Academy: Seattle 2005

In this talk, given at the 2005 Red Bull Music Academy in Seattle, Waajeed of Platinum Pied Pipers looks back on Detroit’s incredible musical history, connecting the dots from Motown to the pioneers of techno, and on to the hip-hop scene he helped to establish. He explains the influence of the automotive industry on the city’s sound and of his father’s record collection on his own eclectic tastes. He also outlines his belief that artists have a responsibility beyond their music, recalls how being a DJ was the best way to escape the violence of the neighborhood he grew up in and why he owes his career to the “voice inside his head.”

Hosted by Toby Laing Audio Only Version Transcript:

Toby Laing

… Waajeed, and I’m sure that you all know who he is [applause]. He’s getting a lot of love around the world at the moment and he’s traveling the world as well, off the back of his project Platinum Pied Pipers. He’s been working for the past ten years on all kinds of underground music and we’re really lucky to have him here today, so cheers for coming by…

Waajeed

No problem… Wow, this technology… it’s really good.

Toby Laing

And thank you for last night’s set as well – that was very enjoyable…

Waajeed

Yo, I had fun. How many of y’all came out? Did anybody come out? [Applause] That’s good. [Points to audience] Before we do anything, I want to show some respect for my man Leon [Ware], there in the back… my fellow Detroiter… respect, brother [applause]. Without Leon, I wouldn’t be where I’m at now, so I need to say that, first and foremost.

Toby Laing

Well, that’s sort of how I want to start, and that’s history, really. Every place around the world has its own flavor, its own music, its own thing happening, but in the case of Detroit it goes a lot further than that. It’s a sound that people are feeling everywhere in the world and it’s influenced a lot of scenes around the world. Being from Detroit are you just too close to the source to realize that, or do you feel that yourself?

Waajeed

Being from Detroit, we’re not outside looking at the fish, we’re the fish looking at the outside. I think that keeps us kind of pure and honest, and for the most part musical integrity is first. It’s definitely a huge blessing for me to be from the D. It’s everything that I am.

Toby Laing

You were feeling that history there all the time, from childhood onwards?

Waajeed

Always, always, always. I find that in a lot of ways, even subconsciously, we’re always trying to re-live that history of the Motown era and everything that went off really well in Detroit and then essentially, overnight, just left us. In a lot of ways, we’re all just working to make that happen again.

Toby Laing

So, when Motown did blow up, they were drawing on the talent that was there in abundance. And it’s still there in abundance. It doesn’t matter if it’s techno or soul and hip-hop, it’s drawing on a long tradition and there’s a continuity there.

Waajeed

Definitely, and being from the Midwest, in general, there’s a certain kind of working-class mentality that comes with everything that we do, whether we decide to be tap-dancers, we work from nine to five continuously, hardcore, to be the best tap-dancer. In the same way as my parents worked in the plants, they worked from nine to five almost like a machine. So, a lot of times you hear music that reflects that machine type of thing. That’s just who we are.

Toby Laing

That’s interesting, that clock-punching, hypnotic activity can come through in the music just through being the dominant experience in society.

Waajeed

I think guys like Derrick May, Juan Atkins, they really took note of that pulsing rhythm and, in turn, their music reflected it. In terms of hip-hop, cats like Dilla, or myself or Dwele, we call it the “Detroit hump,” that pulsating rhythm.

Toby Laing

The Detroit hump?

Waajeed

I’m going to copyright that word.

Toby Laing

I suppose I should go back a bit. What was your first experience with music when you were growing up, and could you have guessed then that you’d be involved with it yourself?

Waajeed:

Some of my earliest memories of music was my dad playing music late at night. He’s going to read this, but he doesn’t really know. He used to smoke the substance.

[laughter]

Whoo, Dad’s going to be mad. It was late at night, and I remember being around – I had to be about eight or nine – and the den was right next to my bedroom. I’d hear the music and get up and see the smoke. Our stereo system had an illuminated blue light, and I could see the silhouette and the smoke and hear all these crazy sounds. He used to listen to Coltrane, Kraftwerk, he used to listen to Roger and Zapp, Parliament, all those crazy-ass voices. I didn’t know what the hell that shit was. And little did I know I was getting a second-hand high. I could just remember hours sitting there and watching him enjoying this music that I had no clue what the hell it was or what they were talking about or why they had these crazy-ass voices in it. Those were my earliest memories of music. Just now as, as adult, I’m coming to understand that…

Toby Laing

That your dad was on some real hip shit there…

Waajeed

That my dad was [coughs] smoking marijuana.

