The Rec Show Podcast
David “Gldnmnd” Hicks is a Beatmaker and Hip Hop culture participant/supporter based in the United States. On The Rec Show Podcast, Gldnmnd interviews Beatmakers/Music Producers/Composers from around the world, hearing stories of beat culture, musical journeys (past and present), musical exposures and music technology. Topics include music genesis, inspirations, music superheroes, Digital Audio Workstations vs. Analog gear, Discographies, Local Beat Scene/community views and more while listening to each guest’s instrumental music compositions. Tap In!
The Rec Show Podcast
#130 - E+RO=3 aka Erozilla (Part 2)
“Be a homie & let us know what you think”
Step into the evolving world of Erozilla, the multifaceted beat maker whose journey has transformed from crafting innovative sounds to building a legacy through education. Two years after his first appearance on the Wreck Show, Erozilla returns with exciting news about his Erozilla Beat Academy—a groundbreaking initiative teaching digital music production across Los Angeles communities.
The conversation takes us through Erozilla's impressive creative expansion since our last meeting. From rocking stages at X-Fest and Rhymefest LA to curating Lo-Fi Dena (a hardware-only open mic for beat makers), his commitment to live performance shines through. With over 500 unique live sets under his belt, Erozilla proudly shares that he's "never played two of the same beat shows ever," highlighting his dedication to authentic, in-the-moment creativity.
Beyond performance, Erozilla dives deep into his production philosophy, challenging the notion that expensive equipment equals better music. "My DAW is my brain," he explains, demonstrating how he can transform a single kick drum into an entire beat through creative manipulation. This resourcefulness defines his approach to teaching the next generation, providing them with free software and sound packs while emphasizing the importance of understanding musical roots before AI completely transforms the landscape.
The episode also explores Erozilla's prolific catalog, including his conceptual project "Beat Pimping" and his latest release "Frigid," both available on Bandcamp. He shares candid thoughts about streaming platforms, questioning the reliability of metrics and fair compensation in the digital age—a perspective that explains his preference for Bandcamp and physical media.
Perhaps most moving is Erozilla's discussion of the recent Altadena fires, which devastated a historically significant Black artistic community. His connection to this area through his children's school and his work at Trade School reveals the personal impact of this tragedy, while offering ways listeners can support rebuilding efforts.
Ready to experience Erozilla's unique musical universe and perhaps become part of his educational movement? This episode offers a perfect entry point into the world of a true beat innovator who's not just making music but creating community, preserving tradition, and building a legacy that will shape the future of beat making.
Edited, Mixed and Mastered by Gldnmnd
Podcast Website Link: The Rec Show Podcast
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What is that sound, you ask?
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Wreck Show podcast, a show dedicated to beatmakers around the world.
Speaker 1:Kick back, relax with the Maven Podcast.
Speaker 2:hey here we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, no matter how you know, here's here's how I want to come in, man. I just want to come in like a midwest. Oh, it gets cold. I'm talking about cold. Make a change, what is this, ain't Johnny?
Speaker 2:Carson, the wind be waiting on your ass around the corner like this.
Speaker 1:Here it comes, Yo bro Bro.
Speaker 2:Yo, these change-ups bro.
Speaker 1:No, let me get into this introduction, man, I just wanted to go get an internet something. You're different, man, because listen, okay, listen everybody. Welcome back to the retro podcast man. Today we're running it back with a returning guest. You already know him as a dope music producer, live performer, content creator, educator. He's like a live event curator. I mean no, husband, father, I mean what else you want to throw at a man like he carrying it, man? So you know, I did an interview with him two years ago, in 2024, man, if y'all haven't listened to that episode, go all the way back and check it out in our archives.
Speaker 1:Man. But we sat down, chopped it up and then since then, you know, life has been happening. He's still been creating. He's still live performing at multiple different shows. He's still curating, like. I see him on instagram with his you know, I mean his family man, they vibing in the live event atmosphere. Man, beautiful to see, um, he's just been on a serious grind man. And then this year alone he dropped an album uh, beat pimping. If y'all haven't heard, like bruh, y'all need to go check out Beat Pimpin'. And then he got a latest project called Frigid. Both of these are on Bandcamp and you can find Frigid on all your streaming platforms and stuff like that. But go support it on Bandcamp first, man. But yo, this episode is all about part two. You know, like seeing the growth, the evolution, new directions with california's own ero zilla, aka ero three.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna let him yeah I'm gonna let him say his you know his moniker man, because you know I can say it but it sounds so dope coming from you, man, but let's get into it with erozilla man.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the show, man hey, hey, thanks for having me man. Yeah, I appreciate the. The introduction that was, uh, that was very, very um regal, if you will, if you um. My name is zero three um. If you've seen it before written, it's written out as e with the plus sign ro equals three, um, which is the you know, real acronym of my real name, eddie ross iii um, also known as erozilla, because if you think he's ill hero.
Speaker 1:Hero is ill that's right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you know I'm uh, um, you know I'm uh, I'm just a creative. You know what I mean. I create music, I create visuals. I'm like, uh, like he was saying, I teach, I uh curate live events. Um, I'm an organizer, I'm a community activist. You know, I do um free children's programs every single week in le mur park, uh, and I've been kind of living juggling all of these different uh crafts, for you know, know, been a part of five, ten years now, per se, been making music, though for, uh, almost I'd say 30 years now, um and um.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of projects that are tending to drop. Some of them are on all digital streaming, some of them are just exclusively on the band camp, um, the latest project is called beat pimping and um, it's, of course it's a, a quadruple entendre with the name um, because I think people catch the name as pimping. They kind of think of the clown aspect of it, if you will per se. But it's really telling a, a history, um, I'm not so told, or not so clearly told, history about, I'd say, black America coming from the 60s into the 70s, into the 80s, and the music itself is kind of like a journey from the sort of explaining what it is or the philosophy of it all the way to the character kind of redeeming himself at the very, very end, and it's told through different um, uh, black exploitation, um, sound bites that I have dipped through the whole album, if you will kind of tone. So that's called be pimping. That's on all digital platforms.
Speaker 2:Uh, the the latest project is just a single. It's called frigid. I made it about a year or so ago in the winter time. The time is really, really cold. Of course it's not so cold now, um, but it was, uh, I'd heard this, the, um, the stand-up that uh, richard prower had did live on sunset strip and I just took a little piece out of there where he was talking about going back to chicago and how cold it was coming out of the, the airport, and I just threw that into the kind of song and the actual track is, uh, it's a flip of, uh, the hop by by Tribe Called Quest on the I believe that's Midnight Marauders album that was produced by Lars Professor. So check all that out. It's on our streaming platform. So that's what's up with me. You know what I'm saying and I'm glad to be back on the show. The last podcast was great. You know we did it during covid time so it was like kind of, uh, the world was a lot different back then, but you know.
Speaker 1:So here we are now yeah, man, yo, yo, you, you still doing so much. Man like it's great to see that. You know you doing all of these different things, I'm always tapped in you. You know, if I was, if I, if they had a, a music community like y'all have in Leimert Park and your surrounding areas here, man like I would be there every weekend. Man, like it's it's amazing to see just the different acts and you performing up there and vibing and stuff like that. But yo, um, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to you know, to chop it up with you again, man, it's, it's my honor, man you, you a legend in this game, man. So, uh, you know, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just a sponge man. I'm a sponge soaking up all the knowledge that you have and the inspiration and everything like that man. So, thank you, thank the inspiration and everything like that, man.
