::: friends ::: malik burke

Interview with Malik Burke
by John Farris

Malik Burke is the leader of Real Live Show.

JF: So how did you come to Real Live Show?

MB: I've been rapping since before high school and we had a rap group called the Eclectic Regiment and I guess around the year 2000 we made friends with these guys - these kids from NYU. Pretty much a bass player, a drummer, a keyboardist and a DJ, and we started doing shows with live musicians. We already had a pretty good following but when we started with the live musicians it took it to a whole new level.

JF: I was going to ask you about that, I was going to mention that you use live musicians rather than sample methods. What musicians have you used over time?

MB: We had a weekly gig at Izzy Bar around '99, 2000, around that time. I was working with this guy Dana Murray, which is how I know Ilhan. Dana Murray was the drummer for Wax Poetic. I traveled, I did a couple of gigs with Wax Poetic as Dana was working with me on Real Live Show. It was easy for us to do both at the same time. Dana brought by Eric Rivas, he was the bass player in Branford Marsalis' band, and Thor from Wax Poetic, and James Hurt on the keys. So we had a pretty good unit for about a year or so. Then me and Dana kind of split and a little disagreement and went our separate ways, and it left a spot in the band for cats to come through. We had different drummers, and all the guys couldn't always show up so it became a competition for all these already ridiculously renowned musicians. This new hip hop thing, it was exciting for them. So through that, weekly, it became a scene for a very high level of musician. We kept everybody's phone number, and whenever we had a gig we always had a really good crowd, so the musicians liked to come play with us, you know?

JF: I was going to talk about the quality, or the disadvantage of sampling to using live musicians, but there's a disadvantage to using live musicians because you have to deal with personalities.

MB: Whoo! Oh yeah. That's been the problem, finding a until that can work together without the egos, and who share a vision of music and who can commit a certain amount of the time in their lives. Yeah, musicians are tough that way, but the end result and the reward is so much higher when than when we're on stage with DAT tapes and CDs. Just sonically, it's not very impressive, and when I look back it just looks very unprofessional for two guys to be shouting over some mix off a CD and it doesn't sound good in the room. It just sounds like a bunch of yelling. So yeah, I'm glad that we grew out of that.

JF: I saw, for example, Nathan Breedlove play.

MB: Who?

JF: I forgot the trumpet player you had with you.

MB: Oh, you mean Roy Hargrove? Yes. He played with us back in the days at Izzy's. And once again, he stopped by on his own. I think he knew Greg Hutchinson, he's still with us, he's been with us for the longest time. Like I said, the guys we play with, we just tell their friends to stop by and sit in in the second set. We always do a first set with the unit, and that was a little more structured - that was just me and Ian on the vocals. Then in the second set we would open up to instrumentalists and vocalists alike. That got us to put a long list of cats on the roster, when you see who's good, or who keeps showing up, or who gets people more excited than anybody else. We definitely benefited from that jam aspect of our show.

JF: Where do you draw your material from?

MB: My lyrics?

JF: Yeah.

MB: They come from my journal every day. From me, sitting on the train, from my every day life. It's about me and my struggle. And my vision, from what I see for myself and the rest of the world in the future. It's about what goes on in my head and my heart.

JF: Wait a minute - you said "lyrics." So you felt more as a rapper, songster, than a poet?

MB: Hmm, that's very interesting. A rapper, a songster - no. I think of myself as a poet, but first I think of myself as an MC, of somebody who's going to have the mic, whose responsibility is to make people think, enjoy themselves and maybe ask themselves a question to re-examine, reflect on everyday life. But sometimes when I look at my stuff on paper, I have to give myself the credit that I am the poet. I think this is the evolution of poetry.

JF: Unbelievable. Do you write poetry outside of the rap format?

MB: It's always outside of the rap format, it comes off of the paper. That's where I write - with a notebook and a pen. If I am so inspired, I'll turn that into something I'll do on the stage. But yeah, maybe 50 percent of what I do stays on the page. I haven't put it together or tried to publish it or anything like that.
JF: Who's in the Real Live Show now?
MB: The Real Live Show is Stimulus and Dionysus into the plans. But for now, he's out of town, so Adam is filling in. All the people that we play with can produce certain things, because all we do is take the live tapes from our shows and try to make songs out of them and grooves that we caught. So if a certain guest was in that night, we call them up and say "hey, can we use this groove?" So all the people that we play with, even though they might not be the unit that we go on the road with, are still very much a part of our music. We like that, because the music is not about seven or eight specific people, and this is our music that we put in the world, it's more about the movement, and the audience, and the energy that we create together as a community that gets injected into the music. It's not about ourselves as individuals.

