This Saturday November 9 Melbourne is incredibly lucky to be getting a live performance from ill.Gates at Brunswick’s Ceres Environment Park for the Rainbow Serpent Urban Gathering to launch next year’s festival. However, being such a dope individual he is also conducting his ILL.METHODOLOGY artistic development workshop at Tetris Studios on this Thursday where he will teach young DJs and producers how to make that next step.
Preceding Gates’ official education of Melbourne he caught up with Beats to talk straight about what inspires his intoxicating mix of hip hop, dancehall and drum and bass.
“Hip hop as a musical genre is in a lot of ways the last real genre of music. Hip hop is defined by sampling and therefore contains all other genres within it. Hip Hop as a culture contains the elements of DJing, MCing, graffiti and breakdancing. There have been many sub-genres within hip hop culture, but it’s all hip hop really: trap, crunk, hyphy, pop’n’lock, footwork, bone breaking, krumping…at some point you have to ask: ‘how different are these things from the core idea of hip hop culture really?'”
While hip hop is at the core of most ill.Gates sets, he uses two other main sonic glues to keep his sets together: dub and drum and bass. In discussing dub, Gates makes the point that is inseparable from its root: dancehall. “All electronic music – hip hop included – owes a massive debt to Jamaica. Without the innovations that started in Jamaica we simply would not have anything like the music we have today. It was there that early dub producers first had the idea that a producer could play a soundboard and effects as a part of the song. Before that producers were just technicians.
“Jamaicans also invented rap, but it was called ‘toasting’ back then. Even Cool Herc – largely credited with creating hip hop – was a Jamaican who grew up on sound system culture. Anyone who listens to music and doesn’t give Jamaica the respect it deserves is a fucking twit!”
However, despite his passion for the origin of the music he produces, Gates admits that it was the early personal influence of drum n bass luminary Goldie that sparked his passion for producing, “I grew up on that drum and bass. It was the first EDM genre to really worship the bass like they do in Jamaica. I also used to live with Marcus Visionary for a while back in Toronto, so we had guys like Nicky Blackmarket and Goldie around our place all the time. Huge influence for sure.”
On the amazing Ill Gates Re: Mix: Tape Gates features South African proto-rap troupe Die Antwoord. It is fascinating to hear Gates’ take on DA as for many rap and hip hop purists they are a dirty crew.
“I love DA and all their related projects. They really challenge ideas of what it is to live and create in the music scene. It’s incredible to see people treat their very being as an intentional work of art. Watching them develop over the years is amazing. I can’t wait to see what they turn into next,” states Gates.
He continues on this thread, now talking about Die Antwoord’s homeland, “I went to South Africa to perform at Earthdance and produce a record at the Red Bull studios last year and it really was an amazing time. I would have to say that South Africa (like Jamaica) has a staggeringly disproportionate amount of talented humans, especially vocalists. I played in Cape Town and Johannesburg as well and really loved it. It was life changing.”
Finally, and alluding the idea that his Urban Gathering show this Saturday will be something special, Gates talks about where in the world he likes to play the most. “I’d have to say I feel most comfortable on the West Coast of North America, the east coast of Australia and South Africa. People there just ‘get it’ when it comes to my music and I don’t have to dumb it down like I do in a lot of places I play. I also love that Aussies know how to party. Not everyone knows how to party. It’s a skill, takes years of practice,” smiles Gates.
BY DENVER MAXX
