Alright people! Since I do have the chance to collaborate with some very interesting and talented artists all around the globe, I decided to ask them some questions so you can discover their universe as well! So here's the very first episode of Tuân & Friends featuring mister K-Murdock! Let's go!
K-Murdock, Hip-Hop producer formerly signed to Rawkus Records with his group Panacea, just came back from his Japan tour with rapper and friend Random. A good opportunity to know his impression about that Far East country, plus Hip-Hop and manga cultures as well. Yep, for those who don't know, K-Murdock is a real animefan and gamer. Here's a little Q&A game between two Original Geeks!...
Hi there man, can you please introduce yourself?
My name is K-Murdock, I'm a music producer/audio engineer based out of the Washington DC area in the US. I love anime, video games and pretty much dope art in general!
How did you start to listen to Hip-Hop and to produce?
I grew up during the 88 and 92 golden eras and as heavily influenced by A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul - still my faves to this day. In college, the popular sound on the radio shifted to Southern music and Tribe disbanded so I felt like somebody had to stay making that dope progressive music so I decided to try my hand and making beats, and sucked at first, I had to learn, still am but thankfully I got good enough at it to make some noise... and eventually fans ;)
In Hip-Hop, who are your biggest influences? I think you have an ATCQ tatto right?
As I said, and indeed the tat of the front cover of Tribe's "Midnight Marauders" on my right arm says it all - I'm a big fan of Tribe, De La and what their crew, The Native Tongues, represent - individuality, creativity and above good music!
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| Panacea |
Many people got to know you thanks to your group Panacea. How did you create it and please tell us more about that signature with Rawkus.
Started Panacea originally in 2000 during college with some homies who rapped, that didnt work out as it was more of a Summer time project for most of them but I was focused on doing music, so I met Raw Poetic through a mutual friend in 2003, slid him a beat CD, he liked the craziest track on there which is the "Neosonic" style I have come to coin and we recorded an album in like 3 months and been rollin ever since! The Rawkus situation came about via them hearing about us when MySpace was hot, lol, and we signed first thru a smaller indie label that got us down with Rawkus year later!
Alright! I'm pretty sure everybody asks you the same question all the time, but what happened with Rawkus?
Not really sure, we fulfilled our contractual obligations with them in 2008, and parted ways, haven't really heard from the guys who run it - Jarrett and Bryan, since but I'm sure they got their hands into something, I know they parted ways with a lot of their artists on bad terms; but im happy we are independent again, that means we see more profit from our music!
You produce for Soul singer Raheem Devaughn, please tell us more about your relationship. How difficult is it to work with an artist with a major deal?
Raheem is a longtime homie, haven't done anything with him in a minute but we spoke ironically earlier this year about resurrecting an older project we did called The Crossrhodes, but nothing had happened, he stays busy, he was always like that, he's hustler man, and it's paid off! One thing I learned with him is time is money and since he stays busy, when we do record, it has to be all business as he has like 10 other cats waiting to work with him at least, lol.
And how did you connect with the rapper Random aka MegaRan?
Met Random from hosting my radio show Subsoniq, he submitted music for plat on the show and sent me a copy of his album Mega Ran, I listened to it, loved it and it opened me up to a whole new sect of Hip-Hop I never knew existed- nerdcore. Since then he and I have collaborated on SO much, he's one of my favorite emcees to work with.
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| K-Murdock & Mega Ran |
Both of you have an obvious interest for manga and gaming culture, how did you decide to mix Hip-Hop and game music? How deep japanimation and manga influence your work as a music composer?
Our shared love of vintage video games is just like classic Hip-Hop, we were both raised in an era where playing Super Mario or Zelda was as commonplace as listening to Tribe and Ice Cube ya know, so it was very natural for us to come together and make "Forever Famicom" as we grew up with those classic Nintendo games as much as we did Hip-Hop. As for manga/japanimation, Eastern art always influences me so seeing movies when I was younger like Fist of The North Star and Akira plus shows like Dragon Ball Z, just resonated as I loved the animation and stories, plus the aesthetic was so appealing as amongst all the dope anime and fantasy, was always some cool message or underlying theme.
Who are your favorite game music composer?
