Interview: Aloe Blacc

The good things in life // Listening session

07.06

Posted in Music

What a great weekend it was! Our current favorite artist Aloe Blacc made his way to Amsterdam to do a showcase. Aloe’s performance at De Dep was filled with energy, nice little dance moves and beautiful vocals. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Good thing almost everybody knew the lyrics of his hit single I Need a Dollar, the gritty theme music of HBO’s How To Make It In America. His album Good Things is due this summer. Prior to his performance, we organised a listening session for this son of Panamanian parents. Check the result after the jump.

Bill Withers - Grandmas Hands

A classic track by one of the great jazz legends still alive. A great inspiration for modern soul artists.

Aloe Blacc: “I know his story. He wasn’t really recognised for his music until he was about my age. He was practical, had a normal job because he didn’t really believe in the music industry. Bill Withers didn’t want to follow what the record labels wanted him to do. He decided not to wear the crazy suits they offered him, and hated the trumpets and horns they wanted to add in his music. My new album is pretty much about soul. At the same time, I’m finishing a project with Exile, which is strictly hip hop and will also release an acapella project. Just doing my thing.”

Fat Joe feat. Young Jeezy - Ha Ha (Slow Down)

Cars, cocaine and women. Fat Joe obviously talks about the important things in life in this soon to be hit.

Aloe Blacc: “Fat Joe is from the Bronx. Because of the economic situation in New York and the fact that the people who made hip hop were so poor, one of the things that felt good was to embellish their lives and dream, to imagine something better. Biggie once said: ‘It was all a dream’. Even Slick Rick who was poor wore fur and big rings in his videos. We are magnifying something about ourselves, out of insecurity. But in this particular case…. Yes, they are magnifying their egos but this is an actual street report.

“I’m not a violent person. I’m a thinker, an artist”

Some of the lyrics speak directly to Jay-Z and they discuss strategies of their business, which shall remain nameless. These guys talk about how well they do what they do. They are making music because they enjoy doing it and because it helps their visibility and their profile, which in a way helps the other business they are part of. They can’t do it the way they used to, which was physically. But it’s not my world. I’m not a violent person. I’m a thinker, an artist.”

Mayer Hawthorne - Maybe So, Maybe No

For someone who never intended to become a singer, last year was pretty successful for Stones Throw collegue Mayer Hawthorne.

Aloe Blacc: “He’s a good kid. We both love hip hop, create hip hop music but also enjoy other genres; dance, crazy electronic stuff or whatever, we explore every avenue of music we can. Mayer Hawthorne understands the music because he has the records. He knows the artists that inspired him. He uses his voice in two different ways: he does the falsetto and a regular full voice. It’s probably just about the same way that I experiment with my voice when I’m singing; depending on the track I use a different type of voice. We both have the ability to draw from some of the good examples of the past and create better and newer styles.”

The Velvet Underground - Femme Fatale

Classic track by American rock band The Velvet Underground, consisting of Lou Reed, managed by Andy Warhol and covered by Aloe Blacc.

Aloe Blacc: “It’s not the obvious choice. I like it because of the story behind the song. For most music fans songs are just sounds and lyrics, but when you digg deeper into a song you find out why it was written or what the inspiration was. Do you know the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, where one person is writing poems for someone else? This is Andy Warhol asking Lou Reed to write a song about Edie Sedgwick and Nico sings it. That’s the kind of depth and history a cover song should have. When I covered A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke, I learned that Sam wrote the song because he heard Bob Dylan’s Blowin in the Wind and realised the song should have been written by a black man. He challenged himself to write a song that was as powerful.”

Luis Russell - The New Call of the Freaks

Jazz pianist Luis Russell was a native of Panama, but immigrated to the US, and so did Aloe Blacc’s parents.

Aloe Blacc: “It sounds like Luis. Is it Luis? The music I listened when I grew up was very Caribbean and latin. In Panama they play salsa, meringue, soca, calypso and tipico, the traditional music of the country. It influenced me to be more diverse in my absorption and acceptance of music later on. All these influences made me more aware there are different kinds of music and that it’s not all you hear on the radio. Some people never get that education by their parents.”

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