Category: Kool Keith

KutMasta Kurt has produced some of the most acclaimed hip-hop albums and 12″ singles since the 90s indy boom. He’s worked with everyone from Dilated Peoples and Planet Asia to the Beastie Boys and Linkin Park, but is mostly renown for his collaborations with Kool Keith. We spoke to him about Dr. Octagon, his label Threshhold Recordings and more. The responses and insight we got were a lot more honest, humorous and candid than we expected. Interview by Matt Horowitz.

[The following has been lightly edited for clarity].

How did you initially get involved in the creation process of Dr. Octagon’s Dr. Octagonecologyst? Did I read that your early demos essentially helped create the whole concept of Dr. Octagon and then got edged out of the album?

For the answer to this question you’ll need to wait for my forthcoming book “My Adventures with Kool Keith” by Kutmasta Kurt.

How did your 2013 Dr. OctoTron 7-inch with Kool Keith & Del The Funky Homosapien come to fruition? Do you have any immediate plans to record and release any more music together?

Del and I were  texting in 2012 – he’s a good dude. We were discussing different things and one day he was expressing frustration about working with Fat Toni and Dan [Editor’s Note: We assume Kurt is referring here to producer Dan the Automator]. I said yeah, Keith could tell you a lot about them. He was asking if Keith would want to do a collabo and mentioned how that would fuck-up Dan’s ego. I said yeah that’s true and the two of you together is a dream team type of project that will get some nice attention; let’s do some songs. So that was it, we just did a few songs, dropped a 45 and then Del went back to finish up the second Deltron album and touring with Dan and Keith eventually bent over to take it anally and did Moosebumps which by that time was such a joke of a sequel due to so many previously failed attempts at a follow up. Surprisingly it got all these great reviews, but let’s be honest, the press needs to take Dan’s cock out of their mouths – it was weak. I do give Dan credit for one thing – he found out how to get Keith to perform the lyrics (Keith would always say he couldn’t remember them) – with a teleprompter!

When did Threshold Recordings first acquire their lathe-cutting machine? So far, what note-worthy releases have been cut/recorded using the Neumann VMS-70?

I’d been directing and later assisting the cutting of my own stuff for a while and started cutting others since mid 2000’s. I obtained a lathe that needed to be re-built and that was finally completed in 2013. I’ve been doing projects for friends labels and random stuff, most noteworthy would prob be my own projects as I haven’t really done anything too high profile, but perhaps one day after I get better known and sharpen my skills further.

Did Threshold Recordings have some sort of involvement in recording Zach de la Rocha’s long-rumored solo material. Any idea if it included material produced by Questlove, El-P, or Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor?

I wasn’t involved, haven’t seen Zach since the big day out tour back in the days, but would be cool to link with him again sometime.

At one point in time, you were “Grand Royale’s In-house Remixer,” correct? Now, what exactly did that entail, in regards to your direct relationship with The Beasties?

That was just a running joke since I did so many remixes for the label and was friendly with a few of the staff. Mike D used to call me from time to time for MPC advise so we made that MPC tutorial movie – which is still floating around out there on YouTube.

What are you currently working on recording and releasing on Threshold Recordings in 2019?

I have a unreleased project – songs with Motion Man from the early 90’s that will probably drop in 2019. I also have a comp I’d like to drop, but  I’ve been more focused on my farming.

How did you first meet Kool Keith and what initially prompted you to start collaborating and releasing music together?

I was doing long hauls for my cousin’s trucking company (during the farming off season) and Keith was hanging out at this strip club us truckers like to frequent in Hunts Point. We got to be friends and used to smoke crack together and listen to E-40 and Mac Mall records in my cab (I had 2 15” subs). he was telling me he wanted to make a new sound, I played him some of my beats and he was hype to record, so he hitched a ride back west with me. the rest is history!

Of all the projects you’ve recorded with Kool Keith over the years which one was your absolute favorite and why?

