Rahzel interview
Door: Karst Jaarsma
Fotografie: Joris Kalma 13-05-2010
Rahzel M. Brown is een bijzondere muzikant, die naast zijn lidmaatschap bij The Roots veel bekendheid vergaarde met de hit ‘If your mother only knew’. In het nummer is duidelijk de grootste kunst van de beat boxer te horen; het tegelijk “spelen” van de beat en het zingen van het refrein. Dit heeft hem de bijnaam ‘Godfather of Noyze’ opgeleverd. Na afloop van zijn show op 6 mei in de Melkweg kregen we de gelegenheid om Rahzel kort wat vragen te stellen.
You are the First beat boxer who had a huge success as a beat boxer, how did you do that?
Honestly, I do not have a clue how I did that. I basically just did what I did. There was no intention to achieve world domination when I started. I just wanted to be in front of the people as many times as possible and that started a chain reaction. At the end of that ride I was known to lots of people.
How did you find out about your beat box skills?
I was born in a musically family, so we listened to music periodly. Music has always been a huge part of my daily life, hiphop was just another thing where I was having a good time. We were setting up our equipment in the park, started playing records and everyone was having a great time. I was influenced by that culture, I wanted to be part of that.
During that time everyone wanted to be a MC. I was trying to be a bit different. It is real hard to get on the mic if everyone wants to be on the mic, so I had to find a way to do my thing and my ability to imitate beats was the way to get on the microphone. From that point I found out that beat boxing was my thing.
And you then discovered your talent of doing the chorus and beat at the same time.
That came later, in the beginning I just tried to recreate whatever I heard. When I was explaining how the beat boxing is working to someone, I kind of accidently discovered my ability to do the chorus and beat at the same time. If you listen good to ‘If your mother only knew’ , you can hear that I am explaining the way beat boxing works.
What advice can you give to readers wanting to do the beat and chorus simultaneously as well?
Honestly, people can try to do that at home. But I suggest that they find something different. You should try to create something of your own, something no one else is doing. In the school I come from, with Biz Markie, Doug E Fresh, Fat Boys and a whole bunch of other beat boxers, it always was a huge taboo to imitate other beat boxers.
Let’s take Doug E Fresh for example (Rahzel imitating the typical Doug E Fresh style). I can do that when I am practicing at home. But on the microphone? No way I can do that. If you practice that one it is just to challenge yourself. You want to know if you are able to do that one. But if you do that one on stage, people are going to dislike you. You might sound like Doug E Fresh, but you are not Doug E Fresh!
It happens a lot more that people imitate each other nowadays, but I still believe that you cannot do that. It is okay if you do ‘If your mother only knew’ for me , but please do it when you are kicking around with friends. It is no good that when you are on the road and people are paying to see you that you are still imitating other people.
You are talking a lot about beat boxers from the 90s, are there any modern beat boxers who own a original style?
I like Faith SFX, he used to come to all my shows when he was a little kid and he just watched, watched and watched. He build his career from that point and when I heard him with that Timbaland/Genuine pony I knew that he was really into it. His beat boxing is very good and he has a good singing voice as well.
Eklips, from Le Remède, is another beat boxer I like. I like Sly the Mic Buddha, from the Saïan Supa Crew, as well. I like Afra, he is from Japan, Stischa, I remember him from when he was 13, and there is a whole bunch of other dudes that are great. I like the guys searching for their own little niche in the scene. People searching for their own style, so that other people are going to recreate them.
Take Eklips for example, he uses a little loop station. I generally do not like these machines, but he is good with that and I listen a lot to him. He gets credits for manipulating the loop machine in a good way. I like people who put on a good show, dudes like Joel Turner just do the same thing over and over again. That is not interesting to see, you should entertain the crowd.
I am not on internet to put down every few seconds something about me. I am coming to you, you can touch me! I respect the guys who come around and push the envelope. You can film something from your back garden or from your car and 500.000 people will see you on internet. But have you actually touched 500.000 people?
I respect the internet as a tool to promote yourself, but as an artist you need to go beyond that. You need to step out of that little box, Joel Turner should come to the US! Go to America, go to Australia, go to Korea, just go to all these places.
Do you do anything in particular to help young beat boxers starting their career?
I know Faith, Afro and Eklips personally from the days they were a little kid. I am a fan of them first, a lot of people may see the way I talk a little bit arrogant. But I am a fan first, everything that is hot is also hot to me. You will get my respect if you put your work into it.
Can you do anything to increase the popularity of beat boxing?
No, beat boxing is popular enough. You do not want to overkill it. You do not want to hear beat boxers every time you turn around. If that happens you would get tired of beat boxing real soon. The point where it is at right now is good for me. You have got a couple of dudes doing commercials, dudes just doing vocals, it is what it is and it is going well right now.
Right now you have different dudes from different countries doing different things and that is a perfect equilibrium to me. I hear beat boxing everywhere, it is in cartoons, commercials and on ringtones. It is like commercial music, when you hear too much of it it becomes garbage. You do not eat the same food every day! Dudes are actually making money off it, so everything is cool to me the point it is at right now.
Back in 2007 you said that hiphop was growing, do you still see it growing?
You still got dudes pushing hiphop. You have Slaughterhouse, there are lots of real MCs like Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz and Royce Da 5’9” who are still on the grind. They are doing what they love and not taking no for an answer.
What can we expect from you in the future?
I am working on an album right now. I have got features with Sean Paul, Notch, KRS One, Ras Kass, Freddy Five, Sean Price, I have got a whole bunch of cats on that one. This album is hiphop, hiphop and more hiphop. The album goes back to the roots of the hiphop as I know it. Before I die I want to have an album that is dedicated to the boombap and that is going to be this one.
In the past you have worked with artists like Björk, Mike Patton and Ben Harper, do you have any border crossing projects in the pipeline?
At the moment not, I am now going back to where everything started. I do have done some cross border projects, I did Ben Harper, I did Toots and The Maytals, Björk, Mike Patton and others. I have done it all already.
There is nothing left you would love to do?
I would love to do a jazz joint. I want to keep pushing the envelope, doing stuff that has never been done before. I would love to work with artists like Joshua Redman and do a jazz joint.
When you look back at your career right now, are you convinced with the way it has evolved?
You always want to have it better. But I cannot complain, we live in a world where people only care about things you have done recently. But on the other hand I would have never thought, when I started, that I would do all those amazing things I have done. If I look at my whole career collectively it sure is a big deal. But you are dealing with a world that only cares about what you are doing right now.
And right now you do not get the respect you deserve?
I am not saying that it is a respect thing, but people do not care about the things you did. Right now it is cool to have Lil’Wayne or Baby on your joint. There is also the problem that you have got to know certain artists, you guys in Europe know Ben Harper and Björk. Those are familiar names to you, while in America people do not know things that are not in the same genre. If you are a hiphop dude in America, there is no chance that you know Ben Harper.
I am a hiphop dude from New York that crossed genres, but they do not know about that. Honestly, lots of people in America are just now getting upon The Roots! They exist twenty years and they are only getting real popular recently.
It is a weird thing, some people know you and some do not. That is what I was talking about with people only caring what you are doing right now. If you are not working with Jay-Z, you are not interesting. Europeans do more research about music and better understand these things, it is different here.