Toby Laing

Yes, we can’t confirm or deny that… so, he was listening to Kraftwerk – well, that’s cool, man, and Coltrane, of course, is the coolest…

Waajeed

I remember a Kraftwerk 45 being in my house, and he used to listen to the B-52s a lot, too…

Toby Laing

Well, that would be why you’re well-versed in all kinds of different music…

Waajeed

I didn’t know. I never really had a clue until I started back to DJing. I started as a DJ when I was about 14, just by inheriting my dad’s record collection, and then over the last five years I’ve been immersing myself back in the DJ culture. You know, you’d do a party and hip-hop cats played hip-hop music all night or house cats played house music all night, and here I am… I want to play all of it, so they’re looking at me like, “What the fuck are you doing?” In my head, it’s all the same. I can just see the good or bad, so here lies my battle with music today.

Toby Laing

That sounds great. When I was looking back at some interviews that you’ve done, you do get a little bit impatient with people if they try to label the music that you make now.

Waajeed

Lord have mercy. It’s really a pain in the ass. I make it my job to make music and to never be in judgment, or to really label it. You don’t go to the museum and see a Van Gogh piece and right next to it is Van Gogh describing exactly what that piece was. That’s stupid. People have to apply their own life stories on your music or what it may mean for them, and I think that enough artists just dumb it up. After you see a great film, you don’t see something that explains every line of the story and everything that happened. I think that’s silly. So, for me, I just really try to make sure that I never label what I do or put that definition on it, because I want people to apply their own definitions of what they get from it.

Toby Laing

And I suppose that when you’re working in the studio, your influences and what you’ve heard in the past are working subconsciously on the product, so you’re not making something for a market… it’s not commercial music, as such, so it’s a different process again.

Waajeed

It’s all a big mash-up in my head. And in my head it’s all, directly or indirectly, like soul music, because it touches people’s souls – and it doesn’t have to have a Rhodes or, “well, Sir, you know…” for it to be soul. It could be techno – some of the stuff my man was playing earlier on today was nuts, and it’s soulful… I could go on and on about these press bastards. I’ve learned a lot about the press, man – unless there’s any press people here, hi [laughter]… – like they come and they sit down with you to create a story, so whether that be about Baatin being homeless or crazy, or Jay Dee or Sa-Ra or whoever, they have it in their head that they want a story, so I just try to duck and dive. I’ve learned that less is more.

Toby Laing

So, making the music is one thing, but having to take it out into the marketplace and promote your music, it’s a whole other [thing]...

Waajeed

[Exhales] I was talking about that earlier. I just think with today’s climate and the way things are happening globally, we don’t have any real leadership. Because music is raising so many people’s children, musicians have to have a certain responsibility, whether we want it or not. And we’re kind of like torchbearers for our experience, whatever that experience would be, whether it’s a school experience or whether you got shot nine times, or you hustled crack in the street. There’s a certain amount of responsibility that we have, because no one else is stepping up to do it. Look at Bush, he’s a fucking jerk.

[applause]

He’s not a leader for anybody. I would much rather look at 50 Cent – he’s a lot more interesting than fucking Bush.

Toby Laing

Street wisdom is better than no wisdom at all.

Waajeed

That’s real, that’s real. So with this responsibility, we’re not just in the studio any more, where we punch out these beats like were recluses. We’re forced to step out and have these opinions. I don’t know why so many people are wiling out about Kanye West saying George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

Toby Laing

I think maybe it’s because he didn’t include all the other non-whites in America.

Waajeed

Maybe that, but in general we need people like Kanye West to say stuff like that because nobody else is saying it. We don’t have the appropriate leadership that gets out there and says those things, whether we all want to say them or we don’t agree with them. But there’s definitely a huge responsibility that comes with making music. It’s part of the job. If you ask me, I wouldn’t be shaking hands and kissing babies, I’d rather make music. You don’t like it, take it or leave it; if you like it, great; if you don’t, who gives a dog’s ass? That’s my preference as an artist. But as an artist I have a responsibility to get out and make change.

Toby Laing

Your music is conveying a lot. You started DJing when you were 14. How did it go? Were you performing at that age, or were you just collecting and getting yourself together…?

Waajeed:

I need to say why I decided to become a DJ first. In my neighborhood in the east side of Detroit – I’m sure Leon [Ware], sitting in the audience knows what I’m talking about when I say east side of Detroit – dangerous, dumb dangerous. I’m a ’70s kid, the time in the ’80s and the Reagan era, Reaganomics, shit was real in the street. This was when people were shooting each other in the street and their body would be laying out and kids would take their sneakers off. Kids were shooting each other for sneakers. Crazy shit.

