With a constant stream of talent flowing into the ether on the regular, it can sometimes be overwhelming keeping up who is doing what and coming out of where. One individual who is doing a lot to help push the US beat and club scenes forward is Mr. Paul Salva—or just ‘Salva’ to you and I.

From DJ to producer and now label boss for the boutique ‘Frite Nite’ imprint, and a graduate of last year’s RBMA in Madrid, Salva has been busy, and it’s already looking like another big year for him. Beatnik spoke to Salva about friends, trends, the accidental heroes of youth, and why we should definitely be keep an eye on the East coast as well as the West.

For some your name might be associated with the new wave of beatmakers out there, for others you are known for being a big part of helping to move the culture forward, how do you see your involvement with music?

I guess I’ve already been through a few manifestations of the different styles of music I’ve wanted to integrate in my life. I was never formally trained, and I guess my first incarnation in all of it was through Djaying and being a big Turntablism geek. Now, I’m somehow a little bit more of an old timer compared to some of the younger guys coming out of L.A.

You’re a Chicago native but via a few other places, you’ve been a West coast resident for little bit now, is it fair to say they all seem to come through in the music?

I guess my big thing is that I’ve always loved as much as hip-hop, in all their forms. The West coast sound really drew me, guys like Dre & Snoop, to Battlecat and DJ Quick as well as straight up Funk and other styles. For me, I feel as much influenced by those sounds, as I do by the house stuff growing up in Chicago and the sounds coming out of Detroit at the same time. I actually also lived in Miami for while, which was the hub for Drum & Bass in the U.S. when it was really cracking, and I think having had dance music play a big role in my life would probably be something that seems to somehow set the sound apart from a lot of other people in L.A. right now.

Dance music from either side of the pond has always pushed the bar for each side to experiment more, how are you experiencing it now?

I definitely always looked to the UK for inspiration, regardless of what style I was into at the time. In the last decade, and particularly more recently, so many amazing artists have been coming out here on a dance tip, playing the more tribal funky stuff or more broken beat stuff. Equally now, it feels like there’s been this revival with young cats in the UK almost migrating away from that “UK Funky” sound, and making straight up house and techno which sort of emulates old Chicago and old Detroit.

Either side really keeps feeding back off each other, but especially now with Internet culture, it’s like that for any art forms, its just this consistent recycling and feeding off each other. You have Artists changing sounds before you can even start to describe what they were making before.

People sometimes put a downer on the US Bass scene, do you think that’s fair?

I think definitely has its own identity, but it’s still a lot more isolated on the whole. I’ve had the opportunity to play in most of the major cities, and in a lot of the smaller places too, and though most places are usually up on what is on elsewhere, the average city just has less nights cultivating and pushing those certain styles.

Even with the Internet, and the fact that nothing is really ‘secluded’ in the way it used to be, a lot of what ends up getting picked up on there usually gets channeled through ‘Pop’ culture, in this sort of weird sub-mainstream area. Were talking radio, and stadium sized shows! It’s almost impossible for artists like myself to compete with that, unless you follow the format. But things have always been that way, from hair metal, to big-band jazz, there’s always fads and popularity.

The west coast sound is putting out a lot of stuff that’s being picked up all over the place these days, but can you shed some light on what else is happening these days?

The East coast is definitely back in big way. New York is cracking right now, there are always three or four parties in Brooklyn, and a lot of great artists from all over the place playing there, but also amazing guys coming out of the local scene too. Sepalcure is a huge taste maker, in fact machine drum is probably one the most eclectic and influential producers out there, am happy to say that I take a lot of influence from people like him.

I mean there’s definitely a great buzz on the West coast right now but I don’t even particularly see myself as being part of the L.A. beat scene that much, the guys at Low End Theory and Brainfeeder have it down and it is awesome, they’ve built this whole thing there, and it’s reaching insane levels of popularity which is amazing because it’s still experimental at the end of the day. It’s great to be in the middle of it, but I feel like I can bring something a little bit different.

Last year saw you come of the RBMA in Madrid. How was that, on a scale of one to ‘ridiculous’?

Euuuhm….. extra ridiculous!

Any highlights you could share?

I mean, the whole thing really, the amount of technical knowledge and the massive amounts of inspiration, from my peers and from artists I fount out looked up to me, and artists I looked up to. I mean, sitting in on the RZA giving a lecture! He has to be in one of my top five most influential artists.

Plus with all the other lecturers and even the staff, it was all just endless input, I think I’m still processing things I learnt and the relationships I made there.

The people you meet, the bonds you make, its actually very emotional, plus you don’t sleep, you’re out in the club till 5am, and in lectures by 9am, then studio all day and all night. The whole thing is ridiculous, you’re constantly having moments when you’re looking at your peers, asking yourselves ‘Is this really happening right now?’

