Minneapolis hip-hop producer Big Cats is less than a week away from the release show for his album, "For My Mother" (Oct. 11 at the Cedar). He made the instrumental work as a tribute to his mom, Christi, who died from ovarian cancer in 2010. He's donating 75 percent of the proceeds to the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance.
Big Cats (aka Spencer Wirth-Davis) is best known as the producer behind The Tribe & Big Cats and for his work with Guante (they have an album, "You Better Weaponize" coming out Nov 6).
Big Cats crafted "For My Mother" from layers and layers of samples, in the vein of classic instrumental albums like Shadow's "Endtroducing." The only difference being the source: He composed all the music first and then had a live band perform his compositions. From there he sampled his own material. The result is a moody, ethereal soundtrack. His first video, simply titled "One" (it's the first song on the album) captures that feeling perfectly. Here it is, directed by Isaac Gale and David Jensen:
Read my profile of Big Cats (and the story behind the creation of the album) here.
More info on the album: www.bigcatsbeats.net
(Photo by Kyndell Harkness)
