The First 5: Chum The Skrilla Guerilla

Published by Tyler Hakes on October 26, 2009 at 8:00 am

Chum Zilla aka Chum The Skrilla Guerilla is a DJ and producer who has worked with some of the biggest heavy-weights in the indie scene. He’d produced tracks for the likes of Styles of Beyond (“Hey You!”) to Apathy (A good portion of Eastern Philosophy) and the rest of the DemiGodz crew. His style of perfectly-placed samples and smashing drums is undeniable, his beats are crafted with the utmost care. In addition to our first 5 questions that we are continuing to ask, Chum also posted a list of the 20 albums that shaped his life which will be included as a bonus for the second installment of this series. Get to know Chum Zilla and you will see that he has had his hand in many-a classic albums. Check out his full (almost up to date) discography on his MySpace page.

1. Tupac or Biggie?
After 13 years, I’m a bored with that question, but I’ll say Biggie.

2. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Still doin the same thing, smashing speakers and parties, hopefully on a larger scale.

3. 5 Years ago, where did you see yourself today?
A lot less slept on with more merits. I know the game was fucked up, but didn’t expect to still be so lost in obscurity.

4. What do you want people to take away from your music?
Everyone interprets things differently. But I want people to know I never compromised my music or tried to fit a mold. I did what I wanted to the best of abilities and had fun with it.

5. What has been your most memorable moment in hip-hop?
Career-wise I’d have to say doin the Hultsfred Festical in Sweden in ’02. That was the moment where I was like “wow, this could really happen”. As far as musically, I’d have to say everything in the 90′s. The air and everything was just different and exciting then. That’s been all sucked out now.

Beastie Boys – “Licensed To Ill” & Run DMC – “Rasing Hell”
I have these two albums tied for this spot because these were the first two hip-hop I was every exposed to. I remember being at my friend’s house watching MTV, I was like 5 years old, when the video for Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right” came on. It was seriously the coolest shit ever to me. I mean, I was 5 years old seeing these dudes having a huge party, smoking, chasing girls, being assholes and throwing pies at each other! Immediately following was Run DMC’s video for “Tricky” came on. I see these two dudes with super cool hats, DMC’s glasses, fur coats in a helicopter talking about how cool they are. That day, I was hooked, my life was changed. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate these albums even more, and go figure, both albums were produced by Rick Rubin! Come to find out, one of my favorite songs off “Licensed To Ill” was written by Run DMC, crazy!

Public Enemy – “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back”
This could be considered typical I guess, but I don’t care. The things this album did changed the world with they hip-hop was produced. Honestly, it’s not my favorite PE album, that would be “Fear Of A Black Planet”, but “It Takes A Nation…” is the one that blew open the doors for that album to be possible. Don’t get me wrong, “Yo! Bumrush The Show” is classic, but this is where Chuck really went in and set it off for Public Enemy to be one of the biggest voices ever in hip-hop on the revolutionary tip. Then you had Flavor Flav going crazy. I think I liked Flav more when he was on crack, and not on reality TV. Plus, this album is hard as fuck and I was brought up on bands like Led Zep, Sabbath, and my mom listened to bands like Metallica, Deep Purple etc., so this album was like the hip-hop equivalent to that. Over the years, my favorite song off the album is “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos”…that Isaac Hayes sample…what’s fucking with that?

Ice Cube – “Death Certificate”
From the jump, Cube always stood out to me in N.W.A., he was hands down my favorite member. I remember when “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted” came out, I was so excited. Then “Kill At Will” was insane with “Jackin’ For Beats”. But those didn’t quite blow me away as much as “Death Certificate” did. He always sounded mad as shit on the N.W.A. records and his first album, but holy shit, this man got heated when he chopped the jheri curl! This album really set the bar for west coast production with other artists following in that sound format like King Tee and Compton’s Most Wanted. This album portrayed a sense of social awareness and essentially predicted the LA riot. This was a concept album, with every song being a concept. It really was like an amazingly produced audio book. The only off topic song was the last song, “No Vaseline”, and I was floored! He went in so hard on N.W.A.! The production was amazing as well, bringing in Dr. Dre’s cousin Sir Jinx. This album really cemented Ice Cube as one of my favorite rappers of all time.

N.W.A. – “Straight Outta Compton” and Eazy-E “Eazy-Duz-It”
These two albums go hand in hand to me. I can’t even describe how much trouble I got in when I got caught listening to “Fuck Tha Police” from my mom! I remember I came home with a dub my friend gave me that he got off his brother playing that in my walkman. I could’ve believe how much these dudes were cursing! The amount of “n-bombs” being dropped! Then Eazy-E’s album doing the same exact thing! I fully attribute these two albums as the reasoning for me being a foul mouthed 40 swilling asshole, namely the “8-Ball Remix” haha. My favorite song off “Eazy-Duz-It” though was MC Ren’s insanely annihilated “Ruthless Villian”.

