Montreal’s Poirier is one of the latest to join the Mixpak family, releasing his jump-up Soca Road EP to much vuvuzela fanfare last month. Of course, he has a long musical history, having produced with Crookers, dj/rupture, Warrior Queen, MC Zulu and released numerous EPs across numerous genres, from ambient to soca. We asked him about playing 160bpm, producing in different languages and running his label, ALSO records.

Mixpak: How did you get into the music you produce & play?

It’s been a long curve, cos when I started making music I released a few ambient albums – so it’s quite different from where I am right now. It’s all related though so it was just a long and slow progression over about 10 years, so from ambient I went to abstract hip hop and from abstract hip hop I started doing more dancehall riddims and then I started to work with vocalists. Then I discovered soca music. So now I try to do a bit of everything…

So you’re changing genres all the time – but do you think you’ve found your spot now or in 10 years will you be making something different?

I’m always moving, always doing something different. At the moment I’m making super fast music, but I’m also making ambient and abstract hip hop at the same time. So I’m not really about trying to find anything, it’s just about making music. That’s what I’m like as a listener too. It’s not a big deal for me, but it’s quite shocking sometimes for people – they don’t see a progression or they don’t understand where it’s coming from but there’s always traces of where I’m going. I was making Soca Road at the same time that I was making music for a documentary that was very ambient, so I don’t have a problem making two different things at the same time. The easiest way to summarise what I’m doing is to say there’s 3 big genres of music that influence my work in general – that’s electronic, hip hop and reggae – and when they cross they can make all kinds of different music.

And you’ve made quite a lot of crossover tunes that you can’t easily categorize – what is it about crossover that is so good?

It’s not even necessarily about crossover, it’s just about my personal interpretation of something, and then at that point it becomes something particular to me. That’s my role as an artist and that’s what I like to do – push the envelope.

So what were you doing before you were able to produce full-time?

Working in a record store, being a music journalist, doing radio…it was always related to music. I was painting and drawing too, but music took over and it was really what I wanted to do deeply. I wasn’t making music as a teenager, I wasn’t even aware I was able to make a track and then when I worked it out I was like ‘fuck it, this is what I’m doing’. I jumped. Even if I don’t know where I’m gonna land, I jump. I took a risk but I was also very focussed.

But also, in my mind, if you’re making music and you’re Québécois, you sort of have a different support system in place for you as an artist?

Yeah. The Quebec music scene has their own star system, artists that aren’t heard of at all outside of Quebec make a good living, they can sell a load of CDs and tour across Quebec and be very popular. We have our own TV channels and radio too. There’s a support for that system, which doesn’t really happen in the rest of Canada. I do sometimes work with people related to that, I did a remix for Pierre Lapointe, he’s huge in Quebec and he tours France too. Sometimes some of the younger artists are open to a newer sort of music and they ask people like me to work with them or remix them, so I can play in very small towns where they have no electronic scene at all.

So are you doing a bunch of things that you don’t publicise?

I publicise it, but I won’t push it the same way to an international crowd, but what I’m doing in Montreal is the way I experiment, it’s my laboratory. When I tour everything’s been tested in Montreal, which is where I do my work on the frontline.

So do you think that Montreal influenced your leaning for global music?

As much as we support each other in the francophone community, we live 45 minutes from the border so for sure things from the US or from Europe come to us, we’re always either consuming it or confronted with it. And Montreal is a bilingual city too so there’s always a cross-cultural thing. When you’re interested in something different from Quebecois music, outside the pop rock French scene, there’s stuff coming at you from everywhere, I was listening to stuff from Europe, from the UK, from Africa, and American stuff growing up.

So how did you get to work with the vocalists you’re working with – in the UK it’s very easy to link up with someone nearby – but I imagine you don’t have that in Montreal?

I’ve DJed hundreds of times in Montreal, and in all those gigs, maybe twice an MC has come to me and asked me to grab the mic and spit some stuff. I’ve played maybe 10 times in London and it’s happened to me more times than it happened in Montreal.

So I have to look and develop something very unique and different with the MCs I meet. A lot of the MCs in Montreal were not doing anything related to the scene I’m in at all, so I had to show them what kind of music I was playing and DJing, and what that scene is, cos they’d never heard of it…so I had to develop a strong artistic relationship with them. Sometimes it took years before we were even able to figure out how they would sing or rap over my riddims.

Like who?

Face-T and Boogat are two examples of that. Face T was in a francophone duo who’ve had a lot of success in Quebec and in France and when I started giving riddims to Face T, he’d never even heard anything like that, or knew that there was a scene like that. We travelled together, we played in the UK and Europe together, and he was just discovering something new that he’d never heard. Both him and Boogat had like 10-year careers in their own scene and Boogat was rhyming in French too and started bringing in Spanish influences but he was part of the Quebecois rap scene and when I gave him my first riddim it took him like 6 months to figure out what to do with it cos it was so unusual for him. Then he started to come to shows and we went to New York to play and he was just like ‘fuck yeah, I never knew there was this whole other network and whole other scene that existed’ and now he’s totally in it, but it took a lot of time to show them that there was another world.

So why did you decide to spend your time working with them when you could have used vocalists that were already in that scene?

There were no MCs in Montreal that were in tune with what I wanted to do. It’s nice to collaborate with MCs from abroad and I did it a lot, but it’s nice to have support in your own city, because you develop together. I’ve done 12 tracks with Face T and maybe 6 with Boogat, so we’re kind of building a catalogue together and the more and more you do tracks with them, they get where you want to go, and they’re trying to push the envelope now too. When you create not just a one-night relationship with the MC, as it were, and you develop a relationship over the years, artistically speaking you get to a very nice point where you’re in harmony.

If you could work with any vocalist alive or dead who would you choose?

For Jamaicans then Barrington Levy, Mr Vegas, Busy Signal, I love what they’re doing. I’ve always wanted to do something with Roots Manuva and Dizzee Rascal. I’d like to do something with Busta Rhymes…

But you’re also working with people over the internet too, so how do you go about choosing your vocalists?

It’s quite random, it’s just my personal tastes. I’ve toured a lot and travelled, so I’ve met a lot of people I did a track with Serocee and that happened cos I was gigging in Germany and he was there too gigging with Toddla T and I knew Toddla cos he did a remix for one of my tracks, so I met Serocee and after a week we linked up and I sent him a riddim. With EJ Von Lyrik from the Soca Road EP, I was in South Africa and my friend was working with her so i met her and showed her the riddim I wanted her to voice and she really liked it but it was something she’d never done before, that kind of tempo, that kind of vibe. She came really strong on it, but I had to explain where I was going with the project. Imposs, who’s also on the Soca Road EP, he was a part of the biggest hip hop group in Quebec called Muzion, I’d been wanting to do something with them, or him for ages, in Creole. It took two years; I gave him the riddim, he was really feeling it, and then after that was the earthquake in Haiti and the whole artistic scene was put on hold. Sometimes I do tracks with people I’ve never met, that was the case with YT, and MC Zulu.

Do you feel there are more obstacles when you’re making tunes with people who don’t vocal in English or Patois, like Imposs?

