“Personally, I love Chillhop, and I support them to the end because I feel like they’re doing the right thing,” says Axian, whose EP Gaia was released through Chillhop in 2017. “But when they stopped the sample usage, or they stopped accepting music with samples, that was such a big transition in the community. Chillhop was the frontman or whatever. They’ve always been supporting hip-hop of all kinds in the underground community, and it was kind of weird to see that happen, but I get it.” This summer, Chillhop Music announced that they would no longer accept label submissions that included samples. Alexander suggests that Chillhop’s motive was to stay on the right side of publishing and copyright laws. He hits a major nail on the head, as running afoul of such laws can quickly result in the seizure or forfeiture of profits and/or having entire domains and labels shut down overnight.

“They started making money, getting bigger than they may have thought they would. In one way I get it, but in another way, you can mess with a sample so much that it’s unrecognizable. As an artist trying to understand a label [Axian himself runs a label called Celestial Blue with rappers Obijuan and loom], I get where they are coming from, but I think it split up the community a bit. A lot of the older lo-fi heads, said ‘oh man that’s a trash move’. Then there are the new heads who are trying to get into sample-less music. And I consider myself somewhere in the middle, maybe a bit more on the older head side.

Axian is noting a phenomenon that is as old as the music industry itself, wherein artists will curate their musical content to fit the desired motif of the labels that are sponsoring or highlighting the music. This potentially calls into question the fundamental integrity or “authenticity” of those productions. Conversely, these unforeseen barriers and obstacles to publishing lo-fi music have brought about a wave of innovation and creativity amongst new producers. Instead of sampling content from external musical sources, artists are training themselves in conventional instrumentation, recording that instrumentation, and sampling their own arrangements from scratch. In this manner, one can create everything that is holistically lo-fi music and simultaneously be able to own and distribute that music without issue. As stated before, Axian is himself learning the keys.

This was not the first time Axian has spoken on the subject of how and why music is influenced the way that it is. Indeed, “I think about this all the time,” he said. Beyond how the music is influenced, there is the function of that influence itself. In an interview with Public Pressure in 2017, he said “Everything has to be fancy, or about money, drugs, and sex to make it in the mainstream, and I think a lot of people are conforming to the belief that that’s the way things should be.” Alexander believes this is not coincidental. “At some points in my life, I’ve thought that we’re all controlled to a certain extent. It is funny thinking about these things, because not everything is coincidental. It’s not just trashy music. It’s not just popular because it’s popular. There’s someone making the decisions behind the board. There’s a great logic behind it, but it’s just not the right ethic.”

“It’s about who they’re appealing to,” Alexander continues. “I have some friends who are school teachers for the lower grades. They always talk about how all the kids are referencing all this music that is so inappropriate for kids. I think that’s something we may not be so aware of; how it affects the kids. I’m personally very against that.”

For his part, Axian will continue to make music which speaks “the language of feelings”, as he referred to it in Public Pressure. He continues to release deeply emotive singles regularly, many of which, like his latest, “Evocation”, are included in our curated playlist. He’s also working on a side project with another producer. Their first release will have some “soft beats” as well as some “hard slappers”.

“Slappers!” I repeat gleefully.

“Yea, slappers, that’s what we refer to them as in the community. Something has to slap in the hip-hop community.” For an example of one of our favorite slappers from Axian, check out “Rockin” in our curated playlist or “Adamite” from Chronos. Regarding his side project, “it’s beats, but it’s a lot of different stuff. Lately I’ve been moving towards more electronic stuff. Not to make electronic music, but to make hip-hop, or ‘synth hop’.” By earning himself popularity, Axian can create freely and continue to chase that language of feelings without worrying so much about whether or not it will reach people’s ears though this playlist or that label. “I’m basically in a place where I can do whatever I want to, as long as I keep it real. That’s my philosophy.”

So again, this Sunday we encourage you to kick back, relax, perhaps put on your thinking cap, and enjoy a curated playlist of music from a talented beatmaker. Regardless of the methods for promoting, naming, selling, or making lo-fi hip-hop, there’s one quality to this music which almost all can agree upon, and Alexander verbalizes it well. “You can convey so many things without saying a single word, or you might even spark something inside someone that you never intended to, and that's the beauty of it in my opinion.”

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