Pharoahe Monch: "I learned so much from Puff"

Pharoahe Monch began his career on a high note back in the early '90s with Prince Poetry as part of Organized Konfusion. They were hot enough to earn a name for themselves in the land of mighty emcees that was New York circa 1991 (remember 'Who Stole My Last Piece of Fried Chicken'?). But after an amicable split and a huge solo hit (1999's "Simon Says"), Pharoahe faded away from the spotlight, only to reemerge behind the scenes and write for moguls like P. Diddy (Monch penned 'The Future' from Diddy's "Press Play" album).

Monch is back with a new album, 'Desire,' that shows more than a few new tricks he's learned in his nearly decade-long absence from the charts. But who would have guessed that Pharoahe, the rapper's rapper, would have learned any of them from P. Diddy?

As told to Ken Gibbs:

I learned so much from Puff. People always take a step back, or raise their eyebrow when I say that, but he played me his music, then I played him some of my music. We're both Scorpios, so we were looking at each other in the office trying to figure each other out. On the low, I was just like I want to work with him to get behind the scenes to be like, this is what it's like to be in a trillion dollar environment and see how things are produced on that level. [laughs]

But what I got from him is that he has just as much integrity as me. He really respected my integrity in the studio, as far as a writer. And from him, he doesn't sleep. And what you get out of that is that it's not about how talented you are, necessarily, in entertainment. The person who usually puts in the most work gets rewarded, and he's working the most hours; and 50 Cent is working the most hours, Jay is working the most hours. I don't think people see that because it's an illusion outside of the studio. And you often listen to the radio and you're like, "I don't understand why they're playing that ..." And one of the reasons why is that these people are putting in work constantly. So, in getting that energy from Puff, just on a creative level, I left that project, went back to my project and was like, I'm not going to work harder on his than I am on mine! He just pushed me to go back, and that's what the exchange was partially like, me going back to my project to rewrite some things [after working with him].

And you know, he's in the studio with T.I., he's in the studio with Kanye, he's in the studio with Will.i.am. And he's just like, "I think it could be better." I'm writing verses, and we'll get to the last two lines, and he's like, "The last line ..." And I'm looking at him like, I'm Pharoah! What the f&$&k.

Desire Album cover But if you've got a reach in and pull it out of yourself to do that, then you're going to leave the studio with that in a lot of different areas. And when you get stuck you'll think back to those moments, where you was like let me dig down and pull this sh!t off, at least so I can finish the damn thing and get out of the damn studio.