2B — Thursday, September 10, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
But, talking with Edwards and
Lauer about the music scene in the
city, I couldn’t pick up on any of
that drama.
“It was a lot smaller then, I felt
like,” Edwards said.
“In the beginning we were just
like, ‘Hey, we’ve got a big loft here,
let’s just have shows here.’ It was
what we were doing in our parents’
basements and stuff before, so we
just kept it going on a different
level,” Lauer added.
They painted a picture of a
group of friends and creative
acquaintances, making music and
art, essentially to entertain them-
selves, with little to no interest in
expanding into an industry.
“It was never like a business
thing. It was more just friends
getting together and organizing
events; it was never really a big
moneymaker
or
anything.
It
was
just
doing
things,
and
things
started
to
come together
naturally,”
Edwards said.
And
that
model of artis-
tic production
seems to have
held sway in
Detroit for the
better
part
of the last 10
years, encour-
aging
the
development
of
talented
semi-profes-
sional
artists
and
quality,
artist-run ven-
ues dedicated
to good times
and communi-
ty engagement. That ethos largely
continues today — in nearly every
interview I conducted for this
piece, the “Detroit ethos” came up
either explicitly or implicitly — but
at some point over the last couple
of years, things began to change.
“I’d say a couple of years ago is
when I really noticed it,” Lauer
said, “and that was when I met
Kash and Martez (Claybren) and
Takayla (Patterson), and they
were putting these shows together
that were like the Teklife people
from Chicago, all of that footwork
music and a bunch of local hip hop.
And then the shows, it was all the
genres in one show, and then those
guys all started making music
together.”
The KushMan
In the interest of full disclosure,
I will say that Martez Claybren
is a friend of mine. But he’s also a
friend of just about every artist in
Detroit, it would seem, including
Ka$h Tha KushMan, the youngest
member and most recent addition
to the Bruiser Brigade — a Detroit
rap collective directed by and sty-
listically organized around the
music of Danny Brown. Brown
is, I would argue, the best rapper
Detroit has ever produced (with
apologies to Eminem), and with-
out question the most innova-
tive, blending EDM, hip-hop and
its British iteration, grime, into a
menacingly surrealist product that
fits the landscape of Detroit like
a glove. And unlike other Detroit
rappers like Big Sean or Eminem,
Brown seems legitimately interest-
ed in producing a school of Detroit
hip-hop that is both stylistically
distinct and large enough and to
assert itself as a legitimate chal-
lenge to the West Coast, Atlanta
and East Coast varieties.
With rap wunderkind chops,
Martez’s connections with the
Chicago footwork scene and offi-
cial support from the elder Bruis-
ers, who started sneaking him into
clubs around the city when he was
14 years old, Ka$h seems poised to
create a body of work as technical-
ly strong and stylistically innova-
tive as Danny Brown’s. I met him
for an interview with his manager,
Takayla Patterson, at a coffee shop
on Grand River in Downtown
Detroit. Ka$h arrived late with a
tattoo-covered blonde girl who I
was not introduced to and sat at
a separate table, eating Chobani,
for the entirety of the interview.
He kissed Takayla on the fore-
head before sitting down and then
explained that he was tired, hav-
ing been up all night tripping on
acid. He was eating a muffin.
Detroit’s hip-hop scene has
always been underground, essen-
tially, and would continue to be
so were it not for J Dilla, Danny
Brown and, to a lesser extent,
Eminem. As Ka$h describes it,
that scene is just now beginning
to move past a schism created by
Brown’s unconventional style and
eventual rise to fame.
“I just know, back when Danny,
when he was early starting, his
voice is so weird that a lot of the
cats in the city were like ‘We don’t
really fuck with it. We don’t like it,’
” Ka$h said. “And later in the years
when it evolved into the Bruiser
Brigade, we separated ourselves
because those people were trying
to kick it with us all of the sudden.”
But Detroit’s rappers clearly
have ambition — Brown, Dej Loaf,
Big Sean and Eminem are all proof
that the city has the ability to pro-
duce national stars. And as I talked
to Ka$h, it became clear that he
sees the city’s underground hip-
hop scene shooting to the forefront
of its national counterpart.
“The artists start to realize
that doing it by they self, they’re
not gonna make it as far,” he said.
“That’s why the city of Detroit
doesn’t have as many big stars as
Atlanta or California — it’s because
there, even through their beefs,
they still unify when it comes to
the music. So I think Detroit is
finally just seeing that and saying
that they need to set aside all the
B.S. and just make it work.”
And, while Ka$h can under-
stand why the city’s hip-hop scene
has the history it does, he sees the
younger generation of rappers —
rappers who feel as home in the
city’s hip-hop community as they
do in the generic melting pot that
characterizes the rest of its under-
ground music — are doing the
work necessary to move toward a
unified community of artists.
“Me, personally, I’m trying to
kill that, because like, that was
then, that was 10 years ago. We’re
all pretty much in the same posi-
tion now, we need to get together.”
The (Business)man
After the Joshes told me there
was no money in Detroit, they
backpedaled a bit and said that I
should look into Assemble Sound.