Speaker 2:So thank you, thank you again, man. Hey, man, I appreciate you saying that, I really do. You know, and you know you, you, you know nobody take you lightly. As well, in the beats, you've dropped some nice little projects as well. Your last one's very nice, you know we'll. We'll chat about that a little bit before we're done as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, you know, um, sometimes, when we are, you know, we're um music creators, I would say new millennial style creators, if you will, because it's kind of based on digital stuff, digital softwares, and it's just based on technology, if you will. I find myself in a very unique position in the sense that I come from. I learn how to make music and perform music in a very, I would say, hostile music environment, like a like Project Blow style beats, where we weren't just playing beats in front of each other, we were always competing. So at any moment, like if they didn't like what you were playing, they would boo you, like literally. So it was like I kind of learned how to have a showmanship from it, if you will. And so when I'm performing my music, you know, I think that that kind of is self-explanatory when you see it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I got a lot of things I want to talk about, so I want to let you go ahead and start off with what things are on your mind. I got you. I got a lot of things I want to talk about, so I want to let you go ahead and start off with the things that's on your mind.
Speaker 1:I got you, I got you, man. Okay, since our last conversation, man, you know what's been the biggest shift in your creative process, man.
Speaker 2:I would say, let me see the biggest shift. Well, okay, I'm trying to. I'm I'm recalling our last, our last episode of stuff we were talking about. I've I've went through a couple of different what I would consider trainings, if you will. I've done a couple of festivals, if you will Like. Last year I rocked the first annual X Fest music festivals up in Nevada City, California, about a half hour outside of Sacramento, california, about a about a half hour outside of that Sacramento, and it was primarily, I would say, rock based type of festival. However, one of my you know good brethren curated the. Yeah, they gave him the green light to curate his own stage, so he did a lo-fi stage and so he brought me and a couple of beat makers from from LA up there. Kershawn Adan was with me Also, not your Head was with me as well.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:And they gave us what I would consider a royal treatment for, considering we were coming from out of town, paid us nicely, gave us all the amenities we needed. It was a different experience. You know what I mean. It was a different experience, you know what I mean. We even had, like they had a show later that night, like an after show, where they had the locals playing and the local DJs were playing and the dance floors were packed and these weren't young folks per se, these were like 40s and 50s out there doing their thing. So it was kind of a interesting town because, you know, it was just a very, very unique experience because of you know the geographic location and where it's at. So also earlier this year I did the well, just actually just a few weeks ago, I did Rhymefest LA 2025. 2025. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with Rhymefest LA, I would consider it like the Rock, the Bells for LA.
Speaker 2:For the hardcore 90s 2000s like underground hip-hop head. So it featured literally over hundreds of acts. Ghostface and Ray Kron were the top villain. Mervz from Living Letters has put it together over the past 10 years plus, or whatnot. Anyway, this year they had a Beats and Break stage for the Beatmakers. It was about 30 of us. That was curated by my man, mc Random. Shout out, random, shout out. Beatsync. I was part of the first wave of live Beatmakers to play at Rhymefest, which I'm sure year after year is going to get really, really big. It was over 10,000 people there at the LA Coliseum.
Speaker 2:So I would say I've sharpened up my penmanship, or my showmanship, if you will a lot in doing live beats. Another thing I have started doing and I'm diving into wholeheartedly is teaching. It's teaching beat making, or what we call digital music production, and so I've curated both a six week course and a two week course that I've piloted at a couple of different art centers here in LA area. That were successful. And so now, um, I have an entity, uh, that I'm calling the Eero Beat Academy, and basically it's I'm teaching introduction courses as well as a performance based course, um, at three different locations in Los Angeles Chaos Network in Leroy Park, juju Social Club in West Jefferson and Trade School in Altadena. That's starting in October, going into the fall and then hopefully starting back in January, and it will go on the side of the regular school times, regular school school times.
Speaker 2:I've also curated a third beat based event called lo-fi Dena, and it's based in Altadena, california, which, of course, we're gonna have a word about that regarding the fires and what's going on afterwards, and it's basically a what I consider a hardware only openox for beat makers like myself. So when I say hardware only, I don't mean, like you have to come with beat machines only. It's just, I don't. I don't want people to come like let me play this off my phone or something like that. Like this is kind of like a performance type of training thing and I've done about four of them so far and I've been magnificent, so it's called Lo-Fi Dina. It's basically what I started Soul Clap a couple of years ago, what it would have manifested into, so to speak. You remember when I did Soul Clap as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I ran into some issues regarding the name, whatever. That's why I kind of had to pivot, if you will, but that's a long, that's a long story. So, yeah, I got those. Um, I got the classes starting and um, yeah, I'm doing next fest again in nevada city in uh, october 3rd. Um, you know, shout out b-boy supreme and uh, kvmx, kvmrx and nevada city for putting that together so shout out to them man, wow, wow, well, okay.
Speaker 1:So, since we're talking about the um, you know the beat academy, what is it that? First of all, congratulations, yo, because that's a. That's a big deal. I don't know if the internet's really understand what it takes to get a, a class uh, through. I guess. I guess it's through. We call it in texas, we call them isds, uh, isds. But like the department of education type of situations, like it takes a lot of work. You got to go to a lot of meetings. Probably you got to, you know, talk to so many different people. You got to have, hey, how much is it going to cost for funding? Where are you going to do with that? Is it safe? Is it secure? Who's allowed to come? You know all these different type of uh scenarios, but I wanted to ask you, man, like what is it that you want that you hope your students are going to take away from your uh? Your arrow?
Speaker 2:beat academy man well, um, you know, the first thing is that I appreciate the, the students and their families, their parents or whoever it is, uh, have enough faith in me to you to have their, their loved one in the space to even do this. So that's like off top. I'm very, very grateful for that. It's basically. I'm not. I don't say, I'm not promising anything, so I'm not saying I'm going to make you a star and you're not going to be the next, you know, dr Dre or whatnot. I'm just, I'm just sharing basic tools that I know that people can use, regardless of what type of DAW or what type of hardware you use. And it's just more or less like how to put together a drum beat type of thing, how to make your own loops, how to formulate your own bass lines, how to add in vocal samples, if you can, something like that.
Speaker 2:So each course is designed where we're focused on one area and then at the end of the course we put it together and have a showcase type of thing.
Speaker 2:The benefits of it is I'm going to give you a free digital audio workstation, your free DAW.
Speaker 2:So I have licenses to offer a couple of different free ones If you have your own DA, you know, dolls, your own hardware, whatever, of course you know, bring that, as long as you can download. The sample pack, which is the second part that I give the students, is a free personalized E-Rozilla sound pack. So it's kind of like the gift in the course because, of course, after the course is done and over, you can do whatever you want with that, with those sounds, because, of course, after the course is done and over, you can do whatever you want with that, with those sounds. So, yeah, the idea honestly is I'm trying to reach the people who are who are going to do this because of the technology in the future and I believe that digital music production will be a very big industry in itself that will be eventually be monetized somehow some way. I feel like I want to get to those people before AI and before non-natural ways of doing it, take it completely over.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean Completely over. The thing about AI is, I think we're tapping deeper into it, but the thing about it, it's been with us for a long time and we've used it in different ways. We just didn't consider that and I think people like myself who've been making music for a while, we know how to use it to enhance the art, if you will, but we understand that it itself is not the art and what we do is based around that. And I think that that can be easily, easily confused by you know, the new generation, because they're kind of born into this. It's our job, you know, from the analog world, to show the new students of music that there is, there is roots to where these sounds and stuff come from and abilities, and you know they need to be. You know, understand it, you know what I'm saying and respect it, because you will be that much more effective as a creator if you understand that. So that's, that's pretty much it. I feel like you know I've me as an artist and as a beat maker.
