ACE B BOOGIE
ACE B BOOGIE
Interview with Ace B. Boogie
How did you first decide
to do music?? And what made you pick this genre??
It’s funny because in my opinion everyone wants to do music
and I say that because music has the strange power to interject emotion into
the human experience. Everyone has a few favorite songs or tunes that make them
feel a certain way when they hear it. The power of music is an incredible
feeling everyone would love to sing that song that everyone knows the words to
and vibes off of. Some people have
chosen to try and harness some of that power because they feel they have a
message worth delivering to the masses and all they need is that musical medium
as the source to deliver that message.
For me I chose to start making
music myself because I wanted to be the one who played all the songs everybody
wanted to here. It innocently happened
in the presence of a friend of mine who I had attended high school with who by
chance ended up at the same college with me.
When I talked to him he was showing me all these pictures of famous
people he had seen or come into contact with by being a DJ on the radio when we
were in high school. I would stand in his dorm room and watch him mix and
scratch mixes together. Eventually
standing and watching wasn’t enough for me so he would show how to scratch and
mix and would allow me to practice some days. It was in those days of learning
about BPMs and playing with the tempo of songs that I would hear sounds at
different pitches and would put together in my head “that would sound good with
some different drums at this tempo
instead of the original.” Meanwhile at that same time the dorm we were staying in
there was another guy there who messed around with music, had a keyboard and it
had the ability to record patterns. It was nothing fancy but he would allow me
to fool around on it Till this day I could not even tell you what those
patterns even sounded like but it was that day in that dorm room late at night
that I was hooked to making music. It was the most therapeutic thing I had done in my 19 year old life at that time. Hip Hop has always been an open vehicle for
expressing the themes and stories of urban life and since I think that some of
those stories need to be told those artist who tell those stories will need
fresh pages (beats) to write them on and to.
I always wanted to be the “page provider”, one of the canvas makers for
the artist. After making enough pages and canvases you start to develop your
own ideas and stories that you want to now illustrate. So my whole journey has
touched a lot of aspects of music I have studied and attempted to learn DJing
and the art of mixing which is where it started. That led me to beat making
which taught me about bars and hooks and how to lay that out for a successful
beat. Which led me to taking my thoughts and feelings about a particular
subject and being able to verbalize that over music that I myself or others
have created.
What does it take for
you to be inspired to do a new song??
My inspiration is dependent on what I am really trying to
accomplish with the music. I have several different modes that my mind can be
in because I have several different skills sets. I produce and make beats, I
mix and DJ, I write and rap and my mind
goes these cycles of inspiration in each one of those areas. If my mind is in a
producer mode then my inspiration draws from any and everything that has to do with sound or
anything musically related like. For example if my mind is in producer mode and
I am in the grocery store and a song is playing over the store PA system, I can
drain out the noise of the grocery store
and hear that song. Which will excite me because it’s a song which is a good
idea to sample. If I catch the tail end
of a song going off on the radio with a catchy melody, I will take those ideas
and play with them all day in my head.
Then I will go and sit down. With my imagination and inspiration to
continually getting better at my craft I “go to work” as I like to call it because it is work and
it’s work I like to do.
Its work I would love to get paid to do all day full time.
It’s work that I don’t mind getting up early to do or don’t mind staying late
working overtime to do. It’s work but
its beautiful work.
Who are some of your
favorite artist??
I have my classic Hip hop practitioner favorites like Jay- Z
, Bun B Outkast, Jeezy, K.Lamar, Pusha
T, Curren$y, Wiz etc. but I have recently been watching and listening to up and
coming cats like Schoolboy Q Childish Gambino
Chance the Rapper ,Cousin Fik , Danny Brown etc. As a producer and
DJ/Mix maker I am fan of artist like:
Kanye(of Course) No ID, Just Blaze, Mike Will, Sango, Cashmere Cat, Trippy
Turtle, MORRI$ Sinjin Hawke, Hudson Mohawk, Lunice, SALVA and Chrome Sparks.
Where did you grow
up?? And do you think that had any influence on your style??
I grew up in St. Louis
in the Midwest and a lot of people automatically
associate anything that come out of St. Louis
musically to Nelly. To say that Nelly had a influence on my music that’s a yes
and no answer because Nelly’s hard work and drive showed me that people from this
city can be taken seriously musically if you put yourself in the right
situations to be on that level. Nelly
and the St. Lunatics gave St. Louis
a swag to roll with. St. Louis is a
small city with a big city attitude our sports teams do fairly well in competing
on a national stage and so we carry that around. Then Nelly comes along and
gives us the swag to go with it so I draw inspiration from that whole vibe, but
as far as my sound I have always felt I related more to east coast style of
production I can listen to Cam and Jay and Nas and Jadakiss and visualize that
New York gritty big city street parable, street code type of music from a real
big city.
Is
this your first interview??
This is my first interview ever in print
If you had to
buy a new car, what would it be??
If I could buy a car right now it would be a Audi A8
How
has music affected the young community??
Music has always
affect the young community in the 60 and 70s. A lot of the music that was made
at that time was aimed
at the negative effects of the Vietnam war and you get events like Woodstock and you
people having rallies and protesting the government’s actions. Music still has
that power but instead of inspiring kids to what now would be seen as being
unruly like protest the wrong doings of our society, it inspires kids to all
aspire to be entertainers and athletes which there is nothing wrong with that
but if everyone is trying to be rich and famous entertainers who will be
running the country who will be the lawyers and doctors of tomorrow if everyone
wants to be rich and famous entertainers
Have you done any
shows??
I
have never done any shows I would love to be signed as a DJ/Producer for
someone like Hippos in Tanks or LuckyMeRecords and do some live shows in the US
and Europe, I guess we’ll see..stay tuned and we’ll see what happens as I
continue to evolve in the DJ/Production category