When Ice = Avant Garde

Paul Miller, better known as DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, is the man the Sunday Star Times calls “Einstein with a better haircut, a streetwise black Tolstoy, sharp as Zorro’s sword, funny as Falstaff.”

He made his name on the international art scene juggling multiple roles as a composer, multimedia artist, writer, and deejay.  His work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Source, The Guggenheim Museum, and at the Whitney Biennial. He’s produced, collaborated with and remixed many celebrated artists including Yoko Ono, Lee Scratch Perry, Chuck D, and the Wu-tang Clan.

The Root recently caught up with Paul on the tele while he was in the studio mixing. Representing his skills as a master deejay, Paul flexed in and out of our convo numerous times (speaking off interview to his engineer) and never missed a beat as he talked about pan-humanism, black men’s fascination with ice, and his latest project Sinfonia Antarctica.

–Neycha:  As a composer, multimedia artist, writer and deejay, how do you balance all of these roles – specifically the creative appetite of each?

Paul: Everything is software for me, as much as possible.  I have a new book that came out a little while ago called Sound Unbound.  The basic vibe was a collage aesthetic.  When I think of electronic music, when I think of our current way of putting together texts and our current way of just thinking, whether it’s hopping from web page to web page, or with Hypertext, it’s all connected.

–Neycha: So you feel that actually each of those roles or disciplines are well integrated in who you are so you don’t feel any sense of compartmentalizing?

Paul: No, not at all.  Everything is connected.  As the 21st Century moves further and further into an information-based economy, you’ll be seeing a lot more artists and creative people looking at how interdisciplinary is the basic vocabulary of the creative process.  So as much as possible, I always think of music as art, art as literature and literature as music.  It’s really not about keeping them separate.

–Neycha:  I was reading through your materials.  New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times calls you “a man obsessed with art, information and digital technology.”  What do you believe informs the gravitational pull towards each of those things?

Paul:  Well, I grew up in D.C.  My mother was a historian of design.  She had a store called Toast and Strawberries – I grew up in a household that celebrated intellect, and encouraged exploration. The Washington DC scene that I grew up in was really multi-cultural. I had alot of friends from the embassy scene, and I guess that translated into different kinds of people hanging out who brought alot of new ideas from abroad. That influenced everything I do, right up to this day.

–Neycha:  Tell me about your film Sinfonia Antarctica that will be running at BAM later this year.

Paul:  Well, I went down to Antarctica to shoot a film about the sound of ice.  It’s basically a film about looking at the environment as a kind of sonic landscape instead of just something that’s static and removed from us.  Our ears are how we balance ourselves.  You get your sense of gravity.  That’s why you get shell shocked if you hear a huge explosion, for example.  You feel like you’re floating.  We guide ourselves with the ears and the eyes, but I think everybody gives the eyes way too much credit.

I went down to Antarctica and bought a studio down there and went to some of the main ice fields.  The whole idea was to sort of look at it in hip hop and electronic music from the prism of the environment.  If you think about black culture, everybody’s calling themselves Ice Cube, Ice-T.  You got the white guy, Vanilla Ice.  (laughter)  There’s this kind of idea of Eros – why do black men have this fascination with being “cold as ice” – ice in hip hop is about “bling” – you know, diamonds and whatnot. It’s fascinating to me to get people to realize that the metaphors are connected.

When I say Eros, the idea of the cold, the “cold muthafucka.”   You look at Iceberg Slim or you got “Soul On Ice” with Eldridge Cleaver.  Everybody is about “ice” in black culture for some reason.  So I thought it would be an ironic turn of things to go down there and actually go to the ice and look at it for inspiration.

–Neycha:  I love that!  (laughter)  Why was it important for you to touch something beyond what’s easily accessible and attempt to make it accessible to the masses?

Paul:  Yeah, how do people really get into a flow of saying the planet itself is part of my art palette.  It’s saying hip-hop is not just about the city or the street.  Everyone says it’s the street, the street, blah, blah, blah.  But you know, just looking at how much my composition and just the way that I reflect off of urban and culture.

I don’t know.  It’s like getting away from the city is almost incredibly difficult in this era because we’re always bombarded with urbanism at every level.  If you think about your average kid growing up in the city, they barely can even see the night sky.

–Neycha:  Right.

