From Blaxploitation To Brazil, Adrian Younge Nudges Hip-Hop Further
The L.A. composer discusses working with hip-hop greats Snoop and Ghostface. +reviews of Pink Siifu and V Don
For Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger Adrian Younge, the road to becoming one of the most prolific artists in jazz and soul music today began with Black Dynamite. His original score for the 2009 throwback action comedy landed him in the proverbial spotlight, its sensibilities and accents unexpected from someone who was still but a toddler by the 1970s' end.
"I wanted to pay homage to blaxploitation soundtracks," Younge says, "but I also wanted to show people that I'm hip-hop." Beyond the evident nods to James Brown's Black Caesar and Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly, he drew considerable influence from relatively more contemporary fare, namely Quentin Tarantino's own 2003 ode to genre films past.
"When Kill Bill [Vol. 1.] came out, and the Nancy Sinatra song came on at the beginning and then I saw RZA's name, how inspiring that was for me," he says. "And I said, whenever I do my first soundtrack, I hope that I make music that would somebody like RZA would watch it and hear it and love it and want to work with me." Sure enough, Younge would eventually collab with the Wu-Tang Clan abbott on Twelve Reasons To Die, a giallo-referencing Ghostface Killah album released on RZA's Soul Temple imprint in 2013.
Yet in between those two landmark albums in a discography that spans dozens of records, several in collaboration with A Tribe Called Quest's own Ali Shaheed Muhammad, was Something About April. Self-described as an album meant to reflect his DJ crates–a collection that ranged from Ennio Morricone themes and Motown classics to UK innovators Portishead and Stereolab–the 2011 project built upon and expanded beyond the Black Dynamite aesthetic in a way that opened Younge up creatively. The record was fortuitously sampled for Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail some two years later, setting in motion appearances and placements (as sample source and otherwise) with some of hip-hop's dopest acts including Prodigy, Talib Kweli, and Kendrick Lamar, to name but a few. A second volume followed in 2016, with a third installment–"a psychedelic soul album in Portuguese"–recently announced for April 18 (via his Linear Labs label) that coincides with a series of North American concerts set to commence this March.
"Something About April represents the truest form of myself, as far as my foundation to get to where I am now," he says. "With the tour I'm about to do, I'm celebrating that foundation and how that essentially helped to guide me to where my career is right now."
CABBAGES: How does this forthcoming Something About April III album connect with the first two in the trilogy?
Adrian Younge: With Something About April part one, if you look at the cover, there's a white girl and a Black dude on it. My favorite era of music is from '68 to '73. So this is the kind of album that would've came out back then, but you never ever would see an interracial couple on an album cover. It was very, very rare. And for many reasons, a lot of Black music would have white people on the cover to sell it, to have it be crossover or whatever it may be. There was just something very strange about the notion of miscegenation on album covers, so I wanted to have a story around that. It's the trials and tribulations of an interracial couple in the sixties trying to just be in love; that's what the music represents. Something About April part two takes that further, but now it's a lesbian couple– same woman [with a] Black woman.
But now when people see this [Something About April part three] album cover, it's actually a darker Black dude with an Afro and a lighter [skinned] Brazilian Black woman. Brazil has a very interesting dynamic when it comes to the notion of race. First of all, Brazil is 85% Black, but you never really see any Blackness when you look at how Brazil is marketed. Their past mixing of race is much different than it was here in the U.S., because it wasn't as legally or morally forbidden as it was here. So when you see people over there, light-skinned Black people, a lot of times they're deemed as being white. In this case, I have a light-skinned Black woman and then a dark Black dude, and it's the same kind of story in the sixties. They're trying to figure it out and move on.
But sonically, it's where I've always wanted to go musically. When I did Something About April one, I didn't know how to write for orchestra. I didn't know how to play upright bass. I knew how to play a lot of instruments, but not as nearly as good as where I am right now. So it's like, if I could ever dream of that psychedelic soul album, that's what [part] three is, and it wraps up everything into one. With the tour, I want to just celebrate this world, this franchise.
