HU$H: Shapeshifting The Sound

Now let’s hop right into this latest single / video, “Dulli,” feat. Tech N9ne and X-Raided — Tell me about this particular track; how did it come to fruition?

Damn it was kind of crazy actually. I had the beat and my lyrics recorded when we started releasing singles, but the track wasn’t finished yet, I figured it would be dope to send it around the label and get some features on it so I sent it off to Tech and he loved it. He was working on his album Bliss and was about to have a baby, so I didn’t hear anything back for a while. I was working on my own record, so I tried not to expect too much, especially considering how busy he is. X-Raided was on a similar release schedule so I had been reposting his stuff, and he hit me up to show appreciation for the love. I took the opportunity to let him know how much he inspired me with his dedication to music since way back and he was like, “let’s do a track together!” I was real excited. So, I put some beats together and started looking through the vault and found “Dulli” again and was like, “damn, that’s the perfect track!” I sent it to him, and he loved it and said he’d get me a verse as soon as he could. Fast forward a few more months, I’d been back and forth from Iowa to Kansas City and was so busy with the album. After the “Faith Is Lost” single and video came out, I got a call a week later saying I had to get all the stems for the album out by the following Friday or we’d have to find a new release date and that there wasn’t another date possible for a while. I figured if “Dulli” happens it happens, but people got shit to do (so) I didn’t want to bug anyone about it while they’re all busy AF and both about to have a baby. I busted my ass for a week and got all my tracks done, I needed like 12 more tracks but only had 8 that were mostly finished so it was a bit crazy, but I pulled some more out of the vault and got it all done. I hit up the label and asked if it would be possible to work on the mixes with engineer Ben “Bengineer” Cybulsky the in-house engineer / mixer, and possibly record with some of the other artists on some open verses if anyone’s free. Last day and I’m there working, someone tells my labelmate X-Raided that I’m in the other studio finishing my album for the following day so he texted me like, “yo, your finishing your album? Let’s get in there and finish that track!” The next two days we hit the studio, one of the days labelmate Jehry Robinson came in to do “Panic,” so we were in different studios just working on these tracks. X’s verse came out amazing, I was really excited (Jehry’s, too!). At this point I knew I could make an edit that would work for the album with just X-Raided on it and it’s fire. I figured I’d send it to Tech one last time and see how things are moving. He loved what X put on it and said he’d throw a verse on it so I hit up the label to make sure we could do it in time. Fast forward two weeks later, I’d been done with the mixing for a week and was driving to KC for a photoshoot and I got an email from Tech with the track with his verse and you already know it was fire! I had one small production note, I was hoping to get doubles on just the last half of his verse to build the tension before the end. So, I hit him up and he said he could do it in a week because he’s leaving for tour in the morning, or I could do it. He wouldn’t be back for a week and final submission was two days later, so I said, “fuck it, I guess I’m doing it!” The next day I had the photoshoot all day and got to the studio around 4:30 to make some final mix changes for the album and lay down these doubles. I transcribed the lyrics from the recordings and a scanned copy of his handwritten lyrics and just got on the mic, learned and spit a Tech N9ne verse in 15 minutes, finished the mix with Ben and sent it off. Tech hit me up an hour later like, “bro, you sound just like me!” That was a moment! lol. A week and a half later I was back in KC shooting the video with Tech and X-Raided.

“Dulli” comes courtesy of your just released solo debut, SKUNKWORKS — Conceptually, what does this title represent both to and for you?

The designation “skunkworks” is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects. I do a lot of that for my own projects. I build all kinds of technology for optimizing tasks, and even built my own VST Plugin in C++ because I needed something that didn’t exist. I’m currently building a MIDI Controller for my vocals because what I need is specific and I don’t want to carry a ton of extra buttons on stage that I don’t use, it just creates confusion. In the tech world my friend Josh always called me a skunkworks programmer, that’s how I learned the phrase.

