Syd on Performing, Singing and Going Solo | Red Bull Music Academy

[Music] [Applause] we on yes before we begin could I ask everybody to please tiny phones off and please don't take any photos or film anything while we're going so hi welcome to this special RBM a lecture in London my name is Chow ravines and I'm excited to be here as part of Red Bull Music Academy paths unknown which is this weekend's series of events lectures and workshops all about exploring what happens when artists step beyond their creative comfort zone and how that can push their out forward so with that in mind I'd like to introduce a producer DJ singer and serial collaborator Sid thanks for coming guys appreciate it we're going to be talking about various things working with odd future your production process in the studio stuff like that but I thought we'd begin by talking a bit about live performance obviously so one of the themes this weekend is collaboration you've collaborated with many many people Janelle Monae as I assured all of our future who else vic mensa there are so many yeah yeah no but you had said that you didn't really you hadn't really imagined touring your solo album as a solo artist but actually you just finished the American leg of your solo tour so what happened there why did you decide to go out on your own um good question one just to give the album another push to I guess to see what it would be like and three to make some money yeah I'm how was the experience compared to how you might thought it would be better it was better than I thought it would be I was scared to do it because I didn't know what like a cyd show it look like I'm so used to performing with the Internet and the reason I had the reason we have a band in the first place is because I was too nervous in the beginning to sing over like a two-track just a DJ so I was like let's get a band take some of the attention away from me and it it turned into what it is now and I was a little confused on what to do with the solo sitch like do I get another band do I get a DJ like what do I do it took a little while but I figured it out and here we are and what did you what did you learn about yourself as a performer because it must have been different when you know that you're the sole focus of attention I learned that I have more potential than I thought I did as a performer that I can step out of my comfort zone if I really want to if I really try and that is not so bad singing on top of like a two-track no is it true that as part of developing an onstage persona for yourself that you studied the D'Angelo video for untitled which I'm sure we all know the video oh no no I didn't study that music video I I used to watch D'Angelo concerts on YouTube here's like two or three like full-length concerts on YouTube one from like South Paulo Brazil at a festival and that was the mainland I used to study that one study his stage presence and his voice just the whole energy because he's one of my favorite performers what it's exactly that he does that you've tried to absorb he's able to like bring so much energy to a soul show you know like a lot of the soul type R&B concerts you go to it's very mellow and people forget that I started out as a DJ for Odd Future you know going crazy so when I started performing with the internet it was really intimidating being in front of calmer crowds you know what I mean I took it at first I took it the wrong way like maybe we suck because they're not going crazy and then I had to reprogram my thinking and realized that every crowd is different and so I used to watch D'Angelo because I don't know if you guys have ever looked up D'Angelo live on YouTube but he's gone crazy I think he's on stage gone hand like turning up he'll turn a three-minute song into a 10 minute like that and I just thought that was just amazing like how did is he still singing brown-sugar down so I just studied that like how to turn this one song into this whole experience and how to bring energy to our be so music live so let's talk about the recent album Finn your solo album and to explore this idea of collaboration one of the themes why was it important for you to allow yourself to be working with lots of other producers this time like what was the what was the reason to be opening yourself up to that rather than just saying here's here's a solo said record just me to be honest I did a lot of those sessions with the intention of giving those songs away to other artists because I really want to be a songwriter at the time like I didn't really want to put out a solo album like that I wanted to write songs for all these other artists out there because I don't know deep in the back of my the back of my brain I'm still a behind-the-scenes person is there a sense of you thinking that you're right for the people in order to downplay how big a deal it is to go solo definitely that's what it turned into you know and it's funny cuz like my my ANR was the one who booked me all these sessions and I'm like oh stuff I can't get to work with hit-boy you feel me I'm gonna get his song to so and so and I hadn't even signed my record deal yet my solo deal but the NRS Sony was already putting me in with all these amazing producers so me I'm like okay I'm gonna use this to my advantage and and and give these songs to shop these songs around I have a publishing deal like let me send these to my publisher and see what happens and then slowly but surely I I guess I grew attached to the songs and it turned into Finn know what kind of artist did you imagine singing those