Words of wisdom from one of the most important musicians and DJs ever coming out of Detroit: Mr. Derrick May – one of the godfathers of Techno. Listen to him philosophizing about how you pull the strings of life in the right way and right direction. Never dance to your own music. Don’t you ever dare to offer someone fruit with the promise how great the taste will be. Beware! There are a lots of shades of shit in an orange …
RBMA: ?We have been trying for a very long time. Almost every year I guess with this whole Academy thing, but now finally to my left hand, please make him feel welcome, Mr. Derrick May.?
(applause)
Derrick May: ?Thank you. How is everybody? Lunch was pretty good from what I could see. There is something called ‘idus’. You know what idus is??
Participant: ?Yeah.?
Derrick May: ?Oh, okay. Here we go. You’re feeling idus right now? Idus is when you eat too much and you want to go to sleep. So don’t go to sleep on me. Alright??
RBMA: ?You were actually born not right within Detroit either, right??
Derrick May: ?No, I was born in Detroit proper.?
RBMA: ?So what’s this whole thing with Belleville and all that??
Derrick May: ?Who??
RBMA: ?Belleville and all these parts. Can you explain us a little bit??
Derrick May: ?Belleville??
RBMA: ?Yeah, like different parts of Detroit.?
Derrick May: ?What’s Belleville? Anybody here from Detroit? In the middle of this? Belleville. Belleville, man!?
RBMA: ?Sorry, I have to work on my Detroit accent.?
Derrick May: ? He said Bell Hill.?
RBMA: ?No, Ville. But you know, we Germans have a problem with the V.?
(speaks in strong German accent.)
Derrick May: ?BMV. BMW. BMV.?
RBMA: ?BMW.?
Derrick May: ?BMW?
RBMA: ?There you go.?
Derrick May: ?Belleville was a little suburban town that I moved to when my mother attempted to save my life. I was at the age of 13, was a young kid, fatherless, and I was just about to get into a lot of trouble. And she did what most mothers would do, she moved me out of my neighbourhood to save me from fucking up. That’s it. That’s the story. I ended up in Belleville where there was two other kids where their mothers did the same exact thing. From Detroit, and we became friends because of this particular school in Bellevile. It was really white, I can’t even call it suburban, it was a farm town. It was like 5000 people. It was horrible. So this is where we lived. I mean, you could count how many people of color, be it Asian, Indian, Black or whatever where in the school on one fingernail. It was like eight of us. So we kind of became friends. And that was how I met Juan and Kevin.?
RBMA: ?Who later became on to know surgeons and pharmacists.?
Derrick May: ?Yes, and all that other shit. Yeah, that’s right. He’s being funny again. Come on you guys wake up.?
RBMA: ?We just try to get you over the food and all that.?
Derrick May: ?I see. You’re on TV did you know that??
(looks at the screen behind them.)
RBMA: ? I mean, who isn’t on TV these days??
Derrick May: ?But, you know, they say you’re ten pounds heavier when you’re on. It would be two kilos, ten pounds, something like that. So you and I are looking pretty chunky right there. Yeah, we look pretty chunky, but we’re okay.?
RBMA: ?Saves us the workout, doesn’t it??
Derrick May: ?We are a couple of Chubb Rock’s, but we are alright. We’re doing okay.?
RBMA: ?Nothing wrong with Chubb Rock, though.?
Derrick May: ?Nothing wrong with Chubb Rock. I don’t mind being Chubb Rock. I could be a Chubb Rock today.?
RBMA: ?So how do you go like from these people like Juan, Kevin and yourself there on some Highschool…?
Derrick May: ?…in the middle of nowhere.?
RBMA: ?I mean, everyone who has ever been close to the Midwest knows that the middle of nowhere is literally the middle of nowhere.?
Derrick May: ?Queensland minus people that’s it, yeah. You know, it probably wasn’t supposed to happen by anybody’s standards. I think that’s another reason why it caught everybody of guard. It first of all came from Detroit. We moved back to the city. It seemed ironic, we disconnected for a few years and Juan and myself became very good friends. I moved back to the city at that time and Juan did too. Kevin stayed in the suburbs and went to University. Kevin had a Football scholarship, an American Football scholarship so he played Football. I was an athlete, I ran track. I went to school to run track and do all that, and Juan basically went to school and learned music. That was his thing. We basically all went our separate ways. I kept contact with Juan because I ended up getting put out of school for various reasons. Whatever. So I had nowhere to go. I wouldn’t tell my mother I was out of school. I just wouldn’t tell her.?
