…is urging me to be myself,
And never follow someone else.”

- Q-Tip “Steve Biko (Stir It Up)”

I went to see the ATCQ documentary “Beats, Rhymes and Life” on Friday. I wasn’t really planning on seeing it in the theater, but earlier that day my boy Jules hit me up to find out if I was going to see it. I’ve known Jules since high school and we shared quite a bit of hip hop together, along with a crew of other friends. Lots of Stretch & Bobbito and Rock Steady Anniversaries. I took his text as an omen and decided to leave work early to catch the late show. Glad I did.

The film wasn’t perfect but it was just what the young me needed to see. Working in music for over a decade and having been a fan of hip hop since about 1983, or so, has made it so I’m not so much a fan of hip hop anymore. Many reasons for that. I just don’t feel like rappers today are talking to me. I’m having a hard time finding folks who aren’t walking paths that have been well worn from use. I’m sure they are out there, but there is so much noise in the medium and I have little time for searching and listening.

In a former professional life I got an opportunity to interview Maseo from De La Soul. It’s always struck me that in the interview he showed appreciation for whatever was the current weaksauce music the kids were doing at the time of the interview (the interview was some years after De La’s early, influential albums, probably around 2000). When I asked him why he found the current shit to be relevant he basically said that hip hop is youth music and as long as the youth were feeling it and doing it, it wouldn’t die. I’m paraphrasing of course.

Seeing the movie took me back to that feeling I had as a youth experiencing hip hop. Remembering how it opened up a whole universe of style, thought and music for me. At the time there were so many different groups out doing their own thing that everyone could find something to like. Furthermore, people were open to listening to different variations on the themes. I challenge you to find the hardest hardrock knucklehead from that time who didn’t like or appreciate things beyond gangster rap. If they say they didn’t bump ATCQ, they’re lying.

The movie made me happy and sad for this band of brothers that brought me so much joy. It also made me happy and sad for this music that once meant so much to me. I know it’s not dead, but I know it’ll be some time before I feel I can commune with it again. Instinctively I’ve been rocking Native Tongue’s music since Friday.

There was a moment in the film where Busta Rhymes is telling Q-Tip about a recent trip to Vegas where he found himself playing Midnight Marauders and a song came on (I believe it was “Lyrics To Go”). So Busta says that he hadn’t heard it in a long time, but the song came on and he was struck by how beautiful it was that he just started crying right there in his car. I can relate.

Robert Angier: I never thought I’d find an answer at the bottom of a pint glass.

Cutter: Hasn’t stopped you looking, has it?

Apropos to absolutely nothing, excepts having this quote jump in my head today. Shouts to the Modern Shark fam/collective. I’ve worked on some of their past projects, including the incredible “Feeding Einstein”, which I actually cut the double vinyl on (oh how I miss cutting vinyl, sometimes).

While I haven’t had time to check out any of their live shows in the last year (another penny in the guilt jar), including their album release (sorry Baje), these guys really do their thing (nothing to say here, just wanted to keep the parenthesis rhythm going). And they’re really nice guys too, which goes a long way with me.

Anyway, see their collective and all of it’s artistic eruptions at the website.

Universe, you know I have a hard time balancing it all, as is. First you flash Morgan Freeman’s Through The Wormhole and Louis CK’s Louie in front of my eyes. And then you drop another long-form magazine in my lap that I desperately want to subscribe to but that will just sit in the sidelines, staring blankly at me as I agonize with guilt over not finding time to read it.

I’m talking about The Believer. I know I’m a few years late to the party but I’ve also never jumped on the McSweeney’s train. Even though I’m sure the scenery is great. I am a fan of the idea of their Park Slope store, even if I’ve never exactly been inside. I know, I’m a terrible human.

And they don’t even have a Kindle edition… Want to force me to remember to carry around one more thing. I get it, the magazine probably looks awesome, but damn if you aren’t fucking with my ability to get shit done.

Universe, consider yourself warned. No more interesting things in my lane for the rest of the year.

I had heard wondrous tales of in-dash turntables from cars of yore. Never bothered to really investigate. But now I’ve had the evidence dropped in my lap, joy!

The Fickle Needle of Fate: “The Highway Hi-Fi record player slides in and out easily and can be operated without taking your eyes off the road.”

(Via The Believer.)

