Sketch Fernando, Jr.

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Serath "Sketch" Fernando, Jr. aka Specter is the founder, owner and spiritus rector of the New York record label WordSound, which specializes in illbient , trip-hop and dub . As a musician, producer and supervisor, he is directly or indirectly involved in many of his label's recordings.

Career

SH Fernando is the son of Ceylonese immigrants. Fernando studied at Harvard and the Columbia University School of Journalism in Cambridge , where he hosted the weekly radio show The Dub Frequency for four years with the musician Likkle Jer alias Megabyte . This reinforced the common desire to make music themselves. 1991 attracted Skiz Fernando and Likkle Jer to New York, where she in Brooklyn neighborhood Williamsburg on the Reggae -Dub-Artist Dr. Israel , who had his own recording studio there with Bass Mind Studios . In this creative environment, a loose group of musicians soon gathered who shared a similar interest in Illbient, dub and hip-hop.

Sketch Fernando earned his living as a music journalist for fanzines and music magazines, such as the American edition of Rolling Stone , but also with articles for the New York Times and Vibe . In 1994 he published a history of hip-hop with The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture and Attitudes of Hip-Hop . In December of the same year he founded the record label WordSound Recordings in Brooklyn . He borrowed the start-up capital of 1,000 US dollars from the exceptional bassist Bill Laswell , who is also featured on several Wordsound records as a musician and composer. In 1995 he released his debut album The Illness under the stage name Specter ("Ghost").

Fernando took the name for the record label from the dub compilation Word Sound 'ave Power . The title goes back to the Rastafarian mystical idea that everything that exists arises from the power of words (above all of God) and that everything that is is vibration.

When the hip-hop producer Prince Paul ended his collaboration with De La Soul after three albums , Sketch Fernando released his solo debut Psychoanalysis (What Is It?) On WordSound (re-released on Tommy Boy Records ) in 1996 .

While visiting his family in Sri Lanka in 2001, Sketch Fernando wrote the screenplay for the film Crooked , which he produced himself in 2001 and which he also directed. The low-budget film portrays the legal and illegal attempts at advancement of an unsuccessful black rapper in New York, played by Colin Julius Bobb, aka Sensational . For Crooked - The Movie both a soundtrack of the same name (white cover) and a score (black cover) were released as a double album.

In 2006 he lived in Sri Lanka for a year and used the island stay to research the local cuisine. His research resulted in the book Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking .

Sketch Fernando now lives in Baltimore , Maryland, and dedicates himself to Asian cuisine in his Rice & Curry project .

Pseudonyms

Sketch Fernando operates under many different pseudonyms and therefore likes to refer to himself as the “man of 1000 faces”, the man with the 1000 faces. His stage names are SKZA (a reference to the rapper RZA ), Specter, The ILL Saint, The Eye, The Mystic, The High Priest, Wordsound I-Powa, Special Dark, Minister Fernando and Slotec. His alter ego "Specter, The ILL Saint" stands for particularly dark beats, bass lines and sounds.

Discography

Solo albums as Specter

  • 1995: The Illness
  • 1997: The Second Coming
  • 1999: The End
  • 2002: Psychic Wars
  • 2006: Transcendent
  • 2006: Tunes From the Crypt
  • 2007: Retrospectre
  • 2008: Internal Dynasty

Albums as The Ill Saint

  • 1997: The Ill Saint presents Subterranean Hitz, Vol. 1
  • 1998: The Ill Saint presents Subterranean Hitz, Vol. 2
  • 2000: The Ill Saint presents Subterranean Hitz, Vol. 3 - The Ill School

Albums as The Eye

  • 1996: Dubadelic: 2000 - A Bass Odyssey (WSCD007; with Bill Laswell, Dr. Israel et al.)
  • 1998: Dubadelic: Bass Invaders (WSCD027)

Sampler

  • 1995: Crooklyn Dub Consortium - Certified Dope Vol. 1 (WSCD003): Specter: Crooked
  • 1996: Crooklyn Dub Consortium - Certified Dope, Vol. 2 (WSCD012): Specter vs. Scotty Hard : The Joust
  • 1997: Shake The Nations (Remixe) (WSCD023; with Prince Paul , Bill Laswell and others): Specter: King Cobra In The Temple Of Smoke , Hidden Gods and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
  • 1999: Crooklyn Dub Outernational Presents Certified Dope Vol. 3 (WSCD033): Specter: My Dub Weighs A Ton
  • 2000: Constructions - Sofa Surfers Remixed And Dubbed : Specter: I Asked For Water / I Asked For A Remix From Another Planet
  • 2002: Crooked - The Movie. The Soundtrack (WSCD041): Specter: Crooked , Bottom Feeder , Invasion of the Body Snatchers , Alamut and Illogy
  • 2002: Crooked. The Original Score (WSLP042): Specter: Put The Money In The Bag , Yae Yo , Father and Son , In The Projects , Scheming On A Come Up and Hidden Agenda as well as with Sensational Hustlin '
  • 2004: Crooklyn Dub Outernational - Certified Dope Vol. 4: Babylon's Burning (WSCD048): Specter: Al Qaida (The Bass)

bibliography

  • 1994: The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture and Attitudes of Hip-Hop , Anchor Books. ISBN 9780385471190
  • 2011: Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking , The Hippocrene International Cookbook Library. ISBN 9780781812733

Filmography

  • 2002: Crooked - The Movie , directed by SH Fernando, Jr., WordSound Recordings.

Single receipts

  1. ^ Serath "Sketch" Fernando on Discogs .
  2. ↑ Liner notes for the remix album Shake the Nations (WSCD023).
  3. ↑ SH Fernando Jr. Bio .
  4. ↑ Specter discography on Discogs .
  5. ↑ Skiz Fernando @ Dubspot Talks Influences .
  6. ↑ cf. John 1.1 : "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and God was the word."
  7. ↑ cf. Volker Barsch: Rastafarian. From Babylon to Africa , Ventil Verlag, Mainz 2003, pp. 122–123, ISBN 978-3-930559-97-8 .
  8. ↑ Psychoanalysis (What Is It?) On Discogs .
  9. ↑ Crooked - The Movie / The Soundtrack and Crooked: The Original Score on Discogs .
  10. ↑ Rice & Curry .
  11. ↑ SH Fernando Jr. Bio .
  12. ↑ Check The Resume: Sketch Fernando on Sketch Fernando , interview from January 30, 2013.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fernando, Sketch Jr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Specter (pseudonym); The Eye (pseudonym); The Ill Saint (pseudonym); Slotec (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American label founder, musician, producer and supervisor
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century