Category: Debate

Interview: Cas Metah

CAS METAH

There are few genres of music as cutting edge as hip-hop, with the latest technology, social trends and pop culture references having been rapped about on wax since the beginning. But it is also music that constantly looks back, and definitely the most self-referential. ‘Throwback’ is a term not always used kindly, but it nicely sums up the music of an artist like Cas Metah, who makes hip-hop that takes people back to a time many consider to have been better. Don’t get it twisted though, because this is an artist also at that same cutting edge, straddling both the old and new. We spoke to him about that balance, his recent Old Fashioned album, and the tools available to indy artists in a landscape where selling music is almost impossible. Make sure you keep reading until the end for an exclusive first listen of his new single One Nation Under Fraud.

Your music feels like a throwback to the classic era of hip-hop. Do you get a sense that heads of a certain age are looking for modern hip-hop that takes them back to those times?

Yeah for sure. That’s the era I grew up in, so my music definitely reflects that. As a fan, that’s mostly the sound I like to listen to. I try to stay relevant with who is new and noteworthy too, but I still get really excited when someone from back in the day drops new material.

The Old Fashioned project feels very much like a complete album, rather than a bunch of songs strung together. Was that a conscious decision, to remind people about the power of a properly structured album?

I’m glad you think so! It was definitely a conscious decision. I spent a lot of time making sure it had that vibe. I wanted to showcase my storytelling abilities as well as my punchline abilities, and keep everything sonically in the same range. Having Mista Sinista and EF Cuttin played such a big factor. Their turntablism was the icing on the cohesive cake.

We love how independent artists like you are still getting physical copies of albums pressed up, even on cassette. Is that another throwback decision or something for the collectors?

Both. I’m an old head and a physical collector, so I’ll always do it. In regards to Old Fashioned, the whole concept behind it goes beyond just the throwback sound. Everything from the artwork to the cassette tapes and CD’s was meant to take us older heads back in time for the nostalgia of it. And it gives the younger generation an opportunity to see what they missed. What rapper from the 90’s never dreamed of having their own tape? It’s a must!

How much of a risk is it pressing CDs and vinyl, knowing that you might struggle to sell them all?

It can be a risk, especially if you are ordering in bulk. I still have boxes left from my first project because we simply ordered way more than our demand required at the time. That was 2004, so I’ve learned to stay away from that. For the past decade, I’ve been pressing through a company that does short runs, so there are fewer boxes sitting around. I have a large catalog, so I may have twenty-something projects in stock, but only a few copies of each one.

You seem to be an artist who has definitely embraced Bandcamp. Tell us about the advantages of it to an independent artist?

I love Bandcamp! It’s simple to use and the most artist friendly format I know of. You get paid direct to your PayPal account when you make a sale, as opposed to any other service like iTunes where you have to wait on quarterly statements. Just everything about it is more convenient. The ‘Stats’ feature is pretty cool, and if you have a Pro account the perks are well worth it to me. Not only is it a store where I can sell digital and/or physical copies, T-shirts, whatever, it also doubles as an information hub for my show dates and social media links. It even collects buyers email addresses for me so I can always keep an up to date email newsletter. Every independent artist should use it.

Do you even need a label anymore?

Not really. The key is learning the business for yourself. You can always outsource and hire specific people for jobs like marketing or publicity if you’re willing to finance your own product. If you’ve got the desire, you can learn to handle most tasks yourself. It’s all about building relationships and building your budget while building your brand. I can’t reach the sky if I’m always sitting in the basement. I’m still working with labels from time to time based on long standing relationships with the people behind them. They know my true desire is to be self-sufficient, and they respect it.

Cas Metah’s Old Fashioned album is out now. Listen to the latest single One Nation Under Fraud below.

 

Slept-on albums in retrospect: Raekwon’s – ‘Immobilarity’

RAEKWONOnly Built 4 Cuban Linx was always going to be difficult to top, even for one of the best artists amongst the nine men that made up the Wu-Tang Clan. By 1999, the world had already been blessed not just with Raekwon’s classic debut some four years previously, but also superior albums from Ghostface Killah, GZA, Old Dirty Bastard, Method Man and Cappadonna. The pressure on Rae to turn-in something as good as his debut must have been thick, even if no one dared to mention it.

When Immobilarity did drop, it was given something of a lukewarm reception from fans and critics alike. Listen again in 2015 however, and its actually a pretty good album, and arguably better than the genuinely disappointing proper sequel to the classic debut, 2009’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II.

What seemed to bug people most at the time was how little this seemed like the other Wu-Tang solo albums so far. There are no guest spots from Ghostface, and in fact Method Man and Masta Killa are the only two official clansmen to appear. And perhaps most noticeably of all, there are no beats by RZA.

Looking back, this was actually a good thing. A lack of guests gave Rae the space needed to focus, and write with enough confidence and weight to carry entire tracks on his own, the way that Ghost has always been able to.

Moving from RZA production also added some variety, away from the occasionally stale beats that he was sometimes guilty of making, even if the little-known producers on the album were usually just trying to ape his style. Its no coincidence that the nicest beat is the Pete Rock produced Sneakers, hinting for the first time just how good Rae sounded over beats from skilled beatmakers outside of RZA. By Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II, the line-up of producers had become diverse enough to include everyone from Dr Dre to J Dilla, via Erick Sermon, Alchemist, Marley Marl and more.

