interesting article in REMIX on Q-tip/ Kamaal and the new album " Open"

http://www.findarticles.c...icle.jhtml


OPEN Abstractions.

Remix, March 1, 2004



Byline: Ken Micallef

It's the Sunday morning after a long holiday weekend, and Q-Tip (aka Kamaal Fareed, Jonathan Davis) is enjoying a big breakfast of chicken sausage, fried egg whites and wheat toast at Manhattan's Time Cafe. As he talks about his latest album, Open (Universal, 2004), two 6-year-old girls named Lottie and Mei Mei dance around the restaurant's tables like drunken sailors. As the prancing pair approaches Q-Tip's table, he starts singing a catchy tune that stops the kids cold.

"What's that song?" Lottie asks. Failing to convince the girls that his voice is somehow coming from across the room, the 33-year-old hip-hop icon engages the tots in a little musical education. Minutes later, the girls frolic away, singing Q-Tip's playful melody with gentle accuracy - a lesson in how to win over the masses with simple but astute musical muscle.

This is nothing new for Q-Tip, who as a member of '90s hip-hop trio A Tribe Called Quest broke barriers and set standards that hip-hop has only occasionally matched and never surpassed. The jazz-infused arrangements and supple grooves of Tribe albums such as The Low End Theory (Jive, 1991); Midnight Marauders (Jive, 1993); and Beats, Rhymes and Life (Jive, 1996) established hip-hop's golden era. Along with P.M. Dawn, De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Common Sense (now known as just Common), The Pharcyde and Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest created melodic and sinewy hip-hop rife with sampling experimentation and socially engaged rapping. Jazz was another touchstone in Tribe's portfolio, as the trio even employed renowned bassist Ron Carter for "Verses From the Abstract" (from The Low End Theory). Top 100 hits abounded and made Tribe underground stars.

TRIBE TALES

When Tribe disbanded in 1998 - after releasing The Love Movement (Jive) that year - most figured that the trio's de facto leader would continue his jazz ways. Instead, Q-Tip rolled out the glammy Amplified (Arista, 1999), a stylish smash that was all about capturing the hip-hop mainstream with the party sensibilities of "Vivrant Thing" and "Breathe and Stop." It seemed that Q-Tip had sold out and cashed in, but behind the scenes, he was studying piano and exploring operatic bel canto vocal technique with a private coach. Q-Tip also produced tracks for Mariah Carey, Nas and Mobb Deep. This hurried activity bore fruit in the critically hailed but commercially unreleased album Kamaal the Abstract, a record laced with jazz-funk threads and renegade sampling. Arista's decision to closet the recording stings Q-Tip to this day, and he compares the album to another acclaimed Arista act.

"I am really disappointed that Kamaal wasn't released," Q-Tip says. "LA Reid didn't know what to do with it; then, three years later, they release Outkast. What Outkast is doing now, those are the kinds of sounds that are on Kamaal the Abstract. Maybe even a little more out. Kamaal was just me, guerrilla. I did a lot of overdubs and sampling. I hope to release it my own label, Abstract Artworks."

"WOW, THAT IS WEIRD"

Open brings Q-Tip full circle, pushing the sonic edge just as Tribe-lovers knew he always would. Open matches Q-Tip's jazz jones with crunching neo-metal guitars, rhythmically jagged arrangements and live drumming that bridges the rock/hip-hop divide like a Zeppelin beat funkdafied by drummer extraordinaire Bernard Purdie. Open crosses avant jazz with funk, funk with rock and rock with hip-hop, all drenched in jazzy jam-band aesthetics. It's outside R&B for listeners in need of musical meat.

"I wanted to make people pay attention now, for better or worse, something that makes you say, 'Wow, that is weird,'" Q-Tip says. "Open is a totally new approach for me. I want to become a really good songwriter - eventually, a great songwriter. The Tribe stuff was great, and I want to rediscover that again."

