the sweeneycast
w/ DJ House Shoes
and what might be the first and only interview on this bitch that i didn’t personally do,
Young Niles
speaks with the weed-smoking, Henny-sippin’ man himself.
*pictures, moi.
Renowned Detroiter Michael “House Shoes” Buchanan, 32, is on his grind. A recent addition to the Los Angeles hodge-population chops it up with Niles Heron about his life in L.A, Losing a friend and mentor in Jay Dee a.k.a J Dilla, and on the Motor City’s place in the today’s music.
What is the back-story to your musical career? What kind of music did you grow up listening to? What influenced you to do what you do?
Well, basically I grew up right outside of Detroit, Michigan in Lathrup Village which is a small part of Southfield. [My] Parents got divorced early, so when I’d go and see my pops on the weekends, you know, we’d go and hit the record stores. I remember goin’ to Peaches. All my Detroit record heads know about them peaches crates. Peaches records in Dearborn, my pops lived in Dearborn, so I’d go, you know, to the record spot and grab a couple ’45’s. I had my little fisher price record player.
Back in the 80’s everybody pretty much listened to the same shit. People listened to the pop music, the R’n’B shit, disco was on the way out, you know, but for the most part everybody listened to the same shit. I got exposed to Hip Hop when I was in the fifth grade, there was a cat named Rod Garrison that moved into the area, he was from New York and seein’ him always talking about how his uncle was Father MC and shit, and how he used to dance out in New York… That’s the first time I heard Hip Hop. You know, Fat Boys, Run DMC, and Whodini. Those were the first three groups I was exposed to, and from the moment I heard that shit, it was like this is what I’m talking about. I always liked music, but that shit really, really struck a chord within me and, for the last 20 some odd years, that’s been the main focus, 100 percent.
That’s what’s up… So how’d you start spinning?
When I first started, my boy O-Love, he was a grade below me at Southfield Lathrup High School, and by the time I was in high school I was really all in the shit like I used to go to, I’m in the 6th or 7th grade, goin to Musicland every Tuesday, and you got people to this day, that’s 40 or 50 years old, and they don’t know that release day is Tuesday. All the new music comes out on Tuesday. So I go there, and there was this older chick named Martine who was the manager of Musicland. She was a hip hop head, and she used to put me up on all the dope shit. Fast forward to like ‘91-’92, I go over my boy Omari’s crib, O-Love, and he’s got a couple turntables, and a mixer, he had records, and I come to realize that the record labels put out promotional copies of the songs they’re trying to push from new artists months in advance. Way before the CD and tapes come out. That was the main reason why I got into it, just watchin’ him DJ and goin’ with him, watchin’ him at parties. He had a radio show, and I started goin’ down to his radio show with him and fuckin’ around with him on the wheels; just havin’ fun. It was just great, it was two for one: It was an enjoyable experience, just bein’ able to take control of the music and put your spin on it and let people hear what you’re interested in and expose those artists, but then on the same page you go into the record store like Record Time on the Eastside and be able to find “The World Is Yours (Remix)” on 12-inch, like 3 months before the album dropped.
Where did “House Shoes” come from?
House Shoes came from: I went to Eastern Michigan University in Yspilanti for, lets say, a few months. Right before I went off to school my mom got me an old pair of, like, grand daddy, OG house shoes, like the black leather joints, with the plaid on the inside, and the muthafuckas was just so fuckin’ comfortable, that I wore them everywhere. I wore them to class, I wore ‘em to gym, to the cafeteria… Shit, to the club, wherever… In the streets, I was just rockin’ house shoes, and that was like 93 up to like through 2000, like 7 years just me havin’ some house shoes on, chillin’. And the way I started fittin’ into everything in Detroit was, like I said I went to Eastern for like three months, then they kicked me outta school for…uh…arson.
