spectre
by yoshi. photos by christina m most.
Skiz Fernando, also known as Spectre, The Ill Saint, The Eye and Slotek, has been around hip-hop for a long time. Behind the scenes. Lurking. His Wordsound label was launched in December 1994 in the midst of a successful career as a journalist, which most notably saw him releasing a book, The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture & Attitudes of Hip-Hop. He still continues his freelance work as a journalist to this day (recently with the likes of HHC, Wax Poetic to name a few) whilst also managing to maintain things at Wordsound, which underground hip-hop, and music-enthusiasts have come to know as a trusted source for progressively different, dark, yet always engaging music. More recently Wordsound has put out their first film Crooked, written & directed by The Spectre himself. On Sunday the 6th of April 2003, Skiz Fernando and I talked about all things music-related. Thoughts travelled and unravelled whilst Coltrane's Love Supreme played gently in the background.
how established do you feel Wordsound is currently
We definitely have our hardcore following, I mean after ten years you'd think!
It's been ten years now?
Yeah, next year will be ten years.
So how long has it taken you to reach this level?
As far as I'm concerned we haven't reached any level. I mean, we're aiming for total domination! We just put out our 45th release, Spectre, 'Psychic Wars'. Normally we don't sell more than three to five thousand copies of a given release, and I think there's a lot of room for improvement. But, really, this whole operation is just me, putting out records from my living room.
You just talked about total dominance, but I always thought of wordsound as something totally underground, not meant for a mainstream audience even?
I think our stuff has gotten so much more accessible through the years. If you listen to the first stuff, the first ten albums, that stuff is 'out there', that's what I would call 'out there'. But we've really made great strides to reach out to people. If there was any promotion behind these records, I'm sure we'd have a huge audience because people need this music - especially in these times. What was the first album you got?
I think it was Subterranean Hitz: Volume One
Okay, that's a good primer. Sub Hitz is something that I would call hardcore music. It's the kind of grimy music that makes you scrunch up your face and snap your neck. Hip-hop is not at that stage today. It's glossy, it's all about the clubs and everyone is on the R'n'B tip, everyone's got to have a singer.
How do you feel about the latest release, Psychic Wars? Is it still grimy?
Its smooth with the roughness like an uncut diamond. I like to take it to the next level every time, and this time I just gave it all I had - this is the album I'm happiest with. It's not even hip-hop anymore, it's just a whole new type of music, and that's really the goal, to make a whole new music. We really create our own genres here. When Spectre first started, I was calling it dub-hop. Or dance-noir (laughs) 'cos I'm a journalist myself, so I have to come up with these labels...But ultimately Psychic Wars is a sound you haven't heard yet. *
The Wordsound stuff is pretty underground here in England too I think, but a lot of people know about it.
See in England, you have precedent for this type of stuff, you have your Mo' Wax, your Warp, your Rephlex, your On-U Sound - all these weird indie labels, but they're still doing well. I mean just look at Warp - that new Beans' album is out on warp...I haven't heard that one yet though have you?
I haven't got it yet. I heard a couple of tracks through warp's website though. Sounds a little too similar to Anti-Pop's last record beat-wise, it's a little too clean for my liking.
Honestly I wasn't really feeling the last Anti-Pop album; I thought it was just a little too self-consciously weird, and just not bangin' enough. Those are my peeps and all, and they always get props for their lyrical styles, but they really left out the hip-hop on that one - except for that solo joint by Sayyid. I still want that out of my hip-hop - that bangin'-ness. That's why I can't even get with stuff like Anticon, it's too self-conscious and art school. It's not raw, it's not savage like Sensational's music. His music reflects his chaotic lifestyle.
Sensational is crazy (laughing) how is he doing?
Not good actually. Right now he's on the streets. Grinding.
It says on your album here, "Through the Inspiration of the Mighty Unseen Force that makes all things possible." What does that mean to you? I've seen it on so many Wordsound records.
Everyone has their own way of saying God. Some people say Allah, some people say Jehovah, some people say Jah, but everyone has a name for the Creator. All music and all creativity in general comes from one source. The force is the source, and once you're tapped into that universal power you can achieve anything.
Are you still buying new music equipment?
I been using the same stuff for years. An SP-12, an MPC, a couple of keyboards, an Akai 950 sampler, that's like the old-school sampler. All my equipment is old-school! But it's the way I use it. And you know someone who taught me a lot about the studio is Sensational. I mean this is a guy who started off on a 4-track, he had one of those samplers that has like a 5 second sample time, and he used to record vocals through headphones! He's a master, I mean, he hasn't even heard of Lee Perry, but he's like the Lee Perry of hip-hop. Back in the day, I used to work a lot with him, pretty much every night in the studio, and I discovered that there is a method to his madness.
