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As perhaps one of the most underated producers in the UK scene Caramac has worked with some of the biggest names on the come up (including Sway, Kyza and Lowkey). Luv Jones thought it was high time we caught up with and questioned the man and what he's done so far and where he's heading for.... First off, for those who don’t know let em know who you are:
My name’s Caramac. I make beats and DJ and as my boy Blufoot says I am an habitual line stepper when it comes to liking pop/rap. Lol.
Yeah and no. I had a few personal issues at the time where I wasn’t involved as much as I’d like to be but yeah I’ve got two beats on there. One called Porno which is basically Kyza on a dutty tip and another called The Hype is Real. It was a beat I’d originally given Stylah that he didn’t use. Kyza heard me playing it one day when I was on the phone to him and he kept begging me for it. Stylah said he wasn’t going to use it so I called Kyza and he wrote to it straight away. It’s one of my favourite beats from that time as it’s kind of different from what I was doing normally. As a matter of fact I’d made They Call It Murder as a joke for Kyza because he was complaining I was giving my best beats to other people The Hype Is real being one of them. I phoned him up one day and left the beat on his voicemail. 10 mins later he bells me up saying he’s got the first verse already. That’s not on the album as the sample was pretty blatant but yeah. As for the album it’s a nice album. Not got any real faults with it at all. My favourite cuts are R.E.A.L and Snakes and Blaggers. That last one is produced by a new bloke called Touch Tone and R.E.A.L was done by D’Lux. We put that R.E.A.L. tune out as a double A single with They Call It Murda. Chemo’s got a couple of beats on there. The first single is produced by Chemo as it goes and is called Fight Klub. We shot the video for it in the pissing rain about a month ago. It was proper jokes. Linked up with bare people I hadn’t seen in ages and we all had a massive playground type ruck in the end. Grown men acting like we were 12 again. Lol. Busted my toe up and everything. Feature wise the album has Trigs Vega. He’s been doing some stuff with SAS and a few other people. Sparrow. He merks the tune he’s on definitely one of my favourite verses on there. Diablo and Skribblah.
Sometimes. A lot of people are just flavour of the month. Let them have their shine. I’ll be around for as long as I decide I want to be. I’m not really into all the politics and constant self-promotion that goes on. I see some of these people in action and they’re proper hustling to get their stuff heard. I’m like calm down bruv. Real music speaks for itself. Hand your beat CD over and keep it moving. If they like it they’ll spit to it if they don’t they’ll just give you a half arsed tune. So I suppose it doesn’t really effect me. I don’t watch that.
I like them all. From Kyza it’s either a tune called Merciless or They Call It Murda. Merciless is an old song we did and is just a loop really. I threw some bass on it and a few strings on it. I’m half way through doing a remix for it which I’ll white label sometime this year so keep an eye out for that. As for They Call It Murda, I’m feeling the story on it. He recorded it with D’Lux and they played it down the phone to me and I was bugging for ages. It’s also the first tune I’ve ever done a video for so that was a whole next experience. You wouldn’t believe how much footage we had to do just for some of those scenes. Ricky Ranking is in all the videos so far. He’s in the new Fight Klub one as well getting banged out. Lol.
Other than that probably Losin It by Riot and Little Eyes by Louie G. Really proud of the beats on those two. There’s only one tune I’m not really happy about. The emcee loves it though so I’ll just stay quiet on it Lol. He’s done some pretty good stuff over my other beats so I’ll allow him this one tune and keep his name secret. Tobias by Fridae of The Rogues is another nice one. Actually I’ll probably stick that as my current favourite. You can check that on their myspace page. Fridae had written the lyrics long before I’d met him and was spitting it over bare beats when he was round mine one day. They all sounded cool but something was missing. I came across that sample hooked it up and he just went for it there and then. It came out brilliant first take. Both of us were well pleased with it. I still need to give it a proper mixdown but yeah that’ll be my most recent favourite. The Sway one Simple and Plain has a place in my heart as it’s the first thing I’d ever had someone spit to. So yeah I like them all. Lol.
