Question in the Form of An Answer: Bangladesh

Grammy award-winning super producer Bangladesh earned his first big break when he produced several tracks (including the lascivious “What’s Your Fantasy) on Ludacris’ triple-platinum debut album, Back For The First Time. Bangladesh’s trademark bass-heavy compositions, which range from gritty, trunk-rattling thump—such as Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” and Gucci Mane’s “Lemonade”– to sprightly nightclub fare, like Kelis’ “Bossy”, have continued to permeate the airwaves. But rather than attempt to make his name as ubiquitous as Diddy or Dr. Dre, Bangladesh has rebuffed major labels to work independently and maintain full creative control over his projects. Passion of the Weiss caught up with Bangladesh to talk about his early career influences, his distain of record labels, and his upcoming album.

Interview conducted by Alex Koenig

Passion of the Weiss: Lets take it back to when you first started producing. You grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and then moved to Atlanta. When did you move down there, and at what point did you truly start to soak in the city’s music culture?

Bangladesh: I moved there in ’95 just to get to the opportunities. I was always mentally making music but (I started) physically making music in ’98. I bought an MPC 2000 and started making beats.

Passion of the Weiss: Who in the Atlanta rap scene was a significant influence on your craft?

Bangladesh: In the Atlanta rap scene? It wasn’t the Atlanta rap scene that motivated me; I was interested in music before I moved to Atlanta. It was like R. Kelly, Jodeci, Devante (Swing), Timbaland, Quincy Jones, Teddy Riley—it was those people who motivated me. And music runs in my family so it was just always in the blood anyway, you know? It wasn’t Atlanta that motivated me to do music; I just moved there because I had family there. My aunt was there, so I had somewhere to go. It was better than where I was. Going to Atlanta, no matter what you want to do, you have an opportunity to do it.

Passion of the Weiss: Many of the artists you’ve produced for are household names, but are you open to making beats for lesser-known independent artists who aren’t as likely to garner radio play?

Bangladesh: I do independent stuff all the time. You might have to be around to know all the ins-and-outs, you know what I’m saying? Work with an established artist all time, you know, that’s the whole point. My first break was Ludacris who was an established artist– I made “What’s Your Fantasy” which established him. So you know, you always gotta do that because you wanna break that next big artist.

As a producer, do you prefer to work side-by-side with an artist in the studio, or work by yourself and email your beats to them?

Bangladesh: It depends, man; it’s never just one way. It depends on the artist and how I would prefer to work with them, you know what I’m saying? If they need that direction, I would like to be there hands-on with them. If I don’t really know the direction that they’re going in, I like to be in there with them to see what they’re trying to do. If they’re established artists, man, sometimes they be so busy that I might just have a beat for them. They might contact me and ask me to send them something. If I have something for them I’ll send it to them.

Passion of the Weiss: You’re working on a new album right now. Can you describe that to me a little bit?

Bangladesh: Yeah. It’s a production-based album. To produce for these artists, you kind of have to follow certain guidelines of the direction that they’re going in. So you can’t always do the things that you want to with them that you feel is progressive or the new thing, because sometimes they’re scared of it or having their own little lane that they’re trying to accomplish.

This album is basically just taking the same artists that I work with and doing songs that they wouldn’t do for themselves– like shock value type records. A lot of features (will be on the album), from Rick Ross to Busta Rhymes to Kendrick Lamar. A lot of new artists like 2 Chainz and Ke$ha, Ice Cube, the Game. There’s going to be a lot of features on there. It’s going to be an album that is well produced from top to bottom, and every song could be a single.

Passion of the Weiss: Describe your mindset when you’re working in the studio. Do you have to be in the right mood to create a certain sound? Do you run into any difficulties creating the sound you want?

Bangladesh: I mean, I’m not on point all the time. Everybody has his or her days. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it don’t. Sometimes it comes quick, sometimes it takes a long time. It’s not hard to do what I do, but it’s sometimes not easy to come up with what they need. That’s the pressure that producers are under. If someone pays you to go in the studio with him or her, something original you gotta make something original right then. I don’t really feel pressured, though–at the end of the day, something’s gonna come out, so I ain’t really trippin’ about it.

Passion of the Weiss: Since your work started earning a great deal of buzz, you’ve received offers to join major rap labels such as Disturbing tha Peace and Bad Boy—yet you’ve passed on every single one. What do you like about releasing music independently and why is the idea of joining a major label so unappealing?

Bangladesh: You know, it’s just my choice of operation man. It’s just sometimes people understand you, sometimes they don’t. You know, you take somebody’s money, man, that’s kind of like you’re under his or her watch. I’m kind of against the grain; you know, make my own rules and create my own label, man, no matter how long it takes. It’s just the way I am.

Passion of the Weiss: You’re a Grammy-Award winning producer and are responsible for some of the biggest hits of the last decade. Do you still feel like you have something to prove? What’s the next goal on your checklist?

Bangladesh: No matter how high you get, you always wanna have something to prove because you wanna keep going. I don’t ever wanna be satisfied, you know what I’m saying, I’ll be bored. So I always got something to prove, man. The next goal on my checklist is to break my own artist.

A Question In The Form of An Answer: SKYWLKR

Detroit native Skylar Tait AKA SKYWLKR made his name last year by producing the bulk of Danny Brown’s critically acclaimed album XXX. Recently named one of the FADER’s 5 producers to watch in 2012, Sky crafts blunted, psychedelic beats that sound like nothing else. In an interview conducted for our XXX making-of feature, SKY discusses his metal background, his process and who he wants to work with.

What was the first rap song you heard?
DMX’s “Ruff Ryders Anthem.”

How did you get started with producing?
The first time I heard Jedi Mind Tricks, Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind was the producer, that’s when I wanted to make beats. I was 19, 20, I heard Jedi Mind Tricks late and can’t even lie like I’m cool. I was into metal back then, it was one of my metal friends that introduced me to [JMT].

What did you listen to growing up?
Everything. I remember being in elementary school and liking Hanson [laughs]. I went through a rap phase, like DMX, Jay-Z and Nas and then that died out. Then I got into metal really hard. I still love death metal and shit, but I stopped being in bands. I used to record songs with guitar and make the drums with the programs on my computer. And that’s when I started making beats, ‘cause I was just bored.

What were you using to make beats?
Reason. When I first started making music, it was Acid, then I switched to GarageBand and it’s been Reason ever since.

What did your first beat sound like?
It was pretty sweet, actually. It sounded like some Jedi Mind Tricks type-shit.

How did you first start reaching out to rappers?
At that time, I was living with my friend Matt Schwartz. He still raps but I didn’t take it seriously, I was making joke-rap songs back then. He rapped seriously so I would just give him beats. We still make songs now, we made a CD. He’s got an all-original CD of my beats from 2008-2009. We would go to beat battles about 5 months after I started making beats. I just got bored of making beats and I wanted to play ‘em for people. One of my friends told me about a beat battle going on downtown and we checked it out. The first one we did, we got second place. I was like, “Damn, this is kinda crazy”. Everyone was like, “Lemme get your number, I’m trying to get beats and shit.” That’s when people started hearing me besides my friends.

Were you bringing beat tapes to these shows?
Never, never! I was the most unorganized person ever, burning CDs for the beat battle, three minutes before the battle. I would forget to make new beat CDs. Everyone else had business cards and beat tapes ready. Fucking up, I guess.

The Detroit rap scene seems like a tight-knit community.
At the [beat battles] I first went to, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know shit about Detroit rap at first. I came from metal and then started doing music. Everybody was saying they work with this person or that person, I didn’t honestly know who anyone was. I ended up moving in with a kid two years ago, and he was a Dilla head and he got me hooked on everybody.

How does your metal background influence how you select sounds
When I first started making beats, I didn’t even know producers like that. I wasn’t jocking anybody’s style. I didn’t even know I liked Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind. I just liked Jedi Mind Tricks. I didn’t know who Dilla was, I just made what was sweet to my ears. I always liked scary sounding shit, like old Three 6 [Mafia] beats, that was kinda metallish. Metal definitely influenced my beats.

How did you hook up with Danny?
I started hanging with this kid Marvin, who was cousins with Chip$, and he brought Chip$ and Fat Ray over to my crib to do a song. Fast forward 6 months, I got into the studio with Chip$ and Guilty Simpson, they ended up doing a song over one of my beats. And everyone fucked with it. Chip$ used to be in a group with Danny Brown, Rese’vor Dogs. Danny and I were listening to beats all the time and kicking it, we just built a friendship. I produced a record for C.H.I.P.$ called “Ponzi Scheme”. Danny fucked with that beat real hard and based off that, he hit me up when he was doing XXX, like, “I got all the producers lined up, I want to you use you to do basically everything else.

This is the concept of the album, this is the sound, you got the rest of it”. It ended up being the opposite, I ended up doing the most on the album.

Why do you work so well together?
I think we have the same intentions, we’re both trying to make some really dope shit.

What was your process for putting the record together?
Now Danny and I kick it all the time, play Xbox and smoke weed. We’re like a band. Between games I’d bust out the laptop and play a couple loops for him. He’d come with ideas like “switch up the bass, change the hi-hat”. He wasn’t hands-on with the music but he’d give me insight and direction.

Take me through your process for putting a beat together.
Usually I smoke. I’m always downloading random music and I’ll sit there, listen to some shit. Pull up Reason and make some drums. Load up any old sample and try to make it sound way different than it sounds. I just try to spark something. From there, it’s nothing. It’s just about trying to get that spark, man.

Does it normally start with a sample?
It could be anything. Sometimes I’ll just try to make a sweet drum part and then try to make something in my head to achieve it.

Your beats on XXX have a bit of that Low End Theory L.A. sound.
I made [“Outer Space”] after I heard Flying Lotus for the first time, I just tried to make crazy shit [laughs] I listen to a lot of instrumental music. When I started, to be honest with you I didn’t know people listened to instrumental music. I was just doing it because I couldn’t find any band members who were dedicated enough to play.

What are you working on next?
I dropped this sketchy beat tape in April 2010, Strawberry Cough. A year went by, and I was like, “Damn, if you didn’t know me you would have thought I stopped making beats!” Thought I’d put something out but wasn’t ready to put out something official. I wanted to hold out and just drop beats here and there. I ended up getting a van with no CD, no iPod hookup, just a cassette player. I was like, “Damn, I can’t be the only one out here with a cassette player in the car”. It’s not like anyone can bootleg it. I put 47 beats on a cassette, I printed out a hundred. I didn’t really promote it at first, a lot of people didn’t know I had ‘em. A month went by and my friends were buying ‘em off me. One night I posted something on Twitter and I ended up selling out of 75 tapes in a week and a half.

What other collaborations are you working on?
I got stuff with Mondre M.A.N. from Main Attrakionz, waiting to put out some work with Boldy James and Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire, that shit is going to be sweet. I’m doing some instrumental collabs this year. I feel I know a lot of sweet producers that people don’t know about. Just trying to do stuff with friends to get their names out. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Black Noi$e, but we remixed Death Grips’s Exmilitary. It’s Ex-Exmilitary. Death Grips dropped all the stems of their EP, the vocals, the bass, the drums, everything. So we were like, “Shit, we should remix this”.

Who else do you want to work with?
There’s just a lot of young cats around me that I mess with that people should know about. I’d love to kick it with Flying Lotus, shit. Like Sonny Digital is like 20, he’s dope too, doing Lex Luger type shit.

Download:
MP3: Danny Brown – “Die Like A Rockstar” (produced by SKYWLKR)
MP3: Danny Brown – “Brown Eyes” (produced by SKYWLKR)

Download:
MP3: Quelle Chris ft. Danny Brown & Roc Marciano-”Shotgun” (Left-Click)
ZIP: Quelle Chris – The Son EP (Left-Click)

Step Inside The Mind That Revolves Around Rhyme: The Making of Danny Brown’s XXX

Sometimes your mission finds you. For Daniel Sewell, a Black-Filipino kid from Linwood, Detroit, his career was never a choice. Danny never learned how to rap, words came together in his head even at elementary school age. Borrowing the name of his favorite Reservoir Dogs character, Danny Brown found joy ripping into the twisted corners of the genre, both solo and with his crew Reser’ Vor Dogs (since re-christened “Bruiser Brigade.”) The problem was that few outside the city paid him much mind, save for a brief dalliance with a Roc-A-Fella Records A&R.

After years of toiling in the Detroit underground, 2010 brought a major breakthrough. His self-released album The Hybrid brought an observant take on modern Detroit, narrated by a former pusher with one foot in the streets and an eye cast on urban blight and poverty. A G-Unit deal was discussed but never formally offered. More concrete was a legitimate drug addiction; after all, Adderall is Viagra for rappers with dry pens.

But Brown’s momentum continued to build. He signed with electro label Fools Gold in early 2011, and released his new mixtape XXX for free in August. The record racked up millions of downloads and garnered rapturous praise from the likes of NPR, Rolling Stone, The Fader, Spin and Pitchfork. We liked it too. This article is an attempt to tell the story of XXX. Pop an Adderall, grab a Heineken, smoke something, and follow along. --Aaron Matthews

1. “XXX”
Produced by Frank Dukes

Danny Brown: The Hybrid was dealing with teenage pregnancy, welfare and drug abuse — it’s way more socially conscious. The process was just to make a cohesive-sounding project and show my range. XXX wasn’t about that, because I felt like I already proved that. It’s about the moment. The pressure was different because there were a lot more people paying attention to my music, so I had to think differently. XXX is me experimenting and seeing how far I can push listeners with what I do. Before I didn’t think I could really do [rhyming] patterns like Elzhi, Eminem, dudes like that. They probably got rhyming dictionaries or thesauruses and whatever. I just got like two grades of regular hood nigga vocabulary and tried to play with that. I figured out a way to do it.

I got a lot of beats from Paul White and then I was working with SKYWLKR all the time. He was making stuff that fit with the Paul White stuff. Then Quelle, he always sends stuff, so I was picking the best stuff that Quelle had. BrandUn DeShay just popped up in Detroit one day and came over to my crib, he played a few joints. And that House Shoes joint just popped up.

For XXX, I was just thinking of the credits rolling to that. The way the beat came on, it sounded more like an intro beat than a song with a hook. It was an intro, so I wrote the intro to it. Everything was super-intentional, it wasn’t like nothing wasn’t planned. I wrote the intro and I wrote “30”, the outro last.

Frank Dukes: I hooked up with Danny at one of the Red Bull Big Tune battles. He told me he was working on something and asked for some music. I sent him a record that ended up as “Shootin’ Moves” [off The Hybrid]. He reached out for the next album and I sent over some joints that ended up being “XXX” and “DNA.”

Musically, we vibed. I work from the true school, boom-bap shit but I try to do something interesting and relevant to what’s going on in music. I think Danny in a lot of ways is on the same vibe. He’s a straight spitter but he’s also doing something more progressive than most of the rappers coming out today. Our sound works together because of that.

“XXX” was taken from a bunch of different chops from random places. I chopped up a drum break and I played some random shit over it, and it ended up as it is. I loved what Danny did with it. It was a beat that a few other people recorded over, but he ended up getting the record. I think the song is a perfect precursor to what the album does, because the beat is rooted in boom-bap but has some more [creative] elements that make it work. “XXX” sets the tone. Danny did his high-pitched crazy voice on it, but he also shows both sides of himself, saying goofy shit but also saying some real shit.

2. “Die Like A Rockstar”
Produced by SKYWLKR

Danny: [Those rock star references], that’s me just watching a lot of documentaries. I was thinking like a Quentin Tarantino movie when I heard the beat, you know how his movies always start off crazy and action-packed? I wanted the beginning to be wild and crazy, but still scare the shit out of you at the same time. I didn’t want to make a party, because to me it’s a party song! [laughs] Dark ass party! [laughs] It’d be a party song in hell. I didn’t want to make a party song about drugs that sounds cool, like a Juicy J song. The parts with celebrities…Wikipedia will take you a long way! [laughs]

SKYWLKR: I started producing for Chip$. He used to be in a group with Danny Brown — the Rese’Vor Dogs. Then I started being around Danny, I was in the “Cyclops” video last October.

Danny and I were listening to beats all the time and kicking it; we built a friendship. I produced a record for C.H.I.P.$ called “Ponzi Scheme.” Danny fucked with that beat real hard and based off that, he hit me up when he was doing XXX, like, “I got all the producers lined up, I want to you use you to do basically everything else. This is the concept of the album, this is the sound, you got the rest of it.”

It ended up being the opposite, I ended up doing the most on the album. Now Danny and I kick it all the time, play Xbox and smoke weed. Between games I’d bust out the laptop and play a couple loops for him. He’d come with ideas like “switch up the bass, change the hi-hat”. I think we have the same intentions, we’re both trying to make some really dope shit.

For “Die Like A Rockstar,” I used synths with the pitch bend. I had that mind-set coming in. I wanted to use that break. I wanted to make some dark shit. I wanted it to be hard but not all electronic-y. That’s why I used the break [“Synthetic Substitution” by Melvin Bliss], that’s classic hip-hop drums with those dark synths. It just sounded sweet. I put heavy bass on there, like [imitates the song’s bass line].

3. “Pac Blood”
Produced by BrandUn DeShay

Danny: I didn’t really have a concept, and it didn’t go with the concept of the album. What if modern day rappers were like poets or Shakespeare, if we took it serious. I was just thinking of back in the day, if I was Shakespeare writing raps with ink pens, as weird as that sounds [laughs]. It wasn’t included in my original track listing but my manager [Emeka Obi] just beat me over the head over it and everyone I played it for was like, “Man, that shit is crazier than everything else, that’s my favorite shit!” So I had to throw it on there.

The Bukowski, I was watching a documentary about him and just studying it. Rudyard Kipling, that’s just children’s books and shit [laughs]. That’s just funny. Like, you write for kids. That’s what I meant with that line.

“Spittin’ like Kipling with a tooth missin’/tongue bring torture to men, women and children”

BrandUn DeShay: My old manager was a huge fan of Danny and told me I should do something with him. I had never heard of him, but I said I’d check him out. I became a fan and hit [Danny] on Twitter and told him I make beats and we took it from there. We ended up kicking it when I came to D-town for my birthday. I came over with my chick and he was cooking chicken, set me up with the computer, like “you got beats? C’mon, play ‘em loud”. He took the beats I didn’t even think he would take, ‘cause they were the beats everyone else had passed on. There was dope chemistry.

For “Pac Blood,” everyone knows that sample, Bob James’ “Nautilus’. The reason it’s so familiar is it’s the drums everyone samples. So people switch up the melody, do different samples along with that drum pattern. I don’t think people have used [the samples I used on the song] before. I’m a big indie rock head so I’ll take a band that just dropped an album last year and sample a brand new song but with a hip hop style, and Bob James drum sample on top of it. Make a whole new beast out of it. So I flipped “Nautilus” in a fresh way.

4. “Radio Song”
Produced by BrandUn DeShay

Danny: That was one of the last songs I recorded. I think when the album was done and I would listen to it, I’d always think like the regular listener, “Where’s the radio song?” So that was a gimmick, a joke to myself like “I got a radio song right here! I gotta have a radio song!” So that was my way of doing it.

BrandUn DeShay: That’s a really high pitched snare. Most instrumentals are in the key of C, but “Radio Song” is in the key of B. I actually came up with the beat in my head in the shower, like “Oh shit!”. Then I made it on the computer. That’s one of my favorite beats and what Danny did with it was crazy.

5. Lie4
Produced by SKYWLKR

Danny: That was me and Sky trying out ideas, trying to do [grime] to see if I could do it. I was probably experimenting a little more with the grime sound. I wanted to do unexpected shit, going from a Detroit hip-hop sound to a grime sound, who’d expect that? I’m with [SKYWLKR] the most, so it’s easier for me to talk with him and make music than get a beat tape from somebody. In the future, it’s probably going to be more and more Skyler, ‘cause that’s who I’m working with every day.

SKYWLKR: I went on a grime binge, and it obviously showed in my music. I love grime and now I make grime all the time.

6. “I Will”
Produced by Squadda Bambino

Danny: It’s give and take, you know? [laughs] A lot of people are squares, kinda. I think I always had that idea for that song and then I got the beat from Squadda B. I just wanted to have something from Squadda or Main Attrakionz something on the album because I’m a big fan of their work. He sent me a lot of beats and the vocal sample on that beat just made me come up with it. That’s probably the quickest song on the album. Probably wrote that in 10, 15 minutes [laughs]. I guess that whole section was to steer you off the story but still keep it on random.

Squadda Bambino of Main Attrakionz: Danny’s like my big cousin, white girls sitting on his lap and his shit [laughs]. I had never really listened to him until he reached out. His voice is crazy and he can rap about anything.

He got at me for some beats. And the beat for “I Will,” I actually made for myself a while back but never ended up recording on it or putting it out. I had a song with DVD called “Tell Me” so I found a [sample] of a bitch saying “tell me” and I just looped that up. That little “She like” sample I took from somewhere else too, can’t remember where. I revised it, sent it back and the rest was history. Danny rapping about eating pussy and shit. I was shocked as fuck when I heard the song, I didn’t know [Danny] was going to take it there. I was like, “Damn! He holdin’ it down!” [laughs]

I remember in middle school niggas didn’t really want to flex that shit. When a nigga eats pearl, he gets teased. So this was the first time I heard a nigga rap about that shit and really take pride in that shit.

7. “Bruiser Brigade” (Featuring Dopehead)
Produced by SKYWLKR

Danny: We were mostly going for a grime sound, that’s me trying to make a grime song in my own way. And really that song was me trying to write like…you ever seen that Dave Chappelle skit “Dude’s Night Out”?

I just wanted to write something about that, that’s really what [the song]’s about. Going out with your friends and just wilding out. Just getting drunk [laughs] That skit just inspired the song.

SKYWLKR: It’s funny, a lot of people have told me that this song [sounds like Brick Squad]. And I didn’t even know about grime either, Danny introduced me to it. I made a lot of grime beats [like “Bruiser Brigade”]. That song came out crazy.

8. “Detroit 187” Featuring Chip$
Produced by Nick Speed

Danny: I loved the beat and it worked really well with the other production of the album. I thought Chip$ would sound dope on it. I wanted to get him and Dopehead out there, so if I got a lot of attention, they’d get some too.

Nick Speed: I heard a [Rese’Vor Dogs] song on the radio and I was up at the radio station and they was going crazy. I hopped in the car with the radio DJ, MC Serch, he was playing the CD in his car, I thought it sounded crazy. Later I was walking across 7 Mile Road and Rese’Vor Dogs had a poster with a number on the bottom. I called the number, went straight to Danny’s cribs and he’s playing The Streets’ album, Dizzee Rascal and he’s making beats on the PlayStation. I walk in, I’m playing my beats, and he’s like, “Yeah, these are crack rocks right here” [laughs]. We decided right there we were going to make an album, all Motown, funk, soul and all that. I was surprised he was into that type of music, ‘cause [Rese’Vor Dogs] were a gangsta’ rap group. The name of the album was RUNISPOKETS-N-DUMPEMINDARIVA [laughs]

So we started making songs in the basement, I’d bring my beat machine. Years went past, Danny got down with Roc-A-Fella, I got down with G-Unit. He came to my crib one day like, “Man, I’m ready”– just to let me know he’s serious. We were recording for years before we dropped the first album. Brown is a real calculated person. I could see that even when he was in Rese’Vor Dogs, he had the ability to make songs for the public. He just raps like he doesn’t care. And he writes it strictly for people from Detroit, Michigan. I heard XXX way before it came out, I think it was missing 1 or 2 songs and I thought, “Damn, this is a story”. For all the industry people that didn’t believe, it’s like the biggest “I told you so” ever [laughs].

Danny was recording at my man Drumma B’s house and I had just gave him some beats and he was like, “Man, that Doogie Howser, I want to do that with the Doogie Howser [sample]!” ‘Cause that was the name of the beat. So I was like, “Aight, bet”. Brown re-recorded that song because he first had the low delivery on it, and it came out impressive. I’m always looking for odd sounds and weird things to record. So it was inspired by the Doogie Howser theme song. Brown love 80s stuff too.

9. “Monopoly”
Produced by Quelle

Danny: That was one of the first songs I did for XXX, before I knew what I was doing with it. When I started the project, I was just trying to go hard [laughs] That was actually the first song we knew we were going to use.

Quelle: I would hit Danny every blue moon like, “Hey, you need some beats?” And I’d send ‘em through. I think he had a couple of joints before he was doing the Fools Gold thing. We gotta similar goal: make music that sounds good. I thought “Monopoly” was hard. I think it’s the hardest shit on there, not just ‘cause I made it [laughs]. Danny never does the beats wrong, shit, that’s why I fuck with him! [The Blaxploitation dialogue at the beginning] was the perfect beginning for that shit! [laughs] The sample for the instrumental came from a Looney Tunes-ass Russian cartoon, that makes it even funnier. ‘Cause he’s like a cartoon character.

10. “Blunt After Blunt”
Produced by SKYWLKR

Danny: I think I was trying to do some Def Jux shit. Camu, El-P, Cannibal Ox, Mr. Lif, Murs when he was fucking with ‘em, Cage, Aesop.

SKYWLKR: I remember Danny dropped The Hybrid: Deluxe on iTunes and it had the song “Dick Suck.” I thought that beat was super hard, and it influenced me to make “Blunt After Blunt”. I sampled a piano. A real simple beat, I came up with the first piano part [imitates loud piano chords] and the beat just happened.

11. “Outer Space”
Produced by SKYWLKR

Danny: That’s also the Def Jux sound. Like I said, the production was working [here].

SKYWLKR: “Outer Space” is a super old beat. I made that beat after I heard Flying Lotus for the first time, I just tried to make crazy shit [laughs] If someone really did their homework, I put that shit out on a beat tape in 2009. Danny heard it and just went nuts. That was the first Danny Brown/SKYWLKR song and that song is amazing to me.

12. “Adderall Admiral”
Produced by Paul White

Danny: I wanted a soundtrack that flowed cohesively, not just content and songs. And I liked the way the beats [for “Blunt After Blunt” to “Adderall Admiral”] sounded in that order.

Paul White: Alex Chase runs my label One Handed Music and hooked us up. We had connections even back in the MySpace days, me and House Shoes spoke a little bit. With Alex’s connections to Stones Throw, he and Shoes opened doors to some emcees and Danny was one of them. Full shouts to House Shoes for that that.

Danny’s freeness, uniqueness and honesty, his humor…I could relate to him straight away. The way he talks about his life and the rawness of the world. He’s fine being himself. I sent him 10 beats and recorded to all of them. He’s one of the only people who’s managed to tap into the feeling I had when I wrote the beat.

When he picked the beat, I couldn’t wait to hear it. That was my favorite joint, I was cracking up when I heard it.

13. “DNA”
Produced by Frank Dukes

Danny: When I started putting together sequences, the slower songs sounded better together than intertwined with the faster ones where the beat was on some silly shit. I was really thinking of like back in the day, when it was all on vinyl. I feel like “DNA” is where Side B starts. With the intro of the beat and everything, I was looking at it like that’s Side A and that’s Side B. The cover looked like a vinyl to me, so I was going with that whole vibe. The first side is all having fun then here’s where it starts getting serious. “DNA” was one of the last songs I recorded. I had the intro and outro, I already had the storyline and I already had the songs I needed. I knew what I was doing when I did that, I need to have that type of song for it.

Frank Dukes: I felt like I got to set the tone for Side A and Side B of the album. I made both those beats in the same week too, guess it was coincidence that he picked both.

I thought it was dope that Danny showed a more serious side. He can do a record where he completely glorifies excessive drug use, but also show that he’s conscious of what he’s doing and talking about [drugs] on a deeper level. When I created “DNA”, that’s not something I pictured on it. It made a lot of sense.

14. “Nosebleeds”
Produced by DJ House Shoes

Danny: It’s around me, so I’m just writing about what’s going on. The Hybrid was just me trying to come up with concepts and show content. With this, I wasn’t trying to write about the past but write about what’s going on now. The beat reminded me of this commercial I saw when I was a kid. A girl is wilding out, partying, and then one day she’s in class and her nose just starts dripping. That shit always just comes to my brain so I just wrote about it. The song is supposed to be “This Is Your Brain On Drugs” type shit. I knew a lot of people like that, and I always wanted to write that type of song. I kinda write ‘em with every album, I just know a lot of girls like that.

DJ House Shoes: I first heard Danny when I was working at a record store on [Detroit’s] East Side called Melodies and Memories in 2003. [Danny’s old group] Rese’Vor Dogs’ CD came out and it was cool, I could tell there was a lot of promise but it was unpolished. I first met dude in 2007, I came back to the D to do a release party for Hot Soup and that shit was crazy. The crowd reaction was…50 percent of the people knew every word and the other 50 percent had never heard of Danny Brown. I DJed for 2 hours and played strictly Danny Brown and people went crazy. That was the first time I saw that type of reaction at home from one of [Detroit’s] artists.

“Nosebleeds” is probably one of the last joints he did for the record. I just sent him the whole batch of beats I did in February. It’s funny because it took me a while to hear which joint Danny fucked with, which is why the beat appears on Quelle’s [“M.T.F.O.” off Shotgun & Sleek Rifle]. Danny approached the joint totally different from Quelle, so it’s all good. Some dope cinematic movie shit. One verse, exactly how the beat sounded on the beat tape.

15. “Party All the Time”
Produced by BrandUn DeShay

Danny: I was always a fan of The Streets’ album A Grand Don’t Come For Free and I wanted to swaggerjack his whole shit and come with a full fledged story like his was. I just did it my way. I know a lot of chicks like that, bruh. That song is not too different from [The Hybrid’s] “Drinks On Me”. I think the type of girls I talk about on the fun times are the type of girls that’ll be down on their downtime. I can’t just be sitting around talking about “Bitch suck my dick” all day and not have no flip-side.

BrandUn DeShay: Danny’s so crazy that if I sampled the Eddie Murphy song, he woulda ran with it [laughs]. I love that jam. I love the beat for this too and I didn’t think he would come with that kinda style. I’d never heard Danny rap with that very chill, heartfelt tone so I was really glad to produce a departure from his typical style.

16. “EWNESW”
Produced by Quelle

Danny: To me, that song is the point in the story where he…like “Blunt After Blunt”, all those, that’s where he crashes. And after the crash is the reflective period. Then after that, he realizes he’s back in his hood and he’s seeing that shit ain’t changed. He’s fucking up, and the music shit is getting hot, he can get out the hood.

Quelle: I was chilling at my homegirl’s spot and we was playing that Al Green song [convincingly croons “Nobody But You”] and changing the words to something about taking a shit. We kept starting the song over, each time we started it over I was like, “Damn, that shit is funky.” It’s funky. Nowadays, a lot of music is missing that funk. I just took the CD and gave it a light chop, keep it a little more funky but a little more off than the original, so it isn’t so sterilized.

The musicians on those albums are on point, these guys are better than your beat machine! We had actually done another song over that joint a year ago, that didn’t come out. A lot of times, I don’t know what song will be on the CD until the CD comes out [laughs]. I just knock out some joints thinking Danny might sound cold on that.

17. “Fields”
Produced by Paul White

Danny: “Fields” elaborates more on the scrap issue, it’s the same type of song. I’m telling you [Detroit is] fields, then I tell you why it’s fields.

Paul White: I go off on a feeling most of the time when making beats, but I do remember mucking with the sample and putting the drums on. I could hear a feeling to it and knew it was the right sample to put on there. It’s from a movie. The sample I got for the chorus was this flute-y thing about a crazy world that had gone wrong, beautiful landscapes turned into rubble. It freaked me how much [Danny] tapped into that. Maybe he had seen the movie.

18. “Scrap or Die”
Produced by Paul White

Danny: “Scrap or Die”, that’s what [the album’s protagonist] could be if he don’t do right with the music shit.

Paul White: That was a real spontaneous joint. I loved the weirdness of it, I heard the crazy sample with the weird sounds. You can hear stuff behind sonics and I heard some feeling behind that. Danny’s chorus was great, I loved what he was chatting about. He’s someone who tells a great story and that makes your job as a producer lovely. You can create a whole world with someone.

19. “30”
Produced by SKYWLKR

Danny: I try to do everything in one take because I’m used to doing that. [Punch-ins] are weird to me. That was one long verse, but I did want to capture the emotion of it. “30” is where [the [protagonist] crashes.

SKYWLKR: That’s my favorite song on XXX. I’m a Metronomy fan and I heard that crazy drum break but it had bass on it, so I couldn’t use it. So I tried to remake the drum break myself, that’s where the drums came in. I got high and chopped the Metronomy, put all the samples on my keyboard and it just happened. There were two versions of the song, one had a keyboard part on the outro, that he didn’t fuck with it like that. With my metal background, Danny is yelling on that song. Like, “Dang!” How can you not feel that?

Bonus Tracks:

“Lincoln Continental”
Produced by BrandUn DeShay

BrandUn: I love videogame samples. So I made the [Final Fantasy 7] theme high-pitched and put a crazy filter on it. I threw on some hard, thug-ass drums on and the shit just jammed. [Danny] actually explained the concept for the song before he recorded it. I still feel like [“Lincoln Continental”] didn’t get the props it deserves. The idea of making a song super political but also super comical, it’s like mixing Lupe with Gucci Mane but it works really ill.

Danny Brown “XXX” by foolsgoldrecs

Question in the Form of an Answer: Adrian Utley of Portishead

There’s something brewing with Portishead. After the release of Third in 2008, the Bristol-based trio lay relatively low, focusing more on family and pet projects than driving the wheels off the tour van. But over last summer Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Utley began to again make their presence felt, packing in a hectic series of European festival dates before playing a bunch of North American gigs. It’s a sign that some fresh recording sessions may not be too far away.

In November, Portishead made it down to Australia for Harvest Festival. But before the band boarded the plane I had the pleasure of dialing Adrian Utley in Bristol. Actually, it was well before they boarded the plane – when Utley slipped onto the other end of the line, it was just days after the English riots in early August. It was a great opportunity to ask how a band such as Portishead – known for lurking about within the bleaker folds of British culture – reacted to such events, but also pick Utley’s brains on touring, new albums, and his and Barrow’s shared obsession with rap music.

This Q&A was originally used to construct a feature story for Junior Magazine, but is reproduced in its entirety for Passion of the Weiss. –Matt Shea

You’re in Bristol at the moment, so I take it, you haven’t been affected by the riots at all?

No. I’ve been away in the countryside for the last week. I’ve just been watching the news and there was some action here in Bristol, but I haven’t seen anything and certainly haven’t been affected by it, although I guess we’ve all been affected by it in one way or another. And also, just in terms of the record industry, the Sony warehouse was burnt down with tons of stock from very cool labels like Domino and Rough Trade and Beggars Banquet and XL.

That’s made news over here in the music papers. A lot of that stuff actually doesn’t get pressed here – it gets shipped out from the UK.

Right, OK. So it’s having an effect over there. It’s pretty shit, really.

Geoff spoke in an interview last month with The Guardian about finding inspiration in the recent Stokes Croft riots. Would this be the same, do you think? Do things like this flow into your music?

They will do, yeah. Geoff and I don’t write lyrics, so there’s not that there. But I think stuff from Third: that sound was inspired by the way we were living at that time, politically.

Similarly, the state of the UK around us is pretty fucked and if you start talking about it you end up in a mad chain of terror throughout the world, don’t you – starting off with a riot in a street next to you and ending up with the terrible shit that’s going on in the Congo, and then on into nuclear power in Japan. It’s just fucking endless, and that is the state that we live in, and I think your state of being is what makes your music.

I’m almost surprised you’re home, because it sounds like you guys have had a busy festival season in the northern summer.

Yeah, we have. We’ve been to around 15 festivals around Europe. It’s been really great, actually. We’ve been to Serbia and Slovakia and Poland and Hungary, and places that we’ve never, ever been before. It’s been important for us to go there, so it’s kept us pretty busy and been quite full-on, yeah.

You’re probably not what most people consider a festival band.

No (laughs).

I have a friend who just saw Portishead at EXIT and said that you were a great break from a hard-charging festival. Do you guys find it difficult to perform at festivals – to play to the back of the room, so to speak?

I think we’ve learned how to do it now, because we did headline lots of festivals in the late 90s. We’ve done it a few times now and we’ve learnt how to do it and understand that it’s okay as long as you don’t go on before Coldplay (laughs), which we have done a couple of times. I don’t think we’ll ever, ever do that again – be on with inappropriate bands.

You were saying your friend saw us at EXIT: I didn’t see much else there other than Grinderman, and somebody else just before us. But I didn’t get a sense until afterwards – I think Channel 4 here had made a documentary on EXIT festival – that there was quite a lot of dance music going on. I’d been to a few of these festivals, but I think within that we command our own world, and I think our music is strong enough to cut through, and we create a world with our visuals that we project and the presence that we have and the sound we spend an absolute aeon getting sorted out, so when we do play there’s no mistake about what we’re up to and what we’re trying to do.

I know you typically perform with other players. With festivals and those larger arenas, is it a case of adding even more people to the mix, or do you go the other way, simplifying the music, so to speak?

We always use the same people that we always have: a lot of people who have played with us since the beginning. Everything’s the same really. In some ways, even though you’re playing to 30,000 – 50,000 people, and the system’s huge, there is a problem sometimes sonically with things being set up for dance music – there’s a lot of sub bass, and we don’t in the main use a lot of that, even though we have lots of low end. We just do what we do and make it our world, if you like.

Talking about long gaps, I think a lot of people are still taken aback by how long it took you to record Third, particularly seeing as you never officially broke up. I understand, though, that you guys were always working together, more or less – is that right?

That’s right, yeah. I guess we’d just had enough of doing it for a bit, so we stopped and did other things. But we worked together on loads of stuff, and then Geoff and I came to Sydney to do some work down here, but did lots of other things as well. I think it’s the nature of the music we make that it burns brightly for us at the time that we’re making it. But it’s tough and it’s not a joyous experience all the time (laughs). So it’s hard to go back to put your head back into that world sometimes, and that’s why it took that long really. That’s just what happened and that’s the way it was, and now, learning from our history and wanting to do a record fairly a quickly, this is a reason for us to tour: to start the ball rolling on being together again and working. So we’ll go from this to the studio to start writing in January time, and hopefully we’ll do it in less than ten years (laughs).

How different were you guys when you got back together to lay down Third? Was the process – and is the process – a lot different to how it was back in the early days? And were you different people?

Yeah, definitely. We all changed quite a lot in that time and had learned a lot about things – we still are – so things had rolled on very much. Since touring in ’97 and ’98 we had made an album a year before that, so it’s years since we’d actually done an album – it was longer than ten years – and we’d certainly changed. We’ve got families, we’ve got different responsibilities and we’ve got different lives built on different experiences and we’d listened to different music. We wilfully wanted to change what we were doing into another world.

You talk about heading back into the studio in January. Were there many cuts left over from Third that you could funnel towards a new album?

There is stuff, but we’d just ditch it to be honest. I think there were some really good tracks left over, but none of us would want to relive that. We’d just start again, you know. We’ve got new ideas and we’re living in a different world with different feelings. The world’s a different place compared to what it was three years ago. We want to do different things now.

You talk of the world being a different place now. The internet and all the talk of the decline of the album: does that add any hesitation to a decision to record?

It’s as important as it’s always been, really. Obviously you have to survive and make money in the world in order to live. True, the world has changed and records have changed, but even though we’ve had to make money it’s never been our god or our pursuit in a massive way. So making a record is a record of time – a thing that stays there forever and that’s important. On all of our projects that we do outside of Portishead it’s the same thing. We’re all making records of what we’ve done over the years, so it’s important to do it, yeah. In the traditional sense it’s important to do it. We are a live band and we have been over the years, but it’s not our main focus like Metallica or something, I don’t know (laughs) – I know they have trouble in the studio. Their recording sessions seem like hell.

You tried for a long time to shake those trip-hop clichés whilst retaining your own sound. I remember Geoff making this Lara Croft metaphor in the late 90s about needing to find the right key before recording your third album – do you guys stress about that sort of thing now as you’re sizing up another record? Are you searching around for the key to what the new sound will be?

Yeah, always. But I think there’s a feeling brewing – an unspoken word between Geoff and I – about things, and we’re excited to have that headspace to tap into it. Yeah, we are and will be searching for the key to find the right door to go through. But I think we can try and make that a joyous experience in the future. It’s a tough one – all of that – and that’s what we are doing, yeah.

Searching for those ideas: does curating the festivals and being involved with so many bands help that?

Yes. It’s brilliant. It’s really inspirational – especially if it’s something like the ATP festival: because we curated it, the bands are either friends of ours our we have huge respect for and really love their music. So yeah, it’s really, really important. I saw things at ATP that I knew already, but it’s just inspiring to be around likeminded musicians. I was talking to Warren Ellis, actually, and watched Grinderman play, and it’s not often that you hang out with other musicians, really – well, for us it isn’t. We do it a bit, but not often with bands that are doing the same sort of thing that you are around festivals and stuff. It’s really inspirational, and I’d kind of forgotten exactly how inspirational it can be. I was overexcited about ATP – about all the bands that would be there, and going and saying hi – it was fantastic, brilliant.

Talking about your fans: are you sometimes surprised by the breadth of appeal of your music? When I mentioned that I was interviewing you I had all sorts of different people from all walks of life popping out of the woodwork.

Always. Not sometimes – always. Because if you could see where we make it. We’ve all got really nice studios, no questions about it: they look great, they are great, they’re full of amazing equipment. But that is the space that we live in; they’re not grandiose, huge studios or anything. We don’t use huge studios to go and make music. So it’s all very day-to-day, and then the struggle that we have to make music. I spoke to some people in Mexico and they asked me if I had any idea of the fan base for the band in that country and I said, “No. I haven’t at all. I’ve never been there.” And they were incredibly complimentary and I think we’ll be quite surprised when we get there.

When we went to Australia I was really surprised by the number of people who came to see us play. I was really, really surprised. Of course, because it’s just like in England, it’s more acceptable because that’s what we’ve done all our lives. I know that we do has fans in the world, but I never cease to be surprised – especially by distant countries. I know it’s crazy because you’re just around the corner in the internet age, but I still am surprised by it – I don’t know why.

You guys are closely linked with hip-hop in both directions – remixing The Pharcyde, being fans of Public Enemy and Chuck D performing with you guys on stage, your own love of Madlib, Adrian, and RZA sampling you for his Bobby Digital project – but do you think it catches a lot of your fans off guard that you’re so closely linked to rap music?

I don’t really know. Because it’s well publicized that the reason Geoff and I got together was because we were both into hip-hop, and Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions… was a massive record for both of us. When we did meet Chuck D, finally, and he did come and perform with us, it was un-fucking believable. I don’t know: I mean, I can hear it in our music. Our references – especially in the early days, things like “Over” on the second record – are so heavily based in hip-hop and sampling and loops and things. Even though we made them and we have our own take on it. I don’t know: once you’ve made something, it’s out in the world and people can make of it whatever they will. If you play it really loud it sounds like hip-hop sometimes (laughs).

Are there any other Stateside rap artists catching your ear at the moment?

Well, we had Company Flow at ATP, but that’s pretty old. They’re really cool. But I’m not such a fan now as I was. Geoff is, Geoff definitely is. But I’m losing it. I think MF Doom: I’ve liked his records and he’s cool, but my world is going somewhere else now and I’m veering off. I have great respect and I love my rap history, like A Tribe Called Quest and Public Enemy, and I’m delighted that Public Enemy will probably doing some more stuff at our festivals. But I’m not really listening to hip-hop at all now; I’m not hearing too much that I like, you know.

Plans for the near future? it sounds like it’s not going to stop.

No, it’s literally not going to stop (laughs). We’ve got to make it stop a little bit in order to get something on record in January.

We’ve touched on this: you guys, do you see yourselves as being a little more orientated towards the live stuff these days?

I think being in the studio is the most important, but really it’s a balance of both. Playing live is important: we enjoy it and I think we’re OK at it. Being in the studio is certainly important as well – just being able to make new records and stuff. It’s a balance of both. I think live feeds us with something that we don’t get if we just stay in the studio forever.

Question in the Form of an Answer: Exile

Exile deserves every ounce of renown he receives. The LA native is an MPC maestro, a producer, a rapper, and now a Nas collaborator. But first he was Aleksander Manfredi, who  started with a pre-fame Aloe Blacc in rap duo Emanon, recording several singles, cassettes and the 2005 album The Waiting Room. Production for Mobb Deep, Kardinal Offishall and Jurassic 5 followed, culminating in Exile’s ‘06 solo debut Dirty Science with features from Ghostface Killah and Slum Village.

Exile’s underground rep was really solidified on his acclaimed albums with Blu’s Below The Heavens (2007) and Fashawn’s Boy Meets World (2009). Yet the prolific beatmaker still found time to release the instrumental record Radio later that year, exclusively sampled from L.A. radio broadcasts. Last October, he dropped his solo rap debut 4TRK Mind, a playful, nostalgic tour through Exile’s dusty crates, 4-track player, and faded photo albums. On the eve of his set at Toronto’s Manifesto Festival, Exile expounded upon the joys of four-track, musical inspirations and future collabs with Blu, Aloe and Lil Bow Wow (really).–Aaron Matthews

Tell me about your first experience with rap music.

There were roller skating rinks back in the day when I was little, I think the schools would take us there. They would always be playing freestyle [electronic dance music from the early 80s], electro, like Debbie Deb, and there was always some break dancers around. Just skating around and hearing this electronic music with robot voices, 808s booming. I was definitely intrigued but didn’t understand it. I was into Michael Jackson, stuff like that. I remember hearing cars driving by booming and thinking, “What is that boom?” Finally I figured it out, listening to freestyle type music and LL Cool J. I got some decent speakers and I would listen to music with the treble turned down all the way so I could just hear the boom.

One Christmas I told my cousin, he was into funk, what type of music I was into. He got me LL Cool J’s [1985 debut] Radio and a Sex Pistols tape. That was my first hip-hop tape and kinda sparked it for me.

Did your experience with those DJs influence your live show?
There are certain synth sounds or 808s I can know I can use to get the crowd live. Or I might speed things up to a freestyle tempo or a slow, bounce tempo.

Do you recall the first beat you made?
After I heard rap music, I would think, “How is this made?” I would beatbox, I had a turntable with a tape cassette on the bottom, the radio and the turntable up top. I would hold the “Tape” and “Phono” button to create the Transform [turntable sound effect]. Eventually I got two tape decks and the one turntable and I figured out how to record on one tape. It started with a Tom Tom Club sample, I would play two bars, like [imitates the bass line of “Genius of Love”]. Then rewind it and play it for 3 minutes so there’d be blank spaces every other two bars. I took that tape after I recorded it, and put it in the other tape deck so it’d play back two bars of music, two bars of silence for three minutes. Then the [new] tape would be recording and I’d fill in the gaps with the turntable.

So I had the loop on one tape and could record whatever on the other. I could pretty much do that forever, I had infinite tracks. But it would create a lot of hiss, it’d be quieter each time.

So your history with tapes predates the new album.
When I got a four-track, me and Aloe Blacc would record a lot of music together, we had a group called Emanon. A fan pressed it up and we got play on a big-time radio station off a four-track! Back then, I would sell four-track music all the time. For about five years straight we were making music like that. I’m going back to my roots to make this four-track music…there’s a mystique to it, the hiss, the process and the way it makes you sound. I wanted to record this rap record but I was recording with other artists at other studios at the time, and didn’t have the equipment at home. I wanted it to be a little intimate so I thought, “let me do a whole project like this called 4TRK Mind.

It’s an interesting choice, since West Coast underground rap has this rich subculture of tapes with people like Murs and the Living Legends crew.

Man, there’s a whole generation missing out on this circulation of tapes. How’d you dub a tape for other people. Music wasn’t as accessible back then, pre-internet, so if you had something [exclusive], it gave you a sense of accomplishment for even having it. And to find out someone else had it and they’d give you a dub…one tape circulating around a bunch of people, it would just get hissier and hissier. It added a mystique to that artist because it’s so hard to get.

To get that dub finally, it was a lot more satisfying than just looking it up and downloading it. Back then, I think hip-hop [listeners] were a lot more selfish. They wouldn’t give a dub to just anybody, you had to really trust that person, that they were really into that music and would respect it. That’s definitely lost, everything is accessible.

Why did you decide to record the new album as a solo rap album?

I was always rapping while I was making beats. Everything didn’t come out but I had all these four-tracks of me rapping. I rapped on the Emanon album, on a song called “Six Million Ways”, I rapped on [“I Am...”] on the Blu & Exile album, I rapped on [“Bo Jackson”] on Fashawn’s Boy Meets World. I kept on recording my lyrics and then I decided to put it out, see what happens.

Did you find yourself approaching it differently than the collaborative work you do with Blu or Fashawn?

It’s different because it’s more personal to me, just because of the words and the stories I’m telling. And I’m bouncing ideas off myself to decide what to keep. Versus a collaborative effort, where there’s more than one mind to polish it off to a finished product. It’s different than just making beats because if I’m feeling down about something and having all these thoughts, I can turn that into a song. It’s a real release, turning pain into a song that communicates who I am.

Take me through the process of putting a song together.

I’ll listen to records until I find something that catches my ear and make it. I’ll be making records with the thought of doing it for the Fashawn project or maybe trying to shop it to Snoop Dogg, Mobb Deep, whoever. A lot of times, if I make a really banging beat, I want to get it to the right super-emcee. I’m always freestyling when I make beats to see if the structure’s correct for an emcee. Sometimes I say, “fuck this, I’m keeping this beat”. Typically the best energy for making a song would come from just making a beat and going straight into the rapping after, boomeranging off the energy from making a dope beat into making a dope song.

What’s your favourite Exile beat?

I guess the 50 Cent & Mobb Deep joint, “Pearly Gates”. I really like that joint. And there’s this song I did for Snoop Dogg, nobody’s heard yet called “Lullaby”. I did release it on a 12’ as an instrumental a while ago.

Is that ever coming out on an album?

I don’t know if you’ll hear that, but you’ll definitely hear me and Snoop. I’ve been working with Snoop and Wiz Khalifa, got them on a couple tracks.

What else are you working on? I heard you and Blu had an album in the can.

Yeah, we have another album. I still want to do another 3 new songs for it. So we got a new Blu & Exile record on the way, a new Emanon album, Aloe’s rapping again. I’m really excited about it, it’s definitely a little darker, a little more mature than the last record. I’ve been working with No I.D. a lot, we’re co-producing stuff for different artists. We worked on something for Snoop and Wiz, we have some stuff with believe it or not, Talib Kweli and Bow Wow. It’s actually pretty cool…[Bow Wow] being like, “I was a little kid rapper but I’m still rapping and I’ve been paying my dues forever, so gimme my respect”. He’s definitely stepped up his bars as well.

Download:
MP3: Exile ft. Blu-”When Nothing’s Left” (Left-Click)

Exile Radio Podcast by Plug Research

Question in the Form of An Answer: Frankie P (Hazy Nights In The Heights)

It’s rare that you randomly stumble upon something on Soundcloud that truly grabs your interest, but New York native and Washington Heights resident Frankie P’s recent release “Hazy Nights In The Heights” did just that. A self-proclaimed “instrumental journey through the mind of Frankie P,” the album is produced with maturity, incorporating live instrumentation and software solutions in a sophisticated way.

It’s jazz with a hip hop sensibility and some latin flavor thrown in for good measure. In short, it’s excellent, and you should take the time out to listen. I caught up with Frankie in the Heights to talk about the project. –Dan Love

Hazy Nights In The Heights has a very high production value. Tell me how you reached that point.

I pretty much been doing it for over 10 years. A friend of mine put me on in high school on Fruity Loops and I ran with it. I fell in love with the software and focused all my time on the art of production, the layering of sound, drums, samples, playing over samples… it became an addiction. I was 14 at the time and now I’m 25.

From your website, it’s clear that you’ve experimented with different styles and some sampling. Was that the root for you?

I learned how to produce by sampling. I had an MPC 1000 and my friend took me under his wing and taught me how to do it. That’s how I started. But as time goes on and you learn the business of music you want to profit off it and make it a career. If I sample a Miles Davis song and it comes out amazing and they want to use it for a CD they’re gonna tell me that they want 90% and that’s that. It’s just evolved, from sampling other people’s music to wanting to make my own music. I built a lot of relationships with musicians over the years. I realized I didn’t need to sample any more, I could just recreate the sound or make a new sound and still keep that feeling.

Are you classically trained?

I play piano. I took two years in college for music theory and I graduated with a Music Business degree and an Audio Arts minor. I took some guitar classes there too. When I came back to the city I took some piano classes for about a year or so but it’s expensive… I’ve been playing by ear as well.

So let’s talk about this project specifically. It’s all live instruments?

For the most part. Yes, it’s live instruments but there’s also a lot of computer-based stuff. Most of the drums were done on Fruity Loops but the way I produce now I can manipulate the sounds to be more real. If I’m doing drums I don’t leave the velocities hitting at the same speed because that isn’t real. I’ll shift certain hits so they don’t hit directly where they should and it’ll have a certain amount of swing to it. People have been complimenting me on the whole drumming aspect of the CD but all of that stuff was done on computer. There were still some live drums and a plug-in called Contact that has really great drum sounds. I’ve been collecting drum sounds for years so I have a catalogue. Once I’d laid down the framework of the song I brought in a bass player, guitar player, I have trumpet on there, I have tenor sax on there, some live vocals, some acoustic piano… On a lot of the tracks if you listen carefully you can hear me talking shit in the background and I left that in there on purpose because I wanted it to sound as live as possible.

Do you just let musicians improvise freely and chop it up later or do you provide some initial direction?

I didn’t want to tell anyone what to do. The person that I collaborated with the most was my guitar player Carlos Bermon. We already know each others sound… He’s got a latin base and I’m more hip hop. I give him a track with drums and chords and the I’ll let him layer it and then I would chop up stuff and move it around. For the most part it’s just wherever the music is taking you: go there, and then I’ll figure it out afterwards.

Download:
ZIP: Frankie P – Hazy Nights in the Heights

Hazy Nights In The Heights – An Instrumental Ride Through The Mind Of Frankie P by HazyNightsInTheHeights

Question in the form of an Answer: Thundercat

As a child, Stephen Bruner, a.k.a. Thundercat, experienced a similar upbringing to most 80’s babies. He dug cartoons, video games and music — “kid stuff” as Dave Chappelle once put it. Those hobbies become obsessions as his adolescence extended.

In any other family, they might have incited a Ritalin prescription. Thankfully, Thundercat grew up amongst a close-knit circle of musically gifted parents and siblings; by his freshman year in high school, he was already touring abroad with a pop group signed to Universal.

By the time he was an upperclassmen, he’d joined the legendary punk group Suicidal Tendencies, before returning to his jazz and funk roots while collaborating with madcap visionaries Sa-Ra and J*DaVeY. On a trip to SXSW with the latter, he met Flying Lotus, whom he later collaborated with on Cosmogramma, lending a highly evolved avant-garde feel to the composition and arrangement of the project.

Shortly thereafter, Lotus returned the favor, producing Thundercat’s first solo album, “The Golden Age of Apocalypse,” and releasing it on his Brainfeeder label this summer to overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Taking breaks to admire his new kitten and curse the obnoxious neighborhood landscaper, Thundercat recently opened up about the making of the album, his deep-rooted inspirations, and what it was like to tour with a punk band as a teenager. –Aaron Frank

I read that you had started training around age 4 and I know several members of your family were musicians as well. Do you remember anything specifically drawing to the bass as a child?

Well I had a creative household, but nobody else in the house played bass, so it wasn’t about that. My house was kind of like it is now to some degree. I had a cat and Thundercats and paintings. Nobody else in the house really painted, so it was more so records. It just kind of felt right in line with what was going on at my house. Picking up an instrument like that didn’t feel weird to me.

What made you decide to take Thundercat on as your artist name?
I think Erykah was the one that started calling me that when she first met me, but in Sa-Ra my name was Thundercat also. It was around that time of working with J*Davey, Erykah and Sa-Ra. We were all in the same house a lot. I mean, I had it tattooed on my hand and usually I’d have a Thundercat shirt on. That would be the joke, “Why do they call you Thundercat?” and I’d open up my jacket and the logo would be right there.

Both of your parents were professional musicians, and I know your father played drums with The Temptations. What type of music was your mother involved in?

My mom was a flautist and percussionist. She’s been playing in church her whole life also. I remember her playing in the Philharmonic when I was a kid. She’d be doing that every once in a while, and yeah my mom was an artist. If you were wondering where I get all of this weird creative energy like that, it’s from my mom. She makes jewelry, and she’s just a total hippie mom. They were “Hippie Christians”.

Your father and your brother were both drummers though. Did you pretty much have to teach yourself?

There were people outside the house too. We were kind of like NAMM show kids. Every year we went to the NAMM show and I guess throughout the years some people were able to watch us grow. Stanley Clarke used to watch my brother all the time, and it was just one of those things that was in the house. I guess it was just having the opportunity to even be exposed to it. Sometimes just letting your child being exposed to something can totally change their life.

So it was just something that kind of stood out to you?

Right, strings stood out to me all along. At one point I played violin also.
With your parents both working as musicians, did they ever bring you out on the road for any shows when you were younger?

Not when I was a kid. I started traveling around maybe 14, 15, right out of middle school. I played in the high school jazz band in middle school, and we played at Laker games and all that stuff. Suicidal hit around the same time too when I got to high school. I was actually traveling with a band called No Curfew at the time too. We were signed to Universal/Polydor in Germany, so my first year of high school was the first time I went to Germany.

With most of your background based in jazz, how did you initially get involved with a pop group?

It was just part of what comes with the territory. You get all sorts of things thrown your way as a child and it just seemed like something that was a good thing to do, creatively and experience-wise.

So you were signed to a major label when you were pretty young then. Did that experience have any impact on you?

It’s whatever. Nowadays a major label doesn’t really mean anything.

It’s probably cool to have that experience though now that you’re older.

I would absolutely agree with you on that. Not everybody gets to experience that in such a manner, as far as being in control of what’s going on, making money, and traveling.

So around the time you got picked up for Suicidal Tendencies, what were some of the things you were listening to in high school?

Korn, Pharoah Sanders, Parliament, Rage Against the Machine, John Scofield, Billy Cobham. I think it was in high school when we discovered the Max Morgan Band. Like I said, it was like a melting pot in my house musically, so I had my brother, the greatest drummer in the world, and everything he was listening to. My brother was playing with like Kenny Garrett and Billy Childs when he was younger. Stanley Clarke and Allan Holdsworth, all that stuff was going on. They were in the house.

It was almost like the music we were listening to was prepping us in a way.
It’s weird how it works too because playing those instruments ourselves, I’m sure it doesn’t translate the same way to other people. But sometimes you just have to let a child know that there’s more than what’s right in front of them that they should be listening to, so I do that with my daughter. I play her Stanley Clarke and George Duke and all that stuff, and she listens to music and can tell the difference between good music and bad music. It’s just good to have references like that.

Joining Suicidal Tendencies at such a young age, what do you think is the important thing you’ve been able to take away from that experience?

Well I still work with them. It’s definitely one of the more amazing experiences in my life, and since they were like family, it was more of like a brotherly experience. I learned a lot. I’m still learning a lot.

So how did that opportunity initially come about for you?

My brother was playing drums for them and this was around the time when they had slowed down releasing albums, and Robert Trujillo had moved on to Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica. They were kind of looking for a bass player and my brother just kind of recommended me to them. I was just a little lanky kid tagging along to rehearsals and I just picked the stuff up really quick, and it literally just took off.

What was it like touring with them while you were still in high school?

I was only about 16, missing classes and coming in to classes just knocked out. It was funny, like that could be part of a sitcom or something. People would ask what I had done the night before, and I would tell them I was about playing for 60,000 people. It was like the real life “Hannah Montana”. I’d do a concert at night and then come to class and just lay my head on the desk.

So how did you get involved in all of the different side projects with people like J*Davey and Sa-Ra?

It was actually all around the same time. Working with Sa-Ra just kind of came from being close to home. I would always be at the Sa-Ra house hanging out, and with J*Davey, I was kind of there for the inception of their first album. It wasn’t like I was looking for something to do. It was just all happening around the same time. I was also traveling around with people like Eric Benet at the time.

It wasn’t that I was looking for something, but these people are more like my family. Taz lives right down the street from my parents’ house. With J*Davey, it’s all family and friends, and even with Flying Lotus, I didn’t even realize he lived right down the street from me. I was like “Where have you been this whole time? We could’ve been making music.”

How did you two originally meet then?

It was at South by Southwest. I was out with J*Davey at SXSW doing a few shows and I just ran in to him randomly on the street. He had heard of me and I had heard of him, and we just started hanging out. It was like “Where have you been all my life?” It was great to have someone that thinks the same creatively.

You clearly had a big influence on his album Cosmogramma stylistically. What was the process like in the studio for that project?

It was fun. I’d show up at the house, get wasted, and create. There were ideas there already, but he would just ask what I heard, and I’d play whatever I was thinking. It was just very free-spirited.

Getting the chance to work with Sa-Ra who are so experimental and creatively outside those traditional boundaries, was that sort of a defining moment for you?

Yeah, that was a defining point for me. People got a chance to partially see me as an entity or like a piece of something. In a very interesting way, I was a behind the scenes kind of guy. I’d never be in any of the pictures or anything. It was kind of like Billy Preston with The Rolling Stones. It was like, “What’s that weird black guy back there doing? Is he picking up cables?” No, he’s playing with The Rolling Stones. It was kind of like that for me with them, but I still had a pretty major role.

So I’d imagine with you having such a free and open process with Sa-Ra that it sort of naturally transferred over when you started making the record with Flying Lotus.

Yeah, it was totally from the heart. That’s how I try to do things usually.

You had also been touring with Erykah Badu for a while before that as well. How did that come about?

I had been touring with Erykah for years by that time, maybe three or four years. I met her at the Sa-Ra house when we were working on The Nuclear Age of Evolution and Dark Matter and Pornography. I think we started working on The Hollywood Recordings around the same time too.

So when you started working on your own record, was there a specific theme or direction you wanted to take?

No. I just literally decided what sounded good and what didn’t. There wasn’t really much of a direction per se.

Would you bring an idea to the studio and FlyLo would help flesh it out or was it more collaborative?

It was a mixture of that and just creating going on. It wasn’t just me bringing him stuff. Like “For Love” was definitely created by the both of us

You tend to have these extended jams during your live performances. Do you ever get any ideas from that or is it totally separate from the concepts you build upon in the studio?

No, it’s its own separate thing. It all has its place. I want to actually get in to freestyling more on stage live, but people want to hear these tunes. Improvisation is where I come from though. I’m a jazz musician.

The vocals were really great on this record too. Was this one of the first projects you had sung on?

I’ve sung on other people’s records. I’ve sung on J*Davey’s records. I’ve sung on Sa-Ra’s records. Me and Erykah are singing on the next album. So here and there, but I had never really thought I’d be singing on my album like that. There’s another one of those things that just comes from the territory I guess. I’m not saying I’m a singer but the way I look at it, if Tony Williams can sing on his albums, I’ll definitely sing on my albums if that’s what I want to do. So I guess hearing those songs, it kind of felt like something I could sing and write lyrics to.

You mentioned Tony Williams. Were there any other artists you sought inspiration from while making the record?
Mr. Oizo, Gino Vanelli maybe.

Mostly non-traditional composers and arrangers though.

Yeah, absolutely.

All time favorite artists?

That’s not fair. Give me a second. Paul Jackson, Stanley Clarke. One of my favorite artists of all time is Leon Ware. Larry Graham, I love that guy. Naturally Bootsy and all the bass players. Adrian Ferrada, Tony Williams.

Mostly jazz musicians or people influenced by jazz. Most of the time when it’s even influenced by jazz it seems a little smarter.

People don’t even have a clue nowadays about jazz. I feel like it’s always been ahead of its time. Even my favorite electronic producer other than Lotus, Mr. Oizo, I’m sure if you asked him he’d say the same thing. He’s a jazz musician at heart.

What’s the meaning behind the title of the album?

My mother actually named the album. She got the name from the Bible. It’s exactly what it says though. It’s just like watching the days go by and waiting for the earth to explode. (laughs) Like, I don’t know what’s going on but it feels like it’s about to explode.

At the same time though, I think that fear of the unknown is driving a lot of people creatively and people seem to be opening up more as well.

Yeah, I can definitely agree with you on that. It’s kind of put a different feeling in the air. People’s energy is different right now. It’s the same with how they function with each other and just across the board. At the same time, The Golden Age of Apocalypse could just mean change. It doesn’t mean that anything’s over. It’s just a changing of the guard.

Having all that creative energy to harness from other projects, did you pretty much see this as the perfect time for you to release a solo album?

Absolutely, looking at it in that respect. I wasn’t expecting to do it like this, but I would definitely agree that it’s the right time. It would see as if it is, and I’m definitely a person that’s for the flow of things sometimes. It feels like that too though. I can’t really make up for it.

Having this first album released to such positive feedback, are you already thinking about other ideas or at least concepts you’d like to pursue on your own?

Definitely. It’s still time to be creative, still time to do a million things at once. It’s just part of the process. I don’t really look like it as “Ahh. I’ve done an album. I can chill.” It’s not time for that. It’s more time to stay focused and get better and just practice more.

Who designs all of your costumes and things you wear on stage?
I have friend named Danny Persod and he has a company called Lavish. He’s my personal designer and makes a lot of the different things I wear. I’m definitely in to fashion like that though.

What do you think it is that’s making not only artists but audiences get so involved in the visual aspect of live shows?

We live in a very fast-paced world. It’s not just saying, “Look at me.” For me personally, I’ve always worn things like that. I mean, you’re lucky you didn’t catch me walking around the house with a cape right now, swinging one of my swords around or something. But for me, fashion is another extension of creativity and I do things like that for myself because it makes me feel good and it kind of comes natural. I just think when you’re giving somebody a show, you need to give them a show though. That’s just what it is.

The word “jazz” scares people, but they don’t realize everything they’re listening to is just a chopped up form of jazz. With the visual thing, it just kind of goes like that. People want to be able to see something that hits all the senses. They’re lucky I don’t just start putting DMT in smoke machines and letting those go off on the audience like a Batman scene. Everyone would come out of the concert completely changed.

Do you have plans to do an actual tour for the album?

Yeah, I plan to next year. It’d be nice to get out there and do some things. New York, LA, I’m actually getting ready to go to Tokyo and Japan. Me and Austin Peralta are doing a couple shows out there.

How have the collaborations with Austin Peralta been coming along?
Crazy. Check out how small the world is. I’ve been playing with Suicidal Tendencies since I was a kid and I know his dad Stacy and stuff. I knew Austin when he was a kid, but I didn’t know his last name, and I just remember him being kind of a little jerk when he was younger. He walks up to a bunch of Black musicians and he’s like “I really don’t like Jack DeJohnette and Ron Carter because they don’t really play well in this setting.” And everybody was just like who is this little guy? My brother played with him though, and years later I still didn’t know his dad was Stacy Peralta, who used to come and hang out at all the Suicidal Tendencies shows. And now his son is like the most talented piano player in Los Angeles.

Well you guys are definitely two of the best jazz musicians in LA right now. Any plans for an album together in the future?

Hell yeah. I would love to do that. Right now we’re just kind of floating around and making music, beating each other up, getting wasted and acting silly.

Download:
MP3: Thundercat-”Shenanigans Pt. 1″

MP3: Thundercat- “Daylight”
MP3: Thundercat-”For Love I Come”

DJ Revolution’s Top 5 Favorite Records

For Los Angeles readers, DJ Revolution hardly needs an introduction. During his 13 year stint manning the decks for Sway and King Tech on 92.3 The Beat’s Wake Up Show, he became a household name for households glued to The Box.  These days, he’s busy producing music for radio and TV, and deploying his formidable his turntable skills about the globe.

It was before a recent trip to Australia that I interviewed Rev and we ended up chatting for close to an hour. That gave me enough time to come up with the idea of asking about his five favorite records. I felt like a bit of a prick putting him on the spot, but Rev rose to the occasion, his square-cut, northeastern cadence struggling to transmit the passion he felt for some of this music. He asked whether I meant albums or singles. I said both. — Matt Shea

Gang Starr
Step Into the Arena

One record that would definitely be in there is Step Into the Arena. To me, that’s a landmark. And it was so life altering because it was the first time that I found a group that shattered what everyone else was doing as a group. It was so serious, without being serious. Premier’s production was so far ahead of everyone else, not to mention he was the first guy to really create a scratch hook. He’d be scratching multiple pieces of different records as hooks for songs. Before that, people would do that for mixtapes: on mixtapes you’d hear guys go crazy, do dope intros and multi-tracking and all that, and pull different pieces of different records together into one thing. But what he did was like artistry. He and Guru were two genius talents coming together at the right time and it just drove deep into my brain.

Kool G Rap & DJ Polo
Wanted: Dead or Alive

It’s 1990, Cold Chillin’ Records, and again it was right at the beginning of that time when shit just changed and everything turned upside down. G Rap: obviously everybody knew he was so incredibly talented as a lyricist before that record came out, but then the shit and the production on it just shattered everything that had come before. That was the first time we got a taste of Large Professor’s beat-making talent, and he didn’t even get credit for it. Everyone was wondering: “There’s no way Eric B. made all these beats. No way!” Because he’s the only one who’s credited for it, you know. Just the sound, the way it was mixed and presented, and G Rap’s style and his personality: it was just unbelievable to me.

It’s one of those records that if you’re driving down the street and you’re listening to it, you get so wrapped up in it that you can’t help but just sit there. To me, I want to stop listening to it because in my head I’m like, “This will never, ever happen again. This sound is gone. It’s done. Forever.” It’s never going to happen again.

It kinda depresses me when I listen to those old records, so I try not to – I just reminisce and look at them on the wall. They remain as timeless classics in my head, but I can’t really listen to them for so long. This is how deep it is for me: imagine the person you love most on the planet dies and has been gone for seven or eight years – they’ve been out of your life and you’ve gotten over it and moved on – and then you’re able to sit down and spend an hour with them, and then you realise that’s the last hour you’re ever going to spend with them. Would you rather have never spent that hour with them, and just live with the incredible memories you have of that person? Or spend that hour with them and be totally immersed in what you loved about that person, and then have it yanked away from you again and back to reality? To me, that’s a classic album. It’s classic music – something you get your mind so wrapped up in for whatever reason. That’s what those records are.

Herbie Hancock
Rockit

I love this record. Herbie Hancock is a traditional jazz artist at his core and this is a guy – another Quincy Jones – who has been able to adapt to all different types of music and perform at an unbelievable level in each of those genres. But who would have thought he would have been able to infiltrate something like hip-hop? Because it’s such a departure from what he was doing. And he did it in such a groundbreaking way, and it just blew everyone’s mind, because up until that point people probably had no idea who the fuck Herbie Hancock was. Only real music aficionados would know at that point, because Herbie wasn’t selling any records anymore. That came out and won a Grammy and he was on the Oscars with Grand Mixer D.ST with all the robots onstage and shit. It was like, “Woah! This dude is over the top! He’s not only proving to the world that he can accomplish great music in a new genre, he’s showing that he can blow it out of the water.” For me, that stands as a landmark record.

Bob James
“Nautilus”

This is one of my favorites as well. It’s on Bob James’ One album – from 1974, I think. It’s a great album – the same one that has “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” on it, which is probably one of my favourite breaks of all time. This record is a testament to the composing abilities of Bob James. This guy was not only a master at the keyboard, but he was able to compose really stirring music. I dunno, but it just got to me, and then when it breaks down you’ve got these eerie underwater keyboard sounds that no one else was able to make, and Idris Muhammad was on the drums. There’s so much going on with that record and it’s so big – there are huge string sections and the drums are EQed just right. It’s an awesome record.

Ice Cube
AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted

That’s definitely in there. I could mention Nas with Illmatic or Biggie’s Ready to Die – I could mention all of those – but this to me surpasses those records because it’s kind of tied to It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, because they both stand for the same thing. They’re testament to the movement of a people and culture that spawned hip-hop. They are the result of a struggle, the result of people’s backs breaking, the result of hard times, hard living – they’re products of their environment. And this is what happens, this is what becomes of that: loud, angry, stirring music – shit that just gets you wrapped up in what they’re talking about. Somebody’s lyrical talent and the combination with groundbreaking production has a lot of power. That album is so powerful.

I remember exactly where I was when I bought that album and when I listened to it. I don’t know how young I was but I was young enough to be working at fast food joint called Arby’s. I was at the mall working at my job and I knew that record had just come out. So I took my check, cashed my check, walked to the record store that was in the mall – a time when we actually had record stores in the mall, that’s how young I was – I walk to this record store, go in there, and buy Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. I had no idea what to expect because none of this was ever getting played on the radio; you just bought it because it was Ice Cube and you knew he’d split from NWA and you thought, “Yo, what is this?!”

So I sat down at a table in the mall on a Tuesday afternoon with my Walkman listening to a tape of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted from beginning to end on my lunch break while I ate a sandwich. I remember the moment when “Turn Off The Radio” came on and I just stopped eating – I had to stop eating my sandwich, man, I was that blown away. I couldn’t believe the shit I was hearing. And then I lost my appetite. You’re sitting in a movie and you have your hand in the popcorn bucket and all of a sudden shit gets so good that you forget you’ve got your popcorn bucket and you just zone out: that’s the type of music that was to me, so that’s why I think it’s up there.

Download:
MP3: Bob James-”Nautilus”
MP3: Herbie Hancock-”Rockit”

Question In The Form Of An Answer: The Stepkids

The long hours and more rigorous aspects of recording can easily strip away the experimentation and purity behind the ostensibly enjoyable process. Drummer Tim Walsh realized this early on in his post-collegiate career, opting to build his own studio in his hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut in 2009, where he later invited bassist Dan Edinberg and guitarist Jeff Gitelman to help work on solo material and music for a married couple they were all touring with at the time.

After getting along so well during their sessions and having already spent hours in a van together sharing each other’s music collections, forming a band seemed logical next and The Stepkids were born, not merely out of a mutual appreciation for diverse genres of music but also from the stylistic synchronicities that had evolved out of their classical and jazz training.

After watching the band open for The Horrors two nights in a row in Southern California last weekend, it was pretty clear that it was more of a double-headliner scenario rather than one band opening for another. In fact, numerous fans of the Stepkids approached members after the show, thanking them for their inspired performances and excitedly discussing their self-titled debut LP,  out this week on Stones Throw Records.

The Connecticut-based three-piece (sometimes four, when backed on vocals by Edinberg’s girlfriend) has released a number of videos on YouTube and toured relentlessly over the past year, performing at least three times in LA before their most recent show with The Horrors. The pristine quality of songs like “Legend In My Own Mind” recall the golden era of Motown, while their improvisational jazz training and psych-rock influences rise to the surface during their live performances, which rely heavily on a visual component created by their friend Jesse Mann.
With years of classical and jazz training, guitarist Jeff Gitelman’s work on the road with artists like 50 Cent and Alicia Keys, and bassist Dan Edinberg’s work in the band Zox, the members all have industry experience and understand the pitfalls of the industry. Accordingly, they’re taking a measured and humble approach to everything from self-recording and producing their first album, to the resonating effects of their classical and jazz training, to the modern resurgence in soul music.–Aaron Frank

Do you think genres like soul and funk are gaining fanbases quicker now because of the internet?
Jeff: Definitely, we were actually already talking about this, The Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective were both on billboards, and their music is so experimental that the only way it’s competing with mainstream stuff is because of the medium and the accessibility of the internet. Avey Tare was actually saying precisely that same thing in an interview. They were able to get out and be more experimental and reach more people now because of this medium.

So with that medium sort of opening you up to all these fans with different tastes, do you feel more of a creative freedom?
Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. While a lot of other people are bitching about the industry and how nobody sells any records anymore and all the labels are going downhill, to us it’s a hopeful and liberating time to know that our music is able to reach so many more people. We’re skipping over that middleman between our creativity and the public, so it is a very liberating feeling.

So what were some of the bands you guys were in before coming together?
Dan: I toured in an indie rock band that was signed to SideOneDummy Records for several years. The band was called Zox, and it’s really interesting to compare that experience to what we’re going through now. Just for example, there wasn’t even Twitter back then and the way the internet affects everything now, sometimes it’s arguably too much of a mindfuck. But I think we did it the old school way then, where our mailing list and MySpace were what mattered. Now it’s a different thing. What’s making us have a lot of faith in this project is that we just felt from the get-go that our sound was what set us apart from everyone else.

What do you think was more important in bringing everyone together: similar tastes in music or just being comfortable working together?
Dan: Both. I’ve known Jeff for like 15 years and we always wanted to have a band together. Jeff met Tim back in 2004 and they started recording a lot together in 2007, and the day that I went to the studio it just felt like we already had a band. We all share very strong jazz backgrounds, and all of our fathers are musicians, so I just think communicating musically is very natural for us. We’re very open with criticizing stuff and we don’t really hold anything back, so I just feel very blessed to have founds two other musicians that have a similar mindset.

I noticed the jazz influence in Tim’s style during soundcheck. Do most of you have that formal training or background?

Tim: Yeah, definitely. I went to school at Western Connecticut and studied jazz and classical there. It actually influenced me to pursue other instruments as well. I played bass as my first instrument, and all of us are kind of multi-instrumentalists, but once you learn theory and the science behind it you can pick up instruments pretty quickly.

Having that structure from all your training in composition, how does that affect the music when you’re developing something new?

Tim: Well it’s interesting because the composition that you study in school is a bit different than the composition you study when you’re out of school. Especially with all of the music that we were influenced by when we were making this record, I don’t know if I really studied many of those artists when I was in school. In school you’re studying all classical music like Stravinsky, and then you’re studying the entire history of jazz and learning to compose and arrange in those idioms. So we were all in school getting ready to get away from that, and then after school we really started honing more of the history of pop and rock and hip-hop and soul music. The more we learned about those, the more our attention on composition and songwriting and all those things changed.

As far as with the live show, do you think having that structure makes you a little bit tighter or polished at least when it comes to performing?

Tim: Yeah, for any performance art you have to have some sense of structure. We specialize in improvisation, that’s really where our hearts are. So there’s nothing better for an improviser than to have a great structure to work off of. That’s what all great jazz musicians do. Some of them don’t have any structure and still do amazing things too, but that’s really what we focus on live is to keep our structure in the songs and then still leave room to do what we want.

So once you got out school and sort of broke from that mold, who were some of the most influential artists for you at that time?

Tim: A lot of 80’s and 90’s R&B music. I listened to Stevie Wonder pretty heavily, just a lot of pop music from the 90’s and the 2000s’ too. I definitely dove in to some classic rock and a bit of Motown, but basically a lot of the music I didn’t listen to because my dad listened to it. My dad had a really diverse musical taste, and when we were in college I definitely didn’t study much of that music. But when we got out I started listening to more of that stuff, like Yes and Weather Report and all those bands.

Dan: D’Angelo was big for me. R&B was a great transition for us from jazz to pop, so all of the neo-soul stuff in particular, like The Roots, D’Angelo, anything from that Soulquarian era. And then those of course took us back to people like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, but there’s also a lot of rock influence too. Groups like Nirvana were big obviously.

There’s definitely sort of a noticeable psych-rock influence too. Who were some important bands to you in that regard?

Dan: We’re definitely big fans of Pink Floyd, and then obviously the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. We really just go through phases with our influences, more so than just having like a rigid set of influences. One week could be Brazillian music, another week could be 20th Century Classical. With the internet it’s so easy to go from track to track and just bounce through different eras seamlessly, and I think our music is a product of that in a lot of ways.

When you got out of school, did you all immediately start touring with people? What were the gradual steps towards the formation of the Stepkids?

Dan: We all went to college separately and we all wanted to be like studio sidemen, just professional musicians. So we just played with a whole bunch of different people. Jeff played with like the top names in R&B and Gospel. I was part of an indie band. Tim was actually making these solo albums where he would play every single instrument, as well as doing stuff on the side.

So you guys were sort of already versed in production and engineering before coming together?
Tim: Actually, no. My school didn’t really have much of a production focus, and my professors didn’t really know anything, or didn’t have any idea who people like Brian Eno were. In general though, we didn’t really study that at all and kind of had to figure it out on our own. I sort of learned about it through experimentation.

I had my own studio and kept buying more and more gear, and learning about different sounds and making more and more records, and from there I think all of us just collectively started listening to more records and learning about more technical aspects. I studied acoustical physics for a little while, and I think studying that stuff actually helped a lot, but just learning the history of recording was big. When we were getting together, Jeff would bring along this Beatles Recording Guide and we kind of used that as our Bible for a while.

Jeff: I feel like up until we graduated though, it was like almost eight years where we were recording everything. We recorded with rappers, singers. I was recording my own stuff, and finally we got to a place where we could take experiments and be creative in the recording process.

That sort of sounds like it’s where the band initially evolved from.

Jeff: Definitely, from home recording and just learning on our own.
I think that’s worth noting though, that you guys were sort of friends just jamming out ideas together before actually setting out to form a band.

Jeff: It’s crazy. Actually, a friend of ours (J. Pollock) had a movie. His first movie was a documentary called The Youngest Candidate and Dan had done a bunch of work on it, and he was looking for one more song, so that was the first thing that we ever worked on together. That was our first project ever, the one submitted to the film, and we were all doing independent things at the time. Tim was writing his own songs, Dan was writing his own songs, and I was writing my own songs, so we were just helping each other out with our own ideas and then we started writing together.
And because we were all doing every aspect of production and writing on our own before that, together we started collaborating on every aspect: recording drums, writing the lyrics, singing the lyrics, every aspect of recording.

With other bands, you have people specifically in charge of certain things. One person will be in charge of writing the drum part and playing that, and then one person will be responsible for vocals. We really all do that stuff together, and that’s what gives it that eclectic feel too is having all those different sides to explore. It’s really three different people working equally on everything.
So how long would you say it took to record the entire album after you got together?

Jeff: I would say about four months, maybe six months at the most. It’s been done for a while. We’re well on our way to recording our second album so I’d say we’re definitely evolving artistically. We don’t want to be pigeonholed with the sound we’ve developed, so we’re definitely trying to expand it.

How did the relationship with Stones Throw come about then?

Jeff: It was through Scotty Coates. He was an LA-based DJ and he used to work at this label called Ubiquity, but he heard our music and really fell in love with it and just shopped it unconditionally without ever asking for anything back. It was a really lucky situation, and he’s a great guy.

How is the tour with the Horrors going so far?

Jeff: It’s really cool. We’re making it to some markets that we’ve really been trying to hit so it’s great. For a first tour we really couldn’t ask for anything more.

It’s cool that you get to tour with an indie band that sort of already has that organic following. Hopefully their fans are a little more open minded.

Jeff: Well it’s hard to say. I mean, it’s hard to divide people in to different groups because every person is their own island. It’s cool though. We definitely think about that since Stones Throw has sort of the hip-hop, soul side and the indie side to it, and this is more of the indie side were being exposed to. It’s been cool though since a lot of people have been coming out to see us too, so like I said for a first tour we really couldn’t ask for much more.

What have the different reactions been like from people in Europe and the States? I know from talking to Charles Bradley and Menahan Street Band a while back that they really seem to love soul music in Europe.

Jeff: They definitely love it over there. It’s been really great, and we’re excited to go to Japan too. We’re heading over there in about a month and we can’t wait.
It must be great to have all these bigger shows waiting for you right when the album comes out, having already built a strong buzz with the live show.

Jeff: It’s really been great and flattering, but we’ve gotta keep our eye on the prize. In this business, you have a night that makes you feel like a million bucks and then the next night you’re humbled right to the ground.

Dan: Our vision of the project was recording first. We finished the album before we played any shows, and it just felt better to do it that way because your recording can reach how ever many thousand people at the press of a button. Your live show can only reach just a few at a time.

Tim: And just as far as our composition is concerned, we’re not really in to getting together and rehearsing things without recording them. We do that to lay down songs and lay down rhythm tracks sometimes, but just compositionally and everything, we’re not the kind of group that has rehearsals for months. Our structure isn’t like that. It’s more like a lab where we just try out different sounds and it’s just a free-for-all for experimentation. It’s not really like a jam session feel where we just force ourselves to come up with ideas, and I think it’s much more pure that way.
But you definitely still manage to work that element in to your live show.

Jeff: It definitely ends up being a lot of both. Every single song on this album has been laid down like Motown-style, with guitar, bass and drums all the way through.
So a lot of it was live tracking?

Jeff: Definitely, some of those songs we just recorded with one mic, like “Suburban Dream”. We have both of those elements though, where we jam and sort of lay down the whole song, and then we get in to the lab and get nerdy about it and take one sound at a time as well.

It almost sounds like recording might be more of an enjoyable process for you then since you sort of get to improvise after laying down the main track.
Tim: I love it because it’s absolute freedom, and see the jamming is almost the easy part, but for me it’s that generating structure and just having fun and having the freedom to make the music you want to make in a studio.

Jeff: But as we tour more and get more established, we’re going to be able to have more liberty with the fans and because we’re coming from the improvised and performance art background, once we’re done with the “Hello. Nice to meet you. We’re The Stepkids” part, which is probably going to last for the first two years, maybe we’ll be able to get back to those roots even more and take the live performance to another level and enjoy that just as much as the studio.

What are you envisioning for the new original material that you’re working on?
Tim: There are a couple different things I’ll mention. One is I think the music is going to be a little bit more accessible. We’ve taken influence from a lot of different artists on this one and I just feel like the compositions on this one are a little more accessible. The second difference is I think a lot of the first record is a little lower fidelity. We’ve been playing with a little more high fidelity recording and more digital tape, and using both digital and reel-to-reel. That’s actually been a really fun experiment for us to find out what to use and what not to use to get certain sounds. We’re influenced by bands like Portishead and Radiohead and more hi-fi bands too, so that part of the process has been fun.

Jeff: I think it’s definitely more accessible, but also a little more experimental at the same time. It’s like a rubber band that we pulled. One side is definitely more accessible and I think there are some hits on the second album, but the other side got expanded too, and we’re able to take liberties now that we weren’t able to back then because we’ve established that sound.

Tim: We’re always listening to new artists too, so when we discover a new artist, we realize the potential of what our palette could be. I was listening to Tim Mia on the way over here and that’s one artist that we just discovered recently. Every time we hear something like that, we realize our ability moving forward and really try to stretch that rubber band like Jeff was talking about.

Jeff: The interesting thing too as we get older is that we’re less embarrassed to go back to our original influences, those academic influences that we tried so hard to get away from. Now we’re kind of making a full circle back to that and making those influences not nearly as subtle as we used to. We’re not afraid to be portrayed as jazz musicians anymore. For so many years we denied that and thought it was insulting because we thought people were saying we were too academic to be pop. But since that’s already established, now we’re able to go back to those influences that we were raised on.

I was talking to Faris from The Horrors recently and he was saying how this is their most successful record, but it’s also their third record so all that success they’ve gained on their own terms. And that makes sense instead of blowing up off your first thing and having all these expectations from different people. If you work your way up, that success is just more powerful because you’re not as easily swayed and it’s more sincere.

Download:
MP3: The Stepkids-”Shadows on Behalf”
MP3: The Stepkids-”Legend in My Own Mind”’

Question in the Form of an Answer: Bleached

After playing “Think of You” about seventy consecutive times, I emailed Jeff at what must have been 2:30 in the morning and breathlessly praised them a little longer than I should have. He received an equally long-winded rave in his box when I found out that Bleached principals Jennifer and Jessica Clavin– formerly of Mika Miko, one of the past decade’s most beloved DIY punk bands– were the songwriting force behind the endlessly catchy and energetic punk crew. I recently had the pleasure of catching up with both Clavin sisters during a recent California tour, where we talked about the dissolution of Mika Miko, Jennifer’s time in Cold Cave, and the perils of couch-surfing. — Douglas Martin

So, Bleached began at the same point Mika Miko ended. What was the group mindset around that time? I know that you all left the band to pursue other interests and that you’re all still friends, but how did you guys feel around the time you came to the decision that Mika Miko would break up? Were some of you exhausted? Did some of you feel stifled creatively? Were any of you bored with the idea of being in a band in general?

Jessica: Not bored, for sure. [We] felt more creative around that time, but maybe a little exhausted. That exhaustion wasn’t stopping me though. It actually made me feel more accomplished. I was really sad about the break up, though.

Jennifer: We all started Mika Miko when we were really young (still in high school) and we never expected to be a band that people actually liked. So when that happened, we kept on with it. But the older we got, the harder it got because we all wanted to do other things with our lives. So for sure not stifled creativity, we still could of written many more songs together. And for sure not bored. Definitely exhausted.

Jen, shortly after the announcement, you moved to New York– first to study fashion, and then you joined Cold Cave. Was that mainly for change-of-pace reasons? How did you end up playing with Cold Cave?

Jennifer: Yeah, I started going to school for fashion because I knew Mika Miko was coming to an end. But then Cold Cave asked me through a friend of ours to join. I actually didn’t want to at first because I was really into school and also into not being in a serious band. But when they came to the West Coast, I played 3 shows with them and had so much fun that I decided to join. I wasn’t planning on moving to New York, I was going to stay [on the] West Coast, but that didn’t last long. NY was fun.

What were some of the things you liked about playing with them? What were some of the things you didn’t?

Jennifer: I loved playing with Cold Cave and I love them as people. It was very very different from how I acted in Mika Miko. It felt like more of a performance. Mika Miko also felt like a performance, but I based a lot of what I did off of the crowds energy. Cold Cave didn’t have that so much, so that’s why I felt like I was putting on more of an act. But I liked that a lot because it was new and something I had never done before. I felt like I was trying to channel one of the Robert Palmer girls. Also I liked the songs so much that it never got boring to play. But eventually I got tired of not playing my own music and playing someone else’s music. It kind of got depressing. But it was good in the way that it made me realize what I really wanted to be doing.

How long was it before you decided that New York wasn’t working out for you and came back to LA?

Jennifer: I actually don’t even remember. It’s weird that whole year of my life kind of feels like a dream now.

Jessie, how did you keep yourself occupied while your sister was in New York? Did you work on stuff for Bleached? Did you read lots? Did you take up a hobby like woodworking?