songs or hope I mean I don't know I didn't really think about that when I was writing them I wanted to write songs that I would be comfortable with putting out myself you know songs that I genuinely wouldn't want to sing myself because I feel like that's the best way to write and produce for other artists is to give them something that you truly think is fire you know what I mean like give them some of you that's what I love so much about Pharrell and like the timberlands and the dark child's is that when they were working with an artist they're not trying to give that artist what they already have they're trying to give them something new something fresh something that's theirs you know so when he starts inviting those songs they were they were still your songs you didn't imagine somebody else taking them over they were your lyrics your stories definitely my stories and my lyrics and I in my head I was like you know let me play these for some folks and see see you might want them I also came to realize that I have a pretty specific voice and that not everybody can sing my songs and I also have a pretty specific subject matter so unless I'm writing for like a man with a really high voice with a high-pitched voice you know it just became a hassle trying to like trying to pitch the song so I was like you know it nobody's gonna understand this the way I do unless they hear me sing it so how much of it had you how much work had you done before you realized oh it's it's a it's a sad album and then once you thought that was a much work left did that change how you were working on it um I probably didn't realize it until I had I'd say like maybe eight songs I still had them in a folder with a bunch of other beats that I made a long time ago and songs that I've written a long time ago just to to see see what I had and then I realized I had like a whole body of work and I was like oh snaps I have a album right here that's crazy and thankfully at the time I was in a good position to negotiate a nice deal with Sony for one album and that album was already finished so it was good business [Laughter] how how do you write best you have to start with an idea alone and build it up quite away or do you look to a collaborator quite quickly so get more feedback and I these days I just freestyles something I'll uh I'll just sing some melodies over something and I like to I like to start with the beat I'm a producer still so I make the beavers get the beat first start singing some stuff and then I try to just let words kind of come out I might be mumbling something and see what does that sound like because I'm all about consonants and syllables and stuff like that like I like to write like it's a puzzle so rather than really thinking okay I want to write a song about heartbreak like I'll just freestyle something and whatever whatever comes out you know it could be a have a good time or something like that okay what what can i what can I turn this into hmm now just spiral off of that it's like a snowball effect what do you mean by a puzzle well typically all I'll sing a melody say nowadays I'll just I don't I don't even start singing anything until the the mic is on and recording because my first ideas are usually my best ones and so I'll just press record I'll freestyle like a whole three minutes or a minute and a half of something and be like okay that's the verse melody right there and that's the chorus melody so what words would fit you know like you can get kind of creative with subject matter and you can you can write songs that aren't even about you because why not it's fun so yeah I'm all about consonants and making the syllables fit making sure it sounds natural and not forced just to get the message across so do you usually have quite a complete idea by the time you have a collaborator and you're showing them what you've been working on well I collaborate more with producers nowadays then songwriters on egodeath I collaborated with a bunch of songwriters I was having trouble finishing a lot of the songs like special affair like I had the first three lines for like three months if any of it dies I read too many of em behind what was in your phone let me take you huh I didn't know what to say after that I was stuck for months and eventually I was like you know what I mean let me bring in some songwriters to help so I brought in this girl named Taylor parts she just opened for me in Texas and she's an amazing songwriter so she came in I sang her what I had so far she was like that's dope I was like oh that's dope okay let's get it and snowball effect do you have sort of tactics that you geez if you get stuck in the studio you know like there's the famous oblique strategies cards where you pull like a wild idea to give you a new direction but do you have any way of kind of getting through a difficult moment in the studio where you feel stuck I take breaks I'll take a break smoke you know it's a classic the the best thing I think to do is just not to force it I don't really I don't really like fortunate because then it feels like work and then I hate it and then now I'll step away and if I'm stuck for a really long time I'll just call a friend hey can you help me finish writing this song cuz I'm stuck you know it's one of those things to that like some I used to feel like like I wasn't a good songwriter when I couldn't finish the song by myself and I had to get over that because then you'll never finish the song like you know 50% of something is better than 0% 100% of nothing so I just also study in James Fauntleroy