[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All of It. I'm Alison Stewart, and here's a song from drummer, producer, and rapper, Kassa Overall.

[MUSIC - Kassa Overall: So Happy]

Alison Stewart: That's So Happy from one time New Yorker, Kassa Overall. It comes off his latest album, Animals, which explores a host of feelings beyond happiness, including the pressure and the anxiety of being a working musician. Animals is Overall's third album as a band leader and solo artist. His debut came out in 2019 named Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz. Jazz is an essential reference for Overall's music, but it's far from the only one. On Animals, he's joined by a long list of collaborators that include pianist, Vijay Iyer, trumpeter, Theo Croker, rapper, Danny Brown, vocalist, Nick Hakim, and pop producer, Francis and the Lights. Kassa Overall joins us now. Hi, Kassa.

Kassa Overall: Hi. How are you doing? Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: I'm great. I'm great. Let me go back to the Wayback Machine. Your debut album as a band leader was in 2019. You're about 35-years-old. What was going on in your life when that album came out?

Kassa Overall: At that time, I moved to New York in 2006, and from 2007 until basically 2019, I stayed on the road playing with other musicians. I played with a lot of jazz legends as well as some pop acts and things. During that whole process or that period, I was always making my own music, but I didn't really have the follow through to say, "Let me finish a project and put it out."

Actually, one thing that comes to mind, in the fall of 2018, I was getting ready to put the record out, and I was getting lists of tour dates for the next year. My girlfriend and also co-producer of the new album, Animals, Lauren Du Graf, she was like, "Yo, you put all this time and energy into this album and you're going to run around playing in everybody else's band all year. If you're going to do this, you have to commit to it, and say no, and be broke, and just start from scratch." That was a big turning point, and I think it was a good decision.

Alison Stewart: Your second album came out February, 2020 and then insert pandemic here, and then we're here. How much did the pandemic have to do with the album coming three years after your last, or did it just take that much time for you to get what you wanted?

Kassa Overall: It just took that much time. I think the interesting thing for me was February 28th, 2020, I think I'm Good came out. We were getting a response like we had never gotten before, and selling out of merch at every show, and just getting a lot of good feedback. I was like, finally we're in a place where this can work, this small business can make sense.

With the pandemic happening, it really hit me in a hard way,. I was like, "This is my moment." Right as that happened, it was shut down. I was planning on putting another album out the next year, and it's just how long it takes. If you try to make something good, you try to make something that's better than your last thing. It's done when it's done and you have to honor that process.

Alison Stewart: Some of the initial ideas for some of these songs date back to 2019 or earlier. When you have those ideas that are hanging around or they're living in your brain, they're just in their little space at one time, when can you tell it's time to bring a song forward? When do you know, "Yes, that idea I had in 2017, now's the time."

Kassa Overall: One thing about it is when you're making an album, you have to pick the songs that fit together. You might have a batch of new songs, but the new songs fit with that song from 2017. It's like there were songs that I had before the last album that didn't fit on there, you know what I mean? I have songs for the next album as well. There's that. Then the other thing, I don't know if this answers your question or if I'm veering away, but, when I'm listening to the music and I'm almost finished with it and it makes me emotional to listen to it, that's how I know it's time.

You know what I mean? Sometimes that emotional feeling actually has to do with the amount of work that I put into it. You have the topics, but you also just have that you gave it your effort, that you gave it your all, and you're just like, you know that you don't have nothing left, and you're just like, "If they like it, they do."

Alison Stewart: That's a good place to be when you get to the point of, you care, but it's okay if someone doesn't like it because I'm good with it and I did my best.

Kassa Overall: Yes, this is true. I've read some things that made me definitely go like, "Wow, I guess they're entitled to their own opinion, but maybe they also didn't listen that closely."

Alison Stewart: My guest is Kassa Overall. The name of the album is Animals. There's a 32nd track skit called, It's Animals. It's got this piano line, some animal sounds. It sounds like a pilot talking to a disruptive passenger. What is this?

Kassa Overall: It's a soundscape. The meaning of it, it's like a metaphorical meaning. It's not like this is an exact thing that happened, but it represents something for me. You have this skit of a pilot and somebody's freaking out on the plane, and he wants to land, but at the end of the dialogue, he says, "We're going to land the plane and we'll need law enforcement, obviously."