Do you get sent a lot of demos, and how much attention do you pay to them?
Yeah I get tonnes. The only demo that I've actually put out was by this guy Prince Charming. That's the only demo that I got in the mail and I put the tape in and I was like 'what the hell is this? It's dope.' I put out two albums by him, but everyone else featured on the label has been 'in the family', or people that I've hooked up with through Bill Laswell.
You must have gained a lot of connections through a guy like Bill Laswell! He's worked with so many people.
Oh man, Bill! It used to be so great, he used to have a studio in Greenpoint, I used to live five minutes away, and I'd be in there like every single day like a fly of the wall. One day you walk in there and George Clinton would be in there doing his best Al Pacino/Scarface impression, next day Pharaoh Sanders is blowing the horn, next day Tony Williams playing drums, it was just utterly ridiculous. That was a big part of my musical education in a way. Just to observe a guy like Laswell, to see how he operates, and to see all these incredible musicians, and what they bring to the game was phenomenal.
Yeah, I actually got into Bill Laswell through the tracks on your Shake the Nations compilation, but then from Laswell himself I've gotten into so many other great musicians.
Yeah, it's all related! I mean, I could tell you stories for years! Just all the behind-the-scenes stuff that people don't even know about.
So did you always have the intention of getting your friends on the albums?
I started off as a fan of music, then a collector, then when I went to college I was a DJ. I had a reggae show called The Dub Frequency. But you get tired of playing other peoples music, and you kind of start dabbling on your own, and it grows. I never learned how to use any of the equipment. That's why the early Spectre stuff, was so.... I mean, I never used a metronome to keep time, so that's why everything was so loose! And that's what I love about Sensational's stuff, 'cos he used to work like that too. That's why we click, 'cos both our sounds were real loose and offbeat. And beat-wise you know who else is like that? Rza. That's what really attracted me to Rza and the whole Wu-Tang. Me and Rza are good friends, I've known him since like '92, when Protect Ya Neck first came out. I had to write the bio' for it, so I was like the first guy who interviewed him. Since then I've done many stories on the Wu for various mags and hung out with the man a lot. He brought a lot to hip-hop production.
Wow, wait a minute. Were you the guy on the first album who interviews them?
No, no that was from a radio station, but I was on the Gravediggaz' first album, I was the crooked lawyer on Diary of a Madman, and I was also on Genius' album, Liquid Swords. That song...Killah Hills...
Killah Hillz 10304?
Right, right. I was 'Mr. Grecco' the drug dealer.
Are you serious? Oh man, I've been listening to that album for so many years!
Yeah (laughs). So yeah, I'm pretty cool with Rza, GZA, Masta Killa and a few of the other guys... But I heard that Rza is in Europe now?
Yeah, he's releasing this new album The World According to Rza. It's pretty amazing from what I've heard so far. He's working with a few French rappers, and some nice MCs from Turkey.
Get outta here, that's cool. See Rza is the kind of guy that's willing to do something like that. To take chances, do different things.
So would you like to be in that kind of position where you can just put out anything you want and have everyone listen to it?
Well I am in that position with Wordsound, but the problem is not everyone listens to it! I mean, I only put out whatever I want, I've never tried to correspond to any trends. We always try to, if anything, to buck the trends and be different. But you know it's all just building and building. I have no doubt that at a certain point people will know the label and be more familiar with the artists and our contributions. I might not be here, but....
So how about Crooked? It's the first film released on Wordsound, and totally written and directed by you. Is it widely available now?
(laughs) Like all of our stuff, it's very not widely available. In Europe, we have really great distribution. I don't know about England, but we get all over Europe. Japan too. The movie is all about 'us'. I put Sensational in the lead role because I see him as the poster-child for all of 'us'; that is, underground artists who are just trying to get their music heard in this crooked world where everything is controlled by commercialism and so much politics. There's so much shady business, and that's all represented in the film. From the crooked A&Rs who tell you to go back into the studio, to what people have to do to survive just to do their music. It's all real. A handful of people might be bling-blinging, but the reality is that everyone else is on the grind big-time, just trying to survive.
So from what I read it sounds like your ready to do more movies in the future?
Yeah, to me crooked was my student film, that was just a man with an idea. It was all shot on a DV camera. It's the first hip-hop dogme film. It's a bit like those Lars Von Trier movies where he didn't use any artificial light. And you know, we made a movie for under $30,000 which we financed ourselves, through record sales. And I'm proud of it. It's a raw, pretty rough movie, but you gotta be able to see through that, just like when you listen to Sensational's music, you have to get past the fact that there's tape hiss in the background. It's aesthetically very raw, but what your going to be seeing is real. There are no actors in crooked; everyone is playing themselves, down to all the drug-dealers, down to all the drugs in it, which are real. There's weed in like, every shot. All the bad guys are real bad-guys. And it's all people we know. I don't think anything like this has ever been done before.
