Head Nods

Nefarious! HeadNods Interview
I first heard of his work in “For The Night Time” DL it on bandcamp, music.thesouldojo.com/album/for-the-night-time
then i checked out thesouldojo.com
a few months later, here we are. Be sure to check out the beats he has for sale http://www.beats.thesouldojo.com/nefarious/

Nefarious! Where are you from and how were you influenced to start making beats?

I’m from the Bay Area and I actually started making beats out of necessity. When I was in high school I had a few homies and we made a rap group. We needed original beats because we didn’t want to do the soundclick thing all the time, so I decided I would start making beats and produce for the crew. Eventually, we realized we sucked… but I kept on making beats because I honestly loved it more than I did rapping. I quit rapping and started really getting into Dilla, 9th Wonder, Pete, Premo, etc. I haven’t stopped since then.

What equipment have you used?
As far as making beats goes, I have some basic KRK-RP5 monitors. The old boxy ones. I record into an MBOX 2 when I do my recording at home. I mainly use my Akai MPD32 to chop samples and do drums and my Keyrig 49 for instruments and keys and stuff. All of that and Reason 6.

What equipment do you want to use in the future?
In the future I’d like to have a few racks of dynamic and time-based processors. I’ve been looking at a few smaller consoles but it’s hard to afford right now since I’m a full time college student.

How did you start the soul dojo?
The Soul Dojo started out as the name for an album I was working on at first. I built a blog for it on Wordpress and bought the domain and everything to hype up this project I was working on. I picked out a few upcoming rappers I wanted to work with and sent them some beats and it pretty much just fell through. That, or I wasn’t really feeling the tracks. I didn’t want to rely on rappers anymore to get my own name out, so I started putting out beat tapes and posting other beat tapes on The Soul Dojo blog. A few years pass and here we are.

How do you get inspired?
The inspiration kind of comes and goes on its own. I get inspired to create when I’m around other talented musicians and artists and by going to shows and stuff like that. As far as the inspiration behind the actual music goes, I’m inspired by things that are going on in my life. Memories and experiences and relationships and things of that nature.

What has been your best collaboration so far and who would you like to collaborate with?
My best collaborations would have to be my work with SLik d or Amor Jones. And EPonym, too. I’m friends with them personally and as artists so I’ve always felt like our tracks were a little more personal than if I were to just send a random emcee a beat. In the future I’d like to work with more upcoming LA artists and musicians. As of lately I’ve been really into music that is recorded live so look out for a little of that in my next releases.

What do you like to do for fun besides making music?
I’m just an average 20 year old. I party with friends a lot. Indulge myself in various substances… I have a lot of fun with the way I’m living. However, I do have the most fun when I’m working creatively with other artists. It’s still always nice to take a break from it and just, for lack of better words, fuck shit up.

Are you currently working on anything?
Right now I’m working on my next project that will be released sometime next year.  I’m also in charge of mixing Jansport J’s next instrumental album so I’ve been busy with that too. Soon I hope to drop a few EPs with the rappers I’ve been working with so look out for that too.

links

http://www.thesouldojo.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/nefthedamaja

http://www.facebook.com/NefariousProd?ref=ts

https://twitter.com/#!/nefthedamaja

http://nefarious.bandcamp.com/

http://www.last.fm/music/Nefarious!

http://thecrushgroovin.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/#!/TheSoulDojo

http://thesouldojo.tumblr.com/

http://soundcloud.com/nasty-nef