When the laughter from a good "Friday" movie rerun meshes with tales of studio craftsmanship, you know you're in for a treat. Our latest episode brings the multifaceted Producer Ben Ford into the spotlight, where the harmony of being a parent and a producer strikes a chord that resonates with many of us. We explore Ben's journey from a Navy civilian to creating sonic waves in the music industry, all while juggling the joys and challenges of fatherhood. Our conversation takes us through the cultural touchstones that shape us, from impactful podcasts to the enduring legacy of cinema classics.
Take a seat at the mixing board of life as we channel the rich musical heritage of Chicago through my own upbringing, where jazz notes float through the household like a second language. I'll take you through the evolution of my studio setup, from the vintage sounds of my first instruments to the crisp clarity of the Pacifica and Neve that crown my current space. It's a story of acoustic alchemy, where treating a tricky 13 by 13-foot room becomes a master class in sound design. Discover the curious gadgets and digital tools that have transformed the craft from its infancy in Cakewalk to the sleek efficiency of today's music production software.
Wrapping up, we don't just hit the play button; we dissect the creative groove that leads to viral sensations and game-changing beats. I'll let you in on the secret to keeping a consistent rhythm in both music and life, emphasizing the beats that have friends shaking up YouTube with their growing presence. Expect a symphony of insights, from the dice-rolled randomness of the hiccups system to the unyielding belief in one's art. Ben Ford not only brings his A-game behind the scenes but also as a beacon of creativity and a testament to the power of genuine connections over industry noise.
Relationships Worth More Than Money by Tweezy Kennedy & Marcus Alland
available on all streaming platforms!
Instagram: @rwmtm
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RWMTMpod
Get RWMTM MERCH HERE!!!!! https://streamlabs.com/tweezydabeatterroristkennedy/merch
When the laughter from a good "Friday" movie rerun meshes with tales of studio craftsmanship, you know you're in for a treat. Our latest episode brings the multifaceted Producer Ben Ford into the spotlight, where the harmony of being a parent and a producer strikes a chord that resonates with many of us. We explore Ben's journey from a Navy civilian to creating sonic waves in the music industry, all while juggling the joys and challenges of fatherhood. Our conversation takes us through the cultural touchstones that shape us, from impactful podcasts to the enduring legacy of cinema classics.
Take a seat at the mixing board of life as we channel the rich musical heritage of Chicago through my own upbringing, where jazz notes float through the household like a second language. I'll take you through the evolution of my studio setup, from the vintage sounds of my first instruments to the crisp clarity of the Pacifica and Neve that crown my current space. It's a story of acoustic alchemy, where treating a tricky 13 by 13-foot room becomes a master class in sound design. Discover the curious gadgets and digital tools that have transformed the craft from its infancy in Cakewalk to the sleek efficiency of today's music production software.
Wrapping up, we don't just hit the play button; we dissect the creative groove that leads to viral sensations and game-changing beats. I'll let you in on the secret to keeping a consistent rhythm in both music and life, emphasizing the beats that have friends shaking up YouTube with their growing presence. Expect a symphony of insights, from the dice-rolled randomness of the hiccups system to the unyielding belief in one's art. Ben Ford not only brings his A-game behind the scenes but also as a beacon of creativity and a testament to the power of genuine connections over industry noise.
Relationships Worth More Than Money by Tweezy Kennedy & Marcus Alland
available on all streaming platforms!
Instagram: @rwmtm
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RWMTMpod
Get RWMTM MERCH HERE!!!!! https://streamlabs.com/tweezydabeatterroristkennedy/merch
I'm a little boss, sing it up, edit man. Yes, sir, whoever that is, man that I just said that yeah. He's gonna be like Edit man.
Speaker 2:Edit man.
Speaker 1:I edit parkers too. Shout out to Rowland man. Shout out to Rowland Rowland. Yeah, rowland Parkfest, my dog Rowland's the man. But man, look man, I gotta cool off. Yeah, kids screaming, yelling Shit. Couldn't hear him in the noise gate, can't hear nothing, but they are screaming and yelling. Yes sir, supposed to be sleep. You said Glenn Levitt. Yeah, cheers to that. Cheers, bro, 1884. Yes sir.
Speaker 1:Damn, I'm already spilt here we go, man, look at here, it's all good. So, man, look we in a new location, a new vibe. This is what I planted on doing anyways in 2024. It's not only just getting out the apartment, but moving around and getting close to my homies. You know what I mean, and not even homies, but other people out there, because you know what I'm saying I'm interviewing every. Won't they all be your homies? After that, though?
Speaker 2:Huh, won't they all be your homies? Yeah, they all be the homies, okay, yeah they all be the homies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they all be your homies. But, man, yes, this is relationships worth more than money podcast. It's 70 degrees in my studio right now and it's 39 outside. I'm dying. It's 39 outside. And yeah, man, how can I introduce this guy? Man, because, literally from day one, soon as Esquire was like yo hit up Ben, yeah, hit up Ben bro, Like he's in the area. Yep, it was a hit up Ben bro. We definitely got to hit up Ben, get some collabs in, let's work. And every time I've always came around or hit you up, it's always been welcome with open arms. Man, oh, nice Guy from Philly. No, I lived in Philly.
Speaker 2:You lived in Philly.
Speaker 1:From Chicago. Oh yeah, midwest, how can I forget? Pop, not soda.
Speaker 2:Pop, not soda.
Speaker 1:Pop. Yes, said again Pop not soda, pop not soda. You hear me? Yeah, so, but the connections in Philly was crazy, because I remember you had your meds come down.
Speaker 1:And we built a studio together, man, but great father, incredible producer, navy Civilian, civilian, but you worked with the Navy, was Was. Yeah, now you're contracting. We lead that alone, but we lead that alone. Yeah, all right. But this guy to my left got in my left. My man's been forward. What's going on? Did you hear the drum roll? I felt like Cat right there, all the intro. You know, he ran to the top of the mountain, yeah, caught the music and the vibes, brought it down back to the people in the world. Nah, man, you seen that podcast? Yeah, that podcast was crazy, crazy, crazy. I like it.
Speaker 2:Did you see the second?
Speaker 1:one yeah with Willie D, With Willie D yeah.
Speaker 2:I watched that one yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's trying to get some views. Yeah, he definitely tried. I think he got like three million but he ain't get that 42.
Speaker 2:That club, Shay Shay 42 million.
Speaker 1:Wait, no, club Shay Shay, yeah, yeah club Shay Shay 42.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, club Shay Shay 42. It was 30 when he did the Willie D joint 15 on day one yeah man.