I learned that it's okay to write a bad song you know just write a new one the next day and hope that it's better you know but you got to finish the song so sometimes if I'm stuck oh I'll go it's something that I'm not in love with I'll just record it just just as a placeholder sometimes it grows on you sometimes that idea will grow on you sometimes you know it'll morph into something else so yeah when you've you've worked just so many different artists what might be a similar threads that connects them or what is it that you're looking for in a collaborator that makes somebody good to collaborate with if I'm a fan I could you know it's that simple I only really want to work with people that I'm fans of that's never been a time where you're collaborating with someone and you're a fan of their work but actually it's just not working in the studio and you can't get any joy yeah I mean yeah yeah probably I don't know yeah it's a it's a scary feeling it's a big reason that I don't really like reach out to my idols to work like I'm the other night somebody asked me like if I had ever worked with Erykah Badu and I was like no they were like why and I was like I mean she's she's just one of my idols and I'd be scared that it wouldn't come out how I dreamed you know I'd rather just and also I like having stuff to look forward to we're gonna play track we're gonna play shake him off from the new album cool kids you just introduced us and tell me who you worked with on this track shake em off was produced by hit-boy he's an amazing producer he's still working on fruity loops which i think is amazing and not like the MacBook version of fruity loops like he has a MacBook and then he has a PC over here and he'll just go over here and start making a beat I walked in the studio and he was playing these chords and I was like yeah yeah right there yup that's it that's it's done it was really easy so that track produced co-producer that's hip way no he did it himself himself yeah full head boy production um who obviously has a history of making hits what was it like working with the producer he's had such like huge commercial success and did it change how you heard your own music it's all um I was really excited to work with him I got the text from my ear and I like hey would you be down to work with hit boy and I was like the when and he's super nights like super nice dude went to his studio and he like I said just started playing those chords and I was like done and he did some cool with the drum like where he basically like half time the drums and then that turned that into the intro and I was like okay though it was really cool watching him make the beat and also really cool like watching him actually play keys like he's you can play keys and also cool like cuz that's not a typical 2017 beat you know what I mean like it's that that track for me kind of felt a little timeless like oh wow you like you couldn't really put a date on this this track and I like stuff like that so I was really happy to work with somebody with a bunch of commercial success who wasn't trying to make me anything commercial and did you think your writing potentially for somebody else at that point yeah I definitely was was writing and honestly it made the process a lot easier like not not thinking about okay this is for my album this is okay I need it to be like this like I was like let me just write a song it could be for anything for anybody so it was interesting actually going in with all these producers cuz they're like so so what's good you working on the album I was like nah just writing songs and it turned into a noun it's interesting could you pick another producer off the album he worked with where he had a really quite may be quite different experience I don't know for the most part they were all similar experiences I worked actually with one a hit boys production partners his name is Hayes and he produced got her on and also over and but we did those in two different days I think we did we did got her on first I went in there I was like oh this will be tight for post Malone you know whatever and then I went in there the next time his engineer wasn't there the second time so I recorded myself at his desk and it was just very smooth like he he played me some beats I was like that one and he went to the back of the room and just was like this and I just took over and and it came together which is so similar but different where I didn't watch him make the beat but I kind of like that like play me some you know if I if I don't like anything then let's make something new and otherwise like I'm gonna just pick one of your one of your stash ones um what about working with Nick green who oversee comes from a well he's a singer what's it like to work with another singer is it competitive well nice he's one of my writing partners actually so he wrote what breakdown what that means in terms of working with the producer working with a writer well it's interesting because he he started producing like a couple years ago and before that like he had co-written a lot of egodeath with me the first song we wrote together was don't you I I actually was a fan of his I was living with a friend named Aaliyah and she came home one day and was like yo I just went to this sick guys show this band called Nikki Davie you got to go to the next one so she took me to the next one and I was just blown away this is before feel good and everything I was just blown away he was he was the lead singer and his voice was just so fire he got all these tattoos I'm