J. Rocc – Making Something Out Of Nothing

You mentioned Madlib as being one of the biggest influences on your own production, I can understand the common ground, but how would you describe your differences?
I don’t think we really have any. Although he would hit me up to weird music, like recently The Residents, and now I am looking for everything by them I can find, I fully nerd out. I suppose I do the same for him. Although I would listen to everything, from the jiggy stuff on the radio to Floating Point, I am a music nerd, I want to hear everything. Maybe not so much punk and country.

I am sure you can find something in Willie Nelson.
Willie I would actually listen to – and he said one of my favourite quotes “You know why divorces are so expensive?They’re worth it.’ [Laughs] With Madlib, the only time he hears all that other stuff is from me, no-one else ever really sat him down and exposed him to stuff like Floating Point. He is always holed up in his studio, and he doesn’t have the internet, he doesn’t go online, he is very straight. The only time he is on the internet is when he comes over to my house, looking at albums to download, and that jazz album for 500 dollars that he saw, and he can’t believe it if we get to download it, he feels like he has been to a record shop when he comes to my house. I suppose I listen to so much music because I am a DJ too, I need to stay current, not listen to Tribe Called Quest all day long. They haven’t released a record since 1998, I don’t want to be that guy living in the past. You know who I have just been listening to? Pipilotti Rist [brilliant video artist/musician] – that is crazy stuff, I don’t know what genre of music she is, it’s nuts. I don’t even know what language she is singing in sometimes, but it’s interesting. I think everyone has one or two good songs, I never think that someone is one hundred percent terrible, there is no such thing as a bad artist to me, maybe that’s just the producer part of me. I can see a part of goodness in something bad. I know that there will be something good on every album, otherwise I will make something good out of it.

We mentioned Daedelus before, and he too is so inventive in what he does musically, and floats from hip-hop to folk, no boundaries.
He is brilliant, and you know, that equipment he uses, he got someone to make for him, so that’s like times ten of everything I said before! He made his own equipment because the other stuff couldn’t do what he needed it to, that’s pretty amazing.

Another inventive pioneering producer you worked with previously is the late J Dilla who essentially spearheaded that entire Neo-Soul movement, from Tribe Called Quest to Erykah Badu.
I think when he moved to LA all of the people like Daedelus and Flying Lotus were like ‘what!?’, it was a big shock to everyone that lived here. You would see him around every once in a while, maybe once every three weeks at a club or something, he would check out me and Madlib. When people saw him out here, people were amazed, everyone looked up to that dude at that point, and it felt like our teacher was living among us.

What made him move to Los Angeles at that point?
His health more than anything, he needed the hospitals out here, they were a bit better than the ones in Detroit. He was also around people that loved him. There is nothing in Detroit, even people from Detroit say that, it’s rough. He was living with Common out here, and they were working on Common’s record, so he was out here with a purpose, but mainly it was because of his health. He did want to link with Dr Dre and do movie scores and so many other projects, he had a whole list of things he wanted to do.

You featured in the project and documentaries Keepintime and later Brasilintime, directed by B+, it must have been such a thrill meeting drumming legends like James Gadson and Paul Humphreys.
That was pretty crazy. B+ likes doing those kind of things, he is a real artsy kind of guy, and he loves doing these projects that take him to Colombia, Africa. He just called me up one day, I didn’t really think anything of it, and just went along. Then he just built on that every time, I never thought it would become what it has. It was a trip meeting James Gadson, Earl Palmer, the Brazilian guys Ivan Conti, Jao Parahyba and getting the history of Brazilian music. He also had us do a show with Fela’s drummer Tony Allen, it was crazy, he gets the weirdest people, I knew it was legendary shit going down, heavyweight drummers, who have been in the music game forever. I mean those Brazilian guys created their own type of music, ‘crazy samba’ as they call it, and Tony Allen created his own drum style with Fela which we all know and love. I couldn’t believe me and Madlib were up there with them making a bunch of noise.

What are you working on at the moment?
For the past couple of weeks I have been helping out Madlib with his stuff, he always has a batch of projects, and always wants me to add cuts in, or mix something, he keeps me busy. After I turned in my own record I have been kind of waiting for that to come out, because then I can play it out live and have a whole other live show.

J. Rocc with Cubic Zirconia and Krystal Klear play The Sugar Club, Lower Leeson Street Dublin 2 on Saturday 27th November. To win a pair of tickets, just email [email protected] with JROCCTICKETSPLEASE as the subject & including your thumped username & real name. Entries in by midnight on Thursday 25th November, please.

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