AIN’T MY VAULT: Tung Twista Housing Things
Twista – “Pimp Like Me“
from Adrenaline Rush 2007 (Atlantic, 2007)
Back again with another interview from the vaults. This recent Chicago Reader piece predicting a hip house resurgence (via SFJ) reminded me of the time I had a brief conversation with Twista about the then emerging trend in juke house/rap crossover scene (think records like Dude N Nem’s very slept on “Watch My Feet“) At the time Twista was promoting his own Juke Rap single, “Pimp Like Me.”
While Chicago House isn’t exactly part and parcel of this blog, we have been tracing the origins of double time or so called chopped rapping forever. It’s intriguing to think that Twista ended up at his record breaking fast rap by trying to keep time with Fast Eddie and hip house, while his peers in Los Angeles and Cleveland and Memphis were more motivated by post-bop jazz and reggae toasts and Satanism, respectively. (No biting talk today, please.) It’s like this major parallel thought boiling point where kids all over the country were taking different roads to similar destinations.
Anyway, Twista talks about as fast as he raps and this was maybe the most effortless interview I’ve ever conducted. I basically just said “House Music?” and a blurred screed followed. It’s a shame Juking never really caught on nationally, it’s musically much more exciting than most of the micro regional trends that have popped up since then. Maybe the dancing was just too complex for the “Ricky Bobby” set? It’s also a shame that Twista, to my knowledge, never really furthered his experiments with the sound. (Interview conducted 8/27/07 for the piece “Foot Soldiers” that originally ran in Scratch #20):
“It’s a scene that’s been around for years. Now they call it juke music in my day they called it house music, but it’s still pretty much the same elements or the same sound, it’s just a little faster tempo. Out of town they got their different versions of it, but it all comes from Chicago and it’s something I always paid attention to. Early on I used to stay down the street from this place called The Factory. The Factory and The Hole in the Wall on Roosevelt in Chicago was two of the early places when i was coming up where they used to do most of the house music. The same way the kids is coming up today listening to the juke music, how it’s a movement with them. I grew up where it was a movement with my buddies and my brother and certain people that used come up doing the dances with the house music.
“So when I got into my lyrics I knew early on that my rap style with the double time really fit into most house music, most house beats. You could take any house beat [and match my lyrics to it]. It’s funny because you could take ‘Po Pimp‘ and you could take “Get The Hole” and the words would match on it with the [hums bassline] and then hear me ‘well a motherfucker might be broke and shit…’ So that was something I always knew early on, it was how it really fitted. It’s just that lately we decided to fully revisit it and I wanted to be one of the artists that really do the lyrics to the juke music the way they should be done. Because I hear people that take it and don’t know what to do with, so I’m like ‘let me show you what Twista would do with it.’ So I just started to get involved and I’m glad to see it’s really picking up with a lot of the other groups in Chicago, because that’s what we represent. You got ATL they represent with the crunk music, you got they Bay Area they got the hyphy sound, everybody got these different sounds. And I like the fact that Chicago is recognizing their sound and embracing it.
“DJ Nehpets is one of the godfathers of that whole sound, I respect Nehpets, I like what Dude N Em is doing, they do they thing. Soundmaster T been around doing his thing for years. But at the same time, when I see the whole juke sound, some of the fathers was people like Fast Eddie, who was one of the first people I ever heard rap to a house beat. So, even though I’m calling it house, to me, house is juke it all represents the same thing. It’s just the juke is a faster tempo. I don’t want people to not recognize house because house is where it all started from and I don’t want people to be claiming that they started it.
“I got a whole plan with it. That one song we did [we] just stumbled on, but we have some ideas even before that one. That’s like a whole thing that I’mma definitely be doing. Not just on my album but really whole projects. I’d like to have Cuzo launch off a couple of beats, definitely with him being a premier producers, but at the same time trying to get tracks from some of the other producers that’s up and coming. [The rest of the world's] gonna love it. It’s the tempo of the music I hear around the world anyway. When I dip out the country slightly, when I go to London or somewhere, I notice either the music has a Caribbean sound or it has a house sound, a moving, techno type of sound. Like when you listen to Kanye’s “Stronger” song, you can see that he took it there with some of the [house] elements. And that song is doing real well in the UK. It’s a blessing to have my rap style and be involved with that type of music.”
May 14th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Yeah, I love anything vaguely hip-housey, although I thought maybe a year or so ago you did a piece ripping some of the new hip-house tracks, like “Haters Everywhere” and Flo-Rida’s “Birthday”… the latter of which really looks good given the garbage he went on to put out.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Nephets is still the King…
Juke still gets daily radio play in Chicago, it’s crazy.
Twilite Tone is probably the most notable House DJ still around, though. I really wish he would have let me post the interview I did with him a few weeks back. He didn’t like some of the questions I asked him in regards to his disappearance after his production on “Reminding Me (of Sef)”, which was a step-infused hip hop song, and the Kanye stuff, but hey, maybe it will make the Lost Tapes. I’ve got some solo shit of his I need to give you, Noz…
May 14th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
i got a remix of THIS song on my myspace ifyou want it…
May 14th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
“Yeah, I love anything vaguely hip-housey, although I thought maybe a year or so ago you did a piece ripping some of the new hip-house tracks, like “Haters Everywhere” and Flo-Rida’s “Birthday”… the latter of which really looks good given the garbage he went on to put out.”
i’d be hesitant to call either of those track hip-house, more rave-rap, in the same way you probably wouldn’t confuse a track from the chicago house movement like “strings of life” that the hip-house stuff builds it sound on with some of the crazy eurotrash bullshit that those tracks are based on, with all their fruity synths and lazer sounds
May 14th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
awesome noz, thanks
just did an interview with dj slugo a few weeks ago, super cool dude
May 15th, 2009 at 1:14 am
“Birthday” is a masterpiece. Dead ass.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:02 am
One of my favorite late Detroit records is DJ Assault’s flip of the “Po Pimp” chorus (”My Caddy”). (That Extra Analogue podcast reminded me.) Has anybody written a book on the cross-pollination between the Detroit and Chicago scenes through the decades? Didn’t Juan Atkins sell Frankie Knuckles his 909 or something fantastical like that?
May 15th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
i think you’re asking the wrong blog, ewouldblock
May 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
pretty random question, but is this “Ain’t My Vault” series in any way related to/referencing Mitchy Slick’s “Aint My Fault” song?
May 15th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I was thinking more Silkk The Shocker.
Who was thinking more Smokey Johnson.
That Mitchy song goes hard though.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I thought it was Casual, but I guess that song is called I Didn’t Mean To.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
“Has anybody written a book on the cross-pollination between the Detroit and Chicago scenes through the decades? Didn’t Juan Atkins sell Frankie Knuckles his 909 or something fantastical like that?”
I don’t know about “the” book but there are plenty of books about that time period, moreso Detroit. for some reason not so much Chicago – I think it kinda gets caught up in disco – that’s the main vibe difference betwen the 2 really; Chicago (&NYC – Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage & all that) was much more on some post-disco black club music thing (w/serious gay overtones), whereas Detroit was more on some cerebral future music type ish – “Kraftwerk & George Clinton stuck in an elevator” is the classic quote. but I mean those are loose signifiers & there was a lot of crossover also – I mean Ron Hardy (RIP), the DJ who defined Chicago House, played all kinds of future synth music in his sets alongside all that Philly Soul & Prelude, West End type disco, for example.
that was actually Derrick May, the dude who made “Strings of Life” among other brilliance (also the provider of the Kraftwerk/Clinton line), who sold his extra 909 to Frankie Knuckles.
anyways, books;
Kodwo Eshun – More Brilliant Than the Sun – utterly utterly brilliant afro-scifi-futurist screed about Detroit techno & black future music generally – 4 Hero for any junglists, Sun Ra & such
Simon Reynolds – Energy Flash – really good, more a general overview of 90s electronic music (w/especial focus on jungle) & he’s kinda anti-Detroit myth but still good stuff on that & Chicago
Dan Sicko – Techno Rebels – tho kinda sucks IMHO
Peter Shapiro – Turn The Beat Around – good book on disco
plus there’s tons more.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
@Tray – if you love hip house then you need to get up on that Fast Eddie, Tyree Cooper, etc. Plus Todd Terry (the dude who produced I’ll House You) is very much on that raw house w/a hip hop vibe, chopping up breaks & this, a bit. Kenny Dope of Masters At Work too, later on. also
Silvah Bullet – “20 Seconds to Comply” is a killer too
anyway there so so so many great house & techno records from the late 80s & early 90s. it’s like NYC hip hop ca. ‘93-95, it’s really hard to go wrong.
but as I’ve always maintained, the true electronic music for hip hop heads is jungle. bboy ethos to the max, killer sub lo, the ultimate choppage of breaks.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:51 am
so, when do you start your own blog ?
May 16th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
^^well believe it or not it’s in the works. unfortunately, the occasional long blog comment aside I’m pretty busy tho so I dunno when it’ll be ready.
actually I dunno if you’d be at all interested but given that you’ve brought it up a couple times perhaps you’d be interested in collaborating. click on my name – you can email me if you’re interested in hearing a couple of my ideas.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:54 am
“20 Seconds to Comply” is some hype shit. There’s not much post-1990 UK hip hop that interests me, but in the 80s they weren’t foolin’.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:40 am
[...] The juke+rap production on this track goes hard as f***!! Read more about it via Noz, here. [...]