Shafiq has done a lot. One-third of the brilliant Sa-Ra Creative Partners, he has learnt to cut-n-scratch with Afrika Bambaata, worked with electro don Egyptian Lover, dropped his talents into Ice T’s Rhyme Syndicate, been signed on to a major label by Kanye West before being dropped just before the release of their album and written songs for the likes of Erykah Badu. More recently, he has released his new solo album which is out now. We decided to catch up with Shafiq and talk about how he sees the current state of the music industry.

What was your thinking to do a solo album? Was being a trio with the rest of Sa-Ra Creative Partners restrictive for your personal music output?
Actually, SRCP inspired this. there is just so much music we have. As artists, we can only really put out an album a year. An album can only have up to 16 tracks really. It’s a shame that only 16 songs a year can come out. By default, for 3 individuals, we need to work on extra projects.

What’s been the main differences between working on your own and working with a group?
The process of making this album was similar. We (SRCP) normally go through a filtering system where someone would write a song and we would add or change parts of it… with this, it was just me. It is still the same process but where I don’t have to bounce it off the other people but just with myself. I had to trust myself more.

So what happened with you being dropped from Kanye West’s label G.O.O.D.?
It’s simple really. Sony Music totally cut the urban department. The only people they kept on the roster was like Beyonce and John Legend. Kanye was in a position where he could try and move on with the label or give everyone back their masters. Kanye actually helped us by setting us free and letting us get out of the project…. but it also hindered us. People were hesitant to then work with SRCP. People still didnt really believe in us, even with Kanye signing us. Everyone was standing on the side and waiting to see what Kanye would do with us.

Has that left a sour taste in your mouth after that experience with major labels?
It goes back to what i was saying about only being able to put out 16 songs a year when you go through a record label. The majors are so methodical in how they put out records, you might not get your shot. So dealing with them as an artists can be a frustrating process.

In this day and age: dealing with digital downloads, the internet, blogs, myspace… independent (and prolific) artists such as Sa-Ra or a Madlib can use the internet nowadays to outlet their music. The major labels are now forced to sign whole writing or production teams… whole companies are being brought into 360 deals so they can more money off artists rather just off record sales.

So for a company like Sa-Ra, we don’t necessarily have to deal with a major label. We have more flexibility.

Who influences you?
From Monk to Punk.

We all started in hip-hop roots. Back then it wasn’t hip-hop music, it was just hip-hop. Hip-hop was Michael Jackson, hip-hop was Led Zepellin, David Bowie, Parliament, Prince… we just used to play it in our hip-hop culture, so it became hip-hop.

If you are part of the beat digging generation and you’ve been collecting records (like us) since the 80s, and it’s 2009 now, then you have come across so many different types of music that it is impossible to not be influenced by the music that you’ve come across. The mind is like a tape recorder and it never stops taping. On the conscious and the sub-conscious.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 02:30 and is filed under Interviews, Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.