Obviously Brazilian music has been part of your journey, but it seems of late you've leaned further into it, particularly with Linear Labs: São Paulo. What draws you to Brazilian music specifically?
I always tell people I play music for an audience in my head, and I hope other people like it. The older I get, I realize how much I am out of touch with contemporary Black culture. I just don't fuck with it, bro. No one's playing me any music from contemporary Black musicians where I have to stop what I'm doing to listen to it. Not saying that there's not great music being made by contemporary Blacks here in the U.S.; I have friends that make great music. But in general you could say, yo Adrian, you need to listen to this record that I got from '72 and I'm excited about it. If you said I need to hear this new record from this young brother from L.A., I'm not excited about it. I'm kind of pissed off that I have to stop to listen to what you're going to tell me about. That's just how I feel.
The thing is, I went to Brazil, me and Ali Shaheed, we performed out there with our group at The Midnight Hour in 2019. I'm performing and people are singing our songs. I'm like, yo, how do you guys even know the words to this stuff? I realized there was a fan base there. And then with our Jazz Is Dead label and concerts, we started working with a lot of the maestros there. Everyone welcomed us with open arms, to the point where I started taking Portuguese lessons every week. I still do, and I'm very much learning the language. I just became very ingrained within the culture and receive a lot of love out there.
I feel like they understand my music a lot more than what's going on here, to be honest with you, man. So that's why I made Something About April III for them, because people don't do that kind of stuff and I just appreciate them as people. A lot of Brazilians feel like they're not seen, which is really true. A typical American, they don't know the difference between Peru, Ecuador, or Brazil. It's the same thing to 'em. Brazil is basically the same size as the U.S. It's a little smaller than it. People don't realize that, but people don't leave their house, they don't leave their city, and it is what it is.
You have this song on Säo Paulo with Snoop Dogg called "Rules Of The Game." I know you guys have a joint project in the works, Don't Cry for the Devil. How much of your Brazilian influence is going into that?
That album's done and it's a masterpiece, bro. What it really is is if Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield hooked up with Dr. Dre to go back to '74, '75 to make an album with Snoop. That's what it is–[with] full 30 piece orchestra. It is so good, bro. Right now he has the Missionary project out, so we're letting that do its thing. Super excited about that, man. It's going to really blow people's minds, bro.
I was trying to make something better than Doggystyle. That was the whole perspective. And Snoop, he's sitting there writing everything and he's excited. When we did the orchestra, he had tears in his eyes, seeing the orchestra on his music. It was special man, very special. If you like "Rules Of The Game," that's not even the best song on the album. That's a dope song, but it's not even the best.
A lot of hip-hop heads, myself included, became aware of you via Twelve Reasons To Die. What were you aiming for with that project for Ghostface Killah?
I wanted to create an album where he could be a storyteller. To score for him, man, it was dope, man. It's funny, man, because I haven't heard any of that music in so long, and something came on the other day. But when I listened to it, I listened to where I was in the world at the time, and where he was in the world at the time, and what Wu-Tang meant to the world at that time, versus what it meant 15 years prior versus what it means today.
Your second Twelve Reasons To Die album ends on a cliffhanger, hinting at the story being continued. At any point over the years, has there been any discussion about putting together a third volume of that series or otherwise linking further with the Wu?
Last time I was with all the Wu-Tang was in Brazil a year ago, and it was dope, man. We talked and I didn't realize how much I missed being around all them. They're icons; they're amazing.
For me, man, hip-hop is easy to make–a lot easier than some of this other stuff. I could get it done much quicker. With hip-hop, I don't have to use too many chords and orchestral arrangements, because it's going to get in the way of all those syllables. You got to get into every bar. So it's easy to get from beginning to end on Twelve Reasons To Die, on those beats. I basically made that entire album in two weeks, bro, just every day just knocking shit out. The stuff I'm doing right now is so cinematic and big, a lot more robust than making beats for somebody to rap on. If I'm working with a rapper, it has to really excite me because, with rappers, you can't use that many chords. Would I be down to another with Ghostface? It's not even whether the music would sell or not; it's not even about that. It's like, how much do I like working with the person? Man, I love that dude so much, bro. So definitely I'd be into it. We would just have to make sense. I'm not going to say no. I really enjoy him. I really enjoy that guy. So we'll see what happens. I haven't really been doing much hip-hop stuff. It's just been more singing in instrumental stuff, to be honest with you.
