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K-SALAAM & BEATNICK
‘WHOSE WORLD IS THIS?’
On their latest musical opus, ‘Whose World Is This?’, Minnesotanproducers and songwriters K-Salaam and Beatnick pose this thought-provoking question to an A-list selection of some of the world’s most prominent hip hop, reggae and spoken word artists. Using K-Salaam & Beatnick’s music as the vehicle, TreySongz, Young Buck, Sizzla, Buju Banton, DeadPrez and TalibKweli among others, rose to the challenge and used their music and message to formulate their answer. The album forms a cohesive musical dialog across cultures, genres and life experiences. As told by K-Salaam: “This is an album created to inspire change for the global community. Its message is one of revolution.”
Addressing politics, poetics and peace, the musical forum explores a variety of solutions and topics to ‘Whose World Is This?”. On “To the Rescue,” Papoose and Busy Signal propose to take militant action immediately as Papoose fervently delivers in the first verse: “Protect our own world and we can be ok, cause every time one of our leaders gets blown away, we lose faith and all our people go astray. We got to take it!” On the other hand, reggae luminary Sizzla offers a very poetic reply searching for religious truth and escape on “Sail On,” while Trey Songz and Buju Banton call for peace on "Street Life" insisting“Gangster, you don’t have to bust your guns tonight. Those days are over. You don’t have to run into the street life.”
Finding his voice at an early age through the language of cuts and blends, Iranian born K-Salaam describes the birth of this project: “I went into this thinking that I wanted to make a great album with some of my favorite artists, so I wrote down the names of 15 artists I wanted to work with and 13 ended up on the album!” The producer embarked on a quest- literally going door-to-door, studio-to-studio-to convince each artist to record for him. He even traveled to Jamaica to find some his favorite reggae stars Capleton, Sizzla and Luciano. Recalling their first encounter, reggae legend BujuBantonjokes, “K-Salaam came as close as a mustard seed to getting killed.” K-Salaam boldly cold-called Buju Banton while he was in New York and despite the possible imposition Buju invited him to record the same day. K-Salaam’s search for Sizzla was just as colorful. K recalls, “I went to Jamaica to just seek him out. When I landed, it turned out he wasn’t even on the island but luckily I had my boombox with me, so I played a few tracks for his people and left a beat CD. Eventually he heard my tracks, reached out to me and that was that!”
Like Buju Banton and Sizzla, nearly all of the artists he approached agreed to participate immediately after listening to the music. Stic Man from Dead Prez states: “It was a no brainer for me…It is good music, good vibe, for a good reason. K-Salaam and Beatnick are very talented and they stand for something substantive. We believe in the solidarity of oppressed people, black, brown, all the way around.” Despite no industry connections prior to starting, the music and concept swayed the who’s-who of artists. As Scratch Magazine notes, “for a no-name producer to have won over so many high-profile artists, his skills must have really stood out.” K adds, “revolution is started by individuals but can only be won by armies, that’s why I felt the need to ally myself with like-minded artists.”
There is also a more intimate reason behind the genesis of this album and K-Salaam’s desire to record in Jamaica with reggae artists. As he explains, “My family is from the slums of a third-world country. My father would tell me stories of not eating for 5 days straight or having shoes until he was 17 years old. Going to Jamaica and seeing the ghetto over there was like living some of my father’s past, just in another country. It was a mind-blowing experience that saturated my soul and spirit.”
Rooted with tradition that spans from King Tubby to Funkmaster Flex, K-Salaam and Beatnick’s work also draws on the songwriting legacy of Tamla Motown’s soul and The Beatles. As Beatnick states, “our sound is very vibrant, polished, and lush. We compose songs, not just make beats. That’s why we attract such a diverse range of artists and projects.”
The two producers continue to work on a wide spectrum of projects. They are currently in the studio preparing their next album entitled “It’s Like a Jungle Sometimes”, which is “less political and more of a therapy album for me and everyday working people,” K-Salaam notes. The duo is also producing tracks for NAS, TheOutlawz and Young Jeezy and scoring soundtracks for HBO and Danny Glover’s latest movie.
“Our new album just like our work, is incredibly varied, adds K-Salaam, but our music is the glue that keeps it all together. Whether reggae, hip-hop or spoken word, everyone sounds like they belong on it. Hip-hop and reggae are like distant cousins. They all speak the same language, they just have different accents.”