INTERVAL is a series of Documentary short films featuring people I greatly admire. I don’t prepare anything, nor do I ask anyone else to. There’s no voice over, no talking heads.
When I reached out to Del to film his installment of INTERVAL, he responded immediately with an invite to come through for Manik Mondaze. As the name implies, every Monday Del brings together emcees and producers for a musical free for all at his place. Beats are made, rhymes are written. The tracks get released within days of recording.
And the songs are fucking GOOD. Fanatik, who made one of my favorite beats ever - Rasco’s “Unassisted”, handles a lot of the production, along with Jav the Dentist. When Dope ERA founder and freestyle king Mistah FAB came through, it was two worlds colliding:
So I showed up at around 7pm thinking I’d be early, but things were in full swing. Baslonious Funk, Lord Takim, and Eye Cue were recording a podcast, Fanatik was getting the studios (yes, plural) ready, and Del came out and handed me a beer. It had been a minute; we caught up, talked about some projects that he’s working on, music that we’re listening too, and he showed me his Meow Boogle tattoo that inspired his character on The STACK Machine (more on that in a future post).
As the night went on, more people showed up and the samplers, mics, and keyboards that filled every inch of the house came to life. Baslonius was freestyling over a beat in the living room while a whole other session could be heard down the hall. People were playing beats on their phones and laptops. There was a lot going on. Not gonna lie, in terms of filming, I didn’t even know where to start. Until Finn Stobbe walked in, bass in hand.
Finn is an incredible bass player who I knew from Del’s Eleventh Hour tour. Chill dude from Santa Cruz, always has a smile and something positive to say. I forgot to ask him if he’s still into Magic the Gathering; I’m guessing yes.
He headed to a room where Del was setting up to record. Perfect. I perched in a corner of the room while Finn tuned his bass. Del cued up a drum loop for Finn to play to. As Finn started to find a groove (which didn’t take long) I hit record.
What followed was a rare look at Del as a producer. Yes, he’s most known as a virtuoso emcee, but his beats are also top tier. He produced most of his absurdly dope Eleventh Hour album, and “If You Must” and “Mistadobalina” are classics as far as I’m concerned.
You learn a lot about a producer by watching how they guide a session. Del steers it in one direction - the funk.
The best part about most studio sessions, other than the music, are the conversations that pop up. The topics of that day were crazy tech conspiracies and family. Del’s father is an amazing abstract artist - his work is on the Eleventh Hour cover. I was on the tour for that record and I never got sick of looking at that artwork.
Once the bass parts make it to a song, you may or may not recognize them. Hell, they might be used on nine different songs. They’ll be chopped, time stretched, distorted…who knows. But the foundation is built with skill and intention, and that’s the beauty of it.
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