More than two decades after he helped define Los Angeles' early electro-rap sound, Arabian Prince holds court inside Sawtelle's vinyl-jammed Turntable Lab. He's still filled with the restless creative spirit that drove him when he was an original member of N.W.A and that is captured on the new released "Innovative Life: The Anthology -- 1984-1989."
"The title had to be 'Innovative Life' because that song expressed everything about me. I perpetually try to create and forge unexampled paths," Arabian Prince, 43, says.
Despite a catalog studded with pip 12-inch singles, no one had of all time compiled Arabian Prince's work out in a single volume. But Peanut Butter Wolf, owner and founder of local hip-hop label Stones Throw, which released the collection, is optimistic the anthology will introduce a new multiplication to an underrated artist and educate listeners around the slipway in which he influenced hip-hop.
Everyone knows the 1988 Arabian Prince-produced J.J. Fad individual "Supersonic," "merely nobody accomplished that prior to 'Supersonic,' he'd made a whole album's worth of material that had that same vibe, simply with his rhyming on it," Wolf says. "Thankfully, now I can spread head the tidings to a bigger audience."
Of course, Arabian Prince's relative anonymity stems from his own will as often as from the jubilate of the gangsta rap sound over its techno-influenced forebears. A self-professed technical school nerd, he boasts about taking one of the first laptops created, a Radio Shack Tandy model, on N.W.A's first turn, and in the '90s he ditched the music business for his possess special-effects and 3-D vivification company, Hypnotx FX.
Born K.R. Nazel, Arabian Prince grew up in Inglewood, where he got swept up in the then-nascent rap music scene. Hypnotized by anything on the Sugar Hill label, he began vending mix tapes at shoal. The tapes led to DJ gigs, which he parlayed into his weekly club, the Cave, in Lennox.
The Cave epitomized the come-as-you-are attitude of the Los Angeles hip-hop scene.
"It was such a immix of different people . . . ," Prince says. "We drew influences from the Hispanic community, the blackened community and the patrick White community. . . . You had to play something for everyone."
He began doing gigs with the Egyptian Lover, another DJ gaining up-to-dateness on the scene. He also aquiline up with Russ Parr, one of the about successful DJs on KDAY, which at the time was the only station in the country devoted exclusively to hip-hop. Under the false name Bobby Jimmy and the Critters, Prince and Parr managed to sell 50,000 copies of their first going, a put-on called "We Like Ugly Women."
From there, Arabian Prince began to establish a solo life history with the Middle Eastern-flavored tune "Strange Life." As West Coast hip-hop started its meteoric rise, his star followed. But an epiphany on a railcar ride with then World Class Wrecking Crew member Dr. Dre sparked a desire for change.
"We were driving in Dre's old RX7 with no back window to see J.J. Fad in front they became J.J. Fad," he says, laughing. "They lived out in Rialto, and the entire way there we were listening to the radio and hearing our songs. We looked at each other and were like, how is it that our songs ar getting played on the radio and we ain't got whatsoever money?"
A subsequent encounter with a rosiness Eazy-E paved the way for both Dre and Arabian Prince to join up with him to form N.W.A, with the idea that their already name-brand stars would help pave the way for the largely unknown repose of the group.
"Arabian had a name for himself," Egyptian Lover says. "The thinking was that he and Dre could make some good records and in the process serve get N.W.A's foot in the door. No one called it 'electro hip-hop' back then, it was just 'hip-hop.' "
The group's first base single featured the Prince-produced "Panic Zone" on its A side, along with other tunes such as "Dopeman" and "8-Ball." But by the time N.W.A prepared to record �Straight Outta Compton� in 1988, Arabian Prince was on the outs with his bandmates and manager Jerry Heller.
"I'd ask when we were sledding to arrest paid, and they'd tell me to talk to Jerry," Arabian Prince says. "He'd give us $500 or $1,000 at that place, but we never got royalties, nor any statements or checks. People still ask me, 'What about the fame?' But I was never about that. Besides, all the fame in the macrocosm doesn't matter if you can't get paid."
Arabian Prince recorded more solo albums before decision making to follow up on a new career, although he continues to record and do DJ remixes. He's finishing an record album under his Professor X alias and has plans for some other Arabian Prince record. He takes keen satisfaction in the electric current generation's incorporation of old school electro-funk heavy in its work.
"Flo Rida and will.i.am. use the old-school electro-funk. Will even turned 'Stetasonic' into 'Fergalicious.' Even Akon's new poppycock is all up-tempo. It seems like the music has really come full circle."
