How the beat scene started in L.A.

I’m transcribing an interview I did last month with L.A.’s Take aka Sweatson Klank, Mr Beatnick and Architeq.

For those that don’t know Take is one of those producers who links the old and the new on the beat scene front, having been around for over ten years and being, for me, one of the most underated and unknown producers to have helped shape the current beat/electronic hip hop movement.

In the course of the interview we asked him how it all started in L.A. and this is what he said, an inspiring snippet of beat history. If you ever wondered how people like Flying Lotus, Ras G, DJ Nobody and many others came to do what they have in the last decade and how the producer renaissance in underground hip hop and the move away from MCs started, this gives you an idea.

Full interview coming soon…

Ok… well to me how it all started over there is my friend Kutmah. He’s a DJ and he started a night called Sketchbook. And he was him, me, Eric Coleman, this guy named Orlando, who doesn’t play records anymore, and we would have guests. And basically it was the first beat night, the first… this was back when like we were playing all instrumentals of hip hop records, and then the first Dabrye came out, and the Prefuse records and that kinda shit and we’re playing all that stuff, and going to record stores every week looking for stuff that was dope and rooted in hip hop but taking it to the next level without any MCs, all instrumental.

It just grew into this night and we did it for 3 years at this tiny spot in Hollywood called the Room and then we moved it to this other spot called Little Temple and it basically became this night where all these hip hop producers and other producers would start coming through. And someone would bring a boombox and everyone would stand outside, and basically it kinda sucked to DJ there by that time because when you’re DJing half the people that you want to hear you DJ are outside with the boombox standing in a circle smoking weed and everyone’s throwing in their CDR! (laughs) They’d play their latest beat and everyone in the circle would have their heads down listening to it, smoking blunts, going just like ‘ooooohhh!’ and meanwhile we’re inside DJing for ten people while those guys are clocking in and out because it was more interesting outside.

So we started letting people play their CDs inside and that’s where it all began. Flying Lotus would come through, back when he was really young, Ras G and all these people. We’d put out notepads and markers and the night was no dancing really, just all about people chilling at the bar or tables and listening to music and drawing and having beers and going outside to smoke weed or whatever. And that’s why it was called Sketchbook, cos we had the sketchbooks out. And so basically that’s where to me it all began.

It’s interesting because as more people started coming to the night, more producers were coming and they were hearing what we were playing and people would come with their CDRs and all of a sudden everyone got on this whole ‘yeah fuck MCs I’m just gonna do beats’ and do instrumental shit and the influence just started to pan and spread. Everyone used their own influences whether they were into psych rock or something else. Like DJ Nobody was way into psych rock and others were into dub, others into electronic music and so everyone took their influences and started doing this sort of hip hop influenced beat shit and it grew from there.

And then Kutmah decided that, well we kinda all decided but it was mainly his decision because it was his night, he was the founder, we were working so hard to buy records every week and the night was free, we’d make 30 bucks at the end of every night and we’re spending twice as much on getting records to play to show people what’s up and break new records, so we ended the night and a year and a half later or so Low End Theory was born and Daddy Kev started that and that became the focal point of beats in L.A.