by SCOTT C

There are no new ideas. There are, however, chopped-up, sampled bits and magically sequenced pieces of ideas that are reconstructed into challenging new perspectives. Scott Herren (aka Prefuse 73) seems to have spent a lot of time gathering the remnants of both the more recognizable, and the more randomly obscure, passages of music, only to put them through the meat grinder. The result is clearly one of the most unusual and imaginative approaches to hip hop production that you will ever hear. The Mirror spoke to Prefuse over the phone from San Diego.

Mirror: How much thought went into your production style, and how much of it just came about by trial and error?

Prefuse 73: Honestly, it’s a little bit of both. The whole thought process comes from blending all different areas of hip hop from back in the day until now, meshing them into one, along with all the random shit that’s happened in musical history. In the process the sound has ended up what it is.

M: One of the most consistently frustrating things about hip hop production now is how infrequently a truly original mode or approach to production comes along. Has that fact influenced you in any way?

P: It definitely did. When I finally decided to stick to this shit and develop this style, I was kind of bored at the time, y’know? There was a lot less exciting stuff happening in the mainstream and the underground, and what I came up with wasn’t really an answer to either one of them. I just wanted to do my own shit. All the Def Jux shit hadn’t caught on yet, and even the Neptunes weren’t really known back then. That first track they did with Ludicris was just coming out when my first LP dropped.

M: How do you explain the mass explosion of love directed towards you now, versus when Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives came out in 2001?

P: I knew that when that record came out, there would be equal parts love and hate for my stuff, but I think that since then, I’ve been able to connect with people as a person, and not this mystery producer. People seem to understand now, that this is my style.

With Manitoba and Four Tet at Cabaret on Wednesday, May 28, 9pm, $15

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