Fade
The Beat Strangler
Administrator
illest o.g.
The winner of the June 11, 2003 Beat This! Competition talks about where he's from, the type of music he digs for, how he put together his winning beat, and much much more. Be on the lookout for this cat, he's got lots of material coming out soon.
What's up? How's it going?
I am doing fine, just chillin and gettin ready to go up north in a cabin I rented with a couple of my friends to chill out you know!!!
Where in Montreal do you live?
I lived uptown, Cote-des-Neiges, for a long time and now I live right off Montreal in Chateauguay.
How long have you been making music?
Pretty much all my life. When I was a kid my dad was in a blues band and I used to go with him and during their break I used to jump on the drum or the guitar and jam with my dad. I was there all the time until he bought me my first drum set and from then we used to kick it almost every day after he done work. As for hip-hop, it started when one of my friends bought his first DJ set and got me into DJ scratching when I was around 16. About a year later my other friend bought a Roland MC-307 and I used to always be at his house raping the machine and evolve to now....
Why did you get into producing?
Well I liked being a DJ but when I first put my hand into producing it was like a whole different world you know... I could do sets of 2-3 hours when I was DJ'ing but when I was producing, I could sit there and stare at the machine all freakin day and only stop to drink, eat, and shit.... it was crazy.....
What's your setup like?
My set up is actually pretty basic because I have to pay for university and I have no money left to buy equipment. So far I am running FL Studio with Cool Edit Pro on a PC. I have a Roland PC180 MIDI controller that I just bought yesterday and an Akai S01 sampler (that is for sale by the way), but yeah it was my first sampler...... I had a Korg Triton Studio for 2 months. It was so sexy but I had to sell it to pay for school (probably one of the saddest days of my life).
Damn that sucks, are you planning on buying it again? Or something similar?
Well I would definitely buy it again but right now I think I got my eye on a Yamaha RS7000... Them things are sexy as hell and powerful too. I am more sample based so I am not gonna use all the Triton sounds.
Do you sample?
Hell yeah, sampling really inspires me. I mean come on now, it's like having Louis Armstrong, Tchaikovsky, the skull snaps drummer, Al Green and CannonBall Adderly all together on your track and you can make them play what you want. How can that not be incredible??? I can understand why some people are hating on sampling but to me it's just a whole bunch of sounds that are waiting to be used and abused by me ahahahahah.
Exactly! But do you only sample, or do you play your own stuff too?
I do a bit a both... Most of the time I'll sample one or two notes and play a little melody with it. Other times I'll sample a loop and then add up some instrument in there either by sampling or by soundfonts, depending how the track is. Sf2 for me always sound a bit cheesy except my Planet and Pure Phatt Sf2 and my Proteus 2000 Sf2. All three are killer.
How much vinyl do you have?
Right now I have well over 500 pieces of vinyl and I will keep buying them all summer long and dig through them during the winter cuz here in garage sales, I buy boxes full of records for like $5, Canadian $ too. Even if half is shit you always get some good stuff in those.
No doubt, you can always find good stuff at garage sales. What's the best deal/biggest record you got at a garage sale?
Well biggest deal in quantity must have been last summer at a divorce sale... This women sold me her husband's collection for like 15 dollars.. Must have been like 1000 records in there but I ended up sellin most of the classical ones for like $5 a piece ahahahaha and the rarest find I ever encountered was in the same collection and this woman's husband had an old James Brown "for promo use only" record... from before he was famous... I sold that shit for like $245 plus a whole bunch of jazz records.
Who are some of your musical influences?
Non hip-hop I would go with BB King, Lou Rawls, Coltrain, Charles Mingus, Classical composers (Tchaikovsky, Naila, Litz...). Pretty much everything except punk music and country.... Hip-Hop, I always liked Nas, Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep, Gangstarr, CNN....
What artists are you feeling right now?
Right now all I can say, the only one I feel is Poison Pen. That track "Fall Back" is off the hook... you can listen to it at http://www.rainmakerzlounge.com in the audio section. Mad props to Rayna Shine on the beat, Montreal Style at its best!
What albums are you currently listening to?
The Ownerz is pretty tight, lately I have been listening to the R.Kelly, besides young girls it's pretty good..... lots of Kay Slay mixtapes too.... Diplomats - Diplomatic Immunity....
Do you listen to other forms of music besides rap?
I listen to a lot of Jazz, Blues and Soul (obviously). Lately I've been into different ethnic joints like Greek music, Italian, Spanish, Indian, French. Pretty much anything with unusual instruments in them. That shit gets me going for hours straight up and since Montreal is really culturally mixed, it's pretty easy to find those records...
Yeah true, but just stay away from the French Christmas albums! LOL.
Yeah for real... that shit is dangerous, it will make your sampler smoke for real ahahahahah.
How did it feel winning the Beat This! Competition?
Well winning a competition always feels good you know, but I was kinda shocked still. I knew my beat was top 3 material but I seriously thought Sent_inc was going to win, his joint was off the hook for real....Mad props dawg...
The comp keeps getting bigger and no matter what the outcome, people will always be disappointed in the results. Have you ever entered any other competitions online?
Well I guess it's like any other sport, when you thought you did good and you thought you should have won you always blame the referee or this and that. There is probably truth in what people say but still....Yeah I entered the rapmusic.com battle a couple times.....the ughh.com weekly battle.....and the hiphopcrib.com but so far IllMuzik's is the best in my opinion.
Hahaha, cool. Can you explain how you put together your winning beat or is it a secret?
Well first I started with the sampling from a Best of Traditional Mexican Songs record. I sampled two different songs. One for the hook and another for the rest, and the drums came from my collection... I wanted to give it a summer jam/party feel but hard hitting still, you know.... That's how I came about it. It was made for an artist I work with and I decided to use it for the competition.
How would you describe your style?
Versatile as much as possible and experimental is my choice of sample... definitely Montreal style.
Are you currently working with any other artists?
Yeah right I am workin with two groups, The Rappture and Element both from the Montreal region and I am talking about starting a project with somebody really big... Well in my standards that is. I can't really say more for now until it's for sure but be on the lookout for StraDivaRius, people.
Have you ever released any material, or do you plan to?
I have two singles on small radio rotation in the Montreal area which are getting pressed as we speak and should hit the shelves by the end of June. I am definitely working on releasing much more material, and try to create a buzz big enough to land me a production deal or something of the sort. Right now I am thinking about starting a production company to shop around local artists' material.
Is your goal to produce for other artists, or to release your own material, or both?
Well for now I am doing the producer for hire thing like the Neptunes type..... but on the long I would definitely want to put on my own artists and put them in the game.... So for me I would like to do movie scores and jingles for commercials. I always liked soundtracks from movies and the intensity the music brings in the movie.
Have you ever sold any beats?
Yes I did, never online but always in Canada. All in the Montreal area except 1 sold in Calgary and 2 in Vancouver when I was on a coast to coast road trip last summer.
Do you have any advice for other producers out there?
I don't think I have enough experience or skillz to give advice (yet) but all I can say is find your style, don't bite on other up-coming producers, try and read and learn as much as you can until you have a break, that way when that break happens you won't get fucked.
Any shoutouts you'd like to give?
Yeah of course, first big ups to my man Fade for this site, all the peeps posting their work, one love to my S.C.F. crew, Rappture, Element, DJ Destruction, Ninja, and everyone in Montreal trying to do their damn thang.... Montreal on the rise!!!!
Cool, thanks for doing the interview.
No problem thanks for doing this competition playa!