Edan is one of those rare hip-hop heads who can hold their own on the mic as well as the turntable. His last record, Beauty and the Beat (2005), was a pure experiment in musical bricolage combining Moog synthesizers, rock samples and psychedelic riffs. If Jimi Hendrix were alive to have witnessed the birth of hip-hop, his creative forays may have resembled something like Edan’s acid-trip beats. There’s a fresh, uninhibited energy that pervades Edan’s music, a style that is equal parts reverent and subversive to tradition.

His latest mixtape Echo Party (2009) runs just under 30 minutes long and combines live instruments with samples drawn from a back catalog of eighties hip-hop. The results sound like a new millennial Afrika Bambaataa, full of fuzzy, volatile soundscapes that seem at the brink of self-destruction. Each break beat, transition and flourish in the mixtape is the careful work of a hip-hop auteur. In this interview, Edan speaks about his work on Echo Party, the Dadaism of hip-hop and the importance of craft.

EM: Tell us about how how you began collecting records.

When I started buying records, that was the way I bought music as a kid. Some of the early records I bought were Beatles records, doo-wop compilations and shit like that. And then I was buying cassettes for the most part up until the late-eighties, early-nineties. Around ’93 or ’94 I started buying singles. As my love for that grew, I started buying the shit that I missed out on and getting more and more into everything.

EM: What does “digging” mean for you? Does it mean looking out for samples?

I guess it just means exploration. I don’t know if digging is all that different from looking for something cool. These days, I’m not really gonna buy a record just for a sample. Mainly I just want good albums that I’m proud to call possessions. I’m not really into getting records with three-second drum breaks and the rest of the record is shit.

EM: Tell us about a record that you’re proud to possess.

One of my favorite albums is a Brazilian psych record by a group called Spectrum. The title of the album is Geração Bendita. It was basically a soundtrack record to one of the first late-sixties counter-culture films to be made in Brazil. I guess the actors on the film ended up being the musicians on the record, which is pretty astounding because it’s very self-assured, natural music. It’s one of the best rock records I’ve ever heard just in terms of the vibe that it pulls you into and the continuity of the whole record. Not only do I love it dearly but I can also show off with it. [laughs]

EM: There’s been a recent trend of labels putting reissues of rare records, like Egon’s Now-Again Records releasing old psych and funk compilations. Do you have any plans of doing the same?

I’ve had daydreams of doing nothing but buying and selling records for a living, but then I realized that I have bigger fish to fry, so to speak, and that I need to focus on being an artist. I think that’s the way I can best contribute. I do plan to contribute to the awareness of great music from the past, but it would be through mixes and radio shows. I’ve already done a couple episodes of a radio show that I’d like to get off the ground. If you just Google “Edan radio show,” you can find links to those. I definitely plan on trying to raise awareness when it comes to things that would otherwise get lost in the shuffle. But as far as going out and reissuing things, I’m not sure I have the particular desire to do that right now.

EM: With rumors of Panasonic possibly discontinuing production of Technics 1200 turntables, do you think that this portends the end of an era for DJ culture? Will everyone be using Serato in the future?

I saw a Facebook status that showed a link to an application where you can mix and do all this bullshit on your iPhone. I’m sure it’s going to move towards that compact, easy-to-transport format. It already is. I don’t know though. It’s just going to increase the intrigue with someone who’s actually using records and turntables over time. I think for the most part the trend will move away from that stuff and get more into this crazy, all-in-one type shit. But at the same time, there will always be someone who does it the original way and there will always be a place to get that equipment. It’s funny, I actually just bought a used pair of 1200s because I was able to get a really good price on a spare set.

EM: Speaking of turntables, the biography on your website says that the first turntables you purchased were haunted. Tell us a little more about that.

Basically, the tables were acquired from a friend’s father who was renting an apartment out to this DJ guy, and that guy did commit suicide. That’s how the tables eventually ended up in my possession. The father gave it to the kid, the kid sold it to me. And the kid is a good friend of mine. I don’t mean to dismiss him as some “kid.” That’s all I know. I was definitely bullshitting a little bit to spice things up, but the tables definitely came from someone who killed himself. And then those tables got stolen from me. So I hope that the spirit of the dead DJ is wreaking his vengeance on the thief.

