If you follow your favourite producers on Twitter at one point or another you may have encountered a rant or two about the mistreatment of producers within the music industry. Whether it be a lack of credit, artists never getting back in time, or even payment, it seems harder, and harder for a beat maker to make their mark and get the flowers they deserve.

One way producers are bypassing this more recently, is by taking complete authority and releasing their own projects - which is exactly what NY based producer Stoic did with his debut album “DUMMY.”I got a chance to talk to Stoic, a friend of the blog, about his latest project and what else is to come.

SPARKY: Tell me about Dummy man! At what point did you decide after your success with making beats that you wanted to make a full blown producer album like this?
S: I got to a point in my career where I was like… everything was cool, everything was fine but I kinda wanted to level up.
My two guiding stars are Kaytranada and the Alchemist. Which may be a weird combo but it makes sense, because they are both producers who can make their own albums and have their own artists name that people will stream. They have their own shows. Have you ever been to a Kaytranada show?

SPARKY: Nah man I’ve only seen videos, unfortunately.
S: Ahh they’re so good. Yeah, Alchemist will go on tour with artists like Action Bronson or Earl Sweatshirt and they perform songs that they’ve done. I kind of just wanted to copy that model and I locked in with my rapper homie Reyan. We just got the album done in like 5, 6 months and people have been liking it so far.

SPARKY: I get that. I personally loved the album. What was the conversation where you decided this is gonna be the guy to be the voice of my project?
S: Well, I had a few other people hitting me up for a project - especially after I dropped that track with Mick Jenkins, I had some pretty established people who were like, “Yo, we should tap in for a whole tape.” Reyan was just a kid I lived down the block from my whole life in Staten Island but I knew he had bars, I knew he had a great voice and even better - anytime I said let’s make some music he would pull up to my crib.
All the bullshit of sending back and forth beats and waiting for verses to be recorded - that was out the window. He would always come through, I would make the beat on the spot and within two hours we would have a song. It just seemed like the easiest way to do it but I also just knew our styles would go together really well.

SPARKY: Yeah, he seemed like a great fit. At first it was kind of reminiscent of Big Body Bes or Bronson with Alchemist. He’s got a great grit and cadence to his voice that just felt good with the heavy sample styled production.
S: Yeah that definitely played a role. Reyan’s just a very authentic and genuine dude. He wasn’t all that involved in music until I said “Yo, you should rap on some beats I made.”
A big thing he likes to say is he didn’t tell a single lie on the album. When he says now he’s whipping the beemer, he HAS the beemer now. I think that’s pretty funny.
It’s also funny that you compared him to body because he’s also Albanian and from New York. That’s a good comparison, those dudes talk their shit.

SPARKY: Right on. This one’s kind of out of the blue - but what ever happened with “Any Colour You Like?”
S: Oh MAN. How the f*ck did you know about that? What am I, on Narduwar bro?
Any Colour You Like was my first high school band that I had when we were about 15 or 16. We just didn't have the pieces. Any Colour You Like did not have the pieces. But it’s funny you asked about that, cause Any Colour You Like was the reason I started producing. It was kind of in an arrogant way but I was already telling the bassist and drummer suggestions and eventually i said “Man f*** this, why don’t I just go and make this all myself on the computer?”
We have one album on bandcamp right now you can probably still go find that.

SPARKY: Really? Damm I must’ve not looked hard enough.
S: I’m trying to figure out how you found that and I have no clue, but keep it comin.

SPARKY: Halal carts all over NYC are bumping your intro track “Inshallah”. Clearly.
S: Obviously.

SPARKY: How are you celebrating Ramadan?
S: Well I’m not partaking in Ramadan personally, but I stand with my brothers. I will be drinking alcohol and sinning EXTRA all month for them.

SPARKY: Well as a not so perfect Muslim myself, I can respect that.
S: Well it’s kind of like with vegans where I’ll eat two portions of meat on their behalf.

SPARKY: Pulling the extra weight for them, I see.
S: Someone’s gotta do it.

SPARKY: Yeah I think that’s called being an ally, but what do I know? So you spent some time trying to be a nurse, right? At what point did you say to yourself, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
S: That time I had to wipe a guy’s ass is one of the moments where I thought I probably don’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life. But nah, honestly, I did want to be a nurse. I didn’t love the work too much but I did like the idea of helping people but as much as I wanted to, they didn’t seem to want me since I failed one year. They were going to hold me back a full year which meant another $20,000 in tuition, housing, all of this really set me back. My student debt is through the roof, but I’m kind of happy it didn’t work out cause this life is a little less stressful.