Speaker 1:I was like, and the algorithm was like you need to watch this black person? Yeah, I was like I'm going to watch it. Yeah, it was definitely worth it, man, I liked it. Man, just off, the simple fact, like everybody has the truth or everybody feels a way, and I mean the receipt kept coming out. It's crazy because some of the stuff that he said though I have no connection to any of those folks like, there's some stuff that you do notice when you're in the industry that you like maybe I wasn't crazy. Right, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:We were at this bowling alley in LA. Me and my homeboy and some pretty famous people came in and you know, they came in with the Lanterage and they had they two little light skin girls. They weren't ugly, I don't know. You know Kat was on that. Did they look the same? They both looked the same. We had a bowling alley. They didn't say one word at the bowling alley, one word. They just sat there. I was like I mean I'm over here having fun. I said something to them. They ain't saying nothing back to me. I'm like, yeah, okay, either. I don't know if they was controlled, they controlled, like that's all. People know how to act. They stay in the, in the, in the graces of the people.
Speaker 2:They want to stay.
Speaker 1:Stay in the in crowd, right. So yeah, the Kat Williams John, that was crazy. Yeah, like I wish I was like a flower on the wall at any of them times. Like, could you imagine being at the Friday, just even I, even if I was the gaffer just gaffing for next Friday? So the IMDB says gaffer Ben Ford that would be crazy bro. And it's crazy because I always wonder, like, why hasn't another one came up? You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:But Friday, friday after next? Yeah, because they remember they were supposed to do another one. Well, what's his face past the wait up? Yeah, that happened. And then John with the spoon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. You can't do it without pop. You gotta have pop.
Speaker 1:But I think Chris Tucker had back back off of it too. But it was like yo, they was trying to get everybody in it.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying that would be crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I don't know, man, I don't look forward to it, but let's get. Let's get to the history of how it all started, with you, for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I've been submerged in music music since I was born. My parents were both musicians. My mom toured my dad. He played bass and did a bunch of stuff, but she was in jazz, my mom was in jazz so, and then she was a mutual music school. She ran so every Saturday, you know where I was, so right. But for a long time I didn't really understand that I could record this stuff, you know. So I'm just there playing music, playing playing piano, playing saxophone, trying to base good at the bass Now, not so good at the saxophone, like I think I gave my brother a lot of saxophone the other week, like he was like, yeah, I play saxophone, like where play? He was like, oh, so did he play? No, he didn't take the sax.
Speaker 2:So hopefully, yeah, I put him in a booth, you know see what it sounds like.
Speaker 1:At least make some samples, right.
Speaker 2:That's a fact, man. So but I don't know what the loops.
Speaker 1:That was in Chicago and, man, that was a long time. It was so fun. Like there's so many people, I learned from a lot of different people my mom, because she was in the jazz. I got to deal with all the avant-garde people, like folks that were where pants made of quilts and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, super expressive.
Speaker 1:Yes all the way out there and Smart as Hell, probably got a PhD, you know. And they just like I'm just going to make jazz.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think the gate kind of heavy on me. It's a little heavy on me. Let me see, check you out, because that gig I hate the jazz. Yeah, I'm gonna fuck one up, which is great. That's what the gate's supposed to do for all those people out here. You record into these things. They got preamps, probably a noise gate, probably an EQ compressor. I'm hoping. Yep, that's better. Yeah, that's way better. So that was a South Side of Chicago and North Side. She toured the globe. There's videos of her doing it and that was my intro into like I like to play music. Right Then my uncle had a studio upstairs and I think he used to do some voiceovers for commercials and I used to just be up there playing. He had this program Cakewalk.
Speaker 2:Cakewalk Right.
Speaker 1:Did you ever use Cakewalk man? I was just telling Sada. I bought it. I begged my mama man, I begged her to take me to. It wasn't Guitar Center? Yeah, I think it was like Sam.
Speaker 2:Mals or something.
Speaker 1:You remember when Guitar Center used to have, like, all the rack gear and everything, everything you used to go to Guitar Center and they used to have the Avid monitors. You'd be like dang the monitors. You remember the Avid monitors? They were like super skinny but like two feet long. They used to get old school monitors.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I used to get the little magazine and just flip through that thing. Man, one day I was gonna have a Voxbox. I had a Voxbox last week and what happened? I don't like it. I keep my core. Yeah, I actually had it in here. It was nice, but it was a little noisy for me. Yeah, it was a little noisy. That match was like the Manly mic, the Manly it just it was. It was doing a lot Like the Manly by itself is crazy, Right.
Speaker 2:And I could throw that through a knee and be done with it.
Speaker 1:But you know I have options. I got the Pacifica, the Neve, the Manly, the core, which is all the best stuff of the Voxbox. That's what they say I mean of course it's like dumb down because it costs less. Hands down, too Hands down. This is the best setup, in-home setup I want to mimic minds off of, because even when at your old crib that basement man, it was like it was, I'm like man don't know about. I'm like your neighbors don't hear this.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:He like no, they don't hear nothing. The bass, the app was, everything was going crazy and I'm like this is fine, yeah, so, yeah, hands down. Now, what they don't see is this so I built this cloud up here. This is a diaphragmic cloud. I was just telling my homeboy True Sounds on YouTube. I was telling he just moved down to Florida. I was telling him like yeah, man, I built this diaphragmic bass trap.
Speaker 1:So it's like two different levels of material hard material in between. Then I put the lights in the whiz lights. You can change the color whenever you want. Man, I brought that into this room and the whole room changed. Now, technically, this room is a terrible room for making music, right? So you know I can't. You know it's a 13 by 13. Terrible, what's the normal? Like, like, like area, ud, like resume. You want a larger room?
Speaker 1:There's there's a list online that you can get to, that kind of shows you what your room size should be, based on your ceiling height.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And you know, the larger the room, the better the sound you're going to get, because the waves have more time to mature. Like your, your, your, your, your. Low frequency waves, which are much bigger, have a lot more time to mature. So, like the diffusers that we're sitting behind right now, those are for high frequency waves, those are tuned to 400 and above. Right, right, 40k, sorry, okay, so not 40K, 400 and above.
Speaker 2:I'm tripping, yeah.
Speaker 1:But like they're not going to defuse anything low and, like low waves, they can be huge, like one one. One standing wave could be like nine feet, so if you got a room that's smaller than nine feet, that wave is going to mature before it bounces on something and hits back and could come back to you and sound crazy. Right, I just went way too deep. No, but this is. This is the crazy part about it, though. Like when you be saying that I'll be getting that tune. Like remember when we was putting the studio together for the disabled?
Speaker 2:It was disabled.
Speaker 1:They weren't disabled, they were. It was a mental health.
Speaker 1:Mental health yeah, a mental health building and we it was, and they wanted me to build a studio that was not going to be able to be torn apart. That was the key. It was like, look, the guys come in, they got mental health issues. We need you to design a studio so that it's safe for them to be in as well as safe for the gear, right? So I went through a whole list of stuff that I had to figure out, like how can I make sure the computer is bolted down?
