Frank151 Chapter 44: Fool's Gold by Nicholas Acemoglu

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RAISING THE BAR THE GOLDEN RULES GIRL TAWK IN MY HOUSE CALL ME UP LE TOUR DE DANCE LOOK SHARP HEARTBEATS COMPUTER MUSIC BEYOND THEE INFINITE… GEORGIA PEACHES SECRET SAUCE TENDER KNOCK FLIGHT CLUB TECHNOTROPIC DETROIT ROCK CITY HOME BASS LIVE FROM THE BBQ CULINARY INSTITUTE LIVE GOLD

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This thing of ours began humbly enough—just some friends putting out their other friends’ records. About four years, 50 releases, hundreds of shows, millions of MP3s, and one rubber duck later, the song remains exactly the same. When A-Trak, Nick Catchdubs, and Dust La Rock founded Fool’s Gold in 2007, people asked, “Why would you start a record label at a time when all the record labels are going out of business?” The answer is simple: Fool’s Gold was never just a record label. And that’s not in the “we also make t-shirts and tchochkes and throw crazy parties and art shows etc.” sense of the word, although we seem to have done an alright job at that, too. Fool’s Gold was always meant to be a name you can trust, in any context, like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval for the best new, interesting, fun shit out there. When you see the FG, you might not always know what to expect, but you definitely know what’s up. We’ve always believed in the importance of cultivating a family of artists and helping share their work and their personalities with the world. The global menagerie that is Fool’s Gold gets put on display all throughout this chapter—a behind-the-scenes look at the crew. Everyone’s styles couldn’t be more different, but that distinctiveness somehow becomes the one common thread. This is who we are, all united under the gold bar. Get familiar, and as always, stay tuned….

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Interview Felipe Delerme Photos Ian Meyer If you caught Nick Catchdubs on Rivington St. in NYC last summer, day or night, he looked angry. With his brow furrowed and biceps swung open like a doughy Lou Ferrigno, the normally jovial Catchdubs broadcasted an uncharacteristic scowl in a wall-swallowing whiskey ad featuring himself and Fool’s Gold co-founders Dust La Rock and A-Trak. The latter two struck poses resembling prison lifers or maybe retired breakdancing coaches, while Catchdubs sported a pair of enormous toy gloves modeled after “Thing” from the Fantastic Four. Though he’d like us to believe he has a mean streak, the reality is that outside of this billboard, I’ve never actually seen Nick Catchdubs angry. The man is in a perpetually good mood, ready and willing to talk about his job or the music he’s currently feeling—which are one and the same. As a world-renowned DJ, burgeoning producer, and Fool’s Gold executive, Catchdubs is as happy as you’d expect someone to be whose giant superhero hands are currently arranging next year’s sound.

Frank151: What’s on the Catchdubs agenda today? Nick Catchdubs: It’s a typical Saturday in that I have a bunch of errands to do, and then I’m gonna go home and do label work, and then tonight do the Flashing Lights party in Brooklyn. So, you know, responsibility / raving. And I feel that’s kind of me in a nutshell. F151: Talk about the Flashing Lights party, because I went to one not knowing what was up, and it was like an all-out rave—people swinging glowsticks and all that. NC: The stuff that I do at Fool’s Gold, and the stuff that I’ve been doing as a DJ for the last six…seven years, has always been kind of bridging dance and electronic stuff with hip-hop and rock and other music—connecting the dots. But Flashing Lights is its own beast in that it’s just straight-up electronic music from myself, DJ Ayres,

and Jubilee. But even in that format, we’re still joining different worlds. The whole subgenre thing with dance music is crazy—like how people get on their backpack hip-hop shit and hate everything that isn’t this one thing. Dance music is like that…times ten different genres. F151: Let’s talk about the diversity of the music that you actually play. NC: For me that’s always been the magic of DJing. You can curate this thing where in ten songs, that’s your personality. I was always most excited when you could play a loop from a rock record underneath some super hard hip-hop shit, or take a dance record and then mix in some half-time Southern beat and have it totally make sense. The blending of all those elements is way more special than any of the individual tracks on their own. F151: What about your production?

How does that work, being that you’re drawing from so many different places? NC: I’m still very much a fledgling producer. The majority of my time is spent DJing or working on the label, and when I do get into the studio, I’m still learning the mechanics of making dance music, or making original hip-hop stuff that isn’t just looping somebody else’s shit up. The way that I approach it is more from a DJ perspective. What are the elements that I can put in here to freak people out? Like when you first hear an ill intro or you hear a drum hit and you’re like, “Oh shit, that’s my song!” Trying to come up with moments like that with original music is the way that I approach it. It’s learning the rules so that you can throw them out the window. Right now I’m working on a record for Fool’s Gold that’s just gonna be all hip-hop tracks. ’Cause I feel like we have DJs and producers on the label who are, to me—and obviously I’m biased—the most interesting, innovative electronic producers out there, whether it’s Kingdom, or Jokers of the Scene, or Nacho Lovers, Congorock, Treasure Fingers…. All these guys are so ill at what they do with dance music, whereas for me, I’m just trying to get my dance music to the point that it sounds like music period—the basic level of competency. But I feel like with the rap shit, there’s a little bit more of an open lane to do things that are weirder.

F151: How did Fool’s Gold start? NC: I was a magazine editor. That was an awesome day job. A-Trak, he had a day job as well, working for Kanye and doing his own DJing on the side. So we were both happy with what we were doing day to day, but we saw things that we liked not getting the look that they deserved. Somebody would put out an album and there would be one really good song on it, like an uptempo weirdo song, and it was like, “Man, this shoulda been the single, not that stupid radio sing-a-long shit. This should have been the weird banger!” It was like, how come no one’s there to carry the torch for the weird bangers? How come no one’s there to say, “Your strange decisions are your best artistic decisions”? And so we would share our frustrations at the music industry, but also the things we liked, sending music back and forth like, “Yo, did you hear this song? I played a show last night and this one got the crazy reaction.” So all that was going on, but the real catalyst was when our friends started making music, and started capturing a moment. Like the first Kid Sister songs, or when guys we would DJ with started to delve into making original music, it was like, “Oh shit, somebody needs to put this out properly.” F151: How did you and A-Trak first hook up? NC: Roxy Cottontail—the promoter— was doing parties at BLVD on Bowery and she would have different DJs come in. There was one night where it was me and A-Trak DJing, and I’m pretty sure that Cosmo Baker was hosting, so he was doing his Cosmo thing on the mic, like, “Yeah yeah y’all, Nick Catchdubs ’bout to cut it up!” And he was like, “We got my man A-Trak here.” I was like, “Oh yeah, A-Trak. Nice to meet you, man.” We just stayed in touch. I would put

out a mixtape and he’d hit me, “I heard you on that mixtape. It was cool.” Or he would do a remix for somebody and I’d email him, “I heard that. That was dope.” And we became friends. We actually did shows in San Francisco and LA one weekend with Roxy and it was just like, “I feel like one day we’ll probably end up working on stuff.” It’s all been very natural and...I hate when people use the word “organic” to describe their shit—like cereal’s organic, bro, milk is organic—but the process behind what we do at Fool’s Gold has been pretty…organic. F151: What’s your role today and your working relationship with A-Trak? NC: We both split the bulk of the business. We have people who work with us and we have lawyers and accountants and stuff, but it’s really he and I splitting a lot of the day to day. He travels more so and I’m doing more of the office-type stuff. He’s able to interact with artists more. If we want to sign somebody in Germany it’s like, “I got a show there next weekend.” If he’s playing a festival with these other big-dog electronic dudes, he’s making connections and friendships so when we need a remix for somebody, it’s like, “I just DJed with him. Let me hit him up.” In terms of the creative, that’s very much 50-50 as well. When we’re A&Ring a record, it’s our personal taste. There’s stuff that I like, there’s stuff that he likes. Same for dislikes. When we do battle about shit and when Dust [La Rock] is in the mix on art stuff, we all have our opinions, but I think that the three of us push each other until the best ideas win. If somebody has a half-baked idea, being able to go in and be like, “I’m not super-feeling that. Let’s rethink it,” that’s when we come up with the most inspired shit. That back and forth

has helped elevate Fool’s Gold to do stuff that is more interesting, to never be satisfied with the status-quo. When the Kid Sister records and the Kid Cudi remix were first popular, you could’ve very easily seen that as a formula: “It’s when kids rap over techno music.” Those early Kid Sister records became the model for all the Ke$ha shit and just really brain-dead rap-dance music that took over the radio. When we were first doing stuff, even if it wasn’t your cup of tea, at least you could respect it. At least you knew that it was coming from a place that was very genuine. If we had followed a formula, it would have led to trash. If we did something that was just resting on our laurels, it would be death for the label. We want to do this shit forever.

Let’s think about being old-ass dudes putting out records. XL Recordings was started by Richard Russell, who was a rave DJ. We look at something like XL, it’s an artist-founded label that started out just releasing 12-inches in the ’90s and then became a real business. XL puts out Vampire Weekend, Adele, they play all the festivals, they have number-one records, they’re in all the commercials. XL does everything that a major label would do, except they do it better. So for me, that’s the inspiration. Let’s not just be a DJ label, not just guys that make music and also put it out, but let’s be one of the illest independent companies of all time.

F151: What are you excited about right now? NC: I’m always the most excited about the most recent music that our artists are coming up with, guys like Kingdom or Nacho Lovers who, every time they send me a new record to listen to, it’s like, “Yo, you came up with this? This is insane. You’ve outdone yourself from the record that we put out six months ago.” Everybody’s constantly evolving their sound. A-Trak’s going to start working on his album. He’ll come up with hotel-room demos and stuff and it’s like, “This is crazy.” I just did Kid Sister’s mixtape—she started working with Scoop Deville in LA. The two of them have a really crazy chemistry and I want more of those collaborations. I’m siked to finish my own record. I’m in the car listening to my own demos like a jerk, like, “Yeah, this is tight!” I feel like you have to do that if you’re really passionate about what you do. Your songs

are your favorite songs, and if you’re in this for the love of making music and sharing it with people, your records are naturally your favorites. When people are like, “What are you listening to?” I’m just like, “I’m listening to Fool’s Gold shit.” We put out great tunes and when I find some artist that does stuff that I like who isn’t our artist, I want to work with them. That’s always been where our best signing ideas have come from—somebody who we stumbled upon and it’s like, “This guy is genius. Let’s share it with the world.” It’s not like, “This guy’s getting a lot of blog stories written about him,” or, “This guy was just on the cover of whatever magazine, let’s fuck with him.” It’s always some weird stuff where it’s like, I’m going to be the advocate for this. I want to be the person that turns other people on to what I enjoy.

Photo Angela Boatwright

Interview Julianne Escobedo Shepherd On the continuum of bad bitches, Kid Sister sits somewhere in the “global best friend” section—her sharp-tongued raps are full-on celebrations of everygirl, spanning relatable topics from power-chilling to party cheers. When she’s not sounding like the kind of chick you wanna kick it with at the mall, she’s beasting on beats that’ll convince you she’d have your back if it came down to fisticuffs. In short, Kid Sis, née Melisa Young, is awesome. Her latest release, the Nick Catchdubs-helmed Kiss Kiss Kiss mixtape, is full of her best tracks yet, including an indefatigable down-South bass banger in which she trades bars with Gucci Mane (“Gucci Rag Top”), and a dance jammer (“Do! Do! Do!”) on which she flashes her diva pass and forays into French house. On a rare night-off between a never-ending stream of shows and working on her new album with ill young power-producer Scoop Deville, Kid Sister came through the crib, where my roommates and I were watching a Celtics game. We drank Schaefers and talked about sports, strip clubs, and real estate. You know…girl shit.

Photo Nate “Igor” Smith

Kid Sister: I went to a basketball game for the first time a couple years ago. It was snowing straight into my eyes and I was trying to cheer. I had on hot-hands and duck boots. We ate super pretzels and sausages. Frank151: Did you like basketball before, or did you just go for the spectacle? KS: It’s hard because in Chicago in the ’90s they were winning every single game. When the Bulls were winning all those games, how could you not be a fan? But we never went to a game. We went to Sox games when I was a kid. I’m from the South Side—if you don’t like the Sox, you’ll get physically hurt. We went to one of those Cubs / Sox rivalry games, and we saw this poor kid who was probably like 18 years old. He was wearing a Cubs jersey and a little Cubs hat and he

was all cute. Southside fans are really aggressive and cutthroat. I swear to god, a couple guys wearing shirts that had cubs crying tears of blood came up to him and started giving him hell. They were like, “We’re gonna attack you with guns! We’re gonna beat up your mom!” I was actually scared for this kid! But it was a great game. I love sports now. F151: I can’t really get into baseball, but I lived in Portland and was a huge Blazers fan for a long time. KS: Oh my god, you lived in Portland?! Did you ever go to Sassy’s? Oh my god, it’s so great! You know Portland’s all strip clubs, but Sassy’s is the best. F151: Any niche type of person you can think of, there’s a strip club in Portland specializing in it. Like, “OK, I wanna see someone with one arm.” KS: They have that in Atlanta, too, at

Clermont Lounge. They had a woman who could crush a beer can between her boobs, and she’s like 65. It’s like, “OK, this is supposed to be shocking.” I kind of like the more subtle, niche strippers—girls who are completely tattooed, and this girl at Sassy’s we were really enjoying who was a trapeze stripper with a giant mohawk and the sides of her hair were shaved leopard. It sounds horrible but she’s really cute. That bitch is so famous. F151: It’s so weird in Portland because anywhere else you’re like, “Uh, I don’t know….” But there, strippers are unionized and stuff. Speaking of the West Coast, you moved to LA, yeah? KS: I did. I always say that apologetically, but I like it. It’s cool. For now I’ve got a place in Chicago too, but the rent is up soon and I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it. I justify it by like, “Oh, it’s so close to the studio,” but really it’s nice to have another place close to my friends. My friend and I were talking earlier about how everyone has ghostwriters. Everybody has someone writing their stuff. And I’m not gonna name names because that would probably do my career in. But it’s like almost any artist that you know of that’s a rapper. People are just going for the money. It’s not as looked down upon in the singing world as it is in the hiphop world. People have been doing that for years and years. In the ’60s, people didn’t write their own music. I mean, Jan and Dean? Are you kidding me? “You’re so cute, but you didn’t write your own music.” I guess I just didn’t know that that’s the way it could work, and that’s why albums come out so fast; it’s not just one person, it’s a team of writers

getting shit done and pumping this shit out. I wrote my whole album. I co-wrote one—sorry. But if you really wanna do it, that’s not how it works. So, lesson learned! F151: Yeah, it’s really not conducive to pumping out singles. KS: That’s why I think hip-hop sucks right now. Well, pop sucks, because hip-hop became pop. Remember when hip-hop wasn’t pop? Because I kind of do. There was still weird stuff getting play. Remember Digable Planets? As cheesy as “Cool Like Dat” may seem to some people, they played that on the radio! They don’t play anything like that on the radio anymore. They don’t even give you a shot unless you’re like, “Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!” Oh man! F151: Does that make you mad, or are you like, “Whatever. Keep it moving?” KS: It’s not really anger ever. It’s more astonishment. I can’t get mad. When I was a kid there were so many crazy songs that you were like, “How did this become a song?” Like the boner song...OK? Next’s “2 Close?” Hubba hubba! That’s why I can’t be shocked anymore. I just got back from tour with Of Montreal. We met each other and it was kind of like kindred spirits with all 15 of them—everything they said, we laughed. We just really got each other. I did a duet with Kevin from Of Montreal on stage. We did “Sex Shooter.” F151: The Appollonia 6 song? That’s so cool. Were you into them growing up? KS: Nah. I was a Prince fan, but I wasn’t like a “Prince’s harem” fan. I was like, “I get it, you like the ladies.” I was into Wendy and Lisa, because they were normal, and they were not overly pretty like Vanity 6. I mean, have you heard “Sex Shooter?” Have you heard the rap in that song? “No girl’s

rap / Is quite like mine / No girl’s dude / Can ring your chime!” It’s like, “Really? You sure are pretty. OK, we get it.”