Speaker 2:My goals initially were very modest, you know, I was just a MySpace producer or whatnot. So I, you know making music and people on the other side of the world. That was big to me. You know what I'm saying. I've never had dreams of, like you know, touring the world and field stadiums or whatever. Hopefully you know that may come eventually, but uh. So I'm saying that to say, like you know, my aspirations as an artist. I pretty much accomplished a whole lot of them in a modest way. So now it's time for me to kind of show and teach what I know, uh, to these, to these up and coming artists, and they can take that and put it in their bag and and go forth. Art is going to, it's going to, um, it's going to reshape the world that we're in through art, audio art, visual art, whatnot. So, yeah, Awesome man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to. I want to ask, like okay is, is there a like an age restriction? Is it in person or, you know, is it online or what?
Speaker 2:is it?
Speaker 2:Well um, it is, it is in person, so this is exclusively right now for folks in the Los Angeles area. I have taught students as young as 6, as old as 65, and what I found is that it's best when I group them amongst certain ages. This go around is more or less for students 12 and above. I'm doing a separate course for younger kids and I'm kind of designing that which is more Foley-based, you know, like more natural sounds-based, versus more electronic, because you know you do have to have some type of you know, laptop or something like that. Just, you know, download the dolls and download the samples and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So you know, um, you know younger children may not be, you know, up to par on that percent. So, yeah, they're um. And then I've found that people over a certain age, you know who's kind of coming back to music making. In a certain way they gel a lot easier with the younger kids. I would say the young adults kind of are in a class of their own, if that kind of makes sense. So but you know, I've again, I don't have any restrictions, so you can have, I can have the six year old sitting right next to the 66 year old in the class with everybody else in the middle and the thing about is, I don't it's, I prefer the classes to be as intimate as possible, so there is more or less designed for five to 10 students at a time per se.
Speaker 2:It's not like I'm not doing any like one-on-ones or something like that. It's not like it's offered as private tutoring, which you know I'll probably get to that shortly, but you know I just want it to be in a comfortable environment and those locations that I'm doing in man are very, very comfortable.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Gotcha. Man that's you know this sounds awesome. I feel like this is just a stepping stone to something even bigger. Do you see this Beat Academy recurring into the different Los Angeles schools and into a larger movement?
Speaker 2:Is that the vision? Schools and into a larger movement. Is that the vision? I do um, I call it the beat academy because ultimately I want to have a campus. I want to have a school, a literal school like school of x-men, the school for the gifted. Um, you know, um, oh, you're going professor x on them. I mean in in a sense. So it's.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of doing it on a small scale. It's just at different, different locations per se and I'm doing pop ups, like when I say pop ups, like, you know I'm going to different events, festivals or whatnot, I'll have my tent and I have business cards for each one. You can sign up for each one. Hopefully, I'll have my merch for my own. You know my personal art as well. So I'm doing these to sign people up for the classes. So, depending on where I'm at, you know, if I'm doing one that is that's close to this location, then you know that's where I'm going to. You know, channel the signups for and I'll do one at a different location. So when I'm not doing the classes themselves, I'll be out prospecting students and stuff for the classes per se. If I'm not performing or whatnot. It's in a strange way. All of it together is a full-time thing.
Speaker 2:And yeah, you know again, and let's be clear, you know beat making and digital music production is traditionally something not taught in schools per se. So what I did was I got the idea that I can market it to schools and to institutions like a regular class. Regular class. I didn't go to school for it or have any degrees or anything for this per se, but I feel like I'm credentialed to do it.
Speaker 2:You know, and the way that I presented it, almost everyone was super excited to hear it, like we've never had anything like this before. Like, yeah, this is, it's not been done like this before per se. So in a sense, I'm kind of bullying schools to let me do this, in a sense Like, all right, you, it sounds crazy with everybody. You don't want to be the school to pass on this and then you'll see five, 10 years when the academy is up anyway. So, yeah, a lot of it is wishful thinking, but I've learned in life that wishful thinking, once you've manifest, once you've put it out there and shared those ideas with certain entities and folks, it's, it's gotten in motion to happen per se.
Speaker 1:So awesome man. Hey yo, this is Professor X I'm talking to right now. Man, come on.
Speaker 2:And feel free, you guys. You know you can support the academy, you can support my art, you can support anything I'm doing. Um, all of the different apps are under sold clap la. Of course I'll give all the information out towards the end of it, but yeah you know this is.
Speaker 2:It's a worthy cause of what it's doing. Everything will be tax deductible that you give to the academy and working on that all right now per se, but I feel like it'll be up. Like you know, legitimately and everything you know, I'm working on a five-year plan to put everything together per se.
Speaker 1:So yeah, wow, yes, okay, listen, internet, go support E-Rozilla man, support him on Bandcamp. He's got a payment thing on his link tree as well, man, where you can donate as well, man, anything, I mean he's giving it back to the community, man.
Speaker 2:I mean like, come on, man, it's a win-win on my, on my link tree, if you guys, um, you can get this at erozilla, on most sites or just google erozillaozilla, e-r-o-z-i-l-l-a. I have a Ko-Fi site, ko-fi site where you can do one-time donations. You can do monthly subscriptions of any amount. I got a couple people doing a dollar a month or something like that kind of just. Hey, you know, I know it's not a lot, but it is important. I'm like I appreciate that that you know anything helps. I got a lot of music, as you know, has come out since the last podcast we did. I'm going to run through just a couple of them and we'll talk about the ones you want to. So I think the last one I did was the Moving Tree. I know we have talked about sincerely Eddie, beat bully, demolition, man, sound bending. Since then, I've released the Intergalactic adventures of super hero. I've released mind, body and soul. I've released superheroes. I've released the Eros illa subtitle project.
Speaker 2:I've released a couple of Sincerely Eddie projects which are my back-in-the-day flipped projects. They're all exclusively on Bandcamp. I have five volumes of it and those will trip you out, no matter how old you are. I've released Beat Bully 2 as well. I've done a ballads album Sincerely Eddie. So I have R&B flips from the 80s and 90. I've released Bowtie as well. I have one called Sincerely Eddie Goat Flips.
Speaker 2:So, like this greatest songs, growing up flips, beat pimping, frigid and my next two projects before the end of the year, hopefully one of them that I've been working on for a long time. I call it the One man Band. It's a double album and hopefully I can get it pressed on vinyl. I'm looking at that no date on that yet and I have a compilation album, a compilation of lyricist and singers, uh, entitled voices of fire, and that will be out, hopefully by october, november as well, and that one's I'm not going to name the names on there, but that one's going to be super duper crazy.
Speaker 2:I feel like this is my first time doing a project as a, as a what we would call a standard industry music producer, where I'm producing music for vocalists, um, engineering and doing the everything on it on that, not just me playing my beats, whatnot, um, so, yeah, why do you release so much music, bro? These are just beats. You know like. These aren't like fully studio. Get this cure. You know this clear and all this and touch temporary, but I'm just. This is beats. I'm making my bed literally.
Speaker 1:I just put together and send him out come on, you know, most beat makers, most beat makers understand it.
Speaker 2:They know they don't have to. But it's like a lot of people who are a lot like do you put a lot of music? I'm like, well, I make a lot of music first off, and you know, I was in a situation where I thought that I would not be able to put out any more music at some point. So I'm like, why not?
Speaker 2:um, so anyway, that's kind of like the way I think about it. Also, I wanted to touch on this as well. I don't know if you caught this. This is about a month or so ago, almost two months ago, but I was a part of the Serato Audio Effects Series which was done by TechLimert and sponsored by Undefeated Clothing. It was in Inglewood. It was about almost two months ago and it was a three-day weekend of. It was over 80 different students, student mentors there. We had speakers there ranging from Dane Funk, lena Fornia, amber from the Moonchild um dame funk, lena fornia, um amber from um the moon child, um sarah too ill, posted by true sound. Our local um la, and it was. It was magnificent, bro.
