“This
has really changed my life”
MixxdFeelinz
– 90Bro and Tuckage talk about their latest creation
With the
digital release of their latest creation MixxdFeelinz, New North East
members Tuckage and 90Bro have elevated their art to a new level.
Gone is the boom bap of 2014-15 and in has come cutting edge Trap, a
bit of 21st Century G-Funk and whole load more cutting
edge sounds - MixxdFeelinz
is available for free download on Bandcamp now.
Mark Tyers: Do
you feel like this is the mixtape which you've been building towards
for quite a few years and that in some ways your previous releases
were a warmup, or practice to get to this point?
Tuckage:
100 percent mate, its been a long time coming for me, it's the
best project I've put out so far.
90Bro:
I've been making music in some
way, shape or form for nearly 5 years now. Tuckage's workrate is
inspiring, 3 projects in approximately a year, across grime and hip
hop on top of countless collabs and recently he's drastically
improved on the mixing/audio engineering side of things.
It was very much a
delicate alchemy for us both. Our previous collaborations definitely
paved the way for MixxdFeelinz to happen. Tuckage was the first
person to get me on a grime track. I never envisaged rhyming at a
higher tempo than 90 odd beats per minute previously, now I'm a
junkie for it.
MT: Is it
fair to say that hardwork and prodigious musical output seem to be
one of the hallmarks of NNE? In 2015 alone, you guys released over a
hundred tracks spread across 12 or more projects?
90Bro:
That's not counting the 30-40
or so tracks we didn't release! It is something else to be honest.
The hard work has always been there because we genuinely love what we
do. Everyone is coming up with new and different ideas all the time.
Given our limited resources it's amazing to me what we've already
achieved.
MT: Lets
talk about where MixxdFeelinz stands in the landscape of all the
other mixtapes and you've done. I personally think that pretty much
all of NNE's mixtapes have one or two standout tracks but that
they're kind of mystery tours, you don't know if the next track is
going to be stellar or not. MixxdFeelinz on the other hand has a
consistency to it in terms of style, quality and themes that perhaps
outshines all your other tapes, so where do you feel MixxdFeelinz
stands in your back catalogue?
90Bro:
It's a very 'artist' thing to say but I don't think it's my place to
make that judgement, at least not yet. I challenged myself so much
spiritually in the making of [one of my 2015 mixtapes] man.tra
(emancipation), it was probably the hardest project for me to
release. I had to overcome a lot of personal demons but it freed
myself up to go as deep as I did on MixxdFeelinz; which is
undoubtedly my most introspective project to date.
MT: I can
remember that sometime last year or maybe earlier, you decided to
make quite a drastic switch in your sound from classic boom bap to
what you described as cutting edge, and 90Bro you reference that in
MixxdFeelinz with the line;“I make music for 2035”. Do you feel
like that mission to lock in your new cutting-edge sound has finally
been accomplished here with MixxdFeelinz?
90Bro: Boom
bap production is a brilliant litmus test for lyricism, which is why
early on I favoured it as a means to exhibit my skill. I've
always been praised lyrically by my peers but my focus lately has
been honing the craft on the production side.
I feel like I've unlocked the whole spectrum of my
creative potential and I'm in so deep right now; flirting with brit
pop samples, acid house, folk and psytrance, blending it into
something else entirely. Tuckage has embraced this new wave sound
and approach openly; you should hear what he's working on currently,
it's something else.
Tuckage: Yeah
I feel it's something totally different to what people would expect
so am all for this new wave. I'm a big grime fan but most of
MixxdFeelinz was something else but I'm coming back with some grime
very soon. The whole choice of music that we can use these days,
it's crazy so I'm not just gonna stick to one thing, I want to
experiment and try new things and hopefully better my self along the
way.
MT: Could
you talk a bit about the musical influences and the additional
production by Westy and others that you've harnessed and been
influenced by in this project?
90BRO:
Tuckage is fearless when he gets passionate and pretty much
steered the ship in terms of exec production. We made this project
hella eclectic. Breadth of Production meant that no two tracks would
sound alike. Only Raisi K has two beats, (Close and No More Games).
Westy is
possibly the most exciting producer in the UK, not just grime. It
has to be said that to call him up and coming is to underplay the
changing dynamics of this industry right now. He is the definition
of New Wave. He's opening the doors for countless artists and his
work rate is second to none.
Tuckage: At this stage I'm just mixing and mastering tracks
and working on lyrics, I left the rest to 90ro as he's more
knowledgable on that side of things. Obviously I came across some of
these beats and showed them to 90Bro and we got working, we just
naturally let this project build. I personally didn't think too deep
until we got a good few tracks down and it became something special.
I've worked a few Westy beats so far but ain't spoke to him on a
personal level. Maybe in the future we will work on something
together but for now I'm just trying to push my self and NNE out
there as much as possible and hopefully we will develop our
connections with producers.