I’m interested in other languages and also with other accents. There’s so much diversity in the world, why do we always focus on English? I find it a little bit restrictive. You can have a nice flavour in other languages, so why not try it. I can play in different crowds and sometimes they don’t even know what language it is but they still dance and react positively. The meaning of a track is just one eleventh; there’s the texture of the voice, the delivery, the flow, the melody of it, so there’s many things that as somebody who can’t understand the language, you can still rely on. When i was growing up i didn’t speak english but i was feeling english music, I didn’t even know what they were saying…

I find it stupid to ignore where you’re coming from. I’m not saying I’d like to do a French album, but why ignore the context of where you’re coming from. If you want to make things evolve, you gotta do it first hand. I worked with a lot of french MCs in

In terms of being edgy, soca is really a genre that a lot of people see as being on the edge of what people can deal with, it’s so full-on…what is it for you that attracts you to soca?

I liked the power soca first, it was the fast stuff that got me into it. But there’s a whole other scene with the groovy soca stuff that is very popular too. I’m into Bunji Garlin and Mr Slaughter, they have ragga dancehall delivery but in a soca context. For me that was making the link from all the Caribbean music I like.

Then once at a party I was DJing and the energy was crazy and I wanted something crazier, and I started to play soca just to see what could happen, and it was wild. I didn’t know about the whole culture or anything but I started to investigate and see what I could do. Fast music is not something new, or unusual, so there’s a way to play it, you just have to be very clever and drop it at a good moment, but I’ve played my soca tracks in front of very very different crowds and I’ve developed a sense of good timing. I remember I was playing with Face T in a small town in Germany, and I’m playing all the big hits I have, everything possible, and the people were reacting ok, but it wasn’t like awesome and at some point I got a bit upset and I was like ‘fuck it, I’m gonna drop some soca stuff I produced cos nothing is really happening right now, so I’ve got nothing to lose’. So I dropped soca tracks and people went wild and I was just in the middle of Germany, they’d probably never heard anything like that…so there’s always a way to play things. I’m not saying there’s always a window to drop soca, but there’s certainly always a window to go faster. You just need to be very careful of the energy on the dancefloor to take it to another level.

So the first installment of soca came on Ninja Tunes, why was there a gap in between and why did you decide to release on Mixpak?

I have a lot of music right now. I’m preparing more of an abstract album for Ninja Tunes, beat stuff, not Caribbean stuff, so I wanted to focus more on that with them, but then I was looking through the Mixpak catalogue and thought it would be a good idea.

Have you got a big bank of unreleased tracks?

I wouldn’t say that. I have a big bank of ideas. I just gotta finish them. I’m working on my album and then on a bunch of EPs and remixes too.

What do you use produce?

Just my computer. Fruity Loops. That’s pretty much it.

How long would it take you to produce a track?

It can be very fast or it can take forever. I can do one in a week, but if there’s vocals, it can take six months. You have to find the MC, give it to them, wait for them to record. I have some stuff that’s been watiing around for years and I haven’t found a solution for how to finish it. It’s not like I do one track by one, I do a lot of things at the same time, some will get finished properly, some will not.

And in between all that you’ve been releasing other people’s music on your own label too?

Yeah I’d just been hearing music that wasn’t getting released and I thought ‘damn it’s good music’, I want to share that with the people, I want it official and get it out either to my network…or beyond. It’s funny cos the first track I released was a track in French called ‘ZiggyZa ZiggyZi’ by a rapper who decided to adapt a folk song – it’s so much part of our folklore that we don’t even know who wrote the lyrics and the melody, it’s super old and super quebecois, and he changed the lyrics but kept the same melody. People in Quebec would never think that that track would be sold to non-francophone people, but you just need to think outside the box sometimes…there could be something universal in it that can be shared…and sold.

Did you establish it so as to fill a gap – as in no-one else was releasing that stuff?

Yeah, it’s kind of that, but I’m not doing it because nobody’s doing it, I’m doing it because I like it, and I believe in it. Another goal behind it was also to bring non-francophone music to francophone people in Quebec, and show them that first and second generation immigrants are as much Quebecois as the people that have been there for generations, they can dig stuff in Spanish as much as they can dig stuff in French, and they can feel it’s coming from them still.

Do you think that since you started out that that attitude is changing?

I would say yes, in a certain way, cos I have a network and I’ve been touring and I know where to go. It doesn’t make sense commercially speaking, but people do it cos they’re passionate and they believe in it, and at some point it might go really well…for example a track I did with Face T, ‘Wha-la-la-leng’, we performed that on French national radio in Canada, on a show where you would never think you would have that kind of music. I said let’s perform ‘Wha-la-la-leng’ and [Face T] was like ‘damn they’re all like 60 year olds, listening to pop rock and french singers, why would we do that?’. I said they asked us to come so we’re gonna do what we wanna do and when we did it they loved it. So in the music business there’s bad prejudice from the crowd but also from the performers who think sometimes that the crowd cannot handle what they’re doing, so they won’t do it. You need to say let’s just put that down and see what happens.

So you think you should just introduce everyone to it?

Certainly. It’s about non-ghettoisation of the music, it’s about saying maybe you never heard that music or know how to speak that language or know even what langauge they’re speaking but just take a break for a moment and not think about what’s defining the music and just play it and see what happens.

Where do you think is the best place to play in terms of being open to all that?

There’s no bad places. I have a personal link with the crowd in Montreal, and some people keep coming to all my gigs to support. Playing in the UK is quite nice cos of the understanding of soundsystem culture and Jamaican culture, so it feels like home to me, but it’s just my job as a DJ to figure out what to do to push them to the limit. I might bring the same ingredients but I’ll put it on the table in a different way.

Watch out for Poirier’s remix of ‘Get Gyal Easy’ coming soon on Mixpak

Interview by Suze Webb

Boomshots’ Rob Kenner interviewed Mixpak artist Popcaan for Complex Magazine, delving into his relationship with Kartel, the Gaza/Gully war, Clarks, raving and more.

Head here to read the full interview and watch out for more Popcaan/Mixpak coming soon.

Dubbel Dutch talks to Canadian online magazine Beatroute about ‘girls, drugs and dancehall’:

My style of music is hard to put into a box. It doesn’t have a specific genre, and that’s kinda my thing; from bass to Jersey club to world beat, I’ve tried to make a name for myself and not be pinpointed

Head to the site to read in full.

It’s hard to believe that French producer Douster only bounced onto the scene around two years ago with his fresh take on tropical rhythms from all over the world. His influences and taste for the globalized beat run as wide as the labels he’s released on, from Akwaaba to ZZK. After a small hiatus, he has now reappeared on the scene only to announce the launch of his new label, Bebup, with good friend Benjamin Collet and the release of a brand new (free) EP, Boom Shaka Laka, on Mad Decent’s new Jeffree’s imprint. Before he flew off to South America for a two-month long tour, we spoke on the phone about his new label, his upcoming tracks for Mixpak and his love of Hip Hop.

So you’ve been away for a while, what have you been doing?

I wasn’t doing nothing, I’ve been making a lot of music! I had a big break with the Lion King thing so I got a lot of bookings for that tropical kind of stuff and the truth is I wasn’t really producing much tropical stuff so it didn’t really make sense and I didn’t really want to stay in that vein, so I did a lot of personal projects, like with rapper friends from Chile, friends from Seattle and here in Lyon, so I’ve doing music but not releasing it. Now I have a lot of tracks that I don’t know what to do with!

