3 Yrs, 5 mos & 2 Days in the life
The making of a Hip-Hop classic.
Rarely does anybody go into the studio thinking they are producing a moment in classic music history. It's really just about creating and trying to make something that charts new territory in some way. Arrested Development is a unique band of people. And the music was clearly noisy, yet melodic, confusing, yet soothing and clear minded. But the early 90's was a very special time musically. We had Public Enemy, Nirvana, X-clan, Tribe Called Quest. Originality was celebrated and not alienated like it is now.
Speech was organized in the Trax 32 studio in Wisconsin. It seemed like he came from the school of "practice at home, come into the studio with a plan". He was in school at UWM when the group got their first opportunity to record for a major label. Most of the basic tracks were already programmed on an Ensoniq ASR and a Elesis HR-16. He had cases of floppy disks with color coded labels to accompany the various songs. The sound fo the ASR is raw and lo-fi by nature, so the quality of the tracks felt old and rather gritty.
The group as a whole was a very well oiled machine, and it was seemly based on feel rather than organization. If Speech asked the group members to add vocals, their basic role was to do whatever came to their mind at the time.
Headliner had a certain style to his djing, that was reminicent of Eric B. not fancy buy souful and heartfelt, and well researched records. Speech also did a lot of scratching as well. I heard Prince, Sly stone, James Brown and Funkadelic references, with a bit of Blues too.
The vocals of Dionne Farris, Cinque, and the Saxaphone of legendary Larry Jackson would be added in later in Atlanta, Gerogia at BossTown studio's (Bobby Brown fame) now known as Stankonia. (Outkast fame).
One of the unique things about seeing an Arrested Development recording, is the sense that VIBE is everything. Whenever there was tense moment, the group would stop recording and reSTART once the vibes got better. Unlike some groups who use anger as a source or inspiration, AD is the opposite.