Yeah. I’d love to. But I’ve got two main problems. Both of which I’m trying to get out the habit of doing. I send out real rough loops to people of my stuff. I’ve never been one to send out a near finished beat. I do it every once in a while but it’s not really the way I work. I tend to make a rough loop. 2 track it and then leave it until someone wants to use it. If you work with people local enough or that know you it’s cool because you can build on an idea and go from there and sculpt that rough idea into something. That’s how most of the tracks I’ve had people on have been done. It’s one of those catch 22 situations though where an emcee wants a finished beat but it’s hard to send them a ‘’finished beat’’ unless you know what they’re going to rhyme about. Now I just send out something with loads of changes and get them to pick which part they like best and go from there. The other comments I’ve had have been that most of my stuff tends to be a bit more thoughtful and laid back as opposed to straight up in your face beats. I make those types of beats but I do them once in a blue moon. I’ve had people call me up months down the line saying track 4 on that CD fits this lyric about my son or whatever so a lot of the time someone will pick something at a much later date. It’s cool though because I’ve had a lot of people write some real nice lyrics to some of my beats. Losin It was one of those. Riot called me up saying one day his baby mother was giving him pure grief. We were going to Zygote’s studio later that day. When we got there he was like I was listening to your CD this morning and wrote to this beat. It proper suited it so it stuck.
Yeah still down. They’re my peoples from college. I had to take a little bit of a step back due to some personal reasons but I’m back hungrier now and more focussed. We’ve got a few big things ready this year. An MCD album, a Louie G album and a joint Ti2bs and Bigga album. We got a couple of side projects that are looking pretty big at the moment as well. Keep your eyes on the website www.peparecords.com. Shout out to Subvert for hooking that up. The arcade games help me waste away many a day at work. And also the Kyza album.
It’s an in progress thing. I have the problem with them trying to get it done the way I want it done. I don’t want it to be an album with tracks by random artists with nothing to cement it other than my name being on it. I could do it that way and I won’t lie the thought has crossed my mind to bang one out quick but I’d prefer it to go along with the plan in my head. So yeah but as for when I’m not sure. The Ti2bs and Bigga thing is looking to be my first full project at the moment depending on what other producers send me. Show and Prove’s got one beat that they definitely want to run with. But other than that it’s looking like it’ll be just me. We recorded a few tunes already and it’s sounding pretty serious. Bigga’s picked a lot of my more ‘hood’ type beats so it should sound pretty gutter.
Lol. That depends on what sort of mood I’m in. I love hearing a good battle on wax. The Juice Crew and BDP, LL Cool J and Ice T stuff through to Jay and Nas stuff. It’s an important element to hip hop. But then it’s kind of sad on the flip side of the coin. I suppose the battle side is the cool side of things but the beef side and the reasons behind the beef is the sad aspect of it. I’ve not really followed the Taskforce/Wordsmith one. The Rising and Stylah ones have been pretty good. Liked the disses on both sides so I’ll be interested to see how that one plays out.
I was thinking about this the other day on the way home. I’m working on some project at the moment for Pepa and I came to the conclusion that it’s probably the fact that I feel I can do better than a great deal of what the competition has to offer. I think most people feel the same whether they admit it or not.
It was different for a few reasons. The scene was pretty cool. Loop Troop were there and they put on a really nice show. I’d had some of their records at the time and was interested to see how they did their thing live. I was impressed. The venue we performed at was nice as well. It was basically loads of rows of seats cut away into the mountains. Really picturesque. There were a few things that put a downer on the show but yeah it was alright.
Lol. There are loads. Recently I’ll say Nanko – Lucky You. It’s a nice reggae beat. Check it if you get chance. He’s also got one other nice one called From Ever Since that’s nice as well. Other than that there are loads. Still Shinin, Rep For The Slums, Shook Ones PtII, Tha Realness, Run, Drop A Gem On Em, Money Power Respect, Twinz, Who Shot Ya the list goes on and on.
