Sa-Ra Creative Partners
Om’mas Keith, Taz Arnold and Shafiq Husayn are a super-producing unit unlike any other. Each member learnt the ropes in various corners of the industry – carrying records for Jazzy Jay and Bambaataa, making hits for Ice T and Dr. Dre – before coming together in 2000. It was then that Taz and Shafiq called Om’mas and convinced him to join them in Los Angeles so they could make something happen for themselves. The result was Sa-Ra Creative Partners and it soon became the hip-hop industry’s best kept secret, adding a dash of magic to underground rappers and mainstream hitters alike. With influences as diverse as Giorgio Moroder, Steely Dan, Funkadelic, Ornette Coleman and R.E.M., they’re also “children of the beat generation,” along with people like Pete Rock, Jay Dee, Q-Tip and Madlib. Om’mas and Taz sat down at the 2004 Red Bull Music Academy to explain where their spacey fusion flavour comes from and where it will go.
Hosted by Jeff “Chairman” Mao Please welcome, if you will, Om’Mas and Taz from Sa-Ra. Taz Arnold Hey, hey, hey. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Welcome gentlemen. Firstly, Sa-Ra, explain the science, if you will, behind the name you’ve chosen to work underneath? Taz Arnold Sa-Ra is an ancient African term. Kemetic ... Khemet is the original name for Egypt. The name translates to, “Be the offspring of the most powerful energy in the universe,” or, “Child of the cosmos.” You hear Ra, it’s the same concept, so the name is Sa-Ra. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Now how did you guys come up with that, or what made you decide to choose that as being representative of what you’re doing, because you are from South Central... Taz Arnold Los Angeles, right. Jeff “Chairman” Mao And you are from Hollis, Queens, New York originally. The name, obviously connotates to certain things, but you’ve obviously started from very grounded sort of places, as well. Taz Arnold The name is basically a reflection of our lifestyle, we’re very big history buffs, and to manifest in one’s own destiny, and so we study one of the golden, the highlights of civilization, which it was Africa, Egypt, so to speak, Khemet, so we drew from that really powerful, and good energy. They had a thing that where they were literally trying to manifest heaven on earth. The study of the constellation, the stars which correspond directly with the pyramids, and how things are correlated, so with us, that being a part of our lifestyle. Studying history, so to speak, that’s the name that we chose. Om’Mas Keith And while we may not be necessarily trying to create heaven on earth, figuratively though, musically... We’re very hands on in creating a new movement in music. Something coming out of the states that is free-form, so to speak, unrestricted by rules, and available for everyone to enjoy. Any genre of music you might appreciate I would say Sa-Ra, if not now, will have something for you, you know what I mean? Today, this lecture, we’re going to just deal with a lot of the terminology and a lot of what goes into being the best producer you can be, because I’m assuming most of you are here as producers, is that correct? Yeah? DJs, producers. Keeping your ear to the street and what that means in kind of a literal sense, and just in a figurative sense. It’s our mission and our goal as musicians, all of us, as musicians and producers and DJs, to keep your ear to the street, and to keep your hand to the pulse (smacks table with his hand) of what’s current. Only through that will you be able to come up with the next current thing. Not a fad, but totally what you feel in your heart is original, and that’s only going to come with keeping your ear to the street, to the pulse. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Just to also, let’s clarify right off the bat, as well, that you are a three-person entity. Taz Arnold Yes, our partner couldn’t make it. He’s in Los Angeles right now holding the studio down. Shafiq. Jeff “Chairman” Mao And his name is Shafiq Husayn. Taz Arnold Correct. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Okay. I guess, describe for everybody a little bit about what road you guys took as individuals to get to this point where you were able to come together and do what you do now. As I mentioned earlier, you guys have been working in the business for a while, doing various things, and I think that would be interesting for folks to know. Taz Arnold You want to start out? Okay. I’ll speak about Shafiq, since he’s not here to represent himself. Shafiq originally he started out in the Bronx, New York. Made his way to Los Angeles maybe 15 years ago, started producing for Ice T and the Zulu Nation. Before that he was a DJ with Grand Mixer DXT, known for... Om’Mas Keith Also Zulu King, and carrying records for Bambaataa... Taz Arnold Right, right, right. Om’Mas Keith ...Jazzy Jay. Taz Arnold As a youngster, so then he moved to Los Angeles, started up as a producer, working with Ice T, he produced a majority of Ice T’s records. He worked with Donald D, King Tee, Lord Finesse, Jesse West, Prince, Duran Duran, a lot of different people. He was somewhat of an inspiration for me, when I was in high school, because he was in the record industry, making records at that time. Om’Mas Keith He was very much an inspiration for me too. Jeff “Chairman” Mao He’s a little bit older than you guys. Taz Arnold He’s a tad bit older, he just started up at a very, very early age. That’s how he got into the- that was approach in how he started off. Myself, I was a hip-hop dancer in elementary school and up. I did a lot of music videos in Los Angeles, in high school. Started producing when I was maybe 17, I was into digging. My father had about 5,000 jazz and soul records in his living room, so I was into the records before I actually go into the actual hands=on production. My producer side didn’t really kick in until much later. I had a stronger background on the administrative side. I was a main consultant on Dr. Dre’s 2001 LP. Jeff “Chairman” Mao By consultant, explain what that would mean? Taz Arnold A consultant is a person who literally brings things to the project. An advisor, so to speak. So I acted as an advisor, consultant. I brought in Devin the Dude, he was on the song ... Jeff “Chairman” Mao The song was called “F You,” I believe. Taz Arnold Yeah, “I just want to F you.” Also, there was an MC named Hitman, he was on 12 of the songs on the album. He was my artist at the time, signed to my production company, so I had a distribution deal through Aftermath, where Dre produced half of his LP and I produced the other half with my constituents. Moved out of that and me and Shafiq and Om’Mas were talking about putting together a supergroup, and a super-production unit, and a super-label, production company. Super-friends. We talked about it for maybe six years off and on, and it finally happened, maybe about three years ago. After the Dre thing, I moved straight into the Sa-Ra phase. Om’Mas Keith Oh yeah. Well my... music is in my blood, pretty much. I come from a very long line of musicians. My great-grandfather was a copyist for George Gershwin, and my grandparents were both concert cellists and percussionists. My mom is kind of a renowned jazz singer. My pop, he was a trombonist. Music’s always been in my blood. I started basically playing drums at the age of three. As the years progressed, went on to play with my mother and accompany her on her many travels and gigs. Then, I went to study at a program called Jazz in July at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. I had the wonderful opportunity to study with some of the greatest, most legendary musicians in the jazz world. Dr. Billy Taylor, Max Roach, Yusef Lateef. My initial education... My initial correspondence, or interaction in music was from a great education, a very jazz, bebop, straight-ahead kind of point of view. Jeff “Chairman” Mao So you write music, obviously. Om’Mas Keith Yeah. Jeff “Chariman” Mao You read music. Om’Mas Keith Yeah, write and read. I read lead sheets and chord changes and shit like that. Stuff like that, excuse me. The music began early for me, and the producing thing, it just so happened that a buddy of mine had a beat machine and didn’t necessarily know how to use it. I always had a knack for gadgetry, and subsequently, he and I partnered. I was like 15-16, and I began making beats. About a year after that I met Shafiq, who at the time, you know – as I just explained it, he was a little bit older. He pulled me into what he was doing, and I subsequently wound up in LA, working with Ice T, that was signed to Warner Brothers records at the time. I was 17 years old then, I mixed my first record. And then basically I went into mixing records. It’s very hard to get into producing records. You can’t just jump right in and say, “I’m here, give me my money.” Engineering became a very important thing for me, and I wound up to go on to mix for Foxy Brown, Mobb Deep, 8Ball & MJG, scoring platinum and multi-platinum records as an engineer. But I was always producing, always able to generate a little cash, a little money here and there, three to five thousand dollars at a very young age. After that, I wound up as the staff producer for the late, great Jam Master Jay. Jay folded me into his circle, maybe when I was about 19. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Around what year was this? Om’Mas Keith I’m 27, so I don’t know, ‘96, ‘95-96. He brought me in for my technical prowess and I later proved myself to be a producer. I built the studios. That’s another element of being a producer, just being technically inclined and knowing your gear. From Jay came being a staff producer for Suave House Records. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with 8Ball & MJG. It’s a whole Houston thing, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. I had a deal with him in a production situation. After that, that all leads up to the point where Taz and myself and Shafiq, we’d always been talking. Things maybe began going a little sour for me at my previous situation at Suave House and the idea, the notion of putting together this supergroup just began to become that much more feasible. Eventually, I left that situation and put it all behind me, and left New York, and packed my bags and went out to LA. Taz Arnold Hey Om’Mas Keith Shafiq, Taz and myself utilized the initial period of discovery, so to speak, to really ponder and postulate and really figure out what we were really going to do to make this new sound. I can go into more depth about that. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Perhaps, if you guys want to play a little something before we get into any more description, maybe you want to throw something up and play something that will give everybody an idea, if they haven’t heard your stuff already, what you guys do. Taz Arnold Let's start with “Agent Orange?” Om’Mas Keith Yeah, real quick. Are we hip-hop aficionados in here, so to speak? Yeah? Okay. Are you guys familiar with Pharoahe Monch? And have you heard “Agent Orange?” That’s his last song. Okay, well, we produced that, and that’s going to be the first thing we’d like to play right now. Before you play it, Taz, this beat in particular, the first beat that we put out as Sa-Ra was a track called “Hey” on Jurassic 5’s last album, Power in Numbers, and that got a nice buzz around the world for us. Not so much in the states, but everywhere else. When “Agent Orange” hit, that’s the track that really made people globally stop and take a listen, like, “OK, what’s going on here?” This is very indicative of the new sound and the sound that Sa-Ra is bringing. Jeff “Chairman” Mao OK, “Agent Orange.” (music: Pharoahe Monch – “Agent Orange” / applause) Taz Arnold "Agent Orange" is a mix of what you would call the beat generation. Madlib is a part of it, Jay Dee, Pete Rock who proceeded them, Q-Tip, Large Professor, and we’re children of the beat generation, but we also, we are musicians, so you hear the driving beat, and the unorthodox bass line, which stems from ... Om’Mas Keith That beat make you go like... Taz Arnold Yeah, the beat is a little bit in between, off-kiltered, or what have you. The bass line is more so free-form jazz, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman-style, this kind of abstract. Then you have a very structured guitar playing on top, so that is a good example of three different things that we all do necessarily... Om’mas Keith Don’t forget the singing. Taz Arnold Of course we sing on it. That’s like three different sounds coming together, working together to make something new. Jeff “Chairman” Mao So what, on a pure elemental level, what portion of this song in particular did you use any sort of sampling or anything like that as opposed to live track? Taz Arnold The only thing sampled with that track are the drums from the SP-1200 drum sounds, then we go and we program. Everything else is pretty much live. Taz Arnold Anybody here dig for records and take drum snippets? Yeah, okay. That’s just a general... Jeff “Chairman” Mao Pretty much everybody. Om”mas Keith Keep your secrets. Jeff “Chairman” Mao You sort of mentioned just now that with the track like this or the Jurassic record that you did that the impact was made more so globally. Why do you think that rather than maybe in the states, why do you think that people have been more receptive to things outside of the States? Taz Arnold I think in the States, what people perceive to be or what they are aware of, it stems from television and big radio stations. That’s the main line. That’s the pipeline. So if you’re not fed through that pipeline, the masses really don’t hear you. That was a song that didn’t... That was his last single, but he didn’t have a video for it. So therefore, it wasn’t pushed through that pipeline. Now in the UK, if someone likes a song... Gilles Peterson. Tim Westwood. He’s like the Funkmaster Flex of the UK. Tim Westwood dug it, and he just went crazy with the song. Gilles Peterson, Benji B, different DJs, and it caught on like wildfire. You know what I mean? Jeff “Chairman” Mao You guys actually did an appearance on Gilles Peterson’s show in August, I believe? Taz Arnold Right. No, no. That was actually in July. Jeff “Chairman” Mao In July. That did quite a bit for you in the UK. Describe a little about what you did and why you think that helps so much and what he was latching on to. Taz Arnold We were actually on a tour. We went to Holland. We did the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. We played Paradiso in Amsterdam. Om”mas Keith [inaudible] in Paris Taz Arnold We did a show with Eric Sermon in Paris, and then we made our way to London. We were kind of flirting with Gilles Peterson and Benji B for some time. They would play some of our MP3s, CDRs on the air. They were like, “When you come to town, we want to do interviews.” So we actually did Benji B and Gilles Peterson the same night. Benji B’s aired live. Gilles... Om”mas Keith Taped. Taz Arnold His was taped. Om’mas Keith Gilles was live... That was Sa-Ra Live at the BBC. Taz Arnold So for Benji B we went and played tracks and did an interview. For Gilles, we sang seven songs live and did an interview. It did well for us, too. It actually has had a weird effect, because people in the States tune into those stations online, and you have a lot of people who are aware of us from listening to Gilles Peterson and Benji B. They’ve never heard anything else, so they’re being fed from the UK back into the states. They’re somewhat aficionados in regard... and taste makers. Anything coming through that pipeline gets a certain amount of attention. Jeff “Chairman” Mao It’s kind of the backdoor way to go about getting recognized. I think it would be interesting now to hear some of your own stuff under your own name. Maybe something that broke on the show. To give everybody an idea of what it is you guys do as artists yourselves. Taz Arnold We’ll start off with “Glorious.” This is a track that they really support. One of Gilles and Benji’s favorites. This is kind of like the track that... Om”Mas Keith It’s our first single. Taz Arnold It’s also our first single that’s being released in another two weeks. So I’ll start off with this, creating somewhat of a buzz. Jeff “Chairman” Mao "Glorious" (music: Sa-Ra Creative Partners - “Glorious” / applause) Taz Arnold What you want to hear? Jeff “Chairman” Mao You want to hit them with something else? Taz Arnold Yeah, we'll do something else. You want to go more live? Do you want to do "Vampire," “Love Today,” “Death of a Star?” What you want? “Rosebud?" Om’Mas Keith Can you take it to “Death of a Star” real quick? “Glorious” is basically the A-side, the title of our first single, which is being released through a joint venture between our company and ABB Records in the Bay. This next song we’re about to play is on our second single to be released from out forthcoming LP on Ubiquity Records, which is called Sa-Ra Creative Partners Presents. It’s yet untitled, and this is the B-side, “Death of a Star.” (music: Sa-Ra Creative Partners - “Death Of A Star (Supernova)” / applause) Jeff “Chairman” Mao All right so two contrasting style, to show a little bit of the range. You mentioned cosmic slop with regards to the first track that you played. In fact, if people don’t know what cosmic slop is in reference to, it’s an old Funkadelic track from back in the day. I don’t know if you want to embellish on that at all... Now that first track, I think you told me yesterday that was actually done a couple of years ago. Is that correct? Taz Arnold Yeah, that was one of our first tunes that we actually recorded. That’s about two and a half... about two and a half years. Om'mas Keith It’s just a lesson in that songs that you create, as long as they’re good songs, just remember they can always be re-adapted. In this case that wasn’t necessary, but over the course of two years, and even still, that song was able, and is able to remain current. Taz Arnold It’s kind of like how you said earlier about pushing the envelope moving forward. If you’re dressing, trying to do something different and new and original, it’s something that is different, new, and original. You know what I mean? Om’mas Keith Like at the time when you do it, if it’s new, people aren’t going to necessarily know. Maybe only you yourself know that it’s the shit, so to speak. Taz Arnold Perfect example, you have Roy Ayers. He released an album recently, and he released tunes from his ‘70s archives. I never heard the songs. No one in the world has ever heard them, and they sound brand new and current. Over 30 years old. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Ro break down a song like “Glorious”... I’m curious to know what you feel is, if there’s a particular element that you feel is somewhat most different to you as far as what you hear. I think if people hear the rhythm track they’re going to liken some similarities to Jay Dee’s stuff. Taz Arnold Right with the late clap. Right, right, right. Jeff “Chairman” Mao As far as the other elements, what do you see as being most unique to you? Taz Arnold For that track? I’d say for that track, when it comes to a rhythm, there’s not too many new rhythms that you know. The rhythms are pretty much standard in a lot of cases, but we get off on writing songs. You know what I mean? One thing that I can say for that particular song, you haven’t heard in our generation a beat like that with the keyboard playing live with that type of song on top. I think it’s kind of like a contrast. You know what I mean? Having a full beard, you look scruffy, and you look like a homeless guy on the face but then you wearing a Gucci suit. It’s like, “What is that homeless dude doing with a Gucci suit on?” It’s kind of beautiful in a way. Om’Mas Keith Ugly beauty. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Now you mentioned Funkadelic. Are you fans of Queen at all as well? Taz Arnold Yeah. Jeff “Chairman” Mao I sense a sort of like that type of... with the harmonies and the octaves and stuff like that. Taz Arnold We’re fans of... it spans the gamut. We like Queen, REM, Bowie, Sly, everyone from the negro spirituals on up, and we know how the music is all connected. Om’Mas Keith From punk to monk. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Now with the “Death of a Star,” you have a little bit more of maybe Earth, Wind and Fire uplifting type of vibe going on. How recently was that done by you guys? Taz Arnold That song was done maybe about a month ago. Om”mas Keith That’s fresh. That’s hot off the presses right there. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Is that you guys singing, or are you in collaboration with other artists on that? Taz Arnold We sing. Every song that you hear from Sa-Ra, we sing the leads. All the three partners, we write, produce and sing all of the songs. If you hear anything, maybe there’s some of our artists that accompany us on background harmonies, like, women particularly, because we like the... OM’Mas Keith The female energy. Taz Arnold The contrast between the men and women, what that creates, so we always like to have a woman’s energy on a lot of our songs. Jeff “Chairman” Mao As far as the process of you guys putting things together, there’s three of you, is there any particular way that songs come together in the studio, or an idea comes to fruition and realized as a real record? Taz Arnold Anything that we do, we take serious. Because as a producer, we can develop anything. If anyone comes to the table with an idea that they feel strongly about, then we go ahead and we see it through. But in most case, we’re just in the studio chatting about and what have you, and these songs, they come to fruition. Om’mas Keith Our songs are very conceptual, and they reflect a lot of our personal lives as I think good songs should. They should reflect the personal life of the writer, or anyone. You should draw upon your surroundings to create your music. That’s how we really are able to cultivate our songs because we’re such, dare I say, historians, but we really do a lot of research into our world and we live that kind of lifestyle. We’re able to draw on all of these influences to create lyric and melody. Somebody might’ve just seen a bad girl, some fine-ass woman on the street, and like, “I seen this fine girl.” Maybe the way Shafiq will say it, the way he’ll phrase it, that might be the title of the song and we’ll build from there, do you know what I mean? Taz Arnold There’s usually two stages in how we create our songs. There’s the beat, the music aspect; that goes from us, like I said before, in the studio messing around... Om’mas Keith With beats. Taz Arnold ...doing what we feel, beats, and then we pick from the beats that we like. It’s more analytical, we go and write the songs. Jeff “Chairman” Mao It’s two different stages. Taz Arnold Usually. Not all the time. Om’Mas Keith Cut, copy and paste. Some of our songs, literally, come in 15 to 20 minutes. Taz Arnold “Hollywood.” Om’Mas Keith From the beat to the verses to the hook, it’s done. A lot of producers will say some of their best stuff was done in 15 minutes. It definitely can happen. Many of you may feel that you’ve done a really dope beat in a short amount of time, so it can happen in any way. We have records that we began and didn’t finish for a year and a half, from inception to the end. Creativity should not be bound by any restriction ever. The only time you have restrictions is in the film world or television world when you’ve got a deadline. Sometimes the music reflects on TV, you might not hear it may not be so fresh or not so well thought-out. Like I said, it can happen any way. It can take two years to make a song, it can take ten minutes to make a song. Jeff “Chairman” Mao As vocalists, earlier this week we had a couple of lecturers come in and discuss the issue of spontaneity and capturing something on a first take. As singers as well, I’d like to know what your take on that is? If you feel the first take is something always that’s a little bit more magical? Can you run it into the ground? Taz Arnold Go ahead, man. Om’mas Keith Producers and artists, there’s no real distinction between us right now. We’re producers and artists. A producer might say, “Do it right. I don’t care how many takes it takes. You’re going to do it right.” We’re hard on ourselves like that. And sometimes, it just happens that that take is the magical take. In the process of producing records, you do run across that time where that magical, one-time take happens. And Pro Tools and digital audio workstations in particular have enabled us to really be...have released the constraints, have allowed us to keep the first take, and continue on. You say, “Well, what about that first take?” It’s always there. The first take is there, it’s never been erased because it’s all digital. Taz Arnold It’s interesting that you bring that up, because that’s an ongoing struggle within. That’s what allows us to have the sound that we have, and the range. Because one person might say, “No, we want this song fucked up.” The other cat might say, “Nah, get it right.” I’ll play you another tune. This is “Spaceways.” And this is very unconventional. This is one of our earliest things. Om’Mas Keith You’re going to play the version with the vocals? Taz Arnold Yeah. This is one of our earlier joints. Om’Mas Keith Just show more range and contrast. Taz Arnold Om’Mas, in regards to music theory, he’s been training since he was younger. We all play by ear, but this is something here, we did a [inaudible] on him, in the studio messing around, and we’re playing tracks, playing chords. He’s like, “No, that’s not right.” We’re like, “No, we want this to go down like this.” He’s like, “I won’t touch the track.” Om’Mas Keith But on the vocal side later... See, this is getting back to, really quick, stepping back and a song that took a year and a half to finish because a beat that wasn’t quite understood. But later, we come to understand things, our tastes change and advance. I was like, “Nah, I won’t touch the beat.” They were like, “Cool.” Later, we had to do the theme song for a very popular Los Angeles radio station called Spaceways... Taz Arnold Hosted by a guy, Carlos Niño of Build An Ark collective. Om’Mas Keith He’s like, “Yo guys, can you do my theme song?” So this beat was laying around, and Taz was like, “Yo, bro.” I remember very specifically I had to leave and go to New York. My plane was going to depart in an hour. Taz was like, “Come on, man, let’s just do this real quick.” And we did it. Cats were able to dissect the music and find the structure within this madness. You’re going to hear from the changes, very unconventional. Jeff “Chairman” Mao So this is... Taz Arnold “Spaceways.” Jeff “Chairman” Mao “Spaceways.” Taz Arnold Also, you’ll hear a melody that some of you might know by June Tyson of the Sun Ra Collective. We grabbed a little part and threw it in there. Om’Mas Keith A little copy, cut and paste. Taz Arnold We sang it. This is a tribute to one of our ancestors, do you know what I mean? Om’Mas Keith Sun Ra. (music: Sa-Ra Creative Partners - “Spaceways” / applause) Taz Arnold That’s dirty right there, that’s dirty. Jeff “Chairman” Mao That tune is the theme song for a radio program in Los Angeles. That’s correct? Taz Arnold Right. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Called? Taz Arnold Spaceways. Jeff “Chairman” Mao That show is hosted by a gentleman named Carlos Niño, correct? If you’re familiar with his work at all, or the group that he produces, Build An Ark, they’re a spiritual jazz type of outfit. How many members in the band, a dozen or so? Om’Mas Keith 12, 13, 17. Jeff “Chairman” Mao A real throwback to the Strata East, black jazz sound, if you’re familiar with any of those sounds when you’re out digging for records. Om’Mas Keith Lester Bowie. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Art Ensemble of Chicago. That type of stuff. Now, going back to what you were saying, what did you object to when you first heard this? What offended your sensibilities? Om’Mas Keith There wasn’t an objection, but some days you’re on, some days you’re off. Some days you’re thinking some way musically, and then the next day you take a whatever you do, your mind opens up and you hear it different. The objection has a negative connotation. Like I said, I was more like the RCA Victor dog looking at the track like, “Hmm,” you know. Do you know what I mean? It wasn’t necessarily an objection. I was like, “Hmm. That’s a little off...” Taz Arnold It’s just the creative process. Om’Mas Keith Is that what Sa-Ra was trying to do that day, and that’s what we were trying to do. Just that. Taz Arnold Just the creative process. Jeff “Chairman” Mao I remember talking once, years ago, to Prince Paul, and he had described... Om’Mas Keith Very unorthodox person. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Right, and on his own, very unorthodox. But he, himself, was very taken aback when he worked in the Gravediggaz with RZA and how even more unconventional his style was as far as producing. Not getting a loop to line up and Prince Paul would be like, “This is wrong!” But then it took him a minute to come around and hear... Om’Mas Keith Really? I haven’t heard that story. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Hear that things were actually... There was something special about what he was doing. Om’Mas Keith It was ugly beauty. Taz Arnold Speaking of Build An Ark, would you like to hear a remix we just did for the Build An Ark album? Jeff “Chairman” Mao Oh really? Taz Arnold Yeah. Om’Mas Keith “Equipoise.” Jeff “Chairman” Mao Yeah, play a little snippet of that. Om’Mas Keith This is featuring Dwight Trible. Tell him who Dwight is. Taz Arnold He’s a local hero in Los Angeles and just a hero to the jazz world. The jazz community at large. I’ll play you some of this really quick. Om’Mas Keith “Equipoise.” (music: Dwight Trible - “Equipoise (feat. Sa-Ra Creative Partners)” / applause) Taz Arnold We talk about digging for records. That original tune is written by Stanley Cowell, and I think that was actually... Jeff “Chairman” Mao A Max Roach album? Taz Arnold No, his own album. A Tribe Called Quest originally sampled that original. I forgot for which song, but Dwight went and he wrote words to it and sang. Then we remixed what they did. Om’Mas Keith Perfect example of a jazz song that eventually is going to wind up on LA radio, because when we turned the remix in they liked it so much and they weren’t expecting to be able to move to it. We were able to kind of move to that and, the original, the beat ain’t pumping like that, you know what I mean? That’s just another thing that Sa-Ra is able to bring. In particular in remixes, we’re able to really reinterpret and rework the records and the task at hand and that’s what a remix should be in its true essence, you know what I mean? You should really be able to draw from the record but make something totally fresh. Jeff “Chairman” Mao And I think the original recording—correct me if I’m wrong—has probably an entirely different time signature too, or it’s... At least I remember the original... Om’Mas Keith It’s a hell of a lot slower. Real quick. Slow remixes, the funny thing about slow remixes is that all you gotta do is make the beat double time and then you’re moving. Taz Arnold You have all kinds of space in between to work with. Om’Mas Keith You play with space and time. Jeff “Chairman” Mao You guys mentioned, or at least Taz you mentioned yesterday a little bit about having a foot in the world of mainstream artists, doing remixes for people like N.E.R.D. and who have you, and also sort of appealing to the underground. For lack of a better term, “backpack” type of audience. Om’Mas Keith No, we don’t use that term at all. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Let’s say the underground audience. Om’Mas Keith That’s a negative... Jeff “Chairman” Mao Talk a little bit about that, and the importance of maintaining respect in both worlds. Om’Mas Keith Ear to the street. Taz Arnold Ear to the street, ha. You know, with the overground and the more commercial, that’s how you’re going to get your acclaim and you’re going to pay your bills. But also, on the flip side you have the underground where a lot of new things are constantly spawning. New sounds, new ideas, and things of that nature. We’re always paying attention to what’s new to constantly reinvent ourselves and upgrade and keep our ear to the streets. It’s very, very important, not only as a producer but as an executive, because we are executives as well as artists and producers. We’re constantly looking for new talent. To contribute something to the underground when we draw so heavily from it, it’s a natural thing for us. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Speaking of the dynamic within your group of wearing different hats, being producers as well as the artists, I wonder, with three of you... I’m sure all the people in this room either work on their own or in collaborations with other people. What sort of process is that like for you guys? The two of you are very confident individuals about what you want to do. Is there any sort of friction at any point that... How does that help or hurt? Om’Mas Keith Partnerships can be very magical, and in this case it is. It’s a very magical thing. When you bring people together that are very talented in their own right as individuals and are taskmasters in very specific areas as well but just have a general understanding of all facets of the music, which is the case with Sa-Ra, we’re able to operate on a level that supercedes the majority of the producers back in the States through our ability to multitask. And ghat’s why there’s little conflict because we’re able to operate in our own space and time, and in addition come together when it’s really time to get in the studio and grind. Taz might be off in Nice or the south of France at a conference at Midem, and I’m in New York in the studio with Heavy D and Puff Daddy or whatever, and Shafiq’s back at the lab banging out beats, and then reverse. So I think that’s why we’re really able to avoid the conflict, because the multitasking enables us to maximize our time and the main goal is to generate music and to generate cash. If somebody’s not doing something... There’s always got to be somebody tackling one specific area. Taz Arnold There’s always something to do with our time. Om’Mas Keith Go ahead, Taz Taz Arnold Nah, you said it perfectly. Om’Mas Keith There’s always something to do. Like I said, that’s why we’re able to avoid the conflict, and that’s why partnerships are magical. Three heads are better than one. Taz Arnold On top of that, if you have a difference of opinion, the passion is all about moving forward as a collective. We’re brothers as well as partners and businessmen and we genuinely want to see the next person manifest whatever his goals and dreams are. Where you have a difference of opinion, that’s a small thing in comparison to the bigger picture. It’s like, let’s move forward. Om’Mas Keith It’s a marriage. Jeff “Chairman” Mao What was the turning point for each of you to say, “I’m not going to go on my own any longer because I’ve had it with whatever, and I want to be able to take advantage of this situation where I’m in collaboration and I can not bear the weight of everything? Taz Arnold I’ve always seen the power of... business, you cannot run a company by yourself. It’s virtually impossible. And then if you have strong individuals who know their self worth and are very talented, you can’t bring them in as a worker if it’s an upstart company. You can’t do it. If you don’t have the money to pay them, then a lot of the times you have to make them an equal. But you definitely don’t want to bring in someone as an equal if they’re not worthy. Om’Mas Keith If they’re not an equal. Taz Arnold If they’re