Jessica: Actually, I did read lots! I tried to find and read every Richard Brautigan book there is. I was pretty successful. Of course, I kept playing music, started my own band, played with other bands. It was really hard to keep up with Bleached around that time. Jen and I were e-mailing our tracks and I just couldn’t work that way. I loved when we were in our garage together writing or jamming. I was supportive for Jen when she joined Cold Cave, but I was seriously sad just waiting for her to come back. I love that we both live in LA together again now.

Bleached’s sound differs from Mika Miko’s in the idea that it explores the poppier end of the early punk spectrum. While you guys were covering bands like Urinals for Mika Miko, Bleached takes on more of a garage-punk sound, and “Think of You“ sounds like The Ramones in all the right ways. Besides there being less members, how is the songwriting process for Bleached different from the process Mika Miko had, if it’s even different at all?

Jessica: In Mika Miko, we all had our own parts. I played bass, and only wrote the bass lines. With Bleached, there is two of us. Jen writes the structure of the song and lyrics, and I will add lead guitar and bass lines. Then together we figure out harmonizing. There so much more writing involved. Its kind of a whole new experience of music for me. I love it.

What bands have inspired the Bleached sound? What bands– current or otherwise– are you guys really into right now?

Jessica: I listen to a lot of Merle Haggard. He is was actually who I started listening to when I knew I wanted to start a new band with Jen while Mika Miko was breaking up. Gun Club is one of my favorite bands, and we love Metallica!

Jennifer: Also I’m really obsessed with early Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac. Lindsay Buckingham songs are usually my favorite Fleetwood Mac ones. But then I still love punk like Ramones and Misfits. Oh yeah Blondie and Siouxsie and the Banshees, one of my favorite bands too.

Not that I would’ve guessed Merle Haggard, but “Dazed” kinda has a little bit of a twang to it. You guys should cover “Kentucky Gambler,” I could totally see you guys putting a great spin on it.

Jessica: I should just rip off those guitar sprinkles in “Kentucky Gambler”, but add a little more crunch.

I think one thing about Bleached that makes me think a lot about older acts– many of which you mentioned– is that you guys pay pretty close attention to structure, while a lot of new-ish bands (or maybe just the ones I listen to) don’t pay attention to a song’s structure as much as a song’s vibe. What other songwriting cues do you take from the bands you mentioned?

Jennifer: I focus a lot on song structure. I’m actually really indecisive so, so many of our songs change little bits here and there until we feel it’s right. Sometimes when i listen to a band, I just focus on their song structure. I don’t know why that kind of stresses me out a lot. I want to make sure it’s perfect. I also take note of how they are harmonizing and when and where in a song. Also when they change keys. Like saying a line 4 times but saying it higher the third time seems to be a pattern. But I also go off of the feel. I really like when a songs chorus only does half of it the first time it’s sung and then the second time the whole chorus will come in. I actually haven’t written any songs like that yet but am working on it.

I’ve read that you guys are going to release your third seven-inch on Dean Spunt’s PPM label, and that you’re planning to hit the studio and record songs for a full-length in September? Is that still the plan?

Jennifer: Actually, we are releasing a 3rd 7-inch, hopefully in October but not sure what label yet. I think we want to save the PPM 7-inch for this weird one.

“Weird” sounds like something that is right up my alley. Have you guys recorded the songs for it [the PPM 7"] yet? What does it sound like?

Jennifer: No, we are only talking about that 7-inch. The cover is actually the “weird” part. Don’t wanna give it away!

Are there any labels that have contacted you about being interested in putting out the full-length?
Jennifer: No, not yet!

You guys have been playing a ton of shows in California over the past few months. Do you guy have plans to tour the country, or are you waiting until you’re finished recording the album to worry about that?

Jessica: Were going to record that 7-inch put it out then tour. Pretty sure were going to CMJ. Touring is a getaway at this point for me. Since I have been coach surfing for a while touring feels more like my home. Also, when you go out with rad bands its so much fun.

Jennifer: Yeah basically what Jess said. We are recording this 3rd 7-inch in like a week and then we are going to do our first US tour in October. It’s all I wanna do with my life!

Couch-surfing, especially as a touring musician, has always sounded like a smart decision to me. It just seems to costly to pay however-many-hundred-dollars a month to stay in a place you have to leave for months at a time. It essentially turns into a really expensive storage space. What are some of the things you like or don’t like about couch-surfing? Do you have any funny stories about it that you’re at liberty to tell?

Jennifer: I was actually couch surfing because I moved back from NY so I was doing it until I found a place in LA, which I finally did and I love it!

But both of us were couch surfing at our friend Blaque Chris’s house. He has this closet with a blow up mattress in it and we call it the party closet. You end partying way harder when you couch surf and it wears you out a lot! You don’t really get alone time, which I need. And it’s hard to cook food so you end up just eating so much trash. Every time Jess would come in my car there would be a bag of some awful fast food. I started feeling crazy!

After touring pretty extensively with Mika Miko, what does it feel like to kind of have to start over and drive around your home state as a (virtually) unknown band?

Jessica: It’s kind of awesome. You know those situations you get yourself into where you really wish you could go back in time and handle it differently, but you know you cant and it haunts you. Well, I feel like I am getting that second chance. I was so young in Mika Miko, but I’m ready to keep moving forward and take that experience and develop a more solid one with Bleached.

Jennifer: Yeah, I totally agree. It’s the beginning stages of something exciting and I cherish that!

I really enjoy how both the “Francis” and “Carter” seven-inches sound different from each other, with the latter sounding like vintage bubblegum-punk and the former adopting a more threadbare garage-punk sound, reminding me a lot of Thee Oh Sees. Is there a certain sound you guys talk about exploring before you start jamming together, or do you guys just record the songs and say, “Okay, these songs sound right together?”

Jennifer – For the first 7-inch, we knew we wanted to record with our friend Cundo and records on 1/4inch 8track. So with the style of the first 7-inch songs and the way his recordings sound, it automatically gave it that garage punk sound. Then the 2nd 7-inch our friend Rob wanted to record us and he does it digitally. I think those songs have more of a standard song structure about them, and with his recording style it ended up sounding more bubble-gum punk. I know for future recordings, I definitely want to focus on an early Rolling Stones sound.

One of my favorite YouTube videos right now is the one where you guys are performing in a boxing ring. If you guys could play in any structure assembled, where would you most like to play? A barn? An empty pool? A used car lot?

Jessica: An empty pool would be rad with people skating around us. Haha. I feel like that’s an Offspring video.

The video’s not on YouTube, but I’m pretty sure it’s the one for “Self-Esteem”.

Jennifer: I would love to play in the Houdini Mansion on Laurel Canyon. We use to go there as kids. It’s so cool and spooky. Also Hollywood Forever, the huge cemetery in Hollywood would be awesome. It’s where Marilyn Monroe is buried and there are all these black swans floating around. It would be cool to play to the dead.

Mika Miko was a band that found a level of success that seems like it was far beyond both of your wildest dreams. What would have to happen for you guys to consider Bleached to be successful?

Jennifer: Just to be able to do Bleached as a living. That’s when it will be a huge success for me!

Download:
MP3: Bleached-”Think of You”

Question in the Form of An Answer: Del the Funkee Homosapien

Image via Ben Liebenberg/Corbis

Few rappers are as enigmatic as Del the Funky Homosapien. The Richmond, California spitter has never been shy about flashing his back-handed brilliance, even if he’s always seemed a half-step away from tying it all together into a classic album – the Dan the Automator/ Kid Koala collab Deltron 3030 and I Wish My Brother George Was Here not withstanding.

The biggest recent news regarding Del is that for a long time there wasn’t any news. Between 2000 and 2008 he was almost totally silent, as personal strife interrupted his attempts to re-engage with rap music. Of course, between 2000 and 2008 the record business changed completely, and three years since his comeback there’s the sense that Del is still finding his place, still making up for lost time.

What strikes you now when you listen to a Del the Funky Homosapien album is how relatively normal it all is. Still, the man can run the cutter better than most MCs, and the sooner the long-promised follow-up to Deltron 3030 is delivered, the sooner he should have a proper forum for his lyricism.

I chatted to Del just after the release of Golden Era, his latest LP, and on the eve of a recent Australian tour. On the phone, much like his albums, he’s now a cogent straight-talker, even if he couldn’t quite remember where he was at first. The interview was conducted for a Scene Magazine feature story, but the Q&A is reproduced below in its entirety. – Matt Shea

You’re on tour, Del, is that right?

I’m in… Where am I? I’m in Iowa. We’re out this way playing some shows.

You’re still based in California, though?

I’m living in Richmond, California.

First of all, Golden Era – are you happy with the way it came out?

Yeah, it’s more than what I expected, yeah.

For the physical version it’s a three-disc set, packing in Funkman and Automatik Statik [Del’s two 2009 albums]. What’s the concept behind that?

Yeah, I packed them altogether. I did that just to make the package a little sweeter, for the collectors and the fans of mine. Just so it stands out; something that you can have and not everybody else is doing. And you get a little bit more worth if you buy it, if you know what I’m sayin’?

There are still a lot of fans coming back to you after you were quiet for a large part of last decade. How would you yourself say your style’s changed since coming back?

My style has changed, but I guess in that time I’ve tried to refine my style more than change it. I’ve tried to get more to the point. I think as an artist that’s your number one goal – to be as simple as possible, you know what I’m sayin’? You try to convey your message in the clearest way and most purest way that you can do it. So, that’s my goal always. As far as lyrically, I tried to be more direct and more precise about what I was trying to do. And musically, I’m trying to cut out a lot of extra fluff, and trying to be more precise as a composer.

You took a lot of time away from releasing albums, making a return in 2008 with The 11th Hour: were you a little shocked by the extent of the changes in the music business when you finally dived back in?

Actually, no. Because the way that the United States is constructed, I figured that was going to happen sooner or later. You can’t go cheating people, robbing people, and doing all this shit and think nothing’s going to happen to you. There were a lot of people in power who thought it was going to stay that way forever (laughs): “The customers are stupid, they’re going to buy this stupid shit for as long as we put it out.” No, that’s not what’s gonna happen. As soon as they found a way to get that shit for free: “Aw, fuck y’all. We ain’t buying your shit no more. It’s bullshit anyway.” They were taken for a loop because they thought it was gonna keep going that way forever. But that’s the nature of Snidely Whiplash, I guess.

Are you confident in the future of the music business?

I’m confident that music will always be part of people’s lives. As far as the music industry, it’s already pretty much a done deal. I think with music you have to offer a little more because other forms of entertainment are starting to eclipse music now. Music has got so many people, like, cutting corners and trying to basically cheat the public. People have been doing that for a long time thinking, “You can just do this and we’ll have a hit.” That’s not true. It’s not true! I think it’s just like regular public TV now, and you’ve got to offer more than just the music, I think. Just be hella, super-duper raw, you know what I’m sayin’? Just be out there, and really, really about your music – that’s an anomaly in these times, I think.

What about America as a whole? There was a lot of hope with the election of Barack Obama a couple of years ago but you’re doing it tough economically right now? Do you feel there’s much positivity in the country about the future of the United States?

Me, personally, I look at it like this: if people don’t get it together and stop trying to keep all the wealth to themselves, it’s not looking too good. At some point the system’s going to crumble and it’s already started to. One of the things that makes America so great is that it is kinda ragtag like that – you can do whatever you want to, but at the same time that allows for a lot of anarchy. Somewhere in between there you’ve gotta make it work. I ain’t gonna get too political about the situation, but if America continues to want to stick its nose in other people’s business and try to run every damn thing, not everybody’s gonna let you do that, and that’s when you come into conflict. That’s the way I look at it, but I would have a different opinion, you know, because I’m black (laughs), you know what I’m sayin’, so of course I look at it from a different perspective.

Bubbling away in the background for you is talk of another Deltron album. How’s that all been going? Is there a light at the end of that particular tunnel?

The album is pretty much halfway done. The music has been done, the lyrics have gotta get recorded – and that ain’t gonna take that long – I spent like three days in the studio with Automator and we got about half of the album done. I figure that as soon as I sit down somewhere and stop running around the globe (laughs) we’ll finish it up. But I’ve gotta eat and shit so I gotta be out here on the road too.

The Deltron 3030 album had that futuristic, forward-thinking feel about it – it was quite unlike anything else out there – is there anybody right now in rap music that you think is delivering a similar feel with their music?

Not really. But Deltron: I would damn near say it’s beyond hip-hop or rap music, but then again I’m kinda beyond hip-hop and rap. That’s definitely the base which I work from, but personally I’m into all kinds of music: funk and rock, primarily, and electronic music. I tend to look at things from more of a compositional type of viewpoint.

I read an interesting interview from 2007 where you described yourself as a visual artist first and foremost – you were talking about your works on canvas and that sort of thing: would you still say that now?

In a lot of ways, yeah. I don’t get to draw as much as I used to. But I can still draw – my father is an abstract artist and he’d have shows and stuff back in the 80s. So I learned a lot from my pop and I’ve been to art school, I’ve had art training. The thing about it is I’m not quite up on the new technology and how to freak it. I’m good with computers – I’ve been using them since about fifth grade – so as soon as I can sit down somewhere and just really learn some of these art programs, I’ll probably be back into that side of things. I’ve got a visual type of way of looking at stuff.

What are your thoughts on gaming and music – hip-hop in particular – is that part of the future?

Like I said, I just consider myself an all-round musician. I keep it more on the street urban side, you know what I’m sayin’? I did like a third of the music for Skate 3, but that’s in-game music – when you’re playing the game, on a lot of those levels that’s my music; not me rapping – the in-game music. Plus, I’ve got the songs on there that I did do specifically for the game. I would love to do more of that – that’s what I want to do. I’ve just gotta to prove to people that I can do it. Electronic Arts: they were the first ones to give me that chance to show that I could do that, so I hell appreciate it that they gave me that chance, man. I need to do more and have more under my belt so I can have a resumé. That’s what I’m working on, really.

I could never unlock the Hieroglyphics team in NBA 2K5. You ever manage it?

I’m not much of a sports game player. Fuck, I don’t even play games that much anymore. I play Skate 3 for a moment, but I ain’t got time to study game manuals. Do you want to do that or do you want to, like, survive? I had to choose music and learn more about music theory and about what I’m really doing with music – otherwise, I’m not gonna stick around for too much longer, especially if hip-hop becomes passé or something. I think about that, like: “What are you gonna do? Do you still wanna be down with music? Because if you do you’re gonna have to know something.” But I still fool with games on my iPad sometimes.

You’re touring with Bukue One. You guys go back a little way as I understand it – what can you tell me about him?

He’s a positive dude, you know what I’m sayin’? We’re on it. He likes to be involved in a lot of things at once. He likes to keep moving. He’s an avid reader like I am, and he also manages me as well. But he’s also a visual artist – he skateboards, he raps, he does a lot of different things. He’s also a little bit younger than me too, so he has a little bit more youthful exuberance, you know what I mean?

What are the plans for the rest of the year?

Try to get this Deltron album done, working with Hopie Spitshard – because she’s from the bay area – on a project called Dolls and Robots, which is about to come out. That’s another futuristic type of project as well that I’m trying to get done this year too.

Download:
MP3: Del the Funkee Homosapien-”Makes No Sense”

Question in the form of an Answer: Kaiser Chief, Simon Rix

It’s not wholly surprising that when the UK’s Kaiser Chiefs announced they were attempting to reinvent distribution the news was greeted with more than a little cynicism. The Leeds group’s tactic of allowing fans to compile their own albums from tracks uploaded to the band’s website seemed to some a gimmicky conceit, perhaps half-designed to stop a career from slipping into the doldrums. But hindsight – even just a month’s worth – is valuable when talking about the digital experiment behind The Future is Medieval.

No sooner had critics struggled to file reviews of the sprawling collection of songs than the band had returned to the media with a physical press of the album. 20 tracks were cut down to 12 and sequenced specifically for the release. It’s all part of a (largely successful) tactic to stay one step ahead of the internet – something that seems to have become an obsession after the debacle endured in 2008 when Off With Their Heads leaked into the blogosphere.

I interviewed the group’s bassist Simon Rix before the official release and the Chiefs’ planned visit to Australia for the country’s marquee festival, Splendour in the Grass. A typical chat with the band seems to revolve around drummer Nick Hodgson and singer Ricky Wilson riffing off interviewers’ inane questions. Rix wasn’t perhaps quite as snappy as those two, but he was nevertheless happy to talk me through the ideas behind The Future is Medieval. This was originally a cover story for Junior Magazine, but the full transcript is presented below. –Matt Shea

Is the whole band based in London at the moment?

We’re sort of in and out, really, because obviously it’s a hub of sorts in England, so we have to spend quite a lot of time here. A few of us bought flats down here and stuff because we spend a lot of time down here.

This crazy concept for releasing The Future is Medieval: Coming out the other side, were you a bit surprised it came together in the end?

Definitely. We had the idea maybe a year ago – perhaps even more – of doing this idea. It wasn’t quite formed exactly how it was going to work and everything. We talked to our manager about it and he thought it was a good idea and that we should do it and he added a couple of ideas, and it started to form and change. Then we spoke to our label about it.

Yeah, I was interested to know how they reacted.

Well we sort of expected that they would be dead against it and want to change it a lot. But they were into the idea as well. So everyone together gradually got it all formed and got it all sorted. In the couple of weeks before it came out we couldn’t believe it was actually going to happen. All of the 20 songs that were written were just about finished and the website was coming together and it all worked. Keeping it a secret was one of the most important things because we wanted the massive impact of, “What have the Kaiser Chiefs been up to? They’re not doing anything – oh, they’ve been up to loads of stuff!” So it had to be secret, and we were all really surprised that it managed to remain a secret until the very end.

Were there any moments where you thought you’d accidentally let the cat out of the bag?

Someone announced something a little bit early, about “Little Shocks” being the single. They named it and that sort of thing, and that was a bit annoying. And also, because of that people kept assuming, “Oh, they’re goin’ to have an album out in June.” But the closer it got the more people thought it wasn’t going to be out in June, because obviously there had been no teaser track and no activity. Usually you know an album’s coming out because the band’s on the radio saying how brilliant it’s going to be and all that stuff, which is what we didn’t want to do.

I hate bands talking about how brilliant their next album is before it’s out, before anybody’s heard it, because anyone can say that basically. So we had so many things that we thought were great about how we were going to do it. The first thing was we thought we had a lot of great music, the second thing was that, in order to engage the fans and get everyone interested, people had to listen to the music and make decisions about which songs were their favourite ten of the 20 – people had to listen to the music again. And when you get the music, rather than sticking it in your iTunes and forgetting about it – which I think we are all guilty of (Laughs) – because it’s your album and your artwork I think you would have a listen to it and see how it worked as an album, and all that. Then obviously there’s this buying and selling sort of thing, which sort of worked and didn’t work (Laughs).

I guess people could interpret this in one of two ways: that you guys are so dedicated to the album concept – particularly after your dodgy experience with Off With Their Heads – that you tried to do something really different, or I guess some people might interpret it that you don’t have any respect at all for the album concept.

We all love albums but we all sort of realise that [it’s in the same] way that some people love vinyl and are still into all of that. Some people are listening to two tracks on their mobile phone in the worst quality of all time – it’s sort of the way things are going for the younger generation. So we thought that in a world where everyone wants choice, we’d give people choice, we’d allow them to make their own album – that would be an interesting thing for them to do, plus by destroying the album concept in terms of, “We don’t choose the album, we give it to somebody else,” we make them think about the track listing.

So I’ve got people talking to me about which song they’ve chosen as their opening and why, and which songs they’ve chosen as their closing track, and which song is the end of side one, and all that sort of stuff. So actually, by giving them that choice, we’ve really made them think, and some people are like, “Argh, I really don’t want to choose. I want you to choose for me.” Because it’s quite a difficult sort of thing to work out – the running order. It’s that old mixtape thing – ebb and flow. I think we actually sort of encouraged people to think of albums as albums; that it matters what order you play the songs in, and that having songs on shuffle isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

Well I think when fans talk to fans – amongst each other – that’s one of the first things they often really engage with: that sequencing and thinking about the sequencing.

We’ve got people talking about music – our music – again. People have been really snobby, like, “Oh, I cant believe you chose that for the first track on the album,” and this that and the other. With our track order, we discussed what we were going to do with the CD, and we decided that the best thing would be if we did our choices, and people have been devastated that “Cousin in the Bronx” isn’t on the main album: “I can’t believe it – that’s the best song they’ve ever written.” (Laughs) It’s really good. It’s got people talking about our music, and just music in general in a good way.

Just so I’m clear, the track list for the physical album: putting aside the sequencing, the tracks that made the album weren’t based on popularity, were they?

We toyed with the idea of just doing the top ten of whatever people had chosen. But as you talked about before, we thought that would be not caring about album and just choosing the most popular songs. Sometimes the ten most popular aren’t the ten best. Like, I was talking to someone before and they said “Things Change” is their favourite song on the album. “Things Change” certainly hasn’t been the most popular in terms of downloading but it’s a really interesting song to have on your album – at least on our album, because we think it’s really cool and interesting. We all chose ten ourselves, and put up what would be our own albums, because we thought that was part of it, as well. Obviously, when you do do an album, there are always songs that you argue about and get cut when some members don’t want them to miss the boat. So to each do our own albums and take ownership of those was a good idea, I think.

Talking about the album in a more general sense: two and half years is a long time in the digital age – was it always the plan to take such a long time between drinks?

Yes. Our plan was to have a year off, because we had constantly been doing the band thing for like five years and we all just wanted to have a break, do something different. In the end Nick wrote some songs with some other people and me and him put some records out by a band – did a little singles label. We just wanted to do some little things. Also, to live life and have some stuff to write about again, rather than just being on tour. So we loved that idea. In the end, after about three or four months we were all looking around going, “Well, shall we get back to it?” But equally, none of us were totally enthused by the idea of just doing a ten song CD and sticking it out the same way we’d always done before. We all fancied doing something a little bit different and we didn’t know what.

We toyed with a load of different ideas, and then Nick, our drummer – he’s the main songwriter – and he had some things with his dad being sick and things like that. He was quite unmotivated and was having to focus on family and things like that, and writing songs for a band is maybe not as important; it’s not life and death, you know. He was a bit de-motivated because of the family and personal stuff, and 20 songs is a massive challenge to write – a double album basically – all of which could be considered to be standalone tracks on their own, not b-sides or anything like that. So that was a challenge, and doing something different was a challenge and it was exciting.

The whole website thing that we were doing – no one had ever done anything like it. We had to design it from scratch with some people and work out how people were going to pay for it, and the getting the pound back thing, which in the end I think is something that we all loved: maybe people could get their albums for free, or maybe even go further and make a profit, because they had sold their albums – we thought it was a great idea. In the digital age, once you’ve bought your music, it’s no longer worth anything. So, if we could give the downloads some sort of monetary value we thought that would be cool as well, so we thought that was really important. In the end, everybody wants to just have a go on the website, because the website is cool, and it all works really well, and the way you make your artwork is a really cool thing. So the pound thing – which was actually probably the trickiest thing to sort out – was the thing that got used the least, in the end.

You had three producers on the album: Tony Visconti, Ethan Johns and then Nick as well. Was that a purposeful thing or more of a cards falling situation?

Definitely. The great thing about this album is that there was one other guy who did only one song on the album – “Can’t Mind My Own Business” – called Charlie Hugall. So there was four producers. I think a few different people mixed it and I think it was just about trying stuff out and changing things. We would go and work with Tony and if it didn’t work out we would not use it, but most of it worked out, and the bits that didn’t work out we either rerecorded with Ethan or we sent them to someone else to mix, or we took it into our own studio and tweaked it ourselves. It was just that total freedom – no time limit. It was great.

The reason I mention Charlie is that that was one of the first songs we recorded, in maybe April 2010, and we did three songs with him. We didn’t really like them that much, or in our heads we didn’t think they were very good. So we went off and wrote more and eventually we went and recorded with Tony, and that was maybe six months later in November – and then next lot of recording was only in February or march this year – a year after we first worked with Charlie – and that was when someone played “Can’t Mind My Own Business” and asked if we’d listened to it and told us it’s brilliant. So we all went away and listened to it and went, “Oh yeah, that is pretty good actually.” (Laughs) We’d dismissed it. Then we got into our studio and chopped off the beginning and did a few little things to it and then it made the record. That ability to live with the songs and go back to the songs and change the songs and also to try stuff out – if it didn’t work it didn’t matter, you know. “Little Shocks”: that was mixed by Owen Morris – the guy who produced the Oasis albums – because we thought that maybe he could do something interesting with it and make it ridiculously loud, which is what he did. It came back and it sounded brilliant, and then we sent him another song, but he sent that one back and we thought, “That’s not good at all.” So, it was just trying things out and experimenting, and just stuff that we’d never had time for before.

How has the album been translating to the live arena?

Good so far, yeah. We sort of plunged ourselves in the deep end for the first time. It’s good, because with the album it was about being brave and doing something different. At our third live show there were probably 60,000 people or so at the Isle of Wight, and we obviously really want to play the new songs, because they’re our new songs and we obviously think they’re the best. But, equally obviously, not everybody’s heard them (Laughs).

What are the plans for the rest of the year?

Just touring, really. I think the great thing about how we’ve done it is that we haven’t really thought about things like what the second single is going to be, and how we’re going to do this and how we’re going to do that. So I think there’s a lot of things that we’ve got to decide, and we’re sort of making it up as we go along, you know. So with the CD: it was decided that we should do a CD, and then we thought about how many songs it should be, so we aimed for about ten. It ended up that we couldn’t just choose ten, and so we thought, “There’s no reason we can’t make it 12. It’s our prerogative.” So we did that. So we’ll be choosing the second single and try to work it out on the reaction of people and also on what we like and what we can play live. It’s just touring – we’re doing all of the European festivals so by the time we get to Australia we should be really, really hot. Then we’ve got Japan and then we’re going to America – it’s just a world tour, really.

One more thing about The Future is Medieval. Would you do it again?

Definitely, yeah. With the third album [Off With Their Heads] we were thinking that we should try something different, and we had a few ideas, but in the end we got talked into the fact that what we’d come up with wasn’t really working and we should do a normal album. That album, it did fine – the reaction wasn’t amazing, though, and we always thought that maybe we should have stuck to our guns and done that. So this time we were really determined that we should do something different, and I think next time – I don’t know if we’d do this, because we’ve done this, or maybe we could tweak this, or maybe we could do something totally different. But I think nowadays it’s important to do something different. It is rock and roll to have creative ideas about how you release your music. I think in the 60s and stuff you could get away with doing things like double albums, gatefold editions, different artwork and what you’re getting out of the album, and I think all the best bands have always been innovative about how they presented their next album. I think that went away a bit, with CDs especially, where it’s just like, “Here’s the CD. There’s a bonus track on it.” I think we’re determined that we should always try to do something different.

I talked to Liam Finn recently and he chatted about always wanting to make ‘first’ records – moving himself out of his comfort zone and exploring different things. It sounds a lot like what you guys are trying to achieve.

Definitely, yeah. And I think quite a few bands try to do that. But with this album, because we had such a long break it did feel like if you heard something like [early Kaiser Chiefs single] “Ruby” on the radio it felt like it was a cover band and not by our band, because we’d distanced ourselves from it. Just because we hadn’t played it for a long time, you know. It felt like we were in a new band, and that’s a test of how good the songs are. When we were rehearsing we could get people to come in and listen to the songs and see what they thought, like we used to do when we were just starting out. It was a good process.

Question in the form of an Answer: Baths

Up until recently, 22 year-old Will Wiesenfeld had spent most of his life in Chatsworth and Woodland Hills, suburban communities about 30 minutes outside of Los Angeles, where he recorded music under the monikers Geotic and [Post-Foetus]. Classically trained on the piano since age 4, he grew weary of the limits of classical music and began making electronic music at just 14, releasing several albums for free on the Internet in the ensuing years. That was until he felt a surge of inspiration from the artists involved in the beat renaissance at LA’s Low End Theory, and decided reincarnate himself once again as Baths, developing his own brand of beat music with a distinctive vocal aspect incites emotion.

Baths’ first full length Cerulean — released last year on Anticon  — explores an extremely wide array of emotions and textures, ranging from melancholy and isolation (“Palatial Disappointment”) to intense jubilation (“Hall.”) There’s also a playful and less-serious tone to songs like “Aminals”, two adjectives that best describe the producer’s casual demeanor in real life. Despite the triple digit heat index, he was one of the few people who dared to go shirtless at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, where I first met him a couple weeks ago for an early afternoon interview. Seemingly befuddled at the lack of other shirtless dudes at the festival, Baths summed up his personality best, boldly claiming “People are looking at me like I’m crazy walking around with no shirt on. So what? I’m gay! And I’m from California!”

But while the heat was a drag on some, it only seemed to fuel Baths’ intense performance the next day, which inspired the most dancing and crowd-surfing I saw all weekend. While fan-favorites like “Lovely Bloodflow” drew the most applause, there was also a surprisingly receptive and appreciative tone among the crowd during the new songs, vibrant, bass-heavy tracks with noticeably more complex arrangements than his previous material. After touring for nearly a year a half, Baths is scheduled to record his new album starting in August after a national tour as Geotic, a name he continues to release new material under for free on the Internet. In the interview, we discuss the beginning stages of the new album, his upcoming tour with childhood inspiration DNTEL, and the emotional subtext and meaning he attaches to his songs. –Aaron Frank

AF: So are you still based in Chatsworth? Does having more space outside of the city help your recording?

Baths: Well, there’s enough space in that house where it’s quiet and I can record myself forever during the day and not worry about yelling really loud or playing really loud. It’s in a decent enough neighborhood where nobody really cares, so it’s nice. There’s a lot of space, plenty of room to record and just do what I need to do.

AF: I noticed over the last few months you seem to be reviving the Geotic project pretty strongly. How long were you recording under that name before Baths started?

I’ve been recording music since I was 14 sort of along the strain of Baths. I was a different name, then [Post-Foetus] and now Baths, and it’s all the same sort of thing. Geotic kind of started midway through the [Post-Foetus] stuff. It was just a different outlet for me.

I always wanted to make that music, but it didn’t make sense to release it under the more prominent name as Baths or [Post-Foetus] at the time, because it would be sort of misleading. It’s about three years old though, and the Geotic stuff just comes out whenever it feels like the right time to make something like that. I think I have three or four full lengths under that name and about three or four EP’s, and then I have about that much as [Post-Foetus] that is unreleased that I made before.

AF: What is it sonically that makes you want to delineate between the projects?

Baths: I don’t even know really. Geotic tends to get recorded over winter break, when it’s beautiful and cold outside and the weather is just more mellow. The difference between when I feel inspired to record either of them is always up in the air though.

AF: Would you say your emotional state plays into that too?

Baths: Yes, in the coolest way of putting it.

AF: So I just wanted to know about your specific musical inspiration for starting Baths.

Baths: Yes, definitely the scene in Los Angeles of Nosaj Thing and Flying Lotus and all those guys. Just the idea of having a singular live show that can affect that many people, I wanted the same sort of situation. So I went in to it trying to make an album that was very beat-oriented, and loud, but that was still poppy and my own thing. So that’s how that first album Cerulean came together, and now that the safety of that album exists out in the world, I’m really excited to record the next one and make that happen.

AF: So when you started Baths did you intend on having vocals at first, or was that something that just came along as you were recording?

Baths: Yes, I always wanted to sing. It was just a matter of time until I was comfortable doing it. There’s a little bit of vocals tied in to Geotic too. I try to make it prevalent everywhere in my music. It’s important to me. I like music with good vocals and lyrics.

AF: The best electronic music more often than not has vocals on it too. Do you think it’s important to have that human element to ground things?

Baths: Definitely. My prime examples of electronic music that I think is important is Bjork, I talk about Bjork all the time, and then early Morr Music, the first half of their catalog is all very emotional electronic music with lyrical content and vocal melodies with just a very wide palette of sound. There are all sorts of labels that have that aesthetic I really look for.

AF: How has touring impacted your songwriting or production process?

Baths: It hasn’t much at all, just that I’m more excited to record now than I have been in a long time. I haven’t had any time to record stuff so I’m just aching to do that, to sit down and take a song seriously. I’ve recorded stuff that’s more fleeting or in the moment, but nothing calculated and important the way I want to record music.

AF: When I saw you perform a few new songs at the Troubadour, they definitely seemed more beat-heavy, and maybe less reliant on the vocal aspect.

Baths: Yeah, it’s definitely more beat-heavy. All of those songs were mostly from Cerulean and written around that same time though, so it’s not like I’m going to stray from that with the next record. It’s just, that was the thought at the forefront at that time.

AF: When do you see yourself sitting down to record a new album?

Baths: This year, pretty much after August. I’m touring across the country in August with DNTEL and the One AM Radio, who are good friends of mine, and then I’m going to hopefully finish the album by December. That’s sort of the goal that I’ve set.

AF: What made you want to revisit the Geotic project?
Baths: Just circumstance. Things happened with Geotic that I wasn’t expecting, so I’m basically rising to meet these expectations.

AF: It seems like a pretty big Internet fanbase has sprung up around that project.

Baths: Exactly, but it’s also something that appeases me as well. It’s something I always enjoyed doing. There just wasn’t enough support to make it work for a tour. It’s much more relaxing, so the circumstance of doing a tour as an opening act I’m very comfortable with for Geotic. This tour is the perfect circumstance to take it around the country for the first time.
I’m really excited about this tour. It’s going to be all through August. DNTEL is one half of the Postal Service, and he’s never toured before. This is his first tour so there’s a big effort to make it something special. And the fact that I get to be on the bill with him for his first tour is like a very literal dream come true. Me and the One AM Radio are like super fans so it’s going to be a lot of fun.

AF: I think one of the main appeals of your music, at least to me, is that it feels so personal, which the lyrics are obviously a big part of. How important is it for you to incorporate type of weight in to your music?

Baths: For me it’s very important, but it depends on the song. There are songs with very lofty meanings in the lyrics, but the song “You’re My Excuse To Travel” is very silly. It’s all melodramatic and over-the-top sort of on purpose. It’s supposed to be sort of goofy, whereas a song like “Plea” I take a lot more seriously, since the lyrics are a lot more direct and intense.
So it depends on the song, and I think with the next album I’m making an effort to make it a lot more serious, not to where the music isn’t going to be fun but that I’m going to hold the lyrics in a very important place with this album, more so than Cerulean. More vocals, darker, and much more…I don’t know. It’s not recorded yet, but that’s the direction I’m heading in.

Download:
ZIP: Geotic-Mend
ZIP: Geotic-Bless the Self

MP3:  Baths – “Hall”
MP3: Baths -  “Maximalist”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman

Alex Piveysky steadily blogs here. The rest of the time, he answers to the bat symbol.

Without hearing a single note, the album cover hooked me. It called out, like…uh, the bat signal. One of those moments when you know that you’ll love the album strictly off artwork. I was right too. Cue the platitudes about pictures and 1000s of words.

Below is my interview with Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman, original creator of that image and 1/3 of the Batmen. I know of no other modern band that sounds like them. Sure, I can trace their influences: Tropicalia and other Latin music, classic soul, classic California psychedelia. But these are all old reference points, there are no contemporary analogues. Their music is wholly unique. The point of the interview was to find out why.
.
Before you read, check the album stream. It won’t make sense otherwise.

Alex:  So how did you guys meet and get started?
Bardo: I grew up in La Mirada, born in Santa Ana in California, mom from Cartagena, father from Jalisco Mexico. Gabriel Villa, the drummer, grew up in Cali, Columbia. He traveled to France at 18 to escape the military draft and to study music. Eduardo Arenas, the bassist, grew up east La.

I met Eduardo first, around 2005, through parties along a particular scene. Both of us were university students, he was in UC and I was in UCLA. Around this area, the whole southern California, obviously you have a lot of Latinos… in the university there are a few places that represent or try to a have a network for incoming Latinos or students, and a lot of those are geared toward social justice. We were both parts of the same scene; we were both part of Mecha. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that organization, at one time it was vilified by white supremacist groups. And then I met Gabriel through a party, we went to see Very Be Careful, a band that plays Columbian rhythms, cumbias and vallenatos. We hit it off pretty well as we had a mutual friend.

I had this project in mind, of creating music that represents Latin American soul. In the 60s and 70s a lot of [Latin American] bands tried to emulate popular music from the United States, since it so heavily dominates the media. Mainly a lot of R&B and straight up funk like James Brown. There were also bands trying to cover the Beatles and other American rock acts.

Alex: I think I know what you mean, I’m a fan of Los Dug Dug’s. They were the first Mexican band to cover the Beatles

Bardo: Then you know what I’m talking about. There’s also Revolucion De Emiliano Zapato, but that’s more underground. I actually just got hip to that very recently; from a guy I met on a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico. He had all the original vinyl, I wanted to buy them but he kept them for himself. I actually just bought one of their 45s.

But anyway, we grew up with this stuff, Latinos in the United States and the LA area grew up with popular bands like Los Angeles Negros and Los Freddy’s, etc… Our parents, people who were born in the 50s grew up with that music, in the 70s they were in their 20s. Me and Eduardo shared a familiarity with this, Gabriel as well. Romantic ballads were always popular in Latin America too; it’s a big genre, heavily recognized. There hasn’t been a lot of contemporary music that got hip to demonstrating these influences. I think this is a fairly new phenomenon, groups trying to revisit the 60s. Maybe not the most recent phenomenon actually, but I think people now, in the 2000’s especially have been trying to do it, like Black Dynamite.

Alex: Do you purposefully use vintage equipment to create the old school sound? I’ve heard for example that Eduardo uses a bass passed down from his uncle…

Bardo: Yeah, exactly. Eduardo specifically put some money on it. When we started the band he wasn’t the bassist, he was a guitarist. I think he got the Gibson from his uncle, it’s an SG, it’s a 70s model. It’s an amazing bass, short necked, it plays wonderfully. And he got an Ampeg, I’m not sure what model it is but it’s definitely old, from the 70s. He also got a huge mixer, I think from the 80s. A bigass mixer with like 20 channels, it’s huge. We use that to record.

I already had my stuff. I’ve always been a fan of old gear, I’m always trying to find old keyboards and stuff like that. I got mine at the swap meet, for 40 bucks. I’m not like Adriane Younge or some of these cats that have badass keyboards, I do the best I can. I have a fender amp, a Deville reissue tube amp. I get the sound that I like out of it… And I definitely would like to get more gear but the limitations are obvious. I recently got this 70s Yamaha organ. So we definitely do try to capture the essence of the sound through the equipment. How far you can get into that is endless, you can be super particular with your sound in endless ways – how you record it, with pedals, etc. But money is definitely an issue with that. If I had the resources to get all these instruments I would. We know this guy in Highland Park by the name of Jack, and he has a store called Future Music. He has all these crazy keyboards and amps, so if we wanted it we could get it, it’s just a matter of dough (laughs).

Alex: Do your parents like the music you make, are they fans? I’m asking because a lot of times the parents don’t get into the music their kids make, but in this case it seems like there would be more of a connection

Bardo: Yeah they like it. My dad is very particular, he has his own pace and style to music he likes, and so it’s always a challenge for me to impress him. He’s growing to like it. My mom likes it too. Last time they saw us, my mom in particular was amazed.

Alex: So you guys got started playing for family and friends?
Bardo: Pretty much. I’m going to school now, trying to finish my masters at Calstate LA. I have friends there and somebody would have a party and they hit us up and we just played a gig. There are community centers around LA too, small community centers where people do political activism and art galleries, all very local. There would be like 20 people there, kids running around. We’ve progressed since, moved on to bigger venues.

Alex: How did you create the artwork? It’s very eye catching, that’s actually what drew me to the record before I knew anything else about it.

Bardo: Our friend Jennifer Gutierez Morgan, who was very supportive and didn’t charge us anything, took the pictures of us for the artwork. We also wanted to capture the vintage feeling in the pictures so we used an older camera (it was Eduardo’s too actually). I came up with the design for the cover based on her pictures. The way I came up with it, it was basically the same concept, with the bat and us looking up, but I drew it – I drew the lines and I colored it in with watercolors. I liked it but everybody said the batman was too crooked, so then we got somebody else to sharpen it up. His name was Joel Garcia, he goes by Rage1, and the guy hooked it up. He did an amazing job. I look at it for a while sometimes.

Alex: Are you the one who came up with the bat logo? Also I’ve heard that the Chicano Batman is more than just a band name?

Bardo: I came up with it a while ago, even before I started the band. It was just an idea I came up at a party, me and a friend were just chillin and I just started drawing. I’ve always liked Batman, so I just started drawing him but he was a Chicano – he had a little moustache. The Batman also had a flannel, instead of a cape, like a flannel a gangster wears. He also had a wifebeater. I actually made a comic with it; it was printed in LA Record. [The character is] not necessarily Mexican, he could be Salvadorian or Columbian or whatever, because I’m not just Mexican.

Alex: Just Latino in general…

Bardo: Yeah, but…. Although it’s a general concept, I don’t necessarily like to say that I’m Latino all the time, I just like to tell people where I’m from: this is where my mom is from, this is where my dad is from. Every term is loaded with political significance that doesn’t necessarily give agency to the people that it’s supposed to represent. The logo itself is combination of the batman symbol with the UFW logo, so it’s very politically loaded

Alex: Can you talk a little about what the songs mean? I know you guys put a lot of your personal experiences and philosophies into them.

Bardo: Is there any specific song you’d like to talk about?

Alex: How about ‘It’s a balloon’…

Bardo: ‘It’s a balloon’ is just about me in a park. I was just chilling in the shade, like I am right now actually, and I was looking up and I thought I saw a balloon fly away. It took me a while to figure out what it was; it looked like it was floating away because it was moving. Then I looked closer and I realized it was just a spider crawling down. At that moment I felt my eyes… I don’t know what they call the effect but it’s like when your irises go out and in, you refocus your eyes. You notice that on daily basis you go through that, every instant of your life you feel like you can see… I felt it at that moment very strongly, because I really believed it was a balloon flying away but it was something else. So that’s what the song is about.

I live my life on mundane experiences, my own observations, what I perceive… I believe in the relativity of everybody’s own experience and the ability to create your own reality. I think every person born creates their own philosophy and their own perspective. I don’t really believe in the idea that everything is recycled, that every idea has already been thought. But I also recognize that 1000s of people before me have also thought these things, and I appreciate a lot of these people, these thinkers and writers.

I got really hip to Tropicalia, and I read a book called ‘Tropical Truth’ by Caetano Veloso, it really hit me hard. The guy was on the same trip, he was into JP Sartre and existentialism. He was also into surrealism and I’ve always had an affinity for surrealism, since high school. I like Dali, his paintings because they were weird.

Alex: You like Jodorowsky too right? I think I’ve seen that on your FB page? How does that affect your music, this appreciation for existentialism and surrealism?

Bardo: What those people were doing was representing their own experience in the context of a reality they were living in. It was a very harsh political reality, in places with a harsh and negative history. That reflected in their work. I think Jodorowsky is very negative, very grim. The guy is Russian, but he grew up in Mexico so I see him as Mexican. The guy did this amazing art and amazing films, and to me that’s important.

We live in an age where people get kicked out of this country because they look too dark or if they look like they’re mowing lawns or they get pulled over because of the way they look. We live in a political situation and you can’t escape that. And that amazing art counters that notion of white superiority that we’re fed, that we grow up with in the school system. Obviously it’s a very Eurocentric curriculum that everybody continues to be taught. Even if the binaries change we still live in the age of complacency. People don’t see an alternative. To me that art IS a complete alternative. It represents how people from other lands, from other places in the world can have immensely complex notions of how to live. It’s also an amazing perspective and analysis of what’s going on around them. Caetano Veloso and others involved in Tropicalia had amazingly dense ideas, about their culture in relation to the culture of the world, despite or maybe even because of their lack of economic means.

Alex: So is this how you see you music, as a challenge or subversion to the establishment? An alternative to the Eurocentric system you grew up with?

Bardo: Basically… the music that our parents listened to in the 70s they transmitted to us and that now inspires us, and that transfer was organic. All those records, they were literally in our closets. The perspective of history that we learn is that the United States started in the East Coast, but what do we know about the East Coast? The ideas are really skewed, and you feel no real connection to what you’re being taught in school. And so we’re trying to demonstrate the connections that we have. Whether it’s about love or even the connection with the spider in front of me, whatever I’m experiencing. Look at the cover – the only manifesto it has is that we dress like the bands from the 70s from Latin America and we have this bat over our heads, this UFW batman. But the songs talk about love, there is no song in the album that’s overtly political.

Still, the philosophies of things we mentioned before, like Tropicalia, are there. And we are all brown folks, and these are our backgrounds. We spend time trying to present that part of us, trying to perfect it, and I think that in itself is a powerful thing in the context of the music scene in LA.
I grew up in La Mirada, I would try to play with the kids in my school in my guitar class and they would ignore me because I liked stuff like Santana and they were all into Metallica. I feel like that’s a pretty good example of how the scene is in the LA area, the rock scene, the indy scene. Even though there is a lot of diversity [in the area], what you see represented publicly and in print is very rock-ish and basically white. So for us to be able to play at Silverlake, or Spaceland or Echoplex… that’s kinda uncommon to see a group singing in Spanish in a scene like that.

Alex: As far as contemporary music, what do you listen to, what do you like?

Bardo: this band from Australia, they’re a 3 pieces as well, Tame Impala. A friend turned me on to them. I heard some of it on youtube, something from their older album, and I thought it sounded very good. It reminded me of the Beatles, Abbey Road or maybe Revolver. The guy sounds like John Lennon on “I’m only sleeping” on every song and I love that, the tone of his voice. I love John Lennon; particularly recently I’ve been listening to him a lot. But anyway, I got the latest Tame Impala album and I’ve been playing it. I didn’t like it that much at first; it took me a while to really appreciate it. Now it’s at the point where sometimes I have my own moments with the music. My girlfriend just recently moved to Oakland so on trips there I would play it and it would just trip me out. It just made me feel good, the sun shining through my windshield….

Alex: you feel like you made a personal connection with the music?

Bardo: Well, all the music I have, I feel like I have a personal connection to it. I think that’s a general saying, although maybe not everybody puts it that seriously all the time because not everybody listens to music on the daily basis… but I feel that way. Anyway, I like that band, I’d love to play with them, maybe go on tour with them. I feel like our music is similar, there is a lot of changes in the music, different time signatures, so I feel like I could relate to it on a musical level. And I just like the feeling of it as well. AND they’re a 3 piece

Alex: Both Tame Impala guys and you guys have a certain psychedelic slant to your music, I wanted to ask you about that. Is this something that just developed organically or were you purposefully trying to make trippy shit?

Bardo: Maybe at the time of recording I was trying to do that a little more, I have a delay pedal on my keyboard and I was just messing around with the effects. Me and Eduardo are really into the 60s and 70s stuff, so it just came out natural. I guess that was part of the point of what we were trying to do.

Gabriel is crazy well trained drummer. He went to France to study drums and percussion, so the guy has a wide range of musical ability. He knows how to play samba on the drum set, that’s rare. He can play Columbian music but he can also play jazz, the guy is super versatile. That kind of made the music what it was, that’s what he brought to it. Eduardo is a percussionist as well, super meticulous, more than I am. Those guys would keep it all down, and then I would put my touches on it.

Alex: So what else [as far as listening habits]? Since there’s nothing much else that sounds like you guys I’d love to piece together a tapestry of what you guys draw on and enjoy yourselves?

Bardo: Gabriel is a big fan of Queen. He and Eduardo also like weird metal music, Swedish metal, shit like that. I couldn’t tell you a specific name because I honestly don’t like metal but those fools love it.

Alex: That seems a little weird honestly, seems like such a contrast to the kind of music you guys make. Your music is so relaxed and warm, and that music is pretty much the exact opposite of that. The first time I’ve heard you music it just screamed California to me. That’s just a feeling I get, I’m not sure if that’s even right.

Bardo: I’m gonna ask you a question, did you listen to it after what Oliver Wang wrote about it, or before?

Alex: I listened to a few snippets that he had on the site along with the short write up. I think it was like 2 mins of Itotiani, you guys just got me with that one, just with those opening chords. But not much more beyond that. When I heard the full album I didn’t really have the benefit of all the background info I know about you guys now.
Bardo: I’m asking because of what Oliver Wang said about the album, it was part of his whole summer series, songs that remind him of and capture the feeling of summer. So that’s maybe you’re thinking of it like that.

Alex: Maybe, I’ve read a fair amount of stuff about you guys now. Maybe that is something I’ve read somewhere and it just stuck subconsciously. But it’s not really anything specific, just a feeling – warm, ocean breeze in your face, everything nice and green and blue. Maybe I’m projecting a bit. I’m from NY, originally from the Ukraine, only been to California briefly, and to me California has a kind of mythical beatific quality to it, and I think your music captures that. Is that maybe something that just seeps in naturally, maybe even subconsciously, absorbed from your environment?

Bardo: I guess so. I would love to be in a greener, bluer place. Eduardo is living in a place similar to this; none of us are from a cold environment. And I do agree with you, I feel like where you’re from and where you grew up, the weather you’re in, it does influence your music. I personally love music that’s from very hot, tropical places. I feel what you’re saying, although honestly I’ve never thought of it in a way that you just put it right now. I appreciate that.

Alex: A question for my own selfish purposes, do you guys plan to tour at all? I know you guys play a fair amount locally, and it seems like the album is picking up bit, you seem to be developing something like a cult following. I’d love to see you in NY some time.

Bardo: If we could we would def do it, but everybody is in different places now. Our bassist is in Brazil, we might actually tour there in the end of the year. Our bassist found this Brazilian band, they’re fans of ours and they sound kind of similar. To me they sound like a jam band, they remind me of the Grateful Dead. They want us to play with them down there.

Alex: Have you guys played in South America before?

Bardo: We played in Columbia last summer. It was fun, kinda crazy. Nothing established, we did it ourselves. We made the contacts as we went over there. We wanted to play one weekend in Cali, and we were only there for a week. So when we got there on Monday we just started setting up something to play on that Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We played in front of maybe like 30 people max each time, but it was just for fun. Whether you play for 1 person or 300 it’s still an experience just to play down there, so it was a crazy. We played this one show that was similar to what we play locally here. There was already like 80 people at the spot, and they just stared at us, they didn’t know what to think, it was different for them too I guess. But I think some people like it a lot, it seemed like they were having fun. The drummer’s family loved it. Then again, we play like that here too, people just stand and stare at me like they don’t know what to make of us.

I guess it’s all part of the process. I don’t know myself sometimes, I feel like we played a terrible show but then I listen to what we recorded from it and it sounds great.

Question in the form of an Answer: Kurtis Blow

Photo via Up North Trips

In 1980, Kurtis Blow stood astride a freshly minted genre like a good time goliath. He was the first rapper to sign with a major label, and the first to achieve a gold record with his single, “The Breaks”. In that sense, there will always be a touch of disappointment associated with Blow’s wider career, but the speed of evolution in rap music was too fast for even his impressive charisma to keep up with. Still, Blow made a successful move into production and in the last ten years has become something of a renaissance man via his collaborations with British breakbeat producer, Krafty Kuts. I chatted to Blow on behalf of Scene Magazine in Brisbane, and the man turned out to be both candid about his past and refreshingly positive when discussing the state of modern rap music. Quarter page word counts are a bitch, but not round here. –Matt Shea

Where’s home for you at the moment, Kurtis?

Home is California. Woodland Hills, California. It’s outside of LA – about a half hour outside of LA.

How long have you been there?

Oh, I’ve been out there for about 25 years.

How’s the tour been going?

It’s been incredible. We just played at this big festival, down in Switzerland. There were, like, 20,000 people out there, but on our stage we had about 5,000. It was just incredible. Incredible.

Does it amaze you to a certain extent that The Breaks and that whole debut record has had such longevity with fans? Particularly in the last ten years it seems to have really come back popular consciousness.

It is amazing. Just to see how people know the songs and play ‘em. They like their old school. There’s still a market out there and I still gig all around the world. It’s incredible.

One thing that really interests me about that early period: after that first record you quickly segued into production – what was it that got you behind the boards?

(laughs) That’s a pretty good question. Well, I guess – I want to keep this positive – but I guess it was the dissatisfaction with my own stuff in being produced by other people. J.B. Moore and Robert Ford who did my first five albums, they taught me everything I know, and I would not be here without them, but there was a point in my career where I said, “I need to do this by myself.”

So you just outgrew them, I guess?

Yes, that’s the way it was. For sure.

What do you enjoy more – particularly these days – the production side of things or the MCing side?

Hmmm, that’s pretty good. Both are pretty much fun, and at the top of my list just in terms of satisfaction. But MC-ing, I guess, being out there with the people: that’s what it’s all about; that’s what it’s really all about. We are entertainers and we need to be out there entertaining and making people feel good.

But you’re still heavily involved in the production side of things?

Yes, yes. I’m working on this new album right now, and we’re in the studio today, right now.

You’re now a Christian minister involved in a hip-hop church. How’s that been going?

It’s been going very, very well. I sort of stepped down from ministry this year, just because I wanted to concentrate on my family. My youngest son, who just started college – I had to get him off to college and that was a whole big ordeal, because he’s going to Stanford.

Congratulations.

Yes, top notch school! He has a full scholarship and everything, so we’re very, very happy for him: Michael Steven Walker is his name – Michael. And then there’s my oldest son, Kurtis Jnr., who is releasing is own CDs. He has a new one out called Californication – it’s his mix CD that’s out right now (released January 7). His first video he shot just last month, and his second video he shot last week. So he’s really making a name for himself and that’s why I wanted to support him. He’s a hardcore secular rapper, with lyrics that are, ah, different from mine (laughs). Then there’s my middle son, Mark-Anthony Walker, who is attending MIT, which is the top music school in California: he’s going there, taking up studio engineering, and also video editing and everything. He’s really doing his thing. So I wanted to support my guys and just sit back, because they’re getting older now and they need to leave the nest and go out on there own. I wanted to help so I’ve been concentrating on that. But I’ll be back in ministry, I guess by 2012, full time.

Has religion always been a big thing for you, Kurtis, or has it come on in more recent years?

I realise that now more than ever, but back in the day I never knew. As a matter of fact I was running from it. When I was in college I studied communications – I was a speech broadcast major. In hip-hop and rap we’re like orators, you know, we’re public speakers, and I wanted to major in a field that was most relevant to hip-hop, and that’s communications. So, I did a lot of speech courses and stuff, and studying in school I just learned that that greatest orators of our time – the most passionate – were reverends and preachers, and I read a lot of sermons, from Martin Luther King to Malcolm X. Of course, JFK and Winston Churchill and Barbara Jordan and people like that: politicians were also passionate. But the greatest politicians were former reverends and so it’s like, “Wow! The most passionate orators in our history were religious people.” So, I knew that there was a big time connection between rap and preaching. Ultimately that was one of the avenues or one of the careers that I could go down and actually seek out. But at that time I was in college and I figured it out that was like, “Oh no. No way!” (laughs) I’d rather be on TV, dude! (laughs) Even politics: I didn’t want to be a politician because I’m too militant and I’d be like one of those Malcolm X guys – I’d probably get assassinated (laughs), so that was a no-go.

You talk about your sons getting involved in hip-hop. Are you happy with the modern trajectory of rap music?

Hey, listen. I’m one of the elder spokesmen of hip-hop so I want to keep it positive and support all of the young cats that are out there doin’ their thing. So, I say this: the raps nowadays are faster, wittier, they’re more complicated. It’s a challenge for an old schooler to keep up. But there’s mad flavour, there’s a lot of variety. We’ve got the dirty south, the west coast, the traditional New York east coast. It’s crazy: there’s a lot of different styles, but the most incredible thing about hip-hop now is that if you travel outside of America and you go to Germany, they rap in German. You go to France, they rap in French. You go to Spain, they rap in Spanish At first everyone was rapping in English, but it seems like the world has embraced this culture, hip-hop, and made it their own culture. Rapping in their native tongues, and they have become the top pop artists in their countries as well. It’s amazing, just to see it go down, and I was there from the beginning – we changed the world.

You were the first rapper to get a major label deal. What do you think of the relationship between labels and hip-hop in the digital age – is the major label system in tune with the future of rap music?

That’s a very, very good question, Matt, and I will tell you: I do not have a clue! I’ll be honest, this is a territory that I have not ventured down (laughs). I have no idea; I can not. I can speculate and say that, you know, of course we all need to adapt to the technology and now the digital age is the thing, and we have downloading on the internet and iTunes to every different website from dattpiff.com to Hip-hop 4 Life, and it’s incredible to see how it has changed, and the relationship between the record company and the artist has changed as well. I remember going up to Sony and Universal and the energy, the spirit, was gone: it was like a ghost town, everybody was quiet, nobody was playing music in their offices, the conference room wasn’t bangin’. You know, like really quiet – low-key – as opposed to being a vibrant, passionate, over-the-top music industry, you know what I’m sayin’? And here’s another thing: the record deals have changed dramatically. And now: could you imagine that record companies want a percentage of the artist’s live show? The money they make from touring? You know what I mean? That’s a big, big change – a big change. ANNNND publishing! (laughs) So, it’s changed a lot.

You’re known for your live energy Kurtis…

Yeah!

Is hip-hop for you personally something that works best on the stage?

For me, I guess the answer is yes, until I slow down. At 51 and still breakdancing, it’s kinda like amazing. I mean, I’m pretty much in shape, you know, but I don’t know anybody my age still doin’ it. All of my old breakdance buddies have stopped. But it’s a good feeling just to be out there onstage – I love it and I will continue to do it until I can’t.

Plans for the rest of the year? You’re working on an album, yes?

Working on a CD, yes, with DJ Tomekk here in Berlin. He’s a very well known DJ here in Europe. We have incredible songs, and I’m also supporting my oldest, Kurtis Blow Jnr., with his new Califonication mix CD. He’s going to do some more projects: he’ll be rappin’ for the rest of his life as well. We’re gonna do something together next month, a project together, called The Legacy – you’ll see father and son real soon.

Download:
MP3: Kurtis Blow-”The Breaks”

Question In The Form of An Answer: Eddie Argos of Art Brut

Aaron Matthews had a good weekend.

Eddie Argos has been stammering out honest tales of embarrassment, alcoholism, love and rock n roll with Art Brut since 2005. The band’s latest album Brilliant! Tragic! was produced by former Pixies bellower Frank Black and finds Eddie, actually singing instead of speak-singing for a change. I spoke with Eddie about his sense of humor, Art Brut franchises and the process of working with Frank Black. –Matthews

What led to your new signing style on this record?

Black Francis decided that I would sing this time. It was funny, our manager phoned me up before I went over, said “I think he’s going to make you sing”. I was like, “Well, he can try!” [laughs] I was panicking because I couldn’t sing. So it was kinda nice when we got there and [Frank] helped. I was kinda surprised when I heard my voice back, I didn’t think it was me. I thought someone was playing a trick on me. I’m glad it came out the way it did, it’s not a shtick. I think the voice on those songs was the voice those songs needed.

How has your process has changed since the last three records?

It was all the gaps between the two records this time. It’s always been that with Art Brut, I write the words and they write the music. I can’t play any instruments or anything, so we write separately and come together at the end. I didn’t think it was different at the time, but now I think this album is a bit more personal. Maybe I hide some things a bit more normally. I got a friend called Solo who writes using this thing called Backwards Causality. Normally when you write a song, you think what it’s going to be about and you make it all rhyme. He just starts writing songs and see what it’s all about in the end. I tried doing that a bit this time. Like the song “Sealand”. I thought it was about the place while I was writing it. Then I realized it was about moving in with my girlfriend. And I realized, that’s what I needed to write. It’s a metaphor for…that sounds really pretentious! [laughs] I’m sorry. It was a fun new way of writing for me.

Tell me about recording with Frank Black.

We brought him in last time as well. The last time we were a bit intimidated because he’s Black Francis, y’know? I think he was careful not to step on any toes last time. Now we’re sort of mates, this time it’s really like he’s in the band. He’d sit down, play together with us. He taught me to sing. Like, “Eddie, sing this lyric: ‘Everybody wants to be sexy sometimes’[repeats the line in his speaking voice] “No Eddie, sing it!” [half sings ‘everybody wants to be sexy sometimes’]. He’d be like, “No” [laughs] and he’d sing it and I’d sing it back. He taught me how to sing all the songs by singing them back to me. We should’ve recorded all of those songs, had a bonus disc of Black Francis singing Art Brut [laughs]. I think we’re both quite obsessive people. We’d go home at night and text each other, “We should try this tomorrow”. I’d wake up in the morning and my phone would beep, and I’d think, “Who the hell is that?” “Oh, it’s Black Francis. That’s cool.” I think Frank’s fingerprints on more on this record than [Art Brut Vs. Satan].

You mentioned hearing Frank singing your songs, what happened to all the Art Brut franchises that were formed when you first started?

I think they keep on the down low now. It wasn’t just in London, people came from all over really. I met Art Brut #89 last night, not seen in ages. These bands are all still about, it’s nice. We don’t really talk about [the franchises] anymore, so we assume there’s not any new ones. A new franchise did start last night, can’t remember what number…of course everybody tried to be Art Brut #69 because it’s a rude joke [laughs]. But you can’t be Art Brut #69, I’ve met them, they’re from Reading. So everyone had to choose a different number. At one point there was a Polish [franchise], a Russian one. It got a bit out of hand, there was one in Tel Aviv. The first ever franchise was this guy in West Virginia and he was Art Brut 3 π ,that was his number. We had just started the band and we got sent a video of this man in West Virginia covering “Formed A Band” bluegrass style. How does he know that song? Our album wasn’t even out in North America! One of the franchises wrote a song called “The NME Is My Enemy”, and everyone thinks I wrote that [laughs]. I didn’t write that song, Art Brut #100 wrote that song. But he does my voice so well that people ask me about it in interviews sometimes.

It’s like how Weird Al gets credited for every parody song on the internet.

Maybe that’s what it is. It’s funny, the best one was called Art Brut #7, they’re a glam band called the Space Peacocks. Some radio station in New York was doing an interview about franchises, a business radio station, and they interviewed Art Brut #7, the Space Peacocks. Then they went to the BBC and recorded an interview. I think that’s hilarious! [laughs] They haven’t got any business sense, they haven’t got any gigs. That’s when the franchises got out of hand.

What’s the significance of humor in your music?

It’s not like I’m trying to be funny. I was little confused when people found things funny. People thought “Emily Kane” was hilarious and I was like, “I really did miss that girl!” [laughs]. I like the lyrics to be conversational, like you’d do in a pub over a pint of beer. I think in that kind of scenario you do make jokes, even about an important thing. I’m not trying to write funny songs, I’m trying to write conversational songs. Because no songs really are funny. I think any joke makes fun of things or people. The thing about the franchises is that people start to feel like they know you. I like playing a show and having people ask me about D.C. comics, or the Replacements or my brother [after the Brut song “My Little Brother”]. I’ve made loads of friends, it’s kinda cool. It’s like a relationship.

You’ve got a series of songs about weekends, the most recent is “Lost Weekend”. People have an ongoing dialogue with what’s happening with you.

Yeah, I think we got enough “Weekend” songs to make a record. I did this other thing too where I used to nick other people’s song titles and make them Art Brut titles. I didn’t know I was doing it, but there’s this new song “Lost Weekend”, there was already a song called “Lost Weekend” as well. So I did both of my tricks at once.

So at gigs you tell people you’re going to play “Pump Up The Volume” and they’re a little thrown off?

[laughs] I like that game! That’s good, I might get some of their PRS, their ASCAP, you know, if I done the names of their songs. I’d like one day to say we’re playing “Pump Up The Volume” and bust out the actual [M/A/R/R/S] song. Or “I Will Survive”, play the real song instead of our version.

Download:
MP3: Art Brut-”Lost Weekend”
MP3: Art Brut-”Good Weekend”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Dirty Beaches

Photo via Scott McDonald

Darkened highways. Pocket combs. Battered Gibsons. The vein of Americana imagery drawn upon by Dirty Beaches runs deep. The Taiwan-born, Vancouver-reared Alex Zhang Hungtai is the man behind Badlands, a fleeting, evocative record that tours through the back roads of David Lynch films, Duane Eddy. I chatted with Hungtai via email about analog, film and the perils of rating music. — Aaron Matthews

Your music draws on lyrical motifs of horses, cars and highways. They’ve existed for years but why do they still resonate with you?

Anything and everything in popular music have existed for years, everything we hear now from pop to indie music are all repeating motifs of a format that have existed: sex, violence, emotive diary-esque story telling, tongue in cheek references to popular culture, etc. and in the tradition of past artists, it’s how you personalize and combine the influences. Popular music is alchemy. No one has invented a new substance entirely on its own. It comes from a mixture of borrowed source, and from there, you create something new.

Prior to Badlands, you’d recorded a number of small release cassettes, EPs and 7 inch records. How do these releases tell a narrative versus an album?

EPs and singles are like short films or promo films. [They’re] shorter in length, so the release is based on a different aesthetic than a full length album, which gives you more room and space for details and story-telling.

What do you see as the benefits of those analog mediums?

The analog format is just a reaction to the deflating value of compact disc and digital download. As everything gets uploaded to computers and iPods, what’s the point of buying a CD if you’re just going to upload it anyway? I think certain crowds of consumers are interested in collecting the physical body of the work. Vinyl also sounds superior to mp3s. The packaging, the artwork of music is very important, which is why I’m interested in these analog formats because they have more value than CD jewel case designs. Who knows? Maybe when CD becomes obsolete, people will start fetishizing them.

You moved around a lot growing up, how do you feel it has informed your music?

Traveling is a BIG motif in my music, as you mentioned previously. If there’s nothing to hang on to, then you create something that will bind them together.

The photography on your blog Analog Beach, in an odd way, feels like it illustrates your music. I also seen you reference David Lynch and Wong Kar Wai in relation to your music’s aesthetic. Why is the visual component important to your music?

It all goes back to film related aesthetics. The sound and visual aspects in film are crucial to one another, and only certain directors pay as much attention to both aspects, because when they work well together, it creates magic. Icons are created this way.

Describe your writing process.

Living is a big part of writing, no time is wasted time in my opinion. Even when you’re working shitty jobs. Which is why I constantly seek out opportunities of adventure and new experiences as a person and making new friends. I’m a collector of experience.

What is “True Blue” about?

You know there’s a part of the ocean where shit is real dark and hard to see? It’s about being in those depths and looking back at the one you love that’s calling you on the surface.

Top 5 rock n roll records of all time?

I don’t like ranking things because they are just assigned values of particular tastes. It doesn’t make them any more or less significant. Music exists with or without us. As all those amazing world music comps from Sublime Frequencies demonstrated. When I hear shit like that, it makes me feel like a frog inside a tiny well. There is so much music out there. Rock n roll is just one of them. The only critique I have of rock ‘n roll is that it should remain somewhat dangerous and unpredictable, as how it was intended in its original form when it was born.

Download:
MP3: Dirty Beaches-”Sweet 17″
MP3: Dirty Beaches-”True Blue”

Dirty Beaches “Golden Blonde” from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Question in the Form of an Answer: Charles Bradley

In hindsight, it would’ve been tragic if Dap King and Daptone co-owner Gabe Roth hadn’t approached soul singer Charles Bradley in a small New York club nearly a decade ago. The payoff came on the 62 year-old’s debut, this spring’s No Time For Dreaming, a record that initiated a wider audience to his James Brown meets Otis Redding vocal stylings. While his lyrics often delve into some of dark and grittier events of his past, Bradley remains grateful and humble for the recent success that has caused some to anoint him as one of he beacons of modern soul music.

As excellent as the past six months have been for him — performing with the Menahan Street Band for adoring crowds in Europe and Australia — Bradley seems more inspired than ever and has already begun work on his second album. I caught up with him before a sold-out show in Los Angeles, where he mesmerized the crowd with his dancing and stage antics, and repeatedly told them “I love you!” as if they had come out to throw him a surprise birthday party. We discussed his roots and background as a singer, his other career choices over the years, how he became aligned with Daptone Records, and his feelings about modern popular music. — Aaron Frank

AF: Prior to meeting the guys from Daptone and Menahan Street Band, had any other labels or producers approached you about making an album?

CB: No, I’ve just been doing music ever since I was about sixteen. I had approached other people before about trying to do something, but nobody had ever approached me. They would always get me to do shows at small clubs. I got a lot of that. But Tom (Brenneck) and them, they always believed in me. So once they started to believe, that’s when things really started to happen.

AF: Can you describe the type of show you were doing at the time? How long had you been doing that particular act?

CB: I’ve been doing James Brown since I was sixteen years old. Like even now on the 27th, I’ll be at BB Kings doing the same show. People love to see me do both things. They love to see me do James Brown and they love to see me do Charles Bradley. And I get people from all over saying to me “Charles, I hope you’re not gonna give up James Brown. We love to see you do it. Ain’t nobody else that can do it the way you do.” So I’ve been telling Tom and them, “Tell me what you guys need to do. Just let me do both shows.” I come up on stage first then I’ll come back and do James Brown.

AF: So have you been mixing a little bit of the James Brown act on tour then too?

CB: No, because that’s not really Tom and the band want from me right now. But if they turn me loose, watch out.

AF: So what were your first interactions like with the people from the label and the Menahan Street Band?

CB: Well, me and Tommy were friends before I met the band. About nine or ten years ago, Tommy took me Staten Island to meet his band. I met them and at that time, they were doing more hard rock, and you know, I’m all about the funk. But now they’re doing a little bit of everything. Tommy asked me though “Do you want to sing?” and I said, “What you do wanna play?” He asked me, “What do you wanna play?” and I just said, “Play something funky.” And the lyrics would come to me. We did it and then Tommy said, “I’d like to record you.”

And I didn’t see him for about two years until he moved to Brooklyn and called me. He said “Charles, I live here in Brooklyn now.” So he called me and gave me his address, and I came over there. At that time I was going through a crisis because I had just lost my brother, and he said, “Charles, I think you should to put that in front of music, what happened to your brother.” I told him I didn’t know if I could sing it because I would get too emotional. So he got a little tape recorder just like you have and then we went in to a room with a keyboard, organ and piano. I started talking, singing a little bit, more talking.

Then he came back, got the rest of the guys, and started putting music to it. I didn’t hear it. About two months later, he called me down to the studio and played it for me and I couldn’t stand it. I had to get out of there fast. I couldn’t take the pain. I had to get up and walk out of there. They gave me a copy of it though. I gave it to my mom, and she listed to it and she started crying. She knew what it was.

AF: What song was that?

CB: “Heartaches and Pain.” And I just said “My God.” From then on, Tommy kept calling me and we started to do other things. We did songs that Tommy had taped and he had lost them. And one day we were going through some changes and he grabbed a reel-to-reel and found one of the songs we did, and that was “Lovin You, Baby.” He said, “Wow, I didn’t know we did this. We’ve got our tenth song.” So then it went to Gabe and they taped it and put it on a CD, and everything else is history.

AF: That’s a pretty interesting process. How did most of the songs take form then? Would they play a melody for you to write lyrics to?

CB: Yeah, some of the songs Tommy had instrumentals for and he asked me to put the words to them. And when I listen to something like that and hear it and like it, the lyrics just come right to me. So that’s how we did a lot of it, but he just had the music that fit my soul, and when something fits my soul, it’s not hard for it to come out. It just starts coming out. So what they had to do was just tape me while I was singing it and then we’d go back and correct the wording or whatever, because most of the time it was just coming to me raw. And then we’d listen to it again and make a better quality version of it.

Even before you came in for the interview though, I was just laying on that couch right there and lyrics were just flying through my mind. Sometimes I’m in a quiet mode and I may hear some music that hits my soul, and the lyrics come right to me. And that’s why they keep telling me to get a tape recorder and keep a trail of that, because when I get in a certain mood and start singing things to myself, I say “Wow, I should’ve wrote that down.” You never know when it’s going to happen.

AF: You talk about your background on the album a little bit. You’re from Gainesville, but moved to Brooklyn as a child and then you lived in San Francisco for a while, where you got started as a cook. Did you have any other jobs or move anywhere else when you were younger?

CB: In my life I’ve mostly been a cook, a carpenter, then a singer. I was a cook for 35 years.

AF: So you were doing that for 20 or 30 years right? I mean, did you have any idea in the back of your mind that this could all happen one day?

CB: When I wasn’t cooking, I was doing music. And when I didn’t have music, I was a carpenter. They always said Jesus was a carpenter, and that’s why I liked being a carpenter. I knew I could stay in a peaceful atmosphere as long as I stayed in that world. So those were the three things I really liked to do throughout my life.

AF: I’ve read in several places that you were really inspired by seeing James Brown at the Apollo as a child. What was it about the show that really appealed to you? Was there anything in particular you remember?

CB: I saw myself in it. Exactly. It’s a lot of things that I want to do now, I just have to find a way to get it out of me. It’s just like going to the store somewhere and buying something on impulse. There was just something that jumped out at me. It’s just with music, when I hear something that hits my soul I want to react on that, and that’s what happened when I saw James Brown.

AF: Obviously that was the golden era of soul and funk music. Who else really inspired you from that time? How do you feel about people like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett?

CB: I love Otis Redding. Wilson Pickett I’m not too crazy about. Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Tyrone Davis, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Barbara Streisand. Those were my people coming up.

AF: So this tour you’re on now. Is this the first time you’re performing all of these songs live?

CB: No, I went to Europe. The first tour was in Australia. Over in Europe, they showed me love unconditionally. They really loved me and it’s so beautiful over there. We’re going back this summer in June.

AF: So with these tours you’ve been on recently, what’s been the biggest adjustment you’ve had to make from your old live show in New York?

CB: To stay myself and keep seeking, and just waiting for my whole self to come through.

AF: So I take it that means you’re much more confident on stage now?

CB: You know what I say about the stage light? That’s home. When I’m on stage I’m home. It’s just that when I get out there I want to give, and I want to give it from my heart.

AF: Well it sounds like you’re in a pretty good creative space then. You mentioned coming up with lyrics just sort of on the fly now. Are you also writing songs for a follow up?

CB: Yes, definitely. We already started on tour. We haven’t given a name for it yet. We started about a week and a half ago though.

AF: How long did the first album take to record in total?

CB: About three of four years because we weren’t that motivated to get deep in to it. It was only a friend thing. But then we started playing it for other people and other people started to listen and we got that feedback to it, then we got serious.

AF: Do you think your mother’s response that you mentioned had the biggest impact?

CB: Exactly, and like everybody’s telling me now about “Why Is It So Hard?” I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from that too. All that I’ll say is that music has always been in my life. I always liked music first, but one thing I thing I loved to do that I haven’t done in a long time is oil painting. I used to do oil painting and paint seascapes. I’ve got a painting in my house of one I made in Seattle, Washington. I refuse to get rid of it.

AF: I don’t want this to sound condescending but as many years as you spent as a cook and doing carpentry, do you ever get the sense that you’re trying to make up for lost time or do you regret that at all?

CB: It hurts. It hurts deeply because I feel that I’ve been seeking for an opportunity all my life. I’ve been on my own since I was 14 years old, had no one to give me no guidance, and held my faith in nothing. And I’ve been seeking humbly, not corrupted. I always seek with my heart, and it just seems like, I’m 62 years old and I’ve just begun to find a new way to look at myself.

If I would have had that opportunity a long time ago, I wouldn’t have been in a place I wanted to be at, and now at this age you just kind of say “How long can I hold on? How much more can I give?” because you never know what the body is gonna do. All you do is try to take care of it and do the right thing to keep your health and strength up to where you can give.

But when I look back it makes me angry because I’ve been begging and crying to the world for a long time and now, well my mom says “Don’t question it. It’s God’s way of doing things.” So what can I say? Just keep on going with what I got and kick in my love. When I look back, it’s nothing but hell so I just keep on moving forward.

AF: So what would you say then to any young musician or artist out there who is on the fence about pursuing it full time or as a career?

CB: If you know in your heart that you’re doing something right then keep going, but if you know you’re giving something corrupt to this world that’s going to make it worse than it is, then stop and find yourself because the music world is a treacherous world. You’ve got to know what you’re doing. If you’re not giving the right way from your soul, back off of it because it will eat you up alive.

AF: One last question, the style of music that you do, soul and funk, obviously doesn’t bring out the biggest crowds these days but it certainly brings out some of the most dedicated fans. After touring places like Australia and Europe, do you think technology has made forms of music like this available to more people?

CB: One thing I’ll say about good music is that it’s always compressed. Garbage music ends up making up to the mainstream. I think it’s time that the world really soul-search itself and look at who is real. All you hear about in music now is sex. That’s something we already know about. I think we need to downgrade on that and put more positive things in the music to make your kids and their kids better people. That’s what I see because people always ask about my background. “You’re not married? You don’t have any kids?” No, because if I don’t reach my destination in life, I’m not bringing any kids in to this world. What I see is not pleasing to my eyes so I just keep on staying humble spiritually and keep seeking. I may not be able to reach it but one thing I can say is that I was true to my body and soul.

Download:
MP3: Charles Bradley-”No Time For Dreaming”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces

Photo by Josh Bis

As much as the bulk of his work with Shabazz Palaces properly captures the discord of living in 21st Century America, in conversation, Ishmael Butler sounds remarkably at ease with himself and his place in the world. After a career that has had tall peaks (the well-noted Grammy nomination for Digable Planets’ “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”) and low valleys (the underwhelming reaction to the undeniably great “Blowout Comb”), the Seattle-born-and-based (interrupted by a stint in New York) Butler– at age 42– is now making some of the most singular, innovative music of his entire career. I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Butler about a wide variety of things, including his time with Digable Planets, his relationship with Seattle indie giant Sub Pop, and how his music is more subconscious than it is “conscious”. — Douglas Martin

The thing people notice first about Shabazz Palaces is the discord happening in the music, along with the politically charged lyrics. It sort of reminds me of the time around the WTO Riots, and how weird and unsettling the area was around that time. Were you here for that?

Nah. I was in New York.

How did that make you feel, watching what was going on here from New York?

I was in awe, but I also had a very cellular connection with the regional mentality and that kind of spirit, too. It’s vague, my memories from those times, but that’s kind of where I can remember thinking, of or feeling, when I saw that stuff coming across the television screen.

You were like out in New York when you were doing Digable Planets and Cherrywine, right?

Well, Cherrywine was recorded here.

When did you move back here from New York?

I think it was like… ‘95 or something like that. ‘96, maybe. I don’t remember the year right now, but it was around there.

Continuing with the subject of Seattle, Shabazz Palaces signed a deal with Sub Pop, which is the most legendary label around here. I was wondering if there were any other labels you guys were interested in, or what specifically did Sub Pop offer that no one else did?

With us, it’s not necessarily the things that are located in contracts that we look for in terms of partnering up. The feeling that they gave off from the people and the way that they approached the business of selling music, that made it a place where we felt comfortable– and beyond that, excited, and then beyond that even, honored to be down with them. It was just a very natural friendship– almost like a family-type feeling that, when we got up around it and close to it, cats were like, “Yeah, that’s fresh.” As you can imagine, for them to be not to be just a legendary Seattle label, but just a legendary label in general. Because of the way they approached doing their thing, it’s unique and it’s really, really good. I mean, the deal’s good and everything, but they treat the artists good. And I think that’s why they’ve been able to operate at such a dope level for a long time, and I feel like they’ll probably will be around even longer, like double that.

The thing I’ve noticed from interacting with their label people is that they’re really enthusiastic. So it’s really cool to have a label that knows their shit along with being fans. It’s something they do that I feel not a lot of other labels do.

True, very true.
Let’s go back a little bit. I’m interested in knowing how, when Blowout Comb came out– I feel like, and a lot of other people feel the same way, that record was a classic. And the way it was received was really lackluster. I was wondering how you felt during that time, if you were frustrated with producing such a great work and people not really responding to it, or just how you were feeling emotionally in general.

I don’t really remember, but I wasn’t frustrated, though. I think that a lot of people feel– especially people that like something– feel that, “Man, I think that it should have been more heralded or have had a little bit more notoriety.” However, for me at the time, it‘s like– it’s still a privilege and an honor and a great deal of excitement just to be able to put out a record. So for all that didn’t happen– we weren’t really approaching the music business like that. We were more interested in and excited about what was happening. The album didn’t sell a lot and all that, but we were still able to go on tour and do a lot of things that a lot of people wish they could do. I’ve always looked at it as a good time; I didn’t have any regrets about it or feel like or anything had been lost, or the ball had been dropped or anything like that. I was pretty straight at the time, and still am.

How did that– and then what you were doing with Cherrywine– how did the experience of being in the music business the way you were factor into Shabazz, if they factored at all?

It’s kinda like working out, or practicing a guitar. When you do your reps, you gain muscle. When you go to then do something where you’re exerting physical energy and power from doing your reps, you now have a little bit of added power. It’s hard to really pinpoint how, but I know that going through those things and doing all those things factor into it. I’m not a very cerebral musician or music maker; it’s all instinct with me. So, I think a lot of those things kinda just sink into me. I don’t think about them in specific ways, and then they manifest themselves in the music project that I’m involved with in, and then it’s in the sound. I think it’s something more cellular, moreso than something I can just be like, “Okay, it was this, this, and that,” and “this resulted in this, and that’s why that happened.” Some cats can kind of chronicle shit like that, but I’m not one of those cats.

What does the name Shabazz Palaces mean to you? What is your connection to the lost tribe of Shabazz?

The actual link is not necessarily the exact references to where we’re coming from. The word to me means a lot. Of course I know some of the things that’s going to come to mind immediately when people think of the word, and then there’s stuff that’s going to come to mind when people dig into the word when it comes to doing research. I’m well aware of all that. In terms of being specific about it, it’s not really like that. It’s more of an impressionistic kind of thing more than “this means that”. It’s not to dodge the question, but that’s actually the way that I feel about it.

Let’s talk about your songwriting. There are so many elements to what Shabazz Palaces does. Like, tons of different suites or movements– as a music theory nerd would call it– in the same song. Is there a specific point where you know a song is done, or is it an instinctual feeling?

It’s never really done, you know? Your instinct tells you when you’re out of it. Because it’s all coming from a place outside of yourself, and then being processed by you. And then your energies and shit go into it, and then there it is. And you can keep going on and on, but you can’t put yourself in it, because then you kinda betray the inspiration. It’s more like trying to figure out when to let go of it and leave it alone. And then over the years, you learn different styles of doing that, different ways of doing that. Maybe some people get more loquacious, some people get more concise. It’s really hard to tell. I also like to leave an aspect of open-endedness, but you can couple that with completion too, if you believe in what your instinct has put down. Plus, when you fuck with cats in a collaborative way, it’s like a cycle in which, over repeated listens, can generate new emotions. In the end, it’s cool if you can create a living thing rather than just something that has a beginning and an end.

In addition to the elements that come with your songs, Shabazz explores a wide array of styles, like hip-hop, jazz, IDM and world music. And I see you at a lot of the shows I go to; I remember us meeting at a Toro y Moi show, for instance. What do you take away from all of these different styles of music, not just in your art, but in your life in general?

I think the essence of inspiration is to be up close and next to someone giving so much of themselves, and also showing how they operate in collaboration. Being able to absorb that is empowering. It’s hard to say– like I said, I’m not really that dude that can come away from something, being able to recognize exactly what‘s happened to me. But I do know that something is happening to me, and that if I am brave enough to believe in the idea that it occurred subsequently to that and let it be, then it’ll be there to live on. I think it’s just like inspiration, motivation, beauty, and just the courage of people trying something and putting it out there, giving it to people. That kind of shit to me get my motor running in directions that are often surprising and amazing and always fulfilling.

A lot of people I know– myself obviously included– are banging Black Up right now. I was wondering, what are YOU listening to? What is getting you going, as far as music goes?

You know, I get asked that a lot. I always feel bad about my answer, but nowadays, because of access to so many different mixtapes in the form of podcasts and shit like that, I’m always looking for a song that I haven’t heard before that I like. So I be listening to hella longform mixtapes in the form of podcasts. I don’t always know who’s behind the some of the shit that catches my ear. I’m not really trippin’ off the names or the story behind who’s making stuff, too. As long as I like the song, I kind of just keep it at that. I like this group called Weekend, I think they’re out of Frisco. That is a record I’ve been listening to a lot.

Oh man, I love that record.

Yeah? You got that record? Shit is hard, right?

Yeah! That’s my shit right now! It’s such a ferocious record.

Check this out. So, we did SXSW, right? We were going on at three at the Pitchfork stage. And we get to the spot, and the cat’s like, “You guys are going on after these dudes.” So, we’re just chillin’ waiting to soundcheck and shit. Then, I look at the thing, and it said that Weekend is performing right before us, dude! I’m like WHAT? I got to see them cats, dude! Them cats was bad, man!

I also like that song “Racks” by Young Chris. It sounds like some East African shit to me, the way they be bumping that beat on that one, and how way they be rapping. I listen to a lot of old jazz shit, too. On some Seattle shit, I like THEESatisfaction’s shit. Fleet Foxes, their new album is pretty hard, too. I didn’t know niggas was singing like that, dude [laughs]! Them cats be really getting they croon on, man! For real, man! I just went to their show last night; them cats is hard, man. For real.

Do you enjoy playing live?

Oh yeah.

What does it do for you, as far as your mental state?

It’s hard to say. It’s very out-of-body. After a show, I won’t remember any activity, any action that went on, because I’m feeling like I’m in a different realm. It’s very invigorating and humbling, but not in a clichéd sense of the word. Just becoming in touch with how mystical being a human being really is. And connecting in that kinetic kind of way is a brilliance of feeling that is just rare, like the downside of a rollercoaster. You’re just flying freely, man. It’s hard to say. It’s something that I naturally peruse, because I’ve been doing it for a long time, now. I never really analyze what it is that makes me go there, but I believe in it.

Black Up got pushed back almost a month. Was that your doing? Was that you and the label talking and trying to figure out the promotional thing, or do you not get into that sort of thing, as far as promoting the record goes?

Sub Pop, the reason they’re so excited, is because I really believe they sign groups that excite them. Not just the music, but the people and the type of vision they have. They always want to know, “Hey, this is what we’re thinking, what type of shit are y’all thinking?” The record just got pushed back for manufacturing reasons, because the paper we’re using has 24K gold specks in it, and when it was being delivered, it got damaged, and it takes a certain amount of time to reproduce it. It didn’t have to do with anything other than the manufacturing thing. It is what it is. The reason that it happened is reason enough. It was disappointing, but not too much. After you learn what the truth is about things, then it is what it is.

Download:
MP3: Shabazz Palaces – “An Echo From the Hosts that Profess Infinitum“
MP3: Shabazz Palaces- “Barksdale Corners” on palaceer pusher beat circa now”

Question in the form of an Answer: Elijah (Butterz)

Butterz is the label. While Night Slugs and Hessle grab more headlines in the EDM world, London’s top new Grime imprint is busy connecting the streets to international bass massive by breaking barriers and going places others won’t. Following an outstanding first quarter that saw the release of two top rated singles in Royal-T’s “Orangeade” and Swindle’s “Trending Topic,” co-founders Elijah and Skilliam announced “Phase 2” of their master plan to “fix all the problems in Grime” one release at a time. Having become an avid follower of their weekly sessions on Rinse FM, I jumped at the chance to interview label head Elijah and pick his brain about the Grime scene, the future of Butterz and the importance of “Big Tunes.” Combined with January’s Terror Danjah chat, I think this now makes me the world’s pre-eminent French Canadian Grime interviewer. – Sach O

What exactly is phase 2?

Phase 2 to say the obvious is doing vocals. It’s taking the music to the next step. You’ll be able to notice the difference hopefully between our first nine releases to the next nine. It might not become apparent right now with only the first two new releases (The “Mood Swings V.I.P” and “Boo Yoo” with P-Money) but hopefully, judging our first nine releases and our next nine, you’ll be able to see a clear difference in what we’re trying to do. Without being too specific because plans change all the time, that’s just the way it’s going to be and I don’t want anyone to compare #15 to #3…that would be a fail to me. We’re not trying to just continue what we’re doing.

Why now? What made you decide to take this step at this moment?

I think we all got to point where we proved Terror Danjah’s a good producer, we proved Swindle can make those kinds of tunes and I don’t think we need more of those. Doing something different would be more exciting than continuing with it. With beats, you can get that from so many different places, I’ve noticed thousands of labels popping up every other day and I want to do stuff that they can’t do. They can’t put together records with P-Money and Trim. They won’t do 8 minute long grimy songs. It’s just not in their realm. Nah’ mean

Have you felt some changes in the perception of Instrumental Grime since you guys started the label? I remember reading about you guys in late 09 and I got the sense that you were sort of “odd ducks” in the game but these days it’s pretty much impossible to have a conversation about the DJ-side of Grime without mentioning Butterz.

That’s another reason. We deliberately pigeon holed ourselves then but we have an opportunity where everyone’s eyes are on us now to open up and show people what Grime can be and what’s going on. Because if they’re only looking at what we’re doing, that’s only 5% of what’s going on, there’s hundreds of other creative people and minds that haven’t come together yet that I’m looking forward to putting together. I feel that we could be showing a much wider spectrum than what we already are.

In the past, have emcees even been a concern when releasing instrumentals? Because I could never get my head around how someone could rap on a Mr. Mitch track, I’ve always considered it something that stands on its own.

I think with the right emcee it does work. We gave Trim Starkey’s “11th Hour” beat and it didn’t sound wrong. We just gave P-Money “Oo Aa Ee” and it sounds right. It’s not that people can’t fit on the tunes, it’s just that you don’t hear it because no one’s been able to do it so far. When we put the right people on the music, and not just emcees but singers, it works. This is what Phase 2’s about mainly: taking it out of being DJ-only music. The Grime we’ve done so far, it’s a bit limiting for the general public and the general public is looking at it like “there’s nothing for me here, why should I be looking at this? It’s just beats and stuff.” And they think that’s all we can do but look at Skilliam playing bass on the “Mood Swings VIP” in that Youtube video…they don’t realize we can do things like that in-house without even going to a million pound studio.

P-Money and Blacks are some of the few emcees you’ve associated yourselves with in the past. Are you looking to work with other vocalists in the future or is it more about keeping it in camp?