(Laughs) wait wait, Arson? That’s a story right there…
It’s crazy, we was all blowed, goin’ to the cafeterias one night, me and like three or four of my boys, goin to the eateries, and uhh, I’m just fuckin’ around doin’ dumb shit like 19 year old kids do. I take my lighter and I’m like “Ay y’all, I’m bout to burn this bitch down!” and I put it up to like a cork board, with all the little flyers and postings for students on there, and I burned off literally like the corner of a flyer, like when it started catchin’ on fire I was like “Oh, Shit!” I put it out, and I get a call, from the police, like a month later (2, or 3 weeks later…) and this is like Halloween, the day before Halloween 1993, and they take me down there, they’re askin’ me questions about arson ‘n shit talking bout they got people that witnessed me settin’ the fuckin’ board on fire, and they got me out. They basically scapegoatted me on that shit and pinned that shit on me. There was apparently another kid who was just walkin’ around the freshman dorms and just lightin’ shit on fire and walkin’ away. Of course if I would’ve known that I wouldn’t have been doin’ that shit. They put me out of the dorms immediately. I was working at a record shop called Total Age CDs for this cat Matt Bradish, at the bottom of the freshman hill, and he went to Salvation Army and bought a couch and I fuckin’ lived in the back of his record store for the last month of the semester. I took the balance of my tuition and books, and I started comin’ down to the D on weekends sometimes – actually that’s the way I got exposed to St. Andrew’s Hall, which is like Church for Hip Hop in Detroit. My boys Zo and LoKee from LasWunzOut, a classic Detroit Hip Hop Group, used to come down on Fridays and pick me up and take me all the way back to the D. We’d go hang out and have a great fuckin’ time and they’d bring me back to [Ypsilanti]. Those are actually the cat’s that got me my first turntables and shit. I started spending chunks of bread [on music], and I started comin’ down and just buying crates of records. If you get to the record store at the right time, sometimes right before you a cat is bringin’ in his whole collection, and I was just cleanin’ up. We started goin’ down to St. Andrews on Fridays, after I came back to the crib, with just a little armful of records and they’d let me get the last 10 minutes [to spin]. The rest is history. I was the resident DJ there [at St. Andrews] from like april of ‘94 to 2004.
So your first weekly in the Detroit area was at St. Andrew’s?
Yea. And I ran with it for ten plus years until it got so trash I had to give it up.
I ain’t playin’ trash ass records just to get bread.
And then there was “Shoes House?”
Shoes House actually started in the D. I was doing a spot called the Buddah Lounge from like 2003 to 2004 on Tuesday nights and Saturday nights and that was a real dope spot. The majority of the period I spun in Detroit it was St. Andrews and just whatever lil’ parties here and there. [Shoes House] was my first, “my own weekly…” There were some other ones through the days, but that’s when that shit really jumped off like I just put my grind down and was like I need to make a spot for everybody to go to ’cause everything is turnin to bullshit. So I had a real big responsibility that was on my shoulders and I felt like no one else was gonna really do this shit right. [I felt] like ‘I gotta make sure that these muthafuckas always have a venue and an opportunity to go out and first of all hear the music and secondarily just build within the community so we got a place to go and network and all that shit.’
I used to do the Hip Hop shop on Saturdays occasionally with DJ Head and DJ Dez on Saturday afternoon and that was a pretty good jump off too. But when a new owner came in to the Buddah Lounge and started nit-picking and fuckin’ with little shit, it started addin up. He started fuckin’ with my money. And so one night after the club we just got into it and I was like “Fuck you, I’m outta here.” AND I SHUT THAT BITCH DOWN. The next day, or maybe two days later I went to this spot called Northern Lights downtown and I was like “yeah, this is perfect. This is what I’m bout to do. I’m gonna jump this shit off.” No promotion, no flyers or nothin’, four weeks out we had a solid 250-300 people every week.
That’s crazy. So fast-forward. You’ve been livin’ in LA for just over a year… What’s the attitude like in L.A. as opposed to back in Detroit?
It’s hard to put my finger on attitude. I mean, it’s California. It’s definitely not as abrasive as Detroit. You know, we got that hard ass winter that fucks you up every year. That’s the good thing about Detroit. Cause you kinda’ appreciate life more and you have more of a respect for nature because you go up against that shit every winter. You really appreciate sun every day, you can’t appreciate fuckin’ 80 degrees and no clouds in the sky every day if you don’t go through tornadoes and blizzards and ice storms and all that shit. Detroit is full of good people, Detroit is full of very well grounded people due to that, but out here I ain’t really ran into cats with that much of an attitude. People say California is full of plastic people and everyone is tryin’ to be a star and shit but there’s fake plastic mufuckas everywhere [in America]. I kinda run in my own circle. I kinda eye out and fuck with people that I see the same thread that I’m on within them. So I really haven’t seen that big of a separation between attitudes, I just fuck with people that like good music. You know… Smoke weed, drink, make beats, have a good fuckin’ time.
