Tomorrow sees the release of the new album from Damu The Fudgemunk. Conversation Peace is the first in a series of collaborations between London-based label, Def Pressé, and legendary library music label, KPM/EMI, which will provide a selection of artists access to their iconic archives. GingerSlim recently caught up with Damu to discuss the album in detail, including some background knowledge surrounding its creation, as well as what this could mean for the art of sampling in the future.
So, are you all set for the release of Conversation Peace ?
Yeah, there’s bits of promo to do, like interviews and stuff, but there’s nothing left that I need to do on the creative side other than continue to spread the word. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but this is only what they’ve decided to use for this particular release. There’s enough for two more releases that they didn’t put on this album, so we’ll see what they do with that. I think there’s about 18 or 19 tracks that haven’t been used.
That was actually going to be one of my questions. Given the fact you had access to the whole library and you’re a digging enthusiast anyway, I was assuming you would have come away with a lot more than you needed for just one album.
Yeah, they wanted to use the vocal stuff first. They were more interested in that at the time versus the instrumental stuff. But I think the second part will be a traditional Damu instrumental album and the beats on that will be much different. There are some things that are kinda the same, in line with this one because I thought everything was going to come out at once, but they decided to break it up.
I thought it would be good to start at the beginning, so how did it feel to be asked to participate in something like this?
Oh, it was unbelievable. I mean just to get offer itself. I was in the middle of doing something else unbelievable at the time, because I was recording with Archie Shepp, when they decided to reach out and I couldn’t believe it. They wanted me to come around that time, but I had to postpone, so I had to tell them, “Look I’m interested, I’m REALLY interested, but I can’t come because I’m doing something else” [laughs]. So, they were like, “Recording with Archie Shepp sounds amazing, so we get it. Get back to us”. And that ended up being a five-month period. I think this was around this time in 2019 and it ended up that we touched base in September or October, finalised everything and then I came over to England in January.
And had you had any dealings with Def Pressé beforehand?
No this was my introduction; I was unfamiliar with their work until then. I mean I’m still becoming more familiar with their catalogue and their artists.
Yeah, they’re doing some interesting things. So that must have been even more out of the blue for you, having not had any contact with them before.
Well yeah, I did have some questions [laughs]. I think initially it was like, okay KPM – dope! But they’re a licensing company and I hadn’t really worked in that terrain before, so then we had a meeting and went over all the logistics and then I was like okay cool, I get it now. And now we’ve been developing a really good chemistry and working business relationship since this whole thing started, so yeah, Def Pressé has been on point.
That’s definitely the vibe they give off from my side of the industry.
Yeah, I actually have more music in the works with them. So, this won’t be the last you’ll hear from Damu the Fudgemunk and Def Pressé.
That’s good to hear. I read in the release notes that the archive was understandably a little overwhelming. Where do you start with something like that?
Well, I mean luckily everything was curated and organised in one location, so I didn’t have to go from room to room. So, I just started from the beginning. I started with the brown sleeves, which was around 40 or 50 records, got some things from there. Then I went to the green sleeves and got pretty far. I think initially it was overwhelming because what I was told prior to arriving was that I’d have a studio there that I could use, I could go and work, so I’m under the impression that this is a recording studio. That would give more than enough time, because I don’t need to sleep. I can just stay up until early morning, get 3 or 4 hours, then go back to it. But it wasn’t that sort of set-up, it was actually a production studio inside an office building where their headquarters was, so it wasn’t a 24-hour facility. And so trying to solve that issue was pretty much me asking, “Okay what time do you open?”, “what’s the latest I can be here?” [laughs], and at that point it was overwhelming. So yeah it was a very boring process for them. They were excited to see me in there with MPCs and setting up all my gear, day in and day out, but they probably started thinking, “Man, when are we going to hear something from him”. Because really it was just me needle dropping, listening to stuff, taking notes, asking for more Post-Its… so they’d be like, “Oh hey how’s it going?”, “Oh man it’s great I’m loving it”, “so have you made anything?”, “No not yet, but I’m writing all the beats in my head”. But then they started feeling concerned because I hadn’t eaten all day! I’d be like, I don’t need to eat. I’ve got about another 400 records to go through [laughs]. And then I think probably the last day and a half it was panic mode, I was like okay don’t nobody bother me, touch me… working out when’s the latest I can be here, you know really trying to get everything together. And you know, it all worked out; I had tons of notes, tons of things sampled. So then the job afterwards was to curate everything and organise it.
That’s what I was going to ask next, because how do you then go about narrowing everything down to hone in on the sound you wanted for the project?