I don’t really have a camp. I just reach out to people I like. Say Trim, he does his own thing and we speak once every couple of weeks when something comes into my inbox. I’ve only met him 3-4 times, we’re not hanging out or anything. We’re literally music buddies, same with P-Money we see each other at shows. I just rate them and anyone I come across that I rate, I’ll just reach out to them and say: “hi, what’s up”. Last year we were playing Clap Trap by Joe on Hessle Audio and that’s the only thing of theirs I played even though I like most of their records but we just reached out to them because we liked the tune.

It seems that in the UK, the minute anyone does anything remotely different they want to find a new name for it but you guys have been 100% dedicated to Grime and the Grime scene. Why the dedication to the word?

It’s because we grew up with it. To us, listening to Grime is like watching Football. It’s part of your culture, part of your daily, you turn on your radio, turn on the pirates, talk about it when you go to school and you kind of just get on with it. It’s only when I got out of London and went to University that I realized most other people in the UK didn’t listen to it. I was in my little bubble in east London listening to tunes, going to raves and that was normal life. Now, 5-6 years later, being a DJ and people around the world looking at it like a big thing is…whoa. If I knew at that time the impact it was having on different people around the world, maybe I’d have approached things differently. Started Djing earlier!

It’s weird, when you talk about Dubstep and Post-Dubstep and Future Garage. When I come out of my house I can ask a person more or less my age what Grime is but with all the other stuff they won’t know what it is. That’s how it’s embedded in our culture here. The other stuff is mainly an Internet or raving thing with certain type of people.

Which I guess is part of the challenge in getting the music out here where people have a very clear (if narrow) definition of Dubstep but don’t always fully understand Grime as something more than UK rap. How do you balance keeping that London-centric vibe while still reaching out internationally with material that just hits people musically like Mood Swings?

I think it’s a balance of both. People think I want to be a part of the electronic music world next to Hyperdub and Hessle and cool, I can do that half but I can also do that half where I’m in the streets and someone knows “Boo Yoo.” I can be at a bus stop and hear someone playing it off their phone. I don’t think we have to go over to the music eccentrics to get across to people. I want to do both even if no one’s really done that from my scene.

That’s definitely what got me interested in the music, coming from more of a Hip-Hop background, seeing the way it bridged that gap between the electronic side of things and the hardcore, urban side. Have you guys been feeling more attention from either side recently? It seems to me that when Grime was really starting to pop off in 02-04, it didn’t register an impact out here at all. These days there seems to be a lot more eyes on the UK bass scene but Grime still has that “by London for London” stigma attached to it, for better or worse – even when the producers aren’t from London!

Dubstep just changed everything because it opened doors. In that way, we’re going through the Dubstep circuit and I don’t think that’s a problem. People think I want Grime raves everywhere but I just want Grime represented in these places like how you saw Terror Danjah at Igloofest. I’d rather that than putting on a night and there’s 50 people who know what’s going on. I’d rather slowly seep things into people’s heads rather than make it a cult that’s cordoned off from everything else. I play stuff next to things deliberately to make sure you see it in the same context. I’ll give Ben UFO one of TRC’s tunes and he’ll play it next to Ramadanman’s tune and we’ll play it next to theirs and it just shows that it doesn’t matter what that context is.

It makes one wonder where the real difference is between guys like Hessle and yourselves.

They weren’t in London at the time when it was going on. Apart from a few DJs on Rinse they weren’t living here. Bok Bok was about, Oneman was I guess but a lot of DJs migrated to London to do music so they might have been introduced to Grime through Dubstep or they were listening to Drum & Bass or Hip-Hop. I’ve met a lot of people from that kind of background and they were listening to UK Hip-Hop or independent Hip-Hop from America and they were looking for something else and Grime is that happy medium between electronica and rap.

On the other side of things, Butterz has been great for DJs by releasing material on Juno and Boomkat instead of just iTunes. Let me tell you: it’s still pretty hard to find some of this stuff outside of London. It seems that you guys make a major effort to expand your distribution past the standard Grime channels to reach other listeners. Has it paid off?

I’ve never had any other sort of distribution and that was the way I wanted to do it from the start. I don’t know any other way to do it and I wanted the music to be in those places and if it wasn’t going to be there I wouldn’t have done it in the first place. With Grime, it’s not a label-based music. Artists put out their own songs, a lot of them produce as well, they’ll press the CD themselves and they’ll take it to a distributor. That’s a rare thing in music. Some of the CDs were made by a couple of people. JME will sit down, make the beats, do the artwork, half-direct the video and he’s got his own distribution deal.

That’s the side we don’t see here. For us, it’s really either the beat-music side of things or mainstream pop. Does it get difficult to explain to people the difference (or similarity) between what you guys do and Chipmunk or Tinie Tempah?

We’re all from the same place. Tinie Tempah worked with Terror Danjah, they used to be in the same kind of crew and everything. Chipmunk and Swindle have worked on tracks together. Everyone’s close knit even if they’ve taken the music in a different direction so the fans don’t see it the same as us. Because the artists and producers are closer, they’re the ones trying to hold it together. Obviously we don’t play any Tinie Tempah music, he’s on Television, he’s a pop star and everyone knows who he is: cool. But, at the same time those guys still want some sort of relation to the street so they still work with younger artists and producers to keep their names relevant.

Interestingly enough though, that’s another aspect that can get lost in translation for us because if you ask a random person on the street here about Tinie Tempah, you’ll get a blank stare because that niche is already filled by say, Lupe Fiasco or someone else in US Hip-Hop. But I promise you that if you play Tempa T’s “Next Hype” at a rave, people will go nuts. People seem almost more attracted to a tune like that because it’s so unique and different from the mainstream.

With “Next Hype” though, that’s a phenomenon. There ain’t another tune like that. Even here, you could be in a rave and people don’t really know what you’re playing but you play “Next Hype” and it’s the same. Half the time I play out in the UK people know what’s going on and the other half they’ll only know “Street Fighter” and “Next Hype” and “Slang like This.” And there’s no reason we can’t put records like those out because those records did a lot for those artists. And generally, they’re not pushed well. I think they could have done so much better with people actually purchasing them.

I’m interested in hearing any records that reach for the same level as the stuff you just mentioned. It’s great to hear P-Money again on Boo Yoo, it’s been a while since I heard something new from him.

And everyone was saying tha he done Dusbtep singles last year so the fact that we came out with something that’s totally not *makes brostep chainsaw sound*… people were pleasantly surprised that he was paying homage to a Garage style of emceeing that you don’t really hear anymore and you don’t usually hear him do.

You guys have put out a couple of tunes on that tip, there were definitely some Royal T tunes that had that vibe but what I like is that those tunes are harder than a lot of Garage that’s being put out today. Without dissing anyone, a lot of the Garage I hear today is like ambient garage…and it doesn’t have that energy to it.

I totally agree. It’s polite. If you play it in a club, people will dance because they paid to get in but they’re not really vibing. When Royal-T does a really hyper set, I just see people going mad for it and that excites me more than the polite stuff. But everyone’s allowed their preferences.

Alternative designations aside, the artists you guys have backed have some very distinct sounds. How do you guys go about selecting releases? I can imagine S-X selling beats to Young Jeezy or Rick Ross without changing much anything whereas Royal-T is VERY UK.

S-X, He’s working in America. It’ll be big this year, he’s done a lot of work with different people. Look out for that. It’s funny, a lot of people say our records are really similar but I sit down and think…nah, they can’t be. S-X can’t do what Swindle does and vice versa and that’s the way I like it. The crossover is in them being good tunes rather than being similar.

The simple answer is that I prefer working with people other than who is necessarily making the biggest tune at the time. S-X is the perfect example: he had the biggest tune at the time in the Grime scene (Woooo Rididm) and that crossed over way outside the scene into the dance music world from being played by Ramadanman which no other Grime tune last year really was. He’s 18 and he’s working with all the big artists in the UK so it was a no brainer. Swindle is just musically talented and he was kind of with us when we got started and believed in what we were doing so he was one of the people who inspired me start in the first place. He didn’t have an outlet, him and Royal-T who were two young producers who didn’t have an outlet for their music. Swindle was ready in 2009. Royal-T, I could see he had a style, it took longer to get him out but now people are taking to it. We’ve been talking to him since late 2008 and he’s been honing his craft since then.

I definitely picked up on Royal-T in the past few months. It got to point where I was mixing 4-5 of his tunes in a set, practicing, without really thinking about it and that’s when I realized that I needed to be paying more attention.
I think the zips helped him the most, more than anyone…

I’d say so.

Especially in regards to people like you where if we’d just put out a Royal-T record randomly with good beats you might not have paid attention because you didn’t know the name. But because you’ve already seen it in the zip, anything he puts out now hopefully you’ll check it on the basis on the 6-7 good ones before it.

You get a lot of questions asking you why you put stuff out on vinyl, but how exactly do you decide what stays exclusively on vinyl like the Wooo Glut or the DJ Q remix of Woooo tune?

For vinyl, it’s been pretty straightforward. Wooo Glut is a bootleg. Ramadanman e-mailed me and asked if we wanted to put it out – why not? I didn’t think he’d be on it. Obviously someone else owns the other half the tune so we couldn’t do a digital for it. With the Q Remix of Woooo, because Woooo was a year old when we put it out, we just wanted something special for the people who wanted to buy the vinyl because that could have sold 1 copy because the tune is so old.

With TRC, I had some extra money and other records had been delayed and I was like: what producer is out there right now that doesn’t have a home but is good and you could see yourself working with and we went through so many names and then got TRC’s number and asked for 10 of his best tunes. I’d never spoken to him before. We only had 2 releases at the time, we weren’t even big and we picked Oo Aa Ee and Skipping Rope and we took a risk. We had nothing to lose. Just to save on paperwork, I didn’t even have time to do it, we just got it sorted before going on Holiday and we just put it out in the shops randomly like that. It wasn’t really a strategic move; it was a move from my heart.

Also, the vinyl thing it’s my safety net. If I don’t want to spend 700 pounds on putting out a record. Maybe it shouldn’t come out at all. It’s my kind of quality control. We can do a release a month roughly so imagine if we didn’t have that safety net in the first place. There’d be so much more music because the people I work with they produce so much as you can tell from the zips.

Signing Oo Aa Ee is paying off, now it’s leading to Phase 2 and Boo Yoo.

I’m not a believer in luck but it happened for a reason. We signed that tune in August, to be talking about that tune in April…it’s a quality tune.

What are some of the goals you guys have for the future? Is a full-length Butterz release in the cards?

Everyone’s been asking that. My answer at the moment is what we could produce, you’d expect and it would be possible but it wouldn’t be as good as I’d want it to be. We can get 15 beats from all the producers we’ve released so far and put it on CD and vinyl and digital but that’s too easy. What would motivate a purchase from me wouldn’t be 15 beats because we have the zips so we can already do that over night. Something that would make someone part with their money and think “Oh shit! This 3-minute segment alone must have taken 2 weeks…” until we’re in a position to do that, fuck it. I’m not putting out no long players man, I listen to compilations and albums of 15 beats and that’s not really that interesting to me. You could do 5 singles anyway.

So yeah, no cheap compilation! Until you hear Terror Danjah on production with Vybz Cartel and Trim on the hook! You gotta take it too far. Even the Mood Swings VIP, it’s something for a listening context.

On my end, I definitely listened to Mood Swings at home more than I played it out. Trending Topic was the one I reached for when mixing.

I think that’s a good thing. Royal-T does the clubby stuff but I don’t want someone who wants to work with us to think they have to do that. Everyone asks if Trim’s vocals on Butterz are going to be clubby? Maybe not: they don’t have to be! He can do what he wants, giving him an outlet is more important than making him fit us.
Boo Yoo in the last 24 hours has opened so many doors. People have just been sending me tracks saying “I noticed you’re releasing vocals now, we should hook up!” This record, we’ve had it since in November and people only knew it existed last Sunday!

When you’re listening to a lot of the latest electronic singles…I find there’s not even a catchy bit I’ll remember in 5 years and that’s the trap I don’t want to fall into. Just putting out technically good music, I want to put out stuff that people will remember and play 5 years down the line.

That’s the sweet spot a lot of London music reaches: in between the sophistication of electronica and the raw impact of urban music.

The people I’m working with they don’t even know (the electronic world) exists. When we all started, not that I didn’t know it existed but I didn’t know much about it myself. We’re just doing it for what we see, what’s in front of us where someone else who’s toured Australia and America and Canada, they’re making their music for a different context. We’re just making it for Rinse and to play out over here. My mindset would be different if it was aimed at all over the world.
That local aspect is so intangible. As soon as it gets too big…it changes naturally.

That’s the battle I’m facing and it’s fun to work with people who’re sitting down and making music for the love of it. When TRC made Oo Aa Ee 3 years ago, he didn’t think it would be a big tune, he just made it because he enjoyed making it. Same with S-X, he sits down in his bedroom and makes tunes like every other kid in the world. I want that feeling from all the producers who send me tunes.

Download:
MP3: Butterz -  Rinse 21/04/11
MP3: Butterz – April Zip

MP3: Butterz – March Zip
MP3: Butterz – February Zip

A Question in The Form of An Answer: Playboy Tre

Though known to most as B.O.B.’s right hand, ATLien Playboy Tre (born Clarence Montgomery) has carved out his own niche in the rap game as a thoughtful storyteller and skillful shit-talker with a trio of excellent, cohesive mixtapes. He first made an impact as a solo artist with the excellent “Goodbye America” tape in ’08, and followed it up with the even-better “Liquor Store Mascot” in ’09. In between, Tre keeps busy writing choruses for rappers like T.I. and touring with B.O.B. His most recent tape is last year’s “The Last Call, “a more meditative release which sees Tre reflecting more on his family and his childhood in Atlanta. I spoke with Tre about building a fanbase, his favourite beer and his unique sense of humor. –Aaron Matthews

When did you first decide to take rap seriously?

It was going out with my friend Aday, who was a real big influence on me. He was very very dope, just a monster. He made me want to start in that world, turn poems into rap. And that got me to where I just wanted to rap. To be around my friends and rap, whatever. But then also when I was a teenager, I came to the decision that I wanted to rap. Might sound crazy but I had a moment of clarity. I’m not a person who likes to lose…never been a sore loser but I don’t like to lose. I like accomplishing whatever it is I set out to do. That gave me some focus in life to just put certain things down that I didn’t need, that I was taking through life with me. It gave me a vehicle to express things how I wanted to.

What did you sound like when you started? The earliest stuff I’ve heard is the YBM shit.

To be honest, some of my earliest stuff, I had some female oriented rhymes! [laughs] To go along with the whole Playboy Tre thing. That’s what I thought I wanted to be as far as lyrics and my subject matter. But I’ve always enjoyed listening to songs that had meaning and concepts, that hit home, that were honest. I was attracted to listening to that, so I was attracted to making those types of songs, where I’ve been really really honest in my rhymes. People who appreciate who I am appreciated those songs. So I put Playboy Tre as a “[ladies man] rapper” down and took up Playboy Tre as Clarence Montgomery the 3rd.
How did you transition from the So So Def song to taking a solo career seriously?

I wasn’t signed to So So Def, I was just on the compilation which Lil Jon [compiled called So So Def Bass All Stars Vol.3]. I was proud to be so young and representing my city, that showed me that I could do this, make some money and showed that I was worth it, there were people who thought I was worth it. I was still part of [Atlanta rap collective ] the Attic Crew so I just started noticing that I really had a voice. When I was touring just as a solo artist, I was getting a response from them. So I realized I need to go ahead and pursue putting my stuff out as a solo artist. I think that’s how people got hip to what I was doing later because I was always part of a crew in a supporting role.

It got to the point where I was thinking, “you want to ride in the back seat the whole time?”. I’m a person who has the capacity to be behind the wheel. When I started really doing shows and letting people see who I was as an individual, I got a response. And I’ve made nothing but positive moves since then.

One thing that struck me about all your solo tapes is there’s always a clear concept or theme.

The funny thing about it, people always call them mixtapes but these are works, these are projects that I put together from scratch. There are songs with samples but there are always new beats. Only on Goodbye America did I jack two songs from other artists. It’s very important to me that they have a common theme. A lot of albums I love as a fan have one common theme. It’s something that once you hear, it captures that person, that time and where they were at then perfectly, emotionally, spiritually, whatever. The Last Call, to me, wasn’t as much complete as I wanted because there were so many things I didn’t get to put into The Last Call that people will hear on the next go-round. To give people a totally look on where I was and what was going on at that time. I wish I gave people more. When I speak about them I always call them projects. It’s more than a mixtape.

Goodbye America, the concept came after I started working on it. Liquor Store Mascot, the concept came before. When I did “Goodbye America” the song, it came to me. For Liquor Store Mascot, I did a song that never left the studio, but in one of the verses I said “I do it for the have-nots/and keep an ice-cold beer like I’m a liquor store mascot”. I sampled that line and from there I crafted the whole project. The Last Call was put together as a group of songs.

How do you approach writing a song like “Earline’s Son” versus a song like “Bet I Bust”?

When you hear the hook on “Bet I”, it’s pretty much, “I bet I bust” means “I bet I’m the shit”. You give non-fans some dope punch lines. Everybody who’s an emcee feels like they can’t be touched. If they didn’t, I don’t think they would truly be in this rapping concept. “Earline’s Son” pretty much wrote itself. I turn on the track and I knew immediately that I was something I wanted to write to. The first line was “Who am I really? I’m Earline’s son/second one cuz the first one came still born”. And it went from there. When I wrote the first verse, I decided to keep it as a common theme, so that people knew who I am. On “Bet I”, that’s Playboy Tre, Tre Boy Play, that’s him. But “Earline’s Son” that’s exactly who you see and who you listen to.

There’s a sense of honesty to “Earline’s Son” and earlier records like “He Likes Da Pain”.

There are a couple things I don’t let out to the world. Some because of how people involved felt about it. My mom said to me, “Once you get to the level you want to get to, I’m going to walk out and everybody’s going to know my business!” [laughs] She says I put her business out there all the time. It’s not really putting our business out there, I just have to write about what’s on my mind at the time. The song “He Likes Da Pain”, that’s an issue that we’ve been dealing with for years that I’m still dealing with, a very painful situation. I didn’t speak on the situation for a long time because I was afraid how that family member would feel about it. I heard the track and the track pretty much dictated where I should go, and so I did it. And it’s good that person heard the song, but I wish it had the impact I wanted, that it would have ended. All those things that were harmful to that person would have ended. But I still think it’s something that needed to be said.

What’s your writing process?

There used to be a time where I wrote with no music at all. Now I turn on the track and just start writing. Sometimes the track dictates the concept, like the song “Moving Dem Keys”. We were in the studio and the producer [Ishereal] is a very accomplished keyboard player and we were working on one track. We were taking a break, having drinks and he was just in the studio playing keyboard. I heard it and said, you know what, man? It’d be really dope if we did a song that was nothing but keys. And call it “Moving Dem Keys”. And we started cutting the track, I envisioned a certain sound for the beat and he made it. Then I sat down and wrote to it.

You have a really unique sense of humor that comes through in your records. Where does it come from?

Man, I’ve always been just a silly, joke-cracking person since I was a kid. I’ve always had what some may describe as a sick sense of humour, finding humor in the most serious or drastic situations. I don’t know if it was a defence mechanism to protect me at an early age or if it’s just how I’m built. I love laughing, I love talking shit. So a lot of stuff we do, even the skits, we’ll be sitting having a conversation. And I’ll say something and be like, “Man, that was funny. Let’s go in and make a skit”. We’ll go in and just start going back and here we are with a funny skit that leads us to a funny place in a song. I think it gives the project balance. People don’t want to hear a bunch of serious stuff all the time, I don’t care how well you do it. So you give people a chance to laugh and be light-hearted. I’m looking forward in the future to showing more people my sense of humour, even doing voiceovers or things of that nature.

I think the first time I saw your name was on B.O.B.’s mixtape with the “Locked Up” skit.

[laughs] That’s one of my favourites, man. That skit, I came up with that because [a friend] of mine was always getting arrested. And I saw him not long after he got out and I was like, “You out here grown as hell getting locked up!” And I kept saying it and thought, what if there was a dude who only wants to get locked up? I went into the studio trying to record a song and the words weren’t coming, so I’m like, let me do something to let the creativity out. I did [“Locked Up”] and everybody started laughing and I went back to doing music.

The video for that was huge too. How do viral videos keep your name out there?

Doing the videos was important. We’re in the internet age now, you may as well call it the microwave age. We’re in a time where people want to see visuals, they want to see the whole story laid out for them. I had “Earline’s Son” when I put out the project and I thought that a lot of people had heard it. But once you have the video you realize. It’s a lot easier for people to click a link, they’ll watch a video before they download a project. People who are not really your fans or who aren’t interested in finding all the new music. We put out videos and people call me like, “Man, that’s a dope song, when did you do that?” And I’m like, “that song was released on a project a few months back and thought you heard it”. And these are people I see all the time! “Aw naw man, I just heard it on the video!” The one thing I do regret is, I wish I had videos during Goodbye America and Liquor Store Mascot. I think that would have helped and made the situation bigger in certain peoples’ eyes. I think videos do make you seem more serious, more official [puts on a voice] “Oh, he’s serious, he got a quality video. He actually do his rap!” But that’s where we at now. I want to a project where I do a video for every song, that hasn’t been done in a while.

How else has building a fanbase changed with the internet? I know you tour like crazy with B.O.B. and solo.

You can build a fanbase online by posting songs, projects and videos and people will know who you are. But it’s still nothing like getting out and being physically able to touch the people. To get in front of people’s faces and have them see the way you dress, the way you talk, your mannerisms. I hate to use the word, but to see your swagger. To see what kind of person you are. To see if all the stuff you say in your music is matching up. You might think, you can read 100 blogs about yourself, it might be 50-60 pages in Google on a certain project and you might think the whole world knows who you are. And you going to do a show and nobody knows who the hell you are . And you like, “what the hell? I thought the whole world knows me!” There’s still a whole world out there. You need to get in front of them and let them know who you are. That’s still to me is the most solid way to gain a fanbase. Every time I get out and do a show by myself [versus] going out during B.O.B., I see an instant change in the amount of people that hit me up online. You’re definitely able to touch more people that way.

Do you have a favourite beer?
I used to, man! Icehouse was my favourite beer back in the day, we used to call it Plack Road because it was made at Plack Road. Nowadays I’m more of a liq-or man. The Remy, that’s my favourite all day long. And Hennessy, they fighting for that top spot in my life!

What’s next?
I’m finishing up a full fledged album called Earline’s Son. I have another project coming before that, new songs and a collection of older songs that people who heard me on “Bet I” or newer stuff might not know. To bring them up to speed. Continuing to do shows and building my brand. I will be touring this summer, coming to a city near you. Come see me, you’ll come away a Playboy Tre fan, I guarantee that.

Download:
ZIP: Playboy Tre-Goodbye America
ZIP: Playboy Tre-Liquor Store Mascot
ZIP: Playboy Tre-The Last Call

Question in the Form of an Answer: Domo Genesis

Everything you read about Domo Genesis will refer to him as Odd Future’s resident weed head. This is how it goes when you title your debut, “Rolling Papers” and arrive to interviews with eyes the color of Coke cans. He capsized his own existence in six words: smoking weed, fucking bitches, eating cereal. Not every 20-year old wants to be Nas. Thankfully. In person, Domo’s almost identical to his sonic image. Sleepy eyes, slow speech, quick wit. A fitted cap with a towel splayed underneath to soak up the smoke. Blessed with a stoner’s affability but no apathy. He is the ostensibly oblivious one, who smokes spliffs at the edge of the party but is fully cognizant of everything around him.

At one point, he smokes bowls next to the jungle gym at Pan-Pacific Park. At another, Tyler taunts him with fat cracks. “You get no bitches,” he snaps back like in “Super Market” continuing to text an American Apparel model. “To be fair, I didn’t know she was when I met her.” He vows that on the next record he won’t be a one-issue candidate and I believe him. He rides for Slick Rick, The Pharcyde and Wu-Tang, alongside Eminem, Flocka, Curren$y, and Wiz, Hates Drake.  Smokes strong weed and handles his narcotics with a grifter’s cool. Laid-back raps like a cross between Smoke DZA and Chuck Inglish. Good people.

Where did you come up with the name Domo Genesis (ed. note: this is before I realized his real name was Dominique]

I actually had a different rap name before.

What was your rap name before?

I’m not gonna say. I didn’t like that name before and changed it up drastic and I came across the word Genesis and that comes from the beginning. And for me it was a new beginning of a new me. Also Sega Genesis is my favorite game system.. that was my shit! When I first played Sonic I was like “this is amazing!”

It’s all about Joe Montana Sports Talk Football.

That game was tight. I played a ton of Batman too.

What part of LA did you grow up in?

Everyone thought I grew up in Hawthorne, but I didn’t. I grew up all around LA, in Inglewood for a while, other spots.

Where did you go to High School?

Westchester.

Is that where you met Tyler?

I had heard about him from someone who was riding his dick. Dude was like, ‘Tyler this, Tyler that.’ I was like fuck this guy at first, but he ended up being real cool.

Was he pretty well known locally in the high schools.

Yeah, A lot of people knew him locally, not like how it is now, but they knew that Tyler was doing music. It was kind of weird. He didn’t know that I did music even though I knew that he did music. He didn’t know until we had a conversation about it. This was in 11th grade in 2008. One day he needed a ride home from school, and he lived down the street. I knew a couple people who knew him, so I gave him a ride. He told me he was rapping. I spit him a verse, and that was about the time we recorded “Pigs Fly.”

Odd Future already existed at that point, yeah?

Yeah, it was already Hodgy and Left and Tyler. They started in 06, Earl started 09.

When did you start rapping?

I was writing in raps in the third grade.  I wanted to write a club banger to be the next Lil Romeo or Lil Bow Wow until I got old enough to realize how lame that was.

It seemed like for a long time there weren’t very many rappers under 21 getting deals.  When I was 12 or 13, there were groups like Illegal, Da Youngstas, Wholiganz, Young Black Teenagers, and guys like Shyheim, all getting major label deals.

I don’t know why that happened. I feel rap got a little older or the people in it grew up and there were no new faces to replace them. It’s time for a shift, it’s a good time for hip hop right now.

It feels like you guys are going to be a group that influences a lot of younger kids. And it’s a good thing because somebody needed to be the anti-Drake. I actually Tweeted once that you can’t really like Drake and Odd Future. You have to choose one.

That’s so true. There’s like no middle ground. It’s either like soft and hard core. It’s like polar opposites. I mean you can like both obviously, but it’s sort of the opposite of what we’re about. We might all have different tastes in music in OF, but we come together as one — different genres, similar sound.

Who were your favorite rappers when you were growing up?

I gotta say Kanye West. I remember when I first saw this MTV news special, where they were like, ‘rapper crashes his car and then they showed ‘Through the Wire.’ This was at a time when everyone was a thug, and I wasn’t a thug obviously, so I could totally relate to that. It helped formed me. I’d been writing some BS before that in my opinion.

What do you think it is about Odd Future that allowed you guys to be so advanced musically for your ages?

Kids of our generation are a lot mentally older than in the previous ones. We grew up faster, everything was always given to us via the Internet.

Were you always into computers?

Yeah, I was actually studying graphic design at ASU. I just wanted to do design graphics for companies and get paid for it — those guys get paid a lot. But music was where my heart was. I would’ve been cool with graphic design, but my heart was always in music. I’d be in school taking notes and I’d start writing a verse without even thinking about it.

You were out there when Rolling Papers dropped, right?

Yup, that was sort of what pushed the boiling pot over.  No one really knew me before Rolling Papers. I was that kid standing around just kicking it. I didn’t really have too many friends in High School. I wasn’t too social.

But you played football right?

I didn’t play that long. I gave it up for weed after 9th grade. I mean was kicking it with Tyler and a few other people. I had friends at Chester, but not like a crazy amount.

When you were at ASU, were people in your dorm starting to check for your music? I mean college kids read blogs.

Not at first, but then slowly, they’d be like I heard your raps, those are good. Then one day, I was walking down the dorm hall and I heard my music from one of the room, and I was like, ‘oh shit, that’s me.’ I was kind of tripping.

By the end, were people treating you differently at school?

It really wasn’t until I left when they realized it. They were like, ‘Damn he’s really doing it.’ They’d give me props though before that.

What was the final straw that made you leave school?

There were just a lot of shows that started to hit and I needed to be at them. Shit got real, and I knew that this is what I wanted to do, so I had to do it.

Were your parents cool with it?

My mom was –  that’s all I have. I mean she really wants me in school, but she’s like, ‘I can’t hold you back from your dreams. So she just let me do it. She’s been really happy about everything since.

Last time I saw you guys was before your East Coast tour and before the media hype got really really intense with TV and everything. The dynamic between you guys doesn’t seem to have changed much at all though.

We won’t change. The people around us change though. You know, there’s people who want to hang out with us now that never wanted to hang out before. Girls come back around, etc.

Yeah, the attention’s gotten pretty ridiculous. I’ve read more bad thinkpieces on you guys than any group ever in your first four months of fame.

I like to read the reviews, but it’s a love hate thing. I feel I don’t want all of that noise to get in my head. But yeah, I’ve seen some bad shit. Reporters want something to write about and they want to attack. Whatever, we’re built for it, just bring it.

What do you think personally about the people who say that it’s all for shock value?

We don’t directly aim for shock value. It’s things that we’re attracted to and laugh about. There are certain things that we find entertaining that other people might not find entertaining. We rap about them. We’re not just trying to directly shock people. People think we get on the beats and have to rap about something gruesome, or shit that’s irritating to people’s ears, just so that people will like it. That’s not what we’re aiming to do at all. We’re just being us.

Do you think it’s important to touch a nerve? It feels like rap got very safe.

It’s funny to to touch people’s nerves. People aren’t used to that and when that happens people are like “whoa.”

Download:
MP3: Domo Genesis ft. Ace Creator-”Super Market”
MP3: Mellowhype ft. Domo Genesis-”Brain”

ZIP: Domo Genesis-Rolling Papers

Question in the Form of an Answer: Erland & The Carnival

The talent on tap for Erland & the Carnival, who emerged out of the busy London indie scene in 2008, is more than a little intimidating. There’s the charismatic, angel-voiced Erland Cooper out front, while the Carnival consists of David Nock, former right-hand man to producer Youth, and Simon Tong, one time cornerstone of The Verve and more recently guitar-for-hire for both Blur and Gorillaz.

The trio were always going to produce interesting music, and so it proved with their folk-inflected, self-titled debut, released just over a year ago. But there’s a danger when you throw this sort of group together – particularly when two members are experienced producers – that you create top heavy tunes, more concerned with atmosphere and feel than actual songwriting.

Erland & the Carnival’s new album, Nightingale, turns out to be just such a listen. This is an immaculate record – you won’t find a better produced slice of rock all year – but it’s not always an engaging one. The band have layered so many ideas on each track that the actual songs are often in danger of going missing completely. Still it eventually rewards patience, tunes like “Map Of An Englishman” and the spooky title track growing slowly out of the gloom. Elsewhere, the swing-dancing “This Night” is an electrifying candidate for a single.

I managed to catch the imperturbable Tong while he was recently on tour in Australia with Gorillaz. His quiet, northern timbre couldn’t disguise the idea that Erland & the Carnival are just getting started, and he was happy to chat at length about updating the band’s sound, pretending to be a commuter, and recording Nightingale in the bowels of an ancient battleship. Originally part of an article in Scene Magazine, the full interview is presented below – Matt Shea

You’re currently in Australia on tour with Gorillaz. How’s it’s all been going?

It’s been really good, yeah. Really nice audiences. It’s a shame the weather’s been a bit crap – we’ve just been following the cloud around.

Is it a little odd, the increasing stage presence Gorillaz band has taken over the last couple of years?

Yeah, it’s something they just had to do really. How can you make these cartoon characters come to life? I don’t think the audience isn’t quite there yet – maybe it will be in 20 years.

You’re involved in a lot of projects, Simon. What was the particular inspiration behind Erland & the Carnival?

Every band I’ve ever been in I’ve been asked to join or drafted into – I was joining someone else’s project sort of thing – but this is the first time I’ve actually really started a band myself. It was me and Erland: we kinda met and got chatting and found out we had a lot of influences in common – British folk music and that sort of thing – and we just started writing with each other. Originally I was just gonna write with him – he was going to be a solo act, a singer-songwriter sort of thing, and then I thought, ‘There are so many soddin’ singer-songwriters around. Do you really want to be a singer-songwriter? Can’t we just make it a band?’ It would be much more exciting and different, and there’s so much more you can do with a band, you know? So it kinda stemmed from that, really, and we started off quite acoustically as well – quite traditional – and then we just got more electric and stranger and kinda more modern, I suppose.

Nightingale – your second album in just over a year. Are you pleased with the way it’s coming together?

Yeah. Really happy, yeah. I mean we’d kinda been writing it for about a year and recording it and demoing it and stuff, and then we did about three months in the studio, we found an old boat on the Thames and that’s kinda how we finished it off and pulled it all together. Yeah, no, we’re very happy with it. It’s always hard: we just finished it about a month ago, so you kinda need a while for the dust to settle (laughs) and take stock of what you’ve done.

You seem like busy bunch of guys – particularly yourself – how did you manage to write and record the follow-up in such a short period of time?

Yeah, I think we just didn’t stop writing. We kinda finished the first album quite a while ago – probably like 18 months ago – and it didn’t come out for a while, so we’ve just continued writing ever since then and building up the songs we kinda had. It was a continual process and it still is, I guess – we’re still writing for the next one. It’s the three of us who write in the band so there’s quite a good flow of songs – we’re not relying on just one person to come up with the songs the whole time. It’s quite good to have three people each bringing ideas and developing stuff separately: it really keeps things rolling along.

I guess that means if you’re touring with Gorillaz, for example, the other guys can take up that slack…

Yeah, but I’ve got my laptop with me and you do writing on the road. It’s the 21st century, isn’t it? (laughs) That’s how you do these things.

What do you perceive as some of the big changes between your debut and Nightingale?

I think we wanted to make it more futuristic, if possible. A lot of the reviews of the first album sort of said, ‘Oh, it’s great but it sounds like it’s come from the 60s,’ which is kinda fine because that’s a period of music that I really love. But I think there was a conscious decision to try and still take the template of the first album, which was kinda modernising the old folk songs – that was the idea of it – we’ve still kinda kept that but just tried to make the music more 21st century, really. It obviously still has elements of things from the past, but I think it’s much more, production-wise and sound-wise, a much more modern-sounding record.

You recorded the album in a ship moored at Embankment (in the centre of London) – it certainly has that claustrophobic feel to it. How did that decision come about?

Well we didn’t really want to go into another sterile recording studio. It’s actually nice to go and choose a space that’s going to affect the music, and it just happened to come up. Erland, I think, had a friend who runs some of the offices on this boat, which is like an old battleship that has been turned into an office kind of thing. But he heard about this old studio that’s in the hull and below the water level, so it’s really dark and kinda echoey, and we just went there and thought, ‘This is fantastic.’ I mean, it’s not a pleasant place to spend time – there are no luxurious sofas or table tennis tables. It’s just this place where you go and it stinks and it’s damp. So you kinda concentrate and think, ‘Okay, we’re gonna go there for a day,’ and you spend the day working because there’s nothing else to do, which is a good thing because it stops you from getting too distracted with other things and you can just completely focus on it. Being below the water level as well, you’re constantly hearing strange creaks and sounds and the water lapping, and if a boat goes past you get strange, echoey vibrations. It would definitely influence the music because we’d go home, take a track home, listen to it and think, ‘Where’s that sound we heard the other day. It’s not on the track!’ And then you’d realise that it wasn’t actually on the track in the first place, so you go back and put the sound in – you try to do it with effects or guitars or whatever and recreate what you were hearing at the time.

It must have been strange, but stranger still that such a dark, dank space was actually right in the middle of London?

Yeah, it’s fantastic. I don’t know if you know London at all but it’s quite near Blackfriars Bridge, which is near where the city is and the old law courts, so we’d kinda go to work in the morning and you’re almost commuting. You go into the studio with all the commuters and the suits and whatever, then you end up going down into this dank little studio, imbibing certain drugs and just kinda seeing what happens. You pop your head up in the middle of the day, maybe go for some lunch – have lunch with all the commuters as well – it’s quite surreal (laughs).

Both you and (the band’s drummer) David Nock have experience working behind the boards for other bands – does that change things with the way you approach recording?

Well, I think if you work with different people you see how different people work. You take on those experiences and ideas I suppose, so yeah it just gives you more of a breadth with what you can do when you’re in the studio or when you developing a song. If you get stuck you have so much to draw on, which is great – it really helps to record and produce the album so quickly, because me and David have quite a lot of production history to fall back on. Having said that, Erland doesn’t have any experience at these sorts of things other than being stuck in his bedroom, but he’ll bring stuff that he’s recorded at home and me and David will be blown away: ‘Fucken’ hell, how have you done this?’ He’s catching up very fast and I’m sure he’ll overtake us by the time the next album swings by.

You’ve got the album in the bag. What’s the reason for waiting until March for the release?

I think it’s really because the last one only came out in the UK in February or January [of 2010] and we only got a label in America about six months ago or something and they released an EP of the first album so they didn’t want to release anything too close to that. It’s really just a way to get everything to link together and not be released at the same time. That’s a record company decision, really.

Is that a fidgety experience, waiting so long for music to be released?

I think every band and musician has that. You do something and if you’re lucky it’s released within six months, but often you have to wait a year or something like that. I think that’s why a lot of bands get frustrated, because they record an album and have already slightly moved on by the time it’s released. It’s a little easier these days because you can release stuff online a lot quicker. It is getting better, I think – the time lapse is definitely shorter.

Of the UK albums I’ve listened to in the past year or so, the releases of both yourselves and The Phantom Band stick out for referring quite pointedly to traditional British folk music. Is there a bit of a movement happening there?

Yeah, I think there has for a few years, actually. It’s just kinda comes in waves. I mean, obviously there’s that rediscovery of it as well with bands like Pentangle and stuff like that. But even in America, that last Midlake album sounded incredibly like English folk. I think it’s a bit of an undiscovered musical form that people are picking up on a bit more. But yeah, I couldn’t even really begin to define what folk music is. It’s just such a rich stream of something to draw from when you’re making music. I mean, we tend to take old song lyrics and put our own melodies over the top of it rather than taking traditional melodies – we just take the traditional lyrics and form our own music behind it, which even going back two or the hundred years, folk singers would do that: they’d actually take a poem or a song that had been passed down but actually put their own melody on it. So to us, even though we’re making it sound futuristic and it doesn’t sound musically so much like folk music, it’s still within the tradition of doing that – of taking something that’s very, very old and making it new again – putting your own stamp on it.

What are the plans for 2011?

I think Erland & the Carnival are off to America, around Europe and then hopefully Australia, but that might end up being the year after I think. Yeah, that’s about it really, and then we’ll start working on number three at some point.

Download:
MP3: Erland & The Carnival-”Nightingale”
MP3: Erland & The Carnival-”Trouble In Mind”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Egyptrixx

Releasing a successful album can be a double-edged sword, especially for new artists or someone that’s never been in the spotlight. Touring and publicity can become a poisonous combination for those lacking a relatively well-adjusted background, and for some they may just feel like an unnecessary bore. Luckily, Egyptrixx (real name David Psutka), has found a nice middle ground for himself and continues on a ceaseless touring schedule as his first full-length “Bible Eyes” captures fans across a broad spectrum of musical backgrounds. Even blurrier and more confusing though, is the line between producer and DJ that has been slowly eroding over the past few years.

Egyptrixx prefers to align himself with the former, and consequently, he’s finding himself building on to a genre that artists like Flying Lotus, Gold Panda and Caribou have helped loosely develop over the past decade, albeit adding his own dark, industrial sound to the mix. Obviously, there are less limitations as a producer, but live composition and original music also seems to suite Egyptrixx better, considering his past experience playing everything from guitar to piano in various experimental bands. I recently spoke with Egyptrixx about the making of his debut album, how he united with the Night Slugs label, and discerning producers from DJs. –Aaron Frank

AF: Well I wanted to start out by asking about some of the projects you worked on prior to Egyptrixx. Can you tell me about the type of bands you were in before you went solo?

DP: I’ve been playing in bands since I was 12 years old basically, so I’ve really played a little bit of everything. I played in metal bands, hard rock bands, experimental bands, drone bands, noise bands. I’ve done songwriting and all sorts of things really.

AF: Those all seem to have that darker, or at least an edgier sensibility.

DP: Yeah, for sure, primarily. But I also worked with an R&B singer doing songwriting when I was like 19, so it’s also pretty diverse.

AF: Did you have a particular instrument of choice in any of those bands?

DP: I’ve played basically all of the traditional and non-traditional instruments at one point or another in various bands and projects. Drums, guitar, bass, singing, whatever.

AF: That seems to be a pretty common thread among a lot of DJs I meet these days. Many of them can also play a pretty wide variety of instruments.

DP: Right, see I don’t really even really consider myself much of a DJ. That’s something I’d really only done very passively for years. And even now, I’ve just been doing live sets for the last year that really don’t resemble DJ sets whatsoever. So yeah, I didn’t really have much of a background as a DJ.

AF: Well I had read before that you never really went to raves or drum and bass parties growing up in Toronto, which I found interesting since those were both very popular there at one point.

DP: When I was younger I didn’t really go to any of those parties. I listened to a lot of Drum N Bass by the time I had turned 15 and 16, but I never really got in to it. I was in to noisier punk music or metal music. I guess when I started making techno or house or whatever a couple years ago, it was kind of inspired by a collection of records someone had given me. It was a friend who was a techno DJ in Toronto around the mid-90s, so he was really passing down his musical background to me. So I was sort of influenced by the Toronto rave scene indirectly and even though I’d never gone to any raves.

AF: So are there any particularly memorable or influential people you can think of from that period?

DP: Local DJs like Marcus Visionary was one of the biggest drum n bass DJs. There’s a hardcore guy named Paladin that was popular. There was a hardcore scene in Brooklyn in the 90s that kind of bled over in to Toronto. It evolved into acid techno and these harder techno sounds. They were short lived, but I guess I picked up on a little bit of that from my friend’s records. DJ Dominik was another big name.

AF: It always felt like Toronto’s scene was more on the techno side and didn’t really get influenced by the huge House wave as much back then.

DP: Yeah, I mean the whole Stay Up Forever Crew were huge in Toronto and that was like the hardest that techno ever really got. There was a house scene there too. Toronto’s a very diverse place so you can pick up on a little bit of everything, but the big club sounds that you were hearing were all jungle, drum n bass, and then techno was a little bit smaller. But even still, there’s a pretty classic Chicago house scene that’s still vibrant. DJ Sneak’s lived in Toronto for a long time. I guess there’s sort of a scene that coalesces around him.

AF: There’s certainly an interesting mix of influences in your background then. What were some of the things that influenced you while you were making Bible Eyes and how long did it take to complete?

DP: Well first of all, it took about four months to write the whole thing and the equipment I was using was primarily a collection of analog synths and different software. So I was using like a Roland System 100, which is like an older keyboard from the late 70s. And then a Roland JX3T, which is like a poly-synth that Roland put out in the early 80s I guess. Synths that are in not that great of shape end up creating this sort of surprise white noise and unexpected texture from the board just being kind of old and dusty. I think that actually like gave the record some character. And then I have like software patches and different things I like to use.

AF: Those sort of weird textures from the synths that you were talking about seem to be favored highly by you and some of the other Night Slugs producers. Do you guys share equipment or ideas often even though they’re overseas?

DP: Well there’s probably some sharing of ideas that happens just organically just because we pass our music around. But Alex and James are in London, I’m in Toronto and Kingdom’s in California, so we’re all kind of spread out so we rarely get to the studio together. And actually when I wrote this record, it was a very isolated process so any sort of cohesion of sound that happens, that happens naturally not deliberately. We’re not passing patches around or anything like that.

AF: So when were you working on the record and was there anything in particular that happened that made you want to put out an LP?

DP: I basically finished school about a year ago and before then Egyptrixx was just kind of a part time, weekend thing. I was just doing it for fun but things started picking up and opportunities started to come up, so I decided to commit to it a little bit and invest myself in the project and making a record.

AF: One of my favorite songs on the album, “Liberation Front”, sort of caught on as an anthem for the social media uprising and revolution in Egypt. What was your reaction to that and did you feel any particular connection to the issue?

DP: (Laughs) Well, I mean it kind of happened, didn’t it? It has nothing to do with me really. Most of the time when I write with this project anyways, the writing has all been pretty loose and accidental and any kind of symbolism in the music is accidental. I work in a pretty unconscious way with this project so any sort of meaning in any song is indirect. So with that song, that was basically just a coincidence. I thought it was really cool that people were picking up on it. Obviously, I support the plight of the Egyptian people.

AF: Well, I’ve followed you on Twitter for a while and a couple of posts I’ve noticed make you seem like sort of a politically minded person or an intellectual in that sense.

DP: I mean, I have my own personal interests but Egyptrixx is in like no way shape or form a political project. It was a viral thing for like three hours, but I enjoyed it.

AF: What would you say is the biggest difference between your live show and a DJ set?

DP: Well, from my understanding a DJ set is more like a collection of songs mixed together. It may be your songs or someone else’s songs, but there are elements of selection to it, like curating. But when I play it’s just my own music and a representation of my own sound. So I don’t really have any interest in representing anyone else’s sound, or any scene or any city or any label. It’s just my own performance and what I’ve done to create that is I’ve taken all of my music and broken it down in to pieces, stuff that I’ve released and stuff that I haven’t released. And the live performance is just like a re-sequencing and a recombining of all those pieces of the songs. Later this year I’m going to be doing some non-dance sets, some more ambient, experimental set using other songs I’ve written. But right now most of the sets I do are for the club environment, so they’re more dance-y or whatever. It’s designed to be really flexible though.

AF: So what kind of direction will you be taking with the more ambient material?

DP: Well there are a couple of songs on the album that are kind of experimental, but I’d like to be taking it more in that direction.

AF: So are you just going to be doing shows with that material or are you also planning another release for later in the year?

DP: Both, really. I’m working on some new material and that’s something I’ve always kind of wanted to do. I’ve never wanted to do a project that was exclusive to dance clubs.

AF: Does that ever become an issue with booking? Trying to differentiate yourself from traditional DJs.

DP: It can be, definitely. Especially with dance music, there’s a reluctance to take chances. For a while I’ve been trying to explain what this record was with words and it was really difficult. It’s so much easier now that people have heard it. It’s something different. It’s kind of a middle point between two different styles or sounds or whatever. But if you’re putting out music and people are in to it then you’re gonna get booked and people are going to come expecting your music. If people are in to it then they’ll want to hear it, whether it’s ambient music, or dance music or whatever.

AF: So you’d like to expand to where you can play both nightclubs and larger concert venues?

DP: Definitely. I’ve done a bunch of shows like that already and that probably represents about 30-40% of my sets. I’m also finding that the set I’m doing now tends to work better in festival settings and live music settings than in clubs. But it mostly has to do with whether or not people have heard the record.

AF: Are you playing any big festivals later this summer?

DP: I’m playing Sonar Festival in Barcelona. Strom in Norway. Share Festival in Belgrade. I just finished HARD. Lovebox in London. Abril is in Madrid.

AF: Those are some pretty big festivals. It sounds like you’re excited to get out of the nightclubs and play to these bigger crowds.

DP: Yeah, but like I said my schedule has pretty much gotten to the point where it’s 50/50 nightclubs and concert venues. And sometimes nightclub gigs are really awesome. I really enjoy the atmosphere of festivals and I feel like my music actually works well in that setting. That’s been the experience anyways. Who knows?

AF: So how did you initially link up with Bok Bok and the whole Night Slugs crew?

DP: We were just friends on the internet really. We were just friends on Myspace before any of us were releasing music. They were putting out mixtapes and writing a blog that I liked. And we just sort of got in touch and started chatting online and it grew from there.

AF: So being on the road as much as you are, who was the last artist or DJ that really you impressed you live?

DP: All the Night Slugs guys, they always smash it. I’ve seen Addison Groove a couple times. Mount Kimbie has a really great live show. Actress, I really enjoyed his live sets and DJ sets.

AF: How are you able to sustain such a busy touring schedule? I saw where you played three shows in two days for HARD this weekend.

DP: When I’m on tour, I try find good food when I can come across it and I spend a lot of time hanging out in art galleries, and that’s how I stay sane.

Download:
MP3: Egyptrixx – “Rooks Theme” (128 kbps)

Question in the Form of an Answer: Take

At the forefront of instrumental hip-hop and modern electronic music, Take has spent years helping forge a strong scene within his native Los Angeles, but also constantly evolving to avoid stasis. Before critics got misty-eyed over James Blake’s sweater set this winter, Take had already covered similar territory, manipulating and stretching his own vocals over glitchy electronic music on last spring’s “Only Mountain.”

Just last month, Alpha Pup released “Only Mountain: The Remixes,” which successfully extended the shelf life of the original and offered interested takes from Mono/Poly, Tokimonsta, Free The Robots and Falty DL. He opened up his Hollywood studio and apartment to me recently for some insight on the history of the Los Angeles “beat scene”, Low End Theory, and his own beginnings as an artist. We also discussed the future of instrumental and electronic music, as well as what form his new material will be taking when he starts his next record this year. –Aaron Frank

How did you initially get in to making music and when did your first record come out?

My first record actually came out in 1999 on K Records. I’ve always been involved in music since I was a kid though. I started playing guitar when I was eleven years old. Then in high school, I was in a bunch of little bands that played in garages and school parties and stuff. I was really into rock and roll, heavy metal and psych-rock when I was younger, then I started getting into hip-hop when I was around 17. But my friend got to DJ this huge house party when I got to college in Olympia, and I was just fascinated because I had always been trying to organize bands, which was difficult because of everyone’s scheduling and trying to incorporate everyone’s ideas equally.

So when I saw this DJ playing, I was fascinated by the fact that you could rock a show on your own like that and it really inspired me. And towards the end of the night after everyone had been drinking, I was like “Come on man. You gotta let me try this.” And it was a packed house, there were like 300-400 people, and I didn’t know shit. He just showed me the crossfader and volume, and I managed to somehow match this crazy house song he was playing with a Michael Jackson song, I think it was “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough.” Everyone went crazy though, and even though people always go crazy for Michael Jackson that was right when I caught the bug.

Of course the next record, I completely trainwrecked, but that sold me and I was at my friend’s house everyday after that learning. He’s actually no longer a DJ, but I started buying records after that and just calling him all the time asking to play his turntables. Eventually that lead to buying a lot of hip-hop records and learning to beat-match and scratch, and then we started a hip-hop night in Olympia. It was a really great time for hip-hop because we were playing stuff that no one had ever heard and I was having records shipped to me from Fat Beats NYC. And it was just such a fun party every Wednesday. It was before hip-hop had gotten really commercial, and then from there I just got my first drum machine and started making beats.

AF: Even though DJ Shadow had already gotten pretty big, instrumental hip-hop was still very much in its infancy at that time. Who were your inspirations back then?

Take: Shadow had just come out. Krush, all of the Mo Wax stuff, Wall of Sound, early Warp stuff. Ninja Tune was big then. Psycho Les, No ID, Outkast, El-P, Spinna, Jay Dee, INI. Other than that, Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, all of the second generation golden era hip-hop stuff. A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Dr. Dre.
I remember when I first got my shitty BOSS drum machine though. This was my freshman year in college, and I remember sitting with the Illmatic record and trying reproduce the beats from that on the drum machine. And I would get the patterns down, but it didn’t have that raw, grimy sound to it.

So after I got in to my second year in college and started taking audio, engineering, and MIDI courses, it all started to make sense and a friend actually told me “Those are all samples. They’re all sampled from old soul records and stuff like that.” This is when I was like 19, so after I figured that out, I just started buying all kinds of old soul records and trying to match those with the samples on the hip-hop records. And that was when I ended up making my first album on K Records.

Like you said, nobody was really buying instrumental hip-hop back then so it was basically packaged as a scratch album because those were really popular at the time. It was called “Emergency Breaks” though, and it was basically a scratch record and it had five beats on each side. That was for K Records though, and they’re a world famous indie rock label. They put out Beck’s first album and some early Nirvana. Calvin Johnson, who runs it, is basically a legend in that world. It’s a legendary punk rock, indie DIY-aesthetic type of label.

AF: So how did they find out about you and end up putting out your record?
Take: Well they would come to my hip-hop night. It was kind of a small town and Calvin and all the guys from K Records would come to that. And they were just really interested in how I was even getting the stuff that I was playing at the time. So they asked me if I produced and I told them I just started, so they were interested in putting something out and I had just gotten my sampler. And literally the record came out six months after I got my sampler. So looking back on it, the material really isn’t great but it was a great opportunity to have. Fast-forward to 10 years later, and it’s really been all about fine-tuning and growing my musical experiences and so on.

AF: Well your style has obviously changed quite a bit since then. How have you made that transition from hip-hop to electronic over the years?
Take: I always loved electronic music but my heart was always in hip-hop. So when hip-hop really started to suck, I decided I was going to try and take that hip-hop aesthetic and incorporate whatever else I loved in music. So it was sort of just a natural progression to the stuff that I was listening to at the time. I started listening to more electronic music and less hip-hop and I got tired of trying to work with MCs. I just felt like that world was kind of on it’s way down and I wanted to do something new and fresh and creative.

AF: So when you were in college, was it your initial intention to take those audio engineering courses rather than electrical or computer or something else?
Take: Yeah, I was going to school for Studio/Audio engineering. Taking audio engineering classes taught me a lot, but it also showed me that I didn’t want to be engineer. I realized that I didn’t want to sit in a studio for 15 hours a day recording bands and other people’s music. I wanted to do my own shit, not eat cold sandwiches at 4 in the morning while I’m mixing someone else’s record.

AF: So after college, the inevitable question is “How did you become involved with Low End Theory?”
Take: Well, Before Low End Theory, there was a night called Sketchbook and this was the original beat night in Los Angeles. It started off at the Room in Hollywood and then it moved to Little Temple in Silver Lake. It was Kutmah who started it, and it went on for five years. It was Kutmah, me, Eric Coleman, and this guy named Orlando. And that was the original beat night for everyone in Los Angeles. Everyone from Flying Lotus to Dibia$e, Nobody, Ras G, Prefuse 73, Dabrye, and many other people. A ton of people who were playing similar types of music at the time either performed there or just came and hung out. Madlib would come through, Peanut Butter Wolf.

That was essentially the first “Beat Scene” party. And what ended up happening was Dibia$e would bring a boombox every week to this area outside where you could smoke weed and hang out. So everyone ended up outside every week smoking weed and listening to each other’s beat CDs. Ras G was there, Nobody, Lotus, Kutmah. It was like a cipher for producers. It was a beautiful event. Everyone was so young and sort of starting out with their beats, but what ended up happening was it ended up being all for producers. Very few girls would show up and everyone would be outside smoking weed and listening to beats. So we kind of got sick of it as DJs too because towards the end, only a few people would be inside watching the actual performances. So Kutmah ended it. We weren’t making enough money and this was before Serato, so we were spending all the money we made on records, which only ended up being like 20 bucks each at the end of the night.

Then literally 4 or 5 months later, Kev, Gaslamp Killer and Nobody started Low End Theory and it was basically a natural transition. Everyone that went to Sketchbook started going to Low End Theory and it was basically just the next step in the evolution of the scene. Kev is a great businessman and a great promoter, and we were kids that didn’t really know how to do any of that. So Kev and the crew were able to do a lot more with it than we had been able to at Sketchbook. It was a similar idea musically but drastically improved with good sound and good promotion behind it. Pretty soon Low End became the go-to night to hear left field beats and underground hip-hop. I was tripping out the first time I went that the sound was so good and there were so many people there compared to what we did with Sketchbook. And then I just ended up playing there because they were all friends of ours. So that’s the history behind that. A lot of people don’t know that actually. That whole pre-Low End Theory scene was Sketchbook, and that was really where I came from.

AF: How important is the actual scene to you as an artist? To have a place where people can exchange ideas and work on each other’s projects.
Take: I think it’s essential. Just having a place where you can exchange ideas, and bullshit and talk about music. It’s like ground zero for any scene. Even when you go back to when jazz started out, they had these places like the Blue Note where people would gather and people would jam. It’s the same as in New York with the disco days when you had Studio 54 or wherever. You always knew that every Friday or every Wednesday, there were going to be some cool people there and people would show up with the latest like acetate edit of some disco jam and give it to the DJ. So I think that having a place for all of that is great. It’s good for exposure, it’s good for growth, and it’s just a good place for like-minds to meet.

AF: With that said though, how can something like that support itself and keep progressing without getting corny and burning out?
Take: To be honest, I don’t really know the answer to that and I don’t want to sound like a pessimist but every hot trend and movement eventually fades. The golden days of hip-hop in New York didn’t last. The same thing happened with disco and with drum and bass, which is kind of similar to this beat scene movement or whatever you want to call it. It slowly faded out, and a few artists were able to come out of that and do some interesting things, but as a whole it kind of stagnated and fell apart.

I think the key is to not get stuck in a formula, to always think for yourself musically. I think people definitely need to keep things moving and not be afraid to try new things and incorporate new ideas. Myself personally, I listened to so many different kinds of music. My influences are so broad and I try to incorporate them in my own productions. I feel what’s happening all over the world is that this beat scene thing is so hot and trendy that you’ve got kids all over the world trying to emulate Flying Lotus and Samiyam and there’s just so much stuff out there that sounds very formulaic and all the same. I think that’s sort of what kills any movement is when things become a formula and things become standard and you know what to expect. The most important thing as a musician, producer, DJ, and an artist, is to find your own voice.

AF: So you’re basically saying that people who try and become involved should always be bringing something new to the table to keep things progressing?
Take: People need to keep it creative and not be afraid to try new things. If you look at the people who have had success in this scene, the most exciting artists to me are the people that are always changing and recreating their sound from song to song and people who have their own voice. I would say that if you listen to the LA scene, the one thing that’s so incredible about what we have here is that most of us have our own sound. I like to think I have my own sound, Matthewdavid, Daedelus, Teebs, Ras G, Flying Lotus Samiyam, Free The Robots, and countless others from LA all have a distinguishable sound. None of us sound alike. It’s important to be individualistic and to explore your own sound, your own voice.

AF: Well your sound has obviously changed quite a bit over the years. “Only Mountain” obviously has more vocals, there’s a more melodic experimental sound. How did you get to where you’re at now and manage to expand your style so much?
Take: Well for me, I think I just get bored easily. I get bored of other music. I get bored of my own music pretty fast. And for it to stay fun I have to challenge myself and try new things and come up with new ideas. The second it turns in to a stale process is when I say “Why am I doing this?” and it just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not like I make a ton of money. So in order for it to be sustainable, it has to be fun and remain interesting. It has to make me constantly challenge myself and that makes me feel good about myself. A lot of the music that I make is just trying new things out.

And also, just since I’ve gotten older, my musical knowledge base has expanded so much. I listen to classical music a lot, jazz, indie rock, tons of weird electronic records, house, techno, hip-hop. I listen to everything. And that kind of goes with the name Take. It doesn’t mean “to take things” or “give and take”. It’s basically my “take” on things and that’s what my music has always been. It’s always just been me processing everything I see and hear and experience in life and it being processed through my filter and with my “take” on things.

AF: Who are some of your favorite artists right now?
Take: Destroyer, Deerhunter, Caribou, Dimlite, Hudson Mohawke, Blonde Redhead, Wild Nothing, Pantha Du Prince. Phantogram, Sonnymoon, Sufjan Stevens. To be honest, I don’t listen to a lot of beats when I’m at home chilling. I listen to more indie stuff. Creative stuff though, most of those people mix electronics with instruments. Atlas Sound, Panda Bear, that type of shit. Hard to list all the stuff I’m listening to but that’s what comes up off the top of my head.

AF: So with the new stuff you’re working on, it seems like there might be more of a vocal influence, especially with the melodies and how they’re composed. Do you see yourself going in more of that direction in the future as far as structuring the songs around vocals?
Take: I definitely want to use more vocals. I’m gonna be doing some singing myself. Obviously it’s going to be chopped up and processed, but I sang on the last record. I’m not the greatest singer, but I’m also looking for the right people to collaborate with on vocals. I really see myself heading that way a lot more and getting away from the formulaic beat sound. I really want to get away from that and get on to the next step in the progression. I’ve been doing beat shit since 1999 and I’ve seen the whole process of how everything’s gone from Premier to Dilla to Madlib to Flylo. I’ve been along for that whole ride and I feel like I’m trying to explore other things as well. It’s only natural I think.

AF: So you’re going to be working on your next album later this year?
Take: Yeah I’ll probably be collecting ideas while I’m on tour and then as soon as I get back, I’ll be diving head first into making this new record, which is always a challenge.

AF: That’s obviously a fun process for you though right. You make it sound sort of daunting.
Take: It is, but honestly it’s an emotional process. Because as you get more mature, as your ears get more mature, you realize how much work actually goes in to one song, to finish one song. It takes a long fuckin’ time and a lot of micro-analyzing and thinking and trying stuff out. And like I said, as you become more of an experienced listener, you take that hard critique you use for everyone else’s music, you use it on yourself too and it becomes hard. It can become really difficult.

AF: So with your next project and in the future, are there any vocalists or people that you would like to collaborate with?
Take: Yeah, there are some people I’d like to work with. I’d love to work with Sarah from Phantogram. I’d love to work with the singer of Blonde Redhead. I love the singer from Warpaint. I’d love to a track with Steve. We’ve been talking about that for a while. Me and Nosaj are gonna do a track. As far as rappers, I haven’t really thought about that in a while. I’m really in to female vocalists.

AF: So as much as the scene has grown over the years, where do you see it going in the future? Do you see people like yourself working with more rappers and singers and having more of an influence on popular music?
Take: Sure, I do actually. I think if you look at popular music they’ve always gone to the underground to get their new, latest ideas. Commercial music always stems from the underground. Timbaland’s sound is obviously influenced by some drum and bass and the same thing with southern rap. Now you’ve got people like Rusko producing for Britney Spears and Hudson Mohawke I think is en route to producing some pretty big major label rappers. Mux Mool just did a remix for Blaqstarr on Interscope. So I do see it going that way, and I don’t have any problems with people doing that because we all need to get paid. There is nothing wrong with living well off of your craft. Sometimes you have to do moneymaking gigs in order to have the financial stability that will allow you to do more non- commercial projects.

It’s not like a lot of these artists are seeing big payoffs from their albums because most of the kids download it for free anyways, so I’m definitely open to it. And I think it will trickle in to the mainstream in one form or another. And back to your question, I don’t really see where it’s going to be honest. I’m trying to figure out that question for myself while I’m working on this next album and that’s about as far in to the future as I can see with it. I just try to keep it fun, new and interesting for myself and hopefully people will still like it. I think instrumental is music is a lot more accepted than it was five years ago. A lot of people that used to put out albums with vocals on every song now have two or three instrumental songs on their albums.

AF: Can you just tell me a little bit about the selection process and how the idea came about for the Only Mountain remix album?
Take: The idea came about just because I felt like with Only Mountain, each song had so many different, interesting aspects. It was a really dense record, and I felt like opening that up for other people to interpret would be so cool because there’s so much in each song. You could potentially make three songs out of each song. So I asked Kev about it, and he thought it was a great idea. He told me to just reach out to whoever I wanted to do remixes. So I pretty much just hit up all the homies and sent stems out all over. The response was huge and I had to cut it off after a certain point. At first I had opened it up to friends of friends and producers, and there were like 60 people that wanted to get in on it. In the end we trimmed in down to like 25 that were all really good. Then the contest we did for promotion separately to get one last person. With the remix contest, there was like 150 or 160 submissions. So the turnout was phenomenal and I was actually pretty shocked. This was all in about 30 days. I listened to every single one multiple times. I just spent days playing them all.

AF: Who ended up winning the contest and what made you pick them?
Take: The Clonius, A guy from Austria. He’s really dope. What I was looking for in the winner was for someone to completely flip it from the original. Also high quality production, and a song that I would want to listen to. When I say that, I mean, one problem I have with the beat scene or whatever you want to call it is that, so much of the stuff that comes out is just beats. They’re just that, they’re not songs. And you hear them once or twice and you’re like, this is cool, but it’s not something I want to go back and wanna listen to because it’s touched me emotionally or touched me in a certain way that I’d never heard. It’s the same reason why you go back to Radiohead or certain bands, because there’s something there that captures you, and I don’t really feel a lot of that coming from the beat scene. So that’s what I really wanted to do with the remix contest was for someone to take it and give the original a whole different spin, but also make it a listenable song. The Clonious’ remix did just that for me.

AF: I think a lot of people still don’t understand that difference between beats and songs.
Take: It’s a huge difference. It’s easy to make a beat with an eight bar loop that changes in to a four bar loop and then back to an eight bar loop, but making a song that carries an emotion and vibe and puts you in a different place, it’s a whole different animal.

Download:
MP3: Nosaj Thing-”Light #1 (Take Remix)”
MP3: Take — The Brain Stays Fed

MP3: Take – “Neon Beams”
MP3: Low End Theory Podcast XIV – Take & Nobody

Question in the Form on an Answer: Robert Henke, Creator of Ableton

Robert Henke is many different things to many different people – performer, lecturer, software developer, technician. In truth, the Berlin-based artist busily juggles all four descriptions, but when he gets on the phone you can understand why he does so well in front of a bunch of university students: the man loves to chat and has a strong grasp on the English language, to the point where he stumbles to keep up with the ideas pouring out of his head. Henke is best known for his role in the rise of Ableton, but a tour to Australia provided an opportunity to pick his brains about a variety of things, from the leading part he played in the development of the now ubiquitous Live software to the Monodeck performance controller that he built and used for many years. Originally interviewed for Scene, our full chat is reproduced below. – Matt Shea

I guess the thing that you’re most often tagged with is your hand in creating Ableton Live. How did it the whole Ableton thing come about originally? You were coming at it from a musical perspective first, yeah?

The important thing to demystify is that the initial impulse to start the company came from my former Monolake collaborator, Gerhard Behles, and I just came into the game when the company decided to do some software that was more aimed towards live performance. This is where I started building ideas together with Gerhard. I’m not an official founder – that’s just a myth because at the point where the company started I decided that if I became a board member and all these things I would probably not make music anymore. My prediction became very true for Gerhard, who didn’t make any music since he started Ableton. However, I couldn’t resist when he asked me to join the company for actually creating the product. So, basically the idea for Live came out of a personal need, and this personal need was that there was software for working in the studio, there was editing software, but their were no commercial products to actually perform music, and Gerhard and me always used software for situations where something is just running and we wanted to change what’s running in real time, and therefore get some kind of conductor perspective on your own work, on our own work. This was the basic idea behind Live, to create something to interact with the computer in playful way in real time.

It’s been over ten years now. Why do you think Ableton flourished compared to its competition?

Honestly, we don’t know (laughs). What surprised us is that no competitor took up the idea we had. When we showed it at a show in 2001 – okay it was very esoteric and the other big companies came to our little booth and said, ‘Oh, you guys must be crazy. This is absurd.’ A year later, we were still in business and a lot of people really loved what we were doing, and still no competitor came up. Then we came back to the show three years later and we were extremely sure now that one of the big players would have a competitive product, and they still didn’t do anything. And I really believe that all the big players in the game completely underestimated the market of us freaks, you know? People with laptops on stage. When they realised that a lot of people liked what we were doing, it was already so mature that it would have been a big effort to catch up.

Did those companies underestimate how much digital music would come to play a part in live performance?

Definitely. Really, ten years ago they were totally focused on studio, and the idea that some blokes with their computers would go on stage really was not on their plate at all. I guess one advantage that we always had was that it’s relatively easy to create a good product if you work with it yourself, so I mean I’m using Live as we’re developing it, and tons of other people working on it are using it as well, and we’d have tons of internal conversations about details. But I also believe that those exact conversations about details make sure that the software works for a lot of people.

You play experimental electronic music, Robert. Has Ableton led to the rise of more experimental electronic music?

Well, that’s hard to judge but it certainly made it possible for a lot of people to make music that they couldn’t do without it. It played an important role as a facilitator for those people. In this regard I certainly believed that life changed for a lot of people. [It illustrated] how to make music and enabled them to make music in the first place, but I’m not sure how genre specific this is. From the public perspective it seems that Live is mainly used by club music people doing dance orientated stuff. If we look at our own statistics we can see that Live is used by a large group of people who never show up in the clubs and play club gigs. The range of users ranges from theatre people to experimental to music to bands to film scoring, whatever, and the group of actual dance music is small in comparison to the overall user base. It’s still a huge group, but it’s not the one major group that is using the software.

You’ve stepped back a little from Ableton, is that right?

Yeah, definitely, and for two reasons: first of all, the company now has over 100 people working there and there’s a lot of intelligence in the company so my input is not needed every day. The second thing is that as much as my heart belongs to Ableton, there’s another part of my heart that belongs to my music career. I will never give up talking with Gerhard about details of the software and reading company emails and thinking about that stuff, but when it comes to day-by-day business I’m very happy to step back.

Tell me about Monodeck and Monodeck 2. What was the inspiration behind that project? Do you still use it to play live?

Well, computers are fine in the studio environment, but if it comes to performing, a mouse and a screen seems to be the wrong interface, and so I tried to come up with something that feels a little bit more like hardware, and the Monodeck is pretty much a very advanced attempt at getting something like a hardware feel for Live. As a matter of fact, it worked very well for me for maybe four years, but just recently I decided that I need to abandon it. I kind of grew out of it: it became too rigid – it’s layout, its structure, it’s very much aimed at a specific purpose and my music developed further so I’m not using it anymore.

So no plans to create a Monodeck 3?

Well, I totally underestimated the work involved in creating a Monodeck 2 (laughs), so I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.

You never commercialized it, did you?

Well, the whole point of it is that it’s an individual instrument tailored to my needs, or the strangeness of my needs. In order to make a commercial product out of it I would need to get rid of the oddities, but then it wouldn’t be interesting anymore. I mean, as a matter of fact, the Akai APC40 is highly inspired by my controller, and I was even part of the decision team at the beginning, but at some point I just found that dealing with Akai was not my cup of tea. What happens if you water down a strange, slightly odd concept of a personal controller into a commercial product? You get the APC40.

Looking at your recent career, Robert, there seems to be this constant tension between your technical work and your music…

Absolutely…

Is it a case of what you want to achieve in music constantly pushing you back to the work desk to create a product that will allow you to get there?

I guess it comes more from a very personal satisfaction with creating tools. I like tools, you know? It’s a funny thing, I’m in good company there: for instance, the Basic Channel guys, especially Mark Ernestus, he was from the very beginning building his own hardware also. His own hardware shaped his music and I’m just a classic do-it-yourself person and take that approach to building my own instruments. Computer technology allowed me to do that, but sometimes I think it’s a problem because it keeps me from composing, but on the other side, if I spend half a year on developing my own synthesiser, I will really use it excessively afterwards. For example, [the synthesiser] Operator: I would say that 80 per cent of my sound design is Operator and this is the one single synthesiser that I use all the time, so every second of development work I put into this instrument paid off.

Talking specifically about your music now. You’re currently touring under your own name. What’s the difference between the Monolake stuff and the music you produce under your own name?

It’s a bit of a difficult question as a matter of fact, and one that I ask myself quite often. I see Monolake as a more open and collaborative project, like for instance Monolake as a project which is definitely aimed towards rhythmical music and Monolake live is aimed at an audience that can move live. With Robert Henke I’d rather look a little bit more inward and explore soundscapes, computer music, but not explicit danceable music. Robert Henke could conceivably include rhythmical music, but then it might be rhythmical music that’s more informed by complex African rhythms and things like this and music that’s not so immediately danceable.

I’ve heard you described as Michael Mann through the headphones – do you think that’s a good summing up of what you try to achieve musically?

I’m fine with that (laughs). You know, if you look at things from the outside, it’s always much easier to describe anyway. I really can’t say so much about my own work. I have a few ideas, I know what I like, I know what I don’t like, but the overall shape I only recognise when I look at it from a distance. I can look back at things and say, ‘Ahh, I’m obviously interested in this or that.’ I like textures, I like harmonic relationships that are a little bit complex and which have a tendency to vary from classic harmonic scales to enharmonic elements. I like enharmonic sounds, I like a definition of space. But, you know, to find a really fitting description, I guess this is up to other people.

You’re currently performing some surround sound gigs. How do you approach one of those? What kind of equipment are you using to create this sound?

There are basically two possible concepts when you talk about performing with surround sound. One concept is that you say, ‘I’d really like to have the sounds always coming from the left front and moving to the right back.’ This is a concept that clearly deals with the localisation of sound sources. The other concept would be to say, ‘I have a lot of sound sources and they’re just distributed equally somewhere.’ Think of a crickets or the sound of the ocean. It doesn’t matter where cricket is located or where each wave breaks – what gives you the sensation of a lot of things is just the fact that they’re distributed in space. For the concert in Brisbane I take the latter approach, which means all that I do is create a lot of little sounds at the same time and sew them in the space and experiment with two channels, so if you have something you want to have in four channels, you just basically two times two channels with slightly different signals and then you have what you want to achieve. So, that’s basically what I’m doing. One thing comes out of the left speaker, a similar but not exactly same thing comes out of the right speaker, and then again I have two slightly different signals coming from the back speakers and the result is that you close your eyes and have the sensation of something really big.

Do you find crowds in different parts of the world react differently to your live performances?

Well, you see, generalisations for me never work for me anyway. Because you can go to a club in Berlin, and depending on which night you go to which club you can have very different crowds, and I see the same pretty much everywhere.

Question in the Form of an Answer: Chuck D

Perhaps you’ve heard of this fellow.

As the man who wrote “She Watch Channel Zero,” I have to ask what you think of the Charlie Sheen tomfoolery that’s been dominating the cable news networks as  the Middle East is simultaneously in the midst of a regional Revolution.

The corporations have been extremely at successful at becoming stand-ins for the government. The goal of both is to turn human beings into consumers and have them worship the concepts of ownership. Turning humans into robots. They thrive on the dysfunction of human beings. People always say to me, I haven’t heard anything from you in a while, but I’ve always been active and always positive. Let me rob a liquor store and everyone would call that ‘news.’  When it boils down to media companies, writers have editors and editors have bosses, and those guys have a boss, and then his boss is accountable to stockholders.

Whenever anything is reduced to a profit, it reveals the evils of capitalism — anything goes. In the place of any religion, ourg od is the dollar. Our god is Capitalism and when that starts to manifest into another thing, we need news to cover the dysfuntion of human beings. Charlie Sheen gets more burn than even Gadaffi.  And even when Gadaffi and Mubarak were on the spotlight, what’s happening in the rest of the world. Say there’s a giant disaster going on in LA, does that leave a bank open to being robbed. It’s the same idea with media — you have all these whippings of mass distraction.

That’s why I’m in this deeper than that. I built portals, I do radio shows. Go to RAPstation, I organize a radio show that just launched. I’m involved in the art of this. There’s more than what’s being delivered in current hip hop.

Do you feel that the infrastructure of online media and its free means of transmission has liberated artists from the confines of having to get out their message through other forms of content delivery like a record label or the terrestrial radio?

You can circumvent the outlets, but they still need infrastructure. Sports give the best sense of organization. For example, you can have a cat that’s like 17 yrs old playing on a High School team. Whether they’re the star or on the bench or playing intramurals, there’s a structure that belies the top order. Hip hop has been these scattered happenstances that aren’t about the organization but about the artist. You have these great pockets of radio shows can be found online, but they’re lost among 12 billion other signals, lost amongst the 12 billion other artists. We need to organize and build the infrastructure so they don’t get lost.

I’m curious if you’ve heard of the group Odd Future and if so, what your thoughts are on the phenomenon of attention that has been lavished upon them?

I haven’t heard of them. I  just left 27 countries where I was touring and we forget that there are movements in other countries that far beyond LA or New York. Those cities are stuck in themselves thinking that they’re the center of the earth. They’re the center of Hollywood and the media in the US, so things slant heavily New York and maybe even Dirty South-centric, but I was just in Capetown listening to click sounds and rappers bending music and beats in the wildest ways. I think there’s gotta be some sort of World Cup so that we can really see how far hip hop has fallen off in the US.

Why do you believe hip-hop has fallen off domestically in comparison to what other country’s are doing?

They’re very progressive and there’s a real network of radio promoters and venues. They’re better at relying on each other and helping ensure that everyone eats at the end of the day. They’re  motivated by a bunch of different principles, whether they exist in Germany or Capetown or New Zealand, these places are building and have built their own structures to support hip-hop, while we’ve let ours collapse.

What do you think about England and grime and dubstep? Hank Shocklee’s been playing a lot of dubstep on his radio shows lately.

England is a media center that gives itself a badge and allows itself to ignore the badges from other areas. It’s not just England. There’s a scene in Glasgow and London isn’t paying attention to that. I want everyone to acknowledge the movements around the world. Hip hop is 30 years old and these movements are legitimate all over the earth.

You’ve been very vocal about the demise of the hip-hop group. What is it about groups that you think can’t be equaled by solo artists?

If you wanna boil it into entertainment, groups give everyone something to dig into. Entertainment is still entertainment. If you’re fucked up and drunk, you want to go to a different place, that’s the same thing with entertainment.For one person to do it, they better be phenomenal. In a group you can come up with so many different aspects. You can have specialists who can do solos. You better be like Sammy Davis Jr. great to get the attention of a mass audience by yourself, and even then, he still had the Rat Pack.

Is there anyone contemporary who you think has been able to do that?

Jay Z has just been able to accomplish that, running a record label and be out there and mix rap with performance art. After all, hip hip started from that the collaboration of crews and graffiti and mc’ing the djing. There’s always been this merging of elements.

It’s about giving someone a reason to pay money to see what you can do. Otherwise, if they can do what you do, why would they support you? Rappers and fans need to learn the distintinction between audience and performer. That’s what makes the NBA so fantastic. No one can do what they do. Even thought there are those crazy fans who think they can.

I know you’re a Knicks fan. I have to ask about the ‘Melo trade.

See the thing is that I believe chemistry is the only thing that makes a team go to the next level. That’s why I dig the Celtics. They have those rare cases where they had a couple a pieces and added more pieces seamlessly. They play ball with an understanding. Even the Lakers were able to do that after they acquired Pau Gasol for a fish sandwich.

Just because we got Carmelo and Stoudamire, doesn’t automatically mean we’re going to be the best. It reminds me back in the day when free agent first began and Spencer Haywood and McAdoo switched teams and they didn’t make squads immediate championship contenders.

I never like to see the big market teams smash out the little market teams. Whenever you see a team like Oklahoma City busting ass, it’s healthy. But think about it, take the average player. Where do you think they’d rather be? OKC or LA? They’re going to want to be on Sunset spending money, getting these model chicks. That’s why it’s cool to see a guy like Durant. He grew up in DC and can deal with OKC. He’s a quiet dude and fits well, but not everyone can be like Kevin Durant.

I totally empathize with everything you’re saying. I’m a Cincinnati Reds fan and before last year, they’d been worthless for a decade.

Definitely. Back before free agency went into its thirds generation phase, they were  dominant. They had a great farm system, they made great trades, they got get better. But now, it boils down to getting the bast players. That was the cancer that drove the first couple strikes that nearly ruined baseball. How can teams like Pittsburgh and Kansas City compete with the Yankees?

So do you prefer football for its parity? Obviously, the Steelers have done well for themselves.

Football is different because a team that could be losing can put the crush on you on any given week. Players are usually between 22 and 27 and usually only have four and five yr careers. That’s a small window and there’s so few games that a team can go from nowhere to somewhere really quickly. There’s more parity and a large turnover rate. If  a quarterback turns out to be an arrogant asshole to his teammates, they’re going to get that motherfucker somehow. If a team’s losing and they think he’s wack, he ain’t got my back, maybe they won’t try as hard to block for him. You aint have that in baseball, they’re in their own enclave. And when you see the best players, they always end up going to the Yankees.

So who’s taking the NBA championship this year?

I ain’t making no predictions. I’ve been picking the Celtics as my surrogate team for 10 yrs and says everyone said I’m crazy because of their traditions and the old school shit. But I always root for the old school. When Boston lost to LA last year, I didn’t watch TV for three weeks I was so mad. But you know as long as Kobe Bryant is in the NBA, I wouldn’t bet against him. There’s nothing like that motherfucker. I know people want to pay attention to Lebron and I understand that. But Kobe’s the closest thing to Jordan. He’s got that passion and attitude and he’s never satisfied. ,

As far as sports go though, football doesn’t fall victim to that bullshit of the other sports. I’m actually very passionate about the purity of football. I’m kind of a Johnny come lately to it, but I love it. I’m mad the Jets didn’t make it further last year

And as far as baseball, I grew up as a Mets fan, but now the Mets kind of do the same shit as the Yankees but on a small level. I don’t give a fuck though. I give a fuck about the rap.

What’s coming up for you?

Public Enemy.com. I got all my updates and other stuff. Everything you or anyone could want to know. My email address is Chuckd@publicenemy.com. You can give it out to whomever you want.

Download:
MP3: Public Enemy-”She Watch Channel Zero”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Oli “Power” Grant of Wu-Tang Clan

Last Friday at the EMP Pop Conference, Tal Rosenberg and I presented a paper on the economics of Wu-Tang. In the course of our research, I interviewed Power, the financial mastermind of the Wu-Tang. Therein, I learned about Wu-Wear’s re-launch, the history behind “Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance,” and the unfulfilled plans for Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s line of “Dirty Drawers.” Read this shorty and you ain’t even have to go to business school.

So you’re currently at the Magic Show in Vegas to promote the Wu-Brand and relaunch of Wu Wear?
Yup, Wu Brand. Wu Brand is in the building for Magic, it’s our first foray coming back after a few years off. We haven’t been on the set for a while now, but we’re doing some big shows this year. There’s another huge one in August.

What exactly is Wu-Brand?

Wu-Brand is the new title of the line—it could be a title or subtitle as compared to Wu-Wear. It’s strange comparing then to now. When I first started Wu-Wear, there weren’t many examples preceding us. There weren’t rules written as law in the business. Now coming back with so much time having passed, we’re trying to bring the Wu-Tang brand back around. The Wu-Brand is what we’re going to start with, it’s for the people who are tastemakers. It’s going to be more elite nice stuff and not as ready and available. Then we’ll eventually be bringing back Wu-Wear.

Has it been difficult trying to re-launch a once thriving brand after so much time away?

We’ve been implementing a lot of things. We’re bringing the Wu Brand stuff back on a boutique level. The customers are different today. Look at that store that came to America –H&M. People today will wear stuff from there and mix it with the Gap. They mix and match fashions. You can someone wearing H&M with a Chanel bag or a Gucci hat and Gucci sneakers. It’s the same way with Wu-Brand. If they can afford it, we have the Wu Brand, which is high end. On the less expensive end, will be Wu Wear.

You guys were pretty much the first hip hop clothing line other than Naughty Gear, correct?

As far as hip hop, it was naughty Gear. But the main person that we looked up to was Karl Kani. He was the major force In the industry, the kid to look up to, he made the urban cut and the urban fit fashionable and brought it to the hood. When I brought Wu Wear, I took a cue from him as far as the cuts. But on the musical side, I saw that Naughty had a dope logo and I loved the music, so I figured that we could do it too.

Did you have any education in the business world before coming out with Wu Wear?

Listen, Wu Wear was pretty much like our entry in the fashion biz, but before I was in Wu Wear, I was making and marketing the first Wu records with RZA. Everything that we learned was hard knock life, you figure it out as you go along, and take cues from those that are actively doing things. A lot of it was trial and error. There were no models, there was a time when even Kani was fighting back to keep his name alive. It wasn’t just cut and dry.

Was it just a matter of having good instincts or was there premeditated strategy at hand?

Again, I think it was a combination of strategy and instinct. I understood marketing naturally, but I never went to school. Me not being a rapper or a producer, that was something that could occupy my time. I was at the lead and forefront—no one in the camp was being vocal about that, so I took over that aspect. I put our records in a t-shirt. I looked up to Karl Kani for the cut; I looked at big business, I looked at the Tommy Hilfigers and the Polos, because just as much as I looked at Kani, I wanted to expand and look outside our world.

I saw Ralph Lauren and Hilfiger on a bigger level, with different demographics and different politics involved. I understand that you have to sell different ways to different sets of people to reach middle America. We were an urban hip hop company, but the aspirations were to do the same thing – be commercially viable to everyone.

It’s been said that there were initially a lot of skeptics within the crew. Is that true?

That’s 100 percent true. My crew had plenty of skeptics, doubters, and non believers. It wasn’t nothing personal, but I’d say that everyone is an individual and they didn’t really understand what I was doing or what I was initially trying to get across, or where I was coming from. They just hadn’t seen it. It hadn’t been done before, and it led them to be skeptical. I was laying my own trail. First and foremost, yeah it was going to benefit me, but at the end it would benefit all of us. I knew thought that it was ultimately about showing and proving.

My first foray, my first two records were “Protect ya Neck and the method man” join. And then it led into 36 chambers. We all saw the first cycle of solo records as a cohesive unit and it was all the pieces of history that we planted.

The rumor had it was that you, Ghost and Rza were the three who put up the funding for the original “Protect Ya Neck,” single. Was that how it went down?

I think I came with most of the money. I was more the financial guy and Ghost and RZA were the guys that had the musical talent. And, also you can’t leave out Divine.

So were you down with them during their stints at Tommy Boy and Cold Chillin’?

Even when they was doing that at Tommy Boy, I would always keep company with them and follow them on their adventures. I wasn’t a rapper, but the thrill of being a part of going and where they went, it was the inspiration for how it ended up that lead us all to going back, soaking up what we’d absorbed and coming back with “Protect Ya Neck.”

So what did everyone learn from the experience with those labels?

Here’s the deal for me, again I was with them on a business side. When GZA had done “Come do Me” and RZA did “Ooh, We Love you Rakeem,” I was more or less moral and friend support from the neighborhood. When that didn’t work for them, Rza came back home and talked to me about going forward. He said, I want to do this and that. I understood how much talent he had in a way that the labels didn’t. He’d only put out a couple records, but I knew that from being in the neighborhood how far they could go. And a light bulb went off, and I knew that we could create something there.

How much of it was a sense of bringing a sense authenticity that wasn’t being well represented? Especially considering the failure of those first GZA and RZA efforts?

The authenticity shows for itself. First of all, we’re fans of the music, we’re fans and part of the culture. We grew up with Kane and Rakim and Slick Rick and all of these different dudes. We look at everyone, even the ones coming now because there’s uniqueness of those sets and individuals. We have to be able to communicate and personify their demographic, be it 718, 602, Arizona or whatever wherever. Our uniqueness was that we could distinguish Shaolin, that was our own thing that no one had seen until then.

How important early on was this sense of needing to brand yourselves?
It wasn’t necessarily that we were the first. There had been lots of things that had transcended before we came, but we reinvented things. We put our spin on it. We carved a star onto the brand. We were the stars and faces of the brand. We were our own Ronald McDonald’s.

What were the negotiations like?

Business is business, no matter what. They weren’t playing us. Once we came back and did what we did, they was definitely open for conversation. They were trying to get the best deal for them, and our job was to get the best deal for us. They was trying to do business on the level that they was accustomed to and we came and we re-wrote another model. The end game was for everybody to be happy, not just the record company and not just us. It was part plan, part touch and go.

It’s been reported that in the early Wu financial structure, the Clan was sharing all profits. For instance, if Method Man had a big album, the spoils would trickle down to U-God and Masta Killa. Was that true?

Here’s how it went—you gotta’ think it’s like Wu-Wear was my album, my chance to show and prove. Again, I wasn’t a rapper or producer, and so we were all going to share. When each of one of us blew up, we all shared his success, it was our success. The same way that our failures are our failures too.

We’d already had a pact when we’d gotten our deal. No one knew how it was going to work out or who would get to shine when. But we knew that if a brother got a deal for 150k, he could keep the majority of it, but it also would facilate and help the other brothers. It was part of our core and movement for us to spread the money around and help brothers eat, without a project out. It was like we were trust fund babies. You don’t have an album out, Meth’s is popping, so we can send you $10 grand, but Meth may have gotten $120,000. It made business sense.

When things took off, you must’ve been bombarded with offers left and right. What was that period like?

Yo, it was crazy. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. We were so hot and on fire throughout those first years that phones rung off the hook for anything Wu-related. Wu was so fresh and so new, the money that I was earning from the record business, I was spending actively just trying to get a start in business. That’s the difference between the record business and the clothing business. When a record guy does a show, he gets the check. Clothing is a pay to play business. So when I got my check for $10,000 to $20,000, a little bony check, I’d have to figure out how to make more money with it. I’d have to make sure that it wouldn’t run out. I was always coming to RZA and strategize and talk about plans. You need to do this and that. I need more marketing, more promotion.

So how did Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance come about?

This is how it went down. Craig Kallman called for a Soundtrack that he was doing and I had just been on RZA’s back about needing more marketing and more promotions. I knew I could sell, but I needed that marketing and promotions to do it. So Craig calls RZA asking for us to put in work and then RZA hits me up back immediately on some, son say no more, I got you. I’m a shoot a video and do a song for you. It’s going to be crazy promotion. That’s what it is. So I went down there, taked to Craig, they made the song, next thing you know, we’re shooting a video with Mekhi Phifer.

That was perfect synergy, huh?

You couldn’t get no better than that. Craig Kallman, the head of Atlantic doing his project and thus giving us all the juice and backing to promote our project and brand, which in turn created for that boom. But we realized early on, that we couldn’t just ride the gravy train, we had to keep creating.

You hear numbers well into eight figures getting tossed around regarding revenues. Is that true?

You know a lot of those figures are wrong, you know how the lazy journalists can get. But yeah, we was getting our shit, we did our numbers, we never starved. There’s a lot of different stories and everything, but we made our money and helped create an industry. That’s to give you an idea of the beginning, the making-of, we wrote chapter one for Roc-a-Wear and Sean John, but we were the only one that was unique to its own. At the time, there was just us and Echo, that was hip hop, it was graffiti, but it wasn’t like Wu-Tang. Think about it, Marc Ecko and them, look at that dynamic vs. Us. We were from Staten Island, we were high school drop-outs, convicted felons. We’d been through things, and we were competing with dudes who came and make it with college degrees in marketing. But that’s how they came in, they came in with a love of culture and hip hop music and graffiti, that gave them their own lane, and they had smarts.

