On June 6, I appeared on David Mittleman’s Observations of Deviance, a weekly freeform radio show he broadcasts every week on WMFU-FM in Tucson, Arizona. The three-hour program blended portions of an interview we conducted in May with a two-and-a-half hour mix I compiled. The show is archived, so you can listen to it online.
I’ve known David for nearly two decades, ever since he wrote for me while I was the music editor at Miami New Times. I’m always stunned and quite envious of the incredible records he displays on his Twitter account and, more recently, his Instagram page. I’ve learned a lot about jazz, minimalism, and other esoteric sounds from the variety of images and sounds he posts.
David and I discussed a guest appearance for two years. After I finally completed a mix that I’m satisfied with, we settled on a time to do a Zoom interview. David asked questions about my career as well as the stories and inspiration for the songs I selected.
If you’ve never heard me speak IRL, then you might be startled by my halting and raspy voice, the result of a mysterious throat condition that emerged several years ago. (My voice has actually improved over the past year or two.) Hopefully I enunciated my words clearly enough for you to understand me.
Take One
I worked on my first draft in the winter of 2020 and 2021. At the time, I was obsessed with Sergio Leone’s Giu la testa. It’s a very flawed film, and its first half-hour is an orgy of dated quips and violence. But eventually, it clicks into a heartbreaking parable on the difficulty of sustaining revolutionary movements. I watched it during the peak of the George Floyd protests, so it touched me very deeply. Even now, hearing Ennio Morricone’s beautiful pop-classical theme moves me.
Incidentally, when The Wire conducted its annual “Rewind” survey in January 2021, its editors asked regular contributors for “Reflections,” or pieces of culture that affected them the most. I wrote about Giu la testa.
I spent a lot of time trying to assemble a hip-hop equivalent to the gritty yet yearning quality of Morricone’s spaghetti Western soundtracks. Songs I fit into this idiom included Deep Puddle Dynamics’ “June 26, 1998” and Company Flow’s “Gigapet Epiphany.”
Take Two
In February 2021, I doubled down on this “hip-hop Western” theme. I included BADBADNOTGOOD’s collaboration with MF DOOM, “The Chocolate Conquistadors.” Not coincidentally, this was several weeks after DOOM’s family announced that he passed away on October 31, 2020.
I also used an instrumental version of Edan’s “Beauty.”
To try and fill out the sound, I turned to Marvin Gaye’s “Theme from Trouble Man.”
Take Three
In October 2021, I switched gears and simply focused on songs that appealed to me, like Homeliss Derilex’s “Survivin’ the Game.”
And there were a few new cuts, too, like Open Mike Eagle & Armand Hammer’s “Burner Account.”
Take Four
In January 2022, I worked on yet another draft. I self-deprecatingly titled it By the Time I Finally Get to Phoenix. Again, I attempted to sequence together songs I was feeling at the moment, like “見まわそう” (“Mimawasou”) by King Giddra. (DOOM fans may not know that before he became King Ghidra, there was a 90s Japanese group that appropriated the Godzilla-related monster first.)
Overall, this version was more beat-driven, with cuts like L’Orange’s “Lori Save Me,” and Fat Jon’s “Life Goes Swing.”
Take Five
At the beginning of 2023, David and I resuscitated our conversation about an Observations of Deviance mix over Twitter DM. This go-round, I attempted to create a mellow and contemplative mood reflective of a new year and new resolutions. A key selection was MF Grimm’s “Scars & Memories,” a semi-autobiographical track that finds the rapper questioning God while recovering from a shooting that paralyzed him from the waist down. It’s one of the finest moments of the Fondle ‘Em years.
By the way, I highly recommend MF Grimm’s award-winning graphic novel, Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm. It’s one of the best rapper autobiographies I have read.
I also included Scarub’s “Savvy Traveler.” Unlike Grimm’s “Scars & Memories,” it didn’t make the final cut.
Live from Arizona [FINAL]
In April, I completed the mix you hear on WFMU. My inspiration is the current indie-rap renaissance centered around billy woods’ Backwoodz Studioz, R.A.P. Ferreira’s Ruby Yacht, Quelle Chris, and others. I wanted to trace the movement’s roots back to the 90s, and pioneering innovators like New Kingdom, Mike Ladd, and Sha-Key.
