ukhh interviews Jeff

[Hero1]

Jazzy Jeff is a legend who needs very little introduction. Having played a big part in pioneering the turntablist artform and DJ culture back in the late 80s and early 90s, he then went on to continue his career as one of hip hop's most successful and longest established DJ and producer, whilst also gaining a fair amount of popularity from his days as Will Smith's DJ. Still touring the world like nothing changed since he was cutting it up in Philly, Jeff released his first solo LP two years ago, The Magnificent, to much acclaim. He toured the UK last year alongside the Philamornics, playing live on stage as part of the band showing his versatility and musical open-minded-ness. We managed to catch up with him in November this year when he once again visited London, this time to play his part in the Perverts Beatdown held at fabric. Find out what the Magnificent has been up to since last year, what he's got planned for 05 and more...

What have you been up to recently?

Probably doing more travelling then anything. For the last two and half months or more, I kinda took a break from the studio because it kinda changes your inspiration interacting live with people, it definitely changes a lot of your perspective and helps you go back in the studio a bit fresher and with new ideas.

Are you working on any new projects since your last release?

I’m in the process of possibly doing another one, I’m just trying to work out all the details, and hopefully I can start it in December as I wanna take 2-3 months off, from December onwards. And I wanna just knock out a bunch of records. I have an album with a poet called Black Ice in the states that I’ve got to get done, there is a project called Hood Watch, which is a bit like a Public Enemy type project. A little bit more socially aware, conscious that I want to get done and I want to do a new album, I’m probably going to do an EP with Mad Skillz, that we’ll try to have out by the spring, so it’s all good. I’m really excited to get back in the studio; I’ve got a lot of ideas. I’ve been working on some stuff, got a drum machine on the road and I’ve been putting together some stuff so I’m happy to get back into it.

So one of those projects would be a solo LP again?

Yeah I definitely want to do another one. I had a really good time doing the first one and the response was really good and that’s what really pulled me out on the road. Just the response from music lovers and being able to do what you want to do and realise there are people that like what you do, that’s kinda cool. My whole thing has always been based on musical freedom you know, and when you start to get confined to things and you lose your musical freedom it’s almost like there no reason for me to do it so…

How’s your production company, ATOJ, going?

ATOJ is going good man. It was kinda set up for me to do what I’m basically doing now. And it’s really funny because the reason why ATOJ is what it is, is because I knew early on that if I wanted to do a rock album nobody would really understand Jazzy Jeff doing a rock album. So I figured if I have a production company behind it I can do it, that way if it’s not good no one would know that I did it. And it just turned into almost like a place for people who liked all kinds of music. I just started bumping into all kinds of people and we’d start making music and it wasn’t about selling records it was just about getting your creative freedom on and we became really successful like that.

"...I kinda took a break from the studio because it kinda changes your inspiration interacting live with people..."

And of course with any kind of success you always get the other side. We became successful at being real, and then real became a fad. And it’s kinda like ‘whoa! this is crazy!’ Because you’re very scared for it to be a fad because fads play out and I didn’t quite get the understanding of people thinking that real was playing out. It’s like ‘how can real play out?’ Real is real! So that’s one of the things that kinda took me back out on the road I just wanted to get away from the industry and just deal with people. You get a really good sense from people, it’s really different when you have business or record company people telling you what they think sells, and that’s what it is. The music business of this has turned into the new stock market. And I don’t wanna sell stock. I’d rather be out there with the people that know and will tell you if they like something as soon as they hear it.

Have you got any new people coming through on ATOJ since last year? Any new lyricists?

I’ve still got Chef Word, he’s still with me, Black Ice the poet he’s there and I still have V. I really scaled it down and I haven’t really been looking so much for artists. I think more then anything I was going through a cleansing process. I got who I got, V is currently on tour with Jill Scott doing background vocals, Black Ice is doing the Def Poetry Jam tour, he’s pretty much the anchor poet for that. Chef is chilling in Philly and we’re all going to link back up in December and just go in, which I think is really good because everybody had a chance to grow and just learn from our experiences.

"...that if it wasn’t for two turntables and a mixer I probably wouldn’t have any of the stuff that I have now or done any of the stuff..."

A lot of our records come from us all getting together and having conversations and I know that as much as I’ve been travelling and a lot of stuff that I wanna say about what’s going on in the world. And then you have Black Ice which I think is gonna bring an entirely different perspective because he’s such an articulate speaker, he’s like the modern day Gill Scott Heron. He’s the realest person that I know and he speaks straight from his heart you know, but that perspective when you have those kinda people around you it brings out the real in you and allows you to draw in the things that you might not necessarily bring in. I like that especially when making music, because I might start to second guess myself and someone like him will just tell to just do it, you know. So I’m really curious to see what it’s gonna be like when I get back in the studio.

