Impose Magazine offers up a solid resume rundown and interview with Ivan "Doc" Rodriguez, the producer/engineer responsible for many of the singles and albums (Eric B & Rakim, BDP, EPMD, LL Cool J, Biz Markie, MC Lyte, Redman) that have come to define the golden age of Hip-Hop. Amazingly, for a person who pioneered so much in the realm of production and sampling, Doc remains very humble preferring to leave the majority of his contributions to the hands of history. Perhaps most interesting is his view of what producing is, "Making “beats” is not considered producing a composition. Nuff Said!"
I remember Ivan “Doc” Rodriguez from way, way, back. We both went to the same jr high school La-Salle jhs 17 on west 48th street in manhattan This was back in 1975-76 “He was a star” for any of us kids who loved music. He would come to school with this huge ghetto blaster, that always had the newest funkiest music. He did his own coustom mixes even back then. His blending was perfict, and he used the pause botton like a razor. I remember his “James Brown Sex Machine mix” and his “Mixes of “Just Beguin and the Mexican” He was my first true inspiration to become a dj. I remember him mixing in a store front window on 9th avenue useing a telephone receiver as a heatphone. When I saw this I wanted to be a DJ. My first really big club was Studio 54 where I mixed on and off for almost 4 years, now I play all over the world and “Doc” was my main hero. Over the years I didn’t even know that so many fameous HIP HOP CLASSICS were mixed by him. Back in the days he was more known for his “Disco Mixes” I remember him doing a coustom mixs on his boom box of “Celi Bee Superman-John Davis The Magic is You-and stuff like that. After jhs 17 I went to the high school of Art and Design. His girlfriend went there so I was lucky enough to still hear his “Magnificent Mixes” when he would come to visit her, or a friend of us both david vargas would bring doc’s boom box to my school. This guy has always been a profesional at mixing music even when he was a kid. I remember I was there. Submitted By Dwayne Holt superdisco@live.com