BK-One

BRM has done it again. We've hunted down, captured and documented the most innovative and exciting artists to recently emerge on a number of different scenes. All month long we’ll be running q&as with our discoveries to help get you ready for what’s to come in 2010. But to get a complete look at our full list of emerging artists, check out our current winter issue.

While tuning his own ear to music from around the world, the rewards of BK-One’s incessant record hounding should be appreciated by all.

Receptive to any sound that demonstrates the potential to groove, BK takes a unique approach to his musical arrangements. Although not entirely from scratch, the DJ carefully blends the cultures of South East Asia, Spain and on his latest album, Radio Do Cannibal, Brazil into far reaching hip-hop.

Not having to look very far for lyrical talent, Ryhmesayers accommodates BK with guest appearances, but while this adds some entertainment, it’s cohesion that is the album’s most notable quality.

Throughout Radio Do Cannibal, BK-One utilizes well-placed interludes, that not only complement each track, but also lend the listener some insight to the album’s origins. After speaking with the DJ during his 50 city in 40 day tour opening for Brother Ali, the album’s sophisticated construction makes sense.

BRM: I checked out your latest song, “Here I Am.” Can you elaborate on that project?

BK-One: Well this song comes from an album…called Radio Do Cannibal. The idea behind it is [that] it’s a predominately hip-hop album. It’s a producer’s album, where all the music is inspired by and surrounds Brazilian records that I’ve bought on a trip to Brazil a couple years ago. All the music is made by me and my co-producer Benzilla.

Then I recruited some of my friends and also some of the people who I respect the most in hip-hop and music in general right now and assembled an album out of it all. So you see people on it…that I’ve worked closely with for years and years…like Slug from Atmosphere, Brother Ali, the Grouch, Murs, Blueprint, these kind of people. But then you also see the people who I really look up to and have inspired [me] so much…like Scarface from the Ghetto Boys, Raekwon from Wu-Tang Clan , Black Thought from The Roots…[T]here’s a couple guests that are sort of curve balls to make it a little bit more than just a hip-hop album. There’s a song I did with a 9-piece brass band. There’s a song I did with a really talented vocalist from Minneapolis.

Do you often find that travel influences your music?

Yeah, it’s funny, [I toured] with Brother Ali, Toki Wright and Evidence who I think primarily is thought of as an emcee but he’s also a really well respected and talented producer and on this tour he and I, like on a daily basis, [went] on record hunting missions together and we were just comparing our style of record collecting and he was saying that he … [was] noticing that he really collects records the way the producer does and I collect records the way that a DJ does. In other words, where he’s looking for sounds or just little things that he can chop more than anything, what I look for is music that I love that I wouldn’t want to listen to, you know what I mean? So I do a lot of traveling. I’m gone some years as much as 200 days on the road DJing, but then when I get home, my wife and I travel out of the country and try to see the world and like any DJ or any record hound as soon as I hit the ground I want to know what records they got there. So like I said, this album here is all based off of the music I collected in Brazil, but I mean I’ve also got collections that maybe will show up on a future album. They come from the travels that I’ve done through South East Asia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, you know.

Sounds like you’re really worldwide?

Yeah you got to. Nobody is going to be knocking down your door to try and check you out. You got to…beat on their door. I’m a traveling salesman.

At the same time you’re a salesman, it sounds like you’re a connoisseur?

You know I don’t know if I would consider myself a connoisseur maybe someday that’s kind of like the eventual goal, but you know for instance with this Brazilian project part of the fun of it is that…there’s areas of music that I do feel somewhat knowledgeable about. When I go shopping in the U.S. if I come across a record that I’ve never seen before or know nothing about there’s still clues that I can use to try and figure out, is this going to be worth picking up? I can look at what label it came out of. I can look at who produced it. I can look at who the session musicians are. I can look at what year it came out and because of my knowledge of the rest of the music from the U.S. , a lot of the time I can be like, “Okay, I don’t know anything about this, but I can make a pretty educated guess that this is going be dope.”

Part of the fun of record shopping in Brazil was that I didn’t have any of that. I’m pretty far from being a connoisseur of Brazilian [music]. Since making this project…I’ve educated myself a lot and I’ve learned a lot more about Brazilian music and the culture, but part of the fun of shopping there was for the first time being completely in the dark and working in the dark. What am I looking for? What are the pockets of the music that are the dopest to me? Really exploring something brand new, just uncharted territory.

Is that something you think about when you consider the listener, ways to broaden his or her horizon?

I don’t know … this album…has…something very familiar about it. It’s not like a crazy left field album. You heard the song “Here I Am,” that’s a pretty traditional sounding hip-hop song. I think the way Benzilla and I approached the beats was [in] a very traditional hip-hop way. What makes it uncommon and the thread that goes through it all is…that we were working from this Brazilian sound and so there’s something a little different about the way the records inspired this. There’s something a bit different about the way they move, there’s something a little different about the percussion, there’s a little something different about the way that the different instruments play off of each other. So I think some of that will come through in that, but like I said…we took a very traditional approach and the artists we put on it, for the most part, are pretty traditional people. They’re very boom bappy hip-hop people. But the music that I love the most from Brazil with Benzilla at the beginning of this project when I sat down with him, this is…the ones…where they’re cherry picking elements of like 100 different genres and they’re not stealing outright from any of them. They’re taking rhythmic elements from Africa, they’re taking some of the sound production from like psychedelic rock, they’re taking the back beats from like American folk music and they’re taking stuff that’s traditional to Brazil and making something that never existed before and to me that’s kind of like similar to the job of a DJ or a producer.

