The Centaur

Let's get granular

I forget what year it was. ’96, maybe? ’97? I was in San Francisco and was sleeping on the floor at DJ Stef’s place. DJ Stef RIP. I miss her bad. Seems to me that everyone who knew her loved her. She was a very kind and generous and supportive person. I remember feeling cool - maybe for the fist time - because she was friends with big-timers I really looked up to like DJ Premier. And here I was. Feeling special.

Anyway. One day, Stef and I were walking down the street. I think we were on our way back to her place from somewhere. Another person or two might have been with us. Who could that have been? We were just a few blocks from her place when a shiny object on the ground caught my eye. I picked it up. It was a token - maybe from a casino or an arcade or something. The tails side of the token featured an image of a centaur. I put the token in my pocket.

I carried that token with me everywhere I went over the course of the next two months. In any quiet moment of the day, I’d pull out the token and study it, contemplating the centaur. As my thoughts about the centaur evolved, I began to wonder what the life of a centaur living in modern society would be like. A character began to take shape in my imagination. 

I imagined a centaur with an office job. Every day, he’d wear a shirt and a tie and a jacket but no pants. He’d be the only guy at the office walking around with his wang exposed. This would be a problem for some people. And everyone - men and women - would objectify and sexualize him all the time. Despite his best efforts to be a normal guy and a model employee, everyone would be distracted and fixated on his private area. He would be constantly asked inappropriate questions. People would look and stare. He knew what the quiet ones were thinking. Dealing with this kind of thing day in and day out would take its toll. You’d think a centaur would be pretty messed up after a while. His sense of self and worth would probably be all out of whack. 

When I arrived at the bottom of my centaur rabbit hole, it was time to write a song. 

As I wrote the lyrics to “The Centaur” a metaphor began to emerge. The centaur’s “business” became a symbol for talent and fame. I started thinking about how people can lose sight of the fact that famous artists and athletes and politicians (and whatever) are regular people. These days you see it all the time when the wide receiver drops a pass during a big moment in a game and then has terrible abuse hurled at him on social media. I suppose that at a low level, I was beginning to feel a bit of that myself at the time. I was starting to make a name for myself as a rapper and people in my home town - strangers and acquaintances alike - were starting to treat me differently. There wasn’t much to it, really. I mean, who the hell am I? But as an introverted fellow, it freaked me out a little bit. 

The song I wrote is dumb. But dumb can be good. If I wrote the song today, I’d probably make my points in a more clear and less brutal way and it would be a worse song that no one would take notice of or care about. The song I DID write pretty much became an underground classic. It took off in a way I didn’t expect. I think it’s safe to say that it’s the song I’m best known for. It was the most requested song at shows through the years. It was the closest thing I ever had to hit, I guess you could say. 

I don’t really know why people like “The Centaur” so much but I think the beat has something to do with it. 

I remember the beat giving me some trouble. There was a little string part from a movie soundtrack that I wanted to use but I struggled to wrestle it into a loop. I tried it a few different ways and wasn’t happy with how it was sounding. After a few days of messing with it, I gave up. A week or so later, I returned to it with a fresh ear and cracked it. Once I had the loop going, I had to try to find drums to compliment it. Once again, I hit a wall. Honestly, I must have tied 30 or 40 different drum breaks and none of them were doing it for me. I needed power that I wasn’t getting. 

I remember so clearly when it finally clicked. I used to work at a newsstand in downtown Halifax called Blowers Street Paper Chase. I lived in an apartment on the same block, right around the corner. In the middle of a shift on the fateful day, I ran up to my apartment during a 30-minute lunch break to work on the beat. I sampled a drum break from a certain rock record and when I hit the ‘play’ button on the SP-1200 to see how it sounded, I jumped out of my socks. Holy shit. I finally had the power I had been desperately looking for. Flames shot out of the back of the sampler. I was so friggin’ hyped. When I ran back to work, my feet didn’t touch the ground. 

Now here’s a part of the story I’ve never told before. Kool Keith was almost on this song! Before the Vertex album was properly released, cassette dubs circulated quickly among my peers through underground channels and dudes were buggin’ out about “The Centaur”. I don’t quite remember who had the idea first but someone came up with the notion to get Kool Keith to add a verse to the song. An effort was mobilized. Someone managed to get the song to Keith and apparently, he was down. Sole from Anticon called me and left a message with Keith’s phone number on my machine. “Call him!”. I still have that message on a cassette with a bunch of other dumb stuff I recorded off the phone. 

I never called Kool Keith. I should have. Can you imagine? Kool Keith was my idol. I’ve never met him. But a few years later, I was checking into a hotel room in Scotland (Aberdeen, maybe?) and from across the lobby, I heard a voice with an American accent yell, “Buck 65 is in the house!”. I turned and looked and it was Kool Keith with a fist in the air, disappearing though the front entrance. 

A quick note on the Centaur 12”, which was released by Anticon in 1998 or 1999 or whenever it was. The cover art was done by an artist named Reka. He’s a German guy who was living in Halifax at the time. He did artwork for a bunch of my stuff. His real name is Nic Klein and he’s now one of the top illustrators for Marvel Comics! You can check out his recent work here.

Telling this story is reminding me of the ill-fated North American Adonis album that I recorded with Jel and Doseone back in the day. Maybe I’ll tell that story here next.

A couple of other quick things before I let you get on with your day:

Thanks to everyone who ‘liked’ the last post, sending the signal that I should keep going with these things. A few of you went on a bit of a rampage and ‘liked’ every post I’ve written so far. I see you and I appreciate it. 

There are a small number of pre-sales left for King Of Drums vinyl. To ensure you can get your hands on a copy, place your order here now. Still no definitive word on when the vinyl will be ready to ship (the pressing order is backed up - probably because of Taylor Swift) but we’re still optimistic that it will be early in the new year. 

While you’re at the Handsmade website, get your copy of the new A7PHA album - that’s Doseone and Mestizo with production from Meaty Ogre and Jel. The album is bonkers. Scared the crap out of me. 

And finally, a quick book recommendation for you. I CRUSHED Quentin Tarantino’s new book - Cinema Speculation - in two days. I loved it. I’ve been watching great movies from the 70s almost every day since. If you’ve never seen Rolling Thunder, directed by John Flynn, see it tonight. 

That’s it for now. Until next time.