He graduated from music school and played concerts all over Europe, and currently works with some of the biggest rappers in our country. Druid told us about his openness to music, his friendship with Gibbs and the injury that significantly influenced his career. We invite you to read.
How did your adventure with making beats start?
It started a long time ago, because I have been involved in music since I was a child. I was lucky that my family recognized my predisposition to make music. So they enrolled me in a music school, but honestly, I wasn’t really interested in it at that point. So I started making beats in a program called eJay, where you just put blocks together. Then there was FL Studio and I continued my adventure with music. Then I even went to study at the Jazz Department at the Academy of Music in Katowice. When I look back on it, it was bordering on madness, because it was spending 8 hours a day in a closed room and practicing playing an instrument. I’m glad I had a passion for it and could enjoy it. It was just such a different world.
And what was your main instrument?
It was primarily the trumpet, which is what I even finished my studies on. I also tried playing the piano, but it wasn’t my thing. When I started giving concerts, I even played an accordion, but I admit that I never learned to play it 100%. I never considered myself one of the best musicians, although I certainly had contact with those in my studies who played jazz or improvised very well. There was certainly the current drum genius Bartek Szablowski, and the excellent double bassist Kuba Dworak, who currently lives in New York. I really appreciate that I had the opportunity to play a lot with them and learn a lot from them.
How do you ultimately evaluate this whole experience of music school, even in the perspective of what you are currently doing?
The initial period of music school was certainly quite difficult. I don’t know what’s wrong with Polish music education, but I was very rebellious from the very beginning. In short, it can be described as follows: there is a pre-imposed core curriculum that is so rigid and does not take into account individual artistic development that it is often harmful to the student’s artistic sensitivity. There are few people who can persevere on this path when it comes to classical music. I have always wanted to improvise and seek this freedom in music. I had problems at school because of this, so much so that they even wanted to expel me. Fortunately, when I came back from competitions with distinctions or diplomas, they bragged about me. Then I went to study music and it was a period of absolute freedom. Not only did I join a very creative and talented group, but I also had great lecturers. He taught me, among others: Piotr Wojtasik, who is one of my few mentors in this entire music world. I learned the most about music from him.
Were you able to translate these connections into cooperation on the professional market?
I managed to do a few session things with the guys. I also had my own quartet, although I don’t know if it could be called professional. We definitely played festivals and concerts all over Europe. At some point, however, I got injured and had to stop playing the trumpet.
How did this happen?
You know what, back in the day I just practiced a lot and gave concerts. Every day I wanted to be better. Additionally, the trumpet is a very physically demanding instrument. All this contributed to the fact that I injured a muscle in my lip during one concert. I even lost feeling there for some time, I had problems with positioning my mouth, and even had a problem with facial expressions for a while. Fortunately, I had no problem speaking, as it was only a muscle injury to the left side of my upper lip. At the beginning, of course, there was pain, but then I started going to a facial rehabilitator, so the lip gradually returned to normal. However, I never went back to playing the trumpet.
Mental block, was it too difficult physically?
Probably both, because I saw that I was technically unable to get back to the same level of fitness as before the injury. I had been working on such efficiency for many years, and suddenly I was forced to switch my gaming apparatus to the other side. It’s comparable to having to suddenly change your leading hand, e.g. from right to left.
But I can’t believe you didn’t even try.
Of course I tried. However, it required a lot of practice and sitting down for a few hours a day for 5 or 6 years and playing long notes. However, I wanted to make music, so I turned to music production again. However, I have a dream to start playing the trumpet again.
It’s great that you have such a healthy approach to it. That you don’t want to suddenly be the best again, just take small steps.
It wasn’t even about me wanting to be the best back then, but I just wanted to be better than myself from yesterday every day. Playing an instrument is a process in which you learn something small every day and your progress becomes greater over time. However, it is a great source of satisfaction when you are focused on this craft and discovering music on your own. I’ve never felt like I had to be the best. I prefer to work with people and act cooperatively.
And when you were learning to play the second side on the trumpet, were you also frustrated that you had to spend time on things that you had already mastered?
Totally. It was the biggest test of my psyche. You work for many years at a certain level and do many difficult things without any problem, and then suddenly one evening you strain your lip muscle, you come home and you are unable to produce any sound from your instrument. It was really a big frustration.
But as you say, you then went into music production. Can you tell us more about what it was like?
Yes, that’s when it reappeared, because I was making my first productions when I was 13 or 14. I remember one of the first things I did was for the cannabis liberation march, even though I had no idea what cannabis was at the time. I was making some first beats, I was mainly interested in G-funk, etc. When I started playing the trumpet, the computer took a backseat. However, when I injured my lip, I started thinking about how I could continue working in music. I didn’t want to end it because it has been with me since I was a child and I am unable to break this bond. I couldn’t imagine going to a regular full-time job and suddenly forgetting about music. It can’t be done like this. And that’s when I thought about producing beats again. Initially, these were productions for the drawer. I even had a soundcloud profile and a lot of the beats were very experimental and even electronic at times. After one of these publications, Gibbs contacted me.
