Photo: Johan Troubl
Written by: Roosevelt Treasurechest
On Tuesday, 6th Sense dropped his instrumental only album, It's A 6th Sense Beat Yo! At 33 tracks deep, the album is cipher and ride ready, providing musical canvases to suit any type of brush. We caught up with our homie 6th Sense to find out the science behind a 6th Sense beat...check it out below.
RubyHornet: So, the instrumental album came out today, with a nice little intro from you. Was this in the plans for a while, or did you wake up one day and go, 'f**k it, I'll put everything on an album so people will stop asking.'
6th Sense: It had been in the back of my mind for a good couple of months. I had been wanting to drop some sort of an actual project towards the end of '08. I had over 40 songs, but decided against it. Just didn't feel it was necessary. About a month and a half ago I just finally decided, 'you know what, I'ma drop an instrumental CD.' I got a lot of dope music that's about to come out with me behind the boards, so I wanted to let people know, that YES I make beats, and this collection is a taste of the recent past.
RubyHornet: Do you feel it's a little bit over doing it to put so many dope instrumentals on one album? I mean, 33 tracks of nice beats, it's like, 'we get it, you're a dope producer.'
6th Sense: If I felt that way, I wouldn't have put 33 tracks on. The truth is, this isn't even half of what I produced last year. I didn't put full instrumentals on, the whole thing blends together, runs about an hour long. It runs deep for the cyphering purposes. It's great background music for doing office work. It's not like the 33 beats all sound the same. I think it's a testament to the versatility. I mean if you took the credits off, and took the drop off, you might think it was the greatest J Armz instrumental CD ever, no disrespect to J Armz.
RubyHornet: You invite emcees to rap over the beats and even send some your way. Do you feel like you're opening a can of worms with that one and your inbox is about to get filled with some computer-mic recorded ish?
6th Sense: I'd be lying if I said I didn't think I was. I mean I'm somewhat humble, so I don't think it'll be a big can of worms, but if it is I welcome it. I just don't want anybody to be wack. There was a point in time when I was an instrumental CD fiend, and I catered it to something I would've appreciated. On a related note, I'd truthfully like to see cats kill the beats better than the originals. It's not like I'm challenging cats, because truthfully I'll be happy hearing cats give their own spin to the tracks.
RubyHornet: What do you hope happens with the release of this project, your ideal, best case scenario?
6th Sense: I think whatever happens, anything that happens will be best case scenario, because before this, these were just instrumentals that nobody really had to enjoy or listen to. I think it's quality. I think it better serves my future productions because people will be more familiar and more in tune.
RubyHornet: You have a few instrumentals that incorporate other Hip Hop classics. What producers have made the biggest impact on you, from their actual sound to maybe their approach to music, or even just the way they handle themselves?
6th Sense: This is true. A lot of that has to do with the work I do with Mick Boogie. We did The Honor Roll mixtape where we flipped all the honoree's tracks. I put a few from that mixtape on here. Mick Boogie loves to flip the classics.
There's a lot of dope producers man, and so many producers have given their little flare and trademark to the game. Me being such an avid student of the music and it being 2009 now, it'd be foolish of me to not incorporate all the great things that producers have done. I mean I learn tons of great s**t from producers that are just around me! I know a lot of producers out there would agree with that too, like, they have a group of friends and they all learn and are influenced by each other. I've learned a lot of valuable things from Frequency, Scram Jones has mentored me in so many ways. I talk with producers all the time and we build. The producers that have made the biggest impact on me are Dilla, Kanye, and Stevie Wonder. I could talk all day about the influence of these guys. And truthfully if we went through this instrumental CD we could pick out all the direct and indirect homages/influences from them.
RubyHornet: It's A 6th Sense beat Yo! When people see you on the street or run into you somewhere do they say, 'It's 6th Sense, Yo!' Cause if not, I'm sure they will. Expect me to start doing that too, btw, everytime homie hahaha...
6th Sense: Yeah, people like to say it. It's my lil' cousin Sammy. I had him wildin' out in the booth one day. I can't wait to see him again, I'm gonna get him to do a whole slew of goodies. If ya'll out there want exclusive drops, lemme know, and be prepared to pay cause I wanna get him in a good school. His mother, my cousin Patty, likes to joke that I owe them royalties.
RubyHornet: Is there a style, flavor, vibe that runs through all your beats whether or not the listener really picks it up that truly makes it a 6th Sense beat?
6th Sense: Human. My beats are extremely human. It's just the style that I make them in. Each piece is put together in only a way that I could do it. It's me, it's human.
RubyHornet: You've released some videos of you in the lab, do you have ideal creative conditions to make music? Were the majority of these beats made at the same time of day or anything like that?
6th Sense: I don't necessarily have an ideal creative condition. But if I had to be specific, I'd say that when I'm working with someone for the first time, it always turns into something special. I demand all of myself creatively when that happens.
RubyHornet: From an outsider's perspective, it seems like you're getting more attention for your production work right now. Is that the case, and if so, how does rapping play into your future plans?
6th Sense: Currently, I kind of made a decision to stop rapping on my own tracks. I determined it's a waste of time for me to make a hot beat and then make a song to it. There's a number of reasons I feel that way. But I ain't stop rapping. In fact there's a bunch of stuff that just came out with me rapping. I've been doing a lot of collabos. I have no problem with that. This is by no means a declaration of retiring from rhyming.