Other standout tracks include Friday, My Favorite Dred and Live From NY, each of them filled with the same vivid imagery that helped maintain Rae’s reputation as one of the best storytellers in the game.

If you slept on this album in 2009, dust it off and have another listen. You’ll be surprised at how good it sounds.

Rapper Big Pooh on Combat Jack

POOHThe latest episode of The Combat Jack Show features an extensive interview with Rapper Big Pooh, breaking down tracks from his incredible Words Paint Pictures EP with Apollo Brown. He also drops knowledge on a range of other subjects, and you can listen to the whole thing below. Props to Combat for not asking the obvious Little Brother reunion questions. As painful as it is to accept, its not going to happen.

Thoughts on the De La Soul Kickstarter

The recent news that De La Soul have launched a Kickstarter campaign to get their new album out is part awesome, part sad.

Its awesome for obvious reasons. De La are one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time, and have never released a bad album. No matter how it ends up making its way to us, there’s little doubt that the new album will likewise be worth it.

Its also for obvious reasons why its sad. The group has been on a noble anti-record label crusade for years, which has earned them respect for way more than just their music. But in all honesty, when a group as stellar as De La cannot get a budget for a new album, the music business has really become a fucked-up place.

It’s true that Kickstarter is one of the many new ways that music now gets to market, and its a process that is incredibly liberating and empowering for both the artist and the fan. As listeners, we get to be part of something we love, and are even rewarded for taking part.

It’s this community spirit that De La are pushing with their campaign, highlighting how this is a collaborative project between them and us fans, with some impressive items for those that pledge anything from $5 up to an eye-popping $10,000 (too late if you were thinking of splashing out that ten grand – its already gone).

For the artist, a successful campaign means getting their music out, usually in the hope of getting noticed on a wider scale, or in De La’s case, re-noticed. The sense of fan empowerment and of sticking a middle finger up at the industry only holds so much weight though, and it would be perhaps naive to think De La would likely have chosen this route had a label been willing to give them the cash.

In the campaign trailer the group looks genuinely passionate about this being a fan project, and they have certainly been the champions of new innovation and doing whatever they can to get music to us, from long legal battles, to recently giving away their entire back catalog for free download.

But despite all of the above, its hard to shake the feeling that we shouldn’t have got to this point at all.

We’ve already donated to the project, and as we write this, the funding target looks to be comfortably in sight. We encourage you to pledge money too, and support these three legends of hip-hop.

Click here to read more about the project, watch the video, check out the rewards, and pony up your cash.

UPDATE: De La Soul managed to smash the funding target in a matter of just hours. Congratulations to the group. We can’t wait to hear it, and get our copy on vinyl.

Phonte on The Music Snobs

SNOBSWe could listen to Phonte all day long, and so we were pretty excited when he recently showed up as guest snob on the always-brilliant The Music Snobs podcast. The subject is Lauren Hill, with Phontigallo somehow managing to drop references to Project Pat, Mark Morrison and Mike Ehrmantraut. Incredible.

How commercials ruined the hip-hop classics

There’s no other art form that has been spoofed and lampooned as much as hip-hop. It was the butt of everyone’s jokes for decades, and even now, after years of mainstream exposure, the wider world’s lack of understanding of the music still makes us feel like we are being laughed at whenever a rapper appears on a network talk show, or in a serious debate piece.

The world of advertising has always been wise to the power of hip-hop’s popularity though, and that’s why seeing rappers get paid to sell products has been happening for years.

But while sponsorship is one thing, using an artist’s music in a commercial, on a TV show or in other marketing campaigns is a whole different thing. Flattery is nice, but for the most part, when a rap song is used in an advert, its as a pastiche, and chosen for irony.

A recent example is a price comparison company in the UK using Snoop Doggy Dogg’s What’s My Name to soundtrack a commerical of a nerdy white man riding through the hood in an imaginary low-rider full of ghetto chicks. Snoop himself makes an appearance, suggesting he was more than OK with his music being used, but lets face it, there isn’t much that Snoop won’t do for money.

Snoop isn’t alone either, and that’s where the lines get blurred. Bruce Springsteen is one of the wealthiest musician’s in the world, but still rakes in millions of dollars from long and epic world tours. He does have integrity however, and on several occasions has turned down lucrative offers to use his biggest songs in commercials because he didn’t like the ethics of the company.

But few rappers have pockets as deep as Springsteen, and are therefore less likely to turn down a huge paycheck to use one of their songs. As a result, some of the best hip-hop tracks of all time have been used and abused and taken completely out of their original context in commercials, promos, TV shows and trailers, to the point where they have lost much of their original power.

The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Can I Kick It? by A Tribe Called Quest, Time 4 Sum Aksion by Redman, Sound of Da Police by KRS-ONE, and countless Run DMC tracks have all been used to death, and their legacy is now somewhat diluted.

We know you can’t stop the profit, and as long as the permission is being granted and the artist is making their money, it’s relatively acceptable. But as fans of real hip-hop, it might have been nice to keep some of these classics as ours only.

Adrian Younge documentary

Adrian YoungeAs egotistic and pretentious as he may come across at times, its hard to deny that Adrian Younge is something of a musical genius. This new short film breaks down his process, with DJ Premier, RZA and more sharing their experiences of working with the man himself, and how they dig his strictly analogue approach to making music. Definitely worth a watch.

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