9th Wonder Off to South Africa, Then to Harvard
NORTH CAK: It’s been a busy summer for Jamla Records leader 9th Wonder. He’s been doing shows nationally and internationally all while putting the finishing touches on Jamla’s first lady Rapsody’s debut project among other ventures he’s apart of. Just today, Talib Kweli released To the Music produced by 9th.
Now, 9th along with Rapsody and other members of the Jamla family are preparing to rock South Africa in just a matter of days. Then, it’s off to Cambridge where the music producer will do what no ones done before him, and that’s fuse hip hop music to ivy league education when he begins his Harvard Fellowship.
In a way it’s a coming of full circle of sorts for 9th who always wanted to be a teacher. ”My research is a project called “These Are The Breaks” which I’m going to study and really show the musical connection between the generation before us with the generation now. It’s actually three generations. The generation before us. Our generation. Then the 22 and unders. I’m trying to show the connection between records. I choose 10 albums to study the samples and sounds that were used to make them. I want to really talk to the producers about what they were thinking when they made them. A lot of the records that I choose are like the soundtrack of our time. That’s to show the bridge African Americans have used, and other races too when it comes to hip hop, as an unconventional way to tell our stories. As well as how we pass stuff from generation to generation.”
*Some of the albums being researched include: Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Nas’ Illmatic [10th Anniversary Platinum Edition] and A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders.
Read my full length feature Hip Hop Music Producer 9th Wonder Embarking on “the Most Rigorous Schedule” of His Career
For more from writer Nicole Allen follow her on Twitter @AllenNicoleM
