Schematix ended up being a Rap duo, with special guests, but that's not how it started...

Formerly known as PowerPlantGhost, Schematix began during Plee's four year stint at Benjamin O. Davis Aerospace Technical High School. The group consisted of four members, Tone, Kupid, Playa Ham and Plee. They recorded a couple of songs, but none of them were released.

Plee and I (tREBLEFREE) knew of each other during middle and high school, but we didn't really connect musically until both attending Eastern Michigan University. The year was 1996 and I had a radio show on WQBR, the student radio station for Eastern Michigan University. As I mentioned on the "Platinum Sh*t" release, Plee had spread the word about my show, along with trying to help recruit rappers to come down and freestyle on the show. As well, they were told that there was a studio and we could record them for free.

As I recorded different rappers and kept letting Plee hear the tracks, Plee had started going to Kevin Holevar's Underground Productions studio, which had been a part of the Detroit music scene since the late 1980's. Since I was working on loops for every artist who came through to get recorded, Plee asked if I had any beat ideas or loops that were more original that he could develop and use on a real song. I was reluctant, but I gave him this Brenda Russell loop that I wanted to eventually use, but didn't have the ability to produce the way I wanted to.

I didn't think he was serious anyway...LOL

A few weeks later, Plee proved me wrong! He came back and let me hear what he had done with the Brenda Russell loop. He had some live drums played over it by DJ C-Dub, a bassline he added, and vocals done with a few rappers he knew. He also had two other songs he had made beats for: "World Views" and "The Anthem". After hearing all of that, I knew Plee was serious. I asked him to tag along with him to get a feel for what they were doing, see what Kevin's studio was capable of, and see if I could produce some tracks as well...which would fulfill a dream for me. I ended up becoming the producer for the group, and helping Plee to shape all of the sessions into an album that we could release.

We ended up doing the album twice, because when we were close to finishing the first version, we learned about sample clearance and how expensive it was. Plee had the idea to redo the album using lesser-known or chopped samples, so we did that. The final result ended up not being released either, due to a few legal issues and finances, but here it is now in all of its' forms. Tracks 1 through 14 are the songs that made up the original full CD that was pressed, and tracks 15 through 23 represent the first version of the EP that we were afraid to release due to sample clearances.

For each song, there'll be commentary from both members of Schematix (tREBLEFREE & Plee) with their recollections of what inspired each song and made it what it was.