SPARKY: So you’re feeling good about things and your trajectory?
S: For my career? Yeah. As a lot of people know there isn’t a ton of money in the music industry unless you make it big, big. I do have interest in real estate, which is why I bought this house - to kind of work on it, flip it, stuff like that. But I love making music. I'm going to make it every day til the day I die.

SPARKY: So you mentioned wanting to take the reins when it came to being in your band and deciding to just make the whole track yourself. Have you ever felt that way about actually rapping over your own beats yourself?

S: I’ve rapped before. I don’t know if they’re anywhere out on the internet but I do enjoy freestyling with my friends like anyone else. Sometimes when I’m in the studio I’ll give suggestions or references to help the flow a little. I listen to rap all day and kind of study it, so as far as my own raps go you may hear something down the line in one of my albums one of these days.

SPARKY: You ever get approached by someone who wants to use one of your beats and think “I really don’t want my name attached to this artist at all?”
S: If they purchase it from my website I have set up right now it’s free rein and they can do whatever they want. I probably have 5-10 people hit me up a day telling me they made a song with one of my beats. And sometimes it’s not the best song but to answer your question - yes, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

SPARKY: Right on. On March 2nd, 2021 you tweeted “between cryptos, beat leases, nft’s… If we play our cards right a lot of us may never have real jobs” Do you feel responsible for the hundreds of millions of dollars lost through crypto?
S: *chuckles* For sure. As an early adopter I’ve lost my fair share on crypto.. You know what I’ll take the blame for that one. But the crypto - I’m with that. There might be a boom this year. Listen, buy it, it’s on sale right now.

SPARKY: Yeah I know what you mean with the loss. I personally was up $20,000 off that whole gamestop frenzy and it totally tore a rift in my relationship at the time I was glued to my phone staring at that number go up and down and she couldn’t stand me those couple weeks. When it crashed I ended up holding on way too long and lost like $200.
S: Oh my God, that’s a rough fall. It’s hard to know when to sell. But I’m still holding onto my crypto.

SPARKY: That’s awesome. Yeah, hopefully someone will learn from my mistakes. (Sorry Alex) Anyway, what’s your personal favourite track off Dummy?
S: I really like “Yianni” - the closing track of the album, which is about Reyan’s grandmother who passed away while we were making the album. They were really close and 2 or 3 days after her passing we had a show - the whole song is basically just about that time period and just looking back on their relationship. That song made me cry a bunch of times even while I was mixing it. The feature on that track is this girl from Australia named Rahel who had reached out about potentially featuring on the album after us being mutual for a while, and I said “Okay, I think I’ve got one for you.” She laid some of the most beautiful vocals I’ve ever heard on there.

SPARKY: Production style when it comes to beats before our time was heavily regional. An example of that would be west-coast style G-funk, Chicago drill or New york style boom bap. Do you think that’s relevant in today’s world of music production?
S: No, not really. I think people used to get their influence from local radio like I would from Hot 97 in New York but I don’t know many people who are only listening to the radio growing up anymore and I don’t know a lot of people only learning from the artists around them. I know a lot of producers who are learning just from looking at Kenny Beats videos and mimicking him or any other internet producers so I think that stuff is kind of on the way out - but artists are influenced by the other artists around them kind of like Bronx drill music, so I guess it still is relevant. Personally, I’m just making what I like the most - whether that sounds like it’s coming from New York or Tokyo. It’s whatever moves me.

SPARKY: So with your debut album finally being out you’ve been pretty active on twitter teasing upcoming releases. What else do you have planned?
S: Yeah I’ve got one coming out in June with CJ Fly of Pro Era which is gonna be a collab tape. My next one after that I’m Going the Kaytranada route with 10 different artists with 10 of my beats. Then I’m planning on in December dropping my 4th album of the year, but it’s still a tossup as to who’s going to be on it.. But I think people are gonna like it.

SPARKY: That’s awesome. Well, I’m definitely looking forward to it. Looks like that’s our time but thanks for sparing some time to talk man!
S: Hey thanks for having me!