M-Phazes: Down Under

Beats today come a dime a dozen so much so that Busta Rhymes sat on producer Bangladesh’s “A Milli” beat. What gives beat-makers distinction today? Unfortunately geographic location does, someone from New York that is surrounded by constant recycling and repetitive beats is going to be a complete three-sixty from someone who listens to those same NY beats but lives in Australia. Producer M-Phazes while being influenced by the pioneers like DJ Premier, Pete Rock and the late J Dilla he has developed a sound that New York and the U.S. at large is beginning to pay attention to.

Scheme: Only nine years making beats, how did you discover this talent?
M-Phazes: I’ve always been either bangin’ on the couch, on the table with chop sticks, anything like that when I was really young, then I played the drums for five years and the bass for one year in the school band. When I heard hip-hop for the first time I just knew I wanted to do what those guys were doing with the beats they were making, Bomb Squad, Prince Paul, Paris and N.W.A. basically spurred my beat-making. So I started looping on a tape deck, I would find the open beat on a hip-hop tape and record one or two bars of that open beat to a blank tape, pause looping it, after that, I got my first computer and that was it basically on from there.

Scheme: What can you say about your sound that separates you from others in this business?
M-Phazes: I try not to water shit down, I like full music, a lot of body to it, and a lot of musical aspects as far as chords, melody and things like that. I like to keep the drums hitting hard, and I’ll say I’m very versatile, because I’m from Australia, I didn’t have one style to follow and learn off of. I’ve grown up on west coast, east coast, southern, mid west and hip-hop all over the world including Australia so if someone wants a particular style of beat I can usually pull it off, but with my own twist on it.

Scheme: You cite the late J Dilla, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier as influences. What is about each of those dudes that inspires you and what you do behind the boards? Do you sample or play music, or both?
M-Phazes: Pete Rock inspired my drums a lot, he used the SP1200 which gave him them crunchy Lo-Fi drums, but he had the illest sounds too! Dilla is just Dilla, I always flipped out on how he flipped samples, how he filtered, everything he did made me grab my head in disbelief, he was an alien for real. Being a mainly NY hip-hop fan, Premier is a given, no one embodies that NY sound like he does.

I sample most of the time, I have a great team of players including keyboard, bass, strings, and drums I use on tracks a lot. I can play the keys just to get by but my keyboard player, Guidian is a beast! I usually let him do his thing, I’m always looking for more players though! Shouts out to Jules and Saraya too! All great musicians I am honored to work with.

Scheme: Describe the Gold Coast hip-hop scene for us.
M-Phazes: It’s pretty weak, no offense to people doing there thing on the coast, I mean weak as in it gets little to no support. It’s got a cheesy wannabe scene though, a lot of dudes up there think they live in Atlanta or something, it’s kinda funny. Gold Coast is a really nice place, not much poverty, its clean, nice beaches, yet, people act like they live in a tough neighborhood or something acting like fools. So I’ll say the scene is weak right now cause its overrun by wannabe gangsters.

Scheme: You work heavily in the underground but do you feel pressure to make a mark commercially ever since you tore the roof off of this years One Stop Shop Conference?
M-Phazes: It’s funny today because people like 50 Cent, or any G-Unit artist, Fat Joe, Styles P, they are commercially viable artists who use real grimey underground beats, so I think if your shit is hot, whether it sounds underground or commercial, you got a good chance of getting commercially accepted. Though I think I will surprise a lot of people with some new shit coming up sound wise, I am open to a lot of stuff, I make commercial jiggy joints, underground joints, though I’m known for my underground stuff. So the jiggy shit doesn’t get as much shine, because right now people don’t come to me for that. Hopefully that will change though!

Scheme: Pharoahe Monch has spit some bars over your work. How did that whole relationship begin?
M-Phazes: Through his backup singer Mela, she worked on a project I was involved in and she got hold of my beat cd. Then gave it to Pharaohe and he liked what he heard! Luckily for me he came out to Australia not long after so I got hold of his manager and we organized to meet up.

