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DJ Quik
The preternaturally funky West Coast hip-hop great talks about staying vital for a quarter century, his tumultuous family history, and trying to bring the party back to a fragmented culture with his stunning ninth album, The Midnight Life.
By David Drake , October 15, 2014
When I meet DJ Quik in the lobby of a hotel in Times Square, he appears ageless, dressed simply and accented by a long, untied black du rag. In conversation and on record, the 44-year-old is a lively storyteller, guided by the same intellectual restlessness that has kept him engaged and essential across the last 25 years. As a producer, he's worked with the boldest names—2Pac, Janet Jackson, Jay Z, Snoop—but the best way to take in his wide-ranging skills as a rapper, songwriter, and studio mastermind is by listening to his solo catalog, which now boasts The Midnight Life, his wildly funky ninth—and, he says, second-to-last—album.
Quik received something of a critical reappraisal over the past few years, with many citing his previous record, 2011's Book of David, as an example of a veteran artist finding the key to continued creative regeneration. Meanwhile, his overarching sonic influence on rap and R&B has come into finer focus; a few years ago, he revealed that he had even produced the drums for 50 Cent's "In Da Club". It helps that he's one of the most musically talented producers in hip-hop, someone whose proficiency has always felt like a side effect of the will to create rather than the mercenary craft of an industry employee.
But even now, the recognition must feel like something of a bittersweet consolation prize. Quik's fortunes rose and fell just ahead of his contemporaries in the 1990s, before he lost his major-label deal around the turn of the century, shrinking his recording budgets considerably. Younger artists today may not realize how much the money enabled, but to Quik, the '90s and early 2000s were an industry golden age that inspired some of history's greatest art. Even in that period, though, he didn't quite fit, a round peg in a square hole.
As much as he laments the segmentation of popular culture, the supposed death of R&B and gangsta rap, and the evaporated big budgets of the CD era, Quik's eccentricities still flow unbroken in an effort to make music that brings us together. “We know the industry is in the fucking doldrums, but that's not what it's about,” he says. “We make music to be happy, and people still need to hear that—people still need music, even if there's no music industry.”
Pitchfork: What's the most difficult part of starting a new record at this point?
DJ Quik: Just being motivated to do it. Because I feel like if I'm not going to change the game or do something innovative, then I'm not motivated. And sometimes it's hard to listen to new music and get motivated, because it's elementary to me—no disrespect to new artists, because that's where we started, too. But it's like they're way back there in first grade, and I'm in college now. So to be able to impress, you have to get to this middle ground where you're not too advanced so it goes over people's heads, and you're not too minimalist where people think you're just trying to rob the game and not stretch out.
Pitchfork: What are you trying to do with The Midnight Life?
DJQ: Book of David came from a darker place; I was having family trouble and I didn't understand why my family would turn on me just for saying, “No, I can't give you guys free money anymore, I can't help you with these dreams that y'all got that ain't going to come true. I've got to support my own family and myself.” They just went crazy. They wanted to rob me. They felt entitled to my money. That was scary, because these are people who know where you live. Even though they're family, they're dangerous. That leached into my album, like sewage.
With Midnight Life, I had no distractions, no family issues at all. I ended up starting to throw Super Bowl parties and inviting my family over to do karaoke and eat and drink. I was saying, “I forgive you even though you put me in jail and I lost a fortune fighting you. It wasn't worth it. I should have just gave y'all the money instead of going to lawyers.” But hell, I'm over it. You can't hate somebody for the rest of their lives over one mistake. So we've got mutual respect, and I got back to the party.
After I went through so much grief, I was trying to be funny to balance things out. So I started hanging around with motherfuckers like Katt Williams and learning comedic timing. You hear that shit on the opening skit, where it's like, "Hip-hop needs a banjo!" It's retarded. But then the first song “That Ni***r's Crazy” comes on—and there's a banjo. Funky!
I don't take myself seriously; nothing on this album is too serious. Except maybe "Puffin the Dragon", where I delve into what my grief period was like and how I lived through it. That song holds tension all the way to the end, and then just breaks and goes into this '80s-type, Pink Floyd-ish, Fender Rhodes-y, big snare a la Billy Squire's "Big Beat" shit. It turns into some cool jazz and resolves, which is my way, musically, of saying: “Look, you guys gave me olive juice and bitters, and I turned this shit into a motherfucking sweet martini.”
