Jayda G

Jayda G

Photo: Silvia Lopes

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Jayda G Is The Environmental Scientist & House Music DJ/Producer The Planet Needs Right Now

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While working on a Master's in Resource and Environmental Management, the vinyl lover began DJing and learning production. With 'Significant Changes,' her 2019 debut album, she combines her two passions
GRAMMYs
Oct 10, 2019 - 12:15 pm

Berlin-based, Canada-born Jayda G does it all (typically with an ear-to-ear grin), and the world is starting to notice. While she was researching environmental toxicology (specifically on killer whales) for her Master's Degree, Jayda started to take her record collection and love of funky beats to the next level by learning how to spin vinyl and DJ.

Within the last few years, she not only completed her thesis, but she participated in a major 2017 Boiler Room x Dekmantel (the annual "electronic mecca" fest in Amsterdam) set and toured the world playing more international fests. Now, in 2019, she's continuing to bring her infectious energy and groovy jams around the world with more shows and mixes, including for Mixmag and BBC Radio 1.

An ambitious, dream-chasing individual, Jayda released her debut studio album, Significant Changes, this past March on London's Ninja Tune. With the upbeat-yet-real album and in her recently launched JMG science talks, she melds her two loves in a very powerful way, bringing environmental activism onto the dance floor.

Before you catch Jayda at Secret Project fest in Los Angeles this weekend (she's playing at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday), read on to dive deep into her album, her biggest hopes for the environment, her record collection and more.

Where in the world are you right now?

I'm in New York. I just landed last night. I have a show here on Friday and I also have a record store little party for my album on Thursday as well, so that will be nice.

I have not tapped into New York's nightlife scene too much but it always seems like there's a lot of fun little pockets in there.

Yeah. I feel when it comes to the real golden nuggets of nightlife, it's always about who you know, who can show you around and be like, "This is the spot." I like playing in New York. There's a lot of really nice venues here.

And then you'll be playing at Secret Project next weekend over here in L.A., which is really exciting.

Yes, I play New York on Friday, Chicago on Sunday, and then I'll be in L.A. all week next week and playing at Secret Project. I'm really pumped for it. It's such a dope lineup, it'll be fun for me as well.

I've got to imagine that getting booked to play a festival that you want to hang out at after must be an added bonus.

It is. A lot of times it's not, so when you actually are like, "Oh, yay. I have friends on the lineup and then we can hang and chill," it definitely adds to the whole experience. And then it's more memorable for you as a DJ as well.

Is there someone at Secret Project you're most excited to have a fan girl moment with?

Oh, that's funny. That's a good one. Well, it's funny because I wouldn't say fan girl moment necessarily, but my friend Daniel Avery, I've known him for a bit but I've never seen him play. So it's more just things like that where you're just kind of like, "Oh, I actually get to check out my friends."

That's really nice and then Ben [UFO]'s going to be there, so that's always fun. I'm not a huge fan of techno, but he makes me love techno. It's always really nice to see him.

That's exciting! You released your debut album, Significant Changes, earlier this year. How did that moment feel for you?

Oh, gosh. It was a bit surreal, because as an artist you spend so much time making the album and for me, this is my debut album, so I have no prior experiences in terms of releasing something like this body of work. I've done EPs and stuff, but it's a bit of a different thing.

You spend so much time making the album and making as close to your vision as possible, and that's the work. And then you're like, "Okay, it's done. Great." And you just move on, but then there's all this aftermath that I didn't really expect, that was really positive, obviously. It was overwhelming in a good way. I didn't expect people to respond so positively.

You just really never know because it's something that, for me anyways, the album was just a personal body of work that I wanted to put out and hopefully it would reach a few people. Yeah, it was really quite a real good moment in that sense and looking back, I'm really hyped about it. I was like, "Yeah, I did that and it worked out. Awesome."

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I would love to hear a little bit more about your specific vision for this album. I'm especially curious about the intersection of environmentalism and dance music because that's just so cool.

While I was making this album, I was also writing my thesis in environmental toxicology at the same time. When you're an artist, you pull from your experiences and that's kind of what I was pulling from. It was a compilation of my thesis and being a touring DJ and relating to the experiences I was having at that time.

Half of the album is about what I'm seeing on the dancefloor, like "Move To The Front," where you end up with a whole group of men at the front and women at the back. And me being like, "Wait, no. Come closer. I want to dance with you while I'm DJing." That kind of messaging that would happen in my head. I wanted to portray that in a song. Or the whole thing of seeing people on their phones all the time and not really engaging with the music. For me, usually you go to the club for two reasons, to meet people or to dance. And not to see either of those things happening, you really question it. That's "Stanley's Get Down."

And then the other thing, obviously, was my scientific background. It was just "can I use this whole life experience that I'm having?" because it's a lot to write a thesis. It's very personal. It really pushes you in terms of your abilities. It's really intense. Those are those more melancholy tunes that I wrote were relating to that specifically. "Orca's Reprise" because my thesis is on killer whales, on Orcas and it's very depressing work. A lot of scientific work is very depressing. It's a real thing where you're learning really negative things that are happening to these animals based on our own activities.

Same with "Missy Knows What's Up." The vocal clips that I sampled, from Misty McDuffee, and she is an advocate for the killer whales and what's happening to them. There was this court case in Canada, around 2010, where a group of environmental groups sued the Canadian government for not upholding their end of the Species at Risk Act. It's a federal act that holds the government accountable for helping endangered species and publicly acknowledging that they're endangered and showing how they're going to help them. And with the killer whales, they were not doing that, so these environmental groups sued the government and won.

The thesis I was working on, which was looking at the negative chemical effects on killer whales, really was a direct link. It was the direct outcome of that court case. I was having to write a whole chapter about this court case and so that song is related to that because Misty McDuffee was a big voice for the case. It was things like that, that were quite poignant in my work that bled into the album, and it's become this really nice link between my two worlds, which was the ultimate goal for me. It's like, how can I bring my two loves together in one?

Sorry, I could go on and on.

"As an artist who has a platform, it's your responsibility to speak about things that are important to you and be responsible. I'm trying in my own way."

No, it's really cool. I think music has the power to start important conversations.

Exactly. And also, in an artistic form, you know what I mean? I think that was the part that I just wanted as well. I wanted it to be something that was equally as much for me as for other people. People who know and people who are interested, they're going to look it up, they're going to tell other people and there's other forms that I'm trying to work with.

As an artist who has a platform, it's your responsibility to speak about things that are important to you and be responsible. I'm trying in my own way.

I love that. That's another thing that I wanted to hear a little bit more about, the JMG Talks you did this year.

It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Again, as an academic, how many times have I talked to so many fellow students and friends who are working on a master's or PhD and it can be quite an isolating experience. You don't get to talk about your work a lot to people who aren't nerdy scientists.

I know so many people who are doing such interesting, cool work that I feel like people should know about. There's a really big gap between what's happening in the academic world and what the public knows. Academia is such a dinosaur of a system that someone could be working on something for five years and no one knows about it for another five years. It takes such a long time for things to come into the public knowledge, and a lot of scientific research is also not easily accessible to the greater public.

So it's something that I really wanted to shift. And also just have young people talk about their scientific work. That's, I think, something that is not only just important for young people, but it's relatable. It's really the bridging of that gap between the scientific world and the rest of the world. That's what the talks are about, to talk about these new projects that young people are doing, giving them a platform, but also helping the audience build empathy to the natural world. The more that you know about the natural world, the more that you'll actually care about it. That's the real issue when it comes to the climate crisis, that we're all disconnected to what's happening to our environment. So if we are able to build some kind of connection, it'll help us make better decisions along the way.