Speaker 1:So I ended up rocking a Mac mini inside of this crazy rack and then bolting that down, and then the monitors had to be strapped down, and it was crazy and I was like, I mean, but that sounded great though yeah, it definitely did, man. And then you, you cut out. You cut out a window for the booth, which I thought that that was. That was pretty dope. It was crazy because they wouldn't let me do too much construction, because I wanted to do a double wall in there, but their budget wasn't going to allow for me to do a double wall and their space wasn't good.
Speaker 1:They didn't want to do that with that building? Yeah, so it was a single wall and we did everything we could to isolate the sound. It wasn't soundproof but it was good, it was good enough. We treated the room. Yeah, the room was treated pretty well though. Yeah, it definitely was. Let's, let's, uh, not with the mom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sorry, we swear all over the place. Yeah, we good.
Speaker 1:With your mom and dad, um, ben's, uh, musically, just in it, like all the way into jazz, and your dad playing the bass. Like when did it like really click for you? For as when you thought you, okay, I can record what you mean saying with your uncle, all right. So my dad, he did his thing, right, but I was hanging with my uncle and everybody else and my uncle was. He was like hey, go upstairs and have fun. He had cake walk. We had all the all the stock sounds and it's cake walk wasn't like making beats, like now.
Speaker 2:No, what we do, it definitely wasn't cake walk.
Speaker 1:When you got on cake walk, if you didn't know how to write music, you wasn't writing no music at all. So I could read music and I'm like, oh, I could put this here and create a chord. There's middle C. I'm taking all the stuff and I'm just building out whatever I can with the stock sounds. They had some crazy sounds, and then I figured out how to sample in sounds too, so I got some. I don't even know where these sounds came from. Oh, the sounds that I had came from the Windows computer.
Speaker 2:Sound folder. The sound folder. I would have found all the sounds.
Speaker 1:Well, it was hella, sounds in there Like it's crazy. So it got to a point where I was making beats with those and I played football at the same time. So when we were warming up for football, they playing my beats over the day the stadium warming up man, it's crazy man.
Speaker 1:So, but cake walk was where it started and it ended quick because cake walk I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it when I learned about Froot Loops. And the kicker was, I learned about Froot Loops and I had a PC right, but then I got a Mac. Froot Loops didn't work on it at all.
Speaker 1:So we're recently, like that's the crazy part, and that's what led me over to the Reason Game, and Reason has been the way. Reason is fire. And that's when I started respecting other dolls because, like me, I started with Magic Music Maker and then went to FL and I went to the Phantom X6. Oh, you went to the Phantom, you went totally out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when I came back from Iraq the first time, pretty much you grabbed the Phantom out there. Well, you know, I wish Put it in the colleagues box. Hey, listen, I wish I did. But the first deployment man I came back, that's a whole other story.
Speaker 2:She brought some gold.
Speaker 1:I came back with no money. Oh None. Oh Hurt to see one of my parents? Oh no, yeah. So I came back with nothing. So like six, seven months later I had got some money back and that's what I went and got. I got Phantom X6, man and I fell in love. Man, that's crazy. My brother had one.
Speaker 1:So I got a brother I got three brothers he had a Phantom and we made this. Like you know, I mean I don't know what I'm doing on that stuff, but I would go to his house and I would just play, he would just sample it in Right Phantom and the NPC, and like we made a couple of songs and I don't even know what happened to him. Man, that's when I was telling people like you had that sound card in the back, right, that card, man, I don't know how I used to be on that. I think it was maybe 256 megabytes or even might've been smaller. They had the zip drives. Yeah, the zip drives that you put in them. Man, it was crazy. But I mean, like that's when.
Speaker 2:I fell in love with it.
Speaker 1:They go look at this like they gon' be like man, these dudes, old man, they stay old. But yeah we. That got me going. When I started understanding the rolling, I was trying to find like something else. Then that's when I jumped to machine, when I when I got stationed here in Quantico O'Nan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and machine was crazy. It took a second for me to like jump over to machine because I never could get you. So my boy introduced me to the NPC at 04. We's in Cali. He lived in like uh, not Modesto barstow, california. Like in the desert. Bro in the trailer, like like off the fast and the furious Y'all it was crazy, him and his mom and stuff Shout out to my boy Castile man, but he had a dope, I think it was.
Speaker 1:it was a NPC, I don't even know what number. That drunk was Huge with a floppy disk. I'm like bro, like what you want to do with this old ass floppy disk? He said, bro, this is how I put my sounds in. Oh, so I was like you still got one, like you still got the sounds. Nah, I don't got the sounds. He, he might have them. That would be crazy to have, like the whole Phantom sounds. They probably in a crazy format, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause you know it's always, it's always it was like yeah, it was something that, something Right. It was not wave, no, it definitely wasn't a wave.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, man, um, that got me started and I was just like man, I can't get, I can't get with this. And then it's the little screen on the NPC. So I ended up getting a machine and the machine looked so user friendly to me she was crazy and had a bit. It did have a big old screen, yeah, and then homie got him. He got a machine and he let me like, play around and I was on a computer. I'm like it's the folder for all the sounds. I got reason. Let's just let me get the sounds. The sounds was crazy, the drums were ridiculous. Bro, them joints is crazy. Man, shout out to how they say it overseas is machina, but over here we say machine. But man, native instruments, man, they are crazy. Support this man. Native instruments, please. Send him Please. The the collectors edition. I did it all, man, because I'm definitely an advocate machine.
Speaker 2:I did I finally got the collectors edition. I finally got it which one?
Speaker 1:13 or 14. The newest one.
Speaker 2:I finally got it.
Speaker 1:I was waiting.
Speaker 2:The upgrade hit a low price during the Black.
Speaker 1:Friday I was like that's when I get my, that's when I get my plug-ins and everything.
Speaker 2:That's the only time you got to do it.
Speaker 1:It's either Black Friday, christmas or New Year, july. Oh, july, christmas in July, okay, and that's when. So what drives it is UAD, uad, does it Christmas in July. And then everybody else is like oh, they're selling plug-ins too. I want to sell my plug-ins. Yeah, so you know, now I'm coming up in a couple of weeks. Yeah, they always have some dope, like sales too. When you there, where is it? It's in Cali. It's in Cali, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I ain't going to go this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to be the first year.
Speaker 1:Like I'm going to be a Philly.
Speaker 2:You got to stay consistent with this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what you got to do and I'm going to be in Philly Saturday. Okay For a podcast with Wala.
Speaker 2:Right, right. You said you were going to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm going to be there. So it's like Shameless plug, I got a podcast too. Yeah, it's called I finally oh, no, it's called I. Figured out I'm grown. Oh, really, yeah. What is it about? It's about realizing and understanding what it's like to be an adult, who you are and the decisions that got you there. Like, the first episode is called big done purchases. We talk about. We talk about, like, the dumbest big purchases we made. Give me one. I gotta give you one. That's not in the episode. We went through a few of them. One of the big dumb purchases. I can't do it.
