Krucial Redirection
No one can challenge that r&b producer Krucial’s credentials sustain his name-value. On a more tangible level, Kerry "Krucial" Brothers’ updated resume is equally staggering:
His production-led albums have sold over 20 million units. He is Co-CEO of Krucial Keys Enterprises, the Midas-touch production and artist-management company he shares with r&b/pop phenom Alicia Keys. He owns the state-of-the-art recording studio in Long Island that he calls The Oven Studios.
He has won two Grammy Awards - one of which for this year’s Best r&b Song of The Year - no surprise - Alicia Keys’ hit single, "No One," which will also be recognized as one of the most performed songs of 2007 by the ASCAP/Pop Awards this month. Yet, if you’d asked Krucial twelve years ago where he would be now, he would’ve probably painted a picture of SoundScan documenting the praises for the umpteenth time of one of his successful hip-hop albums. Now, his recent successes notwithstanding, if you’d asked him the same thing just two years ago, the only change would be is that the album would have a name. A change-in-course re-routed it all, but what does it take to not only adapt to but excel from that change?
Knottwire caught up with Krucial while he was recently in New York to find that out.
"God sets up things for you that you might want, but you didn’t exactly know to go about it that way to get it."
Krucial
Knottwire.com: Since you’ve had so much success with one particular artist, in one particular genre, do you feel the need to recreate your image in the public eye?
Krucial: No, not really. I don’t want to recreate my image. I am, however, working with new artist now. I’m in the studio with Robert Randolph, who doesn’t do r&b - and I’m really looking to branch out and show people that I just do music.
Knottwire.com: Before you were producing Grammy award-winning r&b, you were a hip-hop emcee and producer in New York. Do you feel like you’ve fallen into r&b?
Krucial: I mean, in a way I felt like I kind of fell into it because it definitely wasn’t in the plan. God sets up things for you that you might want, but you didn’t exactly know to go about it that way to get it. So that goes to the saying: "Sometimes you just gotta’ leave it in God’s hands." The ultimate goal is: You want to do music, and you want your music to be heard. I didn’t know how exactly to go about that. I had one plan, and it ended up going another way. At first, I was a little intimidated because I really didn’t know r&b - I am all about these beats and samples and whatever. Then I really took the time to look at it and was like, "What am I sampling?" I’m sampling the classic r&b and the classic soul. It really just made me open my eyes more and see that I did know more about music than I led myself to believe in the beginning.
Knottwire.com: Starting Krucial Keys and creating The Oven Studios - did that come as a result of your success in the industry, or is that something you had always planned on?
Krucial: It’s something that’s been planned on. I mean, in the beginning, I always was very independent-minded and just really self-sufficient. To be self-sufficient was important to me. I always had little pieces of equipment to try to make music with in the beginning. In the early days of just doing music and stuff, I used to always have people come by to the crib and have ciphers and stuff. Alicia was one of the people to come through. We would make music in the apartment. From that point on, people started seeing that we had something together. We decided: "Hey, let’s just be partners," and from there we just always kept investing in equipment. In all essence, I always had my own studio set-up, so it only made sense when you start growing, you grow with your set-up as well. So Krucial Keys basically started like in ninety-six when we became partners and doing music to work on her first project, whichd idn’t come out until six years later.
Knottwire.com: What advantages does owning your own studio give you?
Krucial: The obvious: Being able to create music the way you want on your own time without having the pressures of "Oh, we gotta’ hurry up cause we’re booked in this time" and "This costs this" - you know what I’m saying? Being able to have your own company! As a kid, I always wanted to own my own business, and I always wanted to do music, but for some reason in the beginning it didn’t dawn on me, "Hey, own something in the music business." It’s definitely an advantage to be a master of your own destiny.
Knottwire.com: Does it protect you from anything?
Krucial: It gives you a better mind-state. When you’re working for someone else’s company or you don’t have that independent mind, you might water your stuff down, or cater, or twist your stuff up, or compromise a little too much in order to satisfy what the company wants. Being the fact that when you own your own thing you kind of keep that thing as it is. You say: "I’m putting my money into it, and I’m taking the risk," and you feel better about it. Win or loose, at least you did it your way. Whereas, you know you don’t wanna’ do something that you didn’t really want to do, or you had no choice, and then it doesn’t work. Then, you’re really double-kicking yourself. Plus, you owe that company money. You know what I mean? So, it definitely gives you a new point of view. I always felt like the new stuff or the most creative and risky stuff comes from the independents. The majors never take the chance. They only take the chance on stuff that always works. In order to feel free to do music, you kind of have to have that independent attitude.