The musicians always had a pass to get through the hood. If you see a kid with a bunch of records, you ain’t going to rob him for a bunch of records, as opposed to a kid with new Top Ten Adidas on and robbing him for his sneakers. This was a part of the reason, these kids are getting robbed and these kids aren’t getting robbed. That was part of the reason, if you could sing or rap or dance that gave you your pass to get through the ’hood. That was part of the reason why I started DJing, just so I could get through the ’hood freely. I could have my little Starter coat on or my little Adidas, and some records in my hand, and they wouldn’t mess with me. I wouldn’t get beat up and dragged into some abandoned house for my jacket. I just happened to hook up with a bunch of other weirdo kids in the neighborhood who did the same and just happened to slip through the cracks in the ’hood, and right now those kids are known as Slum Village. That was when I was about 14. This was about the time, about ’84, when crack hit the streets and it was wild, wild, wild.

Toby Laing

Even though I’ve heard stories like this, it’s something I can’t really comprehend, actually. I’ve been to Detroit and downtown is undergoing some kind of renaissance; it’s all coming back. But there are still not many people around the streets and there are still a lot of deserted buildings. It’s a very tough environment and even if you hear stories about it, I don’t think you can understand it unless you were actually there.

Waajeed

I call Detroit beautiful ugly, if that makes any sense. There’s a beauty and there’s darkness. There’s a beauty in the fact that it is a violent city. It’s just a micro to macro.

Toby Laing

So, the culture has a positive effect on people in some ways?

Waajeed

Absolutely. Just like hip-hop was created from New York in dire circumstances, and these dire circumstances make people look inward and pull something out that may not have been pulled out otherwise. Like, a girl could be having an argument with her boyfriend and be pissed and get on the keyboard and make something bananas. I guess there’s just something in people that makes people go and just punch those frustrations out, whether it be on a keyboard or on people.

Toby Laing

That’s something that seems to be the case. A tough environment can result in some amazing culture. It seems to be something that people from your part of the world are very proud of and there’s a strong identity coming through. But as you got older, through your school years, when did you start thinking about production? Was it just through hooking up with your mates?

Waajeed

I think production and music-making was the last thing I was thinking about, realistically. As a DJ, I was such a big fan, I just wanted the record, I just wanted the vinyl. I wanted to listen to it, I wanted to flip the cover back and forth, read the credits, know who was in those credits. I was just a fan for the music, not actually thinking about the process and what it takes to make the music, but as a DJ I just loved the record and loved listening to it. That definitely started to change when I spent more time with Dilla, Jay Dee.

Toby Laing

There’s a group that I’ve heard about called The Breakfast Club but I don’t know the details …

Waajeed

That was Dwele and his homeboys and they were on the opposing side of town, the west side of Detroit. So, whenever we’d hear something by them we’d go, “Nah, they’re turkeys, man. Their shit is wack,” knowing it was fresh. But we’d just front, “Get that garbage off.” But it was all one family, so it kinda worked itself out.

Toby Laing

A friendly rivalry there.

Waajeed

I think there’s always a rivalry. Even in these studios, I’ve just been here two days, it’s about to get real real. The competitive nature of people is going to start coming out. But that’s a good thing, as long as your intent is good. Hopefully, nobody’s hoping that somebody spills a Red Bull in their keyboard and the whole keyboard blows up. As long as the intent is good, it’s a good look for music as a whole. Everybody benefits from good music because it raises the bar and if the bar’s raised, everybody’s bringing the bar higher up. I think that’s reflected more in underground stuff than commercial stuff these days.

Toby Laing

So, you’re sharing but it’s competitive at the same time. And the MPC is perfect for that, right? Because you can make something on an MPC and walk away and someone can come in when you’re not in the room and change it. Has that ever happened to you?

Waajeed

Yeah, that’s happened to me, man. It turned out to be somebody’s single and I didn’t get credit for it. But I won’t talk about that.

Toby Laing

And that’s just all part of it isn’t it… the creative cycles… So DJing and working behind the scenes and production – that was the next step, production, after DJing… There’s actually another question I want to ask about [the Detroit spoken-word and open-mic-night venue] Cafe Mahogany. Was that something that was important?

Waajeed

Yeah, it was important to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. This was about the time after Love Jones had come out. Y’all remember that corny-ass movie, right?

Toby Laing

… There’s something about a spoken-word poetry thing … there’s a lot of humor in there and it’s about entertaining the crowd, as much as anything, and it’s about cheeky jokes…

Waajeed

And getting girls. That was another level of importance… all my homeboys would go there and they would write these little corny-ass poems and then just try to get girls, with no real intent towards poetry. You know what I’m saying, this is an art form, man – don’t just try to use it to get girls. So, yeah, that’s the relevance of Cafe Mahogany.