Speaker 2:I can't do it, i'ma give it away.
Speaker 1:But, like yo, it hasn't dropped yet. No, it hasn't dropped. So it's gonna drop this week actually. So it should drop on Saturday and that's gonna be the first episode. We're starting out straight audio and then we're gonna go over and over and then we're gonna build up the video. I'm actually proving to myself right now that I can do video and we're probably gonna get your editing.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, I mean I could have done that the whole time, right Like I got the cameras. But you know, I didn't want to go too far without being sure that this was gonna be something I want to do.
Speaker 2:So it's not on the top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's been times where we'll just be here chilling Right. We probably made one or two, three beats and we're just chopping it up, just chill yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'll tell you. So, coming off of that, I got Reason right and I was fooling over Reason and in high school I was a part of this thing called Gallery 37 in Chicago. Okay, what's that? It was an art program for the during the summer keep kids engaged and not bored and doing whatever else you're just gonna do when you're bored, and so so they didn't have summer programs. They did, but it wasn't free and Gallery 37, it was paying, like DCO.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so the paying you to do something, so during the summer I was a part of Latin band playing congas and drum set, and then that next winter time I got picked to do production on all the recordings they did during the summer. So we got to go to Chicago Recording Company record our songs and, like, we did six songs. Those were all recorded. They were published. I got to work with this guy named June Moon who was a producer for Janet Jackson and we worked at CRC Studios and we worked at Gallery 37 Studios to produce the album. So we went from start to finish producing an album during the school year, which was crazy. And that's when I realized like, oh, I like this. Yeah, that's what you want to do. And that's also how Reason tied back in, because Reason was actually like working at a studio, you got the patches, you got all this stuff, you got the board, like, whereas I was looking at Logic and it was just like I don't know, it's not exciting to me. Yeah, like.
Speaker 2:I like.
Speaker 1:Logic. Logic is great Pro.
Speaker 2:Tools.
Speaker 1:Pro Tools is Pro Tools.
Speaker 2:Pro Tools is Pro Tools. Pro Tools is Pro Tools.
Speaker 1:Right, like that is what it is, yeah, standard, you know. And then Garage Band was just like I would use it because it worked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was Logic Light. We call it Logic Light.
Speaker 1:Logic Light. So that took me all the way through high school and I was playing the beats at the thing, playing the beats everywhere, anywhere. I got a chance to play some beats Barbra Shaw, whatever, just playing them. Playing these beats, people probably hey, they was terrible. They were horrible beats, right, but to me they were like everything, everything. I made them with my hands. I made my old beats, man Bruh, my whole boy for my birthday. He printed out a CD of my old joints and brought it over here.
Speaker 1:Oh, man never playing this. Did you play it? I haven't played it yet. Okay, I'm playing. After we get done, we're going to see what it's like. Yeah, we got to check it out. And this from what?
Speaker 2:Because I bought it.
Speaker 1:I had to buy a CD player because I don't have a CD player.
Speaker 1:So my record player is like a five in one. It's a tape player, cd player, record player, bluetooth and then the radio. So yeah, I had one to this record shop in Silver Spring and took my daughter and I was like, oh snap, they got CDs. I was about to buy the Kiss of Death, jdkiss Drank. It was like six bucks. Oh wow, I was like man, I'm about to start collecting. So the CD player I bought over here is a Tascam A500. So the reason I bought it is because some of the CD players back in the day they used to have these the speed knob so I could play a tape and I could slow it down.
Speaker 2:I could do some weird stuff, right.
Speaker 1:Or not even just get that real sound of like. This is out of tune. Right, it's tune to A440, but like.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it feels better when it's flat.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it feels better when it's sharp.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But you can get that feeling. It's grimy too, because I got a bunch of tapes with my mom's voice on it doing vocals so I could sample that all day. I do it all the time. I guess a bunch of beats out there like you wouldn't even know she just on the track. Yeah, yeah, that's a. That's fire. Yeah, that's fire. But that took me to all the way through high school and then in high school, when I graduated it, I got my first Mac, macbook Pro. It was my Mac.
Speaker 1:The other Macs weren't my Mac, they were the house's Mac. But Macbook Pro and I got an interface from M-Audio, the Oxygen.
Speaker 2:I ain't no machine, that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two mic inputs. It was a piano and a drum machine.
Speaker 2:It was crazy, they stopped making that it was like oh, we have to sell this shit separately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oxygen, it was an Oxygen 25. And I had two M-Audio monitors, little BX5s, and I took that job to college with me, right, and the whole M-Audio setup. Yeah, that was my, that was my, my graduation gift from this guy named Mr Nunley. He was a teacher. Yeah, he used to hear me out playing in beats all the time. I don't even know how this worked. Yeah, like I don't know if my mom paid for it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I had to sell. Somehow you got something in college.
Speaker 1:And I was in college and I had a Samson CO1 microphone. That shit was horrible.
Speaker 2:But did you put the sock?
Speaker 1:on it? No, okay, but in the dorm room when you making money because everybody else want to record, don't nobody care because we don't know anyway. Yeah, we all testing it out, we got to study it in the dorm room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Everybody going to your spot Made some crazy songs. I can't even talk about them. I got homeboys and the VPs. Now I cannot talk about them songs at all, but trust me, they were crazy, but out there. So I went down to Alabama, to Tuskegee, for college and I got intertwined with everybody that was making music. Plus, I'm balling because I'm playing football. Yeah, no, that was my way to pay, right, like, got paid for college. Somehow, that was my way. I just do what the coach says they're going to give you scholarship. Right, right, like, execute, execute, execute, that's it. That's it.
Speaker 1:So one of my homeboys I started recording with some kid. He was a singer and he was a great singer. But you know, we had to work together to get the songs together. We would go to Atlanta, come back, go to Atlanta, come back all the time working with like some really dope folks, like there's a guy named Pat who's a, he's a manager, he was, he was the manager for Jack Harlow, uzi, all them folks work with them out there. And then my homeboy Jared, he used to take me up there to, to, to Camp Creek. We would work with the hustle. You know, we work with them folks. Yeah, uh oh.
Speaker 2:We just lost a life we getting down, hold up.
Speaker 1:I got a plug in.
Speaker 2:We getting down.
Speaker 1:I got a plug in here, hold on Hold on. Well, you got a plug, all right. Yeah, so my homeboy would take me up to Atlanta and we would go to mess with Grand Hustle folks. That's where I got to meet a shout out to God work with him, work with a Drow, Dramani, dramani, yeah, dramadro, um Wheezy.
Speaker 2:Um for Wheezy out here yeah.
