Souls of Hip Hop
Souls of Hip Hop
DJ Fleg
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On this episode, we talk to Stephen Fleg or better known as DJ Fleg. He is a world-renown DJ, producer, multi-instrumentalist, promoter, and b-boy from Baltimore, MD. He regularly releases music through his record company Greenmount Records.
We learn about his journey as a musician and producer, djing for the 2018 Youth Olympics, his love for Brazil, and the challenges of creating music for multiple avenues while finding a healthy balance.
You can find and support him here:
instagram.com/djfleg
facebook.com/therealdjfleg
soundcloud.com/octopusfleg
octopusfleg.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/DJFLEG
Welcome to souls of hip
Unknown Speaker :hop, a podcast for hip hop heads that aims to bring inspiring people together to share their passion, wisdom, and unique Story.
Unknown Speaker :My name is candy. And I am Dj Razor Cut.
Unknown Speaker :And together we are
Unknown Speaker :Soulidarity - connecting souls organically.
Unknown Speaker :On today's episode, we have Steven Fleg. He is a world renowned DJ, B boy, producer and multi instrumentalist from Baltimore, Maryland.
Unknown Speaker :Beyond his professional accomplishments, Fleg was present when the two of us met, got engaged and also officiated our wedding celebration in Boston. Welcome Fleg. All righty. How did you get introduced to hip hop? What were your first encounters?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, so I guess the first encounters with hip hop would be when I was very young and my brothers, they were the ones that introduced me to it, my oldest brother, probably the most of anyone. And he used to get tapes and have different like, hip hop tapes that he would buy, and he would bring home. And that was where I first started probably him playing in his room. Definitely, when we were in the car, we would hear a lot of hip hop radio, like pretty much only hip hop radio, to the chagrin of my mom, dad and grandmother, because they were usually the people that were driving us around in the car. And my dad is a jazz musician, and he would kind of like, make fun of it in certain ways, and whatever. And my mom probably tolerated the most, but obviously, if there's stuff that was off color or stuff that, you know, she didn't like, you know, that stuff was kind of like, okay, let's switch it. And she wouldn't want us listening to it too much. And that my grandmother the same way for that, but generally speaking, yeah, you know, he's from my brother. And I just remember he was in the car a lot. And so that gave us sort of the exposure to what was going on. in hip hop, like at the time, like when the hits were whatever, we had some dope DJs. And sometimes we would like it, I would always like it about my brothers too. When a certain DJ we get on like Frank ski would be mixing records. And obviously, it would have that element of a lot of songs you didn't know it was the early to mid 90s. There's like a lot of dope tracks like super cool stuff. And then also interesting ways of mixing it like doing instrumentals and acapella is and all that kind of stuff. And I guess along with jazz, which I was also introduced to at a very young age, hip hop was probably the second thing that I was introduced to, in a very young age as well. And yeah, shout out to my brother for that rather Anthony, after being a fan of hip hop and being into it, you know, from exposure and sort of just starting to follow it from that. When did I start getting into the culture and I guess the culture part of it I would consider would be when I got into breaking and seeing breaking on like some skate videos, it was completely sort of separate But it is kind of interesting. There's a lot of people that make the link between skating and having been skaters and then getting into actually different forms of hip hop, but definitely breaking is one of them. And yeah, on a skate video, I think it's sort of this mutual respect of like, there's like an element of, you know, trickery and sort of, not trickery in like a devious way. But like you're doing tricks, you're, you're doing something that's like, very cool looking visually. And it's something that's maybe hard to do that, you know, takes a lot of practice, but it's outside the realm of traditional school sports, or martial arts or whatever it might be or dance. All of both of those things were sort of in this other gray area and the I think there was a mutual respect there. So occasionally, there would be breakers featured or just like a little section of them in some of the skate videos. So I saw it in there, started trying to break and then after breaking some one until I connect to the actual community, and again, one of my brothers knew a breaker and kind of helped me With that, but that was, I guess the first time that from, you know, the first portion of liking hip hop and liking the music, and then seeing the dance, but actually getting involved into a part where you're sort of in the community or around them was the middle school, early High School, I'd say when I finally you know, got to go to some of my first breaking practices. And I was