It was at the Guilty Simpson OJ Simpson release party at the The Shelter in Detroit that DJ HouseShoes pulled out this white label promo vinyl that had “UR” and “Nick Speed” written on it. He points to it and says to me, “Ain’t that some crazy shit?” Its the fact that one of the top hip-hop producers of our city, Nick Speed, is releasing a vinyl through Underground Resistance, one of the most respected collectives in Detroit techno over the past three decades, is what makes that so crazy. While UR has mainly been known for the long catalogue of techno records they have produced along with their distribution branch Submerge being the epicenter of a majority of Detroit techno releases the past few decades, they have done their share to help out the hip-hop scene. Waajeed‘s collection of vinyl releases through Bling47.com were distributed through Submerge, along with early J. Dilla productions for groups like Da Enna C and Natives Of Da Underground. The vinyl game is how UR has survived for the past 30 years. The story behind Nick Speed’s inclusion in the UR legacy started back in 2007 when he started to work with an emcee named Danny Brown. After time recording music between New York and Detroit while being scouted by a Roc-A-Fella Records A&R, along with a stint in the slammer, Danny Brown was ready to start recording some new music and coincidentally lived right around the block in Midtown Detroit from Nick Speed at that time. The two would soon link up, and one of the tracks they recorded was “What Up Doe”, which sampled the Juan Atkins produced Model 500 track “Night Drive (Thru-Babylon)”. Nick Speed has made the beat before Danny Brown ended up jumping on it. As Nick Speed explains about the process of the song, “What I was thinking when I sampled that record, the first thing, was that I was looking for a drum break. So I had a sampled beat and I was just looking for some drums. So I was just going to slide the ‘Night Drive’ joints underneath the sample beat. I was trying to line it up and was like this shit kind of sounds sweet by itself. So I just started all off, it was that easy.” The song would first appear on one of Danny Brown’s Detroit State Of Mind mixtapes, then the final version was the lead single to 2008′s Hot Soup. A remix featuring fellow Detroiters Phat Kat and Big Herk also surfaced on Nick Speed’s D-Tour album. Shortly after, DJs in Detroit radio and clubs were playing “What Up Doe”, which as any of us in Detroit know is a tough thing it get. “I remember the first time I played it in the club,” Nick Speed reflects, “It seemed like they had already heard the song. This is the kind of reaction I’m talking about.” Around the time Hot Soup came out, Nick Speed was looking to get in touch with Juan Atkins because he thought this was a song he needed to hear. “I knew that Juan was from Detroit and that was a Detroit record,” Speed explains, “So I was wondered if I could work something out with him where we could really put this thing out. I knew the streets were loving it but I at least wanted him to hear the song.” The funny thing was, when Speed brought this to my attention, days before I had just met the manager for Juan Atkins and Underground Resistance, Cornelius Harris, at the Submerge Building for Red Bull Music Academy information session with Dennis Coffey. So I quickly told him exactly who he needed to contact. Nick Speed would eventually get in contact with Juan Atkins, but not before a surprise appearance from Atkins during Speed’s set at the 2008 Movement Festival. “When I was doing the electronic music festival in 2008, Juan just comes out of no where on the stage. This is my first time meeting him. I look over my shoulder and there’s Juan Atkins standing right there.” With the approval from Juan Atkins and Underground Resistance for the “What Up Doe” track, they extended their hand to Nick Speed to continue to work on more music with him. Speed would eventually move his studio from Second and Selden in Detroit to the Submerge Building on E. Grand Blvd and start working with Atkins and all of the UR members “Mad” Mike Banks, Cornelius Harris, Mark Taylor, and DJ Skurge, and started to learn the vinyl business. “They saw how many tracks and beats I had made over a course of time,” Speed describes. “They were like ‘Man, you haven’t been dropping this stuff on vinyl? What are you doing?’. I’m like ‘Vinyl? Do people still buy vinyl like that?’. They were like ‘Thats how we survived for over 30 years. You need to listen to us and drop that vinyl’.” With that in mind, Speed decided to work on a vinyl release for himself and that first release is titled “Speed Of Sound”, a four track vinyl on his vinyl imprint also called Speed Of Sound that will be distributed through Underground Resistance.

::::Behind The Speed Of Sound::::

The following are stories told from Nick Speed himself regarding the makings of the tracks on the Speed Of Sound records. Copy Cat (Instrumental)

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I had this girl over and she wanted me to make a belly-dance beat. So I picked up these gypsy sounds and all I heard was that little horn. There was all type of crazy little sounds. I heard that little saxophone. I started thinking about some hardcore shit. Fuck that, I’m about to make a banger. I just ripped up the beat real quick. She was like “this isn’t a belly-dance beat!”. I was completely happy with it. This is the beat. This is how it came out, sorry. She wanted me to make some R. Kelly, Timbaland type stuff but thats how it came out. Copy Cat just started off me trying to show off for a girl. I took that with me to a beat battle in Phoenix. I played it in front of Sha Money, Swizz Beats, Denaun Porter, DJ Premier. All of these cats were there. That was the strongest reaction I got from my tracks in that particular room from all these established artists. I felt it was necessary for that track to come out. The people were actually on their feet. Time Capsule

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Basically, I was trying to take it to the blues. Not like I was feeling down that particular day. It was some songs I always wanted to use. I cant necessarily tell you who the artists is. Its a Detroit blues artist. One of the originators. I took the sounds of it. Its from the 50s too. I always like to reach back in time and capture the sounds I feel like were the inspirations for my inspirations. To me, some of the sound reminded me of Love & Happiness by Al Green. I tried to do the baseline kind of like Love & Happiness. I played it like that and I put the other guitar sounds in there, then tried to play it like an old blues song. Like this is what they would be jamming to back in the day if they had a house party in the 50s or 60s. I tried to tell a story without any words. Me Vs You (Instrumental)

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Once again, this is me looking at my inspirations and seeing who their inspirations are. So my inspiration would be Dr. Dre and that leads to a George Clinton/Parliament, and George Clinton leads to Vanilla Fudge. Like 60s rock like that. Thats what I was aiming for with that. I wanted to make a track with that funk, stadium rock feel, and like how Vanilla Fudge would have the organ going all crazy. That old, loud, rock sound. I wanted the drums to hit as hard as possible and clear as they could be. I wanted the drums to knock you on your ass. Just taking it back, like Jimi Hendrix too is another inspiration in that one on how I had the guitar played. My man Leyland played the guitar on that track. When the Soul Deacon did the hook, I wanted it to be like a war chant. That’s why I called it Me Vs You. It sounds like we about to going to war. Mutant Soul

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I don’t know what I was thinking initially, but I pulled it up and wanted to put a techno feel to it. I wanted to experiment with some sounds I haven’t used before. So I dug into some old UR shit. I had conversations with Mad Mike Banks and Juan Atkins about what sounds actually make techno music. The staple sounds of techno music. This is what was done and what can I do to take it to the next level and bring that to hip-hop in a new way. I felt like the track itself was soulful off of the string sounds and everything and the baseline I put. I wanted to add another bass element with the techno bass sound. I just went back into the UR catalogue and utilized the true sounds of true techno music and bring it to a hip hop level where it doesn’t feel like techno at all. Its just a sound you haven’t heard in hip-hop. Thats why its mutant. (Photo Credit: Kelly Frazier @ 2008 Movement Festival, Nick Speed & Juan Atkins) LINKS: PURCHASE (SUBMERGE) | NICK SPEED TWITTER

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