Well I knew the catalogue was pretty diverse, just in terms of textures and styles, from a composition standpoint. Things sounded a certain way in the late 60’s and then they may have been tweaked a bit in the early 70’s, then in the late 70’s from disco to jazz to rock to experimental… I knew that whatever I worked on I wanted to show a diverse appreciation for what I found. I wanted to highlight all of it because that’s generally how my brain works and then as a digger / DJ, you gravitate towards anything that’s good. I’m very meticulous when I listen to things, when I sample things, I generally don’t go for the first thing I hear. And the way that I listen to stuff, I have a very extensive and intensive process, for how I catalogue things and even the way that I label stuff, how my brain connects to what I write, and then how I try to reverse engineer those ideas when it’s actually time to work. So I had stacks of Post-It notes and something else I need to mention is with the KPM record covers, they’re all generic, and with the way that my brain works, or I’m sure how most people’s brains work, you’re like oh that’s the one with a Corvette on the cover, or that’s the one with an apple… but with this it was just looking at catalogue numbers, so it was a lot of work to make sense of my frantic sampling escapades.
Yeah, it sounds it. And did you have much of a plan when you went into the library, or was it built from scratch after you’d done the digging?
Well the initial plan was let’s have a good time, let’s make this a great experience for everybody – you know, they’re excited to have me, I’m excited for the opportunity, so let me put my best foot forward. That was always the goal. I guess once I got a better understanding of what their goals were for the music and how it informs what they do, then that informed what I did going forward. So we had a meeting when I got there, I told them what my skillsets were, what directions I could go in… we had a lot of creative discussions and they pretty much just said, “No man, you can go in whatever direction you want”. So at first it was like okay I get to go and sample this stuff and make a project, but then what I took away was like, oh this is really going to be a Damu The Fudgemunk album. It’s not just beat tape, it’s not just me going to the archives to see what I can come up with. So with that said, I take my reputation and my work very seriously, I put a lot of pride into what I do, and that really impacted how I went about creating from that point forward. So they saw me obsess over the sound but they didn’t really understand how it was going to be applied. They saw me coming in first thing in the morning, listening to record after record after record, playing around with ideas, taking notes and just in my own world, not really understanding what the end result was going to be. And by the time I started to go through my notes and review everything – I like that bassoon there, I like that bassline there, this motif is similar to that one etc. – I was just looking for a well-rounded collection of samples and things I’d found. I also knew that given the context of the work, I would also be able to add some of my own ideas. So throughout the compositions I did incorporate my own ideas as far as either melodies, or me playing instruments, that kind of stuff; things to make the music definitely more original than just samples.
I know you had to come back from England to put it all together and I know the pandemic hit right after you came back, so how much did that impact your creativity? Was it good to have something to focus on?
To be honest, in addition to the pandemic there was so much going on in my life. There was all kinds of downs happening in 2020. And there were a lot of wins too, the Ocean Bridges album came out, another Raw Poetic and Damu album came out. So in between working on what would become Conversation Peace, I had obligations to promote and celebrate those releases. And then in addition to that, watching what was going on in the world with the pandemic, social stuff, the political climate, all sorts of emotional stress that people were facing, my own personal ups-and-downs, it really did – especially going in from spring to summer – it was just like, wow how does making music make sense at a time like this? And when it came to reaching out to the guests, it definitely made me more apprehensive. Like I need a verse but there’s a clip of police brutality being shown over all media channels, so how do I go about asking somebody to be on my album when there’s so much chaos happening day-to-day? So I did go back to the team and express those concerns, and they were very accommodating and understanding; they go it. So although everyone was eager to have a finished product, they definitely allowed enough space for things to happen organically and everyone could get involved. And I felt comfortable moving at this pace, so when I turned in the record at the fall of 2020, I was confident that this really did reflect a growth within my creativity, but also absorbed what was taking place throughout the year on a spiritual level, on a lyrical level, and I guess just on a textural level.
Well it’s turned out really well, so that’s something to be thankful for in all this. There are some familiar names on the album in terms of your previous collaborations, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Nitty Scott featured on there and I know it’s the first time you’ve worked with her. How did that come about?
We have a mutual friend and he’s been telling me about her for a long time, and given the opportunity I was like hey I’m working on a new project with a little bit more range than what people may expect from my previous arrangements and whatnot, so this is perfect for her. So then I reached out and everything just came together. I already had most of the beats done at the time and when I sent them over, the response from Nitty was she just loved the beat, she was excited. So then I was thinking, okay this is a good sign and then by the time I got the verse back, we were talking about maybe collaborating more in the future, because I was really impressed and loved the way it sounded. I didn’t give much direction, I sent the beat and said she was pretty much free to do whatever she felt. And that’s pretty much the direction I gave everyone and everyone wrote what they were feeling.
Yeah because she does the first track in the “Four or Better Worse” quartet and I think that feeling is reflected in those four songs in particular.
