Singer, bassist, guitarist, cellist, keyboard player, drummer, drummer machine player, DJ, producer, and L.A.-native Music Man Miles rolls onto the decks this Friday for Quality Control at The Shelter.

In addition to recording with B.B. King, Black Eyed Peas, producing T-Love's Return of the B Girl EP, and writing songs for Macy Grays' debut record, Miles is also the man behind L.A. hip hop orchestra, Breakestra and the ten-year Rootdown party.

A staple of underground hip hop on the west coast, Rootdown has hosted some of the biggest names in hip hop, including Cut Chemist, DJ Shadow, Nu Mark, and Madlib. This Friday, Music Man Miles is going strictly funk, digging out the old 45s for a DJ set.

SmartShangahi caught up with Music Man Miles getting the quintessential Shanghai meal at Keven's to talk about Prada knock-offs, putting roots down, and overlooked funk.

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Miles: Absolutely.


Miles: Well, I've only been here a day and a night. But it's defiantly a new experience...


Miles: Went to the French Concession, looking to find... uh. [Laughs.] Well, I told Gary [manager of The Shelter] that I heard there was this place that you could get shoes made to your feet. So recently I started getting into good suits -- classic vintage suits -- and I wanted bright shoes for them. So I was thinking of maybe looking for some Prada... some knock-offs.


Miles: Not really, you know. As far as finding something good without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on some Prada...


Miles: We didn't make much effort. We walked past one dude, and he was working in a small little shop and didn't look up so we kinda gave up. But I heard you can get custom-made suits, so I'm thinking of investigating that...


Miles: It's like summer right now. But that's just the weather...

Well, I'm isolated into my own world, doing what I'm doing with music and the events I promote. With the Rootdown party... and a wide variety of funk and hip hop related things.

And then I have a Saturday night strictly deep funk and soul party, and that's going great. We just started up in the east side of LA in this place called Echo Park, which is kinda like the next... exodus of artists and creative people. To that part of town.


Miles: It started out of an extension of a party called "The Breaks", which is also how this band started called The Breakestra -- how that come about. It was an organic thing with DJs and musicians alternating, and it was an extension of that. Me and some other cats from those parties started the Rootdown. It came out of a need in LA for something organic.

And an outlet for the kind of music that would normally not get any representation in Hollywood, you know, or any other part of LA. No one else was doing it so we had a responsibility... [Laughs].

We never wanted to be promoters but...


Miles: Well, it's not a big place. It's three to four hundred packed. Which is good in a way because you can keep the place more intimate and fun -- smaller parties. My favorite party is a house party, you know. In an actual house. I prefer those. Not boom-boom-boom. It also depends if we have a special guest performer that night that might pack the house and sell it out -- Peanut Butter Wolf or someone like that playing that night.

But if it's just soundsystem DJs doing it, we'll still have a fun party.


Miles: Well, the most significant change was one of the cats who joined us earlier on passed away. DJ Dusk. So, you know, we kinda of keep it going off in his name and in his spirit. Great DJ...


Miles: Well... Cut Chemist, Nu-Mark and DJ Shadow did a one-off event, called "Pushing Buttons." It was just one time, with three of them on drum machines. It was pretty incredible.

And then we had an event that Dusk and myself started called the "RootDown Soundclash" which was two beat makers getting up on stage and going beat for beat -- kind of a battle, but more of an exhibition. DJs bringing their toys, bringing their drum machines, whatever up on stage, and actually breaking their stuff down and showing it. The first one was Cut Chemist and Madlib. And that one is actually out of DVD right now: "DJ Dusk's Rootdown Soundclash". It's online. It's through this thing called Mochilla, this guy did this movie and he was there for that and a few other battles. One was will.i.am. and Thes One from People Under the Stairs, and this other cat Exile and Ohno. So those three are captured on DVD.

So all those... memorable nights. You know, ten years... there's a lot. Antibalas rocked there. We shot the Breakestra video there. The first video we did was shot at Rootdown.


Miles: Well, back again to "The Breaks", a few friends were just hanging out at this coffee shop at this one spot -- just hanging out on couches and playing records. Sitting at coffee tables. And I was invited to come out one night, and there was a loft upstairs -- classic coffee house kind of set-up -- and I brought some musicians and people would be playing records and the band would play.

And then next thing, MCs started showing up and free-styling over the grooves. Then more DJs started showing up, bringing more sound equipment, and then B-boys started showing up and they were rocking in this five-foot space at the bottom of a staircase.

So it was a natural energy that turned into something called "The Breaks" and since we were the house band we became the "Breakestra".


Miles: I'm trying to mix this album... trying to finish.


Miles: No. I haven't even figured out who I want to put it out through yet. I just work on the music... I'm lucky to have a studio in my house so I work it. It's bad because I don't have somebody breathing down my neck [Laughs].


Miles: I'm playing strictly funk.


Miles: Yeah, 99% on 45s. I've also got some unreleased stuff I've been working on. Breakestra unreleased tracks I might play. And some other stuff too -- tracks on vinyl, on wax, old LPs, but it's hard to play them out because they're quietly pressed, so I've transferred them over to CD so they sound good and full quality. A little bit of that.


Miles: I just play whatever. Whatever happens to be inspired by the moment. Or combinations between what works musically -- trying to find connections between tracks... maybe using them to tell a story, I guess, somewhat.


Miles: Yeah. Sure.


Miles: Well, the first funk I ever heard properly was... yeah, the first funk I ever heard would have to be "Bitches Brew" by Miles Davis. Definite funk in there. My dad was playing it around the house...


Miles: Well... it's not the most obscure but it's defiantly overlooked by most folks. I'm surprised how people don't know about early Kool & the Gang. It's so far removed from "Celebration" and all that. But it's some of the best instrumental funk music ever made. It's definitely jazz funk, but it's incredible. It's hard and heavy and an incredible range of music.

It's got every element.

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Quality Control hosts Music Man Miles this Friday at The Shelter.

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