Phill Most Chill aka Soulman – The Unkut Interview

Phill Most Chill came up drawing flyers for local crews before dropping his own independent record in 1988, moving into some production work and eventually landing a regular spot at Rap Sheet. From there he became a record dealer and collector, released over 100 mixtapes and eventually returned to the microphone in 2005, and has since released a number of new projects. I caught up with Soulman to talk records, journalism and more records…

Robbie: How did you first get exposed to hip-hop?

Phill Most Chill: I go back as a little kid, cos I grew up right outside of New York, like a half an hour away from the Bronx in Connecticut. I go back to before when hip-hop was even on record yet, it was just parties. I’d see all the classic crews from back in the days – the Furious Five, Cold Crush Brothers – all of ’em, they would rock at the community center or roller skating rink or high schools in my neighborhood. I started out as a fan but also I used to do flyers for some of the hip-hop pioneers back in those days. From there I went to making records myself – little, small indy records – and that led to the thing with Rap Sheet. During that time I also got into production and I went all out with collecting breaks and digging for records to the point where I would consider myself one of the leading people as far as digging in the crates. I used to also sell breaks and records to all the top producers in New York City. They used to have the Roosevelt Hotel record conventions. That came from me doing the ‘World of Beats’ column – at that point I felt I needed to really up my game and go all-out with the records. That led to me becoming a dealer as well, because a lot of the breaks people were looking for? I had ’em and I knew how to get ’em. Pretty much every great producer in the New York area back then? I sold records to. The only dude I didn’t see at the shows was Preemo.

Prince Be from PM Dawn upset a few people at those conventions by reserving a lot of stuff if I recall, but he wasn’t even making records with any of it.

He was one of the biggest collectors, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Prince Be. But a lot of the other producers? They could not stand him! They did not like him at all, cos he would come and he would buy records. He wouldn’t play around, he would spend money! He wouldn’t say, ‘Hold this for me and I’ll get you back later’ like a lot of the other dudes would do a lot of the time, he was always straight up. He would come with the money and buy the records, so they would cater to him and a lotta other dudes did not like that one bit. Like what you were saying, ‘He’s not even using these records for his production, so he’s taking all the good shit and we could actually be utilizing it!’ That, combined with his persona from the kind of records that he’s making and the incident with KRS-One – a lotta people didn’t like him. But he was real cool to me, he knew his music and he would buy his records, he wouldn’t bullshit around.

Was he just a collector or was he using these records to DJ?

He was just a collector, he had done pretty well in the music world so he had money to spend. From what I understand he also did some production under a different name, so he did actually use them for certain joints but people would never know.

Any good stories from those convention days?

I was digging and a well-known producer starts just digging in my crate – over me! Like I’m not even there, because he was so-and-so and he feels like he can just do that. I don’t give a fuck who you are, you’re not gonna just dig in the crate that I’m in! I very calmly stopped what I was doing, looked at him and the look said, ‘You better get your hand out of my crate.’ And he did, he backed up. Some of the stuff that used to happen at those record shows is a whole other thing, there was some crazy shit going on, I don’t want to put people’s names out there. Famous producers stealing records, another time a dude pulled out on somebody, I don’t know if it was a gun or a knife, over a record.

How did you get started as an artist?

That was something I did from the time I was a small child. I was well known in my high school for doing art, doing pieces and everything and a dude I went to school with knew a couple of the dudes from The Collins Brothers. They were one of the pioneer groups of hip-hop, they came from Mount Vernon and they set it off for a lot of rappers that you heard about later, like Heavy D, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Brand Nubian. They paved the way for all the rappers that came from the Mount Vernon and New Rochelle part of New York. I was real young, I might have been thirteen years old but I looked like I was ten years old! I would do flyers for ’em and they would be like, ‘This kid is ill! These flyers are as nice as some that we see in the city!’ It was the first thing I ever did that was hip-hop related, other than being a fan. They’d let me into shows and I’d go behind the rope and see the DJ’s – that was a big deal for me back then.