And are you still working with the Philarmonics live band? You still doing shows with them?

Well we haven’t done much, just a couple more shows. It gets really hard because the Philarmonics isn’t really a set band, it’s a group of musicians and it’s just crazy because at any given time these musicians can be on tour with other people. Three of the guys in there are in Jill Scott’s band and she’s currently on the road, and someone is in Music Soul Child’s band too. So even though you can always piece a band together because there are twenty guys in there, it just gets hard for us to narrow down something. We’ve had a bunch of record offers for the Philarmonics, but it’s kinda like how can you narrow down the band? That was the whole process with them, this is how we make records in the studio in Philly. We get a bunch of guys and come up with jam sessions and when you narrow it down to one band that defeats the purpose you know? It’s also close to impossible to get together on a consistent basis. Once I get some time in the studio I’m gonna sit down and map exactly how we could do it, because that’s another project I’d like to get done. I’m very into fusing musics together even as a DJ, and sometimes it takes people by surprise hearing the different genres of music that I go into. But I grew up as a real DJ that played everything. I’ll go to the record store and be like ‘ok what new funk records you got? New jazz? New House? New Disco? New Hip Hop?’ and I’ve always just bought records regardless of what genre they are, and I think that now the modern DJ is very segregated, he’s like ‘I only play hiphop’.

"...I’m really excited to get back in the studio; I’ve got a lot of ideas..."

But you know that hip hop is derived from all different kinds of music so how can you say you only play hiphop? Have you never played the original record with the hip hop version? That can be opera, jazz whatever. And it’s the same thing with me DJing as well as producing just trying to marry different things together and I think it would be cool to get an album that covers all genres. I kinda tested on that with the last LP, I touched on it with a bit of reservation and because people really accepted it I now want to jump in and take it further because I have affiliations with so many people. I would love to make the Magnificent, with Herbie Hancock, Sting and such and such. And bring them into that kinda element, because I think a lot of the guys I grew up listening to and who I have a lot of respect for are very open minded musically. I’m currently doing something on Herbie Hancock’s project and just sitting down and talking to him it was like looking in a mirror. And the gentleman who hooked us up told me that we were very similar in our likes and dislikes and just music, and I think I enjoyed the conversation just as much as I enjoyed the music.

When we spoke to you last year you told us about your feelings towards the radio and how the same songs were constantly being rehashed and not making room for new, upcoming or just different artist then those backed by commercial labels. And you had a big gripe with that. In a year, have you seen any changes or have you started thinking about it differently?

It’s a little bit better, and I think the state of the music industry has no choice but to make it get better. Because it gets to a point where now record companies aren’t signing acts like they used to, they haven’t got budgets like they used to, aren’t selling records like they used to. And I think what that does is, it spawns the new guy. In his basement that now has the hope and chance of knowing that he has a laptop, can go online and not only can he make his music but he can send it out to the whole world, millions of people online to see if they like it. He doesn’t need the radio or the record company to give him validation and I think that the industry is starting to feel a lot of the effects from that.

"...I love all kinds of music and my issue isn’t that they play commercial stuff, my issue is that they only play commercial stuff..."

And then it’s crazy because sometimes when I DJ, I’ll play a lot of commercial stuff and people will look at me funny. And I’m like ‘Hold on! I never said that I don’t like the commercial stuff because if I say that I’m no better then the guy who says he likes only underground or non commercial stuff.’ I love all kinds of music and my issue isn’t that they play commercial stuff, my issue is that they only play commercial stuff. I like Nelly and Snoop, I like J Live and Slum Village too! And that’s my whole thing, it’s not to say one isn’t good and only support the other, it’s more to say support all music. Support what you like.

Going back to the scratch scene and where you came from in ways, I know you still follow it quite a lot. Have you seen anything in the last year that’s really caught your ears in the scene or the artform?

I judged a couple of DJ battles where the young guys coming out now are just ridiculous with what they’re doing. It’s funny because I had a conversation with a DJ at one of the battles that I thought was really good and I was telling him that there were certain things that I always did as a DJ that I always felt were very important. It wasn’t necessarily to have the most skill, I have always felt that you need to be a smart DJ. And that’s why I always gave credit to Kid Capri because I felt he was a very smart DJ in the sense that he always knew who he was playing for. DJs and rappers and a lot of us in the entertainment industry have the habit of playing for our peers and not for the audience. Some of the things that I got famous for that Will and I brought out at shows were the simplest things in the world. But because he narrated them in a way to make the public understand what we were doing that’s what kinda helped the DJ culture grow.