What’s a typical day for House Shoes?
A typical day in LA with House Shoes would consist of me getting up probably around 11 o’clock, a couple of hours too late…We’ll say an average Tuesday. I get up around 11, get something to eat, smoke some cigarettes, hit the bowl a couple times, and start eyein out my shit that I’m getting ready for [wherever I’m spinnin.] Get all my records together, get on myspace. We call it the Carter. It’s a fuckin’ crackhouse, you stuck in that bitch like New Jack City.
(Where’s pookie at?)
I stay on myspace, keep people current with everything that’s goin on with me, promotin’ my shit. Make a couple phone calls, maybe hit a couple record stores, get on a couple beats. Me and my roommate were havin’ these 15 minute beat contests, but as of late I took a minute off on the beats. No inspiration.
(You been doin the Proof and Dilla special? The 15 minute beat contest?)
Hell yeah. One record. 15 minutes.
(Who can make the best beat!)
Right. Get your speed up.
So what are you doin off wax? You were talking about producing and moving back in that direction. Who would you say are the illest cats out there?
On the rhymes or the beats?
Beats.
Detroit wise Black Milk is definitely killin’ shit right now. He’s about to really do his fuckin’ thing. He’s definitely carrying some of that weight that we lost last year. Of course Waajeed; his movement is incredible. Cop that War lp. My man DJ Dez; he’s got some shit. He makes like 10 beats a day, He’s a fuckin’ alien. Ta’Raach. Nick Speed got some shit. My boy Samiyam from Ann Arbor, he’s stupid wit it, he’s a little alien, he’s young as hell. Quelle…. Keep your ears open for his shit. Kev Brown from Maryland. My man KT from the Athletic Mic League back home and the Lab Techs… He did that “Without Dilla” joint. This cat Oddissee, Illmind.
People talk about this hip hop is dyin’ shit. Hip hop has been dyin’ forever, but it ain’t never gonna die because it’s always gonna be a fresh face with some new shit out there, it’s just a lot harder. Music (physically) is not as accessible as it used to be back in the day, so it’s all about your hunger and how much work you tryin’ to do to find some good music, cause it’s still plenty of good music out there.
Absolutely. Who is this cat Smokey? I heard he’s an animal.
Oh, Smokey is stupid man. Smokey is stupid on the beats. Man, it’s crazy cause a lot of people don’t know that like, animals be makin’ music too. It’s a lot of muhfuckas out here on the beats that ain’t people. Smokey’s probably got, I would say, some of the dopest shit I’ve heard from a cat. You know, that’s the lil’ homie. He’s about 7 years old, he’s been makin’ beats for about five years now. He’s got his MySpace page. [He’s] got like 2000 friends. People be givin’ him love on the beats. I just gotta get him off them pills. He’s crazy.
I don’t know how I feel getting bested by a cat on myspace Shoes, I’m gonna be honest.
Hey, I mean, he puts his grind down man. People be hittin’ him up, sending him messages like “I feel ya joints,” and he be hitting ‘em back saying “Meoooow,” and shit. Leave a little “meow” on they’re comments. He’s doin’ his thing. I’ll come home, I be out all night, doin’ parties at the club and shit, and come home and feel like I’m bout to pass out, and smoke’s just got a banger on the MP, shit’ll have me wake right the fuck back up, and as soon as he’s done I’ma get on something and bang one out before I go to sleep. He got crazy records too… He did some crazy shit for Proof before he passed. Damn I miss that cat. (Proof) Rest in peace my brother..
I believe it. I mean look at the house he lives in right?
Yeah, I mean, some of ‘em, he’s got probably about 6 or 7 crates worth of shit, but his records all scratched up n shit.