So you think you were put into a box with the tropical stuff and the Lion King remix? People had got it into their head that you made a certain type of music and actually that wasn’t quite what you wanted?

Definitely. I like that music that I was doing but I wasn’t into doing it anymore, so I was spending my time searching for music I wanted to do.

So did you achieve that with this new EP for Mad Decent, is that more you? What was the thinking behind that?

I wasn’t really thinking, I was just like ‘oh yeah i should do an EP for Mad Decent’ cos it’s been a while since they said yeah just send us tracks. That was in May or June. It’s proper club music but still with that kind of tropical twist. I realised that in the US that kind of music works kind of well and I still like to play it.

And of course you’re also starting your new label Bebup. What’s the idea behind that – when did that start out?

This summer I was speaking with a close friend of mine from home in Lyon, we’ve been working together a long time, he was taking care of my bookings and management stuff and he didn’t really want to do it anymore. He came up with the idea of starting a record label to promote new music, and we didn’t really want to do a style specific label cos we like a lot of different music. It can be tricky for a label to do that cos the fan base of the label is kind of lost, but we thought we’d try it. I’ve met a few really young producers on the road and I usually say to them send me your music and sometimes I’m quite surprised at the quality of the stuff and I think why not just give them a chance.

So you want to use your position to promote younger producers that are doing good things?

Definitely. That’s how I made it to where I am now, even if it’s still kind of small. I had the help of people like Diplo who told me my music was good and tried to push my sound. If the music is good you just have to get it to the right people and then there’s no reason that it won’t work.

Your influences mix for the label runs from Clipse to Pink Floyd, it doesn’t really give us much indication of what the label’s going to be like, did you deliberately leave it open?

Yeah, we wanted to leave it open. The first release is southern Hip Hop influenced, but modern club music driven. So it fits in with the music scene right now, but with a weird twist, cos the artist, Roma, it’s his first release and he isn’t that influenced by the scene. I realised that when people start to do a few releases, their sound most of the time adapts to the scene and that’s why it’s more fun to release people who are making their first step in the scene, it’s their thing, and noone else’s.

Will you be releasing any of your own stuff?

I don’t think so. I do have a few side projects that might fit in though. The first two releases are going to be purely electronic music, and quite clubby, but then we want to release some bands.

So will the releases be just digital or will you be pressing vinyl?

We’re starting digital only for the first two, but we’re gonna do limited edition vinyl and cassettes too, if people still use cassette players. It’s gonna be like more goodies than selling it to the classic vinyl retailers.

Do you have any worries about starting a label at this point in time?

I don’t have any expectations, I’m not just doing it for the sake of doing it, I’d like people to love the music and follow it but I don’t think it’s a bad time for doing a label. I think it’s way easier than it was before. There’s a lot of competition but if you do it right, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work. You oviously need to put a lot of work in but i hope it’s worth it.

How do you think your label will stand out from other stuff out there?

Yeah that’s one of the big problems isn’t it. We really want to stay on the first release for the artist, I think it’s going to be hard but we’re going to try to always find new acts or new producers that want to give us their first EP.

Will you be looking up to any labels in particular that you think have done it right?

The ones I think of are based on the ancient model, like Warp or XL, run by people who have a specific taste but still release a wide varitey of music. This is stupid but I’m just looking to labels that release good music. Kinda like Mixpak cos you guys are releasing a lot of different styles but it’s all good music…it’s just matter of taste, but staying true to who we are and hoping the public will stay with us.

So you won’t be taking on anything you don’t like cos you think it’s a good business idea?

Definitely not. I don’t really see it as a business, we’re doing everything to make it work but the first thing is the music. nowadays you can’t just count on the music, you have to work on the visuals, the promotion, and we understand that fully but we kinda want to keep it about the music.

So you’re about to go on tour to South America again, what are you going to be doing there?

I’m going there with my friend Arcade, who’s from Argentina, we’ve planned some B2B DJ sets there focussed on Chicago house. It’s music we both like a lot. We’re trying to do some new Chicago house productions, it’s still ghetto and it’s impossible to have the same vibe as they had back then but we really like the music so we want to have fun playing it in South America basically.

You think the Argentinian crowd will like that?

I don’t really know if they want to hear it. I think so! There’s a scene there focussed on European music. And the whole Chicago sound is coming back so why not. We’re not going to play any South American influenced music out there.

When you first were there, when you linked up with ZZK , what were you playing?

Kind of the same stuff I play now, like club music, baltimore club, ghettotech, hip hop, dancehall, a bit of reggaeton. I’m a big hip hop fan from France and the US, but when i first got [to South America, where he lived for 2 years] I was like where’s the rap music ? I looked for it but there wasn’t any, there’s not really a hip hop scene but they had this cumbia bichera that was a lot like gangster rap here in France, so i was like OK, that’s what people listen to in their cars, so I started buying the CDs and messing around with the beats, doing remixes, and at that time the ZZK guys were doing the same things too. When they heard my music they were like ‘oh you’re doing exaclty what we want to do.’ But the ZZK guys are focussed on nu-cumbia and electronic kind of things, where my thing was really more like club music with cumbia influences.

So do you still listen to cumbia or has your time away changed that?

I still listen to a lot, and my wife’s from Argentina so I stay in touch with the new stuff but i’m not comfortable with the nu cumbia thing cos I usually prefer the raw stuff. I like it when it sounds raw and not well done but still has a big powerful feeling. Sometimes taking a sound out of music and trying to do it in a new fashion to make it more accessible to other types of people sort of kills the music you were using in the beginning. So I tried to not do that and if it’s not me I won’t do it.

While you’re out there will you be looking out for anyone to sign or collaborate with?

I’ll be working with a few friends from Santiago de Chile, called Zonora Point, I’ll be working with them for 2 weeks. Last time I was there I made a mixtape with them, but now one of them is really interested in doing a solo project, he’s a talented rapper but he sings too. It’s hard cos with lyrics in Spanish you can’t get to a non Spanish-speaking crowd, maybe in the US it’s easier cos there are a lot Spanish speaking people, but in Europe you can do things like the macarena or Ricky Martin kind of things and peope like it but if you do rap it doesn’t work. So we’re going to try some stuff, we’re working on an album with them too, with me as a producer, so we need to finish that. But that’s for the south amerian market cos it’s not going to fit in on my label. And there’s a few producers out there in Chile too that i want to work with too.

You’re quite comfortable producing hip hop though aren’t you, is that not what you originally started out producing?

Yeah as a teenager, I used to do straight rap productions, with samples from French rap producers. It wasn’t that bad but it was something that I was doing as a hobby. It’s something I’d like to do right now, I’d like to find some good rappers to go on the beats. The problem with hip hop is you need a good rapper if you wanna be happy with your beat.

Would you be happy if you were making straight hip hop?

I don’t know. I could be but it’s one of my problems really, I can’t be happy just producing one style of music.

Yeah cos you’ve been making dancehall riddims too, which will be released on Mixpak next year, you obviously know what you’re doing and have a love of dancehall, what’s your relationship with that?

