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Radiotopia.fm to learn more

1:35

and donate. Thank

1:38

you all so much. Hey

1:40

there, Presents listeners. My name is Ian

1:42

Koss. You may or may not know

1:44

my voice, but I have been,

1:47

I guess, something of a frequent flyer on

1:50

this feed over the past few years. I

1:53

produced the very first series in here

1:55

called Ways of Hearing and

1:57

worked on a bunch of others, Great God of

1:59

Depression. blind guy travels, my mother made

2:01

me. In any case, I'm

2:04

here now to share a new

2:06

project I've been working on called

2:08

Movement. It's a music

2:11

show that begins from a simple

2:13

premise. That is, if you

2:15

wanna talk about music today in 2023,

2:19

you have to talk about migration,

2:22

about the movement of people around this

2:24

earth. And at the

2:26

same time, if you wanna talk about

2:28

migration, you have to

2:30

talk about culture, what people

2:32

bring with them, what they make along

2:34

the way. So this

2:37

is a show that brings those

2:39

two themes together, music

2:41

and migration. It's

2:43

hosted by my dear friend and collaborator,

2:45

McLeet Hadero, who you'll hear in a

2:47

second. And today we're

2:50

bringing you our very first

2:52

episode, a conversation with the

2:54

wildly talented MC Odyssey.

2:57

Hope you enjoy. At

3:00

heart, I'm very much a procrastinator.

3:03

I don't really want to do anything that I'm

3:05

actually doing right now. I wish I

3:07

could automate everything. But

3:11

I can't. But I can't.

3:13

And so how do I combat that? For

3:16

me, it was regiment. Monday

3:19

through Friday, 8.30 to 4, I'm in the

3:22

studio. And

3:25

when I'm in the studio, it's structure.

3:27

So I'll make

3:29

beats, I'll put them in different folders,

3:31

up beat, down beat, jazzy, boom, bap,

3:33

et cetera. And then once I accrued

3:36

a large amount of them, I'll arrange

3:38

them from first track to last track.

3:41

I write from track one all the way to

3:43

the last track. And once I've finished writing, then

3:46

I record and order, track one all the

3:48

way to the last, and then I mix and order as well.

3:51

And then I turn the record in. Wow. It's

3:54

just a system that I created just to

3:56

literally just combat my, what

3:58

I really wanna do, which is nothing. I

4:12

have always had a special layer of

4:14

respect for the artist who does

4:17

everything themselves. Prince

4:19

was famous for this. He'd play

4:21

his own drums, bass, piano, guitar,

4:23

and produce. This

4:26

approach guarantees clarity of vision

4:28

because no translation ever had

4:30

to happen between the

4:32

inner world of an artist and my

4:35

ears. Odyssey

4:37

has this clarity. And

4:39

he's got a process to back it up. Listening

4:43

to his music is sometimes

4:45

a sharp analysis of political

4:47

commentary. Sometimes

4:49

it's witty observation, sometimes a

4:52

vast, emotionally urgent

4:54

landscape. But

4:56

it's always, always beautifully

5:00

crafted rhyme that takes you

5:02

on a journey. My

5:07

name is Miss Leip, and this is

5:10

Movement. Stories

5:12

of music and migration, remixed.

5:21

Would you start out by introducing

5:24

yourself? Absolutely. I'm

5:26

Amir. My name

5:28

is Abdul Wahhab al-Khalif from Hamad.

5:31

Known by my artist name is Odyssey. I

5:34

am a hip-hop artist from the

5:36

D.C. area, D.C. Maryland and Virginia,

5:38

specifically Prince George's County, Maryland. Can

5:41

you tell us a little bit about Prince George's County,

5:43

like when you were growing up? And

5:47

maybe for the folks who aren't too familiar with

5:49

it, can you give us a little background on

5:51

it? Sure, sure.

