k-os Bandwith. // Blog

initially when i was first approached to do this contest i agreed to it pretty quickly.  in retrospect i think my gung ho-ness came out of insecurity. you know..like when you don't want someone to see how you might really feel about a certain sitch. Instead of showing vulnerablity in the moment a person might pretend to be  unaffected, laugh matters off, or just react in a overly dramtic joyful way.   Point is, it took a while for me to understand what was really going on here! To overstand that there are amazing musicians all over the world in basements and studio shrines alike!. Which i think most people with record deals know but to stay true to a quote from A-plus of Souls of Mischeif "if you really dope why ain't you signed yet'? i think that line stuck with me over the years.  i must confess then that  i too have bought into the idea that only certain people matter musically- commercially?.  To some extent the cream will rise to the top. Nature is not exactly fair, and some people get dished out gifts in lvery heavy arge amounts.

i guess what i am trying to say from an ego perspective is. I am happy i did this. Mostly to observe the battle that occured inside me, which obviously came from seeing 'the music' as 'my music'.  Don't get me wrong, I do believe i am the channeler of these songs and ideas. However, for now- i see music as a LANGUAGE. A vocabulary that  people can take apart and re-asemble them to form sentances of their own, which is exactly what is happening here! HEY! Imaginr the dude who first created the Alphabet? I doubt it was one dude..  ha ha.. but you understand where i am going with this ....right? i am sure there was a very specific purpose for the learly exicon but i highly doubt they could have prophesied the metaphore..  and it the letters being put together like this;

"you fold like Japan fu tons of fan while i design a plan

to make a rapper step like a pedes trian'

- Black THought

So yeah..  this has been a life changing experienc and i thank everyone for expressing themselve

did peoplesteal my voice, sounds and spirit to concoct music of their own?
maybe?

but...

'Good artist plagiarize

Great artists steal'

khv.

what is a hit? does anyone really know

 is it a formula? i think maybe it is..

i write music all the time that comes from all places.  Strange arrangements and chords i will never know how to play again!

 i wonder if a hit song is a language? 

If originality can be  defined as speaking in one's own language

 is making a hit is it a selfless thing or a totally selfish thing?

that is----> making  a deliberate effort to speak in a language that everyone understands or has been programmed to understand

do you think that is an un-artistic endeavour?

sometimes when i am in my lab-----> and i listen to old recordings that i have never released

things sound so innocent and intelligent when there is no intent

then again

i have had songs on the radio as well..

 and when i listen to those songs i can hear the craftmanship and the understanding of a collective conscious dialect which at first glance may seem impersonal in its swagger

but upon indepth listening comes across  as SO specific mainly  because it is so general in its nature!

 like the rays of the sun

shining on every-one  in the world!

khvtron..

When i was 18 i spent a countless amount of time chopping beats in my room in the basement. Sometimes my father would enter unannounced, and even though i had headphones on i could feel his presence towering behind me. He would tap me on the shoulder and ask me "Boy what are you really doing with my records?' to which i would reply 'you know...Just making beats Dad... sampling.' Of course he would laugh, start shaking his head and say..  'Sampling--->is Stealing? if you change a couple letters around in those 2 words it means the same thing to me!' Needless to say my father was and still remains to be a very funny man. No matter how scathing his comment was back then over the years i started to wonder if the guy had a point?  Artists like Diamond D, Premier and Tribe called Quest just to name few had such a unique way of converting a bassline, vocal, or even just a horn loop into a HIP HOP form. However, with the music world making it more difficult and expensive to sample and the record company musicologist standing in the wings ready and eager to blow the whistle on artists it seemed tht sampling was becoming a bit of lost art.  I was in Mexico when i saw the video for Through the Wire by Kanye West and i got excited not only because the song had a personal message, but because there was that HUGE Chaka Kahn sample in the chorus.  Until then i felt like most of the music i was hearing sounded barrnen and anorexic to me. There was no low end theory 'frequencies'  no off beat maddness or busted loops. Just stock sounds MPC's and plastic club hits. I just dealt with the whole mess by having live players around to inspire me .. this no doubt was a result of taking a que from the Roots Crew.

and so..

When i started to record this record i wantied to sample a song by Frida from the Swedish group Abba - a songcalled 'I Know that Something's Going On' from a solo record she had recorded in 1982.  The version we came up with  'Eye Know Something'  is prolly the most illustrated 'dance' track on this record and it really threw me for a loop when we were denied sample clearance about 2 weeks ago.  Still I continued to push hard and kept digging- only to find out that people have been trying to sample Frida for the last 5 years and that every single one of those attempts were denied. Even crazier was the story that Madonna had all four members of ABBA 'sign off' and allow her to sample one of their tunes for her song "Hung Up.  Clearly we were at a dead end and so we went back to the lab  to see what we could manage.

At this point,i am excited to say that current end result i think is even stronger than our original attempt!
Trying to capture the same energy and electricity with a background vocal-->  of a  sample of a song was tricKy frustrating and challenging no doubt. However, that is actually besides the point and not the reason i subjected you all to this story.  I once asked producer Daniel Lanois if he ever sampled music. He told me that once for a Bob Dylan session he looped up an old blues record and had the band play along to it. When he removed  the loop/sample the vibe that remained with the band was what he described as  solid and inspiring. After our whole sampling  fiasco I really  started to have a feeling that sampling can bring an artist closer to their heroes and in a weird hologram-like way put them in the room with that greatness! The lesson for us last week was that we could make our song just as amazing as Frida's original recording but in the end we just needed her 'help' ha  ha ..

I think for my next  record i am going to sample Everyone from the Beatles.. to Hendrix  to  like ... N' Sync

and then i am going get a live band to play along to their music...  remove the loop- and see what magical results occur!
and i  then
i think i will call that album------>  'Steel sharpens Steal.'

k.

what is garage band ... with no garage? what is supply and demand?  who corners the market? who markets the corner?

what is stem cell research? how can reality be virtual?  why do i spell my name like that? am i special?

are you special? what is special? does god exist? does anyone care?  what is your name?

how do i work this? how can i not? will this be excellent? is the future a modified past or the unknown?

could i have just said hello and welcome to indaba?  was there any question?

obviously

Yes!

thanks for coming

khvtron.