Pitchfork: One of my favorite tracks on the album is the instrumental "Bacon's Groove". Tell me about your longtime guitarist Robert Bacon and that record.
DJQ: I met Bacon when we couldn't get the clearance for War's "Slippin Into Darkness", which was going to be "8 Ball" on Quik Is the Name, my first album. He came in and just strummed around, and the lightbulb went off, like, “Oh my God. This dude is from Detroit, so he knows soul and funk, and he can play all the stuff that I hear in my head—so I don't have to sample it!” I just kept getting him work; he played on everything I produced. He ultimately ended up co-producing my second album, Way 2 Fonky, because we had got close. It was like, “Dude, let's make a musical revolution.” And he taught me. Now, I can do music easily; I turned into a musical beast.
“Bacon's Groove” is like a '70s classic soul ballad instrumental—Bacon is so good, it's like you've got to put him in that era. I love him, man. I wish I could play guitar like that. I envy him when he's doing it, because he doesn't even flinch. He makes the guitar sing, and talk, and cry, and laugh. How do you get all of that out of a piece of wood and some metal strings? I don't even get it. For this track, I invited him to the studio to do a groove with me, and it ended up becoming his own. I did the drums, he did the bass and the guitar. But when I was sitting there mixing it, I was like, "This shit is ridiculous. This don't even belong on a rap record." I don't think The Midnight Life is a rap record, it's a music record. Just real big production and stretched-out musicianship. Really virtuoso, if you will.
Pitchfork: What kind of music are you listening to now?
DJQ: Just old '70s shit. I mean, I do listen to new stuff, like Spoon. I like shit like that. Coldplay, obviously. Anything Dr. Dre still does. I bought Young Jeezy's album, 50's new album. I still support it. But I just keep going back to “Soul Train” and I wonder: How did we lose our culture? Black people used to all do the same thing on Saturdays. We all watched “Soul Train” and “American Bandstand”, got our fashion and dance tips, and then we emulated it and bought those records that we heard. Now it seems like there is no culture. The school of fish are all separate. Everybody's just randomized, listening to their own thing in their earbuds, and there's no uniformity. That bothers me.
On "Broken Down", from this new record, I'm rapping about how motherfuckers don't even kick it the way we used to kick it. We used to throw parties in the park, get booze, barbecue, have fun—the same shit you seen on the "'G' Thang" video. People don't do that anymore. You go to the park and everyone's all pocketed and separate (gestures at an invisible phone). That's going to be the downfall of music, if anything. Nobody enjoys one thing anymore.
Pitchfork: You've made a lot of classic party records records over the years—do you throw parties? Are people still coming to your crib on the weekend?
DJQ: The club scene is different now. I don't want to tear up my home anymore. I still do the music, but I don't partake in the parties as much. The parties happen when we book the studio. That's a safe place. Get alcohol, food, girls, homies, and have these small listening parties while I'm recording. And that energy always gets into the music. But they're more scaled down and not as frequent as they used to be; I used to throw mad parties because I had all this damn money!
Some of them got out of hand. People wanted to fight, steal necklaces off of people's necks. A little weird. I had to have armed security at my house. I was young, 21, 22. But that's what we were inspired by: party music. We had already lived a hard life growing up in Compton, all the violence and police brutality. We just wanted to throw that shit to the wind and kick it.
Pitchfork: On that note, have you been paying attention to what's going on in...
DJQ: … Ferguson? Of course I have. All I have to say is that's been going on forever. It just seems like the people in Missouri couldn't take it any more. That was a pressure point. Hopefully it will bring change to the way they police out there. It's ironic that the officer hasn't even been indicted or brought up on charges. The way he killed that boy, it was macabre.
Sometimes, when cultures feel like they've been abused, they just snap. That's how riots happen. When Trayvon Martin was killed, it built tension in black people. And now with Ferguson it's like, “OK, enough's enough.” People revolt.
