A Sit Down With DJ Brodinski
While working on his signature sound, Brodinksi has also worked behind the scenes for others. He and his manager, Manu Barron, started the label Bromance in 2011, and since then, the label has released projects from Danny Brown, Kaytranada, and Brodinski’s hometown homies Club Cheval. Then in 2013, he brought his talents to Kanye West’s Yeezus, receiving co-production credits alongside his label mate Gesaffelstein on “Black Skinhead” and “Send It Up.”
“I think people respect the fact that a DJ is trying to put their art and what they have in their hearts into a mix. It’s a snapshot of a moment in music and in your life – and you’re giving that to your listeners.”
You are labeled “French touch”, but this disc feels strong hip-hop US. Why?
It’s a different culture that interests me. I have always been an open minded fan and I am a true fan of the Atlanta music scene. I wanted to recreate the link between the styles of music that I like most.
Previously you’ve said that DJing is your first love, however is that now changing?
Yeah it’s changing. Everybody changes. I remember I was with somebody a few weeks ago who was saying, “Seven years ago you were told us that [your first love was DJing]”. But seven years ago I was nineteen! What I was saying when I was nineteen was true, I’ve always been a DJ, that’s always been what I’ve wanted to do. That’s how I started my career. Looking up at DJs, people who were playing other people’s records for a purpose… That’s always been my job, and I’ve achieved some of my dreams as a DJ. That’s my life and I will never change that. I just wanted to experience something different and I feel like being in the studio was by default, because people started asking me to come, they were asking me for ideas, and it was working, so I thought “Maybe I can spend some more time there”. Because of that, I was able to develop an album and have a proper vision for an LP, and not just be a DJ, I also wanted my career to evolve. I didn’t want to make obvious choices, which I could have done. I think taking risks and going further and forward makes everything more interesting.
Are you trying to bring back and celebrate the art of being a DJ?
I’ve been trying to do that since the beginning. DJs mix compilations as a producer would make an artist’s album. Today with the internet you can have every type of music you want for free. But still, I think people respect the fact that a DJ is trying to put their art and what they have in their hearts into a mix. It’s a snapshot of a moment in music and in your life – and you’re giving that to your listeners.
It seems so long ago since you were roped in with the whole French scene in the mid-2000s. Did you feel you had to prove your diversity to shake off the associations?
You mean the whole first-era Ed Banger stuff? They inspired me more than anybody else, musically and humanly. We’re really good friends and even if we’re not playing or releasing the same kind of music, I will always collaborate and do business with friends. That’s the best way to have fun in this amazing job that we’re doing.
Brava is your debut album, yet you’ve been making music for years. Why now?
It’s been around eight years that I’ve been touring everywhere, and for a long time I didn’t have any projects [which required me] to be in the studio for a long time, working on an album. I didn’t feel like it was right for me; I started as a DJ, and what first interested me about music, was to play it and listen to it, and make people discover different styles. I used to listen to a lot of rap music, and I started playing it in my sets four of five years ago, and then I started producing it, started doing tracks for other people, remixes for Gucci Mane… About three or four years ago I decided to be in the studio more, producing for other people. I started working with people like Theophilus, Shakira, Kanye West. People loved my ideas, they wanted to work with me for that reason. So I thought, “Why not try do an album that would mix rap music and electronic music?” That’s what I’m good at when I’m in the studio. I like what I do as an electronic producer, but I think there are people doing it better than me sometimes; I love what everybody else is doing, people who were DJs before being producers, Andrew Weatherall, Erol Alkan, 2ManyDJs. I didn’t see my spot there as a producer.
When did you first start working on Brava? What were the first steps?
I started working on the project two years ago. I brought a team together because I didn’t want to work by myself. I wanted to travel with people. After travelling by myself for a long time, I realised it’s cool to see all those things, but not sharing it with anybody is frustrating. I brought two people with me, Myd from Club Cheval and DJ Kore, a big rap producer from France. I needed two different objective opinions with me – one coming from the electronic world, and one from the rap world – to keep a balance. The first step was to properly mix the electronic music and the rap. We saw it was working on some of the tracks, but not every one of them. Making tracks like “Us” and “Interview” made me realise we had the potential to make another kind of music.
You’ve always been a big collaborator and worked on projects with producers and DJs like your friend and label mate Gesaffelstein, Theophilus London, Daft Punk, and Kanye West. What was your favorite collaborative project?
I would say that every project that I worked on is a collaborative project anyway because I’m always bringing people in. From the beginning with “Bad Runner” I always had people around me, helping me, and teaching me how to do things, and also when there’s people I want to collaborate with I always find the studio time way more rich when I’m with people. More recently of course, the album because I had a chance to collaborate with Myd from Club Cheval, and also people like Peewee Longway, BriccBaby Shitro, Bloody Jay, Young Scooter, Slim Thug, Louisahhh and many, many others. For me it’s bringing people in that I love and that I want to work with, but first things first, it’s a human relationship that’s going to make the change. When you meet someone it’s going to be different if you like each other, then you can actually share music, taste, and opinion. Working with Gesaffelstein on many, many projects, and being on tour with him of course, it had to be working on Yeezus with Kanye that was one of the highlights of the collaborative projects I’ve worked on in the studio. I hope, I really hope I’m going to have many, many more.
In the studio you do not seem to like to work alone, there are a lot of collaborations on your album.
There are quite a few artists in music history who have worked alone. When I made the album, I wanted to connect electronic music and rap and make music that you can hear at home. I wanted to have vocals on the album. And that I sing myself, is unfortunately excluded. So I needed a little support.
What do you listen to at home?
Mostly super-cheesy rap and R&B, like Drake, and chopped and screwed music. IIt’s kind of my alter ego: when I’m behind the decks, I know exactly what to do and what to play and what will feel good. But it’s different when I’m at home.
What made you decide to start incorporating and now heavily featuring hip-hop and rap in your productions?
It took me like four or five years, and I’m still learning how to do it. I never really decided it, but after a while I realized that I didn’t want to play just electronic music in the club but also rap music. So then I start incorporating one song, and then two songs, and then three, and then I was like why not just remix them and make them the way I wanna do it because no one else is doing it the exact way I want to make it happen? That was the first time I really considered doing an album. So I chose to do Brava, and I started working on it, and it took me a while because I’m touring every weekend still. So I took my time being in the studio and working with rappers. It was more than just a purpose, it was more than just an album for me, it was an amazing experience. The album is just another step in the process of what I want to do in the next 10-15 years, which is working with the people I love and making them go through many, many, many changes of what we love in music and opening the spectrum of what we like. Getting Peewee Longway to work on crazy music or Bloody Jay, that’s already what we do. Now it’s like how can we get in the studio with Gucci or Future and actually realize what we wanna do. Maybe even going further than that and still working with people that I appreciate a lot especially in the ATL scene and the newer ATL scene like Johnny Cinco, Bankroll Fresh, and all these rappers that I wanna work with, and I wanna bring them in the clubs that we are playing at now.
https://soundcloud.com/brodinskiofficial/brodinski-the-west-coast-mix
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