My dancehall love came at the same time as my love for hip hop, I was like 16. My first contact with dancehall was through a DJ here in France who always played ‘Sim Simma’ [Who Am I], or Red Rat, and the whole Bam Bam riddim stuff. Then I listened to a lot of new roots, cos it was the time, like Jah Cure and Buju Banton and Sizzla, and i kinda got bored listening to it. Then I got into UK dub, steppas, some violent kind of riddims with hard sub bass and then I came back to dancehall maybe 4 or 6 years ago when I saw a new style of deejays [aka MCs] coming up. I think Vybz Kartel initiated that last big wave of dancehall artists, and I’d always liked the riddims but I was checking it once a month and then in the last 3 years I’ve really been following the productions and really liking it. I’ve always made dancehall riddims but i never really found the opportunity to do anything. I wanted to go to Jamaica and meet people and record there but I’ve never been able to. So I thought why not just start something through the internet.

If you had have gone to Jamaica, who would you have looked to work with?

Right now, it would be Jah Vinci, Popcaan, for the girls, Spice I think. Actually, I love Ryno too. I like those new singjays, with really high pitched voices, I don’t care about autotune – some people hate it but I actually like it when it’s done weird.

I read somewhere that you often play certain dancehall tracks out? Which are you favourites?

It depends but i have a few…just cos they’re edits that i did a while ago. Million stylez, ‘Miss Fatty’, that’s a big track. And a ‘Dutty Wine’ remix I did, it’s pretty hard. I had a few things like ‘Bubble Like Soup’, that’s a big one, then some old shcool stuff like ‘Pose Off’, Cutty Ranks, and the Egyptian riddim. They’re dancehall classics. When I play dancehall I don’t want to educate people I just want to make them dance.

I guess that’s really what draws together all the different strands of music that you play – dancing?

Definitley. That’s why i say i do dance music. All the music I make is meant to be danced to. Even if it’s different styles. I’ve just started to do music that isn’t dance music, and that’s hard for me, it has to be very emotional if it isn’t dance music cos I have a very simple relationship to music, I hear it, it makes me move, so I like it. I don’t really think that much about music. Now i’m starting to cos i figured it was an important part…the emotional part…

Check out Douster’s new label Bebup and his EP for Mad Decent here.

[Interview by Suze Webb]

Head of Prodigal Entertainment, Dylan Powe is a stalwart of the Jamaican music scene – from working on legendary Kingston street party, Passa Passa, to managing one of the island’s brightest talents, Natalie Storm. Last year he produced and released the innovative Showa Eski, the first in a trilogy of riddims designed to (re-)unite West Kingston with London – featuring 6 vocals from Jamaica and the UK – namely Wiley, Lady Chann and Ward 21. A year later, the second installment, Global Gangsta, is just about ready to go and is undoubtedly set to build on the solid foundation of Showa Eski, tying together the threads of Jamaican influence worldwide.

Over G-chat, I asked Dylan a few questions about the thinking behind the trilogy and his vision for Prodigal:

Mixpak: So how are things looking for Global Gangsta – do you have a date for release yet?

Prodigal: The track is finished and ready to go, we’re just waiting for the video to be edited.
 
Right – and by the looks of the promo video you got everyone into your studio in Jamaica to record?

All except for Joel Ortiz, he did his voicing in the States.
 
Why did you choose him as the US representative?

Well I am partial to Brooklyn spitters. And for this particular track I wanted people who could just really spit. Not necessarily those with the best hooks, cause I knew I was going to bring in someone for the hook [Wayne Marshall]. But i wanted people who represented these 3 streams of the same river to the fullest. To me Wiley is the best UK spitter ever. Stein is definitely top 3 in Jamaica as far as being able to come up with off the top of his head shit and spit in studio in 10-15 minutes. Joel is a rapper’s rapper. He’s not really selling millions but everyone knows Ortiz spit game is top as far as the newer group of rappers outta the US.
 
So the idea was more a kind of lineage and overall musical project rather than a business decision?

Yeah. And that’s why its taken forever. I wanted to do it proper. It’s all part of this Showa trilogy of which Showa Eski was the first installment. It’s basically showing all the different strains of urban music that have all evolved from our area in Jamaica: West Kingston. For instance, hip hop=Kool Herc=West Kingston. Wiley=grime=jamaican dancehall=West Kingston. Stein and Marshall obviously are from there. And the track is dubsteppy which is West Kingston too.

So do you feel like West Kingston’s influence is something that’s ignored as far as music history goes?
 
Well… just that there are a lot of parts of the story which people aren’t aware of, so if this makes them more aware, that’s cool.
 
Definitely. Why did you choose the name ‘Global Gangsta’?
 
Hmmm, I just felt like it. Sonically it makes sense. And it also is about how how a Jamaican music form from a ghetto was able to go global and infiltrate all areas of the world.
  
The riddim has got some very dark overtones to it, as did the first…
  
Deliberately. It was a dark time; a lot of people were killed by the state, from a community that means a lot to me and a community that gave Jamaica its biggest export: reggae music. So none of [the riddims] are really happy happy. The last one is not so dark, that will drop in April, the Showa Cabin.

Have you decided what artists you’ll be working with for the Showa Cabin?

Not yet. Only Natalie Storm so far. I have two other artists in mind but we’ll see…

How did the Showa Eski go down in Jamaica…cos in the UK i’ve heard it mash up some grime and dancehall raves…

I prolly heard it once on radio, and once in an upscale club, an uptown ting. It had no real impact here. It wasn’t really made for Jamaica or with a Jamaican audience in mind. But it did well in the UK, got good love in Canada and some pockets in the US. Tempo wise and sonically, the Showa Eski and Showa Step are not in the vein of current Jamaican music. And that’s deliberate.

It’s deliberate in terms of production but in terms of your audience, why do you not mind skipping out Jamaica?

I want to show how our music is exportable and how it can blend with outside acts, markets and sounds. I don’t mind skipping jamaica because “success” here is not really a mark of real success to me. Jamaican music has become insular and inaccessible to the fans who loved it before. It’s cool, and it is great to hear your music killing dances, but when you know the process that makes that happen…like it’s not really hard to spend $20 US on a selector at a dance and have him play a track for 20 minutes so people can feel like you have a “big” tune. So it tempers your approach…I tend to look at the big picture. And music is just one angle of that.

So do you see collaboration as a fundamental stage in that?

Always, on some level at least: musicians, art work, video editors, writers, cinematographers. With how the world is now, one is foolish not to work with the best people you can, who understand your vision. I model Chris Blackwell. I think to myself, what would Blackwell do? Most times I can’t afford to do it, but I want to try and have his vision for Jamaican culture and music.

What, then, is your vision for prodigal?

A global Jamaican brand, along the lines of a 21st century Island Records. A whole aesthetic that starts with music, but ends up anywhere.

In terms of production then are you working alone?

Yes and no. There’s lots of collaboration there too – I will get someone to do drums, and then someone else does keys, and I may then get a UK person to mix, and a German friend to master. I just try to put the stuff in place to get a sound or feel that I like, sometimes it’s all me or all Jamaican, other times it’s not.

Seeing as you seem to be focussing a lot on what’s going on outside Jamaica, is there any music out there in JA that you like at the moment?

I like some Proteje stuff, I like Ward 21 stuff generally. I’m listening to a bit of that west coast Cali reggae band stuff, some of that is good. But I dont really love love most of the stuff that I heard this summer.

Do you think now with mavado in the US and things taking off a bit for Island pop more generally across the globe, that maybe JA/UK/US links will strengthen in the coming years?

Maybe. The world is a lot smaller. Wherever the hits are, people will find them.

