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Robert Hood - The Key To Midnight (Nighttime World Vol. 2, M-Plant, 2000)
Talking about his first projects [1]:
I started to produce a bit more and I started recording some demo tapes - I’d got a drum machine and a Roland TR505 from a pawn shop that I started making beats with. I was going to a studio where I paid $15 an hour to make a demo. I met a guy called Mike Clark through my girlfriend at the time - and he knew everybody! He knew Mike Banks, Jeff Mills, in fact all the DJs and producers in Detroit. He introduced me to Mike Banks and I let him hear a demo tape. I think it was a Public Enemy horn sound that I ripped off and made a beat, and Mike was interested. I think what caught his interest was the drum programming. So he wanted to hear some more…and they happened to be starting work on a compilation. So I came along and did two tracks on the album as an MC! Not a producer, an MC.
You know, I was interested in hip house at the time - I didn’t really want to be an MC but I couldn’t find anyone else that was willing to do it. I wanted to find an MC that was sort of a cross between Chuck D and Q-Tip for some kind of political abstract MCing. But I couldn’t find anybody so I decided to go ahead and do it myself. So yeah, we wrote two tracks with me as an MC and they produced the beats and we went from there. This was happening in about 1991.
When I recorded those tracks, UR wasn’t even up and running yet. It was just an idea, something that was coming alive as a production unit between Mike Banks and Jeff Mills. I just happened to meet them just before it started. Slowly it evolved to the stage where I was a more active member of the group, especially with the live shows and the label Hardwax. They helped me start that and helped me develop as an artist.
