Kurupt: Los Angeles Times Interview

L.A. Times: You haven’t released a solo album in nine years. What made you decide that the time was right now, and what made you turn to Terrace Martin to do the lion’s share of production?

Kurupt: Terrace and I have been working together for quite some time, and I felt he deserved the opportunity to produce an entire album. He brought the best out of me musically. I’ve always liked to work with one producer for my albums, from Dre to Daz to Soopafly to Quik. I got this idea for the record one night when I was leaving the club and I saw the streetlights go out one by one as I was driving home. I felt like it was a metaphor for life passing me by, so I went to Terrace and said that we had to make an album together to make sure that that didn’t happen.

L.A. Times: During most of the last decade, it seemed that a lot of veteran '90s rappers had trouble finding their own lane or even consistently releasing music. But over the last two years, it seems like yourself and a lot of your peers have returned to form. What happened and why the sudden resurgence?

Kurupt: I think everybody was going through something, I know I was. In a sense, it’s just life and you get upset, and you respond. Everybody seemed like they were going through a hiatus where they were trying to figure it all out. I was trying to figure out who I was in real life. No one likes to hear a real life story unless they can see it, or digitalize it, or be a part of it musically. Sometimes you go through a hiatus and you shut down and do what you do. I’d experienced a separation from myself, Ricardo Brown and Kurupt, the artist.

L.A. Times: What did you take away from that hiatus?

Kurupt: I learned that I had to raise my kids. I had to make music for grown folks. It’s made for the kids too but it’s made for the adults primarily. I don’t make music for 14-year-olds anymore. I’ve learned a lot from the experiences I’ve had in this ball game. I’m damn near 20 years deep. In the end, I learned that you have to be patient. It’s not always about the music, it’s not always personal, I had to learn how to separate the two.

L.A. Times: Your collaboration with Quik connected with a lot of people. What did you take away from working with him?

Kurupt: I learned that patience is a virtue, that it’s OK to take your time and allow artists to do what they want to do. Artists do their best work when they’re in a comfortable spot. With the Quik project, we knew that we wanted to go some other place, without samples and B.S. We knew that it would turn out big.

L.A. Times: Your name continually pops up on greatest rappers lists. If you were going to compile your own best rapper’s list, who would be on it.

Kurupt: Rakim and Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool, Ice Cube. Those were my favorites when I was coming up. (source)

Terrace Martin: West Coast Producer Interview With DubCNN

Dubcnn: What’s up Dubcnn? I’m Jose, and I’m here with Terrace Martin. What’s up dude?

Terrace: Hey, what’s happenin’?

Dubcnn: What’s crackin? So tell us what you been up to, we were just listening to your new album you put out, 808 And Sax Breaks right?

Terrace: Yup. It’s doing very well, 808s And Sax Breaks. I just got done doing that with Kenobi. Also I just released a free EP, on the internet called The Lovers Edition, I think that’s what they call it, The Demo. The Lovers Edition, The Demo. So that’s pretty much it, doing Problem’s record called History, just started Snoop’s new record, just stacking records.

Dubcnn: Alright for this one, the projects that you just came out with.

Terrace: Which one?

Dubcnn: The Sax Breaks. You know it’s kinda a little bit out of left field, it’s kinda…for this 808s and Sax Breaks that came out, it’s a little bit out of left field maybe not for you, but for most producers to do something like that. A lot of times there’s one event that kind of inspires you to say ok, im gonna do this project.

Terrace: At first, initially nothing inspired me to do this project. Ted Chung told me to do this project, which is my manager, and I was like you know me being on the saxophone a straight edge. At the time I thought it would be sacrilegious, kinda corny to cover a Kanye album on the saxophone. Then actually throughout that time I started getting back into my moms tables book, I read about 3 times a year and then when I realized that, Jazz, what made Jazz so hip and what everybody loved in the30’s 40’s 50’s and 60’s is that Miles and Tray (John Coltrane) and them would take these shows, these Broadway tunes, and these Disney tunes like “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “On Green Dolphin Street” and “I Remember April”. That was written in the 30’s, and they would play them in their own way, and make them popular. So I equated that to what’s going on now, you know with the whole Kanye thing, like to me Kanye is like our, I’m not gonna say our Duke Ellington on account, but Kanye’s like our modern day Cole Porter. If ya’ll don’t know who Cole Porter is you gotta look him up, I cant give you everything. But he’s like our modern day Cole Porter. Which was an excellent composer and everything. So later on I start vibing out, 6 months pass and I say, “Yo Ted, I wanna do that now.” I came in and I wiped it down I didn’t even know his songs, that album, I learned his music, then I went back and bought the CD, then I fell back in love with the music, then I recut all the songs again. Cause then I got to grow and learn his music, and live his music, I was going, it’s 808s and Sax Breaks, his thing is like 808s and Heartbreaks right? So as I’m doing this, I was going through my own little thing, emotionally with a relationship and everything like that so it was only right to do it.

Dubcnn: Alright so on the business side of things, did you have to get clearance from Kanye? Did you talk to him about it? Did Ted talk about it?

Terrace: Ted Chung did all that.

Dubcnn: Really cool project. The other thing I thought about that was cool, is that you’re donating some of the money to some schools' music programs, tell us about that.

Terrace: Well I figured, well all the money from the project. I did it cause I just love to play, so me and Ted got together and I said would it be cool if I donated a lot of the money to different programs that are lacking in the L.A. Unified School District, all the L.A. Unified School District music programs are lacking, actually a lot don’t even have em. They snatched everything out; they snatched out all the music. So I’m trying to help out the music back in the schools when you have a lot of good bands like Locke High, Crenshaw, Dorsey everything, Fremont, Jordan. You got a lot less violence in the areas cause the kids have something to do. I went to Locke High so I know music was a big part of me havin' something to do. We didn’t have time to get into stupid stuff because we always had after school activities, so that’s what I’m trying to get back into, that whole thing.

Dubcnn: Alright so tell me about you experience with school music programs growing up. How did that influence you, how did that shape you as a person?

Terrace: Um, somebody’s asked me that question recently. For me, the music program in school to me was like the best part of school. Like most kids that didn’t like school like I don’t like school P.E. was the best part. But the music to me was the best part, ‘cause the music actually helped me to get better grades. Reading music is nothing but math, and when you play an instrument, there’s a certain level of discipline that you have to have. We used to practice 8 hours every day, so doing school work was nothing after that. A couple of hours of that affected me a lot cause it showed me discipline. A lot of discipline.

Dubcnn: Cool. So you got this really great album you just put out, and I know your always busy, you always got projects going on. What’s your next project that you got coming up that’s gonna be big? I heard you got something with Kurupt?

Terrace: Kurupt has an album called Street Lights coming out, on 4/20. I guess that’s national smoke day, 420. Yeah I don’t smoke so, 420, April 20th; he has an album called Street Lights, which I produced about 95% of the album, mixed the whole album, which is excellent. Kurupt is back, he sounds great.

Read the rest of the interview transcript here:
DubbCNN - Terrace Martin

Terrace Martin: West Coast Producer Extraordinaire Previews New Tracks From Studio

Producer Terrace Martin plays some new music from his personal studio including snippets from his upcoming album 'The Demo' and a few instrumentals that he's working on.