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Erick the Architect Knows the Path Forward Shouldn’t Take You From Who You Are
The EP gets its name from a line in a song about how when the music you’re making comes from your soul, you’re “future proof.” But creatively, using the pieces of his life as raw material for the music presented a riddle: “Taking a concept that may have taken hours and hours or days or years, how can you put that in this two-and-a-half-minute song?” Evolving from primarily working with samples to writing original music on pianos and guitars has provided a set of tools to help with the process. It also speaks to his vision for the future: “I always saw myself as being multifaceted, and it wasn’t enough for me to just know and find dope samples. I wanted to be sample-able. I want people to listen to my stuff one day and send me an email, asking me to approve using a sample.”
He rattled off a partial list of artists he considers to be major influences (Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, and Miles Davis), and while none of them are closely associated with hip-hop, there is a common thread in that they all revolutionized their respective genres. “Sometimes music is not about how much you want it, it’s about making the right decisions and always doing what you want,” he said. “It’s your own individual understanding of what it means to be successful.”
When I asked him whether he feels pressured to lean into some of the common hip-hop tropes, like chasing women or bragging about luxury goods, he was quick to give me a firm no, before recounting sitting in on a writing camp with other big names in the genre. “There was so much of the same shit, how can my shit be good? How could you think mine is good when people like the same thing over and over again?” he asked. “It made me feel, for a split second, Like do I just… no. I’m not going to do that, dude. Because the albums that inspired me are eclectic as hell, man. That shit didn’t fit in. And we’re still here talking about them.”
There is an underlying faith in the way he stays true to himself. “I have instances and thoughts of giving up or changing, but you have to remind yourself that who you are is probably why you’re still kicking around,” he said. “Once you change that, you might eliminate yourself from the music industry.”
He reveres artists that have broken out of their initial genre. “There may just be a judgment that someone has on a whole entire genre, which is silly, but people do say I don’t like this kind of music. So once you take it out of the genre that it is and put it somewhere else, it gives that opportunity for somebody to give it a second chance,” he said. “That’s what I thrive off of.”
With that in mind, deliberate, nuanced shifts in composition came up a few times in our conversation. Erick loves to draw inspiration from movies, specifically how time can be distorted for effect. “In a slasher movie, they would just come up and hit you with a machete,” he said. But a director he admires, like Quentin Tarantino, would treat the scene differently. “He’d raise his hand up, before it comes down with the machete, they’d show shots of everyone’s face. That shot that would have taken two seconds is now strung out to three minutes.”
From there, you can draw a line from admiring subtleties in film directly to Erick talking about how he uses music theory while composing: “There is something special about dictating what genre a song is after the melody is established,” he explains. “Even if you don’t know music, when I play a certain chord, you know that this song is about happiness or triumph and this other song is about sadness. I think that the genre that a song lives in is determined by the drums. They actually make the song.”
Sifting through the details and figuring out how to take hold of them to build his own lane got Erick to where he is today. He knows who he is and remains true to himself. And that’s true of his pursuits outside of music too.
Before the end of our call, he mentions one other pandemic lockdown hobby that he picked up: scouring the internet to buy the things he missed out on when he was younger. “All the things that I wanted to have as a kid that I could never afford, whether it’s toys or video games, I tried to go back and tap into my imagination when I first started to fall in love with these things,” Erick says. Because sometimes following your own path means glancing back, and stopping to play for a bit before you move forward once again.
The Analog Futurism of Houston Artist Hamond
You just got back to LA from Turkey. How was that experience?
I haven’t gone on a trip or left the country in a long, long time. I really only left once when I was younger, but my sister lives in Amsterdam. So I went and saw her first and then my girlfriend is from Turkey. So I went and met all her family. That was crazy.
Are you inspired by a lot of things when you’re out and about like that?
In general, yes. Being around LA, I write most of my stuff on the move, in the car, actually. But even just coming back from Europe, I am so regenerated. The way I’m working on things now, just even the past day, has been so energized. I feel like I needed that break. And so moving around Amsterdam and listening to the project in a completely different environment made me think about certain things that I want to do with this mix and with the video. So it 100% influences everything.
Do you drive around with a pad and pen in the passenger seat?