Did it work out well for you working with people from across the globe?

Not anymore difficult than working with Jamaicans right here. It was actually easier for the most part. I’m down to work with anyone, so long as it works out and moves our objectives forward.

Showa Step will be out soon, followed by Showa Cabin in 2012. Dylan is also on the look out for a Jamaican-music loving intern who would like to get on board with Prodigal Entertainment. Contact him for further info: prodigalent@gmail.com

Dre Skull talks to Turntable Lab about Vybz, his favourite JA producers, what he was like at school, his top tunes and even places to eat. Go check out the full interview over at their site.

MTV Iggy’s Jesse Serwer caught up with Dre to ask him “how a quiet, shy, white guy with no connections ended up working with dancehall’s most notorious star?” Good question, right?

READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

Andy Petr is an incredibly prolific, nineteen-year-old, up-and-coming electronic producer from the Midwest, who released his first EP on Mixpak, ‘Rapper Turned Singer’, in May and is set for two brand new, free EPs in the next few weeks.

His sound is defined by dense, overdubbed samples, complex synth lines and a surprisingly sweet and eccentrically disjointed pop sensibility. I talked to Andy on the day before his relocation to NYC about what it’s like being one of the youngest producers in the game, Kanye West, Black Flag and how he sees himself fitting into the future of electronic music.

Reviews and interviews pay a lot of attention to your age, usually marveling at how savvy you are for a 19-year-old. How much time a day do you spend listening to music and also, how do you feel about being billed as a kind of child prodigy of electronic music?

I like it, I think it’s funny. It makes me think of Baby Mozart playing for the pope, or maybe more like Justin Bieber than Baby Mozart. Petr Fev’r Y’all!

As far as time spent listening, I’d say all the time, as long as I’m not asleep. I’m always working on something and if I’m not making music I’m listening to music. I didn’t start super early or anything, I come from a family that is not musical or artistic in any way, though they were always supportive of me when I decided I wanted to do music. I never had a relative that had instruments around or anything though, and my decision to pursue music was completely self-motivated, which I am proud of in a way. I had to do all the research myself.

What’s your creative process like? How do you amass the samples you use and how do you conceptualize your sound?

I’m trying to form this solidified aesthetic, like this vision I have, regardless of the source material which is mostly informed by listening to other people. I try to listen to a lot of music from the 20th century that wouldn’t be considered electronic music. I listen to a lot of classical music like Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. I like older composers too, 19th century nationalist composers like Bela Bartok and Mussorgsky from Russia. I want to have a sound that’s less temporal. I want to be viewed in a larger frame; I want to make something that will stand up to the test of time.

As far as samples go I mainly use a Roland SH-101 analog synth for bass-lines. Most of my polyphonic synth sounds are actually manipulated or pitched samples, which are recorded in Ableton. With Ableton, the sounds are instantly available to be fucked with infinitely. Basically everything you hear in my songs has been chopped up and processed and re-sampled 5 or six times. I think that’s an overriding theme in my sound, or what gives me my sound. I would like to record a guitar or a drum set but I got disillusioned with playing live instruments. I played guitar for 7 years and played jazz rhythm guitar seriously in high school but I haven’t really played since. I can still play a guitar solo but I can’t write anything original with the instrument. The structure of playing guitar chords in a band is totally ingrained in my mind. I like the sounds of a guitar so I sample other people’s but it feels limiting to play. I think that’s mainly because of the way pitches are laid out across the strings in Perfect Fourths. The layout is conducive to parallel fifths and power chords, which can get dull after playing rock music for so many years. Processing and cutting samples into something new is what’s creatively natural for me. Most of my samples are organic, I don’t use soft-synths because I don’t have any and the ones I’ve tried I haven’t liked the sound of.

I also take samples from records, weird old African records or YouTube videos. A year ago I started layering more. Like on one of my songs I used 8 different sounds layered together to get a hand clap, one of the sounds was from a video of someone eating a banana. I’ve also used vocal tones from the robbers in Home Alone yelling while they’re being smashed in the face, that kind of thing. Now I use that style of layering on most of my tracks.

Is there an artist or show in particular that made you want to make music?

I think I got serious when I was like 14 and I got this book called Our Band Could Be Your Life. When you’re in middle school stuff like that is really influential and inspiring. The book is about fourteen different bands from the early 1980′s to the early 1990′s all from America, ranging from hardcore punk to weirder indie stuff. Each chapter is about a different band like Sonic Youth, Minor Threat, Black Flag and Dinosaur Jr. The two chapters that really stood out to me though were Black Flag’s and the Butthole Surfers’. Black Flag is the band that made me get into music. I was so inspired by how intense they were. They weren’t like what “punk rock” was about, they weren’t the Sid Vicious type playing shitty bass and sneering and putting their middle fingers up and doing drugs. Black Flag was super serious about the music and they were the first band to do DIY tours and I feel like where other punk bands were bratty or snotty, Black Flag was just fucking angry and upset and deranged and insane. If you read Henry Rollins’ Get in the Van, I think that’s what I really identified with, just being a teenager and shit like that. In high school I was obsessed with that strain of American music and I just wished I was a kid from that era and wanted to make punk music and was playing guitar in bands. Then when I was fifteen I started making beats because I didn’t know anyone who wanted to play drums for the kind of band I wanted to be in.

I got into electronic music a little later. When I was young I wrote off electronic music, I thought it was kind of lame. But then I figured out that I really liked Daft Punk and that they didn’t suck. I accidentally downloaded an album by Arthur Russell off LimeWire in middle school and I was like ‘what the fuck is this shit?’ And then five years later I realized how much I liked Arthur Russell. Summer of 2009 was around the time when Warp was coming out with a bunch of artists like Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke who were doing really good new electronic music. That’s also around the time when HyperDub 5 came out and Zomby was making some really good stuff too. It was all before dubstep developed a kind of dirty connotation in my mind; it was when you could still look up dubstep and find a lot of new and interesting music. For me, it was before high school kids in suburban Milwaukee found out that “dubstep” was shit music like Skrillex and Bassnectar. That’s when I decided I wanted to just make electronic music and not try to write lyrics or record any other traditional instruments like guitar, drums. It was an exciting time. It still is and all those artists are still going but it seems less unified, in my mind at least. I’ve never lived in London, I’ve only lived in Milwaukee for 9 months, before then I lived with my parents because I was still in high school. I’ve never been part of an electronic scene. I think it’s maybe important to my sound (maybe) that I’m not part of a scene, everything I make is going off of what I think is going on in London and LA. I think my music might be a weird mutation. I think nature has some bearing on my music too. I’m not an “outdoorsy” kind of guy but I like the woods and the massive amount of natural life you see when you live in Wisconsin.

Kanye West is a big inspiration to me too. I think Kanye is the 21st century pop genius. He’s a superstar but I still think he’s underrated. He gets on any track and everyone just starts copying him. For example just listen to his tracks “Kind of Like a Big Deal,” “Live Fast Die Young,” and “H.A.M.” He’s so versatile. People play him down as a rapper but I think he’s really sick at that too. He’s not super fast or lyrical but his articulation; something about his rapping has so much depth to it. I think his last record was at least the best major label pop album released in a really long time. I want to make an album like that I guess, Kanye is what I work towards. Shout-out, Kanye! I want to work with you!