RBMA: ?So you were like one of these Japanese man leaving every morning with his schoolbag.?
Derrick May: ?Fake. I was a fake motherfucker. Yes, I was scared to tell my mother. I was eighteen years old and I was freightened, petrified to tell her that I’ve been put out of school. So there was no caller ID, there was no internet in those days. There was no way she could tell I was in school or not. So I could just call from any payphone and say: “Hey, I’m in school, blablablablabla.” She had to believe me, right? What else could she do? She wasn’t going to drive five hours to see if I was there. On holidays of course, but otherwise no. So I ended up moving in with Juan and his grandmother at that time. That’s really when the connection about the music started. Because what we used to do, and it might seem like some sort of romantic fairy tale, it’s not. And I wouldn’t even begin to tell you one because you’re not here for that. What we used to do, this is serious. I don’t know if any of you guys can relate to this, we used to sit up almost every single night and we would discuss other people’s music. This is before we even were making records. I’m talking, man, 1983. Who in here was born in 1983? (some participants raise hands.) Yeah, I figured that. Okay, okay. So we’re sitting up in 1983 listening to, I don’t know, be it David Bowie ‘Fashion’, Kraftwerk ‘Trans Europe Expess’, Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic and whatever else was on the radio that was played by a guy named Mojo. And this is at a time when radio was more like you would consider pirate radio to be which almost doesn’t exist anymore. It was free in a sense. You could listen to, you could hear whatever that particular personality was wanting to play. That was the identity of their show. That’s what made their show. And this one guy really we latched onto him because he came on at midnight to five in the morning. And we’d lie in the bed, man. Juan would face East and I would face to West. My feet would be in his face and his feet would be in my face and we’d lie in the bed and we’re like these two kids and we’re thinking about how these guys made their records and they must have been thinking about when they made it. Which I’m sure they had no idea what they thought when they were making the music. We just assumed that they were so deep, so intellectual and we really build up this sort of impression what we thought represented or what it took to qualify or to make music. We kind of went way over the limit, we had no other impressions coming from Detroit. There was nothing happening so we build up this fantasy impression what we thought it took to qualify yourself to become this kind of person, this kind of musician, this kind of expert.?
RBMA: ?How far did Mojo’s way of presenting the show contribute to that??
Derrick May: ?He used to land a mothership. At twelve o’clock he would land a mothership. Or at ten o’clock, actually. He’d land a mothership. And it was a full blown landing. Sound effects, close encounters, the soundtrack from the ‘Close Encounters’. He’d land a mothership. The first record would be maybe, he had a relationship with Prince and he had a relationship with George Clinton from Funkadelic. So they would give him their tracks before they got released. So he would play them but he didn’t say who it was. He would say in his voice (imitates Mojo’s voice): “Call in, see if you know who this is.” You know who it was immediately, but that’s what locked us in to him. When Juan made his first record, when he finally made his first record, which was I think, yeah, actually 1983, ‘Alleys Of Your Mind’, we took it down there. It was just a little ’45 and we took it down to the station, and we knocked on the door, and they let us in, and we waited hours to meet this guy. Couldn’t meet him. Didn’t meet him. So finally, I decided I’m going to meet this man. So I found out where he went after he finished his show at five o’clock in the morning. My mother went to work at 7.30 every morning and I didn’t have the right to drive her car, she just wouldn’t let me. But he used to go to breakfast at this place at 5.30 in the morning and it was just a few miles away from the house, but I couldn’t get there quick enough. So what I would do is I would steal my mother’s car. I actually stole my mother’s car every morning and waited one hour and then I hustled back to the house and drop her car so she wouldn’t notice that it was moved. Waiting for Mojo to show up to give him this record. One morning he finally did show up, and I got my mother’s car back on time. He did show up and I gave him a copy of the record, it was 6.30 in the morning, the people that owned the restaurant said: “This kid has been coming here for months looking for you.” I gave him the record, man and he said (imitates Mojo’s voice again.): “Thanks.” That’s the way he talked. Didn’t hear from the guy for like about three, four days. Then we get a call to go down to the station. We meet him at the radio station, we actually had a chance to meet him, I brought Juan with me. He made us sit in the lobby of the radio station and he played the record and that changed our lives. I mean, really. That one moment changed our lives. And I don’t think that exists anymore. Those kind of opportunities for an artist, it’s not there, they can’t do that anymore. Radio 1, Clear Channel, corporate has made it so difficult to do anything now, to be creative. So difficult to walk into a radio station or somewhere and make it happen.. (sound coming from audience.) That sounded like a fart. Somebody farted in here? Somebody snuck one in on top of the construction work, didn’t you? Ok, go ahead.?
