Waajeed on Dilla, Slum Village and Detroit's Music Future | Living for the City FULL Interview
Living for the CityShow Notes
Waajeed is a Detroit producer and DJ who came up with J Dilla and Slum Village, co-founded the Underground Music Academy in the old NAACP building on the north end of Detroit, and hosts a weekly show on WDET. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
In this interview, Waajeed traces his origin story from rolling dice in Pershing High School's parking lot to landing in Amp Fiddler's basement, where a generation of Detroit artists learned how to make music and how to move through the world. He talks about his years with Slum Village, keeping the trains on the tracks, designing the album covers, filming the footage and why he eventually walked away from hip hop entirely.
He breaks down the Platinum Pied Pipers record, his collaboration with Dwele, and the genre-defying freedom behind Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz.
Waajeed also opens up about why he came back to Detroit after nine years in New York, what it means to own the things you pour yourself into, and how the Underground Music Academy became a space where every skillset he has — design, music, building, mentorship — finally came together in one place.
This one is about legacy, lineage, and what it means to be a conduit.
CHAPTERS 00:28 - The Underground Music Academy and the NAACP Building 03:08 - What Mentorship Actually Means: Lessons from Amp Fiddler 08:13 - Growing Up Next to a Prison: Urgency, Survival, and Detroit 12:29 - Funky Drummer, Dilla's Basement, and the Birth of a Sound 14:41 - Slum Village: Keeping the Trains on the Tracks 19:22 - Platinum Pied Pipers and Breaking Away from Hip Hop 29:07 - The Shelter, Genre Freedom, and Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz 36:35 - Nine Years in New York and Why He Came Back 40:48 - Gentrification, Culture Drain, and What Detroit Owes Itself 48:46 - The Future of the Underground Music Academy
LINKS YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@LivingfortheCityPod Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5KYTveuTY4nydCKG8yTxjJ?si=c184740e2d9f43b5 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/living-for-the-city/id1895831267
Stay connected! Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/livingforthecitypod/
TAGS / KEYWORDS Waajeed, Waajeed interview, Underground Music Academy Detroit, Slum Village, J Dilla, Platinum Pied Pipers, Amp Fiddler, Dwele Detroit, Detroit hip hop history, Detroit music producer, Detroit techno, Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz, Detroit gentrification, WDET radio Detroit, Detroit mentorship, Living for the City podcast, Hanif Abdurraqib, Detroit music culture, Detroit music history, Side Stage Network, Live Nation podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More from Living for the City
Andrey Douthard is the founder of Paramita Sound, the Detroit record shop and collective that opened in 2014 and became a meeting place for the city's hip hop, electronic, and jazz artists. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Liz Warner is an award-winning journalist and the host of Alternate Take on WDET, Detroit's NPR affiliate, where she explores music and culture in the city's most freewheeling register. This is her full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Don Was is a Detroit native who went from playing bar gigs and gypsy weddings around the city to producing the Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, and Bob Dylan, and eventually running Blue Note Records. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Guilty Simpson is a Detroit MC and one of the few artists J Dilla chose to build an entire album around, a rapper whose commitment to craft and storytelling represents the city's hip hop underground at its most rigorous. This conversation was recorded in Detroit on what would have been J Dilla's birthday. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Bill Blackwell has been Bob Seger's tour manager for 50 years, a career that puts him at the center of Detroit's rock and roll story from the sock hops of the late 1960s through stadium tours decades later. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.