I was just talking to a friend this weekend about Outkast. Telling the how’s and why’s I came to think of them as one of, if not, THE best hip hop group that ever has been. But also, why I don’t think they’ll ever make another album together as Outkast. Then they gotta go and make me look dumb…

I’ve seen some rumours (UK spelling just for the fuck of it, I’ve got Stevie Nicks on the mind) spreading about them planning on releasing two solo albums end of this year AND a group album next year. That would be awesome if it were true, or if it were to come true.

Most groups/bands/couples are just unstable isotopes always ready to break down and apart. And it’s that great energy that brings about the group’s most brilliant moments and also what drives them so far apart in time. See A Tribe Called Quest and Pete Rock & CL Smooth as examples. Hell, see Fleetwood Mac while Stevie is still on the mind.

Outkast has always had a different chemical composition. Each member could always exist in their own lane and, do it well, but they could also form like Voltron and destroy you, if Voltron only had two parts.

Their last release was a different story. “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” was like an open acknowledgment that they had grown into two completely different artists, but that they still had a lot of love for each other and their respective talents. After that dropped, and in the years since it’s release, and the Big Boi album after that, I became convinced they’d never put out another full length album together. That they had grown too far apart stylistically. I wasn’t mad at that. They’ve left behind a great volume of work that anyone, in any genre, could only wish for. In hip hop they’ve come closest to genuine concept albums. Even if unintentionally, each album nails consistency while it strays from the center. (Note: ashamed to say I still haven’t heard “Idlewild” album so that screws up the math).

So this is great news. I hope they prove me wrong and do make this happen. I’m about due for another Outkast album. I think we all are. I also hope they find a balance in their work. A balance that’s difficult to attain, but that they’ve always handled so effortlessly.

On my way back to BK from the studio I stopped at the Guitar Center by Union Square. I was on the hunt for some guitar wall hangers and saw online that they had them for about $10. When I got to the store, they didn’t have those but had a $15 version. I was told the cheaper hangers had to be special ordered. That’s how they get ya.

Since my goal was to buy three of them, that gave me reason to pause. At $10 a pop they would only equal about half a night of drinking at the bar. At $15 each that’s almost a full night of drinking.

Since I’m planning on going out tomorrow night, and drinking, that made my choice clear. I’ll wait on the guitar hangers. I’m glad I have my priorities straight.

On the way back to the subway I heard a brass band playing. They were about 100 ft. in the wrong direction but they sounded awesome. I’ve never been to New Orleans and I bet that there are incredible bands out there that can easily seen/heard. But there was something special in it for me to bump into them on the way to the subway, by the Ghandi statue.

Can’t recall ever having heard a brass band in NY before. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention if they were about. This band lifted my spirits, they sounded great. Plus, the night was warm (for January) and the humidity had those brass notes just lingering in the air like someone with time to kill and nowhere pressing to be.

I hung out a little while up top just peeping them. A crowd of folks were doing the same but I wasn’t seeing them. I mean, I’m glad people were enjoying them and showing them love but a selfish part of me wanted them all to myself. Eventually I dropped a dollar in the collection and moved on into the subway.

On the subway platform there was a dude playing the accordion. He wasn’t too bad. Though, unlike the brass band, after one song I grew tired of dude. The train saved me.

Just one of those nights when the city’s found sound puts me in good spirits, despite a shitty commute earlier in the day and the way Guitar Center tried to jack me for my drinking cash.

Been spending a lot of time complaining to myself about how little time I have for all the things I want but too little actual time doing anything about that, whether it be finding time in unused pockets throughout my day, sleeping less, whatever. I’m getting really tired of these complaints to myself so I can only imagine how boring it is to read.

I recently mentioned spending my commute listening to old tracks, and though I intended to do some vocal mixing, I still felt like I accomplished something. I really need to examine how I spend my time throughout the day and figure out how to be more efficient.

Along those lines, I’ve been trying to go through old photos to find some to tweak and upload. I spent a few hours tonight going through and organizing about half of them. I then spent a good deal of time tweaking one of those photos, because I’m slow and this isn’t my usual gig.

This photo, now added to the header, was taken on Myrtle Ave in Ft. Greene while helping my buddy Neil Drumming with this video shoot.

*The title is in reference to Master Yoda

I count myself lucky because for the last few months that I’ve been working at Stadium Red I’ve been surrounded by talented folks who are successful in their fields. Not only does it help to be surrounded by these folks as a mastering engineer, so that I can better see my place in the timeline of the music creation process but also as a bedroom producer and occasional rapper.