5:53

It's, I guess you

5:55

could say it's Mid-Atlantic, and it's very

5:58

much a hybrid of the culture. between

6:00

North and South, you know, not quite

6:02

Southern to deep Southerners and not quite

6:05

Northern to people from, you know, New York and

6:07

above. It's

6:09

a place with a very, very rich, vibrant

6:12

Black culture, you know, that

6:14

I haven't seen in many

6:17

other places in the States, more so just to do

6:19

with the fact that many parts

6:21

of the DC area and the surrounding areas

6:23

are majority Black. So

6:26

yeah, it's a very unique experience to grow

6:28

up where everyone

6:30

looks like you, you know, from

6:32

your teachers, your doctors, the lawyers,

6:35

the police officers, people working in

6:37

shops, etc. You see a constant

6:39

reflection of yourself in all aspects

6:42

of life and a full spectrum

6:44

from positive to negative. So you,

6:47

the best way I would sum it up is to say it is

6:50

one of the few places in

6:52

America where you're a person

6:54

first instead of a Black person. Wow.

6:59

That's very powerful. It's

7:03

reminding me of, I'm

7:06

from Ethiopia. Originally, my father is from the South

7:08

and I, of the country, I look

7:10

a lot like him. The

7:13

first time I went to Ethiopia, like I was

7:15

an adult, I was 21 years

7:18

old and I had just, the

7:21

year before I had cut off all my straight hair

7:23

and, you know, let my

7:25

afro shimmer its way into

7:28

the sun. And I'd also dyed it

7:30

red and then, and then like a year later, the

7:33

tips were like bright orange. So I went to Ethiopia

7:35

and when I

7:38

was in Addis Ababa, man,

7:40

people were staring at me, staring, staring,

7:42

staring, staring. It was really funny. Yeah,

7:44

that would be very much a shock

7:47

for a lot of people here for

7:49

sure. But people

7:51

still would look at me even in Addis,

7:54

like I was an outsider. It was really interesting.

7:56

But then the first time

7:58

I ever had the experience of

8:00

looking like everyone around me was when I

8:02

went to Southern Ethiopia. I was looking around,

8:05

I was like, oh my, this

8:07

is, do I

8:09

look like everybody here? And it

8:12

was a very interesting feeling.

8:16

Yeah, that's the beautiful

8:18

thing about America

8:20

and our history is that, with

8:23

the exception of Native Americans, we all

8:25

originate from someplace else. So there's some

8:28

other part of the world where

8:30

if you're lucky enough, everyone

8:33

looks like you to a lesser extent. I'm

8:37

Sudanese, my father's side is Sudanese, my mother's side is

8:39

black American. So I share a

8:41

similar experience with going back

8:43

to Sudan and getting off the

8:45

plane and things that were only

8:47

for you and in your household back in

8:49

the States suddenly were just normalized. Like

8:52

what? The

8:54

food, the smells was one of the

8:56

first things. I would oftentimes go to

8:59

school and I would just

9:01

reek of cumin and garlic and whatever else

9:03

we were cooking in our kitchen. And

9:06

you go back to Sudan

9:08

or wherever prospective country you're

9:10

from and those smells that

9:12

you really only associate with

9:14

in the home are everywhere.

9:17

That was one of the first memories I

9:19

remember is just the smell of everything, feeling

9:22

very, very familiar in a place that I

9:25

wasn't born in. Right on. What

9:27

was the music like in your house growing

9:29

up? Oh man, music in

9:32

my house was great. My mother, funny

9:35

enough, she, I wouldn't,

9:37

how would you describe it? She listened to

9:39

a lot of music that her peers or

9:42

her sisters and brothers weren't necessarily listening to.

9:44

When everybody else was jamming to Teddy Pendergrass,

9:46

she was listening to Carly Simon. She would

9:48

listen to a lot of that type of

9:51

music. My dad would be listening to a

9:53

lot of, you know, urban

9:55

soul, R and B jazz funk,

9:57

and then the Sudanese element as

9:59

well. well was always there. And

10:02

I was very lucky to grow up neighbors

10:06

with Gary Shider, who was

10:08

a musician in Parliament in Funkadelic. And

10:11

it was my dad who recognized him when he

10:13

first moved in. And I became

10:15

friends with his two sons, Marshall and

10:17

Garrett. And that really started the

10:19

course of when we would

10:21

get out of school, we would just hang out in

10:23

Mr. Shider's studio in their house and just jam

10:26

out freestyle, rap,

10:28

make beats, et cetera. And he would

10:30

tutor us on how to record, how

10:32

to mix, et cetera. So that started

10:34

me doing it as a hobby.