Speaker 2:Um, like three full days we were just all about beats. They gave us all the free software we needed to make beats. At the end we had like a huge session where everybody was playing their beats. We're putting together a compilation right now. Actually that will be out at the beginning of 2026. That's curated by dj battlecat. Um and these are all the participants from the actual classes is going to be submitting piece in it. So, um, I have a whole lot of my stories. The highlight to have a whole, a whole thing about that. It was. It was incredible. That was the most incredible, incredible creative time I had with other like-minded artists. Um, the closest thing I can compare to it was like this was when, um, um J Cole did the dreamville projects. We just had everybody locked up in his crib studio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2:This was the closest thing to it. Like we have breakout rooms, every breakout rooms. Everybody is just locked in flipping stuff. It was, it was amazing. So a lot of stuff's going to come out of that. That you know as well. Again, shout out to Tecla Mert, you know. Shout out to Serato. Shout out to Serato Studio. It was great, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I've been very fortunate this year, as a creative, to be a part of a lot of different things like this, and you, you know that's why I feel the need to to share, you know, what I do and what I know to the others, who you know, who seek this, who seek um, just just have create, create creativity inside of them. You know, and that's the best way we can navigate what's going on outside, outside the creative world is, is to stay connected in it, and the creative world it's, it's. You know, it's deeper than just you know people. You know, like it's a, it's a vibration that we share. You know that we can relate to, even if we've never met or even know them. You know, I'm saying um, it's sound and sound is sound, is um, it's uncontained man um, yo, you're definitely doing an amazing job of documenting, documenting your, your journey.
Speaker 1:Um, I think that was one of the questions I had in here, so you already took care of that one. But yeah, I just wanted to find out, like, what it was like to lock in with. You know, serato and that many creative beings man.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, but yeah, man, Wow, Wow. It was great because you know we, you know we ate together. You know they gave us some great meals. You know we were, know we, we ate together. You know they gave us some great meals, you know we were, we did a whole lot together. That that that you know. I guess before the internet it was kind of like taboo to share your creative processes with the other creators.
Speaker 2:Let alone with the world per se, but I think the the way that we're trying to do it now, it's like sharing, it's fun. In fact, I was against sharing the process for a long time, like, really, I thought, you know, in my mind it was kind of like, you know, giving away the magic, if you will, per se. But looking at it now in a more mature light, you know, I feel like it's only can help out yourself and others who do what you do. I don't worry about people like you know, biting my ideas or sounds or anything like that. I really really don't be honest. Um, it used to be a thing, uh, you know about it, but I'm like, I just feel like I'm inspiring, um, and you know, or I'm being inspired by, you know, because I can use anything for sound, like literally anything.
Speaker 2:It is not limited to anything. That's why I love being a beat maker is that my inspiration can come from anything. If I don't have anything, any ideas, I'll just go back to something I did years ago and just redo it. Some can be done different. Um, go to an old song, take the drums out, put my new drums in or slow it up or whatever. Just modify it like that stuff becomes. That's that becomes projects. You know, projects that I release are literally just modified and updated stuff that I did years ago that nobody heard. You know, and that's fun. You know what I mean. Um, I I told my man uh t dot eyes off, shout out to love supreme. By the way, another therapy, yeah as well.
Speaker 2:Shout out to them you know I I had a mission that I wanted to remix or flip, like all the songs from my childhood that gave me joy, and I've done a whole lot about it and I haven't released a whole lot of it yet, but it's fun, you know. You get lost in it, like I'll pull out the you know the earth winning fire joint and I'm playing and then before I know it I'm three hours just just dazing and just in a daze, in a loop, because I'm thinking about the house party mama pop had back in 79 and I'm envisioning all the neighbors getting down. So I'm like you know, I just get lost in nostalgia, whatever. Oh, I forgot what the hell I'm doing like stuff like that that I enjoy doing when I'm making music is. I get lost a lot of times in the sound itself and in nostalgia. Um, whether I'm using samples, whether I'm playing the music myself, you know I'm one of those guys that I used to have a preference because I started off being a sample bass beat maker. But I do both now and it's interesting because I'll go through phases creatively where all I want to do is just play my own sounds only and I'll have projects that reflect that and then I'll go through stages where I'll get inspired, like I am right now, to do more digging and find more different sounds, to sample and to flip and to, you know, tear apart andructure. You know, and it's just interesting being this type of creative, because I don't know if there's so many different ways that you can change up your delivery or change up your, your pitch of the voice or or your words, or even change up the words themselves. You know, it's like I think it's kind of, I don't know, I'm not gonna say it's limited to that, but I just think that, excuse me one second, I just think that same thing with vocalist singers. You know, I think that there's only so many different ways. You know, you can do that per se, where what I do I feel like it's unlimited ways. You can do that per se, where what I do I feel like it's unlimited. I don't even need sounds to make beats, meaning, I don't need multiple sounds.
Speaker 2:I had a drill that I did with some students a long time ago where I just did a kick drum. I don't know if I told you this before or if I said this last time this is a kick drum, it's a boom and I said, all right, so watch this. I took that one kick. I copied it like ten times the first copy. I chopped it, narrowed it down and I added a lot of low end to it. So now, boom, so I have my kick drum. Second one I chopped it down, I narrowed it up, raised the pitch up like three or four octaves, so now it's bing bing, chopped it down, so now I have my snare. I did all that, etc. Had my hats and stretched it out, played it in the keyboard octaves, made a full beat out of it, just the kick drum.
Speaker 2:I'm like you know that's the art that I do. You know it's. I can use all the different stuff, pay thousands of money. Yeah, the DAW, the digital audio workstation, is my brain. Like we had said before, we were talking about gear. You know which, you know. You know I don't like to really talk about that, but, like my man, ross G, said, it's not the gears to hear.
Speaker 2:Funny thing is, what's resurfacing now is Mad Libs interview. I know you probably recently saw it we was talking about yeah, man, I make all my beats on iPad, like literally like all those albums you heard, like just store sounds on iPad and it's like a lot of cats, you know, have messed up a lot of cats, because it's like I know a lot of so-called music producers who have the most extravagant studios and spend a lot of money or stuff and stuff and to me the music doesn't really reflect all that you know. So to each his own, you know what I mean. I just feel like the true, I feel like music reflects what's truly inside of you and what's inside of you you should be able to bring out. It don't take much to bring out.
Speaker 2:You know, for me I've never had expensive equipment. I've never had a what we would consider studio, a working state-of-the-art studio or a multi-track studio. Never, bro. I've done everything that you've heard from me. Literally my computer dog used to work on Sony Vegas, I work on Serato Studio, now SP4 for all the SPs, just my little performance-based stuff. That's really really it. You know what I mean. That's all you really need. It really really is All the different.
Speaker 2:I've sampled different sounds over the years. Came in, brought a keyboard, played this, saved that. Brought a bass guitar, did three or four licks on it, saved that. You know, done that hundreds of times over the years. So I have an extravagant library of sounds. You know what I mean it's almost like.
Speaker 2:But the funny part about it is and I guess this is what all creators have in common is, no matter how much sounds and how much stuff you get, you always are hungry for more, and that's kind of like why we stay digging, because, you know, I just feel like my best beat is my next beat, and I feel that way even after I make my next beat. And no matter I say this all the time no matter what I'm doing in life, I'm always in the middle of making a beat. If you see me out in the street, you see me somewhere, wherever, like I'm waiting to get back home to finish this beat, like always. You know what I'm saying. So, yeah, shout out to all my beat heads worldwide. You guys kind of understand that itch. Yeah, sometimes it goes, but for the most part it stays.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily need things in life anymore to give me motivation to make music. I used to. I used to like honestly, like music for me used to come out of dark places or like when I'm not particularly doing my best personally. You know what I'm saying Ironically, but now it's like, you know, you can't really really really tell what I'm going through personally now in my music, because I have the message I'm getting across in the music per se, and it's still emotional. You know what I mean per se, uh, and it's bad, it's still emotional. You know what I mean I, I, I play, I'll make some beats and I'll play them back and I'll be having tears because it's taking me somewhere I don't know where, but it's taking me somewhere of joy. You know. I mean, um, the older you get you know I'll be I'll be 50 in a couple of months the older you get. It's almost like we, we, we depend more and more on the nostalgia. You know I'm saying uh, to keep us happy per se, and, uh, what better way to bring that upon?
