EvilGiane Takes On the Music World: ‘I’m Not a Drill Producer’
It’s a week after producer EvilGiane got the biggest placement of his career with Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem’s “The Hillbillies,” and he’s ready to stop talking about it and get back to making beats. While sitting down for lunch at Brooklyn’s Seawolf, he tells me he hasn’t been able to lock into a studio for several days because of a nonstop torrent of press. I jokingly apologize for being the latest meddler; he takes it in stride. “I appreciate it because it’s like, ‘Shit, I’m doing something right,’” he says matter of factly. “Everybody’s trying to hear from me.”
He and Surf Gang have steadily ascended since speaking to Rolling Stone two years ago. Surf Gang Records dropped a release from electronic duo Snow Strippers and have several other signees in waiting. They’re expanding into fashion and branding, too. Along with the Drake-sampling “The Hillbillies,” which derived from Giane’s budding relationship with Keem, Giane produced A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti’s “Our Destiny,” which mysteriously appeared on Rocky’s Instagram page earlier this year before being taken down, and Earl Sweatshirt’s “Making The Band,” which officially released last week after months of anticipation online.
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Giane tells me he’s collaborating with a variety of artists, from the drill music he’s known for to “Gossip,” with Latin artist Isabella Lovestory. He’s also working on an ambient album, a project with the rapper 454 and a collaborative tape with a bevy of rappers over his production. He’s sent beats to Drake, who was an early fan, and when I asked if he had any other upcoming collaborations with big names, he strategically responded, “Not some that I can talk about.” So, he’s in that stratosphere right now.
“I’m trying to just keep the ball rolling, man, no matter what I do,” Giane says. A former skater and recent model, he says he has a slew of other interests beyond music. “I did a Marc Jacobs shoot recently. I’m trying to keep doing everything, just keep being creative, man. Fuck being normal. That is boring. Even though I always feel like I’m such a regular person, anyways.”
As brilliant artists go, Giane is down-to-earth. He has a calm demeanor, answers questions thoroughly, and doesn’t get visibly frustrated when our conversation keeps him from getting to his chicken sandwich while his friends at the table eat. But that casual demeanor belies the passion and resoluteness he demonstrates when talking about his art.
Giane grew up in a music-loving family and started making beats from Fruity Loops Mobile on his “Obama phone.” He says he made drum-and-bass, vaporwave, and “silly shit like that” on his phone for about a year before a friend taught him how to use Ableton on his laptop. Giane cites artists like Mexiko Dro, Shield Gang, J Yeah, and White Armor as early influences who he admired because they sounded like a departure from the conventional trap music that dominated the radio in the early 2010s. He says his initial beat-making M.O. was “I want to make something as good as these producers,” but he felt like he “never could.” Eventually, he began to take production cues from one of his other passions: skateboarding.
“When you skate, you see everything as an obstacle. I took that viewpoint and put it in the beats,” he says. “The obstacles are not knowing what you’re doing or not having an idea. Sometimes it’s easy just to play, and you don’t know what the fuck to do, and then you just be sitting there pressing the same thing until you figure some shit out. I be hearing shit in my head sometimes and trying to re-create it on the computer. And sometimes [it’s] inspired by emotion, [like] I’m mad that day and I’ll make a melody or play piano keys and shit and it’ll like sound sad or it’ll sound angry or sound super happy. All that shit really depends.”
Giane says he got inspired to start sampling during the infancy of Brooklyn drill. ”I’m like, ‘Yo, niggas is sampling Aaliyah. Why don’t we sample this fucking Nirvana track, bro? We [can] sample this Foo Fighters track.’ What’s really the difference?” With that epiphany, EvilGiane started exploring a wide variety of samples (he calls himself a “troll” when it comes to sample choice) and caught a buzz throughout the New York underground. He then channeled his inner RZA by organizing Surf Gang, a collective of artists and producers who went on to collaborate and throw guerilla-style shows together. But the rappers have since departed the collective, leaving just Giane and his fellow producers.
“We were more like a band. And now it’s more like a world, I feel like,” he says of Surf Gang. “It’s not just a bunch of people making music together and shit like that.”
Surf Gang has shifted to an organization, label, and creative agency co-helmed by producers wielding multiple roles as A&Rs, creative directors, and music-video directors. Even with everyone being a multi-hyphenate, Surf Gang producer, video director, and Swiss-army knife Eera says, they know how not to step on each other’s toes. “Me and Harrison still do production on all the projects and everything,” he says. “Primarily [though], the person keeping up with the beat-making is Giane. So, we’re signing other artists, or we’re selling shit online, or making art because we want to keep Giane on top of his beat-making shit. Because, as you can see, when he’s on top of it, he gets a song with Kendrick. It’s better for us [to be like], ‘We need a video for this song. Harrison will direct the video, and then I’ll do the budgeting for the video with the management.’”