Speaker 1:Wheezy out here Like we was exchanging sounds. That was cool Um Bryce GFL. I don't know if you know that guy. He's a New York desk tips nephew cause. I something like that yeah. Um, and we would just be working because they had a studio in the basement. We go up there, we work, work, work, work, work, but then we go. We went to Stankone studio working Stankone out.
Speaker 2:Okay, we were working. Where was that?
Speaker 1:Uh, um, what's the uh? Damn cause we was working with the boys that write, for they used to write for Rihanna. Uh, rock, rock city, rock city, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we working with them, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yo, they, they are some work horses. That was it. Uh, the artist factory, that's what it was, the artist factory out there, right? And then I had a homeboy. We got to do a song with two chain, um, by way of uh, of a homeboy. Uh, damn, everybody's names are slipping out of my head right now and it get like that. It get like that. But, uh, we got a bunch of producer homies out there, like it was crazy.
Speaker 1:But my homie, uh, man, he did duffel bag. Uh, he did the beat for duffel bag. Yeah, wayne, and two trains, yeah, he did that, play a circle, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, but that's not no, I'm saying play a circle, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, damn, I want to edit in the right name. Yeah, uh, we'll put it in. No, no, no, I don't want to look like I forgot his name. Yeah, on the pocket. No, no, no, no, absolutely not. Let me look it up. Let me look it up. Let me look it up Jesus Christ, cause I could call him right now Duffel bag. He produce, yeah, m16. Yes, there we go, jesus Christ. I could not get there. Yeah, so 16.
Speaker 1:So, okay, yeah. And then my homeboy M16, who produced, we got the two chain by way of him doing a song called Old School Chevy. It's crazy, old School Chevy, drop top. That shit was crazy. And 16 did the beat and I did some parts on it and I was cool. And then somehow I got connected with these guys up here in Virginia, cupid Williams and a homeboy that I had out of St Louis, now Alex Plutzer. We did the song with Walker Flocker, now Cheese. I did that with Cupid, where they sent me the beat. I added to the beat. I mixed the song. That shit's online. I don't get paid for it. Nah, how does that work? It was a mixtape, so I got paid to do the mixtape.
Speaker 2:Like now it's just streaming, it's streaming I don't know, it is what.
Speaker 1:It is what I'm gonna do. Right, it's just a little bit. You gonna hear.
Speaker 1:I think it's like you pay your dues here. Back then you pay your dues. But I think everybody knows like, nah, I need mines off top. I mean, look, I was having fun. I was in college. I had nobody representing me, it was just me. I was making beats and having fun and recording people. Shit was crazy. So how you end up this way after college.
Speaker 1:So I went to grad school, continued working, going back and forth to Atlanta doing all the stuff I'm doing. I actually got sent out to California where I went work with this artist named Lenny Milonans, where I started doing reggaeton. I was into it. I ain't shoot, y'all do reggaeton in California. I do reggaeton. I do anything. I will make any music. Just give me a week to study and listen and I'm gonna come back better than the people that make it. You hear that. Give me a week, that's all we need.
Speaker 1:We try to like immerse ourselves into the sound, so like, that's how. Like, even with me working with R&B artists, that's normally R&B, my thing. I love R&B. I'm from Detroit, you understand, but everybody just so used to me just making trap beats. I'm like no, I can make pop, I can make you know what I'm saying, but it's like me just submerging myself into that realm of that genre. You know what I mean. And then after that I make whatever, and that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:What I try to do is I listen to the mainstream and then I try to go find the underground. Is most never nobody listening to this part? They got 17 views. And I go listen to that, like all right, this is what the new people are doing. So if we're going to make it, we're going to listen to them, we're going to listen to the mainstream folks are doing and we're going to find the middle and sometimes, like, there's a couple of times where it's been like a fail. Right, I had to understand the swing of Brazil funk. Right, you know it's a poot. Yeah, it's not on like it's not on a four count. It's on a four count but there's a swing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a swing there. There's a swing on the first two beats and it's a different swing on the well. There's a swing on the first two counts of the four four, and then there's a different swing on the second one, so you have to go yeah.
Speaker 1:And like you hear Sango, like the producer Sango, he does some crazy work with that job. But like you got to understand to the point where, like I'll take the, take one of those beats, or take his beat now, line my own drums up next to it just to see what's going on, right, oh, this is like a whole nother. So I ain't the only one that does that. Like I literally will listen to Francis drill. Yeah, like the UK drill, I, yeah, I listen to it and then I make my version and then I put it together and see like cause you know like what am I missing?
Speaker 1:What am I missing? What's there? What's not there?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like, exactly, I've done some drills. I like I did. There was a podcast. I did the intro for the podcast. They wanted to drill type B and I'm like I ain't from the UK, oh the drill. All right, give me a week. Give me a week, I'll listen to it. I just dove in in first Spotify algorithm, all messed up.
Speaker 2:They like drill.
Speaker 1:Give him everything I'm listening to UK drill, uk drill, you're a France drill, yeah, drill from countries. I don't even like what language you speak, whatever it sounds.
Speaker 2:Don't even know what it is, but it's fine, right, it's fine.
Speaker 1:So and that's that's what I would do, and I got that, that premise, from one of my mentors. I got like three main mentors when it comes to the music that I do. One guy is Carlos pride. He's amazing Cushionist, amazing producer, amazing mix art, mix engineer. He worked in New York this stuff with to live quality, this stuff with a bunch of other artists, came back to Chicago. One of my mom's best friends and he's always been around, that's like like that's my guy. And then my cousin, david though he's got Grammys for mixing period. Just gonna let it leave it there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For every show yeah, I showed you. It's like you won't. He won't give talks because everybody will buy what he said talks about. I have to be on the YouTube channel. He's like, look, I would do it. But every time I do something like, yeah, but no, I will go to. I will go to Cali and you'll. It's crazy to see where he mixes, because it's not like some big, dumb studio, Right Like it's even more like it's strategically placed panels to make sure that his sound is correct, and amazing speakers.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I went out there I heard the Westlake speakers that had like all the accolades and everything.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And like I'm listening to those, I'm like, yeah, people are in the room. Yeah, like it was crazy, like that. Then he switched over to the PMC's. He's the one that told me I should. He's the one that put me on the Cali audio. Yeah, cali, she was like Cali audio.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nate, nate, he's a great guy.
Speaker 2:Please Nate just just holla at Nate Nate's a great guy Nate is an amazing owner of Cali audio.
Speaker 1:Like he is an amazing guy. He's come up with crazy products. See, we got him in the background, Yep.
Speaker 2:These are the I&M phones.
Speaker 1:These are the I&M 8s. They're the 8s and they sound amazing paired with the sub. They got some new subs out, but their WS12 is crazy. I owe you a video, yep, but that sub hits hard, it's crazy. So, but yeah, so the three mentors, that's how I got. Yeah, your cousin Carlos, actually it's two mentors, two, okay, and then, well, technically it's three, but he didn't come along to a lot later. Okay, that's Kenny Gamble. Okay, that was like a lot later. All right, because I was like towards the end of my Philly time. So then I got up here to Philly because of the grad school program I was there.
