ANGELZ isn't quite a new name to the G House sound, but he's really about to turn the volume up a notch the closer we get to 2016. With his debut LP on the way, we couldn't be more excited to hear some more original music by the dude. I had a minute to ask him some questions recently, check out our convo & get ready to see this dude blow up soon enough.
Your background is in Hip Hop. How did your career get started? And how has your background influenced your current sound?
Hip hop culture raised me from a young age. I started making beats when I was 11. Three years later, I was part of an extremely dope producing crew on the Star Trak forums and had built different relationships with super talented unsigned rappers over MySpace. Most of these rappers got signed to major labels and at 15, I signed with Def Jam as a producer and arranger.
What stuck with me the most from my days producing hip hop is how I approach songwriting. I like my music as raw as possible with a strong focus on the basslines, vocals , and drums. I also firmly believe in having your own aesthetic and sonically signing your work. This is the biggest lesson hip hop taught me : style is everything.
Samples are your specialty. Explain your process and production methods.
If one day AI’s learn how to make full songs using strange composition algorithms , true samplers still won’t have to go flip burgers. Sampling lets you manipulate a piece of history into practically anything. What you choose to sample , for how long and what you do with it , will always be completely human , imperfect and unique.
My process is simple, I either sample songs that I’ve listened to a thousand times or something new that I’ve just stumbled upon. Nowadays, you can just go on YouTube and rip tracks from there but I like going to used record shops and cop a bunch of old & rare stuff without listening to it, then go through it with my Headphones on at home until I find something crazy.
Sometimes the part I wanna flip is laid out just like that but I much prefer chopping it into a hundred pieces. Then I listen to each chops and try to turn them into something completely new.
One of my new thing lately is sampling myself, I’ll write strange musical pieces using instruments I never use then run them through tape saturators or mix them like it would be mixed on an older record, then I bounce it , destroy it some more and then chop up.
What’s your next project?
I’m currently sitting on an LP’s worth of finished songs so getting these out is at the top of the list.
Where do you see yourself next year?
In the studio making better music than the day before.
What famous artist living or dead would be your dream collaboration?
Lock Pharrell Williams and me up in a studio for one week and history will be made. I don’t see age slowing him down so this is a goal more than a dream. If we’re talking impossible, I’d dig some crates with J Dilla and ask him to teach me a trick or two.