like, Oh, yeah, this is amazing. That was in Baltimore. That was in near DC. So I grew up in between Washington, DC and Baltimore. And so just some of my history for all this stuff goes to Baltimore summons to DC. And so like I would dig for records in both places. But I first started doing that more in Baltimore, and then ended up being in DC later. And then I went to a lot of my first practices further towards DC because University of Maryland is the university where they had a lot of the big practices because University of Maryland was like kind of on the north. And north side of DC, some people from Northern Virginia could come up to it, people from DC could come up to it, people from Baltimore could come down to it. And for a while that was this really, really strong, really central place where like, you know, I swear some of the practices that happened on Thursday nights felt like jams. And so that's why it was really exciting to go to those practices, because there was so little information around, you know, the internet and all that, that everyone was so excited just to be there and to be around other people that were doing it. Because the sort of, it wasn't like you saw it every day on Instagram. It wasn't like you could reach out to people easily anyway and just be like, Hey, you know, type to them like, Oh, I heard your boy, let's break somewhere. It was like, No, you just word of mouth and then everyone found out like, Okay, this spot called pinker at all in University of Maryland was the spot that everyone would meet up to go to. But yeah, and so like that was the first thing that I went to there was sort of a community experience, and it was definitely like, wow, this is crazy. Yeah, it was a super cool exposure. I think
Unknown Speaker :that's really something that's interesting about the USA around that time like, like, late 90s, early, late 90s, early 2000s it was the same thing in Miami and there was FIU where people would go to the union and FIU's Union was where they had a floor where all the students would meet up but it wouldn't you even if you weren't going to FIU you that you can go to practice there and meet people and not knowing, not having any other way. But word of mouth.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. I think even in Europe, like unfortunately, we didn't have the college system that was helping. But the word of mouth was the same thing. At the time was like you needed to know someone that knew someone who was like, yo. There's a practice spot there, and then you go meet more people, then they're like, Oh, we actually practice usually we practice over here. So you kind of figure out through word of mouth who was practicing where and that was cool that you could just basically show up at anyone's practice and get down and there wasn't as much hostility as I feel like, experience sometimes in the US, for sure. Yeah, it's really
Unknown Speaker :territorial. And even and, I mean, I was interning in DC in 2001 to 2003. I was in Springfield in Alexandria, Virginia. And so I remember it was really kind of territorial.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, definitely way more serious than even like my crewmates. Like, you know, now we're all kind of cool with like, some of the other crews even like historically that we had issues with but I mean, like, when I say historic, we had issues with it's like we're talking about like, giant fights at the club, like, like serious, serious stuff. So I think that
Unknown Speaker :your crew can fight.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :lethal.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. So yeah.
Unknown Speaker :I'm really close with I've been in clubs with them before and that time.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, especially at that time guys.
Unknown Speaker :They like to mess with that. So yeah much.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, that was that was definitely another part of this whole thing that it's not it's really interesting it's not necessarily something that should be congratulated on but at the same time just as far as like being real about it of like, what were the stakes and how do people really feel and it was like it was very serious to certain people, which Why is Why? You know, when it comes to battling I never have or maybe like very early on or something but just like for a good amount of time. And I almost think ever I've never done like sort of very offensive gestures or whatever just like gestures that other people wouldn't even consider ffensive are just like all you just do that a battle sometimes just like even the finger or whatever. I was like, Nope, I wouldn't do it. I don't do it because it was just like, there were other steaks at that time. And it's just like, yeah, you didn't if you did that to their own crew, like, should we get handled, and not in the battle without painting it as like, it was like such a crazy environment. It was definitely different. And yeah, there was just a different different, like, stronger rivalry. But then even animosity on another level there was going on. And so you just approached everything a little bit differently.
