Chromeo: Universal Dichotomy

Chromeo member, David Macklovitch (Dave 1,) talks in the exact way an Ivy League educated musician would. He speaks quickly but thoughtfully, mixes a post-grad level vocabulary 2dopeboyz-esque slang, and has compelling opinions on a range of topics from Lil B and performance art, all the way to the function of elitism in music. Chromeo’s other half, Patrick Gemyel (P-Thugg), compliments Dave 1 well, offering a quiet competence to the band’s production and quips to Dave 1’s ranging thoughts and ideas. Peaking at 11 on the Billboard charts, their latest album has earned them more than just the critical acclaim they’re accustomed to receiving. They elicit an interesting dichotomy between the depth of their thoughts and ideas and the lack thereof presented in their music. Check out the interview for Dave 1 and P-Thugg’s eloquently delivered thoughts on that among other things.

You’ve said that your new album, White Women is going to touch on the politics of gender and race?

Dave 1: Not the album. With the artwork and the title, we felt liked it opened the door to talk about that stuff if it was needed or pertinent but our music stays true to themes we’ve had before.

What sort of conditions would elicit that response on those sorts of issues?

Dave 1: Um, if someone asks us, “Are there any racial implications to the title,” or “Why does a title like that sound controversial today? Is it controversial in America today? What does that mean for P [-Thugg] and I to get married with one single girl on the cover? Who’s getting married with who?

P-Thugg: Is it us? Is it all three of us? Is it just me and him [Dave 1].

Dave 1: Is our music hetero-normative? Which it isn’t, of course. Stuff like that.

You got your PhD from Columbia in French Literature right?

Dave 1: I was working on that until a couple years ago. I put the dissertation on hold, but I’m still a [PhD] candidate.

You were also a lecturer at Barnard College. What was the motivation for that amidst your music career?

Dave 1: Music was the hobby up until a couple years ago. I started as an academic and then a couple years ago I decided to invert the priorities and try doing music full-time.

Do you have any other projects like that or anything else you’re into besides music?

P-Thugg: I was always doing accounting or running stores. I’m more of a hands on type of guy. Not academic.

On your end Dave 1, it’s easier to blend those two art forms. Do you do that at all?

Dave 1: On one end, our music could lend itself to some academic reading or intellectualized analysis, but in the content of the music we keep things universal, democratic, unacademic, and relatable. I think for a long time there was a cool, nice, relieving dichotomy for me because I would go to school and take part in the academic bubble and feel like an erudite during the week and then play Chromeo shows on the weekend and experience something entirely different. The way Chromeo has evolved, I’m actually able to integrate a lot of my other artistic interests within this band. I think that’s why it’s become a totally satisfying occupation for me.

When you say other artistic interests, is that a reference to the stuff you’ve done with Snarkitecture?

Dave 1: Yeah. Chromeo’s become a broader artistic enterprise. If you look at the stage design we have tonight that was done in collaboration with a French contemporary artist. We always work closely with Surface To Air [fashion label]. We’ve got a capsule collection coming out with them. We did the Snarkitecture thing at Milk Studios in September, which kind of showed me it was possible to blend the Chromeo universe with that downtown New York art scene. It makes it interesting because a lot of our fans aren’t regularly Milk Studios attendees. It was actually a really fulfilling thing. We’re more involved with the videos than ever. When it gets to an all encompassing place where you can do design, visuals, and music and there’s the same artistic involvement in all dimensions then I think it’s way more than I’m in a band. I’m in an all encompassing artistic enterprise and it doesn’t have to be pretentious. The best example of an all encompassing enterprise is KISS. Or A$AP. You couldn’t take just like A$AP Rocky or KISS where for A$AP, the logo and merch are just as important as the video which is just as important as the music. When one of these aspects is subpar it’s lame because you expect A$AP to have the dopest of everything. For us, we just set our standards so that now we’re building merch. We want to have merch that’s up to par with our videos that’s up to par with our stage show that needs be up to with our music.

P-Thugg: Which needs to be up to par to our website, which needs to be up to par with our Tumblr.

Dave 1: Yeah, exactly. When you start become involved then you start to collaborate, which can add another layer to it. For me as a musician, I’m intellectually stimulated now. It’s not just like I play guitar on the weekends in a bar.

You guys do cool stuff and seem very interested in not being elitist. You just talked about how you don’t want to be pretentious. You’ve said the same thing in interviews at SXSW and you’ve had cool criticisms of JAY-Z’s “Picasso Baby.”

Dave 1: Don’t get me started on Picasso Baby [laughs]. I think it’s delicate with rap. With rap music there’s a lot of braggadocio. The origins of rap music is like “I’ve got a Rolls-Royce, look at me,” and that’s dope. You can’t take that away from rap. That’s in the DNA of the genre of the music.

P-Thugg: That’s not really elitist though.

