To rewind to the very start, how and when did you discover music? 
At the age of 10, I became obsessed with drums and played right through school until I went off to Berklee. I played in all sorts of bands across multiple genres and always messed around with a bit of guitar, bass and piano. It wasn’t until I was around 16 that I really became interested in the production and engineering side of things.

You’re a jazz drummer who studied at Berklee. What got you into writing and producing hip-hop, soul and R&B?
When I was a teenager, I made myself a compilation CD that I listened to on my walk to school every day. It was a big mix of jazz, funk and soul music including Nina Simone, James Brown, Oscar Peterson, Sly Stone, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, etc. I’ve always been obsessed with soul and jazz music and I feel like pop, R&B and a lot of hip-hop are an extension of this. To me it’s all about the feeling, all genres kind of cross paths and blur into each other. 

On a production sidenote, it seems more and more productions that used to be predominately electronic are shifting towards a more organic feel. Do you agree?
I definitely progressed from having a much more electronic production style to leaning more into organic sounds. I think there’s a time and place for everything, but that’s definitely how much my taste has progressed. I really like the mix of both, though.

How do you incorporate your own background as a jazz musician into your productions?
I think just being able to play a mix of instruments is a huge asset in the studio. I try to work mainly using my ear to guide me rather than my technical knowledge, but there’s always a time and place for diving back into my ‘Berklee brain.’ Also, having started out in live music, I have a directory in my head of hundreds of musicians I’ve met over the years that I can bring in on projects when needed!

You’ve worked with tons of major artists like Doja Cat, Erick the Architect, Duke Dumont, Maverick Sabre and many, many more. If you had to single out some of the highlights this far into your career, which would they be?
The “Futureproof EP” project I did with Erick over the pandemic was a very special one, we become really close friends remotely as we spent hours on FaceTime every day going back and forth piecing the project together. The pandemic was a very lonely time for a lot of people, but, between this project and a few other things I was focused on, it really gave me purpose. The Doja Cat song “Woman” that I produced was obviously a big moment in my career, opening up a lot of doors for me to work with other artists.