About a week ago Phill Most The Soulman, the man behind World Of Beats and ThatRealSchitt, upped a new mix of breaks, psych, funk, and all sorts of other madness (head to the jump to download the mix itself). To a lot of us, it was a welcome return by one of the originators of the “break tape”, one of the first guys to write about digging culture online, one of the inspirations for us to do what we do.

Rather than simply linking to Phill’s site and offering a few choice compliments of the (deep, mindblowing) mix, I thought I’d hit the man up for a quick interview to chop it up on the history of the WOB column and website, his thoughts on the game, past present and future, and the life of a man many consider a legend. Thankfully, he was all too willing to oblige.

Jonny Paycheck: So basically, I want to throw it back to the World Of Beats, which this mix really brought me back to, even though it’s on, kind of, another level than what cats were checking for back then. So WOB stretched from I guess around 93-94 when you had the magazine column to 2001 or so on the WOB site. Is that about right? Can you describe the course of the column/site/blog briefly, and why you decided to end it?

Soulman: Actually the original World Of Beats column that was in Rap Sheet ran from 1994 to 1995, a little more than a year. And the internet version of the WOB started in 1999 and I kept that going for almost three years. The whole idea behind the column was just to show a side of the Hip Hop world that rarely got any coverage in the magazines or tv shows that specialized in Hip Hop, and it’s a very important part of the artform that deserved some attention. I don’t think the editors at Rap Sheet really understood what it was all about or the significance, but to their credit they let me go ahead with it anyway. Actually I first introduced the idea for an article I did on Pete Rock; after that they asked me to do a monthly column on crate digging. It quickly became the most popular regular column in the magazine; I know I got a lot of letters sent directly to my address and from what I understand Rap Sheet got a lot sent to their offices, too. One of the things I wanted to do was to interview not just famous Hip Hop producers, but also deejays, record dealers and also collectors who may not have been household names but knew their stuff when it comes to beats and old records. A lot of times the producers don’t really know as much about records as you might think they do…

Hit the jump to read the rest of the interview

(cont.)

Anyway, I got tired of the pressure to meet Rap Sheet deadlines, especially since by the end of my run they weren’t even paying me. I was getting the old “check is in the mail” run around, so enough was enough. Years later, when I discovered this brave new world called The Internet, I was very surprised to see someone asking “whatever happened to that dude Soulman” on a message board during one of my very first times ever surfing the ‘net. So that gave me a little incentive to reestablish myself, and with help first from my guy Mohero and then not long after from my guy Mhat Bernstein we got all the old Rap Sheet articles up online. Which lead to me doing new World Of Beats articles, too.  Those ended due to just being too tired from taking care of my then-infant children and also from being bored with it. How many times can you ask people how many records they have and all the other typical crate digging questions? It was time to move on.

JP: It seemed like around that same time as the old site went dormant, the concept of digging for beats as it pertained to rap music kind of got forced into the background while technology and tastes changed in the rap scene… were you reacting to that at all at that time? Did you see changes around the world of digging, DJing, and beatmaking – dudes getting out of the game, selling their records, trading in SP1200s for Tritons and foresaking all that was holy??

SM: That may have had something to do with the WOB site activity screeching to a halt, but I don’t think so. This is the internet, even to this day there are thousands of people worldwide who are into beat digging and sampling and all that supposedly outdated stuff. I was just tired of writing about crate digging, I’d accomplished what I set out to do. My last online column was in January 2002, which was right after my son was born. So that was it- time to leave the WOB alone and put that energy into raising my kids.

JP: These days, there’s a resurgence of sampling in hip-hop production, although a lot of these guys are sampling off of blogs, CDs, anything, even ebay soundclips. How do you feel about that? Does it matter where you’re getting your beats from? Does it affect the creative process?

SM: It doesn’t matter to me one bit where you get your samples from. I get stuff off of the internet all the time. I just put together a song from a sample I got off of this dude’s Ebay auction! I guess some people will say that’s not following the rules, but to me that’s VERY Hip Hop. See it, take it, use it. That’s that real schitt right there!

As an early online presence when it came to digging and record collecting, how do you feel about where it’s all at now? Proud Papa or I’ve Created A Monster?

SM: It’s a different world. The internet has changed everything. It’s destroyed a lot of things along the way, but once the technology is there people just have to reevaluate all of their old ideas about how things are supposed to be done. I say it all the time, the internet is great but awful at the same time. I’m not going to get into any of my face melting nut job conspiracy theories about the internets (and I have some, believe me), but to answer your question about digging and record collecting on the ‘net, I have a kinda it-is-what-it-is feeling about it all. As much as I do understand the importance of actually getting out there to record shows and record shops, I have discovered TONS of music from downloading online that I never would have known about otherwise. So I guess you just take the bad with the good. Ultimately I think the good outweighs the bad… from my perspective, at least.

JP: Rich Haupt of Rockadelic Records, label owner and record dealer, has said that hip-hop DJs, diggers, and producers saved record stores from extinction. At the same time, many older dealers and record store cats who are not from a hip-hop background have picked up a lot of game from the beat diggers; sometimes it can seem like these cats are just profiteering off the little guy (an On The Go cartoon comes to mind, heh heh). Given the secretive nature of the beat game, is that violatin’ straight up and down or is it just the way it goes?