Toby Laing

Just looking at it, you’ve got the label Bling 47 and there must be some humor in that name, and then there’s Platinum Pied Pipers, there’s some humor in that name. And listening to the album, that’s the thing that shines through – it’s a banging album, it’s a club album, but there’s humor in there too [inaudible]…

Waajeed

Yeah, that was terrible. He said that every remix of [Jay-Z’s] Black Album was wack. I won’t go into that but the sarcasm, in general… you’ll notice that a lot of people in this industry, they just take themselves too serious. You know, they’re in a dark club with sunglasses on, trying to look cool with the fur and the chain. I’ve seen too much of that in my life and I’m just totally irritated by it. Detroit is probably one of the most honest, working-class cities in the Midwest, outside of St Louis, and when out-of-towners come like that into our city, they’re just going to get robbed, period. They’re setting themselves up to be robbed. When I see that, I just think, “This is some fucking buffoonery going on.” I mean, there’s nothing wrong with sunglasses – I’ve got some right here – but there’s a certain point that we get to where I’m like, “Man, that’s not cool, B. That shit is wack.” With that in mind, I just don’t take this as serious as a lot of other cats; the business side, that is – the music I take as serious as my life, the opportunities I take seriously, but as far as the frontin’ and the postin’, I really just don’t fuck with that, man. I steer clear of it. If I see cats acting like that, I go in the other direction. I don’t want no part of that, man.

Toby Laing

For the reason that it’s restrictive to creativity as well?

Waajeed

Yeah, man, that’s when you’re dealing with sales, not integrity, and I just want to make sure that at the end of the day I can look at myself in the mirror and have some respect for what I’ve done and what I’ve created and know that my records are not contributing to the genocide of my people… I just stay so far away from that that when I name my groups or projects, my sarcasm for that kind of energy is just playing it. Like Bling 47, that’s hilarious – you know what I’m saying? I ain’t got no damned diamonds on and I probably won’t be rocking no diamonds [whispers] probably… But, generally, like Platinum Pied Pipers was just us clowning ourselves, like, “What are cats going to be wearing after platinum? OK, let’s name ourselves the Platinum Pied Pipers!” So it’s mocking a lot of the stuff that’s happening, in my opinion, with mainstream records. That shit is buffoonery.

Toby Laing

But are you finding that trying to and succeeding in staying away from cliches of mainstream music, taking an alternate route, you’re still getting a lot of recognition… is it going further than you thought it would go, or did you have a good feeling that you had the support already…?

Waajeed

Yeah, it’s definitely going a lot further than I imagined. I know a lot of people weren’t raised the way I was raised, with regards to this wide array of musical choices, and that’s the reason I had reservations for doing this last Platinum Pied Pipers album the way that I did. Initially, I thought that in order to be in the game, you’ve got to play the game on your own terms… Doing what I’m doing is almost walking a fine line, almost like being Robin Hood – like I’ll produce a track for an artist that’s a big name and go into Sony Music and get this huge check, and then take all of that money and make underground records and put underground records out… that’s the stuff that helped me get to where I’m at now. It’s walking a fine line, like I might put some funny-ass name on it – I’m not going to say no names, because you might go out and research the records, but creating these aliases and putting the records out, nobody knows I even made that record, so when I’m in a club or go to a Kanye West listening party, all those dudes be looking at me like “Corny-ass nigga, man… underground records, blah, blah, blah…” I’m just thinking, like, “B, I made some records that you love, and you don’t even know.” But, that’s the beauty of it; it’s just like having a secret that nobody else knows. It’s like going to a club with a pistol in your jacket – you ain’t wilin’ out, but you just know that if anything gets crazy, you could just get out of that joint if you needed to…

[Sighs]

That’s a bad analogy [laughs]; that’s terrible, but that’s the idea. Or like being a kung-fu master or something…

Toby Laing

Yeah, that’s better…

Waajeed

You just know that if anyone comes up with some stuff, you could just chop them down, so that’s part of the power of silence.

Tony Laing

So, it’s like being invisible at times?

Waajeed

Man, I think that’s the best way, to be honest with you. Being invisible… it’s like being a photographer, in a lot of ways. You can get the best shots if nobody even knows that you’re there. If you’re in a room and you’re quiet and nobody knows you’re there, you can just stay there and you can suck up so much information… there’s a certain beauty in being quiet and laying low and being patient. I’ve been patient for a long time.

Toby Laing

Yes, I’m thinking the last ten years or so… how long have you been producing?