Speaker 1:I want to make some money. You make more money in Philly than you would in California, because that cost living Now, in hindsight, should have stayed my ass in California. It would have added up, cause, like, I also have homies that are out there doing crazy stuff. My boy killer B Brian, he's out there killing it, like, and I'm so excited for him Every, every freaking, every freaking week is like, damn, you did that. He's like, come out here and party man, let's go. I'm like I'll be there soon as I can get away from me. Crazy kid, I can't get away from my crazy. Can't get away from him I love.
Speaker 2:Can't get away from him All right man, so I'll be out there, that's that's all right.
Speaker 1:So you, you can't. In Philly, yeah, and Philly, I got to work with amazing people, man, the list is like too long. Like everybody that I got to work with, um the God, there were two people that like pushed me into everybody, two people that like brought me in. And then there was one other person that was like cosine. That got me working with everybody. The first person was um, it's got to be more care. Um, he's homies with a. What's the boy? Oh man, what's the rapper from Tennessee? Yo, god, he got it. There you go.
Speaker 1:So I will be all over the place with Kev to do stuff with your God in him, but I never got to produce for your God, yeah, never got to do that, unfortunately, but Kev believed in my music and he would bring me around, we would go everywhere. And then we met this guy named Rick Avon who knew everybody, just like everybody just knew him all. And, um, he linked me up with, uh, just just a female rapper named Lee Mazin, and that was my hope. That is my homie, like fire too. Yeah, crazy, like like most, like y'all. Just got to go listen to her man, she is amazing and she's rapping again, like she's back on it now too. Like she's like hey, I'm back in, so I sent her. I sent her a pack like a couple of weeks ago right here, have fun. Yeah, she's not afraid of beats. Like you know, there's a lot of artists that they just want the normal shit. They want what, what they want with everybody else, god, she's not afraid of real beats, right, like stuff, that's like game changer type stuff.
Speaker 2:So I sent her a crazy.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about that, like, like, when you, when you working with artists and they're they're looking for this one sound, ie the industry sound, instead of going out and creating your own sound, I normally just give it to them, you know. But what I'll do is I'll merge some of the my own stuff and make it lean closer to me than the industry standard, because the industry standard is already being done. So, right, like you're going to do that, then I'll just listen to this person.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So, but Lee got me around a bunch of folks. I got to work with a bunch of people out in in. Uh, it was a damn. I can't remember it Definitely work with a lot of people A whole lot of people and then I got to open this studio down in South Philly, my homie Max. We open Sound Butter and.
Speaker 1:Agile kicked the door wide open freeway in the studio. All kind of people in the studio oh, this is great. And the only thing that killed that John was the building got sold and they sold that drink.
Speaker 2:We're in the building.
Speaker 1:They like yeah, y'all got to go, like, but we successful and we paying, we don't. We didn't have no problem. We had zero problems, Right, like we didn't have no fights, we didn't have any issues like that. It was always on time, it was cheap as hell, like, and we were right across from the big theater. Um, can't remember what it was, but we're on South Street across from big theater, so people we would go over there while they have performances drop off the floor Like, hey, I want to go record, come on over. So we would have anybody that was touring.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's um till a Okay. So, or I don't know if it's called till a late more, but yeah, my nation, my nation, I was it out, okay, yeah. So and that studio is what got me to meet, idea who? Uh, it happened to be Kenny Gable's daughter and I didn't know that at the time. I'm just like, oh, we're going to make music. She's cool, she's got a wild like ideas and shit. Like we did her whole album. Find out, oh, wow, your dad wrote everybody's songs. Sheesh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:So I got to work with team retro, which was really cool. Uh, they were some young kids that, um, they were doing like pop and that was right. When, um, like the pop was doing this thing. But that whole trap sound, the dip low type of sound, was popping and I really dove into that. Like I dove in. This is cool, I like this. Like crazy sounds, crazy bass, no samples, having fun, all my music. So I dished that out. I had a bunch of songs. I did that, the grapefruit song, all of that stuff was out there and it's just going viral, going crazy. My homeboy, dj Damage, he was doing songs. We did the Rihanna remix of Diamonds because I didn't like Diamonds. I was like Rihanna that song is cool, but you got that vibe. It was that 2012 type of vibe, so I did the remix. We put it online. It got 500,000 plays. Universal was like nope.
Speaker 2:Demolitized, that's crazy man Demolitized.
Speaker 1:Then we did the Rolls All in my Neck and there were two versions. Ours was the one that was viral, but the video was the one that was on Worldstar, so those dudes was beefing with us in the comments. I'm like I don't care about y'all.
Speaker 2:That.
Speaker 1:Rolls All in my Neck. That Trinidad James yeah, but we did the Fatboy version, yeah. So that was me Right. So, and then I randomly go viral all the time. I don't even know why I've been blessed. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's just notoriety. The Google Doodle song that was just me having fun, like I had seen. They did the little Les Paul Google Doodle. When I started playing with it I was like I can record this, made a beat, caught my homies at Auburn. They came play guitars.
Speaker 1:We shoot a shot of music video on some stupid little handheld camera, put it online. Next thing I know Mashable's got it up and then my homeboy sent it to Mashable. They put it up. Google reposted it on their Twitter and then like, just went crazy.
Speaker 1:Now, with that man, how does it work? Not even how does it work? Just how do you just dive in into the creative space that you get into songwriting and producing? You doing it all. I mean even the setup. Now you got cameras, you got everything. How did you grasp all of that? Everything was on accident. I got cameras, I don't even know. So I had a T7i or something like that and I just shot a video. Talking about reason, I was like this is really great, this is what I'm doing. And I just was like I'm going to start a YouTube channel. And then my homie that owned the dealership was like hey, can you shoot videos for us? I'm like, all right, no problem, so they're paying me to shoot videos for them and then I can use my music in the videos and they're paying to put these videos out there everywhere. So I'm my own sink. I'm sinking myself Every single time and I mean you can't wish for a better situation than that. That was really cool and that went on for like four or five years.
Speaker 1:Three years, sorry, three years. It went on for three years, so 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2020. So five years? Yeah, 2020, yeah, four years. I can't count today, guys. But yeah, man, the creative space is just. I just go and do whatever comes to my mind, like I don't like. Some people start with drums, some people start with canals, some people start melodies. I just, sometimes I just go click through sounds to some inspires me.
