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The vibe is weird.
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Every time I explain to people, people look at me funny.
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So basically, when I made the beat I was thinking of clouds.
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Like clouds in a jungle filled full of love.
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But not love from a girl.
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Love from life, and appreciation just a nice fluffy, bouncy.
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Do you hear it?
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If you hear the beat, you're gonna hear it again and be like, “Okay. He's not a madman.”
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I first got into producing in secondary school, which is high school.
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When I was like 13, 14, we would do music technology classes music classes, and I'll
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just be there in there.
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As a hobby, just making beats.
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I didn't know I wanted to do music there and then, or be a producer there and then
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but I knew I wanted to do music I should say.
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I was very fortunate actually.
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My mom's musical palette was crazy.
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She listened to Bob Marley, Kenny Rogers, Carpenters, African guy names Daddy Lumba.
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Then you get the Michael Jacksons, Stevie Wonders.
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All of those in the household every Sunday morning.
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It just comes out in the music.
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Yeah.
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So I really have to thank her to be honest.
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She's the plug.
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When I was making the beat, it was just a vibe.
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To be fair, when I was making the beat, I did think of Drake but it was one of those
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ones when you're a producer, you make the beat. You think, who am I gonna get on it?
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He was one of the guys but I didn't make it for him.
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After the BRIT Awards show last year, Drake came to the Section Boyz show in Shoreditch.
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And that's where it started.
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So I was introduced to Drake.
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I sent music to Drake, but I didn't know it was Passionfruit until close to the release date.
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It's crazy, because I had no idea.
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And then bam, it just comes.
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So the intro on “Passionfruit” had nothing to do with me.
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That's all Drake's and his people's genius.
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All the Zoë Kravitz stuff, the Moodymann, they're geniuses.
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Whatever they add to a song is gonna work.
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So, for “Passionfruit” I started with the keys.
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I don't necessarily always start with the keys.
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It changes depending on how I feel, but in this one I started with the keys.
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I'll play it here.
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This is a NN-XT in Reason.
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I like these keys because they are not the conventional electric keys but they sound
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really smooth.
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When I lay down the keys I was thinking, it needs more movement.
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So I added a house bassline.
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Nice little pattern here.
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It's like a obvious house sound that a lot of house legends have used.
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I layered it as well with a high one.
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So I had all of these elements in the song.
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And I was thinking it's missing something.
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This is a pad I actually made myself.
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Everything added together.
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So it just sounds nice.
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It's got body now.
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It's kind of big now.
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Added some hi-hats.
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Pretty simple groove.
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There's a shaker in there as well.
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I like to use these disco hi-hats when I'm making funky dance songs 'cause it gives
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it more of a live feeling.
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Nice, soft 80s kick.
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I thought the drums needed some movement, just something little, so I added the little
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percussion.
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Then I added the snares, and all the other drums as well.
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A lot of disco music, a lot of funk music always have the claps and the little snare
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fills in every eight or four bars.
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I thought I'd add some myself.
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I added this vocal chop.
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Pretty simple.
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There's a breakdown in the track where I added a moody piano.
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I thought the piano was very moody.
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It needs more of a nicer sound to it.
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Then, I came with the iconic flute.
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This flute is a NN-XT flute.
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I added distortion on there and also a reverb on there.
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As you can see in the key roll I pitch-bended some of the notes.
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And all together it sounds like this.
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With everything playing together it also adds to the whole jungle. The clouds thing I was talking about.
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Then that's basically like, apart from arranging, that's basically the basics of the track.
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I'll play you what I was going to add in there.
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You guys are the first people to hear this version actually.
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When I finished this beat, I knew this was a good beat because I have a thing where I
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would listen to beats over and over again when I really like it and this is one of them.
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So I knew it would be a big beat I just didn't know how big or who would use it.
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And then by the grace of God it became what it became.