He’s got those claws…
You know? Exactly. So I be tryin’ to trim his shit up. Like a couple of times, he made some joints and the MP cut off, and by the time he went to make his shit over again, he put the record back on and he couldn’t sample the shit because of it bein all scratched up.
That’s too bad, I’m sure we lost some gems… But, on a more serious note, about six years ago, in an interview with the Metro Times, Dilla was saying that he thought Detroit had the potential to be a power city in music. Do you still think that’s possible after he and proof died last year? What’s your take on that today?
I would say honestly production wise and MC wise Detroit has better [music] than 99 percent of the shit that’s out. Hopefully now, and unfortunately at the same time, it took us to lose the fuckin’ head and shoulders of our city, and the heart and soul of our city, but cats are really realizing now, just that to be truthful, life is too short. You never know when you’re gonna leave this mutha fucka. So you gotta get on your business. I’m a music muhfucka. I’m an artist. And that business shit ain’t no joke. For people like myself, that shit is just not in my blood. I just wanna make beats, go play records for people, have some drinks, and let everybody have a good fuckin time, while at the same time being exposed to the greatest music they’ve ever heard in they’re life. Just give my fuckin’ bread. Y’know? The cake of this shit is business. And a lot of cats are stepping they business up.
The history of Detroit, when Motown left, is that a lot of people gave up, like “we don’t have anything right here, accessible, where we can just hand some shit off,” not understanding now that this is the digital age where we can just email a cat a beat CD like my man Nick Speed, and then you’re a G-Unit in house producer.
Yeah, I was reading about that the other day. Libido Speedo and G-Unit…
Cat’s need to get they shit together and just understand that [people] are not gonna just come and knock on your fuckin’ door and be like “yo, I heard you got some shit.” You gotta put your work in, and the grind you gotta be on on your business has to be equal or greater than the grind you already gotta have on your music. It’s a real hard balancing act. Speedo is grindin’. But cat’s are definitely, like I said, unfortunately through the passing of Proof and Dilla ,understanding more than ever that you gotta grind or you aint gonna succeed in this shit. There are a million cats out here that have fantastic music, but that shit means nothing if you don’t have a vehicle to get that shit heard by the masses.
And you’ve done your part to get that good music heard by anyone willing to listen. There’s obviously a lot of off wax work that a DJ does to get the music circulating. You even put out a few records yourself right?
Yeah. In 96 Jay [Dee] gave me a tape with a bunch of remixes that were pending with different labels. Dope Shit. [De La Soul’s] “Stakes is High”, Artifacts shit, Masta Ace, a couple of Busta [Rhymes] joints, and an incredibly retarded D’Angelo remix of “Me and Those Dreamin’ Eyes of Mine” [from Brown Sugar].
None of these joints got placed. I was like fuck that. I wanna put this shit out. So, I called Jay and got the “Hellll Yeah!” I holla’d at Peanut Butter Wolf, who worked at a distributor out here in Cali that I ordered records from at the shop. It was all good. He had the distribution covered.
I pressed 2500 copies of my first record, “Jay Dee Unreleased” on House Shoes Records. Blue vinyl – Crazy. When I went to pick up the records, Jay met me back at the house. I was still stayin’ with moms at the time, and she came in the room poppin’ bottles. [Laughs] My moms is the shit. She popped bottles with Jay. That was a classic night. Them joints sold instantly. I ended up pressin’ another 2500 on green vinyl.
Fast forward to 1999. I’m at the shop, and Phat Kat comes thru. He had told me the night before he had some new shit he wanted me to hear. So I put the tape in and “Dedication to the Suckas” comes on. Ouch! Jay smashin’ on some [DJ] Premier shit…. Retarded cuts. Kat smashin that shit. “Microphone Master” comes on. Some classic Jay smooth shit. Then “Don’t Nobody Care About Us!” Muthafuckin’ forget about that shit! That’s the nail in the coffin – one of the greatest joints ever.
