PUSH TO SHOVE
Apr 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Ken Micallef
WOOF, WOOF!
Thankfully, Keith is a bit more down-to-earth (just a little) when he gets down to business. He describes two of his new Ultramagnetic tracks, “Late Nite Rumble” and “Pop Bottles,” with the same energetic wordplay that makes his own records so funny.
“I played the drums live on the MPC2000 on ‘Late Nite Rumble’ with the snare drum and the hi-hat moving a little fast. It is more of an up-tempo record with a boogie type of swing. I thought about people slam dancing for that beat. I rapped a certain way: ‘Beat you! Stomp you!’ I got into that; it sounded like some monster-type shit. I used the Korg Triton for those farting sounds. There was nothing I could add to it. Simple, but spacey. Times have changed; you don't have to make a song with 20 tracks like the Bomb Squad.”
While “Late Nite Rumble” sounds surreal with a head-snapping beat and calls to “shake your bon bon,” “Pop Bottles” imitates a futuristic polka on crystal meth, a popgun beat blasting tiki-wiki 16th-note hi-hats, silly synth sounds (“worm parts,” Keith calls them) and cartoonish vocals.
“This song will make you pop bottles even if you don't drink champagne,” Keith insists. “It is a fast grunge record. I programmed it all on the Triton with the MPC2000 for hi-hats. I added the bass-line part from the Triton, just three simple hits looped in Pro Tools. My whole thing is the mean bass lines; I never really make the sweet stuff. I played some unpredictable stuff on the chorus because a lot of the best records are made on a whim. Those little worm parts in there came from that idea, played live on a Juno-106. Sometimes I will do a whole record and let a dog bark on it. Woof, woof! Then the dog leaves the studio.”
KOOL…AND KOOKY
Together, Ced and Kool Keith are the yin and the yang. Ced is quiet and thoughtful, prompt and serious. Keith is an engaging character lost in the here and now. Even Popeye's chicken and strippers couldn't make him show up for his last scheduled Remix interview for his 2006 album, The Return of Dr. Octagon (OCD). (No joke — At Keith's request, Remix was actually going to photograph him eating chicken, surrounded by strippers.) When you can nail him down, Keith's mind jumps between subjects like his guises change names. Ask about Ced's influences, and he'll salute some greats from hip-hop's past: The Treacherous 3, Fantastic Romantic 5 and Cold Crush Brothers. But Keith jabbers with an endless eye toward self-promotion.
“I ride the train and feel the grime,” he says. “I ride the subway and smell a bum. I build my mind up for that stench. Then I go home and write some crazy rhymes. My next record, King Service, will be raw, about chicks going to dinner and eating for free, and chicks farting. Chicks do fart. You can whiff some of my pre songs [what he calls ‘screw-hop’] on my MySpace page. One song is called ‘Tony Roma's,’ about taking a girl to dinner. And I have a song for the critics, ‘Pubic Hair.’ I speak for God in many ways.” Uh, okay….
Ultimately, with The Best Kept Secret, the legacy of Ultramagnetic MC's remains an open book. The group continues to change and morph, adapting past to present, assured of their place as hip-hop innovators yet with a caustic eye toward today's commercially entrenched hip-hop scene.
“We will never get our due,” Ced concludes. “If you look at the history of music, black artists have always been portrayed as being unintelligent. So early Ultramagnetic, which involved a vast use of vocabulary, is not how America wanted to portray young people of color. They didn't want the community looking in books; they want them looking at guns. We are not bitter. We just keep going. We are multidimensional. We can't be defined. That is why some people won't accept us. It will keep changing as long as it is Ultra. We won't do this type of album in 10 years; we'll just keep growing. The legacy of Ultramagnetic MC's is that they were never scared to do what they felt.”
SATELLITE STUDIOS
Computer, DAW, recording hardware
Akai DR16 HD recorder
Alesis ADAT AI-1 digital interface
Apple Power Mac G5-dual 2.7 GHz computer
Digidesign Digi 002 rack, Pro Tools|HD and LE systems
MOTU 2408mk3 interface
Tascam DA-30 MkII DAT, DA-88 eight-track recorder
Console
Trident Trimix
Sampler, drum machines
Akai MPC4000 sampling workstation
Alesis D4 drum module
Roland MD-1 bass/drum module
Keyboards, modules
Kurzweil 1000 AX+, 1000 PX+ modules
Roland FP digital piano, Juno-106 synth and MKS30 module
Yamaha KX-88 keyboard
Mics, mic preamps, EQs, compressors, effects
AKG C 414 mic
ART Dual MP, DPS II and TPS II mic preamps
Ensoniq DP/4 effects processor
Focusrite OctoPre preamp
Klark Teknik DN500 compressor
Manley Mono Mic Pre
Marc Levinson ML-1 preamp
MindPrint En-Voice preamp/EQ
Neumann U 87 mic
Neve Prism V-Series channel strip
Sony MU-R201 reverb
Summit Audio 2BA-221 Mic & Line Module
TC Electronic Finalizer
Universal Audio 1176LN Limiting Amplifier
Monitors
KRK 6000s
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