SCRATCH MAGAZINE TV - KEV BROWN DISCUSSES THE BROWN ALBUM, DANGERMOUSE AND MORE



If I remember correctly, Kev Brown was the first producer to remix the entire Black Album. As Kev Brown mentions, his remix of Jay-Z's Black Album was largely influenced by 9th Wonder's God's Stepson. As you can see in this interview, Kev Brown is still a little salty about Danger Mouse's Grey Album getting more shine (I'd be too considering how that album launched Danger Mouse's multi-platinum career). In addition to the Brown vs. Grey album controversy, the interview also contains quite a bit of production technique and equipment information.

**UPDATE: If nothing else, I recommend going to the 20:30 mark and listening to the discussion of how Jay-Z/Kanye changed the game and how they both still have the ability to change it again (in a positive direction).  I couldn't agree more.  Jay-Z/Kanye could bring back boom-bap and still sell as many records as they normally would because fans will always buy and play their music.  Reminds me of the saying, "youth is wasted on the young."  In this case I think it's more like talent being wasted on the talented.

2 comments:

pipomixes said...

Kev Brown is a great producer, no doubt about it. But this whole "MPC vs computer" is a myth. There is nothing wrong with using either (well, for hip hop, at least). People tend to rationalize their choice and make it a binary thing. They can both be had for a good price, and both can make great beats, although a Mac/PC gives you more options if you want to branch out and try different tools.


I would like to correct some misinformation in what Kev said. First, if you use a spinning HDD hard drive, you can often recover your files if the drive crashes (this is not true for SSDs and flash drives). With a floppy disk, if the disk is damaged, the files are probably lost.


Also, with a PC or Mac setup, you can attach a backup drive to run every hour. On Macs, it is called Time Machine; it takes about one minute to set up. On the other hand, if you rely on a single MPC floppy disk, your work is more vulnerable to loss. In the "backup" department, Mac/PC systems have more options for preventing data loss. It should also be pointed out that most MPCs in use today are connected to a Mac or PC (and in those setups, this entire debate is moot).

pipomixes said...

I think you hit it on the head in your first paragraph. People feel the need to justify their purchases as if they were defending their honor. The worst and most common example of this is with smart phones. Iphone users feel the need to constantly explain Apple's superiority, where Droid users won't shut-up about telling you all the things their phones can do that an iphone can't. I don't know if it all goes back to our grade school days of being picked on for not having whatever was "in" at the time or what....

I will say this in regards to equipment. I agree that you can do just about anything with anything. However, I do think that your equipment does slightly affect the sonic quality of your final product. However slight if may be, certain equipment does produce certain sounds that are unique.