Photo courtesy of Chavez Sound
In 2020 DJ and producer Mark Ski released his first full-length album titled “Catch-REC.” The project boasted verses from underground emcees from Europe and North America. The Northampton native recently dropped his sophomore album that follows the tradition of the first called “RECLESS.”
RECLESS is an 11-track album released by Chavez Sound. The project features appearances by Homeboy Sandman, Booda French, Jake Palumbo, Robb P., Nutso, Guilty Simpson, H3RO, Katiah One, Four Elements & Beyond, FFSYTHO, SoSoon, Tony Dimes, and Rasheed Chappell.
The Real Hip-Hop talked to Mark Ski about how he’s grown as a producer, his love of fast rap, his dream collaborator, and his new album, RECLESS.
TRHH: Explain the title of the new album, RECLESS.
Mark Ski: Okay, so, my first album which I released about four years ago was called Catch-REC. It was a play on the phrase “catch wreck” but rec as in record. So, literally only the continuation from that original album, and it’s similar to like how EPMD used to do the Unfinished Business, Strictly Business, that kind of thing. It was originally going to be called something else, which I’m not gonna tell you because I’m gonna save that [laughs]. But then I submitted a beat to a couple of rappers on there who actually did the title track and I said, “Can you work around this title?” and they just literally went off and came back and put this hook called RECLESS on it and I was like, “Okay, that fits.” So, I just changed the title of the LP to that. But that’s two guys called SoSoon and Tony Dimes who I met when they were over here from your side of the pond and they were doing a gig literally in my hometown. I saw them perform and they were amazing. I was like, “Do you want to feature on this LP?” and they smashed it.
TRHH: How would you compare RECLESS to Catch-REC?
Mark Ski: It’s an evolution. The first album I’d met this producer from New York called J57 because I have my own radio show over here on a local station called Inspiration FM. He’s part of a group called Brown Bag AllStars and I was playing some of their music on my show. I built a relationship with him, he was sending me music, and I just at some point said, “Do you mind if I submit some beats to you?” He’s like, “Yeah, oh these are great. I want to start putting them out.” Literally my first album was more around some work I did with him and some of his affiliates, and Blame One from L.A., and a UK rapper from over here who also is on this album called Booda French.
So, that was the first time I ever did a full-album compared to just releasing singles and instrumental beat tapes and stuff. This project, I feel like as a producer I’ve learned a lot more from the first LP. It’s got a similar amount of tracks on it, but I’ve obviously got some bigger features on there. I think that my production itself has evolved quite a bit since then. So, that’s what I would say. If I go back and listen to Catch-REC now I still love it and I’m really grateful for it. It got a lot of good exposure — the title track got played by DJ Premier and DJ Eclipse on Sirius, but this one I think is just a natural kind of evolution from that.
TRHH: How long did it take you to complete RECLESS with all of the features?
Mark Ski: Ah, right, longer than I anticipated [laughs]. I’d say the first album I did probably took about a year. This one in between, I also have a local rapper I work with who’s based in Northampton, a female rapper called FFSYTHO. We’ve been doing quite a lot of gigs. We did Glastonbury last year, we did Reading and Leeds Festival. We’ve been quite busy gigging, so, that took up some time, and just working with her I kind of focused on that for a while. But certainly, with the amount of features, yeah I anticipated this album to be out probably about 18 months ago [laughs]. It’s four years since the last LP and in between that I have released some instrumental EP’s and things like that, but just literally some of the tracks originally earmarked for it as the project itself grew I’ve put to one side for future projects.
So, that’s part of it as well on my behalf. But just again, as a producer working with other rappers, and this is no criticism of rappers because I’m a DJ, I do scratching and stuff and I understand sometimes people just say, “Oh, do you want to just cut on a beat?” and they send you a beat and sometimes it’s hard to get into. So, I get it sometimes when you send beats to rappers if they wanna do it they can’t creatively maybe meet at the level that they want to on a particular beat, it doesn’t inspire them to the level that they want to. On the tracks where there’s like one feature, quite quick turnaround, but on the tracks where there’s two features like one feature would be done in about a week and then sometimes six or eight months before I got the next feature back. When you’re a producer doing those kind of projects, if you’re not lucky enough to be a producer who raps or vice versa, it turns into a lot more project management than obviously just being creative.
