The future is in good hands. Believe that.
I got the chance to sit down with young proudcer, Qubicity and chat with him about his new mixtape, his inspiration, his own future. Â Iâll step back now and get to his voice, but make sure you check out the link to his entire mixtape below, and check above for an exclusive track with yours truly and with young MC, Qil, who is also on the up and up.
Qubicity and Qil. Thank you. I now know hip-hop will be alright.
On to the interview
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SD-Firstly, what a way to start out 2014. The world you create with these beats, the story they tell without words, its almost like you're painting on each track. What was your inspiration for making this mixtape? What were you looking to accomplish?
Q-This tape was conceived very organically. I think you're definitely correct in saying that each track is a bit of a story. I feel each track is a snapshot of a mood or a sequence of emotions. Over the course of my first semester up at school, I'd usually come back to my dorm room after a day of classes and just try to compose an idea or two about the mood I was in. After these musical ideas started to accumulate I just kind of decided, "Okay, I need to do something coherent with these." I think each track represents some very accessible emotions. You've got very pensive and meandering feelings in "Fade" and "Mission", contrasting with the angry and ugly sounds of "Clot" and "Opened." Specifically, I'm very proud of "Toronto." I think that track depicts fear and hesitation culminating in something joyful and beautiful, if you follow the top piano line.Â
 SD-I find the innovativeness of this mixtape refreshing, and I'm curious to know when you and music first met. Was it love at first sight? What in your surroundings pushed you towards your creative expression through music? Did you always want to produce, or is that more of a recent development?
Q-To be honest, I had a lot of trouble breaking into music at first. My grandfather was a great jazz guitarist who had the opportunity to play with some jazz giants, like Coltrane. When I was in 7th grade, I spontaneously approached him and asked him if he could teach me some guitar (ignoring the fact that I barely even listened to music at that time). He refused, and handed me one of his guitars and a book for beginners and told me that teaching myself was the best way to learn, just as he did. I only made it a month or so of struggling through that Mel Bay guitar book before I gave up.Â
 It wasn't until I really started listening to music that I gained a desire to actually learn an instrument. Nine Inch Nails, Metallica...these guys were awesome and they made me want to participate in the world of music. Learning music from these guys instead of out of a book made it much easier for me to learn the instrument. I heard that some of my middle school friends had a hole for a second guitarist in their band and I worked my butt off trying to accelerate my learning curve so that I might convince them to let me into the band. They let me in, and I've been playing ever since. I still haven't taken any formal lessons, on any instrument.Â
 At some point I started tinkling around on the guitar, and coming up with some neat guitar riffs of my own, just fun little things to play. I threw some of them together, and I realized that I was actually creating my own music. It was amazing...and my family loved it and always encouraged me (even when it really didn't sound that great). I started having a lot of trouble in bands, however, because I was too controlling...I wanted to write everybody's parts and leave nothing to chance. This left me pretty frustrated when playing in groups, because nobody was really down with having their parts completely written for them without providing any input. As I matured I realized that I was, and still am, more of a composer than a songwriter. This naturally drew me to producing, where I have millions of instruments at my fingertips. Apparently my controlling nature knows no bounds, because I was hooked on producing after realizing that I could not only write parts for every "instrument," but also command the entire soundscape and timbre of the piece overall. I still enjoy writing for live instruments, but I can get much more music and ideas out into the world if I just create it digitally.Â
 SD-A lot of people don't know this about you, but you are also a talented bassist and drummer, and probably talented at several other instruments that no one knows you played. Who are some of your musical inspirations? How do you see your live instrument skills playing out in your beats?
Q-I'm not really sure how I ended up playing so many instruments. I consider bass to be my main instrument, with drums coming in second. At some point I realized that I preferred not to be in the spotlight and contribute to the music in a more subtle way, and I think that's how I ended up in the rhythm section. Playing all of these instruments has given me experience in the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic parts of music. I also think that playing mainly in the rhythm section has led to my obsession with making sure my music isn't too busy. As a bassist, you want to contribute enough so you're noticed every now and then, but you don't want to be distracting. I think this mentality rings through my music very prominently.Â
 As far as inspirations...on bass I like listening and playing along to Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam and Cliff Burton of Metallica. Guys who don't just follow the guitarists and contribute something unique to the track, all while sitting in the pocket. Jaco and Marcus and some other jazz guys are fun to listen to as well, in moderation. As far as drummers, I have respect for a bunch of them, but I tend to draw my inspiration more from hip-hop tracks. These days I only really play to figure out what might be a nice beat for a track. Otherwise I just tend to go too crazy and get too emotional; it's fun for me but not for anybody else in the group haha.
SD-What's next for Qubicity? What are some of your goals, on and off the beats, in 2014?
Q-I'm sort of expecting a similar mixtape to arise during this semester as well. Writing these little snippets is my version of journaling. I think it'll also be interesting to revisit this tape I just released in the future and see how I was feeling during that fall semester. In terms of musical stuff, I've been in contact with a couple guys from my class, Jacob Bessen and Andrew Nadkarni, about working on a project.
 I need more musical collaborations to keep me sane. Hopefully the next Qubicity tape won't be entirely instrumental. I'm still good friends with a bunch of really talented vocalists and musicians from school that I would love to work with again. My main man Derin Caglar and I have released a couple tracks together recently. Hopefully some more work with Qil aka Aqil Rogers, and Sterling...
 Outside of music, I'm still in heavy contact with my STEAM club from my senior year of high school. We won a contest with Verizon on app design, and we're trying to get our concept off the ground this summer. I love the people in that group and I'm really looking forward to spending a lot of time with them again. It'll be nice to do coding for fun and bump some good music while we're doing it.Â
 Other than that I'm really trying not to have any expectations. Just always trying to do what's best for me at any one time.Â
SD-As a young producer yourself, any words of advice to up and coming artist?Â
Q-I think today's music production programs and DAWs make it insanely easy to start creating music. I think this is great, as more kids like me can express themselves artistically. However, it's too easy to just fall into being content, and not improve. These DAWs come loaded with tons of preset sounds and I find it somewhat dishonest to only use these pre-created sounds if you possess the ability to do more. I'm still working on this myself, but I'm slowly building up my own personal library of sounds that I've created. Music production is beautiful because you don't have the limitations of instruments. A classical composer is subject to using the instruments in the orchestra, a songwriter is at the mercy of the players in their band. Producers have the ability to tweak timbres and create unique sounds never heard before...and if you can master this than you possess a giant amount of power in transferring the ideas from your mind to the real world.
 Also, young producers reading this, let's not let the art of sampling die. Samples can provide an amazing texture and atmosphere that would be impossible to create without them. Personally, samples are usually the only live instruments in my music, and I make use of them to provide a sense of life to an otherwise flat track. My computer science teacher Colin Angevine, taught me if you want to construct something, there's a fair chance that somebody in the world has probably already created some of the building blocks in a very elegant manifestation. In the interest of your own sanity, it can be better to sample something rather than slave over creating it yourself. The most important part is the creativity that you use to combine everything in the end. I personally have a hard time recording myself playing drums for a track, so I usually prefer to sample drums because it will sound much better and it saves me the headaches of pulling out all of my drum microphones, prepping the space for recording, and spending hours of frustration trying to get a good recording. Sampling another artist is an acknowledgement of your appreciation of their work. Let's spread the love.
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You heard the man.
 Music for the people.
Sterling Out.