From the stunning opener, "Johnny Dead" ("It's about the spirit of America being dead," Q-Tip says), to the cross-cutting melodies of "Taggin and Bombin" and "Hard" (featuring Common) to the hopscotch hook of "The Circus Is Here," Q-Tip delivers Open as his challenge to rock and hip-hop musicians alike. A slow love jam ("Request") weighs in, as does a party song or two ("Be Brave" with Outkast's Andre 3000). It all culminates in "Compute," in which a funk piano bounces against a lengthy guitar solo and tails off with the solace of a Clavia Nord Lead 2 organ sound.

To achieve maximum freshness in his productions, Q-Tip tapped into some evolutionary recording and rehearsal methods. First up, he used a band comprising bassist Derek Hodge, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, drummer Mark Cohlbenberg and keyboardist James Hurt. Q-Tip also played drums, keys and percussion. Congregating at his northern New Jersey home studio, the band jammed for hours on end, following the muse. That organic system recalls the '70s zeitgeist of rock bands living together in a secluded country house, jamming, eating and relating while the music developed as naturally as their beards.

HOLISTIC MUSICAL MEDICINE

The starting point for the recording sessions began with Q-Tip's loose demos. "I would make sketches of ideas," Q-Tip explains. "I'd flesh it out at the piano or just deal with a drum rhythm on the MPC2000, add some chord progressions and bass lines, then play it for the band, and they would tailor it. Jazz musicians, when they are open, are the most skilled and gifted players; they deal with music in a holistic way."

Originally hired as a consultant for Q-Tip's home studio, producer/engineer Blair Wells (Mobb Deep, Big Pun, X-ecutioners) came to Open as sound designer and sonic instigator, and he could often be found at the helm of the Mac and Digidesign Pro Tools setup. "We used an Apple dual 1.25GHz computer and did the entire project in OS 9 and Pro Tools HD 5.3.2," Wells says. "The musicians brainstormed and jammed for hours in Q-Tip's living room, so ideas really flowed. At the end of the jams, we would listen and pick out the gems and assemble a demo track in Pro Tools, then play it for everybody. Then, the band would recut it."

After recording a final version of said track, Wells and Q-Tip would regroup and mix it down together. Each song required a different sonic glove. "We mixed to an Ampex ATR-102 half-inch and also a 2-inch Studer," Wells says. "We printed to DAT, Masterlink and half-inch for every song. We were also demoing a Genex DSD recorder and printed songs to that, as well. We would pick which version of the song sounded best; some songs really benefited from the low end of the half-inch, and others benefited from the pristine sound of DSD or Pro Tools HD. But we mixed the whole record on an analog SSL J9000 console."

Wells increased his workload by using mic placement to determine Open's EQ. He used some Neve, API and EMI preamps, and Q-Tip's quirky house provided tons of natural reverb and standing wave challenges. "Miking was the journey," Wells recalls. "Q-Tip's house has a lot of odd ceiling heights and a haphazard layout - outrageous reverbs. We hung sound blankets to deaden surfaces. I would set up the room differently when they would record, changing it once a week for the first month or two. Eventually, I figured out the ideal placement for the drums, which is the biggest thing to worry about. The bass was largely DI'd. Most of the guitar was recorded with a close-miked 1953 Gibson amp. That amp was incredible with its original tubes and nice, dirty sound. A lot of the guitar tones just came from the natural sound of the guitar and the amp and Kurt, who is an amazing guitarist."

Open is practically a guitar dissertation. Verve recording artist Rosenwinkel has released five albums of adventurous jazz (Q-Tip co-produced his 2003 release, Heartcore), but Open finds the guitarist verging on metal soundscapes. "I wanted it to be a guitar-laden record," Q-Tip explains. "I wanted that aggression. Nobody really gets into the whole thing like Kurt does. He is an impressionist player; the colors and landscapes he creates are beautiful, and he has a lot of soul. I wanted to make the diaspora that I exist within musically as wide and spacious as possible."