I'm getting to the point in my life where these next albums I'm releasing is the best work I've ever done, at least for myself. When I look at the things I've been a part of, the things I've done, it matters and at the same time it doesn't matter. I was just on the phone with my friend Loren Oden, who sings on all my stuff, a dear friend. I said to him, man, do you realize what it means to have done that show that we did last week, to have all those people in the room? We had just a bunch of different stars in the room. The reason why I brought it up is because it didn't mean shit. It didn't mean nothing to me. I was just humbled by the fact that people that are so successful and that inspired me wanted to come and see me, support me, and enjoy the show. I appreciated that, but it was the equivalent of your family or friends coming to see you do something. At this point in my life, you wonder how much certain things matter. How much does it matter that I did the Ghostface album, or Something About April, or whatever? To me, it does, but these are just one thing here and one thing there.
The reason why I'm kind of talking existential like this right now is I'm working on this documentary on myself that talks about my evolution in my life and what I'm doing and why I make my decisions. I've been really analyzing myself to think about what are the things that I really do care about. At the end of the day, I just want to have money so I could be free to do what I want do creatively. I'm excited to have the opportunities that I have to do things, and I get excited about opportunities. In a weird way, how I look at things is that you don't have any importance unless you do something. What are you affirmatively? How are you contributing to the world? What are you doing to contribute to the world? As long as you do that, as long as you contribute to the world in some way, you're important. And I'm just trying to stay important.
Pink Siifu, Black'!Antique
Prior to becoming persona non grata for pushing the envelope back to 1933, Ye was one of a select few hip-hop artists playing with industrial music in the 2010s. While not exactly a Yeezus redux, Pink Siifu's Black'!Antique similarly explores the contours of noise for much of its runtime. That very description runs counter to his previous works like Gumbo'!, the Turich Benjy team-up It's Too Quiet..'!, and in the neo-soul slinging duo B. Cool-Aid, yet it tracks with his unpredictable, visionary artistry. The opening title track carries the hallmarks of Fatboi Sharif and Roper Williams, credited among the co-producers of this audio maelstrom, as does its successor "Alive & Direct'!" Surrounded by vocal guests and sonic artisans, he lets abrasive aesthetics permeate his natural cool, bellowing through the lingering booms of "Sacrifice'!Bonappétit" with art punx Ho99o9 and surveying the smoldering trap of "1: 1 [Fkdup.Bezel]" with bbymutha. Over its 78 minute runtime, Siifu becomes ubiquitous and anonymous as he sees fit, sanding down the jagged edges to reveal a more familiar version of himself on the jazz excursion "Last One Alive'!" and the Big Rube-assisted "Sleepatthewheel'!"
V Don, Sent For
Benny The Butcher's expanding Black Soprano Family tends to center rappers, making this concise compilation from esteemed producer V Don a notable release in and of itself. Backed by the Harlem-based beatmaker's rugged instrumentals, Sent For showcases a small army's worth of streetwise spitters who populate the cinematic crime saga setting. Eto sets the tone on opener "Mafia," a brooding synth melody matching his fearsome rasp. G-Unit veteran Lloyd Banks continues to enjoy his underground resurgence on the observational "Episode" while B$F fixtures Elcamino and Sule goes in over the choral cues of "Know Me." Befitting his recent work on last year's Chaos Is My Ladder 2 and Stabbed & Shot 2, the presence of both Conway The Machine and the aforementioned Benny on "The Same Day" makes perfect sense for this family affair.
Three new tracks to snack on...
Fly Anakin, "MY N*GGA (feat. Quelle Chris, $ilkmoney & Big Kahuna OG)"
MIKE, "man in the mirror / Artist Of The Century"
THOT SQUAD, "ABANDON HIM"