You’re label ‘Frite Nite’ which houses fellow beat mason and recent RBMA alumni B. Bravo, how do you find running an indie imprints these days?

It’s been great, even though I released both my records on Friends of Friends last year; they’ve really embraced me having my own label. Frite Nite in itself is a crew of my friends I got close with is SF, and the reason I started it was to help them get exposure.

Guys like B. Bravo had been making music for years but had never done anything solo until we did it, and it became a platform for him to be able to grow from, and that’s hat make me the happiest. We all release on other labels, but with time and money permitting we try to do more projects from our own output.

You’ve had a pretty exciting year last year…. what can we expect now?

I’m actually working on some new stuff with of my close friends DJ G. He comes more from the ‘pure’ sort of ‘DMZ ‘Dubstep pedigree, but we’ve ended up working on some broken beat and house stuff when were doing it together. I’m also looking forward to being more present on Frite Nite, with some solo stuff on more of a Hip-Hop vibe.

Then we got some of what I honestly feel is B. Bravo’s best work to date coming out too. We’ve also been getting a ton of demos from a lot of young people, which I’m really excited about. I always wanted to be in that position, I know I’m getting older, and I love looking towards the youth. Their accidental genius is what makes music and art so great, so hopefully I‘ll get to play, but also put new cats on too.

OK and if you weren’t making music what do you think you would be doing with your time?

I can’t really imagine that at this point anymore to be honest. I used to just do a tech job and there’s no going back I think one thing I do wanna do regardless of what happens with my own music is teach. RBMA was a big part of me wanting to do that, the educational insight it gave. Again, like what RZA was saying about the ‘student-master’ relationship is that you basically learn a lot from teaching. But otherwise I wanna be in Music for the rest of my life, there’s no real doubt about that.

We certainly hope so.

Thanks.

————

Frite Nite label.

Jack Colleran is likely to be the best new find this year. And he’s only just begun.

After self-releasing ‘Blisters’ last summer to a storm of excitement, he since has found a home at SQE Music, the perfect place where the rising Irish producer, also known as MMOTHS, can craft his magnificent and sparse electronic creations.

Challenging a conventional thought for genre brackets, he morphs a wide range of influences into dreamy landscapes rich in audio colour. Heart settling synths, dripping in reverb are his main paintbrush along with a sensational nack for timing, unifying lengthy cinematic minimalism which often carries you to a paralysing and personal euphoria.

“I always saw it as a sound that I want you to hear, I never thought of it as current music.”

Jack enthusiastically claims, slightly confused with the recent interest over his music. His Irish accent strong as ever through the crackly phone line.

Citing Flying Lotus and Jamie XX as hero producers – both for their innovation and reluctance to follow trends— he has already shaped his own strong sense of identity; something that is more astonishing when you consider the guy— originally from a sleepy town called Newbridge but now living in Dublin— is just eighteen years old.

Again it’s this issue of timing, generously giving enough space for your emotions to build, that makes his music most appealing. The drawn out intros and minimal use of sounds makes for very exciting ambient electronica.

His incredible debut EP further strengthens that hypothesis. Holding the breathtaking ‘Heart’ and ‘THNX’, the release is timely addictive.

“I thought the main problem with it was that it wouldn’t work as a complete piece.  But it has, so people say, which is good”. Jack continues, thinking about the EP’s emancipation.

The result of long late nights locked away in his bedroom—Jack has serious trouble keeping to normal sleeping patterns and probably why he has that familiar white as a ghost producer look — he’s dreamt of this moment since, well forever.

Channelling a lack of enthusiasm for school—often distracted by the wonders outside his class room window—into an escapism far exceeding the conventional forms experienced by his peer, his routine meant he often got less sleep than the local milkman.

“I really wanted to do music. I’d go to school during the day come home late around eight and work on music throughout the night. Get and hour or two sleep and go back to school and start again. It kind of fucked up my school.” He laughs.

“I think about music twenty-four-seven”

Holding an exhaustible passion and self-belief, rare in people of any age, let a lone his own, what’s more impressive is that Jack, like more and more, is a self-taught producer.

“I never really wanted to go to collage. I just wanted to do music. I thought about doing music production but I’d already taught myself the basics so that didn’t make sense.”

He is yet another in a long line of younger and younger producers that are changing the idea of how music is made. Like the hyped Canadian producer and singer Grimes— she is on her third album having made all three during university using the very basic Garage Band— Jack’s music indicates that a great producer comes from instinct and something a lot deeper within. Technical skills can always come later if ever at all.

