What first drew you into music production and hip-hop production in particular
First of all, thank you for inviting me to this Interview HBTMag! 🙂 But let’s get STRAIGHT INTO IT.
I used to mainly listen to Trapnation and wasn’t interested in Hip Hop at all. I was randomly watching videos on Youtube and came upon SwagyTracks. The first song I’ve listened to was called “Logic – 5AM”. That song then became my absolute favorite. I’ve even sung it in school when we had to sing songs in the music-lesson. Since then, I was interested in Hip Hop music and Logic was my favorite Artist. I’ve started to listen to many different artists like – Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Drake and Lil Uzi Vert. I was mainly interested in the beats of the songs and I thought to myself – “I could do this too!”. That’s when I asked my parents to buy me a MIDI-Keyboard for Christmas. When I got my MIDI-Keyboard, I downloaded Ableton Live 9 and started to make…something. It was a lot harder than I expected, but I never gave up. Metro Boomin’ was my inspiration too, he always kept it simple and achieved greatness. Since then I became better and better and started to only listen and produce Hip Hop music. Could’ve never happened without Logic!
Your latest track “Good Vibes” is the perfect example of your signature sound, can you tell us more about what it took to achieve that sound?
Of course, I started off with the sample, which I actually didn’t make. I’ve taken it somewhere from the Internet. I really had a good feeling about this sample and thought that I could make something really quick. What I thought of making, is that the sample could fit really well with the “Pi’erre Bourne kick pattern”. So I made the kick pattern not exactly like it but very similar. I made some easy hi-hats and added a regular clap to the beat. The 808’s were also regular and they matched with the kick pattern. What I find special about this beat is that the hi-hats stop and a certain point, which made the beat really different to others. The beat literally took me 20 minutes to make. There’s brilliance in simplicity, you don’t always have to add a lot to a beat.
Who is your favorite artist/producer?
Man… I really have a lot of good artists and producers to list up here… But currently, my absolute favorite Artist is Travis Scott. And the best producer currently is Metro Boomin’. They both give a Dark vibe to the music, which I really like.
Going over your Soundcloud profile we can tell you like the dark trap genre and it shows in your productions! Can you tell us more about the way you mix hip-hop and trap?
I really keep it simple, there is literally nothing more to say. But the key part is that the production of my beats depends on my emotions. When I feel bad, and I want to make something, it usually goes out bad and I delete it right after my 30 minutes are wasted. But I’m still new to the production of music so I still have a lot to learn.
You have started producing beats in 2016 and already achieved a very professional sound! Care to share more about your journey in the past 2 years?
I got my first MIDI-Keyboard at the age of 15 in December 24th 2015. That’s when I started to make music. The first beat I made was in 2016, and it was absolute trash, which at that time I thought was really cool! My friends didn’t like it, so I was upset for a little bit. I then searched for samples and melodies on the internet and came upon some really cool ones. When I came into the production, I was really struggling on making the rhythm, but then I realized that I just have to drag them to a rhythm position, which later was no problem for me.
I then made my first Souncloud profile, where I would upload the first beats I made or tried to make. I gained, some…. recognition, the only ones who were listening were my friends. So I started to watch tutorials that we’re about 2 hours long on how to make rap beats, but I was bored as hell watching them, so after 5 minutes I stopped watching. The biggest help for me was listening to instrumentals/ rap beats, and see how they were built. I then copied the kick/hihat/808 patterns from the beats and added them to the melody. And that’s when I began to realize that it wasn’t even that hard. I started to listen to more and more Instrumental and I began to understand how a beat was built! It then became easy for me to make one, I then gained recognition on my Soundcloud. I was really proud of myself because I was self-taught! I started to make beats on a regular basis. And I never gave up on making them, and now I’m here!
2018 has recently started, What are your goals for the new year? Any upcoming projects we can get excited about?
I want to get a lot better. Learn new things. Find new and better ways on how to mix and build sounds. Gain more recognition on my social media. And collaborate with many other great producers and artists, maybe even with well-known ones! I have a lot of ideas for upcoming project’s, so you better watch out for that!
Connect With Kuuda:
Youtube
Soundcloud
