Steve Ellison's journey from Dilla disciple to avant garde figurehead has been one of hip hop's most fascinating transitions.
Flying Lotus now makes truly unique, utterly idiosyncratic music which draws on all manner of genres. Returning to his jazz roots, a collaboration with Herbie Hancock has been much discussed.
Now the jazz legend has spoke to Time Out Dubai about this partnership. Seemingly, the music will appear on a future Flying Lotus release – as opposed to a joint album.
"I really enjoy the interaction and dialogue with other musicians, and being able to provide some sonic atmosphere for them to play in, and to bounce off ideas in the moment, that’s what jazz is really about" he explained. "There’s a guy named Flying Lotus that I’ve been in cahoots with, from the electronic area. We’ve got some different stuff that he’s doing. I suppose people would put him in the category of electronic music. But to just describe it that way really misses the mark, there are a lot of different influences on the music he’s done, and some of it’s been very modern classical, some R&B, some maybe hip-hop, there’s a jazz influence – it covers broad territories which is one of the reasons I’m interested in working with him."
Elsewhere in the interview, Herbie Hancock touches on the importance of working with younger musicians. "Other than that a lot of my concentration is on sharing my experiences with the younger generation, and I’m very much open to including young people, their input in my music. There are newer generations coming up all along, so consequently I have the advantage of those new ideas that influence me to come up with some things I never thought of before. It’s a dialog that hopefully will be a part of my direction all the way into future."
Here's 'Rockit'.
(via FACT)
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