With more and more young people opting for a music production at college, it’s ironic then to think the best are sometimes not the ones being taught. A thrilling quality surely, in part, attributed to their rebellious youth.

The same idea can be said about other creative industries like graphic design. With a changing pace of society, economic troubles leading to graduates finding it harder and harder to find work, and a greater accessibility of creative tools to make your own, it begs the question are we going to see a lot more go getters and innovators at younger ages?

Jack certainly has his own opinion about all that.

“I don’t understand going to learn music production.” He unreservedly explains.

“I’d figure a way through it, and if I got caught I’d Google it. I think that’s the way.”

“I don’t think there is a formula for writing a song either. I don’t write music for a reason. There is no story behind the tracks, it’s more for people to interpret themselves.”

Then there’s the debate on what makes an exciting producer.

“Whenever I listen to a track and can’t describe what that sound is, I think that is the most amazing thing ever. There is so much music that sounds the same at the minute. For someone to come and completely just put out something that is completely fresh, I love that – that’s what I want to do.”

“I want people to ask ‘How did he do that’.”

He’s certainly already got people asking that of him. Other tracks on the album include the beautiful ‘If Only’ and ‘Summer’ featuring Superhumanoids. Both sound like perfect cures for miserable days emitting soft and warm echoes of ambience.

The later is also the first of two on the EP — the other being ‘Hearts’ featuring Shelly In Athens— that for the first time on his music feature guests vocals. Though Jack has always made instrumental music, the extra depth these collaborations offer can’t be underestimated.  And surely as his popularity grows there’ll be more to come.

So with that in mind, and still very much developing his early career I finish with asking is the EP leaning towards a potential album?

“I always said I’d make an album when my head was screwed on. An album is the biggest deal. it’s your stamp. That’s it.”

“It’s a scary prospect but I’m not ready for it yet.”

It seems then, the best is yet to come.

—-

Mmoths website

Taken from his superb debut album, Lonely Are The Brave, ‘Sometimes’ sees old friend Maverick Sabre take his inspiration from a certain classic Roots track. Can you guess which one?

We were the first to interview the UK soul sensation a few years ago, and as we predicted on that cold winter day, we’re so happy to see his phenomenal success.

Before then, we weren’t all that convinced about Action Bronson. From what we’d heard of him, he was a Ghostface Killah hand-me-down, a guy with a slightly lazy flow who might perk up a few ears every so often, but wouldn’t trouble the big dogs. But then we saw the rapper (who, if stories are to be believed, has a real-life second career as a chef) searing a side of tuna on Youtube, getting excited about the sushi-grade quality of the fish, and we figured he deserved another shot. On such flimsy pretexts are our editorial decisions made. So sue us.

Perhaps we should make judgements based on culinary prowess more often, because we’ve gone back and listened to Action some more, and he’s badass. More importantly, he’s fun, in a way Ghostface never was. Sure, his flow might be cover-band-identical to the Wu Tang member, but it’s hard to hate someone who rhymes about his lungs being “smoky like the pork shoulder” or how he wants the “Caesar salad, served table-side—waiter toss it, get the flavour right”. It’s the hip-hop equivalent of a Michael Winner restaurant review. It’s wonderful.

And once you’ve got past the schtick of culinary references (which we loved, but can understand why others might not) there’s a lot more to the Queens MC than you’d think. He has a gift for evocative imagery, and for placing himself at the very centre of attention. That last one is quite important, because on Well Done, he’s pared with Statik Selektah, which is a good look for both of them. Statik—arguably the most well-connected producer in rap—has really made some fantastic beats for Bronson here. In the past, his stuff has been a little underwhelming, and even his work with best buddy Termanology has sometimes seemed ho-hum, but here? It’s all sushi-grade.

Check out the highlight reel: ‘Time for Some’, a soulful number which samples Cypress Hill and has Lil Fame (MOP) on hook duties, is just gorgeous, with fantastic verses and some brilliant samples. ‘Cocoa Butter’, which pares Bronson with Nina Sky, will put a big fat smile on your face, as will cuts like ‘White Silk’ and ‘Central Bookings’.

Both MC and producer are at their very best here, and we can’t recommend this one highly enough. One thing though: the cover. It’s awful. Seriously: what the hell is it?

Note to Bronson: presentation is just as important as flavour.

Rob Boffard

—–
Buy Well Done

Sometimes you just need to start your week with a instrumental.

From his super dope Makin Sound.

Zed Bias just released a new album, Make a Change, under the alias Maddslinky. But any conversation with a such a seasoned producer has to touch in the old days in some way.

“At that time I could never have imagined that I could make anything commercial,” says Zed Bias about the classic UK Garage anthem ‘Neighbourhood’.

