Mike G f/ Earl “Stick Up” (2010, Odd Future)
Everyone certainly has much to say about Tyler and Earl and Domo and Hodgy and Left Brain, but the words written about Syd are few, and only in passing. I’m not criticizing any of these writers, and the majority of these pieces are thoughtfully conceived — and there’s a million layers to this Wolf Gang story — but I wish someone had taken the opportunity to find out more about Syd’s role. I mean, not many underground rap collectives have an in-house engineer (or, I don’t know, maybe she hates giving interviews or something).
But, someone asked her on Tumblr the other day about what records she’s produced for OF and the answer was “like half of Mike G’s album ALI”. Thought that was interesting to learn because so many of the records on ALI have this thumping, sparse low-end, and I figured that was mostly due to Mike G’s propensity to rhyme on tracks with a prometh haziness.
Think about other records in the OF discography, though, like “Buzzin” and “Earl” and “Slow It Down” (really a lot of Bastard for that matter) or “Strip Club” — that gated-sub with the squelchy low-end is a common theme on nearly all of the group’s output. I have no idea if Syd engineered those records mentioned or had any influence in their creation (or even produced “Stick Up” which started this whole discussion), and some of that sound is undoubtedly due to Tyler’s infatuation with pulverizing 808s in the mold of Chad & Skateboard P., but even when Ace Creator is absent, the gritty bass frequencies remain. So, is this her imprint? If so, where did it come from? What are her influences? The LA Weekly piece tells me her parents are “well-off and supportive”…great.
Point being, I’d like like to know more than we do. I continually read interviewers asking Tyler about how he comes up with his songs and he keeps telling them, (paraphrasing) I just do the first thing that comes to my head. I guess, though, what I want to know is *how* they make this music? Not on some Scratch Magazine equipment fetishizing shit, but just like, the execution from idea to track. How much collaboration goes on, how much input do these artists take from each other?
Anyway, that was the long way around to say check out ALI if you haven’t yet, or revisit it again with a fresh perspective. I thought it was worthwhile.
-SM