Unknown Speaker :So then how did the B boy now transition into the DJ?
Unknown Speaker :The journey that I went on, kind of the path that I went on wasn't something where I was like, Oh, I'm doing this one thing. Now let me switch to this other thing. It was more like I, you know, with the exception of recently, where it's been really bad, it's like, I still break. I like breaking and it was never like, this is gonna replace that thing. There was more just like, I'm simultaneously interested in this thing. And so actually, when I first got interested In DJing, I was just interested to learn how to scratch there was no idea about like, oh, let me learn this because I'm already breaking and I could learn how to DJ and now DJ jam and do this. It's like, nope, none of that. It was just like, I wanted to learn how to scratch. That was it. I thought scratching sound cool. I liked hearing it and songs. I'm just like, I do feel like I had a bit of motive, like self motivation for a lot of these things where it was kind of like in my head, I thought, Oh, well, if I want to, like learn how to do this, or if I think this is cool, why don't just like learn how to do it, and then figure out a way to like, save a lot of money to get turntables and it's like that was built up little by little like, I got a mixer first. And then I kind of waited and my friend who was a DJ finally told me Oh, I found two techniques 1200 for for $400. And then I like was like borrowing money from friends and doing whatever I had to do to get them but it built up slowly. And again, it was all just for the sake of learning how to scratch that was a one learn how to scratch I thought sounded cool. And then like Later, that took me down a cool path of discovering music starting to understand what was being played at the breaking jams and starting to want to discover more and discover my own version of it and whatever. But yeah, initially was just scratching but then simultaneously, like I was breaking, but they weren't definitely at the beginning. And for the first probably a couple of years, they weren't really connected at all.
Unknown Speaker :How was it for you? Once you started DJing for like B boy jam specifically, because I feel like spinning for a jam is a very particular set of skills versus like a nightclub. Yeah. DJing for rappers. So how was that for you?
Unknown Speaker :I guess it didn't really intimidate me in the way that DJing for like a club would would intimidate me because I was just like, around that music so much that I knew that I knew it. I obviously didn't have all the records like I had some but I was like, trying to like my own little digs that I had. I was like, Oh, this sounds cool. Let me play this. I had whenever you know Make some ultimate breaks and beats of course. And then, yeah, just anything else that I had found in digging for probably the first jam I did was probably I think it was like 2005 and 2006. And it was maybe like one jam each year, I started digging more so around 2003 so it was just like, okay, it's about two years of digging worth of music kind of thing. And yeah, you know, I probably wouldn't find it. I guess it's kind of weird because I wasn't that intimidated to do it. I feel like how I actually did I actually be kind of interesting if I was able to hear what I spun. I know some of this stuff is fun. And I can still remember when I did it, but yeah, you know, it was something that without knowing exactly how good or bad I did, it felt like I did decent, at least you know, and it was just something that I thought was natural because I knew all that music and I'd heard something better. It's been before. So I knew like okay, this will go good with this or whatever just kind of went head on into I forget if I practice it or what I'm sure I had to do a little something. But like it was just Yeah, it's pretty early now we're talking like that was 15 years ago. So,
Unknown Speaker :yeah, this is
Unknown Speaker :fine. We probably have half. Okay, maybe half bad.
Unknown Speaker :But yeah, it was fun. I feel like often we don't at the time we were all teenagers or young adults. We weren't really thinking about it too. Seriously. No, definitely was like fun, like, Oh, cool. I get to spin. I organized my own event. And then I didn't know any break DJ that the times I think I'm just gonna spin it myself.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, that's a great way to do it. build yourself, build yourself and then hone your skills because the things you build needs the skill, you know, present.
