Mr. Travis Stewart a.k.a. Machinedrum may be mostly associated with electronic music due to the heavy amount of albums released over the past decade bookended by his penultimate, Rooms, and last year’s critically acclaimed Vapor City. His ability to straddle genre lines and even immerse himself fully within them has become a calling card for quite some time. However, those who follow the producer and North Carolina native may be familiar with his knack of stretching the bounds of Hip Hop as well.
Some of Hip Hop’s creative vanguards ranging from Theophilus London to Mickey Factz have utilized Machinedrum’s penchant for futurist production. Of course, his most noticeable collaborations have always involved the always controversial Azealia Banks. Since dropping her 1991 EP a few years ago, Banks has featured Tstewart’s production on Fantasea and her much delayed until now debut Broke With Expensive Taste.
While on the road promoting his next release Vapor City Archives, Machinedrum spoke on Hip Hop and electronic music’s similarities, Azealia Banks, Spotify and a unique way of feeding fans new music.
HipHopDX: Frequent collaborator Azealia Banks recently released her debut Broke With Expensive Taste after dealing with label issues and controversies. How did that relationship spark and can you talk about its evolution from your eyes?
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Machinedrum: Azealia and I met around five years ago through Dante of Dante’s Fried Chicken fame. We hit it off instantly. This is before “212” or any of that. I knew she had been working on and off with Diplo and already had a few songs out like “Gimme a Chance” and “P.U.S.S.Y.” She asked me to remix “P.U.S.S.Y.,” which was fun as hell and got us talking more. After that we went on to make tracks like “Luxury,” “Barbie Shit,” “L8r” and a bunch of others. We played some shows together and I did some live beat shit before and during her sets. After I moved to Berlin tracks like “1991,” “Van Vogue,” “NeedSumLuv,” “Fantasea,” “Aquababe” and “No Problems” were made but mainly not in my presence. Azealia was globetrotting, I was no longer in the states so working together became more of an online thing. I wish we had worked on more music together for BWET but I’m cool with it because we definitely have a rich history before that.
DX: Are you currently working on original material together?
Machinedrum: I’m back in the states now so hopefully after touring BWET slows down, we can get back to making some music together.
DX: The “Luxury” track from the album is getting much praise for your production but you’ve worked with other MCs ranging from Theophilus London to Mickey Factz. Is there a separate approach you take when collaborating with MCs in opposed to someone like Jesse Boykins III or to an extent Lone.
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Machinedrum: The major difference in working with singers or rappers is that typically, singers like Jesse Boykins III can write songs on their own just using a guitar or something while rappers need a beat to start something. There’s nothing wrong with either approach, it’s just very different approaches. Having a song that’s already written can inspire me to write a kind of beat I’ve never even made before. Sometimes when I hear a really good song, I start hearing a full production around it whatever that may be a beat, piano melody or symphonic opus.
DX: Clearly influenced by a multitude of sounds throughout your career, Hip Hop has been apart of that group. Describe some of your earliest influences within the genre?
Machinedrum: When I was a kid I watched a lot of MTV. I loved NWA, Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang, Onyx, basically anything that was on Yo! MTV Raps. Being a white kid growing up in the suburbs of a city that was big on NASCAR and country music, I didn’t really connect with the music lyrically [laughs]. Instead what made me love Hip Hop were the beats and the feel of the music as a whole. I started getting into turntablism in high school, more as a fan and less as an actual turntablist. I loved The Executioners and Invisibl Skratch Piklz. Around the same time I began paying attention to who was producing Hip Hop tracks. I soon fell in love with productions by DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Dr Dre and of course the god J Dilla. Eventually, I was turned on to more underground labels like Stones Throw and Def Jux by my friend Gabe who ran Merck Records in the late 90s.
DX: Kanye has also served as a bridge for Hip Hop to understand and relate to forms of electronic music. Did you appreciate Yeezus, and is he considered someone who showcases the genre to outsiders?
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Machinedrum: I respect Kanye as a musician. He really doesn’t care what other people think of his behavior or decisions, he’s an outlaw in that way. It’s always refreshing to see someone throwing some chaos into the mix. People are always analyzing his shit so hard instead of just enjoying an artistic expression. He represents the turmoil of the modern artist in a way. He seems disturbed by peoples impression of him yet he embraces it at the same time. Yeezus sounds like a God angrily crying.
DX: From your perspective, where does Hip Hop and electronica intersect creatively?
Machinedrum: Hip Hop and electronic music are one in the same when it comes to how its made. A lot of it is made using the same studio equipment and software. Hip Hop essentially is linked to electronic music because electronic music is more defined by the way it is made than its cultural significance. Whether it’s Ableton Live, Reason, Fruity Loops, MPC, drum machines or whatever, they’re all common tools of producers in both genres. The evolution of what defines Hip Hop and electronic music has always been incredibly vague so I don’t pay attention to it for the most part.
DX: Electronic music has taken multiple forms, but what do you think it’s goal is or should be? And how do you think it interacts with Hip-Hop in that way?
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Machinedrum: There’s never a collective goal, especially now. Trends and evolution within genres are changing so quickly now that it’s impossible to predict where any genre will really go apart from short term fads.
DX: You dropped Vapor City Archives late last year. Where does this fit within the themes of Vapor City?
Machinedrum: Vapor City Archives is a collection of B-Sides from Vapor City. Each song on the album represents the same districts in the same order that the original LP did.
DX: Where exactly did you get the idea for the Vapor City Citizenship Program and how successful has that been to your brand?
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Machinedrum: I came up with the idea as a way to satiate people’s need for new music without having to release something every couple of months and make them buy it. I have to be honest, I write a lot of music. This was my opportunity to let my fans feel like they were getting special treatment. Rather than just throwing some free downloads up on Soundcloud for the public to consume, I decided to set up this program so my fans could get exclusive material before anyone else. There was high incentive to sign up as you only were allowed to download whatever was dropped after you became a citizen. Luckily everyone that missed out can still hear all the music they missed out on by buying Vapor City Archives. When you buy VCA you get a free download of all the tracks you missed out on in the past year. It’s been a huge success as I’ve had multiple people come up to me at shows thanking me for doing the Citizens thing. It’s a way for me to not only say thanks to my fans but keep them interested till the next release you know.
DX: With the recent battle between Taylor Swift and Spotify. What side do you fall within the argument?
Machinedrum: It’s interesting because Spotify works and doesn’t work for so many reasons. It’s obvious that Pop artist’s relationship to Spotify is very different from underground artists in terms of benefits. There’s the argument that underground artists might not be monetarily profiting as much as they could versus the idea that the exposure underground artists will get from Spotify is invaluable. I agree, Spotify makes a very small dent when it comes to how much money I earn from music. At the same time, if people want to listen to music for free they will and if I get paid even a micro fraction of a cent for that; it’s ok. There will always be a way for people to access free music and the fact that it’s incredibly easy to do that now is not that surprising.
DX: Any plans for life after Vapor City?
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Machinedrum: There’s always new worlds to explore. Let’s see where I travel next!