For example, we did a talk in May, on wetlands, so swamps, bogs, and using wetlands as a treatment system for polluted water. You pump polluted water through a manmade wetland and it actually cleans the water to be reusable water, essentially. It was so interesting talking to everyone who came because they're like, "Wow. When I walk to work, there is a swamp near my house and now I know what it does. It's actually this amazing filtration system that Mother Nature created." It's been really, really cool to do the talks and see people come and engage and listen. It's been something that I wanted to do and I just did it. We'll see how it continues.

What do you think has been your biggest takeaway from hosting the talks so far?

Gosh, so many takeaways. That science is really accessible. Everyone can understand it and all you have to do is have an open mind and an open heart. And that it's been a real gratifying thing for the scientists as well who are speaking. When you're an academic, like I said earlier, the only time you really get to speak about your project publicly is to other scientists, usually conferences, where you're really being challenged. When you're up there talking about your project to the scientific community, they're grilling you usually. So to give that safe space for scientists to talk about their work in a real chill way allows them to learn about their project in a different light. It gives them so much.

Creating that kind of openness in an environment like that, it's super important when you're learning. It's bridging the gap. It's learning in an open and safe environment and also giving a platform to people who wouldn't necessarily have this kind of audience to reach to.

Okay, this one's kind of hard, but I'm sure you have some good thoughts on it because you're actively thinking about it and talking about it. What do you think is the biggest societal change that needs to happen right now to get things moving in a better direction?

I could go on and on and on. I think it's a combination of things. On one hand, it's our own habits and our own things that we do day to day, like choosing not to use plastic bags or recycling or choosing to walk to work, all the little things that we've been told for years. But I think the biggest thing is it's really about what is offered to us as consumers. I did an interview with this woman, Severn Suzuki, she's a big environmental activist.

I'm a huge fan. But she put it really quite eloquently. She's a mother and here she is with her first kid and she's just like, "I'm trying to use the reusable diapers and not be super wasteful with my first child, but at the same time why is all that work put on me as the mother? It should also be that there should be products that are offered to me that make it easier for me to be an environmentally conscious mother." And that's really the biggest thing, is that there should be options for us to be able to live our comfortable lifestyle in a sustainable way. And the only way to do that is by holding our governments accountable to be giving us those options in terms of using renewable energies. These technologies are already out there, but they should be there for the greater public to use and choose.

It's a combination holding our governments accountable and voting in the people we want to see making change, as well as changing our own personal habits. It's a big social responsibility that everyone has. It's about asking and demanding for more, really.

I also wanted to talk about your DJing. I was watching some of your sets on YouTube; the Dekmantel one, which was really cool that you were there.

Yeah, the Boiler Room one.

Yeah, so cool! Was it fun? It seemed like it.

Was it fun? [Laughs.] I've never been so terrified. The two most terrifying moments in my life was doing that Dekmantel Boiler Room set and doing my thesis defense. I was super nervous. It's like going into the gladiators. You're really in this 360 degree situation where you're completely surrounded by people.

To be fair, the [Boiler Room] crowd is really great. They're really hyped. They're going to respond and engage with you. I was really lucky in that sense, but it's really nerve-wracking because you're on camera and it's live and then it's up on the internet forever. I was really, really nervous. I think if you watch the first 30 seconds, you see me walking on and doing a big breath. Even though it looks like I'm having the best time, I was really terrified.

I can only imagine. But it sounds great and, like you said, it looked like you were having fun.

Exactly. In the moment I was able to eventually let go and be there with everyone, so I feel very lucky that the audience definitely helped me to do that. It was pretty intense, but I feel very lucky for it because it registered with people. It really helped me to where I am in the end.

I noticed in that set and a few others I watched, is that you usually spin vinyl, correct?

It depends on the gig. When you're playing the big festivals, it's hard to play vinyl, from a technical standpoint. Feedback is a huge issue when you're spinning vinyl, so if the turntables aren't set up in a certain way, it can be quite difficult to play vinyl to a really big crowd where there's five, six, seven thousand people. But I do collect vinyl. I started DJing with vinyl. That was how I learned.

I still collect vinyl. I will definitely be going to go record digging tomorrow because that's the main thing I do when I'm in New York and in the States in general. So for the Boiler Room, yes, I played vinyl for that and it's a thing. I'm into it. It makes me really, really happy.

Does it feel different for you when you play a vinyl set versus using a USB?

Yes, it definitely does. The fun thing about having that physical item, it's like when you were a kid and you had CDs, to have an item that exudes this energy of music, it's special, and you look at the music differently too. It's a very different thing to pick tracks flipping through your record bag versus going on a dial through your USB stick. It's almost like the tracks call to you differently. I don't really plan my DJ sets, so it's really that you're in the moment and it's what calls to you. Playing with turntables is very different, it's more like an instrument. There's a balance to it and I find it very fun. It's just a very fun way to express music, really.

When did you first learn to spin vinyl or to start picking up DJing?

I think I was late to the game. I started in 2012 or so. That's when I bought my first pair of decks, because I'm the scientist, and that was my big goal. Being an internationally touring DJ was never part of the plan. When I learned to DJ, it was really just for myself. I collected records and was like, "Oh, it would just be nice to learn how to DJ just so I can share this." It was very small, humbling beginnings. It was just me playing at a restaurant/bar situation and sharing music that way.

I remember there was this cute Asian-fusion restaurant in Vancouver that every so often they'd have a pair of decks that you could play while people were eating. When I was DJing, it would start slow and then by the end everyone wasn't eating, they were all dancing. It was something that happened very naturally where you start getting booked. I also would throw my own parties in Vancouver and so it just blossomed through that, which I think is pretty common for most DJs. You're just a big music nerd so you just end up wanting to put that forward to a greater audience versus just in your bedroom.

And obviously your musical vibe is pretty funk. What are your top three or five disco/funk tracks? 

I'll pick two because those are just the ones I've been playing. Every summer, I find there's a handful of tracks that I just end up playing for most of my sets because A, they're what I like at that time and B, there's something that resonates during the summer.

One that I've been playing out a lot, it's a classic, is Loleatta Holloway's "Love Sensation." I love playing a combination of the well-known ones with the not-so-well-known ones, because ending with something like Loleatta Holloway's track, that's something that everyone can together on. I love those moments when everyone is singing along and they're with you. That's when I think magic really happens and it becomes something more than just a DJ set. Another one is Bonnie Oliver's "Come Inside My Love." It just has this amazing disco/funk beat that is very deep and satisfying and I love it. You guys will probably hear it at Secret Project.

Do you remember the first CD and or the first vinyl you ever bought?

My dad was a big vinyl collector. He loved collecting music, so I kind of inherited his vinyl collection. I remember one of my first favorites from going through his collection was an old Aretha Franklin album and that's probably one of my favorite albums of hers because it also has my dad's handwriting on it from when he bought it.

I love those little moments, same with when you're digging, when you see someone else's hand notes on the record. The album is called Hey Now Hey, it came out in 1973.

What about when you were a kid, were you into CDs?

Oh my gosh, yes. Well, I grew up in a really small town of 4,000 people and the closest music store was a two and a half hour drive away. So it was a big thing. There was obviously the added moment of you as a kid saving up your pennies to buy a CD, but it was also waiting to when your parents would go to the next town. We would go every maybe four months or so and that was my big moment where I buy all the music that I wanted. I have these memories of sitting with my dad and going through these mail-order catalogs for music and my dad making notes and ordering them.

Who are your biggest inspirations?

I have so many. Musically, I really do look up to a lot of the old-school DJs who were really big in the '90s, like the Masters At Work guys or Larry Heard, people who were really big in specific scenes. Larry Heard for Chicago and Masters At Work for New York, those are really specific sounds that I draw from for my own personal music tastes as a DJ and as a music producer.

