I could just start going if you want me to go.
Sure, let's do it.
Alright.
'Peanuts Greatest Hits,' Vince Guaraldi Trio.
This album means a lot to me because it's a compilation of some of the music that I grew up with
watching Charlie Brown. Children's music was just so good.
Children's music, many of the times, was just straight-up jazz.
So this is like my first real introduction.
This album, by A Tribe Called Quest, called 'Midnight Marauders'
is a perfect example of
an amalgamation of sounds put together to make something new.
Hip-hop is a bricolage of vinyl culture.
Producers would go through old records, sample little pieces
put them all together and make something brand-new.
And this 'Midnight Marauders' album, what they did
as far as using crazy fuzz guitar stuff with crazy jazz, to make something
very new and very black was just insane to me.
This, 'Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse' by Eugene McDaniels.
I mean, it's insane, and it's like a very ill psychedelic-type jazz album.
I was first introduced to this album by listening to A Tribe Called Quest's 'People's Instinctive Travels...'
When I found this original, it really kind of expanded my mind to show
how you could have a spiritual jazz composition make sense from an album perspective.
In sampling, I started realizing that the music I actually liked most
was not the derivative music I was making from the samples.
It was really these records I was listening to.
Then I figured out that, in order for me to be the best
I need to learn how to play instruments. I need to learn how to record the way they did.
Maybe stop sampling.
And it really hit me in '97, when I went to go see this band, Portishead.
It was hip-hop, but it was also psych rock. But it was also very cinematic.
And it was hard for me to really comprehend what was going on
but I knew it was like Wu-Tang 10.0.
It was crazy, I actually met Beth Gibbons, the lead singer.
And I talked to her about this album, and I talked to her about what it meant to me
as far as seeing her being herself
with this kind of music, and how much it touched me.
And she's so humble that it was kind of hard for her to believe.
I always say it's a dream to be able to tell your heroes how much they inspired you and influenced you.
And seeing this record really takes me back to that moment
where I had the epiphany that I had to learn how to play instruments
in order to become the artist I am today.
This record right here, 'Manhattan Research,' this compilation by this brother Raymond Scott
is pretty insane.
Raymond Scott was a jazz pianist and he was a little outside the box.
Created a lot of commercials, but instead of just using the typical orchestras
or the typical other organic instruments
he decided to fully invest himself
in these new things called synthesizers.
Yes there's been electronic music out for well over a century.
People have been making stuff with music that is produced by electronic instruments.
However, the composition that was used on these monophonic instruments at the time
is really still mind-blowing.
My favorite song on here is a song called 'Lightworks.'
And those of you that know J Dilla, you'll hear the 'Lightworks' song on here.
Also this live album by King Crimson.
King Crimson is probably my favorite psychedelic rock group.
What I love about King Crimson is that they're so hardcore about what they're doing.
Everything that they do is taken absolutely seriously.
If you don't take yourself seriously, why should anybody else?
And my song is 'Court of the Crimson King.' It's cinematic.
It's as if you're watching a movie but in reality it's just some rock band.
I love King Crimson.
David Axelrod, 'Songs of Experience.'
David Axelrod is somebody that has inspired the world of music.
A true composer/producer that was really creating a lot of the music
that served as the bedrock for hip-hop.
He's been sampled so many times.
And the reason why is his perspective.
He would compose orchestral music with fat bass
ill drums, ill orchestra, and it's very psych, yet cinematic.
And I always wondered what the hell they were thinking at that time when they're making this music
and whether they had any idea
that 30 years later everybody'd be sampling them.
Arthur Verocai. I look at him as the Brazilian version of David Axelrod.
I just came back from Brazil and had the pleasure of going to this brother's house.
Just like David Axelrod, he used an orchestra to compose.
Just like David Axelrod, he was using fat drums, fat bass
to create this hip-hop kind of foundation
at a time before hip-hop even existed.
Knowing that I was just sitting with him, as an older man now
and looking back at this picture, I wonder if he knew
40 years later people like myself would be looking at him like a god.
If you don't have this album, you definitely need to get it.
'East Side Story Vol. 3'
East Side Story had many volumes and they were basically bootlegs
made at the South El Monte flea market in the 70s.
And there was a vendor that would always get these requests for a lot of this rare soul music.
He would actually put them in the trunk of his vehicle and drive around the U.S. selling them.
I love seeing this picture, because it shows the unity
between the Latin culture and the black culture, especially at the time.
Me being a resident of Los Angeles and looking at
y'know, ten years ago, how there were these blacks versus Mexican gang wars and all that stuff
I always think, why are we fighting if y'all like the old soul, like y'all like Kobe and Shaq.
We're all the same, right?
Gil Scott, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.' Very, very, very important album.
One of the real trailblazers.
If you listen to the music, if you listen to the beats, it sounds like hip-hop beat.
If you listen to him saying his poetry, sounds like he's flowing, sounds like he's rhyming.
His partner-in-crime, Brian Jackson
is somebody I had the pleasure of meeting
and somebody I've worked with, somebody I consider a dear friend.
And talking to him about the making of this album is insane.
He told me, well, what do you think it would be like to be in a room with Hubert Laws, Pretty Purdie
Ron Carter on bass, Gil Scott, and they're just in a room making music.
not understanding how much this music would reverberate past his life.
So if you do not have 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'
do yourself a favor and go cop it.