‘Yo Nasty West’
by j.charles @ textproductions
Yo Nasty West is situated somewhere completely nondescript in the old Oakland hills. I couldn’t even get there again if I had directions. When you pull up into the neighborhood and park the first thing you think to yourself is, this better be one bomb ass recording studio to be in such an obscure place. It’s seriously in a basement situated directly below the hardwood floor of the living room. Conveniently located right where a mic could conceivably pick up the dog scrambling across the smooth surface to ward off any unwanted visitors. But whatever, I guess cheap board time is cheap board time.
Had you negotiated the guard dog and managed to step down the stairs on this particular day you would have the pleasure of hearing a gritty, raw ass voice with a spot on delivery getting louder and louder with every step. I hadn’t even entered the room yet and already was severely turned on to what was being recorded. Of course the stairs don’t have the best acoustics in the world, but as soon as you get to the bottom floor and turn the corner, you begin to understand just what it is you get to play with for the next four hours.
Turn right toward where the music is coming from and you’re greeted with some severe digital eye candy. A beautiful Macintosh g4 powered everything that required processing, including the flat screen. Just below that sat the ten channel mixer, the monitors and various filters and samplers. In front of the g4 sat a stout Italian man with his ears on and his attention fully occupied by the levels on the tape and the levels coming out of the microphone. Above the Italian were six blocks of acoustic foam, creating a varying surface to absorb sound. But you knew that. To round out the station was something approximately twenty years older than digital itself, the reel to reel. A gigantic mass of electronics no less useful today than when it was sold as new. Clearly a reasonably well put together control room, considering the locale.
The sound coming out of the monitors was just barely edged out by the sound emanating from the vocal booth, directly behind the control room. There was no line of sight, since there was a wall in between them, but the Italian man and the vocalist kept in contact whenever it was necessary. First you’d hear the vocalist through the monitors, making a request for more sound in the phones, a restart, lower levels or whatever. Then you’d hear the Italian click on the comm. button, say his part, and then click it off. This lasted until it was no longer entertaining and I had to announce my presence.
I’ve known the stout Italian man for most of my life, and the hellos were short and easy. I was here to do a job and so was he. The shit really got interesting when the Italian, known to all as D funk, clicked the comm... told the vocalist they had a visitor.
The raw ass voice I had heard coming down the stairs quickly replied through the monitors with the standard ‘oh shit, wassup?’ followed by the booth door flying open, and a proper introduction. He was Dreez of the mighty Bayonics crew, and I was j.charles, a spectator and a journalist.
D funk interjected and informed Dreez that today as my birthday, and that I had drove all the way from the North Bay to sit in on the session. This was promptly followed by Dreez’s rendition of happy birthday and establishing that yes, I was also a Capricorn. Fuck yeah. Welcome to Oakland.
Now, sitting in and watching music be made is something that I find rather interesting, as i'm sure few people do. Since i’m not blessed with the privilege of being able to create hip hop it’s more than enough to understand and grasp the process. Sitting there listening to the same forty seconds of a track over and over again until the vocalist gets it just the way they like it can be the most irritating thing in the world, especially if take after take sounds exactly the same.
Dreez manages to be totally professional in the booth. Serious and ready once its time to record, taking a maximum of three takes for each verse, not counting the time spent on doubles, which can be a little bit tricky to time. Good for the producer sitting staring at the levels, good for the emcee paying for the studio time. But the thing is, every one of the takes sounded damn good. Not good enough for Dreez, but good. And I have to admit that the final cuts are worth the extra energy.
It’s so funny to actually sit and listen to the way a session works in between takes. The constant clicking of the comm., the stupid shit that comes out of all three of our mouths, the warm ups. But it’s just a way to make the workload a little lighter. Sometimes it takes a while to cue up the reel to reel, sometimes its just D funk looking to throw in a sarcastic line. Most of the time it’s the lyricist telling the control room what he wants. And the control telling him what he gets, where he’s at, what is left to finish. ‘Stand further/closer to/from the mic’is a common one, “you’ve got this much head room” another. And I never noticed it before, but it made a huge difference. Dreez likes to wander.
The sun begins to set over the San Francisco bay, and all three of us make our way outside for a little break. Dreez to rest his voice, D funk to rest his ears, and me to rest my writing hand. Go out on the porch to take in that two million dollar view and piss off the neighbors with our presence and strangely skunk-like odor. Hay, when its time to take a break its time to take a break. Relax. Regroup. Take the opportunity to come back at your project with vigor and candor. This applied to all of us, and we all deserved it. The sun finally decided to go down past the San Francisco skyline, and we decided to go back in and finish the doubles that I spoke of earlier, the last part of the session.
Apparently the break hadn’t helped Dreez at all because partway into the first take you got a lovely glimpse into the lyrical frustration that one endures when shit really isn’t perfect. And Dreez paced. And he was pissed. But, fortunately for whatever he was bitching at, dubs for ‘time over money’ finally went over velvety, and the remainder of the session followed suit.
The booth was vacated, Dreez exiting carrying only a microphone and a trailing cord. D funk wrote a big fat check to the owner of the house, packed up the master and shut down the hardware. I stopped drawing in my notebook and put that shit into my backpack along with the master and whatever hardware D funk couldn’t carry.
Optimistic dialogue ensued on the way out to the street, both the music maker and the music technician beyond content with the fruits of the afternoon. The tracks were damn near done, and the excitement was apparent. They wanted to work with each other, both confident in each other’s abilities; both capable of vocalizing what should and can’t be done this far into production. The product speaks for itself. Every time I go to a show or bump the demo I cant help but be proud of being there, watching a piece of history be created and documented.