Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #344
Guest Post by Ila Parvaz (URF Tone) + "Forest In The Sea" by Matti Bye - 01/04/21
Today we have an awesome guest post from a reader of the Substack and a musician himself, Ila Parvaz, of the DJ & MC duo, URF Tone, who have over 9,000 Spotify listeners a month.
I met Ila a long time ago. I believe it was while we interned for this temp agency Elite Placement Group. Yes, we were Elite AF ;) I believe Ila and I bonded over our shared love of music. Or perhaps because he’s just a really good and decent guy.
Here’s a more formal bio!
My name is Ila. I'm an MC checking in on behalf of the group, URF Tone. We are a DJ & MC duo whose sound and style are inspired by, and pay tribute to, the golden era of Hip Hop. The “URF” stands for United Republic of Funk, which offers a snapshot of the duo’s guiding principle: unification-by-way-of-funky-rhythms.
Click here to check out our music, videos and more.
Thanks for having me, Dave.
“One Love” by Nas, Q-Tip
I recently tapped into Nas & Hit Boy's latest album, Magic, during a long drive (which is incredibly dope, by the way) and got whisked away in the curation thereafter. It was a not-so-random collection of boom-bap classics, along with more recent offerings from Hip Hop's current torch-bearers.
I wasn't totally cognizant of my thoughts as the tracks transitioned from one to the next. For those which I was more familiar, I'd juggle rapping along to the words with my typical deep zone of thoughts that tend to occur on the road. Songs that were being newly introduced to my radar were polarizing: I either studied the execution meticulously, or they were utter white noise to fill the space.
Then I was stuck in a trance of sheer admiration when Nas' Illmatic classic "One Love" came on. Like he's once stated of himself, Nas is, indeed, half-man-half-amazing; but he wasn't the focus of my inner monologue in this instance. It was, instead, the track's producer and guest vocalist on the hook: fellow Queens legend and A Tribe Called Quest frontman, Q-Tip.
Here's where my mind went: "God, this song is perfect. The production is masterful. Has Q-Tip ever missed? I mean, every artist - especially those with an extensive catalog - have songs I don't prefer, but does he actually ever miss?"
It continued: "Man, I'd love to pick his brain on how he approaches sampling. No, I could never trade quips with Tip on jazz and funk records. It would be best if I could just sit in a closed-door discussion between him and another music savant like Questlove. I'd just sit quietly and listen to these brilliant minds drop jewel after jewel."
Ultimately, it felt like a flurry of thoughts singing the praises of a Hip Hop superhero, who is both recognized as such, and yet somehow still underrated. His holistic approach to cutting records is as close to perfect as possible, given the inevitability of human flaw. It typically consists of an unwaveringly cool flow that prioritizes the pocket over all else, and sits in a bed of jazz and funk samples that each feel like their original recordings didn't tell their full story. They needed to come together on the tracks that Q-Tip cut together to fulfill their prophecies.
Thanks so much Ila!
I couldn’t agree more.
Not just about Q-Tip (and Nas)’s genius.
But also that some jazz and funk songs needed to come together again later on other tracks that hip hop musicians like Q-Tip and Nas put together to fulfill their full prophecies.
I thought the same about you and URF Tone, check out:
“Something 4 Ya” by URF Tone, Rae Khalil
That whatever production URF Tone came up with for this song must have also drawn from jazz and funk songs to fulfill a prophecy as well.
But when I DMed Ila to ask what the sample(s) were.
He informed me that “We’re sample free, but deliberately produce to give the aesthetic of samples…in order to create a revival of the soundscape from the golden era of Hip Hop.”
Which made me realize that the next generation after Q-Tip and Nas.
Ila and his partner, The World Famous N.I.C.
They needed the former generation’s samples of jazz and funk songs.
To create their own music.
Without samples.
Which itself is then an original aesthetic.
And fulfills another prophesy ;)
My shuffled-to-song today:
“Forest In The Sea” by Matti Bye
Seems to work as a synchronicity of this analysis, reflecting and refracting what Ila wrote about Nas and Q-Tip and what I wrote about Ila and URF Tone.
~Born in 1966, Matti Bye is one of Sweden’s most in-demand film composers and a collaborator of Anna von Hausswolff.
His studio is an analog world of synths, pianos, celesta, Mellotron, and organs.
And his music alludes to “the strange, romantic mood you get when you hear old merry-go-rounds, or mechanical instruments in small amusements parks, and abandoned places”.~
Once again, Matti Bye, like Ila and URF Tone, are creating a sort of neo-classicism out of a nostalgic musical milieu.
Neo-classicism, of course, is “the revival of a classical style or treatment in art, literature, architecture, or music”.
For Ila and URF Tone, it is one of the more agreed-upon highlights of hip-hop and rap so far, while for Matti, it’s a bit more obscure to us now.
Yet both re-create the past anew.
Because, in both cases, it’s not a strict neo-classicism, but a reimagination.
Which is all we really are doing with art.
Even when we believe we are doing the exact opposite of neo-classicism.
Creating something ‘completely new’.
That’s just my two cents.
And not even my two cents.
It’s Lawrence Lessig’s too:
“Nothing today is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before.”
And many many many others’ two cents, too.
Including it appears Ila and URF Tone’s:
“2 Cents” by URF Tone, Mr Funke
Okay, that’s the three hundred and forty-fourth Shuffle Synchronicities.