On July 30th, we hosted Queens’ rappers Deem Spencer and AJRadico on our rooftop along with Talia Goddess. We caught up with AJRadico before his performance to ask him about capturing sound, advice for those wanting to sample and how to say Hii.

Spurge Carter

Here with AJRadico. Got a couple questions for you, my guy.

AJRadico

Yeah.

Spurge Carter

First one, your recent release 'Transit' featured sounds that you've sampled being out and about in New York, what's your favorite spot in the city to hear sounds?

AJRadico

I think my favorite spot in the city. To hear sounds, it's probably The Promenade in Brooklyn, like right by the water. There's always so many people, especially during the summertime, there's always so many people telling so many different stories, and there's a lot of music and you know, just the sound of the ocean is amazing and super calming. So, I really like being over there.

Spurge Carter

Nice. What's the furthest you've gone to capture a sound too?

AJRadico

The furthest I've gone was probably somewhere deep in Queens, probably like closer to like Long Island. And I just went into like, this big park is like a super huge park. Actually the same park that I shot the video for my song 'Ball hog'. I went out there and I was getting a bunch of foley recordings, like crackling up like leaves and things. That was pretty far for me, I had to take like, three buses and a cab to get there. That was deep.

Spurge Carter

Do you have any advice for novice samplers, people who are trying to get into doing foley and just general sample stuff?

AJRadico

I think my advice is record lower, because if you record too hot, then it might not sound like what you're trying to capture, you could always make things louder, but you can't always make things cleaner. You know, that was the thing that, I kinda, I had to weed through when making 'Transit' because a lot of the recordings were like, things that happened on the bus or on the train and like, people could be loud and they could be closer to your microphone than they actually know they are and they could distort things. So my general rule is just get a good, clean recording before anything.

Spurge Carter

That's a good one. Very good. What's the favorite sound that reminds you of home?

AJRadico

Favorite sound? One of my favorite sounds is..well, I have two. I have a couple. One of them is the ice cream truck. Just classic New York. I can't even say that it's a symbol of the summertime starting because I'll be hearing ice cream trucks in the wintertime. When it be a warm day. They just be hustling and like, I have a designated ice cream truck driver that I see every time on my block. So it's like, I know when I hear that song outside. I know it's him.

Spurge Carter

Yeah.

AJRadico

But the other one is dirt bikes. In Queens, where I live, in Jamaica, and St. Albans, like, I live on a big avenue, and it's always quiet and it's like wide and like spacious. So that's the big attraction. Just just ripping through it, doing wheelies, doing all of that, so sometimes they'll like, wake me up in the morning or wake me up out of a nap and that's just like, one of the most memorable sounds to me.

Spurge Carter

That's a good one. Might be kind of similar, but what is the Queen's sound to you?

AJRadico

Shit. The Queen's sound...I feel like the Queen's sound is ever evolving. We have so many legends that came out of Queens. We got 50, we got Nicki, we got A Tribe Called Quest is literally from my same neighborhood. You know, like, so many legends came out of Queens that whatever they do in the future, and whatever sound that they move on to it's like, almost a chain reaction with, you know, other artists that are, inspired by them, like myself. Being an artist from New York, you always want to be different because New York pushes artists to be different, especially like, you know, you from the cit, you can't be sounding like you're from the city, you gotta sound like something that's worldly, you know? So, to answer the question, it's just something that can't be put in the box, honestly.

Spurge Carter

How do you say hi? Whether to like friends or family? Like how are you saying, Hi?

AJRadico

How do I say hi?

Spurge Carter

Or just like, you know, how do you greet people?

AJRadico

Damn, that's a good one. Lately, I just been like, whenever I see to homies, I'm just like "wuzzhapin" or like "What's goodie"?

Spurge Carter

If you see, like your your parents, how would you respond to that?

AJRadico

Hello mother. (laughs) Nah..If I see my mom or something it's like *mumbles* "what's up mom or you know, aight mom" my pops like it's like "What's good dog?"

Spurge Carter

Cool. And then last question, do you have any unanswered questions about sound in general? Or like what sound topics would you like to see explored? Just antihng, it's kind of a big one.

AJRadico

Aw that is a big one. That's a great question. I think one of my biggest questions about sound is like, "How did they find out how to capture it in a digital way or in like a tangible way?" Like, what did the inventors of the record player, or like, the engineers that came up with vinyls and like gramophone or whatever, like, how did they..I know it all comes down to science, but like, what made them want to do that shit? Because like damn, without them, I don't know where we be like, without recording music, without recording sound. Where would we be? I guess that's kind of a two part question then where would we be without sound?

Spurge Carter

Well, cool. Thank you. Thanks for doing the interview. Excited to see your perform. We're in the office right now. We're going to have have AJ perform later. Check out his latest release 'Transit'.

AJRadico

'Transit' let's get it.

Rewatch AJRadico’s performance over at Move Forward Music’s Twitch page here.