DJ Shadow: KEVCHINO.COM - Interview with DJ Shadow
By: Dave Lipp
DJ Shadow is the Outsider . . . and comfortable with it too.It can be both intimidating and exhilarating to talk with one of your musical idols, especially when he is responsible for such groundbreaking albums like Endtroducing, Pre-emptive Strike, UNKLE, and The Private Press. But behind the record label doors, in a conference room signing his John Hancock to a stack of posters bearing the artwork to his new album, I got the opportunity to speak not just with the man who goes by the name DJ Shadow, but a man synonymous with taking chances, especially on his new album The Outsider.
On your new album The Outsider, you work with many more MC’s than on previous albums. Why?
I just knew after doing my last record that I didn’t want this one to be instrumental and I didn’t want to make hair salon hip-hop. As you go along, you think that you’re articulating where you come from and what you’re about but then you realize sometimes maybe people really have no idea where you come from and what you’re about, which I’ve been feeling like lately. It’s the same way with how I did Endtroducing and then went right in and did the UNKLE record. I don’t like just doing the same thing over and over again or doing the same thing I did last time. I kind of sat back and went, well, why can’t I have vocals on a DJ Shadow record? I work with vocalists all the time and I didn’t want to start letting past work define what I’m allowed to do in the future. So I broke a lot of rules purposely to help me recalibrate what it is that’s expected from a DJ Shadow record.
What made you choose to work with these specific MCs?
It totally depended on the beat. It wasn’t like I started out with a list of dream people I wanted to work with. It started out with a track. The first person I got on the record was David Banner and it went from there. I’d do a track and think, who would sound good on this track? I didn’t want it to be a superstar cavalcade either. I just wanted to use who I thought would work. While I was making tracks, I was actively listening, looking, and wondering if it would be possible to work with someone like Christina Carter on this one track. That’s how the process works.
Did you feel like it was a natural progression to work with these artists when putting The Outsider together or was it bumpy just trying to organize these different people involved?
It is hard to balance that many artists. Yes, that part of it was kind of hard, just being in contact with that many people and massaging the process so it can go forward. That is hard because everyone is not just a phone call away. I didn’t know how to contact some people. There’s a lot of logistics, like where are we gonna record Q-Tip and when? And we need to fly Lateef out at the same time. Organizing things was kind of tricky.
Did you do anything different making “The Outsider” than on prior albums?
Pretty much everything was different. On my other records I used mainly my one instrument, the MPC Sampler. The Private Press and Endtroducing were pretty much entirely sampled. After doing The Private Press, I realized a lot of things I didn’t want to do again, and that makes it sound like there’s something wrong with the record, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it, I enjoyed making it, and I really love that record, but I knew I really wanted to use more than just samples. I knew I did not want it to be instrumental. I wanted it to just be really diverse and I wanted it to reflect the fact that when I listen to music at home, it really is this diverse. I don’t need skits and interludes at home to connect the dots from point A to point B. I have different types of music to do that. I didn’t want the record to be watered down either. If there’s a good Hyphy song, I don’t want it to be like so many other records, where everything’s mashed together on every track and it sort of ends up becoming what I like to call, hair salon hip-hop. If I’m making a hardcore rap song, I want it to reach that audience. If I’m making a pop song, like “You Made it,” I want it to be played on AAA (Adult Album Alternative. A radio format). Whether you like the record or you don’t, at least admit that it’s unlike any other record that’s out right now.
What is Hyphy exactly?
Hyphy is just a Bay area term. It’s a youth culture in the Bay area that’s been around for 15-20 years. The musical aspect of it has only come into its own in the last 5-6 years. Elements of the culture, musically, and the slang that’s associated with it started really being used in the late 90s, but as far as when I got into it was around 2002-2003, mainly with the production of Rick Rock. Hyphy is a combination of “Hyper” and “Fly.” That’s what the word means and Keak Da Sneak was the first person to put it on a record. It’s a complicated answer but that’s, in essence, what it is.
Was working with Keak Da Sneak, E-40 and Turf Talk a way to get the style of Hyphy andTurf Dancing more mainstream attention?
It’s been a long time since people have been looking at the Bay and everbody there feels really invested and proud of the movement. Hyphy is what people call it in the Bay. Everybody sees it as a positive release. Hyphy feels like the Bay the way Crunk feels like the South. You can understand Bounce music without ever having been to New Orleans but it really helps to feel the weather and see the geography and meet the people, then you understand it a lot better. Hyphy is the same way. It reflects the Bay.
Why did it take four years to put out the new album?