My mom was obsessed with Prince. I was always like, “I’m watching this, but I don’t understand. What’s a Minnetonka?” But I didn’t understand a lot of things at that time. My mom worked for the cable company, we got all our channels free. She was like, “Whatever, as long as it’s not Pay-PerView, we’re OK.” But we ended up getting that, too. We figured out the code, it was like the code for Contra, like up-up-down-down-left-right-leftright-B-A-start. F151: I’m totally trying that, too. KS: Yo, in my Chicago apartment I had free cable with a black box, and somehow, I didn’t feel wrong for having it. I just felt ’80s for having it. I am not a scam artist, but I am a cheap bitch. If you wanna save money, I will save you money. I’m a coupon clipper. F151: Our cable guy came the other week to fix our connection. When he fixed it, he just sat on our couch and started watching Judge Judy. He was like “Oh, I love this show.” It was like, “Do you want some chips, dude?” KS: Nooo! Bust out, like, Cranium, and just start playing. That is so New York. Like, I’m from Chicago. There are just things in this city that don’t go on anywhere else. Like, who does that? Go home. I’m such an asshole. I would be like, “Sooo…I’m gonna go? The dog’s gonna need to pee in a couple hours.”

What goes on in New York? Can I have another Corona Light? F151: We’re out, but there’s Schaefer. It’s like three dollars for a six pack at the grocery store. KS: I like PBR. Schlitz has that kind of citrus-y aftertaste that’s really bad. The only memory I have of Schaefer is that it gave my dad really bad gas, so.... It’s OK, I’ll take a Schaef. I hope we don’t have the same physiology. You now know so much more about me than any other journalist ever—my dad had gas from Schaefer beer. [Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony comes on television.] Hearing Carmelo Anthony’s name makes me hungry. …Oh, you just tweeted that. F151: Do people ever give you insane requests on Twitter? Do people get super personal? Ooky dudes doing ooky stuff? KS: No, not really. I get a lot of marriage proposals. It’s weird, but it’s sweet. It’s sweetly weird. Lots of “my wife” or “lady love” or “when we get married, it’ll be great.” I’m like, “I thought guys didn’t want to get married…what? This is completely flipping my whole idea of how the world works.” F151: That’s so interesting too, because that’s the kind of aspiration you’re supposed to have when you’re a girl in fifth grade or something. “When I get married to Jonathan Taylor Thomas…” or whatever. It’s interesting to think of dudes flipping it. KS: I mean, I know it’s silly and not real, but I’m like, “I got all these proposals! I’m a hot ticket! Check the duck boots and the mega-pretzel. What!”

Moderator Asian Dan

In the mid-’90s, Todd Edwards began devising new ways to cut up vocal house tracks in his Bloomfield, New Jersey home studio. At the same time, a barely teenage turntablist named Alain Macklovitch was attempting his first scratches as DJ A-Trak in Montreal. The two would continue to experiment with—and ultimately redefine—their respective genres over the course of the decade, only to change trajectory and defy the expectations of their fans by exploring new creative directions years later. Todd and Alain first met in the Fool’s Gold offices, where they bonded over a shared love: early experiences with house music. A-Trak: What was house music like when you started? Surkin was the first to expose me to you, and told me the whole French cut-up sound was “just us French producers copying Todd.” Todd Edwards: My parents saved up $1,400 for my college fund and instead I got my first sampler, an Ensoniq EPS. I was listening to a lot of Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez, and when you first start making music you are just imitating people. A: Whenever I link up with Armand to do Duck Sauce stuff he always gives me a house history lesson, and he would show me documentaries on the NJ house scene. What was a typical club in Jersey like? Did you hear house music or was it an underground thing? TE: In the ’90s there were two types of clubs: party clubs for pop-oriented dance music and clubs where I would go find that soulful house music. I would go to Zanzibar in Newark when I was 19 years old to check out that soulful stuff, and all my friends would make fun of me for heading into Newark. But my main reference point to learn about house was Wednesday nights at Sound Factory in NYC, when “Little” Louie Vega would DJ and Barbara Tucker would host. At some point I stopped going to clubs and took my inspiration from

other places. You learn about music, you learn chords. There’s only so much you can learn from one genre. People get caught up listening to the same thing over and over again and never bring anything new into it. My whole stream of work in the ’90s was to bring other forms of music into my remixes. A: It’s interesting because some of the musicians who have the most unique sounds are those who stay on the sidelines, who don’t go to the club every week. ’Cause when you are too “in the mix” you end up thinking the music has to be a certain way. TE: I got sick of listening to house so I started to listen to Enya, who uses her voice as an instrument. It was an unintentional element I put into my music.

A: I love what you did on the remix of that Kingdom track (“Mind Reader”) that we put out, how you flipped around the chord progression and gave it a totally different vibe. TE: When I first started making music,

it was always about me. The vocals were always secondary. Then I had to put myself in the artists’ shoes and think how I would feel if a remixer ripped apart my songs. As I matured, I realized that I had to respect the artists’ work. A: When and how did your music start to resonate in the UK? TE: I followed the NYC scene and idolized Louie Vega and dreamed of him playing my stuff, but I realized my sound didn’t fit; he played more polished stuff. So I started doing more disco stuff, influenced by Basement Jaxx, instead of following Kenny Dope’s shuffle-y drum patterns. But then the cut-up / shuffle-y sound was picking up in the UK and my manager told me to start doing more of those tracks. I had to re-learn where I started. I didn’t know what kind of impact I would have. Tell me about how you got into the dance-music world. A: In the ’90s there was literally only a handful of electronic acts that caught my ear, and Daft Punk was one of them. The video of “Da Funk” by Spike Jonze…. I was a huge Beastie Boys fan and Spike Jonze fan—a director whose vision I trusted—so when he worked with this French dance act, I realized I should pay attention. Then I heard “Around the World,” which was kinda funky. The way they sampled was hip-hop in how it stuck to the loop. Also, I really liked Mr. Oizo’s EP Last Night a DJ Killed My Dog. The odd Basement Jaxx track would catch my ear. And then in 2003 or so I was testing Serato, and it became a vehicle that allowed me to try different genres, ’cause now I could do MP3 trades with other DJs. And then around

2005 there was a scene bubbling in the States between NY, Philly, and Chicago where DJs would play varying tracks to indie kids that would listen to indie rock or fast-rap Outkast records or house classics. And then in that context when Justice and Simian Mobile Disco were coming out with their first records, I thought I could throw their stuff in. This was when I met Kid Sister and my new sound was born and developed at the parties themselves. The common attribute of all this music was that everything was just club music. When Nick and I started Fool’s Gold, the only way we could explain the identity of our label was “club music.” And from then I was just starting to mix more house into my sets. TE: How was the reaction? A: It wasn’t as hard for me, since I was discovering the music at the same time as this new audience. If anything, I was just playing for a new crowd. A lot of them didn’t know my old stuff or that I was a world-champion scratch battler. The real transition was once I solidified that with the new crowd, there was an adjustment of catching the old crowd up to it and getting it all to gel. TE: You did this all because you wanted to and it was totally desire-driven. A: The scratch world grew very stagnant. In the late ’90s it was booming and the whole world was interested. Then it just became stale. It was sad to see talented scratch friends DJ at Top 40 gigs. It reminded me of that Disney movie The Incredibles, when those superheroes had to get day jobs, like delivering the mail.

keep momentum and interest going. The one thing new and younger producers have is a massive interest to be covered in the blogosphere and in magazines. Everyone wants the new flavor, but it’s all about how to keep that new flavor fresh. A: Blogs cover things so quickly. TE: For the older school, you had to adapt. A: My portal into this house world has always been Armand Van Helden. TE: He is a great example of a DJ who adapted to the scene with new images and new sounds. A: Yeah and now he even goes on blogs because that is where you find new music, which is weird thinking that he goes on all the same blogs that people visit. TE: I love hearing about people being super open and willing to accept that this is what we have to do. A: A lot of older guys—house legends to me and to the world—have told us how much they love the Duck Sauce stuff—Kenny Dope, Guy-Man from Daft Punk. We have Todd Terry in the “Barbra Streisand” video! But for us the mission is not to make throwback music or copies. Our approach might be the same, but the sonics are very different. The mixing techniques, the drums, even the architecture of the Duck Sauce songs...our stuff is five minutes, not nine minutes. There’s breakdowns! “You’re Nasty” is a perfect example, with all the extra synths added. Armand and I never actually sat there and talked about Duck Sauce like that, or spelled those ideas out explicitly. But we always want the music to sound modern.

TE: The older you get you realize how many cycles there are in the music industry, the ups and downs and the middle ground where you know you are established and how can you

Interview Justin Briggs Photos Texas Malika Toussaint-Baptiste Ask any musician you know and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll tell you how they got their start mimicking the sounds of their heroes. Even the Beatles started as a cover band! Vocalist Maggie Horn and producer Sammy Bananas formed Telephoned not too long ago as something like a cover band, and have already grown into far more than that.

Frank151: Explain to us what the “Telephoned” concept is all about. Sammy Bananas: It didn’t really start from a conceptual point. But now, it’s about the process of transformation. That might be us doing a cover song, or me making a whole new beat for it, or us doing this thing that we do on our mixtapes and in our live show called a cover-up, where we take somebody else’s beat and Maggie sings another song over it, which is like what we’re doing with the new, original music that we’re working on. I mean, anything you make is going to be an amalgam of different influences. Some of them are specific influences, and some of them more like genres. Maggie Horn: The name comes from the kids’ game of Telephone. This project has turned into a game, like a fun dare, back and forth, to see what we come up with. SB: Even for our original song “Hold Me,” we did an alt-country cover on the B-side. It was written as an up-tempo dance song, then we took that idea and mutated it into something else.

F151: Do you guys ever string it out really far, like the Telephone game would, with each extrapolation getting further and further from the original? MH: “Hold Me” actually started as a cover of a Drake song. MH: And then we turned it into “Hold Me,” so I guess that would be kinda stringing it out. We’re also considering having somebody else cover our upcoming material.

SB: You could be making something that you thought was going to be almost a copy of something else, but obviously it won’t be exact. If you copy that copy, it’s gonna continue to change. This is the first time in an interview that we’re saying, “Oh yeah, ‘Hold Me’ basically was that Drake cover.” But it’s different enough that it becomes completely ours. F151: How do you guys choose a song to work with? SB: It’s anything that we’re into at the time. We have pretty similar taste in music, so there’s things that seem like, “This would be good. This has this particular part of the song that we could put in some different context.” For example, [Kanye West’s] “All of the Lights.” That song, for me—and I think Maggie feels the same way— was the song on the Kanye album with the most potential. MH: It’s so triumphant. SB: From the interlude—which is the only worthwhile interlude on that album, where that insane orchestration and shit is justified—leading into that song is like, “OK, we’re getting there!” And then it completely disintegrates. The focus is totally lost. So, we were like, “Let’s just take the best parts of that song, before it loses its thing.” F151: Do you see your revisions of other people’s work as an improvement on the original? MH: I dunno if we’re gonna go that far—“I think we’re killing Kanye in this game. Kanye’s got nothing on Telephoned.” SB: I’ve already said too much! The black van is pulling up to come and take me away! I do think that Telephoned is more about the approach than the appropriation. The moment that we use

something that was somebody else’s it becomes ours, and totally different. That’s why, even though the cover song really is fundamental to what we’re doing, it’s also kinda different. True cover songs really owe a certain reverence to the original. We never really give anything that we cover that much— MH: That sort of reverence. SB: It’s not sacred, you know. F151: That seems like a close description of the Dadaist collage-art guys, like Max Ernst, or more contemporary stuff like Richard Prince…like taking pictures of other people’s pictures and saying, “By virtue of the fact that I took this picture, that’s a new piece, because it’s through my lens.” Do you guys take influence from appropriation in other media like that? MH: The word “postmodern” has been thrown around us quite a bit. That’s about as far as I would wanna go into that. I don’t think it’s a conscious effort to make that sort of “statement,” necessarily. SB: Neither of us are like, “We’re really into Warhol,” or, “the Dada stuff.” It’s more so having that stuff so ingrained in culture now. I think about it in terms of sampling: maybe it seemed strange 30 years ago when people started doing it, but now…. This is our version of that, in some ways. F151: Do you ever intentionally use “out-there” songs as a jump-off point? Or are you trying to use stuff that people will recognize and respond to, especially on the dance floor? MH: Definitely on the second mixtape we started going a little further from the mainstream material. Part of the reason that we do use the mainstream stuff is because we like it. We’ll use some mainstream and some pop stuff, and then some off-the-beatentrack stuff, because we like all of it.

