..L1EF..

As Director of A&R for Diplomat Records, Duke Da God is the man in charge of putting together nearly every music project for the Harlem rap collective known as Dipset. Whether it's Cam'ron's ability to make pink (or purple) cool, Juelz Santana teaching the world to whistle or Jim Jones setting off the "Ballin'" catch phrase - it's clear the Dips have become an all-pervasive part of hip-hop culture. With Cam'ron's next album due out next March, SOHH caught up with Duke to find out how to start a hip-hop movement.

1. Get Your People

Get your crew together - your artists. As far as Dipset, Cam pretty much brought everybody together. Juelz is from a different block, Jim is from a different block. Everyone is from different blocks. I'm responsible for signing talent and bringing in producers. Pretty much day in and out I work with all the artists. I have to be the one to know what's up, how to get the ill chemistry. It's like mixing a drink.

2.Make Them Believe

We painted a picture through our mixtapes. People bought into what we were doing through the mixtapes alone.

3. Target Your Market

We took over Harlem, first. Harlem was our main goal. From there our goal was New York City, then we got other boroughs to respect what we were doing and then reached out to other states like Connecticut and DC, there are more people that believe in those states also -- the word got out.

4. Paint the Picture

You have people buying into a lifestyle how we do things, as far as everything that goes along with the success of rap. They see the videos, they see the come up in it. Everyone can see what we're doing and they like it, they like to see us doing good. They like to see us; we're colorful, exciting, easy on the eyes. That's painting a picture.

5. Take Over

There's no one song that did it. We knew it's pretty much a takeover because of the love we get in the streets, that has spilled over into the mainstream. Everyone is throwing Dipset signs up, speaking like us, doing the language, dressing like us. That's a takeover. They see how we got the wad of change - even when we were doing the pink thing, we'll just evolve over time and it will be something else we come up with next year. That's what taking over is, when it spills over into other cultures in other areas.

The Come Up

Where I'm from... The eastside of Harlem. I got introduced into music listening to it, my moms, my uncles buying the records. That was my early introduction into the love of music.

My first break... I used to road manage a group called Children of the Corn back in 1993 -1994. It was Killa Cam, Murda Mase, Big L R.I.P.and Bloodshed R.I.P. That was basically how I got my introduction to the game. I used to road manage for the group and Dame Dash used to manage the group.

When I get a beat CD... I look to make sure it's quality. The sound has to sound good. If it don't sound good, I might call the producer up and tell him, 'Yo I think it's kinda hot, but we need to filter the sound to make it clearer.' Ultimately I'm looking for something that's hot. There is no right or wrong, you can have a 2 bar loop and that @#!* sound so hot, or a beat that every four bars changes throughout the beat. It just has to be quality and hitting a certain way. Also I like producers who can arrange, with bridges, stuff like that.

Duke Da God's Play-o-graphy

Duke Da God Presents the Eye of the Eagle - DVD (in stores now)

More than Music Part 2 - Duke's third album on Koch

The Movement Moves On - Duke's second album Asylum records ('06)

More than Music Part 1 - Duke's first album on Koch ('05)

A&R on all of Cam'ron, JR Writer, Jim Jones and Hell Rell's projects

dabeach757

wrong person to ask IMO...SMH at you n00bs