The point for that was, for me being somebody who's dealt with mental health stuff in the past and had manic episodes in high school and those things, but also the overlap between that, and we'll need law enforcement, obviously. The overlap between people having mental conditions, but also being treated just as normal people. Like you can't necessarily judge everybody's actions in terms of what a sane person would do. You know what I mean? For me, it was just a perfect way to to point at that overlap between mental health and also carceral system or however you want to put it.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to Its Animals from Kassa Overall.

[MUSIC - Kassa Overall: It's Animals]

I want to follow up on the themes around mental health on your last album, I think I'm Good, you are navigating experiences of living with bipolar disorder, and this album on the song, Make My Way Back Home, featuring vocalist Nick Hakim, he raps, "Now the music is my therapist. We talk it out every night in the booth." How is music therapeutic for you?

Kassa Overall: I found music early on. My parents' living room was a jam session space, basically. All the instruments were there. Learning how to express myself on the drum set came early as well as writing little songs and ditties, and just having fun with music, it came early. I had some experiences as a young person that makes you believe in a higher power or makes you believe in something that's unseen because you have these feelings of being connected to the whole all of existence in a moment. Those moments in the music. That's why I decided to be a musician, because those moments affirmed my existence and my journey and my path.

I used music as a means to wash off the world, whether that's practicing drums. Definitely practicing without intention of getting something done, but just to practice, that is a way for me to cleanse out whatever I'm going through. My teacher, Billy Hart, I would always go to him and ask him, I'd be dealing with whatever I'd be dealing with, and I would call him. Oftentimes, he'd say, "Well, go play the drums and then make a decision." It's like that's my space to get into a focused mental place.

Alison Stewart: That's a good advice. Let's hear, Make My Way Back Home from Kassa Overall.

[MUSIC - Kassa Overall: It's Animals]

I can't complain

What your life like?

At a loss for words, I can't complain

I sowed the seeds and prayed for rain

I filled prescriptions to block out visions

Still feel the tremble of a victim

Swallow my arrogance

Do the math of a missed marriage

Plus a couple miscarriages

Dreams never came true

Family that I never knew (Who are you?)

Plus a couple niggas hatin' too

Now the music is my therapist

We talk it out every night in the booth

Tryna repair this shit

We all tryna break free like a bird in the wind

'Cause we all goin home in the end

You could cry to your mama

But she don't want no drama

Alison Stewart: That's Make My Way Back Home from the album Animals. My guest this hour is Kassa Overall. We'll hear more from the album after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is Kassa Overall. His new album is called Animals. So many great folks join you on this record. Vijay Iyer, Theo Croker, Nick Hakim, some are first-time collaborators, some are folks you've worked with before, like Vijay. What's the balance? How do you find that balance between the folks you've worked with for a long time versus newcomers?

Kassa: I would say I don't really think about it too much. It's more of an intuitive flow. Obviously, being a person that I can be in the front with the mic, I can play drums, I can produce the whole thing, so I can play these different positions. I think of these different artists as different colors or different-- It's like even though I can do it all in terms of I can play a lot of positions, I can't do it all emotionally. There's a different vibe that a different person is going to bring.

A lot of it is just really I'm thinking about making the best song I can make, and I'm thinking about what can make this a little bit better, or who can say something on this, this that I can't do? The process is very intuitive. Also, there's a lot of trial and error. I might have somebody play something on a piece, and then we're trying to use that, and then maybe that's not working, and then I'll try something else.

There are a lot of lyrics that I wrote to some of these songs that are on the album that didn't make it on the album because I just wasn't happy with i?. When you get somebody like Ishmael Butler to lace the song, it's like he just changed the whole meaning of the song and changed the whole feel. It's just an honor really. It's just an honor to have artists like these artists that are some of the best people that I look up to to validate what I'm doing.

Alison Stewart: You mentioned Ishmael Butler who people might know from Digable Planets. He's on a track I believe it's with Lil B, and with Francis and the Lights. That's quite a list of people on one track. How did it come together? Was this one of those where you were able to work together as a whole, or did people send in pieces, and then you worked and made a collage out of it?

Kassa: It was both. That was a track I'd been working on for quite a long time. I broke a hard drive, and all I had was-- how do I explain this to the audience? I didn't have the full session. All I had was the two-tracks.

Alison Stewart: Oh, no.

Kassa: I took that and I worked on it for literally years. I had a big writer's block around what the chorus was and what the actual lyrical part was, and then I linked up with Francis and the Lights. I was driving from LA to Seattle, and I literally just drove to his house and was like, "Hey, I need help with this." He's extremely talented at writing hooks and melodies and things.

