In our newly minted FADER Five column, we ask the artists and producers orbiting our universe to riff on a theme and serve up five gems of their choosing.
Any producer worth his drop will tell you a formative practice to the art is the dig. Whether for weird new synth patches or samples low enough to avoid lawsuit, beatmakers are faced with an infinitely expanding sea of sounds that already exist, and cull, edit, mix up and cut down to glean what they want and what listeners don't know they need. The internet works the same way, kind of. So it was no surprise when our favorite beatnerd Sango confessed that between DJ gigs and sessions with his Soulection crew, he wasted away hours diving down clickholes on Wikipedia, lapping up rare, random facts like old Baile-funk 45s. "I mean, I'm from Washington and I moved to Michigan," he explained with a cool laugh. "I like boring."
1. Pica (Disorder)
"Alright, number one. This Wikipedia article is called Pica, it’s like a disease where people can’t eat regular food, they have to eat inanimate objects. They’ll eat mothballs, rocks, nails, wood, they’ll eat stuff like that!"
2. Kanye West
"I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, and every time I'll go to Kanye's. I’ll always look at Kanye’s page to see if it’s been updated, to see if he’s been working on a new album."
3. Sango (language)
"I’ll Wikipedia weird languages that people don’t know. I found out my name, Sango, is a language in the Congo in Africa. It’s a weird mix of French and some native language."
4. Orange is the New Black
"Anytime I’m watching a show, a new season, I’ll look at the characters. So like with Orange is the New Black on Netflix. I like that show a little bit but it gets a bit weird. I read up on all the characters."
5. Machester City F.C.
"I look at a lot of Manchester City, I’ll look at the Manchester signees, just to make sure it’s official. I’m a big football fan, my Jamaican friend from England who moved to Michigan to play soccer, he’s really good. He was like 'Yo man, I can’t believe you guys don’t like soccer here! No one wants to play.'"