Speaker 1:through sounds, through, you know, um, eloquently crafted sounds, yes, sir yo man, like that's exactly what I feel when I listen to your music, man, like it's like there used to be this thing about. Hey, your music should only be like 45 seconds, 90 seconds a minute and a half or so.
Speaker 1:I'm like bruh, like how can you even get out a full idea in that span of a time? Like the way that you craft your music? I feel like you don't put a limit on your time of what it took you to create this beat, because you have like maybe 10 switch ups in your song. I'm just I'm listening while I'm mowing the grass. I'm like yo, he really just made like 10 beats in this one track. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're going to get this work. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I got that from listening to jazz and realizing that. Why do we? You know, um, we suppress our creativity in a sense. I'm like I have all these different ideas within the song that I want to get out. You know what I'm saying, and I'm arranging them in a way where it's hard for you to stop or exit it once. I'm doing these switch ups and it's almost like why would you want to listen to two minutes of a song and then switch it when you know there's another three or four minutes of it left with other stuff that, uh, and the switch-ups that I do, you know you have to listen to it to to know what they are or when they're coming, or something like that, or even if they are coming, you know per se, so you know, of course, people who who follow the you know per se, so you know, of course, people who who follow the you know E-Roll, they, they, they envision that, and a lot of people love the music just because of that. Like, I have friends who tell me bro, I'll listen to the first 10, 15 seconds of your song, then I'll immediately go to the third or fourth. But yeah, you know, don't suppress your creativity. You know I'm not. I'm not.
Speaker 2:I've never done or created music for the purpose of having it on the radio or having it in the clubs or having it somewhere. I'm just making music, I close my eyes, it's out there. It has a life of its own. Most of my songs I want to, I want to include I'm just making music, I close my eyes, it's out there. It has a life of its own. You know, most of my songs I want to. I want to include a lot of different elements to them. So that's why they're generally long songs. You know what I mean. Is everybody going to listen to the whole thing? Maybe not. I get it, but I think you listen to as much of it as you need. I think you'll listen to as much of it as you need. You know I don't really like a lot of people make. You know the one minute songs and stuff like that. That's cool, I get it, whatever. But you know there's only you're not expressing as much as you probably possibly can within the one minute.
Speaker 2:Maybe you are, or maybe you, maybe you you feel you are, or whatnot, but I'm like that's just. Again, my music reflects what's inside of me. I got a lot going on inside of me. Maybe you know, maybe some people don't want to truly share what's going on inside and this is on the surface, is all they want people to, to kind of. And again, you know this, this, this me to another. A good point is the music maker that existed before the uh pandemic and the music maker that was created from the pandemic.
Speaker 2:Um, we have a whole bunch of content creators that make beats. So they're beat makers per se, but they're not into the art of performing it like I am. They're not releasing projects like I am. They're just kind of creating music. They're instagram famous and that's great. You know what I mean, but you know I don't think that you can compare what I do. I feel like I am. I'm an entity in a sense. So if you see my name on a flyer or if you see me in person, you kind of know what you're going to get.
Speaker 2:And that is you don't know what you're going to get. You know what I'm saying. I've never played two of the same beat shows ever. At this point, since I've been doing live shows literally since 2008, since the Beat Cypher Collective, I've probably done close to, or more than, 500 live performances. Wow, wow, over that time, and I really can say I've never done the same beat set like ever again. I played, you know, same beats over many times. I've never done the same set or how it's done, and that's kind of like the opposite of a lot of people who do what I do. A lot of them have done hundreds of sets and they've done the same set every single time or, you know, not varied from it a lot. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Um, once and once I release music, I, I don't perform it after that it's released. You know, because if somebody's recording me and I'm playing my song and you know it's on youtube, they can be like oh, this is copyrighted, really, yeah, it's copyrighted by me, but why I gotta go through all that? Whatever, like I'm, I posted whatever and you know, as soon as I posted this ding and it's muted everywhere and I'm like this, my though. So I, I don't, I don't do it, I I. And funny thing is, I do the same.
Speaker 2:I have the same mentality when it comes to like releasing um or just posting remixes or flips on instagram or facebook. I don't do that anymore, dude, because a couple of years ago when I was doing, I was getting ding every single time. I don't know if it was instagram algorithms, if it was somebody like you know dropping the dot, I don't know, but I remember I would post the flip and within seconds instagram is taking it down like damn. And it's crazy because I see everybody now is just posting nothing but like obvious sample flips and nothing. I'm OK, it's just when I do it, this is what happens. So you know, I don't. It's just weird. My algorithms have always been very weird when it comes to social media, you're different.
Speaker 2:To be honest and this is one of the last things I wanted to say um, I don't believe in social media numbers. I really really don't. When it comes to streams and stuff like that, um, because I've seen it like a lot of it just doesn't the map, doesn't math. You know what I'm saying. When it comes to like how many people, how popular you are, how many people are viewing what you're doing and how many people are circulating, it like a lot of it just doesn't really add up. You know, um, like my numbers, like on spotify, for example. I know you know a lot of people don't really really mess with spotify anymore. A lot of artists and a lot of them or whatever.
Speaker 2:But I'm like, one day it'll say I have 35 followers, next day it'll say I have 800 followers, next day to say I have 15, I'm like. And it does periodically, like every three or four days, it just changes to something great. I'm like. I don't know. I don't know what to believe. You know, I have no idea whatever. All I know is that I have literally over like 300, something, total thousand streams. That's what they're telling me. Yet I probably made less than 50 bucks on Spotify over seven or eight years, I'm like OK so I may not have enough.
Speaker 2:So it's to the point now where I'm like OK.
Speaker 2:I just, I just don't believe it. You know what I mean. Yeah, point now where I'm like okay, I just I just don't believe it. You know what I mean? Yeah, a lot of cats I see who are having millions of streams or something like that. If that's true, you should, you should be doing a lot better financially than what, what I see. If that's true, you know what I'm saying, or are they jerking you? You're not getting. I don't know. You know I'm saying um, a lot and you know a lot of OGs are speaking out about this. Now they're like dude streaming killed the real street business of hip-hop as far as moving units and stuff.
Speaker 2:Daz was on live the other day. He was like I have CDs in my hand. He's like these are units. If I sell these, I know how much money I'm getting. He like streams like you have no idea what it is, you just don't, or whatnot. You have to go by what it is, their reports and I don't know. It's just um. Whoever made that deal from the artist's perspective?
Speaker 1:I don't, I just don't get it yeah, man, man, there's been a lot to talk about, and that's one of the reasons why you see a lot of the OGs going back to actual physical vinyl cassettes, cds and stuff like that. Because and not putting like case in point, man, rhapsody and Madlib right they came out with an ep, but the ep could only be heard if you bought the vinyl or the cd, right? So it's not on dsps, it's not on a website where you could play it. No, so, like curtis um, I'm trying to remember his last name, man, he's a, uh, content creator. He's a dope artist too, from Cali man, he played the album Curtis King. There you go. Yes, so he had the album boom, I think he had permission from either Mad Lib or Rhapsody, I don't know. Either way, the album is dope, but you can only hear it if you have the vinyl, cd or cassette. I think that's the way we need to go back to man, to put value back into the music, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think that you know, putting music on the digital platforms I think it's good in a sense where you know you have music out there is going to live forever. I think it's good in a sense where you have music out there that's going to live forever, so it can eventually rotate around to different ears in due time or whatnot per se, but looking at it from a business perspective, it's a raw deal for the artist. I don't care how you look at it, it's a raw deal for the artist. Putting music on digital sites, digital streaming and again, you don't know your real impact. You don't know who's really listening or who's not. You're going by what I think by now I mean I shouldn't say this, but I just think by now AI is controlling social media algorithms. In a sense, it's learned so much. Speaking of AI and you knew we were going to touch up on this is the whole Timberland and the whole storytelling thing.