EM: You’re well-versed in a variety of genres, from funk to rock, but your medium of choice has been hip-hop. What draws you to that particular genre?

I think it was just the most exciting medium of the day, like the rock ‘n’ roll of my generation. I’m also someone who dislikes racial divide. I very instinctively wanted to go against it and just embrace that culture [of hip-hop]. My desire to view mankind as one, maybe that drew me towards it at an early age. But more than likely, it was just ‘cause the music was so fucking interesting.

EM: Does hip-hop culture have a lot of spiritual potential?

Definitely. Of course. It’s very spiritual. It’s as spiritual as anything else. Nowadays, people who are aiming for mainstream success, I’m not sure if they think of it in a spiritual light. Whatever it is that made people rhyme or want to loop up a breakbeat back in the early days is most definitely a spiritual thing. It’s something akin to inspiration and imagination, all those things that make humanity great. It’s that spark that created the whole thing. It has to be spiritual. I think when people are doing it and feeling a sense of satisfaction from doing it, whether it be performing or freestyling at their house or whatever they do, it’s spiritual for them.

EM: Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker recently wrote, “Jay-Z’s new album, “The Blueprint 3,” and some self-released mixtapes by Freddie Gibbs are demonstrating, in almost opposite ways, that hip-hop is no longer the avant-garde, or even the timekeeper, for pop music. Hip-hop has relinquished the controls and splintered into a variety of forms.” Would you agree with that?

There’s truth to that. I think hip-hop has ultimately become boring to a lot of people. As for the avant-garde aspect, when you first saw somebody using a record to make records, that was turning shit on its head. It’s like Dada. It’s like Marcel Duchamp bringing the fucking urinal into the museum. It’s using the equipment in a way that wasn’t intended. To introduce that into mainstream culture was definitely exciting at the time. The photographic aspect of sampling, that was part of the intrigue for people like myself. It’s like the mental stimulation you get from looking at a collage with Xerox images. It was the sonic equivalent. But that’s no longer that exciting for people. I think hip-hop still has the room to be avant-garde and cutting-edge. I mean, it’s just a medium of expression. If hip-hop can no longer be exciting then neither can collage in the visual world. It just depends on what you inject into it.

But hip-hop as a movement, making another thrust and becoming this crazy new wave thing all over again? I don’t think so, no. It already had its time to do that. I think that was really going on in the ’86 to ’89 era in terms of mainstream impact. Before that, the whole initial spark was happening in the mid-seventies to early eighties. Today, we’re just at another point in time. There’s no sense in trying to dwell on the past. Now is the time when eclecticism has become the norm, and people now are almost getting bored with that. The whole mash-up approach, that’s not even exciting anymore either. I think now is just the time to make really good songs that lift people up and propel them towards imagination, whatever that is. If it’s a folk song, if it’s stripping things down to some Bob Dylan shit, that’s fine. To me, I hope that music, whatever it is, ultimately goes in a less post-modern and more humane direction. Hip-hop is now accepted as another form of expression. It’s just another option for the voice. If you want to use hip-hop to get your message across, you can. The cutting-edge days are behind us, but it doesn’t matter. You can still use it to say something new and radical. It’s still young. All this shit is young.

EM: What was it like working on Echo Party? You had access to quite a lot of music in the Traffic Entertainment Group back catalog.

Eight-hour work days and barely yielding 20 seconds of music that I was happy with. And then I’d go back and listen the next day and scrap it. [laughs] At first, some friends of mine [at Traffic Entertainment Group] asked me to do it ‘cause they didn’t just want some DJ cutting up doubles of whatever records were on those labels. Because in most cases that’s boring as well at this point. The traditional mixtape that impresses people is the one that has crazy records that no one knows about. It’s usually the type of mix where someone pulls out a lot of obscurity that impresses the record culture community. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do that. I realized that because it wasn’t about obscurity and exclusivity, I had to step it up in terms of technique. I figured that I would benefit from it by becoming a better producer. So that’s the approach I took.