We’re supposed to be talking about Make A Change, his last album under the alias Maddslinky, and his new albumBiasonic Hotsauce, but while I’ve got him on the phone for a short while, I couldn’t resist asking him about the massive club banger. Those who remember will recall that ‘Neighbourhood’ was accompanied by an Andy Hylton-video showing scenes from the Brixton community. It turns out that ‘Neighbourhood’ only took three hours to make in total, and was the result of a favour for a friend.

“In 1998, a friend of mine called Glenn Woods used to DJ at a local club in Milton Keynes. Every week either one of the Dreem Teem would come up, or it would be Norris ‘Da Boss’ or Mike ‘Ruff Cut’ Lloyd, and he wanted a dubplate that would basically smash it before they came on, because he would always play the last record before the guest came on. When Glenn started playing it, it was going off so hard that a lot of the guests would want to go home with the dubplate, and as soon as we knew that, there was thought that this record could be released.”

Since then the sound of UK Garage has lived on through various sub-genres. I wanted to know why Bias thinks that the dance music landscape has become what it is, a melting pot of electronic sounds.

“People’s tastes have got a lot more broad. 10 years ago, if it were a garage club it would be garage played all night. You’d hear the same songs being played a lot if they were big tunes and that would be it really, but these days, I mean in the same set you can hear UK funky, UK Garage, dubstep, all sorts of stuff. I know I play various genres across the board now,” he says, and this is reflected by the variety of production on Make A Change and Biasonic Hotsauce.

Both brilliant albums boast stumping appearances from Mr Scruff, Skream, Mighty Moe, Ghost1, Toddla T, Falty DL and Paul Randolph. Then there’s the chilled out moments offered up with Omar, Tawiah, Nile Sugar and Jenna G. “Probably my favourite track on the album would be ‘Further Away’ with Tawiah” he says of Make A Change. “Just because of the way it turned out; the vocal performance was amazing. There’s something a little bit magical with that, especially with the backing track which I co-wrote with a lady from Croatia called Jana and it just turned out really nice.”

Biasonic Hotsauce takes off where Make A Change left off. A truly exciting release, it shows a producer full of confidence waving a big sign that we old boys do it best. Switching between the too releases you get a comforting embrace that while there are new artists today pushing musical boundaries by harking back to the old its clear the pioneers of the original baseline sounds still have the skill to stand strong.

One of the most creative productions can be found on ‘Lost On Tenori Street’, where every sound is made solely using the Tenori-On instrument. I tell him that I spotted fans on forums commenting on how clever the title was and he replies “aww, that’s nice. I wasn’t trying to be clever I was lost on it. I got given a Tenori-On by a client of mine, and basically it was really confusing one day. I thought I’d make a track from scratch using it and it took me all day.”

As we continue to talk, he lets me know that producing came to him at a late stage, only making his first record at 23, after realising that he could produce properly a year earlier. “I personally feel that I learn something every single session, you know, no matter how boring it is. Whether it’s a little shortcut on the keyboard, or a kick drum sound could be better EQ’d a certain way; there’s always something that we’re learning.”

To upcoming producers he has this advice: “Keep sticking at it. If you think you’re good enough, chances are you will be good enough, you just need to put the hard work in.”

And he’s continuing to stick at it with the new Zed Bias album, where Skream makes an appearance. He’s also writing a new album with Rodney P & Fallacy. Before I let him go, I can’t leave without asking about the new name.

“That’s another thing, where I get my words from. Sometimes I make words up. I think I saw the word ‘slinky’, like the American toy, a spring that falls down. I’d seen that somewhere and I thought of making a word using that word.”

——-

Zed Bias website
Tru Thoughts website

Bigger and better? Not in every case. In Canada, Beatnik found Classified, an emcee and producer creatively at ease with little outside pressure acting on him. And it sounds like it’s working.

Enfield, Nova Scotia is a textbook small town. A tiny dot on the map near the bigger city of Halifax, the town has a population of under 4000, and its most notable attractions are the winding Shubenacadie River and a hell of a lot of trees.

Luke Boyd lives here, fifteen minutes from the house he grew up in. Along with his wife and daughter, he’s made his home in a town where many of his family and friends still live. Every so often, Luke—a dirtbike enthusiast—will hop on his Kawasaki 750 Tyrex quad or his Suzuki RM250 bike, and go cruising the back roads around his home. “I usually use the Suzuki,” he says. “Two stroke. Nice and quick.”

And everyday, he’ll go to the little studio in his garage, boot up his computer, and make some seriously hardcore hip-hop music. Luke Boyd is Classified—a hero of the rugged Canadian hip-hop landscape. He’s never quite hit the levels that his countrymen Drake, Swollen Members and Kardinal Offishall have, but his steady dedication to his craft—both rapping and making beats—has paid off. And right now, he’s making the music of his life.