Knottwire.com: Do you think there will be a time when independents will never need the major labels?
Krucial: Well, I’ve been fortunate to be part of the best of both worlds with Alicia being an artist on a major label. I have also put out EPs on my own. Do you need a major as far as being a household name quicker than taken twenty years? Yes, you need a major to do that. Do you really need a major to make a living? No, you don’t. So, it all depends on what you’re looking for. With the technology today you can get your music heard internationally. You can get your music heard easily without it being a high cost. People get more into ways to buy music digitally. Digital distribution is much easier, and it’s less of a cost of actually manufacturing CDs. That’s an advantage. It all depends on what you want to do, and what your in it for. If you want to be a superstar always on TV, yeah, you could use a major, but in this day and time you really have to kind of do it first independently. You find your mom and pops or you just go digital until you find it necessary to press up CDs. Once you’re doing your thing and you’re moving units and your getting all these downloads, then you attract the attention of the majors anyway.
Knottwire.com: You have been working with some of those artists under Krucial Keys for some time now. Do you find it a struggle to keep them patient when they are so hungry?
Krucial: Indeed. It’s always a balance of what you’re doing, but everyone needs to understand the big picture. Really, we’re focusing on just building the brand and bringing the sound out more. It’s all a set-up. We put things on hold. Everybody wants to be out now, but they trust what we’re doing, and the set up is going to be correct. The foundation and the artist development isthere, which is almost absent in these days and times. It will be well-appreciated in the long run.
Knottwire.com: Now Take da Hood Back is an EP you came out with a couple of years ago and an ongoing blog in the Krucial Keys web site. Explain to people what it represents.
Krucial: Taking back the control, the idea, and the concept. You know what I mean? If you think about every prominent hood that’s supposed to be the most dangerous places, all those hoods used to be a very prosperous hood. They used to be affluent. They used to have a lot of jobs and different things. People came there. Somewhere along the line, that has been taken away. Out of desperation, everything got AWOL. Now, we got this generation thinking that’s the way the hood should to be. You got people coming in and taking over the neighborhood doing whatever they want. You got the police running rampant. You got all kinds of everything going on in the hood. No one is really looking out for each other. Really, that’s what it’s about. Taking it back to the time where if you’re cutting up, and somebody saw you they told your mama. They told your grandmother, and everybody is kind of looking after each other.
Knottwire.com: Wasn’t there supposed to be an album coming out?
Krucial: I pretty much put it on hold to get the production grind on. I didn’t want to be selfish to the other artists. I really want to make sure that I keep my sound out there and keep the momentum going. I’m in the process of keeping the Take da Hood Back momentum going by doing documentaries on different neighborhoods in America. We are going to start out with DVDs and eventually work out into an independent film. It’s still in development. What really inspired me was all these DVDs in the hood talking about different things in the hood. The whole concept is showing things in the hood, but also showing other things like how the hood got that way. You draw your judgment on if you are proud of it being that way. We are in the whole process of keeping that going. We’re even adding soundtracks. We go to different neighborhoods. We get local emcees, producers, artists and poets. We give them a chance to be on the soundtracks along with the DVD. We interview prominent people from the neighborhood. So the Take da Hood Back movement is still going.
Knottwire.com: So the album is no more?
Krucial: Well, the album is pretty much going to start to be soundtracks. What happened was I went to Medgar Evers College to do a show. For some reason there was a typo, and everyone was waiting for the Take da Hood Back documentary. I had professors come up to me like, "Yo, I only came here to see the Take da Hood Back documentary. Where is the movie?" And I was like, "Wait a minute." They misprinted; there was another documentary, and it was my EP being featured, but I said: "You know what? Since y’all brought that up, that’s what I should do." That’s what really sparked the idea and made it grow into something. That’s what it’s really all about, man. That’s the beauty of being independent. You go out there. You get on the grind. You meet people. You hear people directly. They give you ideas of what they want, what they expect, or what they need. You just take it from there and you grow. That’s the beauty of it. It started out as just an idea for an EP and then later be an album. Then it turns into something bigger, and we are still making it grow.
Knottwire.com: There are some prominent black leaders who argue that hip-hop is perpetuating the decline of our neighborhoods.