That sounds very similar to what you’ve been saying you do, coming up with a cohesive arrangement and all.

Yeah, to me that’s what makes being a DJ exciting. Just taking a crate full of records that on paper shouldn’t have anything to do with each other and then putting them all in a context together that makes a room full of people all dance together and hear…as a cohesive thing that has movement and that makes sense together. That’s the beauty of being a DJ and so I heard that same thread going through this Brazilian music and just the funkiness off it is something I definitely wanted to work with.

Do you consider the same approach when you want to work with the artist lyrically or is it a different kind of process? How do you team up with Rhymesayers on the album?

Like what is my role with how people approach things lyrically? I have no skills in that department, you don’t want to hear me try to rap and so it felt the smartest to me because I do have a good ear. I know dope shit when I hear it, I just can’t write. So I felt like I needed to stay out of people’s way and let them do them. So the smartest thing I could do was make smart decisions before they ever heard the track and do a really good job when thinking, “Okay, what artists are going to sound good together? And over what beat?” And then really stay out of the way and not be like, “Okay, this is going to be a song about this.” I did do some stuff in the studio where I said, “You know, I like the direction you’re going, but I feel like this could be better here and here.” Or, “Can you push this a little harder?” But really I felt like most of the work when working with the vocalists came before they wrote. It’s basically setting them up to succeed and just being smart enough to get out of their way and let them do what they do.

I think you can hear that in the album because the artists that I pick come from a really wide background…even geographically. You got the Rhymesayers from the Midwest from the South you got like Phonte from Little Brother and Scarface from the East you got like Black Thought and Raekwon from the West you got the Grouch and Murs, Aceyalone, Abstract Roots…even the part in hip-hop that each of these people are coming from, I felt like the best thing I could do was set them up…they do [their] best and put it in a context that’s cohesive and then let them shine.

I was listening to some of your other hits earlier. “Officer Down” is really good.

Ali is on my album, I Self Divine is also on my album. It’s funny to me like I Self Divine…to most people who will buy this album, he is probably the least recognized name on the album. He’s on two different songs and I would argue that the twelve songs he’s on might possibly be two of the best songs on the album and that he might come off stronger on the album.

Like he’s on a song with Raekwon, who just dropped what people are calling a modern classic, has been known for all these years for being in the legendary Wu Tang and I Self, who I think a lot of people aren’t familiar with, comes off really strong on a track with him. And that’s really exciting to me like some of my friends that I’ve been working with for years and years, you know Ali is on a song with Scarface. Scarrface to me is like one of the top ten emcees of all time, period. Like I don’t even want to hear an argument against that and Ali comes from such a different background in hip hop and life story, the two of them sound natural on a track together and…like it makes sense, it sounds good, and that sounds so fresh to me.

Who have you been listening to during the tour or in general?

I don’t know if you’re familiar, it isn’t hip-hop, although it comes from the same place and whatever but the group. One of the groups I worked with on this album, possibly my favorite song, is called the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. It’s like a collaboration I did with them and man, I’ve loved listening to them lately; they have been around about seven or eight years.

They don’t have proper distribution for themselves. It’s a 9-piece brass band and they play in the subway for tips and try to sell CDs. It’s eight brothers who all play horns and a funky ass drummer and they’re just nasty. So I’ve been listening to them a lot lately.

That new Raekwon, I like a lot. People shit on it, but I like the new Jay-Z album. Obviously, Brother Ali, Us. There’s some stuff that’s coming out on Rhymesayers, I Self Divine has an album called The Sounds of Lower Class America. It’s like one of my favorites of next year and…Evidence is recording a new solo album called Cats And Dogs and everything I’ve heard off that is the shit.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Well, one thing I do want to mention, obviously and I want to make sure the credit is given where credit is due. Like I said the music that’s on it, most of the songs are co-produced by me and this dude from Minneapolis named Benzilla … [I]n terms of who did what, [it’s] like he did all the programming and I did all the arrangements and sequencing and I did all the executive like bring in the live music and the guests and oversaw the whole thing. But Benzilla played a really crucial role in forming the sound of this album, so it’s important to me that he gets recognized for the contributions he made.

Aside from that, I feel like I’ve talked your ear off. I don’t know what else to say. I’m really excited about the album, I feel so excited about it. I’ve put out mixes for the last ten years, but this is like the first thing that’s my music. It didn’t exist until I created it and that’s really special to me. And…I’m gonna get the vinyl and as a DJ, I can’t even comprehend that I’m going to be holding a vinyl record with my name on it.

It’s like your child. Your first born.

That’s how it feels.

Words and Photos by Naqeeb Stevens

http://www.myspace.com/balmoral