Dave 1: Exactly, that’s like “Yo, success! I made it.” I think for us what’s important is being kind of a vector. What was really interesting when Kanye had a blog it became a cultural vector that educated a whole generation of kids. That’s where things become interesting for me. By democratic, I don’t mean that we have to hide our interests. I mean that we should educate people. By the way, we educated hipsters to Hall and Oates at the beginning. We educated the hipsters to Cameo and Rick James. Those kids weren’t listening to that. We had to come and get ridiculed for them to listen to that. Now you go to Brooklyn and all you hear is funk in every restaurant. The same place that was playing Fleet Foxes five years ago is playing Shalamar in Brooklyn right now as we speak. I feel like we had something to do with that. We went back to Shalamar first. Kanye went back to Alexander McQueen first. We took it from those guys. You become a vector. That’s the approach rather than being elitist and saying, I’ve got access to this esoteric knowledge that you don’t because you suck. We’re trying to be like, “Come discover this. If you like [my music] you’re gonna like [this other artist].” Kanye did it best. If you like Kanye West, you would also probably also like Murakami. And now Murakami is so 2009. I think that’s an interesting way of doing. You like Kanye West? You’ll probably like Rick Owens. Rick Owens is the shit. You become a vector and I think that’s really important.

One thing I’ve noticed is that you guys are sort of a conduit or vector for photographers like Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe, and I’m sure there’s other guys I haven’t noticed. How did that come to be?

Dave 1: That’s why we call the album White Women. We wanted to talk about photography and how much that speaks to us.

P-Thugg: Photography and visuals in general. Record covers.

Dave 1: I think it comes from being a vinyl nerd. You really have the synergy between sound and visuals when you’re listening to vinyl.

P-Thugg: Like you’re not trying to zoom in on your computer to see the fine print. It’s not pixilated, it’s right there.

Dave 1: We thought about it like this: there’s two ways to do it. You can be like one of those guys who’s always so much better on vinyl. There’s guys who are like “We make all our music on 180 gram vinyl and you should buy all our stuff on vinyl.” To me, that’s elitist. Nerdy audiophiles who are like, “I’m only releasing 45’s,” are wack. Kids that are downloading our music for free don’t give a shit about vinyl. We create visuals so that they can have a similar experience that we had with vinyl, but using today’s media which is accessible to everybody. That’s what was important to us: giving those tools and spreading information.

Is there anything you want to talk about that you don’t get asked in interviews a lot? These interviews tend to be pretty formulaic. Everyone’s looking for the same stuff. What are you guys interested in?

P-Thugg: Tech stuff. The last time I had a 15-minute interview with a guy for a gear magazine, I stayed on the phone with the guy for an hour and a half [laughs]. The guy couldn’t believe it.

Dave 1: We never get to talk about rap and that’s most of the music I listen to. I’ll listen to anything. I like Gunplay. I like Rich Homie Quan. I want to talk about Young Thug. I want to talk about the YG record and why it’s the best album of the year. Stuff like that.

HYPETRAK readers love that. Why is the YG record the best album of the year?

Dave 1: HYPETRAK is dope cause you guys mostly post rap.

Yeah, like a lot of rap and electronic stuff but not exclusively.

Dave 1: I think it’s dope that HYPETRAK always supports us, because you could very easily not support Chromeo and the core audience of HYPETRAK wouldn’t complain.

Do you think Riff Raff and Lil B and guys like that are being serious or what’s their deal?

Dave 1: It’s super important. It’s modern day performance art. You’re meant to ask the question. I’m a bit of a conservative when it comes to some of that more performance art side of hip hop, because I still want to have songs I can bang. With those guys you feel like music isn’t the main focus. With Lil B it’s quantity and with Riff Raff, it’s Vine. He’s a Vine god. But he’s a performance art god.
P-Thugg: He’s like a standup-comedian-rapper.

Dave 1: It’s even deeper than standup. With standup you’re on or you’rer off. With Riff Raff, you’re always on. That’s the thing. That’s why he’s a mystery. Standup’s not mysterious. When [the comedian] walks away he’s a regular douchebag. That’s what’s enigmatic. The one word I have for Riff Raff is that he’s fascinating. But do I listen to Riff Raff songs? No, I don’t. I never listen to Lil B’s music very much, but I like him and I know he’s a big Chromeo fan. What’s interesting about Lil B was his impact on slang. “Based,” “swag,” that’s him. “Very rare.” Rare is Lil B. One of the most impactful artists in modern hip-hop that never gets his due, who is Lil B’s mentor is Soulja Boy. He gave Lil B his first cosign. It was Soulja Boy who started saying swag all the time. Every dance is Lil B and Soulja Boy. I love that. That stuff speaks to me. We’re talking about what goes around the music or what makes it into a culture. That’s so interesting, cause when we came up, it was like Wu-Tang, but we also had Wallabees. They were hand in hand. Boot Camp Klik, but you also had to have Army Fatigues. Biggie but you had to have Versace. It all went hand in hand. You would drink certain kinds of champagne because of what was mentioned in the song. Hypnotiq. Yo, Nick Catchdubs brought Hpnotiq to A-Trak’s Christmas party a few years ago. Ironic Hpnotiq. That was so on point.

Why was the YG record the best one of the year?

Dave 1: It is though, so far. Nothing has come close. I long for this thing in rap where an album is one producer and one rapper. Kind of like the A$AP mixtape with Clams [Casino]. That was really good. It was really tight. This with [YG] and Mustard is like Dre and Snoop. The record is super throwback. It’s kind of like what we try to do. In his thing, he tried to redo The Chronic and it’s got the same feeling between the songs. If you’re somebody my age and you used to love Doggstyle and you hear that, it’s a total throwback to that and at the same time it’s uber modern and west coast. It’s the dopest West Coast record since Kendrick. But Kendrick is another category, so I would say it’s the dopest West Coast record since The Game’s first or second album. Kendrick transcends geography.

Charlotte McClure contributed to the reporting of this piece.