like you know he's like a teddy Justin Timberlake your son it's crazy and his songs are so fire so I was just a fan and I remember after the show I saw I saw him outside and I said Amen big fan we got to work and he didn't know who I was at the time so he was just like okay cool whatever and then eventually I think I don't know how I got his info but I invited him to my studio we wrote don't you and I just remember thinking like damn this is the one this is this is the single for feel good okay cool damn this is dope all right dope so then when ego def came around I was like look let's let's just keep it going let's just keep writing cuz we got something special so when he came to me with no you know we were like we were hella close we're still hella close his dad was actually my voice coach for for a few years and amazing coach and so he came to me what know is like you know I wrote this song man like I think he'd sound dope doing it just let me know like he played it for me I was like yeah all right cool good to me I wanted so we come back to the production a bit but I wanted to talk about your development as a singer as well did you did you always want to be a singer as a kid - oh no I always loved singing since I was a kid but I never took lessons or anything I I didn't like think I was a good singer I had a great way of memorizing runs though and so I just I remember being that one kid in the back of the car trying to like sing all the runs and all my friends being like oh like you really trying to hit the notes okay and being kind of embarrassed like oh then maybe I should stop and also my mom like you know cuz I grew up when like growing up American Idol had I think it was a thing you watching TV watching all these people just sing terribly and and be judged you know I mean it was really intimidating and I wasn't really thinking about singing at the time I was really trying to be a producer I I didn't really get into singing until we made our first Internet album and at the time we had a keyboard player named ty Walker and he he's an hour he's a solo artist now he was a solo artist then and I used to record him and I remember just like trying like vocal producing him on a light note and just singing him what I had in mind for a harmony or whatever and every so often he'd be like hey man like why don't you sing it and I'd be like man not cuz you're the singer bro and so for the longest I just stayed behind the desk it wasn't until I got a record deal that I started singing and it was really intimidating coming out as a singer with no experience because I felt like I was competing with all these people who been singing their whole lives and that's why I started a band so I was like I'm not about to get up here and sing with a DJ like this is gonna it's gonna be really bad so let's get a band and and bring some live music into it and I started taking lessons with Nick's dad Don and he was my coach until he passed away and so now I don't really don't really have a coach now I just kind of what was the thing that made you decide to get a vocal coach was it just cuz you know I needed one honks I was trashed my voice used to be really like unstable and still can be but I've grown a lot and I've dedicated I dedicated a lot of time to it I was giving Nick free studio time at my studio for a while and in exchange his dad gave me really really cheap voice classes so I was going to him every day I'm not a very disciplined person on my own so if I want to like get better at something and I'm not obsessed with it you know what I mean like to be honest I wasn't I didn't fall in love with singing until I got better at it you know what I mean before that it was one of the things I would I love to do about it was so intimidating whenever you hit the wrong no they you know lose breath here whatever just get discouraged so it took me having to say okay can I come Monday through Friday 30 minutes a day Monday through Friday I went and saw don and and he loved me he said he always called me his favorite student because I picked up kind of quick but yeah I I just needed to I was touring I was doing shows and I wasn't happy with my performances so did you used to worry about your voice then and how people kind of perceived it because now I mean it's quite a it's your calling card in a way it's very recognizable voice so you you know do you hear it differently you kind of different nation ship with it yeah I always knew I had a pretty voice people always told me that I knew like you know if I if I have enough time to record it I can make it sound good you can make it sound like listenable but I for the longest like that's why we didn't perform the internet songs I think we drop purple naked ladies and we didn't do a show and so like nine months out there because I just I wasn't up for it I just didn't have it in me and even when we started doing it I swear after every show the first thought in my head was like what am i doing I think I'm making a fool of myself and I was for a very long time I was making a fool of myself but I don't know what it was maybe it was the fact that I had like four other guys now with me and and I've felt somewhat obligated to them to keep trying you know what I mean not to like give it because then you know then we're all out of a band has the success and critical success of Finn led other artists to be getting in touch with you for work as a songwriter as a collaborator to other people no wouldn't your collaborations yeah and in that first it was bittersweet because I what I wanted was okay