In a way, did your lack of formal business education, pay any dividends because you didn’t get bogged down in arbitrary rules that you’d learned from a book?

It’s the gift and it’s the curse. There’s no schooling, so the value comes from learning life lessons. Every day you can learn lessons if you tune in, if you tune in for what’s bullshit and what’s not. Everyone doesn’t have a Wu Tang story, there’s lots of dudes from the streets who don’t make it. The reality is that you can be from the streets, but have your eye on the wrong dreams, and certain things never come to light, you don’t have the wherewithal. We was blessed, but at the same token, at the same time, we strived to make a way for ourselves.

What was the period like when you guys decided to shift towards the more gritty and true-to-self street rap?

It was a natural, organic grassroots transition. Rza and Gza had just came from that whole pressure of being something they weren’t, and it didn’t work. We were from the neighborhood, where there were cats like us. The uniqueness came from us wanting to show and prove, but show the piece of who you really are and not who they wanted you to be. The record company told them everything and they listened and it didn’t work. When it didn’t work, they were smart enough to pick up the pieces and keep it moving. Rza was smart enough as an artist that watching his own career, he and his brother came back home, they got their battery charged. No matter how big you are, you have to come back to basics.

With Wu-Wear, when did the decision come when you decide to open up actual brick and mortar stores?

Everything was in phases. I started selling shirts at Freaknik and Summer Jam, and it progressed from there to mail order. Then I decided to open a store in Staten, because if you can’t win in your backyard, you can’t win nowhere. I saw there was the need for wholesale, but wholesale is a whole other biz. But I figured that out, I started to think like McDonalds or K-Mart, only two or three of the stores were stores that I owned and operated. The store in Virginia and Atlanta, were owned by other people. I was thinking more on a franchise level, these guys were family and friends getting in the biz and everything was Wu Wu Wu.

And Wu Wear and much of the business end was all you, correct?
Listen, anything that I did, I made it my own way, no one. Not the Rza ain’t come to tell me to do this or that. I took the opportunity and I actively pursued those routes.

I was the one who targeted the video game company. Here’s how it happened. I was watching a show one morning—early. I’d been running around in the music biz entertainment biz, staying out late all week long. So I was halfway sleeping, trying to wake up on a Sunday afternoon, wearing my clothes on from yesterday. And there was a show on TBS, where I saw a company making all these programs from the garage of their home in Silicone Valley.

I was like, ‘oh shit, that’s how we did ‘Protect ya Neck.” So I got their info directly and cold called them with a cold call and that ended up coming to life. Anything I did, from clothing to merch to brand stuff, I did. Rza didn’t appoint me to do that. He was the big Abbot and we did great together, but these were all my ideas based on what we had done as a team. It’s like nobody tells Rae or Rza when to be inspired. When RZA made the beat for “Triumph,” he just felt like that that one day. And when I wanted to do Wu wear, I was like this is what I’m doing right now. When I did the video game, I was like this was happening.

What sorts of stupid ideas were brought to you?

Plenty of stuff. Everything under the sun—I can’t even remember. They came at us with beer, stuff like that. Even when it comes down to the branding, my role in the branding was another part that I took on myself. I understood the value of it even if was only on a small level at first. Coming from where we come from, we’re territorial and that was my territory and my duty to be a forcefield. I can’t even begin to imagine the things that never saw the light.

The one thing that stands out was beer and people coming to do that. We ain’t really like promoting that to the people. For the beer, they’d wanted ODB to be the spokesperson, but we weren’t with that. I had people coming like that to me with bullshit. I had the dopest idea that never happened though. I kept on trying to get ODB to have his own line of underwear—I thought that was the best idea.

So what happened when that initial unity started to disintegrate?
We was only as tight as we could keep it, the basic inception of this thing, the immaculate conception of this thing, which I would say was around 91-92, from those years to about 97 to 98, we kept it super tight. The people out there would agree that we were flawless until then. The first round of classic shit is still what made us get talked about today. The Clan just came off tour for two months. They don’t perform anything after 98-99, from the first record to Wu Tang Forever. They might got a couple songs here and there, but they earn their money singing their classic shit,. They’re not singing the album that just dropped.

One of the things that always struck me about the Wu was that it was almost like a signal of sorts. It was a strong brand, one that bonded people together.

That was the other thing. Rza and myself started looking at things from a big biz sensibility. The Wu brand and logo was subliminal,. It’s just like when you see a Pepsi and say let’s have a Pepsi together. The logo and the Wu was like an international communicator. It’s like if you familiar with Gucci or Louis Vuitton, you just identify and go towards it because it’s familiar. You identify to people with that aesthetic.

What made you want to take a break from running Wu-Wear?
I was disenchanted with the way the biz was going. After feeling that and having a nice break and having time to be energized and everything, I was ready to get back in. I’m in tune with what’s going on in the universe, if I’m not readily available to the people, I’m on my mission, paying attn to what’s going on. I’m a cat that’s inquisitive. I pay attention to everything.

How large of a challenge is it to re-enter the game now?

There’s a whole new nature and culture that’s been created You have Undefeated, Rocksmith, Billionaire Boys Clubs, but all of them were created on the strengh of Wu Wear, whether they want to give it up, any smart journalist or person of information can do their 1-2 1-2 and find out why that’s a reality. I was never one to hold my nuts big. I let the work show and prove. I see the value of what I was able to create, knowing that every day you have to reinvent or re-think yourself to be part of growth. It’s my duty to see my brand, it’s my shill. This is the US of America, I’m American, I’m wu tang, I’m a general and its my duty to do it. Nobody else in the clan can do it, that’s my thing.

Download:
MP3: RZA ft. Method Man & Capadonna-”Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Prince Paul

How many questions can you ask in fifteen minutes? That’s the challenge when told you’re getting a quarter hour with Prince Paul. Having so much to discuss wasn’t helped by the fact that Paul turned out to be one of the chattiest and most intelligent guys I’ve ever interviewed. Also, he takes the prize for being the nicest, and that’s not just because he refuses to use cuss words. Paul was getting ready to accompany De La Soul to Australia on their 20th Anniversary De La Soul Is Dead tour, so it was a good opportunity to ask about the early years he shared with Dave, Pos and Maseo. It was also a nice time to pester him about that film for Prince Among Thieves that he promised in the liner notes. – Matt Shea

Where are you talking to me from?

I’m at my house in Long Island.

More than a mere producer of their early stuff, De La Soul cite you as a mentor. Do you remember when you first met those guys? What about them caught your attention?

I think that one thing about them that definitely caught my attention was that they were not settling to be like everybody else. We had similar points of view, as far as we felt about music and just how we were seeing the hip-hop scene at the time. It’s funny because in hindsight everybody’s saying, ‘Aww, that’s the golden era,’ but there were some bad records coming out then too (laughs). It was like, ‘Oh god! The same old records with the same sound,’ and we were both at the same time searching for something different, something exciting. That’s definitely one of the first things I noticed about them, is that they were more or less trying to push the scene forward as opposed to trying to do something that everybody else was doing and I respected them for that.

You were with the guys from 3 Feet High and Rising to De La Soul is Dead, and then of course onto Bulhoone Mindstate. But talking about … Is Dead, was it a surprise or a concern to you when the guys came in wanting to really do something so different from what had made them successful?

Um, no, not at all, because I was trying to push them even further, so I was onboard with whatever they were doing. You gotta understand: we didn’t go in there saying, ‘Let’s do something different!’ We thought differently so it automatically kind of came out that way. But there were certain things that we would stay away from that we thought were cliché. Like everybody was sampling James Brown at the time – like, a little bit is okay, but it became an overload. There were certain ways people were programming drums and certain sounds, so we just strayed away from it, you know? I think that was the main thing behind the sound at the time.

The album went on to receive a lot of flack at the time but it goes without saying that it’s been critically revised. It must be satisfying – both in terms of being a producer and a mentor – that 20 years on you’re touring the album together to places as far flung as Australia?

I mean it’s pretty crazy man, because we kinda put ourselves out there to hang, musically. There was nothing to base it on. We couldn’t go, ‘It’s almost like such ‘n’ such’s record.’ It was a first time thing, so it’s kinda nice that it holds the test of time, and who would have thought – I didn’t think that those records would have gone as far as they went, actually. It’s kinda a surprise, you know?

Is that culture of mentorship strong in hip-hop at the moment?

Not really. It seems as though the younger generation of hip-hoppers don’t really revere their elders. Now mind you, I wasn’t that much older than them. I was only like a year older than Dave, who was the oldest guy in De La Soul and it’s just that when you’re in high school: ‘I’m a senior! He’s a sophomore!’ (laughs) So, you know, I appear to be older but really we’re all around the same age, it’s just that I happened to have a little more experience from being with Stetsasonic, you know? Nowadays, unless you’re somebody like Dr. Dre or somebody who’s really successful, a lot of kids aren’t really tying to hear you. They’re basically going by dollar signs. ‘What? How much money he make?! Who would listen to him?! Whadda he make? What?!! You gotta be kiddin’ me – I’m not gonna learn anything from this dude.’ It’s a weird kind of thing, you know?

Those early De La albums spin the head when it comes to all the samples you used, Paul. The beats involved use so many different elements, how did you know when they were finished?

You know, it’s a collective effort. So, when you got four guys including myself who are avid music lovers and music collectors, the process was really just us going, ‘Oh, you know, that’s crazy! I’ve got something for that!’ The next day you listen to it back and you’re like, ‘Yo! I got something for that!’ You add it to the record and then the next day someone else is like, ‘YO! I got something ELSE!’ So, things would just automatically go on and on and on and on, to a point where you’re like, ‘Okay, that works.’ Everybody would collectively say, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ I think the key to our sampling back then was just putting things in key, and that’s where hip-hop was a little different for us, like a lot of people would layer samples but they would just randomly put ‘em in. Ours was like, ‘Let’s put a whole bunch of things in, but let’s put ‘em all in the same key so that it musically blends together,’ and that kinda made us sound different as well.

The last album I listened to that you produced was Montezuma’s Revenge – it’s very boom-bappy, very different from your De La stuff. If all samples laws disappeared and you could do whatever you wanted again, would you be interested in reviving that multi-layered sampling style?

Yeah, I think it’d be fun. When I did the Souls of Mischief record: it’s weird because we actually finished that record, it was done, in probably 2007, so it came out way later. The concept of that record was that it was supposed to sound like a throwback record, like my idea was, ‘What record shoulda came out right after 93 ‘til Infinity? What record shoulda came out?’ So I was trying to recreate that, but nowadays as far as sampling and layering and stuff, I think it would be great. What killed the art was that sampling got really expensive. It was really hectic. You know, you’d do a record and the next thing you know somebody’s come out and gone, ‘Aye! I want 100 per cent of your publishing, AND I want you to pay me $20,000 for the master,’ and you’re like, ‘Woah! That’s crazy!’ Now, what happens if you have other samples on top of that? And somebody else is saying, ‘I want 50 per cent!’ Well, there’s only 100 per cent to go round. It comes to a point where you just shrug your shoulders, say, ‘Eff it.’ And then you’ve just gotta trash it, or put it out as a promo thing.

The big project for you after Bulhoone was Gravediggaz. That was a major shift for you sonically; did you approach that first album the same way as your De La stuff?

Well I guess you could tell the approach was different. It was just a period of depression, I think, because I did the De La records and had this label deal with Def Jam and everything was just goin’ badddd! I never intended that record I did to get a lot of praise and to do great, but when all of a sudden you’re [hearing] like, ‘Oh, he’s aight.’ I went from, like, everything I touched turning to gold to everything I touched being just ‘aight’. It was aiight? Come on!! I was like, ‘Wha? What happened?! I’m the same person!’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah-yeah-yeah, he’s whatever.’ So I thought, ‘I’m gonna put my powers together with some other guys that everybody was talking about the same way, way before RZA became The RZA, and Too Poetic and Frukwan. So, it was cool. We kinda like put our superpowers together, like, ‘We’re gonna show ‘em!’ It was definitely a different vibe, where I was just glad to be there: high-fiving each other: ‘Wow! What’s gonna happen? This is fun!’ It was definitely different.

Would you guys ever consider getting the band back together so to speak, and doing another fully fledged Gravediggaz LP?

You know, it’s kinda tough for me because Poetic’s not here, and he was a very integral part to the whole process. But RZA did bring to my attention the idea of putting the group back together and actually what’s weird is, you know, talkin’ about Australia: ‘We’ll go to Australia and do this tour.’ He specifically mentioned Australia and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll think about it. Let’s figure it out.’ But, you know, that was a while ago. He’s busy doing stuff and going all over the place so I’m not gonna call him and go, ‘Yo, what’s up with that?!’ I just kinda figured it was a nice conversation (laughs).

Whatever happened to the Prince Among Thieves film? I know it was in the liner notes and on YouTube there are a couple of videos that look suspiciously like trailers…

Yeah. You know, the weird thing is that I approached that whole album and Tom Silverman from Tommy Boy and was like, ‘Yo. Let’s do this low budget film,’ and they just looked at me like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I talked about how the record was different and they were like, ‘Yeah, the record’s different. It’s alright. Whatever.’ So they really showed no interest in it, so I never got the budget to do it. Then Chris Rock had the rights to it and we were supposed to rewrite it, and then he, um, became Chris Rock! Suddenly he was famous and then other things came up, so it kinda got shelved. But here it is, I get asked this all the time: ‘What happened?!’ And I’m like, ‘Ughhh,’ and then just shrug my shoulders, ‘Yaaah, I dunno!’

You and Breezly Brewin seemed to really click on that project. Have you guys ever thought about working together again?

I talk to him every once in a while. You know, he’s a teacher now and so he’s all grown up. But I put him on this project that I recently started and now completing with my son called, Negroes On Ice (laughs). Breeze is actually on there and he sounds really, really good. He’s a very underrated guy, man: it’s almost a crime.

Anybody I chat to about that talks about how he held his own on an LP full of talent…

Yeah, he’s a great talent, man.

You’re back touring with De La Soul so maybe it’s brought it into relief for you: do you have a favourite De La tune?

Not really. It’s funny: all the songs that we’ve done again and even the ones I started with them – I dunno – they just hold a special place in my heart. Stakes Is High we didn’t work on together, but that might be my favourite album of the guys’. We started working on that together but that’s when we parted ways so we never completed it together, but I just love that album – it’s great, man.

Looking ahead, what are the plans for 2011?

I got the play that I wrote with my son called Negroes on Ice. I’m looking to release the actual audio portion of it on Father’s Day – we actually did a few runs of the play in December and we plan on taking it and touring it probably at the end of the year. I’m excited – I’m a playyyywright! (laughs) It’s fun. It’s real bizarre and a bit dumb, but it’s nice to write with an 18-year-old kid because you can just be as stupid as he is (laughs).

Sach O: Meet the BLKHRTS

Sach O grew up black hearted.

Sometimes, good music finds you. A few weeks ago, Zilla sent us a link to the BLKHRTS Bandcamp page, claiming they were like ” M.O.P meets Morrissey,” a risky if intriguing proposition. A few streams and an EP purchase later, I was hooked with the combination of 2K10 production, rock influence and hard knock life bleeding through the music to make it one of the most surprisingly engaging rap platters in recent memory. In the interest of promoting “grown man rap” that doesn’t sound like it’s stuck in the 90s, I tracked down the Denver trio of King Foe, Yonnas and Karma and asked them a couple of questions about their style, goals, rapping in Denver and the surprising origins of the group’s unique imagery…

Sach: First thing’s first: who are you guys? How did you come together? How long have you been emceeing, individually and as a group?

King FOE: We are a breath that you take the moment after the bungee cord is extended to its fullest extent jumping into the grand canyon, we are the adrenaline that pumps through your body and the voice that screams FUCK YOU! BLKHRTS!

Yonnas: Well, we’re all from Denver and came up on the scene together. I am in a group called The Pirate Signal, that is basically me working with certain people, now it’s a girl named Chez and a DJ named Soup, but it used to be a Dj named A-What. Anyway, F.O.E and Karma are part of a label called Jewell Tyme Records. I used to watch F,O.E, Karma and Haven perform together, and I loved it, and they seemed to be into what I was doing. We all have a very intense, energetic stage presence. One day I approached them about starting a group together, and a few days later I threw the name BLKHRTS into the ring and they didn’t throw it out, so….here we are.

Sach: Pirate signal aside, what were y’all doing before and what era did you come up in?

FOE: I don’t really remember doing much before music (could be all of the drug use) but before BLKHRTS I was and am still a solo artist.

Yo: I started making music when I was sixteen with an SP1200, Yamaha x7, and Pro Tools. I feel like I came up in the era was Indie rap like Def Jux and Rhymesayers was the wave of the future, and really came into my own when it petered out. I could tell, because as I was falling out of love with it, so was the rest of the world.

Karma: I’m a child of the 90s era. Before I found hip hop, being real, I was chasing girls.

Sach: You guys spit at pretty high-speed on a lot of joints but when you slow down (N HVN VRYTNG S BLK, THY WNT GO), a lot of the more abstract poetic side of your rhymes shines through: you guys are talking about some real shit but it takes a couple of listens to start to catch the content. How do you balance getting a message out vs. rhyming in that style?

Yo: It’s interesting to see how people digest rap, especially people who don’t do it or live it. I get a sense a lot of people don’t know what the fuck is being said when the raps are dense, but they can still appreciate it for the sound and agility of the rapper. People always say, “No one cares what you’re saying, they just wanna hear a good beat and catchy hook”, and they use that as a reason to say nothing, or have no substance. It seems to me though, that same logic could be why you could have a lot of substance in your music and as long as the beat banged and the hooks were solid, people would like that too. But don’t get me wrong I love that spaced out shit a lot, like Drake and Wiz, I love that shit too.

FOE: Honestly I try to make every verse enjoyable to listen too as well as have content, I just am a firm believer that it is still possible to get people to enjoy music with substance, good beat and solid hook they can sing along with, we just have to give it to them.

Sach: The whole EP (but THY WNT GO in particular) is, to say the least, pretty unusual in the current Hip-Hop climate where everyone’s trying to show off their swag. It addresses a lot of serious grown-man issues. What pushed y’all to go in that direction?

Karma: Day to day life shit!

FOE: My life is real. I don’t have money to make it rain on “hoes” or a parking lot full of cars that I drive depending on what my outfit is. I deal with my lights getting cut out, food stamps, drug abuse, hungry kids and trying to make it until tomorrow so we talk about what we know, what we go through and have been through.

Yo: Well, A) we are all grown ass men, so that’s what we have to write about. Our whole shit is antithetical to the current state of rap, but I couldn’t have it any other way. But also, the sample really spoke to me and with us, we usually have a loose concept, a sentence or less, then we get on with it, from our own perspectives. Ultimately, music is a life long pursuit, so whatever stage of life we are in, is what we will write and rap about. When we are old men, we will still rap, and we will address the issues that affect our life at that time.

Sach: Who’s making your beats? It seems like a lot of people are trying to go left-field these days and end up missing the mark, but you guys managed to develop a rock influence while still keeping it Hip-Hop.

Yo: I make all the beats. All of them. I have a very keen eye on rock and it’s strains as much as I do hip-hop, because really, I see many more similarities than I do differences. That having been said, this is rap, so in order to make sure these were good rap songs first and foremost, I adhered to what I believe needed to happen to make sure they were good rap songs, but I used sounds and certain musical techniques from rock.

FOE: I feel like a rock star period minus the skinny jeans because my nuts and belly won’t allow it!

Sach: How do you attack joints? You’ve all got pretty different styles, how do you make it all work as a whole?

Yo: Usually I make the beat and give it to them either with a concept already, if not though, it’s already composed and structured. Like I said, the concept is usually a phrase or a sentence, and we get on with it. Sometimes, I try to get us to co-ordinate amongst ourselves lyrics and ad-libs we can do for each other as a group or individually, most of the time though, I get the fuck out of their way. In many ways they let me produce and I let them write and rap.

Karma: I listen to tracks and attack off pure emotional how the beats make me feel.

Sach: One of the first things about the EP that caught my ear was that you guys RAP. Like, you don’t overstuff your bars but it’s definitely not the easy sing-along stuff that’s so common these days. How did you guys come to adopt that style?

Karma: I speak what’s on my heart at all times, music starts with the artist first then those who can be catered to. Being ourselves is our only style.

Yo: Well, for me, I grew up listening to Wu-Tang, and when I was in college Def Jux and that whole indie rap thing were very influential to me. I can’t speak for F.O.E or Karma in total, but I think they were much more into west coast rap, especially the denser rap stuff, like 40 or Lynch, so we both, in our own respective ways, were influenced by very dense rap, and really virtuoso rapping. Both F.O.E and Karma are amazing at faster rapping, and are just really gifted rappers naturally. Nowadays, I know Karma listens to everything and F.O.E doesn’t listen to shit, but his stuff or our stuff. I try to get him into new shit, but he refuses. The last thing I remember him liking was that K.R.I.T.

FOE: I think we all just enjoy content. There’s a lot to be said and told and I’m pretty sure I’m here to tell it. Plus growing up I listened to artists that weren’t just bubble gum bullshit, E-40, Scarface, 2Pac, Method Man, Biggie…

What kind of stuff do you guys listen to today (Hip-Hop and not)? What are some producers/emcees (if any) you’d like to work with?

Karma: Of course Hip Hop but I love my reggae and blues. It would be the bizness to grab beats from Cool and Dre. I’d get down wit a lot of artist to name a few, Crooked I, John Legend, Sizzla…

FOE: I don’t really listen to too much of the music out today I can’t really dig that shit. But I do like E-40, Talib, Lupe, TI, Tech N9ne, Radiohead, Luther Vandross, K.R.I.T, Yelawolf, Royce, Beastie Boys, NWA, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley… I’m liking the Dubstep stuff too.

Yo: Oh man, I listen to everything, but recently, I been really into kind of romantic electronic music. Stuff people call darkwave or lovestep. Groups like Two Inch Punch and Arc, maybe even James Blake could be lumped into that. Aside from that I am clearly obsessed with Joy Division and The Smiths, but even a lot of Morrissey solo stuff. Radiohead, Crystal Castles… I been fucking with OFWGKTA heavy as far as rap, and this dude named Rittz, who is Yelawolf’s people.

As far as who I would work with, If I could, I have always had a laundry list of producers I would kill to work with, like really work with on production, not just get beats from, alot of Low End Theory guys like Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, Nosaj Thing, Dibiase, but also Exile, Black Milk, Madlib, Noah “40″ Shebib, big shots like The Neptunes and Just Blaze, I dunno. So many. My features would be E-40, Ghostface and Drake though, and have Thom Yorke, Maynard James Keenan, Cedric Bixler Zavala and Morrissey sing hooks on it.

What am I not into you ask? True-School garbage. Most horn loops put me to sleep and the drum programming stolen right off Diamond D’s SP1200 is not the shit either. That’s why most of these Ball sniffing bloggers hate us though.

Foe: I would love to work with E-40, K.R.I.T, Travis Porter, Black Milk, Jake One, Scarface, Tech 9, Cool & Dre, The Neptunes, Just Blaze, Busta, Crooked I, Royce, Big Sean, Cee Lo, Black Tide, Solillaquists of Sound…

Sach: You guys mentioned bumping and/or wanting to work with everyone from Def Jux to E-40 and Lynch, it seems like a lot of Hip-Hop fans are on this crusade to keep their own little rap-subgenre separate but when I speak to artists, everyone’s bumping everyone who’s dope. How do y’all deal with that when it comes to presenting yourselves and your music? You guys have rock influences but aren’t rocking skinny jeans, rhyme double-time but aren’t southern…

FOE: I think it’s all about just being us not who anyone wants us to be and that’s what makes us BLKHRTS.

Yonnas: I feel like if we can we be innovative without trend hopping, we can carve our own lane. The pirate signal, Blkhrts, all the music I’m involved is built on that idea.

Karma: By believing in what we do and contribute to the culture. We are from the Box state but u can’t put us in one. We don’t worry about genre just wanna make good music.

Sach: Coming out of Denver, what’s the scene like? Is there a unified sound going on or is it more the case of everyone doing their own thing?

Yo: Denver is right in the center of Babylon, so there’s influence from everywhere. There’s tension because this is unclaimed territory, there isn’t much cohesion or respect. I think that is still very much in its younger stages though. Niggas need to find their own voice and style.

FOE: We are a melting pot, we have people that come and settle here from the West Coast, East Coast and the South so you can hear that influence in a bunch of artists out here. We right now have dope artists but still have yet to find “our” own style and I think recently have just begun exploring us. Out here is just like every other place we all struggle and want to be heard.

Karma: There’s love In Denver hip-hop but it could be way more love. Too many worry on being the first to blow the state up. But trust and know we got some sick ass artist in the box state.

Sach: The EP has a lot of intriguing imagery through the various photos, how did you guys come to adopt this visual style? Who’s behind it?

FOE: Yo suggested we put a picture to every song on the album and originally we were going to take pics of objects we felt symbolized the songs but came to find it was easier to grab online. The beautiful woman we chose for the cover Yo argued for hours to have her as the cover, we don’t know her but I’m pretty sure he loves her!

Yo: At first we were going to make original photos, but that just wasn’t possible. So basically, we went on to Google image search and typed in the song titles and seen what we got, I found some and F.O.E found some and we picked what we liked. As for the cover, that was the same process, and we got that picture, and I had to fight for it a little bit, but we used it.

I don’t know who that chick is, but if she sees it and finds it, while she is cursing me out, I may just get on one knee and propose.

Sach: To steal a last question from that dude on the Wu-Tang CD: what is your ultimate goal in this? (touring, signing to a label)

FOE: Touring and getting the music out to as many people as possible and enjoying life.

Yo: To be as successful as possible and really enjoy it as it comes.

Karma: The goal is tour, see the world, share, sign if the deal is right and share the love of music with the globe.

Download:
MP3: BLKHRTS – OVR
Stream: BLK S BTFL EP @ Bandcamp

Question in the Form of an Answer: Smith Westerns

While it occasionally seems like the Smith Westerns don’t have a care in the world, lead singer Cullen Omari adamantly believes that constant touring defines a band in its inception. After touring with Girls, MGMT and Florence and the Machine, the band is currently barnstorming the US on its own headlining tour, in support of their critically acclaimed second album Dye It Blonde.

If you’ve ever been to the Midwest in the Winter, you’ll know that the lakes freeze over but the drinks keep pouring, and “Dye It Blonde” transports us back to the same dank, lively dives where the Smith Westerns’ sound was largely forged. There’s a triumphant feel to the album, but there are also glimpses of loneliness and isolation on “All Die Young” and “Only One”, showing their youthful exuberance isn’t impervious to a darker and wider array of themes.

I recently spoke with Cullen Omari about the recording of “Dye It Blonde,” signing to a new label, and their upcoming tour with fellow Chicago natives Wilco. — Aaron Frank

AF:  You’ve said before that you felt like the first album took a while to grow on people, whereas this one seems to be pretty much an instant success. Has that sort of reception been an exciting or intimidating experience for you?

Cullen: I think it’s really exciting. I just think the last record took a long time for people to get in to and even when they did get into it, it definitely didn’t appeal to as wide an audience. So it feels like a solid foundation for a lot of hard work that we’ve put in since July when we recorded it and even before when we were touring.

AF: Obviously it was recorded under different circumstances too since you guys went in to a studio with a producer this time. Did that make this feel like your first record in a sense?

Cullen: Yeah, definitely. I remember when we first signed with Fat Possum, they told us “This is going to be like your real first album since a lot of people haven’t heard of you.” And we were actually very offended at first, like “People have heard our album. We’ve been touring all this time.” But now that’s it out, I think that’s very much true. Just in the first three weeks since the new album’s been out, we can tell a huge difference from a year after our first record was out. We’ve already sold I don’t know how many times what the first record did.

AF: Well you probably shouldn’t sell yourself short. I mean, the songwriting on this album is a lot stronger and evidently more structured. There’s a lot of emphasis on having that powerful chorus and lead-in. Do you think a lot of younger bands suffer because they don’t value that kind of structure or accessibility?

Cullen: I don’t really think it’s that people don’t want to make their music accessible, it’s just they don’t really feel the need to get the word out about it to other people. That’s the thing with Chicago bands. We were always the only one that felt like we were constantly going out on the road. That was kind of the key for us at the beginning, going out and not just trying to get fans, but meeting other musicians in bigger bands and trying to have them hear us. Because, it’s weird, once you get to this level and meet a certain amount of people, you all end up having this weird connection from seeing all these people touring on the same circuit. It’s like some weird club that we fell in to and it’s kind of helped us avoid the whole Midwestern thing.

AF: So you’d say touring has helped you guys sort of develop an identity through finding connections with other bands?

Cullen: Yeah, it’s integral. It teaches you how to play your instrument because you’re playing every night ,and it humbles you because you’re not playing for anyone that already knows who you are and likes your band when you’re opening for other people. You’re trying to win people over every night and you learn how to develop a live show. I think it’s been very important for us as far as meeting new people and learning how to have the right attitude and experiences when it comes to touring.

AF: One thing that really stood out to me about this new record is how it’s just a really solid rock album, and isn’t really bound by any particular genre like “garage” or “glam” like some people have said about you in the past.

Cullen: That’s the thing with the internet is people find a word or read a review that they think is from a somewhat reputable source and then that becomes that the word of god. I feel like I could just make up who some of our influences are and mention them in a couple interviews and then sooner or later people would start saying “I hear that influence in the music.” As far as the garage thing, I feel like at most you could say that about our last record, but not about this record. I think this record was very much us trying to make guitar rock and dream pop songs.

AF: Well it’s cool you were able to recognize that early on. Do you kind of feel like the fascination with your age from the press is starting to wear off and people are talking about the music more?

Cullen: Well, it depends. I feel like the more popular we get, the less professional our press starts to become because we’re getting so much more of it. But at the same time, if people want to write something interesting that isn’t going to be like everything else, then the music starts to become more of the focus. It’s always annoying and just kind of demeaning because it has no bearing on our music. It might have something to do with how we look, but I don’t think it should be a big deal. It doesn’t make us any better or worse and it’s cool if people want to include it in articles or whatever, but I just don’t want it to be used as a gimmick at any point.

AF: So I just wanted to get back to your roots a little bit more. You mentioned listening to Wilco when you were growing up. Were there any other Chicago or Midwestern bands you admired early on?

Cullen: Smashing Pumpkins for sure. I’ve always been a huge fan of theirs. Wilco, I think Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out when I was in seventh or sixth grade. My dad and I used to listen to that a lot like on Sundays when we used to run errands and stuff. I still listen to that. I mean, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of my favorite albums of all time. I think the instrumentation and the way they arranged the songs on that album is perfect. Playing Smashing Pumpkins and singing is easier for me though just because it’s at a higher register and it’s fun to play along with all the harmonies.

AF: Did any of you guys come from musical backgrounds? I think I read that a family member of friend of the family gave you some T. Rex and David Bowie records when you guys were first starting out.

Cullen: As far as getting those records, that’s probably the furthest from what happened. My dad played the guitar and was really in to all those 90s rock bands like Social Distortion and Soundgarden, just really heavy guitar rock. But as a kid, pretty much all I listened to was Top 40. That was my thing. Even when I got in to high school, I wasn’t really in to all the indie bands. It always seemed like this colorful, cardigan-wearing type of thing. So that’s when we started listening to older stuff like Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Pink Floyd, but we were still listening to the same type of Top 40 stuff that comes out now that’s out of rotation in a few months.

So my dad’s friend, this real cool guy who used to work construction and was really big in to music gave us a bunch of stuff and from there, we just kind of found out about David Bowie and I started building my collection from there. I bought the Best of David Bowie when I was a freshman in high school, but usually if I find a song that I like I’ll try and go find the rest of their discography. So a lot of that stuff I got when I was younger and don’t really even listen to as much anymore, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is Top 40, like I’ll still listen to all the new pop songs and keep up with Top 40.

AF: That’s sort of surprising. Your music doesn’t exactly have a modern Top 40 feel to it.

Cullen: Well, I think when I’m writing my parts, I try to come up with what I think is going to be the catchiest and most acceptable thing for me, and something that people aren’t going to have to try that hard to understand. And I think just by listening to Top 40, whether it’s from now or from 40 years ago, I think there are some similarities and some respectable things we should try to emulate as a band. So there’s a reason a why a lot of Smith Westerns songs are really catchy like that.

AF: I always find it interesting how people in bands or people that end up really loving music don’t really start listening to different things when they’re younger until someone inevitably tells them what they should be listening to.

Cullen: Yeah, I think when we first started out when we were 16, we were kind of just shooting in the dark and trying to make punk music and it ended up getting to Brett Cross. He was the guy from Hozac that put out our first record and heard these demos on MySpace, and he started booking us to open shows for different bands that would come in town. By no means were these big sold out shows, they’d be like 50 people on a Tuesday night at the Empty Bottle. And through that we just kind of started meeting the people who would come out to these shows, who all ended up being record collectors and stuff. And they’d have us over to their house to listen to music and they’d buy us free beer and stuff, which is awesome when you’re 16, but we’d listen to four or five records and be like “Those three or four weren’t that great, but I really like this one.” Beyond that really, I think the internet is a great place to find new music and older stuff that you aren’t really familiar with. So between those two things, going to people’s houses and listening to records and having the internet, we were able to find out about a lot of music we probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

AF: So what would you say your songwriting process is like? Are you able to write on the road or do you do most of it at home?

Cullen: Well, with this record a lot of it was written on the road. I write mostly when I’m at home, but I think the songs we wrote on the road took a really long time. So I wouldn’t mind testing some things out on the road this time. Just seeing the response to our music on this tour makes me want to write more. It’s good to see that you’re not crazy and that other people are enjoying the songs that you thought were good. It’s a great feeling to have as far as making new music, so who knows. Maybe I’ll try. Maybe the entire next record will be written on the road since it looks like we’re going to be touring for the next six months.

AF: You guys seemed to take more time with the recording on this album too. Was that sort of freedom one of the reasons you signed to Fat Possum?

Cullen: As opposed to like a major label?

AF: Well you had to be fielding offers from different labels after the first record, right?

Cullen: Well at first it seemed like we were going to be riding a golden horse all the way to the bank or whatever, but after everything is said and done, record labels are weird. Everyone wants to talk to you about stuff but the offers don’t always come in. We had a couple other offers, but ultimately what we felt was that Fat Possum was going to be able to fund and properly support our decision to put all of the money in to this intense recording process. I think Fat Possum worked out really well for us because they were very understanding. In hindsight, you can see the connection between the two albums but letting us sit down and explain to them before we even had a record, “We need this much money because were going to do this with it” was very much a leap of faith on their part. So in the long run I think we made the right decision going with them.

AF: So essentially you wanted someone who was going to put the most money in to the recording and production of the album, rather than promotions and everything else.

Cullen: Yeah, exactly. We want the music to be well-supported. The publicity and marketing can be taken care of after that. We’re most concerned about the product.

AF:  You guys are going to be in LA for Grammy weekend this year. Any famous musicians you’d like to come check out your show? Kanye West? Bono?

Cullen: I wanna see Nicki Minaj. I really want her to come by and check out our show. I’d be beyond excited. Bono would be good too.

Download:
MP3: Smith Westerns-”Imagine Pt. 3″

Smith Westerns – Weekend by forcefieldpr

Smith Westerns – “All Die Young” by forcefieldpr

Question in the Form of an Answer: Rittz

“Fuck a limousine, I’d rather ride Caprices,” sneered Rittz on “Box Chevy Pt. 3,” a standout on last year’s “Trunk Muzik.” Since then, the greater Atlanta-raised red beard has released a flurry of double-timed amphetamine raps that demand evaluation on a proper system, while going 85 down 85, or 110 on the 110.

The combination of Burn One’s backwoods country burners and Rittz’s machine gun funk sounds natural. The first signing on Yelawolf’s Slumamerican imprint, the Gwinnett County native helps flesh out what’s fast become the label’s specialty: Southern Gothic bounce. Jim Beam in dixie cups. Late model Cadillacs. Cognac Blunt wraps, gold flakes and candy paint delivered in the rollicking double time of a Big Boi disciple. He’s only released a half dozen songs over the last year, but they’ve been good. Enough to make me wonder who the weird white boy with the fraggle rock fro was. Hair recognize hair. “White Jesus” comes out next week. Hopefully, the transubstantiation comes later.

Your sound obviously bears strong Southern roots. Has your family been in the Atlanta area for generations or are you relatively recent transplants?

I was actually born in a Pennsylvania country town, right by the West Virginia border. There was no hip hop up there, but when I was 8, I moved to Atlanta. It was total culture shock. I’d been living in white bred America, and then I was getting introduced to hip hop through kids listening to Kilo at school.

Were you from a musical family?

My dad was always in a band and trying to make a living as a musician. We were basically just living off what he was making at shows, and it wasn’t much. When we moved to Atlanta, it was when he had finally said ‘fuck it.’ So he got a job down here at TBS.

What kind of rock music did he play?

Straight up rock and roll. ZZ Top-type stuff.

Did you ever try to play guitar?

Yup, I was always trying to find my place in music. But it was in middle school when I was introduced to rap. I loved it and got into the whole culture fairly immediately.

Considering they were rock and roll people, was your family  against your decision to make rap or were they pretty supportive?

It was weird, I was the only one in my whole family to do things somewhat differently, and they definitely weren’t feeling it for a long time. Plus, I was fucking up in school and doing bad shit. But they’ve always supported me doing music because it was something natural to all of us. But they didn’t understand my music for a long time– they do now and have for the last six or seven years. But for a long time, they thought it was just ignorant music, all the typical stereotypes from people who don’t get rap music.

What were you listening to when you were first getting into rap?

Early Geto Boys. Early Rap-A-Lot. A lot of early solo Scarface. The next thing you know, I was trying to rap. At first, I’d walk around sounding like I was trying to be  Willie D, talking about killing people and my guns.

Eventually, I got better and  once Outkast came out, that was the sound of Atlanta that I could relate to. I was able to find my own style based off those influences. So I formed a group and from 95 to 2003, we were just putting out tapes and CD’s locally.

What was the name of the group?

We were called Rollo and Rittz, and we were based in Gwinnett County — which is the north side of Atlanta, really it’s the suburbs. I was one of the only dudes locally with a studio, so I just pumped out tapes.

Beyond it obviously being good, what was it about the early Rap-A-Lot stuff that drew you in?

I think it was just that I could see the South in it, it reflected where I was at. Of course I was listening to other stuff–early Spice 1 and Too Short along with all the Death Row stuff. But there was something about Rap-A-Lot and Scarface and Devin the Dude. He’s one of my favorites of all-time, along with Scarface. He was a major influence on me.

It’s interesting because growing up in California, you never heard any of those guys on the radio. The first time I think I ever heard a Scarface song played on the radio other than maybe “Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” was “Smile,” the song he did with 2Pac. And that was only because of who he did it with.

I think that’s because they never went commercial with their beats and subject matter. Everyone was always talking about them down here. But a lot of people still don’t know about Scarface.

What was it about Scarface and Geto Boys that made them your favorite?

You know how they say that 2pac has that voice that gives you goosebumps. Scarface’s lyrics give you the same sort of chills. And Willie D had that anger and that rebelliousness. Plus, those beats had the funk and guitars and they were just slamming.

Did Scarface’s skill at telling narratives have a major impact on the way you approach writing?

Definitely.  A lot of times when I go to write now, I’ll have the tendency to stick right to a topic and go into storytelling mode. That’s one of the things I always liked with Devin, he’d do the same thing but in a humorous way — without being hardcore. The Dude had a lot of melody in his voice and very soulful hooks. I gravitated more to the later Geto Boys stuff. The early albums are more gangsta,  but when Scarface started putting out albums like The Diary, you’d just get those goosebumps.  It was around that time when I really started getting heavy into Goodie Mobb and Outkast.

Yeah, I’ve always said that Atliens is my favorite rap record of all-time, but I’m pretty sure everyone else prefers Aquemini? Do you have a favorite of those records?

I constantly go back and forth between the two. Atliens is the one I’ve bought the most times–probably more than any other record.  I used to get so fucked up to that record. I used to wake up and smoke weed and acid and listen to that and Goodie Mobb’s Soul Food. Rollo and Ritz always tried to mold ourselves as the white Outkast. That’s why it felt so crazy during the “I Just Wanna Party” video when I was just chilling on the same couch as Big Boi.

How did Dungeon Family change the way you thought about rap music?

I began to understand that I could rap about my real life. Andre on “Thought Process” showed me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It wasn’t that I wanted to copy him, but I just wanted to get better. I wanted to get as good as that.

What’s Gwinnett County like?

It was weird because when I first moved here, it was just normal suburbs with a lot of people. The schools were multi-cultural, at least compared to Pennsylvania. Everything changed after the ’96 Olympics. I was around 16 at that time, and a lot of people had moved here to Gwinnett. People were people coming from different cities and backgrounds, and the  atmosphere changed.  Crime went up. Gwinnett’s a weird place.It’s really about how you live your life around here. If you don’t fuck around with drugs, you might not get into the same kind of trouble.

Were drugs pretty heavy there?

It’s a huge drug hub of Atlanta. A lot of the shit that goes down, the huge drug busts happens in Gwinnett. I got into a lot of shit growing up there, and when I was in high school, my parents split up so it got out of hand. I saw both worlds.

Before signing with Slumamerican had you come close to signing with any other labels?

I went out to LA about two years ago to go take a meeting with Interscope. We were staying in Inglewood and we were convinced the shit was about to go down then. We thought that we’d just play them our demo and that would be that [laughs].  It was crazy to think that in two years the shit with Wolf would happen at Interscope.

Had you even started working with him then?

Nah, we hadn’t  done anything at the time.

What happened when Rollo & Ritz broke up?

That happened around 03-04. I was trying to do my solo thing, my  friends were growing apart. I still had the music in me , so I had to try it out on my own. Time went by. I had a little single called “Gwinnett” that had radio play. The people I was working with put money behind me, and I didn’t have to work anymore. I had a connection with a dude from Interscope, and as soon as I walked in the room, he said, ‘I don’t need to hear your music. I don’t sign people off talent. Someone has to cosign you.’ As soon as we came back from LA, the money in the accounts that had been behind me got frozen, my girl lost her job and the house.

That brought us to where we are now. I thought I should given this shit up years before. I decided that after 15 years I should quit if I wanted to have a future in something. I’ve never had to pay bills like that, so I got a full time job and started busting my ass at a day job. I got a place with my money and right around that time, Yelwolf reached out to me and said, come to my house and do a asong with me. I’d met him on some Myspace shit a few years prior, and we both had a mutual respect for the other’s work.

So I laid my verse down and he never called me. I thought I’d snapped pretty hard on the verse, but I didn’t hear a thing. Then all of a sudden, when I was at my lowest point, he called and told me that he thought that I’d killed the verse. So I sent him every song that I had. He listened to them and told me that he thought he was about to get put on and he could see us being a crew.

I’d seen so many ups and down in the rap game that I tried to take it in stride. But I’d seen his shows in Atlanta before and knew that he had a real following there. I figured at least this guy’s legitimate and not blowing smoke up my ass.

So he calls me a little while later to put my verse down on “Box Chevy Pt. 3.” All I heard was that everyone loved it and that he was about to go on the road. I don’t hear from the guy for months and months and figured that he’d gone back on his word. But sure enough five or six months later, he came back and had his deal. So we started going hard in the studio.  Everything’s been really great since then — to the point of where it’s so weird that I’d been on the verge of quitting for good.

Did you ever think that it wouldn’t happen because you’re white, and historically, most non-indie white rapper have been wary of putting on other white rappers.

It’s weird. White rappers are normally very competitive of each other. There aren’t many in the industry, so it was a strange thing for us to both respect the other one.  I was used to people kissing my ass to get put on, but he was the first dude who had his own deal to co-sign for me.

Do you think it’s easier today to be taken seriously as a white rapper than say even five years ago?

I think so. People are a little bit more open, but at the end of the day, it’s a black culture and a black music. People are always going to be skeptical at first. The good thing is that anyone who wants to rap can rap. With the Internet, you can get your music out there easily. You don’t have to worry about making songs for radio, you can just make it for your fans.

Has your style always been that double time fast rap?

I’ve always done it, but I’ll switch it up every now then. I think that a good amount of my best songs are the tongue twisting songs–so was the song that I did with Yela. Once “Box Chevy” kind of hit, it seemed like that’s what people are expecting from me now.  If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. But I’ve got some more songs that aren’t double time coming out soon.

Yela said that one of his biggest influences was Twista. Were you pretty into Midwest speed rap?

I love Bone Thugs and Twista and Tech Nyne’s early shit. I was also really into the G-Unit era and afterwards, when everyone started rapping  over beats with slower tempo. So when I heard the slow beats, I realized that if I rapped slowly to them, I’d just sound like the next rapper doing it. Sometimes, if you don’t double time it can get boring and repetitive. But it really just depends on the beat.

So were you keeping the Shady Records news a secret for a long time or were you mostly in the dark?

Somewhere in the middle. I knew about him going to meet Eminem, but it was a secret fr a while thereafter. The whole thing is unreal to me,. I got a job and shit and I’m like what the hell is the going the job, all this shit is happening. It’s great and the fact that it’s Eminem is even more surprising. You wouldn’t expect Eminem to sign the guy who might be the next Eminem.

How did you hook up with Burn One? You guys seem to have a really good chemistry on the songs you’ve done.

He was actually DJing for Yela, and when he finally brought me on tour, Burn was with him. He’d said he was a big fan and had checked out Myspace. We ended up talking and he said that he had beats. And they were dope. I feel like they’re the perfect beats for me.  I make my own beats too, but I stopped for a while because I wasn’t keeping up with technology. I like beats that are spare and melodic, with down south drums , the cool UGK-type stuff. Before Burn, I never could get those type of beats. I’d been just picking beats off different producers that I found on SoundClick.

Gotta ask. What’s up with the hair?

Ha. I actually used to rock a fade, but I always knew I could grow a fro, my hair was real thick. So I just started letting that shit grow like Snoop and Cypress and B Real with the fro picking out the hat. When I’d go out, I’d separate it and it worked as far as the image thing. It was dope once you get it past the ears. It’s out of control, but it makes me recognizable. I guess I fucked up though and created a monster. Rolling with it, is a bitch in the summertime [laughs].

So what’s next?

We’re going to release White Jesus on Feb. 15 and I’m going to try to take my feet out of the working world.  It’s just about at that point. I just don’t want to make any stupid moves. I just want to hit the road hard and start doing shows and killing it on the feature route. The same thing that Wolf did. I want to get as many people interested in Slumamerican  as possible — make the value go up. Things were fucked up for a long time, but everything looks good right now.

Download:
MP3: Rittz-”My Time is Now”
MP3: Rittz ft. Yelawolf & Big K.R.I.T.-”Fulla Shit”

MP3: Rittz-”High Five”
MP3: Rittz-”Rattle Back”

MP3: Yelawolf ft. Rittz-”Box Chevy Pt. 3″

Question in the Form of an Answer: The Go! Team

The big talk in the lead-up to the release of The Go! Team’s third full-length LP, Rolling Blackouts, was bandleader and producer Ian Parton’s new found focus on songwriting. To that end, the sampling was assigned a backseat and a bunch of esteemed guest vocalists drafted in – including Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof and Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino.

The result is an album that takes the long way round to sounding much like the first two. Unsurprisingly, it’s the guest spots that really elevate Rolling Blackouts – Cosentino’s contribution, in particular, on “Buy Nothing Day” is something special indeed – and when Parton indulges his marching band fetish things get bat-shit crazy. But Rolling Blackouts can occasionally sound like the leftovers of Thunder, Lightning, Strike and Proof of Youth, particularly during the album’s overlong denouement, and for all of Ninja’s live prowess, she’s a middling, one dimensional MC. Thankfully, Parton will always be a talented producer, and even if only half of Rolling Blackouts is amazing, it’s a half’s worth more than many artists will ever manage.

On the phone from his Brighton home, Parton proved strangely imperturbable for someone in charge of a band as permanently excited as The Go! Team. Still, he spoke in easy, conversational tones about music and sampling, and was quite at home discussing the pitfalls of major label signings and the online hype machine. From what I could tell, he wasn’t wearing a cape or wool-lined shako. – Matt Shea

You’re calling from Brighton. You’re still living there these days?

Yep, yep.

The new album, Rolling Blackouts – congratulations. Dropping the samples first approach – why the change there?

I think we’ve always been a bit like that anyway. We’ve never been a band to just highjack a good song and put a beat under it and a rap and say that it’s a Go! Team song. I like to think we’ve never done that. Definitely more emphasis on melody really – just a feeling that we’ve done the double-dutch chanty thing, and it’s a lot harder to make a song with a singer singing the melody and with people actually singing on it, rather than just rapping or whatever, even though I love that stuff as well. So that was my obsession really: it was all about melody: to just hoard little melodies and try and write a song that you could play on acoustic possibly, you know what I mean?

If you had to strip everything down, it would stand up to that. So, that was really the kick-off, and sometimes I’d fit samples to the song and sometimes I’d find a sample that I’d base the song around. Each song has a different story, really. Some songs have no samples and some songs have twenty, you know? And it’s that confusion or not knowing what is what – I’ve got no problem with that and I’ve always liked that idea of, ‘Is it their idea? Is that a live brass section or is that a sample?’ You never really know.

Did that approach slow down the writing process?

Well it always takes me a while. That was literally my day, just hoarding ideas and they’d generally be shit, sometimes every record I’d been listening to, and then occasionally something would jump out and I’d think, ‘Oh, that bit’s cool.’ Maybe a drum break or whatever. So the process is long, but I think that process as well triggers your own ideas and, you know, you sing into your phone and before I knew it I had hours’ worth of ideas and I was able to listen back and whittle it down. It is like a filtering process in a way.

Dropping that samples first approach – did it have anything to do with how hard it is to get samples cleared these days?

No, not at all, no. I’ve never really factored that side in, to the point where some of our songs are actually given away over 100 per cent of a song because everyone wants a part of it. I’ve had the decision: ‘Do you want to change the melody or get some dodgy sample recreation made, or do you want to keep the original?’ And I’ve always tried to keep the original if it’s not too expensive, because I don’t want it to become too Muzak-y, and too much like a ring tone version of the real song, if you know what I mean. So yeah, I try not to think about that side of things because it’s really quite tedious; it’s about percentages and money and lawyers and stuff like that, so it’s not very creative, that way of thinking.

This is your third album but second as a full group. Do you feel like you’ve settled into a groove with the writing and recording process?

Um, not really (laughs). It’s always quite hard work. I mean, I write the music and then I get on the hot line to the rest of the band and say, ‘Do you wanna come down and do some bass,’ or to Ninja, ‘Come and so some vocals,’ or whatever. But it’s quite a bitty process and the songs don’t really reveal themselves properly for a long time – it kinda builds up and I’m not a good jammer: that’s one reason. I’m more about just getting little ideas and slowly building these thigns up. I think some bands might get together in a room and start jamming, and that might be a more satisfying way of making music, I don’t know, but that’s not The Go! Team way.

On this album you have the six band members of course, but also a whole slew of guests – did you ever find it hard to balance all that input?

Well I really just take it a song at a time and kinda imagine the world that the song exists in, you know? A song like ‘Secretary Song’, I was really imagining things like a Tokyo office with loads of symmetrical typists and elevators and quite 60s sort of Mad Men style stuff. So, I had an idea about the kind of voice I had in mind and that voice was Satomi [Matsuzaki, of Deerhoof] when I was imagining it, so you really work backwards from the song and try and think what the song needs rather than, ‘Hey, I really want to work with that person.’ It’s all about working backwards from the melody, for me.

What about records: were there any in particular that you were listening to as you created the album?

I was looking in different places. There’s a bit of African funk influence going on there and a more sort of psychedelic Boards of Canada thing, or Ennio Morricone – the Western theme – or the public information film kind of thing, or 60s girl group – I think that kinda thing comes out most – it comes out quite a lot. I think possibly the biggest thing, though, was the whole marching band kind of thing.

I’ve always had this obsession with parades and marching bands and even the uniforms that marching bands wear, like the breakbeat sound you get, that ‘boom-boom dic-a-ta dic-a-ta dic-a-ta /boom-boom dic-a-ta dic-a-ta dic-a-ta’ of marching bands: I really dig that stuff. So we actually used a real massive brass section – there were like sixteen year old kids on this record, scoring parts out with the saxophones and trombones – that was all new territory as well. That was quite liberating, the idea that I could actually have a melody and hear it played back by 20 people, you know, is quite a dreamy thing really. So yeah, I think the whole military band vibe kinda comes out a bit more on this record too.

You guys are known for a blazing live show. With that balanced against the origins of you, Ian, in your bedroom cobbling together tunes, do you consider yourselves more a live band or a studio band?

It’s just a bit of both, really. I mean, we definitely gel more as a band onstage, because the recording process is quite bitty – it’s not a satisfying band experience, possibly [laughs]. But when we hit the stage all of that is really blasted away and we all sort of thrash around. We never really spoke about what we do onstage but just naturally we’ve become the band that sort of thrashes around in different ways. Like, Ninja, is pretty funky and I just kinda put my head down and chuck my guitar around, so I think visually we all look pretty different onstage as well, which is always something that I’ve quite dug about us.

You were signed quite briefly to Columbia in the United States – something that I read you personally were never that comfortable with – what was that like as an experience?

I don’t know, I think we kinda pissed people off in a way. We were on a major in England they’d say, ‘We want to do an advert for the record: “Heyyy. Buy ‘Thunder, Lightening, Strike’ in the shops now!”’ and most of the band didn’t really like it because all the bands we ever see advertised like that are people we don’t like (laughs). I dunno – maybe it’s snobbery or something, I dunno, but they’d get really fucked off with us when we’d say ‘no’ to these things and they’d call meetings and try and persuade us and we’d go, ‘No.’

So, I don’t know, maybe we took it for granted at the time but, you know, we’ve always been kind of untouchable in a way because we’ve always been able to shrink back down to Memphis Industries, where we started. We never really had that, ‘Hey, this is our make-or-break!’ We never had the whole tied-into-six-albums-and-they-fuck-you-over type deal. It was really all on our terms and I’d get really assey with them about artwork and stuff, so maybe they just thought we were too much trouble.

I read a recent interview with Maynard from Tool, and he talked about how the band’s propensity to say ‘no’ to everything eventually came round to benefit them. Do you think that’s been the case with The Go! Team?

Um, I don’t know. I don’t think financially, particularly, but personally we’ve said on the whole sort of advert thing, we’ve turned down lots and lots of things. I could have potentially bought a house by now, but I think the cringe factor is kind of what I keep thinking about. I have mellowed and I think you kinda have to mellow really, and you have to say ‘yes’ to the odd thing, but we’re not exactly Fugazi in our militancy.

That experience with the majors – did that take the sheen off trying to make it in North America?

Not really. I mean, America is really very hipster-y anyway, like England is. I don’t know how it is in Australia, but it’s very next-thing next-thing next-thing, very hypy, and lots of bands seem to have a short shelf life. So, in the early days that hype was used to our advantage – we’d go to America and sell out everywhere we played, and this is a year before the album came out, purely on the strength of that kind of Pitchfork-style hipsterdom, you know what I mean? And that soon kind of evaporated and then you have your true fans, which is maybe at the stage we’re at now. It’s really a voyage into the unknown. I don’t know how long you can last as a band anymore (laughs). I’ll let you know in a few months.

To my mind, you were one of the early bands to blow up through blog coverage.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Do you feel like pioneers in that respect?

It was interesting, yeah. Totally. We were right on the edge there, weren’t we, between the very blogosphery type thing – all about tip-offs – when Pitchfork was really powerful and the hipsters would really listen to it and stuff, so, yeah, is it like that anymore? I don’t know.

I would say it probably is… What are the plans for the rest of 2011?

Well, February is UK, March is Europe, and April is America and May is potentially Australia and Japan, but I don’t think we’re allowed to name dates or anything. So, lots of touring, but I have a kid now so I can’t quite be on the road as much as I used to be!

Download:
MP3: The Go! Team-”T.O.R.N.A.D.O”
Buy Nothing Day by threeminutesthirtyseconds

Question in the Form of an Answer: Cut Copy

It’s interesting to consider what’s been going through the collective heads of Cut Copy over the past twelve months. Their last record, “In Ghost Colours,” was a monster, the Australians arriving with the right sound at the right time to be handed the keys to the United States – a very grand dream that few international bands realise. A whirlwind of acclaim and some sold out touring followed. But if 2009 had been a year of pills and powder, 2010 was surely one of coffee, weed and ibogaine, the four members retiring to a Melbourne warehouse and hammering out their long awaited follow-up, “Zonoscope.” It’s not a sophomore, but such are expectations that it will surely be judged like one. I had the good fortune to chat to bass player Ben Browning on the eve of the local launch for Zonoscope. He sounded surprisingly relaxed. – Matt Shea

Where are you calling from?

I’m actually calling from home. I’m in Melbourne.

The band’s still based there?

Yeah, we actually all live in Melbourne, so yeah, that’s probably been the base of Cut Copy for the duration of the band’s career. Tim, our guitarist, lived in Sydney for a few years but he’s back here now.

The new album – Zonoscope. Congratulations: you guys are happy with the way it’s come together?

Yeah we’re extremely happy. It was a process where we were involved with things quite closely all the way through and produced it ourselves and found a warehouse space in Melbourne to do the recording, which we initially thought we’d be using to do demos, and as the process went on we were like, ‘This is sounding good.’ Yeah, it was great. It was a real do-it-yourself environment. We just brought in gear that we needed – borrowed gear and hired gear – and cracked away in this dark, big warehouse throughout winter. The place had no heating or anything like that so we weren’t in Jamaica, kinda sitting on the beach and occasionally doing a bit of tracking; we worked pretty hard when we were in there, because if you weren’t playing something you were trying to find a few coats to sink into and not freeze.

But we’re really happy with it and it’s a bit weird, because you work on something for a long time and then you finish it and then it gets put on hold sort of thing until it’s ready to come out at a desired time. And it feels like you re-realise the album when it finally comes out. You’ve lived with it for a long time and people are hearing it for the first time, all of a sudden, and it reignites your interest, I guess.

To say that In Ghost Colours was a well-received record would be an understatement. How do you follow up an album like that? What were some of the things you wanted to do?

I guess we wanted to do something different but then I guess that’s been the ethos of the band since we started. I think if you compare the first album to the second album, they’re quite different in sound and scope, and this time we wanted to try a bunch of different processes and techniques compared to the last one as well. Just doing it ourselves was a big challenge in itself. I guess just using a different palette of sound, different keyboard sounds and different rhythm ideas, like using a lot of percussion, live percussion and things like that, and we would jam different ideas and find loops and stuff out of those. So I guess there was maybe a bit more of an organic focus on this one. I think just being influenced by different music – you don’t really want to just stay in one place.

Did you feel any pressure?

Yeah, maybe – we never really talked about it. I don’t know, I guess we were just excited to do something. It was a long time since In Ghost Colours had come out when we started working on this, and we’d been touring that album for a while. So I guess the excitement of doing something new was just the focus, I guess. We weren’t really too worried about comparing things. I guess, occasionally, you might do something and think, ‘Oh, that sounds like something we did before and is there another way we can do it.’ But, generally, you just take what’s in front of you and whatever song we were working on, that was the focus, and we weren’t really thinking about looking back too much.

A big part of In Ghost Colours was your collaboration with Tim Goldsworthy and the DFA crew – with that in mind, was it intimidating taking on the production yourselves this time around?

Yeah, to some degree. We actually thought as we were doing it that we might collaborate with someone, or we may get a producer in at some point at the start. And then as we were going through we started thinking, ‘We could actually probably do this ourselves.’ Dan pretty much produces: he’s probably uncredited but had a major role in the production of the previous two albums, so a lot of what you’re hearing on those two records is really Dan’s production sound anyway. There was a little bit of trepidation about doing it ourselves, but I think once we’d heard how things were going we were pretty excited and we got positive feedback. Yeah, there wasn’t too much fear.

There’s a slightly different sound going on here – a dancier sound, a harder sound, maybe a darker sound. That wintry, warehouse environment: do you think that affected the sound of the album?

Yeah, I guess so. It’s hard to pick out specifically why, but I think just being in an environment you create yourself, it didn’t feel like there was external pressure – there was no one to answer to – so we were able to try things. No one was there to say ‘no’ basically. We would try anything we could think of, without worrying about being on the clock or anything like that. So we had a lot of freedom, but then we were also focussed on getting things finished and not letting the process take over and be a monster that we couldn’t reign in. We somehow managed to find a balance between just experimenting with whatever we wanted to do and sort of focussing on getting it finished, because you can sort of go off on tangents forever. Even just the space – everyone was just thrown in there and doing a bit of this and that – it was pretty fun, I guess. We’d find something to bash. I mean, I dunno if it’s on the record – I think it is – there was just this ladder there, I dunno why it was in there, but it was resting against some beams in the roof, and someone whacked it and we thought, ‘that’s got a pretty good sound,’ so our drummer ended up doing some kind of ladder solo and getting different sounds out of that and mic-ing that up. There was also just a heap of crazy gear in this place. We had a big room and in this other huge room was almost like a museum of stuff – hardly any of it worked, but anything we needed or wanted to try, we were allowed to try – the guy that owned the place was really cool.

What kind of stuff were you listening to at the time?

I guess the last album – it was really a part of that Australian electro takeover or whatever you want to call it, with Midnight Juggernauts and The Presets and stuff, and it definitely belonged to that time and that era. And this album, I guess, was probably a little bit of a move away from that sound and that scene. There’s so much out there and we’re always listening to new stuff – if we wanted to make that record today it would probably sound different to Zonoscope. Through time you just find different things to get into. There was definitely a lot of 70s Brian Eno-related records – your solo stuff and Roxy Music and Talking Heads and some of the tribal 80s stuff, like Malcolm McLaren. It was definitely something we were interested in and we kinda found a new avenue of different sound in those records that we could recreate – we were definitely influenced by those sorts of things.

The album was mixed in Atlanta by Ben Allen – what did he bring to the table?

He’d work closely with the band on mixing the record and just getting it up to speed, in a way. It was pretty much recorded and produced before he mixed it, but he’s done some amazing work with Animal Collective and also in the hip hop realm. He worked on Gnarls Barkley and heaps of stuff with hip hop artists about ten years ago, so he has this unique background in sound and obviously his approach to sound is something that we wanted to bring in at that point, and he also found kind of a gospel choir type vocal ensemble, so he found local singers to help do some backing vocals on a few tracks as well, so I think overall it worked out really well.

Cut Copy have been around in one guise or another for some time now. Does it strike you how much has changed in electronic music in that time?

Yeah. I guess it did start out being a unique sound when Cut Copy first came out – probably influenced a bit by The Avalanches and it was originally DJing and sampling stuff and Dan throwing his hat in for songwriting a bit, and just following this really experimental process, almost like a solo project to start with. As far as the band goes, we’re now obviously much more like a band and playing a lot of live instruments and all that stuff. So the Cut Copy sound has definitely evolved over that time and I guess I definitely hear the Cut Copy influence on a lot of new bands, which I guess is a bit bizarre. But things evolve and hopefully we’ll continue to evolve and without totally reinventing ourselves, trying to be on a bit of a journey with our own sound. And things have evolved – that dance music revolution where people play guitars and make dance music, it’s not so unique anymore. Things are always evolving and hopefully we just keep doing what we want to do. We don’t try to think too much about what our standing is.

You looking forward to getting Zonoscope out on the road?

Yeah, definitely. It’s always good to just get the album out of the CD player, bash it out live and get an immediate response from people. So, we’ll be doing a lot of tracks from the new record at Laneway [Festival, in Australia], and it’s gonna be really fun to just, yeah, see how that goes down. After that, we’ve probably got a good twelve months of touring the album around the world, so life’s gonna speed up a bit (laughs). We’re really pumped to do Laneway, because there’s just such a great line-up – there are all these bands that we’d love to see. I’d be going to that festival even if we weren’t playing at it. We’re really excited about that, and it seems like a really great way to start the album touring.

How do you describe the Cut Copy live experience to someone who’s never seen the show?

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the show (laughs). I don’t know. I guess its certainly energetic and we’ll try to get the crowd involved as much as we can. But, I don’t know, I think the new songs off the new album are going to change things – there’s a lot more live percussion and a few more hypnotic type tracks, so I’m not sure exactly how people are going to experience it…

It’ll certainly be a little different to past Cut Copy shows…

Yeah, a bit. We’ll probably still play “Heart’s On Fire” and people will still have their hands in the air and stuff, but there are certain elements of it that we always try to get everyone jumping up and down and into it, but maybe there will be a few more subtle diversions as well.

Do you guys tend to roll with a rigid set or do you improvise?

We’ll probably have a fairly structured set but we’ll have songs that we can interchange. So, a lot of it will be the same, but then we can kind of shift in and out. But yeah, a lot of what we’re doing this year involves video content and stuff like that, so a lot of it is kinda sequenced to the particular songs and stuff, so we can’t really change that up too much. We need to present that so it works, basically.

Talking about how Cut Copy has evolved from a one-man operation to a full band: with all the live shows you play these days, do you guys now consider your natural environment the studio or the stage?

It’s almost like two modes really. Because a lot of what we do live is try to make it sound like the record and keep a lot of the elements from the record that we can’t possibly play live, but we’ll have stuff running off a track or something, just to make sure that production of the record is still part of the live experience. I mean, it really does just feel like two different worlds in a way. When we’re playing live it feels like you’re in a cover band, you know what I mean? You’re just trying to realise what you’ve done, live. But I think they’re both amazing processes in their own right. Playing in front of a few thousand people or whatever and doing a whole set in an hour and just flying through it. Compared to just working on one part of one song for a whole day – they’re pretty uniquely different experiences I guess.

And you’re lined up for Coachella again this year – you must be excited about that. Cut Copy seem to have a special relationship with that place.

Yeah, definitely. We played there in 2008, before we had a national tour of the US, and that really kicked things off for us in an amazing way. It seemed to be talked about quite a bit, that particular show, so hopefully this year’s just as good, if not better. It’s an amazing place, an amazing setting, and we’re really excited to go back there. It ‘s one of the best run and curated festivals in the world, so there will be heaps of good bands to see and hopefully we don’t get scorched – it’s kind of in the desert. It get’s really, really hot.

You talk about that being a launching pad for you guys and I guess that’s one of those elements of festivals people don’t think about so much…

Yeah, that’s the great thing about music festivals: a lot of people will experience bands for the first time at music festivals. They’ll maybe go to a festival to see two or three bands that they really like and then they’ll find another two or three bands that they like just by being there. It’s always great to get that opportunity to play to new people and try and win their love.

Download:
MP3: Cut Copy-”Where I’m Going”

Cut Copy – “Take Me Over” (Radio Edit) Premiere by modularpeople

Stream: Cut Copy – Zonoscope

Sach O: Terror Danjah Interview (Igloofest)

Sach O is lobbying to host “Yo! MTV Grime!”

For a man with a stage name befitting a Marvel Comics super villain, Terror Danjah’s a nice guy. I recently caught up with the Grime Don at Montreal’s Igloofest and asked him a couple questions about his career resurgence, the state of Grime in London, some of his big tunes and various other points of interest. He responded with lengthy WWF metaphors, a pitch perfect wobble impersonation and philosophical musing about Asian prowess at video games. Then he proceeded to slay an 8000 strong crowd in arctic conditions delivering a blazing mix of Dubstep anthems and his signature instrumental Grime. All in all, a fantastic night was had by all and I even managed to get half an exclusive about his upcoming projects. Special shoutouts go to cameraman/editor Philip Tam for his hard work and Igloofest point man Morgan Steiker for hooking us up.

Question in the form of an Answer: Mary J Blige

Mary J. Blige is one of the few constants in R&B’s recent history. While many of her contemporaries fell off after the modern iterations early 90s heyday, Blige continued to write and record at an impressive rate, merging with a new generation of artists and becoming the go-to girl for rap producers in search of that elusive crossover track. I wasn’t surprised when our interview turned up a stone cold professional: everything was handled efficiently and with a friendly tolerance, and Blige’s confidence is almost as intimidating as her impressive body of work. Unfortunately, it was over the phone so I couldn’t tell if she was covered in My Life and rocking some Melodies. – Matt Shea

You’ve released 11 albums so far. They’re all well regarded, but what are some of the key ways in which your approach to recording has changed over the years?

Well the process is really the same, because it’s always from the perspective of where I am based at the moment – mentally, spiritually – and where I’m going, what’s around me, what’s going on in my life, what’s going on in the person’s life sitting next to me or that’s around me all the time. So the process is really the same, because it just comes from a place of where we are realistically in life.

Away from your own albums, you were part of plenty of rap records. One of the biggest being Reasonable Doubt in 1996 with your contributions to “Can’t Knock the Hustle”. What was it like working on that track?

That was fun, because I was right in the epitome of what that record was about (chuckles). Although I was already a superstar in the business – I was onto my second album, I was onto the My Life album – I was still really, really eager to work with Jay because I’d heard so many great things about him and I’d heard so much on him already, so I respected him as a rapper, and it was just fun and an honor, even before he was the Jay-Z that we know now, to be on the record, because he was such an amazing rapper, you know?

Is that the favorite hook you’ve ever done for a rap song?

But I guess I’ve done so many. I’ve done “All I Need” with Method Man – let’s not forget that one. They’re probably my two favorites right there – that one with Method and the one with Jay.

You now work with your husband Kendu Isaacs in the studio…

Well he’s a producer and he’s produced a lot of my records, yes.

What’s that like, working with your partner in such a creative way?

The creative part of it is all beautiful. You’re creating – it’s a beautiful thing purely because you’re doing what you love.

Do you think that need for open communication in the studio flows over into your private lives as a couple?

I guess when you’re married to somebody some things are a little bit of a struggle. You have to agree to disagree or you’re just going to constantly disagree all the time, so you’re always going to run into a lot of things that don’t have anything to do with what you’re doing. But if you’re doing what you love, honestly, you can be non-biased and really, really have a good time creating with one another.

You’ve done a bit of acting over the last few years, and you’re set to play Nina Simone in a feature film next year. What was the appeal of that particular role?

Well I just fell in love with the character – when I found out who she was. Because I didn’t really know who she was! I knew her songs but always thought she was a man – I didn’t know this person was Nina Simone. And her voice is just like, ‘My god!’ I’d never heard anything like it, and her songs just make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Her voice is just amazing – so I’m probably one of her biggest fans now (laughs).

Was it hard to research for the role?

Well, the research was definitely hard because you have to find out the truth. A lot of the information that was given to me was wrong, and I had to go back and find family members, and sometimes you can’t find family members because for whatever reason they don’t want to turn up. So it’s been hard to hook up with the family

Is this a sign of a bigger stab at an acting career?

Well, I’m involved in the film version of Rock of Ages, which is now a play on Broadway, but they made it into an actual film. It’s about people becoming rockstars in the early 80s and I play – it’s not a raunchy role, but the lady who runs the call girl club [Justice Charlier]. I am the owner, but it’s a respectable place, a respectable role – it’s not bad.

You’ve released both a sunglasses line and a perfume line – how’s that been as an experience?

That’s been great. The perfume has been successful. We launched it on HSN and it did amazingly well. The sunglass line: every time we do it in store it sells out. It’s still selling and everything is going well, and everything is good!

You’re a lady of some pop cultural standing so the perfume probably makes sense, but why sunglasses?

Because they’re an extension of me as well. I only do things when they’re extensions of me. When you go back in my career and you dig up pictures of me from the “Reminisce” video, the “Be Happy” video – there are so many videos and so many pictures of me with sunglasses – they’re like my fixture, and that’s why I really wanted to do it. And then Jimmy Iovine – it was really his idea because he saw me at a wedding for Ron Fair, a producer who works at Interscope. I had on a pair of really hot Alexander McQueen glasses – these really hot glasses, and he just went crazy and said I looked like a Bond girl, (laughs) and before we knew it we were sitting in my hotel room discussing what our plan was for making sunglasses.

You could probably measure your success both in terms of albums and in terms of how many great singers – Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Ashanti, for example – who have cited you as a major influence. What matters more to you – the praise of your fans or the praise of your peers?

I mean it’s both, you know? It’s really both. Neither one of them is less important – they’re both exactly the same, because if you get the praise from your fans – I mean, that is more important, because the praise from your peers might not last as long (laughs). So, the praise from the fans is way more important than the praise from your peers, but the praise from your peers is still important!

The internet has changed things somewhat, but do you consider yourself more of a studio musician or a live musician?

I think honestly that I’m both. I don’t play instruments but I use my vocals as though they were instruments and if I’m in the studio producing something I can play with my mouth or with my vocals what it is that I want the horn to play, or what it is I want the piano or even the drum to play, you know?

What are the plans for the rest of 2011?

Well, I’m just gonna finish up the new album I’ve been working on, and then I guess do these movies!

Download:
MP3: Mary J Blige ft. The Notorious B.I.G.-”Real Love (Remix)”
MP3: Mary J Blige ft. The Notorious B.I.G.-”What’s the 411″

Question in the Form of an Answer: Lord Finesse

The Bronx’s Diggin’ in the Crates crew towered over the early to mid-90s like an SP1200-strapped colossus, and continue to have a strong pull on the New York underground. At the center of DITC is Lord Finesse. Say what you like about Finesse – ultra-smooth MC, forward thinking producer, notorious ladies man – the guy is dedicated to hip-hop and talks in long, loving tones about rap music, particularly anything to do with DITC. I recently chatted to him on the eve of his latest tour to Australia — he was kickin’ it at home in front of the television, I was trying to stop my house from flooding. It was educational.– Matt Shea

American hip-hop artists seem a lot more prepared these days to make the trip to more far flung places about the world. Why do you think that is?

It could be a lot of things. You’ve gotta understand, for me, that trip is a long trip so I gotta get geared up to wanna do twenty hours. You gotta understand: you’ve got some rappers that don’t want to go five hours, so twenty hours is like four times the problem, you know? So you tend to look at it like that. And then economically: for me, I get a lot of money when I go to Japan; to go a little further to Australia, the money is actually less than what I get in Japan. There’s a debate right there, you know?

Does that equate to bigger venues in Japan?

No, I wouldn’t think so. I’m doin’ clubs and its packed – sold out. I’ll do everything from performing out there with a band in 2009, to a DJ tour last year to seven cities. The money is always great, but when you talk to some promoters in Australia and they talk the numbers and you’re like, ‘Nah, I’m good!’ And they’re like, ‘Huh?! Why don’t you wanna come out here?’ They don’t know, economically, it’s not adding up to what you’re used to getting.

You know, the fans have really got to appreciate some artists that come out there to do what they do, because some people take sacrifices – like me, I’m takin’ a hit this trip, you know? It’s gonna be decent, you know, but it ain’t what I get when I’m over there in Asia. But I do get a lot of emails on my Facebook, on different applications, from people wanting me to come back to the down under, so you know, you take that into account. It’s just gotta even out at the end of the day for both: for the promoter and the artist.

Going back a bit, you started off as an MC and then moved to production. What was it that prompted you initially to get behind the boards? Was that something you wanted to do from day one in your rap career?

At the start I didn’t want to be a rapper; I wanted to be a DJ. Rapping is something that I fell into, and got so much love and respect for it that I pursued it and really went into it, 100 per cent. And then later on it kinda evened back out by doing production. That took me back into the musical realm, which I always wanted to be in from the gate. I never really swayed from wanting to be a DJ or a producer. At the time, after the Funky Technician album and after, like, some of the breaks that I had, I had a chance to really sit down with the music.

Even now, between what I’m currently working on and the next three projects, they’re kinda long breaks and I think people are gonna hear what I’ve been doin’, you know? It’s still gonna be a Lord Finesse sound, but there’s just so much more to it now, and I look at music way different, and even the way I approach songs and approach music is different. And it’s better: when I say ‘different’ don’t think I’m goin’ leftfield or tryin’ to do radio songs, or pop – naaah! – I just learned a lot of different technical things that can help me do double the work in a quarter of the time, you know?

Talking Diggin’ in the Crates: There’s a lot of respect for you guys and what you bring to a project – you’ve often done remixes of whole albums for different artists. What it is it that you think makes a DITC production stand out?

We think outside the lines and we like funk, and we like soul, and we genuinely love great music. We love good music, and when we do what we do we don’t look at it as whether or not its going to rock in the clubs, or if the radio’s gonna play it; we think of good music overall before we go into the realm of what it’s going to do. It has to strike us. We want it – when it comes on, the first five to ten seconds – we want it to be, ‘Damn! What’s that?!’ That’s what makes Diggin’ in the Crates music extraordinary, and people have gotta understand: the greatest thing about living life is freedom of speech, right? Being able to say what you want to say. Music is the same thing, it’s just freedom of expression. You get to express yourself through music. So when you’re doing music, people want to hear your story, so if you’re gonna do somebody else’s story you shouldn’t even be doing music. If somebody gives you chance to tell your story and you tell somebody else’s story, you shouldn’t have that freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is about being different, about being who you are. And that about sums up Diggin’ in the Crates music: it’s who we are, you know?

Of the DITC crew, the man in the spotlight just last month was Buckwild with Nineteen Ninety Now. Have you considered doing the same thing and taking some archived beats and turning them into a new album?

Nah. Because I think that’s what made that music special at that time and generation, you know? It’s like, you don’t ask Stevie Wonder to do “Superstition” over and over, you know? I will take some of the ingredients and the technical things that we used to make the music dope and apply ‘em to the music I’m doing now. I do want that b-boy, hip-hop, head nod, great funk thing – that’s what I want – but I won’t go to the point of taking some old discs and doing a whole new album. I just can’t do that. I’ve learned so much between now and that generation, that decade, I’d just feel like I was putting limitations on myself by going backwards.

The other interesting thing I’ve heard rumour of is that you and Premier are working on a posthumous Big L album. Any word on that?

That’s dead, that’s dead. That’s dead. You know, because, um, when I looked at the Big L situation, I helped his mom, Pinky, run the estate, and, you know, that was a great thing, and I helped out doing a lot of different things at that time. You know, helpin’ out mold certain Big L things and, you know, it was great, and I did it really out of love because most of the time I ain’t getting’ paid to do what I did, so it wasn’t a money thing.

Now, the way they’re throwing these projects together and the way it’s looking, it’s not really putting Big L in his best light, that’s the thing. It was not a problem we had with The Big Picture, that still came out incredible, but a lot of things you have to really sit down and carefully plan out what you’re doin’ and why you’re doin’ it. I mean, if you don’t have a plan in this day and time you’re basically driving with a blanket on the windshield, you know? I look at me and Premier doing the Big L project, if we did do it, and it’s gonna be crazy, but from the business side, we’re not doing it for somebody else to financially benefit form what we’re doin’. We’re doin’ it for the Big L fans and his legacy, but if we’re doing all this hard work, blood, sweat and tears for the legacy and the fans, I don’t wanna see somebody else putting a check in their pocket. That’s not what it’s all about, so that’s why, from that standpoint, I say no, you know? I won’t say never; I’ll just say no.

It’s something you must want to do right, given the memories you’d have of working with Big L back in the day…

Yeah, I mean his legacy is just incredible, man. I say that because the things he did in the short period of time, you know, and some people look at him as this underground icon that’s bigger than the world, you know? And I would want that to continue on. I don’t want his vocals mashed up against just any beat, because you should be trying to do something better and carefully put it together, you know? Let’s go with the Terror Squad with “Bring ‘Em Back”, with Pun and Fat Joe and L: that song was originally just L and Sheek Louch from The LOX, but if you listen to the way L’s rhyming on that beat, you couldn’t tell us that he wasn’t wasn’t in the booth rhyming to that, it sounds like the perfect match. And that’s what it’s about with me – I’m a perfectionist.

It’s a long time since The Awakening. In the internet age, are you still a big believer in the hip-hop album?

I mean these days you’ve got your MySpace and your Twitter and your Facebook, and these are great outlets but people become complacent and lazy and they think this is all you have to do to promote yourself, when there’s a whole world our there, man. People wanna see you physically and feel you physically more than they want to see this internet stuff goin’ on. I mean, that’s a great marketing scheme, media-wise, and you’ve got Twitter and Facebook and MySpace – they’re great tools – but there’s so much more to promote yourself than that. That’s like just putting it on the net and waiting for somebody to knock on your door with a check – it’s just not gonna happen.

You really gotta go out there and do promo tours and do radio and do a lot of things and just put it out there. YouTube, you know: ‘Check me out on YouTube!’ Okay let’s take me for instance, Lord Finesse, I’m an underground artist and sometimes people look at YouTube and learn about my music and that’s great – and I’m underground – but if you are an artist coming up in this game and you’re underground but you don’t have a story like me – I’ve dropped, like, three albums, you probably dropped three mixtapes – people ain’t just gonna go to YouTube and dig you up like that. It’s not gonna work like that and people just think, you know, ‘All I gotta do is put it on YouTube, I got a Facebook, I got a MySpace, I got a Twitter. I’m good.’ It’s much more than that. There’s just so much more than that.

Looking at the last couple of decades, one of the big movements has been a lot of hip-hop producers really getting involved in R&B. Is that something you’ve ever considered doing more of?

I mean, I’ve done that in the past when you look at SWV, Jeff Redd, and that sort of thing. I’ve done that and always loved music, so I’ve always kept true to what I do. I mean if you listen to “The Message” on Dre’s album [2001], that coulda been R&B. Would that make it any less dope? No. I mean I like a lot of R&B artists and I think there’s room for it [hip-hop producers working with R&B artists], because a lot of these R&B acts are dependent on synth sounds and dependent on all this Star Trek type music, and there ain’t enough of the funk. The funk is what made your James Brown and when you listen to James Brown and Stevie Wonder and Barry White and Teddy Pendergrass and Earth, Wind and Fire: all these people have different styles and sounds, but if you listen to a lot of this style of muysic now, everybody is copying what somebody else is doing. They’re copying what the leader is doing, and once again I’m a firm believer in having your own musical opinion, because if you’re gonna do what’s out there already then you’re preparing yourself to be number two, because number one is already out there. And then on top of that you’ve got a lot of older artists trying to do young stuff, man. You ain’t ever see Al Green worrying about what Michael Jackson was doing (laughs), you know? You didn’t have Marvin Gaye worrying about what Stevie was doing when he was a kid. You got a lot of older artists trying to be kids again. They don’t want to accept that these kids are not your demographic – you got a demographic and now you’re tryin’ to party with some teeny boppers, man. I’m with my fans, I’m happy with my demographic, I love great music, and that’s the demographic that I’m after, so you don’t have to worry about Finesse doin’ some pop thing on an electro-techno thing trying to get new sounds, you know?

The casual music fan would of course know you from Fatboy Slim’s “Rockafeller Skank”? What did you think when you first heard the track? Was that cleared with you?

I was scammed and duped into that. You know, me being an advocate of hip-hop and believin’: somebody came to me and wanted a sample cleared. They said, ‘We got your voice on a hook.’ They never gave me a tape or a copy of a tape to listen to, for me to identify what this whole song was about. It was just like, ‘Yo, we’re using your voice for a hook in a song.’ When somebody comes along to you in the hip-hop format and with that state of mind you’re looking at it as, ‘Well they’re gonna scratch my voice in a hook. Somebody’s gonna do sixteen bars, scratch my voice and a hook/Sixteen bars, scratch my voice and a hook.’

Then I heard the song and it was mainly me: I would have had a different outlook [if I’d known that], and I think that was done on purpose. So, ‘We’re gonna ask him to clear it but we’re not gonna let him hear what we want him to clear,’ and me not wantin’ to be a dickhead, I said, ‘Well, let me clear this,’ because I’ve had samples that I went through hell to get cleared. I didn’t want to put somebody through the same thing. But you soon learn that you can’t be good to people because they will take advantage of you, so at the end of the day I haven’t gotten nowhere near what I should have deserved to do that, you know? But it’s all good: you learn you can’t really dwell in the past and you can’t look backwards so all you can do is take that experience and move on, you know?

Did you really sell your SP1200 on eBay?

That is correct. I’m lookin’ forward to meeting the person who bought it. I just thought my SP12 was sittin’ in the closet. I wasn’t using it, I wasn’t going back to use it, you know? The machine is one thing, and that is a classic piece and a historical item to have, but the actual disc with all the music on it – that’s where all the work lies at actually. So I looked at it like that, and I haven’t actually used the 1200 in over… wow, maybe ten years or so. So a lot of the music people have been hearing hasn’t been the 1200. So, you know, I know a lot of purists, hip-hop purists, who are saying, ‘Aw, he’s sellin’ his Twelve. What’s goin’ on? Is he broke?’ But I felt like instead of giving it to a thrift shop or a store, why not give it to an actual fan, you know?

Let’s say I take it to a store and say, ‘I wanna trade this is in for another machine.’ They don’t know who I am. They’re not gonna look at is as something of value, but a fan will look at it as whole different thing. I get the comments but people don’t understand. This hip-hop thing is weird, I tell you: you’ve got the purists who want you to do 1200 stuff for the rest of your life (laughs), then you got people that want to see if you’ve grown since the 1200 – What’s this new style? What is he doing now? Has he evolved? – you’ve got that group of people. And being a creator, a producer and an artist, it’s hard to please all sets of people – that’s just not gonna happen. You end up trying to fit into a little grey area, but somebody’s always gonna get mad, not everybody’s ever gonna be happy. So I look at people, I look at the comments, but at the end of the day as long as I’m happy, that’s what matters. If they feel a certain way, why don’t they get a 1200 and do that music that’s in their head?

That’s true – it’s only ever going to be as valuable to you as the music you can create on it…

I’ve been working on an MPC3000, MPC4000, an Akai S6000, you know? That 1200 ain’t been used since The Awakening. So it’s not doing me no good sittin’ there. What, am I gonna do? Put it in a case and put a light on it?

Looking ahead, what are the plans for the rest of 2011?

Well there’s a lot in store for 2011. Two albums will be dropping around the same time: that’s The Tru Origin album and the Funky Technician remix project – they’ll both be dropping round roughly the same time. The Tru Origin project will feature me, O.C. and a coupla other artists I’m not gonna let outta the bag. It’s a project, back to lyrics and hip-hop, you know? And then, you know, selected cities: I’ll be coming out with a band. I gotta mean band, man. If you want, YouTube ‘Lord Finesse and the Congregation’, or ‘Lord Finesse live in Tokyo’ and you’ll see my band – they’re bad boys, man. So I’ll be doing that – that’s gonna be a mean tour. And then you got middle of the year: me, Large Professor and O.C. working on an alumni album. There’s a lot of things goin’ on and a lot of production in between, so expect a lot of good things, but I promise my fans one thing: if it ain’t gonna be dope it ain’t comin’ out, man. Don’t look at me as doing an album because it seems the right thing to do, but look at me doin’ it because I believe I’m gonna make a difference and I’m gonna change the game.

Download:
MP3: Lord Finesse-”S.K.I.T.S.”
MP3: Lord Finesse-”Return of the Funky Man (Video Version)”

MP3: Lord Finesse ft. Roy Ayers-”Soul Plan”

Question in the form of an Answer: Caribou

The Vitruvian nature of Caribou’s output makes it easy to think that Dan Snaith has allowed his two careers in music and mathematics to inform each other. The reality is, the Canadian-born, London-based beatmaker arrives at a finished track simply through tireless experimentation.  His latest album, Swim, appear on many an end-of-year list, but Snaith is more concerned right now with the live performances of this impressive collection of songs.  I recently got to spend twenty minutes on the horn with Snaith, chatting about making albums, playing shows,  Four Tet and mathematics. – Matt Shea

London – is that where you’re based these days?

I am. I’m just in the UK by coincidence, I guess, today, but we’ve been all over the place this year. I am still based in London when we’re not on tour.

Why live in London?

Originally, I moved over there because I studied with my PhD supervisor – the guy I wanted to do a PhD with was based in London. But it was convenient in that the label that had released my first album, Leaf, was based in London at the same time, so it kind of worked for a number of different reasons.

It’s been a busy year for you.  It must feel like an eternity since you released Swim.

It does actually. We were just thinking about the rehearsing [we did] for the tour before it started this year, and that just seems like an impossible amount of time ago. It’s just crazy.

I guess one of the things that’s noted about you is that you’re also a mathematician.  What came first for you as a kid, the interest in math or the interest in music?

Well I guess mathematics in some sense must have come first, my dad being a mathematician and there being so many mathematicians in the family. I can’t remember a time when that wasn’t there. I mean, a lot of my early memories have something to do with mathematics. But, it was also my parents who encouraged me to start playing piano and they got me a little kid’s drum kit when I was around the same age. That also came quite early on, so I knew that I was interested in that kind of thing.
You’ve successfully followed both into your adult life.  In more recent years, do the math and the music go together or are they competing interests?

Now, music is definitely number one. I don’t do mathematics at all anymore, which I guess expresses to some degree that I always liked music more and is what I wanted to do. But they never really went together in the sense that there’s never been any mathematics in my music or any music in my PhD work. But in some sense they complement each other; in some sense they’re both kinda solitary pursuits, they’re both imaginative; mathematics becomes a lot more imaginative and creative at a certain point. I think people like to think of them as more closely linked, or directly linked, than they are.

Talking about Swim – it’s such a distinctive listen. What kind of records were you listening to as you created the album?

Well I guess I was listening to lots and lots of contemporary dance music. It seems that’s where all the interesting things are at the moment – electronic music of varying, different types. But also, I’m glad you said it sounds distinctive because that was the whole idea for me. Even though I was excited about lots and lots of music, to not borrow from that music, to make sure I made an album that sounded like it was only my music: I really wanted to make it as distinctive-sounding as possible. So yeah, I think the spirit of being in London and there being so many exciting musical things going on in dance music and electronic music – that excitement contributed to the record, even if the direct sounds didn’t end up on there.

I’ve read that you cycle through a ridiculous number of tracks to make an album – something in the region of 600 – is it hard then to make the final product a cohesive whole?

I really did make it in two parts. Some of the tracks on there were intended to be dance music just for me to DJ with and maybe release on a 12 inch or maybe under another name – tracks like “Bowls” or “Sun” were never really intended to go on this album. It was only right at the very end that I thought, ‘Actually, these do work quite well with the other tracks. Maybe they should go on the album.’ In retrospect it seems hilarious that it took me that long to figure that out. I don’t make the music with any sense of how it’s going to fit together. I make this really disparate, massive – lots and lots and lots of music – and I think the thing that ties it all together is that I make it at the same time; all the same kind of ideas are percolating around at the time that I’m making it. That somehow, without me being conscious of it, unifies all the songs together.