What are some of your best memories from that park jam era?

They would have these things called ‘plates’ – basically they were just acetates – but it would be stuff like live tapes of stuff they recorded in the house. You’d listen to it, you’re hearing a guy rhyming and then you hear scratching but you look at the turntables and there’s just a record playing. ‘What the fuck is that?’ DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist got to go through Afrika Bambaataa‘s collection, I think they might have found some of those acetates, those plates To me, that’s the most valuable shit as far as hip-hop goes. It was a one-off they’d press up and play at the parties. The first time I heard ‘Flash To The Beat’ record with Flash on the beat box was at a party with Bambaataa playing the record. This is before it was in the stores, I was like, ‘What the hell is that?!’ Unbelievable.

What was the next step from there?

I always tried to write rhymes, then my man Scratchmaster Rob from the Bronx taught me how to DJ, how to cut on two turntables. It grew from there – we started rhyming, started making tapes and we did a live show. Me and my cousin had a group called the Devastating Two, and Hashim – he had a classic song back in the 80’s, ‘Al Naafiysh’ – he was doing a show too, and from that one show we did we got signed to Cutting Records. We were supposed to put out a record on their subsidy label NV, and it never happened because of contract situations and managerial problems. It was still a great experience to be in the studio with dudes who had done big records, and at that time Cutting Records was one of the most well respected hip-hop labels, so that was a big deal for us. From there we put out the ‘On Tempo Jack’ record on our own label, which became a cult classic, years later. From there went on to the Baritone Tiplove records and then to Rap Sheet.

How was ‘On Tempo Jack’ received at the time?

This is a record that we put out ourselves. My brother was a hustler, he had a drug operation going from Uptown New York to D.C. His man was down with Alpo and those dudes from Uptown. I’m not real proud to say it, I’m not down with any of that, but the record was gonna be a front for their business that they were doing. We put the record out, people liked it, but I didn’t like it myself. I didn’t think the sound was good enough, I wanted it to be able to compete with all the other dope records that was out.

Back then, every week there would be an incredible record that would come out! You turn on the radio, it’s a new song by Kane, you’re like, ‘Oh my god!’ It’s a new one by Biz! It’s a new one by Ultramagnetic! I thought my record was good but then I’d hear a new Public Enemy record and I’d be like, ‘I’ve gotta go back to the drawing board, this is not good enough!’ So I didn’t really push the record back then. I took it to the radio stations in Philly and they fronted on me, they wanted payola. I was like, ‘Fuck that!’ I could have taken it to Red Alert or anyone in New York but I just didn’t. As soon as people discovered it in the 2000’s it just exploded! Traffic Entertainment got with me to do a re-issue on it and then all the originals sold out for anywhere from $200 to $750. It was a nice little payday!

How did your Rap Sheet column come about?

I did ‘True Urban Funnies’, that’s how I got into Rap Sheet at first, doing the comic strip. From there I told them I could do interviews as well, so I started interviewing people like Pete Rock, ?uestlove, Treacherous Three, Grandmaster Flash, people like that. They let me do the ‘World of Beats’ column, I started interviewing people like Diamond D, Buckwild from D.I.T.C., DJ Cash Money and a whole lot of other people. I always will credit Darryl James for giving me the opportunity to do something on the magazine side of things, he gave me a lot of leeway to do what I wanted to do.

What were some of the highlights of your time there?

I was in the Greene Street Studios with Pete Rock when he was doing a session! This is when Pete Rock was at his peak, and to hear him playing all these unreleased songs was crazy. That and flying me out to LA and meeting a whole lot of people out there at the convention. They had me on a panel talking about music production with my man E-Swift from Tha Alkaholiks, Pete Rock and a few other people. Cool shit was going on all weekend – I saw Brand Nubian beat up the soundman at a show they did, saw Ol’ Dirty Bastard spazzing out, totally drunk on stage, going insane.

Did you upset anybody through your articles?

