Deepvision Interview with Divinci
by Scott Pausal aka Rubox

Deepvision: So you are the producer and the MPCist of the group? What is your role in the group?

Divinci: Right now my position is studio designer. But usually my position is producer, engineer, programmer, MPCist or MPCJ, whatever you may call it. Basically, I am the nerd of the group. I am the nerd and the physical work guy. I’m just the technical guy, basically. This is funny because up onstage, you wouldn’t really think that because I go nuts onstage and that really isn’t technical at that point.

Deepvision: So it was you and Swam as the first members?

Divinci: It was always Swam and I in the beginning because Swam and I were like one person. Different sides of one person. That is pretty much how all four of us are. But in the beginning it was pretty much him and me and also this other cat named Charles Wilson, the keyboard player and ridiculous genius in music. We started Sol.illaquists of Sound in an effort to try and solidify something with him. Because Swam and I knew that we were solid. We were as good as married. But Charles didn’t know what he was going to do right after school. He knew he wanted to move. I knew I wanted to solidify something with him so that we could have this production team going because we were making some music together. So really, Sol.illaquists of Sound was a production team when it first started. I made it for the reason of keeping this cat as a family with us. I also made it as a name to express how we all make music that is very personal but very educational at the same time. It’s funny because I searched for the name for so long and it perfectly sums up everything. Even though I made it for Charles and I, Swam was definitely a part of that because it was like me, Charles, and Swam. But the core that was always around because Charles started to do a whole lot of other things. It was really Swam and Me. He knew Alex and I met Tonya later at some shows. We were all doing the meetings that you already heard about.

Deepvision: What happened to Charles?

Divinci: I just saw Charles this past Christmas. He got picked up by the musical director for Justin Timberlake to tour as a keyboardist. He is one of 2 keyboardists touring all over the world. Which I was thinking, “Justin Timberlake, whatever.”, but when I heard the music they were working on, I thought that it was very creative jazz. Very very musically fulfilling stuff. I was very surprised about that, but he still wasn’t doing the stuff that we were doing. I was like “Man!” He was all over the place and when I came into town, we tried to get together. After awhile, he moved to New York, where he lives now. He’s now touring with Backstreet Boys. Doing music with a whole bunch of cats, whatever, but, we still do work together. We just made a track doing 2 days of work together over Christmas vacation. So Charles is doing his thing at the same time still claiming Sol.illaquists. So he’s still down. It’s like a gang. You got to be beat out. He hasn’t been beat yet.

Deepvision: Who are your influences?

Divinci: My influences….It’s pretty much a Chakra’s work, not to play into the stereotype that we are new age people, but….if you know Chakra’s work, you are supposed to match master or align each one from the base up. You have your base Chakra, which deals with very primal things and very surface level things. Then you go to the next one up which is a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. That is pretty much how, but they all have their importance no matter how deeper you go or how shallow they seem. They are just as deep. You must master the physical plane before you master an emotional or spiritual plane.
The way my influences work goes in the same way. I started out listening to very bases of hip-hop. Some stuff that was very hypocritical and contradictory to what I listen to now and what I live by now. Like Wu-tang and Dr. Dre. Sonically, it always appealed to me more than anything. I did take things from what they were saying. But a lot of them were very hypocritical at that point. I really didn’t see it because I loved it so much so I just took all the good and tried to ignore all the bad. So in a sense I was listening better than they were speaking. The first album I bought was Pharcyde’s Bazaar Ride to the Pharcyde,then Yo! MTV Raps volume 2 (which I liked). It had Express Yourself, Ladies First, 911 is a Joke. It was really dope. So there was good stuff in there and I took the good. Even in the bad stuff I found a lot of good. I have always been like that.
I grew up in a really small town so I had to learn to work with what I got and just accentuate positive things in my life. Ever since I was little, I learned from being discriminated against heavily for being brown. I used to be called nigger of all things. I had to go to counseling when I was little. Where I was originally at was with a bunch of rich white kids. They were like “Nigger Nigger!”, and I was like” What are you saying? I just wanna be cool with you guys!” So that messed me up. I learned a lot from that. So that is how I listen to music as well and I really didn’t learn that until later.
So I started out with very basic things then I started digging deeper past what those basic things were influenced by and I found jazz. Then I got into really old soul music. Al Greene was a huge factor in getting me through a lot of stuff. Stevie Wonder, definitely. Was the first guy to make me cry listening to music. Trying to get into everything because a lot of people I respected were different artists. I wanted to see where they got talking about these different artists they got their influences from. So I checked it out and I dug it. I got deeper and deeper into it. I get deeper and then when new soul came out, I started to get into that. Love Erika Badhu. It got to be a little too much at some point because everyone was making “Neo Soul”. Less and less hip hop, that is newer hip hop I should say and then more and more back. Classical, jazz, especially free jazz. Even to this day, country. Literally, a little bit of everything. Moving up to the chakras (metaphorically) I started listening to a lot of local musicians who were hitting it up like Anthony Cole. Strong point, it has always been jazz.. Even further than that, gospel.
Then I started going past music. I started getting influenced by science, which was my original love because I originally wanted to become a scientist. I started to be influenced by psycho acoustics and psychology and how sound effects. A lot of those things got introduced into my process. Different patterns that I saw in nature, different patterns I saw in mathematics. I would try to implement those musically. The way it works is that I would really get into that particular influence and I would study the dynamics of it and then I would look at all the dynamics of everything that I love and I would pick one that is really appealing to me at that time.Then I would really try to master that dynamic.
When I got into jungle music, I was introduced to it by Tonya. I would start to look at where did it start, where did it come from, where did it get its influence from, what do they use to make the sounds it makes. I would try to jump head first and I would surround myself by just that. I master that and then move on to something else. But usually between moving on to something else, I would go through a period of time where I go through all the things that I mastered from that and I would incorporate and infuse it with all the things that I would master before. So this jungle influence would get melded in with this soul influence and this jazz influence and this rock influence that I mastered before. Then I’ll come up with this new thing that is mostly tracks that you’ll hear are the ones that I really like to present are the fusion of all these different things. All these governing dynamics for all these different genres and fields of life. I’ll take all these things and I’ll algomate this one sound. After I mastered and feel comfortable enough to introduce that little skill to every other skill that I’ve crossed. It’s like “jungle meet soul” you guys talk. Then we see what happens.

Deepvision: Any misconceptions you hear people talk about Sol.illaquists of Sound?

Divinci: I’m sure the hippy and the not hip-hop thing has been addressed. Going back to the dynamic of things. A lot of people assume that they know us. That plays into a lot of prejudice that is like “oh, I figured you guy’s type out before.” So I know that if I say this to you, you’re gonna say this back. You may be right about a lot of things. You got to approach everyone and everything, like, giving them more credit than your past experience allows. That is where a lot of that stuff comes into. They see people caring about their bodies and they think, “Health freaks.” You know what I mean? In an extreme way. They are people caring about each other and talking about love, “Oh! Hippies, I know your type.” They see people pushing boundaries in music in a genre where the boundaries are supposed to be pushed and always have been and then they label it something they are easy to grasp. So they don’t have to think that much. I don’t think that is fair. It happens.
But really, the only way to counter all that is to back it up with as much consistent action as possible. We will talk about love and we will bring it in a way that is labeled as preachy, but you know what, if you think about it, it’s not being preachy. It’s all about how much seriousness and credit you’re giving a particular situation. If you see someone f*cking up on a very severe level and you love that person, you’re gonna let them know about it. It’s just that so many of the severe boundaries have been….because of watering down and turning up the heat slow, to use that metaphor. And subtle conditioning to accept really horrible situations. People look at really severe things as “oh that’s not that bad.” Like smoking, “it’s cool.” Just because it’s not killing you now, or you’re not visibly dead after smoking a cigarette, doesn’t mean that it’s not killing you. If I see someone going to stab you with a knife, I’m gonna be like “yo, move the f#ck out the way!” and I’m gonna push you and you’re not gonna be like “oh,you’re an asshole for pushing me out of the way.” No, I f#ckin’ love you and I see that that’s a problem so I’m gonna intervene. Just as I hope you would do for me. Just as I would do for myself. So what’s the problem with that? Just because someone’s coming at you with a knife slower, doesn’t mean that the same things not gonna happen. Because you still may not see that person coming at you. So a lot of people have to consider other people, not just ours, but other people’s interest a lot more than they do nowadays in order to stop being prejudice and having misconceptions about people. You don’t know everything, neither do I. But I do know that you can’t know everything and you got to act that way sometimes. Sometimes you have to take a stand for something you may not know everything about. The consistent action to back up what we’re talking about is what ultimately needs to be recognized. You might call us *ssholes or not or come up with some other name that you encountered before, but think about “why” as opposed to “what” and try to consider that when you make those kind of judgments.