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Taken from Beat Magazine (Aug 29, 2024)
‘A real, solid funk offering’: Traffik on new album The Signs and the decade it took to bring to life
Almost 10 years in the making, The Signs is the latest work of funk extraordinaire Traffik. He’s gearing up to celebrate its release with a month-long residency at The Evelyn.
by Juliette Salom
Traffik. Courtesy Image |
Traffik exploded onto the music scene in 1995 as the youngest member of RnB group Taylah Made and was just a teen when he began making waves in the industry.
“I called up Wayne Fernandez’s radio show, WKD (PBS106.7) on a Friday night,” he says. Never one to go about things the traditional way, Traffik adds that he “had a bit of an audition for [Wayne] over the phone.”
Traffik
- September 5, 12, 19 and 26
- The Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
- Tickets here
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
A simple phone call one night and then everything changed – before he knew it, he was being mentored by Australia’s pioneer of Urban Radio and Club events, DJC. “I’d join him on the “Jammin” show at PBS from midnight to 2am,” Traffik says.
“He’d be going through all these classic recordings with me, droppin’ jewels on the roots of hip-hop and RnB, soul music. I was taught the culture from those who laid the very foundation”.
Between being mentored by DJC and playing in clubs before he was of legal drinking age – “I don’t know if you’d get away with that nowadays” – Traffik was on track to become what he now refers to as a “music encyclopedia”.
“When something like that happens to you when you’re at such a young age, you’re very impressionable, you know? You just soak up everything like a sponge,” he says.
Fast-forward to the early 2010s and Traffik became the first Australian artist to collaborate with a member of Parliament Funkadelic, Quazedelic and receive the salute from George “Dr. Funkenstein” Clinton.
“It was an amazing experience,” Traffik says. “It was mainly me observing. You know, just watching him in the studio and how he put tracks together, how he’d incorporate live and programmed instrumentation.”
Alongside Quazedelic, Traffik also cites fellow P-Funk member William “Bootsy” Collins as a major source of inspiration for his own music. “He has a quirky kind of sensuality to what he does. He epitomises individuality,” Traffik says. “Bootsy’s like my spirit animal.”
After returning home to Australia, Traffik renamed Melbourne “Smelbourne: Funk Capital Of Australia” and went to work, determined to make the most authentic funk album to emerge from the southern hemisphere.
When asked what an authentic funk album means to him, Traffik explains, “For me, real, authentic funk should always be guitar-driven, steeped in the blues. Funk should never be too clean. It needs to be a bit more gritty, more abrasive. We wanted the guitar to be the centrepiece.”
Now, after almost a decade of working on what Traffik describes as “some REAL funk shit”, he’s gearing up to release his album The Signs. Composed and produced with the help of his stellar band – Graeme Pogson on drums/percussion, Evan Tweedie on bass and Simon Russell on guitar and mixing – the album is a mammoth body of work that represents years of determination, hard work and art.
“Taking 10 years was not my original intention,” Traffik laughs. “Our dear friends, Goodworthy and I have put together a mini-documentary detailing the journey. Check it out!”
Having already released two singles from The Signs at the time of our conversation – Snakes & Ladders and Devotion (I Just Wanna) –Traffik feels both songs are “great representations of where we’re at musically.” Now, Traffik is gearing up to present the collection at his month-long residency at The Evelyn every Thursday in September.
In anticipation of his first time back on stage since 2012, Traffik says he’s feeling great about playing in front of audiences again.
In addition to the upcoming residency and the release of the album, Traffik is also at the helm of his own independent record label, Funkonditionalove, through which The Signs is being released.
The length it took to create the LP was as much about the determination to create the best work he could as it was making sure that when we do come out, we have our own independent platform.” For funk fans everywhere, thankfully, the time has come.
You can get tickets to Traffik at The Evelyn here.
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