I’ve had opportunity to work on, or listen to, versions of songs that have given me insight into the creative process as it pertains to these individuals, and their specific process, but also into how a track can grown and flourish over time to something bigger.

As a mastering engineer my job is take take what’s given and make it better. So it has been cool to see the ways it can get better even before it reaches me. There has always been a bit of that in my career, since I’ve done a little mixing in the past and my first gig at The Hit Factory had all of that going on under one roof too. But this is a smaller, more intimate, work environment. There are no wings in the building, yet. We do spend time in each others rooms. There is more cross-pollination of ideas going on.

As a producer it has been quite an education. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve recently looked back on many old tracks with a new ear. Some of that is the natural passage of time and listening to what’s out there in the world at large. But I feel that a lot of that has been compressed into the last few months and the experiences that I describe above.
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Last weekend I finally set about laying down a few verses of rhymes over an old track I was working on. I had a recent encounter with some friends that led to me writing the second verse, so I was really amped to get it done. I kept trying to find the right time for it, either at home or at the studio, but they never was. I happened to be in early on Saturday and took advantage. My mastering studio isn’t set up for vocal tracking and I didn’t want anyone walking in in the middle of a take so I put my couch against the door. I’ve never been completely comfortable with vocal performance so it took me a while to get adjusted, even in my own space.

I fully realize the stupidity of working in a full recording studio and deciding to do vocals in the mastering suite. I could’ve asked any of the engineers or assistants to track me in a booth. But again, the was an awkwardness I needed to get over since it had been a long time since I rhymed, so I’d have to do it myself. Plus, if any of my coworkers do get to hear me, I want it to sound good from the beginning. I can be a bit obsessive about my creative output. Which is one reason it’s strange that I don’t have much problem sending it out into the world via this site.

Anyway, the point of this post was not the recording of vocals, but what happened after. So I had all these takes and needed to mix them. I didn’t want to do the rough mixing and setup work at the studio, sort of for the same reasons listed before. I decided I would lay out a basic mix on the laptop, through headphones. I’ve done this before and had terrible results, but that’s because the whole mix was done that way. This time I wanted to do a basic vocal mix that could be polished off in the studio.

So I decide that if I take the local train home one night it would give me plenty of time to work on the track. I don’t normally pull out my laptop on the train (even though it’s a super old laptop) because I remember NYC when it was a lot worse. Hell I could still get robbed. But I was on the R train, the odds of that happening were slim. Plus I situated myself with my back against the end of the train so there is no one behind me and I have a clear view of all the exits. And at about 9pm the major rush hour is done and the people on the train now are just tired as hell from long hours and wanting to get home.

So I get all excited to do my work and after opening Logic up I realized that I forgot to put my new vocals on the lappy. I was pretty disappointed after all this setup. But I decided to use my time to listen to old beats I had worked on. I was happy I did.
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I’m sure I’ve said it before, either here on during my short stint covering for Ta-Nehisi over at the Atlantic, but when I was a kid all I wanted to be when I grew up was DJ Premier. Actually I didn’t really want to be him, I wanted to be me, but I wanted to leave an indelible mark on hip-hop.

As I’ve grown up, my relationship with hip-hop has thoroughly changed. My view of the world and music has broadened, albeit from my perch in Brooklyn. Also, my view of the producer of music that I’ve wanted to be, and the music that I want to produce, has changed (that sounds a bit convoluted).

I realized in college that I wouldn’t be able to make the music I wanted, without compromise, and make a living at it. I also realized that I just wasn’t that good, at least not then, and maybe still not now. I may be a late bloomer. I may yet have something valuable to contribute to the music world as a creative someday, but I don’t have the resources to put life on hold while I become the artist I’d like to be.

That’s why I got into audio engineering. It appeals to the geek in me, allows me to remain an integral part of music creation and it allows me to take my lady out to dinner once in a while (though not as often as I’d like). So for all those reasons, I am eternally indebted to engineering and to all those who’ve either taught me or allowed me to work on their projects.

That’s said, my work is still aligned with another master. Namely, the artists, producers and labels who create and shepherd music to the masses. Even if I have ideas or opinions on how things should sound, the final decision is not mine. That really isn’t such a big deal, but it means that I still need my own creative outlets where I’m totally in control. A time just for me.
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