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Sa-Ra Interview

Sa-Ra Interview By Porschia Baker The bicoastal trio Sa-Ra is an untouchable collective! With pinpointed influences, from everything between and outside jazz and electronic music, Taz Arnold, Shaifq Husayn, and Om’Mas Keith’s debut, The Hollywood Recordings on Babygrande Records, is a nineteen track production sample, with dashes of other artists, giving you a taste of what and who Sa-Ra is: pure eminence! Based in Los Angeles and New York, Sa-Ra has been recordings since 2002, but their resume expands the boundaries of five years of work. Producing music for many artists including Ice T, Erykah Badu, and producers like Dr. Dre and Kanye West, their sound has been ricocheting backgrounds for years, but 2007 is their formal introduction. Please welcome Sa-Ra! Nu Soul: What does creating, writing and producing music do for you? Om’Mas Keith: Creating music allows us to have a direct connection to a higher energy; usually the kind of untapped energy floating around the Universe. Creating music allows you to tune into those subconscious subliminal frequencies that are floating in the Universe. When you play the keyboard or any instrument, you generate waves of energy from an acoustic source. You put energy out and you get it back. It’s a way to connect. Another reason to make music is to make a living. You got dualities there. Nu Soul: I read that you studied music in school. Om’as Keith: It was mandatory to have music, from first grade to twelveth grade, in the New York City public school system at the time. Of course, music was introduced to me in my household, at a young age of three. Music was just my sanctuary. I did some college stuff too. I always had the opportunity to study with the Jazz masters. Cats like Professor [Max] Roach Yusef Lateef and Dr. Billy Taylor. Thelonious Monk. Nu Soul: You said you studied with Thelonious Monk? Om’Mas Keith: Yeah, TS Monk Jr. He gave me my first set of drums, when I was thirteen. Nu Soul: Do you think having that foundation enabled you present new musical ideas, like the music that you guys are coming out with now? Om’Mas Keith: I can speak for the crew. Our influences, as adolescents, musically definitely make their way into our sound recordings. All three of our parents played in the household, while we were growing up, in the form of entertaining oneself or having friends over; simply playing music just to educate. Not only that, but television has a lot to do with our repertoire personally just because of the melodies that are imparted on you, when you’re a young child. You start from Sesame Street and then moving onto jingles. There’s so many melodies that you deal with add to your repertoire. All of them, whenever you’re sitting at the keyboard, are composed with a client. Nu Soul: I was just asking Om’Mas if you think that having a musical growing up enable you to present the music that you present now? Shafiq Husayn: Absolutely. For me, I wish sometimes that I had musical training, theory and whatnot, but there’s other aspect. The fact that I didn’t I guess allows me to break rules and just come up with other things. For the record, Om’Mas centered me out by showing me how the put keyboards in tune, how to put samples in tunes, [told me you] you can’t play these types of chords on a particular melody. I think that’s the uniqueness of the sound. It merged both of those worlds together. All lot of times, actually a lot of Hip Hop producers go into the studio with musicians or guys that have theory and they can never really catch the magic because they’re coming from two different perspectives. I think musicians, cats that know theory, number one, come in with a [thinking] ‘I know you’. So there’s a lack of respect. Om’Mas and I never had that problem because outside him being technically trained, he’s a Hip Hop producer too. He comes out of the Hip Hop era. So he understood. He was one of us. Nu Soul: I also read that one of your goals is to reach ears across musical genres. Do you feel you have achieved that yet? Shafiq Husayn: In some capacity, yeah. In someways, we have with doing remixes and the clientele we deal with. As far as what we want, no. I don’t think we’ve even scratched that surface yet. Nu Soul: What exactly to you want as far as reaching ears across the genres? Do you mean the fan base or just the clientele? Shafiq Husayn: I would say in both. The artist community, obviously number one, you get your work through your contemporaries, your peers and people that look up to you that are impress by your craft and your talent and of course you want that to translate, in the music, to the audience. You want your audience to say ‘wow, there’s no limitations with these cats.’ You might be on your Pharoahe Monch track and then come back with the ultimate pop smash, with Brittney. We haven’t achieved that yet. That is why we say no we haven’t reached that goal yet. Nu Soul: Can you please explain what exactly “Afro Magnetic Electronic Spiritualism” is? Shafiq Husayn: It’s a terminology, in music, that cats use to toy around with. We don’t really say that’s the name of the sound. It’s actually a process. Om’Mas Keith: Actually, it’s an acronym: Afro Magnetic Electronic Spiritualism. I ask people to take the full word and decide their own meaning. Right off the bat I can say ‘afro’ is because the music is inspired and truly originating from Africa. ‘Magnetic’ is the positive or the negative force of attraction. It’s magnetic; it’s the actual rule of the universe. “Electronic’ is the science that gives it all the power and ability to enjoy pre-recorded music, like music that we make, and ‘spiritualism’ is a belief in a proverb It emphasizes the spiritual aspect of being. You’re recognizing that spirit, when you’re creating music by an acoustic means of putting sound waves into the universe and giving it back to the universe. It really can get that deep, our music is really that deep, and a very soulful expression of who we are. All those things outline a process that we use, when we record Sa-Ra records and Sa-Ra Creative Partner records. That’s