Waajeed

Realistically, I haven’t been producing that long… I started experimenting when I was about 17 and then I got into the arts. I got a full scholarship, oddly enough to design cars. Crazy, right? I was going to be an automotive engineer. I was going to be the guy who designed the next Ford car. Can you imagine that? Me talking this shit in a board room? But yeah, I was supposed to go to school on this full scholarship to design cars, and I was being looked at by GM and Ford and all these guys and they were setting me up to be this great car designer and other stuff, and my homeboys had just struck a record deal and it was like, “Yo B, we gonna go to Europe, man – so, are you gonna stay in school, or are you gonna roll with us to Europe?” What was I supposed to do?

This was like, “Peace!” I left school, man, I was out. My parents was looking at me like, “What the hell you doin’? This is going to set you up, you’re going to have a good career after you get out of school, being an automotive designer.” I don’t know, man, I just went with my heart and I left school, traveled with Slum Village for about three years on and off. I just remember that we were in Europe one time and we were running to get the train and there was just this big glow of light… it just happened and it was like, “Yo, this is what you’re supposed to be doing, this is your future, this is your destiny.” And I was like, man, I don’t really want this, but here I am.

Toby Laing

So, you could see the hard work ahead…

Waajeed

I didn’t know it was this much hard work. I think, for a large part, this is just part of being independent and putting out the type of records that you want to put out and having to support yourself. It’s not an easy task. A lot of people think they can just create a label… how many people don’t have labels these days? But how many of those people are active in the label and effective as far as the global community of music? It’s not a cakewalk at all. Are we getting off the subject man? I’m sorry, I’m all over the place.

Toby Laing

No, it’s all good. So, you went to Europe for a long time, on and off, with Slum Village.

Waajeed

Yeah, we traveled with Tribe, we traveled with a bunch of people. I got an inside scoop about how the business works, a lot of friends I made were based on, “It’s cool to hang out with you,” not “I’m a musician or producer or a beat-maker,” or whatever.

Toby Laing

So, how would you describe your role in those three years?

Waajeed

I wish you wouldn’t do that, man. My role was I was the guy who got the girls [laughter]. I’m just going to lay it out… we’re intimate, we’re personal, we’re friends. I was the guy that got the girls. While they were working hard on stage, I’d go up and say, “Hey, so and so would really like to meet you, we’re having a party at the hotel and badabing, bam!” That was my job [applause]. I’m not saying I was the most effective at it, I didn’t say I was the greatest guy for the job a lot of times, but that was my job.

Toby Laing

Just chemistry; that was your job.

Waajeed

Shaking hands, kissing babies. I’m sorry… So, after being on the road and getting back, being around music in this way, going to the studio, hanging out, all that stuff, I got a perspective on what it’s about. The long hours and how you’ve got to put so much into it just for 1% of the population of the world to even care. That’s how it really all kinda started, and that was about ’99. My dad always told me, “If you want to be really, really good at something, if you want to be great, lock yourself in your room and do that thing for one year.” And that’s what I did. I took my MPC and all these records that I’d collected all these years. I knew what every break was because I was a DJ. I knew like Paul McCartney or The Beatles, I knew records like the back of my hand, and I locked myself in my apartment for a year.

It started kinda as a dare. Jay Dee had this beat machine laying in his basement, and Questlove from The Roots had broken the beat machine. He’d got some disc tangled up in it, I don’t know. But it started as a dare: “Yo, if you can get that disc out of there you can take this machine home and use it.” So I took it as a challenge. Great, OK, I got the disc out and he was, “Great, take it home.” So I took it home for a weekend, no manual or anything, just based on, “OK, I’m going to make this thing work.” So I made four tracks and left a message on Jay Dee’s voicemail, saying, “This is what I did, I know it’s kind of wack but, yo, just check it.” So I played them on his answering machine and he called me back immediately. “What was that?” I was, “That’s just something I was messing around with.” He was, like, “That’s pretty good, man. Play it again.” I was thinking, “I might have something here, let me re-evaluate this.”

So, after that I had the encouragement from my crew – like, “Yo, you could really do some things with this” – and I locked myself in my apartment for a year. No, I’m telling you man, I had a damned woolly lumberjack beard. It was wild. I locked myself in my apartment for a year, chopping up records every day. My schedule would be getting up late afternoon because I’d always be up late at night, into the morning. So, I’d say, “You knock out two beats and you can get a glass of water.” For real. I’d have this military voice in my ear telling me to knock out these two beats so I could get a glass of water. I’d be thirsty, thinking, “Damn man, I’ve got to knock out these beats fast.” So I’d knock out two tracks and, before I could get up, the voice would say, “OK, make another one, then you can get a glass of water.”

Toby Laing

The voice of dehydration.

