Gramatik

Slovenian-born and Brooklyn-based DJ Denis Jašarević, better known as Gramatik, lives by the motto “free music by making music free,” which is why he’s one of our heroes. That, and his fanboy crush on one of the coolest people ever — Nikola Tesla, the Serbian inventor and visionary.

The 32-year-old Gramatik gives his music away because, he says, free music allowed him to be an artist in the first place.

“Most of the music I listened to as a kid that inspired me to become who I am today was pirated. I come from a working-class family. There was no way in hell my parents could afford to buy me all those high priced albums I wanted from all my favorite artists every year,” he told .Mic website. “If it wasn’t for piracy and torrent sites, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. I’d be working a shitty job back in my hometown.”

The DJ, who mixes funk, soul, hip hop jazz and R&B in his electronic music, has been giving away his albums for free since the beginning of his career — which started when he was still a teenager living in Portorož, a seaside town on the Adriatic.

The artist discovered music as a kid, playing his sister’s collection of cassette tapes, mostly funk, jazz, and blues, over and over. By 13 he was pirating software and mixing his own music on an old computer. As a child of the file-sharing age, he was able to get his songs out to an ever growing audience throughout Europe and the US, earning a following in the underground electronic music scene. That experience gave him a lifelong appreciation for free music, and how it can allow anyone who resonates with an audience — even a 13-year-old from Slovenia — to have a career as an artist. He eventually landed in New York, where he signed with Pretty Lights Music, a label that has always made its music free.

His third album, #digitalfreedom, in 2012, was titled such to raise awareness about various “internet censorship” bills like the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, that wanted to kill TK TK TK. He’s long been a staunch advocate for net neutrality and open access to information online.

Four years ago, he started his own label, LowTemp — a reference to how “cool” his music is — and all of his music and all the musicians he represents give their music away online. His songs are on Gramatik.net and downloadable through a partnership with BitTorrent. He also shares his discography on Twitter and Facebook. (His Facebook feed is a combination of his touring announcements interspersed with posts about space and quantum physics, which is another reason we love him — he’s a total science geek.)

His 2014 Album, “Age of Reason,” which was put out under his own label, is an homage to Tesla, who tried to build a telecommunications tower on Long Island that would have provided electricity to the entire planet for free. (It didn’t happen.) The song “War of the Currents” is about Tesla’s feud with Thomas Edison over whether alternating or direct current worked better. (Tesla won.) The song “Room 3327” is an homage to the room in the New Yorker Hotel where Tesla passed away 74 years ago, at age 86, broke and a bit insane.

He admits that LowTemp’s business model isn’t for everyone. His music, made on his computer, is much cheaper to produce than that of other artists, he tells Thump, the electronic music channel from Vice. To generate an income, he tours constantly. His label only makes enough money to cover operating expenses — the artists on LowTemp are meant to use it as a way to build their own audience base, he says.

To Gramatik, there are two kinds of people — those who will buy music online and those who will pirate it. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop piracy, he says. “That’s why making your music available for free with an option to buy or donate is the most rational thing to do,” he told .Mic. “You’d be surprised how many people appreciate this approach and donate money to it whenever they can, not only to pay for an album, but to show appreciation for the philosophy itself.”

The philosophy seems to be working for him. He’s in constant demand at festivals like Wanderlust and Lighting in a Bottle and plays headline shows almost year-round.

“I just wanted people [to] have access to my music for free all the time,” he told Vice. “If you don’t force them to buy it, they’ll donate what they can and love you even more for it.”

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