The expansive, drenched-in-natural-light seafood restaurant where we’re having our conversation makes you feel like you’re by a pier, even in the middle of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Giane is joined by his co-manager, Nico, and Surf Gang member Eera. They jokingly mock each other’s food selections. Eera and Nico show each other their phones and laugh among each other while I’m talking to Giane. It doesn’t take long to realize that the painkillers we ordered are strong drinks — and that they’re all friends who just so happened to become one of the most exciting movements in music together.
“I like that we’re all A&R’ing our own shit,” Giane says about Surf Gang’s recent efforts. “We’re all coming to each other with ideas of who to fuck with. Eera will come and [say], ‘Yo, you should work with [this or that artist].’ I wouldn’t be able to do any of this shit if it wasn’t for them. Plus, they’re my best friends. It makes it more fun. They say you’re never supposed to mix business with personal. I don’t really believe in that. We’ve been mixing business and personal. Obviously, we’ve been keeping it professional on certain levels. But I feel like our dynamic — because we’re so close — it works. We all have the same taste, just in different ways.”
Giane adds, “We do everything now. We’re working on clothes and shit. We’re trying to figure out how to make accessories. We’re also signing people and promoting other people’s music. [I do my] A&R work discovering people, [as well as] DJ’ing, throwing parties. Back then, we were just putting shit on SoundCloud.”
Part of “everything” for Giane includes producing for a vast selection of artists. Last year, Giane sent beats to a friend of his who’s close to A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti. He thought nothing of it until the friend hit him back months later, telling him that Rocky and Carti used one of the beats for “Our Destiny.” “One day, [the friend] FaceTimed me and gave me a five-second snippet [of “Our Destiny”], and I’m like, ‘Oh, damn, it’s up.'” The song didn’t end up on DSPs, likely because of sample issues, but it helped entrench Giane as one of the game’s best sample drill producers — though he wants people to realize he’s more than that.
“I just tell people, ‘I’m not a drill producer, bro,’” he says. “I’m a producer. I consider myself an artist, really. People are hyped on the drill shit that’s coming out, and I always warn people like, ‘This is not the only thing you going to hear from me.’ And a lot of the shit, you might not know that I have a part of. But I appreciate it because all press is good press. If that’s going to get people to look at everything else that I’m doing, then by all means, I’m here for it. I listen to drill music every day of my fucking life. I’m not going to stop making drill music, but I’m not a drill producer. I have music with so many different artists and so many different genres.”
Giane’s been DJ’ing and playing at raves all over New York and L.A. over the past year. He says he’s gearing up to start playing ambient sets and has plans for an ambient EP later this year. He’s made it clear that he won’t be contained to any style or aesthetic — even when attempts to pigeonhole him can be frustrating.
He describes a recent studio session with two unnamed “pretty big” rappers that didn’t breed satisfactory results: “One of them was willing to experiment and get on my types of beats. And then the other one, who’s a drill rapper, had this ulterior motive. He wanted straight drill beats. He didn’t even want the cool, different drill beats I do. It ends up [with] nothing happening with the fucking session, ’cause bro’s not trying to experiment. And then he’s overtaking the other dude who is trying to experiment, and they end up making a shitty-ass song that they’re promoting right now. And every time I see that shit, I laugh, ’cause I’m like, ‘This shit is fucking ass, bro.’”
He says that willingness to experiment is one of the main qualities they look for in artists they sign to Surf Gang. Snow Strippers, a Detroit duo, recently collaborated with Lil Uzi Vert on “It’s a Dream.” They released their April Mixtape 3 album in May on Surf Gang Records. “They’ve been getting more and more bookings ever since we got them on the label,” Eera says. “I think a lot of people weren’t expecting that because they make way more dance-y electronic music. Typically, in the past, Surf Gang has been mainly rap shit. That was one of the reasons I really wanted to get them working with us. But I’m trying to do way more stuff.”
“[Surf Gang signees] are all experimental and care about the art of it more than putting out the super-catchy, trendy shit,” Giane says. “Obviously, everybody’s trying to make some trendy, catchy shit, but I’m like, ‘Dude, make it as Surf Gang.’ All this shit comes in waves, nigga. We surf in the waves, man. The music is the ocean. We’re creating the waves. Whatever wave we are, we’re surfing it. We going to ride it out until the next wave.”
The guys are on the way to a 2:30 obligation after our lunch conversation. Giane play fights with Nico while they stand outside waiting on an Uber. He’s finally on his way to a studio to go make some beats later that day — but not before having fun with his friends on the way.
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