TRHH: The title track is a different tempo than we’re used to hearing in Hip-Hop today. How did that song come together?
Mark Ski: I actually love fast rap tracks and that goes back to when I first got into Hip-Hop. So, when I first started listening to Hip-Hop you’re talking about the era of like Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane –those kind of guys. It was not out of the norm to have a 120, 115 BPM. The Creator – Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Treat ‘em Right – Chubb Rock, that kind of tempo, the more kind of dance focused Hip-Hop tempo was more the thing. Obviously, as Hip-Hop has evolved over the years that slowed down or it’s gone to 75 BPM and you’ve had double time raps with slow beats. But I love fast rap, so I’ve always tried to put tracks of that speed on an album. Because when I play certain DJ gigs out here they get on really well over here. If you play a 120 BPM track people dance, whereas the rest of the stuff is a lot of in the car, head nodding kind of thing.
So, on my previous album there’s also a track on that called “Let it Roll” with MCRE, Think 2wice, and H3RO, who’s also on this album as well, and that’s another 122 BPM kind of track. I always try and look for samples when I’m digging that would fit to do a track like that, because I always want to put a track like that on an LP. I was literally finding a sample and I thought, “I could make something about this” and again, as I’ve discussed earlier I saw these two guys literally in my own backyard from New York. They’ve got a track that they did do live and it’s about 120. I was like, “These guys are doing fast rap stuff!” As soon as they came off stage I was like, “I got this beat for you, I would love you to jump on it.” The beat was already there because I always try to do some joints like that and they were perfect, they smashed it.
TRHH: “Go For Mine” is my favorite joint on the album. The drums are crazy. Are the strings on the song sampled or played?
Mark Ski: Sampled. I know you should never give your sample sources away, which I won’t, but all I will say is for those who want to go digging that is from a Hammer Horror soundtrack. 1960s Hammer Horror soundtrack, I won’t say what it is, but I just chopped it a lot and layered it with filters. Obviously, the hook is an EPMD hook, but all my drums, all my bass, are chopped up samples.
TRHH: What’s in your production workstation?
Mark Ski: MPC Live mainly. Originally, I started out on the 2000, and then the 2500, and then my last album was mainly done on the 5000. I’ve had the Live now pretty much since it came out. I’ve got a few plugins for it. Actually, going back to what you just said actually on Go For Mine, on the chorus there’s just one additional string. Literally just a synth pad string — just one note that’s going over there. So, in the MPC Live I use all my drums and stuff. I don’t use stock drums or anything like that, but I do use the Moog plugin they have. I also use the Roland JUNO one that they have as well. They’re my main go-to’s really.
I did used to have more outboard synths, but as that device has gotten more powerful with updates I’ve been using them less and less. Because it’s just another thing you have to record in. I used to have Logic, my MPC, this goes back to when I had my other MPC’s, and then I’d record, stem all the drums in and all the samples, and then put extra keys on over the top of that in Logic. But now as all these plugins within the MPC Live have got a lot better, so I’m really good. Easier to integrate them, don’t need external mixers bringing everything in, you can just do it all in the MPC, stem it all out, throw it into Logic and then that’s where I add the cuts, I add the vocals, and the mixing happens in there.
TRHH: Do you know how to play keys?
Mark Ski: Not really. I can noodle around. I know what I hear but I’m not professionally trained in any way, shape, or form. I’m literally just a DJ, a sample digger, that’s me, really. I can knock out a melody or bassline, but I wouldn’t get next to anybody who’s trained [laughs]. Not a chance, not a chance.
TRHH: Some of the hooks on RECLESS are like chopped n screwed parts of classic rap records. Did the hooks come before or after the emcees laid their verses?