We got in the studio and truly co-wrote it. I brought a line, he brought a line, and we were giddy like little kids about it once we really found it. Lil B sent his verse in and Ishmael Butler sent his verse in. It was really one of those songs that I know this is a strong song, I know this is worth it, but I can't figure out lyrically what to do, and so I got the help.

Alison Stewart: How'd you break the hard drive, man?

Kassa: I dropped it down the flight of stairs.

Alison Stewart: No.

Kassa: Yes. I spent months trying to get it back. This guy took it to somebody that they do like governmental data recovery and they just could do it, but that's okay. I figured out. I like the final product. We figured it out.

Alison Stewart: You wouldn't have this song if that didn't happen.

Kassa: Yes. It's just a super unique process to get to the finish line.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear Going Up.

[MUSIC - Kassa Overall: Going Up]

Hold on, wait a minute

Hold on, wait a minute

Elevators, elevators, elevators, elevators

Goin' up

Please, 'fore I let you go

Take this little piece of me

I know it isn't anything

But you can't have it all

Life is very long

Very long, uh

I could've gave you everything

It's ya boy Lil B

But you can't have it all

I could've gave ya

Would've, should've, could've

You my Suga Duga

In my Cam'ron voice

Girl, with your choice, it's all about choices

Alison Stewart: The song that came back from the dead that's called Going Up From Kassa Overall. The album is Animals. I saw this in every article I read. Not everyone. A lot of the articles I read described you as a backpack producer. People can't see me. I'm like I'm putting on a backpack when I say this. What does that mean to be a backpack producer?

Kassa: It's actually a play on the bedroom producer. Over the past however many years, it became popular the term bedroom producer, which is like you don't go to the studio. You have your little set up at the house and you can do everything you need to do at home. What I started doing in New York, I had a bike, and sometimes I took the train, but I would put all my gear in a backpack, laptop, interface, microphone, headphones, that's the basic setup.

I'd put it in my backpack and I'd go to people's houses. I'd go to Stephan Crump's house, the bassist, or Morgan Garrett, or Sullivan Fortner, all these different musicians who have their instruments and have a setup at home, and I would latch onto their setup and record at their houses. There's something about being in person that you can't really recreate. There's something about that process. I have some great memories of Sullivan Fortner. His apartment was basically a room with a Steinway in it. You know what I mean?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Kassa Overall: It was a little couch, a little kitchen, but the whole apartment was basically just this Steinway. I come through with my mic and I have him play on different sessions I'm working on. We would get something really organic, really raw, and it also like-- Anyways, that's the backpack producer.

Alison Stewart: I want to hear another song on your album, No It Ain't. Is there a chord progression that's a little bit like You're All I Need to Get By?

Kassa Overall: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Intentional, yes? It's a great song.

Kassa Overall: Yes, absolutely. That's a straight--

Alison Stewart: Tip of the hat?

Kassa Overall: Yes, for sure. A big shout out to Andre Martinson, the trombonist who did the trombone parts. He's a trombone player that I went to Oberlin with. I've known him for many years. He's been working on these concepts where he stacks a bunch of trombones on top of each other.

Alison Stewart: Oh, cool.

Kassa Overall: That's the basis of this one. You'll also hear he goes from You're All I Need into Jericho, the gospel melody. I don't know the exact name of the song, but it's Jericho reference as well.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear No It Ain't.

[MUSIC - Kassa Overall: No It Ain't]

Alison Stewart: That's Know It Ain't from Animals from Kassa Overall. I want to give a shout out to Lauren Du Graf, you did a little bit earlier, writer, documentary filmmaker, co-producer. She was on our show way back when talking about Cuban women and Cuban jazz. What does she bring to the table as a collaborator?

Kassa Overall: She calls herself Ricky Rubina, which is like--

Alison Stewart: [laughter] Ricky Rubin?

Kassa Overall: Yes.

Alison Stewart: That's funny.

Kassa Overall: There's a few things. One thing is that she's a writer. She's a writer, I'm a musician, and she won't share anything with me until she's ready that she's writing. Me, I'll write some lyrics really quickly and immediately play it for her. You know what I mean?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Kassa Overall: As soon as I have the idea, I'm like, "Yo, this thing is crazy, da, da, da." First thing she is, is kind of like a filter, to be like, "That's not good", or, "That is good," or, "That's good, but it needs more work." She's the filtration system to make sure it's on the level.

Alison Stewart: You know what, you need that person. Every artist needs that person. The name of the album is Animals. My guest has been Kassa Overall. Kassa, thank you so much for being with us.

Kassa Overall: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

 

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