JF: I'm going to ask a question that I haven't heard anyone ask.

MB: I didn't complete the Real Life Show lineup. The Real Live Show is also Roela LaAmazing and Colt Seavers, the DJ.

JF: And who is the dancer?

MB: That's Roela LaAmazing.

JF: So it's a real show.

MB: Yes. That's the concept behind it.

JF: It's like a revue.

MB: It was supposed to be a reality show. A hip hop reality show about our weekly gig at the Izzy Bar. So we had all kinds of artists, mostly musicians - but we had dancers coming through. Lamay, she was in the Lion King, she has Broadway experience, she's a modern dancer, and she's very close with us. She would always be dancing at the shows, so it happened very organically. We like the fact that we really like to stimulate visually as well as audio, and if you come to the show, you get this full sensory kind of experience rather than - we wear outfits, we're very theatrical - it's not about the bridge, the hook and the chorus. We kick it and talk to the crowd, because music is about everything. You don't always have to be rhyming, we like to incorporate everything.

JF: So what are the goals of the band? Do you envision a point at which you might have to change what you're doing, or do you see that working into at least the foreseeable future?

MB: Well, change is the future, and I welcome it. My vision for the band is to see the world, and my goal, my vision for the music is that the world will inspire our music to change and that we'll have a more - I hate to say global, because it sounds so -

JF: Amorphous?

MB: Yeah. A more worldly approach.

JF: Overview.

MB: Yes.

JF: So you play here at NUBLU.

MB: I'm here at NUBLU, just for the moment. That can change at any time. The Real Live Show is definitely a wild card. I love it here, you know? I work here. Some of my friends - and I consider most people here family - NUBLU is an incredible opportunity to do what I said with the music, you know. Incorporate a whole communal experience into all of our music. And there are so many different representations of music from so many different parts of the world, I feel fortunate to gain that experience. Because I haven't even seen a lot of the places where the music is inspired, but I feel like I've learned from cultures that I haven't been able to touch yet.

JF: Thank you.


