My First Intreview With cLOUDDEAD
June 11, 12:45 am - Doseone, Why? and Odd Nosdam peer down from their hip-hop cloud as they inject Lee's Palace, a medium-sized club in Toronto, with their wispy rhymes and thunderous beats. This stage is a special, for all present know they are witnessing a musical anomaly in action, cLOUDDEAD. Some call it hip-hop, others call it avante-garde hip-hop, and others refuse to call it. A lone guy stands at the front, his arms drooping over the stage barrier, rocking out to cLOUDDEAD's muted beats. Most are content to slightly bob heads and scratch chins, and enjoy the convoluted mixture of feelings that cLOUDDEAD's music evokes. Dose booms out his stream of consciousness rhymes quickly, at times seemingly backwards. Like an effeminate member of Run DMC, Dose's tight blue shirt and gold medallion portray an unlikely confidence. What can one expect from an MC that is the musical equivalent of a hip-hop David Thomas (Pere Ubu). Why? is satisfied to deliver his rhymes hiding underneath a blue hooded sweater. Meanwhile, Odd Nosdam conducts a hip-hop symphony with any number of electronic gadgets. "I Promise Never to Get Paint on My Glasses" is a highlight. The crowd shudders.
Then there is me, clutching my humble Dictaphone and shaking behind my slightly indie-looking glasses and baby blue US Maple t-shirt. I'm 23, and I've only been to one other "hip-hop" show and never conducted an interview. I wait until the lights are low and the crowd begins to disperse to make my move. Doseone is perched at the edge of the stage chatting with fans. A small line leads up him. He has just finished signing autographs when I approach, "Um, I talked to Why? at the beginning of the show and he said you might be up for an interview. I'm from this website, fakejazz.com." Dose responds, "I'd like to but I can't talk", pointing to his throat. Not much of surprise there, I think. "But if you wait a few minutes Why? would talk to you guys." Why? emerges from his hooded sweater to second the motion.
Deciding what questions to ask cLOUDDEAD is about as difficult as deciphering their music. Why? sits down at a small table adjacent to the stage as he probably had in fifteen other cities on the Mush Records Tour, a tour that includes like-minded acts such as Boom Bip and Doseone, Radioinactive and Labtaekwon. After noticing my inability to get the Dictaphone to work, he becomes aware of my inexperience with interviews. He responds well, however, to a rather generic question posed by many a Canadian music writer. "I don't know too much Canadian hip hop, actually, besides some Buck 65 stuff and some Sixtoo, Sebutones, I mean that's all I really know. Its cool, I like what I've heard."
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| fakejazz:How would you explain this music that has caused numerous people to label it "indescribable"? Is it your intent to produce thought-provoking or emotion-inducing music? |
| Why?:I guess both. I hope its not intellectual music, if that's what you mean. I don't think its intellectual at all, no. |
| fakejazz:(I point to the singularity of cLOUDDEAD's music, how it seems to be completely on its own, immersed in a sea of line-towers, followers and wannabes.) Does cLOUDDEAD find itself reacting to other musicians? |
| Why?:I tend to. Maybe as a person, I tend to be anti-things, a lot of times without myself knowing it. Maybe I am reacting against things I have heard before, but nothing consciously. But sometimes when I was in the lunchroom or something and they said not to spit food on the floor I would spit food on the floor. Maybe what I'm doing is related to that, I don't know. |
| fakejazz:A number of, would-be, hip-hop connoisseurs have pointed to cLOUDDEAD, among other related acts such as Greenthink, Doseone, Boom Bip, and Reaching Quiet, as purveyors of an 'avante-garde' hip-hop scene. Certainly, hip-hop, and the music world, in general, hasn't seen anything quite like it. Do you consider cLOUDDEAD to be part of a "movement"? Perhaps even an international one? |
| Why?:Personally as a writer, my poems are going to be American poems. That's cause I'm American, that's where I come from, that's what I know. I don't want to speak for anything as a movement, or anything like that. I don't know how related I am to anything else anyone's doing right now. That's for someone else to decide I guess. |
| fakejazz:Where does cLOUDDEAD get their inspiration? Want to throw fakejazz.com a bone? |
| Why?:We all listen to different stuff, I mean I speak for myself personally, that's all. I mean I haven't been listening to shit on this tour. I really haven't had a moment. The other day I sat down and listened Dose and Jel's new record, Themselves. Danielson Famile, a couple of their records that I really, really, really like. Those guys are hot. That's probably my favorite. My favorite group in general, as something that is unique and going forward and balls out. All that and what not. |
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