No, I have my phone, which is probably not good. But really, what I do is I’ll have just a voice memo or something like that. I think of something as I’m driving, because I really like to bounce out a quick idea that’s on my computer, so that I can go and put it in my notes app and then listen to it in the car in an actual world environment, instead of just sitting at my desk. You get kind of caught up in overworking things and then go and step away from it and listen to it in the car, it changes everything. Half the project, I came up with the melody or a line or something while I’m driving.
This is an introductory feature for the P&P audience. What’s the first thing you’d like listeners to know about you, Hamond?
My MO more than anything is trying to push boundaries and cross-pollinate genres, that’s what my thing is. Not really being the best singer or musician, all those things matter so much. And the musicality matters so much. But my overall goal is to push boundaries, musically, and to create something new.
I think this project is a step toward that. My first EP, Source Material, from two years ago, it was all the different things I like. And you can hear it kind of jumped from one to the other. After that project, it was about how I could take all these things and make them even more cohesive. Put more boundaries on myself, almost.
Looking at your Instagram, you had a clip with Trainspotting playing while you were making a song right in front of it. Is that normally how you operate Do you try to soundtrack movies with your songs in a way?
I had watched Trainspotting at the time, when I was also working on a song. It inevitably influences what you think about how you see things. If you really like something it trickles into your subconscious. But especially with that, I realized that the song I was working on felt like the movie. So we just put it in the background. It definitely served as inspiration for some of the lines in it, for how it sounded, what we’re choosing, things like that help a ton.
I know you direct too, as you directed the “Angels” video. Do you take inspiration from film when you go into video mode?
I have favorite directors, for sure. Like, there were certain shots in “Angels” and the video for “Badget” that were inspired by Wong Kar-Wai and some of the choppy stop-motion stuff he did. When we’re working on a video, references are everything. So pulling references from videos for color and lighting, and just learning what I like and don’t like. Studying movies is like the main source for that, for sure.
What’s been the most inspiring film you’ve seen as of late?
I would say Fallen Angels was a big reference for this. And Trainspotting. I really love Wes Anderson. It’s just in practice, a lot of the things I loved about Wes Anderson didn’t end up working for the videos that I shot. I would study the cinematography of it, like what makes Wes Anderson, Wes Anderson. So it’s very symmetrical shots and soft lighting… I want to be able to develop my own style, not just like, oh, this is an ode to Wes Anderson or Wong Kar-Wai. Same thing with music, where you pull things from different genres and people that you like to make your own sound.
Is your first full-length project a learning process in terms of your own sound?
100%. With every project I want to get more and more cohesive toward my own thing. Pulling from electronic music, pulling from alternative music, all of these different inspirations that I grew up loving that are so far from each other, and pulling it in to try and create something that’s my own.
Your love for music began with your sister and her music taste. What kind of music did she put you on to?
We shared a family computer. I don’t even remember all the stuff. What sticks out is the first concert I ever went to was a Passion Pit concert that she took me to when I was around 11 years old. Everyone there was older and I got so claustrophobic. I couldn’t see the stage. But I still loved it.
MGMT is another one. I remember she really loved it and I fell in love with that album because of her. And then all of the pop music she was listening to at the time—she was in high school and I was in elementary or middle school. And it was probably Justin Timberlake’s Justified album, which then led me to the Neptunes and Timbaland, and then that just escalated and led to so many other things.
What does she think about this becoming your career?
I’m sure she loves it. I mean, I’ve been doing music since I was like a little kid. So it’s been such a gradual thing. By the time I was in high school, I had developed my own tastes and gone through so many phases that I had kind of gotten more into music than she ever was. But in hindsight, she was really a catalyst to me getting into popular music, because I was playing classical music as a kid. My grandfather played in the Chicago Symphony. And my uncle was a classical conductor. So I was always around classical music. But then she was the one that was listening to pop and alternative music at the time.
“Pulling from electronic music, pulling from alternative music, all of these different inspirations that I grew up loving that are so far from each other, and pulling it in to try and create something that’s my own.”
Did you find yourself trying to play the music that you heard around you?
The classical stuff in particular, definitely made me want to learn certain chords and songs. For example, there was one song that changed how I listened to music. [“Gymnopédie No. 1” by Erik Satie]. It basically was the first classical piano song I had heard that used jazz chords. So it’s like major, minor seventh chords. And it was a lot different from the stuff I’d been playing. And that led me to love jazz music. Then I would find similarities that the Neptunes used major, minor seventh chords that give you a certain feeling. And that led me to realize the style I really like.
