Del the Funky Homosapien
By Zoneil Maharaj
Photos by Mathew Scott
A programmed drumbeat creeps out of a room. A bookshelf is stacked with texts on critical thinking and music theory. Del the Funky Homosapien sits on a futon with legs outstretched, a desk with a MacBook at his reach and a keyboard to his side. He’s currently working on a beat using Ableton Live, applying what he’s learned about music theory to create a linear drum pattern.
“I’ve downsized everything,” he says. “There’s older cats that are into production and they like using physical equipment, but you don’t have to do that at this point.” Del’s setup is, essentially, a walking studio. Scattered around his house – a single-story modest abode in the sleepy suburb of Richmond, Calif. – are various Neumann microphones and three “thugged out” MacBooks, fully loaded with the most memory, largest hard drives and highest quality sound cards. Oftentimes, he’ll make tracks in his bedroom. In the back of his house is a stockpile of old, or obsolete, studio equipment, including a dusty Tascam 24-track recorder.
“I don’t wanna say it’s played out but after doing so many tours, I just don’t have the energy to be sitting up in front of a console,” Del says while sparking a bidi (Indian cigarette). Within the next couple hours, he’ll blaze through four more.
Del’s musical career has evolved with the industry and technology. The Oakland native has co-written songs with his cousin Ice Cube as a teenager, drawn the blueprint for independent success with his Hieroglyphics crew and the Hiero Imperium label and broke new ground with animated super group Gorillaz. When he dropped his debut LP, I Wish My Brother George Was Here in 1991, he brought the raw, dirty P-funk sound back into contemporary music, sampling loops on an SP-1200. Before MySpace and imeem made indie artists accessible and approachable, Del and his Hierogplyphics partners were interacting with fans in the late ‘90s, selling their merchandise and releasing exclusive content online, including Del’s previously shelved 1998 album, Future Development. His 2000 collaboration with producer Dan the Automator and DJ Kid Koala, Deltron 3030, tackled the impact of technology on the world and garnered him new acclaim, ultimately leading to his collaboration with Dan the Automator and Blur’s Damon Albarn (also featured on Deltron 3030) with Gorillaz. While many artists have come and gone, Del has persevered, managing to stay alive in the cutthroat "fast food" industry for nearly two decades. But with the climate shifting more drastically and rapidly than ever, the 35-year-old emcee and producer is rethinking his approach.
No longer spending $100,000 in studio, recording, mixing and mastering fees, Del has once again mastered the art of self-sufficiency with the help of technology. His first lesson in the subject came after he and his Hieroglyphics crewmembers were dropped from their respective labels in the mid-‘90s (Del from Elektra, Souls of Michief and Casual from Jive), building the Hieroglyphics Imperium label to make music on their own terms.
“That was a way to maximize and get our presence out there,” Del says. “We were able to continue and buy more time. And that’s basically what I’m doing now.”
His latest move has been The 11th Hour, released in March on Definitive Jux, an East Coast label run by producer/emcee extraordinaire El-P and best known for churning out indie rap surrealism via Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif and the label’s honcho himself. It was mostly created in his home, with all of the production handled by himself, minus a beat apiece from J-Zone, A Plus and Kaos Unique. His first solo effort since 2000’s Both Sides of the Brain, it too allowed Del to buy more time, filtering him through Jux’s well-oiled marketing machine.
“I just didn’t think that I could release it with my record label and it make the impact that it could make if I went with Def Jux. And I believe I was right. I was on the Craig Ferguson show, 106 and Park, had a lot of interviews, a lot of presence online. People knew my album was out. I got a cool little buzz,” he says.
In keeping with the times, his approach to making music has mutated as well. Just as much a survival tactic as a test of his creative bounds, Del has been studying music theory for the last eight years, his emphasis as of late: funk drumming.
“One day I figured, ‘Man, I gotta step my drum game up. It’s not tight enough.’ So I just started studying again,” Del explains. “I knew from watching the other cats in the industry that were dominating that it wasn’t just luck. You don’t just make hit after hit after hit after hit just off of luck. You gotta know what you’re doing,” he says, referencing The Neptunes and Just Blaze.
