Id always played in bands in the Netherlands.
[I] really enjoyed that, but it was hard to make a living.
And it was clear that unless you were picked up by a label it would just be impossible.
CHRIS CHARLES*
I started producing beats because that was something that I could do on my own.
It wasnt something that I needed a band for.
And at the very first stage of that, I wouldnt even save them.
I would just spend hours making beats, and then I would turn the computer off.
I didnt even have a concept of saving them and keeping them.
I had good friends and they were all into what I was doing.
But I was looking for a perspective from people within the culture.
It was one of the first beats Id ever done.
The response was so positive that it floored me a little bit.
But the response was really positive.
And one of the people that loved that track was Phonte.
He was like, Yo, I love this track.
Hes a more hard boom-bap kind of guy.
Because at that pointThe Listeninghad come out to much acclaim.
I want to do something else.
This is all pretty shit, man.
But I think the next track Phonte played for me ended up being Be Alright.
I loved the beat.
Phonte:I heard the first batch of Sincere, Be All Right, Lets Move, Happiness.
But then he kept coming with more.
And thats when I was like, I think we got something for a full-length.
DJ ShadowsPsyence Fiction[with U.N.K.L.E.]
had all these guest artists on it.
It opens with a Kool G Rap song, and it ends with a Thom Yorke song.
And all that shit is bangin.
When I heard Nics beats, thats kind of what it was.Connectedwas almost a tribute toPsyence Fiction.
[He] had several genres at his command.
He wasnt afraid to take a chance, and he wasnt afraid to dip his toe in other genres.
Nicolay:[Making some of the beats forConnected] was entering the hip-hop realm.
Id always played in [soul and funk] bands, so I had the foundation.
As an instrumentalist, I didnt initially see myself having a contribution.
Darien Brockington, singer:Nicolays time signatures were so progressive to me.
They were unpredictable but they had so much soul.
It had a drive.
And the crazy thing about it is, when you heard it, it made you want to sing.
It made you want to create.
Phonte:[My peers] were excited [when I told them about the project].
They was like, Yo, this is dope.
There was some sense of amazement, but it was just at the music.
That was never even on the table.
We started collaborating digitally but never realized that it was a big deal.
We were just like, Hey, youre there, Im here.
And he was like, Wait, girl.
Im about to do something amazing.
And thats when he started talking aboutConnected.
He was like, Hey, Im exchanging tracks with this cat in the Netherlands.
I wasnt shocked because hes always had his finger on the pulse of whatever was next.
Brockington:It was through Pooh that all of this started for me.
I was working at a bank and Pooh was like, Hey bro, whats going on?
You still doing music?
Im like, Yeah.
Im trying to do a little something, not realizing that theyre Little Brother.
You should roll through.
The song is My Mind.
He let Te hear that and Te was like, Bet.
And thats how I got the call to come and work onConnected.
Phonte:Up until that point, we were working on LB stuff in the same room together.
You write your verse, and then you go spit it.
Brothers give it the yay or nay.
[Youre] waiting to come out the booth, see how people faces is looking.
One of my pet peeves was getting judgment on [a song] before its completed.
Im like, Bro, if I finish this song and you think it sucks, fine.
But let me complete my idea.
That was what I liked the most about [recording remotely].
It wasnt weird to me.
Nicolay:This was all before Gmail, before social media.
We didnt have fast enough internet to exchange high-res files.
Phonte:We were six hours apart, something like that.
I think my best time to catch him would be if I was active in the afternoon.
It may be around dinner time for him.
Or if its like 6:00 in the morning for me, its lunchtime for him.
He be like, Yo, youve been up all this time?
We would just catch each other when we caught each other.
But every time we would catch up.
There was always motion.
Sometimes I would have two or three that I thought would be dope.
Sometimes I would have one, and Id be like, Hey, whatd you think of this?
I think the most I ever sent him at once during those days wouldve been four or five.
Phonte:[My studio setup] was the trenches, son.
We just had a recorder at the studio that [our former manager] Big Dho [had].
We had a fucking Compaq Presario computer and a Rode NTK.
We had this itty bitty preamp that we plugged into.
We transitioned to underneath the basement of a dentists office.
We had the egg crates you put on your bed…I bought four of them.
We had some wire hangers and we hooked [the mic] into the drop ceiling.
