Even though everyone says so, Armand does not believe he is the godfather of speed garage. "Those LFO records on Warp back in the day were the first speed garage records," he urges. "Maybe it's not what speed garage is today, but those records had those hard, reggae-like basslines." But if he's going to take credit for introducing this sound to the mass audience he wants to separate himself from the speed garage tag. "What I'm doing has nothing to do with garage music, if what I did spawned speed garage, then that's fine, but most of what passes for it these days is wack." Regardless, Armand promises that he will not stop making these jungle/house hybrid records. "I know that people are copying my style because I hear the records coming from overseas and everytime I do something different, they're doing it too. It's helping speed garage to move towards the future which is all love, but I want to get back to making drum 'n bass and house records and let the others do the speed garage thing." After all the carbon copies, Armand will still be doing what he does best.
Not that Armand has any bad words for the producers who cop his his beats. "I'm not bothered by that. If something works, if a beat works and you want to rob it, fuck it! I've done it mad times. Each remix I do I'm still grabbing shit from other people, but the thing is, I'm not really looping. That's the difference; sampling and looping are two different things. When you're looping, you take something that's familiar, when you're sampling, you're taking something that's not familiar and making it into something new. If you want to take my beats, I dont care. But if you loop my beats, people are going to look at you as a copier of me. The best thing for the producer to do is to not be lazy and somehow figure out what I've done and do it for yourself."
Of course, Armand is also into looping stuff too. His new "Sampleslaya" project is all about that. "Where I come from in hip hop, it's all trax -- no rappers." That's the idea and he's been working on it off and on for years. "Everything I do is a gamble -- I'm a bigtime risk taker I've always been. If it's successful or not that is not the point with me. It's a question doing what I feel at that moment. The Sampleslaya project was a long overdue thought of mine; making party hip hop cuts. But the record is all about me because it's breaking molds. That's what I'm about." And that's what we like about you, man.
Written 3/31/98
Originally posted by Jennifer Warner
, reposted with permission.