A Tribe Called Quest – “Midnight Murauders”
Don’t get me wrong, their two albums before this are classics, and I love the rest of the Native Tongues crew, but this album right here is my favorite out of all of them. The main reasoning is that this is when I started to think I wanted to DJ and make beats. This album is a huge inspiration to my production and the cuts. This album is still in super heavy rotation. I don’t really know what else to say about it, but it’s also the standard to my engineering and how I mix tracks down. Bob Power is such a dope engineer.

DJ Shadow – “Endtroducing”
When this album came out, I was just strarting to mess with beats and DJing, and this shit blew my mind away! It was ALL samples! The way Shadow chopped the drum breaks, he flipped the shit out of everything on this. This album also changed the world as far as instrumental hip-hop albums went. So dusty and dense, this one of my favorite albums of all time, and it’s pure genius. A huge influence on how I chop and program by drums.

Wu-Tang Clan: “Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”
What can honestly be said about this album and it’s influence? Seriously. This is hands down the album that really made be decision for me to do what I do. The grimey sounds, bad mix downs, the speech impedimates, the kung-fu samples, this album is perfect! Wu-Tang really turned the world upside down, and changed mine along with countless of other people’s lives. This is the album that sold me on the notion that I need an Ensoniq ASR-10 to make beats.

Gang Starr – “Hard To Earn”
Gang Starr is hands down one of my favorite groups of all time, and DJ Premier is one of my biggest influences all together. Every album of theirs is classic to me, but “Hard To Earn” is the album that put Primo on the map as one of the greatest producers of all time. This album played a huge role in the development of my sound as a producer, and how I’ve always wanted to produce an album. I love this album so much, I couldn’t pick just one song to post! haha

Black Moon – “Enta Da Stage” and Smif-N-Wesson – “Dah Shinin”
These are two album I put hand in hand together as well. Black Moon set off the whole BCC movement with Evil Dee and Mr. Walt set off the whole dusty jazz thing. Like the production on “Hard To Earn”, Da Beatminerz’ way of peicing their samples together with crazy drum breaks and dope cuts are huge influence on me. The same thing carried over to “Dah Shinin” only this time going harder with the drums and introducing us to even more of the BCC. Words can’t really describe these two albums.

Redman – “Dare Is A Darkside”
The first three Redman albums are his best, and classics. “Dare Is A Darkside” though is my favorite, and his hardest album. He also handled the majority of the production on it, and was really on his shit lyrically. This album stays is heavy rotation 15 years later, and also has my favorite Redman song of all time on it: “I Can’t Wait”. The production on this album, especially the basslines, is a big influence on my production.

Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth – “Mecca And The Soul Brother”
Who’s life didn’t this album change? Pete Rock is as much an influence on any producer who came up in the 90′s as Primo, Large Pro, etc. One song though, “T.R.O.Y.” is monumental to me in so many ways. It gets a little mushy, so I won’t go into details, but that song and this album has so many of my best memories revolving around it. This album really ushered in the whole horn sample thing and filtered basslines.

Cypress Hill – “Cypress Hill” and Hous Of Pain – “House Of Pain (Fine Malt Lyrics)”
I know I put a few album together in one spot, but they’ve been equal inspirations to me, these two are no different. Cypress Hill really introduced something new and unique to the game that no one else really did. DJ Muggs is a huge production influence on me, especially with dark and weird sounds. B-Real with the nasal voice and Sen Dog’s voice were like polar opposites that worked so well. A Cypress Hill album pretty much played like an amazing pyschodelic rock record, especially this one. It usherd in the whole Soul Assassins sounds that would propell House Of Pain and Funkdoobiest’s albums and careers. Quickly following up, Muggs produced House Of Pain’s classic freshman album with a rejuvinated Everlast. House Of Pain made it cool to be a grimey white dude without being corny. These two albums stay in rotation, and really influenced me to start making music.

Black Sheep – “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing”
Along with N.W.A., I put full responsibility on Dres for me being the asshole I am now haha. This album is amazingly classic from front to back with rhymes ahead of their time and production as knocking as it was unique. The samples were so weird! I got in trouble for listening to this, a lot! The jokes, the excessive talking about sex, the cursing, it’s just amazing. I remember when my cousin bought this album. We were up late listening to it in his room dubbing it for me. He got the album taken away that night because we were playing it too loud.