It was the same deal. I told Kat I wanted to put it out. My man Brian Gillespie helped me out with it. Full color covers. We did it a little bigger than on the first record. I knew I wanted to rework the Yusef Lateef cover, so we had a photo shoot at the crib. I think we blew at least an ounce that day. Good times. I knew this record was something special. This was back during a period where if u had a seriously dope 12-Inch, you could sell upwards of 15 or 20,000 records. Fat beats pre-ordered 6000 copies. I told em that wasn’t enough. That shit will be gone fast as fuck. Sure enough, those 6000 copies were gone thirty minutes after they went on sale. It topped off at over 10,000 copies, but I still think we could have done that the first day.
Fast forward 4 [years] and some change….
2003. I began working on “The House Shoes Collection”, a 12 inch series. It would be a series of five singles, vinyl only, showcasing the hottest motherfuckers in the D. Guilty, Marv Won, Lacks [(Now Ta’Raach)], Lo Down, and Fuzz. Crazy joints. But after certain distributors fronted on it, [cough cough], I was forced to run a 2-CD set and push it off the hip. I’m all out right now, but I
ll be restocking soon. Check that shit out. Definitely one of the best compilations of Detroit Hip-Hop shit you will ever hear. Oh yeah…. Get ready for that volume two….
Oops. (Laughs) Can’t forget about Loungin’…. Every Saturday at the Buddha, I would open up playin’ breaks. Y’know, old soul, jazz funk shit. Mostly source material for hip-hop joints. It was like name that tune in that bitch. Cat’s yellin’ out, “That’s that Pete Rock joint! That’s that Madvillain shit!” Good times. So, one night I brought the (CD) burner to the club and just recorded the whooooole night.
And I put out the first set of the night as “Loungin’ Volume One –
Live at the Buddha Lounge”. My man Che did the artwork. Crazy. He jacked the old Blue Note style. Even had the CD lookin’ like a real Blue Note release. If you go to my MySpace [www.myspace.com/djhouseshoes], I got it up for free download. Enjoy that. I got Volume two of that for y’all in a minute too…
And all that said, how do you think it is that people today sleep on how important DJs are to the music?
The DJ aspect. I say it kinda changed because the DJ used to be at the forefront, you had Run DMC and Jam Master Jay, Grandmaster Flash, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Groups were the DJ and the rapper. Now, as far as a lot of live shows, the DJ has sort of been delegated to runnin’ the instant replay, that digital recording that a lot of cats run they shit on, and they might do a couple of cuts over the shit, but you don’t really see cats doin’ routines in their sets. I’d say the role has been changed, to where a cat like myself (and there are cats like this in every city) that really give a fuck about the music; who just want to take care of the community. Those are the cats that really make sure that there is constant inspiration for the youth to wanna make their own [music] and at the same time be a vehicle where I can’t give a mufucka a record deal, but I can hand the shit off to somebody who can. So I think that’s the main role of the DJ. Just his networking abilities and his abilities as a promoter to put on shows and connect the dots within each separate scene. For example, Guilty Simpson. Guilty Simpson is a fuckin monster!… That’s the hardest muthafucka in the game right now… Guilt’s ridiculous. And I know a lot of cats like that back home. And that’s why I plugged in Guilt with Dilla, back in the day. In like 2002-2003. It was just like this cat is hot [Guilty] and J [Dilla] is hot, let’s connect them dots and get some good music rollin’. Black Milk too… I made his ass perform at damn near every show I had in the D for the last year I was there. Just force these muthafuckas to pay attention.
I can’t wait for Guilty’s album to drop. That’s album of the year potential. Speaking of the rhymes, Are we ever going to see an MC House Shoes?
Nah.
That’s not you?
Nah, I can’t fuck with it. On some real shit, A muhfucka be rhyming in his head sometimes, and it be some shit where I surprise myself, because I listen to good shit. If I were to ever do something like that, that shit would be… ridiculous, but it’s just not what I’m in it for. That ain’t what I’m here for. Like you said, I’m behind the scenes, I play the back, I’m not tryin’ to be a star. I’ll be the coach, I ain’t tryna be the quarterback. I’m just tryin’ to find a stable life through this and do what I love to do…
Word. So jokes aside, Smokey the cat, great producer, blah blah blah. The truth is, obviously it’s you. So who are you as a producer? I’ve heard you as a DJ. I’ve been to northern lights. Heard you at the Dilla Tribute, at the Taste Fest in Detroit. I know you as a DJ. Who are you as a producer, and maybe more, how does your ear as a DJ influence your mind as a producer?
