Bay Area based hip-hop group Ensemble Mik Nawooj discuss new music and more

For the past couple of years, Bay Area-based group Ensemble Mik Nawooj has been operating heralded as innovators in their local scene. With a forward thinking ear and eye as to where hip hop can go next, the orchestral project teams with talented MCs for something entirely new.

With Kendrick Lamar’s Kunta’s Groove tour set to launch this month, the future of hip hop may just be the present, with Ensemble Mik Nawooj at the forefront in the underground.

Groundsounds spoke with Ensemble Mik Nawooj’s music director, JooWan Kim, ahead of their Los Angeles debut performance at The Mint on October 29th.

 

Hi Ensemble Mik Nawooj, how’s it going? What has the group been up to so far in 2015?

We have traveled outside of the Bay Area for the first time in the history of the group to Seattle and Portland. Also we’re currently in the recording residency at Zoo Labs preparing for our second album.

Your project is pretty unique from what’s out there. How did it all come together at first?

Purely by chance. I did a novelty piece which featured an MC and chamber ensemble while at the San Francisco Conservatory of music doing master’s in composition. It got a great response from the audience and a full page write up on Oakland Tribune. After the performance, my MC at the time suggested that I should make an album with him. I spent next 6 months writing an hour of music that became the prototype for the music I’m doing.

How do you conceive and visualize combining hip hop and classical music? Is there a style of hip hop that works best? I imagine a lot of trap stuff like Future probably wouldn’t work.

I’ve been doing this for 5 years and there were a lot of trials and errors in between. This group is my laboratory for doing crazy experiments for coming up with systematic templates of “new hip-hop experience”. As for styles, I don’t think there’s any particular style which works better than the other. I love trap stuff actually.

You’ve been called “the future of hip hop” by some media outlets. Tell us a little bit about what that means to you?

I am basically sampling classical compositional techniques and creating hip-hop music with them. In many ways this hasn’t been done before; they try but generally it comes out sounding like a novelty or some weird wannabe high art stuff. So in a sense, I feel like I’m participating in creating the future of hip-hop in a very meaningful way.

Who are some of your biggest influencers? Who else do you admire that’s working today?

N.W.A. and Dre. My entry point of hip-hop was West Coast G funk.  I like to say, Dr. Dre dipped me into the river of hip-hop and made me reborn as a hip-hop composer. Dilla is a huge inspiration for me as well.

Who would you most like to collaborate with?

Kendrick.

You’re about to play Los Angeles for the first time. Any special plans for this show?

Not particularly. We’re just excited to play in LA for the first time.

What can we look forward to from Ensemble Mik Nawooj in the future?

Our second album is coming out next year and it’s called The Future of Hip-Hop. Within the second album, there are 4 covers of classic hip-hop tracks from 1993; 2 from Wu-Tang and 2 from Snoop. I call them “deconstructions” because they are pretty far stretched from the originals, though you can definitely tell the references. We’re going to play them at the Mint, so you should come and check them out.