I had hosted a public interview with Hank Shocklee in Dublin for the Red Bull Music Academy. And to answer all the questions left unanswered I was on the phone in a locked bedroom as the kids scurried around a little crazy in the daily run up to dinner time.
That talk in Dublin took in the old days in the cauldron of hip hop and the birth and rise of one of the greatest and most influential hip hop groups of all time, Public Enemy.
PE were produced and arranged by ‘The Bomb Squad’, essentially Hank and his brother Keith Shocklee and Eric ‘Vietnam’ Saddler with Chuck D closely involved on Public Enemy records. The Bomb Squad not only produced classic PE albums like ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’ and ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ but also Slick Rick’s ‘The Great Adventures of Slick Rick’ and ‘Amerikkkas’ Most Wanted’ by Ice Cube.

The sound that the Bomb Squad pioneered is unique. It brought a darker disquiet to hip hop, leaving behind the happy good time beats and raps of an earlier era to take on a more confrontational, muscular and political approach to the world. The trademark elaborate and noisy collage of samples and sounds radicalised hip hop production. Just remember some of the tunes or check them out now if you never listened before. The list is classics all the way: You’re going to get Yours/Bring the Noise/Don’t believe the Hype/ Rebel Without A Pause/ Fight The Power/ with its classic line/ ‘Elvis was a hero to most/But he never meant shit to me/ You see, straight-up racist that sucker was simple and plain/Motherfuck him and John Wayne’/Contract On A World Love Jam/ Burn Hollywood Burn. Don’t forget Bring tha Noize with Anthrax. The touch from then is still true to here. All words and music already deeply seeped into our common musical and lyrical consciousness. Phrases and sounds jacked and jockeyed beyond recognition just as The Bomb Squad jacked James Brown for their bread and butter and anything else they saw fit to use for their insistent vinyl revolutions. All of this of course in an era before sampling freely got you big bills or arrested and detained like a terrorist suspect.

Later in the night after that talk in Dublin, which ended with a standing ovation, Hank Shocklee played a storming set of dub, dubstep and electronic bass music. The club was a hopping mess. Our talk had mostly covered the old stuff, we never talked about Hank Shocklees’ involvement and interest in all things dubstep nor the mighty fact that The Bomb Squad are current again as Hank and Keith Shocklee prepare to release a new album, ‘Destruction Version 2.2’. 

The phone finally connected to New York and the man himself. I mentioned the great feedback from the talk and gig and press stuff coming up. Hank is pragmatic and seasoned when it comes to the machinations of media “I used to worry about that stuff but I don’t worry no more. It is what it is. Back when I was worrying about it the press angle was a lot different. The press was more into helping to establish the scene which I thought was really cool. A lot of the writers weren’t trying to prove their knowledge about stuff, they were in there trying to help develop something that people pretty much didn’t know about. Nowadays I think the press is taking an arrogant role. I think nobody ever gets involved in the other aspects of people and their lives and try to help with things that might be considered myths cause all it seems to be is just talking about whatever record they have out and then whatever problems that they had going on.” 

I ask Hank about a quote I had read online from Dj Boomnoise which suggested that The Bomb squad ‘prefigured’ dubstep.

“It’s funny cause I’ve heard that in a number of different music genres and it’s kinda weird cause in a way you can hear a lot of the elements in stuff that I’ve done like that. For example I did a record called ‘Son of Bazerk’ and if you listen to ’j dubs theme’ that was almost more dubstep and it is almost the early part of dubstep, if you wanna call it dubstep.” 

The issue of what to call this new music raised its head a couple of times in our talk and it’s certain that Hank’s thinking on this would be the view of many involved in the so called ‘dubstep’ scene. For the purposes of this piece we use the term that most can readily distinguish. What to call anything? ‘Bass & Snare’ anyone? Jazzy House, oh no! Things get given names and in terms of communicating a sound and style distinct from others the word ‘dubstep’ is handy if not musically adequate. The early stages of this form are characterized by deep bass and that is a broad church with many orders. Things are still wide open and it would be a shame for that to be lost to genre titles. What it definitively is, is electronic bass music.

Hank continues a little hesitantly. For him it’s not a question of claiming any credits.