Waajeed

Make another beat, then I’d get the glass of water. “Ah this water’s really great.” Then the voice would go, “Make three more, then you can get another glass of water.” It was getting so ridiculous, like, if I had to use the restroom, the voice would say, “Make three beats and then you can go to the restroom.” I’d be like this… [bounces up and down on the sofa].

Toby Laing

You’d be making some uptight beats?

Waajeed

Crazy, man. Crazy. This little voice in my head, saying, “Before you use the restroom you’ve got to make three joints… Don’t even talk about eating.” That’s why I’m so damned skinny. The voice would say, “Before you can get some food, you’ve got to make four joints, or at least chop some drums up.” And I lived that way for a year, with just volumes and volumes and volumes of tracks.

Toby Laing

Do you still draw on that material to this day?

Waajeed

I was so pure then, I still revel in those moments. It was just me and those records; no phone, no politics, no magazine covers, no talking to my agent, no talking to my manager, no tour, none of that shit. For a lot of y’all, these are your best moments, so revel in them. This is when you’re pure, these moments are when you’re going to determine your intent for the rest of your career, or how you’re going to be for the rest of your career, and who you’re going to be for the rest of your career. So I hope a lot of you have got that crazy-ass voice in your head telling you to make nine tracks before the day’s over. But, yeah, those moments, I still look back on them. To some degree, I wish I could be back in that place.

Toby Laing

Since that time you’re still working in the studio a lot and I know you’ve got a lot of projects scheduled for the future, too.

Waajeed

I’ve still got that crazy-ass voice in my head, telling me a lot of things that I need to be doing. I’ve just started, my first record came out in 2002, which wasn’t that long ago… feels like yesterday. Luckily, it was a major release, so it allowed me to do some ghost production and live off that money and do the bohemian thing I’m doing now. It allowed me a lot of space to be more creative and for me to just do what the hell I want to do.

Toby Laing

But how has it changed now, from the days when you were just in your apartment with the MPC or whatever you were using, making your tunes? Now you’re collaborating with a lot of different artists, so they must come around and work with you… how has your process developed from that point? Is it still based around the MPC?

Waajeed

For the most part, yeah, but the process has changed a lot because there are just so many people involved and there are just so many people that rely on me now. It was just me back then, but now the responsibility level has tripled – responsibility to my artists, responsibility to my family, responsibility to my upbringing. I could be in the club and hear a joint that I love and I just want to wile out, but there’s a camera in there and I can’t be wilin’ out and my family’s looking at me. I’m carrying this responsibility of a community of people on my back and – more important than doing what I want to do sometimes – it’s more important to reflect those people in a proper light and to be the person that’s carrying their cross. I’ve got hundreds of homeboys who made way better beats than I got now – or made way better music or made better decisions, or were smarter people – that are dead in the street now, that have been shot and killed. They would want to be in this position now… so [I have responsibilities] that are not based on what I want to do or how I feel…

Toby Laing

Well, it’s back to representing a tradition… drawing on a tradition. I can definitely respect that.

Waajeed

Yeah, for this PPP album, there was no profanity on there, no one talking about killing nobody’s grandma. Dilla was the only person talking about rims, but you know, I’ll give him that space to do that. But for the most part, I just didn’t want to create a record that supported all those do-rag stereotypes of black people. Which, in their own right, if that’s what you do, then that’s good look, but there’s not enough people that are not representing that, so I want to put a little paint where it ain’t. But that’s not to say that when I’m in my crib I won’t have a do-rag on or that when you meet me in person, I won’t be cussing and so on. It’s just that there’s a certain responsibility of the cross that you have to bear when you’re in a public situation – particularly the media, because if y’all don’t know, the media is a monster… they can help you build your empire or they can destroy you.

Toby Laing

In the studio, if you’re writing a song, what’s the process? Is it different every time? Are you drawing on beats that you’ve made or working with the vocalist first, or doing it all at once?

Waajeed

It really all depends. Sometimes you’ve just got that mood and it needs to be you alone in the studio. Or you might meet somebody who you love what they do and you need to collaborate. Not to be corny, but it starts with the vibe. If you can’t get along with someone, then there’s a good chance that you’re not going to make good music together because music is intimate. So, it all depends. For me, I’ve been lucky enough to have most of my projects revolve around me, so it’s usually just me in the studio.

Toby Laing

It’s a good time to mention your collaborator, Saadiq, in Platinum Pied Pipers. He seems to be a very strong influence on that album.

Waajeed:

Not really [laughs].

