Paul C. McKasty (September 20, 1964July 17, 1989), better known as Paul C, was an American East Coast hip hop pioneer, producer, engineer, and mixer in the 1980s.Pritt Kalsi McKasty gained recognition for his work with notable artists such as Devo, Organized Konfusion, Kwamé, Queen Latifah, Biz Markie, Ultramagnetic MCs, Rahzel, and Eric B & Rakim. Complex called him "one of the most important figures in the development of sampling" and Questlove of the Roots called McKasty, "damn near the J Dilla of his day."
Work Paul gave himself the middle name "Charles" after Ray Charles, which he shortened to the initial "C". He developed an interest in music from his older brother Michael, who was a guitarist, and Tim, who worked as a recording engineer at 1212 Studio in Queens. According to Paul's middle school friend TeQnotic, he was an already gifted artist and bass guitar player in junior high. McKasty began his musical career as a bassist of the pop rock band The Mandolindley Road Show. Band founder and lead singer Lindley Farley said Paul was "a historian about pop music and soul music. And that's what informed everything he did." During the band's early years he studied his brother John's extensive record collection to learn about different genres.
One of the group's first shows was at the famed Max's Kansas City venue before it closed. Band member Lindley Farley credits Paul for being the group's best live performer during their early shows. The group later recorded a self-titled album at Hi-Five Studios in New York City, which they released in 1985 on Manna Records/Mando-Division Music. Paul co-wrote the song "I've Got A Hatchet" and his brother Tim played guitar on "First to Fight". Musician and producer Moogy Klingman, who was a founding member of Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, helped the group mix and master the album. Klingman acted as a mentor to McKasty and taught him a great deal about the post-production process.
After the group disbanded, Paul started making beats in a bedroom studio at his family's Rosedale, Queens house. During this time he did some mixing and mastering for the rap group the Clientele Brothers, which consisted of members Will Seville and Eddie O'Jay. Paul eventually moved his production setup out to his garage and was later introduced to rapper Michael Deering, aka Mikey D, by Eddie and Will. Not long after he joined Mikey D's group, Mikey D & the LA Posse. Mikey D described Paul as a musical prodigy and said, "He didn’t even really have to try that hard, it just came so naturally to him. Paul C. was a genius."
He also started working at 1212 Studio in Queens after dropping by the studio to purchase a keyboard voice synthesizer. During his visits he asked 1212 employee Mick Corey for a job. Corey described Paul as a somewhat inexperienced engineer who learned quickly. “Paul was green," he recalled. "I showed him a few things. He started doing sessions and generally took off from there.”
During his early days at 1212 Paul started sneaking Mikey D and DJ Johnny Quest in after hours to work on Mikey D & the LA Posse material. It was during these sessions that Paul produced singles like "My Telephone" b/w "Bust A Rhyme Mike" and "I Get Rough" b/w "Go For It". On "Bust A Rhyme Mike", Paul showed an advanced understanding of the E-mu SP-12 sampler, as he recorded Mikey D making three different percussion sounds with his mouth and wove them together into a beat.
He also impressed Mikey D with his ability to take vocal sounds from beatboxer Rahzel, change their pitch, then turn them into a fluid bassline on "I Get Rough". “Rahzel didn’t know that his voice was going to become a bassline,” Mikey said. “It’s not like Paul told Rahzel to play ‘Brick House’. He caught something from what Rahzel did earlier like a bass and then he played it himself. It’s like he programmed him into the keys to become a key on a piano.”
He also worked as a producer and engineer for numerous other hip-hop acts. Paul C's best-known work is on Ultramagnetic MC's 1988 classic debut album Critical Beatdown and the non-album singles the group released between 1988 and 1989. He has only one credit as a producer on Critical Beatdown, for the track "Give the Drummer Some", but according to group members Paul C was responsible for the overall sound of the album. DJ Moe Love said that Paul played a pivotal role in the song's creation, even coming up with the hook. Paul preferred to work without contracts, so he often did not receive credit for his production work.
Although his involvement with Kwamé is not as well known as some of his other collaborations, Paul engineered Kwamé's "The Rhythm" on Christmas Day of 1988. He also helped engineer additional songs for the Kwamé the Boy Genius: Featuring a New Beginning album, as Kwamé recorded six out of the eight songs from the album during the same session, which lasted from midnight until eight in the morning.
Paul also worked together with the Greek American psychedelic folk/worldbeat act Annabouboula, for which he did engineering and mixing in the late-1980s in the 1212 Studio, Queens, mixing and editing a variety of tracks that were released in Europe on Virgin and BMG and eventually in the U.S. on Shanachie. McKasty is credit with mixing its 1991 album Greek Fire, though it is unclear when he worked on this album with the group, as it was released after his death.
Paul C also worked for many other artists including Grandmaster Caz, Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud, Stezo and Rahzel. Paul played an instrumental role in the making of Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud's Girls I Got ’Em Locked album, which reached #77 on the Billboard charts and sold 425,000 copies worldwide. The single "Do The James" has been heralded by several producers for its mixing of multiple James Brown records. Cut Chemist referred to it as "the blend of the century."
