By Odeisel

Most people are motivated by fear and greed.  Some, like explorers are driven by a wanderlust; an innate desire to see and to push past their immediate boundaries.  That invovles a level of fearlessness. Like his explorer namesake, Marco Polo has the cajones to leap from beat maker to producer; the ability to coach and communicate with an artist and affect the course of music rather than sit back and have his music abused or misused. He recently sat with Planet Ill and shared his passion and his drive to explore the music and what separates a real producer from his contemporaries.

Planet Ill: You’re obviously a proponent of the boom-bap. Which producers coming up influenced you to stay on that path?

Marco Polo: When I first started listening to Hip-Hop, it was all the classic dudes like Marley Marl and Large Professor and of course DJ Premiere and Pete Rock.  Those are the guys that really made me study the beats and the records and get into collecting and the production that I wanted to to school for engineering and that was the early inspiration. I started buying records and I bought and MPC and tried to copy their style, see how they did this and that and how they chopped this break. That eventually led me to any style I have now, which is definitely influenced by all those people.

Planet Ill: At what point do you take what you have learned and expand into different territory? Like you see Premiere now, where he’s like the Apostle of that sound and now he’s doing records for Aguilera and others which sound really good but are a departure from his principal sound.

Marco Polo: Really if you listen to the tracks he did with Christina it’s still Primo 100%, it’s just finding a way to meet in the middle. That’s why I love Primo so much because he can do big records for people like Christina Aguilera and it’s still the Primo sound. It may not be as hard and gutter as a Black Poet or a Group Home record, but it still hits hard, he’s still sampling and using breaks.

The reason that I say that is because it happened naturally.  You didn’t hear Primo do a keyboard beat to work with someone else. So I respected that when he branched out to bigger artists outside of Hip-Hop, he’s still doing him. If I ever make that change to where I’m working with artists outside of Hip-Hop would hope that I still get my input and bring the style of production that I like and meet somewhere in the middle and not really sacrifice my sound to get to a bigger audience. That’s always my goal as a producer.

Planet Ill: Toronto has always been a cultural hotbed of different races and different cultures growing up. Has any of that filtered into your music and the way you produce?

Marco Polo: Toronto definitely influenced me, but the scene was more of an influence with me rather than the different cultures. We have the big Caribbean scene up there with Caribana and you have cats like Kardi [nal Offishall] doing the reggae/Hip-Hop so that was definitely one twist but I wouldn’t necessarily say that influenced my sound.  I just grew up with cats like Saukrates and the Grass Roots and all the classic Canadian Dudes and they were all doing the standard boom bap style production so that definitely influences me on top of all the stuff coming out of New York

Planet Ill: How did you hook up with Torae for an entire album?

Marco Polo: We met at Masta Ace’s studio, ‘cause Ace had a skit for the EMC album and me and Torae were a part of the skit. That’s how we met and at that point he had done a track with DJ Premiere called “Click” with Skyzoo and Torae and I was a fan of those tracks, so I said come to the studio, I’m working on a mixtape to support my new album Port Authority before it came out.  We knocked out a couple songs, the songs came out really good and we became cool. That’s really important too when you’re working with an artist that you’re friends with them so you can make music with them and not have to stress any ego. You can really just make good shit.

We had a lot of similar tastes in terms of the rap we both listened to, so it just kind of turned into a project. We came up with the whole Double Barrel theme and it just happened organically.

Planet Ill: You have a lot of albums where producers are emailing tracks to emcees they lace them and send them back. You have projects like Foreign Exchange where the collaborators almost never even meet. What’s the difference between that style and having everyone in the studio together?

Marco Polo: I think it makes a big difference. Those situations can work as long as the communication is there. That’s the key. Obviously being in the studio helps. Being in the studio at the moment when I’m tracking Torae recording vocals or when he’s rhyming, I hear something that I think he can change or make tighter, at that moment in time, I can tell him, “Yo, you should try it this way or try it that way.” Or if I can play him a beat and he’s like, “That’s dope, but I’m looking for something like this.”

You can just really zone in and collaborate and  get everyone’s feedback involved so it’s really in the sense a collaboration as opposed to sending beats you rap and send it back and we made an album in six hours.  Me and Torae really took a lot of pride in crafting the most complete cohesive album we could in my studio over the year and a half. We both had our input in it and it makes a big difference. I’m a fan of those situations; I always like to be involved in my music I hate not being there for a session so if that’s ever the case I always try and be involved, So if I can’t be there I still want to be like put my feedback in and say you should change this, change that, make this tighter.

Planet Ill: Is that the engineer in you or the producer in you?

Marco Polo: That’s everything, you know ? I think being a producer encompasses all those qualities.  You have to know about engineering. About recording.  You have to know all the processes. That’s what makes a complete producer.  You know Quincy Jones probably never tracked vocals but he knew what sounded good; he knew how to get the best performances out of people. He knew which string arrangers to bring in. You have to know all that shit.

The difference between being a producer and being a beat maker is being able to have the confidence to tell an artist you should try it this way or try it that way. And that goes for me when I’m working with someone like Pharoahe Monch to someone like Torae. As a producer, you can’t be shook about working with artists. You have to put your input for the bigger purpose.  A lot of the new producers are afraid to say anything. They just be happy that someone is rapping on they beat. Someone could come in and spit some bullshit and they’ll be like “What does it matter? It’s Pharoahe or it’s Buckshot, I’m happy.” Everybody wants to make the best product. Being a producer is having the confidence to be involved.

Planet Ill: Can you really call a lot of these people producers?

Marco Polo: No you can’t I mean it depends. There are a lot of beat makers and a lot of producers. I didn’t start out as a producer I started out as a beat maker. A lot of younger kids they get lucky with a beat and suddenly they’re a producer.  You have to earn that title; you have to understand the whole concept.  It’s more than just sitting down at your sampler and just making a beat. That’s the beat maker part of it but then making songs and albums is a whole other ball game and that‘s where you earn the title as producer; being able to craft projects.

Planet Ill: Most of the significant movements in Hip-Hop have been generated by independent labels. Even Def Jam’s first wave was independent, Death Row, No Limit, etc.  What part of independence leads to that kind of creation?

Marco Polo: Good Question. I think it has a lot to do with originality and creativity. If you look back to the Def Jam movement we’re talking Run DMC [Rush managed but not Def Jam artists-Ed.] LL Cool J Beastie Boys they were bringing something brand new to the table. It was exciting and original and they ran as a unit with a lot of support among the artists. And that’s one thing I see lacking in New York right now. I see a little bit of it coming back but that unity, everybody’s trying to get what they can because of the recession and fuck the next dude where there’s not that sense of movement; that unity among artists where everyone’s moving as a team and just supporting each other.

There’s a lot of stuff going on that makes it hard for that situation to happen again. Times are different. People aren’t selling records like they used to so they’re really just trying to get what they can and sacrifice where the shit came from. And that means sacrificing quality in the music and just that support for other good music.

Planet Ill: Is there anything that you wanted to get off your chest?

Marco Polo: Anyone that’s supported my music I want to say thank you. I appreciate it. I have two albums coming out in the top of 2010: Marco Polo/Ruste Juxx The Execution dropping March 23 on Duck Down. Then in June I have The Stupendous Aventures of Marco Polo dropping which is another producer album. There’s going to be a lot of new material and some other material that never got released officially.  It’s going to be really dope I’m very excited.

**LISTEN** Marco Polo Interview

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