Dec. 01, 2010 - Issue #789 : Beckett Shorts

On the Record

Do it for love

AOK couples music with a children's book

Edmonton writer/rapper AOK—also known as Omar Mouallem—recently released a tag team of a new album coupled with a children's book, both titled Q Without U. AOK spoke with Vue Weekly about the project's creation.

VUE WEEKLY: How long did it take to make Q Without U, from the initial songwriting through to the end of the recording?
AOK: Though it's a concept album about love, I didn't realize I had a concept until I was looking through my banks of recorded songs, scraps of lyrics, half-written or half-recorded tracks. Between 2008 and April 2010, I had amassed about six songs that were all about some man (likely me) chasing some woman.

VW: You used several different producers on this album. Why did you go that route rather than working with a single producer for the whole project?
AOK: I'd love to eventually work closely with a single producer, as it would make for a more unified sound, but rap is such a hobby to me that it's difficult to work on anyone else's watch but my own. I am always going to be a writer and editor before rapper. It would be very irresponsible of me if I let my grown-man career fall to the wayside for my little-boy dream.
So being a solo rapper with no backing and limited time, I can buy or earn beats from producers, solicit singing or guest rappers, have the album mixed and mastered, and book studio time via email, so really all I need to do is show up on time to record and make sure everything is on relative schedule. The one exception is in my working with the DJ Agile Agilities. That guy is a class act and would not make a single scratch unless I was there to make sure he was giving me something I'm happy with.

VW: Did you bring the songs to the studio fully formed?
AOK: I go into the studio with songs fully written, arranged and rehearsed. By the time I'm behind the mike, I usually just need three takes on each verse or chorus. I love it when producers help and make suggestions, but it's more like tweaking than revising. The real transformation on Q Without U happened when Ziko Ghost (my cousin in Montréal) mixed it. He returned the songs to me with so much more texture and this sense of electricity.

VW: Why did you pair this album with a children’s book rather than releasing them as two unrelated projects?
AOK: I think more and more, musician's are faced with the challenge of selling CDs to people who don't want CDs. I wanted to offer something tangible—a keepsake or novelty—that's worth taking home from a concert during those transient 15 seconds when a listener decides they like me enough to spend money on me. Concert-goers don't want CDs, they want MP3s, but if I tell them to go to iTunes when they get home, chances are their interest has fleeted.
It just so happens that I am a writer with a strong, funny, educational, genuinely sweet children's story that I've worked and reworked for year. And it happens that I have a good friend, Josh Holinaty, who is a tremendously gifted artist and has already illustrated a protozoic version of Q Without U before. Last April, after the rush of performing at Edmonton Poetry Festival and wanting to release more music, I realized that I could merge these two and solve the musician's dilemma, at least for me. And I could also get this story out that I'm so proud of. It's a love story, the songs are love stories. So it's just as much a child's tale with a soundtrack as it is an album with fun packaging.V


Thu, Dec 2
AOK
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