I'm trying to think of people I look up to in terms of on the environmental side. I don't have anyone really specific other than my scientific community of friends that I've made over the 10 years in academia that are really out there doing good work. Those are the people I really look up to as well. I'm really blessed with a wonderful community of people who care. They care about the world, they care about people. And same with my family, it's something that is very important in my family, to give back somehow. Kind of a big catchall kind of answer but yeah, my community and family and Masters At Work. [Laughs.]

I love it. I think it is really cool when your biggest inspirations are the people around you. That's next level.

I think that's really, really something important, as a person living this thing called life that's so strange and weird and amazing, that you surround yourself with people who you believe in and who inspire you, that lift you up in different ways and shapes and forms in the many facets of your life. So I think it's really important to build a community of those kind of people because it's going to carry you through life.

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Damian Lazarus at Day Zero

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero Tulum 2019

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

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Damian Lazarus Discusses Day Zero 2020, Spiritual Awakenings, Meeting Tiesto & '90s London Raves

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The globetrotting house music wizard dives deep into the beginnings of his magical Tulum event, cutting his teeth in the '90s underground U.K. club scene and his biggest hope for the new year
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Nov 26, 2019 - 4:53 pm

British DJ/producer/mystical event wizard Damian Lazarus' well-loved sound is much more of a mood than genre. The music he favors is ethereal, emotive and takes the listener on a journey. His parties often take place in awe-inspiring locations, from the expansive dustiness of Burning Man to the jungles of Tulum, Mexico. His DJ sets tend to last for hours, often until the wee hours of the morning.

With his iconic house and techno label Crosstown Rebels, which he founded in 2003, Lazarus has helped catapult the careers of fellow underground game-changing DJ/producers, including Maceo Plex, Jamie Jones and Francesca Lombardo, to name a few.

In addition to throwing down at major electronic music events (Amsterdam Dance Event, Desert Hearts Fest, Lightning In A Bottle, Art Basel Miami) and legendary clubs around the world (Miami's Club Space, Ibiza's DC10, Berlin's Watergate), Lazarus has been carefully curating his own beloved events, namely the Day Zero and Get Lost series.

The Recording Academy caught up with the globetrotting wizard, who called in during a rare moment of downtime in Mexico City, in between debuting a new party to close out ADE and bringing the spooky vibes to Los Angeles' HARD Day of the Dead. He dove deep into the surreal beachside origin story of Day Zero (which returns to Tulum on Jan. 10, 2020), what makes a great DJ set and more. We also revisited his teen and young adult years in London, where he got a healthy dose of club life during the then-burgeoning rave scene.

You were just at ADE not long ago. How was that experience for you?

It was really good, actually. Funnily enough, I was just at lunch here in Mexico City and saw Tiësto. I had to tell him about what I did at ADE because it was because of him that I started something new there this year. Many years ago, I was in Chicago about to play a show and the promoters said, "Oh, do you want to come see Tiësto play? He's doing an early evening thing." I'd never seen him play before, so I was really intrigued.

So we went and they took me to the green room. When Tiësto arrived, he made a beeline directly to me and was like, "You're Damian Lazarus, right?" I had no idea that I'd be anywhere on his radar. And he said, "I've got to tell you that your name is the best name in dance music. You know what it means, Lazarus, in Dutch?" And I was like, "No, I have no idea." And he says, "Well, when we go out on the weekend and then your friends call you in the week and they're like, 'What did you get up to in the weekend,' you're like, 'I got really lazarus.' It means to get really wasted."

So this year, I decided to create my own event in ADE; of course I just called it "Lazarus." Because people in Amsterdam would totally get it, but anywhere in the rest of the world, it's just my second name. That was on Sunday, so it was an ADE closing party. It started at midnight and I played all night until 7:00 a.m. That was really special. I also played Circoloco as well, which was on a Saturday.

I tend to just go in for a couple of days. I don't really go for the business meetings and stuff. I know it's very worthwhile for promoters and management but I find if I need to talk to someone or have a meeting about something, I can just pick up a phone. I don't need someone to tell me where to go and have a meeting.

I was always curious about that; is it really like the electronic music mecca that it's made out to be, or is it just a cool space to be when everyone's there?

It really is. I mean, first of all, Amsterdam is a really cool city on so many levels. They have more clubs per capita than anywhere else—throughout the year, not just during ADE. While I was there, I was polling quite a few of my friends and people in the industry about how useful it's been for them that week at ADE and everyone loves it as a business opportunity and also as a good chance to go out. It's one of the best places to go and do business but have fun at the same time.

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Recently, you shared some details for your Day Zero 2020 event, which I think is the seventh iteration of it.

This will be the seventh, yeah, we took one year off.

What are you most looking forward to, especially as we plummet into this new decade?

That's a good point. I just look at it as 2020, I haven't really thought about making a big statement with the new decade. Well, Day Zero began at the end of the Mayan calendar, which I saw as the beginning of a new opportunity as opposed to the end of the world. This time in the world is very difficult, there's a lot of unrest. I think for people in our world to gather together as a community, to celebrate with a backdrop of this beautiful jungle and incredible music—Tulum is a really an incredible place to create a joyful experience for people.

Every year, my mission that I set before my team is to make the next event even more impressive than the last. So we're in the planning stages at the moment and we have a lot of fresh ideas. After every event, we're fine-tuning the minutia of the experience. There's so many things that we plan out at this event. Everywhere you look, everything you smell, everything you touch, everything you do, every place that you go has been well considered by us before you get there, because we want this event to be a full sensory overload. We take pride in it and work very hard on it. So, I'm looking forward to this year.

I would love to hear a little bit more about the origin story of Day Zero and what throwing the party each year means to you, to be able to share it with people.

I had a very spiritual awakening back in 2012 on the beach in Tulum. A medicine man I'd seen earlier that day suggested I stand beneath the moon and stars and raise my arms up towards the moon at a certain hour that night. He wouldn't give me any more information about what I should expect to happen. Fortunately, I remembered to do it later that night and I had the most incredible energy—force field—connection with the universe. It was like a physical being.

You know that feeling when you're young and you try poppers for the first time? Not saying that that's a good thing to do, but imagine that feeling for like 20 minutes; nonstop connecting to the universe. So I had this incredible experience and I took that as a signal to create something that I had rolling around in my head. I'd been going to Tulum for many years; I've been going there for well over 15 years now.

I was playing in Playa del Carmen two years before the BPM festival began there. I'm very connected to that area. But I'd always refrained from DJing in Tulum because it felt like a very beautiful, pristine, secret place that maybe shouldn't open its doors to parties. I knew that the first time I would play music there and bring electronic music to the natural beauty of the area, I wouldn't be able to stop. So I prevented myself from doing it.

And then a couple of people started to come see the area and ask me to play it. But then I had this experience and I could see that I was really fighting against the winds of change. More and more people were discovering Tulum and the hotels, the restaurants and bars were building up. I could feel there was something coming. So, the Armageddon was supposed to be coming on the 21st of Dec., 2012, so I started to plan Day Zero then as a way to reset and recharge, and, like I said, gather people to create a very special experience. 

Sharing the experience means the world to me. This has been by far the most thrilling ride that I've been on in my career creating parties and stuff. And now we just started to open it up outside of Tulum for the first time this year. We just created Day Zero Masada at the Holy Mountain in the Dead Sea area. We had 15,000 people there for an incredible first show, I was very happy with how that went.

So now we're looking up where to go in the future. The idea of Day Zero is to get the best electronic music, forward-thinking, future music with ancient civilization. So we like that juxtaposition of the two things going hand in hand. For seven years now, we've been connecting with the Mayans in the ancient area of the Mayan jungle, complete with the
Cenotes underground. We delve into the Popol Vuh, which is the creation story of the Mayans, and work out performances around these ancient Mayan stories and connect with Mayan spiritual leaders from that come and join us.