SB: On the mixtapes, some of the music that Maggie sings on for these cover-ups—where it’s not something that I’ve produced, but something that somebody else produced— sometimes we try to get outside the known sphere. But, since it really has to be about some sort of recontextualization, we’ll use some UK funky, or a dubstep influence, and then have, say, the Bruno Mars “Nothing On You” hook over it—one of the poppiest hooks of the last year—in a darker, totally different context. Maybe that pulls different emotions out of those words and that melody. The cover-up stuff is not really that different than a mash-up, except that we can do whatever we want because Maggie is such a personal singer. We can craft. We don’t need to have the a cappella. Like on our cover-up of the Gyptian “Hold Yuh” beat and Yeasayer’s “One,” Maggie really changed the energy of the melody and the delivery of the lyrics to bring something totally different out of that song. MH: We also do it the other way around, too. Like on the first mixtape, when we covered “Smoke Rings” by Udachi and Jubilee, a far-out dance track, and we put it over a recognizable Outkast song to sorta bring it back. F151: Have you noticed a big difference in the way audiences respond to the more recognizable stuff or the more obscure stuff? MH: Stuff that people can automatically sing along to is always going to be the thing that catches them, but if we do it the other way around, if it’s a really known beat, they just get excited to recognize something in it. F151: A musical touchstone. SB: In general, I feel like we naturally pull things towards a certain center. MH: A switchboard.

SB: But it’s our musical center, so by making these combinations of things it all ends up being something for people to latch onto, whether it’s the lyrics or the melody or the beat. F151: How is that different when you’re doing original tracks? SB: We’re in the process of figuring that out. As we do more original music, we’re obviously trying to keep the tone the same as we grow and expand what we’re doing. Even our original idea is probably gonna transform and get “Telephoned” itself. One thing that we’ve been thinking is, if we’re writing a song and it ends up being a pop song, we could make a version that’s produced like pop music, but then we could also take that song and turn it into weird dance music, like the other pop songs that we’ve done covers of. We’re not necessarily gonna have the recognizable part that people are able to latch onto. But maybe we can do that in more subtle ways. MH: Catchiness, hooks.... SB: I guess it’s what people strive for when they write good pop music. The feeling that, when you listen to it the first time, you’ve already heard it before. Honestly, that’s a pretty ambitious thing to do. It’s really hard. That’s the magic in writing music, right there. F151: Maggie, you mentioned earlier adding other people into the Telephoned concept, having people do remixes or covers of your work. What kinds of projects are you considering? MH: It’s funny, because we actually made a joke at one point about making a Telephoned EP with other people, where we write one hook and everybody does a different take on it. But who knows if that will actually end up being part of our process down the line. We left ourselves pretty

open-ended in terms of the concept, so it’s there to grow however it wants to manifest. SB: We started this monthly party called Switchboard in the basement of the Ace Hotel in New York, Liberty Hall. I haven’t figured out the right word to describe it, but we invite other artists—whether they’re vocalists or bands or DJs—to participate in this thing that we do. We’re working with singers to create their own cover-ups, and for DJs to be able to do a set that’s more focused than what people going to DJ a dance party get to do. Cover songs or songs that involve some sort of— MH: Direct interpolation. SB: Or even the whole process of sampling, in general. Like breaks. Sample sources are familiar. That’s not something we’re doing directly, but it relates. You know whenever you hear the original of something that you may not have even known was a sample, and you’re like, “Oh, whoa!” A whole new aspect of both the song that you’ve never heard before and the song that you know really well suddenly appears before you. F151: How do people respond to your live shows? MH: Touring with Chromeo really helped a lot. They sold out like 80% of the shows, so there were packed crowds just there to have a good time. The Telephoned live set is not a very serious show by any means. We’re there to have fun and sing and get everybody to dance, and we’ve been really lucky and fortunate to have really great crowds to play to. SB: I think at this point people are used to what a DJ does and they’re used to the concept of mash-ups and whatnot. So when we get up there and are doing something that’s kind of like that, but Maggie is out in front

dancing her ass off and doing choreographed moves, there’s a real focus and structure to the whole thing. It was really important to us to not have it be like, “Let’s do a song. Alright, let’s stop and talk and whatever,” and then, “Let’s do another song.” We want to make the show a continuous thing that has a real trajectory to it, a live version of one of the mixtapes. It’s like a DJ set, plus so much more. There’s a visual aspect to it, something entertaining to see, and the energy is really high the whole time. F151: What are some of your favorite songs to perform? SB: Whenever anybody asks me a favorite of anything— MH: I forget that I’ve ever even heard music before. SB: Yeah, my brain goes completely blank. Like, “What is music?” MH: We played Teki Latex’s “Dinosaurs

With Guns” at the end of every show on the tour, and that will always have a sort of sentimental thing with me. Not only is it my friend’s song, but also that was the point in the show where the crowd was either riding with us or not, and a lot of times they were. F151: Have you guys heard from a lot of the artists whose work you’ve remade? MH: Donnis. We did his song “Gone.” We got to play that for him and he really liked it. Chromeo, obviously, heard us do their “Night By Night” every night for about 25 nights. We got Jubilee to actually come on stage and perform “Smoke Rings” with us, which was crazy because that’s not something that you’ll ever see again. She doesn’t get up on stage. Stuff like that is really special.

As told to Erika Jarvis Recent Brooklyn transplant Ashley Jones is better known as Treasure Fingers, the man with the golden touch: a disco-flipping, crowd-rocking producer and DJ who has spent the past few years crafting an impressive discography of irresistible dance music, from Fool’s Gold originals “Cross The Dancefloor” and “Keep Up” to remixes for Estelle, Empire Of The Sun, Chromeo, and many more. He’s also a member of one of the premier stateside drum & bass / dubstep acts, Evol Intent, who are always in the process of exploring new, heavier sounds at giant raves like LA’s Electric Daisy Carnival, attended by over 185,000 glowstick-wielding teenagers. Between these two in-demand identities, Ashley finds himself on the road constantly, armed only with a laid-back sense of humor and an arsenal of more geek toys than you ever thought could fit in one backpack. We met up with him on yet another tour of duty in his decade behind the decks, and got him to share his personal take on the road life. I just got to Melbourne last night. The Australian Open’s going on here right now, which I highly doubt I can

get into, because it’s the finals right now. It’s on TV here all the time so I’m forced to watch it. I’ve never watched

tennis in my life, but it’s kind of therapeutic watching a ball go back and forth on the screen. You’ve got to kill time doing this. I’m probably one of the craziest people for gadgets on the road. I have a Kindle, I have a PSP Go that I play games on, and then I’ve got my Blackberry—I have a ton of apps on there. Then I have an iPod touch that I use for even more games and apps and stuff like that. I also bring my laptop that I use for work and for DJing. And then a little Netbook, which is just loaded up with movies. I usually travel with all that stuff. I was hooked on Angry Birds but I ended up beating all the levels. Once you beat it I don’t think it’s fun to play anymore, but I would recommend anyone to give it a go. It’s pretty addictive. This latest tour’s been going great. Nothing too crazy has happened... yet. I’ve got a few of those stories, though. I’ve been doing this a long time. The first time I left the US to DJ was probably 2004, running through Europe and Australia. I started before that in the US, but I don’t really consider those years touring, ’cause it’s just hitting random cities. I was about 23, and grew up in a really small town in Oklahoma, and never really left that town until the DJing picked up. The fact that people wanted me to come to Europe and Australia and Asia was mind-blowing. I came from such a small town, and now I’m playing all these crazy cities that I never thought I’d visit. No one showed me the ropes of touring, I just sort of did it by myself and learned the hard way. Early on it was just me and my backpack left to survive! One weird experience was in Russia. It was my first time there, and in general Russia is pretty intimidating, especially in the nightclub industry—I

think a lot of it is run by the Mafia. After my gig one of the promoters comes up with two giant bodyguards, and they say they want to speak to me in the back room. This was before I got paid or anything, so I went with them, and the promoter just tried to have small talk with me. I was on the edge of my seat wondering what is going on, because he’s not really talking about anything. And then, after about 30 minutes he says, “OK, now we’re good friends. Would you mind talking to Dieselboy and telling him that we have a good party and that we want him to DJ for us?” Once I got booked for a show in Chicago, but it was actually somewhere else in Illinois. We ended up driving way out there. No one told us it was a dry party—they didn’t have any alcohol, they didn’t have any of the right equipment…just a huge mess. The next day we woke up and we couldn’t reach anyone, and actually had to pay a cab to drive us all the way back to Chicago, which was like $200 or something. The promoters picked us up and drove us out there, we played for them, and when their party didn’t do well, they just left us at the hotel and didn’t drive us back. Fortunately, the Fool’s Gold crew has been fun to tour with. Everyone is really fun, good people. For me, the ideal tour partner isn’t even about a shared musical style, it’s just having good company. I did a full tour with Kill The Noise, which was super fun. We would go out, and obviously with him you’re drinking in the club, having late nights. I remember being at a festival and no one could wake him up from his tent. We were literally dragging him outside, snoring. He’s a heavy sleeper.

Photo Matthew Reeves

I tour extensively as Treasure Fingers, as well as with my group Evol Intent. Very different. Evol Intent is more of a dubstep, drum & bass sound. I feel like dubstep has all these crazy basslines now, which d&b used to have before it fell off. We’re just trying to go back and add some creative elements to it...something fresh. There’s a little bit of crossover with the touring I do as Treasure Fingers and with the group, because it all falls within electronic music. But the crowds are unique. I think some of the Treasure Fingers shows are in these nicer nightclubs, people are dressed up and getting bottle service and stuff like that. With Evol Intent it’s a younger crowd. Mostly male, but there’s still some girls that come out to the shows. Just a rowdier bunch, I guess. There’s not an end in sight for the touring. Evol Intent has been working on a bunch of experimental stuff, and at the same time we have a lot of dance-floor dubstep and drum & bass tracks. I think we might do either two albums, or a couple of EPs for the dancier tracks, and then an experimental album. As for Treasure Fingers, I’ve got a bunch of material that I’ve been saving, and I’m now starting to work with different writers and vocalists right now to see what I can come up with. Hopefully I’ll have the album done later this year. I’ve been working on it for probably three years, I’m just waiting to have a collection that I’m really proud of.

Interview Guy Shipp Photos Kirill Bichutsky Fool’s Gold’s literal big brother in the game has always been Dave 1 of the duo Chromeo. A funkateer and a scholar, Dave has an opinion on everything and is unafraid to share ’em, so we thought it’d be only natural to get his take on fashion. Just look at the guy. Frank151: Growing up, what defined your sense of style? Dave 1: You know, if you’re my age, you went through a bunch of phases growing up, so obviously we had the Beastie-Boys-meets-skater phase. I remember for instance when the “So What’Cha Want?” video came out, all my group of friends, that’s how we dressed. The original “phat” pants, the lumberjack shirt, the skullies and the Pumas. Pre-Internet, Montreal was kinda remote. They didn’t make reissue Pumas back then, we had to go to the old-people stores and get deadstock models and stuff. It was dope ’cause the sole was yellow and shit. I guess the Beasties were my port of entry into hip-hop. So by the

mid-’90s—this was like ’92—I was a straight “White hip-hop poser,” basically [laughs], as we all were. The flyest dude back then was Grand Puba. We were just rocking the Nautica and the Hilfiger. My shit was Helly Hansen—the yellow Helly Hansen shells and stuff. I couldn’t afford a lot of that, though. My mom could only afford to get me Chaps. Not even Polo. You know what I look like now, so you can imagine how ridiculous I looked back then. F151: We’ve all been through those phases. D1: But on me, it looked completely ridiculous. I rocked that for years. Even later on. Towards ’97 it was more Ecko and army fatigues. More of a Boot Camp Clik vibe, which looked even more ridiculous on me when you

think about it. I should’ve just stayed with the Beastie Boys shit. F151: Are there any other fashion accessories or that one item that you grew up coveting, that everyone on the block wanted to get their hands on? D1: Yeah, I had the Tommy Hilfiger chinos. That was a big thing. We would wear those with hiking boots. Not Timberland, but actual hiking boots that we would go down to New York and get from Transit on Broadway, downstairs. That’s what everybody did. I feel like I’m telling the story of a whole generation of cats. By the time I turned like 22, I was with a girlfriend for a long time. She would make fun of me, like, “You look crazy with your baggy pants all rolled up,” like, “What are you doing? Are you going bicycling?” And she was like, “Yo, you’re swimming in those clothes,” ’cause I was always real skinny. She was like, “It would look better on you if you had tighter pants.” Gradually, as I grew older and started graduate school, doing a Master’s degree, I couldn’t walk around with camo pants [laughs]. You gradually switch to other shit.

F151: Are there any current trends that you think should go away? D1: What I talked about in my adolescence were great looks; they were not ridiculous at all. I think it was amazing. I just think on me they were ridiculous.

