Respect the Producer Interview with Psouloist @psouloist
How did you get your name?
My real name is Peter Jelle so people always call me ‘PJ', or ‘P’. The P is a legendary letter in Hip Hop, Prodigy, Styles P, Skateboard P, Sean P! You name them. So it made sense to keep that as a producer name. The soloist thing just came from me being introvert and enjoying alone time, putting tracks together with different elements, but as a 'solo artist'. I stylise it as Souloist because soul is what it eventually comes down to, if music doesn’t hit the soul in some way, I don’t mess with it.
How did you get into Producing?
I was always attracted to hiphop music and culture, since I was like twelve years old. I felt like I wanted to contribute to the culture. First I thought I wanted to rap but I didn’t know who to get beats from, so I just tried to figure out how to make beats myself. That opened up the world of producers to me that keeps me curious till this day.
What did you do to advance your skills/knowledge?
Of course I’ve spend some time watching tutorials on Youtube to learn the technical bits of it. But I would say I learned most from just being a fan of hiphop, discovering more and more artists and growing my perspective on hiphop every day. Basically training my ears to be a better listener.
What did your first set up look like?
Just a laptop with a cracked version of Ableton Live. After a while I bought a mini keyboard and some descent speakers. But just a laptop with a DAW is still enough for me to do what I want to do.
What does your current set up look like?
I bought a Maschine like three years ago to be more hands-on and to get closer to a MPC-workflow, with the benefits of digital. Some of the buttons aren’t working properly but it still gets the job done. Besides that I have my record player cause I mainly sample from vinyl. I use KRK speakers or headphones and I have a keyboard, which I barely use since most my stuff is sample-based.
If you could produce for any artist (dead or alive), who would it be?
Probably Nas, since he’s been my fav rapper and one of the first people I listened to. But there’s many people I’d love to work with, Ghostface, Prodigy (RIP), Westside Gunn, Roc Marciano, Dave East, Jadakiss and so forth.
What is your goal when you create?
Being authentic. Not trying to make a certain type of beat, but just express whatever it is below the service. I want to be inspired before I start, though. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.
What's your go-to song right now?
Two songs I keep getting back to lately are ’No Downtime’ by KA, and ’Dear Summer’ by Memphis Bleek and Jay.
What is your dream as a Producer?
To live from making the music I enjoy making, doesn’t need to be a crazy amount of money. And to be able to do that from anywhere in the world, so I can travel the world and dig for records in any country.
What is some advice you would give to someone with a dream to become a Producer?
Get started, download a DAW and watch some tutorials. You can become a producer in a couple of days.. Only after you started you will find out if you really love it, or if you just wanted to be a producer for others to call you a producer. You got to ask yourself these questions. I was appealed to hiphop for the wrong reasons too sometimes, but I realized that this music really has a deeper meaning to me.