Well basically, the way I got introduced to making beats was back in like ‘93-’94. I regard like ‘93-’96 as the cliché golden era in hip hop. All the people were breaking new ground lyrically and production wise and Jay [Dee] was rising up to power in the game. I fucked with a crew called 31 flavors, and the two main cats production wise in the group were my boys B.H. who were on Welcome To Detroit, and my boy Spot, and they had like a four-track. One of them had a Gemini Sampler, and then Age had this little joint called the “Rock-N-Play,” and the rock-n-play was like a little, small, blue, 16 second sampler that ran off a 9-volt battery, and just watchin’ them and seeing that it really wasn’t that hard. I mean on a four-track it really ain’t that hard to make beats. You just find some drums, loop ‘em up, lay ‘em down, go to the other track, it was the Black Moon days so cats was fuckin with grimy lil’ filters on the hook. The filter comes up and you hear the whole sample, then for the verse you just filter the shit down and they rhyme over that.
So I started fuckin’ around and goin’ through records, and meeting Dilla, I would go over to Jay’s, and he showed me how to work the SP-12 and the 950, sample some shit, or show him what I wanted to fuck with and he would show me how to sample it, and then he would just leave and go to the titty bar till like 5 o’clock in the morning. And basically, my sound came from my influences, like Pete Rock, Premier, just hood, grimy hip hop shit, and Dilla. And I’m just as critical of my own music as I am of the shit I play. If I make a beat and I ain’t feelin’ it, I’m turning the shit off. I don’t make beats in certain other styles that other people would like; like “damn I gotta be on this radio smash hit type shit,” I don’t make radio shit, I make music that I would personally want to listen to on my spare time.
I can respect that. I think that is in many ways the sign of an artist, as opposed to the sign of a hustler. I think hearing those imperfections and being your own worst critic is another one of those defining qualities of an artist.
Definitely, yeah, I’m not a workhorse producer or like that. I don’t get up everyday and make 5 beats, I work when the initiative hits me. I might be goin’ through some records and hear something and it’s just like “okay, I wanna fuck with this.” And then I’ll go bang one out. And then I might go 6 months without making shit.
You gotta do it as it comes to you.
Right.
You just got back from the J Dilla Appreciate Tour with Jay’s younger brother Illa J in Europe, and you were a major part of the vehicle that helped get the early Slum Village music heard. Obviously J was a huge influence on you. How did you two meet?
I was workin’ at a record shop, which was like the first platform I had, also aside from the DJ’in shit, I worked in basically all the major vinyl outlets in Detroit as a buyer in the hip hop department from 1993 through like 2003, so like 10 years of that. I was workin’ at Street Corner [Music]. They gave me some power up in there. Before I started workin’ there, they had the back corner shelves on the wall with like old jazz records. They had a really great used record collection, and I asked them if I could take one of the walls and get some hip hop shit rollin’, and everything kinda built up from there.
Jay came in one day, this was really before anything popped off, he was drivin a white ford ranger, and he was just over diggin’, goin through records. We started choppin’ it up, he told me his name, we didn’t even really get into any of the shit that he had just done…All that Tribe [Called Quest], Pharcyde shit was just in the midst of the beginning periods. I think I might have put him up on some records, and I was watchin’ him and shit cause he’d be goin’ through records and pulling out shit then he’d go back cause we had the old school ass kindergarten record player where the headphones were damn near an instrument of torture, I could see him go back and put the headphones on, and he’d hear something, and then he’d take the headphones off, and he’d just start nodding his head, hearing some shit in his head, beat boxin’ to himself. It’s crazy, because looking back he had the whole shit done, like 10 seconds after he heard it. Completely. And he could execute it. That’s the difference between Jay and the rest of these cats: His execution. I call it his record translation. He could translate records into beats, better and more proficiently than anyone who’s ever done it. So I just watched him and we kept choppin’ it up, and I was bout to get off work and he was bout to leave, so we took a ride out to the east side and went to Car City Records, and hit up a couple of other record stores. [We] smoked a joint, and went back to his crib and kicked it…
From there out, I mean the Slum [Village] shit was already in the midst of goin’ on. I remember when we got in the car to go to the eastside to go to Car City Records (which was a spot I would be workin at 2 years from that point), he played me his shit and I equate that to the first time I ever heard hip hop. It had that much of an impact. His shit was so ridiculous. Just the drums and his bass lines and the samples he fucked with, it was just that next shit. It was crazy, and from that point on I was like the captain of the team for Slum [Village] as a vehicle and as someone who could get the shit played to people. I went out and bought a portable DAT player, another classic story, that I would take with me to the club on Friday’s so they could just bring me DAT’s fresh out of the studio.
