2009 About Ivan Ives...
“We’re living in 1984 now; it’s just a little nicer cosmetically,” says Ivan Ives, the Los Angeles alt-rapper – deemed an “artist to watch” by Rolling Stone – whose epic new disc, NEWSPEAK, has just dropped on No Threshold Records.
“The album title is a reference to George Orwell’s novel ‘1984,’” he explains. “‘Newspeak’ is the language created by the government to make the public dimmer. By controlling vocabulary and restricting people’s ability to speak eloquently, Big Brother limits the complexity of their thoughts. American culture becomes more dumbed-down every day. Just watch the news or listen to the radio.”
Ives’ own approach to language is as a vehicle for independent expression and nonconformist ideals. “My lyrics do not coincide with the Orwellian concept of Newspeak,” he confirms. “So I thought I’d flip it in the songwriting for this album by writing in the opposite vein. The contrast is interesting, but also, for someone who might not get the allusion, I’m rapping, i.e. ‘speak’ing + this is my new music = Newspeak.”
NEWSPEAK will be welcome news to the legion of fans who discovered Ives via Iconoclast, which made a global splash upon its release in 2007. The single “Victory” was posted as a free download on iTunes during Rolling Stone’s Artists to Watch promotion, which promptly caused Iconoclast to sell out (though now out of print, digital copies continue to sell briskly; much of the crazy-prolific rapper’s catalog is available digitally and at www.nothresholdrecords.com). The track “Got It,” meanwhile, earned Ives his first cable TV music video rotation (on Fuse TV) - and coverage in SPIN, the mag insisting, “Ives deserves to get in the game.”
Widely admired by critics as well as consumers, Iconoclast established Ives as a difficult artist to pigeonhole, and NEWSPEAK similarly finds him unconfined by any particular style or subject matter. There’s the intellectual firebrand inspired by Orwell topped with complex rhyme schemes, but there’s also the more traditional calling-out of the competition and old-school boasting: “I come to you in stereo/ Others is typical/ My raps so fat/ I put the vocals on Ellipticals.” That’s from the first single off the new disc, “Villain,” which Ives says is not about being a villain in the conventional sense but simply in that he does what he wants, creating his own authentic self as he sees fit.
Then there’s the party animal of “Aeonian Anthem” – “I go out on Friday night and I come home on Sunday morning” – but also the tortured romantic of “All the Love That I Wasted”: “I’ll be gone in the morning by the time you wake/ And you’ll be gone when I need you and now it’s too late/ I put art before my life/ That was my first mistake/ So now I sit alone at night with a heart full of hate.” (Ives’ seemingly year-round residence on the road – in addition to his all-consuming commitment to his craft – may partly account for his unluckiness in love).
Ultimately it doesn’t matter how Ives is defined as a rapper; what matters are the tracks, which are supremely unified by his fleet, self-assured flow and his mastery of the hook – virtually every cut on NEWSPEAK is one-listen catchy. “All the Love,” for one, is graced by a tasty sample, with beats reminiscent of hip hop’s golden age and innovative, high-value production – all trademarks of Fresh the Hitman, whom Ives acknowledges as “half of the Ivan Ives empire to this day” (the two go back to high school).
That soulful track further reflects Ives’ knack for recruiting guests and utilizing them perfectly. Note the subtle but critical contributions of Donniel Drew here (and throughout the album), who sings the haunting refrain “Don’t leave,” and Max Carlson, who brings the strings. Likewise check the monolithic guitar work of Steven Felix on “1984” and the chorus of Stacy Clark and Crash Boom Bang’s Omar Ruiz on the wall of sound “I Can’t Wait.” With that song, Ivan integrates up-and-coming indie-rock musicians, fusing them into his genre without sacrificing his signature sound. Featured in the foreground of NEWSPEAK are 2Mex and Tre Hardson aka Slimkid3, formerly of The Pharcyde (“Stand Up”), Mikey Rocks of The Cool Kids (“What’s Your Excuse?”), Percee P (“Kill ’Em”), Oh No (“Ride Off”) and Black Milk (“Aeonian Anthem”).
This cutting-edge crew helps NEWSPEAK maintain its of-the-moment appeal, their presence suggesting an organic approach to making forward-looking music. On “That Man” Ives decries the impulse to remain current by relying on gimmicks like Auto-Tune, stating plainly, “They say, Ives, man, let us hear some Auto-Tune/ I say, nah, man, I don’t do no Auto-Tune.” Then he points out just why he doesn’t need it: “I’m sorry, you can call me Winston Smith/ And I’m sorry we keep making instant hits/ Because I got a million spins so it’s more than golden/ But I won’t say platinum because they all downloaded it.”
Ives’ facility with his chosen musical form should come as no surprise considering his immersion over the years in the Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, D.I.T.C. and Big L. His professed influences are so inclusive, however, that they extend from the Delfonics, Kraftwerk and Jefferson Starship to Arvo Pärt, Béla Bartók, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
That last one is a clue to what IS surprising about Ives – he was born in Russia. But you'd never know it from listening to his records (or conversing with him); he sounds like a native of Los Angeles, where he’s lived most of his life. When Ives was a toddler, his family left St. Petersburg and settled in Brooklyn after his father, a famous painter in Russia, was sentenced to life as a political prisoner. He barely escaped the grasp of the KGB as he fled to the U.S. These events, coupled with the fact that Ives was actually born in 1984, provide a bit of context for his love of “1984” as well as the NEWSPEAK track “Red Scare.” This background may even explain his sizeable following in a handful of formerly Soviet republics.
Ives began studying classical piano at the age of four, performing at concerts into adulthood. His earliest wordplay model? Shakespeare. He was drawn to hip-hop because, as he notes, “It has endless possibilities; it isn’t limited by a band configuration or a set of instruments. There’s a lot of room to experiment. You can warp time and space, then throw some heavy-ass drums on top of that and get everyone moving.”
Ever the subversive, on NEWSPEAK Ives proves himself capable of balancing Orwellian themes with the essence of hip hop. Though his subject matter can appear weighty at times, he has the skills to make it go down easy, even for the casual listener. This is just one of many reasons his work feels refreshingly original. Another is that the man is not afraid to take creative risks, something his fans have come to count on. “If not for cake then respect and tail,” he raps on “That Man,” “I never play it safe just to make a sale.”
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