SELECTED WORKS #15

A week (plus) in Aotearoa New Zealand, Rest In Peace Double K.

REST IN PEACE DOUBLE K

On the 30th of January, Michael Turner aka Double K, one half of the legendary Los Angeles hip-hip duo People Under The Stairs passed away at home. He was 43 years old, far too young to go, but when I think about the exit interview the group gave The Los Angeles Times in February 2019 after the release of their final album, Sincerely, The P., sadly more inevitable than I want to admit.

People Under The Stairs are one of those groups that often get described as cult or underground. They spent the better part of twenty-two years powering through the limitations of those tags and connecting with audiences all over the world. Along the way, they released fifteen albums and compilations. Down here in New Zealand, we love People Under The Stairs. They played some legendary shows on visits here, and the music always resonated with the local hip-hop community.

Around the same time that they released their sixth album, Fun DMC, I profiled them for the now defunct New Zealand hip-hop magazine Back2Basics. Sadly, I only spoke with Double K’s counterpart, Christopher Portugal aka Thes One. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to republish it today. Thirteen years might have passed, but in a sense, it still all feels like yesterday.

Rest In Peace, Double K. Your humor, talent and craftsmanship always shined through. We miss you.

BACK2BASICS: PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS PROFILE (2008)

Hailing from Los Angeles, California, B-boys turned rappers and producers Thes One and Double K (collectively known as People Under The Stairs) announced their arrival in the international underground Hip Hop community in 1998 with their debut album The Next Step. Recorded over two years in their home studios, PUTS initially hustled The Next Step straight from their backpacks on the street corners before securing a release deal with OM Records.

Focusing on a sound derived from the golden age of soulful rap music (Circa 1991 to 1995), with The Next Step, which featured the Gabor Szabo sampling opus magnum ‘San Francisco Knights’ and then their critically acclaimed sophomore release 2000’s Question in The Form of an Answer, alongside the likes of Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples and Ugly Duckling, PUTS were heralded as logical successors to the sunny weather rhymes of The Pharcyde, and placed in contrasting juxtaposition against the Zapp recalling G-Funk which dominated the left coast during the late 90s and early 2000s.

Admittedly, PUTS have never seen the same commercial sales/show attendance spike that singles such as ‘What’s Golden’ secured for Jurassic 5, however some would attribute their long-term underground success to having come close to, but never quite crossed that hallowed borderline.

Reflecting on their halcyon days, Thes One offers a humorous account of the origins of PUTS to me, straight down the phone line from LA.

“When we met I was making beats in high school and [so was] Double K, at another high school across town. We kind of knew about each other and I’d say it was like a rivalry thing, cause his crew, his friends, would say, ‘he’s better then you’, or whatever. We met each other in this record store, and we went to the car and played our beats for each other, and we realised at that point that we were the only dudes who really cared that much about music. All the guys were MCs and we were the only guys out of all these dudes who were trying to sample and make things, chop things up... I didn’t know anyone who was making beats and neither did he. We were reading magazines and trying to figure out how to do stuff. So when we met each other it was like, ‘boom!’ Now we’re gonna start working together, because we get each other. Once that happened there was a whole lot of MCs who weren’t getting beats anymore,” he laughs. “It’s the two music guys who are now working together, everyone’s screwed!”

Following up Question in the Form of an Answer with 2002’s O.S.T, and it’s companion EP Or Stay Tuned (2003) and then 2006’s Stepfather, releasing fun-filled, soul and funk driven Hip Hop afforded PUTS the opportunity to travel the globe touring, and learn a thing or two about the world outside of LA.

“One of the things I feel most blessed about touring and travelling is that it’s really opened our minds a lot,” Thes One offers. “When me and Double K started travelling, we had very limited food palettes, you know what I mean? We didn’t grow up in a household that was like that, you know? We would eat burgers and fries and that was pretty much it. We had to laugh at ourselves recently, cause when we were on tour, Double was like, ‘Yeah, I feel like getting some squid tonight’, and that’s so not us.”

During their intense schedule of international performances and music releases, PUTS have had the opportunity to touch down at our end of the ditch twice; and an impression was definitely made.

As Thes One relates, “Last time we were there [in New Zealand], we were sitting at a cafe at about noon, and we were looking at the [Sky] tower [in Auckland] and we were sitting there drinking beers looking at the tower, and Double K was like, ’I know you wouldn’t do that’, and I was like, ‘You know I would do that’, and he was like, ‘Nah you wouldn’t do that’, and I was like, You know I would’. So I ended up [bungy] jumping off the [Sky] tower! So that’s my last memory of being there. Just all together [it was] a great time man. It’s a beautiful country, and great crowds too; I just loved being there.”

On the 20th of September 2008, PUTS released their excellent sixth studio album Fun DMC, a throwback homage to the days of Run DMC, which in terms of arrangement and sonic qualities owes as much to Brian Wilson as it does to vintage video game music or Dr. Dre, and comes complete with a comic book written by the rappers themselves.

In Thes One’s words, “Now that it’s ten years since the first record, we have a different [outlook] you know? When we look back at what we done, we look back at the music we’ve made and the music we’re making more from a catalogue perspective. I guess what I’m trying to say is, when we go in there and make music, we don’t just make music, we go in there and we think, ‘okay, what have we done, what haven’t we done’. Fun DMC was a record we hadn’t made yet, that we felt like we wanted to make. We really just wanted to capture an afternoon and a night here in LA, like a barbeque. So we set out to do it and one of the ways that we did it is we recorded a lot of it live, out at a barbecue in South Central, using mikes and field recording techniques and whatever. It was a lot of fun, all the partying that you hear on the album is real partying... It was a different type of record for us, we really had to think through the record and how we wanted to accomplish it and we’re really happy with how it came out.”

If you’d like to buy some of People Under The Stairs music, they have a bandcamp page and it is loaded with treats (click here).

“ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE” - JENNY HOLZER

Eight days ago, Stuff.co.nz’s #metooNZ project published the results of a months-long investigation into the New Zealand music industry. Led by senior Stuff.co.nz journalist Alison Mau, the investigation paints a vivid picture of the industry's harmful inequalities, as illustrated through accounts of how women and non-binary people have been sexually harassed and manipulated by powerful figures they should have been able to trust. If you haven’t already had a chance to go through it, it’s essential reading, full of clear-eyed commentary, reflection, and calls for real change. (Click here) TW/CW

Addendum: As the week unfolded, Alison published a series of ongoing reports following up on how the investigation’s allegations proceeded. You can read them here, here, here, here and here. By the 27th of January, two major local industry figures had had been formally dismissed or stepped down from their roles.

WHAT’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:

Suzanne Vega, Solitude Standing (1987, A&M)

Sample track: ‘Luka’

When I went for a walk today, I felt compelled to listen to Suzanne Vega’s second album, Solitude Standing. You know, the one with ‘Tom’s Diner’ on it (twice). Anyway, here’s a few quick thoughts: Are there any city pop covers of Suzanne’s songs floating around out there? Yes, I know that this record was wildly successful at the time, but does Suzanne get the credit she deserved to transform the everyday mundane (and the horrors that hide behind them) into such vivid dreamscapes? Between the lightness of her voice, the weight of her hyper-attentive lyrics and the evocative musical backdrops they’re presented against, Solitude Standing really is an embarrassment of riches. Does it sound different to how it did 34 years ago, or is it the same? I’m not sure, and I’m not sure that even matters anyway. (Listen here via Youtube)

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!!!