Posted on 11/17/2008
Detroit producer and MC Black Milk recently emerged as one of Hip-Hop’s bright young talents. In his short career, Milk has worked alongside Slum Village, Royce the 5’9, Elzhi and talented artists from various regions all while maintaining a core sound. Chopped loops, hard drums and steady rhymes were the typical order of the day with the prodigious producer. With his latest release, Tronic, Black Milk talks with Okayplayer’s D.L. Chandler about how he advanced his style even further, his thoughts on where Detroit places on the Hip-Hop scene, and his surprising influences.

OKP: With so many comparisons to the late J Dilla and as Royce The 5’9 famously said in the Bishop Lamont song “Go Hard” – heralding you in verse as the second coming of Dilla – how do you separate yourself from that comparison? I know that he influenced you along with Pete Rock, DJ Premier and others. Do you really feel that the comparison is a fair one?

Black Milk: Well, to tell the truth, I never tried to separate myself from that influence. I mean if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t even be doing beats much less making music. Like when I do a beat, I’m not trying to not sound like Dilla, you know what I mean? It’s not like on my mind when I’m doing a beat. You know what I’m saying? I just do what I feel whether I’m chopping up a loop or stacking drums on top of each other or whatever. All I have in mind at the time is how fresh can I make this beat, you know what I’m saying? I mean I would like to have it be that I can be looked at as my own entity like Black Milk is Black Milk and J Dilla is J Dilla. But being as though we’re from the same city, worked with the same artists, both do beats and rhymes, and we me being the youngest cat coming out of Detroit on the beats, it’s always gonna be that comparison there.

It was crazy but when he passed, it was like my album was just coming out right around that time and I had a little buzz going so I guess at that time I was the only person they could point that finger to - to either hate on me or I guess say “he trying to sound like Dilla.” Or be the person to be the next person that people like “aight man, we need you to be next to fill that void.” And I mean I wasn’t trying to sound like him, but I get a lot people coming up to me saying I’m holding the legacy up and doing my thing and I’m keeping the Detroit sound alive. But I feel like if Dilla never passed, I don’t think I’d be compared to him at all. I was doing beats way before he passed and nobody mentioned it. I just deal with it but I mean it’s a lot of those comparisons. I mean nobody was saying that when I put out Sound Of The City but more so when I put out Popular Demand. I just kind of deal with it. When people say it, I don’t really get upset because it’s a compliment for somebody to even think I can compare to his sound and get close to his style of music or beats. That’s a compliment in itself. To me, Dilla was the best producer – to me. But I’m definitely trying to make my own lane.

OKP: That’s a good segue because this record, unlike your others, has an almost retro or futuristic vibe that’s hard to categorize but definitely sounds influenced by the musical styles present and popular in Detroit. The record sounds so forward-thinking and live. Now when I reviewed the record, I was without liner notes, so I didn’t know if you brought musicians in to play or what you did, but the drum programming is impeccable on Tronic. Talk to me a bit about the recording process. What did you do different, and what manner of equipment was used?

BM: Well the main thing I did with Tronic was this. I went through a lot of beats for this album. A lot of beats got erased too. So what I would do is find a loop, chop it up, put some drums on it, and maybe add a bass line on it then sequence it. Then I would leave it alone for about an hour, come back to it. So if the beat wasn’t hitting in the first two bars, I erased it. Even if the beat was dope, if it didn’t hit me like “oh sh*t!” then I cut it off. I mean in the first two to four bars, I would just listen to that. Now a few beats I saved because they were dope but it didn’t fit the concept of the album. I was just focused on making ridiculous sh*t, no mediocre sh*t on the album. Now some of the beats, like I said, I kept, but I wanted folks to say it’s dope but that wasn’t enough for me. Making a dope track is easy for me to do. I can just get a loop, put some hard drums under it, chop up samples – it’s easy and a lot of people can do that. That’s why I went that extra mile. So if I was feeling that sh*t, those first two bars, then I knew it was good enough. That’s why there’s so many beats and switch ups on the album. That’s why the programming was all over the place. I think I approached this album differently because a lot of Hip-Hop producers weren’t doing beats like this. Some of them I do regret I erased, you know what I’m saying, but I’m glad with what I got. I only had four and a half months to do it.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t even ready to come out with this album. I wanted to wait a whole year after (Fat Ray’s) The Set Up came out in March and take a whole year off. But I felt like I had to keep putting sh*t out because I’m still not as established as an artist so I wanted to flood the game some more. There was a lot of stuff I couldn’t do since I only had four months but I’m still happy with how it turned out.