Unknown Speaker :You DJ'ed the Youth Olympics. Oh, yeah. You don't ever think about Youth Olympics and like DJing.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it's like, especially in this culture? What was that like? That was interesting. I mean, I think Dj Lean Rock and I were the first ones to do something involved with the Olympics, in this case, the Youth Olympics, but we were the first ones to DJ. And yeah, it was very interesting, a very interesting experience. It was like, pretty similar to other jam experiences I've had, I feel like it's being organized by a big like, kind of governing body, which is like the World Dance sport Federation. And so just not being steeped in hip hop per se. They had to be led, you know, to a couple of things like, hey, it'd be cool if people sit on the floor, hey, that'd be cool if we did this and that, and it was kind of cool because they were open enough to sort of change a couple of the things about what they were initially thinking they were gonna do. And then what they ended up doing was just yeah, more or less made it feel like you know, it wasn't a jam because you don't have ciphers and these other things, and everything is pretty carefully regulated. But this Same time, it didn't feel like normal battles, like if you're doing a bracket at a battle at a regular, you know, jam. And compared to this, it'd be pretty much the same. You know, I guess the the judging system was like a slightly different thing and whatever, but generally it was it was very close. And so I was actually pretty happy with how they executed it, considering, you know, just sort of how it could have happened. You know, there's there's definitely way worse scenarios. And this one was a pretty good one. And on top of that, the cool thing was as well then got an incredible amount of tension from people. So like, just based off of what I saw, it's like the crowds for what we were doing and what was happening. We're just really big, where, for the most part with all the Youth Olympic stuff, there weren't that bigger crowds. You know, I mean, people came through to watch things of course, but did you see like this kind of critical mass like this big amount of people and overflow people like that weren't able to get into the extra stands they were actually like looking up and being looking over from the side and being able to see Did you tend to see that with everything else? And the answer, at least from what I saw, I didn't see everything I was busy. But like, was no. And so I guess that was the cool thing about it is that you're doing this thing, it's mostly keeping in line with how we go about doing things, which I'm sure will be the same with the Olympics as well. So it's like, I have a pretty good confidence that, you know, there's gonna be a lot that's familiar, there's gonna be a lot that is as true the culture or something like that can be. And then and the other thing is that, like, it's something that I think a lot of people are really excited about. So those are the things that I kind of got out of it, you know, and I thought that it was good that there was an ability for it to run the way it did, given the possibilities of like, you know, just how wrong things could go. If you have someone that doesn't matter who it is, that's coming into something and trying to run events for the first time. It's just like, you know, we all know there's people with the even if they have experience in general the amount of experience in this There's a lot of oversights that can happen. And I feel like they Yeah, they did a really good job. So it was it was a cool experience for sure. And we'll see it looks like they're scheduled to have breaking again, I think in the Youth Olympic Games in 2022. And then the Olympics in 2024. And be I guess, depending on what I do, or don't do, or whatever, maybe I'll be a part of that. But without, you know, even necessarily caring too much or, or thinking about that, you know, I just say that the initial experience that first one was good, it was a good one. So it will be interesting to see how to scale it up. Oh, you're probably the first Olympic DJ, I guess. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. first Olympic DJ,
Unknown Speaker :pretty dope title. A DJ.
Unknown Speaker :Definitely put that in, right.
Unknown Speaker :But then the original Olympic DJ Yeah. That's like i don't i can't
Unknown Speaker :i can't win a gold medal in it. But I was in a role and and then some kind of way.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. What is your take on DJing for Jams? was very much focused on digging. I feel like there were there was a few people that were into producing at the time, especially in Europe. There were a few guys that were doing their own breaks at the time a lot of like, electro influence. Yeah. For me like DJ Def Cut and Zeb Roc Ski. That's right, folks like that, or at least a DJs that I was really looking up to were like, heavy diggers, yeah, DJ Woodoo, DJ Leacy. And then, over the years, I feel like there was a shift into creating more original content, or, you know, producing your own tracks. Yeah. What was your experience with that? Because now you're well known as one of the, you know, best break producers in the world. I don't know about all that.