I still think the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head era was the coolest thing on the planet. They basically gave White people a chance to be cool. We owe them a huge “Thank you!” You know [laughs]? F151: Gotcha. D1: So you’re asking if there’s stuff I don’t like now? F151: Yeah, if you see any trends that you shake your head at. D1: There’s a bunch, but now you can just go to any blog that makes fun of people. I think it’s like anything, when one trend becomes saturated it becomes a caricature of itself. But I could name a few who know what they’re doing. F151: Who are some inspirations? D1: The All-Time Fly Dude award would go to Springsteen, Dylan, and Serge Gainsbourg, of course. Those are the classics, the icons, the old school. F151: Do you remember when you got your first suit? D1: Yeah, I do, although I didn’t pay for it. My girl at the time had to front me the money and she had to pay for it on three different credit cards, and it wasn’t that expensive either! It was a houndstooth Ralph Lauren suit. I wore it with a skinny tie and white Repetto shoes, the Gainsbourg ones that I always wear. That was the first suit, and it was a huge deal. And then I remember I got a YSL one and started getting into it. Now, I just bought one two days ago, and I got more than I can count. I mean...I don’t have a million. I have maybe fifteen. F151: Do you have a favorite out of your collection? D1: I just bought a Margiela one for the summer. And that one’s good. The thing is, as a dude, you have to be

careful. Now, fashion blogs have made it acceptable for men to discuss fashion way more than they should. I don’t think it’s very classy as men to discuss brands you wear. When you see oldschool, really distinguished gentleman like Gainsbourg, you know that dude was suited up, but he never talked about what he wore. He had very specific taste and he had the stuff that he liked, but he never flaunted it or talked about it in interviews, and I think it takes the mystique away a little bit. The majority of dudes out there look like schlumps—and I do want you to write “schlump.” So when you’ve got the dude who knows what he’s doing, it’s cool. You’ve got the mystery, like, “What is he doing?” Sometimes when I see people around me talk about, “I just got these mad Gucci loafers,” I’m like, “You’re ridiculous. No one talks like that. You’re corny. So corny.” It’s

not fly to talk about that. As a gentleman, it’s not gentlemanly at all. F151: That said, are there any specific designers that you feel really fit you well? Any brands or designers that you tend to look for, in terms of quality? D1: Obviously me and my brother are into the Dior shit heavy. F151: Any stores that you make sure to check out in specific cities? D1: Yeah, you know, Barney’s. I’ll go to the Dior store or Margiela. I’m a big Margiela fan. I go there all the time. I’ve got a lot of stuff from there. Dries Van Noten, he’s really good. By all accounts he had the best show at Fashion Week for menswear. I’ve got a couple of suits from him. YSL, of course. Oh, and then the secret weapon is Balmain. F151: I don’t know what that is. D1: Balmain? Yeah, see, that’s ’cause it’s the secret weapon. But that, you gotta really get your

money up. Again, I don’t want to sound like a dude who brags about, “Oh I wear expensive stuff,” ’cause there are dudes that rock all the vintage shit and it looks incredible on them as well. So it’s about knowing what works for you. F151: What’s your take on vintage? Is it something that you incorporate into your style? D1: I used to a little bit, but now not that much. Maybe one or two things. Maybe a leather jacket. But I’m also 32, and first of all, I don’t have time to go digging that much. Secondly, I would have to go to the tailor and get everything altered 17 times. And then thirdly, it’s cool in your 20s, but when you’re 30 it’s time to step it up a little bit. It depends also on what you’re going for. You gotta know what works for you. I got mad respect for it. Someone like my boy Gaspard from Justice, he murders the vintage shit. I don’t think anyone really can fuck with him. But I can’t walk around with a Judas Priest t-shirt and my glasses and shit. It’s not gonna work. F151: If you’re going to a more formal function and you gotta go black tie, do you have any tuxedo tips? Do you own a tuxedo? D1: Yeah. I got a Dior tuxedo. F151: There you go. D1: That’s the one I wore on Letterman when the other guest was President Clinton. So you know I had to get a tux for that. F151: Do you have any tips for someone out there looking for a tuxedo, whether they’re renting or buying? D1: I’m not a tuxedo connoisseur. I know there are very specific rules for tuxedos, and you’re better off reading Esquire magazine than asking me. F151: [Laughs] D1: No but seriously! They have really comprehensive guides and stuff. I

own one, and my brother owns one, and they’re kinda subverted takes on tuxedos. I think the rule is the same as a suit; it’s really all about the fit. In fact, same goes for a leather jacket. If it’s too boxy you just look like a cheesy undercover cop, or a cheesy security guard, and if the fit is perfect and it’s really slim, you look like the Beatles in the ’60s, which is great! Or if it’s a leather jacket you look like the Rolling Stones in the ’70s, which is even greater [laughs].

F151: Let’s say you and P-Thugg were headed to the Grammys and you had an unlimited budget to put together any outfit you could imagine. What would the dream Chromeo outfit be? D1: We already rock that. There’s nothing that I’m like, “I wish I could get that.” It’s more about being tasteful. So me and Pee would probably just find a cool way to put something together funny and fly at the same time, and then everyone’s happy. Pee’s got an amazing sense of style as well. We compliment each other, and we both have stuff that works for each of us. Don’t get me wrong though, we shop together. He comes with me and he “gets” what I buy, and the same with him; I “get” what he likes. F151: Do you guys try to complement each other’s looks when you’re putting together your wardrobe for a show? D1: Yeah. If you look at the latest press

shot I’m wearing the white suit and he’s wearing the crazy black wraparound thing, which is incredible. And he was the first one to bring that back, the Afrika Bambaataa with the fucking Golden Child beret and leather, you know? And trust me man, his next shit is actually more next-level. He’s about to bring back the ’90s Steve Harvey shit, with the chain over the turtleneck. Shit that gospel musicians actually still wear. He’s just so next-level with it. F151: P-Thugg’s had a lot of different looks over the years. Do you have one that stands out as your favorite? D1: For me, the two dopest looks Pee ever had were when we first, first, first came to New York, and we played our first show for Vice. This was in 2002 at the Bowery Ballroom. Pee had—and this was before anyone did this—Pee had the 2-Pac airbrushed t-shirt, but this was before hipsters. And on Pee it looked believable, you know what I mean? It didn’t look ironic; it looked dope. He cut off the sleeves and he had the leather Yankees hat and the gold tooth and the fucking… the Prince…you know that Egyptian cross? I forget what it’s called. F151: The Ankh? D1: Yeah, the earring that dangles. F151: Oh wow. D1: So that to me was one, and the other one is the new Afrika Bambaataa / Peter Tosh / Jamaican-Militant-Army-Guy [laughs]. I think they’re incredible. Also when he first pulled out the Kente prints at Coachella with no shirt underneath. It was just ridiculous. That’s why he kills it. F151: You and your brother also perform as The Brothers Macklovitch. When you guys put those shows together do you do the same thing and coordinate your looks? D1: We both have fun with it. I got my brother into suits, and I like finding stuff

that’s gonna look really good on him. So we are like, “Alright, which one are you rocking, which one am I rocking?” And I think he looks really good. I can say that about my little brother. F151: What’s the best fashion tip you’ve given him? D1: “Let me choose” [laughs]. That’s the best tip I’ve ever given him. And he’ll laugh but he’ll say the same thing. F151: Has he ever given you advice? D1: My brother gives me advice on everything in my life. Usually he’ll say, “This looks good on you, this looks bad on you.” Or, “This is kind of weird.” But my brother—trust me man—my brother gives me advice on everything. Maybe not my dissertation, but everything else my brother has a say in. So it’s not like I’m out there telling him what to do. F151: When you’re on campus at Columbia, teaching or working on your PhD, do you find that you have to adapt your style, or is it pretty much the same? D1: I won’t wear my sunglasses when I’m teaching, and I might not wear a biker jacket, but everything else stays the same. F151: Coming from Montreal to New York, do you see a big difference in the way people dress between those two cities? D1: Yeah. People know how to dress here. F151: [Laughs] You think it’s better in New York? D1: [Scoffs] Come on, man. I mean it’s like…New York, London, Paris. For me, Paris especially. F151: Paris is the best? D1: I think if you’re into more of a heritage, Americana, Brooks Brothers by way of beat-up wingtips and rolled-up jeans from the 1940s, then New York is where it’s at. And if you’re

into more of a tight pants and boots and a leather jacket, maybe Paris is where it’s at. And if you’re more into whatever next-level shit is happening in the East End, then London [laughs]! Depends what you like. London’s got Central Saint Martins [College of Art & Design]. They’re the breeding ground for all things fashion. As long as you never go to LA or Miami, you’ll be alright! Or Vegas. That’s not even… I can’t.... F151: Speaking of, you have a recurring style feature on Twitter. D1: #airportstyle? Yeah. F151: Do you find there’s a certain airport where you guys really hit the gold mine? D1: Oh my god. San Diego. Crazy. The Hawaiian shirts were out of control. The thing about the airport stuff is, I’m not making fun. This is stuff we like. We don’t wear it, but this summer Pee was rocking the Tommy Bahama

shirts hard [laughs]. We love it because it’s something that’s quintessentially American, like the phone on the belt and the tucked-in Polo with the fucking palm trees on it. I just love that. It’s straight up. F151: Have you seen any recent rapper attempts at high fashion that have been particularly embarrassing? D1: I think the worst-dressed rapper and the guy who fails miserably with every single outfit is Jay-Z. Everything he tries to wear looks horrible. He’s a schlump. He’s the king of schlump, because he’s around Kanye and Kanye’s so dope. And Kanye’s basically just a vector that schooled everyone in that world. And so Jay is the first to pick up on it ’cause he’s so close to Kanye, but with Jay it’s just like, “Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail.” I would say that in terms of rappers, when you look back, obviously Kanye did so many good things just to bridge

the gap between hip-hop and fashion. Kanye wears it on his sleeve. But I think the one rapper that’s got flyness without really talking about it too much is Nas. He doesn’t wear anything too crazy; it’s just the army fatigues are always on point. If he’s doing something else, it’s always on point. Nas, to me, is a real fly dude. He’s had his mishaps with the shiny suits and stuff, but overall whenever I see him, I’m like, “Man!” Plus he still looks like he’s 21. There’s something cool about him. But Jay-Z…it’s tough, ’cause he’s the greatest dude ever, and you see what he’s trying to do, but it’s…ay yi yi. F151: Is there a certain style that you like to see on ladies? D1: I like what Margiela does for women. Phoebe Philo is great. She does Céline as you know. Riccardo Tisci is great. He does Givenchy. He’s been the most critically acclaimed. And Balmain for women. I’m not giving you any original answers, but by all accounts the most stylish woman is Emmanuel Alt, who just got made Editor In Chief of French Vogue, now that homegirl [Carine Roitfeld] left a couple of weeks ago. She kills it. She used to be the Fashion Director, and now she’s the Editor. This is the high-fashion stuff. But for any girl who knows how to put it together, you can spend $50 at Topshop or Forever 21 or the vintage store and if you know what you’re doing, it’s gonna be great. It’s not like guys where it’s mostly just horrible. The average is pretty good for chicks. F151: Looking back on Chromeo’s style history, do you have any regrets? D1: Many regrets, man. We’re still learning. If you look at half the old pictures, we look horrible. Half of the old pictures, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

F151: Any specific outfits? D1: Pretty much anything prior to 2008 is a disaster. We were learning as we went along. It’s not like Springsteen where everything you look at you’re like, “Whoa.” No, we can’t. Dude, there’s a million ones of us where it’s like, “Oh boy.” F151: Do you guys style yourselves, or do you have stylists that help you out on certain things? D1: Nah, ourselves. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise. The only thing we didn’t mention is the elephant in the room, and it’s Hedi Slimane himself. We said it when we talked about the Dior stuff, but I think he deserves a mention for men’s fashion as the guy who really revolutionized it in the last few years. I think it was Armani in the ’80s and then Hedi Slimane in terms of people who really “saved” men’s fashion. But again, it’s all about the old dude on the corner who doesn’t even know who these people are, and who’s been killing it. I could only wish that I had that, you know? F151: It takes a lifetime. D1: Yeah it does! It does, man. F151: Anything else you want to add? D1: Nah we pretty much covered everything. Again, this is more than I would normally talk about it. For instance, I never saw an interview of The Strokes talking about how they dress and yet when they came out, that was the second thing that people talked about, apart from the greatest rock album of the last 25 years. But The Strokes never talked about it, which was something I always really admired, so it really takes a Fool’s Gold project to get me to talk about this stuff this much.

With every unpredictable new release, Kingdom adds to a growing catalog of moody, emotive club tracks. Even his most intense and experimental songs have a bittersweet soul lurking beneath the bass drums. It’s only natural that a selection of Kingdom’s favorite R&B “deep cuts” would be as revealing and surprising as his own originals. Shareefa “Hustlin’” Shareefa’s version of the Rick Ross anthem “Hustlin’” from her 2006 mixtape Got Reefa? is epic. Her aggressive, raspy vocal delivery—often compared to early Mary J. Blige—didn’t get the shine it deserved. “Need a Boss” was a Top 10 R&B track in 2006 via Ludacris’ DTP label, but she allegedly got dropped from DTP / Def Jam, along with the equally underrated Bobby Valentino, after boss L.A. Reid was underwhelmed by their performances at a 2008 showcase. Got Reefa? is one of the best R&B mixtapes ever created. Yummy “You Ain’t Ready” Elizabeth T. Wyce Bingham AKA Yummy got seriously slept on. You might remember Yummy from her song “Come Get It” featuring Jadakiss, which was a minor hit in 2005—but there’s more to know. She has a four-octave vocal range and her godmother is Chaka Khan. Despite “Come

Get It” being a total banger, issues with her label and management caused album delays and a lack of promotion. Because of this, her album The First Seed was released late and only in the UK. “You Ain’t Ready,” a track from that album, features Yummy’s soulful, raw, yet childlike vocals bobbing and weaving over a buzzing synth, 808 claps, and spaceship takeoff sounds. That song was on my first mixtape in 2006, and “Come Get It” was remixed by Hudson Mohawke in 2008. Teedra Moses “Doin’ You” It’s hard to believe that Teedra Moses’ only official album, the R&B cult classic Complex Simplicity, was released back in 2004. It’s a record worthy of critical acclaim, and Teedra is a timeless talent, a singer and songwriter who continues to record, release mixtapes, and work on new music with producers such as Trackademicks and 9th Wonder. Her songs effortlessly fuse warm, soulful

Photo Kirill Bichutsky

melodies and engaging lyrics, all while keeping it ’hood. Her bouncy “Doin’ You” was not on Complex Simplicity, but was a track on the album sampler CD that preceded the album. Nicole Wray “Who Are You” Most people know Nicole for 1998’s “Make It Hot” featuring Missy Elliott, but she has been making music for the decade-plus since then, despite numerous roadblocks. After her Missy and Timbaland-produced record failed to sell, she was dropped by Elektra and signed with Roc-A-Fella. When the lead single “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stalled at takeoff, her already finished album for Roc-A-Fella was shelved. After that, she was briefly signed to Dame Dash Music Group and collaborated on a series of tracks with Cam’ron and The Diplomats. Despite none of those projects making commercial impact, Nicole has continued to release music.