A pivotal track is Jungle Brothers’ “Troopin’ on the Down Low.” Released in 1993, it’s a crazed, six-minute foray into a sound that recalls musique concréte. “Troopin’” was originally intended as a centerpiece of Crazy Wisdom Masters, the group’s collaboration with Bill Laswell.
Warner Bros. recoiled at releasing Masters, so Jungle Brothers revised their demos into J. Beez wit the Remedy. “Troopin’” became “40 Below Trooper,” which was a modest Yo! MTV Raps hit in the summer of 1993. Years later, Wordsound released some of the original Masters tracks on The Payback EP in 1999. In 2020, Bill Laswell briefly sold digital copies of Masters on his Bandcamp page.
Journalist Dan Leroy wrote a chapter about the Crazy Wisdom Masters/J. Beez wit the Remedy saga in his 2007 book, The Greatest Music Never Sold. It's available on the Internet Archive. (Incidentally, Leroy also has a Substack, Dan Leroy’s Bonus Beats.)
As for my mix, David requested separate MP3s. Some were on my hard drive. I also ripped tracks from CDs in my collection as well as YouTube streams. I got a key assist from Monica Seide-Evenson at Speakeasy PR: she sent me a download of Dälek’s Precipice so I could use “A Heretic’s Inheritance.”
For social media, I took photos of all the physical material in my possession — 22 in all — with my building courtyard as a backdrop. Here’s two examples.
I didn’t actually rip the vinyl, but I figured they would make for good images. My hunch proved right. David only used the vinyl photos for his social accounts.
The WFMU broadcast didn’t go off without a hitch. Stupidly, I chose to rip Hell Razah & Blue Sky Black Death’s “Razah Ladder” from YouTube instead of my own CD. Then I sent him the YouTube instrumental instead of the intended vocal version, which he played on the air. Boooo! Here’s what I should have sent him.
Also, David didn’t get the full mix into the June 6th show, so he played part of the final section at the beginning of his June 13th show.
Here is the entire mix:
Part 1:
Fog feat. MF DOOM, “A Word of Advice”
Vordul Mega & Vast Aire, “AK-47”
EL-P, “Tuned Mass Damper”
Super Chron Flight Brothers feat. Trife Da God, “Guy Fawkes”
Blue Sky Black Death & Hell Razah, “Razah’s Ladder”
Sonic Sum, “Choking Victim”
Mike Ladd, “I’m Building a Bodacious Bodega for the Race War”
New Kingdom, “Lazy Smoke”
Part 2:
Saul Williams feat. Wood Harris, “Purple Pigeons”
The Legion, “Krill Ill”
Sha-Key, “Sha Theme”
Jungle Brothers feat. Torture & The Reinforcements, “Troopin’ on the Down Low”
The Shape Shifters, “Word to Your Mutha Ship”
Antipop Consortium, “Rinseflow”
Part 3:
Consolidated, “Brutal Equation (12” Mix Version 2)”
Public Enemy, “Miuzi Weighs a Ton”
Schoolly D, “It’s Krack”
The Last Poets, “Woodside Walk”
DJ Spooky feat. Organized Konfusion, “Rekonstruction (Rhyme and Reason Mix)”
Techno Animal feat. Rubberoom, “Cruise Mode 101”
Part 4:
Divine Styler, “Aura”
Outkast, “A Bad Note”
Latyrx, “Latyrx”
Dälek, “A Heretic’s Inheritance”
Killah Priest, “Back to Nebula”
Part 5:
Jean Grae & 9th Wonder, “My Story”
Themselves, “Directions to My Special Place”
Injury Reserve, “Knees”
MF GRIMM, “Scars & Memories”
The Conscious Daughters, “We Roll Deep”
The Boulevard Connection feat. Artifacts, “Haagen-Dazs”
Run-DMC, “Here We Go (Live at the Funhouse)”
I was very flattered that Kevin Martin of The Bug gave me props. His 2001 album with Techno Animal, The Brotherhood of the Bomb, is well worth seeking out.
Finally, just for kicks, here’s my review of The Brotherhood of the Bomb in the September 2001 issue of The Wire. Apologies in advance for the uneven writing.
More Soon
This has been a busy month for me both personally and professionally, which is why I missed my self-imposed two-week deadline for this newsletter. I have plenty of things to share, but they will have to wait for another time. Until then…