As far as shows go there was one show Terrior Bute, Juiceboxxx and Health played at the Borg Ward [small Milwaukee DIY space]. There were a lot of people there and after that I realized that there was an audience for noise bands. That show single-handedly kept me inspired through high school. I don’t think I’ve seen another show that lived up to that one. It was crazy, I don’t think Juiceboxxx touched the floor the entire set; he just rode on shoulders and clung to rafters and PA’s. I eventually linked up with Juiceboxxx and as far as Milwaukee goes and any artist I know personally, Juiceboxxx is the most important. I see Juice trying to do something bigger than playing in a basement every couple of months which is what so many bands in Milwaukee do. He’s been playing shows and working and being Juice for a long time, just constantly touring and making new music and trying to get people to hear it. He was the first person who fucked with my music, and that’s pretty important. I’ve done some co-production on his upcoming album. Juice is a long time companion. He’s an idol to me, I guess.

That’s one of the problems with living in Milwaukee. Juiceboxxx realized I think that if he wanted to do something with music, he couldn’t stay here. The weird thing is that there used to be Wisconsin electronic music and obviously Chicago and Detroit had scenes that were really momentous. Wisconsin used to have these farm raves called “Even Furthur,” Aphex Twin and Daft Punk used to play here too. Daft Punk’s first North American show was in the woods in Wisconsin which is crazy. I’ve also been finding out about these weird little pockets of electronic producers in Milwaukee that have disappeared. Like there were some acid house producers that were around in the 90′s that have disappeared, like the Drop Bass Network for example, but it’s all pretty much gone now.

They still have an audience for the sort of wobble bass dubstep type stuff or Tiesto but beyond that, there isn’t a whole lot of new electronic stuff that any significant portion of Milwaukee knows or actually cares about.

-You’re planning to move to New York soon. Are you familiar with any artists out that way (besides Dre) and what are your plans for the move, more live shows maybe?

The only person I know is Dre Skull but I know of a lot of artists that I’d like to get in touch with while I’m out east. All the stuff on DFA records, also the label RVNG and groups like Oneohtrix Point Never, Blondes, and Teengirl Fantasy (who’s actually from Oberlin). Especially Teengirl Fantasy, I’d really like to reconnect with them if I could. I’ve been following them for a long time and played a show with them in high school when they toured the Midwest with Juiceboxxx. I figured moving to NYC is something I have to do, something I have to surmount and survive, not like become a star but just live and make a career out of making music.

Why “Rapper Turned Singer?” Did T-Pain’s record have a bearing on your release?

The title was a long term subconscious thing, I had it in my head when I made the song, I must have heard the name of T-Pain’s album somewhere years ago and it was embedded somewhere in my memory. All those songs were made about a year ago and are the most club accessible tracks I’ve made. They all have this idea or theme that pulls them together. I didn’t really think about it when I made the song, I just called it “Rapper Turned Singer” and was done. I look back and realize I was working with a lot of vocal samples; I was trying to make pop music. I was listening to a lot of Katie Perry and Ke$ha and Lady Gaga. I was trying to focus on clubby music, to try and make the clubbiest shit I could. All I listened to was hits.

The title though comes from an idea I have about pop music in general. I think in pop music you’re either a singer or you’re a rapper and to determine which category someone falls into, there are very specific stylistic things a vocalist does. I wanted to mess with that, I wanted to take parts of syllables, some that were like rapping and some like singing and some that were atonal in the liminal space between rapping and singing and I wanted to put them all together to get some new weird idea of pop music that doesn’t have labels for rapper or singer, just vocals or voice.

I generally like music that makes me uncomfortable, that’s also part of why I went for the title. I wanted people to be like ‘what the fuck?’ I want to make music that sounds like there’s something wrong with it. But I’m not trying to make completely alienating music, it’s just my weird interpretation of what “pop music” should be, which I think should scare people sometimes.

You’ve done some tunes with Dro Carrey. How did you get in touch with him and how was working with another producer? Also does your creative process change when you work with him and other artists, if so, how?

Yeah there’s a funny story to how I got in touch with Dro. Dro isn’t signed I don’t think. I first heard of him, just heard his name through The Trilogy Tapes label then I found him on Lil’ B’s tumblr “Dior Paint.” There was a message that Lil’ B had posted that was from Dro to B that said something like “hey I’m an eighteen-year-old producer and I feel like I can really identify with your [B's] tracks.” He had just released an album and I found it on YouTube and was just like ‘man I need to talk to this kid; I need to see if he can do a collaboration.’ Then I emailed him and he was into it. He’s a year younger than me (I think though I’m not really sure) and he’s probably in a really good position because he’s putting stuff out on a bunch of labels. I think he has released music through Ramp that Zomby has released some stuff on and Templar Sound out of Australia. It was basically just a coincidence though, everything we’ve done.

As far as our process goes, I’ll just send him stuff, he adds some, sends it back, I take some stuff out and add some more and then master it and put it on SoundCloud. I’ve never met the kid; I’d like to though sometime because he’s a really good producer.

You mention J-Dilla as one of your major influences and favorite artists. Would you consider or are you now working on any more hip-hop influenced sounds or would you consider working with rappers?

I’d love to work with rappers, as many as possible. I’ve been emailing a lot of MC’s lately; Fat Tony and Juiceboxxx are the only two I’ve worked with at this point. Fat Tony is actually in NYC right now making his new album, I just met him the other day and I think I’m going to be hanging out in the studio with him soon and maybe producing some extra bits so keep an eye out for those. I made some beats for Lil’ B too and Juice passed them along to his manager so I know B has them but I still haven’t heard anything back.

My goal is to try and make some pop music. I want to work with artists like Lil’ Wayne, Kanye and Busta Rhymes. I’d also love to work with Mariah Carey too or people like Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, completely mainstream top 40 shit like that.

With that, what’s next? What’s next for you and where do you see electronic music going in 2011 and beyond? (Thinking about cutting some Moombahton trax?)

I think Flying Lotus had a big impact on music in America and in the rest of the world. I think tons of copycats have come out, copping that sound and I think that will probably dissipate soon. But the East Coast groups I mentioned earlier are doing a lot more loose hardware stuff. They don’t sound finely tuned or overly produced. I would lump Mahjongg from Chicago in with that sound, and Teen Girl Fantasy, Oneohtrix Point Never, Light Asylum, Blondes, Gavin Russom, stuff on Not Not Fun Records and 100% Silk. I don’t know if that’s a scene at all or if those artists know each other but it’s all electronic stuff from America I’m really into. I think that’s where the sound is going; Animal Collective I think had a really big impact on that kind of music. They’re all hardware driven and have a kind of cloudy texture.

Beyond that, I’m not sure where it’s going as a whole but I’m just trying to stay separate from a sound. I want to know what’s going on but I want to stay ahead of it and keep my own voice in it all.

I also want to resist the distinctions of “high” and “low” art. To me high art is based on quality, my personal taste is all I got. I just think Raekwon or House or Hip-Hop or Juke is just as smart as a composer who went to Julliard. I don’t want to build those barriers. I don’t want to generify it. I hate genres. I think it makes scenes inbred. I try and stay away from genre names at all cost because I think they end up being really limiting. I want to take Jimmy Hendrix into account and at the same time take in, I don’t know, Gucci Mane and Rozay.

Anything else you want to throw out there?