I just started playing instruments over all the records and I basically said, “OK, every record that I use, I’m gonna let it run 30 to 45 seconds, not too long, and I’m gonna turn it into a vignette where I add something or put a twist on it.” For example, a synthesizer or glockenspiel. Or I’d just put reverb on the record itself or chop up the record into little bits and get real kinetic with the programming. In other parts, I’d grab a hand clap and pan it to the left and have the echo of the hand clap go on the right side of the stereo field. I got very experimental with stereo fields, stuff panning from left to right, using the drum machine to chop shit up and emulating the edit-style production that was popular in the mid-eighties with people like the Latin Rascals. I just kind of turned every record into a 30- to 40-second beat. Then I’d have to find a satisfying way to stitch it altogether from one record to the next. I pretty much did it in the order that you hear it on the mix.

You can imagine times where it becomes hard to focus on getting one little delay thing right. You’re just sitting there using your brain in that way for hours at a time. There were days when I had to not fuck with it at all and step back to look at it like a painter would step back and look at the whole canvas. I had to take my time and make it what I wanted it to be, no matter how long or how much effort. That’s what I aimed to do, and at the end of the day, I hope people like it. There’ll be people who hear it and just like it ‘cause it’s dance-y. Then there’ll be people who are into the details. There are people who complain, there are people who praise it. I don’t know. You can’t please everybody. I think most of the people I’ve talked to have said positive things, which makes me feel good. [laughs]

EM: Was it a conscious decision not to rhyme on the record?

Yes, I knew I wasn’t gonna rhyme on it. I entertained the notion but just didn’t feel like it’d fit in at all. That project doesn’t warrant any rhyming. It’s more on the DJ/producer tip.

EM: There used to be a lot more DJ-MC pairs in hip-hop like Gang Starr. As a history lesson, can you tell us about when the DJ and MC split?

I want to say that started happening around the Puffy era. I don’t know. I never really thought about that too much. Around that era, it started becoming less about the DJ and more about making your rap hit. It almost became more about the producer and the MC as opposed to the DJ and the MC. I want to say around ’95 or ’96 onward. That’s a shame, but there’s still a lot of incredible DJs. I was reminded of that recently in New York with a lot of Roc Raida tributes where people got to witness a lot of incredible turntablism. People are still really good at that shit. [laughs] I’m really dedicated to it, and there’s nothing better. When it comes to hip-hop, that’s the essence. Even a band—a band playing behind an MC is cool, but when you see a DJ and MC interact in the ultimate way, it’s more distinctive and closer to the essence.

EM: Can we expect another record in the next year?

I’m not setting out to make a record per se right now. I’m just gonna make a lot of music and be a producer. Hopefully, the music that is made will inspire me to rhyme. I definitely think I’m gonna be more assertive on the rhyme tip over the next year or so. My whole thing is, no matter what I’ve achieved up to now, I still see a lot of shortcomings in the things I’m doing. I want to improve and be great at this in a way that inspires people. Making music repeatedly is part of the process. That’s how you improve. I just want to be working at a constant rate and ascend. By getting better and reaching my potential, it’ll serve as a reminder to some that skill is a great compliment to imagination. Imagination is one thing, but if you’re also adept on a technical level as well as a soulful, taste and imagination level—I’m just striving to make better songs and better music. That’s what I need to focus on next, and hopefully that will yield several projects that are meaningful.

You know, sitting here in 2010, practically, with all this recorded music sitting behind us, it’s not easy to make anything meaningful at this point. Anyone can buy a laptop now and be a producer. I think it’s important to work hard and be the highest quality craftsman you can be so that it almost makes people feel like “Man, that was hard to do, I don’t think I can do that.” [laughs] I want to get a bit more into stuff like that. But it’s not about making stuff that’s hard to make, it’s about beautifying the world and elevating your fellow man, you know what I mean?

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For more info on the artist, visit:

http://www.humblemagnificent.com/

http://www.myspace.com/eeddaann