I'm gonna drop this album I'm gonna show everybody that I can write these songs like I can write songs like this like this and then we got the internet and I was hoping to get more work as a writer after that but I had some artists hit me up to collaborate and at first I was like I want to collab I just want to write you a song and and then I had to realize that it was you know it's a blessing like people like my voice this is dope you know like I'll get some shine from it I guess and and it won't hurt like I can still write who can still write my part still be a songwriter happy have you done that whole LA songwriting room thing where you're brought in to like bang out some songs to potentially be for another artist yeah times I did a writing camp for French Montana once I did it was fun fun give us an idea of what you met uh it's it's interesting cuz I have I've had a publishing deal since I've had a record deal 2011 and publishing deals are changing the whole publishing industry is changing but it wasn't until this year that I had the opportunity to go into these writing camps and try to write hooks for these other artists and whatnot they put you in a studio they usually will put you in a compound right and they have like three Studios rented out at the same time they've got me another songwriter and like two producers in this room to producers two writers three writers in that room and then the actual artist is in the big room recording whatever they like you know and that was an interesting process what I liked about it was that I met a bunch of really cool producers and writers and I realized that they're all just as hungry as I am you know like I was in there with people who have like hit and and they're just trying to write more hits like they they're asking me like how did you get a record deal like how did you become an artist you know a lot of them a lot of them actually want to be artists and me I'm like well how did you get this number one because I just want to write write songs so that was really really cool really of your stuff get picked up no unfortunately I mean nice my second writing camp was 40 I and he actually came in and recorded a verse over one of my hooks which was really cool but I haven't heard it since I know that producer though so if I really want to hear it again I can ask for it but ain't no telling what's gonna happen to that song and it's okay I I don't have any other songs that I wrote in any of those sessions I think I wrote like four hooks in the French sessions maybe like two or three for the TI ones and yeah I don't have any of them but it was great practice you know and you have to give those up right you can't use them yes well if if they don't use and I'm sure it's fair game but we have to wait to see if they want to use them or not you know it's all good um we're gonna play buddy from the album so can you introduce some okay body was produced by mellow ex mellow ex he's uh from New York he he produced on lemonade on Beyonce's lemonade ah he did a track or two on the lemonade album and I we have mutual friends so I think we got connected through my n R as well but super cool dude he came through to the house and body was a beat that when I first heard it I didn't like it that much and then I just let it play for some reason like I guess I was trying to understand it and once I understood it and once I like heard the top-line melody in my head I was like yo this is gonna be a smash body-roll anthem let's get it [Applause] for a moment I like to go back to when you were a kid okay why do you kid I guess um you you said before you you wanted to you had things on the radio and you'd want to take credit for them that was when you realized that you wanted to write songs what kind of tracks were there do you remember any specific ones so you thought oh I should have written that drop it like it's hot how old were you then I don't even know like was that middle school middle school together I don't know it was it was mostly like Neptune's beats that I would hear and be like dang I wish I could say I made this watch thing that is what is it about a Neptune's beat that just speaks to you some reason mm maybe cuz they're just really unique I think at first it was that it was the fact that like I don't know what it is but I like this song a lot in this song a lot in this song a lot and when I realized that they were all produced by The Neptunes I was like hmm well what else did they make you now I must and I think in that period everything was written by the note genes that's the it was yeah and and it was so inspiring because it wasn't like typical industry standard music production you know I mean it was pushing boundaries just they were using like synth guitars you know what I mean and making them sound good like that's really hard to do it's not easy it's not easy at all oh and not quantizing like drums and stuff like that that's it's just very inspiring very inspiring um you have some musical people in your family as well so your uncle is a reggae producer who co-wrote mr. lover man apparently is this true how cool is that yeah you'd have a claim to fame anyway uh Mikey and your mum wanted to be a sound engineer so my mom wanted to be an engineer come to find out my mom loves music so she's my biggest fan and my biggest critic at the same time which is dope because she's honest with me and you know when when when I'm trash it sucks but when I'm good I know it's actually good so when you were growing up when people were listening to music in your house were they