Fade
The Beat Strangler
Administrator
illest o.g.
The July 9th, 2003 Beat This! Champ tells us how he put together his winning beat, how he got started, his thoughts on sampling, and much more. Read on...
What's up, how's it going?
Everything is cool. I'm about 4 weeks into my 11 week summer holiday and the weather here is beautiful, so yeah I guess things are going pretty well.
How old are you?
Sweet 16.
Do you have a hard time getting respect for your beats since you're young?
Well it depends. Most people are cool and they like "Yeah this kid got something", but at the same time some will get jealous seeing that a young kid is doing better than them and so they will find it harder to consider the material that I got. But this only makes me work harder and try my best to put my material to perfection.
How long have you been producing?
I can remember when I was 13, me and my friends used to work on HipHop Ejay but later left it as it was very limiting and as soon as we'd used all the loops, all our tracks sounded the same. Then sometime in 2001, my bro joined this youth club where they had lots of music programs including Reason, Logic, Fruity Loops and Acid Pro. He managed to get Reason and he brought it along with him back home. The program was amazing man (still is hehe), especially the drum sets. So I think, yeah, I started producing around 2001 and I have been in the game for roughly 2 years.
Do you MC or DJ also?
I used to MC a lot, especially when I was 13/14 years old. I was in a little group and we'd make our beats in Ejay and make freestyle tapes. When I listen to them now I can't help but laugh, you know, the little voices and all. LOL. Every once in a while nowadays I MC but I don't do it as often as I used to because the members of my old group moved to other cities so I was like on my own in the school playground freestylin, with no one to beat box for me, and having gotten into producing, I have less time to rap and write ideas.
On the DJ matter, my bro bought some decks a while back and we had a go at it but the needle kept jumpin every time we tried to scratch, ya get me. We managed to buy a couple of records and tried just mixin and this seemed to come along fine, until we moved house where we have less space for the decks. Now they are packed up in they boxes all dusty.
Aahahaha, I can relate, I have old freestyle tapes too, mainly when I was drunk. Which do you find is easier to do - MC, DJ, or produce?
Drunk...lol..them tapes must smell liquorish. Anyway I find producing much more satisfying although not necessarily the easiest. Rapping and DJ'ing in my opinion are not as hard, rapping is probably the easiest.
What's your setup like?
Well, I don't wanna say as a lot of the guys here got some heavy hardware, Akai samplers, sound modules and all that stuff. All I got is a mic hooked to a mixer which is linked to the PC. I hooked the mic to the mixer and not straight to the PC so I could get the sound signal amplified. And another piece of hardware I got is an old MIDI keyboard a neighbor was about to throw away but i got it off him. That's about the only hardware I got. The rest is virtual. I've got Reason, Cool Edit, Audio Logic, Recycle and Acid Pro.
What's the first piece of equipment or software that you got?
The first software was a demo version of HipHop Ejay which I got off a friend. Me and my bro jammed on this throughout the summer of that year, it was really good and we thought we was makin top quality tracks. The loops on there were great.
How would you describe your style?
It's hard to describe it because I feel I haven't yet established my own style where by when you hear a beat you can instantly know it's Afrique. But my friends have noted common patterns in my beats so that should be a good sign.
Who or what are you musical influences?
There aren't that many to tell you the truth but I've heard some jazz and I think it's nice, I heard it's the the best music genre there is in the world? I grew up listening to mostly HipHop tapes which my bro would try to hide from me, so I have little interest in other music genres.
Do you sample, or do you play all your own stuff?
Around 4 in 10 beats of mine are sampled, the rest I just play my own stuff. But I rarely ever take whole melodies and simply loop them, I rearrange melodies to make new ones but with the same sound. The other beats I play my own stuff using mainly processed/layered sounds and real instruments which I borrow off friends.
Do you think someone who samples is being less "musical"?
Hell no!!! Reason why I don't sample as much is because when I got into making beats, I couldn't get a hold of no samples and I had no idea as to how to use them. So I grew into actually composing everything in a beat. I find it more rewarding now than when I sample a track, had I not felt this way, I'd get more into the craft. I think sampling is like art though because you like convert a black and white picture into a colored one. It's still the same picture but there are things that you can now clearly see that you didn't see before. Finding them old records ain't no easy task either ya know, but the audio section here at IllMuzik is really good and am looking to find something there I can sample.
Ummm, yeah the Audio section is currently down! What artists are you feeling right now?
Right now, there really isn't much I am feeling. It seems that HipHop is highly saturated with average MC's. There's a new guy though called K-OS, I'm feeling his stuff and am hoping he'll stop me from listening to old records.
Yeah, K-OS has been around for years! You never heard his track called "Musical Essence"? This is back in the early 90's!
Nah, I ain't heard it. Can't believe he's been out that long, damn, he's only just started getting radio play here as he has a new album.
Where are you from?
I live in the United kingdom in Birmingham, the industrial city of the queen's country, hehe, cup of tea anyone? LOL.
Have you ever sold any beats?
Yeh, recently I sold 2 old beats of mine to some guys for $45 each, which in total would round up to about $180 (I think). I spent the money so fast buying stupid things, but now am gonna save up and maybe I can buy some gear, perhaps a new PC.
Is selling beats something you plan on doing full time eventually?
Not really, it's probably something I'll do along side another job. But if I ever got lucky and got a deal with a major label, I wouldn't hesitate. Being a ghost producer ain't that bad either. But you've gotta always have plans, something to fall back on in case things don't work out, ya get me.
When do you usually produce your music - day or night?
Night cause my day is usually too busy, either I'm at school working, or at the basketball courts getting dunked on by the bigger guys...hehe
Can you explain how you put your winning beat together?
I started with the drums, looked for some interesting sounds, layered the bass drums to make them heavier and then I layed down a slow pattern cause I was picturing a scene of someone slowly walking through a haunted house or something like that, discovering scary paranormal activity which would remind them of painful times. The main piano melody took ages to come to me but when it did, everything else seemed to come with it. The bass, guitar plucks and rhodes all came along easy. For the guitar I just used my ordinary mic to record it and placed it in Cool Edit to clean it up a bit. LOL, I felt like I was one of them church dudes on the organ in churches when I played the rhode chords. In the beat you may have noticed the drums changing speed, that's when the dude in my imagination starts getting chased by their worst nightmares, LOL.
Sounds good to me! Any shoutouts you'd like to give?
Yeh, first of all Fade and the team here at IllMuzik are doing a great job, man props to ya'll. And big up to Verbal Reasoning, they got an album coming out soon, CorruptVillage records, Reality Crew - Stee where you at man?, Mr. F.L.X, and everyone doing music in Birmingham. Plus I ain't forgetting the young cats here at IllMuzik, stay real ya'll and maintain the mature attitude
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for doing this interview.
No probs, thanks for your time too.