RBMA: ?Maybe in a way that was probably one of the first times that you met a musical hero of yours. How far did the personal encounter meet your expectations??
Derrick May: ?I think without that encounter we would not have done what we did. I’m sure of it man. I’m sure of it. That’s why I always greet kids when they come up to me. And I tell people: “Look I don’t remember you.” I don’t remember everybody, it’s impossible. I play every weekend of the year in a different country, two different countries every weekend. I can’t remember everybody. But I certainly try to meet people and give them the courtesy and give them encouragement if I can. And I think that it’s really a shame if somebody in this position can’t do that.?
RBMA: ?How do you keep that courtesy and the confidence and all that when you, let’s say you just got back from Japan and you’re playing in Australia tonight and there is this kid who has been waiting for months, paid gazillions of dollars to go and see you, and you’re just tired, knackered as fuck, get of your decks and he’s like: “Yo, Derrick listen to this.”?
Derrick May: ?You know, I tell you. Once again, I’m not perfect, I’ve made some mistakes and I’m sure I pissed some people off along the way (another sound followed by laughter coming from audience.). Was that construction? Never mind, ok. I’m sure I’ve made some mistakes along the way, but I always fight hard for that. It’s important man just to stop for two minutes. I’ve been with some guys and I won’t say their names and I’ve seen them being rude. I’ve seen agents being rude to people, I’ve seen promoters being rude. I just don’t get it. I don’t get it. I really don’t understand it. If you ever get the chance to really do something in this business, depending if you want to go professional as an executive or some sort of administrative position, or if you want to be an artist, don’t forget people. Because there is some kid in line just like you waiting for the chance. You’ve got to remember that because that’s the only reason I think that certain art forms perpetuate to continue. Unlike the massive commercial art forms. The underground, the artistic, alternative forms they exist because we encourage each other. We kind of lean on each other a little bit. Don’t think I don’t need you, because I need you, and I always try to say ‘Thank you’. Even on my Myspace account I answer every single one of my own messages. I don’t have anybody, I don’t pay anybody to answer them, you know? I do my own.?
RBMA: ? I mean, you’re clocking the way to the top for what now? 30 years almost??
Derrick May: ?Twenty-something, damn near.?
RBMA: ?You’re always there on the top headline and there are all these DJs who are like every day in their bedroom training to get that mix perfect and…?
Derrick May: ?When I no longer deserve it I don’t want it. I used to hate guys that were just like pigeonholing a position and they were bullshit. They were wack, they lost it. They were dragging their balls on the ground. These kind of guys. When I become like that, if I can’t look myself in the mirror and realize I’m still on top, I can’t do it, I would be ashamed of myself.?
RBMA: ?How would you recognize because you’ve been looking into that mirror for some forty odd years now and you maybe don’t …?
Derrick May: ?Because you have to able to be honest with yourself. I always tell this to every artist that has been on Transmat, every artist I come in contact with, I always tell them: “Look in the mirror and if you don’t like what you see, look beyond yourself, look in the mirror.” I saw some guys upstairs listening to their own music, producing music. I’ve never ever been able to dance to my music as I make it. I cannot understand that concept whatsoever. To me dancing to my own music as I produce it is like blowing my own horn. You know what I mean? It’s a loaded question, it’s almost like I give you this orange and say: “It tastes great!” Now you taste the orange and you say to me: “Damn, this is the nastiest orange.” How do I tell him it tastes nasty? Because he just told me it tastes great. And I like Derrick, he’s cool people. And you turn around and say: “Yeah, thanks bro.” You’ll never get a honest answer, you never get an honest opinion, you never really truly develop anything if you can’t, if you’re so involved in your own thing, you’ll never move forward. And you’ll never be able to help people to move forward. And in return they won’t be able to help you if you don’t open up and really give people all you got. And this business is all about you must be prepared to take a ton of criticism. The moment you go public you are public. I am yours, you’re not mine. I am subject of what you think of me. Regardless of how I feel about you. It is the business. And once you step out there, once you give your music out, once you attempt to become a DJ, or a producer, your shit is out there and you have to accept whatever comes.?