Ok, so I think I understand where hip-hop came from.
Partly because of Gibbs, but actually rap has been with me since I was a child. My mother listened to Molesta or Hemp Gru. I think there are few mothers like that. On my father’s side, bands such as Lady Pank, Perfect, The Rolling Stones and AC/DC were played, and on my mother’s side, mainly hip-hop songs. My brother also listened to a lot of hip-hop, so I had been exposed to this music and sometimes even culture for many years.
But when you started making beats, it wasn’t hop-hop, but experimental electronic music.
Yes, because in general, musically, whether it comes to listening or creating, I don’t limit myself too much. It was similar during my studies, where I met people from all over the world who played a variety of different types of music. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of conservative jazz that is associated with dinner with the sounds of the piano and good wine. It was instrumental music played on various, often unusual instruments. It opened my eyes a bit to the fact that music doesn’t end with what you create.
And that there are so many things you don’t even know exist.
Exactly, and for your own self-development it is important to leave your comfort zone. Even when it comes to listening to music. Sometimes it’s worth listening to things you wouldn’t normally listen to, to open a compartment in your brain. Music is an area so unexplored that limiting yourself to a certain genre or saying that I do good things and you do bad things is senseless. This is a really extensive topic, but it’s worth not limiting yourself.
Apparently so, although nowadays people like to repeat that what they do is great and everything else is crap.
I will be happy to try to present my point of view on this topic, although it is slightly abstract. Generally, if someone only talks about things that they do themselves, they are actually making a mistake, because the music does not actually belong to the creator. That’s my opinion. The sound itself is really just vibrations, etc. Absolute chaos in terms of transforming sounds into an emotional atmosphere. The creator is just a transmitter who has been given talent and maybe thanks to certain tools or techniques he has learned, he can show something that is still absolute chaos as music. When ego comes into play, making music often becomes machine-like, as if, for example, you were making sandwiches at McDonald’s. Of course, someone may disagree with this, because, for example, I feel great when he behaves exactly this way. I have absolutely no problem with it.
In hip-hop, we can often come across such a procedure. Bragga naturally fits into this genre of music.
Yes, because it is one of the elements of this culture. Recipients expect these treatments, but it seems to me that it should be used with caution, because at some point it may be a dead end.
And for some reason this music dominated the market.
I think it’s because the recipient wants to be able to identify with the feeling of strength and uniqueness, which is very natural. The means of transmitting such energy should be obvious, clear and simple. We all want to feel special. When I’m driving a car or a train, I turn on rap music. For example, I used to listen to a lot of Donguralesko and it didn’t bother me at all. Such music also puts you in an emotional state that allows you to explore yourself. This may not always be done consciously by the listener, but I think that such means are universal enough to constitute a large part of this considerable culture. We live in times when we do not have time to think deeply about the meaning of complex verses. We are bombarded with newer and newer things, but in fact I have the impression that popular music is starting to come full circle back to primeval times. Back then, the message was very simple, point-to-point and blunt. Name me your friends who listen to complicated albums over and over again and figure out verse by verse. There probably aren’t many people like that. For me, this way of listening to music often requires effort.
It is also an element of the speed of our times. When conducting smalltalks with different people, you want to talk about something specific, and not dwell on one text.
If we compare it with the 1940s or 1950s, when not every home had a TV, radio or anything that provided stimuli other than sleeping, eating and physiological needs, people were very eager to celebrate such moments. If someone had a tape recorder, they turned on the record, sat in an armchair, listened to it for 30 minutes and analyzed it. Now you have Spotify on your phone, which gives you access to a million songs, and the TV is playing in the background while you’re in a hurry to get to work. This is what listening to music often looks like these days. People seem to live more intensively now than before, so there is no time and space to listen to music in peace. I will go back for a moment to Piotr Wojtasik, who asked me during my studies what my favorite Miles Davis song was. I mentioned one and he asked me what album it was from. I had a bit more trouble with this, but I remembered. But he kept asking. Who plays drums in this song, how many songs are there on this album, what is the cover? Of course, I didn’t know, so Piotr Wojtasik said that I didn’t really know this Miles Davis album. He wanted to draw my attention to the fact that there is a completely different culture of listening to music, but also of receiving art in general.
By thinking more positively, listeners reach more creators, and thus more of them can break through. In the past, you would listen to an album by one or two artists in an hour, but now you can listen to 20 songs by 20 different artists in an hour.
Yes, of course. I also don’t want to say here which times are better, because they are simply different and there is no point in fighting it. I even catch myself listening to music in such a superficial way. This is how I listened to Taco Hemingway’s new album today.
