a Selfie with DJ Smokey (Part 1)
1. How did you first get into producing hip-hop beats?
I started making beats in grade 10 on audacity. Literally on audacity, I would copy paste the drum loops and samples over and over again. It was a rough start. Then later that year I found out about Fruity loops. I heard about it cuz Soulja Boy was big at the time and I remember hearing that he produced his whole first tape on the FL studio demo. Soon as I got that info I jumped into FL studio. I used the demo for like the first 3 years on that program lol.
2. What is Positive Squad for those who don’t know?
Its a movement I started in 2014 when I released my album "Smoked Out Dance Party". During the time I was addicted to xans and opiates, and I was doing a shitload of both every day, along with a bunch of other crap. When I started working on Smoked Out Dance Party, I decided I was going to release an album that was completely different from anything I had tried before. I wanted every song to be extrememly positive, uplifiting and have a party atmosphere around it. This was also a mental thing. I was really depressed at the time. Seriously depressed, and suicidal all that bullshit. I literally wanted to die and shit. But I knew if I forced myself to be positive I could become a positive person. So I started tweeting only positive things. I started talking only positive. At the time I was severely depressed. But it worked. Being is becoming. After a while the positivity stuck. The drugs stopped working and I stopped them. Positive Squad saved my life. Thats why I rep positive squad. Its tattood on my arm. Its my headspace, my lifestyle, my way of dealing with everything. No matter what, shit is gonna go right or left. So it up to you how you respond to situtions. I choose to keep a positive outlook as much as I can. Positive Squad is life. Protect Positive squad. Protect everyone who represents and identifies with Positive squad. Positive squad is my family.
3. Why do you think you’re one of the only producers consistently putting out high quality music videos?
Its because we work hard over here at Positive Squad Industries. About a year and a half back I asked my good homie EL Pablo @positivepabs to start editing videos for me. He’s been into video editing since a kid, but once we started working, he quickly polished off his skills. Now we’ve made a shit load of videos and were not stopping. Actually, were about to drop a ton of new visuals and music. We have currently assembled a small team of videographers and people with talent. Shout out to Pizza Pyramid Zine, Janet and all the family. We got shit coming. Its not something we planned on doing tho, we just love being creative, getting high and making trippy shit. Smoke gang trailer park boys. Positive Squad Adventures Chapter 2 coming soon many visuals on the way.
Follow DJ Smokey on Soundcloud @ https://soundcloud.com/smoke-gang-beatz
