I make music, but I wouldn’t really call myself a musician. I make music, but I don’t really play an instrument. I make music, but most people don’t understand what that means. I make rap music. I make hip hop music. I make electronic music. I make beats. When I try to explain my music to most friends or family I almost always get a bewildered look. They simply don’t understand it. Usually I will tell people this about my music. I sample old vinyl records. I take short sounds or snippets from different songs on those records, and then rearrange those sounds to make a new song. Kanye West is probably the most famous artist of today who has made many of his famous songs in a similar way. Here he is on 60 minutes trying to explain the process during an interview. The machine Kanye West is using in that video is a drum machine. I have a slightly different version of that drum machine which is called an Akai MPC 1000. This is the drum machine I use to start the music process. I play a record into the drum machine which records and chops the music being played into it. You can then place those chopped, or smaller pieces, of music into one of the different drum pads. When you hit each pad it plays the pre selected sound. That is a simplified overview of how I will usually start a beat. After the frame work of a beat is worked out on the drum machine, I can then transfer everything to my computer. Using different software programs on my computer I then can make further edits for a more refined final song. Most of my music up to this point has been centered around two different names. The first is Vinyl Monster. This is a two man rap duo which consists of myself on beats and production, and my friend Andrew Hermansen on vocals. The other musical alias I use for my solo stuff is MoonWalker BoomBox, I don’t love the name but now it has sort of just stuck. The name of my most recent project is simply The Roger EP. The album, similar to my music making process, seems to be equally as confusing to people, and has resulted in many “who’s on first what’s on second,” type conversations. The Roger EP began with an idea. I wanted to work with different rappers to make short concept albums with around 5 to 8 songs. For each album I wanted to select an artist whose music I would use to sample all of my beats from, and then chose a rapper to perform over those beats. For the Roger EP I worked with a local Utah rapper that goes by the name Atheist. We meet during a show I played at earlier this year at Kilby Court, where he was also performing. I liked his clever songs and his ability to entertain a crowd. So I approached him afterwards about possibly working on a project together. He graciously accepted, and we decided the artist I would sample for the beats would be Roger Troutman. Roger Troutman was best known for his use of a talk box instrument in his music. Roger had many solo albums and played in several groups including Zapp and Parliament – Funkadelic. I took bits and pieces from the Roger Troutman catalog, and from there formed each beat that is now on The Roger EP. Atheist then took those beats wrote his lyrics and rapped over them. All of the songs except one were recorded mixed and mastered in Provo, UT by Chance Lewis, who is also a local rapper and beat maker. Then the artwork was created by Grant Miller, who also plays in the 2013 City Weekly Band of the Year, L’anarchiste. In addition to these main contributors there were also several people who did guest versus on some of the songs including Gryzlee Beats, who performed and recorded “Thrill Seeeker.” Donnie Bonelli, who performed on “Cinematic Part II” and “Work Your Body,” and finally Q1, who is on the track “Work Your Body.” I wish I could take more credit the final version of this album, but for the most part I just made the beats and Atheist did everything else. With so many different people involved and both of us married and working full time jobs, it is hard to put in the time and effort required for even a small production such as this one. Although The Roger EP was not the first of my projects to begin recently, it was the first to be completed, and for that I am grateful for everyone’s hard work. With all of that said, hopefully I will get less confused looks from friends and family when I try to explain to them what my music is. The Roger EP is not for everyone, but I do think that everyone should give it a listen. Also if anyone likes any of the songs please share it with your friends. Listen to and download the album for free on my bandcamp page moonwalkerboombox.bandcamp.com.
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