Pitchfork: Your music has often been very tied to what you are going through in your own life, but have you ever wanted to be more explicitly political?
DJQ: Yeah, honestly. I say a few political things on this album, like statistics about the schooling of black children—they're 18% of the school population by race, but they make up more than half of the expulsions or suspensions. So it's like, “What are the black kids learning?” I hate those numbers, so I mention them. But I don't think that I could carry the Public Enemy torch. I wanted to do that, you know, but N.W.A. had that lane taken. So there wasn't really much I could do except talk about how not to let the gangs and the drugs and the streets and the police take you down. If I could elaborate more and be more political, I probably would. I think it makes sense for my music. I would be like Gil Scott-Heron.
Pitchfork: Rhythm-al-ism, from 1998, is a record that wrestles with a lot of big ideas as far as violence and music and how they interact.
DJQ: Rhythm-al-ism was a lot of emotion. I had just buried my best friend and was dealing with the grief. My nephew killed my assistant manager out of drug-induced rage. I couldn't believe it; I mean, I knew my nephew was a little touched—he would crash my cars and go try to hide them somewhere like I'm not going to see it. I'm like, "Did you hurt anybody?" "No, I ran!" I still tried to help, but ultimately he was doing some methamphetamine; I didn't even know what meth was back then. How do you go that crazy to where you kill somebody? You know what I mean? It's not that serious.
So he snapped while I was working on the Rhythm-al-ism, and I had to stop recording and bury my friend, take care of his family, adopt his daughter. She's now my goddaughter. Then I had to pick up the pieces and still finish that record. Out of that came records like "Down, Down, Down", and "We Still Party", and "Hand in Hand".
Pitchfork: Most artists reach a stage in their career and are no longer are as good at what they do. How do you maintain such a high level of creativity?
DJQ: The motivation sometimes comes when you least expect it. I try to keep an open mind. I'm not willing to just do shit because it's time. I'll still hone stuff. I listen to the radio, just like a running back trying to hit a hole—he's trying to find some place where nobody is and get there to score. That's what I do now. I've got super creative people around me. I don't think you should ever give up on trying to push the bar a little bit higher.
If you listen to "Pet Sematary", it's based on the movie Pet Sematary, where you bring dead things back to life, and they're not quite the same. The cat, a baby, whatever. People have been talking about how R&B and gangsta rap are dead, but with that song I did a total gangsta rap lyric to a total R&B track, and people like it. It's like a five-bar arrangement as opposed to the normal four-bar, sixteen bars, and hook. This shit ended up being a musical journey, and that's creative. It just feels good, too. If I'm in the studio, recording and being creative, it sparks other songs. Now we've got to top that one with something else that's cool.
At some point, I probably will run out of rhythms I can use and sounds I can beef up. And the most creative I've ever been on records was not even on my records. It was with Dr. Dre, when we were working with Truth Hurts and 50. I was findings samples and making clap sounds that nobody else was doing. Just super raw, raucous-ass beats. Hopefully I can catch that back and do another "In Da Club". Wouldn't that be awesome.
Pitchfork: Do you see yourself performing for the rest of your life?
DJQ: No. There are times now where I've got to do an hour-and-a-half-long show and I need my hype man. It's like, “I'm gonna take this small aspirin break!” It becomes a workout. I always said if I see Ice Cube and Too $hort still doing it, then I'll still do it. But now I'm looking at both of them like, “Damn, did we miss the stop?” No disrespect, I love Ice Cube and Too $hort onstage. But I just feel the burn myself sometimes.
So I've got probably another year or two before I sit back in the studio and engineer. I still want to be an architect and score films and do other things. I always said as long as I've still got teeth and hair and I look cool when I look in the mirror, then I'll do it. You never want to look like an old fart doing young rap music. At what point does "Sweet Black Pussy" become not explicit, but perverted? (laughs) I look down and see little kids in the audience and I'm like, “Oh man, I hope I'm not poisoning these kids!” The one comment I get all the time is, “Man, you don't understand—I got a whoopin' listening to your music, I got my tape snatched, I got put on a punishment, I got my ass beat!”