not an equal. I think we’ve all been through that. This is not the first company that I’ve been a part of, Om’Mas or Shafiq. You learn from previous partnerships, previous business ventures and you learn how to choose the people that you work with more wisely. You’re more careful about that. But I’ve always envisioned myself being an individual within a collective. I have no problem with that. I think we all understand that we shine, there’s a light on us no matter who you’re with or who you’re around. In this case, how we view doing music and the vision that we have in mind to present, it definitely takes more than one or two people. Jeff “Chairman” Mao But there was no one incident or anything, the straw that broke the camel’s back? Om’Mas Keith I’ll tell you one for me. I did a brief stint as an art director and a studio manager at an advertising firm. I wasn’t doing music for a couple of months, not even touching, so fed up with the industry. I sat one day and I just looked at my company that I worked for and I saw that there was a board of managing partners who equally shared in the profits and the revenue and the creativity and I said, “Well if these guys ...” And they’re all multi-millionaires sitting on big penthouses in Manhattan. There’s a strategy here. There’s obviously something here with partnering up with people and appreciating their talent and accommodating them, or paying them basically for that. You know what I mean? I just looked at my company and I said, “Wow, man. This is a partnership that’s successful.” Shafiq gave me a call, he was like, “Look bro, me and Taz is going down. Are you in?” And, you know, that was it. Taz Arnold Yeah, he was like, is this really? Are you guys BS-ing? Om’Mas Keith Because I was setup with ... Taz Arnold He had a career in New York at this advertising firm, you know? Everything. So we were like, really trying to bait him to come. Like, “Yo, come out man, we’re going to do it.” He came out and it was great. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Yeah, I was just curious because I’m sure everybody in this room is dealing with that struggle everyday as far as like, you know, being able to make a living off of what they enjoy doing as opposed to you know, finding the time to do it and having to keep ends meet doing other things. Om’Mas Keith It ain’t easy. It's hard. Jeff “Chairman” Mao In addition to making the choice of whether to do their own thing, release their records on their own or collaborate with other people in forming their own companies. I also want to go back and talk a little bit about self-promotion. We’ve seen a lot of people come out in recent times like Pharrell or Kanye or whoever who have been really unabashedly self-promoting. Where do you draw the line between arrogance versus confidence? Taz Arnold I think in this day and age of it being a visual time, there’s so much going on to where you have to demand or command attention. You know what I mean? There are just so many advertisements, so many colors everywhere you look. Everybody wants your attention. I’m not against self-promotion. Shamelessly promote what you do. You have to tell people who you are and who you want them to see you as. Om’Mas Keith You have to create your own reality. Taz Arnold You can’t leave it up to choice. You can’t be a creative person and put your stuff out there and say, “Well whatever you think is cool, you know, that’s cool.” No. You have to say, “This is me. This is what I represent. This is my vision. This is my plan. Do you want to get involved? If you don’t, fu...” I mean, “don’t worry about it.” You’re going to see me at the top if you make it. You have to have that attitude because if you don’t believe in what you do, then how can you expect for somebody else to really believe in you? Om”mas Keith But where it borders on arrogance... Taz Arnold I think it’s an art how you manipulate the illusion. Om”mas Keith The arrogance is how you treat the people around you. You got to be fly. You got to maintain your posture and your status. But where it becomes arrogance and where it becomes not-nice behavior, is when you treat the people around you as if they’re beneath you. And I personally, do not condone anything like that. Taz Arnold No, no, not at all. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Because you were even saying to me yesterday because of your background, you had to get to a point where you felt confident enough to put yourself in that arena. Maybe if you could mention that a little. Taz Arnold I’ve always had the confidence, but you know, I dealt with a spiritual discipline for many years, you know? And it’s about being humble and you know, not having all the shine on you and you know, giving the praise to something outside of yourself. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Based on your faith? Taz Arnold Right. Based on your faith. Which was definitely necessary for me at the time, and it’s helped me to become the person that I am today to be free, to be confident, to know that this is an illusion. You know what I mean? Om’Mas Keith And you create it. Taz Arnold You have to create the dream and you have to master the illusion. But, once upon a time, I had everybody around me praising me, but I never just owned it. I never owned the praise. I never really did anything with it. It was always like, “Oh yeah, okay you think I’m dope, that’s cool. Yeah, I’ll get to it one day.” “You should rap. You should do this. You should be upfront, you’re a natural leader.” “Ah, cool yeah, yeah. Okay. Well yeah, thanks man. Thanks.” And at some point, you know, you have to say, “Fuck it, maybe this is true.” You have to have enough love and respect for yourself first. You have to be the center of your own universe. Then, everything around you, will take form. I’m not mad at a person like Kanye. He might not have maybe, mastered the whole art of manipulation to where he could please people around him, please himself and then you know, put this thing out there to where he’s larger than life. That comes with time, you know. Maybe he hadn’t had time to develop that before he was in front of the camera. We personally know Kanye. He’s trying to sign our group to his label right now. And he’s a cool guy. You know, for real. He’s very charismatic and confident. I think it comes across well. Om’Mas Keith Talented. Treat people good. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Is that sort of the way you’re dealing with the attention you’re getting now? Because you know how hype works in the business and we’re here talking about a lot of aesthetic issues these two weeks, but the reality is there’s a lot of other things going on in order to reach a comfortable place in the industry. The hype game is one of those things. Right now, you guys are sort of going through some of that. Om’Mas Keith If you don’t hype yourself, then you’ve got to hire somebody to do it for you. Either which way, it’s got to be done. That work’s got to be put in because how do you expect to attain success? Otherwise, you’ll be like a famous artist and your music won’t be accepted until after you’re dead. Taz Arnold At the same time, we sat and crafted what you’re hearing now for years before we let anyone hear it because you want to definitely have more bite than bark. You know, the hype is cool, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the music. The substance. Taz Arnold So when you hit play, if the shit isn’t fresh, and you know, if it’s not dope, then the hype is nothing. Om’Mas Keith It's unsubstantiated. Taz Arnold You will never reach that hype of where you want to get based on hype. You know what I mean? Unless you’re like just you know, some Don King or you know, you’re dealing with some other type of situation but for us, we really are in love with music and creativity, so you know, I think in most cases like, the hype thing is something that happens all the time so you know we meet people and they say, “I heard of Sa-Ra, you guys. Yeah, yeah, you know people are talking about you guys.” And we have an intimate setting like this to where we play the range of what we do and they’re like, “Damn, you guys are actually really good. You’re better than what I thought.” That makes me feel good when I hear that. It’s like, “Yeah, cool.” Of course, you’re going to dig what you do, but at the same time, if other people dig it, it’s really for the people. We’re putting music out for the people, you know? So they have to dig it as well, you know. It’s working out pretty cool for us, you know what I mean? It’s all right. Jeff “Chairman” Mao You guys have done some performances here and there. I’ve heard about your show, your stage show. There’s flamboyance involved. You guys obviously you know, have your own personal style of how you present yourselves. The word “burlesque” has actually been thrown around as far as... Taz Arnold You might see me on stage butt naked, you know what I mean? Om’Mas Keith ...and flanked by two Go-Go Dancers. Taz Arnold