Student duo produces beats and sounds
Juniors Justin Totten and JC Dela Cuesta practice their beats at Dela Cuesta\'s house in San Lorenzo.
March 17, 2009 • written by Clifford Pham
The Sound Invaders are two creative and intuitive artists. These two juniors, Justin Totten and JC Dela Cuesta, are beat makers.
“We both share a passion for old school, underground hip-hop, and jazz,” Totten said. “We both have our own separate styles, but together we create a sound which is rather unique.”
Totten, known also as Abstrakt Thought – a beat maker nickname he based upon his favorite rapper, Q-tip, together with Dela Cuesta, known as Aphonic, collaborate on their love for hip-hop in the form of beat making.
Beat making involves creating all the instrumental parts within a track. This involves creating a drum beat and a bass line to keep a rhythm.
The group has only recently started, dating only back to late October of last year. Since then, the two of them have produced one collaboration track entitled “Simply Christmas,” created by using Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time”. Now their most recent project, called “This Type Love,” a love song featuring rappers in the junior class, is almost complete.
The beats created by The Sound Invaders emphasize two elements: sampling and drum beats. A sampling in the music industry is taking apart the melody of a song and refining it through the use of a device or program. The sample acts as a canvas, which would be followed by a drum beat.
They begin by going through a variety of vinyl, ranging from their favorite genres: old school and underground hip-hop, funk, and jazz to find a sample pattern.
“We both have two different styles and approaches to making an instrumental, so a track could take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours,” Dela Cuesta said. The two artists are always clashing ideas, whether it is how to chop the sample, choose the melody, or picking someone to rap over the track. The process is time consuming and relies heavily on the duo’s chemistry.
Totten has been involved with creating beats and producing his own works since middle school.
“I’ve individually gained popularity around other beat makers and sold quite a few beats already,” Totten said.
Dela Cuesta became involved with beat making more recently as a sidehobby to studying bass.
When Totten decided on collaborating with a partner, he considered other beat makers by experimenting with other classmates. When Dela Cuesta found tracks on his Myspace, he came up to Totten suggesting they should try and create a track. The two found out that with their similar interests and work ethics they could make great partners.
“We think alike so the whole creative process is bound with our thought of what a track should precisely sound like. Otherwise we usually abandon the project,” Dela Cuesta said.
The influence of hip-hop on the two artists reflects their projects. They view it as an evolving genre, in which artists like J Dilla or Madlib can change the view of hip hop by venturing out of the recycled mainstream formula.
“We’re experimenting with different sounds to step out of the hip-hop norm in making something beautiful… because beautiful music transcends genre, said Dela Cuesta.”
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Justin-Bustin-Mustin–you are awesome!!!!