We really try to show the new young generation the differences in historical background to how people used to live and the stories and the influence that these people have had on the world. But the thing is to not do too many because each event takes about a year in advance to plan. So yeah, so we have two running now, Masada and Tulum, and we'll see where we go in the future. And the Get Lost events which are really big as well. So yeah, it's a little bit busy.

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero Masada

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero Masada | Photo: Karim Tabar

Your sets are known for having a journey element to them. When you're DJing, say at Day Zero or in other special places, do you feel like you're connecting to something?

Oh yeah, 100 percent. Well, at my events, when I start playing there's an extra buzz around the place because it's like, "What's he going to do? What's he going to bring?"

You've set the bar high for yourself.

Yeah, I do. Every year I try to make it better and I spend a lot of time trying to find some music that is really going to make people go bananas. Of course, over seven years, it's difficult to continue to find those records every time, but I work very hard at that. I never plan a set, I never know what I'm doing from one track to the next, whether it be at Day Zero or anywhere else. When I'm DJing, I kind of tell myself I'm playing Sudoku or chess, so I'm always thinking two, three or four moves in advance.

So, I'm telling a story but I'm thinking about them throughout the whole experience. Of course there's some records that work really well together and you want to throw them together a few times. I like to think that I save my best work live at Day Zero or Get Lost. Of course I love to play at sunsets or sunrises. And the beauty of throwing your own event is you get to choose when you play and work everybody else around you. [Laughs.]

What has been one of the most powerful moments from your Day Zero events?

Oh my god. There's so many. But you've got to remember that I'm the kind of person that can't just rock up an hour before my set. I've got these events that I run from beginning to end every year and I generally am playing at the end. So I'm spending 16 hours running around the festival site showing my friends around, having fun, experiencing it for myself and making sure everything's working properly. And then I have to start playing.

It all kind of blurs into one. I could tell you that the magical moments are many. But I actually take more pride and enjoyment in reading other people's comments and what people react after these events, especially after Day Zero events. People do find them quite life changing. I've had people meet on the dance floor there and they're married within 12 months. There's people that write to me and tell me that they literally had their life changed. They were going through some trauma, and the energy that they felt at Day Zero helped them kind of rearrange and reorganize their life and their thoughts.

You never know how much of this is actually true. But if someone's going to take the time to write to me and tell me a story like that, then I want to believe it. So I think that's really the best thing that comes out of it for me, the fact that I get to make so many other people happy and that's the main focus.

I love that. What do you think is essential to a great DJ set?

Well, obviously the ability to read the energy in the crowd. Many times I've walked into a room and I feel that there's no vibe, no energy. And I think to myself, it's not that difficult to change this, you just need to be aware of it. Really focus on what music is going to lift people's spirits in time. I think it's important to be innovative but not too overly technical. Of course, it's important to mix and blend your music perfectly, because no one likes to hear dodgy mixing.

And I think there's a very fine line between showboating and really being into what you're doing. I like to think sometimes I'm a performer, but only realize that afterwards, when I let myself go, because I was really feeling the music in the booth.

Last year, you released Heart of Sky with your Damian Lazarus & The Ancient Moons project. Can you talk a little bit about that album and creative group?

Basically what happened was when I first made the first Ancient Moons album back in 2015, Message From The Other Side, I worked with so many different musicians from all over the world. I'd been touring and finding amazing musicians from Egypt, Pakistan, New York. I somehow managed to record all of these amazing people and I was making the new Damian Lazarus album. But once I realized that I had all these incredible other voices and musicians on this record, and it felt very cinematic and it also felt like I could perform this live, I realized that I should create this fake band name, which was The Ancient Moons.

Once I decided to take the project live, I actually had to put The Ancient Moons together. So when it came around to making the second album, I started to work with the band that I found from the first time. So we actually then did become a band making music together. Whereas the first album, I made it with a producer and some guest musicians.

I think that The Ancient Moons project's some of the best creative work I've ever done. But it's not something that I could just knockout every time I'm in the studio. Right now, I'm not working on any new Ancient Moons material but I'm focusing on doing a little bit more kind of straight ahead Damian Lazarus club music right now.

In fact, I've just made this track with Diplo and the band Jungle, which we're still trying to decide what to do with. I've just done a couple of remixes. I just worked on a remix with Teddy Pendergrass. And I did a remix for Art Department. I just did this really killer remix of this Rosalía track. I'm just waiting for her to listen to it and see what she thinks.

But yeah, so that's where we're at. I mean, maybe next year I'm thinking about some Ancient Moons material probably towards the end of the year. I'm already kind of pretty hectic for 2020. I'm already a bit busy for the first half of the year. And I have family at home as well. I need to prioritize my kids right now. So yeah, quite a lot going on.

And then with Heart Of Sky—

Heart Of Sky is actually from the Popol Vuh story. Did you see the film that we made? It's called "Heart Of Sky," by Jessy Moussallem, an amazing film director from Beirut. It's a 15-minute film that we made in the fields of Lebanon where they make Lebanese hash. So it's all the families of the community of people that are making hash. They've never allowed themselves to be filmed before. Obviously, the soundtrack is music from the album.

That's super cool. Zooming out, when did you first start getting into music?

Music was always kind of around in the house. My mother, in the '60s was involved in the the [Rolling] Stones scene, and hanging out in Carnaby Street and stuff like that. And my dad was more kind of into Motown and soul, Isaac Hayes, James Brown. So I had a really good combination there, but my grandfather really was the most influential person for me because he was proper East Londoner, really into the show tunes and musicals. He and I used to have a lot of fun with music together.

But it wasn't really until I was about 11, 12, that I started to buy music and be obsessed with listening to the radio and finding new music that I liked. By the time I was 14, I'd persuaded my parents to let me buy some turntables and a mixer. And I got myself a Saturday job in a very cool record store called Groove Records in SoHo, Central London and then just went on from there.

I did a gig for Pirate Radio, and then went to college and started making parties there. It wasn't really until around 2001 when I had the City Rocker record label that people really started to take notice of me. I always knew I wanted to be a DJ but I wasn't very good at it. It took me ages to work out how to mix properly, but maybe that was because there were so many different styles of music that I was into. So by 2001, I managed to really hone in on and focus on it.

When we were running City Rockers, we started this party called 21st Century Body Rockers in London. We did it for 10 weeks, every month during 2001 or '02. We had DJs like Soulwax and I was the warmup DJ. It was there that my friends said to me, "You're actually getting quite good at this. You should think about it as a career." It wasn't until I got friends and loved ones telling me that that I really thought I could make a go of it. And within a couple of years, I was playing at Circoloco [at DC10 in Ibiza] for the first time, and the Sónar festival [in Barcelona]. I guess the rest is history. [Chuckles.]

I started Crosstown Rebels in 2003 and it was pretty much seen at the forefront of underground electronic music since then. So that always kept me at the front of people's minds, I think, because I was always working with a lot of cool people and discovering new talent and putting on great parties. I guess my DJing skills improved. Things started to get better and better.

Do you have any photos from these 2001 parties? That would be amazing.

I'm not sure they're really for GRAMMY.com. [Laughs.]

Did you have a favorite club or place that you went to when you were younger in London?

There was one club that was really influential for me and helped shape my wide range of appreciation for music. It was called That's How It Is. It was every Monday night at Bar Rumba in London and was run by James Lavelle and Giles Peterson. They were playing anything from all the early Mo Wax stuff to rare groove or funk to jazz to techno. And then they kind of started to discover the jazziest end of the drum and bass sound. It was just this melting pot of all these amazing new, fresh sounds, like Massive Attack, all that stuff coming out at that time. I was on the dancefloor every Monday for a good few years.