MT: Let's talk about the lyrics and
themes - what and who inspired the subject matter? did it just come
from the beats or did you find beats to fit your moods? For example
did you listen to the beat for track 3; Rounds and be like "this
needs to go deep and be about late nights, lust and relationships?"
And was that all part of purposefully going out to explicitly
explore a range of emotions and feelings, particularly of the greyer,
more opaque variety?
Tuckage: It's
the vibe off the beat then the work begins with the lyrics.
Sometimes lyrics I've had before have worked on different beats, so
for me it's just making the lyrics work to the beat and then building
from there. As soon as I heard the beat for our track Rounds, I
wrote the lyrics straight away in Raza's house while 90 was getting
his bars down, it was an unbelievable energy we got that day.
90Bro: Repetition,
instinct versus actions, thoughts versus feelings, there's very much
a tug of war conceptually. We kept things more or less in balance
for each track. We'd keep challenging each other to go deeper and
realer every time, every verse, every take.
Relationships
are the key theme to MixxdFeelinz, who and how we choose to confide
in each other in this digital age it's something we all
struggle with. Like any relationship it grows and becomes more
intricate, which is why we'd pull a punch 6 bars into a 16, sonically
drop from Rounds into Supply and Demand, and layer the whole project
with symbolism and metaphors [for example] the double meaning of the
title 'close', the xx in the title is also an allegory to the double
x [female] chromosome (XX).
On Rounds
in particular I let go completely to the music. It's very hard to
describe...playing with different vibrations until something connects
on the right level. Personally both of us were in a place where we
could delve deep thematically, and at a place technically that we
could deliver it on this level.
MT: Close
is my favourite track of the album. I really like the way it kind of
gives the listener a sense of you two determindly ascending from the
depths of a deep and emotionally challenging dive. Could you talk a
little bit more about that track and then perhaps go on to talk about
where you feel NNE is on it's journey?
Tuckage:
I remember 90 sending me the
instrumental for Close, I never actually got anything down to it for
a few weeks. I would just listen and try to picture what I was gonna
be saying, this is the type of track to drag you in whilst listening
the beat is so sick! 90 came and got his verse recorded then I went
off what he's saying for the beginning bit, then I switched it up to
a verse that I was gonna use for a track from another solo project
I've got coming up. It just suited this track much more so I got it
down and it worked a lot better.
90Bro: It's
certainly a favourite of mine. The title 'Close' was chosen, working
as two different terms with identical spelling. Reflecting the
melancholy of the song this allows the listener to interpret the
title as it speaks to them.
Close
not only means the end of something and the opposite of open, it also
means near and immediate, the opposite of distant. While we're
opening up ourselves to the track we're also closing a chapter and
beginning anew, it's very much jumping off from where Tuckage was
with his last solo project and also 'New Beginnings'.
I intentionally used the word 'Past' in a
repetitive scheme with emphasis to illustrate the pain of revisting
old wounds. The past is the past, and it hurts every time you think
about it, but knowing this doesn't make it any easier to put it
behind you.
There's a lot of fatigue and frustration [in this
track], but the elevation comes through that. When I say 'I make
music for 2035' that is statement of intent. It is our mission. On
a personal level, it's a period of acute realisation that I am
getting 'closer' to my goals.
Corey's verse still gets me. He changed his flow
and delivery with every chord change as well, his thoughts spilling
over the canvas, through the hook till the beat completely ends.
Recording that track was special, It really set up 'No More Games'
nicely [the following track] which acts as as an 'extinction burst',
a term in behavioural psychology that anyone who's had therapy or
sought help professionally for mental health may be familiar with.
MT: Do
you feel like your crew is now a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit more
experienced and is now ascending to the next level? If so what has
the next stage of NNE's trajectory got in store for everyone whose
watching? I notice you've a few gigs lined up for starters?
Tuckage: The
whole of NNE seem on the same path still so it's all positive from my
eyes. We really have become brothers, hopefully it continues for
years to come. We have come a long way in a short space of time but
we have all grown. It's scary once I think about it properly, not
only musically but as people to, this has really changed my life.
We've got a few gigs coming up soon, we just need to keep pushing
together and we will make things happen, people don't even realise
yet.
90Bro: We
have a few, supporting Sox in Boro on the 2nd September and our
headline on the 3rd at Independent. That's really the
stage for what will be what we've been calling the New Age.
The next stage for us all is a shift in
consciousness. There is a depression here in the north east we need
to shake ourselves out of. I feel it. Our gigs are more than an
exhibition of our talent. We really want to challenge convention and
established ways of thinking. It's time for full hearts and fresh
perspectives, across the board.
Funding for the arts is being cut, voices of a
whole generation are being ignored and marginalised. I could go on
an epic rant but I'm gonna chill and let the music and movement do
the talking.
North
East headline Independent (Holmeside, Sunderland) on Saturday 3
September, Doors open 7pm and tickets are £5 on the door-
https://www.facebook.com/events/1209845549071972/
90Bro (@90Bro) and Tuckage (@tuckage93) are on Twitter and Facebook
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