As an emcee, when you sit down to pen your rhymes where do you draw your inspiration from?

Usually, rhythm is what inspires me when I’m writing raps. It’s almost like a lyrical rhythm has its own voice, outside of the words being said. I feel like once I hear that voice of the rhythm I really start going.

What particular string of events actually led to your initial linking up with Tech and later inking with Strange Music?

Well, we had originally hit him up for a feature, we weren’t sure what would come of it, but we thought it would be a really dope combo to work with Tech on some heavy bass. My manager hit up Travis [O’Guin] and we had a meeting setup; I drove in from Iowa and I brought in an MP3 of like a quick mix of all my best tunes in the vault at the time with a broad range of genres. At one point Travis pulled the volume down and was like, “That’s you singing on all of this? And producing and paying everything?” I said, “and mix and mastered!” He said he was going to show it to Tech with no context and see what he thought, and we started “SMILEY” about a week later. Me, Travis and Tech had a meeting at one point, and they said they really liked the music I was making and would love to show it to the world. So, we signed a deal and now we have SKUNKWORKS!

Reflecting, tell me your whole inception into music — When did you first become interested in it? And, how did it all begin for HU$H?

I started playing music when I was 5 years old, my friend Lincoln’s mom had a piano I used to play. I realized if I played all the white keys in the middle, it would sound good almost all the time. I didn’t realize I was just improvising in a key relative to C, but I loved it. My dad used to play his guitar for us when we were kids and eventually, I started learning to play when I was 8. When I was 8 my mom told me I could sing better than my sister (very sweetly) and I was like, “nice, validation! I’ll keep doing this.” Then when I was 12 my sister had been producing beats in this ancient DOS tracker called FastTracker 2 and I wanted to be cool like her and her friends, so I made a beat out of cartoon vocal samples and old sessions of hers. I loved it so much I got addicted to it and just kept going, hopped around to Reason then Pro Tools and eventually settled into Ableton. When I was a teenager the college in my town had scholarships for who needed help getting into schools and this dude Tom from Brooklyn started there and showed up and just rapped around the kegs in the country at our parties. I was the beat box kid and I’d just hold the beat down all night and listen and eventually start rapping later. There were a couple of others like this dude Brandon, and they just had the sickest voices. I really looked up to them and other artists in my area like Coolzey who’s like an indie punk / comedy rapper.

Now you’re a native of where exactly? And growing up there, who all did / do you consider to be your strongest musical influences?

Iowa. I’m all over the board really, a lot of ‘90’s Hip Hop, Punk, and Grunge, ‘00’s Metal and Nu-Metal, Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin, Plaid, Nirvana, Slipknot, the list is long. I love music.

In having said that, how do you classify your overall sound and / or style?

Punk, Metal, and Bass music with some raps in there.

Where does your moniker, HU$H, originally derive from?

I came up w the name when I was living in Los Angeles, I can’t talk really about the life events that inspired it much but it represents the things people refuse to face, the things that drive them to overstimulation and distraction from finding peace and doing good for the people in their community around them.

Switching gears here, what exactly do you want people to get from your music?

These songs helped me through a lot of rough times, my dad passing and other things through the pandemic. I needed those sounds to heal from that shit, so I guess I just hope if anyone else feels the same way I do it could help them process it and feel understood through my own process of understanding myself.

If you could collaborate with any one artist, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Honestly, I used to kick it with this artist in North Hollywood who goes by Sullivan King and he’s been crushing this metal / bass hybrid. We had started a collaboration just before I got sick and I never finished it, so I might have to dig those stems up and finish it.

If you could play any venue in the world, which one would you choose and why?

I’ve always wanted to play Red Rocks, Colorado, it’s so nice and the acoustics in that venue are insane.

On a more serious note, are you happy with the current state of Hip Hop?

