How are you? Please share with us your experience of releasing your album The Kid And Friends during the pandemic?
I’m doing great thanks for asking, hope you’re doing good too. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share my album.
Releasing this album during a pandemic was definitely interesting. I had just agreed to work with Showoff HipHop here in Boston right before the pandemic hit. We were planning on going to a lot of places, a lot of music venues and clubs, and meeting a lot of people in HipHop in Boston and handing out flyers and things like that. While I did get to meet some great people in the scene here, I didn’t get the opportunity to meet nearly as many as we planned in person at least.
I worked with Brandon from Showoff HipHop and he was amazing to work with. Not only did he connect me to a bunch of people, but his ability to adjust on the fly made our transition to virtual pretty seamless. We were able to set up two Virtual Album Release Parties – one for media and another for anyone who was interested.
We did a lot of work leading up to the release learning how to work the technology to stream the album live so the visual and audio was on point. Brandon connected me with another great Boston artist Alexander Padei who really knew how to do that stuff and so we met up and he gave me some great advice and taught me a lot on how to work technology like OBS and how to stream audio correctly.
In the end, the virtual releases were a success for us as we got a good amount of people to join and listen to the album. The response was amazing to see.
Now I’m working with MusicPromoToday and Big Noise Music to help further market and promote this album.
What’s the project you are the most proud of in your music career and why?
Definitely The Kid and Friends. I’m also in a band called Pineapple Jam and we released one album in 2016 called Best Served on Toast that I’m proud of. But as a solo artist I had released two projects before. The first one titled The Kid was “mixed” by me when I was first learning Ableton and mixing in general and it’s not even mastered. I wouldn’t consider myself a mixing engineer at all and so the audio can be rough on that one haha but I felt the need to release something at that point.
Then I released a short LP titled Kewl Grewves. This project sort of came out of nowhere and was almost something for me to release and work on while waiting for The Kid and Friends to finalize.
But ya this album The Kid and Friends I would consider my first real project that I really invested all my time, energy, and money into. I started it in early 2016 purchasing all the equipment and making a bunch of beats and after getting all the collaborations, mixing/mastering, and marketing settled, I eventually released the album on November 6th 2020. It was an insanely difficult and humbling process but I’m really proud of the final product and especially all the great artists I got to work with.
What are you currently working on?
I’m currently working on being patient and saving money haha. I’m using this year to continue to promote The Kid and Friends as best as I can and in the meantime I’m still making beats every day I can. I currently have 3 albums pretty much done, I just need to save to build up a decent budget in order to mix/master and market/promote which I’ve learned are equally as important to budget for.
So for now I’m tinkering with the songs I have temporarily in place in these future albums, reworking the tracklists constantly, listening over and over again and adding things when I hear it, and really working on perfecting my next few releases as I save up money. The beats I make that I don’t use for myself, I add to my website to sell.
I’m also actively trying to sell my beats on my website or a dream would be landing a placement with a big artist. That would be incredible and would go directly to funding my next albums.
What’s the first thing that catches your attention when listening to a new song?
The talent, the musicality, and the overall feel. I like listening to artists who have amazing talent and are different. For example, when I hear an Anderson .Paak song I pretty much immediately like it because he can rap, sing, write, and play the drums and just makes amazing music!
Do you listen to other genres of music than Hip-Hop? If yes, which are your favorite?
Yes definitely. I listen to a lot of different genres. My favorite artists are John Mayer, Kanye, Coldplay, John Legend to name a few so that can give you a good idea of some of the music I like. But rock, specifically bluesy or funky rock is probably tied with HipHop as my favorite music. That’s the type of music my band plays. The Ain’t No Sunshine cover that John Mayer performed at the Crossroads Guitar Festival is my wheelhouse. I also love jazz music. Herbie Hancock really got me into jazz and I’ve been listening to a lot of Bill Evans recently as well. The Lumineers type folksy music I love too.
Did you participate in any online concerts or music related events?
Not really as of now. I had the virtual release parties for The Kid and Friends and sometimes I stream myself making beats or stream future albums to Instagram or Twitch. But I’m definitely interested in doing concerts or events online as I think it has a lot of potential with all this new technology.
Which of your various activities gives you the highest fulfillment, between beatmaking, producing, rapping and songwriting ?
Beatmaking/Producing I would consider almost the same thing for me. I make the beat and then put the song together which I guess would be considered the producing part. But while putting the song together and organizing the features and verses/chorus/bridges/etc., I’m constantly readjusting the beat or adding/subtracting parts and making it work the best I can. The actual creation process of starting out making a beat and eventually the final song I love.could do everyday for the rest of my life and love every second of it.
Tell us more about the Album Pack$, the beats you have been selling on your website? Do you also curate exclusive beats on demand?
Thanks for asking! These are the beats I’m trying to sell and use that money to fund my albums. I’ve been struggling to market my website and beats and so I’m so thankful once again for this opportunity to get my name out there.
I’m constantly making beats and the ones I love the most I keep for my albums. However, I still like a lot of the beats I don’t use. I took about 160 of my favorite beats that remained and curated them into 7 “Album Packs”.
For example, there’s a “Bouncy Beats” album packs where all the beats have a similar vibe and bounce. These are actually some of my favorite beats I made and I might turn this pack into an instrumental album so get them now if you want them haha. The “I’ve Lost It!” album pack has beats that are high energy and I guess dark and scary vibes. “Chilll Outtt” has chill beats, “WaVvy” has wavy beats and so on and so forth.
All the beats are exclusive, meaning if you buy a beat, you’re the only one who can use it andI take it off my site. I used to try to sell beats on Airbit with different leasing and non-exclusive options but for me it’s easier to try to sell it one time and avoid all that confusion. You can buy beats individually or you can buy the whole Album Pack.
I noticed a lot of aspiring artists buying (or just using) random beats they like off of Youtube, Soundcloud, or sites like Airbit and Beatstars. While that’s totally fine if it works for you, I wanted to do something different with my beats and try to sell beats that could work as an album. This is why I putcurated beats with similar vibes into these 7 album packs to make it easier for an aspiring artist to put together a cohesive album. Hopefully someday I can sell them all and then create more packs as I create more beats.
I have the 160+ beats in the Album Packs and I also have around 65+ beats on a Private Link that artists can ask for. These beats I think are my best and I’m hoping to land placements with or sell for a higher price.
And to answer the second question I actually struggle with creating beats for a specific artist. I don’t go into making my beats with anything in mind and when I do I tend to struggle or not create my best work. This is another reason why I made the Album Packs. It’s almost easier for me to do it this way. If you like any of the vibes I’ve created then here’s a full album worth of beats – if you’re not feeling any of them then you should probably find another producer haha.
For more information on The Kid see: Instagram – Spotify – Website