"The whole thing was very much a band concept, not a session-player thing," Rosenwinkel adds. "Everybody was in on the conception of the music and the writing process. The recording was unusual in that Q-Tip is unusual in being an honest cat."

ROCKING THE HIP-HOP

In addition to its psychedelic guitars, luxuriant keyboards and Q-Tip's flowing raps, Open's clandestine grooves straddle tempos and mark a fresh fusion of style. Although Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. claim to have first joined hip-hop and rock, Q-Tip's amalgam of live drums and Pro Tools machinations sets Open apart, especially in a beats-by-the-book world. The grooves are spacious, soulful and occasionally skull-cracking.

"Hip-hop is about the sound of the drums and the way they permeate the track," Q-Tip says. "The drums are the personality of the song. I wanted to keep that sound intact but really have a drummer put his own feel to it. You can do a damn good job programming, but nothing feels better than a cat with some vibe and personality sitting down and playing it.



"I captured a lot of different drum sounds and dumped them into the ddrum4 SE system. The latency is really good on that, so you get a lot of great ghosting of notes and the effects of an acoustic set. My cat, Mark Cohlenberg, would be playing these sounds from my collection of records, and it sounds like a hip-hop program, but it is actually him playing. And I would mix it with the acoustic sets. We might use a kick from the [Ludwig] Vistalite set and a snare from a Zeppelin record. And we would mic the drummer's live set to get the room sound."

With two drummers, two analog tape machines, Pro Tools, the ddrum system and Q-Tip's large record collection, the idea was anything goes - but within the confines of a rock and hip-hop framework. "We used certain tricks in Pro Tools," Wells says. "We would sample the drums at a lower bit rate, then resample the sounds back into Pro Tools so that we could dump them into the ddrums. Sometimes, we would use certain sonic-degradation plug-ins like LoFi to add noise and crunch. The LoFi plug-in has a bit-depth selector that lets you change the 24-bit rate down to 12-, 6- or 8-bit. So you can add that crunch and grunge that you would get from old-school samplers."

If it sounds like everyone had his finger in the pie, that would be right. But as with Tribe Called Quest, Q-Tip's gentle subliminal mental messages (just ask Lottie and Mei Mei) led the proceedings. "It was a group process, but Q-Tip was guiding every element," Wells confirms. "He understands music on so many different levels. And he has that gift for finding those simple catchy little pieces. With Tribe, he would take jazz records and grab that one gem of a moment that would capture its essence and make it into a beautiful record. That is why this record turned out so well, because throughout the jamming process, Q-Tip always knew where the gem lived within the jam, and he would build it into something that was the essence of the entire six-hour process."

TRIBE NO MORE

With the Tribe reunion stalled again ("Jive Records business problems," Q-Tip says), Q-Tip is planning his re-entry into the concert stage while also considering a role in Spike Lee's upcoming She Hate Me and producing singer Antonique Smith. Multiple projects aside, Q-Tip has little or no regard for what is considered the musical mainstream. He remains open.

"I don't see myself moving away from the mainstream; I see myself changing it," Q-Tip says with a laugh. "That is very idealistic of me. But repetition is the key. If you have total belief in your music and stay with it, people will eventually understand what you are trying to do. You just don't stop. If you are trying to say something, then people will see that you are serious. It will always be a work in progress, so don't ever shy away from being public about your work. Just continue. Picasso, as accomplished as he was, and I am not comparing myself to him, he was still going through different phases, and he would let them be seen. He got lost in the work. I just want to paint in that sense: get lost in the color and paint and paint and paint."



COPYRIGHT 2004 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved. in association with The Gale Group and LookSmart.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Great article, paligap. Good lookin' out!

okaypimpn said:

No Problem!

definitly----thanks
Pali!!!

Right cool article. thank you

That sucks that the Tribe reunion ain't happening. Record company people are shaaaady.

kaamal aint coming out.wtf?????