War and Peace

Masters of Illusion, the latest project from DJ / producer KutMasta Kurt, is a collection of tight, eclectic beats from this stalwart of the Los Angeles and Bay Area hip-hop scenes, but unlike most other DJ / producer compilations, this one is more of a concept album, featuring the talents of just two rappers, the legendary Kool Keith and Motion Man.
"The idea was that it was going to be my compilation album, and instead of me doing one of those ten-songs-with-ten-different-people kinds of things, it was just to two guys and form them together into a new crew, but I think there's a lot of dimension within the songs," says the Luchador mask wearing DJ. "It's cohesive in a lot of ways, but it also goes off into some different directions, which I think makes more interesting to listen to."
When the Synthesis caught up with Kurt in LA a few months ago, he was hard at work pushing Masters of Illusion, "trying to get people to pay attention." The album did fairly well in independent circles, but didn't really get the push it should have. It's not that Masters isn't a good album, or that it didn't get the critical praise it deserves — it is, and it did. But being an independent release with independent distribution always makes getting the music out there a bit tougher, and sometimes there are other factors. Kurt says that the volume of work that Keith has been doing lately, and his albums' varied reviews in the press, may have had an effect on Masters.
"I think that's what kinda hurt this record a little bit, some of the mediocrity he's done lately. I think people are a little skeptical to pick up this record," says Kurt, from his home in Los Angeles. He knows, however, that there is a distinction between the Masters of Illusion material and the other stuff that Kool Keith does himself. "I had to make more of a distinction between his stuff and my stuff. Musically, for one, but the other thing was to put it on my label, with my style of artwork, with my name as the presenter. Musically, this was my direction, versus projects I'd done with him in the past, where I was just producing some stuff for him and he was the director of the project. This project was my under direction."
One of the things that Kurt did as director was to get a rapper to go with Keith, someone who would challenge Keith and keep him on his toes: Motion Man. The Bay Area stalwart has a reputation that can't be faded, and as far has hip-hop goes, he's down by law. Finding a comparable rapper to Keith was something that Kurt knew was important, because he recognized the need to keep Keith on his toes in other collaborations the rapper has done.
"That's why it's good that he raps with those kinds of people. Normally, he picks people who he can easily outshine without any challenge, like that guy who's on the Matthew album, Black Silver. Keith just runs over that guy with no effort," chuckles Kurt, who says that the pairing of the two rappers, Keith and Motion, was really the reason Masters came together in the first place. "It all came together because me and Motion Man were working on stuff, and me and Keith were working on stuff, and I wanted to get Motion known, so I thought that doing stuff with Keith would be a good avenue for him. Motion guests on a lot of Keith's album, so I just thought of extending that idea, and having him on every track. And I think Motion puts pressure on Keith to perform, he lights a little bit of a fire under his ass."

Kurt Matlin first got interested in music and DJing at a young age, as a record collector. From his youth, says Kurt, it was just a natural progression from enthusiast to radio DJ to vinyl manipulator to beat-maker and record producer.
"I started buying records in about '83, and I started DJing more seriously in '84 and '85, doing community radio first, when I was 15, in Santa Cruz at KUSP," remembers Kurt. "Then in '88, I started a show at KZSU, which is at Stanford University, so my background's in that, radio. But while I was doing the radio thing, I was also doing the regular DJ thing for, like, frat parties and other stuff at and around UCSC. I was working at Domino's Pizza and stuff, too, but I did a lot of mobile DJ gigs. Once in a while, I rented out a community center in Santa Cruz called the Eagle's Hall, and I used to throw MC battles and give out money to the winners, just little entrepreneurial things like that.
"But then, towards the late-'80s, I was getting kinda' known in that area and a little bit in the Bay Area, for being a DJ who knew hip-hop music," he continues. "People started asking me to make 'em beats, so I started buying samplers and drum machines and other equipment and getting into that aspect of it."
A totally self-taught DJ and producer, Kurt remembers well the journey to where is now, but can't pinpoint one specific moment — after his first turn at the wheels of steel, that is — in which he realized that it was what he wanted to.
"There was something that, once I started doing it, I really liked," he says, hesitating and then adding that there was, in fact, a point at which he knew it was more than a hobby. "I had put out a few little independent things and a some remixes for a few artists, but it wasn't until '93-'94, when I hooked up with Keith and we started doing stuff, that I really had an opportunity to try to make a career out of it. It was more of a fantasy before that."
That was shortly after Keith's first an arguably most influential group, Ultramagnetic MCs, disbanded, and Keith was a fresh face in the solo hip-hop game looking for a fresh young producer to work with.
"I had met them and, and the time, I was pretty friendly with those guys," says Kurt about Ultramagnetic. "But yeah, I definitely think that Keith helped in a lot of ways, because without working with him, I might still be in a position where I was still trying to do stuff. He just gave me the stamp of approval to help me get my stuff going."
And Kurt has had plenty of going ever since. He's spent time in the studio with some of the biggest rappers and DJs of the genre. Doing remixes and making beats. Of course, the hard part about existing as a gun-for-hire studio producer who does a solo project with a handful of solo players, is getting the studio project, like Masters of Illusion, for example, out of the studio and on to the live stage. That is especially true when you're talking about artists who are constantly booked. Currently on the road with DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, KutMasta Kurt's Masters of Illusion tour doesn't include Keith — only Motion Man — and not necessarily for reasons scheduling conflict. Previous attempts to get Keith on the road for Masters haven't been fruitful, either.
"We were workin' on getting him out on the road, but Keith doesn't know any lyrics to the album," says Kurt with a quick gut laugh. "Man, he doesn't know any lyrics to any of his records, really. I mean, he only knows his old stuff and a couple of new songs, so it's kinda' hard. And Keith puts on a good show, but I think he doesn't concentrate on that as the main focus of his career. He's more of a studio artist, which is okay, but you gotta be able to give people the whole package. That's just part of the job description."
Other players who are on the Masters of Illusion album who won't be on the road with Kurt include master DJs Revolution, Rhettmatic and Babu. Three stalwarts of the Los Angeles' hip-hop community (Rhettmatic and Babu are members of the Beat Junkies, and Babu is a member of Dilated Peoples; Revolution is one of the LA underground's most unsung heroes), these three seasoned vinyl slicers contribute a scratch style that Kurt can't provide himself, and also happen to be some of Kurt's favorite DJs.
"Revolution is by far my favorite scratcher on record, and I pretty much solely use him on everything, but Babu and Rhett are really good too, and I just figured, hey, I had to put some other people on the project," says Kurt, describing exactly why Rhett is so dope, and why it's too bad he's not on the road with the Masters tour. "Rhett is like a machine — he'll listen to the song, work out the scratch, and when he does that, it's like a programs himself, like a sequencer, or something. It's pretty amazing to watch, actually. I mean, I'm a DJ and all, but not that kind of DJ. I can cut, you know, I can scratch okay, but not like that crazy, next-level shit. Revolution is a DJ's DJ, and I don't think the average person is fully up on him yet. He may not be as known as the Beat Junkies or Q-Bert, but to me he's just as good, if not better."

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