“Who Are You” is an incredible, extraterrestrial 120-BPM jungle-esque track from her recent Ms. America tape. Sadie Ama “Right Now” Sadie Ama, sister of quintessential UK garage singer Shola Ama, was the princess of “rhythm & grime” in 2006. The majority of her tracks were produced by grime legends Terror Danjah and Davinche, both mad scientists in their genre with keen ears for pop when necessary. In a 2007 interview with MTV Base, Ama cited Aaliyah as her “idol,” and the worship shows (along with shades of Cassie) in her smooth, soulful delivery and the way her voice gently rides Terror’s skittery, Timbaland-influenced beats. “Right Now,” from Terror Danjah’s Industry Standard Vol. 1, is a classic Terror Danjah production featuring beautiful, plaintive vocals from Sadie.

THE DEBUT EP FEAT. Telli Federline (NINJASONIK)

Anton Glamb & MORE @rockybusiness

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Moderator Nick Catchdubs Over the past few years, dance tracks have infiltrated the world of mainstream pop like never before. Yet that hasn’t stopped the electronic underground from continuing to mutate and shoot off in new directions. Fool’s Gold artists (and dynamic Canadian duos) Jokers Of The Scene and Nacho Lovers have led the charge, pulling from the dustiest corners of classic house, techno and industrial history, and flipping those influences into exciting new songs like “Baggy Bottom Boys” and “Deeper.” I talk to Linus and Chris JOTS and Andrew and Scott Nachos over Instant Message every day to share music and brainstorm, so it was only natural that our conversation for Frank would take the same form. See what happens when we talk roots, identities, and DJing with a mask on.

Linus

Chris

Nick

Scott

Andrew

SO MANY PEOPLE IM A PC ok we have everybody this interview better include all our AIM handles from the 90s chameleonic is from the 90s i can't let go

this is a good segue to my original intro, which was to see when you all started DJing / producing, and when you first started working as a team mid 90s…montreal…ambient no beats to match

production 97 I got my first turntables/mixer in 98... didn't get to dj outside til 2001 i started dj'ing around 2002...or 2003? i started producing music in the 80s, in my parents' basement, with a tape recorder. my mom has a full album i made when i was 8. she shows it to my girlfriends. first tables in 1998, didn’t dj out until 2004 i think i stopped dj’ing for like 5 years in between though as my interests changed sold all my shit except for like 10 records

i feel like i first met you guys in some capacity around 2005 or so we met you when you got stuck at the border ask customs when that was

Haha from those early days, what part of the approach remains the same today?

if anything it's more open now. we've always wanted to explore beyond just dance music and dance music wasn't really a choice in terms of what we wanted to make, it's just where we were at when we started working together do terms like "dance music" become limiting from a music-making perspective?

I think its ok because having a context for the music allows some focus making "dance music" sometimes feels like trying to shove big ideas into a little box so i think we try to expand that we're def not making music for other djs at this point if others play and like... awesome, but we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t set out so someone will chart it

I like the idea that dance music can be a tool or it can be sort of abstract or both at the same time maybe the drums are for mixing, but something going on over it is for escaping into the forest

the idea of growth is definitely something that i see happen exponentially with everyone. it’s not just the songs themselves, but the DJ mixes, seeing you play out - when you’re a fan it’s easier to connect the dots but i wonder what the casual listener takes away from it. "these guys are weird now" we are conscious of the fact that the casual listener finds us too challenging or unfamiliar... i almost take that as a compliment because we don't make casual listening music if you look at both of our career arcs (or lack thereof) so far none of us are going for the quick hit cash grab. we strive to make something that satisfies us first and foremost, and that we hope people will want to listen to now and down the road i rarely find inspiration in dance music or at least...it's a small part of the bigger inspiration "pie" but dance music is our vehicle, it makes it possible for us to get our music heard. i like that it is a sort of backbone to what we do with dj'ing and we enjoy the challenge of taking people a bit further out of the box. there’s other artists who “get it” how does that spirit of community translate in a literal way in toronto? it doesn’t really toronto’s in a sad state right now as far as parties and shit it was natural that we came together on music message boards, because we're all drawn to it for the same reasons. so at the core of the community we have here, it's still really about talking about music and trading music and turning each other on to music.

if you’re talking about other people who make music we're all friends for the most part but its definitely not a "scene" Toronto can be very alienating when it comes to community - we all remember not to take it too seriously i like that the best parties are now showing up in teeny places. it reminds me of the beginnings for me. the memories of those parties we threw when 75% of the crowd couldn't get in and the sound system blew 3 times a night are the best memories of my life what i like here is small intimate nerd music nights and the possibility of doing late night proper sweaty dirty warehouse parties - they’re interesting and help balance what we do as JOTS it’s true - but where do you go when you want to hear a little bass but not be hearing you know...ac slater with 600 kids

there’s always berlin it’s way easier to play abroad. in north america in general there is a much higher percentage of people who open bars/clubs as a money making venture and have no interest really in the music and quality and the type of vibe they want to create. in europe there are still those places but there is a higher percentage of places where it is the other way around. swing club / Athens

arches / glasgow studio 80 in amsterdam hive club / zurich Man we would run a pretty cool club, all of us. getting booked to play parties appropriate to what we do is probably our biggest hurdle but when it happens its nice JOTS gets booked into really varied settings. one night we were playing for 500 rabid 18 year olds frothing at the mouth for the hardest and heaviest shit... the next, we're playing for a mixed/mature audience going crazy to 115 bpm and had a blast doing both itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s definitely something that atrak and i put a lot of thought into and try (with varying degrees of success) to figure out - when we're doing a FG showcase, where can we present everyone best? if you talk to most touring djs that will be everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest gripe. not being represented properly by a club/event sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impossible to get right, other times you end up with settings where we can have a 6am "red room" at the WMC the FG Discotheque parties on the west coast this past summer were quite interesting, we got to see kids wild out to that mature audience type of music

it’s also a problem born of the time we're in where producing is how you make your name. people expect you to DJ exactly like your tracks sound or the tracks of other people on the same label as you. it’s strange because to me, the two should be completely separate. as soon as people have expectations on what you do it’s dangerous at least with fool’s gold nights you’re not all fighting over who gets to play a certain tune i really dont want to ever dj for more than like 300 people sorry andrew but I’d like to try a 10000 crowd at least once. i like playing for 10 as much as 10000 i think a lot of the "deeper" festivals have really crawled so far up the ass of their particular scene that interesting music that isn't 100% part and parcel of it gets overlooked it's funny talking about this because i realize that we exist between both of those musical mindsets - we don't take it too seriously like those purists, but at the same time take it serious enough that we pride ourselves on doing something unique. you want to stand out from the scenes, but at the same time, you want people within the scenes to pay attention

you want the RIGHT people to pay attention

"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member," as groucho marx (or dust) would say it’s all very high school and cliquey... too much press / individuals are worried about their images associating with the "wrong" people...music doesn’t matter i get so psyched on everyone's records that i want EVERYONE TO FEEL LIKE ME! it’s tough at times reconciling that impulse with wanting things to just get out there into the either and reach who they reach. i want to be the crazy advocate, the knocker-on-doors the truth is we need that advocate. but sometimes certain cliques take some time to get to it maybe they don't like the name if not, we'll keep doing what we want. or wear a mask man it must SUCK dj'ing in a mask. like, the WORST i have enough trouble with lights in my eyes. wait maybe that would help i always imagine kids who dj in masks having severe acne underneath like athletes foot on their face are we still on the record? ;) i hope so...

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As told to Felipe Delerme Photos Dax “Dirty Dr.” Rudnak Before Donnis released his smoothed-out Fool’s Gold club jam “Gone,” he dropped “Clermont Lounge,” a remake of a Bubba Sparxxx song of the same name. The track is an ode to Atlanta, Georgia’s oldest continually operating strip club, a dive that prides itself on a myriad of attractions including its elder stateswoman, Blondie, a stripper who can crush empty beer cans between her breasts. But no matter how grimy or upscale the establishment, Donnis is well versed in the culture of his city’s most precious resource, and more than happy to share some of the things he’s witnessed.

Atlanta, we’re known for these tiny girls with these little bitty waist sizes and these huge asses, so people come out here to see it go down, but the strip club is a club. You go to a lot of cities and the strip club is extra chill, everybody’s trying to stay to themselves. Here, it’s a place to network as well. Everybody’s gonna be in there. You gonna see Young Jeezy and his crew, you gonna see JD, you gonna see Jazze Pha, you gonna see everybody who’s anybody in there. You don’t feel like you’re in a strip club just to see some women or spend money, that’s just something that happens. The guys, they get extra excited, like they get in there and they start thinking they’re doing it and they wanna impress these young ladies. A lot of these niggas start thinking that Stripper A, B, or C is gonna go home with them and they really don’t need to be thinking that, ’cause that’s the strippers’ job. They supposed to flirt and blow in your ear and all that good stuff. And dudes get caught up spending money. I learned that at a young age—spending your paycheck at a strip club, that ain’t the move. If you got it, you can ball out, but it’s not made for everybody. In Atlanta, back in the BMF [Black Mafia Family] days, I seen it go down where they gotta stop every two songs and pull out them garbage bags and go picking up all that money. In Onyx, Magic City, all those spots, it happens like you’ve never seen it before. Where you’re like walking on money. All the rap stars are there, the dope boys is in there, and you watch the rap stars make the mistake of trying to keep up with the dope boys. I’m 100% sure that these young ladies are raking in some big numbers. Think about it…dudes is going there making

it rain nightly. They definitely getting paper. All they gotta do is show up, shake they ass, and go home. And most of them are in the videos, so they making the video paper on the side, so it’s definitely major. This is a business, man. As we all know, stripping is one of the oldest professions in the world. That ain’t going nowhere. I remember back in the day, Whyte Chocolate, she was the one! She was that girl. You’d see her in the Nelly “Tip Drill” video and you’d see her out. Everybody knows the strippers, and they know everybody. That being said, they’re definitely some superstars in their own right out there. And the porn stars, too. Porn stars is coming up in the A. It’s getting crazy out there, everybody networking together.

I’ve definitely been wilding on a stripper though and I was in the club, like, “I don’t even wanna treat her like a stripper.” But I couldn’t take her off the pole. It ran though my mind—I’m not even gonna front! If I would have met her in any other circumstance, then yeah, it wouldn’t have been an issue. I mean, I wouldn’t go in there trying to meet a stripper. They hit you with the fake name, the fake number, or you’ll get ran for everything you got. You gotta understand, the strippers in the A, they making more money than most. They making over 60 grand a year.

You gotta go to the chill spots if you don’t wanna see everybody, like Clermont Lounge. Clermont is that grimy hole in the wall. You can just drink and kick it. I go to the Pink Pony on the South Side. You can’t be seein’ everybody every day; you gotta be low-key sometimes. But Clermont, the cigarette burns and all that…that’s where they at. I got to see it in its heyday. It’s still happening and it’s still popping, but I got to see it when Big Meech used to do it and it will never be done like that ever again in my city. You gotta imagine a bunch of video chicks with fat asses and you walking on money and Cristal is flowing. That shit was a movie. You know everybody be like, “That was a movie!” No nigga, that was a movie! What everybody else was doing was commercials. That was a movie. That was some James Bond, 007 shit.

Cooking This is my personal favorite scene, where Armand and I dress up as chefs. The whole vision for the video was to capture that Beastie Boys, skate video kind of NYC zaniness that we grew up on, and this is by far the most Beastie scene in the whole thing. In the midst of tracking down all these stars, I had to figure out a kitchen to shoot at. I sent out a tweet, and Alex from Holy Ghost! hit me back right away saying his little brother is a chef and a big fan, and he’d be thrilled. We went to his spot in the West Village, had breakfast, then went down to film with all the prep cooks looking at us like, “Huh?” It’s some kind of pork broth.

In the space of a few months, Duck Sauce's "Barbra Streisand" video (directed by So-Me) has amassed over 50 million YouTube views on the road to multiplatinum international success. Not bad for a clip filled with underground rap stars, DJ heroes, and graffiti legends. A-Trak rewinds the tape to share some behind-the-scenes anecdotes about how he got these party people to add their own personal flavors to Barbraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pop-art adventure.

The Biz We wanted to get Biz Markie for the video, but I quickly realized that he doesn’t live here...so let’s just get the Biz puppet! For those who don’t know, the puppet first appeared in the Masta Ace “Me And The Biz” video and was subsequently immortalized by Ego Trip in their magazine and on the cover of Big Book Of Rap Lists. I hit Sasha Jenkins from Ego Trip, who I’ve known for a couple years, and he put me in touch with Chairman Mao, who’s in charge of their archives. He couldn’t lend it out because the doll is getting pretty fragile with age, but said he was en route to the storage space that day and it would be OK to film there. So off to Manhattan Mini Storage we went. Indeed, it was really crumbling. The Biz is made of paper mâché, from 1990!

Reas This was the one scene in NYC I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t able to attend while it was being filmed. So-Me and Todd James (Reas) are friends, so he just went over to Toddâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio to shoot without me. The video footage of the drawing came out too dark, so they ended up using still photos someone took at the same time. Todd made that Duck Sauce graphic on the spot. No one knows where the actual art ended up. Nick bugs me about finding it so we can make a t-shirt.

Todd Terry Todd Terry is a house legend, but he’s far and away the one guest most people misidentify in the video. That’s not even the craziest thing about this scene. We filmed it at Armand’s apartment with all his records. He has all these party props hanging around the crib as well—crazy glasses, toys, etc. He has these fez hats that I always liked, so we put them on for the shot. Now everyone thinks Duck Sauce is Illuminati....

Ezra Koenig Ezra from Vampire Weekend is one of the few people in the video who has actually hung out with myself and Armand at the same time. We all do karaoke together. On separate occasions, Ezra has belted an incredible rendition of Blues Traveler’s “The Hook” as well as every single verse of Cam’ron and Juelz Santana’s “Hey Ma.” He was in Montreal when we were shooting and filmed his part with iMovie on a day off from tour.

Santigold The dance scene at my apartment is one of the last things we filmed. Santi and I had been talking for a few weeks beforehand about catching up to play each other beats and tracks that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been working on, so the video was a perfect opportunity to finally get together. But she was kind of shy, and only agreed to appear in the video if I would dance with her. She came up with the choreography and had to teach me. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not a very skilled dancer.

P-Thugg Pee was also in Montreal, and he filmed this himself at his synth lair. Not surprisingly, he took it suuuuper seriously: shooting from a bunch of different angles, versions with and without sunglasses, adjusting the lighting…. It came out so good, the video editor couldn’t tell that this was the only footage we didn’t shoot on 5D. Pee even sent me the Pro Tools session for his audio track! It was really important to get him in the video; he’s the one who introduced me and Armand. The matchmaker.

