The sound of L.A. group Sa-Ra Creative Partners is hard to pin down. Their brand of psych urban music straddles the line between funk, soul and hip-hop. It references Funkadelic, Prince, Sly & the Family Stone and J Dilla, but ultimately the music manages to sound like nothing you've ever heard. It's jerky electro, ethereal hip-hop and secular gospel. It's beautiful music that is, at times, difficult to listen to. Consisting of (from left, in photo at left) Om'Mas Keith, Taz Arnold, and Shafiq Husayn, the group became darlings of the underground in 2005 with a series of 12-inches and remixes. They released their debut album, The Hollywood Recordings, in 2007, and followed up this year with Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love. In that time, an entire echo-system of psychedelic soul acts sprang up, but Sa-Ra remain at the forefront. Even if you haven't heard of the group, it's likely that your favorite artist has. The trio has worked with Erykah Badu, Kanye West, Dr. Dre and John Legend, among many others. In fact, Keith is currently serving as Diddy's musical director.
We recently caught up with Om'Mas Keith. By chance, we spoke with him on the afternoon of June 25, just when the news of Michael Jackson's death was reported. We discussed Jackson's influence on the group, as well as a wide range of subjects including Thelonious Monk's funeral, Keith's father, the group's future, and the influence of Sly and the Family Stone.
Keith: Michael Jackson dead at 50, breaking news. It's officially 3:24 Pacific Standard Time. Wow. I just don't even understand -- I just left a meeting with a power player over at Paradigm Agency in Beverly Hills, and was just informed that Michael Jackson is looking for tracks. I'm looking at a piece of paper written by a f*cking mega agent at an agency right now. Two days ago she wrote Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is looking for music, and the go-to is Peter Lopez. It's like … wow!
Rhapsody: I don't think anybody saw this coming. Maybe his family did or something, but I don't think anyone in the music industry saw this coming.
Well, we all know what cardiac arrest means for people in their 50s. It means an unhealthy lifestyle -- or whatever it means, there was something going on that Michael wasn't telling nobody about. Whatever; we're gonna find out. But all I know is that his work with Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton changed the entire world.
Yeah, yeah it did.
Three of my heroes. Three of the Sa-Ra's heroes: Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton. Three people that are all visionary. Those are the people we follow. We follow in the line of our ancestors who know about process, procedure, strategy, politics, manipulation, war, pact.
As far as process, as far as actually building music, what can you say about what you took from the people you mentioned?
What you learn from the masters is that there is really no way to go about making music other than the path of least resistance. So what that typically has meant for people who are really successful is they just do it without anyone bothering them or without anyone getting in the way -- unresisted creative flow. For some people, that may mean not allowing people into your cipher when you create, so that you can work as efficiently as you may need to. For other people, that may require allowing many, many people around you, so that you may work as efficiently as you may need to. And then of course you have everything in between, which also includes having no one around and then having someone around within the same day. Knowing when to pull the trigger, knowing when you need to be alone, and knowing when you gotta call m*th*r f*ck*rs in to get the sh*t done. That's what Quincy knew. Quincy knew how to sit there, at his piano with a cigarette, maybe a shot of Jack Daniels, and score the damn film. And then take a break, and make the phone call and call in Hubert Laws and call in Ron Carter and call in Eddie Van Halen and cut the record, and get it popping. It's stages, so that's process, procedure. You have to know the task at hand. Ok, we're gonna make a record, what do we have to do? Whatever we have to do we know in the end we have to have vocals, we have to have instruments, we have to have songs, chords and ideas.
You come from a musical pedigree; your parents are jazz musicians, right?
Yeah, absolutely -- not only my parents, but my grandparents. My great-grandfather was f*ckin' George Gershwin's copyist.
Were you introduced to jazz when you were a kid? Was that always the atmosphere?
Oh yeah; well, my parents were traditional jazz musicians in every sense of the word. In the womb … Thelonious was playing in the womb. I was at Thelonious' funeral. I was there with my father. I was in Straight, No Chaser. I was born in 1976. Thelonious died in the '80s. I have a very fond memory -- I have a very unusual memory, a kind of macabre. That was my first experience of death! It was seeing Thelonious lying in St. Peter's church in Manhattan.
How old were you? Did you appreciate what you were seeing?