As far as film-making though, I'm not done with it. This really wetted my appetite, and I want to do more stuff. The next thing I do is going to be a hundred times better.
So are we going to see any more visual stuff soon?
I'm actually working on some scripts right now, but before I get into that stuff I'm going to do a Wordsound documentary. 'Cos I've got 10 years of footage - studio sessions, tours you know. I've always had a camera, so I got footage of live shows, interviews with all these artists, I'm going to incorporate all of that to make one killer documentary. It's not just Wordsound artists either, you're going to see Wu-Tang in there, Sly & Robbie, Bill Laswell, you're going to see all the people that I respect. And it's coming out. You're hearing it here first! This is an exclusive, because it's actually going to be coming out in December 2004 and it's going to be released as a DVD. It's going to be called Wordsound 50: The Greatest Thing You Never Heard. And it's not going to be like a normal talking-heads style 'VH1 behind-the-music' documentary, (imitates old mans voice) "And we started this in 1984...." you know, it's going to be cleverly done, on some next shit.
So how is Wordsound doing as a company at this point?
I mean, our sales are just like... I don't know what happened, ever since September 11th. And it's not just us, it's the whole music industry. Look at the major labels. A lot of the big labels are dying. But we're still around. Just like after a nuclear holocaust they say the rats and roaches will still be around. And, man, are they gonna be big!
What do you think the reasons behind that are?
Because, it's about time that all these huge corporations disintegrate to dust. They've been controlling and exploiting music for so long, and it's about time they fell. This is not only the fall of the American empire; we're seeing the fall of the whole western culture right now. This is the end of western dominance you know? The world is changing very rapidly, quantum leaps right now. Look at the whole economic decline, it's global. People are feeling it all over the world. And now they're trying to wage war in all these places when they can't even take care of their own people here? Ridiculous. Just look back in history at the fall of the Roman Empire. The same things happened, and history is nothing but an endless cycle repeating itself.
I take it your pretty firmly against the war then?
I don't see how anybody can be in favour of war. War is about killing people. It's about taking people over, and stamping your impression on their heads. It's about robbing people of their lives and their culture. I mean, I feel bad for the US troops out there. They're like the storm troopers of the Fourth Reich who are just following orders. Just like those Israeli troops in Palestine. A lot of them probably don't even want to be there.
Definitely. I've been trying to use the website as much as I can, but it feels a little hopeless right now seeing as the fighting's already started.
Yeah, it's like, too little too late, you know? If people really wanted to stop it, they should have really put their lives on the line to stop it, 'cos now we're in there for the long haul, and it's not going to end anytime soon.
what kinds of music are you listening to these days?
Well I like to listen to all kinds of music, I listen to a lot of Jazz, I like Dub, all these crates of vinyl here are mostly Dub music. I listen to a lot of world music too: I love Middle-Eastern music, Indian music. Bill has turned me on to a lot of that stuff, I also sample a lot of world music. The rhythm structures are so different, it's really interesting. I mean, our music, it's independent hip-hop. There's so much stuff that's not represented on the radio though, I mean you got your mainstream commercial 50 Cent-type stuff, and then what else is there? Nothing else is represented.
Don't you feel that all that commercial hip-hop is always going to be there, regardless?
I don't think so, because it hasn't always been there. Hip-hop has always been a reaction to whatever is going on in a society at that moment. I think right now you're going to see a lot of this 'bling bling' music die off. Because people really can't really afford that lifestyle anymore. I think also with war coming on now, your going to see a shift in what people like. You remember when hip-hop was really conscious? KRS-1, Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest... and then all of a sudden it went from that into 'gangsta-rap'. It's like hip-hop is always mutating. It's like rock, remember it splintered off into heavy metal, punk rock, indie rock, there were so many offshoots of rock, and now your going to start seeing that with rap music. I mean, it's happening, it's happening already. All these different little movements springing up. They're not represented on the radio now, but they will get so strong to a point where you can't ignore them.
How do you feel about hip-hop as escapism? As opposed to reflecting or reacting to the society we live in?
That's what it is to me. I'm coming from an era, well my favourite era in hip-hop was like 86-88, where you had like Eric B and Rakim, Public Enemy, KRS-1, EPMD, Ultramagnetic, every group out there was different and original. And at that time, you didn't come out by biting someone else's beat. Or you didn't come out sounding like someone else, or you got NO respect. That was called 'biting' back then. People lost track of that. Now it's like you gotta have the same beat as...
The Neptunes?
Right, (smiles) but I gotta give it up to the Neptunes though...
Same here. I'm liking a lot of their stuff.
It took me a long time, because they have a lot of that 'same ole, same ole' shit too, but once in a while, they come out with a track, and your like, "that's a hot track!" But I think we're trying to keep the original spirit of hip-hop alive, because that's what it was back then, and when Afrika Bambaataa started, he was playing Billy Squire big-beat, to a whole room of blacks and hispanics who had never even heard of him. I mean, "Who the fuck is Billy Squire? White cracker dude who plays guitar!??" But it's funky! It was funky, and you know, The Rolling Stones too. I mean that was the birth of hip-hop, he was showing that there's funk in every music, and to me, when I was in college, people would line up at midnight the night before a Public Enemy album would drop. That's where I'm coming from.
Are you cool with listening to your own music? How do you approach that? It's never easy for me.
Actually, this (Psychic Wars) is the only album of mine that I could throw on right now and enjoy. Usually you spend so much time, when you're mixing especially, that you get sick of it. But for some reason, I'm really happy with this album. Aside from that, I just need to make new stuff. If I'm on a good stretch I'll be in the studio every night. Make a new track every day. And then I got Sensational who's making new albums like every week! That's all he does, he smokes weed, chases women around and makes music.
He seems like such a mad guy. (looking at his album cover) What's he like?
He's a great guy, to me he's totally hip-hop. No one personifies hip-hop more than him. Because he's not one of these dudes that has to be walking around in the latest 'hip-hop' style. To me hip-hop is all about fashion these days, you see all these dudes with their team jerseys and everything, I'm like "get a job man!" It's more of a fashion thing and just following a crowd. When original hip-hop started it was a rebel thing.
Closer to punk right?
Yeah right. That's the spirit we try to embody at Wordsound.
Have you toured anywhere interesting with Wordsound?
Ah man, I've travelled the world with Wordsound. It took me to Japan for the first time last year too. It was incredible. We did like 3 shows. For me though, having never been to Japan, it was just wild, because it's the closest thing I can imagine to being on another planet. Everything is so different. Everything. And the way that people act is so different, they have such respect for people. It's like you walk into a store and they're bending over backwards for you. I love the culture, I love the food, the girls back there. It was just 100% great time. Plus we were treated like rock stars, people would come up to me at the shows with like two copies of my album, and one was sealed! They'd be asking for autographs and I was like "wow!" And we don't approach it at that level, we're just like regular peoples, but over there they were really putting us up on some kind of pedestal, and I felt bad about it because we're not used to being treated like that.
Interesting, so you guys all felt a little weird with that attention?
Oh, Sensational was taking full advantage of it! You can imagine... (laughs) On the first night he came back with two girls, and the whole time he was getting people to buy him, like, shoes and all kinds of stuff!
So was it pretty inspiring to travel, as far as music goes?
Definitely, definitely. I mean, we never toured America, but I love to take the sound somewhere else. Just to show other people who have not been exposed to the sound that there IS this thing going on, that it's not just what you see on MTV. Europeans and Japanese really appreciate our stuff. I'm not really interested in touring America right now though, you know.
Okay, so finally! What would you have to say to all the young musicians all over the world who are gonna be be reading this online?
I would just say, whatever you do, if music is your thing, or film, art, whatever; just do it. There are no excuses. Don't say "I'll do this, when I have this". Because you might never have that. This whole Wordsound thing was totally 'do it yourself'. We started with an intial investment of $1000 that I borrowed from Bill Laswell. And now, almost ten years later, I'm still doing it. I'm not poor and I'm not rich either, but I'm still doing my thing, which is the most important thing. I could never see myself doing anything else. I mean, I went to Harvard and Columbia, I have friends who are investment bankers and lawyers. Everyone all in their suits, got their ties on real tight choking them. You go to reunions and people look really unhappy, and they're all asking me questions like "Oh you have a record label?"
It's like society tells you that you have to be a certain thing, but don't pay any attention to any of that. Just follow your heart and do what you wanna do, and everything will work out. That's my message to everyone. At one time I was just a kid with a dream and I loved music and I wanted to be associated with music in some way, and luckily I got a chance to do that. But it wasn't easy. I had to stick with it, I had to go through a lot of hard times to do it. And I'm still going through hard times doing it. You just have to be focused and commited.
It can't be half-hearted. I hate these people who are really into music when they're young, when they're in college, and then they graduate from college, they get a job, and they never listen to music again. I have a few friends like that, and it's so boring. They're just talking about mortgages and the stock market. It's all bullshit! life should be fun!
Right. So this music right here is your fun?
It is, but I think... I got a little taste of film-making, and that's... that's fun! That is like creating a whole universe that you can control... so we'll have to see.
wordsound website