Masters of Illusion, cuz he stepped up his style and skills and Motion Man got to show he could go toe to toe with Keith. Plus some of my fav beats I made are featured.

What are a few of your personal favorite KutMasta Kurt projects that you don’t exactly think garnered the initial attention they deserved?

A good example is Dr. Dooom 2. Keith predicted it perfectly on the song mopped up “First thing you gon’ do as a journalist is compare this to the first Dr. Dooom Fuck you!” Another which I executive-produced and mixed but presented is Dopestyle 1231. MC Dopestyle is ill with his and goes toe to toe with all of his guests (even when they try to diss him on his own song). But yeah we just released our first recordings from the 90’s, the MC Blabber demos and it stands up lyrically today. DS 1231 is also how I met Tom c3 who I later connected with Keith for the Project Polaroid collab album, which iMHO is one of Keith’s most cohesive works while Tom’s beats were mad saiko, and the last one I’d mention is Motion Man’s Pablito’s Way album.

How did your latest project with Kool Keith, Your Mom Is My Wife EP, come to fruition? These tracks were originally recorded in-between Sex Style and Dr. Dooom, correct?

Yes, originally recorded after the Sex Style sessions and before the Dr. Dooom sessions. It came to fruition when I was playing some of the tracks to Keith and he was bugging out remembering them and said, “hey, why don’t we release these now?” Chino XL wouldn’t give us his permission to include a collabo track that we really wanted to include. I think he takes himself too seriously. Keith and I view lyrics as comedy. Like Eddie Murphy and his Mister T “come her boy and fuck me up the ass” routine is just super funny, and Mister T never shot Eddie over that. But for some reason rappers lyrics can’t be viewed in a similar way and some people get all butt-hurt about ‘em and wanna kill. That’s some dumb shit, no doubt. Hopefully one day Chino changes his mind, but for now remains a private/personal track, only Keith and I can laugh at.

It seems like, these days, most producers have acquired a Prince-sized “vault” or digital archives full of unreleased material. If you could put together your own compilation of as-yet-unreleased material, what type of gems might be included within?

My vault is not Prince-sized by any means, but I do have a lot of dope unreleased material with Motion Man and a small amount of Keith tracks. There’s this one song with Motion Man and Evidence from Dilated Peoples that is quirky, and a track with Raph Boogie (from Australia) who made that producer photo book “Behind the Beat” that I’m featured in.

How exactly, in your opinion, was Kool Keith’s Dr. Dooom 2 orchestrated in direct response to OCD International’s widely-lauded 2006 Dr. Octagonecologyst follow-up, The Return of Dr. Octagon?

It was in direct response because we had booking agents getting us on tours like the big day out in Australia/New Zealand and other big festivals but did not enjoy performing those tracks. So we switched the focus of our touring to be Dr. Dooom vs. Dr. Octagon in 2009 which culminated in Keith’s first time touring in japan. As we’ve gone on record a few times, that old album was so far out of pocket to what Dr. Octagon was and very pop and  EDM sounding. They could have called it something else, but the label and producers were trying to capitalize on that name. FAIL!

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Matt Horowitz has been a hip-hop fan ever since he first heard Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) back in the mid-90’s, which positively or negatively changed his life ever since, depending on who you ask. He single-handedly runs online music publication The Witzard, and has been fortunate enough to interview Eothen ‘Egon’ Alapatt, Guilty Simpson, Ice-T and Mr. X, Dan Ubick, Career Crooks’ Zilla Rocca & Small Professor, Cut Chemist, and J-Zone, amongst countless others. He enjoys writing about and listening to hip-hop, Punk/Hardcore, and Indie Rock on vinyl with his lovely wife, while drinking craft beer, red wine, or iced coffee. To paraphrase both Darko The Super and the Beastie Boys: “Already Dead fans, they want more of this… I’m a Witzard like my man Matt Horowitz!”. Follow Matt here.