The Higher Plane Interviews Mick Boogie

Wow, LATE PASS. So The Higher Plane interviewed Mick Boogie earlier in the summer, he talks about college radio, growing up in a town with no music culture, moving to NY and working with cats like 6th Sense.

Exerpts (read the FULL ARTICLE HERE):

HP: Your critically acclaimed projects, Viva La Hova (Jay-Z/Coldplay) and Adele 1988 (Adele/Break Beats) have been more conceptual or creative projects with original sounds from your team of producers. You also have the Motiviation series with DJ Benzi. Have all these different avenues just been a natural progression in your career? And how do you maintain such a good balance of working with industry heavyweights and up and coming artists, while balancing those genre crossovers?

MB: I've always been about being creative. I remember being a freshman in college in my dorm room mixing classical string records with Nas drumbeats, etc. You have to find a way to fuse cool things together to make even cooler things. I love hip-hop, especially good hip-hop. I always have and always will. But what I loved about hip-hop is that it always borrowed creatively from other genres. So, in a sense, we are doing that in reverse now by adding Jay-Z to Coldplay, or adding break beats to Adele.

HP: Speaking of the team of producers you have around you (6th Sense, Garbs Infinite, Remot, The Kickdrums, nVme to name a few), how does your process work on these projects? What role do you play from concept to creative execution to the fully mastered final cut?

MB: Well, a) these guys know what we like at this point and b) I'll come up with a concept and give them some rough parameters. Sometimes it's an email, sometimes a phone call, sometimes a rough blend I threw together using records that need a formal redo in a real studio. Then we send it back and forth making adjustments until everyone is happy.

HP: Finally, I know you are both a huge Native Tongues and Hov fan. There is a perceived resistance taking place in hip-hop. On one hand you have established artists seemingly toward the end of their careers, while the new cats are constantly labeled and cannot escape ridicule. So I ask, where has all the creativity and open-mindedness disappeared to?

MB: It's out here. You just have to look for it. Listen to KiD CuDi and Big Sean. U-N-I and Pac Div. Sixth Sense. Drake. B.o.B. Asher Roth. Hip-hop is alive and well...