“If you listen to ‘Dont Believe The Hype” in a weird way it’s kinda dubby in it’s approach. You know when we did that record I didn’t particularly believe it was going to do anything. I didn’t have confidence in that record until DMC took it out and started playing it in his Bronco up at 125th street and everybody’s going crazy for it you know, so that made me go ok, let me finish that up and we can release that as one of the next singles that we had coming at the time. The dub experience has always been a part of my musical background. I always listened to Tubby and those guys. My college roommates introduced me to Jammy and them. I always loved the Tubby stuff but then I started getting into Jammy and Scientist. You’re talking about early 80’s like ’79, ’78 even. I started getting into a lot of dub vibrations and I guess that kinda feeds into some of my productions particularly ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ and ‘j dubs theme’.”

As a producer Hank Shocklee’s work is informed by a maverick sense of experimentation. The Bomb Squad famously and noisely jammed live in the studio and arranged from there, like a rock band or Duke Ellington. The Quest for music is key and the flow of ideas essential. His background as a Dj still looms strong. In the early days of hip hop it was as helmsman of his own Long Island rulers Spectrum City Sound. Records and music are an apprenticeship to producing. The dense, sequenced layers of samples that characterised the classic Bomb Squad sound were the product of record, soundsystem and Dj culture.

“It wasn’t so recently when I was looking for a different sound. About six years ago I started listening to more Brasilian, more world, more African or Afrobeat if you would. So I came across some Grooverider tape or mixshow or something. He was playing drum and bass. I always heard that stuff, jungle and drum and bass before and the early part of d&b didn’t really hit me as anything cause from my perspective I was deep in my productions. I’m not listening to that much outside influence. The early stuff seemed like speeded up hip hop with different B lines so it came across more like dance music than anything close to hip hop but sometime into it, as it started evolving, I started hearing more of the hip hop elements coming out. The syncopation! It wasn’t until I heard Bailey, Dj Bailey on Radio 1 xtra and when I heard his show I was just taken to the back. I loved Grooverider’s show but he had moved over and started playing more what they called anthems, so the music started having a lot of deep bass but it was a lot of cutting synth riffs on top. A lot of sawtooth synth lines on top too you know, so I started picking up the records, following, figuring out and finding out the groups. I started listening to everything, chasing labels and all the guys. Andy C, Photek, Zinc, Logistics, I started listening to a lot of different cats producing the material and lo and behold it was amazing what the culture had evolved to. That kinda rang into my head. I was fascinated how these guys were now not only producing the music, they were the artist themselves, they put the records out themselves and performed at their own events. It was a full range culture and that right there was the most amazing thing about it. That was the most futuristic thing these guys were doing. It was so refreshing to see the level of involvment from the artist. These guys don’t get a lot of credit for what they do. When I saw the amount of work their putting out every day and all of their whole situation is independent. I thought it was amazing, so that culture that developed got me thinking cause those guys are doing everything in todays format what I did in the early days when I started PE. It was like looking at a mirror through time and seeing how things evolve ‘cause we gotten complacent here. One of the reasons all the artists got complacent here is cause the media and record companies are all pretty much here. They don’t have to do that much. All they gotta do is make a hit record and then all the rest takes care of itself for them really. They get a manager, they get a press person who gets them in touch with all the magazines and all they gotta do is get up every day and you know go to the radio stations and play this up, get the dj to play it. You know everything is done in segments here, whereas the European market decided to take everything on themelves cause they didn’t have such exposure to media. That for me was a wake up call. It made me a fan of all of the guys. I didn’t give a fuck who was doing it, I’m a fan of it!”

The significance of chasing records and literally bumping into such a deeply rooted culture made sense for Hank Shocklee.

“This industry is home grown from the dirt, and that to me blew it wide open. Then all of sudden I’m a D&B fanatic and I’m buying everything that comes out, anyone that’s good, and now I can tell the differences between styles. I’m reading interviews, who they gonna work with next, what next record is coming out. One of the most brilliant concepts of an album was an album entitled ‘Escape From Planet Monday’ by DJ Fresh (Solo record from one of Bad Company released in 2006). The concept for me was the cover, this guy in his shirt and tie, sitting on this barren planet. That record to me was like the entire wake up call for music, as a musician or artist you have to understand that your biggest fear is having to get a job. His whole thing was escape from Planet Monday. This title about the guy who would do anything, at any cost, to not have to be at his desk on Monday. From that point on I said this is the next frontier, this is the next frequency and I started thinking how can I embrace this frequency, so then by mistake I picked up a cd ‘The Roots Of Dubstep’. I thought it’s another D&B record. I thought it’s just another subgenre so when I got it I thought it was cool, but it was slower. I thought wow this is different but cool. Now I had two frequencies. Drum and Bass and dubstep, so I bought the Youngsta cd, Kode 9 had a mix and I didn’t pay it much mind till I went to one of the first Dubwar parties (NY city clubnight). They had got to the point were they were doing it two, three times a year and I went to their first anniversary party and I saw two guys that blew me up …Joe Nice and Skream. I was thinking what the fuck is this about, a guy called Skream? Then I heard the updated version that’s not on those cd’s. I was hearing these riddims, the stuff that didn’t come out yet and the stuff just out. They had the wind back bit and the crowd yelling. The energy was very hip hop. A lot of people wasn’t around in New York City when hip hop was happening and if you want to know what the scene was like go to a really good dubstep event. We would get the same reaction in 82/83 even back earlier than that. That was the reaction we were getting in hip hop when we were playing, it was such a new music and it was such a new frequency and nobody knew how to dance to it.” 

