iNTERViEWED
BY BRiAN LUSH
The working class port town of
Long
Beach,
California
is often
overshadowed by the grime of
Los
Angeles and
glare of Tinseltown, but in the early nineties,
Long
Beach
– along with the neighboring
Compton
– was ground zero for the G-funk sound that came to typify West Coast
hip-hop
and boasted such progenitors as SNOOP DOGG and WARREN G.
Back when this hypnotic
sound was
intoxicating listeners and angering a few concerned citizens, a young
man by
the name of WADE KIBBY was getting an invaluable musical education by
working
in the studio with the likes of SNOOP DOGG producer E WHITE and WARREN
G
producer CHUCK TAYLOR. Music was always in the cards for KIBBY having
grown up
in a musical family (his older brother is DIRTY WALT KIBBY of the
legendary
ska/funk band FISHBONE). After years of working behind the console and
numerous
false starts at getting in front of the mic, KIBBY adopted the moniker
SWADE G,
paired up with Compton-based rapper KOOL AID and released the debut
joint ‘GHETTO
LIFE’ – catalog of killer beats and catchy melodies that set the back
drop for
SWADE’s hip-hop treatises on staying focused (‘MONEY THEN A NUT’),
getting
ahead (‘HOW TIME FLIES’) and staying strong despite rough economic
times (the
title track ‘GHETTO LIFE’).
ROCKWIRED
spoke with SWADE G (WADE KIBBY) over the phone
regarding the new release. Here is how it went.
I interviewed your
brother WALTER a few months ago and now I’m talking to you. Usually,
when I’ve
interviewed brothers they’re in the same band so this is a first.
I hope that’s good.
It is. With all the
work that has gone into GHETTO LIFE put behind you how do you feel
about the
end result?
I actually like the end result but as a producer, you
continue to do some material and find yourself falling in love with
some of
your new material, but I still love GHETTO LIFE.
Who all did you work
with in putting it together?
The person who I mainly worked with is KOOL AID. He’s my
partner and he does most of the rapping on most of the songs and he
helps me
with the hooks and the ideas and I’ll take a line that he’s got to re-vamp and work it out
and sing it. He
helps me to be able to finish the beats that I make. It’s basically him
– one
person – that does it. Other guys come in and they might have some bars
or
something to say on something and they add to it but it’s basically
just me and
him.
Talk about how music
started for you. Because of your brother, I can only imagine that it
was a
musical household that you grew up in.
It was a musical household. We were always into music as
kids. We’d be out playing with bats and rackets like they were guitars.
My
father bought us guitars when we were really little kids. I kept
playing my
guitar. My father also played trumpet so my brother went in that
direction. I
kind of stuck with the guitar for a little bit. Now you hear all of the
bass
playing and all of the stuff I’m doing and that is where my real love
is at.
But yeah, we definitely grew up in a musical household.
What artists spoke to
you growing up?
In the beginning, the heaviest thing that I would’ve gotten
into is PARLIAMENT. I used to go to the record store with my brother
and this
was around the time that GEORGE CLINTON had a live album out. The
picture of
the album kind of grabbed me. On the cover, he’s on a mothership and
he’s got
these boots on. I started listening to the music and I’d play it on the
record
player over and over. So it all started with PARLIAMENT and then I got
into
other things like P-FUNK and BOOTSY COLLINS. There were a whole lot of
other
artists but that was probably the first artist that I probably tried to
really
get into and absorb.
It’s kind of
interesting how inadvertently those funk sounds ended up inspiring the
rhythms
behind hip hop.
Yeah, it’s true.
You
got your teeth
cut working with the likes of E.WHITE and CHUCK TAYLOR. Describe what
it was
like working with them.
As a young producer, I moved to Long Beach in
1995 and started getting the
equipment to do production and as I was doing that I was running into
people
like E. WHITE. He worked on a mixed tape that I had done for him. I
also did a
project for CHUCK TAYLOR which was a little single that I had gotten a
few
copies of pressed. In that time I was paying some dues and making
tracks and
putting songs together and getting better at my craft. I was just
getting my
sound together.
Describe the creative
process in terms of getting tracks made. How does that work?
There are a couple of different ways. Sometimes you’re
inspired and you have something already to go on and you have it
playing in
your head so you just sit down and put it together piece by piece.
That’s how I
produce. I do it all piece by piece. Other times you just start messing
around
and you see if you can find something. Sometimes you hear another song
and you
want to do something similar to that. You know that when you start
working that
it’s not going to sound like that song so you go ahead make something
along
those lines. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. There are a
number of
different ways of going at it. If you want to be a good producer, you
need to
have a few different ways of going about making tracks or you’re just
going to
have one kind of sound.
What songs off the
album stand out for you the most and why?
MONEY THAN A NUT is one that stands out. Its about time I went
through where I realized that I needed to spend more time working on
making
something happening and not focus so much on the relationship aspect of
things.
I realized that if I worked harder and got things done then I could
have a lot
more fun in my relationship. You go around wanting to have a companion and then you
spend the all the
wrong kind of time that way and you don’t spend all of the correct time
doing
other things and this song is about the point where I was finally
beginning to
understand that. I like how all of that came out in that song. That’s a
pretty
good one. GHETTO LIFE is a pretty good one. That song came together in
the
middle of the recession when things weren’t really looking all that
great but
inside of me, I felt that things aren’t bad for everybody. I think some
people
needed a message. Something that said get your ass up and do what you
need to
do. Americans are always looking for that American Dream somehow and
that gets
brought up in the song HOW TIME FLIES. There is a line in there that
goes
“Ain’t it funny how time flies/ Are you getting your American Pie/” Are
you
paying attention? Things are getting hard. Are you doing what you’re
supposed
to do or are you blaming everything on other people and things are
collapsing
down and you’re not
doing what you need
to do for yourself? I would really like for people to listen to that
song and
get something from it.
You also make a shout
out to your brother on this CD.
Yeah. Without my brother doing what he’s doing and carrying
the torch for so long and being in the trenches and still being a
member of
FISHBONE, I’m almost positive that I wouldn’t be putting my album
together
right now. Because of his longevity and me being able to watch him for
so long,
I guess I still see music as something that I want to do, you know what
I mean?
He’s the reason why I’m putting this together. That’s why I’ve got a
song on
there for him and he helped song on ‘HOW TIME FLIES’. My brother is
pivotal in
what I’m doing right now.
I heard you were
featured at SXSW. How did that go?
That went pretty good. It was very successful. I just love
going out for SXSW. There are always a lot of bands playing and it is
noisy
hell and its fun being there and being a part of the whole thing. SXSW
was a
lot of fun.
What
would you like
someone to come away with after they’ve heard this album?
I hope they come away thinking that it was wan honest record
and they liked it.
From the first time
that you realized your sense of musicality up until now, what has been
the
biggest surprise for you?
How do you mean that?
What didn’t you
expect to happen that happened? Was the road easier than you thought or
harder?
Wow! That’s a good one! I just now started to give the
proper effort that the music needs in order to take off and things
seems to be
going in the right direction and I’m happy with what’s occurring right
now. In
the past I didn’t put forth the proper effort to try and get where I’m
at. I
was always trying and not knowing what to do or where to go and as I’ve
come
along I kind of figured everything out. When everything was in place I
started
doing what I needed to do. I worked on a lot of projects and a lot of
things
and had sound issues. I could hear where I hadn’t worked hard enough on
some of
the tracks. They didn’t sound the way that they were supposed to. I
just came
around to understanding that I really needed to work harder at
everything and
that is where I’m at now.
It sounds like you’re
always behind the mixing board as a producer. Who are you producing at
the
moment?
Right now I’m producing KOOL AID who is a part of the SWADE
G group. I’m doing his FAMOUS album. It’s marvelous too. I’m more than
halfway
done with that. It’s a real good album so far. We’ve got a few more
songs to
do. CHUCK TAYLOR has been back around and I’ve done a couple of little
things
with him so they’ve got a buzz going around Long Beach and people are
liking what
his stuff is sounding like. I’ve been working with him and that’s been
about
it. BLACK NICK who is out on tour with WARREN G is rapping on his album
and has
been doing some good work as well. We actually have a show that is
coming up
with WARREN G on June 25th at the KEY CLUB in Hollywood.
MAY 12,
2010
BRiAN
LUSH (FOUNDER,
EDiTOR-iN-CHiEF)