Honestly, I’m seeing a lot much younger rappers getting back into Breakbeat influenced raps and I fucking love that shit. When I started getting serious in FastTracker 2 I would chop up old breaks and make Drum and bass, I used to half time it after a drop and just loved that 87 BPM smashed and pitched break sound. Would love to make more of that with some of that Breakbeat style Hip Hop.

What do you feel has and will continue to be the key to your longevity?

Innovation and getting bored easily. Those two things have always driven me to create new and better things, a better live performance, a better sound. I just built a system that saves me 2 months a year of track hunting, these kinds of things help a lot. Track recommendation system that integrates with Rekordbox playlists. With that extra time, I’m building a MIDI Controller prototype with an Arduino and designing a PCB board for my vocal FX Controller on stage. I’ll have 10, solid made pieces of custom equipment to create performances other people can’t do, using plugins I programmed in c++… Anyways, ChatGPT is helping a lot actually with recommending scheduling and routine habits to stay on track, managing important tasks and recommending optimizations, helping me stay on my health because I’m still recovering from the car accident (“Faith Is Lost” video was based on the accident).

Do you have any other outside / additional (future) aspirations, maybe even completely away from music?

Yes, I work a lot on technology. I love building things with Arduinos, but I must say most of it revolves around music. On the code side, I’ve built some interesting tools and recently started working with AI to make my applications even more robust.

To date, what has been your biggest career moment(s), at least thus far anyway?

I’ve done quite a bit in my career; Kazoo Kid remix was a massive hit and currently has 76M plays on Mike Diva’s YouTube. I did the music for that with Mike under the name Sick System. Signing with Strange has really been the biggest one for me, because it’s all me and my own music. Being able to release my own tunes and start performing is really the highlight for me.

What’s an average day like for you?

My days don’t average out to be honest, lol! I do a lot usually…wake up and stretch and try to get my body out of pain. I’ll drink a coffee and focus on whatever task I have in front of me. Sometimes that’s learning a new technology, recently Unreal Engine for Fortnite and then shortly after switch to the live show focus and started building MIDI Controllers, then some performance tech in the software side. It really depends on what’s happening that week, but I go till I drop usually from 10am till 11pm or midnight. Sometimes I eat. Also sleep.

Please discuss how you interact with and respond to fans…

Honestly, I been getting a lot of DM’s, so it’s been tough to keep up lately. I try to talk with people and build relationships when I can. I believe every relationship is valuable and an opportunity to help bring peace to other people’s struggles so I try to be a friend as much as I can.

What is your favorite part about this line of work? Your least favorite? And, why?

Damn, that’s a good question! I love art, I love expression. I even love AI art; I think it’s all something to appreciate. Being in the business of music can be an incredible experience and you meet a lot of unique people and get an opportunity to connect with human emotions and see them liberated from struggle through music. It’s an incredible experience. On the dark side, there’s a lot of people who want power over that, there’s a lot of bureaucracy, games, and ego, it can be a lot. Not everyone’s here to support art, music, expression, and peace. Some people are in it for power, or their empire and it gets ugly.

What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

Don’t stop, put in the work, and just refine your craft. If you’re following in my footsteps and blending genres it will lead you to new music you’ve never heard before, or experiences mashed together in a way that can really blow your mind.

Looking ahead, say five or maybe even ten years from now, where do you all see yourself?

Hopefully on vacation, it’s been a while! lol. I don’t really know. I’ve been working to get here for so long I don’t know what I’ll be doing even 2 years from now.

As for the immediate, what’s next for you, HU$H?

Live performances. Really putting all my focus into putting together a really good live show that’s a whole different experience than the album.

Is there anything I left out or just plain forgot to mention?

Stay up to date at:

https://www.instagram.com/ohshutit/

https://www.facebook.com/ohshutit/

Any “parting” words for our readers?

I just want to say thank you to you, HYPE, and all the readers for taking the time to learn more about me and my music. I appreciate your support and hope that this music can resonate with you in some way. Keep chasing your dreams, stay true to yourself, and never stop creating. Much love to you all!