Yet, the notion of hitting the books after two decades of experience was ridiculous to some of his peers. “’Why are you studying music theory? You’re already a professional musician.’ It was going backwards to them. But I knew that if I didn’t learn how to do things organically and not be so dependent on other people’s music, I’m not gonna be able to last in the future,” Del explains.
Like everyone else in the industry, Del questions just what this future holds, also having taken a hit from internet piracy and the slump in record sales. “We know that you can make money off of shows, you can make money off of licensing, merchandising and stuff like that – anything where people gotta be in your face and really see you, you can benefit from. Like shows, that’s one thing you’re not gonna get downloading. You can’t download me. You wanna see me, feel me? You gotta come to the show.”
Del’s personally seen The 11th Hour available for free download on several blogsites. His consolation? “At least I’m popular enough to where you would want my album to be up there. There’s people trying to give their albums away that people ain’t even giving the time of day. I guess I gotta be thankful for the fact that people that actually want to bootleg my album.”
Placing a greater emphasis on touring, Del has spent most of the year on the road, keeping close contact with his fans. He’s even tweaked his touring model to make it less cumbersome: rather than hitting the road for months on end, he’ll tour one or two weeks out of the month. “To be able to sustain some sort of a reasonable lifestyle here at home, I had to switch up how I was doing it,” Del says.
In that same vein of honoring the importance of face-to-face interactions, perhaps what’s helped Del survive for so long is his understanding of the relationship between the artist and the fan. He’s one of few in hip-hop to appeal to alternative crowds and gleam the sidelines of the mainstream while maintaining his essence and integrity. Though the occasional hater is inevitable, Del’s fanbase is broad and far-reaching.
“I try to be clever with the lyrics but I don’t try to lose people. It’s a balancing act. Tastes be changing so quickly, but I try to keep in mind that I got a broad audience and I don’t have to pigeonhole myself ... I try to appeal to the common denominator – you like good music, you gonna like my shit.”
When it comes to fusing lyrics with the music, Del takes the position that “they have to have some sort of marriage to go together rhythmically or dynamically; they need to match or compliment each other or contrast with each other. They just gotta be related. So I don’t just try to superimpose raps over beats anymore. I try to have some sort of idea where something’s gonna be going. I feel like it makes better music. That’s the goal: always make a better song.”
Even when programming beats, Del takes great care, making sure it’s as realistic as possible. “As a keyboardist and a producer, I gotta know the range of instruments and how you play instruments – you can’t play a bass in the guitar’s register … A trombone is a really sluggish instrument, you can’t do a arpeggio. [Ableton Live] will let me do it but I wanna be in the same realm as a real trombone player.”
Seven cuts deep into his next solo album, Del is also considering broadening his reach with a little pop appeal. “I’m not going to go overboard or sell out or anything, but I’m definitely thinking about maximizing how many people are gonna like it,” he says.
He’s trying to get the album out as soon as possible, though how he gets it out is still a question. He’s also currently working with Tame One (formerly of New Jersey duo The Artifacts) on a full-length album and a full length with Souls of Mischief/Hiero member A Plus. In the idea phase are a couple other promising collaborations: Modest Millionaire with Prince Paul and Dave of De La Soul and a yet-to-be named EP project produced by El-P (a “Del-P”). Then, of course, there’s the second Deltron effort, Deltron Event II, expected later this year.
“I feel like time is running out. It’s gonna be interesting to see how the game goes in the next few years and what they come up with,” says Del. “I’ve asked people, if I blow up, y’all gonna start hating on me, huh?”
Del’s summer of festival dates will culminate next month with performances scheduled at Bumbershoot in Seattle on September 1, Musicfest NW in Portland on September 4, the Monolith Fest at Red Rocks in Colorado on September 13 and the Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas on September 26.
www.myspace.com/delthefunkyhomosapien |
