DJ Shadow: DJ Shadow Is Sick Of It (OOR Magazine)
DJ Shadow is sick of it. Sick of it to live up to the expectations of his fans. Most of them want him to do a new Endtroducing, the album that sort of defined the triphop-genre 10 years ago. It's time to take a new direction. A direction into the latest form of hiphop, called 'hyphy' but also rap folk and real popsongs. 'A real fan doesn't ask me to do another Endtroducing.
At the beginning of this year, the newest DJ Shadow single appeared and it scared a lot of people. The track was called '3 Freaks' and guest rappers were Turf Talk and Keak Da Sneak. It's an up tempo party song. Completely different from the downtempo, instrumental hiphop that we know Shadow of. Long before anyone heard the album, there were loads of heated discussions on internet messageboards such as the one from www.solesides.com which is run by Dutch Joost.
When The DJ/Producer read some of the things, he told people to relax, because they've only heard one track. The album is Shadow's third album under his own name and it almost seems to be made by another producer. This is for a big part thanks to him embracing the 'Hyphy.' Time to ask Josh Davis, which is DJ Shadow's real name, some questions about Hyphy and why he's so into it.
Shadow explains; 'It is a form hiphop and rap closely connected to the Bay Area. It's weird music with a lot of humor, which makes Hyphy different from other kinds of hiphop. The slang and everything connected to the music is unique, there are many cultural, musical and textual aspects to it. It's a unique style of hiphop, like the Crunk from the south. You can feel the southern influences in Crunk. This is also the case with Hyphy.'
'If you've never been to the Bay Area, and don't know much about it, it can get difficult to appreciate every aspect of Hyphy. But if you live there, you can hear that it feels exactly the same as the Bay Area. It's faster than Crunk, the drugs are different. In the Bay Area XTC made a step from the rave- to the hiphopscene and that's also why the beats are faster and the music more electronic, without becoming electro. The music looks forward, not back. That's why I like it. I listen to all kinds of rap and I feel that Hyphy is the most interesting kind there is right now. Rap goes further, it's a fast changing artform and a lot of people are afraid for the future. They feel more comfortable with the rap from the past, the glory days of hiphop. I don't have time for that conservatism.'
It seems he wanted to say with the track Why hiphop sucks in '96 that he was sic of hiphop. But he has always seen himself as a hiphop producer. DJ-sets for radioshows or website-only-mix cd's like the phenomenal Diminishing Returns confirm that. But the title of that track keeps haunting him. 'Why hiphop sucks in '96 is misinterpreted by a lot of people. What I ment was, that the fights between East- and Westcoast caused a lot of violence. If I knew then that I would still be getting questions about that particular track, I would have never made it. I didn't hate rap and it's still 75% of everything I listen to. There were always hiphop- and rap elements in everything I did. On The Outsider you can find different kinds of rap. There are the mentioned styles, there's backpackrap and there are heavy beats. There's also traditional rap with Q-Tip. I don't put different kinds of hiphop in a box. On this album you can find everything from hardcore rap to folk. I just wanted to make an album that's as broad as my interests go. '
His broad interests became really visible when he made 'Psyence Fiction' (1997), the album that he made with Mo'Wax label-boss James Lavelle under the 'UNKLE' name. On that album there were not only guest-rappers like Kool G Rap and Mike D (Beastie Boys), but also singers like Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Richard Aschroft (The Verve). Before his second album 'The Private Press', his second studio album, he said that the track 'Monosylabik' would be a key-track for the album. 'I'm pushing boundaries to see how far I can go' he said to the BBC. The album ended out not to be very different from his debut. The same kind of statement can also be heard at the beginning of 'The Outsider' in the song 'This Time' Shadow samples a man who sings 'This Time, I'm gonna do it my way.' Like Davis didn't do that on his previous records.
Shadow thinks and says: 'I like the message that comes from that sentence' What I try to say with it, is that I had to make this album NOW. I didn't want other people to place me in a box, or say what I represent. I had the feeling that if I didn't define myself musically, other people would do that for me. Something that I think was already happening. After 'Endtroducing' I discovered that I had fans. Before that album came out, I didn't have fans. After that record, everything was different. While I worked on 'Psyence Fiction,' I knew there were high expectations. This was the same with 'The Private Press'. I checked out the internet and saw that people were expecting a lot from me and wrote things about me. To a certain level, I was afraid to go too far which would have caused this people to alienate from me. They kind of hold me back. There are a lot of people that love 'Endtroducing' but aren't real fans of me as an artist. I didn't get that. I didn't understand why people wanted me to do another 'Endtroducing'. I don't want to repeat myself. That's not why I make music. Then I realised they just loved that record so much, because they complained about every other record I did after that.
It's not different with 'The Outsider'. Oor and Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper) gave the album very bad reviews and they weren't the only one. Shadow couldn't resist reading opinions. Shadow: 'I've seen some reactions and it seems like the fans are split in two. There's a group that completely understands and supports what I do. There's another group who doesn't understand. 'Why is there rap on the record, why are it two parts?' I think they only know 'Endtroducing' and 'The Private Press'. They don't know UNKLE, they don't know Quannum, Solesides, Brainfreeze, Product Placement... It seems if the more people know my other work, the less surprised they are about the direction I took with 'The Outsider'. I left a trace of bread crumbs to prepare them for what was coming'
- Jasper van Vugt
SOURCE
DJ Shadow is sick of it. Sick of it to live up to the expectations of his fans. Most of them want him to do a new Endtroducing, the album that sort of defined the triphop-genre 10 years ago. It's time to take a new direction. A direction into the latest form of hiphop, called 'hyphy' but also rap folk and real popsongs. 'A real fan doesn't ask me to do another Endtroducing.