And that got you into production?
I was trying to give beats to local rappers in middle school. And by local, I mean really local, like, at the high school. Kids would be like, “Oh, I can rap over this.” And then the whole time, I was secretly singing, but not confident enough to be like, “I’m a singer.” And it took a couple years until I would then sing on a hook of some beat I would give a rapper or something. And then, by the end of high school, I decided I was really going to do my own thing.”
When you started diving into music, did you ever think you’d be someone who is as on top of everything as you are now? Production, vocals, videos…
Over the years, I got really into all forms of art… The coolest thing about being a musical artist is that you get to really do every form of art if you want to. Being a director and being a visual artist with your album and single artwork, working with other people to help execute the vision. But loving every aspect of it just leads to being able to do all these different things. After a certain point, it’s like, how fun would it be to just pivot into a whole new creative outlet? Be a director when I’m 40 years old or something.
“Angels” is your first single following a couple loosies and the 2020 EP. What made it the one to come back with this year?
It was just about what represented the initial journey into the sound. So “Angels” kind of introduced it the best, because it combined all these elements of the project. It alludes to this kind of breakbeat, trip-hop, some people call electronic music, but it still felt really, really musical with the strings. And it was beautiful, the arrangement of it, that teej. [a frequent collaborator] had started on. It just felt like the right introduction to the project. And then when we started to plan all the singles, it built the world out a little more. Then the next one feels like it’s a building on top of that until you get the whole world with the full project.
You called “Angels” a love letter to Houston. What made it that way?
It started with teej. sending me this loop. It was not even a loop. It was literally a classical music arrangement that he had made like it was for a movie, on some Hans Zimmer shit. There was a certain part of it that felt very ethereal and beautiful. When I took that and started chopping it up, it kind of felt like this feeling of home, almost evangelical. It reminded me of this feeling of being protected by people you love and being really thankful for the people around me. And that led to being thankful for being from Houston and made me think back at that whole journey of where I’m from, and why it’s so important.
With the song, we were referencing Romeo and Juliet, the 1996 one with Leonardo DiCaprio. And teej. pulled up a scene. It was the Capulet party, it looks like Juliet’s wearing an angel costume. It just feels like what the song is to me and then I was drawing parallels to that in Houston.
With the video, I wanted to go back to Houston and go to places that I had grown up seeing and had a certain view of. I always saw Houston in this very utopian futuristic way. I don’t think anyone else really saw Houston that way but I wanted to think it was like the city from The Hunger Games. We always talked about doing something new and different from the city that people have never seen.
How would you describe this latest string of music you’ve been creating for the project?
Analog futuristic. Analog is very retro and vintage, it has the musicality and textures of vintage stuff. Tape machines and live instrumentation. But then you match that with forward-leaning production and synths and electronic music. Pulling from both the past and the future to make something new.
R&B Singer LIZA is Following Her Heart Wherever It Takes Her
LIZA’s double life as a recording artist eventually led to her buzzy EP release, Done Is Done, which was entirely conceived and completed during the pandemic with a tight circle of collaborators. While working on the project, even LIZA went as far as renting and living in an Airbnb with her producers. Since then, she’s received numerous accolades, and was evern selected for ASCAP’s “Songwriters: Next Generation” 2021 program. She has also opened for Kyle Dion, Raveena, and Lauryn Hill. “Honestly, I really have to give it all to coffee. That’s been my number one support source,” LIZA jokes.
Some may say it’s LIZA’s optimism that has helped her persevere—after all, to be an emerging musician and have all opportunities somewhat indefinitely on hold because of the pandemic is a hard reality to swallow. “It really forced me to sort of sit with myself and reflect,” LIZA says of her canceled performances and sessions and postponed releases.
“It’s really tough [because performance is the] main way I communicate and connect with supporters and [how I] introduce my music to new people. Shows are the most electrifying thing, especially when you have a crowd that really vibes with your music. There’s nothing like that. So one thing I really forced myself to learn was to focus on the things I could control and a lot of my emphasis went towards writing as much as I could,” LIZA says of her proactive response to these limitations. “It’s seeing what you can do with what you’re given and how you can overcome any obstacles that you have by just changing your perspective,” she adds.
