Tags: Interview
Wise Child, the 18 year-old soundscape creator from Sacramento, California, has got the cosmos on tap. Signed to indie record label Sol Life Music, Wise Child’s beats are zen electronica and will make you contemplate the whole universe in one sitting.
Nadya: What would you describe the personality of your sound if you had to explain it?
Wise Child: It’s a very liberal, left-field, meditative sound, I guess. I don’t know if you know who Killer Mike is but he said something in a podcast I just heard. He said “The best music had the balance of righteousness and ratchetness.” So I guess that’s what it is. Not specifically those words. But it’s a balance of meditative conscious outlook, you know the message, but at the same time it’s something that you could go to a club and you could just kick it to. It’s a mixture between the analog and the digital. The conscious and something that still touches your soul.
‘Balance’ is a great word for it. There’s a lot in that word.
Yeah.
What would you say your inspirations where in creating your sounds? Who or what?
For me, in that last album, thinking about life, you know, with the concept of life tags along the concept of death. And that’s what the album is supposed to be like. It starts off with ‘Arrival Journey’ and the last song is ‘Departure’ so basically it’s supposed to be the whole cycle. So like the inspiration comes from the music in the technical sense but at the same time when the actual sound creates itself that’s purely from feelings or experience. It’s very temporary as well. Like with that album, I’m not even on that vibe anymore. I’m already on the next.
It’s a mood, right? It comes and goes like a mood. It might be like four years from now you’re feeling it all over again. I get that.
Yeah. Like that. And at the end of the day it’s all just energy being shared around. You may say something that I can perceive like completely differently from how you meant it and the next thing you know it may end up being the inspiration for something else. And then that inspires someone else. And it just keeps circling around.
I get that. So what do you like listening to when you’re not creating?
So like for what I do, LA is the Mecca. They’re the ones that started that whole beats thing. The underground, futuristic weird like instrumental shit. So I would say the main influences are like Flying Lotus, Mr. Dibiase, and like J Dilla of course. I would say a lot of soul and Punjabi stuff that I won’t necessarily listen to but it’s like embedded in you. I would definitely say the culture itself is like a sound.
Yeah, I feel that. Right now I feel like South Asian creators are definitely tapping into their roots but it’s almost like a gimmick.
Musicians with origins from like India or wherever, right? Like we act like we must support you as an artist. And I’m like nah how I perceive it I’m not a South Asian artist I’m an artist, you know what I’m saying? Like that’s where my culture comes from, that’s where my people come from, and it influences me greatly but then at the end of the day I don’t make art for Indian people or Pakistani people or whatever people. I make art for myself and anyone can vibe with it, you know?