And what are your impressions after listening?
From what I have heard so far, I have noticed that it is a powerful radio play in the form of a radio program and, like e.g. “Marmur”, it is a concept album. I also heard samples from Grzegorz Turnau and Edyta Bartosiewicz, and overall I think it’s a very good album. However, it requires listening to it from beginning to end because it is a story of sorts. Musically, it also delights me. Besides, when you take on an album such producers as Atutowy, Borucci, Zeppy Zep and Rumak, i.e. the 4 best producers in the country, it can’t get any better. It is quite innovative, and its concept balances nicely on the border of something that is commercially sold, but not entirely commercial. Additionally, from the first second of the album you simply feel the quality that will remain for years. For me, this is probably an indicator of the best artists that everything is well thought out and planned from start to finish, and it is not about throwing all the songs that turned out well into one bag. It’s also clear that he didn’t have to rush with this album, which is something that few artists can really afford. Another problem with many Polish rap albums are quick deadlines, which force artists to work in uncomfortable conditions. However, the last thing that impressed me were Hałastra’s last two albums, which are really very good.
Now that we’re fully into rap, what exactly was the story of how you and Gibbs met?
This is actually a funny story, because we met in junior high school and later went to music school together in Częstochowa. I actually showed Gibbs FL Studio, because at that time I was already making some beats in it myself. Later everyone went their own way, Gibbs started collaborating with Ganja Mafia and completely moved towards hip-hop. After my studies and my lip injury, which was quite a few years, Gibbs contacted me to meet at his studio. There I met Gibbs’s partner, Wojtek, and I met Oliver Olson. The three of them run Dopehouse, and since it was growing so quickly, they asked me to be their producer.
Did you accept this offer?
Yes, but currently I don’t work with them anymore. There simply came a moment when I started to focus more on my personal life and, creatively, on cooperation with myself. I have always had a very individual approach to music, and at this moment it has intensified for me more than ever. Now there is also peace. These three years were very intense for me musically and I learned a lot during this time. Recently, however, I have been focusing on my own music and developing my craft.
I take it you haven’t started rapping?
No, because I’m completely unsuitable for this. Although I must admit that when I started working on it, it turned out that my role as a producer in Polish hip-hop is also sometimes to help the rapper and show him, for example, how he can rap something, suggestions on what to give up, what to change or where to put the main accent. . As a producer, I need to know what a given text is about, what its tone is and how to structure the piece so that it develops and maintains tension. I also work very individually with artists in the studio and each time I pay attention to something different.
Are there any clashes between rapper and producer in the studio?
Honestly, no, because I also managed to meet people along my way with whom we respected each other’s work. When I am with an artist in the studio, first of all, he should be satisfied with what he is doing, and I only diagnose the whole thing and try to make the song sound as good as possible.
To sound as good as possible, but still trying to leave as much of your creative input as possible?
Of course, sometimes it’s difficult, but I also have a lot of collaborations that were very open. One of the best is definitely the cooperation with Opał. We did the song “Rosa” together and even though it wasn’t a commercial success, it was then that I realized that while working, I sometimes had musical collaborations and artistic meetings. Opał was definitely an artistic meeting. It looked like this: we entered the studio, discussed the music and lyrics for the first 15 minutes, and then Opał said, “Okay, do what you want.” He started writing the lyrics, I started making the music, and then it just happened. It was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time, making music collectively and exchanging energy. Well, maybe apart from jazz music. In general, in my opinion, Opal is touched by the hand of God, because the guy has such a pen and ease in writing that we wrote everything in an hour and a half. Then we just tinkered with some details. When you deal with such a creative person as Łukasz, the creative process runs very smoothly, because you both respect your creative zone and create something that satisfies both of you. However, sometimes there will be a situation when working with someone I have to make exactly the beat the rapper wants, because his vision takes priority over my artistic needs, which I sometimes have to give up. However, I always try to smuggle at least a part of myself into such a beat. Generally, I don’t make beats in a schematic way, but each time I sit down and start with a different element. I don’t focus on it, it just happens. Maybe that’s why I haven’t released many things so far, but I try to make each production unique in its own way. This is my relationship with music, regardless of whether I play the trumpet or produce music. I try not to recreate myself because that’s one of the worst things for me.
So I understand that you work with artists in the studio rather than sending them beats?
Most of them were meetings with people in the studio, but I must admit that I sent someone a beat by e-mail more than once. Now that I think about it, I definitely had such an artistic encounter with Avi. It looked like I had made a mega nostalgic beat moments earlier because I simply felt the need to do so. Kacper HTA got involved with it, and then we sent it to Avi. I didn’t know him personally at that time, but when he sent back the verse, I realized that he was such a sensitive guy that he caught my nostalgia in this beat. We moved in the same space while creating, and I gave my part to music and he to text. For me he is a unique artist. Later we met, and during our three meetings we only talked about music and exchanged maybe only a few dozen words. However, I have the impression that we understand each other artistically, and each time he perfectly hits the heart of the problem presented by the beat. I respect him very much when it comes to the Polish scene and he is a really serious player. Avi has a specific relationship with the written word, just like Opał and Janek.