And it was standing in that.
Its like a little box.
Nicolay:We were both in these little bedrooms.
At the time it was a very uninspiring bedroom.
[There was] a printer on my desk and stuff.
It was very much the start of my journey.
Brockington:Studio time mightve been 8:00 PM.
Everybody gonna get there at a good 8:15, or 8:30.
Were going to buy some food.
You want to know what time we start recording?
About 10:00, 11:00 at night.
[Laughs] And this is when I was still working.
You got it from here.
Darien Brockington:Im honored and Im privileged.
They couldve asked anybody to be a part of it but they asked me, and Im grateful.
Big Dho, Little Brothers former manager:I almost died in the studio one night recordingConnected.
This when I was a big guy.
I was like 410 pounds at the time.
I had got diagnosed with diabetes.
I didnt know because I had it for so long.
But I was like, Oh, I just wont eat and Ill be straight.
But I was taking the medicine.
[Phonte] was like, Youre turning grey, yo.
Thats why Khrysis ended up becoming an engineer.
[Phontes] like, Yo, I dont think Dho can handle this studio.
That was the end of my engineering for him, because he liked to work at night.
Nicolay:I didnt know how to sample.
I was [also] inspired by Reflection Eternal [and] the Roots records.
The intro was the mission statement where you make the claim of what the album would be about.
And then later I wanted to build it out more and make it more mysterious, if you will.
So I came up with that very first sound.
Its like this bat signal that later became our sound logo.
That was the moment that I came up with it.
I had some synthesizers and I was just playing.
When Phonte heard it, he was like, Yo, thats it.
And he got with YahZarah, whos an amazing singer, and shes almost operatic on that track.
So the idea of having Von Pea doing Von Sees, it was that.
Nicolay:[Von Pea] came to North Carolina just to hang out.
He wanted to see what the fuss was about this scene.
Phonte put him in the booth [like], Here you go.
And he gives his perspective on the scene.
The title of Von Sees is quite literal.
Its who we are but through his eyes.
I had the idea to connect the two tracks together.
And then we had the idea to fade Phonte in, to make his entrance almost more dramatic.
Theres a backwards reverb on his vocal.
His first words [are] Rock to the rhythm back and forth, like a pendulum.
Rock is starting almost half a minute before you actually hear it.
He comes in right on the first snare hit of Raw Life.
It was the first time we were having fun with making albums.
That was interesting to me because I loved R&B.
In the mid-90s, I was a big R&B head.
Hes clearly one of the best rappers of his generation, if not the best.
No wonder somebody like Drake will reference him as an influence.
At the time it wasnt a thing yet.
So for me, that just meant, This is the guy.
I just know that this is the dude that I am going into the future with.
Big Dho:[Phonte] is a generational talent.
Whether you like what hes saying or not.
But hell also throw a comedy element into it for niggas.
I think he could get in the studio with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and bang out a hit.
He has the ability to smoke niggas boots.
YahZarah: [Phontes] probably one of the most ingenious musicians of our time.
Not all musicians carry instruments.
[With] some of them, their minds are amazing musical instruments and Tes is one of them.
I laughed because I always knew that he was so talented.
He doesnt just sit down and say, Im going to make a record.
He studies the greats and people who stay are people who study.
This is all just a natural gift.
Nicolay:I liked [Sincere].
I was proud of the music.
I had become a fan of YahZarah, who I knew was in Phontes circle.
When he started introducing her on some of these tracks, particularly Sincere.
I was like, Now we have the potential to go more into the neo-soul realm.
So while Sincere still has Phonte rapping, its really not a hip-hop track.
Its a little faster than a traditional hip-hop track.
Its almost like a traditional soul record.
So it gave us the opportunity to show a different side of ours.
It wasnt a good fit for me, Ill say it like that.
One of the songs we recorded forBlackstarwas Sincere.
The label rejected it, and I was like, These people crazy.
It ended up becoming BBC Song of the Year, which was incredible for us as a group.
And life started lifing, as it normally does.
I was a young father.
My son was two at that time.
That was where I was, and that was a snapshot of things that were on my mind.
Nicolay:What was cool is I got to know him as a person through his lyrics.
At first, we didnt know each other from Adam.
We just knew we were fans of each others work.
That requires a lot of trust.
The trust was there from day one.