It’s really like, the stage is a dream world. You know, you have to bring that dream to the people, you know. They hear it with the music but you know, the stage is where it all becomes visual. You know, it’s all about what it looks like, you know so, you know. We definitely have put some time into it, but we are definitely putting a lot more energy into where and what our stage show is going to look like. (phone ringing) Om’Mas Keith Who’s phone is that? Taz Arnold That’s my cell phone. Om’Mas Keith Oh. Jeff “Chairman” Mao So we might see you on stage like Garry Shider from P-Funk, in the diaper and a guitar? Taz Arnold You won’t see us like Parliament, but you will see us like some others. You know, maybe inspired by that and other things that we dig, to create something new. Om’Mas Keith The stage is what it is, it’s a stage, it’s a platform to express your creativity visually, as well as for people to hear the music. You gotta use that stage, man, to really convey your message. If you want to evoke a certain lifestyle or evoke imagery, and you need to incorporate that, you need to get it all into your act and all together, and put your show together. It’s a show, you know what I mean? Jeff “Chariman” Mao I want to ask you guys about some of the logistics of how you work together, because you’re in different places, and some of these guys might be meeting each other and wanting to work together in the future, but being in different places. But before I get to that, on the style thing, we were talking yesterday about, in LA, a certain style that manifests itself in different scenes, right, you came up with. You came up in South Central, but for anybody who remembers or knows anything about the early history of hip-hop in Los Angeles, which has not been documented much at all, there was a party called Uncle Jamm’s Army, which was more or less and early electro influenced... Taz Arnold Electro-funk, hip-hop influenced movement, right. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Talk a little bit about how that evolved, as far as your tastes and how it influenced you musically, as well. Taz Arnold Uncle Jamm’s Army was like the scene. It’s just like, that always fascinated me, the contrast. I see beauty in contrast and differences, you know what I mean? Opposition and things aligning. That was just, for me, my introduction to the music world, and I took that same pipeline. The preppy scene, you had prep gangs in Los Angeles like you guys see Colors and Boyz n the Hood. That wasn’t the reality of LA for most people. That was just what the media glorified, and what they chose to magnify. It was also a movement going on with people who look like me now, but 20 years ago. The larger part of LA’s young population were more so like me, as opposed to what you see in the movies of LA. It’s a very interesting story. Jeff “Chariman” Mao And as far as your coming up in Hollis. Taz Arnold The world knows his history. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Everybody knows that, I guess. To some degree. Om’Mas Keith Yeah. I mean, style in Hollis was Black Lees. Coming up in Queens was just about the struggle, really. Making it through, and all the influences, all the negative influences around, maintaining positive and being true to my music. I’d always been in the music, born into the music, but as far as Queens is concerned, you know, Run DMC, Jam Master Jay, LL Cool J, Russell Simmons... MC Shan. Taz Arnold You see like all those influences in our show. It's gonna be, at some point, like a fashion show with a show going on you know? I don’t know if you know about the Polo movement, the ghetto Polo movement, but I was like, you know, basically like the guy in the forefront for Los Angeles from like the late ‘80s, the whole boosting Polo, Ralph Lauren, that whole thing. Dealing with that, oh, Benetton, you know, back in the ‘80s. I mean, it’s just that whole golden age of hip-hop from ‘86 to ‘89, you know what I mean? We’re all kids of that. Mini Sa-Ra, you know. That’s the shit. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Well then, as far as going back to the point I had said before about you guys being in the different places at different times. Om’Mas Keith Sometimes. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Sometimes. So as far as a collaborative thing, how often are the three of you together? Because like I said before, a lot of these guys might be meeting people that they want to do work with. Om’Mas Keith Usually, we’re always together. We have a compound and a studio and an office space. Jeff “Chairman” Mao I’m going to grab a water, I’ll be right back. Om’mas Keith We’re always able to converge. I mean, just the sheer output of what we’re able to create is indicative of how often we are together. Taz Arnold Cosmic dust. [performs secret handshake] Om’Mas Keith We’re always together. This is why our partnership is so magical, because we’re really always together. If we’re apart, it’s just for a quick little business move, so to speak, like somebody has to go and have a meeting. Then, the end of the day, we converge. Taz Arnold We work straight for a month and a half, and if somebody wants to go visit their girlfriend for a week it’s like, “Okay, well, we’ll get back up in a week.” “Let’s take a trip. I want to go here, go there, okay.” We talk about it. If it fits into the schedule, then that’s how we do it. Jeff “Chairman” Mao I want to open things up, does anybody have any questions at this point? Anything that they want to ask these guys to talk about, or anything they want to hear? Yeah. Taz Arnold If you guys want to hear more music, feel free to request. Audience Member Definitely. Back to the collaborative thing, because that’s probably one of the biggest things for us here at the Academy. A lot of us are producers who maybe are used to working on our own, and now, we’re going into studio like, three, four people and making music. So I’m just interested in the way you guys approach, because you obviously, you’ve got it on lock down. How does it work? Let’s say you’ve got an idea, do you all three of you follow that idea, like all three of you are cutting up a sample, programming a beat or are you jamming in different parts of the studio? Taz Arnold Yeah. Om’Mas Keith Like Shafiq might be rapping and Taz might hit the Wurlitzer and I’ll just hit the drums and we might not use the drum track but that’s... Taz Arnold It's a vibe. [Waves hands] Atmosphere. Om’Mas Keith It’s a vibe. You add the vibe and I kind of see I think where you’re going in that, maybe there’s a lot of room for conflict and head-butting when four people get into a room but if everyone’s got in mind the benefit of the whole... And I think therein lies the problem sometimes where there is a problem in the studio when heads butt. If everyone’s got the common denominator, the song, if everyone’s got that in mind, making the best record possible and you have patience and time enough to not speak so swiftly and think about what you say, have a listen to what’s going around before you make your judgment, I think that’s how you overcome any and all problems really in the studio and in life. You know what I mean? It’s like you take that strategy, you're always going to have to work with people. You go it alone, I feel sorry for you because it’s going to be a hard road, you know? So always incorporate people into your fold. I think we just bring that sensitivity and understanding that it’s always about the whole, it’s all about Sa-Ra Creative Partners progressing and through that way able to just maybe sometimes sit back. Taz will take the helm on the song. Sometimes I’ll take the helm on the song. And your personality... Taz Arnold At the end of the day it’s our product. Om’Mas Keith But if somebody’s got a positive idea you’ve got to run with it. If I’ve come with some shit, you’ve got to jump on it if it’s fresh, you know what I mean, if it’s undeniable. In that sense, if any of us starts something incredible that we all hear it, it’s all just like away! Taz Arnold It’s never a problem. It's like “Oh, that's dope. When'd you do that?” Audience Member And as far as collaborating in separate parts of the world goes, I think we started touching it a bit. Could you do that or do you do that in separate stages? Om’Mas Keith When we are abroad working, producing, we’re always together. On the executive side and business side, that’s more so when we’re apart. Those are usually the only circumstances when we’re not together. Producing, that we need to be together to do this. Audience Member There’s no technical way of doing it in this day and age with laptops and... Taz Arnold No, but there have been times where we had to mix a song. He’s been in New York and... you could describe that process where you go to the computer and you snatch the files. Om’Mas Keith FTP, File Transfer Protocol, is here. We all have high-speed Internet connections. That has enabled the world to exchange data at an alarming rate and totally ruled out the need for mail almost. You know what I mean? Taz Arnold We recorded vocals, it was a situation where Shafiq and myself were in LA. He went to New York to visit family and we had to mix a song but we had to finish vocals so we recorded the vocals, two minutes later he FTP'd and pulled it off the server. Om’Mas Keith One AIFF. Taz Arnold He added vocals, put it back on the server. We did something else. He took it again and mixed it and then it was done. It was like you know but it was... Without that technology, there would be no way that we could have done that because I was finished within two hours time, you know, LA and New York? Om’Mas Keith Normally that would have involved six FedExes, you know? Through technology you’re able to really simplify and streamline the flow of traffic or the flow of work. You know what I mean? Okay. Hope I was able to help you out there. Audience Member What type of equipment do you guys use and how much does sampling come into play? Taz Arnold I think sampling plays a very big part in what we do. Basically most of our beats that you hear are sampled drums. We use an MPC3000. Om’Mas Keith SP 12. Taz Arnold SP-1200. Pro Tools, whatever we need. If you could reach in that jacket and grab that phone, I’ll be able to turn it off. Thank you. Excuse me. [turns off phone] We’re using all types of vintage synthesizers, ARP String Ensembles, Rhodes. Om’Mas Keith Vintage gear plays a very important part in our sound and I was talking to somebody last night just about the scope of the gear that we have. From Junos to SH-101s, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, drums, full percussion array... But in addition to all the vintage synths then there is this whole new world of RTAs and TDM plug-ins and FM synthesis and all based in the computer realm. And if you’re very tactful and knowledgeable of how these devices work in the real world, you’ll be surprised at how you can make a native plug-in fool the most staunch aficionado of vintage gear. We use the whole gamut of equipment from the vintage shit right to the native plug-ins. Taz Arnold Even though we sample drums, we still play live over the samples. We have all array of percussion. We have Winrays, horns, guitar bass, full plethora of just sounds... And the sounds are like colors when you’re going to paint a picture. You need that palette of colors or options to pick up anything... And harmonica, conga, whatever. Om’Mas Keith A very dope technique. You may or may not know, but a very dope technique for making your drums sound iller than your opponent so to speak is to just lay the kick and go in and get you a high hat and mic it right and just sit there, put that on top and then come with a snare, loop it down and you’ll be surprised at how people will think that it’s like a live kit. That’s just one of the techniques that Sa-Ra might use. Taz Arnold That’s the older technique because you think about like it’s a debate between Sly Stone and Shuggie Ottis who was the first to use a drum machine on record. You know what I mean? Both the records came out I think maybe eight months apart but who’s to say who recorded their album first or record first, you know what I mean? And I think... Om’Mas Keith Talking about the Funk Box. Rhythm King. Taz Arnold Rhythm King and a lot of people went on it. We use that now. We even use it but I think Sly used it on “There’s A Riot.” That’s the first record he used it on. I forget... Om’Mas Keith He was sick of the drummer. Yeah, you know? Taz Arnold It’s just been like an ongoing evolution in regards to rhythm and sound but... Om’Mas Keith There’s an example of that Rhythm King on that... (hums) “conversations with you.” Oh yeah, we can play the Sly beat. Taz Arnold The Sly? Didn’t we play that? Om’Mas Keith No that’s "Just Like a Baby." We should play the Al Green joint. Taz Arnold Oh right, right, right. Let me see if I can find it. Om’Mas Keith This is an example of the Rhythm King sound. Taz Arnold You remember that track was called? I'll find it, you could keep talking. I’ll find it. Jeff “Chairman” Mao I thought we heard that little percussion machine on. It wasn’t on the remix that you did for the... Om’Mas Keith Yeah. Actually it was. It wasn’t as prominent. Jeff “Chairman” Mao It was deep in the background back there. Om’Mas Keith Just like how Sly had it. Go ahead. (music: Sa-Ra Creative Partners - Unknown) Om’Mas Keith Those drums came from the real Rhythm King. We went and got one, but instead of using it how they use it, we re-adapted, took the sounds, and put them in the MP and we played them over, you know what I mean? So we got a rhythm that the pre-programmed box would never have been able to make. Audience Member I was just wondering in regards to your publishing, you got three members, do you... You were saying that sometimes somebody’s the leader, that’s got sort of the main idea. Do you always just split your publishing in thirds? Om’Mas Keith Always, always, right. The company’s split into three. Yup. Audience Member Also, you mentioned during the cosmic slop you were playing a Sly Stone version before, do you just 100% hand that over, the publishing, to the original? Om’Mas Keith Yeah, there’s no publishing involved. Audience Member You’re doing a rearrangement or whatever, do you try to argue and try to get a... Om’Mas Keith You have to contact... Whenever you want to attack using someone or re-adapting anyone’s song, you got to contact them because you’re working in vain because you’ll never be able to put it out. Audience Member Do you guys normally pursue that, if you feel like you you’ve added to the composition? Om’Mas Keith We have never, ever used any recording or embodying really of anyone’s... Taz Arnold You mean maybe “Just like a Baby”? Audience Member Yeah, “Just like a Baby.” Om’Mas Keith Well, that’s a cover. Taz Arnold There’s no publishing for us. Audience Member That’s pretty close, but maybe if you replayed it and then you changed the bassline, play it different ... Om’Mas Keith You wouldn’t be allowed to change the bassline. Audience Member You’d just do a straight version. Om’Mas Keith The publisher wouldn’t allow you to change the bassline. There’s rules before you can put stuff out. Audience Member What about if you’re doing a remix with someone, do you try and use it as a separate song, give a different title and then give it get 50% publishing? Om’Mas Keith I’ll give you an example of what’s getting ready to happen right now. We’ve just been commissioned to do a remix for MMW, Medeski, Martin & Wood, and their last album was produced by the Dust Brothers. I just got the files in the mail from the Dust Brothers the other day and MMW told us that they dug our sound so much and the album was instrumental, if we were to reinterpret and add some vocals, they would be willing to divvy up the publishing with us but only through special arrangements. You have to bring it up and then they have to contact their people, special arrangement, that’s all. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Anybody else? OK. Audience Member With regards to the programming of the drums with moving the hats around, playing them organically, do you also keep the kick and the snare in the same spot or is it moving Om’Mas Keith If you want... Audience Member ...or is a lot of that swing feel coming from... You got any trademarks that you’ve done with that sound because it always sounds so warm. It sounds like it’s moving, but it’s not. It’s beautiful. Om’Mas Keith Sometimes we’ll just hit the record button on Pro Tools and the click is going in time. We’ve got a time reference already and the kick is where it is. And you’ve got four bars, you copy and paste it down. Sometimes the kicks get sequenced, sometimes they just go in real time. And that's maybe where the organic... We really take a lot of time when it comes to programming beats. It may not sound like it. People may think we just do whatever, but our labelmate said, “These guys must be watching the television when they’re making beats.” That kind of approach, what is that really saying? That’s just saying that it’s an unorthodox style, always use...try to pull from unorthodox styles. Try and pull from uncommon techniques always in making your records, otherwise your records are going to sound like everybody else’s. Taz Arnold If you listen to Fela Kuti or Indian musicians, it’s all types of rhythms and... Om’Mas Keith Permutations. Taz Arnold ...freaky things out there that you can draw from to always come with something new. I would suggest the more extensive your musical library is, the more bullets you have in your gun. Om’Mas Keith Get your repertoire up. Taz Arnold Each recording is just a blueprint, a masterpiece, within itself. Whether you like it or not, if someone’s offering, you can always go back to that and study it. You might not like the drums, but you might like they way they mic’d the piano and the way they played. Each record, each recording is really like a