XXL Premiere
Brady Watt wears many hats--aside from being “Nyce On The Bass,” he holds residence in DJ Premier’s “The Badder Band” (Watt also plays in Talib Kweli’s band and produced the “Intro” and “Outro” on Kweli’s recently released The Seven EP with Styles) and he also writes, composes and produces; his esteemed resume includes collaborations with Joey Bada$$, Styles P & Talib Kweli, Curren$y, Melanie Fiona and Statik Selektah.
However, that resume has been hard to earn; through literal hunger pains, winters without heat, and a lot train rides to $50 gigs, “this shit is easy compared to what I was doing when I was a kid. This is nothing. Hard work is waking up at 6 am and carrying rocks all day.”
As a teenager, Brady left his New Hampshire home for Berklee College of Music in Boston and though he was undeniably one of the baddest bass players in his home state, Berklee really showed him he needed to step up if he was going to make it. Those four years at Berklee were spent not only honing his craft, but honing his own individual style and learning to transcribe, compose, and produce music.
After graduating and moving to NY, Brady received an invite to a party, after being promised a free drink, some girls to talk to, and networking at best, Brady decided to attend Dame Dash’s DD172 compound and with his bass on his back he encountered Ski Beatz. The hit-maker for Jay Z, Camp Lo, and Fat Joe saw the instrument and invited Brady to plug into his MPC sampler. Around the party, Jean Grae was penning a verse, Ski was tapping out beats and Brady was going in on the bass. Along with the partygoers, Ski was impressed. Soon after, Brady and Ski began a string of celebrated releases including Curren$y’s Pilot Talk 1 & II, 24 Hour Karate School, and Murs’ Love & Rockets; all of a sudden he was Dame Dash’s musical director and playing alongside the likes of Mos Def and Jay Electronica. Then things opened up.
Alongside releasing the first single, “Youth In Revolt,” with Michael Christmas from his forthcoming album, To Get Back Home, Brady has also signed a deal to become the first producer DJ Premier has ever signed to his TTT (To The Top) imprint where he will be releasing his new project To Get Back Home.
“I met Brady back in 2012. He came to my studio to do a session for a former employee that needed him to play bass” DJ Premier stated to XXL. On the way out he introduced himself and we started talking about our bass heroes and one of them we both love tremendously is Jaco Pastorius (Brady knows that I MUST always include my love for Stanley Clarke). Fast forward to 2015, when I envisioned putting my band together (The Badder Band), Brady was the first person I thought of to play Bass. Brady can play any song and he knew my catalog before we rehearsed a note. Before we went on tour, he had just released his Lifetronics album and I was highly impressed with his production; which I had not heard. Brady is an instant fit on my new label, TTT, (To The Top) as I house all types of music and Brady represents our vision for originality.”
“Youth In Revolt” was created in an elegant flophouse (more on that later) and you can hear remnants of the crazy creative atmosphere running all thru the track. "That whole Malibu trip was insane” Brady recalls to XXL. “I was there for two and a half months, living in a mansion (essentially in paradise) rent free. Someone conned the people renting the house out of a bunch of money and about a week after I moved out they were forced to flop on the rent. Everyone then had to bounce and the whole situation evaporated into thin air; almost like it never existed. Luckily, I was making music every day up there so I feel like I have record of it. You can hear that on "Youth In Revolt.”
While Michael Christmas didn’t know the back-story on the elegant flophouse, he did concur with the vibe, as he lamented “I sat on this hill in Malibu thinking about what I wanted to make and we ended up with the craziest song I think I've ever made. I knew I was with one of my favorite musicians in the world, so I was like let's try something different.”
Checkout the XXL Premiere: here
Purchase Brady Watt f/ Michael Christmas at iTunes: here
Spotify: here