MATT TRAMMELL
This week we spoke to music writer and A&R, Matt Trammell. Born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Matt has been covering music and culture in outlets like The New Yorker, The Fader, Rolling Stone and more, before transitioning to his career as A&R at XL Recordings. Matt spoke to us about the local culture, music and people that influenced him to start his career, and the type of visibility and access he hopes to provide for creative people, black people and young people around him, now and in the future.
Who are you, where you from?
My name is Matthew Trammell, I’m from Flatbush.
You started as a music journalist and now you’re an A&R at XL – can you talk about your career and that transition?
Yeah definitely, when I first started writing the only reason that I wanted to do it was because I used to watch a lot of Behind the Music and Driven on VH1 and those kind of documentaries. They would always have the people that were getting interviewed about the subject – so it would be someone from Rolling Stone talking about Ludacris, or whoever they were having the special on. That’s when I really realized it’s a job you could have. I was watching TV and then I saw them – some of them were black, different races, some of them were women; so it was like “oh, that’s so accessible.” It felt accessible to me.
The Fader was the first job that was my real job, where I wasn’t in school or anything. That was super dope because by that period I was reading The Fader and knew it was like – they cover the dopest artists, they have the best parties and all of that shit. I feel like I got very lucky to be at places where the magazines still did hold a lot of importance. And at The Fader the cover is still mad important. That’s still a check mark in an artists career, still the temperature of what’s going on right now, the photos are always so beautiful, and the people who are writing for the magazine still have their own taste and fandom so that identity comes through.
How did you end up writing for The New Yorker? As a New Yorker that was crazy right?
Somebody sent me the listing me for the job at The New Yorker and I was like “ok, that’s mad funny, like it’s no way I would be working there, so I’m not even gonna apply, but thank you, that’s mad funny.” Then someone else recommended me for it and the next day someone hit me up. I went in for the interview still kind of feeling like “it’s no way this is going down.” But I got it. And it was very difficult leaving The Fader. It feels like a family thing like “no, I can’t leave this, we gotta keep doing this together for this space,” but then it was fine. That transition was bugged out - but I feel like I couldn’t not do that.
And you held down the “Goings on About Town” column which is legendary in itself right?
Well, it’s not about whose album out, whose video is popping. It’s just who is playing in New York City that week. And I would honestly recommend that to anybody that’s trying to discover new music or a new way of thinking about the whole thing. Just looking at concerts and looking at people who are playing in venues and shit like that is a whole other thing than a “Spotify Discover” playlist weekly. There are artists that are touring all the time, or are playing in their city all the time, that don’t get shit on blogs, don’t have tracks on streaming services but just have fans in the real world. That was a big thing for me discovering that.
Right, so at this point you’re this young black man from Flatbush with mad visibility - telling people from all walks of life, what they should do that weekend.
I’m just trying to have a balanced perspective. I’m not the first black person to write for The New Yorker but at the same time our generation is different to previous ones. I was always just trying have our perspective represented. Like one time there was this meme of the challenges going on like “So Gone” challenge, and two other ones. It was based off of Monica, “Knuck If You Buck ,” and one other song. And I did a piece on it and I felt like ok, nobody else can do this. Besides people who actually know who Monica is.
There’s a lot of music critics that don’t really know about regular cultural touchstones for the hood as far as music. There’s a ton of music journalists that are well-studied English student type kids who know about “all the right music that’s cool,” but they don’t know about Monica. So I was like ok, if I just stay to what I know and what I fuck with then I can’t really go wrong. But if I try to reach, the way I see a lot of people try to reach…that’s when I’m gonna look dumb.
Plus you get to put your people on, who might not be seen by that audience, who you feel deserve it.
It was easy to me because it was like, on that level there’s no magazine more fitting to do this than The New Yorker. To be on the ground in New York City and doing this on a level that’s respected and dope. One of the craziest things was putting Palisades on the cover. Obviously putting Show Me The Body, putting Wiki, a bunch of people in there. Being able to cover smaller things, in a bigger thing. It’s not a music magazine, and that was the first time I worked somewhere that wasn’t music focused. So they’re talking about Trump and real shit and I’m like…also there’s this dude that raps. It wasn’t as if I had to share the platform as far as what I wanted to cover. It was a lot of opportunity to just throw some shit up that I fucked with, that I think is cool, and just give that person that boost.
What were some of your favorite interview experiences as a writer otherwise?
Snoop was fucking amazing. He was putting out an album “Bush,” his comeback album with Pharell. He was doing a lot of press of it, and it was a good album! He did a release, and I can’t remember where it was, but there was some balcony and Fader was there covering the listening party. He’s sitting there - he had a bucket on, blunt rolled, just chilling, really just Snoop. So I was interviewing him and he fucking got a call and he was like, “Guess who that was?” And I was like “who,” and he’s like “Tim McGraw, he was just talking some business. Just player to player. No manager, no middle man, he just hit my line direct. That’s what I’m talking about.” And then I was asking him anything about songs I had questions about. Nothing’s fake about him. Snoop is amazing.
YG was also super dope because he had just got shot and he was very paranoid, obviously. Niggas were really tryna kill him. So it was a crazy situation, it wasn’t even supposed to be the cover story but while we were in LA they were like “oh something happened so we’re bumping this to the cover.” So that changed it even more – that was my second cover (Tyler was the first one). So then YG was paranoid but we – I don’t know why – but we got cool enough and he fucked with me and really let me into the whole shit. Like all these dudes really just bloods, like people just shooting at them. He was just in the hospital, and he’s still in LA, at the same time, moving the same way he always does. Completely open and completely giving.
And now you’re in A&R at a major label, XL. What’s it like?
I definitely have that feeling of “all right, cool, one of us is in here now.” Not even on some black shit - there’s a lot of people of color that work in the music industry. One thing that was big for me now – we have a much easier window into who does what, because of social media. So everybody in the music industry, and in every industry, is more visible. Like when we were growing up you gotta be Diddy, you gotta be Suge Knight, to be visible. And all the other people, A&Rs, they were invisible - you didn’t know who they were. But there were people of all backgrounds in this shit the whole time, we just didn’t know. Now we know, so now it’s more accessible. I think one thing that has held communities and groups back is not necessarily that there aren’t people like them in those positions, but that you can’t see them. And you can see more of it now. It’s a lot of different things you can do. You just need to be doing your homework to know what’s even possible.
How do you feel Matt?
I definitely feel good. I feel like the expectations I have are still like…I just wanna put down some shit that’s like undeniable. The people who you have in your brain, those people that you look up to - you just want to put some shit down like, this is gonna be here. So you try to put yourself more and more in a position to do that thing. So I feel in a position to do it, and that feels good. But now I actually want to do it.