Now you’re touring with Four Tet and have already played a number of shows together.  How have they been going?

They have been incredible – the ones in the UK we just did. Kieran’s an old, old friend, one of my closest friends, and the guy who helped get my music released in the first place. It’s actually quite nice: when we first started releasing albums, the two of us toured together and did shows together frequently. And now in the last few years we’ve sort of released albums at different times, at different schedules – we haven’t been doing many shows together. So, this is great… it’s awesome, because he’s such a good friend and our music genuinely sits together in a legitimately similar way, so it’s great.

Talking about your relationship with Kieran Hebden, what brought you together initially, friendship or music?

I went up to him at a festival, after his band at the time, Fridge, had been playing, and just started talking to those guys, just like a fan would do. And very quickly it became evident that we got along together and shortly after that we flew him over to Canada to DJ at a club night that we put on in Toronto, and we spent like a week hanging out, going record shopping. You rarely meet that kind of person where it’s like, ‘Wow. We live on opposite sides of the world but it seems like we’ve been friends all our lives and we share very similar outlooks on music, and that kind of thing.’

Do you and Kieran bounce a lot of ideas off each other when you’re recording music?

Definitely. And particularly with this album, because we were both at home at the same time while making our current albums. We’d go out clubbing all the time together, and I’d slip him tracks that I was working on to try out on his DJ sets, and vice versa. We definitely had a big influence on each other’s albums, I think.

Perhaps one of the things that you and Kieran seem to share as producers and musicians in the dance/beats field is a strong focus on albums – is that a fair point?  I mean, it comes through on Swim from the music right through to the album title. Are you big believers in albums as a means of distributing music?

Yeah, and I think I can speak on his behalf as well. As well as loving lots of contemporary dance music and electronic music, which is so single and 12”, the bedrock of our music taste is jazz albums and old music and old albums and stuff: things that you can’t imagine not sitting together. Being in love with albums like that and thinking we want to make a statement in that same sort of vein, and something that’s cohesive as well.

There’s a lot of talk of the album fading away as a means of distributing music, but you’re still confident in its future?

Yeah, I don’t know – maybe I’m a dinosaur – but I feel like it’s quite a resilient idea. Having a longer form of music than just one three-minute single – for one thing it’s, I don’t know, it’s something that’s innate to our musical attention span, to want to be taken on a longer-form journey some of the time, rather than just flipping from one thing to another. Maybe it’s a bit early to talk about its demise.

You developed a dancier groove with Swim. How does that translate into the live performance?

Really well. Our shows this year have just turned into parties, which is something we never had in the past. I can’t even pick the best shows because there have been so many incredible ones. And I feel like the live show, the band and everything, has just kind of come together. It’s my favourite iteration of our live show, so it’s been amazing and I can’t wait for these shows really.

Looking ahead to 2011, what are the plans for Caribou?

Back to making music. Back to home. I haven’t made any music this year because we’ve been on tour. I’ve kinda been building up the excitement to make some music again, so that’s what I’m looking forward to after these [February] shows.

Download:

MP3: 2010 Tour Mix by Caribou

MP3: Caribou – “Odessa”

Question in the Form of an Answer: Celph Titled

There are only so many things one can say about a rap record in and of itself. It takes more than good rhymes, a whole persona or idea, to captivate fans these days. That’s why I leaped at the chance to speak with Celph Titled- one of the most prominent, animated, and true-to-form underground emcees since the onset of the modern independent hip-hop movement. Teaming up with legendary producer, Buckwild (and his coveted archive of authentic ‘90’s boom-bap), Celph’s official solo debut, Nineteen Ninety Now, is putting headphones and car speakers everywhere under siege. – Dom Pinelli

A lot of contemporary rappers pride themselves in ‘bringing the ‘90’s back’, but they’re not doing much more than just saying it. One of the things I like about Nineteen Ninety Now is it’s more cohesive than simply rapping over vintage (sounding) beats; it sounds like the scratches, arrangement, style of hooks, etc are all made to be consistent with the ‘90’s formula for hip-hop music…

Definitely… Being the first to do this concept, we had to basically pretend like this was the ‘90’s. Now, there are procedures on how to make songs and it’s mostly cookie-cutter: three 16’s and 8-bar hooks and that’s that. [Instead,] we got in the mindset of how dudes made records back then because so many things have been forgotten. Whether it’s cuts, not having a set amount of bars, using certain vocal samples as part of the hook or during the verse to answer a rhyme, or [in general] just being loose with it- all these details that are ignored anymore had to be paid very much attention to. So, our formula was about taking new lyrics and a new outlook, while staying within the frame of ‘How would they have made this record in 1994?’ and following that to a tee.

As a long-time fan of rap music, I feel like one of the main things that’s missing from songs these days- not just in the mainstream but now in the underground as well- is DJs doing scratch segments or sampling memorable punch lines from another emcee’s verse. It’s disappointing, because it’s one of my favorite parts of a good rap song.

Exactly, and who better to do [the scratches] than the world-famous champion, Mister Sinister? He did the cuts on Common Resurrection and all kinds of classic ‘90’s albums, so it was perfect that he was able to do it on my album. Going back to the ‘90’s thing, even the approach of rapping and DJ’ing is different nowadays. Everyone is really stiff. My style is more cartoonish and comical and it worked well since we all took a carefree approach and didn’t try to be so serious. A lot of fans get too superficial with their music. You have a lot of insecure people feeling like ‘I only need to listen to crime shit, hardcore, street rap’ and they’re scared to listen to something like this album because it’s actually fun… There are violent undertones, but it’s like an action movie. It’s like Die Hard, where Bruce Willis will blast somebody and then make a punch line about it- it’s fun.

In addition to Buckwild beats, we hear lyrical contributions from ‘90’s pioneers like Treach, Sadat X, various members of D.I.T.C. and more. Did you have preexisting relationships with these individuals or were they targeted contributors you contacted once the album’s wheels were in motion?

Half and half, I’d say. Some of the guys involved with the project are people I’ve had a rapport with over the years, but some of the more classic artists like D.I.T.C. and Brand Nubian came from the Buckwild connection… Treach doesn’t do features often, so it was a blessing to have him [on the album]. My man, Flav, who’s on the album at the beginning of “Wack Juice”, has been down with Naughty by Nature since the early ‘90’s, so it was no problem to make it happen once I explained the concept of the record. I asked him to come with the trademark ‘nasty-naughty’ style from back then and it was dope to hear him go off like that.

That’s cool because a lot of artists that were prominent during the ‘90’s and are still making music seem to get frustrated when fans favor their early songs or style over their new ones. I remember seeing one of my favorite underground emcees perform a few years back. He was doing only brand new stuff and got really annoyed with the fans because they kept requesting his classics, probably because the new stuff wasn’t what they were used to. With this in mind, was it initially a challenge to get Buckwild to use his archives as oppose to his fresh material?

Not at all, but it was a question in the back of my mind if Buck would be with it or not, because I know how people can be [with their music]. Especially for producers, you don’t want to put out a beat from 15 years ago when you’ve advanced so much and are still current like Buckwild; he makes new beats on new records to this day. He just thought the idea was great, plus the fact he had access to all those old [beat] discs- he saw the vision and I’m very blessed he was willing to dig them up because a lot of people wouldn’t be into it. The idea actually came from being at Pete Rock’s crib back in 2002, 2003 or so and seeing SP 1200 discs of old beats all over his floor that were labeled, like “The Militia Remix” and other things he did. He put a couple on CD for me and I think he’d be another person that wouldn’t have a problem doing a project like this. So, on the note of artists that don’t like to dwell on the past, I don’t understand that because every artist is a fan at one point in time. You know how it feels when certain classic things mean so much to you, so for an artist, I don’t know why they’d have a pompous attitude about performing old stuff for the fans. I think a lot of rappers are insecure about staying current and don’t want people to think they’ve run out of ideas- or they just don’t like something about their old stuff and feel like they’ve become a much better artist [since then]… You still have to progress your sound, though. I have some hardcore fans that love hearing me on production like the Army of the Pharaohs stuff, and they’re disappointed with the jazzy beats and ‘90’s sound. They’re more a fan of the epic/ classical sample/ big drums sound, but I couldn’t just do the same thing, so I do understand when some artists feel like they have to move forward…

Actually, to hear that about some of your fans surprises me a bit. I first became a fan of your music when I heard the “Chrome Depot Freestyle” with Apathy over DJ Premier beats, which was 10 years ago. So, for me, hearing Nineteen Ninety Now kind of brought things full-circle, and it was nice to basically hear the same Celph Titled I’ve been a fan of. I feel like a lot of other emcees that came up the same time in the late-90’s/ early-2000’s indie hip-hop movement, and gained notoriety as punch line/ battle rappers, have since abandoned that style in preference of alternative, genre-bending directions. Whatever the case, it seems doing a punch line song is taboo, or being regarded primarily as a battle rapper is now insulting for these artists. As someone who isn’t ashamed of that classification, what are your thoughts on all this?

A lot of that has to do with ego and fear of being irrelevant. When you start hearing backlash from people about punch line rap, like ‘there’s no substance’, this and that- an insecure artist who’s effected by that is going to question their shit and try to appeal to that [stigma]. They might convince themselves ‘This isn’t my natural growth. I need to go and make this a sad song with a story’, or just do all this weird stuff they didn’t do before. If you look at the long-standing, successful artists in hip-hop- even if they’re not critically acclaimed, guys like E-40 and Too Short never changed their formulas. They might have updated their production styles with the times, but they’ve always given their fans what they want and they’re still here, making plenty of money. I realize that I’ve created a brand through a certain vibe when you listen to me and I never want to let my fans down, especially because I enjoy doing it. I don’t care what other people think, like ‘oh it’s just backpack, rappity-rap’, because that’s what I like and I have enough fans… I’ve been disappointed by my favorite artists so many times, and what they could have done to have my support and everyone else’s was so simple. Trying to do something totally different makes fans mad a lot of times. It could be why a lot of the guys who came up with me and Apathy 10 years ago are gone, and I think the fact we’re still here doing this says a lot.

Since your original crew, Equilibrium, we’ve also seen you consistently involved with The Demigodz, AOTP, Fort Minor and a handful of others, but this album is your official solo debut. Were there ever other solo projects in the works that never came to fruition? Why did you wait until now to get something out?

With all the movements I’ve been involved in, so many things were happening, so I kept waiting for a bigger opportunity. I had thought maybe I’d get signed rolling with Fort Minor and wanted a formal situation before I put all that work into doing an album… I worked on different incarnations of a [debut] album over the years, but I’m glad nothing came out because I would probably hate it now {…laughing…}. Yeah, to have waited kind of sucks with all the illegal downloading, poor economy and low record sales these days, but it worked out for the best because I’ve become a much sharper, veteran emcee. I’m glad that I’m able to do my first album at this age and peak of my skill, being more mature and willing to branch out and do a couple different, personal things… Your time [in music] is limited based on what you’re doing and what you’re putting out there. I looked at it like ‘I’m either going to be that guy that just hops on everyone else’s songs and people wonder if I can hold down an album by myself, or stop waiting around for something to happen for me and take it into my own hands.’ Also, back in 2007 is when the industry was really shifting and we had to adapt to the new [emphasis on the] internet, blogs, free downloading- and the labels changed. It got to the point where I no longer wanted a major deal, because album sales were down and labels started signing artists to “360” deals to make up for the losses, where they get money from your merch and your live shows too. Once that became the standard is when I decided to stay independent. I already had enough fans and knew I could gain a lot more using the notoriety I established; it’s like free promotion that I don’t have to spend money to get a band or something. People already know me from Fort Minor, AOTP and everything, so I can take advantage of that independently and make sure nobody is in my pockets but me. I felt going about it this way is what I had to do if I really want to make a living out of this.

Backing up a step, Nineteen Ninety Now actually isn’t the first time you’ve done a concept, collaboration album. Several years ago, you dropped the Boss Hog Barbarians project with J-Zone, which can be considered another, yet more comical, homage to early ‘90’s rap music. How was this concept and working with J-Zone different than working with Buckwild on the new album?

In a way, that album is the west coast version of Nineteen Ninety Now. Zone and I are such fans of that era and we both wanted to do something different at the time. He was having some issues where people were pigeonholing him into one sound, like the accordion beats, talking about his infatuation with Lucy Lu and that’s all people wanted to hear. As a growing artist, that would make him mad, so we did ‘Barbarians’ in a kind of rebellious way, like ‘this is what we came up on, what we love, and we’re going to make a very funny, killer project out of it.’ I think it went over a lot of people’s heads; they might have thought it was all a joke. There was definitely a joke aspect to it. We’re not super-serious guys- we like to make people laugh and we know how to have fun, but it wasn’t a whole parody. We really felt that project and there were a lot of concepts on it. We shared the mic duties and I did a couple beats that were my tributes to classic [San Francisco] Bay Area stuff… It was different because J-Zone is a friend of mine, and was a friend prior to making that album. We did the album because of our friendship and our admiration for each other’s talent. We would come up with ideas on the spot while joking around, laughing and being loose. With Buckwild, I didn’t know him beforehand. We met each other in order to do the album and I had to get to know him. We’re friends and we joke too now that we understand each other’s sense of humor and stuff like that, but it’s different when you go into a project already having that kind of personal rapport versus building the rapport while you’re doing it…

After all the wide-ranging, influential movements and projects you’ve made your mark with in the last 10+ years, what’s the one thing you want fans to take away from listening to Nineteen Ninety Now?

I just want them to see how hip-hop can be. I’m not saying everybody has to revert back to making ‘90’s sounding music, but that type of mindset people were in when creating a hip-hop record has been forgotten. You need to take into consideration the approach that went into making these records. It’s a lost art form and doesn’t have to be lost. You can make current music with current-sounding, Wiz Khalifa production and all that stuff- if you come with the same passion they had in the ‘90’s, you can still make incredible music. There are a lot of young listeners out there and the ‘90’s [rap] is really old school to them. To kids in high school, 50 Cent is old school. His [Aftermath] debut came out in 2003, which was when they were in elementary. They’re not going back far, back to the ‘90’s and checking that stuff, so they’re influenced by whatever they come up on now. This album is to remind you this is how it was, and this is how it can be.

Download:
MP3: Celph Titled & Buckwild-”Wack Juice”
MP3: Celph Titled & Buckwild-”Miss Those Days”

MP3: Celph Titled & Buckwild ft. Rize (Left-Click)

Question in the Form of an Answer: Twista

From being Guinness certified as the world’s fastest rapper in ’92, to pioneering solo albums and working with Do Or Die and Kanye West, Twista has held Chicago down for two decades. I sat down with Mr. Tung Twista to talk Chicago music, fast rap techniques and his fondness for pacing. (Twista does a fair bit of rapping in the interview to demonstrate different styles, so when he’s rapping, I’ve separated the rap within quotation marks.) — Aaron Matthews

Tell me about growing up in Chicago.
It was really just growing up in the ghetto, K-Town, which is a part of the West Side of Chicago. Single parent household, but I was the oldest out of my brothers and sisters. It was just a little rough. Some people came up different. Me, I came up having it hard. You know, going to school with my brothers and sisters, it was always rough for us.

What kind of music were you hearing at this time?
The music in Chicago was house music — that’s what everyone was listening to. That uptempo, fast music. So we had a different vibe. When a lot of people had whatever genre of music that was in their town, us, we had mostly house music, where you dancing, moving real fast. With some people in Chicago, we had a bigger ear. We started to listen outward. So if you were in Chicago and came up listening to Chicago music, when the house music was real hot…on the rap side, you probably had some of the first rappers starting. When I really really was into my music, it was probably pre-Krush Groove, going into the Krush Groove era. So if it wasn’t house, the music I’d be listening to would be Rakim, Kool G. Rap, KRS-One, all of the greats. Ultramagnetic MCs, Mantronix…everybody! [laughs]

Do you think the tempo of house music had something to do with the Midwestern rap style?

For sure. Especially in Chicago. People don’t know this but all of my lyrics that’s considered double-time lyrics will fit over house-tempo type tracks. So if the beat is boom-boom-boom-boom-boom [Twista imitates a typical house beat], I can still do [rapping double-time] “look at the dudes owe me, dad a do do me”. It’s the perfect rhythm to fit on the same thing. So it definitely had a big influence.

Juke music is a continuation of that, too.
For sure. Juke music is the younger version of what we was doing when it came to house music. It’s a slightly faster tempo, just a younger version.

It’s a genre that’s just starting to get traction overseas. You were involved with juke pretty early on, from the remix to “Watch My Feet” to your own juke record, “Pimp Like Me.”

With songs like that, it’s a pleasure for me because it’s continuing the Chicago sound. And to me, it’s like…in other areas, like Oakland, you have hyphy and go-go in Washington. In Chicago, it’s important to me that even if you do hip-hop, to implement our sound into hip-hop so people know where we come from. That’s why I did tracks like “Watch My Feet.” To be honest, one of my producers, Tight Mike, he naturally produces juke tracks. So you’re going hear a whole album of me rapping over certain juke beats. That’s a project I’m going to do soon.

When did you know you wanted to be a rapper?\

About 13 years old. I was young. I was always interested when I was hearing Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambataa. But what made me really really want to rap, like “I want to be a rapper” is when I started to see the Fat Boys, Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, LL, Run DMC, groups like that.

What did you sound like back then?

Like regular lyrics. I wish I knew a rhyme from back then [laughs]. Straightforward rap like most people sound [starts rapping in a midtempo late 80s flow]“Into the valley of darkness/can’t rip apart this/eat them into the harvest/chewing through a dead carcass/mark his body with murder signs”. Straight hip hop flow.

You were already rapping faster, but that wasn’t double time.

Double time is [starts rapping in double time] “hit ‘em in the body with double millimetre gotta put ‘em in the dirt put them in the middle of the money because I gotta get I gotta work”. The regular rap style is [repeats rap from last answer]. So my rap style has always been complex. But when it came down to the double time, it came from not being to fit all the words in a sentence. So you would double up one word. Like, “walking down the street, and I be ripping ‘em up, ripping up the mic”. Style with a flip of one word. Then you flip two words. [rapping in double time] “Ripping ‘em up on the mic, duh duh duh, picking them up in the fight”. Then it just got more and more complex as I went along.

Do you a process for writing these down?

It’s mostly in my head. I write but when I get to the paper, I’ll have pretty much constructed 4-8 bars in my head before I write ‘em down. Sometimes I write but if I don’t write, I’ll think for a while and go in and maybe do half a verse at a time until I finish a song. If I do write, I like to pace. I like to smoke a lil bit and just walk around and pace. It’s a pacing thing. And I think some of my dopest lyrics probably come from the passenger seat of the car. When I’m in the ride I get something dope out.

How did you feel being recognized as the fastest rapper by Guinness?

It was always dope. The only time I didn’t like it is, me being a lyricist the way I am and having multiple rap styles, it would be frustrating that the rap style I’m most known for would be the only thing people know or want to hear. As I grew older, I realized I need to hold onto something that people like, like [my rap style] and just roll with it.

You see that happening on “Slow Jamz” too. What was that record like for you?

It was a regular time in the studio, working with Kanye to make something dope. For me, what was neat about “Slow Jamz” was when I decided to implement all the old school R&B artists in the song, that had slow jams. So I started thinking of Luther Vandross, all the different names, and so all my metaphors were [about] pioneers in R&B. Just really coming up with the patterns and the words that would make a dope verse, a dope song. But I never thought the song would go that far. I pretty much had it down on how to tailor a monster verse.

Tell me about recording Resurrection.

Resurrection was a time where I was slightly rebellious against the fast style and I wanted to show people I could rap in different ways. Rebellious against the style people had pinned on me. I like that album a lot because I could show versatility in my flow. When people are like, “Man, Twista only raps this way”, the Resurrection album is something I will pull out to show them other ways I rap.

Tell me about “Adrenaline Rush.”

That record was my jam right there. That record was one of the first beats I got with that Chicago sound to it, that I really just wanted to take the music to the next level. I remember writing that song just laying on the rug, in a big empty room in a dark house. I had Yungbuck [of the group Psychodrama], the other person on the song, on the floor but in a different part of the house. We was just in the dark house chilling, everything was cool and we just had the beat on repeat, playing. It was just a good vibe, we killed it. I would actually consider that my favourite song, what I would say defines Twista.

“Overdose” off the same album [Adrenaline Rush], has that same kind of lyrical intensity.

Yeah, I was charged writing “Overdose”. I remember having that beat, writing that rhyme. That was a pure emcee at his finest right there. I had no problem writing it, the lyrics were pouring out of me on that one.

Tell me about “Po Pimp” with Do or Die.

That was actually the biggest record of my career. That was the one that took me from not having things to having things. When I recorded it, and I left the studio to play it in the car, I hadn’t stopped playing for almost 3 days straight. An unbelievable amount of times, to the point where I figured out, “this has to be a hit!” There’s no way we could want to play a song this many times and it could not be a hit. And as soon as we put it out, that’s what it was.

You had a few years, just after Adrenaline Rush and the first Speedknot Mobstas album, where you weren’t signed to a major. 8 years out and you came back with Kamikaze [2004]. What was that like?

It was rough as far as learning the business and finding things out and trying to see where I would end up. The thing that pulled me through was I was talented, and I was a firm believer that if you got in the studio and made a jam, you’d be able to do what you wanted to do. Even though it was hard for me, I knew one day I would put myself in a situation where I could work creatively and do the business that would take me out [that situation]. I was nervous, but it’s like they say, you gotta risk failure to succeed sometimes.

And “Is That Yo Bitch” came just a few years before you started on Kamikaze.

It was fun doing that. Some after it came out, I went on tour with Jay, the whole tour actually, to perform that song. That song kept me in the game, impressed Jay enough to bring me out to do what I did for him, and it served as a big promotion tool for the Kamikaze album. So around that time “Is That Yo Bitch” came out, I was known as the go-to guy for a feature, and I was real proud of that.

What’s it like rhyming with someone with a different style from yours? Like “The Heat”, where you and Rae have very different flows on the same beat.

It’s always fun, to show you can be versatile and do different things. Like even with my style on “The Heat”, there’s nothing else on [The Perfect Storm] like that song. With me, I let the music tell me how the style should be. The fact that I work with Chicago producers as much as I do, that’s the reason my style stays intact. But if there was ever the situation where I had to work with all these different producers, you probably see me switch my style up to adjust to different beats when needed.

Your style seems to be an influence on a lot of underground rap right now. You listen to Freddie Gibbs?

Yeah, I’m actually about to record a song or two with Freddie. I like him a lot.

Download:
MP3: Twista-“Overdose”
MP3: Twista-“Adrenaline Rush”
MP3: Twista-“Pimp Like Me”

Question in the Form of an Answer: DJ Shadow

Shadow needs no contextualization. Josh Davis from Davis. The one-time teenaged prodigy, who memorized Steinski’s lessons and propelled them forward like vectors– creating a complex geometry of samples and esoteric sounds. The first single off “Endtroducing” was “What Does Your Soul Look Like,” and Shadow sought to provide a mirror, unearthing miracles at Rare Records and juxtaposing them with his boom-bap odyssey. He’s the man who got Matty C to breach protocol and bestow him with Unsigned Hype –in 91, when he was 18 and mailing Rakim remixes to KMEL. America’s great trip-hop hope, who abdicated the throne early on, to pursue his eccentricities to their furthest extremes. 

It’s easy to survey the carnage incurred over the last two decades. The Brainfreeze collaboration with Cut Chemist that redefined the art of mixing and sent you in search of the few stores that stocked it. The legacy of “Endtroducing,” permanently ingrained in the twisted helixes of your favorite contemporary producer. Had he kept the clock frozen at midnight for his entire career, few would’ve complained. Ask anyone from the Low End Theory crew to the dubstep spawn of Hyperdub and Hemlock Records, and it’s likely that Shadow will be name-dropped as a primary influence. With his legacy long secured, he could essentially tweak his old formula and conjure something that would neatly parallel the contemporary zeitgeist.

So when a volley of forwarded e-mails offered me the chance to interview the originator in advance of his fall North American tour, the answer was obvious. Then I got on the phone and his flacks said “10 minutes….starting now.” Graciously, Shadow gave 17.  Probably because I started off the conversation by telling him that his New Year’s salvo was the realest shit he ever wrote — which it is.  20 years in, Shadow labors intensively and lingers largely in the dark, because he’s on a permanent mission to create value in an climate that deifies the disposable. His yet-untitled fourth full-length drops sometime next year. In the interim, his words and back catalog more than suffice.

What was the response like after you dropped that blog post weighing against the current industry and Internet climate?

I’ve had conversations with other like-minded independent artists that reached out to me to say, ‘thank you for saying that. I’m afraid to say that myself. I want to do more, but I can’t join you right now.” I think part of it is informing the consumer that you think you’re trying to kill the cigar chomping sunglasses-wearing mafia record company guy behind the desk, when that guy doesn’t exist anymore. So now you’re just hurting the artists themselves.

Limewire wasn’t your buddy down the dorm room hall. It was a company that was making a shit ton on advertising, and not sharing any of that with the artists. Until people understand the facts, we’re still going to stuck believing these long dead stereotypes. Then again, the artists that create these false images of “look at my diamond studded fedoras,” aren’t exactly helping things either.

It’s sort of an obvious question, but if money was killing hip-hop in 96, what do you think of hip-hop now?

Well, I always have to say this with a caveat: “Why Hip-Hop Sucks in ’96 was tongue in check. A lot of people who didn’t like rap saw it as a statement from someone who agreed with them. I came from a totally different standpoint. I love hip-hop. I always will love hip-hop, but it’s more of a tough love thing.  The sentiment was more like when KRS-One criticizes the culture, a place of someone who celebrates it as much as he has problems with it.

That said, in 2010, there really isn’t a hip hop culture that exists like how it did then–when it was trying to break into the mainstream and there was this one for all, all for one attitude. It was similar to those thar advocated for turntablism –they were riding for the importance of the DJ at a time when the MC was getting all the shine. Nowadays, that’s sort of pointless, considering DJ culture is so mainstream that it’s almost a joke. The battlefront is always shifting in terms of hip hop and rap, in much the same way as any other type of music where its about moving forward. However, personally I really believe that music and American culture are in a stasis right now.

Like a sort of dumbed-down Idiocracy?

Yeah, like that. I always think about the store Bev Mo. How many times can they shorten their name? Eventually, market research is going to show that people need it more simple, so we’ll have just Bev or just B.

Your new track “Def Surrounds Us” bears a lot of resemblance to the bass music coming out of London right now. Are you a fan of that and is that your way of doing your take on a dubstep or post-dubstep?

It’s kind of a combination of things. There are a lot of similarities between that scene and my inspirations.  There’s a longing towards the un-melodic 1986 Def Jam-era, where songs like “Can You Feel It,” by Original Concept were throwing tons of bass and tons of melody at you, with heavy overdubs. By the same token, when I do go to London, I’m always looking for what I think I would like if I was 23. I ask myself, what would I be into? I’m always thinking about stuff that’s gritty and has that street element. For a while it was grime, and then it was dubstep, and they were both weaving in and out of each other with drum and bass. Right now, this crunk, post-dubstep is what seems to be in and I dig it. I’ll go down to the record shop and see what kids are buying, and I’ll just roll the dice and see what I like.

Do you have any personal favorites that stand out?

That label Breakbeat Chaos is one. It’s DJ Fresh’s label and its’ just dance music with so much balls, it’s so rude and immediate. The first time I heard of them is when Bad Company remixed “Six Days” and they ended up licensing it. Fresh asked me to be on his 06 album, and I did a remix of “Enough” that whenever I play it over the last few years, it utterly destroys the dance floor, and I’m not that type of DJ. I don’t go Calvin Harris on people to make them lose their brains. But it has that effect that it would have when you’d drop “Come Clean” in 93 or 94. And as a DJ, you love to see that kind of reaction. I love what they’re doing.

Have you been following the Low End Theory scene at all in LA?

Yeah, to a certain extent. A filmmaker that I’ve known for a long time name Dean was working closely with those dudes documenting what they were up to.

Just from observing and from a few interviews I’ve done, it seems like you’re a pretty big influence on them.  Does it feel weird at this point in your career to be still making music and influencing people just a little bit younger?

It’s strange when people mention the influence question or ask how does that make you feel. I’d be an ass if I wasn’t flattered. But I still feel like I’m trying to find my own way in music. As soon as you get comfortable, music gets boring. So I try to block all that out. I don’t want to be complacent or make music that sounds like 93.  It’s harder, but you always have to keep learning. As soon as you think you’ve learned everything, it’s over.

When you made The Outsider, were you worried about alienating large swaths of your fanbase or did you just know that in your heart, this was the album that you needed to make, so fuck it?

It wasn’t a concern. But neither was I trying to piss people off. I think I said something in Urb to the extent that if fans were resistant to the new sound, then fuck them. But I don’t mean it to be that harsh.  It just came out that way in print. I still love a lot of those songs, especially “Three Freaks,” which is kind of an anthem in the Bay. If I had Keak and Turf on a track, I don’t want to do the “backpack” thing. I wanted to hit in that zone and be accepted in that world. It was incredibly gratifying to hear it on rotation on urban radio, on the stations that fostered the scene, and to see kids driving out of class and turf dancing and singing the hook. It doesn’t matter if you’re Run DMC and putting out, “It’s Like That,” it always means something important to you.

Did you ever think about doing an entire LP with a rapper?

I was going to do an EP with Gab years ago, as a Quannum steps out thing, but it never came out. There’s tons of MC’s that I hear on a verse here and there that I’d consider working. But on the next album, I want it to be a pure vision, no collaborations. I’m going to be fully 100 percent responsible for everything on the record. It’s time to do another record like that.–Weiss

Download:
MP3: DJ Shadow-”Lost and Found”

Stream: “Def Surrounds Us” and “I’ve Been Trying”

Inside Danny Brown’s “The Hybrid”: An Interview with Crown Nation and Mosel

Aaron Matthews is coming for you, David Gregory.

Following Jeff’s comprehensive talk with Motown’s golden boy, what follows is an interview with some of the producers responsible for The Hybrid’s cohesive sound. Denmark Vessey and Quelle (formerly of Wasted Youth) comprise the Chicago/Detroit group Crown Nation, and along with Quelle’s little brother Mosel, are collectively responsible for almost half of Hybrid’s production. I sat down with them to discuss the process of recording the album, making beats and backstage shenanigans with Danny Brown

How did you first meet Danny?

Quelle: Him and 87 of Wasted Youth, they had started working on this project called Prophet Jones with Nick Speed. I came into Detroit for a show and me and Nick were chilling. 87 says, I’ll let you hear this new shit we’re working on. He says, you gotta meet this dude Danny, he’s a dope-ass dude, he don’t really listen to hip-hop, he listens to all types of crazy shit – he kinda remind me of you. So we went over to Danny’s place and we just kinda kicked it. I was drunk as shit, I had a bottle of vodka and we smoked a blunt. I was playing some beats and he was like, “Get the fuck outta here! You ain’t make these beats!”

We just bullshitted. He had the MPC up there so we just sat and played a shitload of beats for a hour or two. We went around in the cipher and from there it was just solid. I respected each other as folks. We actually cut a crapload of songs over my beats that didn’t end up on The Hybrid – he’s got a lotta of beats. We would go to [DJ] Magnetic’s, at the Disc [Ltd Studio] and he would ask to record over my shit. It was a process of just going through songs until he got to the point of recording the CD.

Mosel: I met him through my big brother around the time he was releasing his first project Hot Soup. I remember going to visit my brother in Chicago and he gave me like 5 joints Brown did. I was like yeah, ‘I gotta work with dude in the future, his shit is retarded.’ So some time passes and on the day of Brown’s release party for Hot Soup, I went to Nick Speed’s house where everybody was just chillin’ before the show. He was just calling me “Lil Quelle” at the time. I was still in high school when this happened but Nick Speed already knew about my shit. We exchanged numbers so we could build in the future.

After that, me and Brown would kick it just on some chill smoking shit. Funny thing is anytime, I was with Brown it was never on no music or let’s-make-a-track type shit, it was just on some let’s chill. Around the time Brown was working on his next project, which would become the Hybrid, I went to Virginia for school. So I wasn’t in the D and able to really kick it with Brown or work on music, but I remember almost every time I made a beat in the dorm room I’d send it to him. I got a call from a mutual friend one day saying that Brown did some ape shit over one of my beats. I never heard the song but I kept hearing crazy things about it and how dope it was. I remember Brown texting me, saying my music set the mood for the entire album and really had him on some other shit. Basically my beat birthed The Hybrid, like the soundtrack to his evolution [laughs].

Greatest Rapper Ever

Q: That beat, that one was hard candy. I was surprised he used that one, because it seemed like he was only fucking with the more sample-y ones. That was in the same period that I did “Drinks On Me”, when I was getting off into the synth-y stuff I do now.

Nowhere 2 Go

D: I was originally going to make this for Crown Nation. This was another joint that I didn’t even know anybody was on! I gave it to him and Danny had given Quelle an advance version of the album before it officially dropped and that’s how I found out he rapped on it.
White Stripes

Q: The sample on there actually isn’t a White Stripes record. It’s a really hard portion from a soft-ass song. It’s Wham! [laughs]
Re-Up

Q: I just made that one cause I wanted something that was hard as shit [laughs]. I made that beat in the same place I made most of the beats for Blue Mondays [Quelle’s solo album]. I was pulling out the dirtiest drums I could find, the dirtiest samples. At the time, I was making beat CDs with 50 beats on them. So Danny recorded that at the Disc in Detroit and when Denmark played me “Re-Up”, I had forgot that I had made it!

Guitar Solo

Q: I was kicking with my homeboy Howard, he had come through with a load of records. He came back with this Stanley Clarke record. I used that sample and this guitarist Rich Clarke revamp the guitars a lil’ bit. That was going to be a Crown Nation joint but I had already let it out there so I let Danny run with it.

Drinks On Me

Q: That one had been floating out there for a while before Danny snatched it up. There’s a couple people who already did joints to that particular song. That beat was when I was getting away from [sampled] beats and getting into beefing up the guitars and synths, playing a lot of stuff myself. That beat is something I put a little more time into so I’m glad it came out as a song people liked.

Juno

M: The way he flipped my “CrazyBaby” beat, which later became “Juno”, is definitely my favorite. When I gave him the beat, I thought he was gonna come back with some typical Brown shit. Like just straight retarded bars. Instead he surprised me and turned it into a concept song that anybody who understands the hood/struggle, especially Detroit, can relate to “Juno.” I don’t think Brown gets enough credit for his socially aware lyrics. My mans Brown be getting conscious, he just gives it to you in a different package.

Thank God

M: I honestly wish he would’ve picked another one of my beats for this one, but too late now. This is another social awareness track for people who don’t know anything about this lifestyle, and a reality record, for people living the way he explains.

BONUS: The Hybrid

M: I came home for New Years Eve and stopped by his spot, and Danny gave me the CD for the old unreleased Hybrid. I had like 3 beats on there, one of the main ones being “The Hybrid”. A year passed with me only seeing Brown like once or twice. Next thing I knew The Hybrid dropped, I heard it the same time as everyone else and was surprised by the joints he used from me, beats I had sent him like 3 years ago through email.

The actual Hybrid song that didn’t make it on the album is bananas, one of Brown’s dopest songs to me, “I’m the first to breakfast, late for dinner…” and straight bars for the rest of the song after that. He destroyed the beat. In a good way. Seeing how he switched his style up and how nutty the shit was, I was like damn!

Danny’s got a rep for being kind of a crazy dude. Any good stories?

Q: Last time I saw Danny, he was pumping some Lil B and just geeking. He knew every word to the Lil B joint! [laughs] The wildest time I kicked it with him, it was at this place called the Marah House. It was a house party show in Chicago, so it was pretty nutty. Everyone was doing an assortment of drugs. It’s a minute or two before we were supposed to go on and Danny was supposed to rock with us, we were going to do “Cut The Lights Out.”

So it’s a minute before we’re going on and we’re like, “Where the fuck is Danny?” So we’re running around the house trying to find him. We finally get to the basement and the nigga’s getting brains from some chick! [laughs] So I just let him do what he does and then as we got toward the end of the set, he just showed up!

Download:
ZIP: Danny Brown-The Hybrid
ZIP: Mosel-Just Thinking Out Loud

Question in the Form of An Answer: Black Milk

Jonah Bromwich prefers Black Milk to Strawberry Quik. But he prefers Bosco above all else.

It takes a lot of balls to name your album, Album of the Year. Do you think you succeeded in what you wanted to do?

Yeah, I think I accomplished what I wanted to do. Saying that my album was the album of the year wasn’t a gimmick. I did what I was trying to do, what I was trying to say. I’ve definitely progressed since Tronic, and to me the album just sounds different from any other album I’ve heard this year and I do consider it the Album of the Year. One of the things that makes it difference is the live music, there’s a lot of live music on every track. And I brought in some cats I know, the Will Sessions band, Daru Jones, I brought them in and put them on the album.

So how do you start the tracks, how do they first come about?

It all starts with the MPC, then we bring them to the studio and then mix them and then have the live musicians play over them. A few producers do similar things but no one really does it the same way I do it.

So how did the tracks come together, what were some of the first ones you got together? Was Deadly medley an early one or…?

Actually, “Deadly Medley” was one of the last tracks. I knew I wanted to have Royce and El together again, I knew I wanted to have them together, just due to them being so good, and how successful “Motown 25″ was. So that was one of the last samples I got together and then had them spit on it.

The first track I actually had was the intro, “365.” I had the beat for a while, and when I made the beat, months back, I knew it’d be the intro, it just had that kind of vibe. Out of all the beats, that remained the intro.

A lot of times on the album, a beat will play out for thirty, forty five seconds. Is there any specific reason why you did that?

I kinda look at is as having the track have its own thing, let it air out, let people hear the music. When I try to create music I want to create something that I listen to as a fan. So I noticed that people like hearing the track ride out, hearing that interlude on the song. So I like to give them that last part. Usually songs will be like verse, hook, verse, done, and I just want to let them hear the beat.

You say that you want to create something that you would listen to as a fan. Do you listen to your old records?

*laughs* Yeah I do, I listened to Tronic, not too long ago, that record is real dope. I can’t really go back to some of the stuff I did early, but I think that album holds up at an even point.

This has been a tough year for you what with Hex and Baatin and Album of the Year really responds to that, just by talking about it. Was that tough to do, tough to get into?

Like I’ve said, people would hear me being more personal on this album than any one of my other projects that passed. And that’s because I didn’t have any crazy tragedies before with my previous record, but now there was just a lot of new shit going on with Baatin and Hex and relatives passing on and I had no choice but to speak on it and I didn’t see how I couldn’t. And it was dope to see that I could.

Is the writing process different for that type of song?

Not that different, its just telling a story. Like the tracks “Popular Demand,” and “Long Story Short,” off Tronic, telling a story front to back and making the shit rhyme. But at the same time I had to be conscious of how my vocal tone was and how I was coming on the mic and all that.

Alright, let me ask you about some specific tracks. How did “psychedelic gospel rock” come about?

Well really it came together every other track, digging through vinyls, find the magic on a particular album or song, I heard, when I thought about what I wanted in my head, a gospel style of singing for the hook, and no rap hook, got my singers, on there, told them the melody I was hearing in my head, and it ended up coming out real dope. And I wanted to put live guitar on it, live gospel just mix it all together.

How do people like Carl Craig and Juan Atkins figure into the sound on that? Are they a major influence on you?

Well, those guys are huge in Detroit. And I’m just into it, into the different styles of music around here. Not just one thing not just soul, not just hip hop, not just electronic. And those guys influence us, and they like hip hop too, I know for a fact.

“Distortion” is a really powerful song. Did it take you a long time to write it?

No, it didn’t take that long, it was originally to a different beat, a couple months beforehand, and I had the first verse already done and I sketched the second verse by the time I had the beat done. And I was in a certain place and I had to be in that place to sketch that track and it’s a really powerful track, and people kinda got that, the beat and the melody it really kind of all came together.

Are El and Royce really competitive anytime they get a beat like Deadly Medley or Motown 25?

No, they just know they gotta do and they do what they gotta do. It’s really just the anticipation of hearing what the other guy is going to say. Everyone’s thinking in the back of their head that Elzhi’s coming with it, that Royce is coming with it, so they know they’ve got to come with it too.

Well was there any time, or is there any time, where it’s clear to the everyone in the studio that one person has destroyed everyone else?

*laughs* It did happen one time, on Bar Exam three, we did a song, and El went in and destroyed it, and everyone in the studio just knew it and it was clear. But everyone did well, and we don’t really talk about it, but we see how everyone responds. Everyone gots their own flavor, their own taste, El’s got his, Royce has got his, and I’ve got mine, so everyone just kind of vibes to the verse that they’re feeling.

How do you differentiate yourself from the rest of the musicians in Detroit, while still representing a raw Detroit sound to the rest of the country?

I don’t really have to do make my music sound Detroit. I grew up on the scene the hip hop scene around here, just being around here you just got that vibe, that music, you just have the drum machine. I don’t have to make it sound Detroit, its more in the feel than in the sound, and I cant really describe it in the sound. Whatever I do, it’s gonna have that Detroit feel, because I’m from Detroit, because I’ve been absorbing that stuff my whole life.

When we interviewed Danny Brown, he said that the Detroit scene was just “rappers rapping for other rappers?” Do you agree with that? Is that limiting?

*laughs* Yeah, that is kinda true, I think definitely people are trying to impress other rappers and just make good ass songs. You come up just being a battle rapper or just rapping. But then a few people kind of figure it out that you’ve also got to be an artist, not just a battle rapper.

How do you feel about being compared to J. Dilla all the time? Do you feel any pressure to differentiate your style of production from his?

Don’t really bother me much I can understand why, same scene, same city, you gonna always hear a little bit of Dilla style in my music. But im at a point where, especially with Album of the Year, that doesnt sound like anything that Dilla has ever done. And that sound comes naturally. You know, every artist kind of goes to there, goes to lots of different places for their inspiration. I can’t think of any artist that wasn’t inspired by other artists, and with me, you’re gonna hear a little bit of Prince, Michael Jackson, James Brown. And basically it comes down to the artist. Theres no artist who has no influences and so Dilla is one of mine, and those are some of the others.

What gave you the confidence to start rapping, as opposed to just producing? Which do you enjoy better, or are they too different to compare? How are they different, creatively?

I was rhyming before I was making beats, so to me rhyming is second nature. I was rhyming a year or two before I got into production, and I started to making beats, I been rhyming since 99, 2000. Nah ima change that, 98, and then getting into beats 2000, 2001.

Its definitinely a totally different process [making beats versus rapping]. You gotta use more work that goes into the production. With the verses, there’s work, but when you’re talking about the sound of the music it’s got to have a certain feel to it, you’ve got to engineer it a certain way, gotta find the crazy samples. With the lyrics you just sit there, feel a beat, catch a flow and start rhyming. You can write a quick sixteen, even a song in like fifteen minutes…well you can make a beat in fifteen minutes too but for me I like to go back and tweak the sound until it sounds right to me.

So do you consider yourself a perfectionist when it comes to the beats?

No I don’t like to use that word, because I know a lot of cats that use that word and I don’t think much of it but I just like to take a lot of time to make it sound right to me.

You played SXSW this year. Any good stories? What was that experience like?

It was dope, That was my first time going out there to rock, yeah man, we did three shows, all good turnouts, cool to kick it with a lot of different artists. It was a useful time man, I definitely plan on being there next year.

Most of it was the walking, so much walking, the first show we had we walked a few good miles…the first gig was outside the event and we had to walk outside the SXSW, but it was a dope vibe and there were a lot of artists that I knew down there, so it was real cool yeah, I’d like to go back.

Who are some artists that you’d be interested in doing projects with that you haven’t worked with before?

If you’re talking about dream collaborations, Stevie Wonder, Prince, I’d just love to be in the same space as them, that’s the kind of artist I like to collaborate with, that would just be a dream. Hip hop, you know, the usual suspects, Jay-Z, cats like that.

Finally, what’s your best Hex Murda Story?

*Long Pause* Ah man, I thought of one, but I don’t know if I can put him out there like that. I don’t think I can. You’ll just have to ask him yourself.

Download:
MP3: Black Milk-”Deadly Medley”
MP3: Black Milk-”Welcome (Gotta Go”)”

MP3: Royce Da 5’9 ft. Elzhi & Black Milk-”Real Hip-Hop”

Question in the Form of An Answer: Elzhi

Aaron Matthews slaughters clowns in his part of town.

From his early work with the Breakfast Club to his solo work to Slum Village, Elzhi (born Jason Powers) has proved himself as one of the most gifted writers to pick up a microphone. Coming off what could be the last Slum Village album and about to drop his 2nd solo album, The Feed, El discussed his favourite verses, Dilla, Baatin, and the art of rhyme writing.

When did you know you wanted to rap?
I used to see my auntie writing down lyrics to “Jack The Ripper” by LL Cool J, or “Children’s Story” from Slick Rick. I went through my uncle’s collection of tapes, pulling out things like Rakim, Fat Boys, Whodini. I used to play around with it myself, just freestyling and my auntie egged me on to freestyle in front of her friends. I liked the idea of just putting words together, making people feel an emotion off the words I was saying. This had to be around when I was 7 or 8.

What was the first time you recorded yourself?

Over at my boy Anthony’s house, off at 12th Street in Detroit, Michigan. I was rapping to Eric B. and Rakim’s “Chinese Arithmetic.” I had two tape recorders, sitting on the porch. We cued it up at the right time and boom, recorded a whole little rap song on it. It was crazy.

What did you sound like?

The first time I recorded myself, I didn’t like the way I sounded. Thought I sounded really nasally, and it was just weird to hear my voice being played back through the recorder. It was real nasally, almost like you sped up the record, like a little chipmunk feel.

What was it like growing up in Detroit?
When you young, you cool. At least, for me, I grew up in the hood. But I had a lot of friends, so we didn’t even really think about how poor we were, it was always fun. The way we dressed, it was just how we dressed. I didn’t even know there was anything wrong with how I dressed until we moved to another part of Michigan, where people dressed a little nicer than I did. I started checking myself, like maybe this ain’t the way you dress. Hearing moms playing Motown records and just getting that vibe…it was just a great place to be as a kid.

When did you start recording seriously?
I ran into this guy Eric from Cody High School. He did beats. He did a beat he was going to use for the high school talent show. I don’t know why I didn’t end up doing the talent show but that’s what started the friendship between me and Eric. At the time I was with a group called Fingers of Death, and we went over to Eric’s basement and started recording joints. We recorded about 6,7 records. I think that’s when I starting to know how to use my voice in a proper way to record.

What was your first appearance on wax?
That was with the Breakfast Club, a song called “Friday Night” featuring Baatin and T3. It was something we were all excited about, this is before I was a part of Slum Village, I was a member of Breakfast Club. And DJ House Shoes played the record in the legendary St. Andrews Hall. That was an incredible feeling for me, because I used to go to St. Andrews and recite other people’s records. And then I had my own record being played in that legendary spot.

How did Breakfast Club come together?
I was real cool with Lacks, which is Ta’Raach now and I was real cool with 87, Big Tone and Dwele. 87, Tone and Dwele stayed a few blocks away from me. So I got cool with all them, and I used to record at out of the study called IV Studios in the Greenfield Plaza Building. And Lacks was the engineer. And I said, man, we just need to come together and form a group. So I started the Breakfast Club. We started taking pictures and everything, asked people to be down with it. Dwele and 87 were down with it, so we got to doing music. We printed up 20 cassette tapes, because that’s all we had. It’s amazing that somebody took that cassette and put it online. Out of the nowhere, it became this underground buzz. I don’t even think we sold the cassette tapes ourselves! My boy Nick Speed still got a cassette tape.

Were you going to the Hip Hop Shop a lot in those days?

I was a part of the Hip Hop Shop, that was an incredible place. That place, along with Proof, Obie Trice, Eminem, Guilty Simpson, Phat Kat, Royce Da 5’9 as well as Slum Village…you name it, man. A lot of people making noise right now were a part of that era. That place made me stop wishing that I lived in New York City. Because artists looked at New York City as the mecca of hip-hop, which it is. That’s where it all started. In high school, I used to clown cats because the way they rhymed, I didn’t respect it. I felt like they were real simplistic. They had a lot of rhyming to do! [laughs] I was like, I wish I was in New York, where there’s real spitters. But I went to the Hip Hop Shop and it gave me a sense of pride in my city. There was people just like me, just as tight, that was trying to bust out the city. Before that, I didn’t have a sense of pride as far as hip-hop and my city. The Hip Hop Shop played a big part in my life.

How has the scene changed since then?
Detroit rap is forever changing, man. In those days, when the Hip Hop Shop was around, you had places like Da Phat House, the Ebony Showcase. St. Andrews Hall was always that deal on Friday nights. They had Mahogany for the poetry people, you had the Apartment for soul, funk. You had all these places to go to, and now there’s nothing to go to. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. We just had an event for Black Milk’s release party and people came to that, people who would probably go to a club that played hip-hop and was made just for the hip-hop scene, every week, they would probably attend that. But there’s nothing out there in Michigan like that, except for St. Andrews Hall, which we use for events.

It’s a good thing, because it got people in the studio but the scene is really not a scene anymore. Another thing that’s different, it’s a lotta people being able to see the world now. There was a point where Detroit artists were not setting foot on foreign soil. We weren’t travelling the world and now there’s people like Invincible, Finale, Danny Brown and Black Milk that’s getting that shot now. They’re able to spread that Detroit music to all corners of the world. It’s a beautiful thing, definitely an evolution in that way.

Do you think there’s more of a market for hip hop abroad?

It’s different over there. It’s an unconditional love. Like, I don’t care if he’s on radio, I don’t care if he’s on TV, we just love the music. Through the years of my travelling overseas, I’ve seen it grow more and more. I see more graffiti, more breakdancing and I’ve seen more fans at the shows. Since I’ve been touring from about 2003, I’ve seen it grow.

How did you meet J Dilla?
Dilla was one of the stars of the Hip Hop Shop. Dilla, Baatin and T3 attended the Hip Hop Shop like everyone else. I got formally introduced to Dilla through Proof…who also introduced me to Eminem. That’s crazy, man. I’ll never forget him calling me up and actually having Eminem, one of the world’s top artists, say a rhyme for me over the phone. At that time I was like 16.

What’s your most vivid memory of Dilla?
When he first came up to the Hip Hop Shop and played “The Look Of Love” by Slum Village. I guess they just finished knocking the record out. This was around the time the shop was just about to close. The Hip Hop Shop was open from 4 to 6, and it was about 5:58 or something. Dilla just comes up with the record and has DJ Head put the record on. I remember him just being excited about the record, like they had one, this that deal. He wanted people to hear it. I remember him being in the studio working and doing a beat in like 5 minutes. Just placing the needle on a record…the shit looked effortless, man. Dilla was on his Frank Sinatra, he did it his way.

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a9_O1M4slA[/youtube]

What was it like joining Slum Village?
It was exciting. Slum was legendary in the Detroit area. At that time, I didn’t know Slum had that impact over in the East Coast and the West Coast. Dilla was working with Pharcyde, Q-Tip, the Roots, Busta Rhymes. Even before that, when they put out Vol.1 [Fantastic Vol.1], which was a cassette tape. People was talking about them then. They were hometown heroes. So when they invited me to join, I looked at it like a blessing. They coulda got anybody but they chose me.

Any particular memories about Baatin?

Man, it’s a lot. The conversations we had, the things he wanted to invent. He used to always tell me things [laughs] Baatin got me eating raw garlic cloves, which was nasty as hell but definitely good for you. And before he got sick, that was his routine. He was always healthy. Just a genuine guy. When he got your back, he got 100 grand. I even wrote about that: “Baatin said he got your back/you better trust”.
Tell me about your writing process.
My writing process differs because I’ve been doing it since I was 7 or 8, so I might go into different modes. I might write with a beat or without a beat, I might scat on a beat before I put the lyrics in. I might have certain words I want to rhyme within a song, that I might put on the end of a line and then create the line after I think of the words I want to rhyme with.

When I first started writing for Slum, I was like, this is different for me. At that time, I was a battle emcee. In high school, killing cats on a battle tip in the cafeteria. That’s what I was about. After my moms passed, she brought out the personal side of me, the emotional side. That’s why people are familiar with Out of Focus [Elzhi’s 1998 debut EP], they hear that personal side of me. That’s when I realized when you write down what you consider poison, you recite it into a microphone and play it back, it turns into medicine. I was a personal, battle rap emcee and those two things were non-existent in the Slum Village world. Instead of trying to force who I was into the Slum Village world, I wanted to play my part. To do what they did but add a little piece to it. I know how people is funny about change, but I just wanted to make sure what those three did was preserved.

What writers do you look up to?
I’ve always looked up to Quentin Tarantino, I love what he writes. I love what Jimi Hendrix writes. Still a fan of Illmatic. Nas is always going to be crazy with it, but I still look up to the writing on that album.

What’s happening with Elmatic?
Elmatic is coming real soon. Life got in the way. We put an extra twist on it, look out for before the year ends.

Do you have a favourite verse you’ve kicked?

The second verse to “Talking In My Sleep” . Sometimes I might write stuff but for the most part I keep it in my head. But the detail in that verse, the things I had to come up with…not to mention I wrote that verse in like 20 minutes, maybe 15, I was proud of that. I felt it was visual, I felt I was accurate with my wordplay, I still had patterns. The things I added, I was mindful of the things that may occur in someone’s dream if the dream turned into a nightmare. Anyone who would hear it might not take it for those things, they just taking it for what it is. It’s a verse, it’s a concept. But I see it in terms of words, how long it took me to write it, that’s definitely one of my favourite verses.

I got another song I’m working on called “Ms. Right”, the concept is pretty crazy.

What can we expect from The Feed?
The beats, the rhymes, everything going to be elevated. That’s what I took from Slum, it’s all about elevation, evolution. So everything I drop, it’s going to be better.

Downloads:
MP3: Elzhi – “TalkingIn My Sleep”
MP3: Elzhi – “Deep”

MP3: Elzhi-”Undefeated” (prod. by Madlib)
ZIP: Elzhi, Dwele and Lacks – The Breakfast Club Tape

Question in the form of an Answer: Buck 65

Matt Shea invented hobo-hop. 

DIY may now be the digital recipe for rap success, but Buck 65 was doing things himself a long time before mp3s and iTunes. Perhaps it was growing up in Mount Uniacke, Canada, a place that makes Yelawolf’s Gadsden look like New York City, or perhaps it’s just his supposedly shy nature. Either way, the guy knows how to Macgyver his way through the recording business.

He may be bashful but Buck – known to his local Justice of the Peace as Richard Terfry – proved an easy talker when I interviewed him for Scene Magazine. Word counts are a necessary evil in the printed world but the informational largesse of the Internet allows me to reprint the transcript in its entirety below.

You’re calling from Toronto. Is that where you’re based these days?

It is, yeah. I’ve been here for the last couple of years now.

Your new collection – 20 Odd Years – are you happy with the way it’s come together?

I am happy with the way it’s turned out so far. The interesting thing is that I’m working on it as we go. For example, some of the songs that will be on the last EP aren’t finished yet and in fact there is one that I’ve barely even started. For me, that’s the best part about the way I’m doing things this time around – it allows me to be releasing music while I’m still in the creative process. That’s really satisfying for any creative person, because often I find the biggest complaint I’ve had, and a lot of other musicians as well, is you make an album and then you have to wait so long for it to come out that you’re already tired of it by the time you release it. So it’s really exciting to be able to keep making music as we go. I’m quite excited with the results that we’ve gotten so far, definitely.

The mini album idea – was the ability to create while you release the only inspiration behind that idea?

Well, that was part of it. The other part of it was that there was so much material that we knew it would be too much to just dump on people all at once. So that was a big part of it, and there’s still activity afoot that will yield a little bit more than these digital releases. It’s actually been a little slow, but we are releasing vinyl for all of these releases as well, and so for the first two EPs I just got the test pressings two days ago and for the subsequent releases we should have them closer to the digital release dates. So the vinyl is coming – there will be that as well. But yeah, mostly I think it was just a decision based on the idea of releasing a lot of music but breaking it up, because most people just can’t really stomach an album with 25 songs on it. We just wanted to give people smaller doses, I guess.

This sort of thing – is it a lot easier to do in the digital age?

Well it seems to be really, at least in certain respects. I think we’re pretty close to the point now – with the interesting exception of vinyl – where for the most part music is consumed digitally on the Internet anyway. I’ve tried as best I can over the last few years just to be as forward looking as possible and accept the way things are evolving and just try to not fight it and just work with it and just kinda go with the flow with those sorts of things. So, you know, that’s where we are at this point and obviously that has an impact on the business side of things. I’m not going to be the sort of person who’s going to be the next in line to be singin’ the blues about the fact that you cant really sell records now, and at the same time I’m not going to be foolish enough to go out and manufacture tens of thousands of CDs, when you just can’t sell them – people just don’t really want them. So, I’m not gonna waste money either – I don’t want to waste anybody’s money or time, I guess.

Talking a bit more about the music: what were some of the motivations when it came to moving on from ‘Situation’? How did you change things up?

Basically, it just came down to one word, which was ‘melody’. I just wanted to make a bunch of songs that was more melodic than anything I’d ever done before, but I knew that was one area where I was definitely limited as a musician in my own right. I knew that I would have to accept a lot of help in that area so I made a lot of calls to people I knew who were just more gifted with that, and in a lot of cases that meant a lot of singers, basically, who could do what I couldn’t do myself. So, that has meant that there is a lot of collaboration and guest vocalists on the new material. It just basically all came down to this one simple motivation I had at the outset – to make some more melodic music. That was my main thing and I just went from there.

You had a DIY work ethic before it became the Internet MO to rap success. What’s your take on the Internet – has it been good for hip-hop?

Yeah, that’s very true and I guess it depends on where you look. Because, I can understand the complaints you hear people making in the United States and all the concerns that people have about oversaturation and overexposure and all those sorts of things. But if I look at myself as a case study, first of all historically: I was embracing the Internet and I was using it in a really strong way going back as far as ’95 or ’96 – before most people even had an email address. I was working with a friend of mine who started an internet radio thing called Triple Bypass a long time ago and it was really helping me, especially with coming from a smaller market and a part of the word that a lot of people don’t really think about or care about. Coming from Canada and especially a small, overlooked part of Canada, it was really helping me just to find an audience and get exposure. Especially for somebody like me who never really had pop aspirations. I was never really seeking the cover of Rolling Stone magazine or anything like that. You’re able to find just more like-minded, nocturnal weirdos like myself and so, I would say all in all, through the years it’s mostly been a help for me, but that’s not to say that there haven’t been some things that are difficult to understand or some tricky waters to navigate, and it’s led to certain confusions at times. But mostly it works for me when it comes down to it. I still don’t really know what to expect a few years down the road. I can tell you that I have days where I find myself walking around saying, ‘You know what? I’m kinda glad that I have a job. A job outside of music.’ Even though my career is still healthy and making me a living, I’m kinda glad I have this other thing too because I read an interesting statistic the other day that said only five per cent of independent musicians make a living just from music these days. So, you know, there’s a whole new set of realities, and maybe if you’re a person with a real stubborn sense of pride it can be a real difficult pill to swallow. But I’ve never been motivated by money or a search for fame, so just for someone who’s interested in the creative pursuit, the Internet and all that can be a real amazing facilitator for that whole thing. Like I said, for what really matters to me, it works nicely.

Your stuff has always touched upon a lot of different genres. Was hip-hop your first love when you were growing up?

Well, the first records I bought with my own money were hip-hop records. There was music that I liked even before that I didn’t remember and there were records that I asked my parents to buy for me. I’m gonna definitely age myself with this but I remember as a kid that I really liked Kiss! So, I think that was probably my first love, you know?

There’s nothing wrong with Kiss. For a kid, they were always a gateway to further flung stuff…

Exactly right! But there were a few songs here and there that I can just remember hearing on the radio when I was a kid that I kinda liked. But definitely from the time I was about eight or nine years old, hip-hop was what it was all about for me and when I was going through a lot of those years in junior high school and high school, like most people I was very close-minded and almost militant about music. I was so stubborn for years and I was quite unwilling to listen to almost anything else. Then when I really started working as a producer myself in hip-hop after my interest in it translated into me making music myself – only at that point did I become more open minded again, because as a producer making beats I had to go out there and familiarise myself with a lot of music and I was just listening to tons of records. I’d started to develop an appreciation for all kinds of music once the late 80s rolled around.

You were born in Mount Uniacke. What was it like growing up there?

Well, I grew up on a dirt road. If you can picture the most rural scene you can possibly imagine. It was a dirt road just cut right through the trees, you know, so it really felt like I was in the forest. My town – when you see a lot of American small towns, especially in movies, you see a little main street and it will have some shops and a little vibrancy all its own – my town was nothing like that at all. There were no businesses whatsoever – there was a gas station and for years my father was the one who ran the gas station, but that was literally it. There was a place where you could pick up your mail and the gas station and then absolutely nothing else. To find anything to do you just basically had to resort to nature, I suppose – climb a tree or something like that. It was very isolated and very small too, maybe a few hundred people who were there. Really cut off from the world at large. I think we only had one or two TV stations most of the time when I was growing up as well – both Canadian – so we were just really cut off. I had no idea what was going on but that was, I think, a really good positive thing for me – it still very much informs the person I am today, I know that much.

Were you always rapping when you were growing up?

Yeah. First of all, before that, I was always quite creative and drawn to words. I learned to read really fast and English was always my best subject at school and I loved to write. So, when I heard hip-hop music for the first time I just lit up and ran with it because it just seemed to be such a perfect fit for what I was already interested in – just being interested in words and rhymes and writing on my own and so on and so forth. So yeah, pretty much I can remember I started writing little raps of my own when I was in the sixth and seventh grade, around the time I was 11 years old I guess – mostly little things to try to impress girls in my class. And I would give them to them. I would just write them on paper, these little raps, and give them to them, and funnily enough I got a message about a year ago on Facebook from one of those girls that I wrote one of those to when I was about 11 or 12 years old, and she said she still had it! I begged her to scan it for me to send it in an email but I didn’t hear from her again. It was amazing to me and I got very excited to think that some of the earliest stuff that I wrote still exists somewhere and this girl – she still has one of my first raps ever.

Who did you want to be like when you first started writing your own material?

Yikes. That was a long time ago, so I suppose the honest answer would be Melle Mel. He was probably my first favourite rapper.

Was it your interest in hip-hop that took you to Halifax?

No, I moved to Halifax to go to university. I studied biology. But as soon as I set up in the city, I went looking for the local hip-hop scene and got involved pretty much right away.

What are some of the ways in which your approach to writing and recording music has changed over the years?

Mostly it has stayed the same, really. The only major change is that I used to always write lyrics first and make music for them after. Now it’s strictly the other way around. I also used to be in the habit of going to certain places for inspiration – certain records I’d listen to or writers I’d read. I’ve stopped doing that because I don’t want to sound like anyone else. But if I can’t find what I’m looking for in my own memory or imagination these days I’ll turn to a book of Nan Goldin photography to get the wheels turning – that usually helps.

Talking regular jobs, I understand you’ve taken on a national radio show in the last couple of years. How’s that been going? Do you find it hard to balance those sorts of commitments with your music?

It’s been interesting and a strange transition to make, because I’ve gone from being my own boss for years and being as creative as I possibly can be on my own terms, to a situation where I have a boss and I can’t just be as creative as I want to be all the time. There are certain rules that I have to play by, and that can be quite different and difficult at times. On the other hand, just playing music for three and a half hours every day is pretty easy and nice as far as a job goes. The fact that I’m still in music and hearing a lot of music and therefore learning a lot every day and being exposed to all sorts of musical ideas certainly feeds back, even if just subconsciously with my own creative pursuits I’m continually learning about music, so that’s good. Some days it really does just feel like a job to me, and then sometimes I miss the old lifestyle of doing whatever I want at any time, and of course it means I can’t tour quite as much as I used to. Sometimes that’s good and sometimes that’s bad, and there are the other days where I think, ‘Man, a paycheck just shows up every two weeks,’ and that’s kind of amazing. Your income was always so random. When you’re a musician you’ll have a real busy month or two and then it will get real quiet for a while and you’d start to get nervous, thinking that you’re going to die or something like that. The radio gig takes the stress off, which is nice, and it’s really freed me up creatively. I was worried it would have the opposite effect, but the minute I started working that job the creative floodgates really opened for me.

What are the plans for the rest of the year?

Well, there are three more EP releases and then we’ll follow it up with an album, plus there are a few side projects. But let me tell you right now to be on the look-out for a song coming down the pipeline with a bit of an Australian slant to it – and you’ll know what it’s about when I tell you it’s called ‘Last of the V8 Interceptors’ – be on the look-out for that one!

Download:
MP3: Buck 65-”Sleep Apnea”
MP3: Buck 65 ft. K-OS-”Good Ol’ Days Remix”

MP3: Buck 65 ft. Serengeti-”Blood 7 Pt. 2″
MP3: Buck 65-”Squaredance”

Question in the Form of An Answer: Danny Brown

My long-delayed interview with The Hybrid has beat both Act II and Detox to market. Solace in minor victories. The abridged version is running concurrently at Pop & Hiss, along with a mini-feature on the best advertisement for Adderall since college finals. 

When you broke down The Hybrid on your Tumblr page, you traced its genesis to when you started popping Adderall.  What exactly changed for you? 

That was the beginning. I knew I wanted to continue down that path. At first when I started recording, I didn’t know what I was doing. but they allowed me to start focusing and narrowing it down.

Was it a matter of focusing on topical concerns instead of just trying to be funny?

Yeah, well after I while, I realized I wasn’t rapping about nothing. I was just cracking jokes, being a rapper rapping about rapping. And when you make music like that, you only last for so long. I started wanting to make tracks like “Guitar Solo,” which is about making music to stand the test of time. When I look back on The Hybrid, I want people to remember it three or four years from now. The difference between that and say Detroit State of Mind 4 is that I think those songs are more disposable, they don’t stick to the ribs.

“The Wizard” is one of my favorite things that you’ve ever done. A “Fish” sample plus  dialogue from a film where a plot line hinges on Super Mario 3 is always a good thing.

Ha, yeah. I agree. “The Wizard” was right when I started figuring out how I wanted to rap. There’s actually a couple versions of that song floating out there.

On one of your songs, you say you started taking ‘this rap shit serious about in 05.’ Were you rapping much prior to that?

I’ve been rapping my whole life, but I didn’t start thinking I was kind of nice until then. I’d been getting props before that — people told me that they thought I was doing my thing, but I didn’t really fuck with my shit. I was more into listening to other rappers who I thought were way doper than me.

Like who?

Dizzee Rascal and Cannibal Ox and Camu Tao.

Danny Brown “Re-Up” Video from FWMJ on Vimeo.

You were heavy into the White Stripes too, right?

That’s one of my favorite bands ever. I wasn’t listening to much rap at the time because I wasn’t getting the same shock value. Listening to the White Stripes made me feel that I had secrets and just listening to them made me really inspired to make music. I felt like I needed to get to that level because those guys were so much better.

Now it seems like you’re getting props from a lot of different artists. Aesop Rock said The Hybrid was one of his favorite rap albums of the year.

To me, that’s the crazy thing. I wonder how a guy like that gets my music when he’s so smart and so far out of anyone else’s realm. His albums are like books.

Intelligence manifests itself in different ways.

Yeah, but I’m smart in a dumb way, like Curb your Enthusiasm smart or Seinfeld smart. Aesop Rock is on some Napoleon Hill smart.

It’s good to hear a rapper name-dropping Aesop. It seems like he’s never gotten enough props within hip-hop circles, even though he’s worshipped among the liberal arts degree set. 

It’s an obscure taste. Not everybody can pick up an Aesop Rock CD and get it. He’s is the only artist whose lyrics I had to write down.

What sort of music were you into coming up?

I was super influenced by West Coast hip-hop:  Spice 1, South Central Cartel, E-40, B Legit. Then wen I heard Wu-Tang, I started listening to the East Coast shit like Mobb Deep and Nas. Starting in 93 and 94, I didn’t listen to nothing else.

For whatever reason, I hear a litle Big L in your rhyme schemes. Were you a big fan of him?

I definitely studied him. I don’t have to be a huge fan of a rapper to study them and listen to their projects. I’m a fan before an artist.  I listen to try to figure out why I like something and why I think something is wack. I don’t like to be in arguments when I can’t defend myself. If I think something’s wack, I want to be able to explain why.

What made you start rapping in the first place?

I always knew how to rap. In the third grade, I was the only kid doing it. By the 6th grade, there was always another kid who everyone said was dope and they’d put me up against him. Then as I got older I started getting concerned with songwriting, instead of just being on the corner rapping in cipers.

Did you appreciation of Jack White have to do with the fact that he’s from Detroit?

For sure. He’s getting all of his inspiration from Detroit, the same way I did. He’s still killing things and he’s the best around, you can’t argue. That’s how I felt about Eminem. That nigga is like a god. He’s winning Grammys and he’s repping Detroit.Seeing them do it made me feel like I could too.

Danny Brown “Shootin’ Moves” Video from FWMJ on Vimeo.

Are you still living in Detroit?

Yeah, but at the moment I’m in New York. I’m always traveling around.

What are you doing in New York?

Just recording, it’s better to be away. I’ll go anywhere to get out of Detroit for a minute.

What’s the scene like in Detroit?

Just rappers rapping for other rappers. Too many rappers, not enough fans. Being in Detroit, it’s the same 100 people every night. It’s cool and all, but after a while you got to start doing raves or shit in the suburbs, rather than just rapping for J Dilla heads. I came up on that stuff, so of course I’m not disrespecting, that’s just how it is.

Freddie Gibbs described the Gary scene as crabs in a bucket. Is that how it feels in Detroit?

Detroit ain’t got no outlets. At the same time,  a lot of artists and fans live in the past instead of trying to evolve and do what Dilla did. Not trying to sound like how he sounded. You’ve just got to take his inspiration and keep evolving.

Do you think the Dilla comparisons Black Milk gets are fair?

Black Milk has grown into his own person. You can’t look at him and be like he’s biting Dilla. Dilla did some shit that Milk won’t do and Black Milk got some shit of his own. He’s Black Milk. The thing about Dilla is that he would constantly switch up his styles. The shit that Drake and Cudi are rhyming over now? Dilla was making beat tapes in 03 using mad synth samples like that. He was the first one on that wave.

How has that shaped your approach to music pretty?

That’s how I look at it. I like to stay challenged and stay away from getting conditioned to things. I used to do the in the pocket thing, do the same flow every time, but I learned to change it up.

Danny Brown “Nowhere 2 Go” from FWMJ on Vimeo.

What was it like growing up in Detroit ? Were you a part of a musical family?

I was born on the Westside of Detroit, off LynnWood. When I got older, I moved to the Eastside, but I was raised in Lynnwood, that was my hood. When I was in high school, I’d always go back there. It wasn’t no sob story. People was crazy, that’s how it was. My parents had me young and everyone grew up too fast. I had young ass parents — my dad was 16 when he had me, my moms was 18. By the time I was old enough to do shit, I was trying to do shit that I wasn’t supposed to do. Plus I was the oldest, always shootin moves. We wasn’t the poorest family in the world. I always had Jordans when they came out, I was always fly. In school, I knew how to rap, so at any school I went to, I hung out with the  cool kids. When I was a teenager, I was doing all the other shit that the kids wasn’t doing it, including dropping out of school.

How old were you when you dropped our?

I was 16, 10th grade.  I’d still go back to school periodically to pick my girl up, or go to lunch, or shoot some dice. But after 9th grade, I’d already started selling weed had some money for my nice little school gear and shit.

Were you doing poorly in school or were you just like fuck it?

I was kind of smart, so I did well all the way until I was old enough to write raps. At first, I didn’t know how to do it. I was just freestyling, but once I figured up how to rap, I was that type of nigga.

Are you a big reader?

I have a short attention span, so I read a lot of magazines. I read rap magazines when the Source wasn’t even popping yet. I didn’t start reading it until 1994. I was reading Word Up constantly.

Is that how you got into the Adderall?

That shit’s good for writing. I don’t normally have a problem writing, but if I pop an Adderall, I’ll just do it until the sun comes up. They’re not always good but it keeps me disciplined. It’s like rapper steroids.

Danny Brown “The Hybrid” from FWMJ on Vimeo.

What’s the story behind the creation of “Generation RX“?

I didn’t have the idea to write that song. Actually, the person who I used to get aderall from gave me the idea. He was a graff artist and his mom put him on adderall when he was 8 years old. When black kids do bad at school we get screamed at as punishment. When a white kid does it, they put them on drugs. Black kids say ‘Fuck school.’ So basically, his whole shit started at 8 and now he’s 20 or 21. It doesn’t even do anything anymore. He just knew he was addicted, and he told me to write this song. He was like, ‘I know that shit is fucking me up, they just haven’t done the research yet.’ He was taking crazy amounts every day. I just take half a pill and I’m good.

So how did you come up in Detroit? What was the path like to get put on over there?

Basically, Hex Murda and Trick Trick run anything hip hop related in Detroit and you have to go through them. Hex runs St. Andrew’s so you’ve gotta go through him to shoot your moves.  There’s a lot of talented cats. Hex is doing his thing. Elzhi, Black Milk, Guilty, are all around. Those dudes had a pipeline overseas, so if you wanted to get overseas, you had to through them and through Slum Village. There’s no other way to go out the rap way in Detroit, but to go through the underground.

How did you get on that Jay Stay Pai compilation from last year? That was my first time hearing you and you had my favorite song on the record.

I had show at a college with Blue and he was like, ‘you should come to Cali and kick it.’ I just took it like whatever, but I ended up getting booked in San Diego and had another show at the LA Fat Beats, so I just rolled up, hit up Blu and Jon Mainframe and was like, ‘yo, I’m in LA.’ Jon was working on Jay stay Paid at the time, so I hit up Hex and was like, ‘what’s the deal with that. Why’s Jon doing the Dilla record?’ He didn’t know much about it.

So I just did whatever out there, just kicked it for three months. They lived right next to an ill skate park on Skid Row.  So I just was chilling, popping pills, skating and Hex was tripping, being like, ‘you supposed to be working on your record, why you working with some white boys doing dumb hippy shit.’ So that sort of ended him managing me and when I got back, I started recording at the other studio and was like, I’m going to shoot moves, figure it out myself.

For Jay Stay Paid, I heard the whole record and heard what people were doing, which was mostly freestyles, and I was like everyone’s just rhyming 16′s and not going their hardest. I’m going to go extra hard and make sure people hear me.

It’s rare to hear a dude for the first time without any advance hype.

It’s crazy. Everything is mad marketing schemes. People using Ustream. It’s about people selling their lifestyle. With me, the shit was organic. No videos, just listen to my music.

I take it you didn’t get much interest from labels prior to Hybrid?

I’ve never had a deal and I don’t have no management. I was talking with 10 Deep for a while to put out The Hybrid, but it didn’t happen. They seemed to be down with it, and I love their clothes, but they kept on B.S.ing me for so long. Every time, I was going to be the next 10 Deep release. Then they told me they were waiting to do something with Gucci Mane. I ain’t never seen a 10 Deep tape with Gucci Mane.

So basically, it was March and I didn’t want to sit on it any longer. I didn’t want to get caught up with the Rick Ross and Young Jeezy release dates. Not like I’m competing with them, but they soak up a lot of attention from my homies in the hood, and I wanted them to hear my music. So I figured in March and April, I wouldn’t have much competition. So I dropped it during SXSW because I wasn’t there, and wanted to send a message that I’m still the livest nigga.

Danny Brown – Shootin’ Moves from The Smoking Section on Vimeo.

So what was your It’s An Art tape that you just dropped? You never explained what it was?

Those were some of the songs that I did with Blu and John Mainframe and LA. We never got around to finish the record and it was just sitting in my computer collecting dust. I wanted to show people that I could be extra-experimental and creative. Not just doing my normal shit. I didn’t want to surround it with any unnecessary hype. I just dropped it on my Tumblr, for the people who wanted to hear it.

How did you link up with Tony Yayo in the first place?

When I was recording [mixtapes] “Detroit State of Mind,” Volumes 1-3, I was working with a producer who worked for G-Unit and was Yayo’s engineer. When Yayo got a movie role in “S.W.A.T. 2,”  he was shooting it in Detroit, so he hit me up and said, ‘come link up, chill and smoke.’ So I went down there and he was like, ‘my homeboy told me about you.’ I showed him the “Re-Up” video, went on my iTunes and played him a couple joints, and he said you need to come up to New York with me. So he took me on tour with 50 Cent all through July and we built from there.

Are you going to sign with G-Unit?

I don’t know. Hopefully. We talk a lot about what we want to do with G-Unit, and how 50 is trying to build it by signing new artists and changing the whole brand. At the end of the day, the music [and stuff] that I rap about it isn’t far from what G-Unit always does, nor is it very far from Eminem in terms of subject matter and wordplay. It’s just a different approach to the same thing.

What’s it been like working with 50 and what have you learned?

He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. I pretty much just watch and listen to whatever he says. You can learn a lot by not talking and just asking questions. I study the music business–it’s a fickle place and it’s hard to stay relevant. You have to pay attention to what’s going on in the streets and be able to adapt with the times and reinvent yourself. Aesop Rock once said something that’s always stuck in my head:  when an author writes a book, he doesn’t write the same book twice. So I ask myself, what does Danny Brown need to do next? “Detroit State of Mind” introduced me and my city. “The Hybrid” was trying to show my range. Next time, I’m going to write a different book.

One of the more interesting things about your music and by extension your tastes is that you’re just as a big of a fan of Soulja Boy and Lil B as you are of Aesop Rock and Def Jux. That’s rare for a lot of rappers that came up in the underground.

I’m all about making entertaining music. There’s a lot of wack rappers who are really entertaining and there’s a lot of super dope lyrical dudes that bore me. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of what you want to listen to and when. I just want to be entertained.

What’s next for you?

I’m going to put out some more videos, then I think I’m going to drop a tape rapping over all original beats next month.

Over the last two months, you really stepped it up in terms of releasing videos. Unsurprisingly, it led to you receiving a lot more attention. What led to that decision?

That was pretty much Yayo’s idea. There’s a lot of faceless rappers and he made me realize that the videos don’t have to be good. It was just a way of people getting to see me rap. As I progress, you’ll definitely see the quality of the videos improve.

You call yourself a mutant.What does that mean to you?

I’m just the illest mutant ever, but I’m so humble at the same time. I know that I’m good at what I do, but I give props to everyone. I don’t have the entitled rapper complex.  I’m on the wave of some new stuff. People don’t know how to take it. You’re going to have to stay tuned and watch, there’s going to be a lot of change.

Download:
MP3: Danny Brown & Tony Yayo-”Cyclops”
MP3: Danny Brown & Tony Yayo ft. Lil B-”Trap Ball”

ZIP: Danny Brown-The Hybrid
ZIP: Danny Brown-It’s An Art

Question in the Form of An Answer: El-P

An abridged version of this interview originally appeared at Pop & Hiss. El-P performs tonight at Low End Theory; it explains everything. The only way this can be topped is if Natalie Portman decides to become a barista at my corner coffee shop.

You probably could’ve made a lot more money by performing at the Echo or the Troubadour, but you decided to do your album release party at Low End Theory. What led to that decision?

I like the scene and the people involved. It reminds me a lot of the scenes that were happening in the mid- to late ’90s in New York, stuff that caters to real hard-core beat heads. I could’ve gone somewhere and gotten some more money, but I wanted to do an instrumental set and that’s what they do, so why not go straight to the source, to the people who love it. I also really like the dudes that came out of the Low End. Plus, if I were to do a show at the Troubadour or the El Rey and sell it out and just stand onstage and play beats, they’d probably want to stab me.

Have you ever been there?

Nope, but I’ve seen it on YouTube and it looks crazy. I know Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer pretty well and they’re dope dudes.

Do you listen to a lot of dubstep?

Definitely. I’ve always been about noise and thumping drums and when I heard it, I was vibing with it pretty instantly.

Do you have any favorite artists?

I really like Lotus and Gaslamp. I’m definitely a big fan of Glitch Mob, especially their podcasts. I really like Hudson Mohawke. There’s a lot of cats that I’m into, but I wouldn’t call myself an aficionado.

What sort of set are you planning on doing?

I’m not bringing a band. I’m just going to rock some [stuff] that no one’s heard and some [stuff] that people have. I’m also going to be testing out some new beats and [stuff] like that. Maybe a little bit of stuff from the new record.

You’ve been making instrumental records since the late ’90s, but it seems like their popularity has exploded in the last few years. Why do you think that is?

It goes in waves. When Company Flow turned “Little Johnny From the Hospital” into Rawkus, they looked at us like we were crazy. Our first album had given no indication that we’d do something like that and before that the only instrumental hip-hop had been done by Scott La Rock and a few others, so we were one of the first.

There was Shadow, but that seemed almost trip-hop.

Shadow was right around the same time. He definitely was part of that first wave. It’s interesting to see the resurgence of instrumental music’s popularity. I’ve been dropping instrumental records on the low for my whole career, so it’s been weird and cool to see the genre really coming into its own for the first own time.

It would seem that there are a lot of parallels between the music you’ve always done and the aesthetic of the Low End Theory and other branches of contemporary bass music. Heavy bass, hard drums, loud noise…

I definitely think the what I came up on was hard beat stuff. Boogie Down Productions and Ultramagnetic MC’s, Mantronix, Run-DMC and Public Enemy. It’s ingrained in my music and that will never change. It seems that people fall in and out of love with that sound in waves, and it’s interesting to watch people wanting to be crushed by drums. Mainstream hip-hop is not bringing that — or at least it’s not what’s in vogue right now. So the dubstep dudes are taking the ball and running with it — like, “OK, you guys aren’t using these hard-core drums, you’ve leaving them on the floor? Cool, we’ll take it.’

Do you see them as continuing on in a tradition that you helped build?

I don’t really listen to music with self-reference in mind, but i’d like to think that we there’s a kinship.

How did your Justin Bieber remix come about and why did you make me like a Justin Bieber song?

Once people actually took me up on the challenge, I was like ‘oh fuck, what have I gotten myself into? I had already made the music loop of the McCarney ‘Live and let Die’ shit. I had actually wanted to drop it on a mixtape, but there were no drums, just that general loop. That shit is just huge to me, in a perfect world I would’ve put a song out like that officially. But when I started thinking about the Bieber shit, I went to my hard drive — often, when I do remixes I’ll just throw what I’ve been working on with the acapellas and see if it works Sometimes I’ll find something that fits and change to fit the acapella. That’s what happened to the Bieber shit.

The thing that I loved about it and my perspective on it was, a) I wanted to show people that I can do anything, on some arrogant cocky shit. Like I can make you like Bieber, and people are like, ‘fuck you.’ It was fun. I get to take this pre-fab weird bullshit Disney sexuality thing and throw it through the truth blender. I get to make this song an artistic statement. Something raw and hilarious. That’s what I love about hip hop music and sampling– it allows you to turn some shit on its head. Hip-hop is like, we don’t give a fuck, we’re going to fuck your shit up, and make it whatever we want. We’re going to be like Brand Nubian and take Edie Brickell and turn it into a song about trife women. I’ve always loved that shit.

I was like if I’m going to do this, let me get down to the brass tax of what this kid is saying. He’s really saying ‘fuck you.’ It was a funny opportunity to say something about pop music and it was a way of challenging myself. People are so locked off with music– no one wants to like Bieber people. I’m guilty of it. People define themselves as much by what they don’t like as much as what they do. By the time I was done remixing it, I was like ‘fuck it,’ I actually like this song. I’ll admit it.

Do you see that closed-mindedness as a problem for many of the people who used to be considered “underground hip-hop fans.” And to build on that, do you see it as increasingly difficult for a rapper to make it with the dissolution of what was the old underground economy?

I think that there’s a transition happening. It’s always hard to make it as a rapper. It’s really up to the artists themselves. Some people have the correct hustle to get a fan base and have a legitimate grind that’s workable to them and some people will never be able to do that, for whatever reason. It’s hard out there for people. I don’t have the answers. We’re all somewhat guilty. There’s so much goddamn music out there, that it really is on you to stand out. No one can pity you into success.

I constantly hear rappers talking about how they need support — like it was a handout or something.

When I was first came out I was like that too. Of course, that was a time when people still did support. That was different era. Independent hip hop was a brand new perpsective that people could relate to — it was different than what they’d heard before. After so many years, it stopped being so radically different that you could no longer get an automatic bye just by being indie.  I’m not shitting on anyone. I do think there are amazing artists who don’t get the recognition that they should, and vice versa.

Who do you think deserves more attention?

How about everyone on the roster of Def Jux? I just spent the last ten years trying to bring that about and trying to support and get exposure for people who I though had something and I still believe they do. In a lot of cases, it worked well. In others, people weren’t listening. There was a time period where certain acts slid in and have careers, where others with similar talent slipped in too late. It’s just always hard. I know that for me, I personally am at a point in my life where it’s nice to not have to think about that. For the first time in a long while, I’m just really excited to get to be focusing on making music.

Do you think that the day-to-day business of running Def Jux had made it so that creating music was a chore?

I’ll tell you without getting into it too much, because there’s a part of me that feels like it’s a little tacky to talk about it. It was hard and is hard for me, because the decision that was made affects more than just me. It was very difficult because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Right now, I feel a little conflicted being on some me shit, so I’m doing my best to transition into that in a cool way. I just think that really for me, everything goes in cycles, you’re not doing anyone a favor if you’re not all there in your head. I think that part of being a man is looking around and assessing a situation. If it’s not right for you and others, then you have to make the correct decision even if it’s more difficult.

I believe firmly that what’s happening now is the correct thing to happen for everybody involved. I know what the alternative was, and that being said, I am really amped about the future. I don’t think I was ever 100 percent able to be to accept that I couldn’t do both. I was always pretty stubborn about that — fooling myself into thinking that I could run a record label, be an artist, and have a business relationship and be everyone’s friend all the time. I was wrong about that, not on all levels, just that it wasn’t 100 percent the way I would’ve liked it to be. Now that Ive accepted that, for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel energized, I’m starting to feel that anything can happen and that there’s something new coming for me. I’m really excited about being a musician –it’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. I’m amped about giving it another chance to pursue it in a different way. It’s time for something now. I’m on some positive shit these days.

So is it safe to say that you’re no longer going to be taking as long between records?

Trust me, I hate the fact that I watch myself age every time I put a record out. I came into this industry at 18. I’ve basically released a record every five years. I don’t have 20 more five year periods left. I’m in the early part of my 30s — about to be mid-30s– and I think that I don’t want to see a 45 year-old white rapper. At least, I wouldn’t want to see me. Maybe I’ll have to put on a mask and wear angel wings or something.

What’s up with your forthcoming record? There was a blog post about a year and a half ago about how you lost a hard drive but then you recovered it.

I did recover it, but I’m probably only using one thing from there on the new album. I’ve got some [stuff] that I’m working on, some lines in the water, people I’m talking to. But I don’t want to name names. That’s like tattooing the name of your girlfriend on your arm. My future’s wide open right now and I haven’t been this excited to make music in a long time.

The last official Def Jux release is the forthcoming posthumous solo record from Camu Tao. Obviously, he meant a lot to everyone affiliated with the label. What do you miss most about him and what does getting to put out his final album mean to you?

Everyone deeply loved Camu and felt that it was a crying shame that he passed away so prematurely. The music that he was working on was so off the wall and so new, it was nothing that any us had ever done or could do. We all wanted Camu to blow up. He was the most talented dude I know.

I had to put in a million hours of work just to do what Camu could do sitting and joking around. That’s just the truth. Putting out this record is something I promised myself I would do. All the profits are going to his family and his fiancée. I’m trying to do everything in my power to get this dude heard, and obviously my power isn’t that vast. I’m just trying to do my best to show that he existed and he was brilliant.

It’s bittersweet. He didn’t finish the record, so it’s rough around the edges. But I wouldn’t put it out if I didn’t think it was beautiful. For me it felt like, the best and most important thing that I could do right now to honor him was to put some sort of exclamation point to the end of a great time and a great era. I didn’t want there to be only a question mark.

It’s weird how Dilla can get 100,00 tributes, and granted he’s  one of the greatest producers of all-time and he earned it, but Camu has gotten very litte. I’m as guilty as anyone, but it seems like he deserved more.

I agree. I love Dilla. He deserves those tributes 100 percent. All I’m asking for is saying for people to listen to music again. It’s hard to get people to pay attention — people aren’t really listening, people aren’t really peeping shit, and I feel like the town crier. I’m not bitter about it, but I do know that this music needs to be heard. Whatever fucking happens happens, every dime made off the record goes to his family. There are several charitable things in relation to this release that have been coordinated with his fiance. At least it will be out there for people to decide how they feel. We know what Camu meant to us and we know why we all want to try and show people even a glimpse of that.

What was it about Camu that you thought was so unique?

He was amazing — he was lightning and he never got the chance to get his shine. The Smashy Trashy record fell on deaf ears even thought it had some bangers. We put that record out knowing people would say what the fuck, this isn’t who they are. And a lot of people ignored ignored it. King of Hearts flies in the face of everything you’d think. Camu is singing and it’s crazy stuff. I’m not a music critic. I can’t describe the music — I’ll leave that to everyone else out there. There’s two types of reactions to the record. There are those who will be completely dismissive and there will be those who will be completely blown away. There’s no middle ground. Camu wanted to make a change. He wanted to revolutionize shit.

Download:
MP3: El-P-”Whores: The Movie”
MP3: El-P-”Meanstreak (in Three Parts)” (Left-Click)

MP3: El-P-”Instrumental 6″ (from Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx1) (Left-Click)
MP3: El-P-”East River Float” (from Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx2 (Left-Click)

MP3: Justin Bieber-”Baby” (El-P Death Mix)”

Question in the Form of An Answer: An Interview With the Makers of 40 Nights of Rock & Roll

Matt Shea typically eats popcorn and lobs rotten fruits at the screen in the back row of 20/20 Filmsight, 

If you read this site regularly, you’re probably a) familiar with Faye Reagan, before or after the fact, and b) a little hardcore about your music. Recent years haven’t been kind to the psyche of the dedicated music fan, the post-millennial culture of fear being readily co-opted by the record industry. CD sales are down. The internet’s a bitch. We’re all doomed.