actually people were listening and an analytical level maybe that you felt like people were listening closely and you learnt that maybe both there was my mom um I think every weekend I would wake up to like cuz we have like we used to have surround sound in the whole house where my mom could look like she had a 300 disc CD player and she had I know 300 300 CDs and she just kept them in there all the time and every every Saturday Sunday morning I wake up and it'd be on shuffle throughout the whole downstairs what kind of stuff did she have so aren't being sold mostly and some reggae from you know my dad but I just I would wake up she'd be singing along to everything and so like I just grew up just listening to music a lot my uncle Mikey like he lives in Jamaica so I wasn't really in the studio or anything with him like that but every time I went to Jamaica I did spend most of my time in the studio and I was really cool that's when I realized like I want a studio one day this is cool like my uncle like now for the most part I think the lot okay the last time I went to Jamaica we were at the studio five out of the seven days that I was here and every day he has a chef he has a chef he sits outside on the patio under this little like thing and just just sits out there talks to everybody that's coming in and and leaving all these like older reggae dudes coming in to rehearse Mike it was gone and then he's like he's like I'm eating or whatever you got like younger artists coming in are you Mikey Bennett and this is just trying to die trying to audition for him and stuff and that was just so cool like I'm just sitting there with my uncle my dad people they're just like you know like tripping over over over my uncle and and that was really inspiring and and just sitting in the studio and watching watching the engineers just at the board yeah it made me really want to do it so when you started making trucks for yourself what did you start out with and how how quickly did you feel the limitations of what you had did you move pretty fast in terms of learning I started with a MacBook Pro that my dad had bought for school used and had GarageBand on it and I was just one day just going through all the programs to see what was on this computer it was like the first computer we had had really in the house in a long time so I was just browsing and I was like oh you can record music in here sure you can make you can like put stuff put sounds on top of sounds and stuff and Justin was with me at the time we were like 14 or something and we I was like LimeWire was really big back 10 so we were downloading a lot of like acapellas and stuff and I was just trying to make beats over the acapellas and I don't I don't know if I picked up quicker anything cuz there was nobody around me really doing it so there was no reference but I became a little bit obsessed with it my next-door neighbor who's like a brother to me his name is ty ty he he raps and so he had just gotten back home he had moved away for like two years and came back and was still rapping and I was like well that's crazy because I could record you on my Mac but we could make songs and so we started recording just through the MacBook speak MacBook mic and then I was like this sounds trash damn where do I get a microphone from I got on Craigslist for like 90 bucks and it was like a small diet for him condenser which if you know about like microphones it's not good for vocals a small small diaphragm it's not the best for vocals and I didn't know so I just oh I got this Christmas money I bought this mic and then I got the mic and I'm like how do i plug this into the man so I went the Guitar Center I said hey how do I plug this into my Mac they're like oh well you need an interface I said what's the cheapest one you have and it was like a hundred bucks for this em audio fast track and the was so stupid it didn't have no phantom power in it which you need to power a condenser microphone so I get the mic I get the interface I take it home and watch it still don't work and I'm like what the I had to go back to Guitar Center buy a separate box for phantom power stupid and and I said it uh I had a really big bedroom so like my my room was like two rooms connected so I turned the smaller room into like a studio I wired then I put the mic in the closet and I said ran the wires all the way through the room and had like a whole studio set up in there for like a cool year or two and eventually moved into my guest house when my cousin moved out of the guest house had a whole like one-bedroom apartment to use as a studio and that's where we recorded all the like early out future albums Tyler's first album Earl's first album how'd you yacht him I'm wondering if your mum would ever come and maybe have a go in your equipment not very tech savvy but she does like to come in while I'm working and just sit and listen well what's that nothing you know like I'm still real nervous sometimes to play music for my mom um when you when you came across Tyler and Matt on MySpace right I met Matt on my yeah I mean that's how many years ago no it's like 10 years ago yes 10 years so which is a long time to be to be working with people and I wondered really um what what are the most important lessons that you've learnt from them but also what do you think they've learnt from you what have you discovered about each other as as your key talents as songwriters and rappers and producers from that a lot lot of life lessons from that that was there for me when I was like struggling really bad with