Four years is actually not bad for me. In 2002, The Private Press came out, I was on tour for about nine months, and I took about three months off because I had been going hard for about a year and a half in total. So I stopped to get my life in order and then I moved my studio to a space in the city so it would be easier to commute to and from work. I spent about a year making music everyday, but I was also relearning how to make music because I put aside my sampler and decided that if I wanted my records to sound different, then I’d have to start using different methods, which is kind of hard to do because everyone knows me for using that one instrument. That’s what my whole sound is built on. I decided to get tutored like two to three times a week on really learning how to use Pro Tools properly and how to use midi, learning which software synths are gonna work with this and that. Just basically starting from scratch. I’d force myself over and over. I’d reach for it [turntable] but then I thought, I’ve got to stick this through. I made a lot of music I didn’t like very much because as soon as someone like me gets their hands on a synthesizer, everything sounds great, and then you realize well, maybe it’s not so great, maybe it’s just different. So, it took a good year for me to learn how to inject my personality into the music that I was making. The album got started around Spring of 2004. So it’s been a busy couple of years, but it doesn’t seem like any time was lost. I knew it would be important to take a step back and allow myself time to grow again musically and do things differently.
So, how long did it take you to put the whole Outsider album together?
It took about two years. That’s about how long it takes for me to put out an album.
The song “Broken Levee Blues” was obviously about New Orleans and “Seein Thangs” mentions George Bush. Did the current political events play a role in you making the album?
Yeah. When I first started working on the record in Spring 2004, I thought it was going to be a very political record. I was pretty angry about a lot of stuff and wanted to make an extremely firebrand record. What ended up happening is that I kind of burned out. I got burned out from thinking about it a lot. I got burned out from living in a political context more than I’m used to and ultimately, I decided that I didn’t want the record to be disproportionate. I mean I’m only political 5 percent of the day, like most people, and I didn’t want to make a record that was 80 percent political. With The Outsider, I just really wanted to make a record that reflected who I am. That reflected my roots, what I feel about music, my opinions about music, and my passions about music over the last few years and going forward. I didn’t want to ruin that experience. The blend had to be right.
The new album is schizophrenic in the sense that there’s such a variety of hip-hop, punk, funk, samples, singers, and live instruments. Did you do this to break away from the category’s your fans and journalists have put you in?
The thing that occurred to me right before I finished the record is that the only real template for making The Outsider I could point to in the past, readily in my own musical history, as far as records that I was inspired by would be Check Your Head. I have to say that even though I’m not the most ardent Beastie Boys fan at this point in time, when it came out, it was essentially them saying, we’re 30, this is who we are. We like punk, we like rap, we like funk. We’re not going to segment them anymore. We’re just gonna put it all out on one record. I remember when I heard that record, thinking, that’s really kind of brave. It went from a punk song to a Money Mark kind of lounge funk jam. Okay, I don’t think the whole album is necessarily for me, but I’m gonna ride for this record because it’s brave to do records like that. And that’s the only record that I can point to, in my own past, that has the same kind of approach. That made me kind of go, okay, well I’m not totally off in left field. This can work. If people are educated to it in the right way, which I feel like they were overseas but not here, then it can work. A perfect example of what I mean by that was this radio station in Philly that jumped on “You Made It” really early. They were banging it, like this is perfect for our format, and then as soon as they got wind of the fact that there was a lot of rap going on in the record, they stopped playing it. They were like, well, we don’t want our listeners being steered down the wrong path. So that’s a perfect example of why so many people have told me that I can’t do a record like this. Radio is set up like if you listen to an urban station, you’re not supposed to like rock. If you listen to a rock station, you’re not supposed to like urban music. If you go into a record store, there’s a reason why music is set up alphabetically. Because it’s easier to market. If you like this, try this. So they steer you intro different sections. So it’s not surprising, though it’s always disappointing when projects like this don’t really live up to their potential. I’m an idealist and most people subconsciously have bought into that kind of categorization. They don’t like when people throw something out there that they can’t readily go, well, it’s like this or it’s like that.
Is there anything you want your fans to walk away with after listening to your new album?
The same thing that I always hope. That they will have heard something that will make them want to explore all the artists that I always name check and champion. I want someone who’s never heard a Hyphy record before to not listen to what they say on the internet and pick up The Outsider or a Mr. Fab record or an E-40 record and learn about it for themselves. Because I’m here to tell you, listening to rap for 24 years, every time a new region invents a new style of rap, everybody shits on it and now, we watch their videos on TV. So be careful, because it happened with the South, it happened with Texas, it happened with Miami, and it’s happening right now with L.A. and we’re watching, so be careful.
