your greedbagMike Ladd
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mike ladd. interviewed at the scala, in london's kings cross area, prior to a showcasesusanna glaser: You weave a lot of rich musical influences into your music...
mike ladd: What we're trying to hone is how do you keep doing music that's different, that pushes boundaries and can also keep people moving in a show, y'know. And that's always been successful, even when we do real out shit. I've always thought I've made music that I want to hear. And the music that I've always fallen in love with is music that's 20 years older than I am, y'know I'm digging through a crate and sorta picking it and finding it. And so a lot of times I'm actually making music for kids who are like 2 now! And hoping that they'll pick it out 20 years from now and go "Oh shit, what the hell is this?", and hoping that they like, just becasue that was my encounters with music. When I was 13 I was digging through my Mom's records and I found Sly And The Family Stone's "Stand" and that blew my mind, and so from 13 through 18 I spent a lot of time just digging out all the old funk shit. Subsequently I missed a lot of 80s! Probably a good thing! But there's other stuff y'know. I used to like shit on The Smiths, and go "Oh they're wack", and now I go back and listen to those and go "Oh man these guys are good". They just got a lot of attention back then, so I wasn't into them. That's sort of like being alternative to a fault, you know what I mean?
susanna glaser: Where did you come across music as a young man?
mike ladd: The music that moved me was coming from these weird places. "Rapper's Delight" came out and the only place you could hear it was on a college station when it first came out, and it was the same station that played a lot of hardcore. And once you get into punk rock - this is like 1981-82 - it sort of set you on a path. You couldn't listen to stuff on the other side of that. That also worked for hiphop too - you could only listen to the DMC. You could only listen to rap, you couldn't listen to the r'n'b stuff that was going on. So in a way, it sort of adds to the prejudice in music. But a lot of it was just what moved me, and a lot of it was growing up in the town I grew up in, which was kind of a college town - it was in Boston - so the radio stations would play a lot of toasting - they'd play like Captain Sinbad and Yellowman and Charlie Chaplin - they'd play that in the afternoon, and then they'd play rap in the evening, and then punk at night. So we'd just keep the radio on the whole time and tape the radio. And then if you'd just got into the radio, then someone would play some funk shit - I remember hearing Jimmy Castor Bunch - I was 12 - doing "Potential", and I was like "What the fuck is this?!?!". And then I just got into my Mom's records. They just had a sound that a lot of the stuff of the time didn't have. The whole crisis of the 80s was that no-one knew how to mic a drum, so you just had these tinny drums. And then going through my Mom's records, I'd find these really full thick drums. And then coming out of punk rock, and no-one cared how punk rock was mic-ed so a lot of times you got stuff that actually sounded good becasue you distance-mic-ed the drum - nothing was over-produced, everything was under-produced, and I think that there's something to be said for that - it's the way human beings hear music.
susanna glaser: You've spoken of wanting to "disappoint people's preconceptions of what black music is about, including black people".
mike ladd: Primarily it's breaking stereotypes ... Within the black race, there's like a thousand different genetic codes - there's more genetic diversity within the black race than there is, say, between blacks and whites. If you put those two groups together you find more genetic similarities. So that same thing should exist in everything. And that same thing between what's considered to be rap or soul music - the similarities between those two ... there are a lot more similarities there ... Or like soul music and rock, especially since they both come from the same place. And that quote is more of a direct reaction to people's fetishisation of hiphop, y'know, so "Oh yeah, it's gotta be hard and that's what it's all about". And its a limiting way to view people and certainly it's a limiting way to view black people.
susanna glaser: How can you actively change perceptions?
mike ladd: Well, I certainly can't do it alone! I'm a black person, I make black music and it doesn't sound like a lot of the other stuff you hear. There's a lot of us doing it out there, and there always has been. It's just those weird records you gotta look for. Like Maxine just put out three totally out there records - and then there's the people who do get discovered, y'know Screaming Jay Hawkins was totally redefining what black people could do. Richie Havens on the other end of the spectrum. Or anyone from Jessye Norman to Joan Armatrading. So I'm really just following in a canon that keeps pushing them out there. It's more that I'm maintaining a tradition than doing something totally new ... Grace Jones is another one ...
susanna glaser: There's been a strong reaction in New York's hip hop community to the Diallo shooting...
mike ladd: You have to have a certain amount of vigilance at this time to act on this shit. This other guy that just got shot, Dorismond, there's all this hype about Giuliani pulling out his police record - he was killed two weeks after the Diallo verdict. He was unarmed - he was actually just a black man trying to hail a cab, and then an undercover cop approached him to buy drugs off him. And a scuffle broke out, because this guy was offended that this guy was trying to buy drugs off him, and they shot him and killed him. Immediately Giuliani pulled out his criminal record. He was actually a security guard, and he had one breaking and entering from when he was 13 ... which legally you can't even pull out. Well, the fact is Giuliani has been pulling out everybody's criminal record since they started killing people when they got into office. And they've been systematic - it doesn't matter who they shot, they always pulled out their record. There have been many times in the last 6 or 7 years that Giuliani's been around, that we the public have been sitting there watching TV, and they say "so-and-so has been killed by police" and immediately they follow up with "and they had a criminal record". Actually there have been times when it's been an unarmed person, not to mention all the times where they shot an armed person, we just let it go by and no-one even knows where the gun came from - we just let it go past. The fact is no-one's asked any of these questions. I mean people have been, there's been a movement, but it hasn't been this big. But it happened to be after Diallo, that people were vigilant, and finally lawyers are saying "You can't do that" ... well, Giuliani's been doing it since he's been here. And it's always been an illegal practice.