One of the little controversies I had when I was doing magazine articles was people thought I dissed Brainfreeze. When Brainfreeze came out people went real crazy over it, like god came down out of the sky and made a mixtape! My reaction was, ‘It’s dope, but y’all are going a little too far with this.’ What I said is because a lot of the fans now are white, and these dudes are white and they made a dope tape, they’re taking it to a whole other level of adoration. [laughs] You’re kinda dissing a lot of other people when you take it to that level. But I never meant it as a diss to them at all, I thought Brainfreeze was dope and I think they’re very talented.

At what point did you get heavy into record collecting?

I’ve been collecting records since I was a kid, but I went to a higher level in the late 80’s when the James Brown sampling craze came out, started to get all those type records, trying to find things. It didn’t explode until after I started doing Rap Sheet. I meet people like Beni B, who did ABB Records, he hipped me to a lot of things as far as understanding how to dig for records. Him and Mr. Supreme from Seattle, both of those guys showed me some things. From there I was like, ‘I’m doing a column on digging in the crates, I need to be on that level.’ I just went all out and my collection went from 3,000 records to 6,000 records to 10,000 records. Before you know it, I’ve got over 20,000 records and a lot of real rare beats and breaks.

From there, doing the record shows took it to another level where I’m looking for certain sounds for certain producers. ‘I know Pete Rock likes this, let me find a record that sounds like this type of shit. I know the Beatminerz like this, let me find something that they would like. Lord Finesse likes this…’ You go from digging for beats and breaks and samples and before you know it, you just love music and you’re just collecting records. So I would just end up buying whatever hit my ear and now, years later, a lot of these records are worth hundreds of dollars. You go from being a crate digger to a record collector.

What’s your best find on a digging mission?

I went to this music instrument store and they had some records there, I guess some DJ had sold their collection. I started looking and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’m seeing all these rare, rare disco records. I don’t even know that much disco but I could just tell these were some big items. I pretty much bought them out, I bought tonnes of records. I didn’t even know for sure what exactly they were worth, but it’s record after record that’s worth $200, $300, $400! I went back to the guy in the morning, ‘Yeah, we got some more back in.’ They put more out and again I’m seeing all this crazy shit. Then one of the kids in the store saw me buying all the records and he said, ‘OK, there must be some shit in here.’ So he took the rest of the records and kept them for himself. I’m like, ‘C’mon man, you don’t even know what you’ve got!’ That was probably the best come-up I ever had. Tonnes of really rare records – stuff on the Queen Constance label and some of the other Peter Brown labels that I’d never heard of before.

Was there one that always got away?

The one record I always wanted to get, I wanted to find in the field, was a copy of Skull Snaps. I can go to Ebay right now and get a copy of Skull Snaps for around $100 – I didn’t want to do that. You have to do that with certain records, because they’re regional records on smaller labels you’re not going to find them at your local record shop.

How did you used to work out what to charge for records?

Now you have Ebay and Popsike and have a bit of a gauge as to what the prices should be, back then you really didn’t. There would be certain lists where you would see certain records going for an amount of money but a lot of those lists didn’t know what people were into, especially if you were buying beats and breaks. They might say that Power of Zeus record is a $20, $30 record, but at the record shows it might be $100! A lot of it was trial and error, you try to see what other dealers are selling certain records for, just to get an idea, and sometimes you’re just making up prices. You’re saying, ‘This is a dope record. If I find it out in Ohio someplace it might be a $5, but if I play this for producers at the show they’re gonna spend $50 for it. They’re gonna want that!’ That led to some of the producers thinking, ‘These dealers are trying to take advantage of us.’ But really, dealers are sitting up in stores, listening to hundreds of records. Trying to find beats, trying to find grooves, trying to find samples. We were providing a service as well as just selling records. We’re putting a lot of time and effort into this. Sometimes the prices would get a little heavy, but if you’re a producer and you buy a record for $50 and you make a beat and you sell it – and you’re getting a thousand, five thousand dollars, or way more – that $50 is nothing! It’s all just part of the game.