treasure and that’s how we look at it. That’s how our sound will always be moving and morphing because of the way we view music. We could always just go in any pocket and do a quick study and say, “You know what, let’s change the whole shit up. Let’s flip everything.” That’s what we have and that’s the card in our back pocket. Once we run with this sound, we have so many different things we want to do, Sa-Ra with strings or this or that. It goes on and on and on. Om’Mas Keith Sa-Ra with strings. Taz Arnold Then you have this whole thing of jungle and you have electronic music and some of these people are very ingenious. They are creating new forms of music. Some of the stuff might be just okay but then you always have things that are really, really fresh and new. Not only with old music being that way but you also have a lot of current things as well to pull from. I say the more extensive your music collection is... You guys have Leroy Burgess here and he’s one my favorites, we all dig him. That guy right there, you might see him here and not really understand how much...how that sound translates into what we do, but on a very subconscious level, you know, we are drawing from his energy. Om’Mas Keith Among others. Taz Arnold Definitely amongst others. I know he was here, so I was just upset that I missed that cat because I haven’t had a chance to meet him yet. That’s somebody that definitely we want...we’re going to work with and do some things with. Like I said, the more you can inform yourself on a musical level, the better off you’ll be. Om’Mas Keith If you don’t think it’s going to work, do it, trial and error. If something inside you is saying maybe it’s not right, just do it anyway. Especially if you’re recording digitally, the data’s there. You can take a snippet of that and that might wind up as the basis for a whole other song. Like Frank Zappa, he would take guitar solos, and this was in the day of tape, he would take guitar solos and there would be a record already done, he would remove a majority of the music and then they would slice a little section out of the tape and re-position that on a totally different song and totally different time reference. That just goes to show how experimental you can really be and we’re talking about one of the most legendary musicians or popular musicians of the twentieth century. There are no rules, be as unorthodox as you want to be. Taz Arnold I wanna play “Love Today?” This is a song, “Love Today.” It’s more of a live track, but he spoke of Frank Zappa, so there’s aspects of this song that definitely remind me of Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Parliament. So I'll play this for you. Om’Mas Keith When you hear Sa-Ra records you know that it’s... When you hear Sa-Ra songs, know that it’s always us singing and it’s always us playing. That’s what we bring to the table. (music: Sa-Ra Creative Partners - “Love Today” / applause) Om’Mas Keith Chord changes, chord changes. Don’t be afraid of changes. Explore the musician in yourself. Don’t be afraid to break out the one-four interval, two-five-one. Don’t be afraid to break out the box and use whole tones and draw from Thelonius Monk and listen to what Moby’s doing, whoever. Audience Member You’re saying terms that are foreign to me because I’m not a musician. I just know certain music that I love. For someone who wants to get into producing and may have a good ear, but is not musically inclined, what kind of advice can you give them? Om’Mas Keith You mean in the traditional sense musically inclined? Audience member Right. Om’Mas Keith Do you play? You don’t have to. The biggest producers in the jazz world were not musicians. And producing can encompass... in 2004, producing is totally different than it was in 1950 but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t encompass those same values and goals, which means...what I’m saying is you ain’t got to be a musician. If you have a good ear and you know how to bring people together for a common goal, this is what producing is, making something from nothing. In Hollywood, producing is making phone calls and bringing stuff together. Taz Arnold You’re bringing forth a product to produce. Om’Mas Keith In a technical sense, that’s what it’s all about. Taz Arnold You look at Quincy Jones on Thriller, Quincy Jones wasn’t playing those instruments, but he produced the shit out of that record though. We spoke about our friend Carlos Niño. He is, I guess you could say, the conductor. Om’Mas Keith He’s the producer. Taz Arnold He produces the Build An Ark records. He doesn’t sing, he doesn’t play any instruments and he doesn’t do the beats on the album. He sits there and tells people what to do, “Play this part,” he makes the magic happen. So if you have the ear, you can definitely still produce. Om’Mas Keith It all starts with your ear. Before there’s any ability to produce or touch a button on a Pro Tools rig, there’s your ear. This is what we’ve all cultivated, our ear. Whatever it was in you that made you click that said, “Wow, music’s what I really dig, music’s what really makes me motivated,” that’s where it all starts. Audience Member Thank you. Om’Mas Keith You're welcome. Jeff “Chairman” Mao Anybody else? Audience Member This is just a quick question about the performance. You said that you play the instruments, I know you’re playing the instruments and you’re singing on your tracks, in a live performance, are you hiring a band or are you singing and playing at the same time? Are you using the tracks? Is it some processing and some live? Taz Arnold It’s actually a combination of all three scenarios that you just came up with. Some shows we do it like CD style, like backing track. Our main objective when we’re performing is to sing. Right now in this stage of our performance is for us to be upfront singing because they don’t know us as entertainers or singers, they know us as producers. Right now, it’s for us to be on stage, look as good as possible, and get our songs across. Then the next phase... We do hire musicians. Then the next phase is us playing, going back and forth playing, as well as performing, singing. Yeah, that’s what’s happening with us. That’s a good question. Jeff “Chairman” Mao You also mentioned when you produce, it’s your track, you’re singing on it, as with like say the Pharaohe track. Do you ever encounter a situation where it’s like...that’s a thing that you want to do and the position you’re used to filling and that song where you come up with any sort of resistance, “I just want the beat... I only want this part of the deal.” Has anything like that ever happened? Taz Arnold There’s maybe been one time where we’ve had to put ourselves on the track because for this one scenario we wanted to definitely be on it, but usually... We didn’t want to be on any of the tracks that we would produce for people. What ended up happening was people would ... our sound being kind of left and different, there was a situation where we would shop beats and they were like, “I like these beats, they’re really creative, but I don’t know what to do to the track. Where’s room for the vocals? There’s all this music going on.” What we started doing, we started putting our songs on our beat CD’s that we would circulate. The Sa-Ra stuff. We would start with these songs and then with them wanting then to hear the beats, it would force them to hear our songs because it’s on the CD. So people started wanting our songs. They wanted us to, “Could you give me that shit that you guys doing with your stuff, can you give it to me? Can you be on a song?” And then you have certain songs, like you heard “Glorious” earlier, Pharaohe just asked us point blank, he said, “I want to record ‘Glorious.’ You guys can stay on the hook and do a verse, but I want to do the first two verses.” That’s going to appear on his next album on Shady Records. With us, same thing with Killer Mike from the Outkast camp. He heard one of our songs, he asked, “Can I get it?” Bilal, same thing happened with Bilal. Om’Mas Keith He literally just wanted our whole song. Taz Arnold Just on and on and on. Now it’s a thing to where... Common, we’re producing Common. He asked us to...everybody wants us to be on the song because the beat is one thing but the Sa-Ra sound it encompasses us as artists. If you want the sound, the complete sound, they want us to be on it. Om’Mas Keith We sing on almost every song that we produce commercially. It just so happens we’re on these songs. Taz Arnold We even sang with Jill Scott for one of the records with did with her. If we hear an extra part of the freaky stuff that they don’t necessarily hear, we sing it to them and they say, “Hey, that’s great, put that down.” Om’Mas Keith We beg them. We’re like, “Please can you do it?” Taz Arnold “No, you all do it.” Jeff “Chairman” Mao Anybody else? OK. I want to say thank you guys for being here, Om’Mas and Taz. Om’Mas Keith Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. The pleasure is all ours. [applause]