Krucial: I don’t think that hip-hop is perpetuating it. I think hip-hop is just a reflection of what’s going on. You look at the late ’80s and early ’90s; a lot of hip-hop was very conscious and very anti-violence and anti-drugs. That is what was going on in the neighborhoods. So hip-hop is always a reflection. It’s not the cause of what’s going on. It’s always a reflection. The unfortunate thing is there are still people that still feel like: "Yo, we need to clean up the hood. We need to protect our children," but to the majors, it don’t seem like it’s very commercially viable, so they don’t promote that and push it. It’s easier to push the ignorance. It’s easier to push the funny stuff.
Knottwire.com: Do you think there is still soul in mainstream hip-hop right now?
Krucial: I think there is not enough being heard. Mainstream is whatever is popular at the moment. Right now, America is still a very gangster culture. We like gangster movies. We like gangster rap. We like gangster anything. It’s always been that way. We always like the bad guy. We always like the crazy guy in the mainstream. God forbid something really bad happens; then all of a sudden people want to hear what’s really going on. Like during the ’70s, like during the late ’80s, like during the ’60s. Things go in cycles
Knottwire.com: What do you think about the surge of "Beat CDs" going on in production right now?
Krucial: I think it can work if the artist and the producer or beat maker have met before and they know each other’s style or vibe. If you never met someone, it could still work, too, but you do lose something. You do lose a lot. The unfortunate thing is that there are thousands and thousands of beat makers, and there are only one thousand producers. I think what happens is a lot of A&Rs kind of look at it like that: "These are just beat makers. We don’t really need them to do a record." They don’t know the difference between having a producer to sit there and say, "Yeah, that verse is hot, but you know what? Maybe flow it like this," or: "Maybe omit this, and use this as a hook." It’s almost like they are really jerking themselves. They’re not getting everything they can get out of the producer. You lose something. I think sometimes you can tell that. That is why a lot of these records don’t last. They don’t have time to sit there and make it the best record. Just like everything else now days - it’s all instant gratification. "Yo, you know what? I don’t want to fly this guy and book some time. Just e-mail me the beat, and he can do it whenever he can." It could get records done quick. It can get records done, but I think, personally, that you do lose something. I think it does reflect overall. That’s why the music doesn’t last. Some of the most creative stuff and the best songs can come from an artist and producer just having a conversation at lunch. They spark a great idea for a song. If you’re just sending tracks to each other, you might not have that conversation that might have the great song idea.
Knottwire.com: Have you ever produced a track without physically being in the studio?
Krucial: I have sent tracks out, but not really. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to, at least, get the artist in the studio. Sometimes they might get a shot to do their thing and send it over, but, at least, I had a chance to meet that artist and know that artist before I just sent it out. It wasn’t like we were total strangers; we never even talked; we never even met. It was nothing like that.
Knottwire.com: You’re on the road and overseas a lot now. Are you finding the time to make tracks?
Krucial: Definitely, I got to keep that. I’m like an addict. If I don’t do music in a couple of days I get withdrawal. You know what I mean? I got to keep something with me.
Knottwire.com: What gear do you use in those situations?
Krucial: I’ll keep a laptop. I’ll keep the Digi 002 set-up with Pro Tools. Definitely keep an MPC drum machine with me. That’s all I really need to get them basic ideas down. In my hard drive I just grab my files. When I get to a studio, I just transfer it over and do what I got to do.
Knottwire.com: So do you consider yourself a gear head?
Krucial: Of course - whenever I could get something - you know what I mean? But it’s really about looking at it as an investment. It’s not just "I’m buying some toys" or whatever. This helps me do what I need to do.
Knottwire.com: What kind of projects are you looking forward to in the studio?
Krucial: I’m just really staying on the grind. Like I said, I am in the studio with Robert Randolph. I’m probably going to do most of his album, and it’s really coming along great. I’m really excited about him. I kid with him all the time. I’m like: "I’m going to get you on urban radio. Don’t worry about it" (laughs). I just finished doing two great songs with Anthony Hamilton. There are a couple of new guys coming out. I’d really like to talk about it after it’s done. Just be assured that you’re definitely going to hear a lot more from Kerry "Krucial" Brothers this year in terms of production and songwriting. I am just really keeping that movement going.
"Do you need a major as far as being a household name quicker than taken twenty years? Yes, you need a major to do that. Do you really need a major to make a living? No..."
Krucial
"Just be assured that you’re definitely going to hear a lot more from Kerry "Krucial" Brothers this year..."
Krucial