SM: I‘m glad Rich acknowledged that, because I definitely think that’s true. I remember we had an after-show meeting one time in the last days of the NYC Soul / Disco (formerly the Roosevelt Hotel) record conventions back in the late 90’s, and the organizers were trying to figure out why attendance was slipping and dealers weren’t making much money. I tried to explain the importance of all the dudes who had been coming to the shows earlier in the 90’s looking for samples, and they kinda poo-poohed my comments, saying that those people only made up a small portion of the customers. They had no idea what was going on. Yet I was one of the few dudes who was making good money because I knew that at the time dudes were not looking for funk and disco, they were looking for strings and all this easy listening stuff. These other dealers were crying but I was doing just fine.

As for old timer record dealers straight biting eBay item descriptions or advertising records as having drumbreaks, loops etc. when those particular records had nothing even REMOTELY resembling decent breaks or sample material, what can you say? Caveat emptor. That’s some straight lolololollll schitt right there. I’m honestly not even interested in if it’s violatin’ or not- I don’t care.

JP: Everywhere I go in the states, there seems to be fewer and fewer places to really *dig*.  Something you said in a column once, was that if a store has Stark Reality for $2, you’re never gonna stand a chance to find it before someone snatches it up; whereas, if it’s on the wall for $200, you at least stand a chance to get it (these days, Stark for $200 is a steal!). Do you think the increased knowledge of prices, access to info, online dealing has affected things negatively, or is it overall a good thing?

SM: To be 100% honest with you I don’t know because I’m really not into any of that anymore. I know I said I’d “neva stop diggin’”, but once the non-boutique record stores dried up and I kept seeing the same damn records at the record shows I just stopped going. I just download shit online these days. So I guess my real answer is yeah, it affected things very negatively for me since it probably caused me to stop even going out in the field for casual digging anymore.

JP; It seemed like back when you were first doing the column, the “world of beats” so to speak was a fairly tight community – people knew each other, or knew *of* each other and it was relatively confined to DJs and hip-hop producers (at least, as far as collecting beats and rare groove stuff). A lot of those records are now widely sought after from people in all walks of life. Do you see that as a good or bad thing? Is it just the spread of hip-hop culture, or just another situation of outsiders carpetbagging?

SM: Well, it’s a free world- people can do what they want to do. If a non dj / producer wants a certain record they have a right to it just like mister MPC man does. I remember dudes would get salty when Prince B would buy up a lot of the craziest shit at those record conventions, saying “what’s HE gonna do with that?” Maybe he’s gonna serve snacks on that bitch, I have no idea… he can do whatever the hell he wants to do with it. He wanted it, he bought it- case closed. Same thing for these everyday guys who collect the same records that producers want, but just because they like the music, not to sample from them or dj with them. Again, none of this stuff matters to me anymore. I have so much music on my hard drive I don’t even want my vinyl anymore. After I sell all the grails I’m gonna call you up to haul all the rest of this stuff up to Good Records (for a very nice price, of course)!

JP: Are you still tight with a lot of the guys from the WOB days (producers, DJs, kung fu movie enthusiasts, etc)?

SM: I’m not, but it’s not because there’s any love lost. I just spend so much time with my kids and family and doing my own thing that I just don’t stay in touch with people like I should. That’s something I gotta do better with, and I am working on that. I’m just terrible with phones, it’s almost like a phobia- I just don’t call people very much. I WILL do better with that, though.

JP: Are you still making beats? Any news on the Old Man Rap Album you’ve been working on?

SM: I am not making beats anymore. Well, at least not like I used to. I got real sick of the MPC 2000, to me the sound is like thin plastic compared to my old S950. So now I have another way of constructing tracks, basically looping stuff manually right off of records then adding other sounds into the mix. As for the old man rap album, right now you are interviewing Soulman, so you’d have to interview Phill Most Chill to get the full scoop on that. I hear he is working on a lot of stuff though- I think an album is in the works featuring all of his unreleased 1988-1990 era stuff, plus he might be working with various other producers doing some fast rap-style stuff. I may have heard that his man Rob X, a.k.a. Scratchmaster Rob, is recording tracks with him that are gonna become like the rawest Hip Hop album ever.

JP: OK, Last question: Barack Obama said a while back that he has some records at home in Chicago. What do you think is in his collection? Is he holding that heat??

SM: A lot of EWF and Rick James, maybe a little Chicago and probably some Hall and Oates too. Some Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5 singles might be in there as well. Maybe some Malcolm X or MLK recordings too.

JP: No wild Chicago private spiritual jazz? I don’t know if the right wing could handle that! Well that’s all for me. Thanks for keeping it funky, Phill!

Check out Soulman’s blog, www.thatrealschitt.com.

Download the mix HERE!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Beats, Classic NYC, Deep Thoughts, Good Music, Mixes, Rare Groove Mixtapes, Teh Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.