Take ‘That Ain’t Classy’, the lead single from his latest record Handshakes and Middle Fingers. It’s a monster, a track that grabs you and refuses to let go: a whirling tornado of buzzing synths, soaring strings and rumbling bass, matched with an insanely catchy hook and verses that showcase his powerful flow. It’s damn good hip-hop. It’s also the best piece of music to ever come out of Enfield.

“I’m still trying to get better, make more music, get it to more people,” says Classy. “I pressed up 500 copies of the first album, 1000 of the second, building. The last two albums have been really successful but at the same time I’m still trying to work on my flow, find better ways to make my beats and perfect my craft.”

In many ways, Classified is where every rapper on earth—or most of them, anyway—want to be. He is, as he says on album opener Ups and Downs, “making real cash flow off this shit.” And given the choice, most MCs wouldn’t go for the fast-living, mansion-buying life that Lil Wayne and 50 Cent live; if they could make a comfortable living without compromising their output, they’d do it in a heartbeat. Generalisation? Sure. But tell that Classified—fourteen projects deep, a legend in his home country, and living comfortably while getting paid to do something he loves.

“I’m 33 years old. I’m going to write from a 33-year-old perspective,” he says. “And I think hip-hop is growing up. I’m seeing people coming to my shows in their forties. The quicker we can realise that, the better and more rounded a culture we’ll have.”

But make no mistake: he might just be your average dirt-bik-ridin’ rapper, but he’s a big deal in Canada. He’s no Drake or Kardi, but he’s seen some serious success—including a massive hit with this song ‘Oh Canada’, which hit top 20 on the Canada Hot 100. Unfortunately, being so successful has its downsides: when Classified wanted to film a video for the patriotic single, he put out a call to get as many people to the shoot as possible. Unfortunately for him, some critics noted that there weren’t, in their eyes, enough black faces there.

“Message-board shit,” mutters Classy on being called racist. “I probably put more eyes on that topic than people actually knew. I’m a hip-hop fan, I go online and talk to people about it. It was just something someone brought up—I was like, what the fuck, are you serious? Stupid internet kids.

“I didn’t have people on the street coming up to me and calling me a racist, but I did have people coming up to me, going, what’s going on? We shot a video, I told everybody to come out. I’m not going to stop a video shoot because there’s not enough black people there. Too many white people! We need more black people! This is a rap video! People are people. Whoever comes out and supports, that’s love.”

There are challenges closer to home, too. He might not be facing your usual rap challenges—it comes with the mature territory—but when you make it a point to rap on and produce every single track on your album, it can often be difficult. As much as Classified enjoys the relaxed suburban existence (he lived in Halifax for a time before moving back), he does say that working alone can get a little lonely:

“It’s a gift and a curse. I’ve had some of my longest days in the studio by myself. I’ll sit in there and record it, produce it, engineer it. A lot of times that’s good, because I find that when you’re by yourself you can express yourself without being worried about what people in the studio think. It lets me focus on what I want to do. But it does get lonely and boring, being in the studio for a week at a time without seeing anybody.”

One of the things that he tackles on the new record is getting blunted. But—and brace yourself for a shock here—he’s talking about the bad side of it. To be fair, the song ‘High Maintenance’ does weigh up the pros and cons, but it’s certainly not something he shies away from.

“Weed impacts it quite a bit—good and bad,” he says. “Let me break it like this: I can’t write my lyrics high. It sends me left and right and I wake up the next morning and read what I wrote and it doesn’t make sense. But I can smoke something and zone out on a beat for three or four hours and play with one sample. When I’m not smoking and making a beat, I’ll chuck in a sample, play with it, ten minutes later I’m bored of it, move on. Smoking calms you down, makes you relax. Sometimes it makes me waste my time, but sometimes it makes me create some great stuff.”

Classified will be touring Europe soon. He is, he says, trying to negotiate a UK show. Here’s hoping he drives a bike onstage.

———

Classified’s website

We were expecting a lot from our chat with Saigon. But the one thing we weren’t expecting to hear is that he has a new album dropping in less than a year’s time.

This is, after all, the rapper who had been promising fans his debut album, The Greatest Story Never Told, for nigh-on seven years. Indeed, the album only saw the light of day this year because Sai finally broke with his label Atlantic Records and released it elsewhere. Put simply, calling Saigon albums delayed is like saying that Lady Gaga is a bit of an exhibitionist.

So when the New York rapper tells us in his distinctive growl that he’s “shooting for January or February”, we have to admit we’re a bit sceptical. Actually, that’s not true. We think he’s telling outright porky pies.

“Getting this [current] album out took me a long time so now that it’s out there I can keep putting out new material,” he says. “[Producer] Just Blaze isn’t gonna do the whole thing this time, but he’ll do the majority of it, like the main records. I got some new producers I’m working with whose sound I really like.”

To be fair, most of the impediments to Saigon (born Brian Carenard) releasing his music have been shaken off. His stormy relationship with Atlantic, of which more in a moment, has come to an end. His partnership with Just Blaze is stronger than ever. And his new home, Suburban Noize, seem happy to let him do his thing. Just as well, because when TGSNT finally found release on the label, it bucked every trend imaginable. You’d think an album that had sat on a hard drive for years, that went through so many legal hurdles that Just eventually began leaking the tracks himself, would sound dated and dull. It wasn’t. Saigon’s debut is sodding brilliant.

It really is. Not only is it superbly produced, thanks to Just having a hand in almost every track, but it’s a tribute to the very concept of an album—the sequencing of the tracks allows them to be mixed into one another, like a full DJ set. And at the centre of it all, Saigon reminds you why he was so anticipated in the first place. He is one of few naturally gifted rappers on planet Earth; while his lyrics may sometimes seem a little simple, he has the freshest flow in the business. It’s on-point, razor-sharp, sick, whatever adjective you choose. This was worth the wait in every way.

“We had that album done in ’07!” Sai laughs. “It was getting a release date and putting it on the calendar that took so long. We added one song—Bring Me Down—and a bonus song, and one song we couldn’t get sample clearance for so it came off. But other than that it didn’t change.

“A lot of people counted me out,” he muses. “He can’t do it, he left Atlantic Records, he had his chance. I knew my reasons for leaving, but I didn’t have time to go explain to everyone why I wanted to leave. People get a misconception. I was like, no matter what people think, I’m a persevere and it’s gonna work.”

Throughout the entire conversation, the spectre of the Atlantic Records deal hangs heavy. Sai signed with them in 2004. He was fresh off a prison sentence (he’d spent time in the Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch, New York for assault) and had been making huge levels of noise across New York with that insanely tight flow. He and Just were already comfortable working together—although he says that back then it was just a “business relationship”—and he seemed poised to do some serious damage.

Now stop us if you’ve heard this before. Underground rapper makes noise, signs to major label, is forced to make music for the radio, fights with label, ends up on the shelf and locked into a contract he can do nothing with. That’s the story of Saigon at Atlantic. We hate to hit you with cliché, but frankly it’s that simple.

Sai spent six years with the label, fighting them every step of the way to let him make the music he wanted to make. Talking about it now, there’s still a lot of anger in his voice. “All [Atlantic] care about is the radio,” he says. “Hip-hop wasn’t born on the radio. Pop music is on the radio all day, and hip-hop don’t come from that. Hip-hop is more rebellious music. But they’re a record company, so they were you like, you need to go in there and make songs for the radio. I’m like, that ain’t what I do! Y’all ain’t gotta spend a ton of money on radio for me.

“Put me in the streets, spend less money and let me hit my target audience…We went in there with songs we wanted to go with, they didn’t want to go with it, and we were like, come on, this is what we want to do. It got to the point where it was a stalemate between me and Just Blaze and Atlantic Records.”

One particular incident stands out. “Once exec told me he would not put out my music if I used the word faggot. I wasn’t referring to a gay man or anything; where we grew up, faggot is a term for a weakling, a weak-ass punk. It’s not used for a gay man, I didn’t even use it in those terms. But even using the word in general, he was like, I won’t put it out. But I’m like, I say nigga on the album five hundred times and you don’t mind that? Then he goes, oh, you guys say that word all the time. You guys can use that one. I’m like, wow.”

While he may have a slightly strange conception of the homophobic term in questions, it’s still an illuminating episode. For the record, representatives for Atlantic had not responded to repeated requests for comment at the time of publication. Saigon declined to name the executive in question.

Locked into a bad deal, Saigon went off the rails in a very public way. In 2006, he was stabbed with a wine bottle outside a Manhattan diner, allegedly in a botched robbery. A year later, he would not only be arrested on weapons charges for carrying a knife in his car, but got into a very public fist-fight with Prodigy of Mobb Deep. Later that year, he would use his Myspace page to announce his retirement from rapping. Guess how that turned out.

But then in 2008, Atlantic abruptly released Saigon, with full ownership of his album. It would take three years for it to find a home and see release (“I’m a hustler. I know how to rub two nickels together,” laughs Saigon when asked how he’s supported himself all this time—lots of gigging, apparently).