Paul:  You know, because of the light pollution – literally the dust in the air from the millions of cars, the electricity, the streetlights – it all adds up to a situation where your average kid in the city doesn’t event see the beauty of the night sky.

–Neycha:  Would you say this has often been a theme in your work over the decades, to go beyond the surface realm?

Paul:  Yeah, I definitely think so.

–Neycha:  Were you the type of child who sought out other or different or beyond?

Paul:  Yeah.  I don’t know.  I raced bicycles and I played soccer, which in D.C., of course, the black culture, you know, it’s chocolate city.  Everybody was all about b-ball and everybody was all about football, but not soccer or tennis or racing bicycles.  I might as well have been from outer space, you know.

–Neycha:  So that made you really “other”. (laughter)

Paul:  I just grew up with a little bit more of an international twist on D.C.  I grew up near Dupont Circle.  My mom had a store called Toast and Strawberries.  It was one of the oldest black-owned stores in Dupont Circle.  She just retired.  My dad was Dean of Howard University’s Law School in the late ‘60s early ‘70s.

Basically, I was all about information.  My mom encouraged a reading process as a basic way of thinking about, not only black culture, but just what it means to be human.  I tend to think on one level or another, information just makes life more rich.  America has this whole thing of being anti-intellectual or this or that.  She wasn’t down with that.  So I grew up in a way saying, “This is what my mom set up as the environment.  I just roll with it.”

–Neycha:  That’s amazing and very purposeful for her and you.  One of the stated intentions about your work in the Antarctic was to explore the acoustic qualities of ice and its relationship to geography.  I noticed you spoke about looking more deeply at man’s relationship to nature.  I’m curious to know what you’ve discovered about yourself, if anything, while working on this project.  Any personal insights?

Paul:  Yeah.  I realized I am drawn to tropical spots. (laughter) My mom took us to Jamaica every summer when I was a kid.  She was the art critic for the Kingston Daily Gleaner.  She was really into tropical art, contemporary arts from the Caribbean.  Antarctica was not Jamaica.  (laughter) On New Year’s Eve, we invented a new drink, though, called the Jamaican Iceberg.

–Neycha:  (laughter) How long were you there?

Paul:  For four weeks.  That’s now a state secret, the Jamaican Iceberg.  I might make a mixed drink out of it or something.  You heard it first here.

–Neycha:  (laughter)  Well thank you for the exclusive my dear! Something else I’m really curious about, specifically as it relates to you and the massive body of work you’ve been able to put out over the years.  The creative process.  It demands so much of us, especially if we offer ourselves to it wholly.  It requires surrendering ego, and often an attachment to the very vision that prompted us to begin.  How have you navigated that fine line between leading, working with your vision, and being led by it?

Paul:  Anything goes.  I’ve never really felt that the creative act is separate from life.  I think information is what makes life interesting.  It really isn’t about a separation of things.  I think a lot of artists feel like they have to sit in the studio and that’s where they get inspiration.  I’m the opposite. I want to be out in the world.  I like traveling.  I really enjoy seeing as much as possible of this planet.  Antarctica was just a kind of way of getting into the whole layer that I think contemporary culture needs to understand.  For lack of a better word, nothing I do is ever “separate”; it’s all just about exploring and learning and keeping life interesting.  If it’s boring, forget it.  Just get out.

–Neycha:  Keep it moving.  That’s an interesting point you raise.  With you, there’s this constant refrain about sampling the environment, re-sampling culture, digitally constructing, reconstructing, deconstructing.  As you think about the impact of your work on the larger social consciousness, do you believe it’s political or psychological, archetypal, metaphorical or something else?

Paul:  Everything is political, everything.  Tying your shoes is political.  It’s really about existing in the everyday world and aware that the economics of this financial crisis, for example, can affect what you put on your plate.  Or for that matter, the price of gas is part of the index of commodities that go into everything from the vinyl that I use in my record sets or the books I’m writing. They’re all based on petroleum.

It’s funny. I majored in macroeconomic policy the first couple years at the university and then I switched over to philosophy and French literature.  Economics is the hidden connection for how everything functions in this hypermodern world. Allocation of resources, the intricate linkage of supply and demand… these are things that I think about when I look at climate change.

