Speaker 1: Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio. They
Speaker 1: are What's Up so check it. We are still dealing
Speaker 1: with the passing of really of hip hop's greatest advocate,
Speaker 1: Bob Power, master engineer, producer, musician. I would like to
Speaker 1: say that Bob really really enhanced what we know as
Speaker 1: boom bap hip hop. I felt it was rather apropos
Speaker 1: for us to pay tribute to him by replaying his episode.
Speaker 1: And what's notable about this episode is that it's the
Speaker 1: second episode of Questloft Supreme.
Speaker 2: I mean, right now, Jake, we are where.
Speaker 1: At least three hundred plus Yeah, so we're three hundred
Speaker 1: plus strong. So for you to agree to be our
Speaker 1: second guest, I mean, that's just that really speaks of
Speaker 1: Bob's character of really being there for you. Like I
Speaker 1: would have to say this, probably I've gotten narry a
Speaker 1: no from Bob for any thing that I've requested to
Speaker 1: mix the song or recall this mix or any of
Speaker 1: those things. And the thing that I want people to
Speaker 1: really know about Bob, besides all of his achievements, is
Speaker 1: just what a really and I know, like words like
Speaker 1: a sweet guy, a lovely guy, all heart and all
Speaker 1: those things. But I mean, Bob was like even based
Speaker 1: on how hip hop heads meant by if you are
Speaker 1: a Daylight fan, you can hear the various times on
Speaker 1: Tribe Records or Daylau Records, and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: in their humorous stratosphere, in the galaxy of humor, that
Speaker 1: is the native tongues.
Speaker 2: Bob plays a big part of that world. And also
Speaker 2: I will say that.
Speaker 1: Bob kind of entered my life in a transitional period.
Speaker 1: We started recording what you guys know as do You
Speaker 1: Want More in the third week of December of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three.
Speaker 2: The music world normally shuts down for.
Speaker 1: The second half of December, you know, for the holidays,
Speaker 1: and usually gets back into business maybe the second week
Speaker 1: of January. So this quite unspoken month that's taken off
Speaker 1: for the industry people. But Bob was so much in
Speaker 1: demand because of the albums that he's done, De La
Speaker 1: Soul's Dead Blue Mind State, all the Tribe called Quest Records,
Speaker 1: a lot of remixes, any remixes that Q Tip or
Speaker 1: Ali Shahid or the Daylight guys have done, be a
Speaker 1: bush Baby's, the Foosh Nickings, any of those, Like Bob
Speaker 1: was pretty much the unspoken. I mean he was George
Speaker 1: Martin of a tribe called Quest Beatles or Dela Soul's Beatles,
Speaker 1: and so he I think, newly married, had two weeks
Speaker 1: off before he had to start work again, and immediately
Speaker 1: it was like an instant Yes, I'll do this, because
Speaker 1: that's how enthusiastic he was about the idea of the Roots.
Speaker 1: You know, Richard played them some rough stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: Bob just loved the idea of a live band doing stuff.
Speaker 1: He had just did Blue Mind State, which really I
Speaker 1: mean quite as it's kept as influential was day La
Speaker 1: Soul is on the Roots. I think I rarely put
Speaker 1: two and two together, how like the Roots are probably
Speaker 1: the manifested result of the seeds laid by day La
Speaker 1: Soul for Balloon Mind State, Dayla Soul, like three Ft
Speaker 1: and Hine and Rising that allowed Trek and I to
Speaker 1: discover who our true selves were, which were we were nerds.
Speaker 1: We weren't thugged out, we were like nerds, and that
Speaker 1: album allowed us to be that. Day Last Soul Is
Speaker 1: Dead was the album that I credit that made me
Speaker 1: Tuik want to start a group because every song was
Speaker 1: just blowing our minds and it was like, well, we
Speaker 1: want to do that too.
Speaker 2: We want to make music that blows people's minds.
Speaker 1: And then you know, come the very dark Balloon Mind
Speaker 1: State record, which has a lot of jazz overtones and
Speaker 1: live musicianship. It probably birthed organics without me knowing it,
Speaker 1: but Bob is really responsible for those sounds, and probably
Speaker 1: what is notable, I realized that Bob is quietly also
Speaker 1: responsible for my writing career, and that's only because Bob
Speaker 1: just had one request. He's like, I want to make
Speaker 1: the best record for you that I can. I need
Speaker 1: complete and absolute silence if you're in the studio now,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been to some sessions at D and
Speaker 1: D during the hip hop renaissance doing the height of
Speaker 1: that era, and usually, like if there's a session, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of weed, a lot of your boys coming
Speaker 1: over the producer asking you to, like, yo, turn that
Speaker 1: shit up, man, and you know they'll put it on
Speaker 1: the big speakers. And none of those songs that we
Speaker 1: did on Do You Want More until the final mix
Speaker 1: was done, we never played on like the giant large.
Speaker 2: Speakers to blast it.
Speaker 1: Bob always insisted that you know, well, they're called Genolik
Speaker 1: speakers or sometimes Yamaha NS tens or even like those
Speaker 1: clock radio. Yes, if you're of age and you know
Speaker 1: what a clock radio is, basically the cheapest speaker that
Speaker 1: you listen to music on. Bob mixed our entire discography
Speaker 1: almost at a whisper, like at a low volume, because
Speaker 1: his theory was if this sounds beautiful on shitty speakers
Speaker 1: and as low volume as possible, then when you really
Speaker 1: back blasted, it'll be amazing. And so Bob was just
Speaker 1: always famous for it and really didn't hesitate to say, guys,
Speaker 1: I need to concentrate.