Throughout it, Saigon’s long-term partner Just Blaze stuck by him. Their sessions at Just’s Baseline Studios in Manhattan are legendary, and one thing that’s abundantly clear is that there would be no Saigon—or at the very least, no TGSNT—without the producer. “Our relationship changed because we grew closer as friends,” says Sai. “It started off as business, but the closer we got, it became more about friendship rather than business. It’s hard to do business with your friend. I kind of approach it like he’s my brother. It’s not like, I got some money, give me a beat, it’s like, yo, when you get time, go check your MPC, see if you got a beat from like eight years ago that nobody bought. Let me get that. I like that old Just Blaze sound. Go look through the files, there might be one you forgot about!”

Unusually for rappers this troubled, it would seem that Saigon’s story has a happy ending. His album sold 11,000 copies in its first week, and he’s sold 40,000 to date. It’s a healthy number in the current climate, and it’s married to great reviews and general acclaim for his live show. Atlantic, meanwhile, has suffered—after Saigon left, they went through a very public spat with Lupe Fiasco over similar problems with commercial singles. Lupe’s new album Lasers sold well, but he made it very clear that he had serious problems with how the label was handling its roster.

Don’t place any bets on album number two just yet.

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Saigon Myspace & Facebook

This year has already been a busy one for London-based singer-songwriter and producer Jagga. He’s toured with Katy B and Nero on the Skins Tour, been play-listed on XFM and was just recently signed. Beatnik caught up with the afro-haired musician earlier in the year ahead of his signing.

“The way people love these days is not real. It’s like a Valentine’s Day, cuddly teddy bear fake version of what love is, or what love should be,” says Jagga, schooling me on the thoughts of Erich Fromm, the psychoanalyst whose ideas helped inspire his 2010 single ‘Modern Day Romance’. “Love should be a love of humanity, of everybody, rather than ‘I’m falling in love’ or infatuation.”

I’m sitting in an empty screening room in Hampstead’s Everyman cinema chatting to the East-London native. Every question is met with deep thought, leaving me to listen patiently as Jagga contemplates his response.

“Our way of thinking about love and our concept of love are infatuations, so you could be infatuated with somebody and that can end. Let’s say the way we look at marriage and getting married. Maybe that’s not the way that life should be, or maybe that’s not the way that we should run our society because it doesn’t work. If you look at the modern world, you could probably say that yeah Fromm is right; marriage, settling down with kids and all this type of thing doesn’t work. Maybe there’s something else that suits us better as human beings.”

Based on some of his tweets, I had a small inkling our discourse would be lengthy. Just a few weeks before we met, Jagga let us know his frustration with the British charts. ‘Let’s try to make music to last the next 40 years and not the next four weeks,’ he tweeted. I wanted more clarification.

“I don’t know it just feels like things are getting more plastic, more manufactured and less creative I guess really. I just think that there are certain companies, organizations and record labels that are pushing out certain types of music, and they’ve got a budget where if they wanted, they could push really interesting music and people will buy into it” he says. “I think what it is about sometimes is that people can be persuaded into liking stuff that with marketing, and certain other tools they wouldn’t necessarily like normally.”

After much debate, we came to a mutual agreement that most of the people working in the labels probably don’t actually like the music that they are pushing. Jagga reasoned further to state that some people probably don’t really have a love for music and see it as a career path.

“It’s like a conveyor belt were they are packaging stuff and putting it out like any other product, and maybe music shouldn’t be treated like that. Maybe music should be treated a bit more special than that, you know?

“Music is one of the greatest mediums that we have for expressing ideas and feelings and for sometimes making change in society. It seems that some people that are being pushed to the top have nothing to say. They have no message, no meaning in what they do and generally the music isn’t really powerful.”

Just looking at the list of artists Jagga holds in high regard—from Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix, Prince to Sizzla—it was obvious Jagga was always going to feel this way. “It’s funny. When you look back in history, you always tend to see it with rose tinted glasses, but I do look at those types of people who really had something to say. If you didn’t have something to say, there was something interesting and challenging, something special in your music.”

Growing up, Jagga was exposed to rock and jazz from his mother and reggae and calypso on his father’s side. This has left an indelible imprint on sound today, so much so that his music is literally indefinable and at times he is unrecognizable from one track to another. ‘Modern Day Romance’ and B-side ‘Keep On The Light’ sound like the product of two separate artists.

“There were all sorts of influences there so it all comes through in the music and I think there’s not enough of that. If you are going to make music, you should be open to music rather than just being like this: ‘I make dubstep and I like dubstep’ or ‘I make drum & bass and I like drum & bass’, you know? You’ve got to be open. You’ve got to branch out and experience everything else. There are no boundaries to be drawn. You should just be listening and soaking everything up.”