I was probably five. All I know is that I was a drummer, and Max Roach was in the house band at the funeral. So I remember specifically Max being my hero at that very young age; because I was a drummer by the time I was three, I remember Max Roach! Sitting in the pews, man. I was very conscious. I remember I was a little weirded out, even now I'm recalling the feeling -- it was weird. Because my dad was so a part of the New York jazz scne. My dad was one of Miles [Davis'] great friends, my dad was one of Thelonious Jr.'s greatest friends. My dad knew f*ckin' John Coltrane. My father made his career as an avant-gardist. Playing with cats like Lester Bowie and Sun Ra. My father was in Sun Ra's band.
Who was your father?
His name was Michael Keith. You can do some research. You know he was just one of those cats that was on the scene. He was savvy. Truth be told my dad was a dope dealer, too; don't get it twisted. That was the order of the day.
Yeah, avant-garde jazz musicians probably don't make that much money.
I mean come on, man. Especially avant-garde ones who are playing f*cking sh*t that no one gets anyway, in that era. So my parents were hippies, man. They got it. They knew it was about peace, love and having fun.
Do you carry over those sensibilities into your life and music?
Hell yeah. All of us do. As the Sa-Ra we are channelers of truth and channelers of the majesty of our ancestors. We channel the majesty of our ancestors. That's one of our main goals of life is to do that.
You can hear that. You can hear so many different threads of modern music within your music.
It's part of the repertoire; I was just talking about that today. Listen, people don't even use the word anymore, because they're so far detached from what that encompasses. For us, it's a nonstop quest to upload information.
I love that you guys did that "Just Like A Baby" on the new album.
Oh!
It was funny -- when I got this promo and put it in I didn't really look at the track listing, and I was kinda listening through it and I was like, I can hear some Sly & the Family Stone here, definitely.
And there it was, right there. That's so funny that you mention that because Questlove hit me and he was like, "Man, I know y'all got the original masters to do that." And it was like, "Nah. We just went in and did that." See, "Just Like a Baby" was a science experiment. "Just Like a Baby" could be parallel to a college-level master project, so to speak. We said we are going to go here and use what we know, to have then the technology embodied on the original recording, and go ahead here and do a cover of it. Do a rendition. But in our rendition we're going to try and go verbatim, sonically. And I think we achieved that because our approach was probably just like Sly, and because our equipment was probably just what he had.
But were y'all driving around L.A. in an ice cream truck with a bunch of cocaine? Isn't that how Sly recorded "There's a Riot Goin' On"?
He had the truck outside. He would often just have the truck parked outside the mansion and would rather be in the truck recording than be up in the house. Yes. We wasn't in an ice cream truck, but we're students of music, man. We speak to people, we know cats that were around, we saw the pictures. We know, "Oh, he's using this? Oh this was the mike placement? Oh you mean to tell me it was an Omni microphone, there was only one overhead? Oh!" I mean you know what I mean? All that type of sh*t. "You mean they didn't use 16 microphones on the f*cking drums like they do now? And make that sh*t sound so crisp that you can't even take it?" No, it's just one. Get back to basics. Don't make it so hard on yourself.
You guys working on any new music?
We're making new music every day. I'm working on a solo record. I have a joint-venture deal with a company called Plug Research. Shafiq has a joint-venture deal with a company called Plug Research. Taz is currently working on his solo album, and we're finishing his solo album up. So before the end of the year, you will see the release of yet another Sa-Ra record and three individual and unique solo records for the members of the group. So five releases in one year, if we can even pull out four -- but I'm gonna make sure that we deliver five releases by the end of the year.
What label are they all gonna be on?
Well right now this one's on Babygrande, both mine and Shafiq's are gonna be on Plug Research, Taz is closing his deal so we can't speak on that right now, that's private information. And the Black Fuzz album, which is probably what we're going to release at the end of the year, is in negotiation right now with all the major labels in the game. So right now we're in a position where all the four majors are bidding on us, and it's gonna be funny because the very same label that we severed our ties with is in fact indirectly the same label that may in fact put this album back out again -- after they paid for it and let it go, they 'bout to pay for it again! Ain't that a b*tch?
Are you guys working on the new Erykah Badu album?
Yeah. In fact I just received my first bit of paperwork from the label today; that's funny you mentioned that, because right before I got on the phone with you I got on the phone with my lawyer confirming the producer declarations and all the agreements coming in for the work on the new record.
Yeah, I know your work on that album blew a lot of people's minds. Is your work on the new one going to be a continuation of that?
I would like to hope so. For anyone who doesn't know, the Associated Press listed her album as one of the best f*cking albums of last year.
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