Speaker 2: And we would go in the break room and whatever
Speaker 2: and eat. And so.
Speaker 1: I guess when I started doing the liner notes for
Speaker 1: Do You Want More? I decided to give Bob a
Speaker 1: new quote for each of the songs listed, like if
Speaker 1: you look on the first song, it's like engineered by Bob, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to concentrate power, and the next all be
Speaker 1: engineered by Bob.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, really like can you keep it down? Power?
Speaker 1: And that's been the running joke so at the age
Speaker 1: of the Internet, especially with social media, the music version
Speaker 1: of IMDb, which like what are those websites like discogs
Speaker 1: or whatever, when they give like complete liner notes of
Speaker 1: who worked on it.
Speaker 2: Bob called me laughing one day.
Speaker 1: It's like, I got you to blame for this, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what do you He's like, have you looked
Speaker 1: me up on discogs?
Speaker 2: And I looked up.
Speaker 1: And because of the technicality factor, Bob has like at
Speaker 1: least over thirty different you know, Like for me, I
Speaker 1: am I'm under brother question and then I was Questlove
Speaker 1: and that was quest Love with a question mark, question
Speaker 1: mark with a Q like various names, or a mere
Speaker 1: Colleias Thompson, a mere quest Love Thompson. Like I have
Speaker 1: five credits, Bob had over like thirty five of them,
Speaker 1: and with a straight face, they typed out all of
Speaker 1: his tech.
Speaker 2: Nicole I was like, ah, guys.
Speaker 1: But that's who Bob was. And I didn't expect this news.
Speaker 1: I know, I know that I try to not normalize
Speaker 1: pain and death, but sadly, you know, we're at a
Speaker 1: place now, in this time period where it's like yo,
Speaker 1: da da Da died and you're like, yeah, that checks
Speaker 1: that checks out. But when Michelle and Diocello texted me
Speaker 1: while I was on stage at the tonight show. That
Speaker 1: was a gut punch I was not ready for. But
Speaker 1: I mean, besides just really being an ass kicking engineer,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure I say this on the podcast, but
Speaker 1: just to let you guys know, like if you see
Speaker 1: all this outpouring of love of Bob Power, you know
Speaker 1: what makes him unique is just from a technical standpoint.
Speaker 1: As much as we like to turn up the music
Speaker 1: and make it louder and all those things, if you
Speaker 1: engineer too then and too loud, if you play it
Speaker 1: on record, your record will skip. We once had issues
Speaker 1: with Melo my man on do You Want More? The
Speaker 1: mix was coming in too hot, and you know, we
Speaker 1: would back in the day, we would complete a mix
Speaker 1: and then you would send that complete mix to get
Speaker 1: it pressed up on like what they call lacquer or
Speaker 1: test press, yeah, acetate, to test it to see how
Speaker 1: it sounds on your stereo. And then you come back
Speaker 1: with notes and say, well, you know, the snare drums
Speaker 1: a little too low. You bring it up and then
Speaker 1: you adjust it and the record kept skipping, and Bob realized,
Speaker 1: like too much bass, like you know, bass and drums
Speaker 1: will make a record skip on wax. Of course, now
Speaker 1: we live in the age where everything is streams, so
Speaker 1: you know, you get muddy mixes. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: if you study boombat hip hop, a lot of the
Speaker 1: beauty of it. If you listen to the Wu Tang record,
Speaker 1: if you listen to the Jungle Brothers, there's like a really.
Speaker 2: Dirty, do it yourself aesthetic.
Speaker 1: And Bob was really the one that said, guys like,
Speaker 1: if I clean this up, you're still gonna have the
Speaker 1: grit if you let me clean it up. So oftentimes,
Speaker 1: especially with the Tribe guys, he would ask them, hey,
Speaker 1: that loop you sample is that available on CD?
Speaker 2: Is there a digital version of it? Can we do
Speaker 2: it cleaner?
Speaker 1: And of course you're like a man, but you know
Speaker 1: you need all the static and the dirt and the
Speaker 1: grime of this old record that's like forty years old.
Speaker 1: And somehow, you know, as a result, the reason why
Speaker 1: the low End Theory and Midnight Marada sounds so big,
Speaker 1: big drums big. You know, it's just that Bob had
Speaker 1: just a bigger vision for voices and music to be
Speaker 1: like loud enough but not loud enough to destroy your
Speaker 1: wax of your DJ. But I mean, I can go
Speaker 1: on and forever about Bob, But I thought I'd put
Speaker 1: this little intro on top, just to really explain to
Speaker 1: you the.
Speaker 2: Loss that we experienced.
Speaker 1: I really was looking forward to working with him on
Speaker 1: this new roots album. I'm glad I got him to
Speaker 1: complete the mixes of the like seven or eight songs
Speaker 1: from d onet More that didn't make the original round.
Speaker 1: If you get the box set, you can hear all
Speaker 1: those things.
Speaker 2: And it was like he never left. So we love you,
Speaker 2: Bob Power, Thank you. Quest Loam Show is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio