BroBroCookDatUp is an American artist and multi-genre music producer/mix engineer based in Charlotte, NC, who rediscovered his passion for music during the COVID-19 pandemic. Immersing himself in the technical and artistic aspects of music production, he cites his influences as being Hit-Boy, Rance 1500, Travis Scott, and John Mayer. On his latest album, “I Need To Heal”, what does he bring to the table? Keep reading for my thoughts!
Poignant title of the album considered, “I Need To Heal” is an instrumental journey all in of itself. The sound design is particularly as sweet as a peach – taking influences from faraway Japan all the way to organic percussion from the Midlands. The opener, “Hydrated”, is a display of sheer ambient hip-hop brilliance as the low, captivating pads set the atmosphere quite brilliantly; and this continues on to the title track of the EP, “I Need To Heal”, where these pads are joined by sultry brasses — and “Slip Away” brings deep, water-like electric guitar licks to the fore. The EP comes to a comforting close on tracks like “Brain Scratch” with its loopy, wafty sound design, and “Out of Sight”, which finally lets us hear some vocals in the form of samples throughout the track. All in all, BroBroCookdatUp really does cook something up on this one — and dare I say, it’s the best thing I’ve come across in a bit. Here’s the man himself in interview:
1. What is the story behind your artist name?
It’s interesting that you ask, because this is the first time I’ve gotten that question, but part of the name (Bro Bro) came from something I used to hear Nipsey Hussle call people in his verses. For some reason it always stood out to me as some cool shit that you’d call someone – so I knew that that would be part of my Artist name.
The Cook Dat Up part came from me brainstorming what I wanted my producer tag to be.
Anytime a producer is making a beat, we always say we’re “cooking up” – so I combined the 2 and came up with my artist name, BroBroCookDatUp.
2. When you were starting to make “I Need to Heal” can you take us through your influences, and the artistic space you were in to adopt this sound?
Absolutely. One big influence was Khruangbin, and not because of their instrumentation, but because they can take you to a different place when you listen to any of their projects, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do with ‘I Need to Heal’. I originally planned on making a LoFi EP, but when I started making ‘I Need to Heal’, some past traumas crept into my life and everything that I was making started to feel like therapy – it’s like I needed these sounds to take me somewhere else to heal. I would literally compose sounds, and listen to them until I fell asleep.
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3. As a mix engineer and music producer, can you comment on the sound design on “I Need to Heal?”
Absolutely. So like I mentioned before, this was originally supposed to be a LoFi album, so from an engineering standpoint, I wanted each song to have that nostalgic, tape deck kind of vibe and sound. From a production standpoint, I focused on using atmospheric and ethereal types of melodies and instrumentation that could hold up while meditating or doing something like Yoga or Pilates.
4. What is the vision for yourself as an artist? Do you see yourself collaborating with other artists in your journey henceforth?
As an artist, one of my goals is to be able to perform a live show by the end of the year. That’s going to require some equipment upgrades and a lot of practice, but I’m also planning on making projects this year where I’m the vocalist, engineer and producer.
From a collaboration standpoint, I’m always open to collabs with people who take the art seriously.
5. What do you think of ambient hip-hop music in general, and can you talk about the versatility of modern hip-hop as a genre?
I think ambient Hip-Hop is a form of alternative Hip-Hop, and I’m a big fan of alternative music in general. I really love that there’s so many sub-genres of Hip-Hop.
People get stuck in past generations of Hip-Hop sometimes because it’s hard for them to find artists that resonate with them due to the amount of music being released, but modern Hip-Hop is just as dope, if not doper than the past decades of Hip-Hop. You just have to have someone (like me) put you onto the right artists.
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6. What inspired you to rediscover your love for making music? What was the process like?
Well, my wife and 2 of our 3 kids moved to PA for 13 months during the pandemic. She was also pregnant during that time, so we had our 4th up there. Being away from home and our usual friends and family was really hard.
I had a phone call one day with a long-time friend named Sport and he was a music exec at a label at that time. He knew my passion for music and suggested that I start producing and sending him beats for their artists. He lit the flame and it only grew since then. During the pandemic, I found myself getting depressed a lot so I would take long bike rides during the day, listen to sermons or books, and make music at night to physically and mentally take myself to another place.
It’s been a little over 3 years since then, and my goal was to get better every day, and so far, that’s going well.
7. What do you think of the advent of AI-generated music — what are your opinions regarding the use of computer intelligence in generating music?
So, AI is a double-edged sword. I use AI tools to speed up my music-making and to get me started with ideas. At the same time, there’s also people releasing 100% AI generated music, with AI artists that don’t exist and profiting from it big-time.
My advice is to embrace it. I don’t think AI generated music will replace us no matter how good it gets, but you can’t be afraid of it. AI is the present and the future and it is not going anywhere.
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