M!NT Talks About His New Single “90 Degrees” And Signing A Label Deal

This week, we sat down with a rising, Brooklyn-based producer M!NT who is making waves with his genre-defying music and collaborations with exciting artists on the rise. After recently signing a new deal with game-changer record label Amuse, M!NT made his label debut with the reflective, end of Summer themed track “90 Degrees”.

No stranger to the music industry, M!NT (also known as Cody Yozipovic), has been quietly making a name for himself in the business for some time. Having started his career in the electronic festival circuit, M!NT has fine tuned his production skills with the ability to seamlessly work across genres from everything from electronic, hip-hop to lo-fi. He’s also known for founding popular New York party series Sweatshop and his own creative studio Arrowhead House. Get to know this truly multi-faceted producer in our interview below.

You’ve just released your new single “90 Degrees”, which we loved and covered last month. Can you tell us how the collaboration with Bronx-based artist Nas Leber happened?

It was actually one of our first times ever really hanging in the studio, and while we were going through potential ideas I remembered this beat from a while back. I played it, and he was immediately hooked. He wrote the entire song in under an hour and we laid it down. One session, done and dusted.

Tell us about the creative direction behind the incredibly cinematic video?

I randomly took a trip to a friend’s place in City Island in the Bronx one day this summer, and when I arrived I was blown away by this incredible old Victorian home. The home had been in my friends family for over 100 years, and is a New York historical landmark with so much character. I just knew we had to shoot a video there one day, but I didn’t know it would be 90 Degrees. So when I told Nas about it, he shared how much he used to go to City Island as a kid, and from that point on it was a wrap. One month later, we went back and shot the whole thing in a day, plus some extra B roll around the city in the weeks after. We simply wanted to capture the nostalgia of revisiting memories of old self growing up in a city like New York, and since connections were so easily made between the location and Nas’ upbringing, the whole process flowed so naturally.

You’ve been in the industry for a long time. From your beginnings in EDM, to running your own production company now. Tell us a bit more about your journey and what prompted you to start producing in different genres?

I wish there was an easy answer to that, haha. As an artist I believe in constantly switching things up to stay inspired, and in a lot of ways I grew out of certain sounds, or simply wanted to challenge myself to make as many different styles of music as possible. I owe alot to my electronic music roots, but I never wanted to produce just that. Electronic music at its core is a blend of so many different styles of music, but evolving my skills to make stuff at the level of the music I listen to was always the main goal. The path was never pre-designed, so I’m grateful for how many different roads lead to where I am now.

When did you first know you wanted to be in the music industry?

When I played my first show in high school I knew I had to keep chasing that high. I joined a screamo/punk/metal band when I was around 14, and even when we got together to jam it felt like nothing else in the world. Collaborating on music with your friends is the coolest feeling in the world, and since my parents are also musicians they always pushed me to keep chasing that. I knew I wouldn’t ever be happy in the corporate world, so from early on music was always the clearest path to a fulfilled, creative life.

Congratulations on your recently inked deal with Amuse Records. What prompted you to sign with this game changing new style of record label?

Thank you! Ryan Celsuis and Amuse are part of an incredible new wave of disruptive music industry change makers. Backing artists with funding, technology, distribution, and marketing always come with a catch – the label ends up owing all of your work. But with Amuse, I am still creatively and independently myself, with the backing and connections of a record label, while owning all my masters. It was a no brainer when presented the opportunity, and even more so because they were never just signing. Everyone I collaborate with came with it, and now I’m able to give all of my incredibly talented friends a platform to share their art with the world, too.

We know your “90 Degrees” is a hip-hop single, but in general, what genre would you classify your production style as?

That’s a tough one too! I’ve always viewed my music through a cinematic lens. I’ve always imagined pairing my music with a visual, so I think through the melodies and sounds I choose, I try to give my listener the chance to visualize even further through their own imagination. I try to tell stories, and since my styles are always changing, I’m not quite sure I can even classify it into one genre. But I sometimes refer to my music as cinematic rap and R&B, with ambient electronic undertones, if I were to give it one label. A ton of my inspiration comes from music made across the pond in the UK, so you can hear a bunch of those elements in certain songs too.

Outside of production, do you also write lyrics or prefer to collaborate on the songwriting process?

I actually started my musical journey writing lyrics and singing, writing whole songs with all the parts and figuring out how to play the instruments the songs needed. But as I started progressing as a producer and engineer, I realized I enjoyed being more of an executive producer and collaborator on other people’s projects, helping my friends and artists realize their ideas and inspiring them where I can, if needed.

If you could work with any three artists, who would it be and why?

Kojey Radical, Brent Faiyaz, and Larry June. Easy.

Given COVID and everything else we’re currently facing in the world right now, do you feel it’s important for artist’s to use their platforms to stand for what they believe in?

Absolutely. If you signed up for this music shit, you knew what would eventually come with it. Responsibility. If you have a platform and the only thing you promote is yourself, while ignoring the world and its most important issues while everything falls apart, and if you have the chance to inspire others to think differently and create change, and you don’t make any attempts to do so, then what are you really in this for? Music has always connected people to the most pertinent social issues, and now we all can create literal ecosystems with our phones through our art or our messages. Make the world a better place if you can while you’re here, it’s that simple.

Finally, what’s next for M!NT? Any new music on the horizon for us to look forward to?

This is just the start of a whole new M!NT. New singles, new albums, new collaborations, new music videos. Hopefully you’ll be seeing me score more films and documentaries down the road too 😉