Now and again we break to allow for photos, but our meeting is long and Jagga’s energy begins to dip, so we break for food. While we eat our lunches, Jagga expresses his love for films. He discusses 127 Hours, A Room for Romeo Brass, La Haine and actor Javier Bardem which such enthusiasm, you wonder why he hasn’t thought of working within motion picture.

We resume and food has had its effect; Jagga is livelier than ever. For our last ten minutes he recalls his career’s early beginnings were he’d often come home from gigs to find a bare fridge. “It’s been a proper struggle; years of graft, years of putting my heart and soul into music and nothing monetary coming back. My manager just said to me the other day: ‘you’re the most skint guy that I’ve ever met,’” he says laughing.

“He used to come round with bags of shopping, that’s how bad it was. In 2008 I moved house four times because I just wasn’t keeping up with rent.” So what’s helped him with his persistence? “I know that there is nothing else that I could really do so that’s the drive. I have to make this work because what else is there?”

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Jagga’s website
Jagga on Twitter

RJD2, born Ramble Krahn, produced neck-breaking hip-hop for Ohio trio Mhz before launching a solo career as a a genre-defying instrumentalist with his defining album Deadringer from 2002.

Since then, RJD2 has been keeping busy, releasing four albums and a series of instrumentals releases among other projects. Last January, he put out The Colossus, the first release on RJ’s own imprint Electrical Connections. Beatnik spoke to the beat collagist about his technical development as a producer, touring experiences and what’s been inspiring him of late.

Dead Ringer seems to be your iconic album. Do you find people constantly comparing your music back to this?
It comes up a lot, but I don’t feel like its this monkey on my back I can’t avoid or anything. They might more than I’m aware of; I don’t spend all day reading reviews or message boards or something, so you would probably be more informed on this than I.

Does being compared to straight trip-hop or DJ Shadow annoy you?

No, it makes sense. While so much of what I’ve done to date doesn’t fall under that term, its not like I don’t know why someone would use that term. I don’t really care too much about what people say about me.

How would you say your style has progressed / developed over the years?

I’d say that it’s gotten richer and more dynamic. I think I have a much broader palette of sounds in my music now. I don’t know if I’d say that as a composer I’ve gotten better, because that’s relative, but I will say I’ve gotten more adept, more precise, more versatile.

What song/album are you most proud of?

Probably The Colossus. It touches on more types of writing processes and textures than any album I’ve done. Personally, I consider it my biggest feat to date.

What is your starting point?

Depends on the goal. Mostly I start at the sampler, mapping out a groove. Sometimes I’ll take it to where it needs entirely inside the machine. Other times, I’ll start adding live parts, and then end up entirely moving it out of the sample-based realm. Where the song is going usually dictates those things.

A loop? A melody in your head?

Often times, yes. Not a melody in my head out of thin air, though. I’m not good working in a vacuum; I don’t wake up with ideas. More [than that], I need some little spark, so I’ll basically screw around until something happens that I can react[it.] to, and then, its off to the races.

What instruments do you play?

Sampler, keys, guitar, bass and drums — in that order in terms of fluency. I’m getting better at drums, though; I’ve been practicing a lot this year.

What scenes/labels/artists have inspired you recently?

Hmmm. While im not crazy about all of it, the really savage dubstep stuff is really interesting, as far as the effectiveness and mechanics of it. There’s been a lot of production on Rick Ross, Drake, Big Boi and Black Milk’s albums that I find inspiring. Melodic, but still driving.

What emphasis do you put on the live show?

I try to make it as involved and complex as I can. It’s tough when you’re working with just yourself, so I really try to make sure the visuals are on point, and that I’m well rehearsed. In my own little way, I try to do a DJ- or electronic-based show that is as close to a “performance” as I can get it.

How do you feel about live hip-hop in general?

It’s tough to pull off. There are people who can do it with a band, some who can do it on their charisma alone; it all depends. But it’s hard to do right, and very easy to do poorly.

How are you different?

Well I hope that I have a good grasp on it, but who knows? I know that my show is probably the only one with 4 turntables, 1 or 2 samplers, visuals, hand puppets, and real records — but the bottom line is whether or not people have fun.

Do you enjoy touring? What have been some of the best/worst experiences?

I do and I don’t, depends on which day you ask me! Best: when a crowd goes totally nuts for something you didn’t expect, and corny as it may sound, the “vibe” is there.
Worst: travel nightmares — getting stranded in a small town airport, having your vehicle break down, almost missing a show, having personnel problems. That stuff can really suck.

What do you have in store for us over the next 12 months?

Im trying to record a lot right now. Ive got two albums coming out next year for sure: The Insane Warrior, and Icebird, which are both going to be on my label. Hopefully I’ll have another solo album done by the end of next year!

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Album: The Colossus (Out now — buy here)

RJD2’s website