My favorite is still Yuzo Koshiro- the music he did spanned genres and styles and his Western influence- especially in games like Streets of Rage and Adventure Island just captivated me as I had never heard anyone use sounds like I hear in Hip-Hop and dance music in a game- to this day, those soundtracks are so highly touted as some of the best; he was so progressive, and thats why I love his stuff!
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| The legendary Yuzo Koshiro |
By the way, how did you start to be interested in manga, anime, VG? What are your classics and the serie you actually watch? Where does your fascination for Jyûbei Kibagami of Ninja Scroll come from? And who's your favorite female character?
Like I said, my first japanime flick I saw was Akira back in like 93 in a friend's house who had the VHS copy in subtitles. Then I went on a binge to buy anything that certain companies like Streamline put out the same way I would pretty buy anything Squaresoft made or the same way I buy anything I saw that had production by Q-Tip or DJ Premier- it's all about the labels, thats what I followed to learn more about whatever it was I was into- games, anime or music ;) As for Jubei, I loved Ninja Scroll, the movie more than the series BUT musically, I have always seen myself like Jubei- a ronin who travels and doesn't answer to anyone master but still is disciplined. I adopted the "samurai beatmaker" from a pic I saw of Jubei but had my friend redraw it with a beat machine on his back next to his sword, so the idea is a travel around the world in search of samples. My favorite female anime character is probably Major from Ghost in the Shell as she is mad bad ass OR Battle Angel (Gunnm) the droid, definitely not messing with either of them!
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| Ninja Scroll |
And what about video games?
My fave series has to be Final Fantasy, with VI being my favorite and VII being right behind it! I love RPGs, now I found myself playing more Western RPGs these days as the JRPG story/format has gotten dull, so I spent most of the last 3 years playing mad hours in Fallout 3 & New Vegas. My other fave series are Assassins Creed, Tenchu and Hitman.
You just came back from a tour in Japan. How did you find that country and what did you prefer? How did the Japanese public react to your music? And how did you manage to perform in cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka?
Japan was amazing, the country was so clean and everything operated so efficiently that it puts the US to shame. The food portions were so controlled and even eating at McDonalds is not bad, lol. People didnt stare as much as i thought, they seem to be a very respectful society and very friendly, I loved that. the performing came rom my particpation in the tour I was invited to be on- The "More B.A.R.K. Tour" where the plan was to perform in 3 major Japanese cities and bring some US fans with us in an effort to help contribute back to the Japanese tourism market. You can find out more at: http://morebarktour.com
What do you think about AKB48 hahaha? I'm a very big fan!
LOL! I admittedly never heard of them before, but saw lots of commercials for them and these guys the Japanese Soul brothers or something (Tuân's note: maybe EXILE?), lol. What was crazy was they even had one dude who looked like he could be of mixed black and japanese descent. I did manage to watch, not understand obviously, lots of TV while in the hotels and I do recall seeing groups like that. Still funny that Japanese women dress like school girls as a form of sexiness, in the states that got R.Kelly in BIG trouble messing with young school girls, lol!
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| AKB48: Team A! |
Animefans in Europe are more into Visual and progressive Rock and most of the time don't appreciate Hip-Hop music at all. Do you have that kinda problems in the US?
Indeed we do, I think because they are not shows like Samurai Champloo where it blended the western Hip-Hop sound with Eastern art, and I doubt there will be as that would seem to rip off the vibe of the show but unfortunately, being that 99% of anime movies use prog rock as their show themes, it seems people will have a hard to time digesting Hip-Hop, but again a show like Champloo really helped as it not only exposed the genre to a new audience but help get fans of artists like Nujabes (RIP) and Fat Jon into anime, but I just hope more people will be accepting of hip-hop in anime, the same way it's become accepted in video games more.
What did you just release and what are your upcoming projects?
My last release is called "The Ronin", it's a 7 songs EP you can download here- http://neosonix.bandcamp.com Working on LOTs of big projects for 2k12 including a NEW Panacea album, a new album with Mega Ran featuring music from classic SEGA games and new installments of my iMANGANation and Mood Muzik series!
Well, good luck to you K, thanks for answering my questions!