I googled Assemble and found
an article in Crain’s Detroit about
Garret Koehler, a 28-year-old
entrepreneur from Chicago who
moved to Detroit to work on an
unsuccessful bid to bring the X
Games to the
city.
After
the bid fell
through,
he
decided
to
stay
in
Detroit
and
start Assem-
ble, what he
describes
as
“an organiz-
ing body for
musicians,”
which
pro-
motes
col-
laboration
between the
city’s under-
ground
art-
ists and helps
connect them
with
mon-
eymaking
opportunities
like
licens-
ing contracts
and
institu-
tional grants.
I e-mailed him and we set up a
meeting at Assemble’s headquar-
ters — a repurposed German Prot-
estant church located a block away
from the Detroit Central Station.
I arrived early, and Koehler,
who looks and sounds like an
enlightened frat bro, was making
himself a chicken salad sandwich.
He took me on a tour of the build-
ing, which is currently in the midst
of massive renovations which
is being funded by the artists
involved in the project. He’s also
seeking private investment and
has entered the project into con-
sideration for a number of institu-
tional grants. The redesign plans
call for three studios and a shared
live room on the church’s second
floor, with more studio space and
a performance area on the ground
floor.
Koehler’s office is coated with
posters of Chance the Rapper, an
artist who, he explained, serves as
an inspiration for the entire proj-
ect.
“Inspired by what I saw in Chi-
cago with Chance and the Save-
Money crew, I got interested in the
industry trends and sort of, I guess
the change in power, if you will.
The democratization of music and
distribution, and what that meant
for music,” he said.
And Koehler’s vision for how
democratized music could look in
Detroit is, indeed, inspiring.
“Artists move to Nashville or
L.A. because they want to be in
proximity to industry, it incentiv-
izes artist development and gives
By DANIELLE RAY
Daily Arts Writer
Three years ago, Matt Cloutier,
then a Music, Theatre & Dance
freshman, stood in his dorm room
in South Quad twirling a shoe
horn, trying to imitate then drum
major Jeffrey McMahon’s baton
twirling techniques.
Today, Cloutier, a senior, stands
in front of the entire band and,
soon, the entire Big House, having
graduated from his self-described
“really long shoe horn” to a baton.
He takes off his hat and begins to
bend backward, initiating himself
into the Michigan drum major
position (pun intended), all eyes on
him. He has arrived.
***
Cloutier began his musical
journey
in
fifth-grade
band,
playing the trumpet. He continued
playing throughout middle school
and his time at Grosse Ile High
School, where he joined the
marching band, but never had a
desire to be drum major.
“The drum major role here is a
tad different than it was in my high
school,” he said. “By a tad different,
I mean a lot different. Here, it’s
more of a performance role as
opposed to a conducting role. I
saw what the drum major did my
freshman year, and I was like, ‘Oh
wow that’s pretty awesome.’”
At the University, the drum
major’s responsibilities have much
more to do with what happens off
the field than on it. During Band
Week, which is actually between
two and three weeks during
the summer depending on one’s
position, the drum major teaches
the fundamentals of marching
to the band for six to eight hours
a day, first teaching all the new
staff, then the new members, then
returning members.
“I really enjoyed getting to learn
about the teaching component,”
he said. “It was really interesting
over the summer; it’s so much
more in-depth than I thought it
would be. There’s so much more of
a science to it.”
While Cloutier worked full
time at AdAdapted, a technology
platform, this summer, he went
to Revelli Hall almost every day
after work to practice his twirling
and
his
teaching
techniques.
Former drum major Jeff Okala
joined Cloutier to help with the
transition, and past drum majors
McMahon, David Hines Jr., Matt
Cavanaugh and Gregg Whitmore
all reached out to Cloutier with
advice, too.
One of Cloutier’s favorite aspects
of teaching is acting as a mediator
between the staff and the band. As
drum major, band members can
approach him with any concerns
they have, and Cloutier will work
to find a solution.
“The staff’s not intimidating;
they’re very nice, but it’s nice to
have another student that’s a bit
more approachable that they can
come up to with any concerns
or anything they have,” he said.
“They can talk to me.”
The second part of Cloutier’s
job is what he does on the field —
the backbend, the twirling and the
halftime performances.
“The twirling is fun because it’s
the most creative,” he said. “You
literally just make up whatever you
want, and, as I’ve learned more
twirling, it’s fun now because I
can make stuff up more on the
fly and just improvise my own
little routine. That’s what I’ll end
up doing during the halftime
performances. There’s really not
drill written out for me. Myself
and the twirlers make up our own
routines.
“During the twirling, I want
to put some of my own personal
flair into it and do some funny
little dance moves and facial
expressions,”
Cloutier
added.
“It’s funny; a lot of the past drum
majors have been really big, big
guys, so that comes across. A lot
of the stuff they were doing was
really intense, but I’m a little
smaller of a guy — a little bit more
goofy of a personality — just being
able to show that in the halftime
shows.”
But,
let’s
talk
backbend.
According to Cloutier, the first
drum major to do the backbend
without his hat on was Matthew
Pickus back in 1993. Since then,
it was off and on (again, pun
intended)
with
which
drum
majors would keep their hats on or
take them off until the early 2000s,
when taking off the hat became
more standard.
