Between dropping intricate beats from his discography at London’s Forum last Friday night, Mtendere Mandowa, a.k.a Teebs, shyly smiled and murmured greetings. As he ground out samples from his SP 404, everyone in the crowd was transfixed, from a girl blowing him a kiss to a dude hypnotized by his shoulder-length dreads bobbing to the beat.
Teebs’ music is famous for absorbing its listeners into a rich tapestry of sounds, from jazz recordings to harp motifs over disjointed beats. Raised in California, he is part of a generation of hip-hop beat-makers that push genre boundaries by approaching electronic music organicly and emotively. (Pitchfork described his first album, Ardour, as "the sonic equivalent of watching biological life expand in sped-up time-lapse.") Teebs is also skater and an artist, whose self-drawn album covers in swirling, watercolor patterns have become a visual signature.
At the soundcheck before his show, we discussed the relationship between art and music, the first CD he ever bought, and his favorite cartoons.
GRACE WANG: Fill in the blanks: My name is _____ and my music sounds like _____.
TEEBS: I’ll say a symphony. [Through a mouthful of bananas] A great symphony orchestrated by bananas—a banana symphony!
The line-up to tonight’s event is pretty crazy—Nightmares on Wax, Peanut Butter Wolf. How did you get involved?
The guys that throw the party, Soundcrash, have been doing a lot of cool stuff—and a lot of cool stuff for me by bringing me out here. Peanut Butter Wolf is from LA, so it’s all kinda fam.
What was the first CD you ever bought?
It was at The Warehouse, when [it] was still happening in LA. It was like an old CD shop, and they had an O.D.B. and Alkaholiks single. I was pretty pumped.
I’ve always really admired the music community in LA. Could you share a moment where a buddy really inspired you creatively?
Yeah, tons of those moments. I met a guy named Kutmah. He was definitely one of those guys that turned me onto a lot of stuff, like, playing certain songs that I liked [but] didn’t think you were allowed to play in DJ culture. I always thought I had to be really turntablism-heavy, and if you’re not into that you shouldn’t be touching tables. But, he was blending [British electronic band] Broadcast with hip-hop and I was like, “You can do this?”
You’ve said that you felt like making your first album, Ardour, helped you deal with a lot of personal things. Could you talk a bit about that?
Yeah, it definitely was a crazy time—my family basically fell apart, but at the same time I was experimenting with music. It was a lot of roller-coaster emotions, just really hectic. But, the record definitely pinpointed certain emotions. I thought, "I can just write it down here and not re
Teebs’ music is famous for absorbing its listeners into a rich tapestry of sounds, from jazz recordings to harp motifs over disjointed beats. Raised in California, he is part of a generation of hip-hop beat-makers that push genre boundaries by approaching electronic music organicly and emotively. (Pitchfork described his first album, Ardour, as "the sonic equivalent of watching biological life expand in sped-up time-lapse.") Teebs is also skater and an artist, whose self-drawn album covers in swirling, watercolor patterns have become a visual signature.
At the soundcheck before his show, we discussed the relationship between art and music, the first CD he ever bought, and his favorite cartoons.
GRACE WANG: Fill in the blanks: My name is _____ and my music sounds like _____.
TEEBS: I’ll say a symphony. [Through a mouthful of bananas] A great symphony orchestrated by bananas—a banana symphony!
The line-up to tonight’s event is pretty crazy—Nightmares on Wax, Peanut Butter Wolf. How did you get involved?
The guys that throw the party, Soundcrash, have been doing a lot of cool stuff—and a lot of cool stuff for me by bringing me out here. Peanut Butter Wolf is from LA, so it’s all kinda fam.
What was the first CD you ever bought?
It was at The Warehouse, when [it] was still happening in LA. It was like an old CD shop, and they had an O.D.B. and Alkaholiks single. I was pretty pumped.
I’ve always really admired the music community in LA. Could you share a moment where a buddy really inspired you creatively?
Yeah, tons of those moments. I met a guy named Kutmah. He was definitely one of those guys that turned me onto a lot of stuff, like, playing certain songs that I liked [but] didn’t think you were allowed to play in DJ culture. I always thought I had to be really turntablism-heavy, and if you’re not into that you shouldn’t be touching tables. But, he was blending [British electronic band] Broadcast with hip-hop and I was like, “You can do this?”
You’ve said that you felt like making your first album, Ardour, helped you deal with a lot of personal things. Could you talk a bit about that?
Yeah, it definitely was a crazy time—my family basically fell apart, but at the same time I was experimenting with music. It was a lot of roller-coaster emotions, just really hectic. But, the record definitely pinpointed certain emotions. I thought, "I can just write it down here and not re