Unknown Speaker :But, uh, you know, now but uh, as far as the
Unknown Speaker :guys
Unknown Speaker :just you know, always, always work to be done. But like, as far as starting out with it, yeah, there was a lot of that emphasis. And it was kind of cool, because I remember some of the first jams that I ended up doing a little bit later I did some of those first jams. I know I did one in 2006. That was my first 2005 was like, I played like a cipher out of jam. 2006 was like, I played more of the jam. And I think there's one in 2007 two, yeah, again, generally, like not huge amounts of DJing at those times, but it was all vinyl. And so in doing all vinyl, it was like stuff that I dug. And whether all of it was like the deepest cuts or not, maybe not, you know, it's like I didn't have the knowledge or wasn't spending the full amount of time and whatever to really be in it to the degree that like, Alessi would be yours just like I was just way far behind at that point. And he was a huge inspiration for that. But you know, I tried my best and I would go to record fairs and started like buying 45 Something like oh, there's stuff on here. That's really cool. It's not like, you know, the other stuff. And I remember yeah DJing those jams and just like a combination of like 45 LPs stuff that was really a lot like soul funk bass. So So a lot of it wasn't about, I didn't necessarily have all of the exact breaks. So I was just playing full songs, you know, but shells still trying to like get them to whatever mesh together and whatnot. And, yeah, then at a certain point, I remember I employ the use of one kind of one CDJ. And that was for like, tracks that I've heard online that people were sharing around, there's like, Oh, this is a cool track. Let me I want to like make battles more hyper, I want to be able to include this. So there's that or maybe even some classic hip hop that I didn't have on vinyl. And I would start you know, incorporating like one CDJ into it, and then eventually getting into Serato and that kind of makes things just so easy to find all your music online or rips. Have your records and have that combination of it so that you really have deep deep crates. And then I'm just trying to think, I guess, maybe around 2011 is when I started sort of making or trying to make my own breaks and edits of things, I guess other people were doing at the same time. I remember there were other things coming out of Europe. I was a fan of all of it, per se, like some of the Battle of the year stuff and whatever. But like, yeah, I guess around then, but then even before that, as you were saying, there were some of these, like, made for breaking beats are just really heavily focused on that. And yeah, I started when I got production software, I guess I started working on that a little bit. It wasn't like, Oh, I'm going to start really doing this now. It was just like, Oh, I have this idea. I think this would be cool. Let me do this. And this is something that's going to be a little bit different than just spinning the regular funk soul records that we spent all the time. And then like, you know, I did it and then people got hype, where they started to look like it and be like, Oh, yeah, like he's got that one. It's this whatever. And that started, obviously snowball into producing more and more and then being like, Oh, they like that because of this. This reason? Well, let me try to like, flip the sample. Let me see what I can do here. And that also coincided with me getting better at production, you know, digital production, which I didn't know how to do at all. I just sort of had to top teach myself because I was like, well, this seems like it's the future. So I guess I was kind of right.
Unknown Speaker :But were there any resources that were very helpful to you during the time that you were teaching yourself? Not really?