Duck Down I’ve known Dru Ha and Buckshot for close to ten years, just from going to shows. They were always approachable. I was thinking I wanted either Smif-N-Wessun or Buckshot, and that I wouldn’t be able to get both. Buckshot texted me, “Come to this corner”—just the address, no day or time. I had to hit Dru back to figure it out. The weekend of the video shoot, there were a lot of things going on, including the Fat Beats closing. We ended up filming this around the corner at Gray’s Papaya. So-Me wanted Buckshot to take a bite of the hotdog then say “Barbra Streisand,” but everyone agreed it was a bit of an “Ayooo” moment. Buck and Armand bonded over both being signed to Nervous in the ’90s.

DJ Premier Primo and Armand have known each other forever. They used to run in the same circles in the ’90s. DJ Riz, too. Adult film aficionados, all three. And I’ve known Premier from just being around the past decade or so. It was hard explaining the “Barbra” video concept to all the guests. We got a lot of “Yeah, whatever. Call me tomorrow.” But I saw Primo at the Fat Beats closing, and he said, “Sure, for you and Armand. Come through at midnight and I’ll be at the studio.” He still works out of the old D&D—now its HeadQcourterz. The same room, too. The smaller room he rents out to Showbiz. Premier was a great host and storyteller. His wife had just put up all those platinum and gold plaques seen in the video earlier this year. He had stories about every one. Not just Biggie but Limp Bizkit, all the tours, etc. He told us about his first time meeting DJ AM at the Playboy Mansion. Then he did his scratch on the song.

Just Blaze Just and his brother grew up in Jersey listening to hip-hop and house music, so of course he knew Armand. The first time I went to see him DJ at Santos, Armand came with me and Just literally bowed down in the booth, like in Wayne’s World. This scene wasn’t shot explicitly for the video; it was just something caught on film at the Fool’s Gold Day Off party. Just was singing Armand’s “U Don’t Know Me.” It was so good that we wanted to stop the music from “Barbra” and insert the track into the video, but we couldn’t clear the song. Originally the idea was to film Just walking his dogs—he has these two tiny dogs—but he sleeps at really odd hours. We couldn’t get it scheduled.

As told to Felipe Delerme Photo Mancy Gant With a box-fresh fade buttressing a crown of dark curls, MC / producer Trackademicks looks something like a swoled-up version of ’90s R&B heartthrob Al B. Sure! Though Track doesn’t sport Sure’s signature unibrow, he carries in his music a message not unlike that of the “Nite And Day” singer, one of unabashed compassion offset by a tradition of game served raw. His Fool’s Gold debut “Enjoy What You / Topsidin’” and the recentlyreleased State Of The Arts serve as a cohesive love letter to the varied musical interests Trackademicks was raised with in the Bay—as well as the sounds he sought out by his lonesome.

I’m a real ’80s head, first and foremost. I really am a fan of “sophisti-pop” music. Like, Sade fits in as sophistipop, and a lot of British bands. Swing Out Sister is one of the big ones, Tears For Fears, and also the cuttier ones like Wham! Everyone makes fun of George Michael ’cause he might seem questionable with the shortshorts, but people don’t understand... his songwriting was amazing. I really seem to gravitate towards smart, artsy pop music, and that’s what I think a lot of the ’80s stuff was.

I started rapping when I was like 14. Before rapping I was listening to a lot of R&B music, especially early ’90s R&B. They all have that—we call it “tender knock,” us here in the Honor Roll crew. You’re not thinking about weed all day, you’re not thinking about guns all day, whatever rappers throughout the ages have made their number-one thing, you don’t think about it all day. Like when you’re with a female, you’re not gonna be listening to “Gimme the Loot” while you’re trying to mess with some work.

On the R&B side, Jodeci is the greatest band ever. They’re the greatest R&B group ever. A lot of what’s in my own music—the lush synths, the backdrops—man, they probably do it the best. With them you can hear the church. They juxtapose sex and the church like crazy.

I’m tryna offer something of substance. A lot of stuff that I do gravitate towards has that depth. Outkast, for example. I mean, these fools are 19 coming out with Southernplayalistic. And not just that, but all on the same record you have “Players Ball” and “Crumbling ’Erb.” That’s one of my favorite records of all time.

Tony! Toni! Toné!, that’s Oakland straight up. When I say that, it’s not just ’cause I’m from here, but if you come here and you go to the functions, there’s a piece of the way Tony! Toni! Toné! got down in everything. It’s really reflective of Oakland specifically. Most people could rap over Tony! Toni! Toné! beats if they wanted to. I mean shoot, “Raining Game”—you know, “It Never Rains (In Southern California)?” Mac Dre did “It’s raining game in Northern California,” and there’s a lot of that going on out here, a lot of reinterpretation.

I think what people can take away from listening to classics, whether it’s a modern classic or an older classic, is that it might perfectly articulate a feeling that they have at that moment. Love is one of the things that people have sung about forever, and will always sing about, you know? It’s one of those things you think would be clichéd by now, but it’s not because it’s something that people can relate to. “Oh, this shit expresses how I actually feel.” And I think that’s what people will take away from any kind of music really, that they can make themselves better writers. My first entrance to making music for myself was Bay Area rap music. It was Mac Mall, Ray Love, The Luniz, Dru Down, E-40…all those. We call it “mobb music,” where there’s a certain trunk beat / car aesthetic to it. Being from the Bay and listening to all that

stuff coming up framed how I would digest everything else. There were a lot of types of music that I didn’t like when I first heard them because it didn’t sound like what I was used to or what I came up on. And out here it’s all about the Bay. Stylistically, how rappers out here speak and what they choose to say and the words they choose to say it with, everything has a real style to it. Bay Area rap is about game—getting straight to the point and putting you up on game all the time. I don’t know if it’s because there’s a lot of pimps out here or a lot of players. Players, pimps, macks, hustlers. Sade, on the other end of it, you could feel everything that she talked about, even if she don’t say it in too many words. If you listen to her she seems like she might be sad a lot of the time, right? There’s some kind of beauty in that sadness, even. It’s raw emotion and that’s an integral part of music. The way I feel about Sade and how she makes me feel when I listen to it, someone is doing that listening to Pac. When it comes to someone like Sade, I think she straight up is transmitting emotion and feeling. She’s one of the greatest ever. It sounds clichéd but I have very broad influences that I look to, and with State Of The Arts it’s me trying to reconcile art versus commerce, as well as bringing that West Coast synth vibe. I feel like music, whether people like to admit it or not, is a direct reflection of everything that is around you: what you listen to, what you’re into.

One of the many joys of following Daniel LeDisko of LA Riots on Twitter (@danielRiots) is watching him hustle for upgrades, disparage subpar executive lounges, and generally expound on the finer points of air travel from terminals around the globe. Here are some pointers he’s willing to share. Always sign up for frequent flyer mileage accounts. They’re essential. Pick one airline from each alliance (Star Alliance, One World, Sky Team, etc.) and just stack miles on that one account to build up status quickly. Nowadays everyone’s partnered with someone and once you reach gold, platinum, etc. (the naming structure differs by airline) you can enjoy all the benefits on any of the other partner airlines and avoid hassles and long waits by checking in via first-class check in and priority lanes through security, even if you’re flying coach. The Internet is your friend. Seatguru.com is essential for getting the most comfortable seat possible. It tells you by airplane model which seats are best / worst, which have power outlets, which don’t recline.... I live by this site. Get creative with countries. The one thing I hate about most domestic airlines is the fact that even when you reach elite status you still have to pay like $500 per year to use their business or elite lounges. Like flying 100,000 miles annually isn’t enough anymore! So on top of them nickel and diming you for sandwiches and chips in coach, they also make you pay for the lounges. One way around this is, if you fly on Star Alliance (US Airways, United, Continental for US flights), apply your sky miles towards Air Canada. As stupid as this sounds, once you attain status there (and if you’re a well traveled DJ, it will take no time to become elite), you can use your Air Canada elite status to gain access to any of the American lounges (since they’re an international partner) for free. Buy Burton luggage. Their stuff is indestructible and just looks amazing. Buy a cheap roller bag and the wheels will eventually buckle under the weight or just fall off. Burton (and their umbrella labels like Gravis) use skateboard wheels to handle tons of abuse. The bags also have cram zones: you can stuff tons in them and the cram zones will stretch out without harming the bag. Do yourself a favor and get the “Double Decker,” a huge roller bag that splits in half, so once you get to the airport you can unzip the top half and not worry about going over the 50-pound weight restriction per bag. Clown me all you want for having CMYK polka dots over my bag, but when it gets lost it’s so easy for the airline to locate. Fly with a folding board. True story. My years of working at the Gap in college have made me a pro.

Photo Ysa Perez Rocco Rampino has quickly turned Congorock into a name you can trust in the crowded scene of new-school electro producers. With banger after banger, he has found fresh ways to flip influences both familiar and obscure, which in his case can all be traced back to video games. A lot of beatmakers claim to rep their classic house and techno roots, but who else is really sampling Neo Geo bleeps and making synthesizer patches that sound like 16-bit dinosaur mating calls? No wonder the makers of Mortal Kombat asked him to officially remix Liu Kang’s fight theme for the latest edition of the kung-fu killer. Rocco was kind enough to put you on to game, compiling his ten favorite “jungle” video games, all of which he spent hours conquering as a lad in Lecce, Italy while listening to console-worthy techno 12-inches. Pitfall (Atari 2600, 1982) I wasn’t even born when this came out, but I am sure it’s the first “jungle” videogame ever, and I loved the remake, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, on Sega Genesis. Contra (NES, 1987) Very hard one! The coin-op version arrived in Italy with the usual three- or

four-year delay. It was a big challenge for all the kids hanging out at my hometown arcade. Runark (Sega Genesis, 1990) This is an obscure beat ’em up videogame (also known as Growl) that inspired my first single on Fool’s Gold. Dig it up.

Donkey Kong Country (Super Nintendo, 1994) As a hardcore Sega Genesis fan, I have to admit that the first modernday Donkey Kong game made me switch to a Super Famicom, AKA Super Nintendo. So did Street Fighter II, but there were no vines or bananas in that one.

The Curse of Monkey Island (PC, 1997) The third episode of Monkey Island’s demented pirate saga has the best graphics and the best plot. The score by game composer Michael Land mixes reggae with classical orchestration, which might sound weird but turns out to be amazing!

Chuck Rock (Sega Genesis, 1994) The hero in the title is a prehistoric man with a punk-rock mohawk. This is a super funny platform game with lots of jungle zones and dinosaurs. How could you go wrong?

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Nintendo64, 1997) Hunting dinosaurs in the wild, the name sums it all up. This is probably the best cartridge to ever hit the N64. The Xbox sequel is good, too.

Tomb Raider (Playstation, 1996) The sexy side of jungle gaming.

Far Cry 2 (Xbox, 2008) I have been playing this a whole lot lately. You take the role of a jungle guerrilla dodging gangsters, revolutionaries, and revolutionary gangsters in the middle of Africa. Feels so real!

Metal Slug (Neo Geo, 1996) A very intense, funny, and super fast shoot ’em up. The zones look tropical and industrial at the same time… just perfect.

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Photo Doug Coombe

Interview Sesema Lokerman While online superfans continue to plead with Detroit’s mayor to erect a RoboCop statue in the center of the city, there’s another local icon-in-the-making who’s got the Internet going nuts. Danny Brown has been grinding on the underground circuit for several years, but with his self-released 2010 mixtape The Hybrid, the Motown motormouth launched himself into the iPods of rap fanatics around the globe with a dizzying flow and uniquely bugged-out worldview. We talked to him about his upcoming projects with the crew, his controversial coiff, Sufjan Stevens, and more. Frank151: So how did you link up with Fool’s Gold? Danny Brown: I was talking to my manager, Emeka, about where would be the best fit for me to go, and I threw out a couple names. Fool’s Gold was one of them. He reached out, and everything’s all good. They really was excited about me coming over there, so I’m excited about going over there. They’re tastemakers right now; when they put they stamp on something, it’s gotta be up to quality, and I want to come through with that. I’m not gonna try to convert and do no crazy dance records or nothing— which I have no problem with. But I

think a lot of people would expect that, and me going more underground into what Danny Brown do… now that I got more people listening, I’d rather get more experimental now than just cater to what Fool’s Gold has been doing. They not trying to keep me in a box. I want to make sure that the same people that listen to Kid Sister or listen to Chromeo listen to Danny Brown, but I’m still doing what I do. F151: You’ll fit in well, because you’re a self-described music nerd. DB: Yeah, pretty much. That was the big thing. When we first met, we really didn’t talk about doing business; we talked about music the whole time. That was the illest thing

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to me, because I sat down with a lot of labels and all we were talking about was, “How can we make this project work?” and this and that. Fool’s Gold was all about being fans of music, and “How can we make Danny Brown better?” A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs, you think of just dance music, but they real knowledgeable with hip-hop. I learned a few things from them. I was really impressed by Nick Catchdubs—I can’t front. His knowledge of hip-hop is incredible, man. You get so many people, they just stay in one lane of hip-hop. They just study one style. He knows everything—genres, years…all that shit. I try, but there’s a lot of stuff I just miss out on. F151: I’m sure you guys talked about house and ghettotech and a lot of the Detroit stuff. DB: Yeah, ’cause you know my father was a house DJ, so my upbringing was pretty much into that. Hip-hop wasn’t the number-one thing to me until I was old enough to purchase music myself. So for me, coming up, it was more like house and ghettotech. F151: Did you listen to much R&B and soul growing up? DB: The Motown and all that stuff, that’s around you everywhere you go. That’s nothing you can really escape. Of course I’ve been influenced by that too. Everybody’s grandma owns a vinyl collection, you know? F151: Something that I noticed from searching you on the Internet is that people have a lot to say about your appearance. Like the #dannybrownshair Twitter hashtag. DB: Yeah. F151: Does that bother you, or do you like that people are talking about you? DB: There’s pros and cons to it. Sometimes you’ll see some shit and you’ll be like, “What the…!” Like, “C’mon, man!” But at the end of the

