By Culture, Music April 12, 2013

In conversation with : Wise Beats

WISE_LOGO

I recently got in touch with hip hop producer Wise Beats, the self-proclaimed “white Kanye West.” Born and raised in Toronto, he’s currently studying in his first year at McGill. He’s about no-bullshit hip hop, fleshing out his sounds with a wide range of influences from old soul and jazz, to classical and trip hop. Look out for jazz and soul samples layered with microsampled vocals, held down by organic hip hop drum beats. Tinged with southern Trap hi-hats, his tracks can be found here. He can also be found on Twitter: @wise_beats.

GRAPHITE: I see you’re from Toronto. What’s up with that?

Wise Beats: Yeah, born and raised in Toronto my whole life. I grew up not necessarily listening to rap from Toronto, but lately I’ve been really influenced by Drake, and I want to get more Toronto artists rapping on my music, just to rep the city, put it on the map so to speak. A couple of guys I’ve been thinking of working with are Dante Leon; he’s got quite a fan following, definitely want to get him on some of my beats. Obviously, it’d be ideal to work with someone like Drake, but I don’t think my production is there yet; I’ve got the stylistics for it, but I’d like to explore with mixing and engineering to get that Noah “40″ Shebib appeal that Drake’s got to his stuff. But everything is mixed and mastered by myself in my dorm room. I make most of my beats with Maschine and Logic. I have an old MPC that I usually use for my hip hop drums loops and stuff like that. I base a lot of stuff around samples, lots off old soul and old classic jazzy stuff.

Yeah, you’ve got some Django Reinhardt samples.

W: Yeah, there’s Django Reinhardt, that’s one of the ones I did for Unchained. It might be used as a track for a guy from Montreal, don’t want to give too much away about it yet. Additionally, I’ve got a single that is going to be coming out with these guys from New York, Rocky and Apollo, over my track “Sky,” and there’s an Adele sample I took from Skyfall. So far, the fanfare on it has been great, it’s my best one on Soundcloud so far, but it’s nowhere near where I want it to be yet. It’s been blogged about on a couple of sites like No-Kliché, tumblr, some things like that.

What direction do you see hip hop moving today

W: Don’t get me wrong, I love trap music; Gucci Mane, YoungJeezy, all those artists. But it’s missing the soul and consistency that’s in the old hip hop beats, that you can’t achieve without those soul samples. Back when I first started, I was all about those short vocal snippets from vinyls. Now I’ve been experimenting with Youtube rips; it’s almost giving me a new sound to it, that lo-fi sound, it’s got that grittiness that I really dug in vinyls as well- organic because it’s imperfect. I’ve been going out to clubs quite a bit, hearing a lot of electronica, feeling kind of influenced by that as well. I’ve been using filters, house-styled drum progressions, and I really want to try to experiment with synths and make sounds from scratch with Massive and such.

I hear some deep house chord progressions on “Natural Habitat.” How do you typically create a track from scratch

W: It’s not that I’m so creative, but I know what I’m going to do with a sample as soon as I hear it on the radio or whatever, I’ll Shazaam it. I can make a whole song in 30 minutes, as long as I have a concept for the sample inspiring me. But the concept beforehand is what drives it.

So you rap?

W: First and foremost I see myself as a producer, but I’d like to eventually delve into rapping as well. I do a lot of freestyling at parties with friends. Most of my tracks are actually written with a rap in mind. But no, I haven’t released any of my rap yet; I mean it’s pretty hard to get taken seriously as a rapper being white, from an affluent neighbourhood, and having attended a private IB school my whole life. But in no way do I try to portray myself in a gritty kind of image. I mean everyone has their issues, and rap is a way to get those off your chest. My authenticity as a rapper shouldn’t be called into question solely due to my Latvian and South African Jewish roots.

Who have you been working with?

W: I’m in contact with Gabe Nandez, dude from Concordia, he’s got such a different flow, and I feel he’s going to blow up. Blasé is working with him too. I’m also working with Rocky and Apollo, trying to get that mainstream breakthrough with them. Also, I’m collaborating with No Cliché for their fashion show this May at Velvet.
Alright, man, good talk, good talk.

 

 

 

Interview by Samuel Lu, a McGill double major in Biology and English Literature.

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