“Rap is like the polio vaccine. At first no one believed in it. Then, once they knew it worked, everyone wanted it.” Grandmaster Flash as quoted in ‘The Dance Music Manual’ by Rick Snoman
It’s been a couple of decades since Grandmaster Flash reflected on the then status of hip hop. In the meantime, the total coup d’etat of hip hop now presides over pop music proper in general. It would be fair to say this take-over is just as apparent in Australia as anywhere else. It is unfair to say that it is a result of home-made music though. It’s mostly imported and it’s mostly imported from America.
Slowly but surely, Aussie hip hop is coming into its own and making waves on the international scene, numerous Aussie hip hop music videos are played out, even Channel V latched on and is doing it’s whole ‘we’re looking for Australia’s new MC’ promotion. Sitting in the background of all this rambunctious meanderings is Katalyst, otherwise known as Ashley Anderson. With the release of the recent ‘Dusted’ double mix album, Anderson collects a number of downtempo, funk, and hip hop tracks. It’s his first mix album and his third release, following 2002’s artist album ‘Manipulating Agent’ and 2003’s ‘Agent Manipulated’, the same album, remixed by artists such as Dynamo Productions and Rhibosome.
One of the foundational differences between the roots of American hip hop and the new wave of Australian hip hop is the lack of concern for rules and regulations. Rules such as sampling must come from vinyl, album must be original pressing, no sampling from compilations, etc etc. This disregard for the institutution may be inherent, but you won’t see Anderson sampling off anything except vinyl. “I think it’s different for everyone. It’s how I was taught. At the time, there was no downloading. With sampling off records, it’s a learning experience. You start checking out other work by that artist or other artists on the same label. It’s like with RZA from the WU-Tang Clan. RZA’s sampling off specific labels where he just loves the sound or production style of the time period of a label.” It’s with this disregard of scene obligations that Anderson sets out, but he remains true to the obligations for personal reasons, as opposed to the unspoken dictations of a scene.
“Sampling off vinyl is a knowledge process. It gives you more exposure to other music. It’s more exciting because there’s the chance of no one else sampling off that. When you’re downloading samples off of sites, how many other guys have downloaded those? I think the scene is so strict in the U.S. because the producers are from an older generation. The original guys are still around and they’re holding to where it all came from.” This is the new wave. The push for coming to grips with the continued forming of the hip hop scene within a new context. That context being Australia. A relaxed attitude towards scene rules, but an upholding of those rules based on personal criteria.
In being an artist who has focused himself on the art of sampling and regenerating the old into the new, the copyright laws have had a very definite impact on the music Anderson is releasing. This impact has extended to even having to alter releases and in some cases, even forget about releasing productions altogether based on the financial and/or legal aspects of sampling. “A lot of people think it [not clearing a sample] has to do with the artist, but usually the record label owns the copyrights and they’re the ones who are asking for 30,000 dollars to clear a sample. For example, it’s not Roy Ayers who’s asking for these amounts, it’s Polydor. With my own productions, I’ve had to drop tracks altogether because the label would ask for 30,000 dollars and how am I supposed to come up with that kind of money when a release in Australia is limited in the first place? Once you’re more recognized though, the label will ask for a percentage, which makes it easier.” The artistry is inhibited through the paperwork.
Along this same vein of thought lies the reasoning behind the specific songs chosen for the album. For a record collector, surely more obscure and harder to find records could have been deemed fit for an ‘essential mix of rare groove & hip hop joints’, as the subtitle mistakenly proclaims. “There’s 2 reasons for that,” Anderson explains. “I wanted to include a lot of obscure songs, but I couldn’t get them cleared. I had Universal handle all of that for me and they either couldn’t get them cleared, or they couldn’t find the copyright owners. But I didn’t set out to make a rare 45’s mix. I just wanted to make a mix of songs that I thought were good.” So don’t expect a Funk Spectrum a la Keb Darge. Expect songs influential to hip hop and to the Katalyst sound.
Also included are four unreleased tracks off of the Invada roster, the label Anderson runs with Geoff Barrows of Portishead fame. Half of these songs are new Katalyst productions. One is from The Jimi Entley Sound. The fourth comes from a co-production between Anderson and his new signing RuC.L. “RuCL is our next big push. He’s half Jamaican and he’s bringing in a lot of those roots into his music. It’s a bit of dancehall, a bit of reggae, but mostly hip hop.” From listening to the track, RuC.L.’s music is exactly how Anderson describes it.
There are two major schools of thought when it comes to sampling and productions. The first being the sampling of a significant aspect of a song, a 4 bar snippet that may contain all the major elements needed for the track. The loop could contain the drums, the bass and the melody. The second school is the sampling of any number of sources, drums from this track, the bass from another, the spoken word from this movie, the strings from that track. The track becomes a collage of songs, a puzzle pieced together by the producer to create this heightened form of post-modern art. This can be taken to the extremity of sampling a single drum hit, a single note, a word, and then building a song with all of these. All other styles of sampling and production fall under some variation of these two schools.
“Every track develops differently,” explains Anderson, denying any specific allegiance to any side of a coin. “A lot of times I’ll sample a bass-line, maybe pitch shift it for a chorus or break, bring in some drums or strings. It all depends on who or what you’re producing for. With my first album, I was producing more in the style of the Dust Brothers, taking bits from everywhere.” Of course, Anderson is referring to the famed producers of the Beastie Boys, who with ‘Paul’s Boutique’ and ‘Ill Communication’, set a standard (of course they weren’t the first) for the amount of sampling going into any given track.
With sampling as one of the major tools present in Anderson’s productions, it only seems fit to inquire into whether there is a philosophy behind sampling. As it turns out, for Anderson, sampling has more to do with being a socio-economic statement. “I don’t necessarily have a philosophy for it, but I have reasons behind it,” explains Anderson. “There’s the fact that studio technology has become advanced enough to where it’s so much easier. Then there’s the limitation of the vintage gear available. To replicate the analogue sound with the vintage instruments would be very difficult. Then there’s the cost factor of bringing in the live musicians as opposed to just sampling. With most producers, they don’t necessarily know what they want until they hear it. You wouldn’t want to tell the conductor of a group to play a groove and then say, ‘No, that’s not it, play another.’ It’s the replaying of ideas. It’s the replicating of styles and recording them new. I’m a big fan of vintage gear and Geoff has taught me so much. I’m sure you’ve heard of how when he was with Portishead, he’d bring in musicians and rerecord the piece he wanted to sample, replicating the original sound authentically, press the recording onto vinyl and then sample off of that.”
Theory aside, Anderson is set out to tour with the Blues & Roots Festival which is to be headlined by Jack Johnson, with the support of a number of singer/songwriters, such as G.Love and Special Sauce. An interesting scenario for a hip hop DJ to be placed in. Anderson quickly dissipates any confusion. “With the tour, I’m gonna be playin’ about a 30 minute set. It’s my third time around with this tour, so am used to this vibe. I’m not gonna be playing any party tracks. Mostly downtempo and chilled, sort of give the audience something different to listen to. I’ll mix up the set and give everyone a taste of something else other than all the singer/songwriters they’ll be hearing all day.”
Expect to catch a vibe from Katalyst with much of the same reasoning that went into creating ‘Dusted’. It’s something different and it’s got a groove. Plus, it’s coming from Katalyst, who’s been in the background all along, pushing and coaxing Australian hip hop along into the mainstream and guaranteed, as Aussie hip hop artists continue to grow on an international level, Katalyst will be there. Looking for beats and playing the grooves.
‘Dusted’ is a two disc set, mixed by Katalyst, and is out now through Invada/Universal.