Toby Laing

But as an instrumentalist, and you’re talking about creating a vibe in the studio, that’s where the vibe is happening, between those two sides of the spectrum, the production and the musician side…

Waajeed

Yes and no. For the sake of the group, Saadiq is the guy that does the show. I like to say I produce the album, he produces the show. He can play so many different instruments, he can dance, he looks like Tupac, on the visual side it’s a good look. He can handle that, dog. But I’m a jerk in the studio, I’m a total jerk. You heard it from my own mouth, I’m a control freak. “It’s not going to leave this studio unless that snare is right. It’s not going to leave the studio unless the sound that you hear on the left side of the speaker on the last verse just before the cymbal comes in is right.” I’m real anal about that. I always get into it with everyone I’m working with.

Toby Laing

So, you’ve scared everyone out of your studio?

Waajeed:

Man, I’m a jerk. And so you should be because this is your statement to the world. If people are going to judge you based on a track that they hear, then you need to be involved in that judgement process. [Addresses audience] This is the same for you. Don’t take a backseat because you’re running out of studio time, or you don’t want to get in an argument with that person. Yo man, make it known, if you think this is the best thing for the track and you can defend your judgement, make it happen, for real. I would much rather be respected than be the friend of thousands of people.

Toby Laing

But that would have to be the point of view of the producer, not the collaborator, because that’s terrible if you’ve got a collaborator who’s [like that].

Waajeed

Absolutely, absolutely. If I’m in a situation where I’m working with other people, I take the back seat or the front, or whatever position needs to be played, but if you are producing an album and it’s going to have your name on it, saying “produced by blah, blah, blah,” you’ve got to put your foot in it, treat it like it’s your last opportunity, go hard, otherwise… There are just some things you can’t take the back seat to in this process of being a musician or a producer… that’s not something you can take a loss for. I know some of y’all know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’re going to be arguing about it by the end of this Red Bull Music Academy, about your music…

Toby Laing

Not too much, of course – the main thing is cooperation.

Waajeed:

I’m with that.

Toby Laing

So was it a natural thing to take the Platinum Pied Pipers project to the stage, or was it something that was hard work? Was it complicated?

Waajeed

It was definitely part of the process from the beginning. It started just out of frustration. I’ve seen hip-hop guys and just performers in general… every two minutes of the show they’re saying, “Say ho-oooh!” These people pay to come see you perform and the performer’s asking the audience to perform? That’s crazy [applause]. Isn’t that crazy? So – as opposed to being one of those groups where the MC just walks up and down the stage holding his nuts all night and there’s like 90 of his homeboys on the stage saying “Represent, represent, keep it real son” – I was like, out of frustration, “Yo, we cannot be like that.” I remember saying to Saadiq that I would rather wear a blazer and a bowtie than look like that, and that’s where it started… The performance value is just as relevant as an album these days, because if you don’t have a good show to balance the music, how will people even know that it’s good? People are more likely to talk about what they’ve seen than what they’ve heard… if you get in the show and you kill it, they just support one another, they have to… what you do and what you say has to support the music.

Toby Laing

So what role does improvisation have to play in your live show? Is there a place for that?

Waajeed

Definitely. As much as I owe to being able to play the keyboards, at heart I’m an MPC producer. That’s what I do for the most part. And the part of our show that allows space for that is that we have this freestyle thing, and I just make something up right there on the stage. There’s room for it, definitely. There has to be, just to keep it alive, I guess.

Toby Laing

So, how do you find it – you’ve created this music and your translated it onto the stage and you’re performing it around the world, around Europe…

Waajeed

It’s wild, man.

Toby Laing

Have you taken it to Japan yet?

Waajeed

Not yet, we’re going to do a tour next year of Japan and Australia.

Toby Laing

So, the group is traveling a lot…

Waajeed

Too much…

Toby Laing

Too much for what?

Waajeed

I mean, I’m a producer. I’m not a performer, really. It’s part of it, but I’ve turned so much work down this year because I’m out on the road and that’s tough for me. In retrospect, looking back, I’m like, ”I should be in the studio,” because that’s my voice; my voice is in the studio.

Toby Laing

Well, I know that there are people around the world who do appreciate you getting out there and taking the show around the world…

Waajeed

I don’t mind doing it, but it is a process on your creativity. You could be up there playing a song and thinking, “I could take the chord progression and change it,” and then you’re like, “Oh shit, I’m standing in front of a thousand people.” In your head, part of the creative process is always just running and it’s ramping up, but you have to pacify it because you’ve got 100 interviews to do.

Toby Laing

That’s what I was wondering… does the music change from country to country; does the inspiration of a different place have a bearing on the performance? It must do. But is there a strong flavor of being on the road bringing the group closer together?

Waajeed

It definitely brings the group closer together. If you have a person who can ride out a tour with you, they can ride out anything with you. I’m just so grateful. I’m sitting up here, but there are hundreds of people who are responsible for me being here and I’m nothing without them, and probably vice-versa.