how our records convey with that understanding. Nu-Soul: I wouldn’t have figured that out by trying to decipher the acronym. Om’Mas Keith: You know just break the words down. Everyone should have their own definition. Nu Soul: Why did you choose to present a collection of new and previously released music, instead of just new music and call it “The Hollywood Recordings?” Shafiq Husayn: It’s an oldie, but goodie for the people that know about Sa-Ra, that actually couldn’t get their hands on MP3s or particular songs that have been floating around. At the same time, it’s an introduction for people that have never heard of Sa-Ra. They’ve been hearing Sa-Ra, but they’ve never actually heard the music. Om’Mas Keith: You got to take them back to the essence of where it began in order to get a clear picture. We’re not going to just give you a Sa-Ra album after we’ve been recording collectively for five years. Let’s not put out an album on some brand new shit that we just threw together in three weeks, which is not indicative of who we are as people just to tell a story. That’s how you lose. That’s how you lose in the game, when you have history and you fuck up by not giving people motivation and making it available. The few thousand people that heard our MP3s of the original stuff five years ago, that’s going to be multiplied in exponential for now because of the promotion that we are doing for the new stuff. All these people have never heard ‘Glorious.’ All these motherfuckers that bobbing their head to ‘Glorious,’ when we do shows all over, there’s going to be more people now that know that song. Staying on that underground, below the radar, not published material, CDR, MP3 realm can only last for so long. We understood that there’s a business move that has been made. So essentially, we just got out of our deal with Sony. It makes sense to go ahead and put a record together that highlighted and essentially set us up, for everyone know. I mean Shafiq it’s the perfect set up, right? Shafiq Husayn: Yeah, it’s the perfect set up. Like I said, it’s a Sa-Ra 101 course, it’s a refresher course for the people that have been to class already and didn’t think that the project would come out, and this is for our people who’ve never ever heard of Sa-Ra. I mean, they may have heard of Sa-Ra, but actually never came in contact with the music. So, it’s an introduction and a best of mixed with new. If you look at the track listing, in the beginning we start with a song called “Seagulls.” That was made in 2002 and it ends off with where we are about to go with “Hollywood Redux.” Om’Mas Keith: Which was made in 2007. Nu Soul: Do you feel the collection is a complete album as an introduction? Om’Mas Keith: It’s not a conceptual album. It’s not like that. Shafiq Husayn: I was about to explain that. This a Sa-Ra Creative Partners production album showing the range. You got Erykah Badu, your CNN, your Bilal, Pharoahe Monch, J Dilla, you know Debbie Nova, Lord Nesz, Ericka Rose, Rozzi Daime [and] Sa-Ra. Sa-Ra., as a group, we probably performed on three or fours songs at the most. It’s not a Sa-Ra album. It’s a Sa-Ra Creative Partners album. All these people that you heard are Creative Partners. It’s like a Sa-Ra and friends album. Om’Mas Keith: It’s a hipper way to call us Sa-Ra and friends [or] Sa-Ra Creative Partners Presents. It’s just how Quincy used to make “Smackwater Jack” and all that type of shit. You put your face on the cover and you’re a producer. We put our face on the cover. We’re the producers, we’re the orchestraters, we’re essentially the force that brings all these entities, human beings and spiritual things, together in a pre-recorded form for all the enjoy. This is what we are trying to do with our brand, above and beyond being a group that’s out there able to maneuver. We what to have a brand associated with quality and production value associated with our name. This is what you’re going to get every time it gets out. People, who know who we are know that the very first thing we released was the most pieces of vinyl to have been released that entire year. With pink vinyl, we signed the first batch of 500 that went out. That vinyl sold well over six thousand copies. For a group like us, that’s unprecedented record vinyl sales. No one sales that type of vinyl. Nu Soul: Which album was that? The pink vinyl, is it Rosebuds and Glorious? Om’Mas Keith: Glorious vinyl, yeah. Nu Soul: Is there anything you have not done musically that you would like to do? Shafiq Husayn: Yeah, there’s a bunch of stuff. You haven’t heard the full repertoire of Sa-Ra yet. There’s songs in the vault, an excess of two hundred to two hundred fifty songs, tracks, and things that have never been heard for public hearing. Nobody’s never heard it. We’re actually in the process of going back to the studio to record another two or three albums. In the studio, somewhere Upstate New York or maybe Santa Barbra and get locked back in. In the near future you’re going to hear everything. Om’Mas Keith: We’re going to be putting out a very high volume of recordings. Nu-Soul: This year? Om’Mas Keith: We’re definitely looking to release another album this year. With an unnamed label, we’re going to release another album before the year ends. We’re going keep it a secret for right now. In addition, the “Black Fuzz” album, which is what everyone’s waiting for. They want to know what we did with Kanye. Nu Soul: Is there a tour coming up? Shafiq Husayn: Absolutely, Sa-Ra is actively putting together live performance schedules as we speak. We will be coming to a town near you. Nu Soul: How you describe your music to someone who is deaf, using the other senses? Shafiq Husayn: I would say colorful, fuzzy, very very warm and wet, and very erotic. Om’Mas Keith: If it was girl? We got a song called “Butterscotch” where one of our lyrics are “lick you from your ass to your crotch.” That’s how you describe it. A man would do that do a woman and a woman would do that to a man: to emulate Sa-Ra. Sa-Ra on Myspace Purchase Sa-Ra at Itunes Purchase Sa-Ra at Amazon

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