Tiny Desert Concerts is a series in which we bring local bands and musicians into the KJZZ studios to play a couple songs and talk about the music.
This month we hear from The Stakes.
A blend of two hip-hop emcees, a Spanish guitar player, an R&B singer, then throw in some synth and keys and sometimes a horn section — this is who the The Stakes are.
The local music collaboration features a unique collection of musicians and results in a unique sound and message. Formed five years ago, The Stakes take elements of jazz, R&B, hip-hop and sometimes classic rock in their music. And it all culminates in a dynamic live show that is both rehearsed and improvisational.
The Show sat down with one of their emcees, Lord Kash, to talk more about their work. They are a live hip-hop band, and he started by telling her exactly what that means.
You can hear more of The Stakes’ music on their website and on Spotify.
Full conversation
LORD KASH: It's different because it's a living breathing experience. Nothing's ever the same twice. You're getting different colors and for lack of a better word, shapes of sounds all the time throughout the entire show. It's a more vibrant experience.
I think it's more tangible for the crowd that way. Your live instruments are giving you real vibrations in real time, and I think the people respond to that in a different way than they do with just recorded music.
LAUREN GILGER: So you're also melding a lot of genres here and you're a diverse group like there are people from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of ages it looks like up there.
I want to talk a little bit about how the band came together and who's in it and how that kind of shapes what comes out.
LORD KASH: Well, I think that's our primary like identity in a way that this group of people that are so different from so many different places came together and you hear it in the music.
I'd like to say it kind of started with our keyboardist Ben Scalaro and our former guitarist Caleb Vasey. They were putting something together, basically putting their feelings out there seeing if they could get some musicians together and try to build on something.
And one person told another person who told another person, one of those people told me and I, I went over and we all got in the same room together and the music started and five minutes later, we knew we had something special. Everybody just brought something totally different into the mix and it made a whole new food of music.
GILGER: It's like a dish, yeah. So what, what genres are we hearing? Like I hear jazz, there's definitely rock elements here, obviously hip hop. What else is there?
LORD KASH: You're right on track – jazz, hip hop, rhythm and blues, Latin, a lot of our musicians have a history of playing different types of music, so they bring in all their experiences. The areas that we're from are different from the South, from the Midwest, from the West Coast. So all these things are always at play all, all the time in every song.
GILGER: So you're going to play a song for us. What is it?
LORD KASH: This one's called “Blue Jean Grey” from our new project Prophecy.
GILGER: It sounds to me like you have a message. It's, it's often positive, I think, and there's also like an element of storytelling.
So tell us a little bit about “Blue Jean Grey,” about what story you're trying to tell through this character in this song.
LORD KASH: Well, Blue Jean Grey is interesting to me because it involves different perspectives about one thing. So the person that originally composed a song about a young lady who was unsure of herself and going through trials and tribulations and struggles.
And then I took that in a whole other direction and my verse has a whole subtext relative to me being a comic book nerd and channeling it into Jean Grey, the character. Jean Grey is a member of the superhero group, the X-Men. She has psychic powers and she struggled to control them.
And I took pieces of that and reflected it into a real person like struggling to recognize their full potential and struggling to see their value and we all approached it from different angles and put them together and that's how we got Jean Grey.
GILGER: It's the perfect example of how that diversity of members in the group has created its own story. I want to talk a little bit about like the music scene in Phoenix and you've said that you want to sort of help define that with this group because there there isn't a huge music scene here and we've been growing it.
And I think when people think of Phoenix they probably don't first think of hip hop. So how is it that you're trying to shape the music scene here? What is it you want to add to it?
LORD KASH: Well, we want to show the versatility that's here first of all because one thing the stakes always are raging against is being put in a box to be labeled as one thing and one thing only and to be the vanguard of the movement of versatile musicians that are here, there are so many musicians that bring something different and new to the table that people haven't heard.
And I think we just happen to be a really good example of that because of our versatility. I think the more people hear or look, the more they'll find.
GILGER: All right, and you're going to take us out on a song, which one?
LORD KASH: This will be “Unified” off our new album Prophecy.
This performance was filmed at KJZZ's youth media center, SPOT 127.
If you’re in a band or know of one you’d like to hear on air, send us a note at [email protected].
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