Wow. You talk about his beat translation, and about watchin his thought process as it happened. How does that, to date, affect who you are as a producer and who you are musically? After listening to Dilla, having never met him, it still feels it would be almost silly to aspire to be that.
Yeah. Definitely. But, at the same time, that’s what it is. To make music, not necessarily exactly like that, but to make music that is just that next shit. And it’s just 100 percent… perfect. Jay’s beats were perfect. From a musical standpoint, just the tonality. He would have a beat with samples off of three or four different records and they are just all perfectly in tune. That shit is crazy. And the other point where all the joints cats heard throughout the years, all those joints, from Tribe to Pharcyde, to Dilla’s own shit, Welcome to Detroit, the joints for Slum, he made those fuckin’ beats in like 15-20 minutes.
That’s crazy.
I mean, come on man. I remember reading an article about Pete Rock back in the day, where he talks about how he used to get frustrated because he’d hear beats in his dreams, but he’d get frustrated because he couldn’t find the pieces to bring that shit to fruition. But if Jay had a dream, he’d go out and make that shit happen.
A lot of people over the years have described Jay’s music as “emptyful.” As I was thinking about it last night I realized that that’s not the word I would use. I would use “honest.”
I don’t know. I think the most accurate description I could give on Jay’s shit is “perfect.” The reason I say it’s perfect is because it’s right at that line between underproduction and overproduction. You know what I’m sayin’? Some of the shit is just so sparse, but it’s still not under-produced. It’s still the perfect fit for whatever vocalist or MC he would have on top of it, and a lot of his beats and his productions just by themselves stand alone. Like, you couldn’t have somebody rhyme on top of that. It would fuck it up.
Donuts. That’s a good way to describe it. As close as you were, I know it’s taken you a while to deal with Dilla’s passing…
I mean honestly, that’s something from a personal standpoint, and from a music lover’s standpoint, that really, you will never be over that shit. Still, seein magazine articles and liner notes with R.I.P Dilla – and we can never forget about Proof neither, proof is a piece of all this shit too. It’s just fucked up. Because, I’m not tryin to be a pessimist, but the best music we’ve ever heard in our life is not being created anymore. Cats can try to pick up the torch, but from a reality standpoint, he ain’t here anymore.
Is that to say that we don’t try?
I’m sayin that’s why we gotta keep grindin’ everyday. And bring out the best in ourselves and keep bettering ourselves as producers and artists. That is the best way to honor his memory.
In an interview you did with Detroit’s Metro Times just after Dilla’s passing, you said you had resorted to Hostess Donuts as a weapon of choice. Does that still happen? Are we still chuckin glazed boys at people’s heads?
(Laughs) That was a fuckin’ great night. I went out to New York for the actual release party for donuts, and it was a fuckin’ incredible night. My man Waajeed was on the wheels. That’s actually the night I met my lady. Just a great night. Dilla all night, Waajeed on the wheels. It was a lot of Detroit people in the house that night. The next day me and Big Tone went to fat beats. Because they had sent me a promo copy already, but I wanted to go cop my shit, keep it sealed all that, and have my fat beats copy. So we go in there, I grab it, we’re leavin out and as soon as my foot hits the sidewalk the phone rings, and it’s Waajeed, and he says “He’s gone.”