But what do the bands themselves think of the state of play in the music business? It’s a question that captured the imaginations of filmmaker Scott Sloan and former Paste Magazine editor Steve LaBate, two lifelong friends who decided to pool their passion and hit the highways for 40 straight nights of gigs, grog, groupies and greasy dinners.

Sloan would film every epic show, dingy dive bar and meltdown moment for 40 Nights of Rock & Roll, a feature length documentary looking at the current state of rock & roll in America, while LaBate would pen copious notes for the accompanying 40 Nights of Rock & Roll book. It would be documentary at its dirtiest, rock writing at its most verisimilar.

Sloan turned out to be a great interview subject – amiable and candid. An article based on this transcript can be found over at 20/20 Filmsight, but the full deal is below.

Have you decompressed since getting back from your 40 nights on the road?

Yeah. I think it’s been about ten days since I got home and I got a bit of wanderlust today – I wanted to drive for some reason – but the first week I was back I refused to drive, so to go to the Rockies game downtown I’d walk like seven miles, because I just don’t want to drive anymore.

I heard about Black Betty [Sloan’s Jeep Cherokee]. Was it a little like the Blues Brothers, the car falling apart as soon as you jumped out?

She smells really bad. It smells like wet meat in there. I’d say she held together pretty good actually. I was out for a little while today and a lot of people were – not betting against her – but were saying that there was no way she could make it. It felt good to prove them wrong.

You proved the knockers, and the knockers of American engineering, wrong…

Exactly. That’s the one American car you can actually put a boatload of miles on.

40 Nights of Rock & Roll. Where did the original concept come from?

Steve and I were both at a time in our life where he’d just gotten laid off from his job and I’d just gotten let go from my job a couple of months earlier, and I had this whole plan that I came up with last summer where I would somehow end up on unemployment, sell the house I was living in and use the profit to purchase some equipment and do a film – something creative, but something fun. Take a chance – I hadn’t done that before. I’d been working in a cubicle for 13 years and it was like, ‘Do it now or never.’ I don’t have a wife or kids. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do but I broke out of the cell, I guess. Or something.

You and Steve are old friends, right?

We’ve known each other for about 15 years, I think.

How did you guys originally meet?

He actually went to high school with my little brother. They’re like three years younger and I’d come home from college and they’d be downstairs in the basement trying to drink beers they stole from the gas station. I had to teach them how to drink properly.

A very rock & roll way to get to know each other…

Yeah, I think he actually threw up the first day I met him.

As you’re entering post-production, do you think you’re now pulling together the same film you started out with?

Well, originally I was thinking about almost doing it avant-garde and being very disciplined with the structure of it: 40 bands, do three minutes per band, a 120 minute film, and that’s it, just work within those rules. And then I wasn’t even going to show Steve and myself, but then I realised there’s no point in doing something in forty consecutive nights where you’re going to be in pain a lot of the time and that lends it urgency, so you’ve gotta see the other side of that. We didn’t shoot a lot of ourselves, but we got a bunch of flip footage and some other stuff and I realised our story of being on the road is really the connective tissue. I think just from the documentation part of interviewing the bands and doing the songs, it pretty much came out as I expected it. I knew we’d see a lot of different kinds of music and a lot of different kinds of venues. The interpersonal thing between me and Steve – I thought we’d get along a lot better than we did, but anytime you’re driving around 400 miles a day with someone’s face so close to you that you could link ‘em – you see them before you go to bed, you see them in the morning, and we weren’t having sex so there’s no redeeming factors there, it’s just, ‘Fuck, you again?! Shit man. Fuck!’ So that part all turned out a little differently, but I’m happy with what we got and I would say, even if we never make a dime off of it, I’d call it a success.

What do you think is the state of rock & roll in America today?

It’s way better than I thought it was, and I was quite optimistic heading into it, for some reason. We saw a lot of medium sized bands and a couple that would be described as big bands, but what was really interesting was the towns where we saw local bands – and some of the more renowned acts that are in their city – and just the passion they have for it. They have good fans, a lot of really awesome cool small clubs. It made me fall back in love with live music. I’m 33 and I don’t go to a ton of concerts, but I just went to 40 odd and I want to go back – I think I’ve been to two since I got back, so it’s in the blood.

You hear a lot about falling CD sales and that sort of thing, but how do you and Steve perceive the internet’s effect on the ultimate state of rock & roll?

The biggest thing is that it’s changed. It’s changed the game and now, with Garage Band and MySpace – you can put all your music onto iTunes and it’s just up to you to promote it. None of the bands have a problem with it; they think it’s a good thing. The only real negative that they see – and this came up from a few of them – is that it kinda dilutes the talent pool. Whereas before if you had a CD pressed or a vinyl pressed, you had to be pretty fucking amazing, but now you can record anything. Of course you could have four-tracks before but you couldn’t get it in front of people – put it on MySpace, put it on iTunes. It’s good but it’s just different, and the thing is that now versus the 90s and 80s for that matter, we had bands that were not lip-synched essentially and just had some flashy lights and stuff, and that was their show. I think with the internet now, you have to deliver the goods live because that’s where you’re going to make the bulk of your money. You’re just using the internet and the electronic distribution as the means to get your brand to the people that will come to your show.

There’s seems to be that switch there: live shows used to support the releases, whereas the releases now support the live show…

Yeah, and I think those big record companies – they were taking too much money from the artists before and they were just as doomed as the Wall Street bankers.

What’s your musical backstory Scott? Have you approached this purely from the position of a music fan?

I’ve played in bands, definitely. I still jam with people. I’ve got a band called The Black Unicorns. I used to play in metal bands in highschool and stuff and my brother plays drums also, so we started taking lessons at the same time and we’d show each other what we were learning. So, I can play the drums quite well and if you can play the guitar and you can probably play the bass. The one thing I can’t do half decently is sing, but people say that I have a good singing voice, although its probably more on the funny side of singing talent, rather than musical talent.

A Dave Mustaine singing voice…

It’s even worse than that (laughs). I do sound sick though (laughs).

You spoke to a lot of different bands. How did you decide who to interview?

We made a wish list of bands and we just looked to see who was on tour, and there was actually a lot more planning and logistics for this. Of course, there was always going to be a lot travelling involved, but it really was not easy, so we had a wish list – we got probably 15-20 per cent of wish list, which is pretty good for just knowing whether somebody was on tour or not. The rest of it was using Steve’s extensive music writing background for contacts. So it was who we wanted, and then there was who’s actually on tour, and there was where do we know people, and there was also a few days that ended up being pretty interesting where we didn’t know what the fuck we were going to do (laughs), so we just rolled in. One of the days we were in Texarkana, and I thought we were going to die but we ended up at this cancer benefit with a country band playing at some old honky-tonk joint with sawdust on the floors. Everybody in the bar is smoking, they’ve got like Texas barbecue out there. I walked in there and was like, ‘Dude, let’s just start drinking beer.’ We sat down and started drinking beers and were just respectful, but after being there for a few hours and talking to everybody and they had an auction and stuff, and by the time we left we were hugging everybody. It was pretty awesome.

Was it always your intention to talk to bands at all different levels of the music industry?

Absolutely. That was very important to us, because you get to a certain level and you’re getting ushered in and then the person comes to meet you and then they leave, and it’s not as personal as going to some concrete slab, crappy rock club that holds 200 people and slamming cans of beers with the band in a crappy little green room. That’s cool. And the other thing that’s really cool also is that onstage, when you’re in the audience and watching the show, of course you want to go see something at like the House of Blues where they have an awesome PA and great lights and an acoustically well-designed room, but for us, for rock & roll, to see what the state is you’ve got to look at garage bands and all those things.

Interviewing Paul Westerberg at Target Field – was that always the plan or did it come about at the last minute?

That was actually a lot of work and we’re pretty proud of that. Steve, for the magazine, did a feature on baseball and rock n roll – he did that few years ago – so he knew the director of music for the Twins Stadium, and he also interviewed Paul Westerberg for Paste about five or six years ago, so he had Westerberg’s agent’s information. Westerberg hadn’t really played for anyone since 2006 when he stuck that screwdriver through his hand – do you know Westerberg? There are people who are fuckin’ crazy about the dude.

So, we were thinking about how to get Westerberg and then Steve remembered, ‘Oh, he’s a massive Twins fan. Let’s set this up so we’re in town in Minneapolis while the Twins are on the road and have Paul Westerberg play his guitar acoustically in an empty stadium.’ Steve pitched that idea to Westerberg’s agent and it went back and forth for like a month, just trying to get an answer, yes or no. We left that night open just in case – we had a couple of back-up bands. Finally, the day before we’re due to get it down, Westerberg’s agent calls and is like, ‘You know, Paul never does anything, but every once in a while something that’s just the right kind of weird comes up.’ And I love the guy forever after that – if something weird comes up he’ll do it – that’s my kind of person. And he was totally gracious and a very cool and funny man.

Who were some of the other highlights?

People get mad when I tell them this, but singling out one thing or one band is next to impossible. There are nights when the band was great but the security were dicks, or where the band wasn’t awesome but the bartender thought we were hilarious and gave us tons of free alcohol. I could definitely give you a highlight of every day and a lowlight of every day.

Pushing through the filming of the film in 40 nights – was that a purposeful move to have your own chaotic band-style road trip?

Yes, and that got us so much more credibility with the bands. They were like, ‘How long have you guys been out for?’ and we were like, ‘Oh, we haven’t had a night off in 26 days,’ and they’d be like, ‘What?! You’re crazy, man!’ They appreciated that, because usually when they get someone in for a documentary they role in an RV, and they’ve got people carrying stuff for them and they’re all taking themselves seriously, and we’re just laughing and talking with these bands like they are our friends, which I think they really are in terms of being kindred spirits. I forget which band it was but they were like, ‘Dude, you guys really are a rock band.’ We kinda thought it but it was nice to hear it from someone else!

What was the hardest part of pulling the shoot together? Did you ever think the whole thing was going to fall apart?

Yeah, I almost quit at one stage. It’s kind of a hard one to quit, but there are times when your physical health was a concern and there are other times when your mental health was your concern. There are times when you wondered, ‘Is Steve going to stab me? Or just punch me when I’m driving?’ And sometimes we’d push each other’s buttons. Being in that state for that long, working hard and partying and just having to be a different place every night, you go kinda crazy, I think.

How’s postproduction going?

We’re working on a book part right now. I haven’t actually touched the footage yet. I’ll probably start logging it in the next few days, but I haven’t decided what platform I’m going to edit it on yet and I need to find a good sound person, but for me to just jump right into it I think I’d be too biased and I really believe that with something as personal as this you need time to distance yourself from the material. And not by any problem on my part – I just feel like I can approach it more objectively and as a potential viewer rather than as a participant before I get into it.

Like writing drunk, editing sober?

Exactly! That’s excellent advice.

What’s the general timeframe to get everything finished?

I want to do a simultaneous release of both the book and the film, just because if you’re going to go for it then fucking go for it, I guess. Also, though, if one’s a failure and the other’s successful – if you split’ em up it’s not good. Books have a long cycle time, so I’m thinking like March for some kind of release, but I’m going to get rough copies out to some people and put it on some sort of streaming thing – just for the people who have been following us so they can see where it’s at. Something like that should probably be ready in September or October.

You can keep track of Sloan and LaBate’s progress at 40 Nights of Rock & Roll

Question in the Form of An Answer: Spectrals

Aaron Matthews was last seen in Latvia, selling black market bootlegs of Phil Spector B-Sides and scheming to become mayor of Riga. 

If you know the roots of alternative rock, it’s easy to see that the current revival of 50s/60s rock n roll and girl group sounds is nothing new. Beat Happening were warping leather jacket machismo with songs about black candy and picnicking in graveyards when Nathan Williams was shitting in Pampers (no disrespect). So Wavves, Best Coast, and Dum Dum Girls are modernizing the voice of the eternal teenager for a generation weaned on videogames and irony. Spectrals, Louis Jones is a rust haired young man from Leeds who plays ramshackle, hazy rock n’ roll that keeps a Spector backbeat going even when the lyrics are indecipherable. They’re mostly about his exes anyway.

You played in hardcore bands before recording as Spectrals. Why set out on your own, and what took you from, say, Minor Threat, to the Everly Brothers?

It wasn’t a linear progression in the slightest. I’ve always had an ear for the sort of songs I’m trying to make now, I was just a lot less studied in them and I think I probably just remembered them from when I was little. I never exclusively listened to “hardcore”. I’m still dead into it, but aspects of it bore the shit out of me, just like everything else.

Describe your writing process.

Magic.

You record your material by yourself but when I last saw you play, you had a backing band. What’s the difference for you between playing alone and playing as part of a band?

I wish I didn’t have to have a band, it’s not ideal having to rely on them, not because they are morons or anything (for the most part) they’re ace, but because I understand that it’s hard for them to give up their time and completely care about my songs and it’s also hard for me to convey exactly what I want them to play them like sometimes. I’m terrified of them thinking I’m a “diva” and secretly hating my guts but sometimes they wig me out (when they don’t their amps to concerts, or dance too much) That said, when we do a concert and it passes without disaster, it resembles that thing everyone goes on about called “fun” and I think we manage to present the songs in an interesting way, which is sort of the point.

There’s a lot of bands mining roughly a similar musical style with many of the same influences – Blank Dogs, Dum Dum Girls, Wavves, etc. Why do you think pop and rock n roll from the 50s and 60s suddenly has so much cultural currency?

I think anyone dead into music, will, at some point, encounter some songs from the 50s and 60s that they really like and this will work its way out when they come to do some songs of their own. I think this has always been the case. Also, some bands try and feign interest in or appropriate the influences of their current favourite musical acts and this is probably why you’ve identified a palette of sound that roughly approximates to the 50s and 60s, but for me, whilst I get what your saying, I hear stuff all the time that bears no resemblance to the Pop music of the 50s and 60, so what does that tell you? It’s all songs, and it’s all music.

What can we expect from the album, in contrast to the EPs and singles?

Better songs, more songs, better Reverb, more Reverb.

Download:
MP3: Spectrals-”Don’t Mind”
MP3: Spectrals-”Keep Your Magic Out of My House”

Question in the Form of An Answer: Yelawolf

While the rest of the world salivates over the human clitoris (© Hex Murda), I would prefer to divert the attention to a rapper worthier of the approbation. The abridged version of this interview – along with a mini-feature — appeared at Pop & Hiss. Comparing Drake and Yelawolf is unfair but not necessarily invalid . One can delve into backstory, skin color, perspective, sense of regionalism, entitlement, et. al., but it’s an easy preference to explain.  Regardless of biographical details or narrative scope, one of them spent a decade tirelessly honing his skill set, evolving into a masterful technician and a vivid writer with a knack for getting the small details right. I suppose I am old-fashioned. Expect extensive notes on Thank Me Later tomorrow, provided I do not get too fucked up tonight from shots of prune juice and lines of Vioxx.

Below the jump, the interview and Yela’s classic rock-riffing Stereo, a predictable but worthwhile record — especially “In the Cradle,” which may be the best Doors flip this side of “Takeover.”

I read somewhere that you were first exposed to underground hip-hop through skate videos. 

Yeah through skateboarding – and my homies – the whole B Boy culture, really. On top of being in the dirty south, getting all the UGK and Dungeon Family shit, I was exposed to all this underground shit that I had never heard before.  I just became attracted to everything.

Who were your favorite underground artists?

Hieroglyphics was major, as was Digable Planets, Black Moon, Onyx – the early shit.

Do the Eminem comparisons annoy you or do you take them in stride?

I don’t put any guards of comparison on, haven’t ever really. There haven’t been that many white artists yet, period. I’m just getting my feet wet. I still got years to go to establish a full concrete Yelawolf sound.

Do you think the Internet’s ability to allow for wide and immediate exposure has broadened people’s horizons to the point where they’ll know that there are other rappers out there more worthy of comparison?

The internet changed the world, you know, musically.  It’s easier for the fans to be exposed – my little sister will listen to Lykke Li and then Ke$ha…and then maybe Soulja Boy and then like, Outkast… But I mean, all these kids with these ipods is stupid. I mean in a way it’s dope because of what’s on the Internet. In the next ten or twenty years, the kind of music these kids are going to be creating is going to be phenomenal.

Where are you living now? Atlanta?

I might as well be living in Atlanta. But no, I still live in Alabama, although I am working so much in Atlanta -

Atlanta has obviously emerged as a hub of the industry over the last decade and change. Is it a matter of having to live in Atlanta to network and really advance your career?

That’s where Geto-o-Vision is, and KP kind of brought everybody out to Atlanta.  There are so many great artists there. Atlanta gave the South a hip hop identity. Prior to that, it was UGK, Geto Boys and Rap-A-Lot, and Suave House. It was exclusively stuff from Memphis Tennessee, Nashville, and Texas – that was it. Outkast really opened up the doors for Southern Hip-Hop.

One of the things that was heartening about you getting a deal and guys like Pill is that you’re obviously a lyrical dude. It seemed for a while that A&R’s were only interested in making rappers insanely simple. Do you feel that there’s been a change in the industry over the last year or two

Definitely. It’s cool because people realize that artists can be lyrical and not necesarily corny — you don’t have to be rhyming ‘lyrical, spiritual, miracle.’

Your mixtape “Stereo” had a lot of recognizable classic-rock samples, which ostensibly would’ve brought you a lot of fans from people who were sucked in by the original source material. Yet it was “Trunk Muzik” that really got you traction. Why do you think “Stereo” didn’t have that sort of success?Two things: The first is that not everybody in hip-hop [messes] with classic rock. The second is that there was no real element of surprise. I’m from Alabama, I’m into classic rock — it was obvious and there was no shock-value to it.That said, I was really focused on making sure that people understood that I respected the craft and hip-hop. “Trunk Muzik” was dedicated to the trunk riders, with 808s and hard ass [stuff]. It had a dirty Southern sound, and it opened things up.

With “Stereo,” we spent a lot of time digging around and trying to be really tasteful with the samples. I know a lot of people who [mess] with “Trunk Muzik” aren’t into “Stereo,” but I still love it — it contains some of the favorite records I’ve ever done.

How did the video for “Pop the Trunk” come about. Was it scripted? Your mom and step-dad are in it, right?
We shot that video with no light – just a camera – yeah my mom and pops were in that video, that’s my home town, Gadsden. I mean, it was a no brainer to shoot it there because of how descriptive the lyrics were about all of the people and all the situations.

What was it like growing in Gadsden?

Well I mean I was born in Gadsden, Alabama. I stayed there until I was five and then moved to Baton Rouge. I came back to Gadsen when I was six and i went to kindergarten and first grade on the south side. Then I moved to Tennessee. I went to over fifteen schools in elementary and high school. My roots are in ‘bama but I spent so much time in Antioch, Tennessee and Atlanta that those places really opened me up – I mean all my homies in Gadsden – they’re not as exposed as I am culturally. But I mean that’s one reason why i love going home to Gadsden. I mean I’ll be in the kitchen with people who all they know is the simple life. Life is so simplified there, I mean what’s important and what’s dope. I’m so drawn to the culture of Alabama – of red necks and all that hardcore dirty south shit culture because I understand it man – It’s so simple. It’s real black and white. I mean that’s the way life should be. We really have a tendency to complicate our situation.

People come to the south and they’re like this is boring. For me I’m like just chill for a second, relax. We just do different shit in the south – shoot guns or go fishin, go to the club on a Friday night – hanging out in parking lots in cars.  It’s the Bible belt and there’s that religious aspect, people are really spiritual. Individuals search for God. It evokes certain emotion and certain songs, I mean, that’s why Soul Food, the Goodie Mob album, was such a classic Southern record.

Or voodoo rap like Witch Doctor.

He’s a perfect example of that spiritualism. That’s what it is out there – they’re a real God fearing people but really hardcore at the same time. Rarely does anybody steer away from God in the south – which is dope.

Are you religious?

No – I’m not religious at all. I’ve always believed in Jesus as a man and a prophet –and a king as a person who changed the world and had healing powers – and probably was like Ghandi. I think it’s a bit like Buddah – it’s the same kind of concept – all religion has the same principles.

Do you go to church?

I’ve been to church ten times but i never got comfortable anywhere.

Was that because you think your personality was inherently opposed to that?

Partly my personality, but also my mom was always an atheist growing up.

That must have been pretty strange growing up in the South

Nobody really knew. When my neighbor introduced me to Christ and told me the story, it became a blanket for me because of the troubles in my house. I was leaning on my prayers as a getaway. Christ and Jesus have always been that staying power for me due to my lack of a father. Regardless of religion or what people say, that’s just my personal relationship with religion. It was my outlet, Christ was just a conveyor. I’ve had my own experiences and know that it’s a real thing so I keep it separate from my music. The south is good for that too, you make your own decisions in life.

But organized religion can be so full of shit. Any collective of people has always been weird to me because there is so much human emotion bottled up in it. When you’re in it you might feel something that you think might be God – but it’s really more that you might just be getting stirred up emotionally. Gadsden is a small town. It has fifty to a hundred churches, a factory, a walmart and a mall -

Did you feel like you had to get out of there?

My mom brought me out of there, that’s why we moved around. But I didn’t leave home until I was 16. Came out to Tampa with my buddy Nathan Smith. Then he was going back to Nashville, he dropped me off in Atlanta where I stayed on my momma’s couch.

Were you always rappin’?

I was always like rappin’ in the car. Me and my boys just like freestylin’ being like, whatever. Being like, horrible. The only problem with that for me was like, when I became serious and when I started to write and shit. I would be in the car and my friends would be like, whoah man you got verses! I mean it just spawned from there. It just got more and more serious. I mean I just started developing my own style.

Who did you want to be like when you first started writing?

When I first started writing I was into NWA. I fell in love with that sound. But it wasn’t until Nashville that I started to understand it. I mean up to that point the music had just been rock n’ roll because i was just a kid. No one handed me the music hip-hop until after my  mom’s friends gave me a Run-DMC tape that they had taken home from the road.

Big Cube fan?

Yeah, Ice Cube. Oh and, automatically, when I say NWA, it means Eazy too. The west coast ruled the world. Yeah I mean, I rocked dickie suits, Ben Davis, the Raider’s jackets.

When i lived in Antioch, they’d bus us down to the projects in nashville to go to school and everything just started clicking with me in music and in life. Like, damn, this is who i am. I felt the connection – these kids had the same problems that I had at home. And the weed, the dope. But most of the white kids their parents went to work. Like, my mom was a bartender. These kids didn’t have the perfect life and neither did I. I could rap about hard shit, but I was in the 4th grade, so you can imagine like straight out of the country, bowl cut Randy Travis shirt, Butler Brown, no style, no concept of image, nothing like that. everybody at school they’d dog me like, do you skateboard, do you wear air walks, so i started rappin’ and skateboarding.

So what brought you out to Berkeley?

I mean I had dropped out of school – I went to Atlanta with my buddy and then he decided to drive to Berkeley on a skating mission.

Did you ever think about doing Hip-Hop for a career at that time?

Hell nah, I was a skateboarder. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I knew I loved hip-hop and shit, but I didn’t have a full grip on who I was. I just had this little Honda and we started to drive to San Diego to a trade show, and then we went up to Berkeley and started out making videos. I mean I wasn’t making skate videos, but I was skating and being in the scene. I kept getting hurt though, you know what I’m saying. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career. I bruised up my ankle a lot. It just kept getting easier and easier to mess up. Eventually, I met up with some dudes in Oakland while iIwas working at a promotions company, passing out free samples. I ended up going into the studio there -

Was that the first time you ever really recorded?

mmm, the first real time yeah. But i didn’t really end up recording I ended up just hanging out, soaking up game.

What year was that?

2000. I was just out there, just trying to figure it out. It was dope. But I mean, I never really prepared, so I mean I was over it, I was over trying to pursue that kind of skating career – you know – like, I could not handle myself. Other dudes were like killing it. But I kept getting hurt and eventually I just lost my willpower. I was at Food not Bombs in Berkeley. Eventually I was just like fuck it, I’m going back. It’s very complicated. Really in depth in detail, I have this photographic memory of everything, so it’s hard to sum up.

So you ended up back in Gadsden, but nobody from your family was there?

My family was there on and off; my grandparents who I had been staying with in Gadsden had moved so my uncle was at their house. He gave me a room, but we didn’t get along so he kicked me out, so I had to start doing questionable shit.

What sort of questionable shit?

Doing dirt. I’ll leave it at that. I left Berkeley at the end of November, by December, I was on a boat in Alaska. I was doing commercial fishing…Honestly man, that shit, is a movie in itself. First off, I took the greyhound bus from Alabama to Seattle to dock, but I got on the wrong bus. There are two buses, i got on the wrong one to Washington D.C. I fell asleep and woke up in Atlanta, going towards the east coast. But iIwas able to switch buses in Chicago… I spent my birthday on the bus… and then when i finally got to Seattle, I went and stood under a church awning in the snow. Fucking homeless for two days. Then I hooked up with some other kids out there and they got temp jobs work in the morning to pay for a hotel and do it again the next day — that lasted for two days until I got on a boat.

Was it hard to stay positive through all that or was this a dark time in your life?

I guess you know, when your determination and your will outweigh your pocket – it doesn’t matter what you can pay for, you just end up in crazy situations – i’m just so fucking determined to get what I’m out to get, I would risk it all to make it happen.

So how’d you get to Columbia?

Hustling in Atlanta, left the trailer park in Huntsville. – I was in New York for a little bit. Then I moved back to Atlanta, then i moved back to Alabama. I had odd jobs then, you know, anything I could do. Painted a couple murals, graffiti shit, then I was in Nashville, fucking around, just bombing not a real graffiti artists but I had the talent, I was learning to paint a bit.

Are you a fan of street art?

Well yeah, i mean, Banksy. I have looked at his book several times. I love street art – I did a lot of stuff around town – I remember it all. My manager calls me Joe Dirt because I got so many stories and they’re so unbelievable. Or is it really that everyone has unbelievable stories and I’m the only one who remembers.

When you were a Columbia, Rick Rubin came along and got rid of you – you would think the guy who produced The Beastie Boys and Run DMC wouldn’t do that to you…

Yeah that was frustrating. I was just like, you don’t get it? Alright, that’s cool, then I guess I’m extra special. Had to be arrogant because I could have been fucked up. I mean, Rick Rubin didn’t like me? That’s just not me, I refuse, I refuse. I’ve always been that way – stubborn in the way that i would always have to learn from myself in order to figure out that what I was doing was wrong. And then i’ll come back and tell you, you were right. But I mean I will admit to someone when they are right about something. But in order to understand I have to do it for myself. People will tell me, ‘oh wolf don’t do that shit you’re going to hurt yourself. Fuck you man, I’m trying’. And if i land, it’s like ‘eeh man, i told ya. But if i fuck up it’s like, ‘aah man, you were right.’ But I mean, look I ended up at Interscope a few years later.I became this rare breed rapper from all this shit that I had been exposed to.

Before signing with Interscope did you have a lot of offers from a lot of different lables? What made you go with them?

It made creative sense for us, you know what I’m saying? Like we worked so hard to build a sound and we wanted to keep our creative control and our integrity and be able to continue to make music the way we wanted to. And so that people could see me the way that we envisioned it.

Do you worry everyone wants pop music in rap? Do you worry about having to compromise to get your album released?

If you look at my discography of music that I put out, you’ll know that I can go any direction – arena rap or even the bluegrass hip-hop shit. I would never sign myself down to any style. Like if I fucking make a record that becomes a pop hit – who gives a fuck – I’m Yelawolf. I mean I am always gonna have the darker edgy music – it is always in my pocket because it comes so natural to me. You’ll never stop getting records like “Pop the Trunk” or “Good to Go” – the crunk south shit. It will always be a part of what  I do in some way. But I plan on evolving. You have to.

The integrity of my muic is always in mind. But I’m out to make  long lasting records. I know what the underground is, I’ve been there for a long time.

So what does your album look like?

Some of the records are bananas ahead of the curve, it’s going to be the next step. It’s the evolution of the sound and that will be different from Trunk Muzik.

How so?

Well, it’s not more of a step forward. The album will be different, and better, and bigger. I mean all that matters is that you’re making music and a week later you still get what you’re saying and it still sounds good.Will Power is still making beats. Got a record from Diplo that’s fucking dumb. I’m reaching out to Jim Jonsin, he’s got some dope shit. Geto-o-vision – of course KP and Cool.

That’s cool that you’re sticking with the guys who helped you out in the first place. Better than trying to get Boi-1Da or whoever the hot producer is this week that will give you the beats that Drake passed on.

I mean, I’ll shop around I’ll listen to anybody’s beats, you never know where the next record will come from – whether it’s someone famous or not – so I always try to listen.

Are you trying to work with someone famous?

We’re just trying to take things record by record. Sometimes you set yourself up for a wrong situation if you try to think too far ahead before you have actually made the music.

Who would you want to work with?

Wilie Nelson. I mean, he’s Willie Nelson. I really want to work with legends before you know it’s too late. They’ve been putting it down for so many years.

Download:
ZIP: Yelawolf – Trunk Muzik (Left-Click)
ZIP: Yelawolf – Stereo (Left-Click)

Question in the Form of An Answer: Homeboy Sandman

I’d say late pass on Homeboy Sandman, but so it goes when you share an almost identical name as an ex-member of the Re-Up Gang. Not to ignore the use of “Homeboy,” which even white sitcom writers stopped using circa ’96. This interview originally appeared as a part of a longer feature for Pop & Hiss. Should you be interested in context, head that way. Otherwise, there is this insanely long interview. Sandman is a talker and so am I. It’s re-printed in full because I think he’s an interesting character with something interesting to say. And yeah, he can rhyme. 

This is your third album, but it’s your first commercial album. What was different about “The Good Sun” other than that you have a label now.

It’s my third album, but in a way it’s my first. The actual first album “Nourishment,” I put out just to have something to sell when I was working the open mic circuit. My second album, “Actual Factual Pterodactyl,” I put out mainly because press people were beginning to support me and you sort of have to have a physical release or people won’t really care. But it was more a matter of me having a zillion songs and just picking out the best ones. This is the first major release – where I tried to create a cohesive sound. I love my other albums, but they’re disjointed here and there. I’m aware that people don’t care about albums the way they used to, but I’ll always be an album guy. I was collecting tapes until they stopped making them. I wanted to make something that you could listen to front-to-back.

Your song “Yeah, But I Can Rhyme Though” defines you in opposition to what you’re not. Has it been frustrating to be an artist in a genre where most people want to fit into a prevailing trend to get a deal?

I’m a musician, and hip-hop is my genre, but it’s just like jazz players, or country singers or a classical artist. It’s about musicality, talent, rhyme cadence, melody, assonance, alliteration, it’s about the gift I have. Music should have nothing to do with an image; what sets me apart is my ability. Nobody asked John Coltrane what his image was — it didn’t matter. No one could play the sax like him and nobody raps like me. I make my music to last a lifetime. I love going back to the Roots’ “Illadelph Halflife.” I love music from the 1950s and 1960s. This whole sub-culture in hip-hop of disposable music is not something that I subscribe to. I spend time on my music. There’s no 15/16 in my bars. I spend time on my lines, the production and the craft.

As someone who is obviously about the lyrical craft, what do you think about rappers who have made a point of stressing how their lyrics aren’t really important because they have swag or some other intangible?

People ask me if I’m a lyricist, but how can you be an emcee without being one? This isn’t supposed to be something that everyone can do — when you take away from the musicality of it all, it becomes an image-based thing, and that’s something I’m so far removed from that you might as well ask me to speak about Dale Earnhardt. I don’t want to do things that have been done before.

You mentioned John Coltrane earlier and you’ve spoken in the past how jazz has influenced your sense of space and notions of musicality. How has it done so?

I used to play the saxophone, and it allowed me to learn that I wanted my flow to sound like another instrument. Even if I’m not saying something…[scats da.da..da..da..daa], that musicality can grab people. And if I can fill that in with magnificent lines and slamming production, I have all the bases covered.

I definitely get this from jazz and from classical music, and from most of the music that I listen to. It used to be that the most famous singers were the best ones, not who’s the prettiest one or who is marketed correctly. I don’t think that people are stupid, I just think that they don’t know any better. I was a high school teacher for two years, and I brought in records for the kids. At first, they were like, ‘What is this garbage?’ but by the end of the week, they were like, ‘What are you bringing in next week?’ I mean, the bestselling album of all time is “Thriller.” Motown sold incredible amounts of records. People want good stuff when they know it’s available.

Did you ever listen to Freestyle Fellowship. Your style reminds me a little bit of theirs in terms of your approach and sense of musicality?

I haven’t. A few people who know their hip-hop have mentioned the same thing to me—I really need to check them out.

Your music doesn’t seem to be preaching against the more materialistic major label stuff. You obviously feel passionately about hip-hop, but seem to be arguing less in opposition to things, and more in favor of expanding the number of voices that can be heard. Is that a fair assessment?

I’m opposed to censorship in any form. Everyone should have the ability to have their voice heard. What I want is options. I want a talent-based music community. Take a cat like Jay-Z, he raps about things that I would never rap about from a moral standpoint, but he’s a gifted MC. The difference from now and back in the ’90s was that N.W.A would say things that I thought you’d never hear people say, then the radio would play them next to Tribe or De La or Wu-Tang. People had a wide range of options. The music targets young people and they don’t know the difference. I’m sure you remember what it was like to be young — I know I do. I was dumb. Young people are just trying to be cool, and like whatever is presented before them as representing cool.

Say this record is received well, and a major label wanted to sign you. Would you want to do that, or would you worry that you’d jeopardize the fanbase that you’ve built thus far.

It depends. I’ll tell you what’s important to me – nobody tells me what to do and no one will for rest of my life. No one’s going to tell me what my records sound like. I have a team of people around me, who aren’t yes men and they tell me what they think.

A lot of these rappers don’t have the confidence to stick to their guns. I’m very patient. I only celebrated my third year anniversary of rapping for a living. It’s a lot of fun. It should be fun to make hip-hop, but a lot of people don’t make it seem that way. A lot of dudes don’t do it because they love it or because they have musical talent, but because it’s what cool people do.

When I used to teach, I’d tell kids to take their favorite rapper—if they could write a rhyme as good as him, then they should go for it. I want my music in every single ear in the world and I’m down for anyone who can help me get more ears, whether it was Sony or whoever. I’d just make sure that I’d had say from album art to producers to release date. But I’m never going to do anything corny.

But rappers rarely get signed by major labels anymore, just because they can rap well. And even if they do, once they get signed, the label is going to make them work to Lady Gaga or the girl from Paramore to make sure that they can hit as many demographics as possible.

What’s different from hip-hop and other genres, is that within hip-hop, there’s a deliberate push by many powers that be to make sure that good hip hop doesn’t get to peoples ears. People aren’t stupid, they just don’t know any better. I always talk about Common’s “Finding Forever.” When it came out, it was the number one album in the country, but it couldn’t get one spin on Hot 97. This is NYC, the birthplace of hip-hop, and you can’t hear any sort of variety.

Have you found it hard to build a critical mass in such a flooded market where no one has much money for marketing or promotion?

Building the critical mass is about patience and faith and I talk about this constantly. Rapping is all that I do. Since I decided to rap, I’ve never worked at another job. I’ve slept on couches, I’m always moving around, and I rarely know what’s going to happen next. But I know that as long as I persevere, I’ll be successful.

So how do you do that without any money? Do you just play tons of shows and try to network as much as you can?

Take for example how I met Rosenberg—I sought him out because I knew he was a true hip hop head and would dig my music. I’d do stuff like find out where Ed Lover was going to be, and I’d go to Power 105 at 6 a.m. just to give him a dap, not to be annoying and self-promote shamelessly but to let him know the deal. I handle everything for myself—I can’t depend on anyone. Whether it comes down to meeting the dudes from Nah Right or Okayplayer or 2 Dope Boyz or The Source and XXL. I’ll go to the offices myself, everything myself.

Good music wins out and I’m feeling optimistic and good—that’ why the album was “The Good Sun,” there’s this vibe of optimism and a new day on the horizon. I feel hip-hop is getting over the hump. Good music is undeniable thing. That’s why I try to rock live shows as much as I can—if you pick up five fans a show and you play enough shows, you’ll eventually be able to pack venues and people will start paying you for shows.

It’s constant work—the Internet is a great tool, but it’s not everything. I employ every tactic from walking up to people on the street asking them to listen to this rhyme, to putting up my flyers on trains and benches, to printing out my song lyrics and showing it people. You’ve got to think outside the box to get hard. Getting heard is what’s important, everyone else is concerned about their style and their dress. You only need ears to listen to music.

You grew up in Queens but your style is pretty far removed from the stuff that you imagine when you think of Queens hip-hop?

Growing up in Queens, hip hop is obviously everywhere. When I was coming up, Kool G Rap was everywhere, Tribe was coming out, Big Daddy Kane was huge. BDP was everywhere. The Beanuts were amazing. I was very familiar with that stuff, but believe it or not, the first tape that connected with me was DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, “He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper.” I was 7-years old in 1987 when that tape came out, and I remember people dissing The Fresh Prince. They’d be like he ain’t in the streets, he doesn’t write stories about the hood. But I connected at that age–he was having fun, he was nice on the mic and Jeff’s production was slamming.

I was lucky to have great access to hip-hop. I used to live on Queens Blvd and before bootlegging was everywhere, it was one of the huge spots in the city, so from 87 to 98, I’d be constantly picking up two tapes for $5. Then I left to go to school at Holderness in Plymouth, New Hampshire at 12. Over there, I was like the big hip-hop guru from NYC, but then this dude Eric Bass, gave me a copy of The Roots’ “lladelphalflife.” I The first time I heard it, I was like these cats can’t rap, but he looked at me and was like, ‘maybe you should listen to this one more time.’ So I listened to it once more and was like, this is slamming.

I actually had the same experience. That was my introduction to the Roots and I remember thinking it was just whatever aside from “Concerto of the Desperado” and “Respond/React,” but it’s definitely my favorite Roots album now.

Me too, that was the only song I liked right away.

Is that your favorite?

It is. I love “Do You Want More” and “Things Fall Apart,” they wow me to this day. But I think “Illadelph” was Though’s peak in terms of lyrical prowess. The Roots are an example of how people catch on eventually and what I wish music was talent based. The first time I heard the Roots, I didn’t rock with them, it took five times to really sink in.

I think my time away made my style different from other Queens rappers. I was able to have access to this whole other type of hip hop that kids who were hip hop fans from a hip hop environment might not have known about it. Like Pharcyde or Del or Hiero. When I was in New York, people thought that West Coast hip-hop was strictly Ice Cube, Dre, and Eazy.

Then when I went to Penn, I was exposed to people from all around the country, and all types of hip hop. I was starting to come into my own and used to love having hip hop discussions with other people. I just love music, I love telling my boys to listen to something that they might not have heard. A love of music needs to be your foundation.

What made you leave law school for rapping and how did that decision come about?

Before I realized that my true passion was for rapping, I was at Hofstra Law School. Prior to that, I’d been teaching in the New York City Public Schools, but before that I was a bartender, I was in marketing — one thing that I’m thankful for is that I’ve never wanted to sit around and do nothing. So I decided to go to law school, even though I never thought that I’d be a lawyer.

I did it because I needed to chill from being a weed head. People hate school, but I was always about school. I always tell kids to hit the books for 15 minutes or half an hour before going to the party, and it will change your life. So I went to law school because I figured that all I would have to do was read books and write papers. I’d been teaching kids 14 to 18 and those kids force you to stay on point. If you’re not, they’ll eat you alive. I figured that you can read a book in bed, so I was like, ‘Send me to the vacation spot.’

One of the other things that I thought was interesting was that I read somewhere that you’re a vegan. What made you decide to go that route?

I was vegan until recently. That ended in March. Now I’m just eating very healthy and mixing it up. The reason why I did it is because I wanted to be the best MC that I can be. I want to do whatever I can to be awake for the most hours. Even though I’m not a vegan anymore, I still strongly co sign organic food and co-sign for my greens, raw leafy greens. It was important for me to go that extreme and then take it back a step. Now instead of Doritos, I’ll be craving for coconuts and pineapples and nutrient-based stuff. A lot of people wanted to talk about that for a while, in California a lot of people are more on that tip, but in New York, it’s still seen as pretty weird.

You started rapping fairly late in life. Were you always rhyming when you were a kid?

I was, but I never took it seriously. Even when I was in college, I rhymed here and there, I hosted a few freestyle open mics, but I was just mainly doing it to get attention. I didn’t believe that rapping was something that I could do. I was always thinking that I was going to get a regular job, but I didn’t know what was in store for me. Rapping didn’t seem realistic until I was at the end of college. I was rhyming in my early 20s too, but it was sort of a dark ages for me.

Why were they a dark ages?

A lot of things were taking place, a lot of abuse of substances, a lot of dishonest behavior and stuff that’s not noteworthy. But I’d write these rhymes here and there and started to discover that I had a real unique gift with this stuff. But I would always need to smoke something before writing or else I didn’t think I could do it.
I was always on some, “if I can do this, I can be an MC.”

Who were the rappers that you wanted to be like when you were honing your style?

There were a lot of dudes. Black Thought. Eminem. Redman. Jay-Z. Andre 3000. But I was always like, I can’t do what these guys do. It was only when I was able to get over a lot of those issues –predominantly substance issues — when I was able to get over the hump. It was only when I wrote my first sober rhyme, when my life changed. That was when I knew what I was supposed to do.

Download:
MP3: Homeboy Sandman – “Yeah, But I Can Rhyme Though”
MP3: Homeboy Sandman ft. Pack FM – “Bonkers”

MP3: Oddisee ft. Homeboy Sandman – “The Warm Up”

A Taste of SFV Acid

The Valley gets a bad rap. Westside snobs caustically snipe all day but the basin between the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains has brought us such fine things as Poquito Mas, Paul Thomas Anderson, Daniel Russo, and now SFV Acid. The DJ/producer born Zane Reynolds crafts a psychedelia alien to those expecting swirling guitars and elliptical chants, opting for ideas instead of orthodoxy. So we get refulgent rainbow synth washes and drums that skitter like a wandering mind, loping five minute tracks that resemble a compromise between Dam-Funk, Tobacco, and the blunted beats that smoke out of the Low End Theory. A slinking drugged funk equally equipped for late night Freeway drives and scorching Summer days.

With the weather getting warmer and my inability to score high grade blotter acid at an all time high, I sent SFV Acid a few questions hoping to learn more about the man behind the mist.

How did you pick the name SFV Acid?

It happened in the 11th grade. I was into acid music or music I thought was acid music (not just house stuff)— and no one really reps the valley!!! So I had to.

Do you live in the San Fernando Valley?

Of Course! The Valleys the best.

Is the acid better there?

Ya…… I guess. Haven’t done it anywhere else..

Can you procure me acid from the San Fernando Valley.

Don’t know any dealers no mo….Sorry.

If you could ride a bizarrely painted bus through the upstate New York countryside, who would you want as company?

Ladies!!

What are your five favorite records made under the influence of lysergics?

???? Don’t really know any good albums made under the use of lysergics.

Would you rather see the new Alice in Wonderland movie or hear the new
Alice in Chains record?

Neither !! Please !!

How make better is Alice Coltrane than both of them combined?

Way Better.

If you could have scored one film that’s already been made, what would it be?

Can’t really think of one. I dropped out of being interested in all kinds of film for about 2 years now.. Which kind of sucks sometimes.

I’m 100% out of the loop!

What are your thoughts on Twitter?

No Thoughts about Twits.

How would you describe yourself in 140 characters or less?

Walking, Drawing, Making Music, No Car, Not a Total Zombie, Kombucha!!

Download:
MP3:  SFV Acid – “New West Coast”
MP3: SFV Acid – “Perv”

MP3: SFV Acid  – Live @ Dublab: “Acidic Sprout Sessions” 

Question in the Form of an Answer: Four Tet

Parts of this interview were originally published at Pop and Hiss. 

Much of “There Is Love in You,” was live-tested at London’s famed Plastic People nightclub, where you recently held a DJ residency. Last week, the news broke that it’s in danger of being closed down due to concerns about drug use and excessive noise complaints. How have you been reacting to that news?

I’ve been hearing about it while I’ve been away on the road, but it sounds really terrible. It’s one of those situations where the police seem to have really targeted it. After all, it’s just another club on a major stretch in London where there’s hundreds of nightclubs right next to each other. I’ve got a feeling that of all the clubs in the area, it’s the least full of bad behavior. It’s been a very inspiring and influential place for many many people in London. Hopefully, it’ll be able to keep going.

Plastic People is a little sanctuary for people whose focus is purely music, and there aren’t many places like that. The people who run it aren’t interested in it as a commercial venue. It’s like a temple of sorts, in the tradition of Paradise Garage.

Specifically, how did it impact “There Is Love in You”?

It had a big effect. DJing every month at Plastic People made me alter the album based on how the tracks worked in the club. Also, those dance sounds seeped into me; it wasn’t a conscious decision, but all the rhythms were certainly heavily influenced. I was able to try out the tracks and see how they worked through a big sound system, and ended up tweaking them. A song like “Love Cry” is designed to be played on a massive system.

When you released “Pause,” you were ascribed the “folktronica” label, which seemed rather silly considering that your approach to mashing up disparate sounds was closer to that of a hip-hop producer. How much do you see yourself in that vein?

I think, on some level, what I do is hip-hop. I mash together samples and sounds and drum loops. I still work that same way and it comes from that basic hip-hop blueprint. The “folktronica” thing had came out of sampling acoustic guitars which everyone from Large Professor and Pete Rock had been doing for years. Or take people like Timbaland: He incorporates a huge variety of sounds. One of the things I love about hip-hop is that the producers are always looking for sounds and samples from everywhere. They’re listening to an incredibly wide variety of music. Pete Rock is knowledgeable about psych rock and folk and other music. The great hip-hop producers and beat makers have broad tastes.

Your career has been marked by several varying shifts in sound. How much of that is a conscious decision to avoid repeating yourself and how much is a reflection of what you’re listening to at the time?

I go through phases of what I’m really interested in. I’m always out buying record and sometimes I just want to listen to reggae or I’ll get back into jazz, and that influences the music and its rhythms. I think my methods and approach are closer to someone like Madlib than a house producer like Jeff Mills.

You remixed a handful of tracks from the Madvillain album. How did that come about?

I met Madlib and Egon and Peanut Butter Wolf one of the first times they came through London and played three shows at Plastic People. It was a really big thing in London, and I’d loved Madlib’s music since the first Quasimoto 12.” I  ended up going to Brazil with them on tour, and I’d always loved the Madvillain stuff, so when they said they wanted some remixes, I was up to do something different. They sent me all the acapellas and they were all really short so it was a bit of a challenge. I ended up remixing five tracks, and I think I did all of them in two days. They were happy with it and decided to put them all out as a 12-inch.

Do you listen to much contemporary hip-hop?

I listen to a lot of the old stuff. I was just listening to Pete Rock’s Mecca and the Soul Brother yesterday actually. I’m pretty all over the place with my listening habits. I’ll wake up in the morning and play a prog rock record, then a hip hop record, then a classical record. It’s always constantly changing and eclectic patterns. But there hasn’t been a hip hop album that’s really grabbed my attention in a while. I want something new to come along and change the rule book the way that Madlib did when he came along eight or nine years ago. I’m still kind of waiting on that.

Do you think it’s a matter of a lack of vitality in the genre or do you think it’s just a cyclical pattern playing itself out? 

I just think you need some kind of young blood that comes up and changes things up. I’m in my 30′s now, so I’ve witnessed a few musical revolutions take place. The best thing about them is that you can’t imagine what they are before they exist– someone has a new sound and you realized that you never dreamed you’d be listening to something like this. Right now, there’s a whole post-dubstep scene in England that’s very exciting. There are so many great young electronic producers who are fresh and exciting and eventually that’s going to stale. I’m sure there are young hip hop producers around who are just waiting to seize those moments.

Who are your favorites among this generation of post-dubstep?

Joy Orbison and Floating Points. Mosca has been the most exciting thing I’ve heard in the last few months. He’s making pretty crazy next level stuff. There’s a lot of very good records coming out really really quickly these days.

Are you familiar with the stuff coming out of the Low End Theory in Los Angeles? Flying Lotus is probably the most known of the producers from there, but it’s pretty similar to the post-Dubstep London stuff except the garage and 2-Step influence is more muted in favor of stuff like Madlib and J Dilla. 

Flying Lotus is wonderful. It doesn’t surprise me that J Dilla has been placed on such a pedestal considering you hear his influence so intensely nowadays. I’m more inclined to just listen to him than the stuff descended from him, because he already did it, he was the best. Usually, I’m like ‘well, this is nice, but I’ve still got my dilla records to listen to.” When I was in the United States, eight or nine years ago, I was touring with Prefuse 73, and I feel like he was doing stuff then that’s very similar to a lot of the stuff coming out of the UK now like Bullion and Hudson Mohawke. I really admire both of those guys, but more pointing out that he was pretty ahead of the curve.

And on some level, Shadow was doing very similar stuff fifteen years ago.

Definitely. Shadow was one of those revolutions. It feel like we’d been listening to all these hip hop records for ages with one loop and a drum break, and he came along and put 20 records together to make just one track. It’s a pretty simple, but at the time, it seemed like the blueprint for what I wanted to do.

Your career has been characterized by a series of stylistic left turns. How much of that is a conscious decision to avoid repeating yourself and how much of that is a reflection of where you are at the particular moment of recording?

I want my music to always be changing. I’ve got a lot of records now and you want your music to always be different. I don’t see the point of putting something out unless I’m going somewhere else with it. I don’t feel like I have one style to perfect, every record is more like a musical journey documenting where I am at that moment. I look at it in a position to how jazz musicians approached it. With a musician like Miles Davis, there is no one Miles Davis, you get to see his musical evolution at each stop.

Do you feel that it’s difficult today to have a career marked by stark stylistic shifts, or is it easier than it’s ever been thanks to the niche culture of the Internet?

I think people don’t release as many records, so when you put one out, it’s a much bigger statement. You want to make the perfect album and your tour it, and the tour is about recreating the album. Back in the day, those jazz albums reflected where the artist’s were at that particular day, the next day was bound to be different and the music was constantly changing.  The thinking nowadays is more geared towards working on a project for three years as some sort of definitive statement.

Was this desire to downplay a record’s significance part of the reason why the Burial split was released with no liner notes and no real publicity campaign?

We just wanted people to focus on the music. We put it out that way to sidestep the annoying discussion about us collaborating, we just wanted people to listen to it and not have to explain how it came about. It’s nice to have a label of your own to release stuff because another one might freak out and have an agenda focused around getting us in a magazine.

You guys knew each other from your school days, but how did you end up deciding to collaborate?

We were talking about doing it for ages, since the first Burial 12-inch. We’d gone to school together and always wanted to work on music, but it was a matter of one day getting around to it. We worked together in the studio, we didn’t do it by e-mail at all. At first, we were doing it for fun, and once we had something that we were happy with, we decided to put it out. It was a fun process. I’m really proud of it — especially the “Moth” track. I think people expected us to put out a gloomy dark dubstep thing, but it came out a slow, soulful, house-type track. It nods more towards Moodyman than to something like Skream.

What did you learn from your collaboration with Steve Reid?

He’s just a master of rhythm, and for a guy from London who grew up listening to American hip hop, I couldn’t help but learn a ton. The American hip-hop tradition is different from anywhere else, no one else can match American soul and jazz music.  It’s almost kind of out of reach and to find myself working with Steve Reid, the master of the drum tradition, who played with James Brown, and Bo Diddley, and Miles Davis, was just incredible. I got to learn things about groove and rhythm in real time — playing with Steve changed my whole attitude towards composition and structure.  He’s an incredible musicians from an incredibly gifted era that’s dying out.  He’s from a different era, and I’m not trying to be nostalgic– it’s nice that things move on, things always have to move forward, but learning from Steve was incredible.

Download:

MP3: Four Tet – “Angel Echoes”
ZIP: Four Tet – The Essential BBC Mix (Left-Click)

ZIP: Four Tet – “Much Love to the Plastic People Mix” (Left-Click)
Stream: Four Tet – There is Love in You

Question in the Form of An Answer: yU (Diamond District)

Rapper/producer yU is probably best known as one third of D.C. rap supergroup Diamond District with X.O. and Oddisee, but he’s been toiling for years in Washington’s underground scene. He also stakes membership in the Remainz Crew and the 1978ers, a production team formed with fellow beatmaker Slimkat78. Last year saw the free release of y’s Before Taxes, a 16 track album comprised of leftovers from his official solo debut The Earn. That Before Taxes is so consistent and cohesive despite being compiled from b-sides stands as testament to yU’s forceful, agile rhyming and exceptional ear for beats.

In anticipation of The Earn’s release later this year, the rapper born Michael F. Willingham reveals his back story, his influences and illuminates the state of D.C.’s hip hop scene. –Aaron Matthews

What was your first experience with hip-hop?

My moms was into hip-hop. I remember seeing Breakin’, Beat Street at the movie theatre. Her music collection, she had the first Tribe album, Pete Rock and CL Smooth’s Mecca & The Soul Brother. My first stepbrother used to perform at talent shows. He would call the radio station and rhyme, freestyle or whatever. Actually that was the first time I actually seen somebody doing it. He put me onto “Showtime at the Apollo,” the latest show I’d ever seen come on. EPMD was on there with DJ Scratch and he was doing tricks and stuff.

When did you decide to start rapping?

I was a fan until about ’95, 96. Around that time, I found some other people with similar taste in music and we used to rhyme over other peoples’ songs if we liked the beat. ‘Cause we didn’t really know nobody who could make beats for us. We would make tapes of ourselves rhyming over their songs. After a while, people started to see what we were doing and they started to offer beats.

The first real recording we did, it was a jazz band at our school and they were trying to get into hip-hop. They heard us rhyming and asked us if we could do a show with them. That kept branching off, ‘til I got older. I was a younger generation, my brother and Pete’s brother [check later], and their older brothers were in a group. After a while, word started to get round that we were rhyming and it finally got to our older brothers. They said, “We heard some of y’all stuff, why don’t you be a part of the older generation?”, their group was called the Remainz. It was on from there. This is between about ‘96 and ‘97.

Can you give me a little history of the Remainz crew?

The Remainz crew got together around ’94. At the time they were called Knights of the Rhyme Table [not to be confused with these white rappers from Sacramento]. They did their first show opening for MC Lyte in Washington, D.C in ‘94. They were so many people and they were all going in different directions so they split up. Half of them were called The Blue Room and the other half was called the Remainz. Like the remains of the Knights of the Rhyme Table.

We did little shows, but the first thing that came out was the album, The Healing by Urban Ave 31. It was the Remainz, W. Ellington Felton and Raheem DeVaughn. Mostly people we were performing with at a club called Bar None. That project is what got Raheem seen by Jive Records. The Healing is probably one of the only things you can find now.

Let’s talk about Before Taxes [a free album yU released online last year].

I’ve been recording for an album called The Earn which is coming out later this year, and I had a whole lot of songs left over that I still wanted to put out. I ran all my ideas through Slimkat78 [yU’s partner in production team the 1978ers], we have similar taste in music. Before Taxes came about as a 20 minute mix, the first 20 minutes or so, maybe 6 songs I blended together. I started recording these songs about 3-4 years ago.

Tell me about a few songs from the album.

“Thought About It” – At the time [I wrote that] a lot of people were hyped about rappers who put songs together, almost like a freestyle and getting excited, saying “He didn’t write that!” My point was, he didn’t write it, he freestyled it. But did he think about it? Where was the purpose in it? I wanted to make a song highlighting artists that put thought into what they’re saying.

“Almost Time” – This is a true story. Kev Brown had a show opening up for EPMD at the 9:30 Club, and he called me up to see if I could come up and do a verse, if I was free. We met up the night before, went over everything, decided who was going to do what. My man IQ came up and did a little verse. And it hit me when I heard the beat: it just sounded like that night. So I painted a picture of how that show came about.

“Memory” – My man ERC starts the song off. That’s actually the first group I was in before the Remainz, called the Untold Truth. He was the first person I rhymed with. His verse was talking about high school, people. Memories. My verse was talking about how I’ve grown from then ‘til now, how we’re still family and giving thanks. I chopped Billy Paul’s “War of the Gods.” Somewhere in the song he says something about memories, so I tried to keep it in the same context.

“Native” – That was actually a beat Slimkat made in 2000. I had a conversation with my grandma about where [my family] traces back to and she told me we trace back to the Blackfoot Indians. In the process of finding out more information, I would write the song. It’s looking at life from the perspective of people who had to go through that. Like I said in the verse, I guess that race of people is not one that is controlled by money as much.

How did you and Oddisee meet and create Diamond Distrct?

Asheru actually introduced [me to him]. My partner Mr. Hu went on tour with the Foreign Exchange. Slimkat78, DJ RBI, Mr. Human and I had a house from 2005-2006 and we put together a group called the El’s that played music for hip-hop artists, one of them was Asheru. Asheru had an event and that was the first time [the band] performed. During that, Slimkat, DJ Roddy Rod and Oddisee did a kind of beat expedition and all of them were playing beats. Everybody had somebody rhyme on their beats. I was representing Slimkat on his beats. That was the first time I met a lot of [the D.C. underground scene], Roddy Rod, Oddisee. I got to talking with Oddisee because we use the same equipment to make beats and I was asking him questions. After the performance, we talked some more and he said, “You should come through, maybe work on something.” After a couple songs, [we saw] the combination was good, he was easy to work with. He was the only beatmaker I knew with ideas. When he’d make a beat, he’d already have an idea of the chorus and he’d give it to you like ‘you can take it or leave it, but that’s what I hear’. I was surprised that somebody was telling me how to put it, but I respected it. I didn’t actually take his advice! [laughs] We did a song called “Searchin” [off Oddisee’s 102 from 2008]. That was around the same time I met XO, at an open mike night. I would come and take beats and everybody would tell me about XO. I finally got a chance to meet the person everyone was talking about and it was cool.

So XO came through the house I share with Slimkat. I wasn’t even there but Slimkat played beats of mine and his and [XO] picked a few to use for his mixtape. I had a rack of beats on his first two tapes, The Takeover Pt. 1 & Pt. 2. Oddisee would have me bring my crew to his house to put some beats down. Oddisee would show me how to use Pro Tools. One day we was like, I wanna hear how we sound, us three, on this one joint. And the song [“Gully”] ended up being on Foot In The Door. One day Oddisee called me up and said, “Yeah man, I like how easy it was to put that song together. I want to do a tour together, but the only way we can do that is if we put a whole album together. And as soon as I get back, that’s what we’re going to work towards.” And that’s what In The Ruff was.

How does the process for recording solo work differ from recording as a group?

It’s the easiness. [In a group], you don’t have to do as much, you just gotta hold your end down. It’s kinda like cheating for real, ‘cause when you do your own thing, you have to handle all of that. Especially when you make your own beats. We all have respect for each other’s work. Like when Oddisee sent me his verse from “I Mean Business,” it became a bit of a friendly competition.

Take me through the process of making a beat.

I chop breaks, drum breaks and see if I can come up with a different rhythm than the original. I play around with keys and chop samples until it works. Anything you hear from me, it usually doesn’t work the first time. I mess around with [the beat] for a while until it just lets you know, “Yeah, that’s it”.

Early on I played in the D.C. Youth Orchestra, and I always had ideas on how I would do it if I were to put something together. In the early days of trying to make beats, I didn’t even know how to program drums! So I would make songs and beat-box the whole way through, then come back and play the guitar or kalimba or whatever I had over it. Then I put a song to it and played it for Slimkat and he said, “This is tight, what do you think of me putting some drums to it?” Eventually he taught me how to use a drum machine and how to sample. At the time, I was using the Roland MS-1 with about 24 seconds of sampling time, a little basic but it had its advantages. It all comes from not having much but knowing how to stretch what you got.

What are your influences?

Native Tongues…Though actually, I‘d say all forms of it, for real. I went through it all. I grew up on hip-hop, so I went through all the 5 Percenters, Wu-Tang, Spice 1, Casual. Not too much missed my ears and anything that did, I’m catching up to it now. It goes further than hip-hop too, good music is good music. It’s all feeling. Knowing how to make people feel a certain way.

It seems like D.C. hip hop has only recently begun attracting attention on an international level. Where is D.C. at now?

What you’re hearing on a wide scale is about 15 to 20% of what’s going on. A lot of the greats from [D.C.] have been playing for a long time. And a lot of them were stubborn when it came down to certain advantages. A lot of them were slow to [adapt to computers], don’t really want to get online, to blogs and all that. But I guess that people are finally growing up. A lot of our music scene is really coming together now. Like Asheru, he’s been touring and putting albums out for a long time. I would see him at [D.C. hip hop club] Bar None and stuff. But for a while, certain artists weren’t dealing with the younger generation. They had talent but didn’t know what to do business-wise. But the reason you’re seeing more work come from our area is a lot of those folks now are interacting and spreading the wealth. Personally, I’m definitely trying to get with the young people now. They ask me stuff and I help them.

There’s a surge right now but I think a lot more projects need to come out. People need to put their [material] together and actually say that it’s an album. A lot of people think they put their albums out but…I could be in my car and throw a CD out the window, and say I put an album out. Something people can readily access. Not even saying that they have to buy it. Just that other people have it, getting a write-up on it. Small steps but they have to be taken.

Download:
ZIP: yU – Before Taxes (Left-Click)
MP3: yU – “Brainwash (ft. Grap Luva, Finale and OP Swamp 81)”

Question in the Form of An Answer: X.O. (Diamond District)

Jay Electronica may have been the obvious choice as 2009′s “rapper that everyone could agree on,” but the only other outfit as unanimously lauded was Washington D.C.’s Diamond District, a super-group of sorts formed from two of the DMV’s best rappers (X.O. and yU) and arguably its best producer (Oddisee.) While In the Ruff may have served as the national introduction to X.O., the 24-year old Northeast and Northwest D.C. native had already garnered a sterling local rep for his solo mixtapes, inking a deal to the Studio 43 label run by former Roc-A-Fella exec Kenny Burns, and collaborating with many of the region’s major artists including Wale, Best Kept Secret, and Tabi Bonney.

Blessed with a highly versatile rhyme style, Jamaal Walton’s laid-back flow is equally comfortable over everything from Fela Kuti to Go-Go tinted beats, to straightforward rugged boom-bap. Combined with a lyrical style that stays bent between detailed street narratives and good old-fashioned shit talking, his most recent mixtape, last month’s One.One. Ten, successfully builds on his buzz, and is bound to be of the young year’s most enjoyable.  This is some of the story behind Unknown Origins.

You’ve been releasing music for a while now. How did you get first get started rapping and were you always focused on making hip-hop?

I started rapping a minute ago  — I’ve been doing it for about ten years, but only seriously since 2005. I was like 17 and just going to U Street, which is a mecca in D.C. for meeting people, and that’s where I met Oddisee and yU. That’s where I met Wale — we were both working at the same shoe store. That’s where I met Kenny Burns. It all popped off over time, but at first, I was trying to find myself and my voice. Around 2005, 2006, and 2007, I was finally able to put something real together and really become dominant in the city. It was about bringing something new to the table, a new sound.

It took me about five years to get the confidence to actually say that I was a rapper. During that time, I was in a positioning myself by getting to know people, the same sort of like-minded individuals. The job that I had at the time at the PG [Prince Georges] Mall allowed me to meet a lot of celebrities and movers and shakers, it was about being seen and positioning myself correctly. There was only a certain type of person that worked there,  promoters, musicians, sneaker heads. I met DJ Alize there too. There was so much going on before my eyes, and I was networking and I eventually became a promoter myself — all through the people I met at the mall.

So how did you get from this point where you’d met all the right people to creating music that resonated with local audiences?   

Well, I was always rapping but things started popping off and I started getting a buzz, so I figured it was time to put out a project. I  didn’t want to just put out a project and have no one know me, so I had wanted to wait a minute to put out my first project, which was The Takeover. I released it in early 07 and Oddisee produced most of it. It got a big response, then I put out a project with Judah. The buzz got bigger, then I put out Takeover 2 –Best Kept Secret and Wale was on it, and the response was crazy. Then Diamond District came along and took it to the next level for me to drop One.One.Ten. I got involved with Kenny Burns last year and he shares the same vision for taking music from this region to the world. He saw the big picture from the beginning.

How does One. One. Ten reveal a different side of you that your earlier releases may not have?

I was trying to show people how diverse that I can be and consistent. I like putting out music that displays the different textures of music that I like.

How does being from D.C. impact your style. Your music is obviously influenced by a lot of classic East Coast rap, but it also simultaneous has a very regional feel. 

It really affected the way I picked beats and the way I flow over them. What I’m attracted to in the beat and how I find the pocket is very much based on where I’m from. There’s a lot of musicians in D.C. and it’s a very musical city. The way I choose to flow over the beat is always very different, I may flow over the melody, or the snare, or just the bass line.

What was it like growing up in the city in the 90s?  

It was rough man, I’d go back and forth between living with my grandma in the northeast part of town and living with my moms. She was going to school and working three jobs so she was always really busy. I actually went to High School in Maryland — I went to two or three different schools and then afterwards, I headed back to the city to try to do rap more. I could’ve got more heavily involved in the negative street side of things, but music kept me with a goal. Everyone  in my family wanted me to have a more realistic goal, at least until they saw me in the paper for my music.

And what about the go-go influence. How does that impact you as an artist? 

I love go-go. I love music period. I always had a bunch of Backyard Band records, Rare Essence, The Northeast Groovers. The Huck a Bucks.

When you were coming up, D.C. was always thought of as a go-go town. Was there always a thriving hip-hop scene and no one outside of the area was talking about it, or has it evolved pretty dramatically?

Actually, there was quite a bit of an underground scene that used to get burn out here on DC TV. Black Nitti used to have a weekly show that would showcase local artists. Starting from the early 90s, I was always in tune with the underground scene but I’ve watched it grow with my own eyes. When I was younger, it was rare that you’d  find rappers because everyone was into go go, but now everyone raps, it’s definitely a rap city now.

When exactly did things start to change?

In the past few years  — you noticed it because it used to be that rappers would do raps over go-go songs that were already popping, now it’s the other way around.  There’s always been that mix between the two, just like if you go to Baltimore, they’ll be playing a House Mix of a Jay-Z  record. It was a gradual thing that happened over time to where there seemed to be an even number of people rapping and doing go-go. Now I’d say there’s an imbalance in favor of rap.

Do you see people eventually abandoning go-go or do you think it will always a fixture in the city?

People will always love go go. It will never go anywhere. We’ll always be making music in this town.

How does it feel to watch the DMV region receive a lot of national attention?
It’s been amazing to see the acceptance and everyone here loves it. From the Diamond District to what I do individually, to what Wale does, to Tabi Bonney, to Kingpin Slim, everybody is feeling it. We’re at the forefront of the movement and everybody is getting their. It feels like it’s our season.

Do you feel that there was anything that triggered this renaissance of sorts or was it just a matter of people finally tuning in?

I mean it’s our time — people want to hear music from our region and our city. We’ve got Obama, which brings a whole new energy to the city.  When you look at rap over time, New York had their time, Cali had their time, even St. Louis had their time. DC never has.

How did you guys get together and decide to form Diamond District?

We’ve always been making music together and we was all popping individually, but it was Oddisee’s idea to get us together and make the album. So we laid our verses down, thought about song structure and worked that out, we all wrote the choruses. Oddisee had a blueprint for the album from the get-go.

On your Myspace page, your list of influences is pretty Golden Age and East-Coast centric: “Hova, Big Pun, The Lox, EPMD, Common, Wu Tang, Pac, Biggie, Big L, Gangstarr, Public Enemy, LL Cool J.” Listening to your music, it seems like you spent a lot of time studying those schools of rap. Was that the case? 

Definitely. I was into go go, but also Biggie smalls and 2pac and Pun. I saw how they formatted their rhymes and I definitely studied those patterns  and styles when I was coming up.

During the years when D.C. hip-hop received less attention and major labels weren’t handing out deals, was it difficult to stay focused on trying to make a career in hip-hop or did you always suspect that it would get its due?

I always kept focused because I knew our time was coming. Personally, I knew that I was getting better and now it’s really a perfect time to be a rapper coming from the DMV.

How did Wale impact things locally?

He showed people that D.C. hip-hop was a unique and different culture. That it was an entirely new genre and sound coming from within a ten mile radius. He was like the first impression of DC hip-hop for a lot of people, showing them what the go go sound could be mixed with hip hop. Although if you listened to Salt N Pepa and Heavy D back in the day, you also might have noticed it. Wale made the first impression on a lot of people and showed the world the uniqueness of our flow and our slang. I knew that once they got a first impression and taste of it, it would bring more attention to all of us.

How big was Wale in D.C. before he got the deal with Interscope and the Mark Ronson association?

He was popping in DC way before all of that. He was selling out clubs, he had “Dig Dug” on the radio. I remember hearing that song and it felt like an entirely new sound. I was like ‘damn, what the hell is this.’  The joint was popping and it really took off hen he got with Studio 43 and Kenny Burns. They took it took it to another level and brought something new to the city.

For someone unfamiliar with what Studio 43 does, how would you describe it? 

Studio 43 is a brand and a label that’s affiliated with a lot of the major player in DC hip-hop. Wale, Tabi Bonney, yU, Oddisee. It’s a a small circle that operates sort of like the mob — not in terms of criminal stuff, but in terms of that close-knit family, loyalty vibe. You’ve got to put in a certain amount of work, but once you do, you’re a Pauly. Kenny Burns is like the Godfather in a sense.

What’s your release and recording schedule looking like for the rest of 2010?
Another Diamond District album, then I’m going to put my album out. I’ve got a lot more videos for One.One.Ten, and we’re also doing a European tour and a U.S. tour.

You’ve had a lot of success on the independent level. Are you looking to sign a major label deal?

Definitely. I’ve been sitting down with a lot of labels, but no matter what, I’m going to still be a force independently. The way I see it is that if I’ve been having this much success without a label, when they come in, it’s really going to be something.

Download:
ZIP: X.O. – One. One. Ten (Left-Click)
ZIP: X.O. – Monumental (Left-Click)

ZIP: X.O. – Us V. Them EP (Left-Click)
MP3: X.O. ft. Wale – “Rid’n (Remix)”

Question in the Form of An Answer: Edan

Edan the DJ make Fast-Rap and Funky Drummer mixtapes. Edan the rapper make Prince Paul, LL Cool, and The Hollies play nice. Jewish critical cabal say, “Beauty and The Beat better than The Go-Gos.”  Edan release Echo Party. We Like Very Much. Edan talk to Passion of the Weiss from Brooklyn Flea Market. Edan purchase Gold Label pressing of “Forever Changes.” Edan have good taste.  

How did you link up with the people at Traffic Records to make Echo Party?

A long time ago, when I lived in Boston, I used to make these old cassette hip-hop mixes, you know with whatever was cool at the time, Nas, Gangstarr, etc. I put my phone number on the mixes for some networking shit. So one day this guy Matt Welch called me to tell me that he liked it and we ended up becoming friends and roommates. I indirectly got him a job at LandSpeed, the company that became Traffic. Landspeed didn’t exactly have the best reputation, but they eventually got it together, shuffled around some staff and became Traffic. Now they’re a lot more reputable and a more formal business that distributes records all over the world.

Traffic was getting this new label off the ground called 5 day weekend. They started with a Peanut Butter Wolf project called 45 Live, which was all mixes of 7-inches. Then they approached me about maybe doing a mix of stuff that they had in their back catalogue. It wasn’t supposed to be as elaborate as it ended up being, but I’m a passionate artist and I ended up giving them more, cutting up doubles of “Smoking Cheeba Cheeba” and all kinds of stuff like that. I haven’t done anything in a while and I sort of view this as an interim project, but I put all my life into it. Life is too precious and art is too precious to fuck around and half-ass it, so I went all-out.

How was your approach different from the Fast Rap and Funky Drummer tapes? 

Those were almost more of documentarian type things; this was more of an artistic project. It’s more than a mix to me. Really, if you’re calling it a mix you’re underselling it. The precedent is those old classic Hollywood disco mixes, those old cut up records. I don’t know. It seems unique to some degree, at least I hope it does.

What instruments and programs did you use to make the record?

I played the kazoo. I played a nylon string guitar attached to a distortion pedal. I used a space echoplex, a mini moog synthesizer, a chord synthesizer with a vocoder, I used a ring modulator. I also emulate old style phasing by basically recording the phases that I wanted and then phased it out and recorded it digitally on Serrato record. I’ve seen two DJ’s play at the same time to create a blending effect and I wanted to capture that feel. Basically, I used whatever I had at my disposal — definitely a lot of stereo imaging and panning from left to right. The inspiration for it came from a lot of vintage electronic albums.

Like Stockhausen and Steve Reich?

I love Stockhausen and hope to one day be considered in that tradition. I’m fascinated by the early days of electronic music, when people were enthused by the new technology and starting to get busy with enormous patch bays and synths. A lot of the early compositions were  ridiculous in the way they used the stereo sound and literally created sounds out of nothing. Hearing cats do it like that 50 years ago, the least I can do is at least try my bullshit.

Do you feel apart from the contemporary norms of hip-hop at a time when some rappers release 100 songs a year and other than this mixtape, you’ve probably released five songs in five. 

That’s definitely a common approach and I respect the beauty of human effort. But some people are more interested in making songs quickly, and I think sometimes in hip-hop there’s a culture that frowns on extended effort on one project, or if you put too much thought into a song that it’ll kill your creativity. Of course, there are your moments where you’re inspired and make something spontaneously with no thought. But that’s not going to happen every time out. It can be an arduous process that’s heavy on the mind, but you have to have the patience to grind it out slowly — the wherewithal to see that the final outcome will be more than worth it and you’ll create something beautiful. There’s a lot of trial and error involved, but I think it makes you a better artist to explore more and now more. You always end up learning something that you didn’t know at the beginning of the process.

Sometimes I work with cats and they get frustrated that I’m not easily satisfied. But I intend to remain that way, it’s just how I am. Sometimes the songs come out in 30 minutes and sometimes they take 3 weeks. On this project, I’d spend eight hours days and only get 20 seconds that were usable. Then the next day I’d wake up and spend six hours to get 45 seconds right. That may be a testament to my lack of talent, or I’d hope that it meant that I have the critical eye to say that’s it’s not where it needs to be.

Do you feel like that sort of diligence is your way of rebelling against the disposability of much of modern music?

The beautiful thing is that a record allows us to capture moments. It’s like a time capsule or a message in a bottle. 30 years later, someone can play it and it can travel across that metaphoric ocean and reach you on a desert island. The goal is to create something that affirms someone’s belief in humanity. That’s the thing I’m seeking, to thread the past with the future.  That’s why records are so amazing, that’s why photos and the visual arts are incredible — you can remove that obstacle of time. You get there with something like a Billie Holliday record and that’s what I’m in it for, I’m not trying to cash in, if the money comes that’s wonderful, it’s always about the art. One way to separate yourself from people is that there’s this undying wave of artists who can make a mix or an album in two weeks, but you can distance yourself by putting it more effort to make it superior.

I want to be on a lofty plane with the people that inspire me and I’m going to be working hard in the next ten years to get there. I’m very dedicated to the music, and my discipline is on the up. I want to get to the level of  someone like Max Ernst, who was dedicated to finding that next form. I haven’t jusitifed the comparison yet, but in ten years I’ll hopefully have an oeuvre I’m proud. With Echo Party, I feel like I could’ve phoned it in, but now I have a nice little addition to my catalogue. I’m proud of it, and it’s nice to make things that make people feel good. It’s a fun record and a cerebral record at the same time.

You were working on Echo Party for about a year, but what were you doing in the interim between then and Beauty and the Beat. 

Well, I would do the occasional song. Like Egon from Stones Throw hit me up to make a song with Lif called “Sagitarrius Rap.” would pop up. Basically, I was living life, doing a lot of shows. I moved from Boston to Brooklyn, and I’ve been doing little things here and there. I’ve been doing things with Lif, but nothing substantial other than Echo Party. Now I’m stamping all these vinyl covers like an idiot. It’ll take another 2 to 3 weeks to finish that, but I plan on making a lot of music soon. I’m going to focus on production and getting some beats together.  I might do a full-length with Lif, but we’ll see.  There’s some interesting stuff for me in NYC, I’ve met some people who are established and we’ll see if any of that results in music being made.

What about records with you rapping?

We’ll see. I really don’t know. I’m going to start writing more. While I was doing Echo Party, which took  eight months of work off and on, it was tough to focus on that. But writing and production is something I’m going to focus on — it could very well lead to another solo record, but I don’t feel like I need to force anything. I just want to do what feels right. As long as I can keep a roof over my head and maintain a semblance of a life, I’ll just follow my inspiration. I just want to make sure I have something important to say. We’re so inundated with shit that isn’t even physically presented, it’s all text on an iTunes menu. Other people have the approach where they work prolifically and just see what sticks. I’d rather sharpen one dart and try to hit the bullseye.

Download:
MP3: Whitefield Brothers ft. Edan & Mr. Lif – “The Gift”
MP3: Edan – “Echo Party Snippet”

ZIP:  Edan Radio Show Episode #1 (Left-Click)
ZIP: Edan Radio Show Episode # 2 (Left-Click)

Question in the Form of An Answer: Blockhead

Had Blockhead chased trends or devised a corny back-story to match his noirish smoked-out instrumental hip-hop, it’s likely that he would’ve garnered more acclaim and media attention. But that’s not what the New York City producer is about. With a no bullshit approach and a caustic wit, the man born Tony Simon has racked up one of underground hip-hop’s most estimable and underrated resumes, crafting some of Aesop Rock’s best songs, the greatest comedy rap album ever made, and four excellent solo efforts on Ninja Tune. His most recent, The Music Scene, further illustrates why he’s one of the best beat-makers to emerge from the 2000s.  Plus, his blog is on-point. If you disagree you are a mental stockbroker.   

Did you ever get any blowback from the Party Fun Action Committee record?
Well, I have a friend Dub L who produced some of the early Aesop stuff, and he worked with Paul Barman. I think Paul Barman heard it, but I don’t know what he thought about it. He could only think so much.

How did you even come up with the idea?
We had this public access show in the 90s, which had loosely improvised sketches and it got a little following in New York. Aesop used to be on it, Adrian Grenier was on it. It stopped in the early 2000s and Jer and I started making comedy songs for fun. So we’d amassed four or five song by the time Aesop got signed to Def Jux, and I guess somehow El heard the songs. Mind you, at the time Def Jux was at its peak, Aesop and Can Ox had just came out and they hadn’t had a miss and El was like ‘Yo I’ll put that out.’ We were like, ‘word, really?’ This was around the same time I got signed to Ninja Tune and I thought it would show a different side to my personality.

How did you even come up with those characters?
A lot of it was improvised and it just got more and more crazy as it went on. The idea was that these dudes were the worst guys on the planet and they knew nothing about music, so they became A&R’s. We put it together as a complete album, El put it out, and everyone hated it.  People were like this is awful.

Your Def Jux blog has been filled with hilarious invective directed towards Lil Wayne and other contemporary rappers. Do you listen to much new rap anymore? 

As much as I love rap, I can’t name five rappers in the last three years who I don’t personally know, who I’m checking for.

There are some good ones coming out, but Jay Electronica probably stands out as the best.

I love him. He sounds as good as the best guys we came up on.

Well, he’s like 33.

Is he? Perfect.

Now that you’re done with your album, what have you been working on?

I’m working on an album with Illogic. So far it’s in the early stages.

He’s another underrated rapper.  I really liked Celestial Clockwork.

He’s been laying low for awhile, he’s got kids and he’s busy raising them.

Why haven’t you done more production outside of the Def Jux guys?

I would. There’a lot of artists I’d like to worth with. I think that a lot of people think of me as a Def Jux dude and that’s that. I’m not hanging out, I don’t network, I’ve never been the guy like runs up on people and is like, ‘I’d love to work with you.’

Your albums are filled with some pretty obscure samples, but you’ve talked on the blog about how you’re not a crate digger. Do you find most of your stuff off the Internet?

I haven’t bought records in years.  This whole album is stuff that I found online. You can find some pretty crazy stuff just digging around.

What do you listen to mostly?
Old soul music and old hip hop. I listen to very little from this decade. It’s all old shit.

Why do you think hip-hop went downhill?

I think hop hop got worse when people stopped sampling because it got too expensive. Music got worse too — the way they record it, it just sounds wack. It’s just too clean. Then the mega-producers came in and everyone tried to make beats like Neptunes and Timbaland, and then we got Swizz Beatz.

Every now and then, Swizz will make a good one.
But he’s also made some of the worst ones.

I think that some producers are capable of working without samples. A guy like Mannie Fresh doesn’t necessarily need them, or at least he didn’t. I like a lot of southern hip-hop, but other than the Cash Money stuff and a few other artists, the sample-free stuff tends to give me a headache.  

Oh I do too, but I’ve liked Southern hip-hop less recently. Mannie Fresh made some dope beats, but I liked some stuff that never really blew up. I loved Field Mob’s first album and the Young Bleed album, but a lot of this new southern rap is like who can be the dumbest.

It’s not that I don’t think artists can’t necessarily make 100 good songs a year, but 99.9 percent of them can’t and that’s been a major downside of mixtape culture.  I think most of them would be better off releasing 10 really good ones instead of willfully devaluing their product.

Well, I remember reading something like Saigon was going to make an album in 24 hours. It’s important to have quality control and there isn’t much of it. Plus, there’s way too many people making music. You used to have to get signed to make music, now you just need Pro Tools.

On the other hand, I was covering the Jerkin’ movement out in LA last year and it’s hard to hate on 15 years old making music for other 15 year olds.

I agree. That’s something honest coming from a place where we just want to make music for fun. But when people set their goals to make music for a living and they don’t care what kind of music they make, that’s a problem. And I think that’s how most rappers are today — they just want to get on.

I imagine it has to do with the fickleness of the industry. You don’t get a chance to make your mark with attetion spans being so short. When De La Soul dropped their first album it was humongous. People were like that’s a crazy album, but I just don’t see anyone putting out a real album of that quality.

Well, at least not an a major label. I hate to be that guy that’s like ‘ fuck major labels for not letting them put out non-compromised stuff,” but…

They just won’t allow it. I was talking about this today actually. I heard one of the new Clipse songs from their album, and the Clipse are one of the groups I still like. They’re funny and they’re clever. I appreciate that cleverness, but they made a song a watery club songs just to try to get a hit, and it’s like listen you guys, your ceiling is reached, you’ll never go gold, it’s not because of you but that’s just how it is. You might as well just make music your fans will like — you’re not going to crossover and get all these new fans. That’s a problem.

So how did you get started producing in the first place?
I actually started out rapping when I was 14 or 15, and I met this dude who was much older than me. He worked at a toy store and put me onto all this crazy shit, like EPMD and other stuff that I might not have gotten into that young had I not meant him. I started looking for samples for him and then one day they invited me to the studio. I was a 14-year old kid and they were a bunch of 19 year-olds from Harlem. I was just all  ‘I hope they like me.’ I watched them make a beat with my samples — I never sampled at the time,  I was just ghostwriting rhymes. And then three or four years later, I met this other dude Kasm who I knew for a while — he was in Atoms Family and he had a sampler, so I started to mess around with it. Then I met Aesop and I saw him rap and I wasn’t good and he was, so I gave up rapping but I was so obsessed with hip hop that I wanted to have some part with it.

And you met Aesop at BU, right?

We were freshman in 1994 and we kind of connected when we met. At that time, when you were an underground rap guy and you saw another one, you bonded met. So we became friends and hung out and I dropped out and after he moved back to NYC we rekindled the friendship and started working together.

Why did you drop out?
Wasn’t for me. I’ve never been a student. I had to get out of there. My GPA was like a 0.3.

You guys seemed to create a pretty unique style right away, even with the early stuff.

You mean the old stuff like Float or the really old stuff.

I thought Appleseed was incredibly well produced too.

Well, he actually did most of Appleseed — I only did one song on that. That was all four track.

I didn’t realize that. I’ve always thought Aesop was an underrated producer.

Yeah, he’s really underrated, I think a lot of people shitted on him because they were turned away by Bazooka Tooth.

I actually liked the album. It took a lot of listens to sink in, but it did.

That’s actually his favorite album because that’s his baby, I understand why people were worried about it because it was so different from the album before, but it’s a good album.

I don’t know how much time people gave to it because it’s a tough record on first listen, but it has songs like The Greatest Pac-Man Victory Ever which I think is one of his best songs. 

And he killed it on that.

He and Ghost are two of my two favorite rappers, but I’ll never understand how people will be like I love Ghostface but Aesop Rock sucks.

Ghost is a crazy wild Staten Island dude and Aesop is not.

But they both use crazy slang as writers and I suppose it frustrates me when people think they’re both saying gibberish, when they’re just not. If we’re going to talk about detrimental hip-hop trends, I think people thinking that they could be like Jay-Z or Big and not write it down was not a good look.

There’s very few people that can pull off not writing.

Wayne probably does the best job, but a lot of people say he has ghostwriters.

Like Drake? I just don’t get that guy. He’s Kanye-Wayne, but not.

He’s a watered down Mase.

I hated Mase when he came out. I was like ‘fuck this motherfucker,’ but if he came out today, he’d have the best song on the radio.

Back to your own stuff, how did the songs for The Music Scene come about?
I go through phases where I make a lot of beats and sometimes I go through months where I won’t turn my sampler on. Every time I amass a number of beats where I can do something with them, I start thinking about the album. This time, instead of taking 12 separate beats, I made 3 and matched them up. So three or four songs on the album are three beats together that I made into a new song and that was totally different from what I’d done before. I hadn’t been able to do that prior, but Ableton allowed me to do it. It’s awesome, it makes things so unbelievably easy, even though working within a spectrum before was good for me too.

Is there any difference with this album thematically?
I just try to have some continuity between the songs themselves. Music for Cavelight was somber and  Downtown Science was me bugging out and trying to be as eclectic as possible with the samples I had.

You need to make another Party Fun Action Committee. There are streets that demand it. Or at least apartments.

Wer’e trying. Jer’s real busy, he’s got a job. The people that are into it are heavily into it.

There’s a lot of potential for new songs.

If we do another one, it probably wouldn’t be rap heavy, it’d be other types of music, the direction of modern rock and Lady Gaga and all that crap.

I always wondered where the Peter Pan song came from. What the hell was that making fun of?

One day Jer came over to my house to record ‘Cream Dreams,’ and I got strep throat that day. So he went into the room smoked weed and two hours later came out with that song. I was like what’s wrong with you — this is amazing. We didn’t even know how we’d put it on the album, but we did.

The other one was I never really knew who you were targeting was “I Am” by Das Jinglehorse. Was that making fun of Dépêche Mode?
Yeah, them and those kind of people that are really really into that kind of music.

What about the ‘Back in the Day’ song. I always assumed it took shots at Lexicon.

It was just a play on all the ‘Back in the Day’ songs. When  I came up, every album had a back in the day song and we just made that, but we wanted to make it as white as possible, like ‘hey bro,’ go completely off the charts weird.’

So what are your plans for 2010?

More new music, working with Illogic, some stuff for Aesop’s new album probably.

Download:

MP3: Blockhead – The Music Scene Megamix
MP3: Blockhead – “Which One of You Jerks Stole My Arnold Palmer”

MP3: Aesop Rock prod. by Blockhead – “Jinx Planet” (Float-era outtake) 

Question in the Form of An Answer: GZA/Genius

Parts of this interview originally ran last Friday at Pop & Hiss. Words from the Genius.

How did you end up collaborating with The Black Lips and King Khan?

Originally, it came about through my manager Heathcliff [Berru]. The bands were fans of Wu-Tang and I and we decided to perform together. It worked out well; they’re good musicians and we have a mutual admiration and love. The thing is, they were already connecting with me in some way first. I’d never heard their music before, but I was feeling it and when I saw both of those groups perform live, I knew I could work with them. The vibe was there.

Much of current hip-hop — particularly the more mainstream iteration — is characterized by glossy shiny-sounding production. Did some of your desire to work with the Black Lips and King Khan stem from the similarity of their lo-fi aesthetic to the beats you came up rhyming on?

That’s my problem with the stuff today — it doesn’t sound raw and uncut. When the Black Lips sent a track over to me, I thought it sounded like a Beastie Boys track, the way the singer was singing and flowing on it. He was right in the pocket. You don’t get hip-hop that sounds that gritty anymore, you get some Auto-tune, ping-pong computer-made and Casio stuff.

And the collaboration with Devendra Banhart?

I met Devendra at Coachella. I watched him and Gang Gang Dance perform and thought they both put on really great performances. I was like ‘who is this guy,’ because he was rocking, and it turned out that he was a big fan. When I met him, he told me what an honor it was and how much he loved “Liquid Swords” and Wu-Tang. So it was a beautiful connection.

The collaborations that you’ve released thus far are strikingly different from your previous material. What led you to stake such different musical ground?

I think it’s about being original and creative. You’ve got to be comfortable with yourself. There’s no set way to do anything. Sometimes you have to go outside the box, sometimes you can do things the standard way. Like you don’t have to have a beat to write a song, sometimes you can write lyrics without the music. A lot of artists think that to be current, you have to follow what’s out there and do something that’s so unlike what you normally do. It can work but it doesn’t if you chase it.

Most recently, Ghostface’s Wizard of Poetry album did a similar thing by challenging preexisting notions that fans had of an artist. Did you have a chance to listen to it and if so, what did you think?

Ghostface is very versatile. I don’t think a lot of people knew that he could switch it up and write those sort of songs, but I thought he really came correct with that album.

It might not be as starkly different as the most recent singles, but it seems like you’ve been open to working with different types of artists since The Legend of the Liquid Sword. A lot of people don’t realize that you were one of the first to put Santogold on? How did that collaboration happen?

A close friend of mine, Angela Yee, is Santi’s best friend and she and Santi were roommates around the time of Legend of the Liquid Sword, so that’s how it came about. I’d known her for a couple years prior to “Stay in Line.” She’s incredibly talented and a great writer.