He overheard a recording session of a new local group named Simply Too Positive and offered to produce its entire demo. Simply Too Positive eventually became Organized Konfusion and its demo created a major buzz around the group. The group recorded a demo with Paul that caught the attention of several people in the industry, including Mr. Walt of the Beatminerz. In a testament to Paul C's mentoring of the group and his assistance in launching their careers, Organized Konfusion member Pharoahe Monch would later say, "No Paul C, No Organized, No Organized, No Pharoahe."
In 1989, Paul did some engineering work on Queen Latifah's All Hail The Queen album, including recording the vocals for Mark The 45 King on "A King and Queen Creation". He also recorded extensively with the Boston rap group The Almighty RSO the week before his murder. According to group member Twice Thou, then known as E-Devious, the group recorded close to a full album's worth of material with Paul before his death.
Besides working with the cream of the crop in hip hop, Paul also did two remixes for the American rock group Devo with the songs "Disco Dancer" and "Baby Doll".
Paul C's status began to grow and he was hired to work for higher-profile artists. He produced the tracks "Run For Cover" and "Untouchables" on Eric B. & Rakim's Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em. He was planning on producing more songs for the group and also for Queen Latifah, Biz Markie, and Large Professor's group Main Source.
Equipment Paul was known for his innovative use of the E-mu SP-12 and E-mu SP-1200 samplers. The 1200 has a maximum sampling time of 10.07 seconds per beat, with producers often chopping the 10.07 second sample into smaller pieces to fit on each of the 1200's eight pads. Though many notable producers such as The Bomb Squad, Easy Mo Bee, Lord Finesse, Large Professor, Pete Rock and Ski used the sampler, Paul is credited as one of the early innovators of chopping with it. The Roots' drummer Questlove described Paul as "The engineer/producer/beatdigger who inspired your favorite producer's favorite producer. Like seriously--next to Marley Marl Paul was one of the first cats to... try ideas no one thought to ever do on such a limiting machine. Damn near the J Dilla of his day."
He also served as a mentor to Large Professor in the use of the SP-1200, lending Large Professor the machine for a two-week period. During that time Large Professor made 30 to 40 beats and learned how to use the machine on a more advanced level. Large Professor credited Paul C for helping him move from "pause-tape" production to making more elaborate compositions with the 1200, saying "He took me out of that tape deck era."
Large Professor described Paul as a wizard with the SP-1200 and recalled how he amazed people with his use of the machine. "To go in the studio, people would just go in with their jaws dropping, like 'Wow. This dude.' Because he was just so swift with it and knew what he wanted to do. And the beats would be so funky," he said.
The god emcee Rakim still keeps an SP-1200 sampler in his house in memory of Paul. In the Pritt Kalsi documentary Memories of Paul C McKasty he said, “You can go to my house right now and there’s an SP-1200 in there ’cause that’s what he taught me on. It’s like letting my man know I’m still focused.”
Engineer and producer Nick Hook obtained McKasty's SP-1200 from Merry Jane editor-in-chief and A&R/producer Noah Rubin. He uses the 1200 in some of his studio sessions with other artists and is currently experimenting with sampling from Spotify into the SP. Nick is currently using Paul's SP-1200 to archive old SP disks from The Bomb Squad and Public Enemy.
Record collection Paul was known for his large collection of hard-to-find records. He also had a reputation for taking meticulous care of his vinyl. Every record was placed in a plastic sleeve with a special paper and plastic inner sleeve to prevent dust buildup. According to Large Professor, Paul wore gloves while digging through records for samples, something he still does in his honor. “Paul took it to the next level. His records smelled good,” he said.
According to Large Professor, Paul preferred to sample original vinyl pressings and didn't like sampling reissues. He said, "He was big into originals, like, 'No, that’s a reprint man. You can’t...' It was almost like you couldn’t sample the reprint."
CJ Moore noted Paul's gift for sampling records that didn't contain obvious samples and his ability to understand how the music was played. "A lot of records we sampled aren’t jamming records," he said. "There were simple lines. But it was about how long you held the note, how you plucked it, how you approached it with velocity. Paul C understood how what we sampled was played."
Drum programming, sampling, and sound design Complex credited Paul C for introducing chopping and panning samples into hip hop music production. Chopping involves breaking samples into smaller pieces and re-arranging them. Panning involves orienting a sample in the stereo field, while hard panning is using only the left or right side of a stereo recording to isolate specific instruments in samples.
Several notable producers have also praised Paul C's advanced drum programming. Drummer, producer, and rapper J-Zone said “He was a damn genius. Him, Pete Rock, and Timberland all revolutionized drum programming.” Notable producer Pete Rock also praised his percussion work, calling his drums on Ultramagnetic MC's "Give The Drummer Some" “the illest drums I ever heard.” Rock was so impressed by Paul's work that he thought someone had given Paul the original recording of James Brown's "Give The Drummer Some" to use as a sample source.