But I'm no more explicit than Eazy-E was. Like on "I'd Rather Fuck You", he's like, "Bitch! You don't have to front on me bitch, don't be afraid, it's only a dick!" He's got skits where he's shooting the person in the car, blowing their brains out and shit. We listened to that and it was so over-the-top that we just knew it was fake. So our shit became over-the-top to where it was fake. Then art started to imitate life, and vice versa—you've got motherfuckers trying to come to the studio to kill you and motherfuckers standing outside with fucking ARs and glocks everywhere. You can't thrive in a studio environment like that!
Pitchfork: What is the next step for you?
DJQ: I set out to do 10 albums over my career. I got sidetracked all those years where I wasn't recording, there was just too much personal shit going on, too much trying to get people all on one page so they can be a part of the movement and help me get to the level where Dre is. People like to pull you down, they don't really want to see you up there. In 23 years, I could have had 23 albums! But I would take time off from my own stuff to work with these other artists that were calling for me, like Raphael Saadiq, Jay Z, Whitney Houston, Janet, Rick James—you name it. I was working on everybody's stuff.
Pitchfork: Would you trade that time collaborating for more time to work on your own material?
DJQ: Hindsight being 20/20, I think it's OK. It's one of the reasons I became “underrated,” because people didn't know that I was doing all that shit: helping 2Pac and Pharoahe Monch and trying to produce everybody. I probably should have done more records. But since the music industry is going downhill I want to drop my 10th album immediately after this one, so I can have my discography done. That will be my ultimate book.
Pitchfork: Is there an album of yours you think is slept on?
DJQ: Balance & Options. There were a couple of songs that actually didn't make it to the album. I sampled the Doors' "Riders on the Storm"—I paid 17 grand to get real strings and orchestration, and then Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, rest in peace, didn't clear it. Manzarek was very picky about who he chose to carry the Doors' legacy. It's like, “Motherfucker, my life mirrors Jim Morrison's more than anyone else! I'm a young poet with this hair and this revolutionary music.” He didn't see it like that. He saw me as an outcast. I was brokenhearted.
And another thing: When I listen back to that album, I realize that I was going through a vocal change. There was a raspiness and an urgency, as if I wasn't getting enough sleep. I was getting this growl. There was a lot of struggling going on, then I lost my record deal after Balance & Options and went independent. So, from then on, I had to cut costs, which affected all of my independent records, and I hated that. With this new record, I was able to use my publishing money to record in the studio with no distractions. My voice is back, I sound like the old DJ Quik. It's like I rode through one of those Pacific Ocean storms and made it back to land. That's what it sounds like.
Pitchfork: A lot of people say that you've aged very well. What's your secret?
DJQ: People don't believe this shit, but I had an accelerated life in my 30s because I was trying to do the studio and the personal life. I wasn't sleeping. I started to see these big ass bags under my eyes. Crows feet. Receding hairline. I was like: "AHHH!" So I got rid of my sister Jackie, who was a stress bug, like, "Sis, I love you, but you're taking all my money and going to be happy with other people, then you come to me with problems. You gotta go." She used to do my hair and would put rubber bands in it and just rip it out. I was about to have a horseshoe! My mother was like, "What's wrong with your hair?" I was like, "Your daughter Jackie is doing it." She's like, "Son, you've got to get a new beautician."
So I went to some new beauticians, got my hair back healthy. And I bought this machine that exercises your muscles with an electric pulse. I had jowls and shit coming in, so I used to put baby oil gel on my face and put that thing right by my eye and work those muscles for 30 minutes. And it would burn after a while! It hurt! But I started seeing results. It was the funniest thing: When do mail-order things work? I thought it was a hoax. But before you know it, my face was all tight. The crows feet were gone. My jawlines came back up. My dimples came back. That thing worked! I ended up losing it, and haven't used it in over 10 years, but for anybody that's got some facial issues—fuck plastic surgery. You've got hundreds of thousands of muscles in your face, exercise them and they'll tighten up just like when you lift weights. (laughs) Plus, my moms is a beautiful little creole woman. I got it from her.
Read interview here: http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/9524-dj-quik/ ******************************************
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