But then, you know, I also went to Rage, which was the primary kind of early jungle party in the U.K. There was a couple of things I went to New York as well when I was young. But yeah, so many places have influenced and inspired me. And they still do. I sometimes think back to various places I've been to and I think how I can create something like that.

"One positive thing is that in times of economic hardship, you tend to find that's a really good time for underground music to really come out of the cracks."

Read & Listen: Jayda G Is The Environmental Scientist & House Music DJ/Producer The Planet Needs Right Now

What is your biggest dream that you hope will come true in 2020?

Impeachment.

Which one?

A few. I don't know. The world's f**ked right now really. It's starting to really get people down. But one positive thing is that in times of economic hardship, you tend to find that's a really good time for underground music to really come out of the cracks. I think it's been getting a little stale, a little safe. I think we've lost that kind of punk and DIY attitude in electronic music right now.

As a label owner, I'm finding it really hard to find really unique, new voices in electronic music. I mean, I do have a few people that I've discovered recently that I'm really excited about, but I think that something needs to happen.

I think that maybe the current state of the world and the climate crisis and everything else hopefully will take music more underground because people are struggling, I think, mentally with figuring out how to deal with all the issues that we face. When keeping your eyes open and not walking around with your eyes closed, you can't escape the fact that the world is f**ked. So I'm looking forward to some exciting new musical trends to come through.

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Flying Lotus in Pittsburgh 2019

Flying Lotus

Photo: Matthew Miramontes

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Flying Lotus On The "Eternal Flame" Of 'Flamagra,' Making Fire With David Lynch & Learning From Solange

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The multi-hyphenate artist shares the magic behind his latest album, an epic 27-song journey through the flames of the City of Angels
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Sep 19, 2019 - 10:31 am

L.A. native Steven Ellison is quite the creative polymath. The GRAMMY nominee is likely best known as his experimental electronic producer/DJ alias, Flying Lotus, but you may also be familiar with the indie films he's directed and/or scored and the record label he runs, Brainfeeder, home to other genre-defying artists including TOKiMONSTA, Daedelus and Thundercat. It's difficult to summarize exactly who he is or what kind of art he crafts, as he's constantly changing it up and wearing new hats, all rather seamlessly.

Most recently, Ellison released his sprawling 27-track sixth Flying Lotus album, Flamagra (he's also released hip-hop music under another alias, Captain Murphy). The LP, released on May 24, follows his GRAMMY-nominated 2015 project, You're Dead!, which some might recall earned a nod for Best Dance Recording at the 58th GRAMMY Awards for "Never Catch Me" featuring Kendrick Lamar. This time, the sonically rich Flamagra is themed around fire with, well, fire collabs from Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Little Dragon, Tierra Whack, Denzel Curry, iconic experimental director David Lynch, Solange and others.



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FLAMAGRA art by @winstonhacking

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Catching up with Ellison over the phone between shows on his visually stunning 3D Tour, the Recording Academy talks to the wunderkind about how Flamagara came together and how "Fire Is Coming," the spooky track he worked on with Lynch, was born. Ellison also takes us back to when he first met George Clinton and how his great aunt Alice Coltrane (yes, she was married to that Coltrane!) got him started on the trailblazing musical path he's on today.

You're currently on tour right now with your 3D show, which looks really epic and fun. What's been your favorite part so far about this tour?

Well, I think my favorite part so far has been seeing Brandon Coleman on stage. It has been really special for me just because he's the main reason why I even got involved in actually playing on the keyboard and stuff like that. He's the opener. I brought him with me because he's kind of been my piano teacher. You know?

Read: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: TOKiMONSTA On Authenticity & Why 'Lune Rouge' Is "A Celebration Of Life"

He's with you on the whole tour?

Yeah. For me, ever since I started taking it seriously, I was like, okay, in five, 10 years from now I'll be able to rock with Brandon on stage. And it has been a year and now we're already at it. It's also been fun riding my bike around small towns and stuff, been really enjoying that. I brought my bike with me. Riding it around really fast in Missoula, Montana made me very happy.

What has it felt like to share your new music with people in the format of this tour?

It's nice, it's fun. It's a trip because there's always, I think, there are certain people who are like, "We want to hear the old stuff." And there's always people like, "We want to hear new stuff." So having accommodate for all that and figure out a good flow is nice and to also, you know, see the result of the hard work and all the efforts. When people know the words and they got the vibes, it feels really nice.

Flying Lotus in Pittsburgh 2019

Flying Lotus plays Pittsburg | Photo: Matthew Miramontes

Flamagra came out a few months ago now and when I first listened to it, I right away felt the journey of the album. Not only does it have a lot of tracks compared to most album nowadays, but it really does feel like a journey through all these different sounds and textures.

Yeah. I'm glad. I was hoping that would come across. All the layering and all that stuff. It's the most fun part to me.

In terms of the fire theme, can you talk about where that came from and how you developed it?

I think that the idea just came from the fact that I just felt for so long that L.A. was on fire. Everything in L.A. was burning, everything. It seems like the various points when I was seriously on the music, it was just like some fire going on, whether it was outside or internal or something. I kept coming back to specific imagery in my mind of fire and a story that I had been kind of imagining about this town that had an eternal flame. And that was kind of my vibe for a while. I was like, all right, what if where I lived, there was an eternal flame and we couldn't do anything about it?

There would be a lot of people who loved it, a lot of people who hate it. A lot of people who wish it never happened and it would attract a lot of attention. I thought about all this stuff for some reason, I vibed with it. I was just like, "Man, what if there was this fire that we couldn't put out in L.A.?" I think that's the music, in a way, you know? No matter what, the music will always survive and it's something, thankfully. It's a thing we can leave behind. No matter if I'm here or gone, music will continue. They'll be putting sh*t out after I'm dead. I hope not. When I'm dead, I don't want them to drop nothing else. That's it.

We can print that on GRAMMY.com if you want.

I don't want no posthumous release. Don't do that sh*t. I don't like that. Whatever I do, whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm working on, that's it. That's the story. It would just kill me if people put out a bunch of half-finished stuff that I did. I would be so mad.

And I've been a witness to it, you know? I've seen a lot. I've seen how people scrambled when [J] Dilla died. What happened with that, it was a terrible. It happened when Mac Miller died. Everybody was like, "Oh, he would have wanted this. He would have wanted this." Everyone thinks they know. Do you know? In terms of my thing, I just feel like, I got it. I got it. If my homies don't got it, then it shouldn't come out.

I feel that. So, on "Fire is Coming" with David Lynch, I'm not gonna lie, it's just freaky. It's eerie.

It's his voice. It's funny because he isn't really saying anything too crazy. It's just when you hear David Lynch, it's instantly terrifying. Almost like when you hear Rod Serling introduce the Twilight Zone or something like that. It has the same kind of feel to it.

I read that you met Lynch at a party and that spawned asking him to record that story.

The story is almost right. We met a couple times before, then I saw him at a party. He was kind of kicking off the party with that story, that same thing. I was already knee deep in fire thoughts already and then this cat did that thing. I was like, "You got to be f**king sh*tting me right now." I've been trying to get David Lynch for like 11, 12 years to do something with me, asking a friend of a friend. "Oh, yeah, he told me he loves you but he's really busy. He's on Twin Peaks, he's doing a billion things."

As soon as Twin Peaks [The Return] was over, I was like, "I'm getting on it." It was just one of those things. I made it a mission to make it happen. And he was still like, "Oh, well he's so busy." And then I heard that thing. I was like, "Look, he's got that done already. Let's just record that, that bit right there. I need that." "Okay, well we can make that happen."  I mean, it was kind of trippy to hear him do that at a party.