Scheme: With the industry changing due to the net leveling the playing field for those that don’t have access to places like NYC, how does that help or hurt producers?
It definitely helps people like me who work with a lot of US artists, I always prefer to work with someone in the studio, face to face. But you have to work with what you got, so it helps in that way. Funny thing is, the pros are also the cons because your going back and forth with e-mails, you can’t chase people up for money, I’ve had people change up my beats, all that shit, and it’s a slow process over the net so it’s just as bad as it is good in my eyes.

Scheme: Do you recall the first beat you ever laid down that you felt had that RAW, ready-to-shop quality?
M-Phazes: I don’t really remember, I don’t think it happened like that really, basically I was posting my shit up on mp3 sites just hoping for people to listen, then I was working with people for free, out of the love of the music. It’s not something that happens with one beat like that for most people, I can’t speak for everyone though.

Scheme: I hear Melbourne is the doper spot to visit versus Sydney. With great art happening on all fronts, like the animation out of XYZ Studios and your fresh sounds, what is it about Melbourne that makes it so vibrant?
M-Phazes: I just love the different sides of it, it’s like you have the big city, then you go out to this place and you got the more arty hippies or whatever, then this side you got the ill asian food spots, it’s just a really diverse city. Syndey is cool too but it’s a little intense for me, Melbourne is nicer to look at too. The graf scene down here is amazing too, people really get into it and there’s a lot of talent down here, a lot of the guys I work with on music come from the graf side of the scene, theres also some amazing break dancers and DJ’s so it’s like being back in wild style or something! Everyone gets into it.

Scheme: Do you come from a musical family background?
M-Phazes: Not really, my parents liked music a lot and my dad plays the guitar but not really a musical background, my mum doesn’t have a musical bone in her body!

Scheme: So if Scheme started a label and we tossed you two-hundred large to do a project, any project, how does M-Phazes continue his quest for industry domination?
M-Phazes: Is that two-hundred dollars? To do a whole project? Wow ya’ll are cheap! My ideal project would be a production album with James Poyser, Questlove and the illest musicians in the industry, with a diverse bunch of artists, just go all out and do somthing crazy!

Scheme: Can you give us a slight overview of how you go about creating a track? Where do you draw inspiration from, outside of music?
M-Phazes:I guess anything from relationships to movies, I might watch a gangster movie and want to make something gritty or whatever, the good thing about being a producer is your not limited to being “real”, you make these soundtracks to whatever you want to portray. I could put a gun shot in a beat and no one would say shit, yet if I rapped about guns, people would call me fake, which is fair enough, I don’t carry a gun or need one so why should I rap about it? So being a producer I can put on this character and make the music portray that character however I see fit. When I create a track though it all depends, I usually got an idea in my head, weather for a drum pattern on a sound or sample, it’s always different, theres no set way that I do shit.

Scheme: Are there any producers that you hear now that make you wake up earlier and stay up later, because their sound is spot-on?
M-Phazes: Oh too many!! Guys like illmind, Young Cee, Nottz, Battlecat, these guys keep me on my toes, theres so many ill producers and beat-makers out there now you cant afford to be lazy, you will get left behind. Plus it’s not even about how good you are now, you can be the hottest producer in the world and no one will care if you don’t know how to hustle your music and make those connections.

Scheme: What can we expect from you this year?
M-Phazes: I have some projects in the works, first one being my album with rapper Emilio Rojas from Rochester NY, its about a year in the making and we are getting it mixed now! Then I have my Australian compilation album which hopfully will showcase the best of Australian hip-hop over my production. Plus a bunch of other spots on albums coming up both US and Australia.

Scheme: Drop the top five emcees that you would like to hear shred one of your sonic concoctions.
M-Phazes: De La Soul, Ras Kass, Jay-Z, M.O.P., and Busta Rhymes.