10:41

High school, a lot of my peers are

10:43

into music. I meet a brother named Sean,

10:46

who is upper class, a year older than

10:48

me. And he's like, oh, I heard you

10:50

rapping in the lunchroom. You're nice. Why don't

10:52

you come to my studio? Let's work on

10:54

some music. Came to the studio

10:56

and I'm looking around. I'm like, where's your

10:59

drums? Where's your keyboards? He's like, oh, I

11:01

sample. Like, what's that? Like, what

11:04

is that? He's like, you don't know what sampling is? And

11:07

he just sits me down for hours playing

11:09

the original breaks from songs

11:12

that were sampled and turned into hip

11:14

hop music. And I just became fascinated

11:16

with it and very

11:18

much begged him to teach me how to make

11:21

beats. It's

11:29

really interesting to hear you talk

11:31

about the kind

11:34

of light bulb of sampling. Because

11:36

when you

11:38

were describing your neighbor, and being

11:42

a part of Parliament Funkadelic, it's

11:45

like that is in so many

11:47

samples. That person was

11:49

probably playing you a Parliament sample at

11:51

one point. And then there

11:53

you were, like, you know, earlier

11:55

jamming with that family. such

12:00

a, but it's almost like you,

12:02

you are describing like in community,

12:05

the through line of hip hop, like with

12:08

the people around you. Yeah, it's

12:10

pretty trippy when you know, I look back

12:12

on it, um, and, and seeing how many

12:15

different facets of the culture that, that

12:17

I had access to, um, and

12:19

how this very roundabout way that I discovered

12:21

things. Um, I would say, I

12:23

discovered sampling late too. I don't know what

12:25

assumption I had, cause Mr. Scheid wouldn't let

12:28

us sample anything. We were playing everything in

12:30

the studio when we were composing things. So

12:33

I guess I just,

12:35

um, assumed that people replayed everything.

12:45

I'm a child of hip hop, right?

12:47

So I love the aspect of sampling

12:50

and, and, um, I'm from the East

12:52

coast. So it's, it's very much a

12:54

New York centric style of production, but

12:56

being from the DC area where we have

12:59

go-go music, uh, live bands are

13:01

just everywhere and live bands are very, very

13:03

important. They're probably more important than electronic music

13:05

in DC to this day. So

13:08

my production processes, I start

13:10

off sampling, and

13:14

then I gradually have my band replay

13:17

the samples. And a lot

13:19

of times I remove them. Sometimes I keep them in

13:22

depending on what the sample is. I

13:28

love production that has a higher

13:30

level of musicality in it. And it's

13:32

not just restricted to loops. So

13:35

as much as I love the loops and chopping up breaks,

13:37

et cetera, I want it to do a little bit more.

14:00

I don't care that you're free,

14:02

you can speak,

14:04

you can speak, how I

14:07

don't feel. Can

14:11

you tell us a little bit

14:13

about the story of the new

14:15

album to what end? Yeah,

14:19

this record was the first full

14:21

length album that I had released

14:23

in five years. Wow.

14:27

And I guess this album is about

14:29

why it took so long, what I was going

14:31

through, and

14:34

in the form of music. I

14:37

had experienced for the first time in

14:40

my career self-doubt during

14:43

the making of this record. And it's early inception

14:45

when I started work. I started, I've been working

14:47

the past five years, but I got

14:49

to this point where I didn't like anything that I was making. And

14:52

I felt that I had lost the ability to

14:55

connect with an audience and make music that other people

14:57

would like to listen to. So

15:00

hundreds and hundreds of beats, I'm

15:02

producing song ideas, sketches, thrown into

15:04

trash. I'm like, I don't like this, I

15:06

don't like that, I don't like this. And

15:10

my daughter was born in 2017, my son

15:12

was born in 2021, we had the pandemic in 2019 going in 2021. So

15:20

my life was in a flux. I'd gotten out

15:22

of the rhythm of making

15:25

music with a deadline in mind that

15:27

I had to meet, turning

15:30

that record in, promoting that record and

15:32

touring. That had been my life

15:34

for over a decade. Come

15:36

home, I got three months to make this record,

15:39

make the record, put it out, go

15:41

on the road. And I just kept doing that year after year

15:43

after year. And then suddenly I take

15:45

a break when my daughter's born, and then I

15:47

take an even longer break that I didn't plan on with the pandemic.