On the other hand, there are artists like Raekwon who have had a lot of success refining and sharpening the classic formula.  What did you think about the finished OB4CL2?

Raekwon is an incredible artist. He has one of the most incredible flows and delivery I’ve ever heard. He came hard with that gangsta style and delivery with Cuban Linx 1 and 2. It was a beautiful thing for him to do those kind of numbers, but more to have such a good album. He just wanted to be himself and he had the time to lay out the tracks and do what he wanted with it. He’s an original. In hip-hop, out of 100 artists, only one of them will rap or speak in their own voice. The other 99 imitate. If you hear 100 songs, one of them will be the same. We’ve been hearing that auto tune sound for years back to Roger Troutman and Zapp. It was a great thing to use in their music and then hip hop got a hold of it and it became over-saturated. That’s cool if I wanna jump in and use it after two people have, but after a thousand songs in auto tune, when does it stop.  C’mon…

Do you think it’s a matter of artists not being willing to find their voice because they think conforming to pre-existing stereotypes or tropes will mean more sales?

Here’s the thing, it’s good to see and know who came before you. I’ve been rhyming for so long, I’ve lived in every borough in NYC, and picked up certain flows and patterns from different boroughs to create my own style. I was always open to being different, studying different genres and rhymers until I developed my own style.  It’s always good to be inspired by others. I’ve always taken things from others, I recycle and take things from other songs and flip them.

Willie Mitchell, who just passed away, was quoted once as saying that Al Green didn’t become Al Green until he stopped trying to sing like Wilson Pickett and Sam Cookie and Jackie Wilson.

That’s the thing, it’s cool for a singer to say ‘I love Al Green,’ but we don’t need two Al Green’s. When R. Kelly first started doing his thing, you might’ve heard a little Otis Redding or Sam Cooke, or Michael Jackson or James Brown. What made him good was that he had studied others but never tried to sing like them.

When you made your first album, Words From The Genius, do you feel like you were still in thrall to predecessors like Rakim and Kane?

I think so. RZA and Raekwon have always told me how much they love that record and that it’s a classic, but if you look at that album, I think I had lyrical talent and ability but I tried to go in too many different ways. The rhymes came naturally, but they were scattered, there were songs about drugs, teenage pregnancies, the label even made me put on that R&B song. That was the last song I recorded because Cold Chillin’ said they needed something commercial. I don’t knock “Come Do Me,” it sounded different and Rza loved it, he said, ‘yo that’s kind of slick,’ but it made me get looked at as a Father MC type rapper. Nothing against Father MC, but I wasn’t really falling there, I wanted to be looked at in a league with Kane.

So what changed in those two years between Words and Enter the 36 Chambers?

Drama, determination. When Wu-Tang came through, we felt like we were coming back hard. I was coming back off the Cold Chillin’ thing, Rza was on Tommy Boy and he got in some trouble out of state, he got a case and they didn’t want to deal with that. Cold Chillin’ wasn’t trying to promote me, they had so much on their plate and they weren’t running the label correctly.  If you think about it, Cold Chillin started around the same time as Def Jam and they had about the same amount of talent: Kane, Biz, Masta Ace, Shan, Marley Marl, Shante. Of course, Def Jam had a hell of a roster too, but Cold Chillin’ didn’t know how to market it right. At one time, five of us had albums out the same month.

So we were coming back from off that and it was the time to strike back. It felt good and we had a whole bunch of rhymes that we wanted to let out. Rza got some of the Clan from Shaolin — it was just all something that was spinning and growing and growing until boom, we’re here, we’ve been rhyming for years. We didn’t do it to make money, the first goal was to make a demo tape. When I first got into rhyming in the late 70s, the goal was to be heard on tape, then we wanted to be heard on radio, then by the mid 80s when rap was hitting, it was damn, we want a deal.

When I got on Cold Chillin, I was on the road and on tour getting $35 a day for per diem. I was greatly appreciative of that too, coming from where we came from, $35 dollars a day was a lot of money. I didn’t even know what a per diem was. It was all a blessing to me, period. To get everything to come into play and for things not to go right, it was crushing, it was like a stab to the heart. I didn’t know the business, I thought that you get a deal and it’s over. I was like I got mad lyrics, I got these concepts, we taking over. But it doesn’t always work that, unless someone huge like Warner Bros. says, ‘Okay, we’re going to push the Genius, that’s our priority.’

Was it different for you at Geffen?

Geffen was a big company. The staff wasn’t all that big, but it had a good machine and not a lot of rap to compete with. I was one of, if not the first rapper they signed. Plus, it was something fresh. Wu Tang was popping and blowing up, they’d put all their money on me and that’s why I got to direct every video. They gave us a lot of leeway and we knew what we wanted. I knew what I wanted musically, as far as writing songs Rza knew what he wanted and I had the business mind for it. Rza had this plan for Wu Tang blowing up and we popped it off from there and there were like, ‘what y’all wanna put out, what’s next.’

With the industry what it is today, it’s bizarre to think of a world in which an album like Liquid Swords could be released by one of the biggest corporations in music, with its first two singles as “I Gotcha Back” and “Cold World,” and still go platinum. Nowadays, you probably would’ve had to have had Ray J sing one of the hooks.

Because they think like labels. You don’t need an R&B hook. Take a song off Liquid Swords like “Swordsman,” [raps] “when a motherfucker steps out of place and gets slapped in his motherfuckin’ face.” That routine came off an Earth Wind and Fire hook and we revised it, and that’s where it came from. All that pop rock is in hip hop, [raps] “Things ain’t comin fast enough, there is no mountain high enough.” That comes from a Diana Ross and The Supremes, “Ain’t No Mountain.” I just took it and flipped it and made it on some street shit. It’s effortless, it’s just reviving it, and doing you, and being comfortable. It doesn’t matter who the group is or what song it is, if I like the beat I’ll rock it. If you doing a song with this rock band, if I like what they’re playing, I’ll walk all over that.

Do you feel that with less money in the rap game, it’s going to lead to more artists pursuing stuff that they really feel passionately about, rather than just doing stuff to blow up?
Its not about the money, but you need money to pay bills. If I do a deal with anyone, they’re going to give you this amount. Of course, you have to consider money, you have to pay people for guest appearances, mastering, engineering. But when I’m writing a song, I’m never thinking about how much money I can make off it.  I want to create a whole new world. I want to do something good with it. Music is a divine art. I’m a musician. I compose in my heart — that’s what it is until I become one.

Is that what bothered you so much about 50′s approach to music and led you to write “Paper Plates?”

I wanted it to stick with him and I just used the phrase in a slick way as a metaphor. That’s the meaning behind “Paper Plates.” It shows your level of thought depending on what kind of music you put out. If you’re going to be a grown man saying some simple ignorant shit. I had to do it in a unique way to say that this is how I do it and this is how I write. Thing is, there’s so much to write about, you can write about anything, that’s what a lot of artists don’t realize. You can write about anything, you can look at anything and not make it boring, it’s just how you do it.

One of the things that feels particularly vivid about the Wu’s stories is that they feel so real, like on “Killah Hills 10304″ or “Investigative Reports.”

Well, on “Investigative Reports,” that was a song that the others had got on before me. Rae and Ghost had already laid their parts and I knew I had to come right with it. That was the way Liquid Swords unfolded. We didn’t even have a theme until it came down to the day of mastering and then one of the last days we were mastering it, Rza asked someone in the studio to go out and get the Shogun’s Assassin. It wasn’t like we came in with that plan from the onset. Imagine what the album might’ve been like without that, would it have been as good, what could’ve replaced it? I’m not sure, that’s just the way it unfolded.

I’ve read interviews where you’ve talked about being a big reader. Who are some of your favorite writers?

I don’t really know too many writers off hand by name. I’m not a super reader like that, not an avid reader. I like a lot of information and mathematics and science, I don’t necessarily read the numbers, but I’m interested in the mathematics of things, the chemistry of something, y’know the chess and science of it. I haven’t been reading much lately, just the same books when I’m traveling. I use a few books a lot for spiritual entertainment and parables. I like stories.

A lot of 5 percent mysticism is embedded in not only the Wu-Tang’s lyrics but guys like Kane, Rakim, and more recently, guys like Jay Electronica. What is it about the 5 percent philosophy that attracted you, and why do you think some of the greatest MC’s are 5 percenters?

It’s the balance that attracts me to it. It’s almost like getting an advanced degree. It’s a science to observe it, to define, it’s like having knowledge, you understand life better.  The more knowledge you have, the more you understand life. That was the whole science behind when Ghost would be talking about ‘Why is the sky blue, Why is water wet.’ There’s things that we’ve been for a lot time, all that applied knowledge is great. MC’s are drawn to it because it’s a tool. Rakim, Kane, KRS-One, all of them used mathematics and lyrically they were incredible. That’s because they studied, they learn, they’re intrigued by knowledge and math and science and it shows in their lyrical ability.  Others are intrigued by cars and of course it shows in their lyrics. One is like this, one is like that, and it attracts a different type, it attracts those willing to learn.

Chess has also been a massive part of your lyrics and aesthetic. What is it about the game that’s sustained your fascination for so long?

Chess is life in itself. It’s about planning, if you look at chess, it’s about question and answers. Your opponent moves first and it raises a question. You have to answer, sometimes you have the answer and sometimes you don’t.

What was it like working with Muggs on the Grandmasters album and do you think you’ll work with him again?

I have plans to collaborate with him again. It was a great experience. I’ve worked with him on several other projects and its always been a good vibe. He has great beats, he’s a good brother to work with and he has a nice studio. We spent two weeks working on Grandmasters. We may have knocked it out in seven nights of work total.   We recorded it really really fast. It was his idea to call it Grandmasters. When you work with a producer like that, everything doesn’t have to come from the MC.

You also worked with Black Milk on Pro Tools. How did that come about?

Dreddy Krueger A&R’d that project and hooked me up with him. I don’t think I met Black Milk, but I liked his work a lot.

What’s the current status of your next album with the indie-rock collaborations? Also, what’s going on with the Wu-Tang? Are there plans to do another album?

I’ve got some songs done for my own album, but I’m still writing and recording. There’s been talks about doing another Wu-Tang album and going out on the road to promote it. I think everything is finely settled down right about now from the 8 Diagrams drama.We’ve just all got to get together and do it.

Download:
MP3: GZA + Black Lips – “Drop I Hold”
MP3: GZA  + Salvador Santana + Dan Deacon – “Unity”

Question in the Form of An Answer: Rudi Zygadlo

Let’s be honest, a significant portion of the purple/wonky/whatever tunes–even the exceptional ones–lack personality. Enter Rudi Zygadlo, yet another of the Scottish-bred beat contingent, who have spent the last year and change convincing the seven Americans paying attention that Glasgow is far more than the sum of Belle & Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, and cheap stereotypes involving Groundskeeper Willie and his retirement grease. Like Mike Slott, Hudson Mohawke, and Rustie, Zygadlo operates at the hazy intersection of hip-hop and dubstep, and despite the reductive simplifications they’ve engendered, like anything truly creative, their styles are singular.

Inspired by classical, church liturgies, opera, folk, Zappa, and early ’00s early hip-hop, Zygaldo’s music stands out from his peers for his eclecticism and deep devotion to song-craft, boasting well-constructed hooks, bridges, and breakdowns. Calling these “beats” does them a grave disservice, with their brain-frying synths, ruthless groove, and symphonic inclinations most closely resembling Guido and Nosaj Thing. Hearing Zygadlo on a Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC1 mix for the first time, engendered a stop-whatever-it-is-that-you’re-doing epiphany, one that immediately made me want to know more about the man who will soon be eliciting a spate of bad “Rudi Can’t Fail” headlines. A Google search brought back little information other than mentioning that he used to play in an indie-rock group called The Velcro Quartet.  Thus, this interview needed to happen. Zygaldo’s first full-length, Great Western Laymen, drops in April on Planet Mu. If it’s anywhere as good as the singles and remixes (everything from Hot Chip to “White Lines”) collected on the Hobbs mix he dropped last month, it promises to be one of the year’s most memorable debuts, even better than “The Shinning.”

How did you get into beat-making and how separate of an entity is it from The Velcro Quartet material.

In some form or other, I’ve been making music since I was in primary school, learning the guitar but I first started dabbling with computer music in my early teens. Only since the end of last year did I really start finishing tunes and developing a specific style. I think it was down to a number of circumstantial determinants. Leaving university prematurely has given me the time to do it. Moving in with a fellow music producer with a technical prowess was a key step too. His hermetic work ethic inspired me to get my head down. Then there was the conception of my own sound and Planet Mu interest really early on, which made everything worthwhile and kick started the album.

Because it’s a fairly new thing, I haven’t been seriously in any scenes so to speak. I don’t listen exclusively to music one might associate with my own, on the contrary, I wasn’t really aware of a lot of the Glasgow hiphop, wonky and dubstep scene until fairly recently.

Because of the Velcro Quartet, I was involved in the band circuits a lot more. But the birth of my own project seemed to coincided with a bit of a Velcro Quartet standby. The two entities haven’t been competing at all. Joe, the writer and frontman of the band, is working on some interesting projects himself at the moment.

Who were your most important influences that inspired you to first start making music? Was there a galvanizing moment that made you decide that it was what you wanted to do?
It’s hard to say. There has been perpetual influence going on all my life. A lot of classical music: chamber music mostly. Jazz. The complete works of Frank Zappa. He dominated my musical interest for years when I was younger. Warp records got me into electronic music, just about when drukqs came out. Then Planet Mu through a friend. You start to get interested in labels and dates. I always like to know everything about an album’s background. I like a lot of Folk, old and contemporary. Novel music. After the emergence of dubstep, I always saw the potential in the genre for more interesting things and for the last few years I had a form of music in my head which used some of its fundamental characteristics and merged them with classical, jazz and pop structures taking away what I considered monotonous. The moment I realised I was actually creating or at least trying to create this fusion was probably the galvanizing moment. It was quite a subconscious thing. The moment [Planet Mu founder] Mike Paradinas got in touch, gave me some credibility and self-belief. Music has always been what i wanted to do but until that moment, I didn’t believe it’d ever happen.

How would you describe the beat scene in Glasgow right now. Obviously, there are a lot of great producers coming out of the city. What do you think it is about the current environment that’s fostering this?

Yeah, Glasgow is harbouring many talents. I can’t compare it to another city really because I have never lived in another city. It’s certainly the cultural capital of Scotland. It has a famous University and Art School, which i know a lot of the musicians in question attended. Then there are a lot of great places to play. A lot of wacky nights that people put on. I dunno.

For me, coming from the countryside into a thriving artistic city was daunting to begin with. So much so that it sort of suppressed my own creativity a bit. I pretty much stopped making electronic music for about three years. I did a little, but my laptop got stolen one night and two days later, I set my room on fire by accident. That put the lid on it completely.

To build on the last question, is there a feeling of community where you guys feel like you’re constantly trying to impress one another and compete (in a positive manner) or is a more isolated environment?

I certainly picked up on a feeling of a community when I was gigging with the Velcro quartet. Most of the time its a mutually encouraging thing. Playing together, putting nights on. Sometimes it’s a bit of a rat race. With some of the bigger bands, I picked up on a bit of taunting. I guess it can potentially be detrimental but on the whole it’s camaraderie. With my electronic stuff, no one knew what I was up to until news of the signing seeped out. A lot of public awareness creates pressure on an artist to deliver. This is usually a healthy pressure. But I was lying low, just churning out music for a very small number of people for feedback. Recently I’ve started playing gigs. Word is out. Haha. And now the album is finished I can relax a bit and think more about my live performance and integrating myself into these existing communities. Not too much though.

American hip-hop seems to have played an incalculable role of shaping the emerging Glasgow sound. Are there any rap producers that have impacted you specifically?

There are hip hop producers I like, yeah. The Quannum collective. Prefuse. RJD2. Aesop Rock, I don’t know how much he produces himself. My brother is massively into hip hop. That’s where my hip-hop tastes come from mostly. But I’ve been a bit out of touch with it of late.

How did you get connected to Planet Mu and what made you decide to sign with them?

I had sent a couple of tracks to a few labels. Can’t remember who exactly now, but not Mu because I thought it was too long a shot. I think Hyperdub were the only ones who got back to me. An A&R man from Hyperdub said he would show it to some other people. A month or so later, Mike emailed me. Happiest day of my life.

When is your first release with them slated to drop.

There is a single coming out in March. Then the album Great Western Laymen coming out in April. It’s a combination of songs with and without vocals. Half and half. Its really great. All the music was conceived, written and produced this year in my bedroom. It very much pays homage to my surroundings. I live on Great Western Road. From my window I can see two churches and the album has a very ecclesiastical theme. Initially, I wanted to set the Latin Mass to electronic music. Composers have set the liturgy to music for hundreds of years. Anyway that got chiseled down to one song, “Missa Per Brevis” (very short mass) which contains parts of the Agnus Dei, I think or the Sanctus. There is a bit of sax, some synth solos, some mothers. Heavy bits, Soft bits. Perverted bits. Blasphemous bits.

What’s a typical day for you like? Do you have a day job and if so/how hard is to balance a creative life with financial demands

Had a couple of bar jobs since uni. More recently, I was on a job seekers allowance. Now I’m not. Very Skint. I live in Squalor. I like to read and write. Write songs. Make music. Listen to music, listen to Radio 3 and 4. Go out and do a mixture of high, low and very low cultural activities. I also like going back to the countryside and staying with my parents, seeing family and friends from that neck of the woods and doing some work down there.

What were your favorite records of last year?

Hmm, not sure. Most of the music I have been listening to this year is over a century old. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion was a great. There is a Skweee compilation called Dodpop Volume 1 which came out a month or two ago. Really good. Tyondai Braxton – Central Market is pretty startling. Clark – Totem’s Flare has a few bangers. Theres been a whole bunch of good wonky stuff: Jamie Vex’d, Slugabed, Nosaj Thing, Fulgeance etc. 2008 had a lot more high points, I think, if only for Sebastien Tellier – Sexuality.

Besides the album, what are your tentative plans for this year?
For next year, I’m working on an Operetta at the moment, libretto and score. That should extend a fair bit into 2010. I’d like to play some interesting gigs, hopefully abroad, and work on live sets, finding the best way to entertain and satisfy the ruthless public. Do a bit more short prose writing. Read.

Download:
ZIP: Rudi Zygaldo – Mary Anne Hobbs Mix (Left-Click)

Question in the Form of An Answer: Wale

Parts of this interview originally appeared in my Pop and Hiss article on Wale.  More on Attention Deficit tomorrow, maybe. 

So judging from the title of Attention Deficit, its wide-ranging sound, and interviews that you’ve given, it seems like it’s your commentary on the fragmented nature of the Internet world, with a million blogs, twitters, and dozens of mixtapes released daily, How hard is it for an artist to create something that has a life span longer than the next blog post?

I think a lot of the blogs are selfish, they don’t really care. There might be five or six really legit hip-hop blogs, your Rap Radars, your Nah Rights, your 2 Dope Boyz, and others, but some that are very minuscule, if you don’t give them what they want, they’re going to shit on you. I think that their visitors aren’t even 1/1000th of another blog that you’ve already done an interview for and they want one to do one with them too.

Q-Tip one time told me that 15 years ago, all people had to judge you on was your album, one or two interviews, your record for the radio and picture on the album cover. That’s it. The only way you can remain relevant is to give yourself up, unless you’re blessed every once in a while there’s a Drake situation, but that’s not even once in a while, that’s a once thing.

But that’s pretty much a different stuation unto itself. A lot of people watched Degrassi, a lot of girls watched Degrassi.

And now they’re more mature and can hear words like fuck and shit. Look, I’m happy for what happened to dude. But the game is just completely impossible now. You have to give yourself up. That’s why I’m so frequently on Twitter, it’s because I don’t have a big record out right now. I don’t have a lot of things to explain and prepare people for the person they’re about to listen to.

Do you ever feel like forgetting about Twittering. I mean as a journalist, sometimes your editor will want you to Twitter a show or something and you always have the option of saying, ‘no, I don’t want to do something like that.’

Yeah, that’s why I take sabbaticals. It’s difficult because you can see how many people already have the leak of your album, and there’s always all these people that are like ‘@ Wale, fuck you Wale, you pussy, I hope you die.’ Back in the day, it took time to write a letter, fold it, mail it.

It’s just the nature of the Internet. Every time you write something there’s always the possibility that some asshole is going to go into the comment section and say, ‘fuck you, asshole, you’re the worst writer ever, blah, blah.’  The Internet gives them that sort of power in anonymity.

It’s so easy to just do that. It makes people feel like they’re tough enough to say it to your face, they’ll write things like ‘if I ever see you, I’ll…’ I’m like dawg, I’ve been to every major city, I don’t have a security detail, I’ve never met a person who’d say that to my face. Twitter has empowered a lot of people who don’t deserve any power.

You could probably say that about the nature of blogging too.

Everybody’s everything. Everybody’s a blogger, rapper, producer, artist.

All you need is fruity loops and a microphone. But then, you’re one of the few who has been able to get some critical mass on the Internet and use it as a positive tool.

That’s true and I appreciate it, but the thing about me that’s often forgot, is that I had a very good street following as well at the same time.

In D.C?

Yeah, a lot of the guys who have Internet fame didn’t have that sort of following where they could sell-out shows. I’m not going to put this athlete’s name out there but there was a really big weekend in DC and his whole his entourage was at my show, this for a guy with no record deal and who worked at the Van’s shoe storem and they were at my show.

Yeah, those early mixtapes had some really great songs on them. I feel a lot of the popular perception is that everything began with 100 Miles and Running but they don’t know about “Dig Dug” or “Cuz I’m African,” which was probably, at least in my opinion, your first really great song that set up where you were going to go after that.

I didn’t even know if people were hearing it outside of DC. I wasn’t paying attention to that sort of stuff, I’d be at work and sometimes someone would be like my man in Texas likes your song. I didn’t get it.

When did that change, when [Wale’s manager] Weisman came in?

Yeah, he put me onto a lot of this Internet stuff.

Do you ever look at this like it’s your 6th album? Is difficult to have to keep on creating mostly free content to keep on feeding the Internet-era appetite for new music?

I’m in a different place with those then I was on my album. I don’t care as much about the mixtapes. I say what I want to say, but on the actual album I was a lot more careful, I’d re-write things two or three times just to make sure things were perfect.

At the same time, with Mixtape about Nothing, there were a lot of songs that obviously took a lot of time and thought.

Yeah, but I was in another zone there too.

What kind of zone?

Just analyzing life and television and watching Seinfeld. I was sick, I had the flu and I was watching Seinfeld all day and just thinking about what I was going through and the idea just came to me.

Some of the songs of there were very powerful songs. In particular, “The Kramer” might have been my favorite song of last year. What was the inspiration behind it?

I was on my couch, just chilling and thinking about different things and then I started jotting it down, I started sweating when I was writing because I was so into it.

Now that Obama’s president do you feel that anything’s changed in terms of self-image?

No.

Why not?
I mean, you talking about my image?

Your image, but also, I imagine that you were speaking for a lot of people as well. At least, that’s how I interpreted it.

I mean, not really. Sometimes, I just don’t know with this whole Internet thing, I don’t know if shit changes. Sometimes, it feels so right and you feel like you’re going to move a mountain and then Lil Wayne drops a freestyle and it takes over everyone’s attention and you’re like, well I just wrote something that could actually change the way people look at things.

I’m not one of those Gucci haters but I’m not convinced he’s the second coming either. I think he’s got a place and you know if you’re at a club and “Wasted” comes on, that’s cool. “Gorgeous” is a good song, etc. But do you ever wonder how you can compete with someone that can just drop three mixtapes at once or a dozen of them in one year, when your method of writing would seem to be a lot slower and more time-consuming than that?

The thing about that, you gotta understand that’s like two different genres. You got like Madonna and Whitney Houston. Whitney’s gonna belt the song out there. Madonna doesn’t have to vocalize, do crazy things on the track. She can probably put out music a lot faster. Gucci’s music is easy on the ear, my shit is like close your eyes and listen. Gucci’s music is relax, smoke a J, chill with the bitches. My shit is just different, you can probably make that music a little quicker. He’s not trying to do what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to connect with people on an emotional level. I’m trying to touch their souls.

But I imagine that takes a lot more time.

Oh definitely. You have to see what’s going on, see what’s happening on in your life and the world. Whereas with Gucci, it’s more based on the lifestyle, it’s about one specific type of lifestyle. Mine’s about life, that’s about a lifestyle.

The thing is that on all your mixtapes and album’s there’s at least one thing that tackles a really complex life issue that isn’t really addressed in most contemporary rap music. Like I think “Shades” on the new album is an incredibly powerful song. Or even “90210,” which will probably get a lot of flak from people who just haven’t been around those type of people, but there are a lot of them and just because a song is about a segment of people you might not typically care to associate with,  it doesn’t make it any more or less valid.

“Shades” was something I’d always wanted to talk about, but I’d never had the opportunity to do, but when I heard the beat I just started vibing to it. We actually had to change it– 9th was the original producer on, but we couldn’t clear the sample so we had to get a different beat. But that song means a lot to me, I wrote and recorded it a few years ago and that’s my story, it makes sense that it would be on the first album.

So when are you working with Camp Lo?
Ah man, I don’t know.

You heard the new album?
I haven’t heard it. I tried to get it when I was at the airport on my iPhone, but I couldn’t.

I think it might be the best thing they’ve done since Uptown.

That’s crazy. That’s one of my favorite. When I was going to Virginia St. my routine every night was to put on Uptown Saturday Night and I’d go to sleep to it.

So how do you feel about your song “The Perfect Plan” in the context that now your album is on the verge of finally seeing release. I thought that there was a lot of truth to it, with the analogy of someone like a Soulja Boy whose fans will buy the single and his ringtone, they’ll watch whatever he throws up on You Tube. Then you have someone like MOP, who are one of the greatest groups of all-time, and their latest album sold 2,100 copies.

A new MOP CD?

Yeah, it had zero promotion and it was on Koch, but still. They have a lot of fans, but not necessarily ones that are still buying CD’s.

Yeah, it’s like if MOP plays Rock the Bells, they’re going to have the crowd going crazy. But yeah, I think there’s a sort of elitist element in a lot of hip-hop fans, they’re too good for everything. Whereas a 16-year old who is going to be like ‘LOL Smiley Face’ is probably going to cop the new Trey Songz CD.

So do you ever think that you’d rather cultivate Mos Def-type fanbase than say, a Drake type fanbase?

I don’t know. I really don’t know what my fanbase is. I don’t think anyone knows. It’s so weird. On one hand, they’re like Wale is the new Common or Mos Def, and on the other hand, people say Wale is the other Drake. On the other end, people are like Wale is the new Jay-Z. On the other, they’re like Wale is the new Talib. I don’t think anybody knows. There’s definitely some commercial appeal, but I’m not sure if I can put my finger on it. It’s interesting, because when I did my radio tour, all these people, all these pop stations, I was like ‘dawg, you don’t care about me, you only care about me because I did a record about Gaga. You don’t know nothing about me, you don’t know nothing that I’m going to do, you probably don’t care what I’m going to do, and the only reason why I’m even here is because I did a record with Gaga.

In a lot of urban markets, they know who I was, they cared about me, they knew my grind and my struggle, but there wasn’t anything for me to give them at that point. It’s something I’m trying to figure out. And yet, we sell out shows all the time.

You have been for a while too. I remember you and Blu sold out the Key Club last year.

But it’s like I’m not a radio artist, at least at this point. Pharrell says I am. Jay says I am, but I’m not at this point. I did “Chillin.” For all intensive purposes, it was what it was. But nothing stuck, at least stuck the way that I had hoped. But there’s still fans coming by the boatload, so that’s something.

But I think the thing is that you’re setting yourself up for a long career. Your music connects with people and there’s not a lot of major label rappers left that do that.

I think so. I mean I don’t think I’m going to peak for another four or five years. The label only shipped 30k, and that might be a low estimate, but no one really knows. It could do 30, it could do 80, no one knows.

If you don’t sell crazy numbers, do you think this is something the label is prepared to accept?

Well, if they’re shipping 30 then they should be happy with 30. That’s a third of what Cudi actually sold. They normally ship half what they do. So they’re expecting me to do 15, hopefully it won’t. But look, the album leaked two weeks early and the difference between me and Jay, whose album leaked two weeks early, is that 80 percent of Jay’s fans aren’t Internet savvy like that. They don’t go to blogs, but that’s 90 pecent of my fanbase, and they’ve already got it.

Or take a dude like Rae, many of his fans are on the Intenret, but there were a lot of hard core old-school fans that didn’t know his album leaked and copped it in the store.

I feel Raekwon is inventing a new type of veteran rap for hard core hip-hop. Raekwon did 50 first week?
I think 60.

If I could do 60, that’d be great.

It’s hard, the Internet fans are fickle. When your album leaked, a lot of my friends were shitting on it, but I was defending it because I think it’s a good album, but the problem is that you did The Mixtape About Nothing, 100 Miles and Running and Back to the Feature in the last 24-months. That takes away a lot of the shock value as if you were a new artist that just released their first album.

I don’t think anyone knows what they want from me– they can’t pinpoint their expectations. I could’ve given people everything they wanted, but they still wouldn’t know what they want. I really think it’s going to stand the test of time. I believe in it.

I thought you did a good job of hitting the different demographic targets that the labels require of artists to allow them to put out a record. I mean, it’s very clear that you have to jump through a lot of hoops just to get a release date.

I’m a people person. I’ve been around a lot of people and different demographics. I grew up with Spanish kids, African kids, black kids, white kids, this is my life, and I’m trying to keep it 100 percent real.

Did you ever think about releasing Mixtape about Nothing as a commercial album, provided the lawyers could’ve cleared it?

Most of it revolved around the dialogue. We never could’ve been able to clear it.

I understood why you wouldn’t want to do it, because it’s a little gimmicky, but I was sort of disappointed that you didn’t run with the Back to the Future theme on Back to the Feature.

I could’ve, but since I was doing it with 9th, I didn’t want to built my brand on using his beats. I just knew it would be too much.

Have you been recording anything new?
I’ve just been on this tour.

How’s the tour going?
I’m exhausted. But I’ve got to keep going, I’ve got to keep pushing.

You going to take a break when it’s over?
Oh yeah, definitely. Take a long vacation.

You check out the new season of Curb?
Nah, haven’t had a chance to.

Ever get into Woody Allen movies. I’d think you’d like it considering you’re such a big Seinfeld and Larry David fan.

Nah. Any recommendations?

Well, the default go-to is Annie Hall, so I’d say just start there. It’s a pretty hilarious movie. It won best picture in 1977.

Word. I’m going to check for that.

Why were there so few songs from Best Kept Secret on the album? Was that a label thing?

Nah, I just wanted to share some different sounds with people. The album wasn’t designed to have just one sound, that’s why it’s called Attention Deficit.

So you also worked with Dave Sitek too? Does that dude ever smile.

Why do you say that?

The man looks like a serious dude.

Nah, that’s funny. He’s not like that at all. Maybe he’s different around different people.

Nah, I’ve never met him, but in all of his photos he looks like he’s ready to kill a man just to watch him die.

Nah, we just get high and make music. He’s a really funny dude.

What basketball team do you root for? You a Wizards fan?

Yeah, but I gotta be honest, I’m not the biggest Wizards fan. I usaully root for the Nuggets and the Cavs.

You a big Lebron fan?

Definitely.

Who do you think’s going to win this year?
Denver looks good but it’s too early to say.

Chauncey Billups is one of those dudes…

He’s a Hall of Famer.

Whenever he is he just wins….So in ten years where are you going to be?
Still making music, happily married with a couple kids, living, happy, relaxed and hopefully everyone will understand who Wale is.

Who is Wale?
Just a passionate dude. I’m passionate in my music and in life. I speak from the heart in everything, Twitter, whatever it is. I might be the most honest person in the industry and that might be my biggest problem, a lot of people in the industry are too good at being fake.

Question in the Form of an Answer: A Conversation With Memory Man

When he’s not cooking up something marvelous in the lab, Disco Vietnam drops basic instructions before leaving earth via Twitter. 

Three minutes after our interview with Austin-based producer’s Eli Elkin, AKA Memory Man, a tweet appeared on Twitter (as they are wont to do) from the Chef himself.

@RAEKWONICEWATER Ayo foreal i dont know who made that new mixtape “Cuban Revolution” been gettn alot of phone calls bout it but Salute who put it out! THANKS

The responsible party is, of course, Memory Man whose Cuban Revolution tape is easily one of the hottest releases to drop in the last … 18 hours or so. The tape succeeds in authentically reproducing the Wu-Tang’s elusive and unique sonic aesthetic, while elevating some perhaps unfairly dismissed Raekwon verses in anticipation of the forthcoming Only Built For Cuban Linx II.

Passion of the Weiss’ contributor Sach O enthusiastically posted the tape yesterday. Today we got to speak with its creator because we’re fucking nice like that.

Passion of the Weiss: I heard this Cuban Revolution mixtape yesterday and I was like, “What is this?” How did this project come together? Was it something you were commissioned to do?

Memory Man: No, not at all. What happened was I made those beats for Raekwon totally freelance and sent them to his brother. Initially I sent three. I got a response: “I like it. Send more.” So I sent more. They responded again, “Hey, send more.” So I sent more. Then I started getting a little worried because I’m just sending out all these tracks. My boy started getting in my ear saying, “Yo, you should put those beats out or they might clown you.”

The truth is I’d been wanting to do a Raekwon remix album for a long time. I liked a lot of his lyrics on later records even though I wasn’t necessarily too crazy about the production. This was a good opportunity so I used those beats I’d made for him.

He should be aware of the project somewhat because the guy who did the Cuban Linx II artwork also did my artwork. He’ll probably ignore it because it doesn’t have any new material on it. But it’s free promotion he can benefit from without having to endorse personally.

PotW: You’re OK with that?

MM: I’m perfectly fine with it. To be honest this was more of a fan project. I’m just kind of a big geek for rap music. All the Kung Fu samples are in there for, “What would make a fan like myself geek out?”

PotW: I noticed you drew a lot of the vocals from his later records like Lex Diamond Story, which is underrated.

MM: To be honest that’s what was available as far as acapellas. I pretty much just used whatever I could that I thought would work. Some stuff I had to piece together from different songs.

PotW: What was your intention making these beats. Were you really trying to recapture that Cuban Linx sound?

MM: Absolutely. I’m just sort of a superfan of the stuff I enjoy. It’s not my normal production style. I did about half of MC Paul Barman’s new album that’s coming out. Those beats are very experimental, more in line with Dust Brothers cut-and-paste style. I’ve also done work with Kool Keith. We did a single together and I’ve done a bunch of remixes for his website. Keith is another favorite of mine so any time he needs something I’m down. I played bass on a song called “The God of Rap” on Dr. Dooom 2.

The first thing I ever had released was with Edan. I did a song on Primitive Plus. He was a mentor to me and he taught me how to make beats and DJ while we were roommates at the Berklee College of Music.

PotW: So you’re a musician first and you just apply it.

MM: Yeah, I’m a guitar player and a drummer. For instance, on the Raekwon tape half that shit is played. It’s not samples. The piano on “Cipher Born” is me playing piano. The guitar on “Better Shoot Something” is me. The keys on “Fearless Ninjas” are me. It’s just a matter of using lo-fi solutions and I’m a big fan of just running shitty keyboards through stomp boxes. It’s truly an aesthetic that can be achieved with any equipment. It’s just a matter of getting good sound out of it. If you know the aesthetic you’re going for it’s attainable so long as you develop your ears.

PotW: This Wu-Tang vs. D.I.T.C. tape has also been getting a great response. How did that project come together?

MM: That was another fan project. I just got an idea in my head to mash up those groups. They’re both my favorite and I would say the two best crews to come out of New York in the 90s. I think that’s safe to say. I thought back to the tradition of battles, the Furious Five mode. I’m a big fan of the early tapes. I used to have a blog called The House of Tapes where I was just putting up old L. Brothers and Cold Crush, super-early live tapes and battles.

PotW: So you’re a hip-hop historian.

MM: Well I have no pretensions of any kind of authority. I’m just a student of music and hip-hop culture in general. I’m drawn to the energy of that early shit and that’s definitely an aesthetic I hold on to as my core. The Wu-Tang vs. DITC project started while I was just messing around DJing, throwing Big L acapellas over stuff. I threw the “Size ‘em Up” acapella over “4th Chamber” and I was like, “Oh shit. I got to do something with that.” Then I started thinking about the inverse like “Criminology” over “Step to Me.”

I like doing things that change how you feel about the vocals. I think the reason people are geekin’ out over this Cuban Revolution tape is they slept on Rae’s vocals from those later albums. They think he’s suddenly rapping better and some people are saying these are tracks that got left off Cuban Linx 2 for sample reasons. It’s not the case but I definitely take it as a compliment.

Download:
ZIP: Memory Man Presents: Raekwon–Cuban Revolution
ZIP: Memory Man Presents: Wu-Tang Vs. D.I.T.C

Question in the Form of an Answer: A Conversation With Jessica Hopper, Author of “The Girls Guide to Rocking”

As Margaret Wappler aptly asserted, “the dirty little secret to ‘The Girls’ Guide to Rocking’ — a book by music scribe Jessica Hopper, ostensibly for teen girls — is that as a grown-up man or woman, you will learn something from every single page of this guide.” Real talk, but unsurprising to anyone familiar with Hopper’s work at the Chicago Reader, Chicago Tribune, and her blog Tinyluckygenius.   If you have a sister, niece, or know anyone from 8 to 18 interested in forming a band, Jessica’s book comes highly recommended. 

If you’re in Los Angeles, Jessica will be giving a reading today at the Santa Monica Public Library at 2 p.m. (with a performance from Mika Miko) and Skylight Books at 7:30.

Was there a Eureka moment that inspired you to write the book, or was this something you’d been thinking about doing for years?
I first thought about doing the book 16 years ago. I have this really specific memory of a conversation with one of my girlfriends—we were trying to start a band and had this succession of various bass players who we always looked to as some sort of authority. I’m not sure if it stemmed from that they were boys, or that they’d been in bands prior, but I remember talking to her on the phone about how I wished there was a book that explained how to do this.

When I was 16, I had all the eagerness and the passion and the energy, and the scrappy punk rock can-do, but had no idea how to put on a show, or keep a band together, or even how to write a song. It was so exciting but frustrating because all I wanted was to figure out how to sound like Drive like Jehu. I don’t know if that was a common desire in ‘92, but for me it was like, how do I play like that. I had a $90 dollar guitar, I didn’t play with a pick, I played with a dime. I had a Fender practice amp that I bought off street, that was my set up…pretty fancy shit. So I wrote the book that I needed.

It was something that I’d always thought I’d about. I’d been freelancing my ass off for the last few years and at some point, I always thought that I’d take time off to work on this book and work on my 33 and 1/3rd book about Billy Joel’s 40 greatest hits. Then one day I got an email from my future editor at Workman books, saying that she was looking for someone to write a How-To Rock Guide for girls. She’d asked a couple rock people at magazines who should do the book and people kept saying Jessica Hopper, so she asked her brother, who is Franz Nicolay [the supremely awesome keyboard player for the Hold Steady who looks like an 1890s French Unicyclist] and he had my phone number and that was how it got started. It was the biggest stroke of luck, if left to my own accord, I might have just started working on it now.

Did you have to conduct a lot of research or was the book primarily conducted off your own experiences in bands, publicity, and journalism?
Both. I understood what needed to be in there because of my own experiences, and there’s a pretty serious narrative in there to back up a lot of the research. I’d say its about half and half, there were chapters that I wrote entirely on my own, other ones where I consulted 40 different people to back up my opinions, so as not to pawn off my misbegotten knowledge on the future Taylor Swifts of the world. I was really lucky that in researching stuff I could call anyone whose number was in my phone. Nearly everyone got a call, if not four. I’m lucky to have a lot of friends in bands and if they couldn’t help, they’d tell me to call so and so. As soon as you tell someone that this is a guide to help teenage girls record and play shows, no one told me no. People were e-mailing me out of the woodwork to help out. It was nice to be able to pass on the wisdom of dudes from Tortoise or Annie Clark from St. Vincent, or Craig Finn from The Hold Steady.

Was writing the book your way of helping girls understand that rock didn’t have to be this all-boys club type thing?
It was definitely to give them that extra push that girls need sometimes. Sometimes you grow up lacking confidence, dealing with the idea that rock is for boys hanging heavily over you. I interviewed Erika Anderson from Gowns for the Girls Guide blog and she told me how she’ll meet girls at shows and they’ll start talking to her about being a guitar wizard, and they’ll say ‘well, I’m not that good.’ But no guy ever walked up to her and said ‘I play guitars or I play drums, but I’m not that good.’ They never qualify it.

It took stuff into account. I wanted to give them the extra encouragement to pursue music beyond being a fan or a consumer or a spectator. The main thing I wanted to impart is that playing music, being in bands with my friends and making music has been my whole life, and that’s the most fun I’ve ever had. I just wanted to encourage girls to do that. If I realized how much fun being on tour was, I would’ve joined a touring band 10 years sooner. I probably wouldn’t have been a publicist, I’d have been a roadie or done what I could to be powering down the freeway in some Ecoline Powered van. It might sound simplistic, but I want to every girl to start a band.

Do you feel that up until rather recently there had been a severe drought in the number of girl bands following the Riot Grrl/Lilith Fair explosion of the early 90s.
When I was in 11th grade, The Breeders, Liz Phair and Hole all had gold records, and there was this very prevalent notion of women as rockers. Then there was this lull and when Sleater-Kinney broke up, it seemed almost apocalyptic. It didn’t seem that there were other bands to fill the void. Now, The Gossip is getting popular, but look at Taylor Swift, she’s making Billboard History with two albums finish9ing in the top 10 on billboard in one year and eight songs simultaneously on the billboard top 100.. What I’m psyched about is that there’s a whole range of women in rock, not just the Chrissie Hynde, L7, or Joan Jett archetype, which is a pretty awesome archetype. But whether it’s Demi Lovato, or the other Disney stars, or Taylor Swift, or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, there’s a lot of people for young girls to look up to today.

What are your thoughts about pop stars espousing something approaching a more feminist viewpoint like Lily Allen?
I think Lily Allen is the most appropriate female artist for the post-ironic age, she’s such a little lyrical genius. There was an article in the Independent or the Guardian a month ago, charging that Amy Winehouse (for whatever that’s worth) and Lily Allen have inspired this incredible wave of young British female women making solo records in their bedroom. They basically said that this is the new Sex Pistols and Clash—meaning that that was the last time they’d seen such a huge burst of explosion of music in the UK so specific to two or three bands, which I think is awesome.

But I also think the fact that Demi Lovato is playing and selling out the same sized stadiums in Chicago that Coldplay, U2, and R Kelly are selling out is awesome. Most of her fans are girls 6 to 16, and she’s connecting with people and inspiring girls and if that’s their jumping off point that’s awesome. She can play the guitar, she’s not the girlfriend of the Jonas Brother’s, she’s their mirror and opening up for them. Whether Disney is willing to admit this or not, I’m reclaiming Demi Lovato for feminism.

In recent years, the word post-feminism seems to have come into vogue and I’m not sure exactly what that means, maybe because it doesn’t really mean anything. How would you define feminism as it stands right now in ’09 and how would you say it factored into the creation and conception of the book?
I’ve never used post-feminism because feminism is still active. It’s something that will never go away. It’s very important to the book, although I only use the word feminism twice. I didn’t want to be doctrinaire or dogmatic, what girls are naturally doing by picking up guitars and forming bands is naturally feminist. I didn’t feel I needed to come in and be like ‘Girl power…you’re doing it….fighting the patriarchy…that sort of thing.’

I’ve always felt like that sort of approach had a latent condescension to it.
Well yeah, what they’re doing is naturally feminist and I’m not trying to shy away from that. Girls will find it on their own, they’d don’t need me to the old riot girll shoving dogma down their throat…’L7 was the end all be all’….she says from her walker.

However, it did bum me out a few years ago in that Rolling Stone interview where Jenny Eliscu asks Avril Lavigne, ‘are you a feminist’ and she’s like, ‘what’s that.’ It’s such a fucking bummer that people are scared to call themselves a feminist. All it is is the belief that you’re equal to them, it’s not the myth of the hair legged feminazi that’s been shoved down their throat.

You’re saying it’s less something inherently antagonistic, but more a matter of self affirmation.
Absolutely. I was raised by a feminist mom and I didn’t know that I was a feminist because I came up in an environment where I was always pro-choice and interested in the rights of women. I was very conscious of the injustices upon women whether it was in my 6th grade class or the world, and when Riot Grrl came along that saved my ass. I remember when my major authorities on rock were two dudes on the JV Bowling team who sat next to me in Health. They were a band and Knew…then Riot Grrl came along and said you don’t have to listen to them, your own voice is your authority, your own voice is a powerful thing. And that kept me from having to be in a Doors cover band. That was a terrible future, two dudes wearing Red Hot Chili Peppers shirts.

Suddenly, I was greeted by the open encouragement of ideas. You can do this however you want to do this. By virtue of being a fan of Fugazi and Bikini Kill and Hole and Babes in Toyland, and The Clash, I felt empowered. Those bands were doing things their own way and I felt so lucky to have that network of girls embodying radical feminism.

What do you think it was that led to the rather moribund stretch of girl rockers during the late 90s and most of the 00s?

For a long time, people would say Riot Grrl didn’t pan out, but that always a really strange assumption for me. Sure, Bikini Kill broke up and Le Tigre did too, before they got back together. But I’ve done tons of interviews with girls who grew up on Riot Grrl, there are so many people who cite them as an influence. Annie Clark from St. Vincent started playing when she was 14 and described herself as a Riot Grrl stalker. Melissa from Screaming Females was a huge riot grrl fan. It’s wonderful to see all these different bands coming down the pike, girls who are 19-22 and are incredibly driven musicians thinking really big. They’re not just out going and saying I’m a feminist, they’re post riot grrl musicians and their empowered natures are the long lasting effect of Riot Grrl—they’re the legacy, that girls can keep up with the boys, and that’s rad.

Hip-hop also used to be partially defined by girl groups from Salt and Pepa and JJ Fad to solo artists like MC Lyte, Da Brat, The Lady of Rage, Queen Latifah. Lately, there’s been an increase in girls rapping, particularly those down the Jerkin’ movement in LA. It seems the downturn wasn’t just endemic to rock.

Definitely, and I don’t want to be too Rockist where I’m like guitars will liberate us all, we need girl MC’s as much as girl drummers. I’m really psyched that Mac Books are now coming with Garage Band, because I hope it will inspire girls to get into production.

Do you think it was just a matter of it being a cyclical downturn or was it more a matter of it being a cultural by-product of the times?
It’s hard to say whether it was just the belief that during the Clintonian arm chair years, we don’t have to work for anything because shit’s fixed, or maybe it was because we had bigger fish to fry. But there was this long declining stretch of women involvement, whether it was hip-hop or emo, sure we have Hallie from Paramore, but I know that during that era a lot of women just got frustrated and started DJ’ing or remixing.

But I really feel like the accessibility of technology will make it so that we’re just at the beginning. Young women have the tools know so that they don’t have to wait for some dude to say ‘yeah, I’ll record your band.’ Even watching American Idol, they can see some generic singer and be like, ‘hey, that can be me.’

If you could distill the book down to a few basic tips, what would they be?
It can be really hard to get a band together when you’re young, so just try playing with anyone who’s available. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your emo cousin who plays the flute or someone who’s a new player. All experience is good experience—playing with other people who are just beginning means that you can explore a bunch of weird ideas, playing with people who are better than you makes you a better musician.

When you first buy equipment, don’t buy the fancy stuff just get what works. As you learn your instrument, and develop a style you can upgrade. If you play piano, it’s really easy to switch to drums. You don’t need to be Jimmy Page to start a page. If you have a viola, you can make it work. Just start doing it, don’t wait.

Download:

ZIP: Jessica Hopper’s Mini-Mixtape to Accompany the Girls Guide to Rocking   (Left-Click)

1. Sandie Shaw-”Your Time is Going to Come”
2. Dominique Young Unique-”Music Time”
3. Cacaw-”Snakehead”
4. Mika Miko-”Sex Jazz”
5.  IUD-”Daddy”
6. “Lily Allen-”The Fear” (Son of Vader Remix) ”
7. Glasser-”Apply (Tanlines Remix)”

Question in the Form of an Answer: A Conversation With DJ Quik & Kurupt

Interview starts with a perfunctory, “how are you doing,” and segues into:

Quik: Man, I’m feeling great. We just finishing up lunch—drinking these Italian beers, you ever had a Menabrea. It’s like a cross between an Amber and a coffee-colored ale. We Patron heads so usually don’t drink much beer, but we feeling great.

How did you guys come together to make BlaQKout?

Kurupt: We was working on this record for Snoop’s album, and it was so banging we figured we should just make a whole album together. Quik was like, we can really do this, so we just locked up in the studio whenever we had the time and were off the road. It’s definitely got that classic Quik production, but I like that he took a different turn with his sound, and there’s just that chemistry between us that’s so good.

Quik: The first thing that I remember hearing from Kurupt was this song called “Sooo Much Style.” I was like this dude is hard. I knew Dogg Pound was going to blow and we toured and did all those shows together with 2Pac. But then it really hit me when I heard his collaboration with Battlecat on “We Can Freak It.” I had a $25,000 sound system in the trunk of my Ford Explorer. I think that record busted all the sub-woofers. I was a little mad at Battlecat for that.

I never lost that respect for him. He makes the kind of records that get better with time like a Pinot Noir, a real dope red wine. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice, so we tried to make our own Tesla Coil and bottle our own lightning.

Listening to BlaQKout, you get the sense that you guys were trying to impress the other when creating the album. Is that a fair assessment?

Quik: Knowing that I was working with Kurupt, Young Gotti, Gotti Sinatra, knowing that I’m working with one of those top-caliber MC’s made me want to dig deeper and bring him diamonds that I knew he’d like. Without being pretentious, I didn’t want to give him Cubic Zirconium, I wanted to bring him diamonds. I always thought of the beats as jewels, some you sell, some you don’t. I do this from the heart—they’re real, and they’re fast, and they’re different.

I tried to make the sort of stuff I wanted to rap to. I didn’t want to waste his time. The fact that he was there to challenge me made me develop them and finish them and keep them, and that’s what I like about Kurupt—he’s got this disciplinarian instinct. He’s not going to rap over some bullshit.

Where would you rank Kurupt among the great rappers of all-time?
Quik: He’s not just a great West Coast MC, he’s a great MC. If I had to rank them, I’d say the God Rakim, Nas, 2Pac, Biggie, Jay-Z, Kurupt, Snoop and Ice Cube, not in any order. Those is my motherfuckers and that’s what it is.

Kurupt, where would you place Quik?
Kurupt: You’ve got some producers that you’re going to have to bring it because they only make heaters. There are those dudes where you just have to do you and hand in the proper record, and from there, you know they’re going to bring it home like the Lakers. I’ve worked with so many great producers, but Dre and Quik is of a different caliber.

What about Pete Rock, you had the opportunity to work with him on that “Yessir” and on the Soul Survivors album. How does he compare?

Pete’s my guy. He’s also one of those producers who’s going to bring it home. Me and Pete have been working since he sent me the beat that we did with Deck. He always sends me heaters. We’re planning on doing our own album in the future because he’s on another level too.

[Quik interrupts.]

Quik: Kurupt, I’ve got another idea. I think I can get a Premier beat and I can mix it and you can rap on it.

Kurupt: Primo is dumb off the top. I wouldn’t even think twice about doing that.

Quik: Also recently, I had the opportunity to make a beat with J Dilla’s old drum machines. I was working with Illa J, Terrence Martin, and Frank Nitty, and we were working with the stuff that Dilla left to his younger brother. I was completely in awe. I didn’t want to mess with his stuff, he was just the greatest.

What was it about Dilla’s music that you felt so intensely?
Quik: This dude was just inspired. We helped start this hip-hop thing, I was making beats way before Dilla, but when I first heard Dilla, you just knew he was something special. His pocket was so different and unique. I still listen to his old beats all the time and wish he was here.

Kurupt: I had the opportunity to work with him on the first Slum Village album.

Quik: I’m very jealous of you Kurupt. Remember when we first hooked into Slum Village, it was just like when we got into The Brand New Heavies and didn’t want to listen to anything else.

Kurupt: That sound was crazy.

Quik: How did he do that and where did it come from? I didn’t know Midwest people could work it like that. It was a movement that Slum Village shit. It changed my whole hook up, it got me into Kweli and Hi-Tek. I was really fucking with Hi-Tek, I went deep cover. I felt the movement happening without my help. That shit was underground and I had to stick my head underground like an ostrich to see what for going on.

But in a way, even though much of your careers were spent on major labels, you and Kurupt have always seemed to be underground artists? How were you able to retain that balance?

Quik: For me, being a welfare kid I always wanted to keep a low profile and that transitioned into my character. I became underground by being a creature of habit. I always wanted to be a DJ not the MC. I wanted to put artists out in front of me; I wanted to do their beats and watch them perform and blow up. I ended up having to be an MC, but I always thought of myself as an MC coach who performed at the same time. I like to be underground, making music. I’ve spent a lot of time in the basement trying to music, do beats.

Not to go back to being up in Illa J’s house and playing records from Amoeba, and listening to them and digging through the crates with Stanton vinyl and playing them on the Technics 1200. That’s underground to me, that’s still the realest.

One of the most interesting things about the new record is that some of the beats rank among the most uniquely weird that you’ve ever done—in a good way. How did a record like “Jupiter’s Critic and the Mind of Mars” come about?

Quik: That was the solo record. I could’ve done a funk record, or a perverted rap record, but I didn’t feel like it. It’s about expression, you’ve got to look at it from a comical sense. Roger Troutman used the talk box because he didn’t like his voice, so he used it to create a caricature of himself. That’s what the T-Pains and Wayne’s of the world do. If you get tired of it, then they’ll stop clowning around with the auto tune and fuck you up. To me, it’s another medium, it’s another tool, it’s a three headed bridge.

Kurupt: That’s that new thing. Quik didn’t stick to the regular old sound or what’s hot right now. We made our own. That’s “Jupiter’s Critic and the Mind of Mars.”

Quik: It’s me talking about hip hop without being me. I’m the critic, the journalist online. I’m the blogger who can say dumb things that he would never say to your face. He’s not a known journalist on TV, having to stand beyond his words. He’s a blogger in the musical world. It’s a new technology, I made that using batteries. I could’ve used auto-tune, I was taught the voice box by Roger Troutman. Instead, I used a ring modulator, and disguised my voice using an envelope trigger. There are crazy things that you do do if you do a little thought and get involved. You have to be weird. It’s like riding a motorcycle and popping a wheelie at 90 mph.

How can you really rap serious at that tempo? You’ve got to make yourself a caricature at that speed. It’s like doing the funnies and drawing a big George Bush with huge ears and clowning.

Kurupt: The crazy thing about that record is that Quik used a Geiger counter to make it. How did you make music out of a radiator thing? That’s very creative?

Quik: It’s like what I’m eating now, a filet of sole with really dope mushroom sauce, she’s having linguine cacciatore and I’m having some spaghetti marinara.

Kurupt: Ah man, you trying to make Jeff and me hungry?

[Quik cracks up.]

Quik: Man, it was just really dope to make. I put a battery in it, and put the R-test Plugin rocking the Pro Tools and it worked out. I was just trying to keep it funny. My kids love that record.

What do you guys think about the next generation of LA rappers coming up right now. Kurupt, did you hear “Kurupted,” the tribute song that K-Dot put out a little while ago?

Kurupt: Yup, K-Dot’s my dude. Him, Nipsey Hussle and Jay Rock putting their foot in this thing makes me proud to be from the West and have this talent game really setting it off again.

Quik: And the Game, as much as I disagree with his decision making, he definitely helped usher it in. He’s built on your mainframe Kurupt. I don’t think Dre would’ve given him the time of day unless he was close to what he was getting in terms of your talent.

Kurupt: One thing about the East Coast is that there’s a lot of feeding, everyone’s using the same energy and just like how we got started by feeding of Quik and Eazy, that’s the way I look at Game. He’s one of the tightest MC’s in the world, and it feels good when I hear his music. He reminds me of myself.

Quik: He earned it. I had the opportunity to tour with Snoop in Europe on the How the West was Won tour and I watched Kurupt make Game a man onstage.

Kurupt: Man, me and Game had a ball. Everyone was enjoying themselves.

Quik: We live for that as hip hop heads.: Y’all made magic that was unique just for that tour. It hasn’t been even been put on record yet.

Kurupt: Snoop and Game’s chemistry is off the charts. That’s what made that such a great tour. Just to work with legends like that makes me feel proud.

Quik: Remember when I introduced Game to Snoop. I did that, I watched them shake hands for the first time.

Kurupt: History is all around the board. It feels good to see the type of West Coast love. We all worked hard to get to this point and earn some respect, not just for the music but to also get respect for the artistry.

Quik: It’s a craft.

Kurupt: What I like about K-Dot, Nipsey and Jay Rock is that you can hear the hunger in their voices, and that’s what it’s about. There was a time when we didn’t get a lot of respect. Personally, I think DJ Quik is one of the most underrated MC’s in the ballgame.

Quik: When I die they’re going to finally give me props, like I’m Rembrandt or Jim Morrison.

Was it frustrating to you that no matter how much love the West Coast showed you, you never earned steady radio play in the East?

Quik: The east Coast didn’t start playing my records until I formed the Fixxers. That was my biggest record over there. Although, when the Source ran the biggest hip-hop records of all time, they said “Tonite” was 21, and “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang was 28, and you know how big “Cream” was. It was so high voltage out here though when I did “Tonite,” I don’t know what it did over there, but L.A. was so turped up whenever they’d heard that record.

Kurupt: I’m from the world where I had Quik’s first mixtape. That’s what they also don’t know. He put out a mixtape first for the underground heads and they was tearing up the streets, eating us alive. Quik’s always been a trendsetter. Whenever we do our shows, he and I just turn the place into a crazy party.

Quik: It’s left-right, left-right like Muhammed Ali’s hands. He’s the aggressive one, and I’m the party dude. When you hear the records on-stage, you can feel that left vibe. We’re opposites, yin and yang, and it works well. People just straight party at our shows. Sometimes, we’ll have a live band and start writing new songs right up there on-stage.

It seems like live bands are in vogue in rap right now, but Quik, you’ve been working with bands for years both live and in the studio. Do you feel ahead of the curve in that regard?

I’m humbled, and don’t want to let my nuts hang. I grew up watching bands. I was a big fan of the whole battle of the bands thing and that’s how you find your niche. There are some people that can go solo and others have to do the whole band thing. But it’s really about the camaraderie with you and your band, and making sure the crowd is into it. I remember watching Earth, Wind and Fire and Parliament just cranking it out and killing shit.

I always felt that I could do the same thing, even though I’m not a great singer. I wouldn’t put myself in the top 10 or 12 as a rapper either. But I’m a producer—now I’m a music director. The full band allows you to express yourself. Music is the only language that doesn’t need to be translated. It feeds people’s families too. We’re all jazz musicians at heart—it feeds talented people, allows them to have a burger and a glass of red wine. At the end of the day, that’s how I see myself, as a jazz musician.

There were rumors that you and Suga Free were going to go back to working with each other again? Is there any truth to them?

We haven’t worked together yet, but we’ve buried the hatchet. Truthfully, right now, I’m kind of busy. I just started working on my next solo record, but there ain’t no hate there. It may happen if the right opportunity presents itself. I did discover the guy after all. He’s an incredibly talented and funny MC. But right now, Kurupt threw me a big old gigantic football and I’m going to run with it. Not to diss Suga Free, but working with him just gets me the West Coast. Working with Kurupt gets me the whole world. I know I’m working with cats like Illa J, J Dilla’s little brother just as a result of working with Kurupt.

You guys both worked extensively with 2Pac. How did his influence affect both of you?

Kurupt: When Pac came to Death Row, it totally shifted the entire ballgame for us. Our work habits completely changed.

Quik: I saw it happen.

Kurupt: It used to be that we’d sit there the entire day in the studio, just partying and smoking blunts, and we’d only get one verse or a song done. Pac came in with a military mindset, he made us realize that this ain’t a game, and it’s about making all the music you can make in the short time you have on earth. He helped us get into a pattern where we started making two or three records a day. It was so much fun, he changed our entire mindset, he lit that fire, and made us say, ‘lets go for the championship. Let’s make this happen. We all loved him so much

Quik: Before I met Pac, I saw his tenacity, which was insanely fierce toward the end of his life. I always saw my songs one at a time, until I recorded with him and I started making 14 a day just fucking with him. I’d been doing my thing for a long time at that point and I was like, “Who is this fire starter to get me to change the way I did my business?” He really made me figure out the best usage of my available time, and got me on a wholly new personal clock directed toward constantly making music.

He fertilized us with his influence. He was one of those growing crazy growers, the way that n***a spread his game. I always looking forward to working with him. Whenever he was in the studio, he’d rap for an hour straight. Suddenly, whereas it took me six to eight hours to make beats, I was making them it in two.

What do you think it was about him beyond mere work ethic that yielded such a dramatic influence on everyone from artists to fans.

He didn’t come from a place where it was about money, he worked hard the money would come later. He’d get his revenge in his work. He was about changing the world, and he let people know, it’s okay to be eccentric, it’s okay to be weird, it’s okay to express yourself. People would say that he was crazy or bipolar. My experiences with him didn’t show not, it was like he knew that he wouldn’t be here forever, but wanted to make sure that every second that you were in his presence you’d never forget it, and I never have—whether we here drunk in the club, or smoking the biggest blunts of that purple shit. He was a general.

Is there anyone who reminds you of him in contemporary hip-hop?
Lil Wayne is the only person I could say who reminds me of Pac in terms of his work ethic. I hear a lot of him in Young Gotti. He was as close with Pac as anybody and I see him carrying on his spirit.

You guys have pretty deep catalogues, but do any albums or songs stand out in particular as favorites?

Kurupt: My favorite is Dogg Food. That’s what kicked things to the next gear for me, and it was my first opportunity as an artist to really shine. And it went triple platinum.

Nowadays, a lot of veteran artists turn to the independent game, but with “Kuruption” you were one of the first popular records to turn to the independent record. You must have done pretty well for yourself.

Quik: He had three gold albums, 1.5 million units sold, all under the radar with no overhead.

Kurupt: You know what, it taught me a lot about this game, how to do it on my own. I learned how to do it without all my homies with me, without a crutch. It’s easy to be successful when you have Dre and Snoop with you. When I did those three records it was a big old relief that I could do it alone and still be heard.

Quik: If I had to pick be one album it would be Quik is the Name. My best selling record was Way 2 Fonky, and Safe and Sound might be the purest amalgamation of my sound., while Rhymthmalism and Under the Influence are a whole different thing entirely.

But if there was one record that I could listen to and enjoy the most, it’s basically my first record. That’s record that introduced us all to the world. I brought a bunch of artists along with me who had careers and are eating right now. Although I’m pretty enamored with BlacQKout and the way I’ve been able to use all the new technologies to make music.

What do you think it was about the chemistry between you and Kurupt that allowed for such a seamless blend?

Quik: It’s organic — we created this without a mold. “BlaQKout” wasn’t based on what we’ve done in the past; it was about do we go backward or forward or do we revel in the present?

I wanted to be in the present and figure that people will all get it later. “9 X Out of 10” is a template that reminds me of “Follow the Leader” or even “Move the Crowd,” it reminds me of one of those records where you’re like, “this is crazy.” I remember when I heard “Eric B. for President” for the first time; that was when I knew the world was changing. Or when I heard Slick Rick or Doug E. Fresh or Wreckx-n-Effect. I knew I was hearing something new. Or when I heard the Wu-Tang. I knew that if those got in, we could all be out of business because that was some wild stuff.

Or when I heard Dre, I knew that he had taken everything he knew about music and mixed it with a social political aspect. It was like mixing Nirvana and the Roots. When you hear certain things, sometimes they strike you as, “Why didn’t I think of that?” With the intro to “BlaQKout and “9X Outta 10,” they motivate me to keep going and trailblazing. Guys like Kurupt and Snoop will tell me the truth. The best thing about working with Kurupt is that he won’t rap to something he doesn’t like. He won’t sacrifice his morals and that keeps me disciplined and looking to the future.
What about the beat for “Hey Playa?” Are you a big fan of Moroccan music?
Quik: Actually I listen to a lot of Moroccan and Punjabi music so I can make sense of it when I use it for beats. That’s how I made Truth Hurts “Addictive,” it didn’t make sense until I had a moment of enlightenment and went a-ha and mashed it into a dance floor record.

I’ve been listening to a lot of out of the outside the box music, a lot of jazz, Moroccan, African hip-hop built on ska, but it’s hot.

What are your goals for the future?

Kurupt: We got a lot of things left to do. I’m back having fun at this game and that’s the most important thing to me. Next, I’ve got to finish up my own solo album and then Quik’s and get ready for another record between the two of us.

So we can expect a BlaQKout 2?

Quik: It’s up to Kurupt, it’s not going to be called BlaQKout 2 though, we’re not going to get stuck, we’re going to find a new , not going to be stuck.

Kurupt: It’s always going to be DJ Quik and Kurupt, we’ll hit another plateau and just keep going, being more creative, finding new sounds, we’re not going to stick to one thing. The skies the limit, I feel like I’m on fire now, loving everybody for their support, and excited to do some more music.

Quik: My n***a that’s beautiful—tabernacle. That’s the real meaning, you mix the light one with dark one, and you black out and try to remember it all the next morning.

Download:
MP3: Tha Dogg Pound-”Sooo Much Style”
MP3: Kurupt-”We Can Freak It”
MP3: Erick Sermon ft. DJ Quik & Kurupt-”Focus”

ZIP: DJ Quik-The Red Tape (Quik’s First Mixtape from 1987)
ZIP: America’z Most Complete Artist: The Best of DJ Quik mixed by Matthew Africa

A Reunited Pharcyde Discuss Breakups, Makeups and J Dilla

There’s something sad about watching a once-great group sing old songs because nobody wants to hear the new ones.  Except The Pharcyde don’t have new ones, even though they’ve been “reunited” since last year’s Rock the Bells–which means that their performance at at the Santa Monica Pier last Friday was solely to cash a check. How do I know? Because it was for an event called The Coors Light Cold Front Jam–the only other option is that they were paid in kegs.

Still, I could listen to “Passing Me By,” “Ya Mama,” “Runnin,” “What’s up Fatlip?” “Drop” et. al, performed until I have a glass eye with a fish in it–even though the quartet was rapping next a stand that sold mackerel bait. I spoke with Imani and Slimkid3 for the Times, about everything from the inspiration for “Passing Me By,” to their love of Korn (?), to the amount of hallucinogenics they ingested in the early Clinton years. As usual, the B-Sides are after the jump.

LA Times: A Reunited Pharcyde Discuss Breakups, Makeups and J Dilla

MP3: Pharcyde-”Westside 242″ 
MP3: Pharcyde-”Y (Be Like that?) (Jay Dee Remix)
MP3: Pharcyde-”Passin’ Me By (Fly as Pie Remix)”

MP3: Fatlip-”What’s Up, Fatlip?”

Do you guys all still live in Los Angeles?

Slimkid3/Tre: I live in Portland. I like it up there, it’s a change for me. My family’s still down here, but I’m just re-building, I’m got a DJ night up there, and I’m just falling back in love with music again.

Had you fallen out of music?

Tre: You never stop loving music, but you grow to hate the business. It jades you. From the dumbass promoters, to the label executives. It’s like a regular love affair, sometimes you’re in love, sometimes you’re out of it. But you always have those mash-out moments, when you need to express what’s inside of you through song.

Imani: When I look at Tre moving up north, I think it like a dude taking his religion and spreading the word. He’s taking a fertile new ground and assimilating them to his background, which is 56th and Central, Gardena, South Central Los Angeles. He’s spreading the thing. love with the

Music is a beautiful thing, you never fall out of love with music. There’s always another love song to write, the perfect party song. Music allows you to take any angle, from a political mindstate, to just chillin’ riding on suckers, to music to make babies to.

Was it extremely frustrating for you guys to drop an album like Labcabincalifornia, only to see it get mixed reviews and limited commercial success?

Imani: Well, that’s just how it was. When Bizarre Ride hit, it was so layered that it took a while to sink in, and people were upset that they didn’t jump jump on it sooner. The delay was hard for us to swallow. But we had success with “Drop” and “Runnin.” At the time, the stigma was that we were a one-hit wonder, and it solidified us as there to stay. It solidified our legacy, even if people weren’t onto it at the time.

How many of the beats for Illa J’s album were ones that you guys passed on back in the day?
Imani: I don’t remember us passing on any of them. Dilla would just give us hundreds of beats. I have so many of them that have never been heard before.

Tre: There was actually one beat on there that we wanted to fuck with, but on the Illa J album it was really slowed down. I think I’d heard some of them before, but they were revamped and sounded different from the initial version. He had some ill shit though, but there were so many more tracks. He was just a beat rats making beats and beats and beats.

Imani: One thing I remember him always talking about was what a huge D’Angelo fan he was. All he would talk about was D’Angelo and this group that he had called Slum Village, and how dope they were going to be. We’d ask him to play the music and he’d say he didn’t have any. Finally, one day we heard it and were blown away, like, ‘damn, this is the Slum Village he’d been talking about.’

Tre: That albu was so crazy, the cadence over those beats, the way he’d express himself. It was bananas. That shit was way of its time.

What do you think it was about LA in the early 90s that was such a place of creative ferment for rappers?
Tre: We had a lot of creative freedom back then. We were deeply seated in our groove and just living life in our capacity, practicing, and trying to lock down the business stuff as best as we could. So we weren’t really focusing on what else was going on. You’d hear shit and either like it or not. But yeah, Born Jamericans and Masta Ace was always around. Folks was just busy.

We did a lot of stuff with Cypress Hill. B-Real is like a big brother. Them and Korn. We we’d always pay attention to how those guys were doing, and what kinds of business stuff they were being.

You guys also toured around the country on the Lollapalooza 93 tour. Are there any memories that stand out from that trek?

Tre: Green Day. We was around when they were small, and they blew the fuck up. We saw them in their little Winnebago shit, they were doing it punk style, one Winnebago, one hotel room. The next thing you know, they’re the biggest band around. They stayed consistent and focused. Beyond the sparkles and the glitter, there’s a lot of work involved.  People think you do it from the top down, but you do it from the bottom up.

Any other memories that stand out?

Tre: I dunno, there were a lot of mushrooms. So much stuff got lost–I remember going from one stage to the next stage.

How influential were shrooms to the recording of Bizarre Ride?

I don’t want to speak for the rest of the group, and not to say that it was anybody’s crutch or anything like that, but it opening up a way of thinking. It gave a different perspective on life and opened me up to new ideas. I don’t really encourage it, because its not for everyone, not everyone pulls out of those situations, but it definitely was influential for me.

When did you stop tripping?

In those days, I’d always try to wean myself off them to see if I could get the same results by stopping. I wanted to collect the energy and one day, I don’t remember when, I was just able to do the same things naturally. I realized I needed to be grounded, to be connected with all things. I finally stopped drinking and smoking for good around 1999. But those days were a good time. Some people were doing drugs for recreationm, but I did it for the journey. It was definitely a spiritual experience.

You guys were sort of tangentially linked with the Good Life scene. What was the relationship there. Were you guys performing at those shows a lot? Well, we hung out with Freestyle Fellowship a lot. Fatlip actually went to the Good Life a lot. I was doing a lot of other things, so I couldn’t really speak on that, but Fatlip was the dude you shoudl talk to. But our two camps were always intertwined. When we were living at The Manor, Mark Luv, who was our DJ, was always at the spot and at the Good Life. Part of us was always there. It was the same culture and mix, dancing with the Black Eyed Peas, or just grooving. It was all-encompassing.

Where was the Manor located?

At Adams and Budlong. We were all staying in the same house. It was a really cool time. As we grew up, the houses turned into more spots to do our work. Our main spots were usually The Manor, and then the Labcabin, but we’d always have a girlfriend’s  house to crash in, because you just can’t have your girls walking around in the morning in their panties in front of your boys. That’s just out of respect.

What was the real inspiration for “Passing Me By”

That was a beautiful situation. Well at the time our manager/mentor Reggie Andrews owned a place in South Central where we were recording, and it was right at the middle of a really busy intersection where there was tons of traffic. So during the peak hours we’d just take our breaks and stand outside watching the hot chicks get off work. It was like Crenshaw on a Sunday, letting go by, and always, things would be passing you by. It was a true statement–there was always that girl that you wanted to hang out or kick it with, but never know how to pull up the right words or to talk to them really sincerely. I love that song, it will last as long as there’s high schoolers. You know…and there she was passin me by again, but you can never muster up the courage.

Question in the Form of an Answer: A Conversation With Posdnuos of De La Soul

Photo borrowed from LA Weekly, because it’s too good not to re-run.

Only a handful of rap groups can be bandied about as G.O.A.T: Wu-Tang, Outkast, EPMD, Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, UGK, The Geto Boys, and De La Soul. If you need an introduction to Posdnuos, Dave/Trugoy the Dove, and Maseo, you obviously haven’t listened to their seminal first four albums.

Since the release of their last full-length, 2004′s The Grind Date, the trio has largely kept quite,  save for receiving a VH1 Hip-Hop Honors Award, playing last year’s Rock the Bells, and turning the Gorillaz’ “Feel Good Inc,” into a Grammy-winning, radio-conquering smash. This week, the Plug Ones announced their return, with Are You In?, an iTunes-only, Nike Run Mix, that finds them following in the footsteps of Aesop Rock, LCD Soundsystem, and A-Trak.

Full Disclosure Alert:  Cornerstone, the company promoting the collaboration between De La, Nike, and iTunes, sent out press packages with Nike trainers and an iPod loaded with the run mix. I have yet to receive mine, but if you think I was going to turn down the offer, you obviously haven’t seen the decrepitude of my current running shoes.

How did you get involved with Nike in the first place?
Posdnuos: It was 2003, and we were doing San Diego Street Scene. At the same time, we had stepped into an event called ASR, where we ran into some of the SB cats who usually handle skateboarding and surfing for Nike. They were coming down to the Street Scene show, and we exchanged numbers.

Several weeks later, they came up with the idea of us doing a dunk, and that shifted into doing two dunks, and we wound up forging relationships with other entities throughout the Nike corporation—it led to us doing shows for Nike for their marathons, and then one of the key people in the organization, Don Baxter, asked us if we wanted to do a Run album with vocals, like an actual De la Soul album for Nike.

It was great working on the project, and we stand behind it 100 percent. This is a De La album, not something for Nike. We’ll be performing these tracks live, and we feel very comfortable about them.

Are you guys at all into working out?
Some of us are. All of us have dabbled with working out, and we’re very aware of our health. Out of the entire group, I think try to stick with it the most—when we’re on the road, I always hit a gym, try to do some cardio, lift some weights. But like any normal person who works out, it’s hard to be incredibly dedicated when you don’t have someone motivating you. That was the cool thing about working on this project, the project became the second person next to me. I worked out to it, and ran to it.  They even gave it to the Nike runners to run to, and test out.

Mos Def recently compared De La Soul to Steely Dan in the way your music was thought out structurally. Do you agree and if so, can you expound on that idea. It seems that when hip-hop stopped having groups, the songwriting became more limited.

That’s an excellent compliment because I respect Steely Dan’s music so much. We consider them some of the greatest songwriters structurally, and I’d say that it’s hopefully a fair assessment with what we’ve tried to do in our little realm of hip hop. We were blessed to learn a lot from Prince Paul when we first came up and we inspire each other via the formula of always trying to add different things and making sure that the structural plan has an element of surprise. One of the great lessons we learned from Paul is that we’re willing to try trying anything out sonically. We do our best to not just write anything, even a fun song essentially about rhyming, we’ll strain to pick the best antonym, the right verb. We don’t just smoke some weed, write a song, and lay it down immediately.

You mention how valuable Paul was in mentoring De La. I had the chance to interview Busta Rhymes recently, and he mentioned how valuable Chuck D was in guiding his career early on. Do you think this idea of mentoring is absent in the industry today?
Definitely. Back then, you had people like Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen working hands-on and focusing on actual artistry. If you listen to hip-hop today, at least from the artist side, there’s so much business talk. Jeezy talks about handling his paper, and Jay Z too. Maybe its the people surrounding them, who bring in this sort of business element—which is fine—but that doesn’t mean that the creative side needs to lack too. I think embracing the business side too readily can often overshadow the creativity, especially among groups and artists who lack the right mentoring.

This artist might know how to make money, but he might not know how to stay out of trouble, nor how to do a correct stage show. We were blessed to have Prince Paul, or LL to sit us down and drop knowledge on our first big tour, or a Chuck D to sit us down. Doug E. Fresh would see us and give us pointers all the time. It was part of the world they had emerged from, where maybe a Red Alert or a Bambaataa would help the up and coming dudes learn how to become artists. Now it’s like, ‘I signed you, let’s get this money.’

Do you think part of this stems from the complete break-down of the major label system thanks to corporate mergers, the Telecom act, and illegal downloading?

It’s definitely lacking. Even when we signed to Tommy Boy in ’88, you had an A&R dept that helped to the artist and had their repertoire correct. I remember even when they signed Yummy [Bingham], Arista had Sylvia Rhone to make sure that she had people to do her hair, to ensure that she dressed right, conducted interviews properly. Now no one has that unless you’re a mega-star like Beyonce.

Do you feel that a song like “Stakes is High” has become even more relevant today?
I do. I think that the energy we put into that a song was similar to that of what Marvin Gaye put into, “What’s Going On.” I look back on people like that and think about how they had that moment of clarity, where they looked around them and at things decaying in their society—whether it’s music or life, that’s where “Stakes is High” was at. That’s where we were as young fathers and getting along, trying to be some sort of pioneer at what we were doing, looking up to people we were truly respecting.

I’ve always thought that was one of the things that’s enabled De La Soul’s catalogue to be so timeless. It’s this ability to capture a sense of a moment in time, while steering clear of a need to capture a hot trend or ephemeral fad.

Exactly. I think you can break down each album and the making of each album, and freeze-frame it as a snapshot of us at that moment in time. Even down to our name—when we were deciding on a name, I was already thinking about how it would stand up in 20 years. People were adding themselves “Ski’s” onto their name, or they would call try to rip off BDP Crew. Everyone had Crew in their name.

We knew that we needed a need a timeless name, and the same approach went into making songs. It wasn’t about the current dance going on or what iconography was in. That’s what separates groups, take a song like “My Adidas,” Run-DMC picked a company that’s blessed to still be around. They could have just as easily been rapping about their Ellesses. We were definitely trying to write cool, funny songs, rather than dwelling on every symbol that was in.

What’s your plan now, are you guys working on another album?
We are, it’s called, You’re Welcome. We have some tracks already assembled, one is called, “Some Kind of Nature.” We did it with Damon Albarn and it’s dope. We have a song called “Peoples” with Public Enemy.” We had to put it on hold, to get everything technically and creatively right with the Run Mix, but we’re going to head back in the studio soon to try to finish it up.

Are you releasing it on a label, or are you thinking about releasing it yourselves?
We’re blessed to still have people around and talking to us. We’re good friends with Dante Ross, and support what his label is doing. However, we’re looking at putting it out ourselves. We have a great fan-base who supports what we do, and helps keep us keep going in terms of selling albums. Also, the 20-year anniversary of 3 Feet High and Rising came up recently, and we’ve talked to Warner Bros about re-issuing it and adding cool things to it—one of the thoughts was to possibly pair the new album to the re-issue.

Early in your career, De La found themselves pigeonholed as “hippie rappers,” have you paid any attention to the similarly awkward titled hipster rappers, and do you feel they’re being unfairly boxed in.
We were definitely victims of that sort of press—sometimes, it’s easier to understand something with a label, rather than allowing it to be outside of its box and fall where it may. We had a chance to hook up with a lot of them on last year’s Rock the Bells tour, and whether it’s Kidz in the Hall or even someone like Gym Class Heroes, it’s good to see people try to express themselves outside of the norm. It’s at the point, where the press is tired of eating the same cracker.

Now is this a movement? I don’t see it as a movement. These are groups that have a way of expressing themselves—and the labels are now signing them because they see that they might make money. Some will fade out and some will end up having great longevity—out of the pack, I definitely think Wale and Jay Electronica are going to stick around for a long while.

Do you feel that sometimes the emphasis on fashion comes at expense of content?
Yeah, honestly, expressing yourself through clothing in hip-hop, has been around forever. Even that portion of our lives in the 3 Feet High and Rising-era, yeah sure we cut peace signs in our hair, and wore dashikis, but what I loved about it was how we killed it off on the second album. What we are is the sound and how it’s going to continue to grow. We didn’t want people to get stuck on the physical attributes, because so many great groups have gotten stuck like that.

Take a great group like Onyx, the fact that they had bald heads tended to overshadow the music, and by the time their next album rolled around people don’t want to listen. Snoop had to grow out of that and evolve. A lot of groups from the same street didn’t necessarily put gang culture up front. Maybe people didn’t want to keep listening to listen to Jayo Felony—even though he was dope—because they allowed a color, a flag, a rag, a peace sign or the way you cut your hair to be at the forefront of consciousness.

We’ve also looked at lyrics as our anchor, or else–how you look—stifles how far you can can go. Yeah, it was cool to dress crazy, but it had to become more about the music or else who would still care?

You guys have a pretty massive hit with the Gorillaz’s “Feel Good.” Did you see that coming, or was it a huge surprise?
I definitely didn’t see “Feel Good” coming. We knew a little bit about the Gorillaz and shared mutual friends, so when the opportunity to do “Feel Good” came about, we were like, “why not?” They sent us tracks, we heard them, thought they were crazy, etc. The song we ended up picking was “Kids With Guns.” We went out to London and recorded it with Damon and thought it was an incredible song. Our third day of recording, Damon played us “Feel Good,” and everyone thought it was so cool. There were so many clouds of weed smoke around, and Dave just started writing to it, and we had no idea what would come of it, but it turned out wonderfully. Now, the relationship between us and Gorillaz is like family, when we go to London they show us love, when they come to NYC, it’s the same.

How hard is it to please fans of your original, funnier material now that you’ve grown up?
It’s something that we’ve taken under consideration since the first album. We knew that we could make another 3 Feet High, and it was, of course, what Tommy Boy wanted, but they knew that we weren’t going to give it to them.

People have approached me and told me that it took them six years to understand De La Soul is Dead. We fully get that, and now it’s just par for the course, it’s not about trying to capitalize on this atom we split, or something beautiful that we previously made.
People still come up to me at the airport, and they’re like “Potholes in My Lawn is the shit.” It’s good that people appreciate that, and I understand where they’re coming from. For a lot of people, 3 Feet High and Rising was the soundtrack to their youth, and now as we’re aging men and women, we still gravitate towards what we lived when we were in high school and college. Whether it’s De La or Biggie, or what have you.

Random Question: What was the O in Oodles of O’s?
That was something silly that Dave came up with. What’s cool about the group is not knowing what your friend is talking about sometimes. At the end of the day, I just interpreted it as making a song about stuff that ended in o’s. The O endings were the Oodles of Os. When you hear the song, your ears are literally hearing oodles of O’s.

Early in your career, there were stories about y’all fighting dudes on stage. Did people still step up to you guys after you set the record straight on De La Soul is Dead?
In terms of altercations, a lot of artists were victims to that, whether it was us or NWA or the Beastie Boys. On our first big tour, it was us, LL Cool J, NWA, Kane, Public Enemy, and a bunch of other dudes. All of us groups were about protecting each other, because if there were always groups of guys jealous because we had tons of girls around.

De La was no different from Scoob and Scrap or NWA, it was just that we weren’t supposed to fight because we were these ‘hippies.’ We weren’t into fighting or overcompensating, it was about protecting ourselves. If Kane had a beef, we came to the aid of him. Same with Ren and Cube and LL people. Being De La Soul made us stick out like a sore thumb, but really that’s how it was at the time.

How was working with Maceo Parker? The whole Buhloone Mindstate album was really ahead of its time in terms of instrumentation, what are your thoughts on that one years later?
Working with Maceo was amazing. We always considered ourselves students of music, no matter how well known our songs got. To get to work with someone like that who we respected so much, and to hear what he’s gone through in music was a blessing. It was incredibly valuable from a musician’s standpoint to see how a guy like Maceo vibed just like me, Dave and Q-Tip. We saw how masterful they were from an instrumental standpoint, and we ended up getting it all on video, Fred Wesley playing the trumpet, and Maceo on sax, and us, pulling out the pen and writing.

They were just off the charts in their knowledge of music theory and they could put together astonishingly complex pieces in such a short amount of time. They made three songs for us in one day, and they weren’t tossed off, they were well put-together and thought-out songs. We also managed to get a little bit of downtime with them and they’d tell us incredible stories about being on the road, and cutting “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and walking it down to the radio station that same day. They were such sweet gentlemen.

The collaboration with Teenage Fanclub, “Fallin” also sticks out as another ostensibly bizarre collaboration that still stands the test of time. How did that come about?
We actually went to the studio, and they started pairing up different artists, and we could’ve been paired up with familiar names. But we didn’t know who Teenage Fanclub were at the time, so we picked them. When we did the song with them, we were in Scotland, and we had no idea what we were going to do. I think they might have been a little in awe of us at first, but when they saw that we were normal dudes they calmed down. We’re both musicians obviously, so we just started vibing and we happened to be sitting in a little reception area outside the studio, and Tom Petty’s “Freefallin’’ video came on.

I’ve always been the person in the group, who when he hears certain words I take it and apply it to a certain thing. It started as a joke, hey, let’s make a song based off a Tom Petty video. Then Dave said, let’s spin it about us falling off as a rappers. So we went to the store, bought the Tom Petty CD, and based it around the song. Then we got the bassline from “Nobody Beats the Biz,” the Steve Miller sample, and a snippet of Petty’s voice and it came together pretty fast.

What are your thoughts about the current blending between rap, rock, and dance music?
I definitely feel some of the rap/rock stuff is homegrown, and that’s where the trend seems to be going: making these fast keyboard songs to get play inside the clubs. People still say, ‘why don’t we use this’ or make a song like Usher for the clubs, they try to put together a formula because they think it’s what people want to hear. Then you have people like Kanye, who is very honest about what he’s grown up listening to, and what he’s inspired by. Think about it, the most early of forms of hip-hop featured Bambaataa DJing these incredible songs, and the average person didn’t even realize it was a white dude making the record.

We grew up on that first generation of MTV, incorporating stuff like Thomas Dolby, Flock of Seagulls, and Robert Palmer. You’d add it to your life. It’s about the feeling as well as the song. It’s the the energy and that link between hip hop and punk, that energy, that need to rebel, you can feel it in the energy of the music itself. That’s why I love the music. Groups coming up today feel compelled to have this big radio hit, rather than accepting it for what it is. I was watching a Journey video recently, and this is one of the biggest groups ever, and their videos cost little or nothing to make—just footage of them on tour, playing on their tour bus. And here we are, spending millions of dollars to be heard in a club, or to get on 106th and Park. We’ve had BET reject our videos for being too intelligent, but fuck it, we have to do what we have to do.

You mentioned Wale earlier, I don’t know if you heard his “Perfect Plan” cut from his Mixtape About Nothing, but it’s a pretty scathing critique of the fans for not supporting artists properly. What are your thoughts about that, illegal downloading, and how it impairs veteran artist’s ability to make a living.
It comes down to the infrastructure of the music and the fans. I remember when I first was introduced to the Ramones and The Clash, they blew me away. You can find out that some soul artist or something sold more than them put together, but they wouldn’t get the same respect. The problem is we only respect who’s selling records at this moment in time. It’s become a point of bragging for rappers, ‘I sell more records than you.’

“The Blueprint” may or may not have sold as many albums as Ja Rule, but no one’s ever going to tell you that Jay-Z didn’t come harder. Vanilla Ice sold more than all of us, does that negate what we did? Three Feet High and Rising sold more than Criminal Minded, that doesn’t mean I can look down on KRS. Busta Rhymes is incredible whether he goes platinum or wood.

It goes into where hip hop is today. The fans relate to the music knowing how much it sold. Your little cousin knows how many records Lil Wayne sold, but back in the day, kids didn’t know how many records Menudo sold, they just knew that they liked them. Artists become disposable because this year they don’t sell as many records as last year. But that isn’t what the genre is really about, nor is what music’s about. It’s about, do you enjoy the record or not. I have no idea how many records, Aja sold, I still know that It’s one of my favorites, whether it sold more than Countdown to Ecstasy or Pretzel Logic.

Are there any goals left you still haven’t achieved/what can we expect from y’all in the future?
I feel so blessed to be able to keep putting out music, and having people still find out about our music. To understand where we were in ’88 and where we are now, still around, it’s a blessing. I’m going to be 40 this year, and to have people still talk to me about our music means so much to me, it moves and inspires me.

That’s bigger than any award, or getting accepted into the Rock and Roll of Fame. If we do end up accepted there, it will be amazing, we understand what that legacy means. Having my father getting to watch us receive the VH1 hip-hop honors award was an amazing and truly humbling experience for me. To have anyone take the time to allow you to be a part of their life, I feel truly blessed. To have you take this 45 minutes to listen to me, means a lot. I don’t know you, or the people who read this, but for us to have this common ground, and for y’all to care what I’m doing and documenting—that’s an incredible reward.

Download:
MP3: De La Soul-”Big Mouf”

Question in the Form of an Answer: A Conversation With Mulatu Astatke

Rivaling Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Franco, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and a handful of others, Mulatu Astatke ranks among the most influential African musicians of all-time. The father of Ethio-Jazz, the Berklee-trained Mulatu, was the first of his countryman to fuse American jazz and funk, with native folk and Coptic Chuch melodies. The leading light of the “Swingin’ Addis-”era, Astatke is often acknowledged as the star of the epic Ethiopiques Series, At least, according to filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who included songs from the Mulatu-arranged and composed, Vol. 4, in his ode to midlife melancholia, Broken Flowers.

