Chicago-based beat scientist Makaya McCraven tips his hat to a variety of influences on his way to becoming the pioneering jazz drummer he is today. Son of drummer Stephen McCraven and Hungarian folk singer Agnes Zsigmondi, his musical identity was forged under the mentorship of Archie Shepp, Marion Brown and Yusef Lateef and shaped by his musical exploits at high school when he cofounded the jazz-hiphop band Cold Duck Complex. As a jazz student at UMASS he supported and played locally for the likes of Wu-Tang Clan, Rhazel, Digable Planets, The Pharcyde, 50 Cent, Mixmaster Mike, and The Wailers. He has gone on to sculpt his own unique form of genre-bending music with two highly acclaimed albums; his debut Split Decision in 2012 and his breakthrough 2XLP In The Moment in 2015 which earned him international attention. A staple of the rich jazz hub of the Chicago scene; his experiments with sound and rhythm leading many to label him as a ‘sound visionary’. We caught up with Makaya at Love Supreme Festival to have a quick chat about his journey…
We wanted to start off by finding out a bit more about your sound and background, as we know you came from a very interesting family… What was it like growing up in such a musical surrounding?
Oh, there was just music in the house all the time, cats coming by the house, hangs, late nights, rehearsals and jam sessions, and falling asleep around that stuff as a kid and just soaking it all in. My mother is from Budapest, my father from the States, when we moved there I was about two years old and she went back to school and was in a music university as I was growing up. My Dad would be on the road quite a bit, and I would have to go to the university and sit through music classes. By the time I was an older boy, I had more opportunities to start playing music with local youth groups. People around our community were teaching and mentoring and used to say “Hey, why don’t we take your son over?”, so I was able to start playing at a very young age and build musical relationships of my own. The musical community around me was great, and there were a lot of peers that I was able to connect with. So by the time I was in High School I started a band, which is really what put me into my own career.
Ah yes the mighty Cold Duck Complex… what kinds of sounds were you experimenting with at the time?
At the time there were just keyboard, drum and bass, exploring jazz, hip-hop, beats and funk, and we had a friend who was a rapper, so he joined. It was a hip-hop instrumental group, and at the time there weren’t many bands like that. All we had were the records that we liked, sampled records, and stuff from the 90s, which influenced us. So we started jamming and writing music, and it took off locally and really had a life of its own. Around that time we started to see The Roots come out, but before that nobody really knew who they were, just a small cult following. It was cool to be at the early stages of that, ‘cos now in Hip-hop, everyone has a band. It was really new and fresh, which gave us a lot of air under our wings.
It seems like you were riding at the crest of a wave at that point. How did your experience in Cold Duck Complex, as well as the musical figures that you knew through your family come together to project you forward?
Both my family and Cold Duck Complex gave me the confidence to pursue the creative outlets that maybe weren’t conventional. Having people like my father, Archie Shepp and Yussef Lateef around encouraged me to be subversive, or do something that might not be accepted, or be a little bit edgy. It gave me confidence to be myself. It was great being with a group of friends in a band and trying to forge our own thing. We didn’t get very big and weren’t that well known, but we had a really strong, cult, local following. These people would follow us places and would know all the words, which made me feel that I could keep on pursuing creative endeavours. The background of Hip-Hop, Jazz, the Avant-garde, African music and eastern-European music were all around me, which made me just want to do me, you know? I got my hands into a lot of things both through the connections I had, as well as friends and family, and just the encouragement of the scene.
It sounds like you have a very well-rounded view of the whole musical life-cycle, from the top to the bottom?
I had a clear understanding of what a life in the arts means. I’ve seen my parents go through that, I’ve seen the high echelons of the music scene do that, as well as the realities of what it means to be on the road, of what it means to be out here, pursuing art, putting yourself out there, regardless of how challenging that is. Seeing the ups and all the amazing things you can accomplish, and the sacrifices that come with that.
I was fortunate to see that. I think about that when I go on the road, and have to say goodbye to my kids, which makes me think about saying goodbye to my dad when he would go on the road – some of that really comes around full circle.
Subversive is a word often used to describe Chicago’s music scene. What took you to that city?
I met my wife in Massachusetts, and at that point I had done a lot of things and was very busy. My wife got a job at North Western University, Chicago, which is when I first started to go to the city. When I showed up in Chicago, I immediately met and saw musicians of my age, that reminded me of my father and his family. A lot of great Jazz musicians, who’ve done a lot of great things, all lived in his area, people who made a lot of subversive music. I was working with came backgrounds in Rock, Funk and Hip-Hop – that was my crew, so it was very different. When I moved to Chicago, I met people who were my age, playing at the AACM, who were making and championing this Avant-garde, subversive, black music. I was immediately drawn to them and felt that there was a generation of musicians who understood that side of me, and understands the Hip-Hop side of me, the youthful side of me. It was really impactful to see that I had a space there as well. Ten years later it really became my home.
Your last album, In The Moment, came out in 2015 – what can we expect from you next?
Right now, we’ve been working on a studio project, which is in the works right now. I’ve also been doing a series of improvised shows, like we’ve done for “In The Moment”, which you can expect to see this summer. We’ve also been doing some weekly residencies in Chicago, with people like Jeff Parker and all sorts of folks. We’ve also got some shows in New York, and maybe some more over here in Europe, which will be a little different than those with the touring band, as they’re improvised shows, which we record in somewhat intimate settings.