15:50

And in that time of all that time off, I

15:53

had too much time to think, and I

15:56

had become victim of a

15:58

paralysis through analysis. Just

16:01

really overthinking everything. I

16:08

sought therapy and,

16:11

you know, begin to kind of dive into

16:13

my personality and why would I be in

16:15

this position right now? I guess

16:17

a lot of people were during that time. And,

16:20

you know, I come to

16:22

the realization that necessity

16:25

is why I started to do these things.

16:27

Do I need to produce

16:29

and create to live? Yes. Do

16:31

I love to do it? Yes. So that

16:34

was my why, you know, I

16:36

love it and I need to do it. And

16:38

how far am I willing to go for

16:40

that why? And that's when the subject matter

16:42

was born and the title of the album

16:44

was born to what end. So every song

16:46

on the album is about why

16:50

and how far I'm willing to go for that why.

16:52

Whether it be for love or

16:54

for economic gain or respect

16:58

or appreciation, etc. They're

17:01

all different examples of why

17:03

I feel my observations of

17:06

why people do what they do in life and

17:08

how far they're willing to go for it for

17:10

better or for worse. You

17:16

know, I mean, we all went through so much in

17:18

the pandemic, but artists went

17:20

through a particular filter of

17:22

experiences. And

17:26

it's also like I

17:28

just want to reflect that, like, you

17:31

know, going to therapy is, first

17:34

of all, I think everyone should go to

17:36

therapy. But it's not always in our cultures,

17:39

you know? No. It's

17:41

was there like, like, how

17:44

did you get through that, that like cultural

17:46

barrier to going to therapy?

17:48

Sure. You also don't have to answer that

17:50

question if you don't want to. I don't know. I

17:52

don't know. I don't want to talk about it. No, that's

17:54

fine. That's fine. That's fine. I

17:57

haven't. My parents don't even know I'm in

17:59

there. neither of them, you

18:01

know, they don't know

18:03

that I seek counseling. So

18:06

that's not even a question that I've

18:09

even entertained about, you

18:11

know, asking them or getting their

18:13

two cents on. I know who they

18:15

are, you know,

18:17

I know that they

18:21

did what they did so that I could

18:23

have emotional articulation, you

18:26

know, and that's

18:28

something that I think is

18:30

a disconnect with a lot of generations between children

18:33

and their parents, whether they be from the

18:35

same culture or third culture kids, is

18:39

again with the why, you know, I

18:42

know my father's understanding on what

18:44

success is, what

18:46

happiness is, is based

18:48

on a culture that

18:50

is in another place and

18:53

another time, you know, for

18:56

example, you know, my

18:58

father wouldn't conceive being a musician for

19:01

a living because that is not a

19:03

viable living in Sudan. So

19:05

that wouldn't be something that he would just say to

19:07

me, you should do, because what

19:09

he saw growing up there

19:11

was doctors, lawyers, engineers are

19:14

sure bets to make a lot of

19:16

money and survive. There

19:18

was no graphic designers, there was no photographers that

19:21

were making a living. So why would those be

19:23

examples that he would give me? So

19:25

I won't hold it against him if

19:28

I wake up in America and decide that these are

19:30

the things that I want to do and he doesn't

19:32

understand. And to a

19:35

lesser extent, even even my mother, you

19:37

know, my mother's American, my

19:39

mother's black American, my mother grew up in poverty.

19:42

And a lot of the things

19:44

that I have access to, she didn't, whether

19:46

it be just time in

19:49

a different era, or even knowledge.

19:51

So I do my best

19:54

to articulate to my parents that I'm

19:56

happy and I'm successful. And

19:58

these are things that they can come. comprehend and understand

20:00

and that's not lost in translation over

20:03

language culture or generation But

20:07

therapy is for me the

20:09

end result is for me to be happy

20:11

and to enrich the lives

20:13

of people around me and They

20:16

don't need to know that I'm in therapy in order

20:18

for me to do that, you know, so

20:21

I just I don't even bring that up on the table.

20:23

They have no idea and they won't listen to this Interview

20:26

anyway, they won't even know they won't even know it exists.

