Cut Chemist Was My Friend For 30 Minutes

I was sitting on the MySpace Party Bus as it slowly crawled through the Austin, TX, South By Southwest crowd, wondering why the hell we were listening to "My Humps" when we were supposed to be at a Cut Chemist listening session. Then it dawned on me that most people don't really know who Cut Chemist is. In the hip-hop world, he's an underground legend, known best as one of the DJs for Jurassic 5 as well as Ozomatli, but also for being an incredible party rocker with eclectic taste and a scratch DJ with unparalleled style. If you walked by him on the street, you probably wouldn't look twice, but with an understanding of his work his aura is clearly felt.

For the first time in a career that spans a decade plus, Cut is set to release his long overdue solo album The Audience's Listening. Predominantly an instrumental disc, The Audience's Listening has the potential to be a huge crossover record with a catchy, almost pop feel with a hardcore hip-hop aesthetic. Some dickhead started a casual conversation in the middle of the interview, promptly ending things. We then went and tried to get into a Beastie Boys show, but were denied entrance, and at that point I couldn't help but think, "Yo, it's Cut Chemist. How can you not let him in?"

How did you end up on Warner Brothers?
It is really weird. There was a guy named T-Ray, who was pretty much a hip-hop icon in the '80s and '90s and did stuff with the Artifacts and Soul Assassins, who also produced Ozomatli and that's where I met him. He had a subsidiary label with Warner Brothers called Beat Down, and he brought me in. I was like with DJ stuff, I kinda wanted to do something a little more edgy than go with something corporate. At that time, Tom Whalley, who signed J5 to Interscope, was at Warner Brothers so it was all good. I was actually the first artist Tom Whalley signed when he went to Warner. They asked if I could deliver the album in a year, and I said yeah no problem. With my obligation to J5, it was really tough to work on my own stuff, as well as stuff with J5 and stuff I do with [DJ] Shadow, but they [the label] were really supportive, like turn it in whenever. Three years later, here it is. I had to actually leave J5 to finish the album. If I stayed, the album would have never gotten done.

A lot of the records you used to make this record came from stuff you got while visiting Brazil for the filming of the B+ documentary Brasilintime. How many crates did you actually come back with from that trip?
A shitload. I know Madlib lost like two crates coming back in customs. Me, I carry my records with me. I don't trust anyone. I find creative ways to stuff records in my luggage. But I probably brought back like two or three crates.

by Corey Bloom photo by b+

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