Justin “Kutmah” McNulty was born in the UK to an Egyptian mother and Scottish father. He moved to the US with his mother when he was 12 years old (Last.fm, 2010).
Ras G guides a deep space exploration of music’s ancient history and rich future. Working thru obsolete tools to reach back in time and pluck out the essence of groove, Ras G's music is rich with space-funktified rhythms, fog horns, natty chattin, subterranean bass lines, colossal percussion and glorious highs.
Ras G has been a fixture on the underground hiphop scene in Los Angeles since the early 90s. He is a proud South Central LA resident. Ras along with Black Monk and Ron Stivers are the founders of the Poo-Bah Label.
This is the music that people will be playing in the ghettos of Mars in the year 3014 (Poo-Bah).
Feature:
Ras G: Into The Outer Reaches
An L.A. jazzhead launches FlyLo’s Brainfeeder imprint into the outer reaches.
Somewhere at the interstellar crossroads of Sun Ra, DJ Spooky, Strata East, and Lee “Scratch” Perry lies the incomparable musical mind of L.A. native Ras G (né Gregory Shorter, Jr.). Though he often affixes the group moniker “The Alkebulan (or Afrikan) Space Program” to his name, Ras G (a composite of his first initial and a testament to his belief in Rastafari) is the sole captain and crew of this spacecraft. Along with a 21st-century moxie, his collective influences make up what he describes as ghetto sci-fi—an extraterrestrial soundwave transmission of dub, white noise, glitch, off-kilter boom-bap, and sound bites. Incorporating healing tones (specific sound frequencies that are purported to have profound effects on the spirit and body), modal jazz, and ancestral inspiration, Ras G has managed to concoct a sonic brew that defies conventional musical categorization. “As opposed to riding trends and waves, I try to bring forth the music that I really feel,” he explains. “It’s my offering to the world.”
Tracing his fascination with the art of beat-making back to a relative who owned an E-mu SP-1200 drum machine/sampler, Ras G began gravitating towards other area hip-hop hopefuls for inspiration in the late 1990s. Most times, his passion was unrequited. “A lot of them weren’t into the music and the gear as tough as I wanted to be,” he remembers. “Or they were producing music on quality gear and the music wasn’t sounding as good as I thought it could sound. I felt like I could do something better with that stuff.” And with his influences in tow, his present-day cosmic creations can be interpreted as drum & bass being sucked into a black hole (“In Coming”) or celestial binary code (“Desert Fairy”).
In 2005, underground L.A. music scene impresario/producer Carlos Niño helped to launch Ras G’s career as a producer by tapping one of his productions for legendary jazz vocalist Dwight Trible’s acclaimed experimental album Love is the Answer. “That was like the lift off,” Shorter recalls. “But it was all kind of weird to me, because that was like one of the fifth or sixth beats that I’d ever made.” Remarkably, Ras G had only just purchased his first beat machine, an MPC-2000XL, the year before. Capitalizing on the buzz surrounding the Trible record, Shorter increased his output and began moving in a new circle of kindred spirits at a monthly soundclash safe haven called Sketchbook at L.A.’s Little Temple Bar.
“Flying Lotus, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Dibiase, and everybody who’s doing it right now on the L.A. scene used to gather there,” he reflects. “We would play beats, b-sides, and crazy stuff. So I used to make beat CDs for the parties so we would have something to listen to when we were outside smoking.” Since then, he’s been featured in the documentary Secondhand Sureshots and has released a slew of albums and EPs for Poo-Bah Records that have garnered him a devout following from Japan to the Netherlands. And since being inducted into FlyLo’s L.A.-based artist collective/label Brainfeeder, which Ras G dubs “the X-Men of future music,” it’s apparent that he’s bound for the exosphere.