Speaker 2:It's a shame, it really is, but I think that it's just putting light to what's going to or what has been happening or what's probably been happening a long time. But what's going to be happening is people are going to be using AI for not so good things. You know what I mean, including moguls and stuff like that. Did he need to do that to basically rip the guys off, his beat off and keep his producer tag on there, which is not very smart, you have to. He didn't have to do that, whatever. And it's like okay, he just got caught doing this, whatnot, and and you know, I don't think anybody really appreciated the bullshit excuse or apology or whatnot, but I'm like, dude, it's like did you, did you make pony? Like we're now? We're questioning your whole catalog, bro.
Speaker 1:Cootie Fresh, that's his name, that he stole that beat from man yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's like, you know, like did you? I don't know, man, it's just, we're just in a time, right now, where the the rules just don't have any value in anything right now, and that's the wild west, yeah we want to, just we want. Well, this is technology, this is the pandora's box and I'm like no, it's, like it's, it don't have to be that way.
Speaker 2:Well, not everybody just want to be that way, so right, um, um yeah, that's just unfortunate because I was so disappointed when it all came out and literally like that's literally what he did. I'm like no dude because you know I consider him. He was one of the guys who inspired me back in the day. Right Like he you know, nobody found his catalog but that's kind of messed up anyway, man.
Speaker 1:So, okay, let me, let's, let's, let's, turn some fun back into it, man, because that was a sad situation. But let me hit you with these, um, these bonus lightning round questions that I have, man. That just started with uh kershawn and don man, episode number 128, I believe. Go check thatets, if you haven't already. Nausea Head, stop by. But I'm going to hit you with a question, man. It's just a real quick answer. I think you'll get a kick out of these too. So, all right, here we go. Number one First memory of performing live in California.
Speaker 2:First memory of performing live. I did. Okay, this was in 2007. I had in December of 2006,. I went to Juju Social Club. They had a white party.
Speaker 2:Now, back in the 2000s in LA, juju was the spot for creatives. That real frohemian flavor still is, but it was like unsaid and that that day I went there. Uh, we were in the green room, which they had a green room in the back, whatever, and in the green room we would always have the beat makers would come and play their beats on the boom box, like like a litter on the CD. It was DBI see playing beats back there. All the rappers would come, would have cyphers. You take a CD, I'll give my CD, whatever, we would do that a lot of juju.
Speaker 2:So in this particular day I met this young lady. She had a clipboard out there and she was prospecting for a show. She was putting together getting everybody's information, name, email, stuff like that for the beat makers. Uh, she called it the beat cypher collective and the idea was it was going to be an open mic performance for beat makers project, blow style. Like you know, you're gonna. You only have a few minutes to say what you gotta say. If they don't like it. They're gonna tell you please pass the mic type of stuff, like under under pressure kind of thing. Um. So, anyway, darren, I'll tell the story of how I met my, my, my current wife. This is how we met. I actually wrote a, uh, a screenplay about it in school, um. So anyway, a couple of months later, so, anyway, a couple of months later, she had the first Beat, cipher, and I missed it and I don't remember why I missed it, but I remember a buddy of mine, demer1, demer from RTN. He told me he was like yo, you missed the Beat Cipher, dude, it was dope. He was like dude's playing beats like yours, like like the type of beats you made they were playing. I was like, yeah, because again, before that we didn't have it wasn't a space for, you know, in the closet beat makers like that before that. And so I went to the very next one. I remember I contacted darby email, you know. I was like, hey, I'm sorry, I missed it, whatnot, and whatever. So came to the next one and I signed my name on the list for the first as the first performer. I don't know why I did that, I was just excited and so I came.
Speaker 2:I played in the back then. You didn't want to play, you didn't want to be the first one in there, but I played a beat. I remember it was a beat I had that actually had a switch up back then it was really really long. I had some samples from um, it was a spooky like. It was like spooky samples or whatnot, so it was like some Halloween samples or something I had in there, whatever. And I played it and it switched up and back then you was going to Mike, say your name, and they had the CDJ, which had a couple of different effects, like an echo stuff. So everybody's doing the same thing. We're playing our CD in there. And I just remember I was scared First time ever playing beats, and it switched up and I'm hearing the oohs and ahhs, whatever, and so stopped it over and I just looked up and folks are just like looking at me, like stuck, like clapping, like yeah, I got a, I got a, I want to standing ovation.
Speaker 2:But I got of applause. So it was like, wow, I'm here every month now and so that was like literally the first time I played beats. Um, I've never gotten booed or humiliated or something like that. I have gotten. I have played beats before where I didn't get the, you know, the feedback or anything that sounded, uh, of a applause. I've done, I've been through that before or whatnot, but the Beat Cypher was something else. So, yeah, that was my first time. It was back in 2007.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay. Next question Favorite venue from your live performance archive, like places that you performed already, and that's a long list. You got over 500 beat sets, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I let me see. My favorite current place is Juju Social Club. The love and the energy and vibration there is unmatched and it's blue-black. When I say blue-black, it's blue-black. I played at let's see, I played at the coliseum. I've played at burgers and beats, beach cinema um, organic beach sessions, um, beach Sessions, low-fi Dina Soul Clap. I played at a lot of these places. Don't a lot of these physical locations don't have venues anymore. The Mountain Bar I played at the Airliner, where Law and Theory used to be. At many times I've played at man, a lot of different places. The funnest time, like I said, I had when I played at X Fest up in Nevada City last year. That was. That was great. Rhyme Fest at Lake Coliseum that was spectacular. I was more of a fan the whole time. Like 99% of the time I'm there, I'm just geeking over everybody in one location. So, yeah, oh no.
Speaker 2:Actually, me and my partner Abstract Butterfingers shout out Mbella. We played at a spot out in Temecula, california. This was back in like 2012, when we were called Slimmy Heart and when we were doing our label Zypher Unlabeled. I forgot the name of the show, but me and Mbella had a routine. We perform as a duo, like we would play beats, do some live shit and then we would stop, we would do our polls for like a certain amount of time and get back into it. It's kind of ill to watch. That was a dope show we did out there. I played at the LA County Fair in Pomona at the Poetry Fest. Shout out Judah One for that. That was earlier this year. That was dope. Yeah, I mean, you know you pick one, but again, my favorite place and the most place I feel the most comfortable performing is Juju Social Club. I got you.
Speaker 1:Okay, next question what's one plug-in you can't live without right now?
Speaker 2:Right now the one I'm using the most is the Serato Hex, which they just came out with an upgrade on it. I haven't did the upgrade yet because I'm just stuck on it right now. It has all these different presets in it that are just really, really, really dope. I've just really started dabbling in that earlier this year. I would say historically, um, I would say I'm mostly known amongst my peer beat makers, um, for having, for having a, I guess, a signature filter, if you will.
