I need to know who Tack fu is, and why don't we hear much coming out of Iowa....

I’ve been living in the state of Iowa about my whole life. Break out your world atlas and check for the long river that runs through the middle of the U.S. called the Mississippi. I was raised by that river in a small town called Clinton. When I decided to go to a 4-year college, I packed my bags for Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. Plenty of national and underground acts have performed here over the years, and there is some local talent as well. However, because the Iowa City is known as a college town (23,000 students in a city with only 50,000 residents) it’s classified as “small market.” So that is a big reason why you don’t hear much coming out of Iowa. It’s just too small of a fan base. 

Who are 85 Decibel Monks? 

Actually, “85 Decibels” refers to the starting point to the amount of noise it takes to loose your hearing over a long period of time. “Monks” is just a term to describe myself and the rest of the fellas…dudes that meditate on the beats. The crew is just a collection of area bedroom producers, with similar software programs, that exchange wav files. They make beats and melodies and pass’em along to me. Sometimes I write a good beat and bassline and have them figure the rest out. Overall they aren’t a very social able bunch, they have girlfriends or wives, a full-time job, never go out and party, or none of that shit. But, they are good at audio production, they all have unique takes on music, and they follow my lead. 

You the guy that played basketball for the Hawkeyes, a dude that could have played in the NBA?

I was a good player off the bench, a good player to have on a basketball team. A hustler, always showed up early for practice, could shoot from long range, pass and dribble well, but not NBA potential. 

The role you play in this game called hip hop is production. Where does a producer find the inspiration to craft beats for other people to use?

My inspiration comes from searching for old forgotten records in antique stores or charity drop-offs for samples. One particular store here in Iowa City will buy old record collections from people, the records the store doesn’t want to buy, the people won’t want back! So they just dump’em outside. I’ve found dozens of good samples for free!

Do you feel producers are getting the respect they deserve?

Sure! Hip-hop music right now has a glut of rappers, so listeners and consumers are getting picky. People hate to hear a good beat get ruined by a wack rapper, it kind’a pisses them off honestly. Some listeners just mentally block out the rapper all together and just concentrate on the beat. People are waking up to the fact that an emcee, no matter how great, never released a gold record with just rhymes and nothing else.

You know getting started as a producer can be very costly. What do you use to manufacture those dishes and what would you say would be a good starting point for all these rookies that are roaming Africasgateway?

A close friend of mine is from South Africa, so I asked her how expensive it is to gather good recording equipment. She said the exchange rates make stereo equipment real expensive. So with that knowledge, I say start out simple…like I did. 
* a receiver (amplifier)
* two speakers (monitors)
* a record player
* a sampler that can record at least 8 seconds of sound
* a 4-track to record your work

I made a whole album with that stuff, and some fans of my music say that period of time was my best work! Maybe it was because I had to think outside of the box to make things work, stretch the equipment to the limit, who knows?

You've worked with Dj Vadim, Blueprint, Braille etc and basically all these collabos took place via the internet?

The internet certainly helped. Some of it was the artists touring through Iowa City and we exchanged phone numbers and demo cds. Email was just another way for us to communicate. All of the artists on the album know their way around a studio, so they would send me raw takes or tracks and I would lace it all together in the lab. That is, in a nutshell, a producers’ job description! 

As a producer was there ever times when u felt like grabbing the mic and just spitting over your own shit or have you accepted that your role is to provide for the rhyme sayers?

Yes, because locally speaking, I deal with a lot of raw talent, so I do a lot of coaching so they can improve their skills. It takes patience…so I’ve thought many times, just go up on stage and show’em how it’s done! I’m mean, just because you can spit rhymes in a ciper or battle everyone in the city and win, that doesn’t make you a good emcee. It takes much, much more than that. For instance, mic control, confidence, the ability to connect with an audience, pronunciation of words, and repetition so the words flow naturally.

Everybody been ranting about Kanye West controlling both the boards and the mic do you feel he has done something special? 

Well…Kanye West may think he has, and then convinced everyone else he’s done something special. Like…I’m supposed to care he was in auto accident and his jaw was busted up? Now I’m supposed to be a fan because he documented that with a music video? He just comes off way to cocky for my tastes. That’s why I like to play the back seat and do the work most people would find tedious and repetitive. Mixing down recordings is a challenging task and personal satisfaction comes from hearing evenly balanced sounds boom from that monitor. I don’t need a music video with my face all over it to document my work…just listen. 

When can we expect to hear new releases?

I don’t know honestly. I’m getting offers from advertisers to produce soundtracks for commercials, TV shows and movies as well. You see…doing these independent, self financed albums from start to finish is really sapping my energy. My drinking habits at this point, because of stress, will land me in rehab soon. Heck, this interview took so long because I just came off a 3-day drinking binge. 

Thanks for talking to the Gateway...

Well, thanks for taking the time to review the records and thank goodness I’m sober enough at this moment to answer the questions. I’m on my 5th beer now and Cubs baseball is about to start. Time to start catching a buzz fo’ real!

Checkout www.tackfu.com for sound and news

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