For sure; shout-out to vocalists, rappers and singers, anything in between, get in touch with me. Also I don’t know if I’ll make any Moombahton but I’m starting to slow my songs down some so you know, at least shout-out to Moombahton!

Watch this space for the free EPs, dropping next week and next month right here on the Mixpak blog.

Tifa is one of Jamaica’s top young deejays, and singjays for that matter. When an artist gets full support from legendary production crew Ward 21, you know they’re gold. After her first tunes, ‘Crawny Gal’ and ‘Bottom of the Barrel’ blew up in Jamaica, she continued on climbing, joining forces with Timberlee and Natalie Storm to form JA girl group TNT, making singles with top producers like TJ, Stephen McGregor and Equiknoxx, not to mention supporting Ward 21 on tour.

Tifa has just joined the Mixpak family, voicing on a Dre Skull-produced Moombahton track set for release later this year, so we thought we’d get the 411 on her background, making it in Jamaica, working with Ward 21 and being a tomboy.

Mixpak: Tell us a bit about your background – did you grow up in a reggae household?

Well my growing up was in a mixture of down town (or what people would refer to as the ghetto), uptown (suburbia) and a lil’ North America. I did grow up in a reggae dancehall household. My grandmother had a local bar and restaurant and music was always apart of the happenings. I was always surrounded by music. When I went overseas to see my mom, she was an avid party goer, she would always be playing tapes and we would always be listening to music. Seeing her dress up and go out, also developed my fashion sense. My uncle also owned a popular record store in Toronto and I would always travel with him to Dynamic Sounds to purchase goods. Later on my mom met my stepfather, who was a producer. So let’s just say I couldn’t escape the music.

How did you get into deejaying?

Well, initially I started out as a singer. One day I was recording, and in writing the song didn’t realize that I had left out about four bars. Jokingly I free styled the lines, and everybody was like “yooooo, you should deejay more”. So after thinking about it some more I tried it out, and found that those type of songs were getting more airplay than the singing ones. Hence, Tifa the deejay. I do still sing though. And a lot of the harmonies you hear on my songs, especially in the choruses, are done by me. So I really have a singjay vibe i guess.

How did you make yourself heard on the dancehall scene? Is it easy to get noticed out there?

Getting noticed or the right exposure on the Jamaican music scene is no easy task. Especially as a female in a male dominated business. It’s much harder for people to take you seriously. I had it double hard cause I had a “sexy” walk that people weren’t used to in the business. It was rough, and still is. It’s a very competitive and vicious business. I got through by persistence, and promoting on the streets. I took every free show, every school barbeque, and every road show, do my music videos and promoted hard, until eventually people started to listen, and they wanted more. I also realized that I could have also expanded my brand through corporate Jamaica. So when the opportunities arise I use it to my advantage.

Who do you feel you look up to, vocally?

Wow! A whole lot of different people. From Lady Saw, Patra, Lady G, Shelly Thunder, Chevelle Franklin, Maxi Priest, Mary J. Blige, you name it!!!

You’ve worked with some huge producers – Ward 21, Equiknoxxx, Stephen Mcgregor, TJ – who out of all of them did you like working with most and who would you want to make a track with in the future?

I love working with Ward 21 the most, because they’re family, and I’m allowed to experiment and get crazy, as well as having their knowledge bestowed upon me. I also love working with Conroy from Washroom Entertainment. Locally I’ve worked with most of the well-known and some of the greats. I’d love to hopefully get track produced one day by Sly and Robbie, Kanye West, The Neptunes, Missy Elliot, and a host of others that i really like.

You have an upcoming project with Dre Skull for mixpak – where you’ll be voicing on a moombahton track. What was your reaction to the moombahton sound?

Well, the track is basically and infusion of reggae, dancehall, and pop, similar to the sounds of the 80s. Hence it wasn’t really much of a hard task in terms in terms of writing, when i heard the track i instantly loved it. So i just let the riddim tell my creative juices where to flow.

How do you feel about voicing over genres that aren’t straight up dancehall?

I don’t mind, voicing on tracks that aren’t dancehall. I love to take risks, I love to try new and different things, and so as long as the tracks give me a good energy or a vibe, I’ll work with it.

What’s been the best moment of your career so far / your best live show ?

Touring with Ward 21 in 2008. We performed in the Czech Republic, I was the first female reggae/dancehall artiste out of Jamaica to perform there. It felt so good! It was a wonderful show & I rocked out in my I love Jamaica t-shirt.

What riddims from the past do you wish you had the opportunity to voice on?

Anything produced by Dave Kelly.

When you’re not making music, what music do you listen to?

I listen to a lot of vintage reggae and dancehall. I love old hits, as well as RnB too.

I heard you saying somewhere that you’re a tomboy but you’re not usually dressed like that – does dancehall make you dress up?

To an extent, especially when I’m doing shows. I love jeans and sneakers!!! I just find more creative ways to dress them up! I love comfort.

Think my favourite Tifa track is ‘Tick it like a Clock’ or ‘Boasy Wid It’ – what song are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of ‘If i could fly’, which was a cover of the classic “Into the night” it’s not easy doing covers, you’re more subjected to heavier criticism. I’m happy at the response that it received, it’s one of my best selling songs on iTunes, and i got the opportunity to sing again.

What are your upcoming plans?

Well definitely more singles and more videos. I plan to come out with a mixtape after summer, and hopefully release an album early next year. I’ll be doing a mini tour with Melanie Fiona, Spice, Patra, Alaine and Lumidee in July, I’ll be on Reggae Sumfest as well as other major shows in Jamaica and elsewhere. The work continues, the journey continues.

Watch out for Tifa’s record on Mixpak soon!

Chicago’s MC Zulu is rarely seen without a megaphone in his press photos, though lord knows why he needs it when he’s got one of the most powerful baritone voices out there. In the last few years, the crossover MC has managed to collaborate with Poirier, Soulico, Murderbot, DJ C, Kush Arora, not to mention putting out his own tracks, that bounce from straight-up dancehall to dancefloor electro. Seeing as he’s got a new LP coming up, we asked him a few questions about his beginnings, the story behind the name, the scene in Chi-town and a whole heap of other stuff. Carry on reading the full interview below and download this exclusive track from his forthcoming album Electro Track Therapy, ‘Talk Dutty’, while you read.

MC Zulu – Talk Dutty (Prod. DJ LionDub)

You’ve been MCing for a good amount of time now, but you started out as a hip hop MC – was that your first love?

My start in Hip-Hop, and music in general, was actually as a producer…In Chicago, in the mid-nineties.. At that time the idea of being an MC was secondary. I really couldn’t rap my way out of a paper bag. As far as Reggae was concerned, my style was way too non-specific to be taken seriously. I did manage to borrow a Korg X3 Keyboard from a friend, with the understanding that I would make free tracks for him and his crew. We ran to studios around the city to record, but none of the engineers knew how to synch the audio. That led to me learning engineering. So initially I was a “Lab Rat”. I loved to be in the studio.

How did you end up with the name Zulu?

Living in the north shore of Highland Park, Illinois and being a Black Panamanian, I had all kinds of choice nicknames.. “Black Chicken”, “African Booty Scratcher”, My real name’s Dominique. That was changed to “Domi-Nigger” and “Zulu”, from the Michael Caine movie. When Shaka Zulu came out, I pretty much wanted to crawl into a hole. I was lucky though, Afrika Bambaataa started making the rounds on mixtapes soon after. I got heavily into B-Boy Culture, and “Renegades” became my personal theme song. At that point I embraced “Zulu” as an identity.