More info
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Minutemen
Artist: Minutemen
Genre(s):
Rock: Punk-Rock
Discography:
Ballot Result
Year: 1987
Tracks: 27
Tour Spiel
Year: 1985
Tracks: 4
Project Mersh
Year: 1985
Tracks: 6
Sound Factory
Year: 1984
Tracks: 20
Double Nickels on the Dime
Year: 1984
Tracks: 43
Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat
Year: 1983
Tracks: 8
Bean Spill
Year: 1982
Tracks: 5
The Punch Line
Year: 1981
Tracks: 18
Joy
Year: 1981
Tracks: 3
Paranoid Time
Year: 1980
Tracks: 7
More than whatever other hard-core band, the Minutemen epitomized the rationalism main ideals that formed the core of punk/alternative music. Wildy eclecticist and politically revolutionary, the Minutemen never stayed in one seat to a fault long; they touched from tough to free malarky to funk to folk at a dazzling swiftness. And they toured and recorded at dazzling speed; during the early '80s, they were forever on the route, turning out records whenever they had a prospect. Like their peers Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, R.E.M., Sonic Youth, and the Meat Puppets, the Minutemen built a magnanimous, dedicated cult following end-to-end the United States through their unrelenting touring. Like their mate American indie bands, the trio was poised to break into the domain of major labels in 1986, and they would have if it wasn't for the tragic death of guitarist/vocalist D. Boon in December of 1985. Even though bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley carried on with fIREHOSE in the later '80s, the legacy of the Minutemen overshadowed the new band in the late '80s and early '90s, as the San Pedro trio influenced respective generations of musicians.
D. Boon and Mike Watt began playing music when they were teenagers in the mid-'70s, coating '70s tough rock standards. After they calibrated from heights schoolhouse in 1976, they heard their first base punk rock records, which marked a substantial change in their musical exploitation. Once Boon and Watt heard punk, they began committal to writing their possess songs and distinct to form their number 1 full-fledged rock and roll & flap banding. In 1980, the copulate assembled a quartette called the Reactionaries, which featured drummer Frank Tonche and a second guitar player. Within a few months, their instant guitar player left hand and the band changed their name to the Minutemen, since most of their songs were non a great deal yearner than a minute of arc in continuance. They recorded one single with Tonche earlier he was replaced by George Hurley. After Hurley joined the band, the Minutemen recorded Paranoiac Time, their first EP; the record was released on SST Records in 1981. From the start, the band was eclecticist and political, but they didn't find their spokesperson until their first uncut album, 1981's The Punch Line.
Following the press release of The Punch Line, the Minutemen embarked on a punishing touring schedule, driving across America and playing whatever metropolis where they could sustain a gig. They were recording frequently, also. All of their major records appeared on SST Records, merely they besides issued selected tracks and EPs for other independent labels, start with 1982's Bean-Spill EP, which appeared on Thermidor Records. The band's second uncut album, 1983's What Makes a Man Start Fires?, earned them considerable critical herald passim the resistance and alternative compress. Later in 1983, they released their third gear album, Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat.
By the end of 1983, the Minutemen had go one of the to the highest degree popular bands in the American underground, a status they solely reinforced upon during 1984. That twelvemonth, they delivered the double album Double Nickels on the Dime. The length of the album was a response to Hüsker Dü's 1984 double album Zen Buddhism Arcade, merely the expanded length gave the chemical group an opportunity to stretch out out and showcase their increasing musical depth and vision. Doubled Nickels on the Dime was a considerable metro hit, earning material college radio play and critical praise; many critics named it ane of the best albums of the year. Also in 1984, the isthmus released a aggregation of outtakes and unreleased material called The Politics of Time on New Alliance Records.
Throughout 1985, the Minutemen churned tabu recordings, beginning with the Tour-Spiel EP on Reflex Records. It was followed by the cassette-only retrospective My First Bells, which was released on SST. After My First Bells, the radical issued some other EP, Project Mersh, which featured covers of "commercial" arena rock bands plus several long original "spiels." Around the same time, the grouping recorded the Minuteflag EP, a one-off collaborationism with Black Flag. Finally, the Minutemen released the full-length followup to Dual Nickels on the Dime, 3-Way Tie (For Last), toward the end of the year. Like its predecessor, 3-Way Tie (For Last) received consuming positive reviews, including notices in mainstream publications.
In December of 1985, D. Boon and his lady friend were driving menage from peerless of her relatives' business firm, when they suffered a fateful automobile chance event. For the first part of 1986, Mike Watt and George Hurley were nerve-wracking to resolve whether they would continue playing music. During this time, the live Balloting Result was compiled and released. After a few months, both Watt and Hurley had decided to fall by the wayside medicine when they were positive to continue playing by a passionate Minutemen fan and guitarist called Ed Crawford. Watt, Hurley, and Crawford formed fIREHOSE in 1986 and by and by in the year, the new band released their debut album, Ragin', Full-On. fIREHOSE toured and recorded for the side by side seven age, sign language with the major label Columbia in 1991.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)