OKP: There are a lot of producer/mc combos in one artist. We can go back to Diamond D from the early 90s or Wyclef to some degree, and also Madlib – not to mention J Dilla and Madlib’s brother Oh No. Given that you were already a capable MC, what motivated you to go at the microphone with such ferocity? What do you love more, the beats or the emceeing?

BM: Oh man, I definitely have more love for the producing side than the MC side. If I had to choose, I’d just do beats and do music. One of the main reasons I rhyme is that it gives me the opportunity to do shows and travel and perform for people, you know what I’m saying? I’m just making that extra little bit of money, you know? I mean that’s one of the main reasons I still rhyme too. Other than that, like people probably didn’t know I could come off with some lyrical sh*t. Like on Popular Demand, my rhymes on there? I was going for…a feel. It was more so a flow. I was all about the flows, f*ck the lyrics. I just wanted to get into the pocket of the beat. So the next go around I really wanted to get into the rhymes and let people know what’s going on in my life and my world and how I feel about the industry…just life in general. That’s why I made that shit kinda lyrical. That’s why I did that so people could know I can do more than just flow but that I had some skill with the rhyming. I just want to cover all sides with this album. I just wanted to show versatility and that I can do basically anything I want. I mean you want it, I can do whatever. That’s what kind of producer I want to be known for. I don’t want to be in no box because I’m gonna change the sound with each project. There won’t be no “Black Milk style.”

OKP: You’ve been associated with and have rhymed alongside some of Detroit’s greatest MCs. How do you feel about your city’s place in the realm of Hip-Hop? BM: I feel like we’re just getting started. I think we’re getting ready to make another turn the people ain’t expecting. I mean especially with the passing of Dilla and Proof, it brought everybody together. It made us closer. You got people collaborating on songs, people that usually wouldn’t do tracks together. I mean you got Elzhi and Royce on a track together and people probably always wanted that - now we got it. You might be in the studio and Phat Kat might roll through. Trick Trick might come through and now everybody working together with no beef. Everybody got the same goal to bring Detroit back out to the forefront of the music industry. I feel like Detroit in the Hip-Hop scene, we’re still the underground. We done put out so much dope sh*t and have so many good artists but we still feel like we can do more. We still got a lot of work to do. I think everybody on the Detroit scene knows that it’s not gonna be easy and we gotta come with different angles and strategies to get to the top. People know we got great music but we need more exposure and hopefully it will come with all these talented singers and MCs here.

OKP: Now we’ve covered that Dilla, PR and Primo are among your chief all time influences. Who else are you checking for in Hip-Hop and music in general? Who is Black Milk listening to now?

BM: I mean usually when I’m out looking for folks doing beats I like, I’m always looking out for whatever Jake One is doing. He’s like ridiculous on the beats and he never comes half-assed. That White Van Music album is crazy and I told him myself. I’m always checking out what Nottz is doing and we chop it up on the phone every now and again. DJ Khalil, I think he’s dope. It’s more than that, I think he’s ridiculous on the beats, man. Those are like the main producers I check for. It’s not a lot of people – just certain folks, but these dudes for sure. And for the other side, like you said, I listen to more than Hip-Hop and Prince is a big influence on me as far as producers go. I mean, when he creates something…it’s hard to explain. I mean it will sound simple but then it’s still…so f*cking ridiculous. I can’t even put into words what I hear when I listen to Prince. I mean just when I listen to him I want to do the same thing with my music. Then you got Stevie Wonder, and I mean he’s a dope artist but as a producer? Stevie Wonder as a producer just blows my mind also. I was on tour with Bishop Lamont and Guilty Simpson, and on our downtime, that’s all we was listening to in the tour van. We just sat there and would dissect it and man his sh*t is crazy. Also can’t forget Willie Hutch too.

OKP: You’re fresh from a European tour. How was the reception compared to what you get in the states?

BM: Oh man it was crazy. I mean the shows overseas are always more intense and crazy because, you know, if you live in a major American city you can see artists two or three times a year. The shows in the states are cool too but over there it’s just so much more intense. When you go over there, it’s wild and hands up the whole show. Saying all your words and everything; the sh*t is dope. They up on music over there too and asking me to perform songs from Tronic like “Give the Drummer some” so it was crazy.

OKP: You’re on a small indie label and you have an incredible buzz. In fact, the website we’re doing this interview for has a message board community that discusses your work often. Also, your partner Hex (voo doo) does quite a bit of online head-busting for you. Do you check out the criticisms or posts?