His latest album, Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics-Inspiration Information 3, finds him collaborating with the titular UK-based jazz-funk eight-piece. Born out of a serendipitous turn that led to the band backing Mulatu’s first UK  gig in 15 years, Mulatu and the Stones Throw-signed outfit decided to record a new album composed of originals and re-worked older compositions. Released yesterday on Strut, the finished product ranks among the year’s finest, and adds another succesful chapter to Mulatu’s unimpeachable legacy.

How did you and Heliocentrics decide to collaborate the first place?

I was in Boston, lecturing for the music academy [from 2007-08, Astatke had the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard University, where he worked on modernizations of traditional Ethiopian instruments and unveiled an opera, "The Yared Opera."] Karen P invited me to play a show on London, so I did There wasn’t much time to meet with Heliocentrics. We only had one day of rehearsal, but after the show was over, we felt we should collaborate. The album was very hard work. It was recorded in just 10 days, in the Heliocentrics studio in London.

How would you compare the chemistry you had with the Heliocentrics, with Either/Or Orchestra?

It’s not clear. They’re a different band, one who I’d been with for a long time. It’s a different groove, different passion. I like both, and that’s why I felt connected, and it came off authentic. The music reflects the connection.

During the 1970s, Ethiopia was ruled by a fairly repressive government. How did the political situation affect your music?

It didn’t. I’ve always said, ‘leave the politics to the politicians.’ It takes all kinds of professional people to build a country–my role is to develop the culture and introduce the whole world to Ethio-jazz.

You’ve spoken in the past about meeting Duke Ellington in the early 1970s. What was the experience like? Did you play together? Talk about music? Exchange tips?

I was assigned by the Embassy to be Ellington’s escort while he was in Addis. We both stayed at the Hilton in Addis and, whatever he needs or wants to know about Ethiopia, I was his guide. I had always admired him as an arranger, composer and bandleader. During my music studies, I had analyzed his work in detail. During his visit, I showed him some of the cultural musical instruments, which he found really interesting. Some of our cultural musical players jammed with Ellington’s guys – we went to the U.S. Information Centre in Addis and played together. I then took him to the King’s palace and he was given a medal by Emperor Heile Selassie. It was a big ceremony.

We were due to play an evening concert so I discussed with him if he would consider playing one of my arrangements. I wrote an arrangement of ‘Dewel’ for his band, a different version which included some beautiful voicings on the horns. He found the structures so interesting and I remember him saying, ‘This is good. I never expected this from an African’. He made my day. His visit to Ethiopia remains one of the greatest moments in my life.

What was the inspiration to create Ethio-jazz. In addition to your American counterparts’ jazz fusion styles, what native influences and past Ethiopian composers helped inspire the new sound?

During the mid-’60s, no one was really fusing Ethiopian music with jazz. There was Heile Selassie’s First National Theatre Orchestra and the police and the army had orchestras. Then there were bands like the Echoes and the Ras Band. The musicians at the time were playing melodies around the four Ethiopian modes using techniques like ‘cannon’ forms, with melody lines echoing each other. With Ethio jazz, I consciously wanted to expand and explore the modes. My music brought in quite different harmonic structures and a different kind of soloing.

You’ve amassed an incredibly rich discography, but do any records or songs stand out as personal favorites?

‘Dewel’ would definitely be one. ‘Mulatu’s Hideaway’ and ‘Yekermo Sew’ of course. I’m always really happy that these older compositions stand the test of time. At my recent European gigs with the Heliocentrics and in L.A. at the recent ‘Timeless’ concert, the reaction is still so great when I play these.

Does it feel rewarding that American culture has finally discovered the music from Ethopia in recent years. If so, why do you think it took so long?

It’s been so nice, yes. America is a country of privileges for people. To have access to that privilege and have the opportunity to record Ethio-jazz all those years ago is something I always appreciate. I’m not sure why it took so long. I personally was never discouraged, I always just kept on playing. It needed people to find the original music and make it available in the right way. The ‘Ethiopiques’ series and film director Jim Jarmusch (‘Broken Flowers’) gave it a great chance to be heard and Karen P, Strut Records and the Heliocentrics are carrying the flame forward. The live shows I do now have shown me how this music is now accepted all over the world. It gives me great encouragement and I love to do this for Ethiopia and for Ethiopian culture. Ethiopia itself is slowly waking up to the music too. Africa is emerging and Ethio-jazz is in the best position to fly the flag for the future of Africa. I really believe that.

Are there any young and notable Ethiopian musicians that you’ve worked with, whom you think may not have yet crossed over but should?

I play with a number of different musicians at my club in Addis, the African Jazz Village. There’s one kid who plays there on Saturdays called Bebesha, a guitarist. He has a good future and he is a great fan of Ethio-jazz.

You recently completed a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. Can you talk about what led you to pursue that, and your work on the project?

This has been great for Ethio jazz. The idea was to write a book of what Ethiopia has contributed to development of music and arts. During my time there, I made a lot of talks to 30 fellows of Harvard, with three other composers, some from Japan. We had great researchers and professors. As a team we gave presentations and discussed at length the development of classical music and jazz and the music, customs and instrumentations happening in Ethiopia that pre-date all of this by many centuries. I had written an opera based on music from the Ethiopian Coptic church, which was analyzed. My time there finished with a great evening of Ethio-jazz and a performance of the opera with Either/Orchestra.

After Harvard, I later won an Abrowsie Grant to go to M.I.T. We did a lot of experimental work there. Most Ethio musicians tend to pick up the guitar as a starting point and, at M.I.T., I was looking to upgrade the krar (Ethiopian stringed instrument) to be able to play Western 12-tone music. For me, this is an essential step in encouraging Ethiopian musicians to stick to our culture.

Are you working on any new music currently? If so, what sorts of things?

Yes, I have recorded a group of tracks for a new album, which I have called ‘Mulatu Steps Ahead’. It’s more reflective and jazz-based than the album with Heliocentrics but I’m really pleased with it. It takes Ethio-jazz into another new direction.

How has the creative process evolved for you as you’ve gotten older?

I suppose I have learned to place Ethio-jazz into different situations. From essentially experimenting with the first recordings during the ‘60s, I have since adapted the music to write operas and soundtracks for a lot of Ethiopian plays, including a major piece for the National Black Arts Festival in Nigeria. I have tried to keep an open mind with my music and have been lucky enough to play with a lot of wonderful artists in many different situations. It has all helped to keep the music fresh, I hope.

 What achievements are you most proud of?

The Ellington visit to Ethiopia and accompanying concert will always be a highlight. For my own music, just to see the interest today and the way it still excites people all over the world is very special.

You’ve worked tirelessly to teach younger generations between your work at the African Jazz Village and Harvard. What do you think it is that draws you to teaching?

I do try and be a kind of ambassador for Ethiopian music and culture and to dispel the myths that have become accepted as fact in the West. In my research around Ethiopian music, I have found people like the Darasha tribespeople who have used a diminishing scale in their music for centuries. In Western music history, this is a technique attributed to Be Bop, to the music of Charlie Parker. It has made me determined to tell the facts as they are to the wider world. We have to find out who came first, how things really happened.

Are there any goals that you feel you have left to accomplish? What do you hope for in the future?

I have a goal to ‘upgrade’ all Ethiopian musical instruments. All of them are based on the 5-tone scale and, over time, I want to re-model them to be able to play the 12-tone scale so we can use them to play Ethio-jazz. I also want to write more music for films and TV and to contribute to documentary programs so more people can view Ethio-jazz and learn about my country’s music heritage.

Download:

MP3: Mulatu Astatke & Heliocentrics-”Dewel”
MP3: Mulatu Astatke-”Metche Dershe”

Question in the Form of an Answer: An Interview with Chef Raekwon

No introduction necessary.

Q: So what brings you out to LA?

A: Just business brought me out here. I have an office set up out here and we’re just out here networking and keeping our minds at peace and just working on the album, staying in the studio. I’m doing a lot of things—dealing with other projects on the side. I’m working on a big documentary about Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, but basically, we just lovin’ the air.

Q: Do you find LA more conducive than NY in terms of handling industry business, networking and all that stuff?

A: Absolutely, there’s just more stuff popping out here. When you think of Hollywood, you think of land the land of opportunity. I always want to have the opportunity to do things conducive to my career. But I’ve spent a lot of time in Cali before.

Q: You guys had a Wu mansion out here for a while, right?

A: Yup, but even outside of the Wu mansion, I lived out here for a year. LA’s always been good to me.

Q: Where do you spend most of your time these days? Manhattan? Do you still have a place in Staten?

A: We spread out right now, I got a couple places in different parts of the country. As far as Staten, no I don’t have a place there anymore.

Q: So let’s talk about Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2, it’s been in the works for a long, long time now, what made you decide to come out with it now?

A: I’ve never been the type of person to jump up and throw out the album without it being what it’s supposed to be. I was doing my thing on other projects that were successful in my eyes, but we decided now to release the album because it’s finally done. I wanted to make a sequel because it’s so highly requested from the fans—and it’s a classic. I’ve assembled the best producers in the game and I felt that now was a good way to come out shining. Rza did his thing on the project, the formula’s still where it’s supposed to be. A lot of people around me are excited and I feel like I know it’s a classic.

Q: It was long slated to be released on Aftermath. What happened there?

A: Well, me and the Label, we couldn’t come to the right terms. Dre had a lot of projects he was working on and you know me, knowing how important OB4CL2 was, I needed him next to me the way I wanted. And at the end of the day, I’m still a big fan of Dre, that’s my dude. We couldn’t come to terms within the company, but we kept a mutual respect and friendship. We both big fans of each and it wasn’t a big thing. I decided to go another way with it because I figured why go somewhere if you know that you’re not going to be the key player in the situation. I can’t afford to do that with this type of record and hey, at end of the day, Dre is on the record.

Q: Did you do any recording for Detox when you were on Aftermath?

A: No, no recording for Detox, not at the moment. Dre is somebody who’s very busy and who works hard like me.

Q: Who contributed beats?

A: I’m just going to give you a brief summary: the Rza, the legendary J Dilla Dr Dre. and just those three elements there, that’s really dangerous, the heat is crazy. But there’s other cats that’s powerful: Pete Rock, Marley Marl came in to do a a crazy track that I love.

Q: When’s the release date?

A: The release date is going to be in March—definitely. We feel good about that time because it’ll give us enough time to spread the word out there globally, not just in the States.

Q: What label are you going to release it on?

A: I’m going to put it out on my Ice Water Inc. label. I’m my own biggest marketing tool. I know the history of the business and I might as well capitalize on it. We built the brand and now we become the new industry. I wanted to have full control of the project and have it be what I wanted it to be. It’s hard to deal with labels who don’t understand you—these guys is looking for ringtone artists and I’m more than a ringtone artists. I’m an icon.

Q: What made you decide to do a sequel to the original OB4CL in the first place?

A: Just based on the fans, people have so much love for that album and the fans said they know I’m one of the top guys in the game. People wanted me to go back to that formula of the drug game, rapping about the dreams that we was having before we made it. And I’m a fan of the original too, it made me who I am today.

Q: So are the themes between the two records similar? Is it a continuation of the original’s loose story line?

A: All I’m going to say is that it’s an underground record. I kept each producer in the zone. We’re going back to what we did before the commercial success, to the early years. I’m still Raekwon on the album, the tracks is so authentic, we went back to the eerie, the stuff that made you look at Wu Tang in the first place. You’d never know that the record had all these different producers if I didn’t tell you, because they came with gritty beats to make a gritty album. We came with a couple energy boosters to get the stadiums jumping but for the most part, it’s the same type of storytelling.

Q: What about guest spots? Is there a lot of Cappa and Ghost like the original?

A: When you think about the old Wu albums, you think about lyrics, strong flows, and production. I wanted to make this a well-rounded album, but not a commercial album. It’s what the people wanted, me back in the kitchen and going back in the pot, that’s what y’all, that’s what y’all gonna’ get. We don’t have no crazy features. I had a good friend come through and do his part, the Game is on the record, he’s a good friend of mine.

Q: By a good friend, did you mean Ghost?

A: Well you know, I’m not trying to copy the first one. I didn’t want to try to be identical, it’s not about me trying to replicate the same album. But yeah, Ghost is on the record, Cappa is on the record, the whole Clan is on the record. That was the first formula we came with when we marketed it the first time and we have same level of respect, they’re all doing their thing. This is the second one, you have to allow new space for new ideas. I made sure that I had my brothers there. You might hear an highlight from someone new and unexpected, someone else who might go off. At the end of the day, that’s what people gotta’ do, open their minds up to creative music. When I look at my favorites, I can’t expect them to make the same shit all the time. You gotta’ see where their head is at, see if they’re still being the same intriguing artist. It’s about staying on top of your game and I think that’s what this album shows. Being game for 15 years, it’s tough to stay coming with a breath of fresh air, but I think I did it.

Some people only may think Cuban Linx is only a classic. I think all my albums is a classic, a lot of those albums got overlooked because of marketing. I might not the be the best commercial artist or the one that’s gonna’ be on the hot remix, but when it comes to albums, I’m in a lane of my own. The crew sounds flawless on the album. I take this lyrical stuff seriously, we’ve always been high conscious, high conscious, a bunch of 007 niggas. Overall, Wu-Tang is always going to be in their own box, that’s what we created. Today’s hip hop, that’s cool but Wu-Tang is Wu-Tang.

Q: Have you gone back and listened to 8 Diagrams since it was released. Are you still disappointed with it?

8 Diagrams wasn’t one of my favorite Wu albums. It was cool, it could’ve been a little more hip-hop, more energetic in certain places. It wasn’t trash. Wu-Tang will never make anything trash. There’s just certain expectations that we all and at the time, we felt that Rza had to recognize it ain’t just you, it’s a team thing. If we weren’t recognizing it as being done, that it wasn’t fair. It did what it did and we still wound up supporting it but our hearts wasn’t in it. It’s like you wanna’ pass the test with a 100, not with a 75. If you get a 75 you pass, but if you ain’t getting a 98 or 99, what’s the point.

Q: Do the think the media blew your comments a bit out of proportion?

A: The media looks at certain things, they look for what they want to look at. They may want you to go somewhere else and wonder why you didn’t stay where you were. Or then, if you don’t chance, they’ll say you didn’t grow. But at the end of the day, it’s all constructive criticism. I know my record is very very important important to anyone who knows what Cuban Linx is.

Q: I’d say that this record and Detox are probably the two most anticipated records among hard-core hip-hop fans.

A: I agree with you on that. There’s something about those two albums—you got two powerful icons and they’re not just settling on just putting shit out. We know what it means to the fans, you can’t go off what someone else may tell you, sometimes you have to listen to yourself and dissect the situation. People sometimes look for what they want they, they might say there’s not enough Ghost or Cappadonna or Rza didn’t do all the tracks, but what does that have to do with it being a classic or not?

Q: I agree, 8 Diagrams might not have been a classic, but it was definitely a good album. I think people just had to adjust their perception of what they expected from the Wu-Tang, it was rap for the symphony hall, not grimey type shit.

A: For sure, that opera shit was cool, it wasn’t all it could be, but all I can be is the best that I can be. When you think of Rae, Rae is the chef. He’ always gonna’ serve all sorts of different dishes. All I can do when I get on the mic is be me. I don’t try to be crzay lyrical one, I’m not Rakim, I don’t try to be Rakim, Rakim’s always going to be Rakim to us. All I can do is be me on these tracks and give that to the world. And I think people is is going to definitely appreciate it.

It’s not about the sales—that’s another thing about fans nowadays. It ain’t about the music, it’s about the RBI’s with everything. That ain’t got nothing to do with hip hop. There were lots of artists back the days who made classic albums who never had a gold record. My thing is that yo man, we hard core forever, whether we on TV or not on TV, we make hardcore music. We make well-rounded music too. If we want to make you cry, we can. We might be a bit dysfunctional, but when it comes to making emotional music, no one can touch the Clan.

Q: So are you not ruling out another Clan album down the road?

A: I’m a fair dude. I’m always going to make it my business to be fair. The Clan made all of us and I’ve never been the one to say that I wouldn’t participate. We’ll see what the future holds.

Q: So are you going to make Purple Tapes of this?

A: I can’t speak on that, but I can tell people that we’re definitely making a Cuban Link bonus DVD for everyone to check out that’s worth a look. At the same time, we’re doing a book called the Purple Book, which is the memoirs of everything that I’ve been through in this game and what the significance of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is. We definitely looking at this project as the launch of a new era. It’s important for people to go back and say, I remember that album and now he going to give us the new one. The younger generation, some may know about it and some may not. I’m doing this for the ones that believed in me from the door, this is for you and I knew I had to give 5,000 percent on this project.

Q: What do you think of the younger generation of hip-hop?

A; I like the fact that kids can make a couple of dollars to make their dreams come true, more than the actual creativity. A lot of it sounds the same, but I don’t want to hate on them. To be honest, I think the younger hip-hoppers are more hip-hop than the commercial artists we got out now. The commercial shit is about branding your name and your swagger. Everything now is about swagger, there’s not art to swagger. Swag ain’t one of my words. Swag vs. art? Stick to the art.

Q: Do you ever feel the need to keep up with the contemporary morays?

A: I don’t to prove it. I’ve always been a fly dude; I’ve influenced a lot people to be who they are. I see the resemblance, I’m one of the creators of that style. Nevertheless, I’m concentrating on giving the people a banging album so strong. I’ve got some of the hardest critics around me and everyone is really feeling it.

Q: So are you done recording?

A: When it comes to the chef, I ain’t never done cooking right until the food is served. I may make a few different changes here and there because I consider myself never. But as far as it not being done, it’s done. Who knows though. I might wake up tomorrow and write a hit Cuban linx. My mind fluctuates when it comes to making this shit. It’s a hard and colorful album.

Q: Is it hard for you to put a fresh spin on stuff that happened to show 20 years ago?

A: Not hard at all. It’s never hard when you experience something. It’s only hard when you haven’t experienced it. To me, it’s a trip down memory lane. It’s more about making sure my production can stand next to me like that.

It’s my thing that you don’t have to act hard to make a hard album and I think that my philosophy was never to make a hard album, I wanted to be Raekwon and make a good album, a tape that channels how I’m feeling, who I am and where I came from. So when it came back time to step into the zone, it took a little bit of time to get the right production. This ain’t no overnight album. I didn’t want to take nobody’s money. I wanted to give everyone a raw prestigious album. It was two and a half years of work and I looked at everything through a fine tooth comb.

Q: You’ve been rapping for 15 years now. Have you given any thought what you’d want people to remember you for?

A: I want people to know that I was a real hip hop fan…I was a real hip hop cat…he want the way he’s supposed to go, he stayed being himself, he didn’t sell his soul to be someone who he isn’t. I want my kids to know their dad was mean with it. I want the fans to remember that I wear many medals, I’m a veteran in the game and that I made good music.

Q: Are your kids thinking about following their father’s path like GZA and Ghost’s sons?

A: My daughter and son are young my to decide where they want to be. If they want to get involved, I’ll support them to the fullest.

Q: Are there any goals you feel you have left to accomplish?

A; The first is to satisfy the world with a classic album. My thing is to uplift this hip hop thing again, maybe I’ll be able to set off another trend of sound. My thing is to really just keep the dignity where it needs to be at, my goal is to make 15 more albums. I feel I’m still at the beginning stage. I’ve only made four albums and I feel I still have a whole lot to prove. I still have the energy and I want people to check out the new project and look for the new mixtape we have coming out.

Q: What’s it called and when’s it dropping?

A: Burning bags; it’s dropping shortly…to be announced. It may come out on the internet

Q: Do you follow the Internet music world pretty closely?

A: Oh definitely, it’s where the masses are it. At the end of the day, I want to reach people from all shades and colors and let them know what’s going on. I’m deeply appreciative of the people. My thing is to keep it rounded, I stay hitting up the steeets, I’m always running around, pollying and bouncing.

Download:
MP3: Chef Raekwon ft. Ghostface-”Necro”
MP3: Chef Raekwon-”Treez”

Dan Love Interviews Freddie Foxxx a.k.a. Bumpy Knuckles

You can normally find Dan Love’s writings at the formidable, From ‘Da Bricks. A native of London, Love knows more about hip-hop than nearly anyone in Britain, as well as maintaining one of the island’s coolest nomenclatures. Take that Dizzee Rascal, if that is your real name.

In an age when rappers can come and go in the time it takes to create a MySpace page Freddie Foxxx represents a saddening anomaly in hip hop. Rapping and producing since the late ‘80s means that the one and only Bumpy Knuckles is now two decades deep in the game and one of only a handful of MCs who can truly lay claim to sticking to his guns throughout. Respect due.

In the wake of the release of his previously shelved LP Crazy Like A Foxxx I had the opportunity to chat to the man and reflect on a career in music, his overlooked work as a producer and the long-standing relationships that see him continue to release bangin’ material to this day. For a nice, middle-class white boy from London the prospect was admittedly a little daunting – a beatdown via telephone connection didn’t seem completely out of the question – but Foxxx proved himself to be a consummate professional and great interviewee. If you can’t be bothered to read the text then there’s audio on offer here too, just try to ignore the bumbling British idiot asking the questions and you’ll be fine.

As a fan I’m really glad that the Crazy Like A Foxxx album has finally seen a release so let’s start with that. What prompted the decision to drop that now?

Well, I was in the studio working on a video documentary that I’ve been working on for the last year and a half and I was looking at old footage of myself during that time, when I was filming ‘So Tough’ and it reminded me of the passion I put into the record at that time. I still had the love for it but I knew the music had changed, but then I started to get e-mails and MySpace messages and requests from fans and people wanted to know what had happened to Crazy Like A Foxxx. I think there was some kind of a leak of a cassette that made its way onto the internet and people were telling me that the quality was really bad. I felt like, you know what? The album is sitting in my studio, I have it mastered, I should give the fans the chance to hear the work and how my mindset was during the time that I recorded the album. So I just decided to put it back out, I thought it wasn’t doing any good just sitting in the studio so I just remastered it and put it out.

And are you happy with how it sounds fourteen years later?

Yea, I mean I didn’t change anything because that would have been fake, you know what I mean? You know I was happy with how it sounded when I was ready to release it: what I was feelin’, what I was talking about was personal so I didn’t want to cheat the fans out of getting what the ’94 experience was that I was having. So I left it just like it was, all I did was remaster the record and gave it to you just like I would have gave it to you in ’94. That’s what people were asking for so that’s what I gave them.

Given that you had the ‘So Tough’ 12’’ drop and the promo tape circulated it must have been pretty close to release. Was it MCA or Epic that pulled the plug on the project?

You know what, I think it was Epic. I wasn’t on MCA, they did Freddie Foxxx Is Here. Epic was the label and I think there was some kind of problem between Flavor Unit and Epic and at the end of the day they pulled the plug on the album and I just happened to have something scheduled for release when that issue happened. So it was cool, I had to do what I had to do and that’s went I went really underground and kept my movement going.

So how come they didn’t want to take the original DITC version? It’s great.

Yea. Flavor Unit was telling me that the album sounded too dark and I was a little offended because I’m a hardcore, underground MC and I was a huge, huge lover of the work of Diggin’ In The Crates at the time, you know what I mean? I was feelin’ Buckwild’s sound, Lord Finesse… I mean Big L was sitting in the studio with us all the time. When I was recording with DITC Big L was at every session. They were always around us. That’s how I learned to sell my music independently is by being around DITC. Then Flavor Unit pulled the project, I mean they paid everybody for all the tracks, but they didn’t use it because they said it was too dark. They were looking for something that was brighter and with a bit more melody in it so I ended up producing the album myself and that was the one they accepted. I was really into the DITC version.

Obviously the beat that was originally used on ‘8 Bars To Catch A Body’ ended up being hugely successful with ‘Sound Of Da Police’. You sore about that at all?

Nah, not at all. You know KRS-One is a very good friend of mine and when they turned the beat down I’m glad that he was the one who took it and made it a success. It’s just an attachment to the ears that I had in the day, like those beats that they were playing me I was thinking that I had the ability to listen to certain things and know what’s good and what’s not. When KRS-One picked that beat I was actually happy for him that he got that track.

I did notice that were still some changes from the hissy promo copy that I got off the internet. The version of ‘So Tough’ with Queen Latifah on it got dropped for the new one, why was that?

Yea, I actually I put a different version on because that was released as a single but I wanted to give you what wasn’t put out, you know what I mean? The one that was put out was the one I didn’t put on there. What wasn’t put out is on the album. So everything that people missed is on the album and then I gave you some special versions that people wouldn’t have expected me to put out to compensate for the fact that that record wasn’t on there.

There’s also the addition of ‘Killer’ with 2Pac that wasn’t on the original promo. Was that recorded during the same sessions and just left off the original album?

Nah, what happened is that 2Pac came to the studio and asked to record that when I was doing ‘So Tough’. Everyone that’s on that album showed up in the studio to record that record, you know what I mean? I still have 2Pac’s lyrics that he wrote down, he signed the paper that he wrote his lyrics on. I always have rappers who do a collaboration with me give me an original copy of their vocals and sign it. I have two different versions of the vocal that he did, you know he said the same rhyme but he said them two different ways. I kind of keep all of that stuff and I did for so many years because I knew that one day I would release this album and I was actually keeping the extra vocal for a remix of it. When he passed away I was like wow, this is a really good friend of mine, a very close friend of mine and I was still able to have his hand-scribed vocal and also have two versions of the rhymes. It wasn’t like an e-mail thing, Pac came to the studio, he performed in the booth that I performed in and that’s why the record is passionate to me because he was actually there, we worked together to do it.

So did you know him from the Digital Underground days?

I met him when he was just leaving Digital Underground.

And it must have been amazing to work with him.

Ah, absolutely, I mean Pac was incredible. Just to sit with him in the studio and see his energy and feed off his energy was incredible. He always had great ideas and did what he had to do and actually got involved. You know there’s a skit before the record ‘Killer’ with him Stretch and everybody and everyone made sure that the vocals sounded right, he really put a lot of energy in there. He was a leader in the studio, not a follower at all.

You’ve got a track with Kool G Rap on there as well and I can’t think of any other collaboration between you two except ‘Money In The Bank’.

Yea, G Rap came in to do that with me and he actually gave me my first chance to collaborate on anybody’s record, the first collaboration I ever did was with Kool G Rap on ‘Money In The Bank’. Me asking him to come and do that for me was definitely a good look for me because G Rap has always been one of my favourite MCs. We worked together, right there in the same studio. I did every record in that same studio, Powerplay in Queens, Long Island City.

And I gotta ask about the Ultramagnetic diss on ‘Crazy Like A Foxxx’. What was that routed in?

My history as an MC was really about battling. I forget what the initial incident was about but there was some kind of a statement made by Ultramagnetic in an article somewhere and I ended up switching the ‘Crazy Like A Foxxx’ record and just dissing them on the record. I know Kool Keith probably came through with some subliminals here and there, but I always have fun with those guys, now when I see them we shake hands and we laugh about it because it was part of our make-up when we were coming up as MCs and scrapping for position. I always show people that if you want to battle with me then bring your A-game because I always bring my A-game when I get on records with people.

The great thing about it now is to be able to see those guys and we can laugh about it and talk about it, you may still hear me get at Kool Keith once in a while because he likes to play those games with me but I got much respect for Ultramagnetic all day.

And things are all settled with Rakim now? I know there was a little beef on the internet.

You know what? Me and Rakim have a history and a lot of people don’t understand our personal history so they gonna make assumptions about what this beefing and battling is about and they’re not gonna be right about it because he and I have a personal history outside of the music business that’s gonna set off a different tone. We may express it through music because that’s what we both do. I actually haven’t spoken to Rakim and I kind of got the vibe from the people that he’s around and the people that I know that it’s not really a problem. Like I said, it doesn’t matter who you are, whether you consider yourself to be the best or in the ranks of the best, there’s nobody beyond catching it. If you’re an MC and you nice then you shouldn’t have a problem with somebody coming at you, body up and keep it moving. That’s how it works. Some guys just try that shit for no reason. I’m not the kind of guy who will start frivolous shit for attention, that’s not how I am. If I say something I have a reason for saying it.

I haven’t spoken to Rakim. He’s definitely legendary in the eyes of hip hop and in the eyes of a lot of MCs, as he is for myself. I see him as a legendary MC, but I also know that he and I have a personal relationship and we’ll deal with it how we deal with it but he better know, just like everybody else better know that I will show up for the battle. No problem. I respect Rakim and I’d like to see him come out with a nice new album because he’s an amazing MC and I wouldn’t battle him if he was wack. If Rakim wasn’t dope I wouldn’t say nothing to him because it would be a waste of my time. He and I are very good friends and I’ll always respect him.

With this material coming out the vault I’m intrigued to know if you have more stuff ready to break out. I’d heard you had a load of stuff on DAT with Pete Rock, any chance of that or other stuff getting released?

Oh yea, definitely. I got another version of the Konexion album that I didn’t use because at the time I was looking to put out a different sound. Pete Rock had recorded the whole entire Konexion album, it’s really about twelve Pete Rock tracks and then I switched gear because at the time I felt like I was ahead of myself. Those tracks are incredibly underground hip hop records and I do plan on releasing ReKonexion which is the original version of Konexion.

I’d love to hear the material with Pete Rock, I think you guys sound great together.

Yea, Pete is an incredible producer, you know I’m a very good friend of his. He’s like one of my favourite producers of all time along with Premier, they’re my two favourite producers of all time.

I mean you’ve worked with an incredible list of producers. Who do you think you’ve moulded with best and what collaboration has produced the best music?

I get a little something different from each one of these guys. When I work with Pete Rock, he’s the type of producer that when he brings me music he already knows that it’s for me. He doesn’t just play me stuff that he’s given to a whole bunch of people, he’s like, “Yo, this is definitely Bumpy Knuckles.” He’ll put together maybe ten or twenty tracks and bring them to me and leave them with me as long as I wanna keep them and he’ll just say, ‘Rap over them and call me when you’re ready to mix them.’ What I get out of that is that he trusts me to be creative in my own space with his product.

Premier will play me a bunch of stuff that he did for everybody else, because if Premier plays somebody some stuff and they don’t sound good or they don’t want to use it then he’ll put it in the trash and he won’t play it to nobody else. When I’m digging for Premier music it’s in his garbage can! I’ll take them and make them underground hits, ‘Part Of My Life’, ‘R.N.S.’, all those records were beats that other people had that he either didn’t like the way they sounded on them or they just didn’t do them. So I took them and made them classic underground, and that’s what I love about Premier is that he produces those records and then when I get in the booth he’ll say, “Foxxx, this is what I’m looking for here from you, I’m looking for this from a vocalist.” He’s a real producer like that. He’ll often say that he wants to produce something custom for me, but I’m always say no because I don’t want to ruin the chemistry that we have. The chemistry comes from the fact that he’s giving me all these joints that other people turned down and then I’m challenged to remake them and I have a ball doing them. It’s Premier anyway, so it’s always a banger to me. Everything he does I love.

He posted a couple of beats on the released version of Konexion, so I’m assuming that’s going to continue as a working relationship?

Oh absolutely. Premier is all over American Black Man, I got a whole album called Music From The Man featuring DJ Premier where all fourteen tracks are produced by Premo and I also got Pete Rock, Kev Brown, Oddissee, Clark Kent… a whole bunch of guys man.

Tell me a little more about American Black Man.

I was actually gonna try and drop it in ’08 but I fell back because I had to do some revamping because Nas ended up dropping the Nigger album. It just felt like for me to put it out whilst that was out wouldn’t have been a good idea. I have my reasons for feeling like that because they kind of go in the same direction so I wanted to change a few things. Anyone who knows my history knows I’ve been talking about American Black Man since Industry Shakedown and there was always gonna be a trilogy: Industry Shakedown, Konexion, American Black Man. One thing about me is that I’m not on anyone’s timeline, so I drop records as I feel they need to be released. I’ve got the luxury of doing that so I decided to pull back. Maybe sometime in mid ’09 it should be ready.

You’re someone who has endured your fair share of industry strife. How has that affected you as an artist and how have you managed to turn that around and still be so prominent in the game?

What’s amazing about that is that as an artist I’ve always had the idea that music has to consume time and space. If you’re a real producer and you sit down to make a track for someone or yourself, the passion that you put into your work should be indicative of who you are. I know that every time I’ve put a record out I’ve tried to give people who I really am, I’m not a gimmick or the kind of guy that just wants to tell people things that are made up. Even though we are MCs and part of our work is storytelling, I try to give you passion in all my music. Sometimes that passion may come out in a way that people may not understand, so me having the freedom to work in my own space… I look at it like this: me being on a record label that doesn’t share the passion for my music means there’s a problem with the marriage.

The blessing was that the internet became so relevant. I like the fact that people have to look for my music sometimes because it keeps it classic, everything is not so expendable. Some people that are real lovers of underground hip hop are like, “I gotta find this Freddie Foxxx record,” and because I’m the one that controls my own music, I’m the one deciding what does or does not get released. If I leak a record then I leak a record. No-one comes in my studio and takes my music and leaks my music and I’m very much in control of that. The control factor is more about passion than anything else. When you make passionate music you want people who handle your music to have the same passion or else it’s not gonna work out.

Has there been any fallout from going down the independent route or do you have no regrets about that at all?

It’s not something I’ve always gained from on a financial level like I would want to but it is something that I know that I have to do. It’s an option for me that I have to take because that’s the road I’ve made and I always stay in my lane. I’m not good at going to record company meetings and trying to sell myself to people who don’t understand what hip hop, me or the music is about. You know, people who are following the concept of mainstream radio where everybody’s got one favourite rapper… these fair-weather fans and record companies. I don’t want to be a part of that. That’s their thing – to make money – but as an artist I’ve always made that lane to have control over my work. That’s what it’s about. Sure I want to make money doing it but I’m not poor, far from that. Nowadays things are different because the internet is so relevant and popular.

I think it’s interesting that people always think of Freddie Foxxx as an MC but in fact you’ve been producing since your very first album. How do you approach that process differently from the rhymes?

How could you not know how to produce when you got guys like Pete, Premo, Alchemist, Clark Kent and DJ Scratch as friends? My long time friends are some of the biggest producers in hip hop so I’ve always been a guy who knew how to make his own music because sometimes people’s schedules mean that they can’t be there. Instead of me waiting for somebody I sat down and taught myself not only how to become a musician but also a producer. I’ve been in the game for 20 years or so and I’ve been producing as long as I’ve been rapping. The thing is I’ve only gotten better at it and tried to figure out ways to enhance my talent.

I think I approach MCing in the way a boxer walks into a ring and looking at the track as my opponent. I have to figure out all the loopholes in the music to place my words to make sure that it makes sense. As a producer I try to produce a track as somebody who’s building a ring for boxers to fight in. I want it to be sturdy enough for whoever’s rapping on the record. I’m producing for Run DMC right now, I’m producing for KRS-One right now and I hope to produce for rappers who have been in the game for ten years or better because those guys understand what it is that they’re rapping on. Not to say that the new cats don’t, but I don’t have as much work to do vocally with those guys.

And do you still take a traditional approach to beatmaking? What equipment do you use and what’s the process like?

I still got SP 1200s, I got an MPC 60, an MPC 3000, I got a 950, an S3000… I use different types of keyboard stuff, I got a catalogue of drum sounds as well as still sampling kicks and snares from records. I got tons of equipment, I’ve always had equipment and I was never one to get rid of my old stuff because you always want to be able to go back to them. The only sampler I don’t like is the MPC 2000 because I’m used to the 4000, but I’m a guy that when Pete Rock shows up to make beats for me to rap to I want to have the equipment that he likes to make his beats on. That’s why I got the SP and a 950. When Premier comes I have to have the 950 ready and an MPC 60 so that he can do what he does. I like to be able to have what people use. Clark Kent is a masterful SP 1200 producer so I gotta keep that. I have two actually: one is for Clark Kent and one is for Pete Rock. I bought each one of them their own separate SP so that when they come to my studio that’s what they can use.

Can you clarify what other material we should expect to see from you over the next year or so?

Right now I got a mix CD out called The OG and the reason I did that was because I wanted to show people that there’s a problem in hip hop right now. The problem is that hip hop has been given its proper place considering the wide range of music that’s out there. You can’t tell me that just because somebody’s not on the radio that they’re not relevant to the game. I put The OG out because you got a bunch of rappers from the ‘90s that are trying to act like they’re not in their late 30s or early 40s and to me that’s wack: if you nice, you nice. If you got good music you got good music, it shouldn’t matter that you’re 38 or 39 years old because if you’re an artist and you love hip hop as a culture you gonna live it ‘til you die. You can’t get away from it because you grew up in that era. The OG album is indicative of that kind of a concept but it’s still banged out hip hop where I take other rappers’ music and I spit over their records. Don’t be surprised when I’m rapping over these records if I’m getting at them, there’s 50 Cent, all kind of cats on there where I got their music and I just laid my vocals over their tracks. I’m not trying to remake their records, I’m doing those beats with my voice on them and do what I do. It’s really about buzz. I’m dropping a conceptual series of mix CDs. That’s The OG.

Then I got a whole ton of stuff in my studio that I’m just mixing, mastering and remastering and I’m just gonna drop a whole lotta shit.

Download:

MP3: Audio Portion of Dan Love’s Interview w/ Freddie Foxxx (left-click)

MP3: Freddie Foxxx ft. 2Pac-”Killa”
MP3: Freddie Foxx ft. Kool G Rap-”Cook a Niggaz Ass”
MP3: Freddie Foxx-”Industry Shakedown”

The B-Sides: Bishop Lamont Interview

Q: What was it like for you growing up in Los Angeles during the 80s?

A: It was the LA of the Reagan administration. Drugs were really heavy in the streets at that time…more crack addicts…crack babies. It was a good time simultaneously because there was more creativity within the music and it showed. You had Beat Street, Krush Groove, Wild Style, there was more rebellion and risk-taking and the music was great. Life wasn’t always great but I’m here and I’m happy and it’s a better time for me now.

Q: Did you grow up with brothers and sisters? Was your dad around?

A: I grew up with my brother Mike and my mom. That’s all we had when my father left. So that’s what it was then and that’s what it is now.

Q: Did you go to Carson High?

A: For a little while, but I was rarely ever there.

Q: What about Sports?

A: Not really, we’d play football in the streets, but I was mainly into the music… freestyling, that type of stuff, I was also into martial arts, grappling, crazy Capoeira , to stay out of trouble.

Q: Did you ever go the gang route?

A: Not really, I was always into the visual thing. I’m an idiot, so I partied with anybody, whatever local bloods I was down with, or whenever I’d go somewhere else, there was always just me. I do me, they do them. I loved to drink at that time, being 13 and 14 and I’d get fucked up on the blocks and they’d do what they do. Y’know they’d sell and they’d do their drive bys but my thing was to give them positive energy to keep them away from having to do that.

The most stone cold gang bangers in the hood were the ones that played Wu-Tang for me for the first time. You’d never expect that. They’d be like, ‘I listen to Wu-Tang cuz…I was like ‘Wu-Tang…What’s Wu Tang?’ And I remember looking at the cover and being like, ‘Yeah Right.’ I used to pass it all the time in stores, like ‘What’s this ‘Mystery of Chessboxin’ shit.’ But it all tied in. It’s always been positive and negative. Even out of the negative there was positives. The music and my mentality reflects that.

Q: Did The Chronic and Doggystyle play a heavy role in shaping your musical tastes and sensibilities?

A: Of course. But it wasn’t just that. I grew up in a household where my mom played Al Green, Luther Vandross, Con Funk Shun, Marvin Gaye, Parliament, Earth Wind & Fire, Creedence. My father would play a lot of Hendrix, so really, I got a variety of everything—as well as jazz like Coltrane and Theloniu. My fondest memories are hearing Jackson 5 and Gladys Knight and the Pips. My crazy ADD self latched onto all that. I don’t listen to much new stuff, unless it’s by Slum Village or something out of the D or some real hip hop shit like Immortal Technique. I find most of it boring.

As for Chronic and Doggystyle, we’d never heard music like that before. Everything they were saying on these records really hit home because they were talking about things we were doing and living and the culture and day-to-day experience in LA. The Riots had just popped off and here we were, hearing the soundtrack of what we were going through. It had more of an impact than anything today because everything today has nothing to do with the art. You can’t party every day, you can’t be happy every day. You don’t know everything that’s going on. You can’t buy a Bentley off a stimulus check. Where are you getting this money from? This isn’t working, the music doesn’t reflect what’s going on in life.

But I’m rambling…the point is that the music felt real to us. The whole gang bang culture got to an extreme in the early 90s and that includes the period where there was the truce before it got broke up by the police and other factions [mumbles into the mic, “Fuck the police”… smiling) It was a great time for music and then corporate got involved, the music stopped having the same purpose. When you listen to The Chronic you have balance, a “Lil Ghetto Boy,” records that dealt with life on the street, it wasn’t just all, ‘Kill kill kill…sell drugs.” It wasn’t about that, that was the difference.

Q: That’s why I liked “Grow Up,” it was a really reflective and poignant song, especially when it’s so tempting to have tried to make a club banger to score radio play?

A: Yeah, I could’ve done some club shit but it would’ve been corny.

Q: How did you get started rapping in the first place?

A: I started rapping from doing art. I was drawing and wanted to eventually work for Disney or Marvel or Image. It transferred to poetry. I loved Poe and Frost and Nikki Giovanni. The music took over, and what I couldn’t do with my pastels, I could do with writing rhymes. I was young and listening to Run Dmc, Mc Lyte, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, then Daz and Kurupt. When I heard “New York New York,” it made me want to go harder. Then I got into Canibus, the Fugees, Organized Konfusion. The first thing though was Too short and NWA…hearing them cuss and make people squirm and the expression…it was that aggressive expression…it was disrespectful but they believed in what they were doing and it made me want to rhyme.

Q: When did you start to think this was something you wanted to pursue professionally?

A: I don’t know, I never looked at it that way, it was just something I did. Even when I signed, I didn’t take it that seriously at first. It comes in phases, growing up you hear the stories, you work the underground, you book your own shows, press your CD’s, your fliers, then you get a deal. You know those are the phases but you love what you’re doing so you do it. I never took it seriously beyond it got the ghost out of my skull and kept me stress free. It took my insanity and allowed me to make some sense from it. After I got singed, and people started reacting to the music and it got love from fans, I started to take it seriously.

Q: How did you go about getting signed?

A; We went to every label…it’s such a long story. We were pressing up vinyl, getting records on the radio. I did a record with Scott Storch before I had a deal. I worked at hole in the wall studios, interning for free studio time. I went as far as being a production assistant, stuntman, and stunt coordinator on music videos. I worked as a driver….there was a lot of sacrifice and meeting connections and getting doors slammed in your face. That’s how I ended up at MCA doing street team. I was hustling, you go the ways you go, to the point where I was in New York homeless and trying to shop a deal, going through a bidding war. There’s a lot people haven’t seen and don’t know and think I met with Dre overnight. That in and of itself was a task in securing the deal and making it right.

Q: It would seem like getting a deal is just the beginning, especially with labels so reluctant to actually release albums these days?

A; There’s so much work required of you just to be in position to have the opportunity to get a deal, then when you get the deal there’s even more work. Everything you did prior is eclipsed by how much more you have to go to actually achieve.

Q: I read somewhere on the Internet that you got a deal after Dre heard you rhyming on the radio?

A: Not at all…my boy Floyd had got my first mixtape, Who I Gotta’ Kill To Get a Record Deal and he’s really tight with Common. I’ve always been a big Common fan, so he played it for common and he dug it and then they played it for Ye and they both dug it. He said, ‘you should try to get at Kanye and make something pop off,’ so my boy Adam Blessings called me about Game doing the video for “Dreams” and how Kanye was supposed to be there. So me and Glasses Malone break onto the video set, steal a security cart, run from security, hide on-set, eat up all the craft services, wait around for five or six hours and Kanye never shows up. But who comes out the trailer? Dr. Dre.

That’s where it begins. My boy Delaney, who manages Game had given him my demo and there were some girls down there who I was trying to impress; I’d already told them that I was 50 Cent’s little brother, 40 Cent, So I saw and told Delaney, ‘I’ve never asked you for anything but can you introduce me to Dre? Just so I can get a story out of it.’ So he introduces me to Dre and Delaney put so much on it, he was telling him I was the next big thing out of the West Coast. I was like, ‘Damn, I was just trying to talk to him,’ Meanwhile, Dre looks at me like I’m two foot tall and he’s like, ‘you got some hot shit,’ I was like, ‘I, think it’s dope. I’m not putting all that on it but I can get down.’ He says he’s going home to his wifey and I’ll play it in the car right now,’ I’m like ‘Yeah right, you’re going to throw it out the window.’ Two weeks later, he’s on Power 106 on his birthday saying he wants to meet me and that he’s been playing my stuff for a while. And that’s how it started.

Q: Dre said you and Eminem are the only people to people to ever make him feel uncomfortable. How did that make you feel and what do you think he meant by that?

A: I was honored. This is the dude who made ‘Fuck the Police,’ what’s going to bother him? Eminem rapes people’s mothers, 50 kills a million people on record, what I supposed to do?

Q: Incite a holocaust against the gypsies?

A: [Laughing]. I tell the truth y’know….I like being ignorant and I’m ADD. All I do is watch South Park and Family Guy and I’ll say stuff and he’ll be like ‘I don’t know about that,’ but that’s how I feel, am I supposed to be PC about it? That’s just cornball. There’s got to be a balance and saying what I feel might not be the truth for everyone, but if that’s your truth, you’ve got to say it, and you’ve got to know that you’ll say things that not everyone is going to agree with. It’s about what you’re in for it… are you in it to say the truth and inspire people or are you in it to get a check? If you are, that’s cool, just say that and be up front about it. It’s when people say otherwise, and try to give people a false lifestyle that it isn’t valid.

Q: What are your thoughts on the decline of the music industry?

A: I love it because out of the chaos will come a new order and people will be forced to work harder and step their game up. You’ll need to be complete artists because the time when people would go multi-platinum is through. Shit, it’s a big success when people go gold. It’s gotten so bad that labels are buying the records for the artists to make sales look good.

People really have to start speaking…its not about just downloads, it’s about having a purpose to make people want to go out and support the artists. People aren’t excited and stimulated by the music today because it’s not relevant to their lives in any way. You might hear a song passing you by on the sidewalk and you’re like, that’s cool, but you’re not going to go and get it. Or if you’re at a party, you might not really like a song, but the bitches like it, so you’re cool, but it’s not something you can take to heart and relate to, When 2pac did things, you could relate to it on one of many levels, he didn’t have to be the illest lyricist or always be in pocket, but the melody and the spirit and the words and his convictions made it so you could be happy coming home from a wedding and then you’d hear a Pac song and suddenly want to fight. Or you could have a bad day and hear “So many Tearz,” and you’d feel better. Everything had a place in the human condition music today doesn’t. Everything’s a ring tone…’Marco polo, Marco Polo.’

Q: I wouldn’t even care if they made fun, catchy ring tones, provided they actually had a modicum of talent on the mic.

A: It’s true and they’ve got this thing called swagger, which is a term a wack dude invented. Swagger is a shield to protect wack people…’Oh, he can’t really rap, but he’s got swagger.’ What is that? He doesn’t have a good stage show, but he’s got so much swagger. Back in the day, you were either dope or you were wack, there was no swagger to get away with. Cam’ron can say a bunch of non-sense but it’s the way he’s saying it, so he’s got swagger. Lil Wayne doesn’t have to say anything, but oh, it’s that he’s got swagger, or it’s the way he pronounces his words. C’mon dude…cut that out, swagger’s a great word but people took it too far.

Q: What do you think about everyone trying to jock Big and Jay by never writing down any of their lyrics?

A: People are like, ‘well, if they did it, I can do it.’ What’s irritating is how people brag about that shit. I’m like, ‘yo, you need to start writing lyrics down, so you can look at your shoddy craftsmanship.’

Q: Alright, so let’s talk Detox. Rumor has it you’re supposed to be the Snoop on the project or so your Wikipedia would have me believe. Then again, it also says you’re supposed to be the new Hittman, which might not be the ideal scenario for you.

A: That’s wikipedia for you. Bless y’all for giving me a Wikipedia page, I’ve never talked to the guys who made it, but God bless them. Hell, I didn’t even know I had a Wikipedia page. As for Detox, it’s been a long arduous task. It’s the unicorn of albums, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, at times you feel like you’re in a lake trying to catch the loch ness. I’ve got pictures of his fins, he’s come up from the water a couple times… What can I say really? We got a lot of records, Dre isn’t satisfied with what he has and the direction. His thing is, where do I fit into the scheme of things. He’s 43 now, going to be 44 and it’s been eight or nine years waiting. It’s like waiting on another Guns N’ Roses album, Snoop is on the record. I’d love to be like Hittman, he was on more records than anyone else on Chronic 2001. My position in it is more on the writing side and getting my features. For me, my story doesn’t come from Detox, it comes from the Reformation. I’m on the basketball team doing what I gotta’ do. As far as the album goes, its been a serious difficult. The more time passes, the higher expectations get, his gears shift to a higher degree. It’s almost self-defeating. He likes a record one day, he doesn’t the next. He wants to change his vocals, his words, the whole beat. Will it happen this year? I don’t think so.

Q: If it does see the light of day who can we expect to see on it?

A: Of course, the Doc. Focus, Nas…I can’t really say all the features, they want to keep that quiet…Kahlil from self scientific, a kid named Kobe who’s dope. Melman and Hittman came back, Slim the Mobsta, Earl Hayes, Eminem. Dre, Em and 50 recently went to Florida to work on their records and Em and 50 came back with records for their own albums but nothing for Detox. People are still waiting like its going to a 4^th Quarter release but it’s nowhere near finished.

Q: Is it difficult to stay focused, having to work simultaneously on Detox and making sure your own album comes out the way you’d like?

A: I don’t think there’s any artist who can relate to my plight, writing a billion records for Dre and me. Imagine the burnout of trying to write the illest stuff you can write and brainstorm on relevant concepts, running back and forth from back studio to front studio, it’s been crazy. I’ve been working on The Reformation since I was born—literally, I’ve been working on it for three years and it can become a burnout. I always look ahead; I’ve even done records for my second album The Impossible Possible.

Q: What about all those mixtapes?

A: The mixtapes…those are the street album. I’m like, ‘we gotta’ put stuff out, I can’t starve the people and make people lose faith in me as a new artist and Dre as a seasoned veteran. We’ve got to put music out and feed the masses on whatever level, to keep the movement correct and the momentum going. I don’t want the fans to be disappointed, we’re bringing stuff that’s going to give the west coast and hip hop a resurgence. There’s lyricism and just banging beats and that’s really the thing for me…just creating music. Every time I create though something gets pushed off the album and the release date gets pushed back,

Q: What’s the deal with the release date? I thought the album was supposed to come out six months ago.

A: There was a date and now everything gets pushed back when you deal with Interscope and the corporate entity. It goes so far beyond just the music…shit’s just fucked up. They’re not in it for the music, they’re in it for the commerce. The commerce screws them up so badly because they’ve lost sight of how great Interscope used to be. Now the music’s suffering, our franchise is suffering and after a while, people stop looking to you and your system to herald in the next movement.

I’m sitting here at the crossroads, thinking how are we going to do this. It’s not only how are we going to motivate ourselves and others, but how are we going to motivate Dre. It’s a crazy time over at Aftermath and with the tragic passing of his son, it put it on a whole other level. There are many elements factoring in, the obvious life situations, a corporation that doesn’t care about great new music coming out or great artists breaking, but that’s a whole other story altogether.

Q: The West Coast has been pretty stale musically for much of the decade.

A: Well, you have the same old cats putting out corny shit, trying to sound young instead of staying in their lane. When I do interviews I tell cats, don’t blame me, don’t get me mad at me, blame Interscope. Blame them cats. I’ve been giving you the best free downloads with great producers…pushing the movement , but at some point it only goes so far when you’re up against the corporate structure.

Q: My favorite of your tapes was the Caltroit collabo with Black Milk. How did you two hook up in the first place?

A: Me and black met in New York actually. At the time, Black milk and RJ were BR Gunna and I was down at a Slum Village shoot and me and Hex hit it off, so all of us stayed in contact. When Proof passed, that was the first time I came to the D and then after the funeral, all of us were obviously upset and said, ‘lets just get fucked up and make music.’ Hex kept saying, ‘you and Black should do an album.’ At first, I was like ‘ah, you crazy,’ but he was right. So now we’re going to do Caltroit Metropolis Part II. Which is even more stupid.

Q: Let’s talk about “Grow Up,” your first single…you’ve been getting a lot of play on Power 106 lately.

A: Was…until Interscope put a stop to it and we’ll leave it at this: they said it would be a distraction from Detox, there’s been a cease and desist put out to stop the record, a record that was tested by researchers as a number one hit record, I appreciate the fans supporting it…that was the official first single but there goes the label BS. You’d think they’d have wanted to at least do a video to promote it, but no…nothing. Have you ever hear of a label threatening to sue the radio station not to play a hit record?

Q: Are there any broader themes or concepts on The Reformation that you’re trying to get across?

A: I want the album to be more personality and more story driven. Those are the elements I find lacked from albums today. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I want it to be a cross between All Eyez on Me and Life After Death, with some elements from Ready to Die and Illmatic. I want it to be in-depth and spiritual but not at the expense of having a good time. I want to make feel good music that surprises people, stuff that’s unorthodox. You can’t be comfortable as an artist and make stuff that dumbs it down. I don’t want and won’t do that. Not saying you have to be super lyrical on every record… people know I can rhyme, so I’m trying to stay focused on conveying my story and message.

Q: What about the record’s producers?

A: What have you heard. They’ve all cut records. Start naming.

Q: Ok, Primo? Pete Rock?

A: Yup, they’re both on there. I wanted to go to all the people I admired and looked up to: DJ Quik, Battlecat, Dilla, Hi-Tek, Lord Finesse, Dre, Focus, Kahlil, Denaun Porter. So many people. I’m still waiting for a Black Milk record…so I’m gonna’ put that on the record. 9^th wonder made a beat for me too. It’s to the point where cutting gets so difficult. You can only put so many records on the album and you always want. It’s not about just names though, it’s about what makes sense, what fits. You don’t see Primo doing that much lately, nor Pete Rock, not many young cats are fully up on those dudes in this corny day and age. Hell, I’m trying to get beats from Clark Kent, Buckwild, King Carnage…there’s so many dope cats I want to work with.

Q: Ever since the concept of the underground really kicked in during the late 90s, you’ve seen guys typically stick to arbitrary divisions with major label dudes ignoring the underground and underground guys kicking sour grapes whines about major label bullshit. Why do you think this is?

A: I think they believe the hype and they see another world that they think is more important. All going mainstream means is that it’s a bigger projection for your sound and a bigger system to put out what you’re doing from the underground. For me, underground is my essence; I just want to project it onto a bigger landscape on Aftermath. But really, I’m the same dude that used to wear fisherman hats and overalls. Dudes want to run from that but I believe in standing by what got you there, that’s why I do stuff with Dilated. I’m on Babu’s new album and people seem surprised by that. They’re like, ‘Why don’t you just hang out with 50 and Eminem.’ That’s just the corniest outlook. When I walk into certain underground hip hop spots, people look at me like I’m not supposed to be there, I’m like ‘why?

Q: I heard you were trying to get Coldplay on your record.

A: I was going to try to get Chris Martin because I love Coldplay but then he did a record with Jay and then Kanye and I’ve never been a dude to follow trends. I need to not speak on my ideas in interviews because other cats will have the same ideas or steal them, We got some magic in the works though. I’d love to work with Fiona Apple or Bjork. Right now, Coldplay thing just isn’t exciting to me.

Q: There’s also rumors that you’re doing a South Park themed mixtape?

A: It’s a mixtape with my boy In-def, who was on Caltroit and N*igger Noize. We’re like Meth and Red, we wanted to do something ignorant and I was inspired by Team America. So we’re spoofing the songs, he’s spin laden and I’m Kim Jung Scril, because both dudes are deluded ballers who want to be artists. If you look at guys like that they’re always on TV, always tried to find a way into the picture, making videos, so we going to parody them as rap stars. It’s stupid.

Q: What about LA? How does living here influence and impact your music?

A: It’s where you live, it’s the air you breathe but I think the music transcends that because if I just rapped about living in Carson and Compton, how exciting would that be? [Mocking gangster rappers] I’m Inglewood, there’s bloods on the corner…oh yeah? There goes some eses’, y’know. It gives it a landscape but it isn’t what the music is exclusively about. It can give it an aggressive edge, a hood feel, but it goes bigger than that. Then there’s the flip side of the Hollywood scene; wack ass rappers out east hanging in Hollywood and get Mtv’d out. I look at it as a trendsetting place where you never know what’s going to pop off next. I love that unpredictability.

When I look at the west coast as a whole, I look at it as the Panthers starting here and what happened in Watts. I look at the Watts Riots and not just gang life. That’s why my music is gangster, because I’m around gangsters.

Q: Do you follow politics much? I had to ask considering you’re wearing an Obama shirt.

A: I do but I get frustrated because I’m not stupid and you can see through the bullshit and there’s only so much patience I have.

Q: What are your favorite spots in town?

A: I love Bubba Gumps…Chili’s, Yamashiro…Wokkano Sushi. But really, Bubba Gumps’s strip and dippin chicken and their bucket of boat trash is beautiful. It brings tears to my eyes. But really, I’m either at the gym or in concentration camp with Dredolph Hitler [Laughing.]

Q: So beyond getting The Reformation released, what are your goals for the future?

A: Beyond the obvious, the thing that made me want to deal with Dre was the opportunity to have my own label. I’d rather be a catalyst and open up the door for fresh MC’s, producers and musicians. I’d take risks to break new and unconventional artists and all kinds of grous: rock, jazz, everything you can think of. I just don’t want to hear the bullshit that I’ve seen. I’m more of a businessman really. I really only want to do three or four albums. My goals and I think my gift is to give hip hop a breath of fresh air by picking up other fresh artists to put out fresh music. If you’re fresh and a country musician, I’d put it out. If it was the next Ramones or Bad Brains or the next Coltrane, I want to find them.

The problem is that hits don’t make you a star. Labels no longer nurture artists. They just say, ‘hey, you have a hot song on Myspace, let’s throw it out there.’ Think about Outkast, their first album didn’t go platinum because it’s a growing process to sell 10 to 15 million. Most labels would’ve dropped them after AtLiens. The life span now is one album and most don’t get a sophomore shot. The system is currently set up for ring tone sales. Or think about The Fugees, look how long it took for Lauryn Hill and Wylcef to get to their level. Or how long they were developing 2pac, or Usher. Labels have no patience, they’re not making same money so they throw out bullshit artists. Really though, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, if there was more balance. I guess that’s what I’m trying to bring.

Download:
MP3: Bishop Lamont-”Grow Up”
MP3: Bishop Lamont ft. Crooked I & Stylistic-”Funky Piano”

ZIP: Bishop Lamont & Black Milk-Caltroit (Left-Click, follow link)
ZIP: Bishop Lamont-The Confessional (Left-Click)

The B-Sides: The Knux Interview

Q: What were your lives like growing up in New Orleans?

Rah Al Milio: We grew up in the real New Orleans. Every day was hell, that bitch is a jungle, it’s a third world country inside of America. It’s hard. We were just trying to survive. I’m totally from the hood and I never thought we’d make it to LA. Cats in New Orleans think about LA as though it were fake and don’t exist. We were so stuck in our own shit out there, we didn’t experience anything. We had to find other diversions to keep us out of trouble, mostly music and sports. Our moms made us join a band when we were 11 or 12 to stay out of trouble. Then Katrina happened and we figured we might as well just do it and move to LA. So we did.

Q: How did you guys go about getting a deal?

Krispy Kream: Mike Caren at Atlantic was the first one who tried to sign us in 2005. We’d already been around for a long time at that point. The fact that people come around and call us “hipster rap” still pisses me off, because we’d already been down for a minute. We did a deal with Atlantic, we had a publishing deal for a while, but we were shopping a record deal because we didn’t want to do business with Atlantic.

Q: Why not?

KK: We didn’t like the way they were handling things over there. We were briefly managed by Matthew Knowles. Beyonce’s dad. He tried to get us our own little imprint so we could put out our stuff on Interscope. He was still up at Sanctuary at the time, but that shit didn’t work out.

Q: Why?

KK: They did some shit that I can’t really talk about. But in the process, Shady Records was calling us the whole time. They were like come to New York, yo we wanna’ sign you to Shady. But we didn’t want to sign to Shady, we said we wanted a manager. Paul Rosenberg and Dart Parker came on to manage us. At first, they wanted to shop us to Jive, but then they concluded that they could get us a better deal at Interscope because Jimmy [Iovine] wanted us. They were like, ‘you ought to be on Interscope.’ We’re like, ‘alright, we’ll take a meeting with him.’ So we did and he asked us what we wanted and we said, ‘we only want creative control.’ He said, ‘that’s it?’ We said, ‘yeah, we don’t want anyone to fuck with us.’

Q: What’d your A&R think of that?

KK: 3H was the A&R. He was like, ‘I don’t want to be involved, if you want creative control, I just want you to turn in that crack.’ So we got the deal. Jimmy said ‘y’all gonna be where hip hop is at for the next five years.’ That’s what it was. Boom, we record the album, get a crib in the hills, parties, drugs, all kind of drugs, drugs with an explanation mark. Girls, hookers, strippers, all of em, all of it, it went down. I can talk about some entertainers that got their dick sucked on my coach. It’s the real deal over here, we was livin’ like Slash and Axl Rose up in ’87. We were the first ones, for all the people that call this hipster rap…we were the first ones…the first ones…the first with a major label deal… we are the reason that these labels started looking at people like this. Ask Steve Aoki, ask anyone who was there before they had 17 year old kids in skinny jeans showing up the club. We were dressing like this when everybody was rocking backpacks, and college ra shit. We were the first ones to experiment with electronic shit…the first ones.

Rah: It got to a point because motherfuckers was getting it misunderstood, like we came in out of the blue or hopped into a scene. The scene was formed around us. We were the first of that stuff that people call hipster shit, not U-N-I. Fuck, we opened Cinespace for hip-hop, there was no hip hop in there, just electronic shit, dance music in there, maybe Spank Rock, no real hip-hop.

Q: How did you get involved with the Tuesday night Cinespace scene?

Rah: We had a relationship with Steve Aoki and plus, we listen to dance music. We go to dance clubs. These motherfuckers don’t understand any of that shit. They’re latching onto a scene. You hear “Bang Bang,” that’s a small token of what’s on the album. Every song is different than the next; this isn’t no hipster rap bullshit. It’s not just about flat out rapping on shit. The album’s about everything, the song writing, the production, everything. If we couldn’t play instruments and shit, maybe we’d do some rinky-dink beats, chop up some samples and shit, but at the end of the day to put us in a category with certain dudes is absurd.

Q: That’s just what music writers do. They have to invent genres. They do it at parties. It’s weird.

Rah: Who wants to be in a genre? Genres are for pussies. They’re for people who don’t have enough balls to do their own shit and so they latch onto these mini-genres and think that’s it’s going to be a movement…a moving train. We stay away from that shit, I don’t want to sound like anyone else, I don’t want to be in a category with anybody else. That’s not me being cocky, that’s me being real. I just don’t want to be in anyone’s category. That’s not knocking anybody, just that genre shit, yo, fuck that. Cats are wearing backpacks and American Apparel. I’m like fuck that shit. I was doing that shit way before you were supposed to do that. Motherfuckers was tripping, the execs were tripping, they kept on trying to put us into categories, they were like, “oh, they’re like Pharrell, they’re skaters.” I was like I don’t wear skate shit, I don’t skate. They didn’t know what to name it. But we was already in this scene, then to call someone a hipster, we were like what is that?

Krispy: I’ve been doing that for a long time. When Steve was still trying to get put on, Dim Mak wanted us to do an EP with them.

Q: How’d you get hooked up with Steve Aoki in the first place?

KK: We met him through AM, who was managed by Paul and Dart. Steve is cool as fuck and he always had banging chicks with him. We was supposed to be on Dim Mak at first. People don’t know that shit, Things didn’t work out because Interscope wouldn’t allow it. This was back in ‘04.

Q: What do you think about your label situation at Interscope? Has it been a positive experience or the typical major label bullshit?

KK: The labels aren’t expecting triple platinum anymore. We plan on just touring constantly and getting money that way. That’s where the money is…on tour. In the late 90’s no one toured, now people love to see live hip hop.

Rah: We think of ourselves as being in a similar situation to The Strokes. They were in at the beginning of their trend and at first, people were calling them ‘retro bands’ and being like ‘they sound like they came from the 70s.’ Then they came in with the “garage rock” labeling. Shit, we’ve been bumping TV on the Radio since their first EP. We’re not some posers trying to latch on. We know these people, we’ve been doing this shit.

Q: You guys don’t have any guest appearances on your album, which seems almost strange in contemporary hip-hop? Are you guys instinctively opposed to collaborations?

KK: Well, Jay Electronica’s going to be on the next album. He comes from a good hood in New Orleans but he understands where we come from. Real hip-hop dudes respect us. We’re some of the few dudes those guys respect.

Q: I know you guys have talked about playing your own instruments. Which ones do you specifically play?

KK: A lot of our songs have guitar and bass which we play, but we can play everything. We tweak the synthesizers… so much crazy shit. On the album, a lot of the time it sounds like there are two people playing at once…that’s because there is.

Rah: We’re real musicians, our model is the Dust Brothers. You could never pick out what they were doing, whether they were sampling or doing it live, you couldn’t tell.

KK: And of course, we’re heavily inspired by the Rza.

Q: Did you go to specialized music school?

Rah: We know how to read and write music. Our mom put us in band to keep us out of trouble and in those marching bands they make you learn how to write and read music. You can’t make that shit up, We got into jazz band that did that. We always had side bands though and have gigs on the side. New Orleans is a city like that.

Q: What about mixtapes. Is there a reason why you guys never released one?

Rah: We don’t do mixtapes. All the great albums had like 13 tracks. We don’t whore ourselves out like that. We just show cleavage. It’s a wonder that people buy their albums. I love the anticipation of the album. People just stand not being out there at all times. We love being mystery.

[Some random muffled inaudible talk…..tape recorder clears in time for …]

KK: And fuck Mark Ronson.

Q: He’s one of those dudes who it’s just painful to praise. But I do begrudgingly admit that he’s a good producer.

KK: Whatever, he’s just one of those dudes that never got in a scuffle. We’ll knock that dude out.

Rah: The problem with hip-hop is is that no one is inspiring anyone. No one’s switching it up and inspiring somebody. Everybody treats it like a job. We got into so it wouldn’t seem like a job. No one’s doing anything refreshing…they’re not talking about nothing. There’s trash out right now. I listen to mostly old stuff. I didn’t realize until maybe 2006 how dope some of that shit really was. Like ‘93 till Infinity.’ I always liked that, but that shit was so ill. Some of those Domino beats were crazy.

Q: It seems if you actively dislike things today, people just label you a “hater.”

Rah: We appreciate when writers call out shit that sucks. I love being a hater. We need more haters. People need to speak their mind. Tell the truth.

KK: Hip hop is so PC. Or worse, there’s just fake beef. Fake fools with guns but no one’s saying anything and everyone’s leaning on each other. I’m looking at Game and I like Game and I know he don’t like Jay, so he’s going to talk about it. We need more dudes like that. If I don’t like a dude, I’m going to talk about it. That shit is missing in hip-hop. Look, I listen to all the Biggie records. I don’t think he’s the greatest though and I’ll say it. He was great but he wasn’t the best in my mind. I used to think Biggie was better than Pac, but I switched a few years ago. Big would say fly shit just to say ill shit.

Q: Yeah, but then he’d throw in a “Sky’s the Limit” or “I’ve Got a Story to Tell.”

KK: I dunno, but I could barely separate that shit lyrically from the Lox at the time. At the end of the day, Wu Tang is our favorite group ever. But as I get older I see a lot of them wasn’t talking about shit.

Q: Yeah, but a lot of them were. Have you read the Wu-Tang Manual?

Both: Of course, we love it.

KK: We’ll punch people in the face for talking shit about Wu-Tang.

Rah: At the end of the day, when you’re young you just want to hear the flyest, illest shit, that’s how it is. You know what I mean. I love MF Doom actually, even though he kind of bit GZA a little bit. Those concept albums are cool though.

KK: If we featured somebody, it’d be different. If we were going to feature a Jay, we’d bring him back to the street level, not him talking about G4’s. That’s just what the Knux do, That’s the problem, the hip hop game is so pop when they feature people, it’s so corporate, no one’s even in the same studio, no one talks about concepts because it doesn’t matter, it’s like product placements in movies.

Rah: We want to make hip-hop more gritty, like that early Wu shit.

Q: I remember reading somewhere that you guys were big Gravediggaz fans.

Rah: That’s a great album. Of course, their earlier shit was ill but that’s where our mind was at the time. We swayed from what we were into, used to be heavy into Killah Priest and on some traveling to the stars type shit.

Q: The Wu JV was probably the best JV of all time. I just had a post last week about how dope Killarmy were?

Rah: They were dope. I didn’t care much for Sunz of Man though.

KK: No one puts on dope cats anymore.

Q: When was the last time you saw anything like the Juice Crew or the Hit Squad or the Def Squad. And Diplomats don’t really count. Meanwhile, Def Jam won’t stop sending me albums from Blood Raw, Jeezy’s weed carrier.

Rah: It’s the south man. I can explain this to you. It’s just the South. Not all those dudes are this but a lot of them are and they don’t respect the music. They really don’t care where it goes. It’s about money.

Q: But they have swagger. What else do you need?

Rah: Someone needs to retire that shit. It’s like ‘jiggy.’ That shit’s played out.

KK: We’re trying to do us to the furthest extent. We don’t care about our haters. Our haters aren’t going to buy our album. Middle America is disconnected from everything and we’ll probably find some real listeners out there. They don’t follow new trends as much, or new fashion, they’ll just buy the records because they think it sounds good.

Rah: All these rappers would do better stuff if everyone came from their heart. If they did, you’d hear all kinds of shit, not just a few motherfuckers doing interesting things, I hope that we inspire people.

Q: So what are your favorite spots in LA?

A: 101 Café, Swingers on 3^rd, Bossa Nova…we love that place, they even made a racist comment once but we still go. We used to go out to Cinespace a lot but know we hang out more downtown, warehouse parties. One Sunset used to be hot and we’d go there a lot. In general, we don’t fuck with places if we have to wait in line.

Q: What about the future? What are you guys working on now?

Rah: We’re already working on the second album. It’s different and it reflects where our minds are at now. We’re already plotting the next approach.

Video:

The Knux-”Bang Bang”

The Knux “Cappucino”

Download:
MP3: The Knux-”Hard Day’s Night”
MP3: The Knux-”Bang! Bang!”
MP3: The Knux-”Cappucino”
MP3: The Knux-”Cappucino Remix”

The B-Sides: Blu Interview

Contrary to popular belief, Blu did not take his name from the Eiffel 65 song popular in the late 90s.

Q: So where exactly in LA did you grow up?

A: I was born at St. Andrews and 54^th, at my grandparent’s crib, that’s where I was living last year and it’s the first place I ever stayed. But I’ve been all around, Vermont, Vernon, Claremont, Monclair, Inglewood. Hawthorne, Long Beach. Azusa. All over, yo.

Q: Why all the moving around?

A: My parents just moved around a lot. I guess I have the bug and did the same shit…. couch hopping, ditching jobs all the time, trying to live in studios.

Q: What high school did you go to?

A: I went to San Pedro High, Claremont High and Jurupa Valley High. I played ball at San Pedro but got kicked off the team for grades three years running. At Jurupa, I arrived too late to play but was smashing the whole basketball team there. I definitely wanted to play hoops and shit.

Q: What was your family situation like? Your step-dad was a pastor correct?

A: My mom was on some lock down shit, my grades sucked so they didn’t want me to do anything. My step-father was a pastor so he didn’t let me listen to hip-hop. Shit was really boring when I was young. I was mainly into drawing and playing sports.

Q: When did you start listening to hip-hop?

A: In the 10^th grade, when I moved to Pedro with my dad. He used to bang Too Short and 2pac all the time. I got into DMX, Mase, and Will Smith, Big Willie Style was my first hip-hop album.

Q: So you must have started rapping shortly after that?

A: I started rapping when I was 16 or 17, in 11^th grade. I started writing raps in 10th, like Too Short raps. I used to rap like a baby DMX. Meanwhile, my homebody who I used to rap with, wrote lyrics like Brother Lynch Hung. That was my partner, so you can only imagine what it was like.

Q: So you didn’t grow up on any of the classic LA hip-hop, huh?

A: Not really. When I really got into hip-hop, I got into throwback stuff like De La, old Busta shit…I got into Tribe heavy, Common, the Roots, Redman, certain Ghostface, Saukrates, Planet Asia was the only West Coast stuff I got into in high school.

Q: What made you want to start rapping?

A: DMX. It was his passion. It seemed like he was having a great time doing it and I wanted to do that.

Q: Had you been musical before that?

A: I’d sung in the choir at church when I was little. I did that pretty well, but that was it though. I never played no instruments in school. I always wanted to play a trumpet but we couldn’t really afford it. I’m trying to learn the piano now. I guess I want to learn to play, maybe playing isn’t the right word, but I try and come up with these little wack melodies.

Q: You’re producing now too, right?

A: Yeah, I’ve been producing for a year and a half. I’m wrapping up an album with Sene right now. It’s called. A Day Late and a Dollar Short.

Q: So when did you start to think you could rap for a living?

A: I never thought I was going to rap professionally. I got signed to Sound in Color to do the record with Exile. There were a bunch of young dudes over there, putting shit out, scratch records and stuff. It wasn’t a big deal. I was just doing a rap album,. I’d done four or five before that. Around ‘04, I got serious about it.

Q: How did you get together with Sound in Color?

A: Because of Mainframe. He started the label when he was 19 and signed a bunch of heads. He’d signed Exile the year prior and he’d been working on his own album. Then one of the investors at the label said we should do an album together. I was like hell yeah, the only person that had been hollering at me before that was Suge.

Q: How did that happen?

A: My cousin was engineering at Death Row and he played the CD for Suge right when he got out and had already signed Left Eye and Crooked and it was about to go down. My boy told me, just come with me and we’ll get signed by either Suge or Roc-a-Fella. I ended up to Sound in Color, which is just as good as Roc-a-Fella (laughs.)

Q: How many copies did you end up selling of Below the Heaven’s?

A: They pressed up 3,500 CD’s at first and we ended up selling 7,000 copies total. The rest was digital, no vinyl. They haven’t really released a record since mine but they used to do 75-page booklets with each album. I wish I was around then.

Q: How did C.R.A.C. Knuckles come about?

A: I met T’ Raarach through Aloe Blacc. He was doing a record and I came through and laid some raps and he was like, ‘yo what’s up.’ After five to six months, we linked up and locked up for 7 days to complete the first draft of Piece Talks, which we released on tour, DIY, 500 copies total. Then Tres Records wanted to re-release it and there were two songs we wanted to add.

Q: Did Aloe Blacc talk to you about trying to get in at Stones Throw?

A: I’ve talked with people at Stones Throw but they told me that they thought my music had the potential to be bigger than the stuff that they did. They advised me to take a more mainstream approach than going underground with them.

Q: Has the buzz surrounding Below the Heaven’s drawn label interest?

A: I talk to majors all the time. Have since I was 19 and talking to Interscope.

Q: What’s stopped you from signing?

A: I haven’t signed because the situations haven’t been dope. No one’s trying to offer me any kind of Jay-Z contract. They try to tie you down. Now it’s about trying to get a better situation on the table with the majors. I don’t want to get locked down with some shit that ain’t working. Indie is the same shit. They’re like, we’ll give you whatever you put up money wise. If you want an elaborate record, just put up the money for it first. Labels man….

Q: How did the Johnson & Jonson project came about?

A: Well, Jon (Mainframe) was one of the main people who got me to Sound in Color, but at Sound in Color wasn’t interested in the project which was originally called Powder and Oils and served as a mixtape for the Below the Heavens. It was originally just going to be a white label album with me rapping over old songs, but it became bigger than that. We started shopping around the product and waited for the best situation to put the album out. Tres Records wanted it and it came out Sept. 23.

Q: So do you have plans for another album or are you going to take some time off?

A: I’m doing tons of shit, too much stuff. I’m debating if I’m going to drop another album because I have another self-produced album finished. Plus, I’m turning in a record that I produced for Sene, with me rapping on a few tracks and doing a lot of production. As far as rapping, I just want to pause for a while. I’ve been writing for a long time and it’s weird when certain content comes out. I have to go back to the pace that my material is being produced, it’s weird.

Q: What’s your writing process like?

A: I just started writing to a random beat today. I just randomly did five songs with this dude Apex in DC. I just did another five songs with a guy from Rotterdam. When I’m inspired, I just go in all the time. Nothing lately has inspired me to sit down and craft another entire album

Q: Every one of the albums you’ve released has been a collabo. What made you take that route?

A: I think it helps your consistency to be with one producer. It produces a different sound every time I like to be inspired by a type of sound for an entire record, it takes you different places sonically.

Q: So there’s been rumors that you and Elzhi are going to collaborate on an album. Any truth to them?

A: Yeah, we’ve been talking about collaborating to do an album. It was really intimidating though. I just feel like I’m not ready to do an album with Elzhi. That dude writes perfect patterns. You’re just like…’Damn cuz.’

Q: You’ve become pretty popular among the blogosphere. Do you read any blogs?

A: A lot of time people send me links. This song leaked or here’s an article about you, but I don’t read much on the Net.

Q: Do you think the immediacy of the Internet has perhaps sped up your career’s ascent?

A: Definitely. It’s going faster than I planned. Technology has just smashed the old model. The weird thing to me is that I don’t even know how many fans I really have.

Q: What about the Okayplayer set? They seem to give you a lot of love.

A: Definitely. They give me the most, hands down. I appreciate it a lot.

Q: What about shows? Have you been touring a lot?

A: Since ‘05, I’ve toured the states three times.

Q: How did you go about getting a booking agent?

A: J right there (Blu’s manager) has booked every tour. When he came out of college he didn’t know how to do it but he pulled contacts from online places, threw out shit and it all out. We made it happen ourselves. It’s good to establish a team.

Q: What about locally?

A: I’ve played tons of shows in LA. For years.

Q: Do you ever think about playing spots like Spaceland or the Echo?

A: I think I’d need to get another audience at these places. I don’t have a big enough following to fill those spots.

Q: Who would you say your following is at this point?

A: Mostly underground heads..

Q: Do you think the line is blurrier than it used to be between underground vs. mainstream?

A: Yeah, it’s more independent vs. major, than underground vs. over-ground. If it works out, I’ll sign with a major, but we’re trying to do records on our own for now. The indies won’t allot resources to put our stuff and promote it so we want to start doing it ourselves. All we need is a distributor

Q: Who are your favorite rappers right now?

A: Jay Electronica. Cassius King. Sene, Shawn Jackson. I still like Edan. That’s the illest fool to me. I just bought his CD…. Beauty and the Beat and played it for two weeks straight. I had his EP on wax. I also like when J Davey raps. I think Mibbs from Pac. Divison is really dope. There’s tons of rappers I like. Plus, Flying Lotus. We’ve known each other for a while and its dope to see him get this exposure.

Q: Ever think about doing a collaboration with him?

A: We’ve been talking about a collabo for two years now. We’re both born in ’83 so… We did a show in Brussels and he rocked the festival harder than Wu and Ice Cube. It was the illest thing I’ve seen.

Q: How would you say living in LA influences your music?

A: I love LA because everyone in LA is doing something and everyone’s into everyone’s hustle. No one does one thing. The LA scene has a lot of fashion, music, art elements and photographers and writers. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. LA’s ill to me, it’s popping right now.

Q: What’s your typical day like?

A: Now I eat breakfast before I smoke. Then I smoke, read e-mails, make beats, do songs, smoke again, make beats, write to raps, etc.

Q: What are your favorite spots in LA?

A: I like the Fish House on Slauson and Crenshaw, that shit is bomb. I’ve been traveling a lot lately, so I’ve been eating well in a lot of different countries. I just moved out to the Eastside in the Santa Monica and Vermont area. There are a lot of Mexican joints and Thai food places around but I just got back so I haven’t had much time to check them out.

Q: What are your goals for the future?

A: I’d definitely like for our company to come into fruition. We want to put out music, quality film and quality records.

Q: What sort of films?

A: Well, I’ve been writing movies as long as I’ve been rapping. I just write down ideas for films and I want to put them together. We want to make a silent film to go with a music project, maybe a stop animation comedy. All of us have different film ideas and we want to have them coincide with the next few records.

Video- Blu-”Blue Collar Worker”

Blu-”So (ul) Amazing”

Johnson & Jonson-”Bout It, Bout It”

Download:
MP3: Blu & Exile-”My World Is”
MP3: C.R.A.C. Knuckles-”Pop Dem Boyz” 
MP3: Johnson & Jonson-”Hold On John”

The B-Sides: Pacific Division Interview

In conjunction with my article in the last issue of LA Weekly, here’s the full text of my interview with Pacific Division. Over the next few days, check for Q&A’s from Bishop Lamont, Knux and Blu.  

Q: First off, I suppose the most obvious question is about your back-story. So at the risk of being redundant, why don’t you guys tell me how Pacific Division formed?

Mibbs: We met Be-Young in high school actually. But my brother tells the story better than me, I go off on all sorts of sub-stories.

Like: What’s the question? How’d we meet? We met in Palmdale, we’d just moved there and we weren’t really familiar with the community but we started playing basketball and that’s where we met Be Young. We got into a little hip-hop group at the time; we all had a passion for great hip-hop music, but we were always trying to be different from everyone in the West. We were more into being well-rounded. We liked everything and everyone surrounding us seemed to just be into one sound. It gave us an advantage.

At first there were other members in the group, 10 in all. It was intended to be a West Coast Wu-Tang. But differences occurred and we needed to advance. We downsized it to just the three of us and things have been rolling ever since, rocking shows, doing whatever. We used to pay to do shows, now we get paid to do shows. And now we’re here.

Q; Where did you guys grow up prior to moving to Palmdale?

Like: We grew up in North Hollywood, we lived in the Jungles in South Central, we lived in Inglewood, all our school’s were in Inglewood, then we did High School in Palmdale. We did a little bit of college at Northridge then we dropped out. Be was from the Valley originally and then he bounced to Palmdale when he was in Junior High. We spent a good portion of our lives in Palmdale. But most of it was spent in LA.

Q: What led to the move to Palmdale?

Mibbs: Our parents wanted a house and got to buy one out there for cheap.

Like: I didn’t know anything about it, we didn’t want to be out there at first, but it was a learning experience. It’s a slow-paced lifestyle out there. We learned that not everyone is the same.

Q: Was there a pretty severe culture shock?

Like: It was, but we adjusted. 

Q: What high school did you go to?

Mibbs: We all went to Highland High School.  

Q: How did you guys get started rapping?

Mibbs: We’ve been rapping since we couldn’t even speak words. All my life. Seriously. We’d do our little mixtapes trying to show people that we could rap. It wasn’t nothing we took seriously until things started picking up and people started liking the music. We were trying to find ourselves.

We used to have another group, there were four of us—Be wasn’t in it then. I don’t even remember how, but we got down with Sean Healy and he’d make you sell tickets to play a show. We were young and wanted to rock so we did it and sold all our tickets and packed the house with our friends. Then the situation broke off with the old group and our older cousins were out here in LA, rapping in a group called Blue Collar that had the scene popping for a minute. They had a monthly night at Little Temple and I invited my cousin to one of our old shows where we had to sell the tickets and he liked one song. Nothing but one song and he said I want you to do the one song at our show. So we got a good reaction and we kept on doing that one song at their shows and then finally, they asked us to do a whole set at Little Temple. Then we were playing shows there and doing well and then next thing people at Temple Bar saw us and wanted us to do shows. People would leave with our records. We started hustling. It’s a domino effect, people tell their friends, family, what have you and it takes off from there.

Q: Who were/are your biggest influences?

Mibbs: Common,

Be Young-Redman, Nas, Rass Kass,

Like: 2Pac, Az, Grand Puba

Q: How did you end up with the deal at Universal?

Mibbs: We just went into their offices with our catalogue. We had the “Fat Boys” video, which we did ourselves with our own money. It was a sacrifice that we made and it turned out well. We showed them all our stuff, we had a press kit and they’d done some research and knew that we had fans and potential.

Be Young: We just performed for them. We hopped on tables. We performed four or five songs in front of Sylvia Rhone. We were on the tables…just wilding out.

Mibbs: We had meetings with Warner Bros and Interscope too. We met Jimmy Iovine, apparently his young son is a fan of ours. We went to his office and it was weird, I kept on tripping, thinking, we’re in the office of a billionaire and we’re throwing money at him. I acted like I was weeded out….we put on a show.

Q: Why did you pick Universal?

Mibbs: They seemed the most in tune with who we were. They didn’t skim through the music. They understood. As soon as we met with Sylvia, she started throwing out the right names of people to work with, Q-Tip in particular.  

Like: You can’t trust nobody at labels but we figured it was a good time for us to be at a label to get their muscle. We’d been signed to Snoop’s manager’s label, Two-Tone Elephant. People always say indie is the way to go, y’know be rebels to the majors, but indies are labels, albeit with less money. If you want someone with money, they have that muscle. It’s about using it to your advantage.  We still operate our own indie label.

Q: What’s the status of your debut album?

Mibbs: We’re finishing up our next mixtape: Church League Champions. We’re already got some songs recorded for the album and we’re going to do a lot more recording. We’re really looking forward to the process.

Q: Who’s the A&R

Mibbs: Dimitrius Spencer. Thus far, he’s given us the freedom to do what Pac Div does. He’s not like, ‘make this hook like that,’ he’s liked it everything we’ve given him. The industry’s gotten so lost, they look for anyone with a buzz.

Q: Does it feel like the major labels are actively seeking for good rappers now, whereas for much of the decade they’d been searching for artists who could sell ringtones or pander to the lowest common denominator, or both?

Like: I think they were searching for cleaner music for a while after the Michael Richards/Don Imus thing. Cleaner rap, which they thought meant backpack rap. But now  they’re just looking for anyone making noise.

Mibbs: Something without baggage, they’re looking for artists that are more well-rounded.

Like: They don’t want to worry about dudes going to jail.

Q: How has it been working with the label in general?

Mibbs: We can’t tell you that much. We’re actually meeting the staff next week. We only signed the deal last month. We’re still new but we’ve got work to do. We got drafted now we’ve got to work. They’ll put you on the bench if your jump shot ain’t right.

Q: Do you worry about the fact that it’s increasingly hard to get albums released on major labels these days?

Mibbs: We’re just thinking about working hard and making good music.

Q: Is there a theme to Church League Champions?

Mibbs: Not really. We want to take over the world but you’ve got to start in the Church League.

Q: What’s the breakdown of the new tape? You guys going to rhyme over original beats, other people’s, both?

Mibbs: About 60 percent original sounds, 40 percent mixtape tracks. 100 percent Pac Div. We’re rocking over Stevie Wonder loops, Al Green’s “Still in Love with You,” Naughty by Nature, Madlib, and lot of original records from our producer Swift.

Q: How do the think the role of the Internet factored into your guys’ success?

Mibbs: The Internet has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages are obviously that previously, people would buy albums. Before, I couldn’t directly speak to Common or have sway in someone’s career. If you bought a bad album, you bought it and you had to live with it. Now if you buy a bad album, you can comment about how terrible it is and make people not want to purchase it. The little people have a lot more to say. Once it catches on blogs and writers spread it, word travels fast..

Like: You don’t need radio in a sense but you’re going to eventually need radio to sell units.

Mibbs: Soulja Boy wouldn’t be what he is without the Internet.

Q: How did you go about getting buzz on the Internet? 

Mibbs: We was on Myspace and adding people at first, no big deal. It wasn’t until we got a video to people when it all jumped off. We shot the video and people saw what they had already heard. They communicated with the energy and the visuals of the show. It just naturally caught on.

It’s about fan interaction. If the blogs like your music it’ll spread, I don’t know anybody at Nah Right but they know us, which means we’re doing something right.

Q: Were you guys listening to a lot of 80s music when you came up with the idea to play off the Fat Boys?

Mibbs: I was playing some old Audio Two shit at the time. We’d already called ourselves the Fat Boys since Be rapped over a old Fat Boys instrumental. He said that we should call ourselves the Fat Boys to pay homage to them.

Q: Who are your favorite rappers these days?

Mibs: Blu and Diz Gibran. They’re the homies but we like their music too. We’re not into giving people free passes, we get inspired from listening to those cats. We’re cool with The Cool Kids too, everybody really.

Q: What non hip-hop do you all listen to?

Like: Coldplay. Chromeo.

Be Young: I listen to a bunch of artists no one’s probably ever heard of.

Q: What did you think of the hipster rap labels that some people threw at you?

Mibbs: We didn’t sign up for none of that. When people don’t understand shit, they want to put labels on it. When we saw them called us hipsters, we thought it was on some coked out shit—that they thought we were people doing weird things.

Like: When the Cool Kids come out to LA, they chill with us. They’re like, ‘fuck that,’we don’t want to go to some hipster party.

Mibbs: People get hipster mixed with new generation of hip-hop. N.E.R.D isn’t hipster. They‘ve been around for a while too and they don’t wear baggy clothes. 

Q: What are your favorite spots to kick it in LA?

Like: The house, we go to work and we make music.

Q: What are your goals going forward:

Mibbs: We want to keep expanding. We’d love to play The Nokia Theater, sell out arenas, do the crazy visual shit that goes on in our mind. There’s no limit to how far we’ll go to create.

Like: We talk about interesting things. We want people to know that there’s more to us than sneakers and a “Fat Boys” video. We know that there’s a whole world of human beings and we’re excited to be in this position. I feel like we’re a high pick, now we have to show everyone what we’re made of. You know how good you can play, now you have to go play.

Mibbs: I wouldn’t call us the number one pick. We’re underdogs. We’re going to be like Chauncey Billups and surprise people with how good we can play. We’re gonna’ start in the church league and work our way up.

Videos:

Pacific Division-”Fat Boys 08″

Pacific Division-”Women Problems”

Pacific Division-”Paper ft. TiRon”