When I ask LIZA if her creative process brings its own set of mental blocks—for instance, reliving painful memories through songwriting is surely exhausting—she says it’s moreso an opportunity for her to reflect. “I think of every song that I write, whether it be released or unreleased, as a chapter in my life. I can go back and listen to that song and remember exactly how I was feeling, where I wrote it, when I wrote it, and who I was with,” she says. “Those moments allow me to look back, especially when I moved on from the situation, to see my growth and overall evolution. I’m so grateful for those moments, even though those emotionally taxing moments can be really burdensome—which is why I really, really try to emphasize the importance of self-care and overall mental health.”
For LIZA, being consistent in daily rituals is how she takes care of her mind and body, even if no two days look alike. This includes waking up at 6:30am or 7 every day (“I’m such a morning person,” she says), meditating, drinking coffee in the sun, and writing in notebooks. “I had a really bad pattern of working really, really hard and burning out and then taking a couple weeks off and then working really hard and then burning out and repeating that cycle,” LIZA says of the time she felt least in control. “The important thing that I learned was that self-care isn’t only when you burn out—it’s every day. It’s waking up in the morning and meditating consistently and not looking at my phone and doing things that make me happy for my overall emotional wellbeing.”
As a Black woman stepping into the precarious and sometimes toxic recording industry, practicing self-care also offers some sort of mental protection. “I don’t even know if I can simplify the complexities of racism in a couple of words—and, it sounds cliche, but Black women have to work twice as hard to get half as far. That’s just what the reality of the situation is,” says LIZA. “I think we’re making strides, but we definitely have a long way to go.”
For now, LIZA looks forward to working on a new music project (“I think it’s the best stuff that I’ve written yet,” she says with pride) and to finding a place to live. And though big changes can be difficult, she works hard to view her life through heart-shaped lenses. “Sometimes I think of my life as a real-life rom-com, which may be unhealthy at times, but I really do love writing about love and happiness and everything related to it,” LIZA enthuses. “My favorite movies are basically every ‘90s Julia Roberts movie—one of my favorites is My Best Friend’s Wedding, where Julia Roberts’ character is named Julianne Potter. The first track on my project is actually named after her.”
From her nursing career beginnings in Toronto to becoming a rising voice in R&B, one could even say that LIZA’s life has always exuded main character energy—and to this day, she confronts all her ups and downs like the protagonist that she is. It shows in all of her work. In essence, every song of heartache LIZA writes also honors the optimism of what can come from the other side. It seems like an ideal place for LIZA to be, mentally, even if everything around her is in flux. “I think I write songs to manifest the love that I want or how I picture love being,” says LIZA. “I really love to capture the essence of good wholesome love.”
*The information contained in this program is not intended to dispense medical advice, and is not intended for self diagnosis or treatment. If you have any questions or concerns about your health, and/or before starting or stopping any treatment or acting upon any information contained in this program, you should contact your own medical physician, or health-care provider.
Believe It or Not, Rappers Struggle Too
“I think I’ve attempted to shield the public or whoever from seeing parts of myself that I felt were not consistent with whatever I was trying to put forward.”
“That experience was brand new to me. Historically, I actually haven’t been as forthcoming,” Jones tells Complex. “I think I’ve attempted to shield the public or whoever from seeing parts of myself that I felt were not consistent with whatever I was trying to put forward. That really led me to a place where I felt very misunderstood. I think I realized I was creating a box for myself, rather than just expressing [myself] openly.”
As previously mentioned, choosing to put yourself out there opens the floodgates for trolls, judgment, and unnecessary chatter that could throw even the most confident human off their game. However, once the musical storyteller learned to accept himself—flaws and all—he had an epiphany that not using his talents to share his story (musically or visually) would be nothing less than “hypocritical.”
“After writing an album that was specifically about this radical self-acceptance and nurturing that inner-child to heal [my] past traumas and experiences, it would be hypocritical for me to hold back in the same way when it came to the visual aspect of it,” says Jones.
“[My team] pushing me to really be more open and give more of myself … was sort of an act of faith and of belief in the gospel that I was preaching: not hold back as much and be more honest and forthcoming and authentic.”
But don’t get it twisted, bearing his soul via his latest sonic declaration was “scary.”