SOURCE
By: Dave Lipp
DJ Shadow is the Outsider . . . and comfortable with it too.It can be both intimidating and exhilarating to talk with one of your musical idols, especially when he is responsible for such groundbreaking albums like Endtroducing, Pre-emptive Strike, UNKLE, and The Private Press. But behind the record label doors, in a conference room signing his John Hancock to a stack of posters bearing the artwork to his new album, I got the opportunity to speak not just with the man who goes by the name DJ Shadow, but a man synonymous with taking chances, especially on his new album The Outsider.
On your new album The Outsider, you work with many more MC’s than on previous albums. Why?
I just knew after doing my last record that I didn’t want this one to be instrumental and I didn’t want to make hair salon hip-hop. As you go along, you think that you’re articulating where you come from and what you’re about but then you realize sometimes maybe people really have no idea where you come from and what you’re about, which I’ve been feeling like lately. It’s the same way with how I did Endtroducing and then went right in and did the UNKLE record. I don’t like just doing the same thing over and over again or doing the same thing I did last time. I kind of sat back and went, well, why can’t I have vocals on a DJ Shadow record? I work with vocalists all the time and I didn’t want to start letting past work define what I’m allowed to do in the future. So I broke a lot of rules purposely to help me recalibrate what it is that’s expected from a DJ Shadow record.
What made you choose to work with these specific MCs?
It totally depended on the beat. It wasn’t like I started out with a list of dream people I wanted to work with. It started out with a track. The first person I got on the record was David Banner and it went from there. I’d do a track and think, who would sound good on this track? I didn’t want it to be a superstar cavalcade either. I just wanted to use who I thought would work. While I was making tracks, I was actively listening, looking, and wondering if it would be possible to work with someone like Christina Carter on this one track. That’s how the process works.
Did you feel like it was a natural progression to work with these artists when putting The Outsider together or was it bumpy just trying to organize these different people involved?
It is hard to balance that many artists. Yes, that part of it was kind of hard, just being in contact with that many people and massaging the process so it can go forward. That is hard because everyone is not just a phone call away. I didn’t know how to contact some people. There’s a lot of logistics, like where are we gonna record Q-Tip and when? And we need to fly Lateef out at the same time. Organizing things was kind of tricky.
Did you do anything different making “The Outsider” than on prior albums?
Pretty much everything was different. On my other records I used mainly my one instrument, the MPC Sampler. The Private Press and Endtroducing were pretty much entirely sampled. After doing The Private Press, I realized a lot of things I didn’t want to do again, and that makes it sound like there’s something wrong with the record, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it, I enjoyed making it, and I really love that record, but I knew I really wanted to use more than just samples. I knew I did not want it to be instrumental. I wanted it to just be really diverse and I wanted it to reflect the fact that when I listen to music at home, it really is this diverse. I don’t need skits and interludes at home to connect the dots from point A to point B. I have different types of music to do that. I didn’t want the record to be watered down either. If there’s a good Hyphy song, I don’t want it to be like so many other records, where everything’s mashed together on every track and it sort of ends up becoming what I like to call, hair salon hip-hop. If I’m making a hardcore rap song, I want it to reach that audience. If I’m making a pop song, like “You Made it,” I want it to be played on AAA (Adult Album Alternative. A radio format). Whether you like the record or you don’t, at least admit that it’s unlike any other record that’s out right now.
What is Hyphy exactly?
Hyphy is just a Bay area term. It’s a youth culture in the Bay area that’s been around for 15-20 years. The musical aspect of it has only come into its own in the last 5-6 years. Elements of the culture, musically, and the slang that’s associated with it started really being used in the late 90s, but as far as when I got into it was around 2002-2003, mainly with the production of Rick Rock. Hyphy is a combination of “Hyper” and “Fly.” That’s what the word means and Keak Da Sneak was the first person to put it on a record. It’s a complicated answer but that’s, in essence, what it is.
Was working with Keak Da Sneak, E-40 and Turf Talk a way to get the style of Hyphy andTurf Dancing more mainstream attention?
It’s been a long time since people have been looking at the Bay and everbody there feels really invested and proud of the movement. Hyphy is what people call it in the Bay. Everybody sees it as a positive release. Hyphy feels like the Bay the way Crunk feels like the South. You can understand Bounce music without ever having been to New Orleans but it really helps to feel the weather and see the geography and meet the people, then you understand it a lot better. Hyphy is the same way. It reflects the Bay.
Why did it take four years to put out the new album?