RubyHornet: "Hippie Robot" starts out with an ill vocal sample (ODB?) saying, 'we do what we want to do, we don't care who listens.' How does that quote relate to your music and what you do? Every artist has to care somewhat right?
6th Sense: We were in J Nicholson's office and J asked Wildabeast if he'd seen the ODB documentary. And we were watching it, and went "OH!!" Wildabeast is the hood hippie and he just fell in love with that quote, but in all honesty we all feel similar. You can't be in the studio just thinking about other people, you just have to do you. We don't think about it, we just do it.
RubyHornet: Always a pleasure to rock with you on RH, please consider this one of your stations in the online world...Tell people where they can check you out more, or plug anything else you'd like.
6th Sense: Yo, RubyHornet is the truth. You can always see what's going down at notherground.blogspot.com. Feel free to hit me up through all of them other channels. I got a lot of heat coming. Shouts to Alex (DJ RTC) and RH for this interview.... peace out!! gooodnight!
Make sure ya'll check out Ruby Hornet's new mixtape, by Chi-Town producer SC, hosted by Just Blaze feat. Mary J Blige, The Game, Lupe Fiasco, Mikkey Halsted, Mobb Deep, Naledge, and more.
6th Sense: I think whatever happens, anything that happens will be best case scenario, because before this, these were just instrumentals that nobody really had to enjoy or listen to. I think it's quality. I think it better serves my future productions because people will be more familiar and more in tune.
RubyHornet: You have a few instrumentals that incorporate other Hip Hop classics. What producers have made the biggest impact on you, from their actual sound to maybe their approach to music, or even just the way they handle themselves?
6th Sense: This is true. A lot of that has to do with the work I do with Mick Boogie. We did The Honor Roll mixtape where we flipped all the honoree's tracks. I put a few from that mixtape on here. Mick Boogie loves to flip the classics.
There's a lot of dope producers man, and so many producers have given their little flare and trademark to the game. Me being such an avid student of the music and it being 2009 now, it'd be foolish of me to not incorporate all the great things that producers have done. I mean I learn tons of great s**t from producers that are just around me! I know a lot of producers out there would agree with that too, like, they have a group of friends and they all learn and are influenced by each other. I've learned a lot of valuable things from Frequency, Scram Jones has mentored me in so many ways. I talk with producers all the time and we build. The producers that have made the biggest impact on me are Dilla, Kanye, and Stevie Wonder. I could talk all day about the influence of these guys. And truthfully if we went through this instrumental CD we could pick out all the direct and indirect homages/influences from them.
RubyHornet: It's A 6th Sense beat Yo! When people see you on the street or run into you somewhere do they say, 'It's 6th Sense, Yo!' Cause if not, I'm sure they will. Expect me to start doing that too, btw, everytime homie hahaha...
6th Sense: Yeah, people like to say it. It's my lil' cousin Sammy. I had him wildin' out in the booth one day. I can't wait to see him again, I'm gonna get him to do a whole slew of goodies. If ya'll out there want exclusive drops, lemme know, and be prepared to pay cause I wanna get him in a good school. His mother, my cousin Patty, likes to joke that I owe them royalties.
RubyHornet: Is there a style, flavor, vibe that runs through all your beats whether or not the listener really picks it up that truly makes it a 6th Sense beat?
6th Sense: Human. My beats are extremely human. It's just the style that I make them in. Each piece is put together in only a way that I could do it. It's me, it's human.
RubyHornet: You've released some videos of you in the lab, do you have ideal creative conditions to make music? Were the majority of these beats made at the same time of day or anything like that?
6th Sense: I don't necessarily have an ideal creative condition. But if I had to be specific, I'd say that when I'm working with someone for the first time, it always turns into something special. I demand all of myself creatively when that happens.
RubyHornet: From an outsider's perspective, it seems like you're getting more attention for your production work right now. Is that the case, and if so, how does rapping play into your future plans?
6th Sense: Currently, I kind of made a decision to stop rapping on my own tracks. I determined it's a waste of time for me to make a hot beat and then make a song to it. There's a number of reasons I feel that way. But I ain't stop rapping. In fact there's a bunch of stuff that just came out with me rapping. I've been doing a lot of collabos. I have no problem with that. This is by no means a declaration of retiring from rhyming.
RubyHornet: "Hippie Robot" starts out with an ill vocal sample (ODB?) saying, 'we do what we want to do, we don't care who listens.' How does that quote relate to your music and what you do? Every artist has to care somewhat right?
6th Sense: We were in J Nicholson's office and J asked Wildabeast if he'd seen the ODB documentary. And we were watching it, and went "OH!!" Wildabeast is the hood hippie and he just fell in love with that quote, but in all honesty we all feel similar. You can't be in the studio just thinking about other people, you just have to do you. We don't think about it, we just do it.
RubyHornet: Always a pleasure to rock with you on RH, please consider this one of your stations in the online world...Tell people where they can check you out more, or plug anything else you'd like.
6th Sense: Yo, RubyHornet is the truth. You can always see what's going down at notherground.blogspot.com. Feel free to hit me up through all of them other channels. I got a lot of heat coming. Shouts to Alex (DJ RTC) and RH for this interview.... peace out!! gooodnight!
Make sure ya'll check out Ruby Hornet's new mixtape, by Chi-Town producer SC, hosted by Just Blaze feat. Mary J Blige, The Game, Lupe Fiasco, Mikkey Halsted, Mobb Deep, Naledge, and more.
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