Speaker 1:And then when I did have that lull, that's when I developed hiccups. Yeah, if y'all don't know about hiccups, this is the guy. So if y'all seen me look like I was shooting dice in the studios, it was the hiccups, yeah, that he created. I was like I looked at, I took, took some time and I was like how can I inspire or give myself inspiration, and I'm almost noticed and it always work out. So I looked at the billboard charts and I was like, all right, I could throw dice and get something random. Right, if I look at the billboard charts and I pull the top six tempos that repeatedly come up, I can use those tempos on a dime and I can say oh, I'll use that tempo.
Speaker 1:Then I'm like, well then, let me have a, let me have a cube that tells me what genre to do. So I put my, put the drawings that I do on there. I think it was hip hop, soul, something else, reggae, whatever. Yeah, then I was like, all right, well, I need another cube that tells me like the keys or like what I want to do. Do I want it to be a happy song or a soft song, mad song, yeah. So that's how that came. And then the other cube was just, and then it was a set of three and I'm like I'm gonna have three dice, I need a fourth dice and we just called it the groove groove cube and it was just like random stuff, like trap, oh, that on there or this on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, trap, got what else you got? Yeah, here they go, here they go. This is, this is the original set, no colors Sample yeah, right, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, reggae fourth halftime three, four, four, six, eight, which is me finding out that a lot of the R&B is in three, four and I didn't know a ballot like throwing it's crazy hip hop, pop, trap, EDM, house R&B Like that was my first dive into like an actual product, like a hard product that somebody could touch Anthem, gloomy, hype, chill, happy, soulful. The only thing that needs to change on these right now is the tempo. Yeah, like the tempo is, I think they're kind of out now. You got a hundred on there.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, do you have a hundred?
Speaker 1:Actually no, I got 150, 130, 86, 100, 120, 72.
Speaker 2:Pretty much the rounds. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. Pretty much the rounds.
Speaker 1:But now 167 is like where people are at with the whole Jersey Bound stuff. So, man, it's debatable. For Detroit beats, I do it in a hundred, but a lot of them do it in like 180 or 200. Right, you can always just step it down, yeah, right. So, and that's because I was, I had done. I've had so many beats Like I listened to Lamont Gray's thing where he'd be like how many beats you got on your hard drive? How many beats are released, like every beat on my hard drive. Man, shout out to Lamont Gray's too. Yeah, I want to take his class. I told you that I did the the sink. Was it the sink one? Yeah, yeah, I did the sink one. How was it? It was fire man. It's dope man. I'm going to do the one about the instrumentals. Yeah, that's the one I'm interested in. I'm a little bit worried, though, because of how Spotify switched up everything. So yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I look at it like Spotify just won. Yeah, that's just one, that's just one, but um.
Speaker 1:But when one falls, it was crazy because Curtis King had a YouTube video that came out the other day with this Jamaican boy who was like no, y'all don't get it. It's not that you got to get a thousand plays. They gave you a minimum sale, like a minimum sales target, like you have to sell this much before I even pay you Really, like you work for you, work for Spotify, basically. But it's crazy, man, because a lot of those labels, man.
Speaker 1:They got equity into that. You know what I'm saying. So it's like that's why they're not making money because 70% of the money goes to the label and I look at it like it's all like a Ponzi scheme man. It's like a scam because if I'm with Steve Stout, united Masters right, you would tunecore somebody else with DistroKid. Just think about how many people paying that yearly subscription.
Speaker 2:They're paying to be up there anyway, right? You know what I'm saying, just to put your music out.
Speaker 1:The only people that used to keep it up forever was like CD Baby, right, remember CD Baby?
Speaker 1:you could pay $35 and then keep it up forever, yeah. And DistroKid, I think theirs is like $80 or something like that. Yeah, it's crazy. And then another thing if you me and you I meant well, united Masters you would tunecore whoever In order for me to start collecting my distribution that you make. I got to sign up with them to get that. You know what I'm saying. Like I'm with United Masters, I don't know how many times I had to like Well, that's to get it automated. Otherwise you got to trust somebody to pull the numbers.
Speaker 2:Which.
Speaker 1:I think it's better that they do it automated now, because, like, I don't have to ask you how much did you make off the song? Because there was one guy I did this song with and he was cool man, cool guy but like he wanted to be, he didn't want to buy it and he didn't want to give me any, any like percentage on it.
Speaker 1:The kicker was, the beat was a sample of somebody very, very, very famous, so I ain't fighting it, because if it, if it took off, I probably would owe somebody some. That's why I don't mess with samples too much. Or you can use track lip yeah, this was before track. Yeah, yeah, shout out to track, shout out to track. We shout out to everybody, everybody.
Speaker 2:Everybody man. Glenn Leavitt, we drink you.
Speaker 1:We drinking you man Come on now we need some sponsorships. Yeah, it's 2024, man Right, but yeah. So that's what brought me to Philly, and Philly was great. I had a such a good time up there. Move down here during COVID and that's when shit slowed down, because COVID, a lot of people got a chance to like dig in, but I had a one year old. I had a zero year old. Yeah, she wasn't even one.
Speaker 1:My first kid was born January 4th, covid, right before they announced it, right before he hit yeah, because it happened the fall, the winter prior, like Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they knew about it in 19.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because Esquire got sick at the studio, oh shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the whole studio got sick and they had shut that joint down like November, october, november, and we didn't know what it was. Oh, wow, you know what I'm saying. January, february, march came, yeah, march shut everything down and it was like, oh, that's it. I was still doing stuff for the dealership, right, it was like we work it, we're going to deliver these cars, yeah, but yeah, that kind of messed up a lot of stuff, so, yeah, so coming off the COVID, you had a brand new baby. How does it work for you? And having like work life? Now it doesn't, it don't, it's hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I want to be a great dad. So Sometimes I have to choose like, am I gonna go take this gig, Am I gonna go fly out here, Am I gonna go do this photo shoot or am I gonna play with my kid, Right? But then it always turns out to be like, all right, I gotta go do this Because I mean, I've always been blessed to not have to be struggling, right, Right, Like that's been a blessing my whole life. In fact, because of how I grew up with my mom and gigging and everything, I realized like I'm not about to go major in music.
Speaker 1:No, I'm gonna be an engineer, have a paycheck budget my life, so I'm good. So not saying that I didn't want to hustle, but like that was the hustle, because now I have time and now I have funds to do what I want to do. And you got a dope partner Right, your wife that holds it down, yeah. So, and like I can't do nothing without her.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So it's not like a work, like balance, it's just I work when everybody's asleep. Yeah, Because I definitely come over here every time at night. I don't think I've been over in the daytime.
Speaker 1:The daytime I'm not doing nothing the daytime is all working, you know, and like I'll meet clients on the weekends, you know, in the daytime, and I'll get what they want to get done, or we'll make the plan and then we'll go finish it. Right, I'm not like, I'm not going to neglect my little people. Yeah, because they deserve the best and it gives me everything. Man, they are the future and I can't wait till daycare. I don't have to pay for that. No more man. Shout out to Nightmare Daycare. No more. Daycare is crazy man. That's crazy man, but so. But YouTube is popping and, as you can see, that birthday song is going crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't even know, I did it.