Nas – “Illmatic”
Even though I honestly play “It Was Written” more, this album blew my mind. You didn’t hear Primo do much production outside of Gang Starr at this point, and for the album start off with “NY State Of Mind”…holy shit! The production line up was any MC’s dream come true at the time with Primo, Large Pro, Q-Tip and Pete Rock. At that time, the only that would’ve put it over the edge even more might have production from Da Beatminerz and any producer from DITC at the time. This album is perfect in every way though. What can be said?

Showbiz & A.G. – “Runaway Slave”
Stripped down bangin beats, hard lyrics. “Runaway Slave” was my introduction to D.I.T.C., and the sparse but bangin beats on here really inspired my sounds. This album is probably one of my earliest influences as to what I wanted to as far as music, and I didn’t even know it then. With such a rugged album, they had two of the most classic party anthems on here: “Party Groove” and “Soul Clap”.

Mobb Deep – “The Infamous”
Along with “Illmatic”, this album really put Queens back on the map somthing crazy. Mobb Deep’s sound wasn’t like anyone else’s either. Those drums were so knocking and crisp, I still wish I did drums like that. I can’t lie, I used to feel super thugged out rockin this album, and still do a little haha I was just in NY recently, it’s getting cold out here on the east coast, and it just felt like the right thing to play in NY in an SUV. This album really showed me how good “space” in the beat is.

Styles Of Beyond – “2000 Fold”
When this album came out, I was just starting to get “good” at making beats and really coming up as a DJ. I was also making my rounds and getting my first solid connects musically recording serious material for release. The fact that I saw an indy hip-hop group from Cali’s record out here in CT, I had to get it, and it really inspired me to see that it might be possible for me to be heard everywhere. I seriously bought this album strictly off the fact that I’ve never seen it before, but a little about it on the internet. As soon as I popped that tape into the deck in my ’92 Dodge Spirit, I knew I found a gem. “2000 Fold” had a really homegrown feel to me and inspired to me to be like “fuck it, I can produce and record everything myself”. It really added to my “independent spirit”. Plus, Ryu and Tak were just killin shit! This was also the last cassette to ever be played in any of my cars as my tape deck ate it a week after it wouldn’t eject it. Really blows my mind that these guys are like my brothers now and that I work with them.

Company Flow – “Funcrusher Plus”
All I can say is holy shit, this album, right here REALLY changed my life. I had just gotten my ASR-10 when this came out, and was recording with a Tascam 4-Track cassette jump off, and this album sounded like that to me. It sounded like it was recorded and mixed in someone’s basement, this shit was straight gutter. El-P described it best as “dusty but digital”. “Funcrusher Plus” is the album that really jump started the late 90′s indy hip-hop movement and put Rawkus on the map. Who didn’t want to be a Rawkus artist when this came out? These dudes were rapping so off beat to these dusty ass beats, that it was perfect. Everything about this album is still huge inspiration to me, with them making similar music to what I was trying to do. This is THE album that told me “dude, let’s do this shit!”

Rebel Alliance LP
While Company Flow was killing it from NY, I stumbled across the Rebel Alliance LP. Following in a similar vein soundwise, this caught my ear immediately, especially 7L & Esoteric and Mr. Lif. The shit that really blew me away was that this was coming out of Boston. I felt like I wasn’t alone trying to make this sort of hip-hop in New England. The biggest stand out track to me on here was “Be Alert”, and it’s still one of my favorite songs. When I heard this album, I was like “yo, these dudes are in New England killin it right now! We can do this!” It really put the bug in me to so something and after going to 7L & Esoteric and Mr. Lif shows, I started spending all of my free time on that ASR-10 making beats and starting taking myself more serious as a producer. I never thought that while listing to these guys, I’d end working with them and being in the same crew.

Keep up with everything Chum on his blog page where he talks about making beats and kicking ass.

5 Responses

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October 26th, 2009 at 8:31 am

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Rogelio Cizek Says:
March 12th, 2010 at 6:15 am

Have just returned from a grand vacation to Bangkok, stayed at Rocky Beach in the northwest part which is less busy than south-central areas, great resort and wonderful bays near Bangkok like at Koh Larn. We hired a cycle for only 250 baht per day and would drive around the general area. So many marvelous places to dine, our loved spot was Thai Food Heaven which had the most wonderful view over the beach, the faculty was rather friendly and the food so delicious, we would go for sunset cocktails. My girlfriend and I had a supreme time in Bangkok and will be back for New Year.
Edwin Cuffe Says:
March 25th, 2010 at 3:21 am

In my opinion the best tv show of 2009 was family guy ? do you guys agree with me ?
Jeanmarie Dejackome Says:
March 26th, 2010 at 12:24 pm

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