So, yeah, economics shows you, I think, the hidden grammar, so to speak, of the language of our world.  I always am fascinated how we have choices, we have decisions to make, and people sometimes settle for something like a Bush, for example.  Bush being like a nightmarish vision of what’s going on.  I couldn’t believe the passive acceptance of it.  When you’re talking about politics, I’ve never ever felt that you can say, “Hey, I’m not political.”  Even saying you’re not political is political. Everything is political.

–Neycha:  I would have guessed you would say that.  (laughter)  What part of history would you resample to provide an accurate portrait of our country’s current economic crisis?

Paul:  Well, if you go back to the beginning of the U.S., when you look at the origin of the U.S. Treasury, for example, and the creation of a Federal Reserve later on.   You know, the Treasury I think could have easily been made into more – I think one of the better managed economies right now is Sweden.  They’ve always had a very clever way of dealing with economic policy stuff.  We could take a look at them.  There response to the Depression was actually quite solid and smart, but the problem is that Roosevelt had to reset the whole notion of what an administration could be.  He was in office for a decade more.  I’d like to see Obama be able to be in there for a while.  He’s inherited this huge mess.  If he makes a bush out of history, that would be a good start.

–Neycha:  That would be dynamic.  (laughter)  Both your large multimedia pieces, “Rebirth of a Nation” and “Sinfonia Antarctica” include visuals.  Why is that an important part of your storytelling as an artist?

Paul:  Well, it’s the way we communicate.  I think visuality is the grammar of our time.  To ignore that is to ignore the strongest way you can really communicate with people.  We’re addicted to images, which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.  That’s all I can say.

–Neycha: Were they always a companion to your work, even when you first began the recorded production of music early on?

Paul:  Yeah.  I’d say there always has been a music component and a video component.  In the last several years, I’ve really foregrounded the visual aspects.  I just tend to find you have a lot of explaining to do if you’re talking about experimental music.  I was like, “Okay.  Forget it.  Let’s just jump in with images.”  Then people are like, “Okay.  I get it.”

–Neycha: (laughter)  Two more questions.  What was your contribution to Yoko Ono’s new record?

Paul:  It’s the track called “Rising.”

–Neycha:  Was that an interesting process, something you enjoyed?

Paul:  Yeah.  She’s an old friend from the scene.  It was a real pleasure to work with her.  She’s a reasonable and just chilled out person.  She gets a weird rap, but I’ve always just experienced her as a very kind person.  Getting her to do hip-hop was a real pleasure.

–Neycha:  (laughter)  I can imagine.  Last question for you Paul.  If you accept the premise that each soul or energy has a reason, a purpose for being on the planet, why are you here? To say and or accomplish what?

Paul:  Well, why am I here on the planet?  I don’t know.  (laughter)  I’m kind of just a quirky guy who luckily and happily has a good sense of humor and has enough of a presence on the scene to be able to have a reasonable amount of fun.  (laughter)

–Neycha:  And that’s exciting.  (laughter)  Do you believe your work impacts social consciousness at all?

Paul:  Yeah, absolutely.  It’s about that.  That’s what I’d say the core of my thing is about.

–Neycha:  How so?

Paul: I want people to ask questions.  I really think asking questions is the core of modern life.  You really have to think about it as, you know, the unexamined life, as Socrates says.  There is a great book recently that just came out of Cornel West talking about philosophy.  It’s called The Examined Life.  The unexamined life is not worth living.  This is something that Socrates has always been aware of.  I loved seeing Cornel West take on that.  He’s a big hero for me and I enjoy his work a lot.  It’s just something that I’m here to do – ask questions.  Let’s put it that way.

–Neycha:  And your work helps to do that, certainly.

Paul:  I believe so.  I hope so.

–Neycha:  I think so.  Anything else you want to add?  Anything else we should check out?  I know that we can go to  www.DJSpooky.com to learn about all of your projects.  Is there anything else?

Paul:  I’d say I’m someone who has a sense of humor and life is so cosmically humorous.  We are in a world of massive change.  This is just the beginning, as the 21st Century kicks in.

I just want to add, going down to Antarctica, as an African-American, it just made me realize how many people have played games with exploration and trying to claim the land and saying that they control this land or occupy this place. It just made me realize the kind of pan humanism.  Nobody owns the ice.

For more information on Sound Unbound, The Rebirth Of A Nation and Sinfonia Antarctica, please visit djspooky.com.