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day, I do what I want to do and I’m not dressing for nobody else but myself. I’m just expressing my music through my fashion. They go hand in hand. If a person don’t get it, that’s on them. I’m not trying to be like your next-door neighbor; I’m an entertainer, so my job is to entertain. Whether you like it or you don’t, it still makes you talk. At the end of the day, I got a good sense of humor. A lot of shit people say be mad funny to me. I don’t be trippin’ about it. F151: Like what? DB: When I cut my hair like this, I knew there was gonna be some people that was gonna crack on me! But I didn’t have a problem with that. It’s cool with me. I got thick skin. I’m from Detroit, man; we got way more problems to be worried about. F151: You get brought up alongside Lil B a lot. Do you feel like you’ll have to release a lot of free music to keep the attention of your fans? DB: No, I think that’s the difference— that I don’t release a lot of things—so when I do release something, it’s more appreciated than somebody you see every week or every other day. When a Danny Brown link pops up, it means more. I know with Lil B, he releases so much music and so much material, a lot of times you can’t really click everything. With me, I try to release [only] the best shit I possibly can, so people will click. I try to space it out and time it instead of just trying to come out with something every other day. F151: Quality over quantity. DB: Yeah, pretty much. F151: Do you think that being a great rapper is something that can be learned, or is it something that you just have? DB: I think it’s a little of both, to be honest. It’s something you’re born

Photo Nate “Igor” Smith

with, but at the end of the day, if you don’t practice…. I look at music like skateboarding. You’ll see somebody do a new trick— they make up their own shit—but you gotta learn that trick or you gotta learn a variation of that. Otherwise you’re doing 360s and a nigga’s doing 900s. You gotta try to change with the times. On some rapper nerd type-stuff—just the actual writing of it—there’s mad tricks and different techniques. Every year somebody opens a new door or a new pattern to a new flow, or a new way to do something. It’s always about throwing that into your arsenal and still trying to come up with new shit that you can do too. At the end of the day, it is something you’re born with, because you’ve got to have actual talent. One thing about rap—they crack on it like you don’t

really need talent to rap, but it takes talent to ride a beat, it takes talent for a person to know how to use their voice a certain way, it takes breath control, and that’s a talent. There’s a lot of different things you need to become a rapper. You have to learn these other things to make you great. F151: The really great MCs make it look easy. DB: That’s the thing, too. After you’ve done all that, you always want to make it look like you’re not trying. It takes talent to be a rapper. A singer could just be born with a good voice, and all he or she’s gotta do is go to vocal training; somebody could write songs for them. People don’t care, they’re gonna love the songs. With rappers, it’s totally different; there’s a lot of things that come with it. So I don’t hate on nobody that make good rap songs. Even though people might think they terrible, if the masses like

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it…population rules, so I think that’s a good rap song. F151: Do you aspire to be on the top of the charts? DB: At the end of the day, when you’re competing, everybody wanna be the best at what they competing at. For me, for the love of music, I’ll be the sacrificial lamb to be ahead of my time to try and push my genre forward. If three years from now I’m getting more respect for what I did ’cause [now] everybody else is doing it, I’d rather take that than just do something trendy and have a number-one song for that year and not be heard about in three years. F151: Really get yourself into the history books. DB: I can’t really concentrate on trying to be trendy and make that number-one song; I just gotta try to push myself the furthest I can push myself, to push my genre forward. Because a lot of people feel like hip-hop is stagnant. I want to prove them wrong. So I’m riding for hip-hop at the end of the day, to show them that this genre can be experimental and it can get pushed forward and it can do new things. F151: Are you bummed that the White Stripes broke up? DB: It was something we could have all seen coming. Nah, I’m not bummed. There’s a lot of bands that’ve been around that are starting to get their just due. Passing of the torch, man. F151: Who else are you listening to? DB: I like the new Smith Westerns record. They’re kinda cool. I like the Radiohead album. I really like Arcade Fire a lot, Ariel Pink…that’s pretty much it, man. There’ve been a lot of good albums that came out this year, but there’ve been a lot of overhyped ones, too. I go back and I listen to Joy Division. I listen to the older stuff more than I listen to the newer stuff. A lot

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of the newer rock shit just get overhyped. Like the Deerhunter album. It was good, but it wasn’t that good. F151: Does that kind of music have an impact on the stuff that you write? DB: Yeah, totally. It inspires me more than hearing rap songs, to be honest. One thing I like about rock music is that they can make a song and you don’t really know what they talking about. They can be talking about anything, and you’ll like the song, and you eventually figure out the meaning of the song. It could have been about his little brother, it could have been about anything. With rap, we’re so straightforward, where you know what we talking about—who, what, where, when, why. With rock music, you gotta figure shit out a little bit sometimes. Some of the songs they write is tricky and shit, so I’m trying to figure out ways to do that with rap music. F151: Sometimes you make an emotional connection with the music before you understand the deeper meaning. DB: That’s how I make music, too, more with my heart than with my ears. I want to throw Sufjan Stevens in there, too. He replaced the White Stripes to me. F151: He’s a brilliant songwriter. DB: He’s great, man. The new album [The Age of Adz], he on his electronic shit. I’m definitely feeling that. F151: It blows me away that he can throw the autotune on here and there and still a great album. DB: Every album he’s switching it up and he constantly comes with new things. I’m getting inspired by those types of artists more so than by my peer group of rappers. I’m in a situation now where I’ve got a lot of people who are gonna listen to my music and I can’t let them down, so it’s like I’m back against the wall again. I just want to make a good album, bro.

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As told to Frank Green Photos Josh Wehle Party Supplies is the brainchild of Justin Nealis, a native New Yorker and one-man band with a handmade approach to music making and left-field ear for pop hooks made him a natural addition to the Fool’s Gold family. Speaking from his gear-stuffed bedroom studio in Brooklyn, he held court on ’80s pop, Twitter rappers, and his own sampling obsessions. Party Supplies started about a year and a half ago. I’m originally from Queens. Middle Village is where I was born. I moved to Williamsburg two years ago. I don’t mean to be cliché about the neighborhood—it is what it is—but I’m immersed right in it. Jay Electronica lives right across the street from me. He moved in a few months ago, I see him all the time. I come from making rap beats—I do everything on the drum machine. I started in music when I was really young, like 12 or 13, playing piano, guitar, and slowly got into rap because

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my brother was an MC. We started a group, we made a little bit of noise, we made a record, it wasn’t anything big. When I moved to Williamsburg, I brought all my equipment with me and then I just started recording songs that were more like the other stuff I had been listening to for years. Phil Collins, Genesis, Huey Lewis… the list goes on. It’s definitely a dance, pop, indie rock hybrid. It’s my own sound. The vocals and the lyrics sound a lot like if you were listening to a Talking Heads record…like a time when pop stars were able to look like your sixth-grade English teacher. Stardom back then was completely different than what it is right now. You get a Katy Perry record, you’re like, “I’m sorry, but I’m convinced that you don’t have as much talent as Phil Collins, even though you may sell more records than him.” Phil Collins really could play drums like that. And that was the difference. I do everything on the MPC 1000. The way I make the backbone of the track, the actual kick drum and snare drum, is done on a sequencer, so it has the same feel as a rap beat. On my record, I almost do it the way Public Enemy did it, where there’s like a billion different samples, but they’re really hard to distinguish. I know that the Bomb Squad had thousands of samples on a single track or something retarded like that. That’s the same way as I’m doing it: quick, a lot going on. But there is still a lot of instrumentation. I have a Fender Rhodes in the corner of my room. I actually sampled every key already into the MPC. So it isn’t all just samples that I get off records; a lot of it is me sampling my own keyboards. On the MPC alone I have over five gigs of just kicks and snares taken right off

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of hip-hop tracks and dance tracks— old Italian disco records. I literally took ’em right off YouTube. I go out of my computer—quarter-inch to left and right—bong, right into the MPC, right off YouTube. I don’t give a fuck about the sound quality. I never gave a fuck about the sound quality, ever. Party Supplies has almost a garage sound. Everything is in the MPC 1000, and then the outboard compressor on that is one of the most amazing compressors that you can use. When you raise the threshold really high, the thickness squashes the whole beat. Very low-fi and grimy. The live show itself is me on stage with the MPC and a Korg R3 which is a little, tiny keyboard with a vocoder. Then I run my mic through a delay pedal, and then it eventually goes into a tube guitar amp, where I add another delay, so the vocals live sound like you’re listening to Morrisey or something. It’s almost like a slap delay. It’s a very short delay on the vocals, and I use this sound for every song. I don’t want to change it up. I want to get one sound that when you hear the record, it’s all together. Once I start thinking too much about the record, that’s when it starts gettin’ fucked up, ’cause there’s six… seven…eight versions of each song and it becomes insane, dude. I did a rap album in my bedroom with my brother, and it sounded great. We ended up rerecording the album at Jay-Z’s studio on West 27th St., and I swear to God it sounded like, five times worse than how I recorded it in my room. That was a pure example, to me, that it’s not about where you record the shit. The best way for me to record and for me to sing is to really

be in my room, very comfortable, not really dressed up…vibing out, smoking a lot of weed, and just being by myself. Because the shit that I rehearse and do live, I would never have the balls to do it in front of my friends. When you sing, as an artist, it’s not easy to come close to that side of you. This is something I never really did before. My pops tells me, “You can’t sing! Why are you singing?” I’m like, “Dad, you don’t get it. You’re used to very classic singers.” I’m not really a singer in that sense of the word. But I’m able to doctor it enough. That procedure he doesn’t really get. You try to tell him about autotune, and he doesn’t really get it. I’m not a singer, in the same way Phil Collins wasn’t a singer. That’s why his lyric is, “I can’t sing, I can’t dance.” He really couldn’t sing! Look at Bob

Dylan—he couldn’t sing either. You don’t really need to be a singer. You gotta start thinking like, “I don’t give a fuck what it sounds like—I’m gonna make it work.” It’s kind of amazing how viral stuff is these days, but at the same time, Frank Sinatra didn’t have a Twitter. John Lennon didn’t have a fuckin’ Twitter page. I made a remix of this guy Fitz and the Tantrums—it wasn’t actually for him, I just really liked the record. And he emailed me, “Yo, whaddup. I heard the remix. Really like it.” But the funny thing is, he emailed me an hour after I posted it. We’re living in fast times. That’s why I want to keep it slow, like what Jay Electronica’s doing. He’s got the right idea. His whole model is great, since he doesn’t really release too much music. His popularity is building day by day because of anticipation.

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Photo courtesy of Giovanni Reda for the Harold Hunter Foundation

www.frankschopshop.com

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In the kitchen with Food Gold

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Food Gold is a weekly column (and occasional web TV show) on the label’s blog, helmed by longtime friend / writer / editor / host Elliot Aronow. It’s become a true fan favorite, since the Food Gold mission statement transcends mere WordPress ramblings and spaghetti snapshots, as Elz will happily explain. I was a hardcore kid as a teenager. So many of my weekends were spent going to matinees at ABC No Rio, then hopping over to Kate’s Joint on Ave. B ten punks deep to eat fried vegan things that began with the syllable “Un.” I still love the music from those days—the foods, not so much. Once I stopped being a HxC vegetarian I started gaining an appreciation for a lot of different foods—foie gras, pork buns, good quality sushi…all new to me. I began upping my game in terms of seeking out and deeply— sometimes lustfully—enjoying new sorts of culinary pleasures.

Being friends with Nick and Alain since forever, it was only natural to take over the Food Gold column, which Sammy Bananas started as an intermittent travelogue of DJ-on-the-road dining peppered with the occasional how-to. I wanted to get my Julia Child on and narrow the focus to make it more recipe-based. It was really important to me to make things super accessible for new cooks and sort of demystify cooking for the well intentioned— teach them what to look for, and go into a little more detail on the subtleties that can take a dish from OK to SWAG. You know...help kids get laid.

My transition from aspiring gourmand to aspiring chef started when I realized that girls dig a man who cooks. However, it took a few burnt brunches for my lady friends before I decided to learn how to prepare things properly. After an intense five-day “immersion” course at the Institute of Culinary Education on 23rd, I got really into learning how to finesse a dish and sweat the details. (And as a hustling, neurotic Jew I found the kitchen prep work very therapeutic.) It became more and more interesting to me to find out why you needed to sear a steak over a scorching hot grill than just enjoy said steak for a (hefty) price at a French bistro. The two go hand in hand, though. If you know what good food tastes like from eating at the right spots, you can know what you need to look out for as a home cook. Stuff like carmelization, balancing acidity, knife cuts, etc.

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Over the past year or so, Food Gold has really blown up beyond all of our expectations. There have been too many favorites to mention, but shooting a “video party” edition with Daniel from Meatball Shop was very awesome, and very drunken. Dude was super generous and let us backstage into his kitchen at 9 PM on a slammed Saturday night—plates clacking, cute servers squeezing by, grimy prep cooks ignoring us and all that—a wild scene. Making biscuits with Justine D was also a personal highlight; I’ve been getting loose at her parties for years and it was dope to just go to her kitchen and geek out about chives and dough and connect on the food level. Like nightlife, food is ultimately all about pleasure and enjoying things a little bit too much.

Photo Kirill Bichutsky

Special guests and shared recipes are the lifeblood of Food Gold, so it’s only right that we would ask a new guest to let us lurk their cookbook for this special Frank edition. The Slow Roast crew—Kill The Noise, Craze, Klever and friends—sent over grill instructions courtesy of their mascot, Ludwig Von Pig. Beware the ’itis! Louie’s BBQ Pork Ribs!

Now, everyone judges BBQ differently. Of course the sauce is crucial, but just as important is what you’re grilling. Some people ride for brisket, others pulled pork, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s all about the ribs. Good ol’ ribs can be the most impressive thing on the menu if done up properly, so I’m going to share a few secrets on how to prepare Louie’s BBQ Pork Ribs at home. Impress your friends and family!

Hey Y’all! As a pig I consider myself a bit of an authority when it comes to grubbin’. While out on the road touring with the Slow Roast guys, I’ve had the opportunity to sample some of America’s finest BBQ. From Kansas City, St. Louis, down through Memphis, all the Carolinas, Alabama, Texas, and the list keeps going. In the process I’ve zeroed in on what I think makes great BBQ.