Mark Ski: That’s really interesting, okay. That’s a really interesting point because I have this discussion often because I find that some emcees I send a beat to and they will just say to me, “You stumped me with that, what do you want me to rhyme on it?” and I’m like, “Well, what do you wanna rhyme on it? It’s whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re inspired by.” And they’re like, “I love the beat” so then I will just send a beat with a hook. But other times like with the RECLESS track I will send beats with the hook and then the rappers would just literally ignore the hook and just “yeah, yeah, yeah.” There’s a couple of tracks on the album because RECLESS wasn’t originally called RECLESS and the track with Guilty Simpson and H3RO on it called “Go Hard” that wasn’t really called Go Hard. That had a different hook, but the bars that Guilty did on it were dope obviously. And then at the end he has that “I go hard” and I just was like, “Okay, I’m changing this hook. I’m going to put different cuts on it in response to his lyrics.”
It depends. “I Get’s Busy” as well with Homeboy Sandman, that had no hook on it. That was literally he did the bars and just ended the rhyme with “I get’s busy” and I was like, “Alright, that’s the hook. Just gonna cut that on it.” “4080” that had the hook in it already. I built that beat literally around that Q-tip hook. I think I was driving and that original Tribe song came on and I just heard that and I thought that would be great if I looped that. I literally looped that hook and then built the beat around it and then submitted it to the rappers. I think that’s the only one. Go For Mine had the hook on it, those two, but the rest of them the beats went out there empty, rappers laid their bars, came back and then it was rearranged and I based the hook around what they recorded.
TRHH: Who spit your favorite verse on RECLESS?
Mark Ski: Oh, mate [laughs]! Okay, I reckon Homeboy Sandman, and that’s no discredit to anybody else on there, because I really like FFSYTHO and Booda French’s verse on 4080. I think Jake Palumbo as well killed it, well, everybody killed it. I don’t wanna single anybody out but I’m a massive fan of Homeboy Sandman, so just the fact that I got him on the project was amazing. And when I sent those beats out and he came back with that I’d have to say that that’s probably my favorite on the LP.
I’m not one of these people that listens to a lot of my music once it’s out there. I kind of do it and then it’ll rest in my library and it’ll come up on the shelf and I’ll be like, “Oh!” If I’m deejaying I’ll drop a few songs in, but I’m not one of these people who religiously listen to my music. It’s more about the process. That track is one where when he sent those bars back there was just loads of levels. There always is with Homeboy Sandman. There’s always to his bars lots of different levels, it’s not just what you hear. Every time you listen to it, it reveals something else. So, I would say that, I Get’s Busy.
TRHH: If you could produce an entire album for one emcee who would it be?
Mark Ski: Ohhhh, man. I’ll tell you something, I do interviews like this myself on my radio station and these are the kind of questions I ask of the people and they’re making the noises that I’m making now and now I feel bad [laughs]. Now I know what it feels like. One emcee, Nas, Egon, Your Old Droog. Your Old Droog.
TRHH: I said one [laughs].
Mark Ski: I know, I’m saying Your Old Droog. I’m going with that. I mean there’s legends but I’ve listened to him for a long time and I love his latest album, so I would say that. But I’d probably do it with Homeboy Sandman if he said he would do it, but Your Old Droog [laughs]. That’s a tough one, man. For real.
TRHH: Who is the RECLESS album made for?
Mark Ski: Me, really. I don’t really kind of go out there thinking I’m making music particularly for anyone. I like what I like. I know there are some producers who just make music for markets or make music for certain audiences, good for them. I’m not criticizing that in any shape or form. Obviously, as you get older and you get exposed to a lot more music, obviously that influences you and it inspires you to want to do different things. I don’t generally think I need to make an album like this for a particular market.
I’ve always been into Hip-Hop, and as a result of that, as most Hip-Hop heads are, they get into lots of other genres through digging, and sampling, and everything else. Hip-Hop as itself changes regularly. I would say that I just generally make the music I like. So, if people are on the same wavelength as me musically and they like kind of 80s era Hip-Hop, boom bap, with a few little pinches of the more contemporary Hip-Hop influences in there, that’s who it’s for.
Purchase: Mark Ski – RECLESS