Free Food influenced by blend of rap, jazz
Free Food, a collaborative effort comprised of seven UCLA students and one non-student, will open for Dam-Funk this Thursday at the Lyric Theatre.
By Faizan Ghori
Feb. 13, 2013 12:05 a.m.
Many people have made bad jokes that have outlived their expiration date. Free Food’s moniker falls under that category.
“Our band name is a pretty bad joke. We figured folks were more interested in coming out for food than music. It’s more a bad joke than anything,” said Oliver Brown, frontman, lyricist and fourth-year ethnomusicology student.
Free Food is an eight-piece collaborative effort that plays rap/jazz fusion. The band is comprised of seven UCLA students, and one non-student. On Thursday, Free Food will open for the progressive/funk artist Dam-Funk at the Lyric Theatre.
Brown said that Dam-Funk was one of his inspirations – he remembers sneaking into a Dam-Funk concert at 16 to see what records were playing. Brown’s childhood fascination with rapping has contributed to how he makes music to this day.
“I grew up doing rap battles, so I try to treat (rap) like a jazz instrument, trying to find rhythms on the flow of the song,” Brown said.
Although the band is sprinting now, it took Free Food about ten weeks to get up and running.
“We talked about (jamming) so much, and then one weekend we all finally got together and it just … worked,” said Rachel Woods-Robinson, trombonist and fourth-year ethnomusicology student.
Brown said he met Antonio Rodrigo while he was playing in a Beatles cover show. They hit it off instantly and decided to play together in the future. Rodrigo’s vocal contributions are animated and dynamic, aligning with Free Food’s energy at live performances.
“Free Food is a collective of friends and musicians, who are essentially trying to bring back the relevancy of the live band to dance music,” Brown said. “We like having seamless transitions, upbeat music, incorporating electronic sounds, and to create psycho-funk and electro-hip-hop stuff that can kick it in the world.”
Although it may be hard to imagine what rap/jazz fusion sounds like, Free Food’s sound isn’t foreign.
“Our collaborative’s sound would be something akin to halfway between Outkast and RH Factor. If our sound had to be pegged to an artist, it’d be J Dilla,” Brown said.
The band will play songs off of its new album, “Eat/Sleep/Swoon,” being released in early May. The set list includes “Gone” and “Feel So Fine,” both songs that sound like smooth jazz, layered with drums and Brown’s quick rhymes. Brown said many parts of the album – whether those be a bass line or a drum beat – have been influenced by friends and fellow musicians.
Brown said he tries to find relevant stories to his life and write music that people can relate to. Forrest Mitchell, drummer and a fourth-year ethnomusicology student, said they’re not making music about driving Lamborghinis and having diamond-studded teeth.
“As far as writing, nothing is ever planned. We sit in the same room and say ‘go.’ It’s different for each song; someone might have a bass line, and we build off of that,” said Woods-Robinson.
Although the songwriting process is not planned, there is some method to the madness.
“The band starts with bass and drums, laying down the rhythmic foundation of the song, then horns write to that, the keyboard writes to that, the guitar writes to that, then Oliver writes to that. It’s a cool process,” said Erik Shiboski, bassist and a second-year ethnomusicology student.
“(The band) can write a song within 30 minutes. After they’re done writing (the melody), what follows is six weeks of sleepless nights (for me) to write out the lyrics,” Brown said.
Email Ghori at [email protected]