“Within the last 10 years it’s
kind of become an unwritten
rule for the student section,” said
Cloutier. “They want to see the hat
off. Before that, most people did it
with the hat on; that gives you an
extra two and a half feet.”
And Cloutier is a people-pleaser
— he’s going to do the backbend
without the hat, because he knows
you want to see it.
“I want to bring an insane
amount of enthusiasm for the band,
for Michigan and for everybody out
there in the Big House, too,” he said.
***
Approximately three years ago,
a freshman Matt Cloutier stood
on a volleyball court in the IM
building trying to imitate then-
drum major Jeffrey McMahon’s
backbending skills. And for the
first time, he succeeded.
Today,
the
senior
Cloutier
stands in front of the entire band
and, on Saturday, The Big House.
He takes off his hat and begins to
bend backwards, all eyes on him
as the top of his head reaches the
ground. He has arrived.
ARTIST
PROFILE
IN
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Matt Cloutier will take the field for his first game as Drum Major Saturday.
them access to the people that you
feel like you need to have access to
to develop,” he said. “But what’s
weird is that the whole industry is
changing right now; it’s more about
artist direct to consumer, direct to
their audience, building that rela-
tionship, figuring out ways to mon-
etize your work to the extent that
you want to. So we were less inter-
ested in, like, importing industry,
because I don’t even know what
that industry looks like anymore.
More so, this is just a group of art-
ists that are just like ‘Let’s not be so
siloed and fragmented, let’s try to
be really intentional about building
a more collaborative and coopera-
tive ethos in Detroit underground
music.’”
He plans on developing edu-
cational programming for musi-
cians — like bringing copyright
lawyers in to discuss the way roy-
alties function — and a residency
program where artists exchange
unlimited access to studio space
for working as collaborators on
other residents’ projects. A num-
ber of artists are already making
use of Assemble Sound’s facilities
— when I visited, one of the mem-
bers of Passalacqua, a hip-hop duo,
was in the studio working with
members of rock group Flint East-
wood on a track that was going to
be licensed to ABC — and others,
like Ka$h and Gosh Pith, certainly
seemed interested in the arrange-
ment. But it’s hard to say what
effect groups like Assemble might
have on the city’s underground
scene, and whether this coopera-
tive arrangement, inspired by the
city’s cooperative ethos, could
hold its own against traditional
music industry model, as Koehler
explained.
“Our idea was to have a cross-
genre, cross-generational space
that’s all about championing cre-
ative cooperation and economic
cooperation as a foundation for
success. Not only for local musi-
cians, but also for the broader
scene to represent,” he said. “So,
we don’t know if, like, that actually
is a true thing — if being collab-
orative and cooperative actually
leads to success. It’s just a belief we
have.”
Tires
I came back to Tires at the
start of September to talk with
its owner, Mike Lapp. In the two
weeks after Gosh Pith’s music
video shoot, the warehouse had
been transformed into a film set,
and a small tech crew was work-
ing on preparing for a scene from
an adaptation of Ovid’s “Art of
Love.” A few plaster busts were
spread around the concrete floor,
which was separated by 20-foot-
tall walls that had not been there
at the time of the shoot.
Lapp, a native New Yorker,
moved to Detroit from Brooklyn
five years ago and opened Tires
seven months ago, after pur-
chasing the building from his
mechanic. He has since, with
the help of his team, turned it
into a professional venue that
hosts concerts in a range of
genres, serves as the set for film
and music video shoots and,
more generally, serves as a place
where the city’s underground
art community and business
and political classes can meet
and interact, on the artists’
terms.
Tires is, like much of Detroit,
on the cusp between legitima-
cy and disaster, suspended in
the tense middle ground cre-
ated when a city survives off of
the remnants of its own recent
past. It’s an infinitely interest-
ing moment — perhaps Ka$h’s
ambition, blended with Assem-
ble Sound’s collaborative busi-
ness model and the cooperative
ethos created by long-time art-
ist/residents like Lord Scrum-
mage could catapult Detroit’s
art scene to the forefront of the
nation’s producers of cultural
capital. Or, maybe not. The
ruins are standing all around
— the price of failure is literally
tangible, even in the paint peel-
ing off the side of Tires’ walls.
But it’s an infinitely beauti-
ful moment as well, and with
pressure put in the right places,
Detroit’s underground culture
might become one of those cul-
tures built to last.
For Lapp, though, the city has
to come to terms with itself and
let its culture come out of its
own shadow.
“Everywhere
across
the
world there are these beautiful
late night cultures that the cit-
ies can make money and tax and
have a good time, and everyone
respects it, so why do we have
to hide in the shadows and be
afraid?” he said. “There’s fund-
ing out there for artists, there’s
funding out there for film,
there’s funding out there for all
of these things that are from
9 to 5 p.m. and my question is,
‘What about everyone else?
What about all of the others?’”
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Gosh Pith’s Josh Freed and Tires owner Mike Lapp direct a music video shoot.
DETROIT
From Page 1B