Black Milk - Demo Beats 2012

Black Milk, a producer/rapper as well as drummer/percussionist, who appears on the cover of his landmark album Popular Demand with an MPC tucked under his arm, plays the 'instrument' live and in the studio better than most any human being (Pete Rock's up there too).  Which is part of what makes Demo Beats 2012- a recently dropped teaser of his current output so fascinating.  This future-forward material veers out into some new bracing territory (sounding at times unabashedly similar to even Dilla's Donuts with it's style of constant revolutions of sound) that suggests a much broader sonic palette and production environment.  Where his last full length release Album Of The Year was definitive for how he captured the live sounds of instrumentalists Daru Jones (drums), AB (keys) and bassist Tim Shellabarger (not as much for his personal lyrics of the crushing year he had marked by loss) here we see a man tossing off, literally, a series of tossed off beats (one of 400 produced in the last year he'd rather hold onto for now) that echoes at points his deep crates neo-soul lineage while pointing to something else entirely.

Inside Black Milk's Basement Studio Part 2

Inside Black Milk's Basement Studio Part 2 

You see?... I don't got no... this is like the pre pre pre pre-startup you know what I'm saying there ain't nothing alot goin' on here but the record, the MP and the turntable. Cats probably think I got hundreds of thousands or records, it ain't really like that. I just got good records man, I be searchin' for them good records and shit

- Black Milk

Inside Black Milk's Basement Studio Part 1

Based on Milk's referencing of 'being about to sign his first big record deal' this video might be safely placed as somewhere between Sounds of the City, two Pharaohe Monche records, Lloyd Banks, T3's Oleo Mixtape and the release of his definitive Popular Demand. Given that he is also working on predominantly an MPC 2000 it's likely from that period.

He lays down a track from Slum Village's Detroit Deli album (the track is one with Dilla - then Jay Dee - called Reunion). You can watch that clip/video on it's own here.



he introduces the listener to his love of The Sylvers (of whom Milk says 'they're right up there with The Jackson Five man'. At 6:00 Cross discusses the passing of J Dilla and Proof and the pause for thought it caused him and all of Detroit, indeed the world.

I don't even fuck with jazz records man.
- Curtis Cross aka Black Milk