BM: I mean yeah, Hex calls them OkayHaters (laughs). But I mean I go on there some times on the message board but I don’t do it too much. I can’t decipher whether someone’s really feeling my music or really just hating to be hating. I mean I just don’t want to be influenced by somebody’s opinion especially if it’s not constructive criticism. Even though every artist wants to know if his music is hitting, but I’m like if you like it, you like it. If you don’t, then you don’t. I just try to stay away from it but I do look at it. But the times I’ve been on there, I seem to get more love than hate. So majority rules so it’s cool.

OKP: So what’s next on your plate?

BM: I’m still gonna be working with Kat and Slum, anyone of the Detroit artists working on various things. And the next thing after we work this record and the shows and all is the Random Axe record with me, Guilty Simpson and Sean Price. We’re about eighty-five percent done. We just need to do three or so more songs and put that out in the first quarter of next year. Hopefully just keep getting better and working on some ideas for the next record I wanna do.

OKP: You were saying with Tronic you attempted a live element. So were you playing anything at all or was that truly all drum machine work?

BM:Each song has a live session player on it but I actually sampled and chopped what they were playing. I took the sounds from the live players, the horns, the bass, and the drums and just chopped it all up. Now the drums were all programmed because I have a live drum kit so all that was me. I programmed my own sequences but I tried my best to make it sound live as possible. I even sampled some drums off a CD and chopped them up. It’s only one track that has actual live playing – an interlude after the Colin Munroe record. It was sorta like a Stevie Wonder cover.

OKP: The synth sound is so heavy on this record. What kind of keyboards did you employ for the LP? And again, what other equipment was used?

BM: The same stuff I’ve been using, you know, the MPC was there. I used the Korg R2 keyboard and it was another Korg I can’t remember. I used some vintage keyboards in some of the studios I went to. Basically my Korg, the MPC and old records. I did the same technique I’ve been using in the past but I just made it sound different.

OKP: Do you feel like your label is doing enough for you at this stage of your career? Would you go major at this point?

BM: If the majors come, it’s all good. Some folks tried to get with me when Popular Demand came out but it didn’t pan out. I’m definitely open to major label love but not if I have to change up or do new sh*t, I can’t do that. What I’m doing now is working for me. I’m not just gonna sign away my art for some money either. I mean I want to be able to do what I do now if I’m gonna be on a major.

OKP: So what about Fat Beats? What do you think they’re doing?

BM: I mean you always think it could me more and you can ask that from anyone on an indie. But you gotta work with what you got and work that much harder. That’s cool with me, I don’t mind working harder because this is what I love to do. Long as I maintain a certain fan base and keeping my name up, I’m gonna be ok. Being on a major label is not important. Having a fan base is important.

OKP: So how does Tronic compare to what’s popular on the radio?

BM: I think I could get some radio play on some of my joints. Like the Colin Munroe “Without You” record. I plan on making that a single and doing a video for it. That song should do something good for me because it sounds really commercial, you know? I mean that’s another thing I did in putting together this album. I made it sorta like my demo to the industry. I know industry motherf*ckers is gonna hear and folks in high places gonna peep it. I know it’s gonna get around. So I hope they hear the fact I can do radio shit, or hard shit or whatever. So that’s why I got “Without You” on there but I also got tracks on there for the heads too – like the Royce song and “The Matrix.” I put some radio-friendly elements on the record.

OKP: Now that you’ve worked with some heavy hitters, and showcased well on the Elec mixtape, do you have anyone you need to work with? Especially with your new sound, are you interested in doing some R&B now? What about an instrumental record ala Flying Lotus?

BM: I’ve been wanting to do an instrumental record for a while and that’s definitely on the plate. And as far as like you were saying about R&B, I was talking to (Detroit vocalist) Melanie Rutherford who’s on the album about doing a record. I mean her voice is ridiculous and I mean I’ll say I’ll do an R&B record but then I go in and wanna do some grimey sh*t. And then have her sing over that, which would probably defeat the whole purpose of doing the record, you know what I’m saying (laughs)? Like I could do some R&B smooth sh*t but I don’t want to do what people expect either. And with Dwele, I mean dude is one of the most talented people I know and I been wanted to get with him and do some hard sh*t and have him sing under it. I’m gonna try to get a little more experimental with it with the new stuff that’s coming for sure.

- D.L. Chandler

Watch Black Milk's new video for "Give The Drummer Sum" below: