Montréal producer Apashe on building a global network and finding creative new ways to collaborate.
Welcome to Sound Advice, the weekly interview series spotlighting artists’ creative process and their SoundCloud journey. We’ll get the inside knowledge straight from the source on how musicians, producers and creatives are leaning into the many facets of Next Pro to reach their audience and grow their careers.
Apashe has made a name for himself by pushing the definition of what it means to be a global artist. Drawing inspiration across geographies and genres alike, the Montréal artist (born John De Buck) is known around the world for his creative aptitude as a producer, fusing EDM with classical and orchestral elements and hip-hop influences. Most recently, Apashe released ‘Antagonist,’ an anticipated follow-up to his 2020 album, Renaissance. The 14-track collection was written and recorded while traveling to over a dozen countries, a journey that included collaborating with one of India’s leading underground rappers and doing recording sessions with the Prague Philharmonic and Brussels Symphony orchestras. In between legs of his Antagonist tour (its European dates kick off in February), Apashe took some time to step away from a writing session in Miami to offer tips on building a network of collaborators, organizing demos on SoundCloud and making music without a particular goal in mind.
Can you talk about how some of the collaborations for the album came together?
First of all, I really love working with friends and people I know very well that live in the same city as I do. That’s why there are always a bunch of people from Montréal [on my albums]. This project includes LIA, Timour Leng, Wasiu, Ymir, Geoffroy and High Klassified. With Wasiu, I’ve been working with him more and more; he’s not just a collaborator but someone we’re going to start developing and try to create something that hasn’t been done before. We’re preparing a whole classical EP mixed with hip-hop just for him that we’re going to release on an upcoming label that we’re starting. Same with LIA, who is a really close friend of mine. They’re just the easiest people to work with. You call them, they show up, we try something – it works or it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter, we try again. That is the perfect kind of collaboration for me.
Then there’s people who don’t live in the same city but I really liked their music. A good example is RAGA, who is from New Delhi in India. I was in India for a month visiting family and I wanted to work with someone from there. I jumped into a crash course of what the hip-hop scene is like in India, and found out about RAGA on the internet. I reached out to him, and was like, “If you want to jump on a record, I have all these demos. If you feel one, let’s try to work on something.” We recorded the same day that we actually performed it at Lollapalooza in Mumbai, and then the next day, we left to shoot a music video. Everything happened super fast but now I can proudly say he’s a friend and I can’t wait to go back to India to see him again. I’d always rather meet the people I work with, but that’s not always the case, such as with Busta Rhymes. I’ve been a huge fan and I thought he was completely out of reach for me but my agent helped me realize we were on the same roster. We sent an email and shot our shot, just to see if they’d respond. That’s how it started.
How does SoundCloud fit into your creative process?
I have a bunch of [private] playlists with demos on SoundCloud. I’m the kind of person who’s going to make a s— ton of demos! Every time I upload a batch of demos into a new playlist, I’ll add in some old demos too, which helps filter out the good ideas, the ones that travel through time that are worth revisiting. It’ll be like, “Oh, I haven’t listened to that demo in a while and I don’t know if I really like it,” but six months or a year later, if I still kind of like it, that means it should still be on my radar and it’ll stay on the playlist of tracks to consider finishing. Other times, I’ll reopen a project that I was working on a few days prior and if I feel like it’s not working, then I’ll let it slip for another year [before coming back to it]. That happens a lot too.
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How did the remix project you did for your 2020 album Renaissance come together?
It was honestly a crazy time. During the pandemic, everyone was at home and there was nothing to do. I had just put the record out and ended up doing a remix contest to see what would happen. There were over 500 remixes from people who had uploaded on SoundCloud. I made a public playlist of my top 20. It was kind of crazy. That response feels like it was very particular to that moment in time but people are asking me to redo the contest for this new album and I’m considering doing it again because it was so fun.
Have you connected with any of the producers who remixed your music through DMs in a tangible or meaningful way?
Ymir, who is on my new album, only had three SoundCloud followers [when I first discovered him]. The crazy story is that he did a remix of my song “Uebok (Gotta Run)” as part of this pandemic remix contest. I didn’t see it at first because there were so many remixes but someone from my team was like, “Yo, check that one out.” That ended up winning the contest. He re-sang the lyrics, changed a bunch of stuff and re-harmonized it, and it was just so cool what he did with the song. After winning the contest, he released another collaboration we did and jumped on tour with me. Now, I know him very well and it’s all thanks to SoundCloud in a way.
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Can you share more about your journey on SoundCloud? How do you like to utilize the platform and its features?
I was there at the very beginning of SoundCloud and I was part of the generation that was early on streaming. Now, I use it more to find new music. People upload stuff there that you can’t find on other streaming platforms – that for me is the strength of SoundCloud. Especially for DJs, it’s the place to find edits and bootlegs and discover artists. I like to go to my favorite producers and click on their “likes” and see what they listen to and what they’ve liked recently. That’s how you discover people and that’s how you create that network of producers. SoundCloud is a very strong platform for creative people. It’s the place where you meet other creatives, other producers, other singers. It’s used by professionals and amateurs, which is its strength in a way. It’s important to make connections with people. It’s crazy the amount of people I know from SoundCloud.
What advice do you have for artists who are just starting out on SoundCloud?
It’s important to always stay true to yourself and what you really like. At the end of the day, you don’t want to do what everyone else is doing, so it’s really important to capitalize on your weirdness or what makes you different. I really encourage people to be themselves and to trust in that process… but don’t be lazy with it either, you know?
What are you currently working on and what can fans look out for in 2024?
I’m currently working on music without any goal, which is really fun. Right now, I’m in Miami with 10 people – we made homemade studios in a bunch of rooms and we’re here just working on music. For any musician or producer, it’s important to keep it fun. That’s what I’m doing now in between two tours. I did the first part of my tour in the U.S. and next I’m doing the European part. You could consider it a holiday, but it’s a holiday with studios. [laughs] I’m also putting together a big remix project and I’m considering doing a remix contest on SoundCloud again.
Aside from that, I want to do a bunch of VIPs [Variations In Production]. During the process of making the album, it was really hard for me to stick to one version of a song. I’d also like to release the raw recordings from the classical symphonic orchestras I worked with. Right now, we’re touring with a brass orchestra, but I would love to do shows with a whole symphonic orchestra too. We’re also doing screenings of a documentary that features everything we’ve filmed in the past two or three years. It’s kind of like a mockumentary in some parts. We filmed a bunch of nonsense, like all the stupid s— that happens on tour, and then we filmed the process with the symphonic orchestra, which is very serious. That’s the duality you’ll find in my music, so we tried to do that in the documentary as well.
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