At the beginning of this year, the newest DJ Shadow single appeared and it scared a lot of people. The track was called '3 Freaks' and guest rappers were Turf Talk and Keak Da Sneak. It's an up tempo party song. Completely different from the downtempo, instrumental hiphop that we know Shadow of. Long before anyone heard the album, there were loads of heated discussions on internet messageboards such as the one from www.solesides.com which is run by Dutch Joost.
When The DJ/Producer read some of the things, he told people to relax, because they've only heard one track. The album is Shadow's third album under his own name and it almost seems to be made by another producer. This is for a big part thanks to him embracing the 'Hyphy.' Time to ask Josh Davis, which is DJ Shadow's real name, some questions about Hyphy and why he's so into it.
Shadow explains; 'It is a form hiphop and rap closely connected to the Bay Area. It's weird music with a lot of humor, which makes Hyphy different from other kinds of hiphop. The slang and everything connected to the music is unique, there are many cultural, musical and textual aspects to it. It's a unique style of hiphop, like the Crunk from the south. You can feel the southern influences in Crunk. This is also the case with Hyphy.'
'If you've never been to the Bay Area, and don't know much about it, it can get difficult to appreciate every aspect of Hyphy. But if you live there, you can hear that it feels exactly the same as the Bay Area. It's faster than Crunk, the drugs are different. In the Bay Area XTC made a step from the rave- to the hiphopscene and that's also why the beats are faster and the music more electronic, without becoming electro. The music looks forward, not back. That's why I like it. I listen to all kinds of rap and I feel that Hyphy is the most interesting kind there is right now. Rap goes further, it's a fast changing artform and a lot of people are afraid for the future. They feel more comfortable with the rap from the past, the glory days of hiphop. I don't have time for that conservatism.'
It seems he wanted to say with the track Why hiphop sucks in '96 that he was sic of hiphop. But he has always seen himself as a hiphop producer. DJ-sets for radioshows or website-only-mix cd's like the phenomenal Diminishing Returns confirm that. But the title of that track keeps haunting him. 'Why hiphop sucks in '96 is misinterpreted by a lot of people. What I ment was, that the fights between East- and Westcoast caused a lot of violence. If I knew then that I would still be getting questions about that particular track, I would have never made it. I didn't hate rap and it's still 75% of everything I listen to. There were always hiphop- and rap elements in everything I did. On The Outsider you can find different kinds of rap. There are the mentioned styles, there's backpackrap and there are heavy beats. There's also traditional rap with Q-Tip. I don't put different kinds of hiphop in a box. On this album you can find everything from hardcore rap to folk. I just wanted to make an album that's as broad as my interests go. '
His broad interests became really visible when he made 'Psyence Fiction' (1997), the album that he made with Mo'Wax label-boss James Lavelle under the 'UNKLE' name. On that album there were not only guest-rappers like Kool G Rap and Mike D (Beastie Boys), but also singers like Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Richard Aschroft (The Verve). Before his second album 'The Private Press', his second studio album, he said that the track 'Monosylabik' would be a key-track for the album. 'I'm pushing boundaries to see how far I can go' he said to the BBC. The album ended out not to be very different from his debut. The same kind of statement can also be heard at the beginning of 'The Outsider' in the song 'This Time' Shadow samples a man who sings 'This Time, I'm gonna do it my way.' Like Davis didn't do that on his previous records.
Shadow thinks and says: 'I like the message that comes from that sentence' What I try to say with it, is that I had to make this album NOW. I didn't want other people to place me in a box, or say what I represent. I had the feeling that if I didn't define myself musically, other people would do that for me. Something that I think was already happening. After 'Endtroducing' I discovered that I had fans. Before that album came out, I didn't have fans. After that record, everything was different. While I worked on 'Psyence Fiction,' I knew there were high expectations. This was the same with 'The Private Press'. I checked out the internet and saw that people were expecting a lot from me and wrote things about me. To a certain level, I was afraid to go too far which would have caused this people to alienate from me. They kind of hold me back. There are a lot of people that love 'Endtroducing' but aren't real fans of me as an artist. I didn't get that. I didn't understand why people wanted me to do another 'Endtroducing'. I don't want to repeat myself. That's not why I make music. Then I realised they just loved that record so much, because they complained about every other record I did after that.
It's not different with 'The Outsider'. Oor and Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper) gave the album very bad reviews and they weren't the only one. Shadow couldn't resist reading opinions. Shadow: 'I've seen some reactions and it seems like the fans are split in two. There's a group that completely understands and supports what I do. There's another group who doesn't understand. 'Why is there rap on the record, why are it two parts?' I think they only know 'Endtroducing' and 'The Private Press'. They don't know UNKLE, they don't know Quannum, Solesides, Brainfreeze, Product Placement... It seems if the more people know my other work, the less surprised they are about the direction I took with 'The Outsider'. I left a trace of bread crumbs to prepare them for what was coming'
- Jasper van Vugt
SOURCE