That's crazy.

[Lynch said] "Fire is coming." I'm like, "Oh, sh*t." It did right after that. Remember when the 405 was almost on fire and it looked like a volcano by the Getty Museum?

Oh man, yeah. That was right before I moved here, I was in San Francisco. It was on fire on both ends of California.

See? Yeah, that was one of the main catalysts right there. I had people hitting me up I didn't even talk to often, like, "Yo, you good?" "Yeah, I'm fine. Someone else's sh*t is burned down though." It was weird, after I made the album all these weird fire things started happening. The day before my f**king album came out, my grandma's house almost burned down. It's crazy. My sister was like, "Yo, can you make an album about butterflies next? Please? Something peaceful."

Since it was a theme that you'd been thinking about, were you making songs here and there? What was your creative process once you decided to make it into a cohesive album?

Well, I go through several stages of it. Kind of shooting in the dark for a little while and then I feel like, "Oh, I know where I'm going." And then it's like, life happens and then it actually shows you what the story is, you know? I try to steer it too much. It never works out. I always have to kind of step away and be like, "Okay, what are you really saying now?" Every album is like that for me. I almost predict it.

I don't even like to say what I'm working on because I know it's going to change and get manipulated until the day it comes out, or until I deliver it at least. Flamagra, in a lot of ways, was very easy to put together, but at the same time became very difficult, especially working with all the guests and stuff. That was a huge freaking headache, just on legal and getting clearances.

I finished most of the album last November and I ended up having to make changes for the guests. Put a song here, almost have to take a song off there or whatever. It ended up being a little frustrating. Now, I'm in the situation where I think—here we go with predictions. Right? But I feel like the next thing I do would be without guests. That was a lot. Plus I'm getting tired of this whole co-sign thing. I don't want to have to have all these co-signs for anyone to care about my project. I feel like that's a thing, "Who's going to be on it?" I'm on it. It's my thing. So the next one, who knows? Might just be one guest. Might be purely instrumental. I don't know.

Did all of your collaborations happen organically?

Always. Except the Lynch one because some people you got to push a little harder. But pretty much everyone else. There was always someone like, "Oh, we got to do a song together. We got to work together." I'm calling you on it right now. Is this the moment? Are we doing this? Are we going there? Especially Toro [y Moi]. He is the cat I would run into every Saturday. We'd be at the same hotel and get picked up at the same time to go to the same stage. And we'd always be like, "Oh man, we should totally do something together." For years. And I was like, "You know what? Call this man." So, I would say it's natural, organic.

That's real. When you run into someone you haven't seen in a while and they go, "We should hang out." And you're like, "Okay, but when are we hanging out?" I can only imagine with artists' schedules, there's many factors preventing you from getting in the same room together.

That's why artists like Coachella because everyone puts a face to a name. I was like, "Oh, I'm a fan of you." "I'm a fan of you too. We should totally." And then things happen.

Do you always work with people in the studio or do you ever do remote collabs?

A little bit of both actually. It all depends on who I'm dealing with. A lot of times I'll assess if they're the type of person that would be better to work with them or if they're better if they're left to their own devices. There's certain artists who you can tell just need to be in whatever your comfort zone is to make the best track possible. But then there's some people who you need to kind of inspire a little bit. For example, George Clinton, brilliant. Super together, he's an older cat, but he's still got his sh*t, knows everything. I'm like, "Man, how do you remember all these things from your history?" I don't even remember what happened yesterday.

George is super sharp but he's the kind of person who would love that bounce back vibe. When we did "Burning Down The House," I wrote that with him as a freestyle. We're sitting together, he's holding the microphone, he's saying something, I'm calling response with him and then eventually the song came to be what it became. But it was the result of us being in the same space, shouting at each other freely without thinking about if it's sh*tty or not, you know?

When did you and George Clinton first work together? It was on the Kendrick [Lamar] track, "Wesley's Theory," right?

That's how it all started.

Did you know him before that?

How that came to be was, I was vibing on Parliament for a while. On the You're Dead Tour [in 2014], I was like super on it. As soon as I came back from that tour, I was making a lot of Parliament funky-type stuff after that.

The funk was in you.

I went super deep in that. And then Kendrick hit me up to help him build a show for his tour with, on [Kanye West's] Yeezus Tour. He hit me up, I never designed a show before but I stepped into the role and helped him. And it was right before To Pimp A Butterfly began and he was still kind of getting ideas for it and whatnot, trying to figure out what it was going to be.

I started planning some of that funky sh*t and the next day he was like, "I got it." And it really was. It was one of the sparks that that made that record and he asked me after he recorded that song, he was like, "Who do you imagine on this sh*t?" I'm like, "George, of course George, that'd be amazing." And then suddenly George was in the mix and hanging out with Kendrick and stuff and I was like, that's f**king dope. And then eventually George was hanging out at the crib, telling stories about Quentin Tarantino. F**k, that's cool.

What do you think is the biggest thing you've learned from working with George Clinton?

Sh*t. So much, I don't even know. After that whole thing happened, the first thing I did, we didn't even work on music together. The first thing I had him do was be in my movie, Kuso. That was the first time me and George really worked together and he was like, "Okay, I'll do this, but I really want to make some music with you, man." I was like, "Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that." On the first day of shooting, after he got on set, he comes up to me, he's like, "Hey man, you got the script?" I was like, "Yeah, there's a copy over here." He was like, "Oh, cool. Because I don't know any of the dialogue yet." I was like, "Are you f**king kidding me? We're about to shoot this sh*t right now. You don't know the words? You don't know what the hell is happening?"

He's like, "I'm a doctor, right?" I'm like, "Yeah, you're a doctor." He's like, "Can I just be myself?" "Yeah, of course. That's what I thought you'd do." And we pretty much worked it out in the doing, but he had to figure out every line as he did it and do it a million times but his performance of that sh*t is so George. It's so great. I don't know what the moral of the story is. But he's that kind of a person. His personality just shines through. He can make anything happen. The sound of his voice and the vibe. He was so open-minded too.

And then when you guys were working on "Burning Down The House," how long did it take to go from freestyle to recording it?

Oh, the freestyle is the recording. We used a sh*tty microphone. Solange taught me this thing. She told me about using the SM58 or 57 to record. It's pretty much like the microphone everyone uses live on stage, the SM57. The reason why it's a good mic for shows is because you can have all the monitoring on stage and all the loudness and it doesn't feedback. So, Solange was the one to tell me, "Yo, I like to figure out a song with that because you can have the beat playing in the room. You don't need headphones. You can just listen to it loud. Record some sketches and let that be the thing." But for Solange, she was like, "The sketch ends up the song because the freestyle has this energy to it." And that was something that I've taken and it will last me the rest of my life.

Because when it comes to that vibe, by not having headphones on and sketching ideas out freely, it's so different and you don't feel inhibited because the beat is loud in the room and things are vibrating and the ideas are flowing from one to another. I'm hearing George figure things out. I'm spitting ideas back and he's looking at me. So you're getting this different type of energy that if he just had headphones on, on his own, it wouldn't be the same. There's something about it and it has a raw edge to it. There's something about doing it that way. I'll never go back to using nice microphones and headphones, just sh*tty microphones. That's all I do now. When Solange told me about it, I looked at her like, "Are you crazy? Why would you do this?" It made no goddamn sense. She was like, "Just trust me." She was right.

I love the song "Land Of Honey" on the album with her too. Here I am talking about all the collabs after you said you're over them. It's obviously a different dynamic, bringing on someone for your project and figuring out how to align your creative approaches, right? Does that sometimes pose a challenge, getting on the same page with the other person?

