Just Blaze Readies Dream Studio in Harlem

In late January, Just Blaze closed the doors on his kingdom at Baseline Studios. The iconic setup was where he crafted some of the most celebrated and artistically successful New York rap records of the past decade (including 'The Blueprint' and 'The Black Album'). The plan was that Just would make a move uptown and construct a new headquarters at the Stadiumred compound in Harlem, and now we've got the official story and scoop as to how that's all going down.

"I started working there [Baseline] and I made changes to the place," explained Just Blaze in an exclusive interview with The BoomBox. "I was adding pieces of gear here and there. The B Room -- at the time I first started working there, that place was kind of my headquarters. So, I customized a lot of things, changed the console, put in new pieces of outboard gear, updated the ProTools rig, and just tried to make it a little more efficient in terms of how we were all working at the time. It was to the point where probably 30 percent of the gear in that place was mine, but at the same time it wasn't my overall design and brainchild."

So now Just is in the position to start from scratch with an entire rig and system that's built exactly to his super-producer specifications. The new studio is about five weeks away from completion and he's already referring to the space as a dream come true.

"The exciting thing this time around is that I'm doing it from the ground up as far as my facility," he says. "It'll be the way I want to be and how I want to sound, but from the ground up. It'll be my dream house, you know?"

Just continues, "I would definitely like to be done with it in the next five weeks. We were initially planning on having it finished now, but had a few construction delays. Especially when construction is involved, there's gonna be a few delays. So, we had a couple bumps in the road initially, but now we're ramping up and starting. Give it about five weeks time."