Speaker 2:I use about four different types of filters, but the main feature that I work and really, really work is what we call the wah-wah filter. Most dials have some type of wah-wah filter, so at some point you'll hear that in my sound and at some point you'll hear something in the song reversed. At some point it's also kind of like a signature of mine, very fast. And of course, you know the switch-ups, which are basically just second parts of the beat, that you know how most people would have a riff where they'll just play it. What I'll do is I'll cut the riff in half and I'll stretch out each portion and I'll just take the second portion of it and make a total different song or different part of the song. That's an ego. That's an ego secret right there, by the way. Part of the song.
Speaker 2:That's an ego. That's an ego secret right there, by the way. So yeah, I would say my filters definitely.
Speaker 1:Got you OK. Next question Go to food after a late night session.
Speaker 2:Go to food after a late night session. Well, I, I know my way around the kitchen pretty well, considering I do I won't say mostly cooking. I do a lot of cooking for a family of four. I like in my air fryer. I have a dish that I do that's not very complicated um, it's basically um steak with, uh, brussel sprouts and onions, and basically that's what I use in the air fryer over rice, um, with some corn on the cob and solid nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 1:You're keeping it with the good foods, it sounds describing, but it's not.
Speaker 2:I do it a lot.
Speaker 1:I like buster sprouts over rice man, Especially saute. You cut them in half, put some salt and pepper. Man. It's so good, I'm getting hungry right now. Dream collaboration in 2025. Dream collaboration in 2025. I think you're already about to do it in October.
Speaker 2:Uh, well, that's interesting. Most of the most of the artists that I've collabed with and are collabing with currently are west coast based artists. Um, obviously, you know I'm in la, but it would be interesting if I did something with an international artist, um, and it doesn't necessarily have to be hip-hop or rap, um, so I don't know, I don't have anyone in mind per se, but I've always kind of, like you know, I wanted to do something like maybe with a Afro beats artist or um a garage artists or something like that. Again, nobody in mind, um, in terms of um, like a local talent or a local legend. A local talent or a local legend, um, I'd say honestly, you know some, some guys that I admire as a group, um, and they recently suffered a loss. Uh is uh living legends, west coast la, oakland based living legends. Um, rest in peace to asap black, asap black wolf just passed away literally the day after Ryan fest, uh, but uh, yeah, those cats are really, really dope. Um, I've met Murs a couple of times on occasion and, uh, you know, we kind of entertained the thought of possibly working together. But I think, like he's, he's probably like I know that this album he's doing is, or he's just really supposedly his last or his retirement album or something like that, which is always interesting. When rappers can't retirement or say retirement, right, you can retire from putting words together and getting paid to say them in front of people, right? Yeah, and you know I'm dabbling with the OG legends here in LA, like I'm forming relationships. Well, I've had relationships with these guys for a long time but I feel like I'm forming an artistic relationship with a lot of them.
Speaker 2:Now, speaking of our legends, like Freestyle Fellowship Legend Medusa, I've done work and I'm working with my man, john Q the wordsmith, who's like one of the dopest off the top dudes you're ever going to hear in life, my man, mc Random. I've done work recently with my man Destruct. I got a project that I'm working with my man Destruct. I got a project that I'm working with my man, alf the Alien, formerly known as Alpha MC. Also, I got Mora Q. I have a song I did with Monstro aka Stro1 from West Coast Creations. These are all on the Voices of Fire project, by the way. Yeah, that's going to be coming out in October, november, around my birthday time.
Speaker 2:I want to possibly work with the legend Abstract Rude. We've actually talked and kind of hinted around it, but he's, he's always, always working on the move, whatever. We got very similar birthdays we share, um, let's see, you know. I would say you know the ultimate hit list would be, you know, work with mad lib, um, flying lotus, um, I would say the alchemist. But the alchemist is kind of like. He's kind of like on some, on some extra different level and the rest of the world is under him, kind of thing right now. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's on a crazy run right now, especially with the whole Erykah Badu project that they're doing. Man.
Speaker 1:But so yeah, that's know if that's an extensive list I know it.
Speaker 2:But, um, but slowly but surely, you know I'm knocking them out and you know the the great thing about this. Oh, and I have a project I'm coming out with with tech the super latin soon, aka brother maz. That's gonna be crazy. Um, take the super latin is the son of legendary beatboxer, click the super latin from la. So do your googles on those names and, uh, yeah, appreciate that. You see the audio effects series six weeks.
Speaker 2:Trade school is where I do lo-fi dina. Trade school is in altadena. That's ran by um, my partners arden and Casey Anderson, and trade school is exactly what it sounds like a trade and school. So it's more or less we're doing art with an educational twist or foundation under it as well. I'll be doing part of my ERO beat academy classes at trade school as well, and he has a whole bunch of a lot of different excellent programming that goes down there. So make sure you look at that. Their website is gototradeschoolorg where you can look up trade school altadena as well. Um, and of course, you know I wanted to touch on, you know, the whole altadena fires, along with the palisades fires.
Speaker 1:I yeah, speak on that. Yeah, how are the efforts going with that?
Speaker 2:um, what I see, the efforts are starting to to roll in really good. Um, it seemed like it was very slow for the reaction and for, you know, the initial cleanup, if you will. But, uh, I live about two miles south of the immediate burn areas, so it didn't. I, my, my place, didn't burn, but my children go to school both go to school and out to Dena and so a lot of their peers and a lot of people at their school administration suffered huge losses. And so you know the dynamic of our area has, you know, of course, forever been been affected. But you know we're doing our best to build up the. You know just the spirit of this area because you know, looking at it like driving through it during the daytime, it looks like a bomb hit it. You know, looking at it like driving through it during the daytime, it looks like a bomb hit it. Um, but I see like there's hope and I I know that the resurrection of altadena is going to be even stronger. But one thing that did come out of this um is, I think that it's put a lot on altadena, on the history of altadena and what it really is.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people truly didn't understand that Altadena was predominantly a Black-owned community. That was put together, a Black-owned artistic community rather, that was kind of put together spiritually, you know, over time. You know there was a time when Black people when they came to California, it was silver line what they call silver line where there was only certain areas that they would rent out to us or allow us to buy property. And so Altadena happens to be in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles, which is kind of like an exemption from that scenario, and so a lot, of, a lot of black families move out there and I don't know the percentage of black, but I know it was very, very high at one point. And they just so happen to be the dopest artists in the world, the dopest musicians in the world, the dopest writers in the world, the dopest scope. They just so happen to be in that one area. You know. I mean, they had their own community for them that was built for them. They had their own parks, own schools on, you know that type of stuff. So that's what burned down.
Speaker 2:It wasn't just when we say, you know it was a black community, we thinking you know projects, or we thinking the negative side of it. No, this was a very, very affluent black area that had generations, like people you know who who were born and raised in those homes like that are in my, that are my age or even younger. Their parents live in that home, their grandparents grew up in that home. You know what I mean. Um, so the um, you know, just the loss of knowledge, wisdom, history is just, it's just sad. That really really is, and you know, it's only so much of so much of that can be preserved and so, yeah, that's that's kind of like what's what would happen if you will? Yeah, that's kind of like what happened.
Speaker 1:If you will See, that's the part they did, that the news doesn't cover, and just the deeper stories behind that area the internets and the people listening to this podcast, that anything that they can do to help with the rebuilding efforts in altadena well, um, you know there's different, several different outlets, from what I remember, that I can take any type of uh donations or any type of um any, any type of resources that can help them out.
Speaker 2:I I know this out in the city chamber or, I'm sorry, the Chamber of Commerce is one resource you can use. You can even hit us up at trade school, at gototradeschoolorg. They take donations there of any type. Anybody local who want to give anything to help out in terms of canned goods, children's things, supplies, games, stuff like that. All that stuff is definitely needed at all times. There's also a place out there. I can't think of it offhand, but if anyone who's listening and you are interested and want to help out somehow, some, anyone you know who's listening and you are interested in and want to help out somehow some way, just contact me directly. Uh, my email is soul clap LA at gmailcom and you know I can definitely direct you into a, into a good resource or a good entity that can help out in that way.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah, I'm a. I'm gonna include that in the description of the show as well. Um, man, is there anything, uh anything else that you want to say to the internets? Man, you want to leave your like how they can follow you on.
