In an interview for “Weekend Adevărul”, the three members of the band Șuie Paparude talk about trap music singers, whom they say should pay more attention to lyrics and sing more live at concerts.
Suie Paparude celebrates 32 years of activity this year. PHOTO: Mediafax
“Weekend Truth”: Today's trap using 808s (percussion sound made with drum machines like the Roland TR-808 with which you can program the rhythms and which are distinguished by the powerful bass) were very fashionable in the 80s .
Michala: Yes, they were used in the 80s, but not with the kick (no – rhythmic beat) and the release (no – musical parameter that represents the speed with which the sound signal returns to the stage in which it is not active) so please move your speaker. You're going to laugh, but I heard a Beastie Boys track that only has the 808 and vocals (no – the track “Paul Revere”, 1986). The cool part is that they all, especially Roland (no – a Japanese electronic musical instrument manufacturer), made these drum machines for a completely different purpose: a drum machine to replace a drummer in a band. The bass line, replaced by the TB-303 (nr – bass synthesizer) later spawned acid house music (nr – subgenre of house music). The TB-303 was designed to emulate the bass player when he slides on the fingerboard (nr – the neck of the guitar) between notes. I mean, that “bpeau”.
Were the Beastie Boys using the triplet flow in the 80's that is used in trots today?
Junkyard: No, it was the classic flow. They were doing exactly what was done in New York back then.
Dobrica: In concerts they came with a drum.
Michala: The Beastie Boys were a surf rock band. They had guitars. Same as Anthrax (no – trash metal band from New York).
Junkyard: Anthrax with Public Enemy when they released “Bring the Noise” in 1991, it was a game changer. It was a big change in music, at least for me. At that moment I realized that metal and rap can be combined, and from here more combinations can come out.
Michala: This is the essence of us in the band: to combine A with B so that C comes out, but by feeling. I've never done something just because it's trendy. Obviously, we pay attention to what is happening at the moment in music, because Șuie emerges from such combinations.
“The prophecy is that the word beats the thought at the end”
Have you considered bringing influences from today's music such as trot into your music?
Michala: Yes, of course. We'll have it at SoundClash too. But of course they will be passed through our filter, because I don't want them to call one-on-one with the influence. Actually, that's what it's all about. What are we doing? Are we mirroring in a puddle?
How do you like the trot?
Junkyard: It seems to me that the instrumental – which has not appeared recently, but more than 20 years -, together with this style of flow with triplets, is interesting and spectacular, especially in combination with other sounds, not necessarily with 808- hate. It can be combined with the oscillators of the dubstep years, for example. I admit, the lyrics part doesn't catch me. I think it's the prerogative of the new generation and the messages are closer to what's going on with them… There's been a lot of cool tracks, but I don't shudder when I hear trot.
Junkyard and Dobrica, in the foreground at the concert. PHOTO: personal archive
Michala: It broke me when it appeared. I heard a track like this around 2011-2012 and it killed me. I said: it's game stop! A beautiful piece of just three sounds that killed everything. You need some cool speakers to really understand what trotting is all about. It has some lows that have to be listened to properly, and you can't listen to trot on the phone, because it's physically impossible. You just listen to the trotting voice. If you want to make fun of some music, listen to it on your phone. You have the voice in front of you for nothing, if you don't hear the instrumental, because the instrumental is the music.
Junkyard (intervenes): I don't think that today it's just about music, but about trotting messages.
Michala: Then, unfortunately, I have to move away from this area, because I want to listen to music. I want to listen to C, D, Mi. “I want to hear emotion through music, not someone who says a poem”
Dobrica (interjects): So you can take the message and put it to another style of music.
What do you think about the fact that many rap singers do some kind of playback at concerts?
Junkyard: Singing over seems a bit strange to me. To sing live. To sing his songs.
Michala: This is a big problem. I'm curious to see trap artists from Romania singing their respective songs live. Let's see if it sounds cool without additional voices.
Dobrica: I saw some who sang live and they sounded really good. They even resembled our live setup. But really, most of them only make music for YouTube, Spotify or TikTok, and come to concerts with their voice already recorded.
Michala: I have a problem with my voice. The instrumental can be anything. But I want to hear the voice live. After you got some vocals on that song, sing it, bro, live.
Dobrica: But we don't generalize. Because, at our time, when we were just beginning, people said that this kind of music would never be successful. They said it was very easy. Start a car and it sings itself. It's like things are repeating themselves, except that, really, there were two, three people in the electro area and we were still a little more attentive to the lyrics. Not in this trivial area with drugs and stuff.
