Brilliant, My Boy: Know Your NYC Bands

BeatCrave brings you Brooklyn-based mash-up artist, Brilliant, My Boy, as part of our Know Your NYC Bands series. Although Brilliant, My Boy (aka Skyler Klingenberg) is just one guy, we just had to feature him. Not only is mash-up a growing phenomenon in music, but we know that everyone wonders these very questions we’re about to ask him. Why and how do you do mash-up? In this case, how do you make an album that astonishingly echoes the great mash-up artists like Girl Talk?

With one listen to his album, Dance, Blacula, Dance!, one is pleasantly surprised to contemplate if he IS the next Girl Talk. With songs like “Hail to the King, Baby” that layersNelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous” over Modest Mouse’s “Float On,” intervened by NWA’s “Express Yourself” and followed by Dr. Dre’s riff in “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” the rhyme from RUN-DMC’s “King of Rock,” Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” and The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” you’ll love feeling of ADD during each three minute song.

Dance, Blacula, Dance! is available on his MySpace page and it’s FREE! We strongly recommend for you to check it out. Until then, check out this exclusive interview with Brilliant, My Boy’s Skyler Klingenberg below!

What’s the story behind the moniker, Brilliant, My Boy? Were there any contenders before you chose this name?

I was in this hip hop group called Cloud Cluster.  I went by the name Skyboxx, and I was just using that for awhile for my remixes, beats, etc.  After I did my first remix for my friend’s band, I realized that I was getting into a whole different ball game.  So the name had to change to help me keep the worlds separate.

The name comes from a line in a song by this emo band called Dear Ephesus the I used to listen to when I was in high school.  No real deep meaning or touching story behind it.  The phrase – Brilliant, My Boy – just always stuck in my head for some reason.  I like pretty sounding groupings of words, I guess.

What program do you use to make your songs?

Most people are shocked when I tell them this, but the Dance, Blacula, Dance! album was made completely on Fruity Loops.  Fruity Loops tends to be the program used by your average person who just wants to dick around with beats.  There is no good sampling device in it and the sounds are very limited.  But I have been using it since I was 16 and have found a lot of little tricks and techniques that just work well for me.  I’ve actually recently started learning Ableton Live.  I figure it’s time for me to grow up a little bit.

How do you choose your songs for each mash-up? Do you start with a common theme or do you piece it together in a flexible manner?

My song formula definitely changed from the start to the finish of the album and I think you can really hear it.  I don’t even include one long rap until the forth track You Get It, You Got It with Ghostface Killah.  To be honest, I was still figuring out how this shit works.

In general all 135 songs, or whatever the final count was, that I sampled are songs that my close friends and I love, or have loved in the past.  Then it just becomes a mixture of what sounds good layered, and if it makes sense.  Like I used the music from “Tonight, Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins and used 2Pac’s rhyme from “Thugz Mansion” over it.  That, to me, sounds good and makes sense.  I wouldn’t use MC Chris or something else silly over a moment like that.  You have to get that feeling right in any art, or it’s bullshit.

How long does it usually take for you to finish a song?

It really depends from track to track, but on average I’ll have the basic skeleton done in an 1-2 hours.  Then, fine tuning will take another  two to three hours.  Remixes take longer and straight forward hip hop beats take less.  And double, or even triple those numbers for my first few mash-ups.

Is the latest album named after the film, Scream, Blacula, Scream?

Yeah, for sure.  I’m a huge lover of film and was talking about all the great blackplotation films with a friend and Scream, Blacula, Scream came up.  It’s such a good-bad film.  I thought it would be funny if Pam Grier had challenged Blacula to a dance off.

To be honest, when I first heard the album I immediately thought of Girl Talk’s Night Ripper. How big of an influence is he for you, if at all?

Well, for sure.  He really made the mash-up well known.  Plenty of people were doing it before him, and are still doing it.  Everyone has their own style.  I definitely had a moment when I was listening to Night Ripper where I was like, “Hey, I can do this!”  So I did.  And at the time I felt it was way different than that album.  Which it is.  But then I heard his follow up album, Feed The Animals.  Then I had a moment of, “Fuck.  We made the same album only he did it better.”  Oh well, it’s all good.  I make no claims to being that original, because, let’s be honest here, nobody is anymore.

Mash-up music used to be an underground thing, but there are tons of mash-up artists on the verge of mainstream success now. Besides being good for clubs and parties, what is it about mash-up music you think people latch on to so easily?

You can hear 20 songs you love in under three minutes! It’s in an entirely different light.

Dance, Blacula, Dance! is available but it’s free. Are you ever afraid of copyright infringement when you are making your songs?

Not really.  It’s hard for me to imagine somebody wanting to take credit for my music. This album was made for my friends and I and we will always know the truth.

Do you believe “Fair Use” is good enough of a defense if worse comes to worst?

It’s a musical collage.  Anyone working in this art form is taking sounds that they either love or hate and paying either homage to it, or turning it into something fun.  It’s music.  It’s life.  It’s for everyone.  Punk rock, baby!

What’s coming up next for Brilliant, My Boy?

I’m currently working on a hip hop project with a friend that we are calling Grand Rap Kids, but my dog has eaten the power supply for my mixer. So recording is at a stand still until I get that replaced.  I’ve also been extremely slowly been working on a follow up to Dance, Blacula, Dance! with something I think I will call Leap, Bakula, Leap!

Quick-Fire Round:
How many years have you been doing mash-up?

Just over one year.

What is the hottest song you’ve recently heard?

Anything by Kid Cudi – especially his chiller emo shit.  So good.  At this very second I’m listening to Future of The Left and they are ridiculously awesome.

What’s your favorite track off of Dance, Blacula, Dance?

It’s more about moments for me.  My favorite moment is Dead Prez over Boston on the track Where The Wild Things Be.  The most solid track is probably Hail To The King, though.  But most people seem to dig Bang! Bang! Bang!.

Tell us one thing about yourself we probably don’t already know.

I’m currently in film school at New York Film Academy.  My boston terrier, Toofer, takes up the rest of my time.

Photography courtesy of Hilary Kempkers