You were born in Panama and moved to Chi-town in the 80s – how do you feel that affected your development – musically or otherwise?

The 60’s Classic Rock influence over me is huge, simply because that was all over the radio. Aside from that a Hollywood director named John Hughes was shooting a lot of movies in the suburbs where I lived. The 80’s music he used began to fit somewhere in the mix with all the Hip-Hop I was listening to.

I recall though, one of my more affluent friends (one of the rich kids) gave me a tape he bought while on vacation in Jamaica. For some reason he thought I might be able to translate it for him, and somehow I was able to. I remember telling him “Yea, that’s how my Dad talks when he gets angry.” The song in particular was Tiger’s “Ride Pon Riddim”. Tiger was absolutely unhinged.

Where was your first live gig? How did it go?

It was an Open Mic at “Lower Links” in Chicago. That place is closed down now, but I had a bunch of disparate lyrics. I was rambling on about the “Soldiers Of Babylon” or some craziness I thought would fit the mode. That wasn’t Zulu tho. That Was “Nique 1 Culture”..wacknessss!

There was stone silence when I began, but another Reggae singer in the back of the Room started cheering “Boh!-Boh!-Boh!” and brought the whole room with him. All this thunderous applause really took me by surprise, because at that point I KNEW I was terrible. Anyway the guy in the back of the room ended up being a good friend. He’s known worldwide as “DJ Collage”.

Which MCs do you look to for inspiration?

In the past, the rulebook was written by Shabba Ranks, hands down. Buju Banton came out soon after, and I thought to myself “MAN this guy’s good, but he sounds like he’s about 45. I hope I’m still that good when I reach HIS age.” I found out he was 16! That was when I stopped trying to be a “Hardcore Dancehall” singer. I went the experimental route from that day on because to me, Buju answered all the questions. The only way to make a difference from that level of performance would be through innovation; and so it is. All turmoil aside, no Dancehall artist, in my opinion, has been as engaging a performer as Buju Banton was in the early Nineties. Mr Vegas is a very close second.

Getting away from straight Dancehall though, Jim Morrison, Otis Redding, Bob Marley, Fela, and even GG Allin (…although I would never…)

I’ve heard you voicing ‘Spanish Fly’ over the 85 riddim, and over Beenie Man’s ‘Hmm Hmm’, so you’re obviously a dancehall fan. What are your favourite riddims?

I tend to favor riddims that were way ahead of their time. Joyride was one such Riddim. Lady Saw killed it with “Sycamore Tree”. You know when you get a really innovative track like that, because a lot more people decide to voice it after the initial release. South Rakkas had one like that called Chinkuzi. Now if you want to reach way back, almost everything Jackie Mittoo did was bananas. Riddims for the next 30 years of Reggae’s development were re-interpretations of his work.

How do you write your lyrics, what’s your artistic process?

Sometimes I dream a lot of crap in the middle of the night, like Edgar Cayce. Then I rush to write it down. Mostly I drive around mouthing off words, and looking like a damn fool. Pretty much all I ever listen to these days is instrumentals. The ideas come from reading everything I can.

You seem to mix the more ‘carnival’ vibe songs alongside some that are clearly conscious and politically-driven – how do you balance those sides?

With modern day music, it’s like you have to be an idiot to have fun; or you have to be boring to talk sense. The middle ground is vast, and that’s where I am. It’s actually much easier to navigate than the extremes if you think about it. I admit I flirt with politics, but I am still far removed from it. A lot of the songs I write are jokes. They might be political, but think of them as political cartoons. In the USA we have Left vs. Right wing debates raging daily. What people don’t realize is, if either side ever won decisively, Holy HELL would be unleashed. The very nature of life is to seek balance. Those who do not, quite literally cannot stand.

You’ve called yourself the white label menace because you’ve worked with so many underground producers like DJ C, Poirier, Sabbo, etc, how have these collaborations come about?

Whitelabel Menace as a name came from being an underground artist; but every so often I would grab an established riddim, or even a Top 40 track and show them who’s boss. DJs responded in kind by mixing my versions in with the originals. If I sent them drops then the sky was the limit. I was charting on Top 40 record pools and mix shows, with unofficial remixes, and independent releases. Radio stations have since put a stop to that. But I met all these DJs / artists on Social Networks. The opportunities used to be on the Tech.Nition’s, then BumSquad message boards. Now it’s Twitter.

The cross-genre and international collaboration seems really healthy right now, what do you think the future holds for MCs like yourself – is it easier now than it was before to make interesting collaborations happen and be inspired by different genres?

The opportunities are always there. If you’re the type of artist to return e-mails and interact with your fan base then your profile will be larger, plain and simple. Still, MCs are the future of global music. Remember I said it.

All around the world, kids are setting up shop in their bedrooms and making certified bangers on their laptops or iPads. They can go to CD Baby or BandCamp and sell it to the rest of the world immediately. If they go DJ their tracks out, they can raise a local, then international following. They aren’t going to let some record exec. tell them which genres don’t go together. The technology has made things like distribution, marketing and promo much easier. Now production is a snap as well. The only conceivable thing you can add to the mix, that no one else can, is your voice combined with your ideas.

Who would you like to collaborate with most?

Right Now…Justin Bieber… Or the winner of American Idol. I would write them a HIT!

What’s the scene like in Chicago – do you MC around? You recently collaborated with Murderbot – are you involved in the juke scene at all?

I try to be involved with all the scenes in Chicago, without ever being too involved. That way you are cool with people, but you can flourish as an artist without having to explain yourself. One thing I can say with full confidence is that you would never want to see me trying to juke, haha…

Murderbot is doing the city some real good by being a beacon for the juke scene, but I know his interests are all over the place like mine. You never know what he’s going to do next. Since we are on the subject of Juke though, BIG Shoutout to DJ Thadz, DJ Chip and also dem bwoyz from Crucial Conflict. Heartical Bredren fi real. Wildstyle, their producer was making some wicked juke tracks last time I talked to him. Big up Spinn and Rashad for the Murderbot Remix.

You’ve just finished a tour, where and what is next for you?

I am seriously back-logged with recording requests. Many of them are great opportunities, so I am committed to finishing them before starting another full tour. I had to announce a ceasefire so I can get some of the work out the door.

Summer Highlights are looking like: Wakarusa Music Festival with Radiohiro, Pitchfork Music Fest with Murderbot, Millennium Park in Chicago, and I may be hosting MC Juakali’s album release party in New York.

My upcoming projects include working with Liquid Stranger, Dub Gabriel, Kush Arora, Dim Summer, Radiohiro, FSTZ, BIONIK, Chrissy Murderbot, DJ Searchl1te, Jeekoos, Knight Riderz, OctaPush, Sabbo, Soulico, Mochipet, Anita Benner and quite a few more. Those are the ones I turned in already. Hoping I can finish the rest in time. Wish me luck.

Good luck!

Be sure to grab Zulu’s Promo Pak, with 10 free cuts, including ‘Body Rock’ with Douster, ‘Go Ballistic’ with Wildlife!, and ‘Darling’ with Poirier.

Interview by Susannah Webb