Speaker 2:You know, your, your link tree, your instagram, your, your, your x websites anything anything like that anymore, though, by the way, ever since the orange guy came back. But, um, okay, yeah, my name is zero three, aka erozilla. On most of the social medias I'm at erozilla, e-r-o-z-i-l-l-a. Um, you can search for me again. It it's E plus sign R, o equals three. If you just put E, row three, I don't know what comes up. Some there's, you know, could be some Brazilian stuff come up or whatnot. So, you know, not everybody can find me. You got to do a little bit of thinking to to find me there. Um, I'm on band camp at E row three, musicbandcamp, that band camp, calm. So I would say that's the primary way you can. You can support me. My link tree is at er ozilla, I believe. If you write in that in the URL, it's linked that tree, slash er ozilla, and it has all of my hyperlinks right there and you know I'm everywhere. If you're in LA, you know check out.
Speaker 2:I usually have my show schedule on my link tree, so I usually do anywhere from two or three shows per month. I do a monthly venue at Juju Social Club called Vibe and Flow. It's an open mic where we invite singers, dancers, rappers, poets, musicians of any type. That's there. Lo-fi Dina is the last Thursday of every month and Altadena Again. That's the open beats sanctuary that I have for us beatmakers there. I usually have one or two features there. Right now my host is MC Random and it's been great.
Speaker 2:E-roll will be at X-Fest in October. Again, I got those music projects coming out in November and December. Probably New Year I'll do another Sincerely Eddie release as well, but who knows? And yeah, the E-Roll Beat Academy starts in October and it's going through November. In fact there's six weeks for the students who sign up. At the end of six weeks I will feature anybody who's ready to perform at the Lo-Fi Dina. So that's actually my planned feature for the month of November is my students from the E-Roll Beat Academy. Other than that, you can catch me in Leimert Park.
Speaker 2:Every week I'm at Chaos Kids, which is Chaos Network on the Peeper Street. Let's see. Last week for my Baba Ben's, my father-in-law, ben Caldwell, his 80th birthday, the city of Los Angeles granted him his own day. So august 35th in los angeles, lamert, black area, pretty much, is ben caldwell day from here on out. So that was great. We had a ceremony for ceremony for him this weekend, um, so yeah, you know, um, I'm in the, I'm in the village. You know I'm in adena. You know I'm in them streets. You know what I'm saying. So, yeah, so, thank you guys. I appreciate everything you've done. Go to mine, I appreciate you. I appreciate the rec show. You know what I'm saying. I'm glad to tap in periodically to get you guys caught up on me, because you know I do a lot and you know it is nice to be recognized. And to you know, just to be known, that there's a audience that's not here that is appreciating what I do and supports what I do. It means a lot.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's our, it's our pleasure to you know, to, to recognize you, man. You're doing crazy amazing good works, man. So so I really, I really appreciate you, even from afar, like it don't matter how far you are, like I can see it, I know you, your heart is in it, man. So thank you on behalf of everybody that's gonna be listening to this um and tapping in um, I am going to. I just thought about something, man. I'm about um, cause I want to help you with this, uh, this, uh, the E-Roll Beat Academy. So I'm gonna buy your discography, um, by Friday, okay, so your whole band camp discography.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna buy your whole bank on behalf of the rec. Show man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy that whole discography.
Speaker 2:I know I already got like maybe you got a few joints already. It's mad joints you ain't got.
Speaker 1:So absolutely yeah, yeah yeah, exactly, let me tap into that, man. But yeah, that's, that's what we're gonna do, man but, erozilla, man, it's always a pleasure having you back family. You know I'm saying you family here, man. So anytime you want to pop up, go ahead and pop up, man, let me know. And we, you know, we, we do what we do, but internet's internet and you know something honestly I'm in you in austin area, right, or?
Speaker 1:uh, I'm in, uh, san antonio area, san antonio, okay, oh, okay you, you, you right by, okay, yeah I know where you're at um I.
Speaker 2:I got folks right there in santa fe that I'm going to be visiting in Santa Fe and Deming, new Mexico, which is not far from, not far from where you guys are at. But I'm going to try to, you know, to pull up on you at one of these days and we'll chop it up in real life, in person, have a session and do the whole nine.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, I'm all over for it. Just let me know, I'm all open for it.
Speaker 2:Man, just let me know, I know and I remember last time we were trying to put together this idea of a huge beat festival out here in California, which I'm still that idea is still floating and I just feel like I just need to get with the right curators to do so and that's something that's, you know, we really want to do. You know what I mean. It's going to happen soon yo, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yo, I'm excited for what's to come, man, I'm I'm super excited, like internet. How can you not be super excited for what's to come? You, the ideas are brewing. I feel like the the tribe, that that concept of the tribe is coming together. So I probably never left, but I feel like even more now, just because it is digital, whatever it is, people kind of like turned off the digital and then really coming back together to build stuff. You know, I'm saying yeah and um, that's a, that's a big major thing that we need, especially in these times, man. So, yeah, I'm excited for you. Man, e-row, I'm going to be tapping into your socials, man, I'm going to see how this class is going. Yo, it better be a major turnout. Yo, matter of fact, when you start promoting it, let me know and I'll promote it on the Rec Show podcast, instagram and X as well. Man, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, you know I'm not expecting major turnout, but I'm going to do some work to get the right students in. You know what I'm saying and you know, to be honest, you know I don't have a certain number in mind per se, because, you know, if I'm, you know, maybe it's meant for me to only have a certain finite number of students just go around. You know what I'm saying. It'll eventually, you know it'll eventually be like the X-Men Academy. You know where we'll have class after class, after class, and you know it'll eventually be that way. But right now it's just. I want to improve each semester because I have a lot more tools to offer them. I have a lot more, a lot more tools to offer them. I have a lot more things to offer the students. This go-around versus last go-around.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you know, let's go, let's go Meet with Academy man Professor E over here.
Speaker 2:Yo, yes, sir, without the wheelchair, without the wheelchair, without the wheelchair man wheelchair, without without the wheelchair man.
Speaker 1:Listen internet, y'all, tap in to Frigid man, support Beat Pimpin and all the other albums he's got on his on Bandcamp, follow him, run up the streams, keep the community alive, man, that's what he's doing. It's been part two, but something tells me we gonna be running the Bat World soon as well, man. So y'all stay tuned to the Red Show podcast, man, where you know it's all about. It starts with the record, then we talk about the music, man, and that's what it is. We, we, we like building on this podcast, man, and you know we building from all over the world, man, not just where I am in Texas, not just California, all over the world, man, not just where I am in Texas, not just California, all over the world, man. So if you're putting out dope music, hit up the Reg Show podcast, let us know you're putting it out, and that's it for this episode. Y'all, y'all, keep it locked for some more, and peace and love everybody.
Speaker 2:Peace and love, peace and love.
Speaker 1:Peace and love. Okay, okay, okay. What up everyone. This is good from jersey. This is jomie b. This is sans beats. Tatumaki. This is tita einstein. This is your boy. Yo, this is your boy bondo I'm vicky cassis. Yo, what's good, fam. This is double a, aka beats by a, so I'll let you know you're plugged into the rec show podcast. It's your boy, bundo.
Speaker 2:I'm Vicky Cassis. Yo, what's good, fam. This is Double A aka Beats by A. Just want to let you know you're plugged into the Rec Show podcast with Golden Mind. Keep it locked. Outro Music.