susanna glaser: How can writing personal reactions be politically accessible to a wider audience and meaning?
mike ladd: The personal is political and the political's personal ...that's what that is. It's always going to come out one way of another. Sometimes I articulate it more than other people, but I don't think I'm any more political ncessarily than Mary J Blige, in a lot of respects. It just depends on what's the politics! And where's the message. I think it's how you place your lyrics and how you convey emotion. Testimony itself is always something very specific. People latch onto an individual story. People latch onto a memoir - a novel that will have tremendous political impact. And a novel is about people that don't even exist, and usually something very small in their existance. And solely imaginary, but still it can spread to hundreds and hundreds of people. But if you take an instance, and articulate it in such a way that conveys, or stresses, that emotional chord, and allows other subject matter to enter into it, then you're going to make something that is accessible and that's timeless even though it is about a certain event.
susanna glaser: Talk a little about the differences between writing and music making
mike ladd: I'm growing up at a really lucky time. My actual "virtuoso" playing - my bass playig and my drumming - is pretty bad right now, in terms of actually making music. Building music, which is what I think I'm actually doing when I have a sample, is a little bit different. It's more like playing with Lego - I'm building all these different things, when you use an MPC, y'know. You build a drumkit, and you use that drumkit. You build a bunch of different bass tones and turn that into a bassline, so it's a little bit different. And for me it is a lot like playing with Lego - when I was little I loved Lego. So that works for me. It just acts as a different avenue. I like spending a lot of time - I mean as much as I may talk about politics - I like spending a lot of time in imaginary realms, otherworldly realms, and writing and music both allow you to go in those directions. I mean if I could draw, I'd draw ... but I can't draw for shit.
susanna glaser: Your album is redolent of Afro futurism and Black Science Fiction...
mike ladd: I think there's some interesting stuff going on there. It's whatever it is, y'know ... It's a sort of flimsy theoretical realm which may or may not come into something. What's interesting is the tradition, y'know from Sun Ra to Funkadelic to the science fiction writer Samuel Delaney ... It was a trip, he did a lecture at my school, we read his biography, and he's all sexy on the front of his biography ... it was like '58 or '59 or something ... and he's this gorgeous fascinating sci-fi brother! And he comes into our class, and he's this big pudgy dude with glasses ... Right there! That's cool ... dispelling myths and letting people down! I like that! All of a sudden he's like (adopts Kermit-meets-Bill Gates voice) "Oh yeah, I still like to write a lot of science fiction ..." And he's like this big nerdy guy! And he lives in Amherst Massachussetts ... but Samuel Delaney, y'know. When I was doing the album I was reading Colson Whitehead's book called "The Intuitionist", which isn't necessarily science fiction, but there is a sort of strange futurism to it, even though it takes place in what might be the '50s ... but it's that sort of netherworld, metropolis-like feel ...
susanna glaser: Is there an 'east-coast hiphop thing', or is eveyone doing their own thing?
mike ladd: Everyone is doing their own thing... Any time you start lumping people together you're gonna run into trouble. You can make parallels, comparisons, and even speculate on what might have influenced what, or at least what came up at the same time, and what influences people may have borrowed from each other, but any time you lump people together, unless they've declared themselves as part of some kind of movement - they'll probably implode on each other right after they've declared themseves as a movement. You're always gonna find trouble ...
susanna glaser: Tell us about some of the music that's meant the most to you over the years.
mike ladd: At 10, I found this album "This Is Boston, Not LA". When I was 13, I found Sly and the Family Stone, "Stand", and Sucker MCs came out. And I guess when I was 15, Check Out My Melody came out, and Chicago House came out. When I was 14 I found "Cosmic Slop". And then when I was 21, finding Reconnections Songs. And then the most recent record that's blown my mind is Muddy Waters' "After The Rain" and he sang "At The Bottom Of The Sea" ... I'm 29 ... so there's a big gap! Oh and Coltrane's "Infinity". I knew there was one between 21 and 29! ... John Coltrane's "Infinity". Actually I had it - I'd bought it - but then didn't sit down with it until I was 22 and fell in love with it.
susanna glaser: What new music are you listening to?
mike ladd: Right now I've been trying to look for as much new stuff, like I just picked up the new Yo La Tengo and the new Cat Power, and I didn't bring the Cat Power with me, but the Yo La Tengo record I like a lot ... it's funny, though: I kinda feel like that's Adult Contemporary! When I'm listening, I feel so adult, it's like "Ah music for old people"! Anti Pop I think is excellent. I think that's a great record. I like Sonic Sum's record a lot too. That's almost not fair because I live with those guys! But I think they have a great record ... There's this crew Righteous Cartel, with this guy Israel Tacuma - their stuff's really strong. Saul William's track - a couple of tracks on his new record - I don't know when that's going to come out which is fuckin ridiculous. MF Doom's record I like a lot, he's an MC used to be in KMD ...