| I don't know if you've heard of this
ski jumping kid out of Switzerland: he kinda looks like
Harry Potter and won both ski jumping competitions at
the Olympics in the US this year. Now he comes from a
rather remote area of Switzerland. And this is a really
long build up for the question. However, from that area
several successful athletes have come. So he was asked,
why he thinks that is. And his answer was, that if you
life in a secluded area, you have less disturbances and
dilutions, so you really concentrate on what you do. |
| Wildchild: Yeah, that was how
it was for us too, when we were working on the album.
I hear you. |
| And that might also be a reason
for the many artists that come out of Oxnard, like Kan
Kick, Oh No, Declaime, etc. |
| DJ Romes: And
we are all friends. We all grew up with each other. We
were doing the stuff together. We, Lootpack, just happened
to come out first. I don't know if it's also because there's
not much else in Oxnard. It could be. But I mean, that's
just what we did, to stay out of the gangs. We just did
it because we liked it, and we just kept doing it. |
| I like to get artists'
take on this, as it' obviously affects them: there's a
bill being proposed right now, that'd made it required
for every digital device to have a program installed called
'police wear', that would check everything that you do
on your device, and if you'd copy copywritten material,
it'd inform the government and you'd be punished by five
years in jail and a five hundred thousand dollar fine.
The same punishment would be imposed on you if you'd try
to tamper with the program. Now, you can obviously argue
about this. I do not believe however, that jails were/are
built for copyright offenders. And my thing also is, that
I don't want the government to have a program installed
on my computer, which allows them to see everything that
I do, write, or read with my computer. But you, as an
artist, that's probably suffering from bootlegging, how
do you feel about it? |
| DJ Romes: You
serious, they really wanna do that? But is that just in
the US? |
| Yeah, just in the
US. And it probably will not be put into place, but still,
the fact that someone deems this appropriate is wack enough. |
| DJ Romes: Well,
I guess then I better go buy me a computer real quick.
So that I can do my burns. |
| But maybe to widen
the discussion: do you think something needs to be done
to stop the mp3 trading and CD bootlegging? |
DJ Romes: I don't
think so. I mean, I used to record songs off the radio.
And then I went and bought the record. You know, you always
got record collectors that wanna see the cover, that wanna
have everything. I know people that burn stuff and still
go and buy it if they like it. All the stuff that I burn,
I always buy on vinyl, cause I'm a DJ. I mean, it does
hurt the music market, but there's no way how you gonna
stop them. So I guess you just gotta live with it. And
it can also help: If they can listen to your record, then
they can go and support you.
Wildchild: But it's too easy. Not from a sales standpoint,
but it's just too easy to get access to stuff. That defeats
the whole purpose of the work behind it. |
A new study at two
Universities in the US found out, that the reason why
people buy less records is, that now they can listen to
new releases first, before they buy it. And because so
many of the new releases are not that good, after the
audience pre-listened to a new album, they figure out
that they don't really like it, hence they don't buy it.
And this is especially hurting the big artists, that before
had a fanbase, that was just buying every record they
put out, no questions asked. So in a way, the downloading
hurts the sales, but mainly because of the music being
crap.
Moving on though: Do you think it would have been harder,
if you wouldn't have had the Likwit Crew to come up with? |
DJ Romes: No.
Because, I mean, to tell you the truth, they maybe got
our names out, but they didn't help us at all, as far
as business wise. We never really associated us like that
we'd always be saying: 'we're Likwit crew', although we
are. Because we don't wanna use that name. I think that's
not the way to do it. You gotta be your own.
Wildchild: The independent work that we did was
pretty much all on us. And we try to develop a name for
ourselves. And doing that being under another crew, doesn't
work out too well. So it was a thing we decided not to.
It just felt more right to get our name out first, before
saying that we are with the Likwit crew. But they had
already started the whole crew and everything. And we
always stayed down, it's not like we ever said: 'naw,
we're not part of the crew'. But we're also trying to
explore different areas. They call us the felonious members
of the group. There's always a black sheep in a crew.
But everything is still cool. Everybody is just doing
their thing to get their name out. They are still trying
to get their stuff out platinum status mode. |
| And on that note:
thanks for your time. Anything else we should have talked
about? |
|
Wildchild: I wanna give a fat
shout out to Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf, the whole Stones
Throw camp, the Likwit crew, the Beat Junkies, and just
be aware of that new "Secondary Protocol"
album, coming out soon.
DJ Romes: Also look out for the Medaphoar album,
the Oh No album, who's Madlib's brother. I'm their DJ
too. And my next breakbeats record will be called "Dingle
Berry Breaks". And look out for Madlib's jazz album
on Blue Note. And another album on Trojan, who also
do re-issues. So you see, he's getting his money, so
we had to come out here to get our money (smiles).
Wildchild: And there's the Triple 5 Soul record,
where he did Stevie Wonder songs.
DJ Romes: He has a bunch of jazz stuff coming
out. He's really gotten into that. And that's what's
slowing down our album a little. But I mean: also look
out for the new Lootpack. That's gonna happen soon.
|
| » back to part
1 |
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