Unknown Speaker :I just kind of learned.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, am I doing
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, there wasn't really I wasn't really looking a lot of like tutorials. And probably not that many were out by then maybe there were some you know, and occasionally and now I do look at a few if I need to do a specific thing on a program that I don't know how to do, but I know it's possible. There was a good friend of mine, Brandon, who is a studio engineer and he would help me out a little bit with like, showing mean, you could do this, another friend cam who's a DJ and also producer and they would also give me same same kind of thing as a breaking thing. It was just like the I definitely give him props for helping me out, teaching me things about it, but it wasn't like, here, this is coming here every day, blah, blah, this is how we're gonna, I'm gonna teach you how to do all this and it's just like, yeah, they gave me some, some really good tips and things that I still use and all that, but then it was kind of like Alright, now go off and
Unknown Speaker :do what you will with it, like continue learning and go through your own journey with it. For me growing up as a DJ, oftentimes, like somebody would discover either dig a bee or produce a bee and stuff like that was that DJs be like you would not go there is another DJ, you would not necessarily want to be playing other DJs the leads right? But now when you have this limited pool of cleared music, how is it for you? Do you feel any certain type of way, if you see other DJs playing your beat,
Unknown Speaker :I don't really care at this point because I'm just like, okay, that's just like, a compliment to me, like, I decided to play this with this pool. And I might go like that. And that's cool. I feel like other people play it that don't have to play from a pool of music, just because that's all they know. Yeah. And it's just like, again, actually, you know, sometimes, like, I can be kind of cool. To be honest, you should probably know some other music besides just like the meat for breaking music that we make, because certainly myself and other DJs that are really serious about this, then make it also know all of that other music too. And it's just like, okay, I would want them to do more of their research, but that's the easiest thing in front of them. And you know, it's another it's a attribute of the digital world of things where it is easy to get like, another DJ strike is right there. It's on YouTube, or it's like, downloadable or whatever. And so you just grab it, then you start playing it and That's that, you know, like, it's super easy and they know that a little work kind of thing. And that's why I think a lot of that don't even have that those parameters, you know, like that they have to play query music even they are a lot of people are playing our music and yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, I feel like they should do more digging research into it, but it's like, does it really bother me that much? I'm like, that's fine. Probably used to but I don't really care anymore.
Unknown Speaker :I feel like probably 20 years ago when I started it was like, you had to buy the vinyl when it was like oh, well if you press it on vinyl and you put it out Yeah. Then you kind of gave your okay for others to play. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker :I think so. But now in the digital age and can't really signal or not signal Yeah, like, sign up for download up don't care. Yeah. Well, and sometimes it gets ridiculous to it's like, they'll take the video off of like, the battle footage, right? And then they'll make the video to that. I'm like, what are you guys doing man like this sounds terrible. And like you're like kind of almost messing up the integrity of my track. By putting in such a bad quality and whatever, and then that video has like 200,000 views and like what are you guys doing, man? It's crazy.
Unknown Speaker :Like, here's the real trick.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And then I put that up and then I sell like five of them, like five digitally. All good.
Unknown Speaker :You're not just a DJ, but you're also a musician, a composer. How do you balance that life with like also doing the nightclub parties? And yeah, the actual jams and the travel? Like, do you have a formula? Or is it just?
Unknown Speaker :Unfortunately, I probably should. The part of it is that I think it just depends on the time of year like whatever tends to be happening the most. The other part of it is that it's difficult in general, there's the one thing about the scheduling portion or the like job attribute differences. So in other words, like the nightly I'll be like, okay, you're on You got it. You know a lot of people drinking and like boisterous environment, whatever music production is like very, like you're alone most the time. And it's just like you're very concentrated into strictly like the music portion of it. music production for like, hip hop or house may look different for like making break beats, you know. And then DJing a jam is way different than a club. And it's very different than than making a music thing. So they're all very different. And yeah, I guess another thing is, it does, it is hard if I'm busy every day, sometimes when I'm not to go from one speed to another, like sometimes, like I'm really into production, and I'll be like, so into production that like let's say, I don't have a gig on a weekend. It's just like, I'll be at the studio till like 2am 3am like, and not care that I'm missing a Friday night out a Saturday night like I don't care at all. And I'm just like so much into the production side of things. Now then there are other times that it's like, I'm in the DJing mode of things and it's just hard for me to get into the production. So I guess I kind of like doing them in blocks I want when I do when I'm doing production to have more time to be able to feel things out and do things rather than just be Yeah, you know, like rather than just be trying to juggle that with like, okay, yeah this many hours this day and now but then tonight I have to go DJ, and ball Yeah, before I didn't have to go prepare stuff and you don't I mean, it's just like, it's so much to juggle then I think it's hard for anyone. The best people are super probably scheduled out and really have an exact thing like I'm practicing from this to this time. Because the other thing is musicianship which to be honest, I haven't been able to improve upon as much as I like to. I know, I used to play a good amount of jazz piano, I could play saxophone, you know, but my tone intonation in certain things like that isn't great because you know, you have to train your mouth your armor, sir. Like really remember, you know, and have the strain. And these tiny little muscles in your face, to have the strength to like play certain notes and to like play them in tune and all that kind of stuff. And that takes just straight up practice. So now we're not even talking about just the production side of it, we're talking about maintaining the skills, and then learning new skills that help with the production. But that in and of themselves are just about you learning and maintaining skills on an instrument, you know, which is the same as like learning and maintaining skills on the floor. If you don't practice, like you're gonna lose it. And yeah, and so when you're balancing that many things, practicing the instrument during the production, DJing DJing, the different types of things preparing for DJing there's different types of things like now we're talking about some stuff that if you're doing all those things, which in various times, I'm expected to do all those things, you know, it's like, I'm supposed to DJ let's say Red Bull BC One which is a jam, the music that I made that I have to make during the music production that I have to Make maybe extra good by practicing the piano or the other things. So it's like they're all linked. But finding the exact way that all of them linked together perfectly for me is just like a little bit of a nightmare of priority, I guess and scheduling. So, yeah, I definitely haven't cracked that code. It's something that I would like to but to be honest, also requires a good deal more focus than I have right now. So it's a lot of improvements. I feel like I have to make
Unknown Speaker :Wow, stuff. So making good music, though.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And I feel the tricky part is some of it is execution, like skills that you've owned in or that you've built up over years and years that you're prepared for. And you just need to execute like, let's say, you're spinning at a nightclub. Yeah. Yeah, there's some preparation that goes into it. But ultimately, if I put you on the spot and say you got to spend tonight here, you can do Yeah. And that's part of what funds your time that you can invest in the other things, right? Yeah. So it's like sometimes you can't just force the creativity that you need for I was caught musician side of you, right where you can say, Okay, now I have two hours, great. I'm just going to go compose and be in that creative mindset. So I find that balance super hard. And I'm like, really impressed by anyone that's able to do that.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. I mean, I try to do it. It's hard to always make it succeed. But yeah, I do try to do it.
Unknown Speaker :Well, big kudos to you. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker :So what is your perspective about having to play from a pool of cleared music?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I mean, it's always limiting because a lot of the foundation the whole foundation of the dance was on just like the music that it was on a certain cannon. You know, if you will like a certain collection of breaks weights are now pretty much like, encompassed in like ultimate breaks and beats. And it was just like that was the foundation foundation. It's like, you don't have to only play those, but it's like, you should know how to play them. And still keep a room, you know, height, like a bunch of boys height, which for me is fun to play all classics and now, but still do it in an interesting way and have people enjoy it, and then mix it in with new stuff and whatever else. Yeah, you know, so given that that is sort of the foundation of the dance. It is a little restricting when you can't do that, you know, and another foundation is like the idea of digging and digging for something that you like, and it doesn't, it's not necessarily something you made, but it's like digging for other things that have dope drums, dope, whatever, you know, portions to break too. And so when you're restricted, and you can't do that it's always constraining. But then it's like with that you have to try and both on the production side and then on the DJing side, to make it as much of a balance as you can sort of, for instance, I made a couple of years facts that I was telling you about with a full band and those tracks I feel like you know, I was pretty happy with how they turned out. And I knew that I designed them specifically like, Okay, this is like, you know, I wrote the whole song I wrote the horn parts, I wrote the lyrics where I wrote everything. And then it was like, you know, solo singer sing in the horn section, do their parts, the drummer, all that kind of stuff. And I knew that like, Okay, I'm gonna make a break right here. And this is something the DJ, which might be me might be someone else will be able to like, you know, scratch and, you know, juggle and this and that. And so then it's like when I get to a situation like that, where it can only play queered music, then I end up using stuff like that, that has an organic feel to it, so that in between some of these other, more produce sounding like breaks that we ended up playing, I'm playing something that sounds like a full band. So it sounds like something that I may have been able to dig for. And then like I made a track that's Latin funk. So I have a track that sounds like Something that you would ask you this Latin funk, but it's something that I made versus something I dug. And then I have like, a couple tracks with people rapping on them. Same reasons. So I think there's like, that's where the combination of production and knowing that you're gonna have those situations and producing based off of that come in handy, because we're not harming anybody. It's like, that's where the sort of the doing the best finding the most balance within which you have, which is also what you've created. And so creating a balance of things, and then playing that balance of things, even though you're still limited. At least, you know, you gave a live band, you know, you put that in the mix, you put someone rhyming in the mix, you did all that stuff. So that's the closest I can come. It's still not ideal, but at least it's something that is the closest I can come to sort of emulating the balance that I would want. If I just had free rein to play whatever I want.
Unknown Speaker :Let's check out your song called vibrational
Unknown Speaker :Go back
Unknown Speaker :to the vortex
Unknown Speaker :to go
Unknown Speaker :to be the chair bye
Unknown Speaker :breaking that down because I don't think too many people know how much work goes into your track, you know like for you to do that and also to do that for so many tracks that you have to use over an entire battles, you know, I think being able to, for people to understand the complexity of what it is that you're doing. Yeah. And that that type of skill that is, it's just
Unknown Speaker :that's a lot physically, technically.
Unknown Speaker :I mean, time wise, time wise,
Unknown Speaker :good time. It's a lot of balance. Again, like I was saying about when I'm telling you that I'm serious about that it is hard for me to figure out exactly how to structure and balance my time because I am, you know, really dealing with so many different aspects. You know,
Unknown Speaker :how do you monetize that? Yeah, it's
Unknown Speaker :also difficult. I would obviously like to monetize it highly. But then it's not just about how I monetize it. It's also about what people value. And so it's like, I can, I can try to steer that as best as I can. I do and this guy gets better. You have more sort of say so If you've done, you've made a bunch of tracks, and they have an impact and people enjoy them. I feel like you have a little bit more negotiating power to be able to say, Okay, well, this is worth this much. And this is worth this much. And please pay me that because this is legit a lot of time and expertise and all these other things that I'm putting into doing all this stuff. But how exactly it gets monetize stars on the other end? And would they agree to budgetary constraints or them not knowing the full story of what it takes to make this stuff could be something that kind of both those things could be something that kind of is like, Well, I think I should get paid this much, but I might not because of these other reasons.
Unknown Speaker :So you could either get paid for a beat up front, or then collect the royalties when it's used,
Unknown Speaker :or you can get both. We're just gonna go over that actually probably already has happened and the way that I'll know it happened, it happened because I still have to like get some of my publishing stuff, which deals with the royalties, I have to get some of my publishing stuff in order. But the point is, once I put that in there, then they're gonna scour once I get all of my information completed, which is something that's been taking me a little while to do. But it's not that difficult, really, it's like, I put some of my tracks up on Spotify, and all that kind of stuff. And then I have a certain number associated with it. After I have that number associated with it's an official number that is registered for that track. Then I give that to a publisher, and the publisher goes back through everything, anything that they have, it's like, algorithm, they have to go through all like, let's say, YouTube, and Facebook and Instagram, and whatever, and anything that's monetized or any money that was made, because of those tracks, which like, people upload my stuff all the time. And it's like, so anything that was made based off that, boom, then I get the royalties from that. So I and it's like and some of those tracks that I'm getting the royalties from Could have already been written history, I already was paid upfront to make them. So I can't have both of those things, which is kind of cool. How much the royalties actually pay. It's like,