Music Production

The problem

The Problem

Most of what I make goes out under someone else's name. Since 2011 that has been a full-length album recorded and mixed start to finish, an EP, singles, and most recently a whole album for a group that was making records on Vancouver Island before I was rapping. The job is the same each time: build the record the artist is hearing, in their pocket rather than mine, and see it through to a finished mix.

The approach

Family Matterz shows how that works. Crown Emcees are three Victoria brothers, Nic Cleav, Spliff Chief and AC Breeze, raised in a house where hip hop came first. Nic lands somewhere between BC and LA, Spliff writes dense East Coast bars, and AC comes straight at the beat, low in the pocket. I produced every track but one and mixed all of them. Nothing was pulled off a shelf. I sent early clips, shaped each beat to the song's structure, gave them a base instrumental to record over, then went back in with FX and details that answer the lyrics and their timing. Boom bap with West Coast G-funk underneath, each brother in a pocket that's his alone, so the record never splits into three different EPs. Mastered by Big Heat.