The shit just didn’t register at all, it was over my head like “What do you mean?” And his total intonation changed, he was just like “Shoes, he’s gone!” and I could just hear, from the stress, I knew what the deal was, and me and tone sat down on the fuckin sidewalk in New York and cried like babies for like a half hour. And then I got on the plane and came out here to Cali to go to the funeral. Right in the middle of the burial – Jay got buried on Valentines Day – I looked up in the sky, about halfway through the burial, and there were two planes drawing hearts in the sky, right over the side of the cemetery. That was some completely other shit. Anybody who hadn’t lost it at that point in the funeral, they lost their fuckin’ head right there.
I found out that Ta’raach was spinnin’ at the little temple out here, so I was like “word, that’s dope,” I got excited thinking maybe I could play some records. So I get to the bar about 10 o’clock and it’s cool, it’s a good vibe, it’s a real somber note, I don’t really feel like playin’ no records, I just wanna get fuckin wasted. So about 11 30 me and my man haircut go over to 7-11 across the street, and I got a pack of cigarettes and ended up getting like $25 in hostess donuts six packs, and I came back and I just started like, throwin’ ‘em at chicks, like “these are from Jay,” “here, take some donuts, here’s from jay.” Throwin’ em at cats.
There was a DJ who got on, who was playin’ all the donuts samples, like all the originals, and I walked up to him, I was getting faded, I was drinkin’ Hennessy all night, and I took a double shot of Hennessy, walked up to the DJ and was like “Jay wants me to play some records.”
I got on, and I don’t remember anything after that… at all.
I know that Waajeed, Big Tone, Ta’Raach, Karriem [Riggins who
was the delegated hand of Dilla to finish The Shining], a bunch of my peoples were there, and they said they had never see me play records like that in my life. So that shit was crazy. That was a blessing to be able to be Jay’s vessel for that night. I know he was there, I know he was havin’ a good fuckin’ time that night. It was just a blessing to be able to do my thing. And it was crazy, because when I moved out here, they got a spot out here called the Do Over, and I ran into this cat who was up there that night spinnin’, and of course at the end of that night muhfucka broke down boo-hoo’in, and everybody in there was cryin’, and snot faced and all that shit, but apparently I was fuckin’ sobbing through my set. He said I was up there killin that shit, but it was so crazy because I was cryin’ like a muthafucka while I was spinnin’.
But yeah, that’s where the donuts come from. From the Little Temple the night of the funeral. And I ain’t pulled any out again, but come Jay’s birthday, I’ll probably be throwin some chocolate frosted boys at some people’s heads.
(Laughs) I’ll make sure not to leave the house that night with anything white on.
Right.
And since he’s been gone, you’ve been the physical embodiment of his memory. Without question…
That’s my job. I tell people like, from the minute I started getting that music, back in the day. Before I had DAT player, it was cassette tapes, I had a dual cassette deck, hooked up, playin’ that shit on Friday nights. I thank god for bein’ able to do that and I made that my job. I made that my responsibility, to be like “y’all muthafuckas are about to hear this shit. Y’all are gonna pay attention, y’all are gonna listen to this. Because this is what’s really good.” And I had a really big part of that here in Detroit, just getting the whole Slum and Dilla shit bubblin, from bein a vehicle in the club and the streets. Just constantly screaming that shit. It was cats I came up with, best friends, that was bringin’ me records, and I’m real critical when it comes to music, but if I’m not feelin your shit personally, you might get that one spin up at St. Andrews, but I told cats: “You gotta get a beat from Jay, man. (Laughs) I’m sorry, you my man, but that has nothing to do with what I do when I get on the wheels on Friday night,” at St. Andrews or wherever I’m at. The personal side of the shit has nothing to do with it, I’m playin the hottest music that I got. If you ain’t got the hottest music then I’m not fuckin playin the shit. Fuck that.
Michael “House Shoes” Buchanan is now one year strong in Los Angeles, alternates resident DJ spots at a few Los Angeles weekly events and has been traveling across the globe trying to spread good music to people. He has production credits on various upcoming releases (independent and major), and works to continue to connect the dots, in hopes that through the creation good music, the legacies of fallen greats will not be forgotten. More information about House Shoes, his music, and his DJ schedule, visit www.myspace.com/djhouseshoes.
peace, see you all in 08.