“I did have to mentally prepare for people who watched this film to get to know a lot more about me than I was immediately comfortable with,” he explains. In fact, releasing the first project was a bit nail-biting for the rapper as well.
“I just felt a lack of control. I wanted to control. I was so concerned about controlling my image and people’s understanding of me and trying to make sure that everything I did explained me in the most perfect way,” the rapper explains.
While living up to the perfect projected persona may seem like nothing, it’s almost always impossible to maintain such a pristine facade forever.
“The idea of every major decision you have to look at [is] are you being guided by fear of love?,” Jones shares. “It’s been a long five [or] six year process of me trying to slide myself toward the scale of doing as much as I can out of love and as little as I can out of fear.”
“The idea of every major decision you have to look at [is] are you being guided by fear of love?”
To keep a mental and emotional balance, Jones has embarked on several self-care routines over the years, the most recent including daily yoga, “which is pretty new to me,” he tells us.
“I’ve been through a lot of different routines …[but I’m] three to four months in on a new one. It feels like the most concrete thing I’ve done,” the East Coast lyricist explains. “I’m waking up, I’m working out, and doing yoga every day. [I’m] also getting out of bed earlier.”
According to Jones, boundaries and focus are the keys to survival.
“I’m creating limitations on when and for how long I write. I’m trying to read a little bit every day,” Jones says. “I’m not necessarily successful at these things one-hundred percent of the time. In entertainment, opportunities will come up [and] different curve balls will be thrown at you.”
He continues, “You’ll be in a session and it’ll go [until] four in the morning unexpectedly because you’re chasing that feeling. I rebelled against technology in the beginning of trying to find a routine, but now I’ve incorporated an app that tracks how on top of things I am. I try [to] walk a decent amount every day, about 8,000 steps and that’s probably where I do some of my best thinking. It’s sort of like walking meditation.”
Of all his self-care routine tactics, the New Jersey emcee says yoga is the most vital part of his day-to-day life, because he wants to take care of his mind and body from a holistic point of view—something Jones believes allows him to “make better art.”
“I just have not been as active, especially in the last couple years due to the pandemic, as I’ve wanted to be. Part of that is I was so focused on creating something sustainable in my career and finding this solid ground,” Jones says. “But I realized in the lead up to making the album that I was neglecting a lot of the other parts of myself. I’m now coming into the understanding that focusing on myself more holistically allows me to make better art, allow[ing] me to be a more thoughtful and reflective person that’s able to make the things I want to make. In the past, I was just burning myself out almost as a badge of honor, but it wasn’t really getting me anywhere.”
“I’m now coming into the understanding that focusing on myself more holistically allows me to make better art.”
Aside from yoga and other daily rituals, Jones says therapy is another method he wants to tap into (once he finds the right person for the job).
“I [went to] some therapy when I was much younger, [but] it didn’t last for very long. That’s one of the things that I’ve kind of been lagging on,” Jones shares. “I do this thing where I go on online and have all these tabs open of therapists, but I haven’t quite found the person yet. That’s on the top of the list of things I need to accomplish this year: find the person I’m going to talk to and start to open up more in that way.”
While Jones may not have the right therapist just yet, he does have a support squad, better known as The Summit. The Summit consists of Jones and two of his closest friends. They’re a come-as-you-are, no-questions-asked, we-always-have-your-back pack who keep each other afloat through life’s challenges. And yes, entertainers do have challenges.
“When one of us is going through something, we float it to the group chat and try to drop what we’re doing and hop on a call [or] FaceTime [or] meet in person and just discuss those things.” Jones explains, “it’s a little bit different from therapy because it’s not this sort of unbiased, opinionless figure that you’re talking to, but it is very helpful to just speak out some of your frustrations … out loud and have it resonate and have people be there to support you.” And let’s be honest, support is hard to find when people assume you always have it together, especially in entertainment.
“We’re not always encouraged to go to those places,” Jones says. “[There’s] a lot of partying and a lot of talking about the victories and successes, but not the struggles.”
So no matter who you are, always remember, the struggle is real, for everyone—rappers included.
*The information contained in this program is not intended to dispense medical advice, and is not intended for self diagnosis or treatment. If you have any questions or concerns about your health, and/or before starting or stopping any treatment or acting upon any information contained in this program, you should contact your own medical physician, or health-care provider.