The energy of those days is increasingly well documented but it’s still hard to imagine, no matter how many pricey photo books you check. Hip Hop is big business now and a different beast than the infant born then. It is not nostalgic to recognize this, people don’t really want the latest shit all the time, we all like what we know. New music is challenging in many ways, free to change, uncertain and very exciting when it comes a knocking. 

“There was no set tempo, no set records. You played everything back then, drum breaks from rock, from jazz, from classical, from funk records. Records with rapping, instrumentals, it was the same vibration then that it is now, the reactions were the same. Once I got the feeling of that I was like, wow, this is really unique. Keep in mind that I’m going with hip hop. I’m going with R&B, so I’m looking for something that inspires me. I’m looking ‘cause I was inspired by those musics when I decided to make it. I didn’t invent hip hop or R&B, I was just a fan that was inspired by it and put my spin on it. You know the same thing is happening in dubstep.” 

Hank stops midflow and the issue of naming a genre comes up. The flexible tool of a title like ‘dubstep’ is grist to any marketing mill and also a catch all net that does not filter the good from bad. It’s an easy bandwagon to jump on throwing the right name around and many deeply involved in the scene feel uncomfortable being associated with something that restricts them to definitions.

“You know I hate the name ‘dubstep’. It does it so much injustice. It puts it in a category and makes it ‘that thing over there’ and I think that’s what kills music today. That was one of the deaths of D&B, that categorisation. No one could establish was it jungle, was it ragga, was it D&B, and then all the subgenres took the energy away from it.”

“When we would do our parties it was energy. I come from that era, not the era of perfection, I hear so many people go for perfection but perfection without a little bit of improvisation becomes boring. What people vibe to is that people do not want to hear you do the same thing every day the same way. That’s boring. I think one of the things that got me excited was the energy and that the music form takes on many shapes. You not doing 4/4 time, you can do sixteenths, different types of riddim, you can do a soca or a hip hop-reggae, ragga or more a jungle or techno riddim It doesn’t matter what genre you coming from or riddim you on. You can vibrate on it and that to me is when a new musical art form is in the bubble, It’s getting ready to surface and considering it’s the first true new artform of the millenium. No other art form that’s been developed since 2000 other than this quote unquote dubstep. That’s a big thing you know. You come across new music once in every twenty years. It’s shaping up that dubstep I think is going to be the next frequency of this millenium. It’s still an infant. I consider it that the baby is just born, there are still many facets to go through but the blueprint that has been established by cats like Skream, Mala, Loefah, Benga, Kode 9, Coki. You could go on . There are new cats coming up that are ridiclous. I think that the music is going to be something to be reckoned with in the future. I don’t even look at it as dubstep. Its a new musical artform. I don’t even know what to call it.” 

Hank Shocklee has his part to play in this new artfrom whatever it ends up being called. As a pioneering sonic architect, the inspiration of dubstep has invigorated the maverick again and it’s certain when the new music drops it won’t be sounding like anyone else. “ Me and my brother are putting together our Bomb Squad album which is called Destruction Version 2.2, which is going to be heavily influenced by what you call dubstep but once again it’s going to be us taking it to the next frequency and the single is called “Lost Our Mind. That’s been my take on it, just being able to take the music and continue with the spreading of communciation of peace and togetherness and unity, and taking the music and utilising it as a unifying and more or less calming factor of making people come together and be inspired to do bigger and better things. I just think that’s one of the things that I love about the music, it is being able to communicate that vibration in it so that it heals the planet as opposed to adding to more of the confusion. The reason our album is called Destruction is ‘cause I wanted to destroy the current perception of where music is right now.”

We are ready to get down, giving it up to turn it loose for things not heard but felt, at electronic dub events. 

shocklee.com

myspace.com/originalbombsquad