Well I’m working on some dancehall stuff at the moment. As I play it out quite a bit it’s a pretty natural thing for me to do. In all honesty though I’m stumbling a little because I don’t have as many contacts as I do rap wise. I don’t really pursue it as much either but yeah there’s that. I’m chatting to a few artists from Jamaica at the moment. So something could happen pretty soon. I’ve always been into my RnB as well and would love to do some real up against the wall grinding type music like Jodeci or H Town or something like that. The problem with that is that it’s not as simple as recording a tune and throwing it out there. You need to work on the marketing and all that sort of stuff. With rap It’s as simple as ‘does he have skills and is the beat tight?’ Check and check and you got the spins.
Rubbish. Couldn’t really tell you. Louie G’s nice on the rhymes and beats but other than that not sure. It’s not really a rap town, it’s more into its other genres. I could be wrong but I get bored of asking around. People say so and so is this and so is that, but I don’t here anything or see anyone at shows so it’s whatever. I’m open to suggestions though. Anyone out there let me know. Fauna are cool although they’re from all over same with Nine High they’re from all over. Other than that I’m struggling to think of anyone.
Nanko is top of my list at the moment. Bounty Killer’s started doing some really nice tracks lately. My favourite riddim is the Inspektah Riddim. Cobra, Sizzla and Bounty proper merk it. Everyone else comes tough but those 3 just edge it for me. Cherine Anderson is doing some nice tunes. Feeling her new one with Anthony B. She was the girl from that Dancehall Queen video. It’s slightly different as the dancehall scene is so heavily centred around the dance itself, artists can be hot one minute and not the next. You have to be on it 24/7 putting your all into each riddim. You can have an artist that hasn’t been hitting it right for whatever reason. Get on one riddim and then all of a sudden they’ve found their spark again and they’re smacking it.
As for cross overs. Not a big fan. Most of the times it sounds pretty swag. Klash and Fallacy have both pulled it off well. Rodney P and Skitz are some others that spring to mind as getting the balance right. American wise other than Smif N Wessun (Cocoa Brovaz) I can’t really think of many that pull it off. I like Foxy’s stuff that she’s done in the past. That Oh Yeah tune was proper big. That’s another beat I’d have loved to have made.
Not heard much. I took a bit of a hiatus early this year and have really checked for much. Like the NeYo album. Busta and Ghost’s Albums are nice. Did Juelz come out this year? That too if it did. Sway’s is nice. I tend to buy singles more so don’t check that many albums. Got a sneak copy of Snagga Puss’s new album when I was in Jamaica. He’s known as Mr Balance now and that’s due out in Sept I think. That’s nice on some proper uplifting vibe.
Lol. I like that you put the proper bit in quote marks. A few people have brought me up on that. Basically when I was first starting to take my production serious I was using Fruity Loops to make the beats on and Logic to record vocals on and then mix. It was cool, but ultimately I was trying to recreate a sound that was done originally on hardware based units. I wasn’t really getting the sound I wanted so it was a case of looking at the reasons for it. Instead of trying to get an MPC sound from my PC, I just saved up for a bit and brought an MPC. I’m still not entirely happy with my sound but it’s a lot closer than when I first started out due to the equipment change. The whole process is slightly slower which is always a hindrance and that shows in the way I send out my beat CDs with just rough loops but ultimately the sound is a lot bigger and tougher and deeper than before. So yeah I stand by that. I’m open to be proved wrong at all times. But yeah I stand by that.
When you start getting into equipment like Neve desks and SSL desks the differences get even greater. I don’t really think you can compare your software package on your PC from Curry’s to a 50 grand desk. It’s like comparing a Fiesta to a Maybach. Yeah they’ll both get you to where you want to get to but one will do it a lot nicer. Currently I’m in Mondeo territory. Lol.
Ultimately there is nothing wrong with whatever you choose to use and I can make a nice beat with pretty much anything, It’s just I know, let me rephrase that I’m pretty certain that I’m not going to get the sound I want from a PC.
Guinness?
Kyza's 'The Experience' LP is out late September on Pepa. Keep your eyes open for future Caramac productions...
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© ukhh.com 2006
Caramac Interview
Considering you’ve worked with some of the biggest names in the scene do you sometimes feel unrecognised because you’re behind the boards? And how does this affect you?
Are you still down with Pepa records?
Would you (or have you) ever considered doing any non-hip hop production? If so what??
One word answer section:phat or wack-
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