Speaker 1:Right, that's the funny part, my friends like, wait, that's your name, ben Ford, on the track, yeah, bro, it's your birthday. It's your birthday that's me. That's my home girl and me and we've done a bunch of songs together. But she hit me up like, hey, I want to make this song full out. I'm like, deal, let's do it. And that's all the numbers. Yeah, that's right, so did you hear the remix I did.
Speaker 1:Now you sent me the I think the original that you sent me, I think on Google Drive, which everyone you sent me on Google Drive no, we did the remix. I'm probably going to ask to like put it up again, because I think with the right push we can make it go even further.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The DJs love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was like a mind blown, like this birthday song, like why are we just making birthday songs?
Speaker 2:Right, and that's what made me start thinking too?
Speaker 1:I went to school, so the guy that, jeremy Felton, what's his?
Speaker 2:name.
Speaker 1:Jeremy Right. So, jeremy Felton, he went to my high school and I remember when he made that birthday sex song, yeah Right, he came over to the crib. He was in the basement listening to the beats, right, and my mom was like you made that birthday sex song. She was a teacher. She and the kids were like going crazy at her school and she's like I'm like mom, chill bro, like yo, it's a great song, it's on the radio. He tried to look out. A bunch of times, man, we tried to work out, work on some stuff. Yeah, man, I mean, the relationships that you build, man, it's always going to be, it's endless, especially when you're a good person. And that's the thing. Ever since I've known you, you've been an adult supporter, a helper. You know what I'm saying and it's like anything. I say hey, bro, what you think about this, come over, let's figure it out.
Speaker 1:By the way, shameless plug for him. The PTSD pack is crazy. Yeah, I just did this beat on Instagram where I sampled a Crimean River and the only sounds I used were the PTSD. I appreciate that. Yeah, ptsd is out right now. If you don't have it, hit me.
Speaker 2:That's a funny statement.
Speaker 1:PTSD is out Post Traumatic Street Drums Right Cause they come like PTSD Post Traumatic Street.
Speaker 2:Drums yeah.
Speaker 1:Post Traumatic Street Drums, volume two, and I got volume one. Volume two I really like dove in and was trying to create sounds. Now you could just splice these together. You could splice this video with the beat yeah, yep, you're gonna do that. You're welcome, definitely. Thank you, yeah. But yeah, man, like the relationships, man, I always, always felt like the money gonna come. Yeah, I ain't worried about that, you just gotta work, man. This consistency is what it is my consistency is key.
Speaker 1:I watched a couple of friends of mine on YouTube go from like 10,000 followers to like 500,000 followers. Andrew Masters, really yeah, that's a cool guy, I talked to him on the phone for hours, literally hours, and he stayed consistent. See where he's at Yep Right, and you see me. Look this episode 11, most people don't even make it to 10. So good job man, and it's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's fun. You know what I'm saying. I was just like talking about whatever. It's just us chicken shit, like. You know what I mean? Talking about whatever, how we came up things of that nature, and the best part is it's always at the end, because it's always about the gym class. She eatin' them. Like what gyms can you give a person?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I'm saying Consistency, consistency. Look at that.
Speaker 1:Like quick gym class just popped in. That's it, consistency. Like you make your oh here's one. Never play a beat for somebody that's not finished. Facts or mixed Mixed is debatable. Debatable, right, because if it's on your speakers it still might sound good, still gonna be cranking, but like if you're not finished with it, don't play it. Let's say you're a producer, homer being played, but like clients, never play an unfinished beat. Yeah, ever you hear that Play that unfinished beat. Oh, I was making this.
Speaker 2:Nah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't wanna hear it, don't do it. They sound that's finished. And then you know nobody's gonna believe in you if you don't believe in yourself. And I was one of the things me and my homeboy Jared, like we kind of figured this out, like we're in the studio and we playing beats, we got to get hype on our beats, no matter what they are, because the room ain't gonna get hype unless we're going to Yup.
Speaker 1:I learned that in beat battles. I can be sitting back all cool and trying to be, but if you're not in your own beat, the crowd ain't gonna be in it either. The only person that needs to believe in your beat is you, and when you show the expression of how you believe in your beat and it's genuine, it will be infectious to the room. Yup, because people gonna pick up that.
Speaker 2:But yeah man.
Speaker 1:Those are the real gems, those that first one to never play stuff that came from Carlos, that came from him direct. Never play that Right Like you want to make sure that people are hearing you at your best Right. But finish beat. Even if it's not your best beat, it's still a great beat, still a great beat. That's why I don't have throwaways. I have throwaways. I delete them, I don't even delete them oh throwaways Like I'll just delete.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I delete bad beats though. I delete, but I'll be like in the middle of it. This sucks so like if I like something in it, I keep it, I keep it, and then I go back and get retuned or whatever later on down the road. But because I don't know how many times I lost so many beats, man from switching from HP to Mac to hard drive.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing.
Speaker 1:That's a gem for you right there Back up everything back. So I got like my beats are backed up on wine Google drives, hard drives. They on my laptop Because I'm not losing no beats. I'm not losing them. I'm not losing no sounds I pay that extra money for that, I clob and then like I don't trust that, yeah, I got Google drive, so I got three Laces. Right, that's what I'm about to say. I got a four terabyte system down here where.
Speaker 1:I'm just saving everything. My laptop is backed up to it, to one hard drive. I got another hard drive that's rated. I got another hard drive that's backed up to another one. I got a time machine hard drive Because I've lost music in the past, and not even like whole music. It was one time when, like Reason was corrupting a lot of the files on accident and some of those I was never able to get back. Most of them I was able to get back, but like that one time there was a couple of them that were like crazy beats and it was just like they gone.
Speaker 1:Right and some can't get them back, and if you can't play them back, you ain't gonna remember. You can't remember you got so many Because you make so many. Yeah, so yeah. Those are my gyms. We're like that man. Ladies and gentlemen to the left of me, this is Ben Ford. It's my homie. Producer Ben Ford everywhere. Online Producer Ben Ford, Dotcom all of that, All social media platforms. It's the guy you need to get in contact with If you need anything Cameras, visuals, sounds.
Speaker 2:Or just media.
Speaker 1:Media. Yeah, he's the media guy. You know what I mean. Hit him up. But again, man, I appreciate you, bro, for letting me come in your spot In your crib and we shoot this.
Speaker 2:And we made it to the end of the batteries too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we made it, we made it, we made it. He's like how long is it gonna be? We made it. I see it Isn't that a little red joint? Yeah, they both are flashing. Yeah, man, and like that, we gone Peace. Oh, new merch out, go get it, go get the merch, go get the merch, go get the merch. Let's just work more the money. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.