20:28

It's fine I talk about it. Oh

20:35

That's interesting, but I it's

20:37

it's really beautiful though the Like

20:40

the way you described your parents it has

20:42

so much empathy in it, you know I

20:45

almost want to use the word generous,

20:48

but it's not about generosity because it's

20:50

more about like It's

20:53

like it's like the kind of thing people have to

20:55

meditate to get to Well,

20:57

you know, it's um for

21:00

better and for worse That

21:02

is the gift my parents

21:04

gave me when They

21:07

got together it stems

21:09

from my earliest

21:11

childhood memories on Having

21:14

to explain one to one

21:16

side of my family about the other right

21:18

and to it have have this different

21:21

person this unique perspective on being in the

21:23

middle of a myriad

21:25

of conversations and stereotypes and topics

21:28

etc. So, you know, I'm in Sudan

21:30

and they have all these ideas

21:32

on what America's like and

21:34

you know what black Americans are like and

21:36

why and I'm with my mother and my

21:38

mother's family and Thanksgiving and Christmas and they

21:41

have all these ideas on What

21:43

Africa is like and what foreigners are like

21:45

and as you can imagine? Oh,

21:48

they've been here for 400 years and look what

21:50

they've done and oh they come here and they

21:52

take our jobs And I was always in the

21:54

middle saying well actually, you know

21:56

and and that well actually is is

21:59

every It's the subject matter of my

22:01

music, it's me, and

22:04

I'm always trying to provide

22:06

the other perspective and with that

22:08

comes an understanding of other people's

22:10

perspectives. So the empathy for

22:12

my parents, it

22:15

comes from them being different, you

22:17

know, and me being a combination

22:19

of both of them, you know. I

22:24

mean I think it would be easier if I used

22:26

to wish that I was just born in one culture

22:28

and make everything really easy but fast

22:31

forward it was a huge blessing, you know, because

22:34

I can listen to my music and imagine

22:39

what someone will think about it, you

22:41

know, using that same tool

22:43

of empathy. So it's been great

22:45

for my career and difficult for my personal

22:48

life. The

22:58

album is To What End? My

23:01

Odyssey and we'll pull you

23:03

out on a crack from it called Moneeha.

23:06

It was actually inspired by a

23:08

mere therapy session. Movement

23:12

is produced by Ian Koss and

23:14

myself, Makli Tadero. Our

23:17

co-creator and podcast godmother is

23:19

Julie Kane. Our broadcast

23:21

partner is The World. We

23:24

are supported by the Mellon

23:26

Foundation, the National Geographic Society

23:29

and distributed by PRX. To

23:33

many people and many things but never me and

23:36

that's beginning to bear strain. My mother's head, my

23:38

father's shoulders, my friend's head, I won't complain and

23:40

just pretend I'm in the clear. This is the

23:42

end when I'm having worse than I had and

23:45

worse on my career and it's turning to

24:00

have a big, amazing, and a sickin' like

24:02

the challenger. I'm doin' not by the

24:04

hold of the blue on the board, sir. I'd like

24:06

to have some of the holdin' of this ball of

24:08

research where many have put no pressure on the crew

24:11

and all I do is learn. All

24:14

I baby, all I

24:16

baby, even moving,

24:18

I don't know, even moving,

24:21

I don't know. All

24:24

I baby, all

24:26

I baby, even moving, I

24:28

don't know, even moving, I

24:31

don't know. These

24:35

crazy cops be livin' it, and I'm probably

24:37

sittin' at the concrete in here. They

24:39

put in the same socket with my great pops,

24:41

it's very hard and you just mobbin' by and

24:43

say the same. And my greatest attitude is put

24:45

them back into a river of pain so I

24:47

never turn the package too. It's a

24:50

dream with no consensus in the afternoon, so

24:52

I can't have a human. My experience is

24:54

a nerd, and when this is a burn, if you

24:56

listen to this urge, I'll screw you up when I'm

24:58

scared of my depends and pain and fear, can't resist

25:00

a quick repair. Now the life you believe it won't

25:02

admit when I'm at first, never tried to be deceiving,

25:04

but the pride of me was leavin' when you had

25:06

it. You depleted people, line up for a share, and

25:08

when they take a arm and leg, one day if

25:11

they see me bein' what they do, now the people

25:13

got me sawin' what I wanted. All

25:15

I baby, all I

25:18

baby, even moving, I

25:21

don't know, even moving, I don't

25:23

know. All

25:26

I baby, all I

25:28

baby, even moving,

25:30

I don't know, even moving,

25:32

I don't know. I

26:01

will arrest the

26:04

living with a

26:06

rat man I

26:09

will arrest the

26:11

living with a rat man Radio

26:21

Tepia from

26:24

PRX