RBMA: ?You must have heard about every shade of shit that there is in an orange.?
Derrick May: ?I got some shades now, you want some??
RBMA: ?Mhm.?
Derrick May: ?Later, brother.?
RBMA: ?No, no. How do you deal with it and how do you take that lesson to working with other people? Obviously, I mean you said it earlier. When you and Juan were there in your room it was a pretty easy way to communicate because that was your world, and you probably developed some kind of language that worked for you.?
Derrick May: ?Yeah.?
RBMA: ?As soon as, let’s say Juan got his record ready, were you jealous??
Derrick May: ?No, not at all. I was actually, that’s a very good question. I couldn’t make music at the time. I wanted to make music, Juan wouldn’t even let me watch him at all. He would close the door for two or three days, I wouldn’t see him you would just hear it. You would hear it, you honestly would hear it but you would never see him. He wouldn’t even come out of the damn room. He would just produce this stuff and then he would come out and he would let you hear the finished product. I learned from him in the very beginning never, never ever blow your own horn. Don’t do it. Don’t ask somebody hear your music, don’t let anybody hear your product, or your film production, or your writings, or whatever it is, your paintings. Never say to anybody: “I just did this work, it’s great check it out.” That’s bullshit. You’ll never move forward if you think like that.?
RBMA: ?How do you phrase it when you are looking for someone else’s opinion??
Derrick May: ?”I just finished this. I’ll be back.”?
RBMA: ?Okay.?
Derrick May: ?That’s it. “I just finished this, that’s for you.” Boom. I don’t have to ask you what you think because you’ll tell me what you think if you decide you like it. If you don’t tell me shit then I know what you thought. Can anybody understand what I’m saying? Yeah? How many people have given up their music here or their production, whatever they do, and asked a friend or somebody that they thought would admire or respect it. “Check this out it’s great!” Has anybody ever done that by mistake? Because, you know, it happens, right? Has anybody ever done that? Nobody wants to put their hand up? Okay. Don’t do it again. (laughter) Save yourself a waste of time because they will never be honest with you. People will always bullshit you. They’ll never tell you the truth. They are afraid that they will hurt your feelings, they like you too much.?
RBMA: ?What do you do with friends when you know that they could do better and they just didn’t fulfill their potential.?
Derrick May: ?I dog them. I burn them. I destroy them. Because I have no time for losers. I really don’t. I’m a very competetive person, I don’t live on the outside, I live in the middle and I fight hard. I don’t take prisoners. So in my camp, you can’t do it? Get out! And that’s just the way I take it. I am too busy trying to do something and it’s been a very, very difficult process the last twenty-something years to be dealing with people that are afraid. Don’t be afraid! If you are afraid to make a mistake, you can’t work with me. If you want to take a chance and you fuck up I can live with that and I’ll help you. But if you’re afraid, just simply afraid, no time. You have to get over that now.?
RBMA: ?Do you separate work and friendship there??
Derrick May: ?No. Not with me. No, I can’t. I’m unfortunately, I am completely engulfed in this. This is who I am. I live this shit every day.?
RBMA: ?Do you get feelings of loneliness??
Derrick May: ?No, no time for that.?
(laughter)
RBMA: ?That’s a tough one then.?
Derrick May: ?I don’t have time for that.?
RBMA: ?So what do you have time for??
Derrick May: ?I have time for my two year old daughter. I love her, she’s amazing, she steals my heart. I have time to be constructive to all those who want to learn or understand, but I am not your friend, and I will not be your friend. I’ll tell you the truth and you’ll hate me for it, but you’ll go far, and you’ll do well, and you’ll remember that somebody was honest and told you the truth and saved you a waste of time. You know, but you will not like me. You will not like me, but you will truly, at the end of it, you will be a better person for having somebody told you the truth.?
