’s Music with Swamp Izzo and Cole reaching out to do a tape with you shows that influence. These artists were once considered underground, so I feel like now that they’re at this level, they want to tap into that feeling from when they were either fans or on the come up in a sense.
I feel like it’s more so that they know what recreating that feeling means to the game. I feel like that part of it is missing because a lot of the music that comes out now is microwaved. You hear a song and think that the artist is dope then they put another song that doesn’t work and then another that doesn’t work, and then they just fade away. And that comes from not putting the groundwork in and building a strong foundation. Nowadays you could come up with a hit song and just get thrown in the fire and you just have to figure it out.
How did you feel about the Tyler, the Creator album with Drama hosting and the Playboi Carti one hosted by Swamp Izzo?
I thought it was a dope touch. I don’t know if I would’ve done it in the same exact way, but I thought it was dope for both the DJs and the artists. I used to do a whole bunch of quote unquote album sample tapes where I would take maybe a verse and a half to preview somebody’s album. I did T.I.’s first sample tape, Usher’s first sample tape. I did some with a bunch of different artists.
Do you ever think how you would’ve approached your career if you were coming up today?
Yeah, I would’ve for sure took over because with the technology we have now? If I’d had it back then? Forget about it. You could make a tape and just put it on SoundCloud. I would’ve been the Michael Jackson of mixtapes if that was the case.
Jay mentioned you in a recent interview. He said you sent him the Cole tape because you were proud of it. Is that why you sent it to him?
We speak all the time and I send him s—t sometimes, but my motivation for sending to him? It’s to get him in the booth, That was my real motivation because when I’m around him here and there, I’m like, “Yo, when we doing something?” And he’d be kind of standoffish sometimes, like he’s not sure. And I get it because at this point, what’s he gonna talk about? He’s done talked about damn near everything. You got to be in a certain zone. I also thought he would enjoy it because I feel like that was a special era when we were running around the clubs every night. I would drag him out and I would take a new record to give to the DJ to play, so we could see how the record sounds and how people in the club would react to it.
It was kind of a play to be like, “Yo, let’s do something.”
I had sent him this one specific beat that I thought was so fire for him, but he ain’t really react to it. I think he was still going through s—t and I wanted to have him put his air on it and get his mind over things, you know? Music is therapeutic for everybody, even when I think about situations like when I lost my dad. When you have those type of moments, any music you would listen to or what you were doing or where you were at is always gonna be embedded in your memory. It’s just one of those things that just helps you through tough times.
Hopefully we get Clue? Jay mixtape soon.
Listen, that would be dope. That’d be fire if he were to do that.
I’ve always wanted to ask you this. Back in the day, you would have unreleased tracks and exclusive freestyles. How were you getting all those exclusive songs? Were people popping by the crib?
They would come to my crib sometimes. A lot of the OGs been to the crib, whether it was Keith Murray and Das EFX. Prodigy from Mobb Deep been to the crib. Fat Joe been to the crib. Ja Rule been to the crib. Jay-Z been to my mom’s crib.
So you had a makeshift studio in the crib?
It wasn’t even a studio, bro. It was a microphone and a turntable.
Was it in the closet?
Not even. Actually, as s—t went along, though, I was booking studio time to have them sounding better. I was really always big on sound quality.
Would people bring you their DAT tapes?
Yeah, people would record stuff because sometimes I would be busy on the road and people would go to the studio and record s—t to give to me or to send it to me. Stuff like that. Sometimes I would send somebody to them to pick stuff up.
How about the unreleased s—t? Were labels giving you those songs under the table?
I can’t tell you that [Laughs.]
Still? 30 years later? [Laughs.]
I would always get s—t, but there were always rumors around like, “Clue stole this and stole that.” I never stole anything.
Why wouldn’t they want their s—t on a Clue tape, especially during that era?
Exactly, but, you know, there was always that, “Oh, Clue stole the whole library from us.” That’s all bulls—t. I can see an A&R or manager giving you something because the label didn’t want to put it out. Or if the artist had some s—t that they couldn’t get the sample cleared or something.
Are you considering doing another Professional tape?
If I did another project, it’ll probably have a different name. I got a whole archive of songs I’ve never used with all kind of artists you can name. I got Tory Lanez verses, I got Young Dolf verses, I got Future verses, I got Moneybagg Yo verses, Lil Durk verses.
Have you put your touch on any of them or are these songs that you’ve produced?
Songs I’ve produced that they rapped on. And I always feel like, when I make songs, I don’t make a style that’s a “now” style. So these songs, they wouldn’t sound dated.
And those Professional tapes were different from your street ones because you had to use original beats, right?
I mean, those Cole freestyles, he cleared those beats.
Explain to people how you put your tapes together and distributed them back then. I remember seeing a clip where Whoo Kid said he used to borrow your tape machine.
I used to duplicate all the stuff at the crib. I had a bunch of CD towers where we burned a bunch of CDs at the same time. First it was the cassettes and for a little while we had both cassettes and the CDs.
How many cassettes were you making? How time consuming was that?
At first, it was because you had to do it real time, but then we had speed recorders. Those were super expensive but it was worth it because you make the money back quick. You would put 10 cassettes in at the same time, and as fast as you could fast forward a cassette was how we were recording. So you record the first side, flip it, record the second side, done. Then you put the sticker on it.
So that was like an assembly line with people helping you?
Even my mom would help out because sometimes I would have to run around. She was instrumental in the success because she was a retired accountant, so she would do all the accounting. She made sure all the checks came in, make sure everyone paid.
It was an independent operation.
Yeah, it was a real operation. A couple of my friends would help me load the trucks up and we would run around the city to whatever local spots, and then the rest would get mailed out. At one point it got so crazy, I had to get a plant to help me. It was a plant in Texas that I would send stuff to and they would print everything. That’s when I had the really super high-tech looking CDs. They were like real albums.
What instructions would you send them?
I would send the artwork and send them the master, and they would print it up. Then they would take it to the airport to send it through United Airlines Freight and s—t, and I would go pick it up at LaGuardia.
How many tapes and CDs?
Thousands. I had a bunch of trucks to go pick them up and back then, UPS was doing COD. So I would put the COD label on it and mail it out. And then they would go deliver it, they pay them in cash or with a check once it’s dropped off, and they send us the money.
Was your mom annoyed at first?
She didn’t like nothing about the loud music late at night because I used to be up late. She kind of learned the vibe eventually, though, you know what I’m saying? She would call me about songs she liked. She would call and be like, “This is hot, I like this. This is dope.” She got that A&R ear to say what sounded good and what don’t. It was weird, but at the same time it was fire too, you know?
When did you decide to start making beats?
I started making beats, probably… I used to rap first. Actually my rap name was “Drama.” That’s the crazy thing. I told Drama this too. My rap name was MC Drama.
This is before DJ Clue, right?
Yeah, and then it was just something in me where I like being behind the scenes. Me and my partner Doro we used to try to make beats on a regular Casio S1 keyboard. It was super difficult because you had the cassette playing, then you had the keyboard, and we would try to sample stuff, and that’s how we would do our beats. From there, Doro went to school for engineering, and he came back, he taught me how to produce on an SP 1200 and on an MPC. I sat with the MPC and just figured out how to chop the samples and do the drums and s—t, and just took off.