depression and was on tour and didn't want to be on tour and honestly didn't want to be alive at the time and he was always there just to like bring me back like look don't trip like you gonna be home soon it's all good we gonna make this album it's gonna be cool musically I think from that I learned that anything can be done you know like anything is possible I think why I reached out to Matt on MySpace all those years ago was he had the super 3 and I thought it was three people just like everybody else because he had he was drawing like he didn't post pictures just drawings of him and to other people and it was the super three it was his production group and I wanted to have a production group too because I was making beats but I wasn't very happy with them so I was like and I hit him up for advice on MySpace like amen I'm a huge fan can I ask you for advice he was like oh that's dope you're a girl you make be size dope and I was like a man like I want a production partner though cuz like I just I have a hard time finishing my beats and he was like but then you have to split the money I was like that's true okay well let me get better at this then and ironically we became production partner but yeah I learned from him like throw another layer on it it it sounds weird but it sounds different right I think what made purple naked lady so special was that when we made it we knew that we had never heard anything like it before like we made it we knew it was weird and quirky but we were like yo this don't sound like nothing that's that's tight right it's cool like is that a good thing it is a good thing yeah so I learned yeah I think from him I guess the biggest lesson I learned was that making something unique is it's good you know as a person as producers as artists you know it's easy to like get caught up in what everyone else is making because you see it work for them but what I've realized even recently like with Finn is that like a unique body of work is can be more valuable you know then a good non unique body of work so what about what you think they've left for me maybe probably nothing no idea me a question as odd future got successful how did that change your work as a producer how did it kind of how did your studio changed how did you develop other than getting more proficient I guess so pressure of knowing that more people were listening or no it was I don't know I I was really inspired working with our future at the time like I was making beats but I wouldn't plan for anybody I come in the studio and left-brain would be making like three beats at at the same time and I was like yeah this is tight like I'm gonna try that I come in and tilite be making a beat real quick you know and I would just take notes like okay he did that okay that's though for the most part I just realized what I actually wanted to do and I always like produce and and create and facilitating other people's dreams was dope and being a part of other people's journeys was dope but I realized that I wanted to have my own journey as an artist as a creator and that was valuable you obviously all really young when things kind of exploded and I guess I wondered if you feel like there's enough industry support for people who get signed on they're really young and yes I think there's more industry support for young artists than there is for older ones the industry is it's very complicated and it's changing so quickly every day I'm 25 and I feel a lot of times I feel really old in this industry and that's so sad but yeah it's it's it's it's weird you know you have a lot of young artists pop up seemingly out of the blue sometimes and then you dig a little deeper and realize oh they're not random at all they've been doing this for a minute and then there are other artists who pop up seemingly out of the blue and you look into their and you're like wait is this their first song and it's already who are they signed to you know the new thing I think for labels is to try to make your new artists out to be independent because people seem to gravitate more towards independent artists these days I guess so it's a really interesting game right now and like I said it's changing so quickly all the time you kind of have to think ten steps ahead we're gonna play one last song and then open up some questions so you have time to think of them we're gonna play flashlight from 2011 and it would be great if you could introduce it for us and maybe get back in the headspace you out when you write that one down okay so Justin was there for this flashlight is a song that I wrote and produced when I was 16 and it's one of those things I made the beat I think one one evening I was in bed getting ready to fall asleep and the lyrics just came to me I wrote him down I woke up in the morning and recorded them and then I call it just and it was like yeah come through and I have to the shower I got out the shower he was already in the room like so was good I was like I want to play you this song and I did what was his reaction he said it was tight he was like yo this is tight I was like hey thanks man I was inspired this was right when Drake's came out I was inspired by Drake he's a goat definitely one of the goats can we give it up to said please you

Channel: Red Bull Music Academy

Views: 23,134

Rating: 4.9788918 out of 5

Keywords: “red bull music academy”, Syd, Odd Future, singing, producing, The Internet, Syd Tha Kyd, Matt Martians, Los Angeles, London

Id: tWVJiOH4_io

Length: 52min 29sec (3149 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 12 2018