It has presented itself once or twice. I feel like all that being said about collaborations, I think I actually really learned how to be a producer by doing this album because I had to deal with all types of different personalities. I had to deal with different egos and stuff and how to get the best thing out of somebody, especially someone you might not know that well. It's like, I'm meeting you for the first time and I'm trying to make a dope track with you. It's not easy. How much time are you going to spend getting to know each other before you start playing music? How much back and forth are you going to get to go before you stumble on the right thing.

There's an artistry in bringing the best things out of people. That's why people love Quincy Jones and all the great producers because they're able to tap into what makes a person great and pull that out of them. Dr. Dre is the same way, being around him. It's the exact same thing. He'll take way more time though and he don't give a sh*t about if you've got things to do. You'll stay with Dre, you'll be there a little while.

Watch: Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' | For The Record

What do you think was the biggest thing you learned in that context of producing and getting the juicy bits from working with someone else?

Well, I don't know. I think everyone's different and that's a thing in itself. Just don't feel like the same shit is going to work on everybody, like everything else. Right? It's like a relationship. You can't take a vegan to the steak house. You got to think of a different place to go on that date. It's similar to dating, I guess, in a weird way. You want to make a good first impression, make them comfortable, all that stuff.

I feel that. Reading the vibe.

"Oh, you don't like this? Okay. Let me change this." Find out what works, what sticks and sometimes it doesn't work. Collaborating don't always go well. I feel like more often than not the idea of the collaboration was better than the result. It happens from time to time.

Let's go back a little bit. You grew up with a musical family; Alice Coltrane was your great aunt, right?

Yeah. It gets crazier as I get older and as I pursue my instrument more. I feel like every three years I have a light bulb, a lightning strike thing happen to me with my family's music and all that stuff. It makes more sense to me and makes me trip out even harder. Like "Whoa, what the f**k? They were? What am I doing?" And the fact that there's new John Coltrane music coming out soon is crazy.

Speaking of posthumous music.

Yeah, exactly. See? That's a tricky one but I ain't mad. 

How do you feel like your childhood or your family connections influenced your love of music or your relationship with it?

Oh, so much. Even though they didn't get the sh*t when it first came out. It's not like when my sh*t dropped they were like all about it or fully understood it. It was still like, "What the f**k is this? What are you doing? This sounds like you're hitting garbage cans over and over again." It's the classic thing you're supposed to hear as a young musician trying to find your way, even from this family of avant-garde thinkers. Eventually they came around.

But I will say, the thing that was most inspiring was seeing that it was real. That it could happen. I think that's the difference for a lot of artists, is that they don't have anyone near them in their vicinity that is a success in that field. My mom wasn't mad that I was pursuing music because she was like, "Well, we know people who it worked out for." But I'm sure it's not the same for everyone. I'm very grateful for that especially.

Where it's encouraged versus the, "Oh, you want to be a musician?" kind of attitude parents can give.

Exactly. I had a little bit of support early on and that made a huge difference, I'm sure. My aunt, she supported me 130% in anything I wanted to do. There were moments where I was like, "I want to program video games, auntie." She was like, "Okay, well here's the computer, Steve." "Really?" Then I was like, "Hey, auntie, I want to be a filmmaker." "Okay, well here's the camera." My aunt was beyond believing in me, it was crazy. She knew there was something. I was going to do something. She treated me like that at least.

When did you first start making music? What was your first instrument?

I started playing saxophone when I was 14. That's how it started. My aunt gave me the saxophone. It was like, "I have to go to middle school now and I have to take and elective." "Oh, you should be in the band and play the sax." Little bit of pressure, but no problem. I played for a while and I didn't feel like that was me, but I did enjoy it while I was doing it. I think if I was playing cooler music in middle school, high school, I would have really stuck with it. But the music was not so inspiring.

And when you were a kid, did you think you would go into music professionally? What was your dream future self when you were younger?

I never really imagined it to be like that. I never imagined I'd be on stage, that's for sure. I did imagine being Dr. Dre-ish, being the guy behind the scenes making beats and stuff. I did see that for myself when I was like 14, 15. I loved that Dre was the cool guy in the background who was making those ill melodies and dark beats and stuff. I was like, "Ooh, that's totally me." He was the first kind of, "I want to do that." And then it's a trip to be in the same room with that cat sometimes. I'm like, what?

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Channel Tres

Channel Tres

Photo: Devyn Galindo

News

Channel Tres Talks Honoring Isaac Hayes On EP 'Black Moses,' Healing With Music & Being A "Ghetto Savior"

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The rising Compton-born singer/rapper/producer sits down with the Recording Academy to talk about his forthcoming second EP, growing up in Compton, his dream collabs (such as recent tourmate Childish Gambino) and more
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Jul 25, 2019 - 10:24 am

Meet Channel Tres. The Compton-born singer/rapper/producer and all-around artistic visionary is just getting started living his dream of making an impact with music. He released his swaggy self-titled debut EP last year on Los Angeles indie label GODMODE and in less than a year has become in demand on stages around the world, performing at Detroit's Movement, Barcelona's Primavera Sound and Australia's Splendor In The Grass, to name just a few.

Now he's preparing to share his second EP with the world, Black Moses, which drops on Aug. 16 and is dedicated to the late, great soul legend Isaac Hayes, whose 1971 GRAMMY-winning album shared the same name. To date, Tres has already given the world a taste of its magic with "Brilliant Nigga" and "Sexy Black Timberlake." Next week, on Aug. 2, he'll share the EP's title track and third single featuring politically minded rapper JPEGMAFIA.

We sat down with Tres at the sunny GODMODE studios in East L.A. while he was in town to learn more about Black Moses, how Compton influences his music and his advice to aspiring artists.

You're dropping your second EP, Black Moses, soon; can you speak to the message behind it and the sounds that you explore on it?

First off, it's paying homage to Isaac Hayes. Soundscape-wise, I'm not really in an Isaac Hayes vibe. But the name—I was watching this old festival they threw in Watts [Wattstax 1972]. This is when Shaft and the theme song was really big. He came out and had on a hat and some shades and a coat. They took his coat off and Jesse Jackson was announcing him.

He looked so godly and it was just so black and so powerful for me. So, that's why I just dove into that, which inspired the name and the sounds on it. It's further in what I started with, the Channel Tres EP. I got some cool songs on there and the production got better; it's just a step up. And Moses, in the Bible, is the savior of the people of the promised land. I feel like sometimes I want to be a ghetto savior.

You've already gave us the gift of "Sexy Black Timberlake" from the EP, with groovy G-funk vibes and an amazing video. What was your vision for that song and video?

Thank you. The vision for that song is just people are starting to pay attention more to me and the music, and also I'm growing up to a man and understanding myself more and just being more confident.

How old are you?

I'm 28. So, I'm just crossing over to that mature place. It was funny because when I was younger, depending on what I was wearing—even now—I'm either vilified or objectified. As I started to get more successful, I see how sometimes people objectify me, and women start to objectify men. Because now they see that I'm something. That's what I'm saying that in that song. And it's me just being irritated.

And I love Justin Timberlake. We were just playing around because I wrote a song and I was saying, "Bringing sexy back, making sexy black." We were f***ing around, it was like, "Let's just name it that, f*** it." It just makes sense. Also with Compton, just showing a different side.

The video was filmed in Compton, right?

Yeah, I shoot all my stuff there because I've got family everywhere. My little brother's in prison, and it just makes people happy to see the city in stuff like that. Just different places that I grew up. I'm going to make so much music and I like watching my sh*t because I don't get to go there that often.

So you've left, but you grew up here in L.A., in Compton. What does Compton mean to you and how do you think it shaped your artistic journey and identity?

It's a huge community of people out there, so it's home. It will always have a special place in my heart. I'm just happy that I'm street smart. A lot of people don't have common sense. I know how to survive. If there was an apocalypse or something and everything was taken away, I would know how to survive. I grew up in kind of a grimy way, in a grimy area, so your survival tactics are just different. I will always appreciate that. And I love G-funk and just West Coast music, so I'm so happy I got to grow up around that, and actually feel that. To be around that and see things.

Who were your favorite artists growing up, and who remains as your influences today?

Nate Dogg, Tupac, Ice Cube. I love [Dr.] Dre. I grew up on a lot of gospel; Sam Cooke, Fred Hammond, Marvin Gaye. Motown, everything pretty much. Miles Davis. A lot of jazz, a lot of gospel, a lot of rap.

Was there a moment when you knew or decided that you wanted to make music? What called you into that space?

I've always wanted to make music, since I was born. My dad was a musician, I think you're what your parents are. I think it got passed down, the love. I always had a thing for it, but I didn't understand the discipline of it until later on, and that's when I started getting better and things started happening.

What's your biggest goal as an artist?

Just to be around, be in culture. I'd like to do things; work on films, have great songs that just stand the test of time. We still listen to the old funk records and all that, I just want songs that are timeless. I love music, I just want to be in it, I always want to be in it.

You're doing it. In terms of your music, you do a lot. You produce, you sing, you rap, you can dance, it's all there. What's your favorite part of the creative process?

I like it all. Every part of performing, dancing, producing. It's just so many different sides of music so I appreciate it all. You get to connect with the music in a different way, when you've been in all those areas.

Do you have any rituals or places that foster creativity?

I pray. I talk to God. I talk to myself. I lived through a lot and I'm still going through sh*t. So there's enough trauma in there and this all started happening, so I have a lot to talk about. I don't really go anywhere. I'm a Gemini too, I'm kind of crazy in my head. I don't know, I go a lot of places in my head. Music is real cathartic for me, that's how I deal with it, and that's how I'm getting healing from a lot of the things I've been through, so I don't really go nowhere I just do it. I'm just always ready to go. Like, "Let's get it."



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thank yaw for dealing with me Spain cuh

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Between Movement, Primavera Sound, a Boiler Room set and a bunch of other big shows, you've had a pretty stacked year. What has been a favorite moment from these events so far?

It's all my favorite. A year and a half ago I wasn't playing all these shows and this is something I fantasized about. I was in Spain at Primavera playing by the beach. My set was at 9 pm, it was a great time, the sun was setting. And so many people, and I knew all my words, I knew all my choreo. I was like, "Oh sh*t, I'm doing it." It's fun, I love playing, I like traveling for music.

When you are performing in front of people, do you feel like that's a different sort of therapeutic or cathartic experience as to when you're making the music?

Yeah, I mean I don't have to fight nobody. I got my energy out; all my aggression, all my anger. It's like my form of destruction. I'm pretty easygoing, but on stage you can't tell me sh*t. And if you don't want to be there you don't have to be there.

Have you been able to connect with other people through your music?

Like other artists? Hell yeah. It's been cool. I was making music the other day, and I'm in the room with my idols like, "Oh sh*t!" It's crazy, it's so fun and so cool because I'm still a fan too.

Do you have any dream collaborations that you want to speak out and manifest?

Kendrick [Lamar]. I definitely want to do something with Kendrick one day. I want to do something with Stevie Wonder. I want to work with Jon Brion. There's a lot of people I want to work with, I got a list. I want to work with Childish Gambino, I think we could make some tight sh*t.

Speaking of working with people, you're going to be touring with Toro Y Moi soon, and you recently did a rad remix of one of his tracks from his last album. How did you guys meet and would you ever collab on some tracks?

I'm a big fan of Chaz [Bear, a.k.a. Toro Y Moi] for a long time. We met on my birthday three years ago. Every year we got closer as friends and he started listening to my sh*t I guess. He hit me up and was like, "Yo, we should go on tour." And a year later we go on tour.

That's so cool. Planting the seeds.

Yeah, I'm about to go on tour with Childish Gambino too. It's not announced yet, but we are playing two shows together in Australia. I'm opening up for him like next week.

Oh sick! I saw him at The Forum.

It was crazy?

Yeah. He has an energy on stage where you're like, "Damn, I want to go wherever you are going."

Yeah, fire. I can't wait to meet him.

Do you have a message for young kids in Compton, or wherever else, who want to get into music?

Persistence always wins and hard work beats talent any day. I'm not the most talented, I mean there's people better than me. But what makes my sh*t cool is just me, I'm not trying to be nobody else. I pay homage to the OGs, I have respect for the people that came before me. I don't think nothing is bad unless musically it doesn't go together. So, I'm not really judgey, I'm not heavily critical of everything. I just try to understand and try to take it day by day.

Just trust God and the universe, and be persistent and really find out if it's what you're supposed to be doing. Because if it's what you are supposed to do, you'll have provision, things will be happening. Even though it might take a long time, you'll know. Just do it for the right reasons. And when you get it, do something good with it.

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John Digweed

John Digweed

Photo: Dan Reid

News

John Digweed Played The Club's Final Party; Now The 'Last Night At Output' Lives On

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On Dec. 31, 2018, Brooklyn's famed Output held its final party after six years of reshaping the New York club scene. Now, with Digweed's new compilation album, fans can experience the beats he shared that night
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
May 3, 2019 - 6:54 pm

Fridays tend to feel extra special when that album you've been waiting ages for is finally here, or a surprise drop shifts the course of your day. Today, Fri. May 3, British DJ/producer and underground house hero John Digweed's new release Last Night at Output is a not only chock-full of house and techno bangers, but it is a memento of the iconic Brooklyn club where he first shared the set.

On Dec. 31, 2018, Digweed DJed at Output for his twelth and final time, only a few weeks after the club's owners sent a ripple through the house community by announcing its eminent shuttering. Digweed kept the dancefloor moving for 10 hours (yes, you read that right, he played a 10-hour set!), playing beats from fellow underground legends like Agoria, Dixon, Josh Wink, Acid Pauli and many more, as well as some deep cuts and unreleased tracks of his own.

"Output changed the clubbing landscape in N.Y. and in six short years became the destination venue for quality house and techno in North America," Digweed tells the Recording Academy over email.

"I was lucky enough to play there 12 times and had the privilege to be the last DJ to play that room. I wanted to mix the 10-hour set up with a selection of classics tracks from the likes of Âme, Dixon, James Holden and Laurent Garnier alongside my trademark new and unreleased tracks. Sometimes it's hard to achieve a mix of old and new without some tracks sounding out of place but when I first listened back I realized how well they worked together and I wanted this set to be released and serve as a lasting memento for fans of the club." 

The vibe and music lives on with the new album, which you can get a taste of with the mini-mix above. Via Digweed's own Bedrock Records, Last Night at Output can now be enjoyed as a six-CD box set or vinyl four-pack, both with colorful packaging and limited signed editions. Beatport also offers digital download options, as well as Spotify and Apple offering a streaming version. With the album's description, the internationally-revered DJ/producer offers more context:

"Having been a regular behind the decks since it opened and having released a Live In Brooklyn album over two years ago, you could say I have a real love for this space. When it was announced that the club was closing and I would be playing the very last set there I had so many mixed emotions from sadness to joy and an overwhelming pressure to deliver a party that a club of that stature deserves. I really put my heart and soul into that party drawing from my favorite tracks over the years.

The set seemed to fly by and there was just a constant sea of smiling faces from the dance floor all night long as the crowd literally savored every record on that crystal clear sound system. After listening back to the set I knew this album had to come out and not just be another mix online. It deserved to be part of people's music collection and a memento for years to come. We have managed to license six CDs worth of music from the night. I hope you can immerse yourself in one of my favorite sets in N.Y. for years."

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