Yeah, I think what took place is that once Nitty laid her verse, I said okay I think I’m going to be able to make this make sense musically and I have these other three pieces… I like long-form, extended arrangements and pieces, especially more recently I’ve been getting into that territory, and I knew that I had these other three tracks, or three movements. So it was like okay, once I’d thought about how I could put them all together and then just the subject matter with everybody’s verses… Actually Raw Poetic was the last piece, because Blu and Nitty did their verses around the same time, but with minimal direction one verse just informed the other. It was like wow this is just coming together. So by the time I gave movement three to Raw Poetic, I said hey this is where Nitty and Blu went, you go where you want to go. So, that’s why you hear that Raw Poetic is a bit more aggressive and a bit more direct in his approach, because you have somewhat of a prideful and confident Nitty, who’s also observant. Same thing for Blu, he’s observant and there’s a lot of questioning and analysis taking place. Then Raw Poetic comes in and he’s a little more direct, a little bit more passionate about what’s going on, he’s tired of this stuff. And then movement four is where I come in and kinda resolve the situation, like hey things are bad but it all starts within; I wanted it to bring people together in a real way.
Well it worked well, man. And you mentioned there about the long-form instrumentals, which is another thing I enjoyed about the album, the fact you allowed these instrumentals to breathe around the vocals, which is something that I feel we don’t hear enough of on hip hop records. You said that’s something you’re starting to explore more recently?
Well I like to jam and I think that sampling, or just music creation, is a spiritual thing. And when I hear the music that moves me and makes me want to sample it, or do something with it, the idea of throwing it in a machine and hearing it loop over and over again, it’s like okay let me try to convey that to the audience, this groove is funky and it evoked this kind of emotion. Then when you think about shorter length songs, they’re formatted for radio broadcast, so a lot of my music is not commercial anyway. So growing up listening to a lot of progressive rock, listening to jazz and fusion, a lot of that music is 7 or 8 minutes long, a whole side of a record dedicated to an idea. So doing longer form pieces is really how I am when I’m in the house. I might make a beat and let it play for two hours straight. I might be cleaning up, or freestyling, or I might play along with it, like scratching for five hours, whatever I’m feeling. And I know I can’t go that far with the actual releases, but to do it justice there does have to be something musical taking place, where things are alive, not just something looping over and over. But once I got the hang of that, it just made a lot more sense to incorporate it into my music because it felt like otherwise, I’m putting limitations and boundaries on what I do and a lot of the artists I really admire, none of them had those boundaries. And when I think about it, it hasn’t really been explored in my genre, so there’s a lot of room for me to do some things that haven’t been done.
Do you feel like projects like this are a diplomatic step in the right direction in terms of the ongoing debate around sampling?
That’s a good question and the answer is yes, I do think it’s a step in the right direction. Especially when the original artists have a say and have some influence over what’s going on, versus a more corporate approach, where a business is making these decisions without the artist’s consent. So yes, I think it’s phenomenal.
And do you think we’ll see more of this sort of thing happening?
I think so. And also you’re talking about music that’s 40 and 50 years old, or getting into that territory. You have an artform that has historically sampled things that are 20, 30, 40 years old and now we’re getting to the 50, 60-year mark, so a lot of the artists might not be around to give their say. But the estates and publishing companies who are in charge of these catalogues, you can see that as music is changing and becoming more disposable, finding creative ways to monetise this work and reintroduce them to younger audiences. So I think once you do that, it benefits the original work but it also introduces someone’s creations to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t even know it exists. That’s what sampling initially did for the generation that I came from. And now you’ve got people who are nervous about sampling because of the laws or the parameters surrounding what’s legal and so forth, and the expense that go along with that. So now you have a generation of people who won’t even really explore the artform of sampling and that same generation won’t discover music of the past that would actually inspire them in what they create going forwards. So I think those are the main two things that are being accomplished with ventures like this.
I’m fully with you there, man. That’s almost it from me, but aside from the release what’s next for you? You mentioned you’re working on a few things…
I’m actually in post-production, mixing and mastering an album right now called Space Beyond the Solar System, with Raw Poetic. That should be out in November, so a couple of months after Conversation Peace. It features Archie Schepp on a couple of tracks. Then Raw Poetic has a solo album called Laminated Skies that’s coming out maybe late winter, so that’ll be 2022. And then to be honest I have several albums that I’m trying to find the perfect time to put them out because things are getting a little bit dense with the release schedule, but I’m hoping to put out a lot more music, a lot more than ever before. So that’s pretty much my life right now, finishing records and preparing them for release. And there’s going to be a lot of them.
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Conversation Peace by Damu The Fudgemunk is out tomorrow, September 3. Buy it here via Def Pressé.
GingerSlim is a music journalist from Bristol, UK. His self-titled blog has been covering the UK and US indie rap scenes for over a decade, and he’s also a regular contributor to The Wire Magazine, Off Licence Magazine and The Find Mag. When he’s not writing about rap, you will usually find him with his face buried in a book, or talking to the birds. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.