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Collective Underground speak with Rago Magazine...

When did you start making music and was there a person or artist that inspired you to start writing songs and hit the studio?

Scientist: I started making music in school, but not as an emcee or producer but as a musician, with the guitar. I’m mainly self-taught and even though I didn’t take a music GCSE I used to play in the school jazz band in my final years of school . I’ve been playing in bands and music has been a big part of my life ever since. At the beginning of the year I started producing beats on applications like Reason and Cubase and turned my musical talent towards production. I’ve always been a fan of Hip Hop since the early 90’s when I was a youth inspired first by West Coast artists like Tupac, Snoop, Nate Dogg, etc, and then later getting into the more East Coast sound like all the Native Tongue artists: Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul as well as Black Star, Common, etc . In terms of producers my favourites are Dj Premier, J Dilla, Rza, Lewis Parker and the list could go on.. I first got exposed to the UK Hip Hop sound after High School around the early 2000’s, coinciding with my discovery of the ‘herb’. Artists like Jehst, Terra Firma, Task Force, Skinnyman and many other UK artists have always been a staple part of my hip hop playlists over the past 10 years.

Let’s talk about your latest project, its sounding really tight. Who features on it, who dealt with the production and how long did it take to make?

The bulk of the mixtape was recorded in a mate and fellow emcee of ours (GB Blaze) living room which is the caretakers building of a local recreation centre. We make a lot of noise when we are writing and making music in the studio and as Mr. GB Blaze wasn’t living there at the time and had this empty property we moved our studio gear in and was lucky enough to have this space to record the mixtape as well as a few other tracks and collaborations yet unheard. Both of us used our combined knowledge to deal with the vocal production in Cubase 5. We recorded one track ‘Clock With No Hands’ in ‘Aint Sellin’ Out’ Studios in East London which is owned by my cousin and rapper ‘Pobidansta’ who also features on the track and is part of the LBB (www.lbbmuzic.com) who are a underground London duo featuring ‘Pobidansta’ and ‘Slim Matrix’. They got raw talent and are close friends and family of ours so be sure to check them out. Here is a link to their video for ‘Stack Paper’:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Mnb--SHXA

Also featuring on the mixtape are the vocal talents of Kiesha Esnard, a highly talented singer from Luton who we hope to work with in the studio in the future again. We collaborated with a Producer from San Fransico Bay, USA who produced the instrumental for the track ‘Technique’ which is the opening track after the intro, he approached us through soundcloud and asked to do the collaboration and due to the quality of his beats we couldn’t say no.

We were lucky to have the mixtape featured as part of the long standing UK Runnings mixtape series and we worked with veteran in the game Tricksta who hosted and mixed Urban Poetry for us. We are truly blessed to have had the opportunity to work with this guy. Another major player our mixtape launch was Parkstreet PR, a company that in my opinion is essential if you are an artist looking to get your release heard by a wide audience and fast. They have been an essential part of our mixtape launch.

What do you enjoy the most about the whole process of recording and writing music? Is there something that you absolutely love and is there anything that maybe you don’t like doing as much? 

We both breathe, sleep, dream music so there isn’t really anything we don’t like about making music except for maybe sometimes not having the resources or time to focus on just music lol. When we aren’t making music as Collective Underground we are busy with our various solo projects and Soundwave is in a local progressive reggae band.

Are you releasing your music on your own label or do you have a team that is aiming to help you get signed to a major?

The music is going to get out there regardless of a deal, whether we do that independently or with a small indie label is something that we are only now weighing up the options on so I can’t say. Rather than looking at a major deal or anything like that, we are closely working with Parkstreet PR to create a buzz around the release of this mixtape : Urban Poetry.

How are you getting your project out there? Do you have a distributor involved or maybe some shops/websites stocking & supporting your music?

The way we are getting our music out there is strictly social networking at the moment, however we are working on our debut EP release and will be reviewing the various options there are to getting this music out there.

Getting radio play can be hard for unsigned Hip-Hop artists, but have you had any radio play and if so what DJ’s and stations have supported you?

We’ve had radio play from Diverse FM which is a local radio station in Luton that play quite a lot of RnB and Hip Hop music. We have also both been on BBC radio with our solo projects in the past.

Do you enjoy playing live? Have you done many gigs and what kind of artists have you supported or played alongside?

At the moment we haven’t done any gigs as Collective Underground, the main reason for this is we have been so focused on writing the material. As individual we aren’t strangers to the stage and Soundwave does local PA, DJing, and hosting of nights in the local dubstep scene but we are almost there and will be hopefully getting back to some contacts we’ve made so we can get booked up for shows.

Let’s talk image and branding for a minute. Some artists spend lots of money on artwork and other acts aren’t that interested. How important is image, artwork and branding to you?

Image, Artwork and Branding are important to us but not in the sense of vanity or to the point of distraction from the music. We like to play down the people behind the music so that people can try focus on the music itself. Artwork is important to us as it can help convey a concept or help tie everything together as a project the same as branding, and music is another form of art of course. Who we are as individuals shouldn’t really concern the listener at this stage, we hope, but if it does you can follow us on twitter: @star_scientist  and @soundwavemusic

What was the last album you brought and apart from Hip-Hop what other genres of music do you listen too?

Scientist: The last album I bought was Jehst - The Dragon of an Ordinary Family

Soundwave: We both enjoy many genres of music from jazz to motown  to classical, rock,  punk, etc as long as it’s good music.

Have you got any videos on You Tube and have any ever got played on TV Stations?

We just finished filming our first video for the mixtape track ‘Cosmic Thieves’ which will be available on youtube soon. We also plan to do another music video in the new year for an original track from our upcoming EP.

So what does the future hold for you as an artist? Have you got any big plans that you can tell us about before you go?

We take it one step at a time as we have already fulfilled our dream musically which is to make music we both feel comfortable enough in terms of quality to put out there for the public to hear. Anything else is just a bonus but we try to stay humble and keep our aims realistic. We have received a lot of positive feedback from this first debut mixtape and all we can promise is if you were feeling Urban Poetry Vol I then both our upcoming EP and Urban Poetry Vol II will be even more lethal. Follow us on facebook or soundcloud to stay up-to-date with what we’re doing musically.

Thanks for your time Tricksta, big ups to Rago Magazine, Parkstreet PR, etcc, etcc, etcc,

Interview by Tricksta
www.ukrunnings.co.uk