Do you find some relief from music?
Yes. For example, I like cooking. If I didn’t make music, I would probably take up cooking and open a small bistro in the south of France. Short menu, four courses, two wines, seasonal menu, five tables and one waiter. I wouldn’t need anything else. You need to have some escape from everything, otherwise you can go crazy. For example, I met several musical geniuses, such as Fabian Almazan, a Cuban pianist living in the United States. The guy is outstanding, but he must have someone next to him who will bring him on stage and tell him that this is a piano and now he should play it. And he is not disabled, mentally ill and this is not an acting game. He was simply so immersed in music, which is not so strange considering that such people sit 12 hours a day and practice playing an instrument. In such a case, playing like this becomes the only thing you do, and that’s also not good. For example, I found a distraction in cooking and I’m very happy about it. There was also a time when I lost weight from 126kg to 90kg for my height of 180 cm. I trained a little ju-jitsu, boxing, and also ran a lot. I wasn’t particularly excited about it, but I really wanted to lose weight, and I knew that there were sports that required the fitness of the entire body. I didn’t feel like going to the gym and swinging dumbbells, although I eventually started doing it anyway. Thanks to all this, I managed to lose weight and now I feel much better. In hindsight, I can say that I was just a ball of fat who had trouble even tying my shoes. It seemed ok to me at the time and I kept making excuses. Justifying your excess weight in this way helps you fall into a self-destructive loop, which at first glance is supposed to help you, but in the end it only makes you feel worse. And unfortunately, there is no other way than to just get up and start moving.
Did it take you long to lose weight?
The first phase of weight loss went very quickly, which was not entirely good for me, because the muscle envelope did not have time to contract and I damaged my spine. This happened because I lost 20 kg in the first 2 months. These were really radical changes for me, because as a fat person I ate 5,000 kcal a day and did no exercise, and from one day to the next I set 1,500 kcal in the calorie calculator, got a personal trainer and started running.
Do you remember the day when you told yourself that you were going to take care of yourself?
Yes, and it’s a really funny story. One time I went to buy some pants. I walk up and tell the saleswoman I’d like some jeans. She brought me the largest size – too small. We tried the largest sizes of other colors – too small. The saleswoman finally asks if I could try corduroys. I didn’t want to at first, but I agreed. I try it on – too small. I check the cargo pants – too small. Finally, after 40 minutes of fitting, the saleswoman looked at me and said, “You’ll buy some tracksuits.” I got angry, put on the pants I came in and told myself that I would take care of myself starting tomorrow. And then it went. In fact, any motivation that is not destructive is good.
So, to sum up, it’s good that you have some escape from the music.
Yes, because it’s healthy for me. However, I understand the other side, because I was on it for a long time. I was immersed in music for a really long time, and I’ve been doing it for 17 years now. Cooking is just ok with music.
I have another question that may be of interest to many people. What is the story behind the creation of the song “Beautiful World”?
While creating the Dopehouse mixtape, we met with Gibbs in the studio. I took my old computer with me, which had about 500 bits that had never been used. We started firing up the ones we liked by name. “Beautiful World” was created from a sample that I created once so that I could sample it for another track. I just played this song to Gibbs and he said he didn’t like the drums, but the melody was super cool. So I started to reverse the process and changed the drums and then Gibbs added guitar and vocals. Later, we invited Kiełas to cooperate. I think the success of this issue lies in its simplicity. Nothing bad happens there, there are no distractions and there is plenty of space for the vocals. Additionally, the drive of this tempo introduces the listener to some kind of mantra and you can experience this song in different ways. Even though the beat is slightly aggressive, the vocals smooth it out perfectly. Overall, I didn’t expect this track to become such a hit.
Such a hit that they even played it on the radio. For a hip-hop song, that’s something.
Yes, there is something to it. Gibbs also has a very delicate voice, which at times even touches on pop. After what Kiełas does, I can also say that he is a guy who listens to more than just hip-hop.
Just one last thing. What is your biggest dream currently?
I think the biggest thing is to really open your own bistro someday. However, before I open them, I would like to make my solo EP, which will have about 6 songs. I don’t know yet whether it’s instrumental or with rappers, but that’s a secondary issue. I certainly don’t set any time frames for it. As I said earlier, I’m currently focusing on working with myself. I create some things, build databases of sounds, various production techniques, etc. and when I feel that I am ready, only then will I release this material. I don’t have any turbo pressure with this project. I want to do it with pure pleasure and without any pressure.
IG: @ostatnidruid