That’s the other thing, man. You just got to have a good team. Nobody can do this by themselves. You have to have a good squad; a dedicated group of people who that are looking for the benefit of the team and not just so much personally.

I’m lucky. Even just moving to New York, I managed to find a good team of people who care about the benefit of music as a whole, like Spinna, Bobbito, Rich Medina. In a sense, these people have given me a job, you know… they play the music. People don’t give the DJ enough credit these days – you’ve got DJs out here breaking records. [Phone rings in audience] You were supposed to turn that off [laughs]…

Toby Laing

So, you moved to New York – that was right in the middle of the album process, was it?

Waajeed

Yeah.

Toby Laing

So, you had to… give it a break and come back to it to finish it in your new home…

Waajeed

Yeah, in my new home. I moved from Detroit to New York about two years ago. Every decision I’ve ever made has been based on my experiences with my close personal confidants in the music business and one thing I learned is that you can scream at the top of your lungs, but if no one is there to listen, no one will hear you. That’s kinda the point that I reached in Detroit. Being born and raised there, everyone knew who I was and it was just like looking to be recognized by people that felt like they know you. You know what I’m saying, “Aw, you ain’t Waajeed, you Robert O’Bryant…” So, the idea of moving to New York was to move somewhere fresh, somewhere where there was no ceiling, where it’s infinite and you can just keep on going up…

Toby Laing

And you’re now quite close to that dangerous record industry, though…

Waajeed

Wow, yeah, I’m definitely in the belly of the beast, but there’s definitely good things to the belly of the beast, because it makes you really realize, internally, your purpose, why you are here and why you are supposed to do what you’re supposed to do and who you’re supposed to involve with all that. And it was tough, man. I had a really nice loft in Detroit, two levels – it was fresh because the cost of living is fairly low.

Toby Laing

And now you’ve got the shoebox?

Waajeed

Listen man, I moved to Crown Heights in New York City. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Buckshot Shorty, when he talks about Crown Heights in his records… there were so many damn roaches in that apartment, man, that they couldn’t be in the wall any more, because they’d be fighting for space in there, so they just be walking… You’d be watching television and three would just come across the television. It was crazy, man.

Toby Laing

So, are they looking after the place now?

Waajeed

No, this was the first place that I moved into, just before I finished the Platinum Pied Pipers album. Those early credits that I used for the studio, I used “Joe’s Apartment” in reference to this roach-filled apartment I was in. But we went on tour and I came back and I was Just like “I can’t be living here; this is not a good look.” So, I moved from the roach motel.

Toby Laing

I’m glad to hear that.

Waajeed

Me too.

Toby Laing

So, your new base of operations is in New York and you’ve got some new projects that you’ve been talking about a bit lately in the dreaded media. What is your idea for the next couple of years and what do you want to achieve.

Waajeed

I just want to stay creative. I just want to be able to do what I feel from my spirit. I just want to be able to make the type of music that just keeps going up – as opposed to finding this niche where you can make a gazillion dollars and just keep repeating the same process, I just want to keep going up. I mean, I don’t know what I’m going to be making next year; I just want to keep making progressive music that makes people think and, most of all, that enlightens people. That’s what I want to do, so there are a couple of things coming up, both major [and independent]. I’m more interested in the independent stuff, because that stuff has less boundaries…

Toby Laing

So, Waajeed & The Jazz Katz… what’s the deal with them?

Waajeed

Umm… you know you always meet these old-school cats and they’re real cool – they’ve got a little cigarette hanging out their mouth, sunglasses… you know what I’m sayin’… so I thought it would be cool to start a group that had that kind of energy to it…

Toby Laing

We could keep going, but I get the feeling that people want to ask some questions in the audience. Is that true? [Inaudible comments from audience] Or we could listen to some music… It’s time for music.

Waajeed

What do you want to hear, man?

[Inaudible shouts from audience]

I knew you were going to ask me that, man. I’m not going to play that. I need to say this: I hate playing my own music. I hate it. I’m such a control freak and I think, “Oh, that snare could’ve been up a little louder.” It’s painful for me to play my own music. When I DJ, I never play my own music and that’s why. I’m going to stop bitching and play a song…

[music: Waajeed – unknown / applause]

Waajeed

I’m going to go through this CD and see what else is in here. I’m not really sure what’s in here but we’ll all find out together. Oh yeah. This is a remix. Where’s that guy… Enrico’s friend? [Inaudible comment from audience] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did this remix for what’s it called? [Inaudible comment from audience] Yeah, Domu. What’s it called, Archive Records? I need to find out when this is coming out ’cause I want to get this.