Production Credit: Clams Casino On Working With A$AP Rocky, Mac Miller & Havoc

Up-and-coming New Jersey producer Clams Casino’s name has been buzzing a lot over the past year. To many he was first introduced as the man responsible for giving 2011 XXL Freshman, Lil B, his more moody, atmospheric sounds (notably “Cold War” and “Motivation”). Others had their first listen on A$AP Rocky’s LiveLoveA$AP mixtape, where Clams had five songs. Either way, Casino has been building quite a cult fan base, that includes everyone from Mac Miller to Soulja Boy to Adele producer, Paul Epworth. XXL recently chopped it up with the 24-year-old beat wizard to find out about how far back his hip-hop roots go, possibly working with Drake and his chemistry with Adele. Jackpot! —Jesse Gissen @JesseXXL

First I wanna congratulate you for your work on the ASAP Rocky’s mixtape.
Thanks a lot we worked hard on that. We started working on that in like the end of April. So, I’m glad it came out and everyone loved it, and it came out really dope.

How did you guys link up?
I saw one of his songs posted on YouTube and I hit up his boy [who] has a Website, and I was like, “Yo how I can get some beats to Rocky?” He [said], “Yo, that’s crazy cause we were just talking about your instrumental tape last night.” He gave me his email and I sent Rocky a bunch of stuff. He hit me right back and he’s like, “Yo you are one of my favorite producers out right now. I already had shit recorded on your beats.” He sent me a track that he had already done on one of my instrumental things I had put out. So I just kept sending him shit and it just like happened from there. It was like good chemistry from like before we even met.

How many songs did you end up recording?
I don’t even know. There’s some other shit that he recorded that didn’t go on the tape, and then there’s some stuff that we recorded that was meant for after the tape. We got some stuff for his [debut album]. We started workin’ on that already.

Cool. So how does the recording process work? Do you work together in the studio or is everything over email?
Nah it’s pretty much over email, I’ve been to the studio with him but [only] to chill not [to work].

So how does that work? What’s the process like? Is there a lot of tweaking after he sends tracks back to you?
I send him the beat and he does it and we will talk about it and if we gotta change anything most of the time it’s like a one time thing. He knows exactly what he wants to do, and I like everything that he does. It’s not too much back and forth.

Besides A$AP, you also worked with Soulja Boy and Mac Miller, but you made your name working with Lil B. Are you still messing with the Based God?
Yeah I still talk to him. The last thing I did with him was on the I’m Gay album. I always shoot him something if he needs something. I just talked to him like last week.

Was Lil B the first established rapper that you worked with?
Well even before that [I did something for] Havoc from Mobb Deep. That was like summer of ’09 [on a song] called “Always Have A Choice.” [Listen below] I was [actually] working with Lil B before that, but that was a really big [look for me].

How did you get in touch with Havoc?
That was crazy how that worked out. When I first started sending beats to people on like MySpace in early ’08/the end of ’07, that’s when I really first started and I was just hitting everyone up. I don’t know if you ever heard of this guy from G-Unit, he used to rap for like G-Unit and for Mobb Deep and them. His name is Nice

Sure.
I sent him some stuff in like the beginning of ’08 and his manager was like, “It’s pretty cool.” Like a year and a half later that same guy hit me up and he ends up managing Havoc. He just hit me up outta nowhere like, “Havoc recorded that stuff and he put it out online and the response is crazy.”

OK so you got the placement with Hav and then what happened after that? You continued to work with Lil B and then B introduced you to Soulja Boy?
B started working with Soulja Boy a lot and chillin’ with him. I remember Lil B telling me, “Soulja told me he loves ‘I’m God.’” [Listen below] Soulja rapped on that. A year later he hit me up and was like “Yo I want some more beats.” So I kept sending him stuff and he ended up recording like a lot of them. He wanted to do a whole mixtape with me. I kept sending him stuff and he recorded a bunch but we never ended up doing the whole tape and some of those beats got used for some other stuff.

Any of those beats end up with Rocky or Mac?
Nah, some of the stuff I made for Soulja Boy ended up going on my instrumental EP, like the first track of that I made for Soulja Boy. Actually the stuff from Mac Miller, I made one brand new for him but one I actually made a long time ago for Shi Stimuli for his album and he didn’t use it. I used to work with him too. When I first started he was the first guy. I worked with him a lot.

You were working with Sha before B?
Yeah, Sha was my main thing when I first started. When I first started sending my stuff out he was the first guy that responded and rapped on it and put it on mixtapes and stuff. I did like, I don’t know how many, like 20 songs with him. [Listen to Sha Stimuli “Alone” below]

Whose been reaching out to work with you lately?
A lot of people. A lot of big people. I don’t know how much I can talk about, but there’s a lot of stuff going on. You will be hearing a lot soon

I know Drake is a huge Rocky fan and you are part of the Rocky equation. Had he reached out to you? You’re sounds are fairly similar.
Yeah. I don’t know, maybe (laughs).

Who else has been reaching out to you?
Man, just today I saw Paul Epworth, big producer for Adele—he produced “Rolling in the Deep”—he just like hit me up today like ‘yo that ASAP Rocky mixtape is massive.’ He’s one of my favorite producers right now. I just retweeted that and he hit me up so that was pretty cool.

Wow, that’s crazy!
He’s like a really big dude and that’s pretty major to me, so I thought that was pretty cool and that just happened like a couple hours ago.

Not a bad way to wake up.