"...In the same way that my mom still loves the temptations I still love Public Enemy and ATCQ..."

And it’s kinda like what I told the guy. A lot of times if I do routines, I always do them off records that people know. Because if you do them off records people don’t know, they won’t know if you are changing it or not. And I think what happens is you get these guys who are doing incredible routines and battles but doing them with records that no one knows how the record goes. If you really want to show somebody, show them the record and then show them how you completely transform that record. Because there are going to be people there that don’t actually know that you’re doing something because of the record being used is unknown to them. But it’s just amazing to look at the culture and how much it has progressed and how it’s still going and that’s one of the things that really makes me happy to watch somebody who is 16 and say ‘whoa! This is something I’ve been doing for years and years and it’s still going strong and there are kids all over the world still doing it!’ I mean for god sake’s I’m in the UK DJing! And there was a time when people thought that it wasn’t going to be here. So I think that turntablism and the whole artform is great because I always said that if it wasn’t for two turntables and a mixer I probably wouldn’t have any of the stuff that I have now or done any of the stuff. So I’ll never stop following that.

And have you done any work with the Scratch Academy as you mentioned you wanted to last year?

No I still haven’t had a chance to do that. But I still very much want to. And then I went to a place in the UK that was a music school, the Academy for Contemporary music, and they had a DJ class and I spoke to the class and did a little exhibition. And then I toured the school and that was incredible, it was probably one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. They said they’d just opened a school in Japan and I begged them to open one in the States because I think it’s time for a lot of the traditional values of music to become a little bit more contemporary.

"...My whole thing has always been based on musical freedom you know, and when you start to get confined to things and you lose your musical freedom it’s almost like there no reason for me to do it..."

And that’s what I really liked. It’s very good for kids, or anybody really. There was a girl in the DJ class from Philly and I was just so shocked how thorough the teachings were, how many textbooks they had. It felt like it was the same as when I was coming up. They would explain everything, how needles work, differences between direct and belt drives, everything. I felt that the way they pieced it all together was very good. And in an educational format. Because there are a million kids out there that would benefit from something like this. Because I know that my mom thought I was kidding when I said I wanted to be a DJ and no one knew that this would be a really good way of making a living. And now that’s it like that if you have the talent and you have the desire why not go to school to perfect your craft? And learn to blend the old and the new.

When you mentioned taking time off to work on stuff earlier on, would that also maybe include working on something that is a bit closer to your scratch DJ roots?

Absolutely. I think that will always be there, it has to. The intro on the Magnificent kinda represented everything that I wanted it to from a sample to me scratching to someone singing to someone rhyming to a live bass player, it’s kinda like showing all forms of music and all of this is music to me. And I really think it’s great. I’m working on a project now and trying to incorporate a keyboard player into it. Have him with me DJing, that’s what we’re trying to work on at the minute. Trying to piece stuff together and I’m using the Serato scratch program which is incredible, to be able to make my own sounds and then groove with it and groove with somebody else. That way I can go in the studio and make my own beats and leave all the keyboard parts out and just play them live and add my overdubs and let him play on the top of it live. So we’re in the process of working some of that stuff out, giving different alternatives to people. The beautiful thing to me is that we are the first generation that are growing older with Hip Hop, with DJs cutting, MCs rhyming and music. In the same way that my mom still loves the temptations I still love Public Enemy and ATCQ. And I’m gonna love them at fifty, sixty and seventy. There is a reunion show when you’re 72 and you’ll go see it in the same way that your parents went and saw their favourites. Taking that in mind I’m trying to plan ahead, when we go out at fifty and have that quiet evening out with your girl and you want to go see that DJ play smooth grooves and somebody jamming on top of it, well let me set the tone right now.

http://www.ukhh.com/elements/turntablism/j...jeff/index.html

[freshstecki]

cool stuff.. thank u, tim! :dj:

[willsmithfan1]

Thanks

[KevTastic]

Great Interview. Jeff Rocks

[DevilsJim89]

Jeff is the man! Hands down. THANKS!

[Jonny 5]

nice long interview, thanks Tim :thumb:

[Hero1]

only disturbing thing to come out of that is that jeff likes nelly :kekeke: