Excuse me while a vent a bit. I am tall. Six foot eight if you have to ask. And evidently you do, because I get asked daily. I used to carry business cards that said 6′8″ on one side and “No, I don’t play basketball” on the other, but I ended up going through those pretty quick and I had to just hold up my last one like a deaf mute and just wave it at people until they went away. Supposedly Wilt Chamberlain, when asked “How’s the weather up there” used to spit on people and say “I hear it’s raining”. I never quite had the balls to do that. Old ladies tend to compare me to someone in there family who is tall (usually around 6′2″)…
Old Lady: How tall are you?
Me: 6′8″
OL: Oh, I have a nephew who is 6′1″
Me: I’m much taller than your nephew.
People yell out numbers on occasion, apropos of nothing…
Some Random Short Person: 6′2″? 6′3″
Me: (steely determined gaze)
SRSP: 6′6″?
I of course get asked about basketball pretty regularly, and to my shame I actually have finally caved to society’s pressure and do play basketball now, mostly pickup games in Brooklyn where my height doesn’t get much comment as I’m routinely getting dunked over by fourteen year olds. However, I never played in high school, preferring to play piano and smoke too much weed. I spent a year or two telling anyone that asked me that I was a bench player for the Celtics. This however had the adverse effect of starting a conversation I was woefully under prepared for. I also have told people that I played basketball until a debilitating torn ACL in my right knee (which is actually true, but I tore it playing ultimate frisbee, which is like basketball for stoners).
I also have tried to feign surprise:
Aging Pedestrian: Do you play basketball?
Me: (Look of astonishment, smack self in forehead) Of course, stupid! stupid! I will now, thank you sir.
I felt a bit better when I did get approached by a guy who was a bit taller than me who asked the ubiquitous question…
Me: You of all people should know better than to ask me that question, I’m 6′8″.
6″10″ man: I’m six foot ten and I don’t even play basketball!
Me: Me neither
6′10″ man: Yeah, but you’re white! You have any idea how hard it is to be a 6′10″ black man and not play basketball?
Made me smile for the rest of the day.
Q-Tip was in Brussels last wednesday and gave us some time to speak to him; We used the interview and mixed it with some A Tribe Called Quest music; Here it is, enjoy the music and the words.
I really love London when it’s sunny like that, beautiful people in the streets, little birds singing in the parks, enjoying music and public transport is more fun haha. Going straight to the Roundhouse, a nice building you guys got there, reminds me of a similar building we have in Brussels where the festival Couleur Café takes place around end of June, you should come through by then. Anyway, I didn’t see any of the opening shows, when we arrived it was all about Semtex I think and then straight to Gilles introducing Q-Tip. I saw the show in Brussels last wednesday so I knew what to expect but I know how I felt when I saw him coming on stage the first time. This guy has a lot of energy to share, and from what I saw, the crowd could really feel it down there. Going from “The Renaissance” joints to his ATCQ all-time classics, no wonder people go crazy about all this fiiiiiiire on stage. The atmosphere was very positive, it was all about the “love movement“; love for the music, love for the culture. Being such an innovator and key producer to A Tribe Called Quest’s succes Tip mentioned Dilla a couple of times and I thank him for that, Dilla was and still is one of the greatest if not THE greatest. Ok, I was expecting an encore from Q-Tip but I guess that he couldn’t make it because of the timing, curfew was at 11.30pm that prevented him to come back with “Oh My God!” and “Can I Kick It?“, he did that in Brussels.
Then, the afterparty! I was still at the Roundhouse when they told me I should’ve been at the club an hour ago…euhm, seriously? So, it was a bit of a television show where you have to run across town in 10 minutes and jump into a airport shuttle and tell him to go to the club, meaning he lost it, turning around for 5 minutes with a bad gps system ;/. But that wasn’t the baddest part for me; When I arrived, I noticed there was a Rane TTM57 mixer connected, and I use Serato but forgot to install the plug-in that goes with it when you use that mixer, in other terms, my computer couldn’t connect to that mixer and bugged. Can you imagine my face?!!! Luckily I had Simbad with me so I just used some of his cd’s he had, going back 2 back until Gilles arrived (who had a crazy day, you can imagine) and I had to tell him the bad news . I was so lucky, he had blank cd’s with him giving me the opportunity to do at least a little something, a little. It was a crazy moment during that night, burning cd’s as fast as my computer could, then, water on my computer dripping from the top, Q-Tip coming with a bunch of people backstage, packed. Gilles trippin’ on Serato because not only mine but also Tip’s computer was freakin’…”bullshit” haha. I mean this shit never happens until you get a stressful day and then everything might go wrong. Lucky you guys didn’t really see much of that, enjoying the music. Q-Tip went on, and I knew he was a great deejay, he actually did a very nice set from ol’skool hiphop to discofunk and more. Did he play Leon Ware? Think so.
Then I got on, with my 3 burned cd’s haha; I don’t know what it was that night but even my cd’s were trippin’, actually it stopped at a certain point, at “California Soul“, remember? You guys were singing acappella, great, you actually saved me right there. Then into some other gems and (fighting against the rain) until Q-Tip decided to come back, after I spinned “Electric Relaxation” and Superlover Cee’s joint. Q-Tip at me: “I want to spin another couple of joints, can I?????“ (euhm!) then put the Common joint “E=Mc2“..BAM! After that I got back on and thought it was the perfect timing for “Life Is Better“, and again you guys were doing an amazing job singing along. I passed the decks to my buddy BPM rippin’ it… What a legendary night in London; Q-Tip should come back in the summer, if he comes to your town make sure to support again, he’s the man and Gilles is the King for hooking it up.
Big thank you to the Brownswood crew, Kspace.tv and Need2Soul for everything, and thank you Tottenham for helping Arsenal on sunday.
‘The After Suite’ is Elan Mehler’s second recording for Brownswood. His first – 2007’s ‘Scheme For Thought’ – was described by The Guardian as “dreamy, beautifully executed music… like classical music played with a jazzer’s spontaneity”. Monday 23rd March sees the release of ‘The After Suite’ – an equally beautiful, thoughtful and elegant album of mostly original, compositionally driven modern jazz with Elan presenting a palate of moods, from anger, sorrow and contemplation in his trademark style.
Elan returns to Europe in March with Becca Stevens (vocals), Adam McBride-Smith (vocals) and Tod Hedrick (bass). His last London gig was a stone-cold sell-out… you know what to do!
That’s actually how I felt after Q-Tip’s performance last night in Brussels. Almost 2000 fans attended his show in what would become A legendary night. I was with Tip a couple of hours before the show, actually was with him and a doctor, being ill from the night before in Amsterdam. So, seeing him sick like that I couldn’t imagine him rockin’ the crowd a 100%. Well, I must say, he jumped on stage (probably with a cup of tea and honey) and he ripped it. There’s not much to say about it because it was pretty much perfect for me; being technical tells me that it’s usually hard for a hiphop artist to have a band playing over the beats and covering extra interlude parts etc… but with this band, shit they were really tight giving the beats another layer like wow!!! Q-Tip shouldn’t sing with a broken voice but who cares, here it’s all about the energy, I’ve never really seen a crowd going wild from the first track till the end. You know what, when the lights went on (and background music played in the room) after Q-Tip left the stage, people stayed inside, nobody left and he had to come back again and again. It was insane. All the classics, all the band members, including Robert Glasper were incredible and Q-Tip was the true Master of Ceremony. Hopefully you guys got tickets for the Roundhouse because it will be sick, I know London is really expecting the man.
If you have no ticket you still have the chance to see Q-Tip at the Black Lotus Karate Clubfor a nice aftershow party with Q-Tip and Gilles and the whole crew, make sure to be there. Voila, I have nothing more to say but Q-Tip has a little something to say:
October 2008, On-Point TV sat down with Frank-N-Dank at Kid Sublime’s studio in Amsterdam.
Frank-N-Dank were Dilla’s compadres for over twenty years. Best friends ever since they were kids. To hear them talk about their career in music and their experiences coming up under the wings of their best friend still gives me goosebumps.
From touring with A Tribe Called Quest, meeting with Janet Jackson, buying it up at the outlet, over to Dank’s first trip to NewYork…
. I was so lucky, he had blank cd’s with him giving me the opportunity to do at least a little something, a little. It was a crazy moment during that night, burning cd’s as fast as my computer could, then, water on my computer dripping from the top, Q-Tip coming with a bunch of people backstage, packed. Gilles trippin’ on Serato because not only mine but also Tip’s computer was freakin’…”bullshit” haha. I mean this shit never happens until you get a stressful day and then everything might go wrong. Lucky you guys didn’t really see much of that, enjoying the music. Q-Tip went on, and I knew he was a great deejay, he actually did a very nice set from ol’skool hiphop to discofunk and more. Did he play Leon Ware? Think so.
October 2008, On-Point TV sat down with Frank-N-Dank at Kid Sublime’s studio in Amsterdam.