Phonte is a largely autobiographical writer.
I [also] learned a lot about America through him.
Who writes about adult puberty?
It was starts and stops.
Big Pooh:I was proud [when I heard the finished product].
I didnt have no problem with it.
Shit, I told them they should name the album The Foreign Exchange.
And that ended up becoming the group name.
But the album was dope.
Phonte:BBE was a label in the UK started by this cat, Peter Adarkwah.
BBE had did DillaWelcome 2 Detroit.
They did DJ Spinna, they did Pete Rock, Marley Marl, will.i.am.
Me and Nick were both fans of them.
Brockington:I was working at my nice little bank job at the time.
Its all happening at one time.
So for me, it was overwhelming and a pleasant surprise, to say the least.
We were young [when we dated] and Te liked girls a lot [laughs].
That was the worst fucking throw ever.
And I cant stress enough that we were flying by the seat of our pants.
It looking back seems like such a self-contained thing, but we were just going with the flow.
No, were broke.
Im in North Carolina, hes in the Netherlands, we have the internet.
We were just using the tools that we had at our disposal.
YahZarah:When [Phonte] said he was trading tracks over AOL, everybody thought he was crazy.
And those who thought he was crazy are still the same people not doin shit.
How can we use Little Brother to propel this project?
That was the first time I booked a tour.
Little Brother was more of the power play as far as numbers.
We did the show like how the album was.
We would do some Little Brother shit but then Foreign Exchange would come out.
Obviously, Pooh would come out.
Do his records with him, and then everything would leave and then some other guys would come out.
We was in Willie Nelsons old bus.
It had a reclining spin around chair [that] I stayed in most of the time.
Our bus drivers name was Booty, from Louisiana.
He fell asleep driving.
He was an older dude.
That was probably his last tour.
Nicolay:When I listen toConnected, I hear what could be better.
I was still very much learning, and finding out how music works.
I hear the influences on the record.
I hear me channeling the records that I love.
I think I was still finding my own voice.
There are things on the record that are truly original.
There are things on the record that are borrowed.
They do say that great artists borrow.
I dont necessarily have a problem with it, but I was still very much finding my own voice.
ButConnectedhit people at a time in their lives where it was a formative experience for a lot of people.
YahZarah:Nicolay revolutionized sound around that time.
There are a lot of Nicolay babies out there who may not admit [it].
He was bravely experimenting with the sounds that he loved.
He was seeking out sounds and [to me] he defined the sound of 2005 through 2010.
Things got real electronic again.
Theres a reason why Drake cites Phonte as his favorite musician.
He was like he might have been 13, 14 [when the album dropped].
The legacy ofConnected is not going to be written by us.
Pooh: I dont think people acknowledge the impact that album had on future generations of people.
It set that tone for somebody people revered coming out the gate as a phenomenal MC.
Not saying it influenced everybody, but some influence came from that album that led to other things.
Darien Brockington:Foreign Exchange [happened at] such a critical time, when music was so uncertain.
The industry was changing.
I really feel like what they did kept it going in a space of uncertainty.
And how those are two very different things.
With LB we were three friends who went into business together.
And I think that I do credit that for just being the bedrock of our success.
Nicolay:Phonte has changed my life in many ways.
I think we both have affected each others lives.
On the core human level, Im thankful that our paths crossed.
Music is certainly a big part of that.
But as a human connection, Im happy that we affected each others lives in this way.
How many people say that?
And we were touring as children together, making beautiful music.
It was always about the music and having fun with our friends.
It wasnt a Catfish situation.
It wasnt like, ah, nigga youve been lying this whole goddamn time!
[Laughs]He showed up as advertised.
Hes just this tall, lanky white guy.
Im like, Oh shit.
Alright, whats up?
I had no idea [he was that tall].
He was just the same in person.
A really sweet, warm human being.
It was like we had known each other for a long time.
Nicolay:[Our first meeting] was almost anticlimactic.
We finished the whole thing without meeting face-to-face.
In fact, we never even talked on the phone.
At that point, we had signed a deal for the record.
And we were in a holding pattern waiting for it to come out.
That was the first time we had an opportunity to meet.
I went to Amsterdam and visited the hotel room that they were staying.
It was like, Hey, its me.
And it was very interesting because it was almost like, Yeah, but I saw you yesterday.
But we had never met.