Four years is actually not bad for me. In 2002, The Private Press came out, I was on tour for about nine months, and I took about three months off because I had been going hard for about a year and a half in total. So I stopped to get my life in order and then I moved my studio to a space in the city so it would be easier to commute to and from work. I spent about a year making music everyday, but I was also relearning how to make music because I put aside my sampler and decided that if I wanted my records to sound different, then I’d have to start using different methods, which is kind of hard to do because everyone knows me for using that one instrument. That’s what my whole sound is built on. I decided to get tutored like two to three times a week on really learning how to use Pro Tools properly and how to use midi, learning which software synths are gonna work with this and that. Just basically starting from scratch. I’d force myself over and over. I’d reach for it [turntable] but then I thought, I’ve got to stick this through. I made a lot of music I didn’t like very much because as soon as someone like me gets their hands on a synthesizer, everything sounds great, and then you realize well, maybe it’s not so great, maybe it’s just different. So, it took a good year for me to learn how to inject my personality into the music that I was making. The album got started around Spring of 2004. So it’s been a busy couple of years, but it doesn’t seem like any time was lost. I knew it would be important to take a step back and allow myself time to grow again musically and do things differently.
So, how long did it take you to put the whole Outsider album together?
It took about two years. That’s about how long it takes for me to put out an album.
The song “Broken Levee Blues” was obviously about New Orleans and “Seein Thangs” mentions George Bush. Did the current political events play a role in you making the album?
Yeah. When I first started working on the record in Spring 2004, I thought it was going to be a very political record. I was pretty angry about a lot of stuff and wanted to make an extremely firebrand record. What ended up happening is that I kind of burned out. I got burned out from thinking about it a lot. I got burned out from living in a political context more than I’m used to and ultimately, I decided that I didn’t want the record to be disproportionate. I mean I’m only political 5 percent of the day, like most people, and I didn’t want to make a record that was 80 percent political. With The Outsider, I just really wanted to make a record that reflected who I am. That reflected my roots, what I feel about music, my opinions about music, and my passions about music over the last few years and going forward. I didn’t want to ruin that experience. The blend had to be right.
The new album is schizophrenic in the sense that there’s such a variety of hip-hop, punk, funk, samples, singers, and live instruments. Did you do this to break away from the category’s your fans and journalists have put you in?
The thing that occurred to me right before I finished the record is that the only real template for making The Outsider I could point to in the past, readily in my own musical history, as far as records that I was inspired by would be Check Your Head. I have to say that even though I’m not the most ardent Beastie Boys fan at this point in time, when it came out, it was essentially them saying, we’re 30, this is who we are. We like punk, we like rap, we like funk. We’re not going to segment them anymore. We’re just gonna put it all out on one record. I remember when I heard that record, thinking, that’s really kind of brave. It went from a punk song to a Money Mark kind of lounge funk jam. Okay, I don’t think the whole album is necessarily for me, but I’m gonna ride for this record because it’s brave to do records like that. And that’s the only record that I can point to, in my own past, that has the same kind of approach. That made me kind of go, okay, well I’m not totally off in left field. This can work. If people are educated to it in the right way, which I feel like they were overseas but not here, then it can work. A perfect example of what I mean by that was this radio station in Philly that jumped on “You Made It” really early. They were banging it, like this is perfect for our format, and then as soon as they got wind of the fact that there was a lot of rap going on in the record, they stopped playing it. They were like, well, we don’t want our listeners being steered down the wrong path. So that’s a perfect example of why so many people have told me that I can’t do a record like this. Radio is set up like if you listen to an urban station, you’re not supposed to like rock. If you listen to a rock station, you’re not supposed to like urban music. If you go into a record store, there’s a reason why music is set up alphabetically. Because it’s easier to market. If you like this, try this. So they steer you intro different sections. So it’s not surprising, though it’s always disappointing when projects like this don’t really live up to their potential. I’m an idealist and most people subconsciously have bought into that kind of categorization. They don’t like when people throw something out there that they can’t readily go, well, it’s like this or it’s like that.
Is there anything you want your fans to walk away with after listening to your new album?
The same thing that I always hope. That they will have heard something that will make them want to explore all the artists that I always name check and champion. I want someone who’s never heard a Hyphy record before to not listen to what they say on the internet and pick up The Outsider or a Mr. Fab record or an E-40 record and learn about it for themselves. Because I’m here to tell you, listening to rap for 24 years, every time a new region invents a new style of rap, everybody shits on it and now, we watch their videos on TV. So be careful, because it happened with the South, it happened with Texas, it happened with Miami, and it’s happening right now with L.A. and we’re watching, so be careful.
SOURCE