The first step is deciding how many racks you wanna cook. We’ve been known to grill anywhere from two racks all the way up to 25, depending on how many people are coming over! To simplify things, this recipe is for one rack, enough for you and some close friends. One rack has 12 to 14 ribs in it, enough to feed two or three people. If you wanna make more, just multiply!

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Trimming your slab of spare ribs is an important step to make great tasting (and looking) ribs. Check bamaque. com for some YouTube instructionals. The next step is preparing a dry rub. This is the seasoning you’ll be rubbing all over both sides of your rack. You can buy all different kinds of rubs at the store, or you can make your own. Here’s a simple, personal favorite: • 1 tbsp. brown sugar • 1 tbsp. salt • 1 tbsp. black pepper • 2 tbsp. paprika • 1 tbsp. garlic powder • 1 pinch of cayenne pepper (Just enough to taste, this stuff is hot!) Get creative with your rub: experiment and make it your own! Before you apply the dry rub, hit the surface of the ribs with a little bit of liquid smoke. Now you can sprinkle the rub all over both sides of your rack. Pat it in there good! Ideally, you want to let your ribs marinate long enough to let that seasoning penetrate the meat. If you throw your rack in a covered 10 x 15-inch roasting pan and toss it in the fridge overnight, you should be good to go. One day later, you’re ready to get cooking. Start by preheating the oven to 250 degrees. Take the ribs out of the fridge and wrap them in foil, meaty side down. Make sure the seal is facing up so the juices don’t leak out. Now put the ribs on a baking sheet and throw them in the oven for three to four hours. You need to keep the heat consistent, so don’t open the oven until around that third hour to

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check on them. You’re looking to see if the meat will separate easily from the bone; every oven is different, so it may take the full four hours to cook properly. Keep an eye on them and again, be sure to avoid opening the oven. Take the ribs out and carefully drain the juices into a saucepan. Return the ribs to the baking sheet, meat-side up. You’re almost done…. Heat the saucepan on high until the juices reduce down to a more syrupy consistency. Add a tablespoon of honey to the reduction and brush it onto the meaty side of the ribs. Now set your oven to broil, and let the ribs cook for two to four minutes until the sauce becomes caramelized. Keep an eye on ’em, they burn easily! Once your sauce is bubbling and caramelized, take the ribs out and serve with a heaping helping of your favorite BBQ sauce! Official Slow Roast blend coming soon....

As told to Andrew Noz Photo Brook Bobbins It’s not often that a deity is also a student. But, for all his accomplishments—a self-produced ambient rap album, a dozen or so mixtapes, a self-help book, multiple prominent Internet memes (including a signature “cooking” dance), 100 MySpace pages, 30,000 hundid million bitches on his dick—Lil B The Based God remains a reverent and studied follower of other MCs. “I’m listening to everybody. If you put yourself on the radar, I’ll hear it. Sometimes I’ll even search for people,” he explained. “I just bought some dude’s music from Denver on iTunes. I don’t know if anybody knows him, but I bought his song for 99¢! So it’s like, I’m listening, bro. I’m listening for real.” We sat down with the eccentric rapper-ternt-cult-leader to discuss some of his peers and predecessors.

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AZ: I’m always thinking about AZ. He got some classics. I go through all of his albums. It’s crazy to see the big transition from his first album Doe Or Die. His sound completely changed. His first album was like that classic boom-bap feel and then…I guess technology changed. Common: He’s on some other shit. He’s on some “rich dad” shit. Like, “I’m your dad that raps and I’m in an innovative kitchen, I’m in a brand-new kitchen with all glass windows and shit.” But I fuck with the records that he did with Kanye. I like that “Testify” and “The People.” DOOM: Here’s what I want to know… How do I become DOOM? E-40: I listen to 40’s shit and it makes me hella happy. Just seeing how weird

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he is. I listen to his older shit and I understand he was just going in and having hella fun. J. Cole: I feel like with J., he’s just consistently rapping. That whole Friday Night Lights mixtape, he was proving to everybody that, “I will rap this time on these classic beats.” That was a mature album. That was a 25-and-up album. It’s crazy. There’s a category of these artists that are like running the game on the low—J. Cole, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa.... If I didn’t rap hella good I would like J. Cole more. But since I rap and I rap good, I really don’t want to sound anything like him. But if I was like a regular guy, I would like a lot more people. Jay Electronica: I really love him. He’s one person that you can just really watch rap. It’s hard to be able to

sit down and watch somebody do it a cappella sometimes. He knows some weird codes and shit. He’s speaking in another language. Jay-Z: I still like Jay. I’ma always like Jay-Z. I can’t be done with Jay, because Jay’s super swagged up. He won me over on that Drake shit because that was hella based. He was like “Oww, I’m the man of the hour!” God bless Jay’s heart because Jay is based. His music always sounds hella clear and his voice is in the middle. He continued that AZ music but made it more triumphant. He had these happy-ass beats. Him and Pharrell? Fuck, bro! “Change Clothes” is one of the most happiest beats I’ve ever heard in my life! Them niggas knew they was about to just get that shit played in Target on Christmas. That’s a straight, “I’m

in Target on Christmas, I’m wearing a Santa Claus hat, just accept it” song, bro. That’s damn near like classical music. How does Jay do it? Jay’s got some fucking classics. Kanye: I respect the shit out of 808s & Heartbreak. Sometimes you just respect motherfuckers so much. I’m an artist but I’m also a supporter. Little Brother: I’ve always wondered what’s up with their place in hip-hop. Who’s going to Little Brother shows? It’s so weird to me. I thought Little Brother was like a TV show from the clips that I’ve seen. I was like, “This is not music. What the fuck am I watching? This is some weird computer game.” Lupe: Lupe is raw, too. Lupe got love from some cool-ass people. It’s some

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settled-ass motherfuckers that’s good at math that fuck with Lupe. Motherfuckers that really get good grades are fucking with Lupe. He’s definitely super-positive. Mos Def: I got hella love for him. I think he’s great. I heard his alternative albums and he be singing a lot, but when Mos be rapping, bro, he’s one of the most lyrical. Mos got real spit. Nicki Minaj: She’s just exposing herself and doing her thing, trying to make herself untouchable. She’s about to turn into a powerhouse. Even her fucked-up facial expressions, people like them now! She looks like a real human character, like a cartoon. She’s doing exactly what I’d be doing. If I went on “Monster” I would be the scene stealer.

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Odd Future: They’re probably one of the most rebellious groups I’ve ever seen. They’re filling a void for a hardcore rap group that’s underground and young. I just hate that everybody’s telling me to work with them! I know that love is there, I got love for them too, but I don’t want to work with them on anybody else’s terms. I want to work with them when it’s time. Pac: Pac did it, bro. Pac was positive. Pac made music that could damn near make you cry. Twista: Twista’s hella consistent, bro. That “Overnight Celebrity” was a life-changing song. I remember when I first heard that; it felt like music was candy back then. That was like eating food. That satisfied me. [Hums “Overnight Celebrity” beat.] That shit was hella epic to me.

Photo The Arab Parrot

WWW.FRANKSCHOPSHOP.COM

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Ain’t no party like a Fool’s Gold party. From hundreds of hands in the air to back-of-the-club makeouts to Drake hopping onstage to wish everyone “Happy Channukah!” at the FG holiday jam, the label’s international events are can’t-miss nights out. Yet there’s always something extra special about the hometown shows. NYC-based photographers Mel D Cole, Kirill Bichutsky, and Nicky Digital share some of their favorite Fool’s Gold memories and moments.

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Mel D Cole villageslum.com I started taking photos back in 2001 at SOBs during a Common show. I started Village Slum around 2007. I don’t even remember what the first site looked like; I should have took some screenshots of it. Time flies. I started the site because I wanted to show the world what I see and what I do here in NYC, and in all my travels since moving down from Southside, Syracuse, NY! The first Fool’s Gold event I shot was the holiday party with 10.Deep at that spot on Houston and Essex. I know it’s been a while because when I first met A-Trak he was not working the facial hair. Since then there’s one thing that stands out at every party: the girls! Beautiful faces are always in attendance at a Fool’s Gold event! It’s inspiring to me. Most of the time I am always focused on the entertainers, and that’s it. But at a Fool’s Gold show I shoot the crowd as much as the performers. That’s not to take away from the energetic music that makes those great times possible. Something’s got to get those babes dancing. Kid Cudi’s mixtape release party stands out for sure. I remember that Kanye showed up and I had no idea that he did until Cudi asked me if I got a pic of him. Cudi was so proud that Kanye showed up to see him perform. I also remember it as the night that I realized Cudi was going to be a star. I shot him several times before. Sometimes there were ten…20 people, sometimes 100. Sometimes he sucked, sometimes he killed. But this particular night, Cudi just owned the stage. And when he dropped “Day ‘n’ Nite,” it was like the first time. It never gets old.

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Kirill Bichutsky kirillwashere.com I was born in Moscow, then moved to Brooklyn, then New Jersey. Now I live in Midtown Manhattan. My roommate was—and is—a DJ. I didn’t like nightclubs, but I loved being in the DJ booth and watching them spin. So by way of my roommate (DJ NVM) I met more DJs and started going to gigs with them. They all loved the company in the booth and I got to watch some of the best DJs, so it was win-win. I knew of A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs for quite some time, and I was a huge fan of Klever. So when the Day Off event was happening with all of them, I knew I had to be there. I told security I was a hired photographer, so they let me hang out by the stage and I shot the whole day. I tweeted the galleries to all the DJs, and the next day I woke up to an email from A-Trak. Since then I’ve shot a ton of stuff for Fool’s Gold. I do a lot of highbrow, “jiggy” events too, which can be a little stiff. Yeah, they have big names hanging out, but it’s always lacking energy; people are afraid to let loose. FG events are more raw. The crowd is there to party and no one is judging you. People are just raging, loving the music and the DJs. The craziest moment was Kanye making a guest appearance at the threeyear anniversary party. A-Trak texted me, “You won’t wanna miss this,” so I knew something special was gonna happen. Halfway through the night, the backstage rumors come to life and Kanye shows up. I run over to A-Trak while he’s DJing so he could say, “He’s with me,” while security is kicking everyone off stage. At that moment, I got some of my favorite photos I’ve ever shot, standing next to and behind Kanye while he rocked the stage.

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Nicky Digital nickydigital.com I started shooting nightlife while I was in school in Boston as a way to make some spending money. At the time the scene there was drastically different, mostly centered around live music and a very strong community of local bands. My focus as a photographer was on the live performances, with a few requisite shots of the crowd to prove that people actually came out. When I moved back to NYC in 2004, I began going out with my camera just like I had been doing in Boston. But here, I realized the audiences were making as much of an effort to be the center of attention as the artists themselves. I began shooting the people I was meeting around the Lower East Side, and that’s what turned into nickydigital.com. I must admit having an easily recognizable mustache and a big smile has definitely helped me skip a lot of lines. The site started taking off right around the time that Fool’s Gold was launching as a label, though I had been shooting Nick, A-Trak, and a lot of the other artists for a while. There have been many crazy FG events that I’ve photographed through the years, though one that really stands out was the One Step Beyond party at the Museum of Natural History in 2008. We were all partying in a giant historical museum (which normally frowns upon people even chewing gum in the halls), and the performances by Kid Sister, A-Trak, and The Cool Kids were appropriately epic. Kanye’s surprise appearance during “Pro Nails” definitely sealed the deal for me.

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Clockwise from top left. Mel D. Cole 126 - 127 Crowd Womb, Tokyo 09.19.09 128 - 129 Yelawolf Fool’s Gold Day Off City Winery, NYC 09.06.10 130 - 131 Kid Cudi, DJ AM, A-Trak, Nick Catchdubs & Taz Arnold Mad Fools Central Park Summerstage, NYC 07.20.08 Just Blaze & Mr. Goldbar Fool’s Gold Day Off City Winery, NYC 09.06.10 Nick Catchdubs, A-Trak, Dust La Rock & Dave1 Fool’s Gold Day Off City Winery, NYC 09.06.10 132 - 133 GZA Fool’s Gold 3 Year Anniversary Brooklyn Bowl, BK 10.23.10 134 - 135 Yelawolf Fool’s Gold Day Off City Winery, NYC 09.06.10 Crowd Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Etnies Showroom, NYC 12.19.09

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A-Trak & Kid Sister Fool’s Gold x 10.Deep Holiday Sweat Out Element, NYC 12.12.07 Crowd Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Etnies Showroom, NYC 12.19.09 Kirill Bichutsky 136 - 137 Kanye West Fool’s Gold 3 Year Anniversary Brooklyn Bowl, BK 10.23.10 138 - 139 Sammy Bananas Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Tammany Hall, NYC 12.17.10 Armand Van Helden Fool’s Gold Day Off City Winery, NYC 09.06.10 Drake Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Tammany Hall, NYC 12.17.10 140 - 141 A-Trak HARD NYC Terminal 5, NYC 11.27.10 142 - 143 Crowd Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Tamanny Hall, NYC 12.17.10

Just Blaze & Mustard Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Tamanny Hall, NYC 12.17.10

150 - 151 The Suzan Bowery Electric, NYC 11.09.09

Drake, Mannie Fresh & A-Trak Fool’s Gold x LTD Holiday Party Tammany Hall, NYC 12.17.10

Crowd Pools Gold @ Jelly Pool Party East River Park, Brooklyn 8.22.10

Kanye West Fool’s Gold 3 Year Anniversary Brooklyn Bowl, BK 10.23.10

A-Trak & DJ Mehdi Infinity +1 Tour Studio B, Brooklyn 3.14.09

144 - 145 The Suzan Fool’s Gold 3 Year Anniversary Brooklyn Bowl, BK 10.23.10

Dave1 Jelly Pool Party East River Park, Brooklyn 8.30.09

Nicky Digital 146 - 147 Crowd Electric Zoo Randall’s Island, NY 9.5.10

152 - 153 P-Thugg Bowery Ballroom, NYC 7.2.10

148 - 149 Alexander Robotnick Scion Radio Party Plan B, NYC 9.15.09 P-Thugg Hiro Ballroom, NYC 10.02.08 Maggie Horn of Telephoned Keep Their Heads Ringin Mixtape Release Party Ella, NYC 7.28.10 Chuck Inglish of The Cool Kids One Step Beyond Natural History Museum, NYC 1.26.08

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A Barbershop for the Modern God of Leisure.

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Photo Kirill Bichutsky