					Brazilian Girls Butch Norris Chantal Ughi Charles Stella Clark Gayton Dj Hardedge DJ Renochild Eddie Henderson ElodieO Erik Truffaz Jochen Rueckert John Farris Juini Booth Karina Zeviani Kenny Wollesen Malik Burke Marla Turner Martin Ogolter Petar Santiago U-roy	Interview with Malik Burke by John Farris Malik Burke is the leader of Real Live Show. JF: So how did you come to Real Live Show? MB: I've been rapping since before high school and we had a rap group called the Eclectic Regiment and I guess around the year 2000 we made friends with these guys - these kids from NYU. Pretty much a bass player, a drummer, a keyboardist and a DJ, and we started doing shows with live musicians. We already had a pretty good following but when we started with the live musicians it took it to a whole new level. JF: I was going to ask you about that, I was going to mention that you use live musicians rather than sample methods. What musicians have you used over time? MB: We had a weekly gig at Izzy Bar around '99, 2000, around that time. I was working with this guy Dana Murray, which is how I know Ilhan. Dana Murray was the drummer for Wax Poetic. I traveled, I did a couple of gigs with Wax Poetic as Dana was working with me on Real Live Show. It was easy for us to do both at the same time. Dana brought by Eric Rivas, he was the bass player in Branford Marsalis' band, and Thor from Wax Poetic, and James Hurt on the keys. So we had a pretty good unit for about a year or so. Then me and Dana kind of split and a little disagreement and went our separate ways, and it left a spot in the band for cats to come through. We had different drummers, and all the guys couldn't always show up so it became a competition for all these already ridiculously renowned musicians. This new hip hop thing, it was exciting for them. So through that, weekly, it became a scene for a very high level of musician. We kept everybody's phone number, and whenever we had a gig we always had a really good crowd, so the musicians liked to come play with us, you know? JF: I was going to talk about the quality, or the disadvantage of sampling to using live musicians, but there's a disadvantage to using live musicians because you have to deal with personalities. MB: Whoo! Oh yeah. That's been the problem, finding a until that can work together without the egos, and who share a vision of music and who can commit a certain amount of the time in their lives. Yeah, musicians are tough that way, but the end result and the reward is so much higher when than when we're on stage with DAT tapes and CDs. Just sonically, it's not very impressive, and when I look back it just looks very unprofessional for two guys to be shouting over some mix off a CD and it doesn't sound good in the room. It just sounds like a bunch of yelling. So yeah, I'm glad that we grew out of that. JF: I saw, for example, Nathan Breedlove play. MB: Who? JF: I forgot the trumpet player you had with you. MB: Oh, you mean Roy Hargrove? Yes. He played with us back in the days at Izzy's. And once again, he stopped by on his own. I think he knew Greg Hutchinson, he's still with us, he's been with us for the longest time. Like I said, the guys we play with, we just tell their friends to stop by and sit in in the second set. We always do a first set with the unit, and that was a little more structured - that was just me and Ian on the vocals. Then in the second set we would open up to instrumentalists and vocalists alike. That got us to put a long list of cats on the roster, when you see who's good, or who keeps showing up, or who gets people more excited than anybody else. We definitely benefited from that jam aspect of our show. JF: Where do you draw your material from? MB: My lyrics? JF: Yeah. MB: They come from my journal every day. From me, sitting on the train, from my every day life. It's about me and my struggle. And my vision, from what I see for myself and the rest of the world in the future. It's about what goes on in my head and my heart. JF: Wait a minute - you said "lyrics." So you felt more as a rapper, songster, than a poet? MB: Hmm, that's very interesting. A rapper, a songster - no. I think of myself as a poet, but first I think of myself as an MC, of somebody who's going to have the mic, whose responsibility is to make people think, enjoy themselves and maybe ask themselves a question to re-examine, reflect on everyday life. But sometimes when I look at my stuff on paper, I have to give myself the credit that I am the poet. I think this is the evolution of poetry. JF: Unbelievable. Do you write poetry outside of the rap format? MB: It's always outside of the rap format, it comes off of the paper. That's where I write - with a notebook and a pen. If I am so inspired, I'll turn that into something I'll do on the stage. But yeah, maybe 50 percent of what I do stays on the page. I haven't put it together or tried to publish it or anything like that. JF: Who's in the Real Live Show now? MB: The Real Live Show is Stimulus and Dionysus into the plans. But for now, he's out of town, so Adam is filling in. All the people that we play with can produce certain things, because all we do is take the live tapes from our shows and try to make songs out of them and grooves that we caught. So if a certain guest was in that night, we call them up and say "hey, can we use this groove?" So all the people that we play with, even though they might not be the unit that we go on the road with, are still very much a part of our music. We like that, because the music is not about seven or eight specific people, and this is our music that we put in the world, it's more about the movement, and the audience, and the energy that we create together as a community that gets injected into the music. It's not about ourselves as individuals. JF: I'm going to ask a question that I haven't heard anyone ask. MB: I didn't complete the Real Life Show lineup. The Real Live Show is also Roela LaAmazing and Colt Seavers, the DJ. JF: And who is the dancer? MB: That's Roela LaAmazing. JF: So it's a real show. MB: Yes. That's the concept behind it. JF: It's like a revue. MB: It was supposed to be a reality show. A hip hop reality show about our weekly gig at the Izzy Bar. So we had all kinds of artists, mostly musicians - but we had dancers coming through. Lamay, she was in the Lion King, she has Broadway experience, she's a modern dancer, and she's very close with us. She would always be dancing at the shows, so it happened very organically. We like the fact that we really like to stimulate visually as well as audio, and if you come to the show, you get this full sensory kind of experience rather than - we wear outfits, we're very theatrical - it's not about the bridge, the hook and the chorus. We kick it and talk to the crowd, because music is about everything. You don't always have to be rhyming, we like to incorporate everything. JF: So what are the goals of the band? Do you envision a point at which you might have to change what you're doing, or do you see that working into at least the foreseeable future? MB: Well, change is the future, and I welcome it. My vision for the band is to see the world, and my goal, my vision for the music is that the world will inspire our music to change and that we'll have a more - I hate to say global, because it sounds so - JF: Amorphous? MB: Yeah. A more worldly approach. JF: Overview. MB: Yes. JF: So you play here at NUBLU. MB: I'm here at NUBLU, just for the moment. That can change at any time. The Real Live Show is definitely a wild card. I love it here, you know? I work here. Some of my friends - and I consider most people here family - NUBLU is an incredible opportunity to do what I said with the music, you know. Incorporate a whole communal experience into all of our music. And there are so many different representations of music from so many different parts of the world, I feel fortunate to gain that experience. Because I haven't even seen a lot of the places where the music is inspired, but I feel like I've learned from cultures that I haven't been able to touch yet. JF: Thank you.