Shawn Setaro
[The world-class drummer Robert “Sput” Searight, who’s played with everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Snoop Dogg to Timbaland to Kirk Franklin, recently sat down with hip-hop personality and SOHH correspondent Shawn Setaro on his popular “The Cipher” podcast. Listen to the full interview and check out five gems Sput dropped during the Q&A.]
On the beginnings of his drumming career, as a baby:
“I remember my mom cooking, and I would be in the kitchen with her. She would put out pots and pans to preoccupy me while she’s cooking, and she’d give me two spoons, and I’d just be beating on pots and pans, listening to the radio.”
On how God’s Property formed:
“It was a group of kids that wanted to sing at Arts Magnet [high school]. We ventured out of the school, because the school didn’t allow an outlet for that. It kept us out of trouble, honestly. It was cherry-picked kegs of dynamite. Everybody could sing, write, play. I just assembled a group of musicians together. It was me and this guy named Myron Butler who ran it.”
On winning Grammys and having platinum albums with God’s Property while still a teenager:
“Your work is not geared towards that achievement. You’re just doing what you love to do, and we’re having fun. We thought we put out a decent project. We were happy about it. We had no clue it was going to do what it actually did.”
On the Dallas-area performing arts high school he attended:
“It was a school that specialized in the arts. The best way I can describe the school would be to think of the TV show Fame. What you saw in that TV show is what we lived in high school. When the bell rung, you saw boys and girls in leotards dancing down the halls, orchestral players walking down the halls playing their violins, people playing sax, people doing visual arts, people practicing their lines. You saw all these things and you heard all of these sounds on a regular basis, every day. It was a really beautiful thing to be a part of for four years.”
On the “Blurred Lines” verdict:
“The only thing that was parallel to the two songs, for me, was the actual drumbeat. So the chords and all that stuff was different, the lyrics, all that stuff was different. The only thing that made you feel like that was the other song was the actual drumbeat. But the drummer that wrote that part received not a dime, you know what I mean? The one part that was actually ripped, that guy is still sitting in his house, happy about being a part of the Marvin Gaye experience, with none of those millions of dollars that was won.”