“Everybody loves Brotha From Anotha Planet, but that’s something I did last year in the summertime in my kitchen,” he reveals about the creation of his latest album. “So the vibes of that kitchen were recorded on that project.” And though Ras G has enough recorded material for two full-length releases, he’s wary of predicting what vibes his next album will transmit. “Ain’t no telling where we’re going with this music. The inspiration changes quickly—that’s the Afrikan Space Program. We just do it" (Washington, 2009)
Released Albums:
Ras G - Beats Of Mind
Ras G - Overcast78
Ras G - Day and Night Ep
Ras G - Ghetto Sci-Fi
Ras G - Brotha From Anotha Planet
Ras G - Destination There Ep
Ras G - El-Aylien Part 1
Reference:
Washington, R. (2009, June 30). Ras G: Into The Outer Reaches. Retrieved from
Ann Arbor’s latest prodigal son and lover of sprinkles on doughnuts, takes the legacy of all Detroit’s talented musical sons and daughters and makes Hip Hop beats filled with snippets of Soul, Funk, 70’s Italian horror flick soundtracks, Nintendo bonus level music, and 90’s Hip Hop. Somehow, with this much content, the beats still manage to sound gloriously minimal and disjointed. Fans like Benji B, Andrew Meza and XLR8R have been eagerly snapping up his tracks, as Sam freeze frames Electro energy and spits it back out as twisted future Jazz. Dabrye is a fan, Daedelus describes him as “a thrilling sound to break the sameness,” and Flying Lotus is his brother in arms (they collaborate on the project FLYamSAM) (Last.fm, 2010).
Feature:
Samiyam: Nonchalant Days
"I don't try to let anything go to my head," says Sam Baker in an unassuming tone. Over the phone at least, the 23-year-old from Ann Arbor, MI sounds like a stoner kid who sits around all day surfing the internet and making hip-hop beats. Even his artist name, Samiyam, connotes pure slackerdom.
In reality, Samiyam is flying out to Los Angeles–where he will move a scant month after this interview–to hang out with his friend Flying Lotus. The Warp-affiliated beat composer is a mentor to Samiyam; in February, he took the young producer to Amsterdam. "It was the first show I've ever done and it was in Amsterdam. It was pretty wild, man," says Baker. The two perform together as FlyAmSam, a hard-hitting collaboration similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers in Predator. They dropped "Green Tea Power" on the recent Beat Dimensions Vol. 1 compilation, and may complete an album for release by the end of the year.
How does an anonymous bedroom producer without so much as an iTunes EP to his credit get jocked by the cream of L.A.'s underground producers? Samiyam met Flying Lotus through his MySpace page, right before the latter became a sensation with his 1983 debut last year. In fact, as of this writing, Samiyam's career is mostly confined to the World Wide Web. "It's cool," he says, laughing at the suggestion that he's a MySpace star. "It definitely helps motivate me a little bit to get messages from people saying how much they like the songs."
Samiyam pounds out his beats on the SP-303, creating instrumental tracks that click and stutter like scratchy vinyl at half speed. He even samples tracks from classic Nintendo videogames like Metroid, Spy Hunter, and Legend of Zelda, adding mono-synth melodies to his drunken-sounding beatscapes.
"A thrilling sound to break the sameness," raves Daedelus, via email, about Samiyam's emergence. "He's a new voice, thank goodness. So far, from the sounds I've heard, he has channeled a lot of the energy of classic electro, but with a deliberate slower pacing, which I believe is rare from a producer so young."
Baker's modest online beginning hasn't kept tastemaker DJs like Benji B and Andrew Meza from hitting him up for tracks, which he happily supplies. Despite the growing buzz, however, Samiyam remains noncommittal. He might compile a solo CD of instrumentals and unofficial remixes to sell on his MySpace page. He might pursue a full-fledged music career. But it's all up in the air.
"I'm not worried about signing deals or anything when I don't even have a record done," admits Samiyam. "At this point, I've just got a bunch of beats. I don't really have a project. It makes the most sense to worry about completing a project that I would like to see release" (Reeves, 2007).
Hailing from Southern California, Dayeve Xienze, real name Dayeve Masangcay is a skilled underground hip hop and trip hop disc jockey, who loves to make sample-based music with a touch of acoustic guitar and keyboard, ever since 1998. His music can be considered abstract, experimental, distinctive, eccentric, weird and wonderful. It can be categorize as trip hop, underground hip hop, turntablism, breakbeats, electronica, cinematic, avant garde, film score, and space age.
This blog is dedicated to my Trip-Hop, Downtempo, Electronica, Dubstep, and Underground Hip-Hop Instrumental Addicts.In this blog, I will be spotlighting a beat innovator from around the world each day. I will also provide the artist's bio, album releases, music videos and more.
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