Studio Journal

The concept of influence is ingrained in modern society. A scroll through social media will show some of the many people whose images are perfectly curated to feel natural and relatable. Yet, for the most part, the only thing many maintain is an air of inaccessibility. When I first heard of Curtiss King, I assumed he would fit under that umbrella. It took one ForTheRecord interview to realize that I was wrong and only one meeting to understand that he is not an influencer; he is so much more.  Curtiss King is a modern-day Renaissance man with a distinctive ability to inspire new perspectives. He raps, produces, creates beats and social media content, and mentors. Most impressively, he does this and more while prioritizing being a loving husband and father and an invaluable resource to his peers. His latest album, DIY2, comes after a 5-year hiatus and a decade since the release of the first DIY album.  I met Curtiss at KnockHouse Studios in Downtown LA, and despite it being our first i

If you are familiar with the Inland Empire music scene, chances are you have heard the name Cam Archer. Just in time for the spooky season, Cam's latest project, El Guapo III , fuses breathless flows, witty rhymes, and obscure pop culture references with horror-inspired melodies. When I sat down with Cam to talk about the project, he admitted that despite the first two El Guapo projects dropping in August, he planned on dropping the third installment earlier in the year to align with the release of the movie Scream 5. He describes the project as the "scream mode darker side of the El Guapo brothers." For anyone unfamiliar with the popular cult classic, Scream is about a high school girl and her group of friends who are terrorized by a masked serial killer a year after her mother's death. Just as the director, Wes Craven, managed to re-vitalize and re-invent the horror genre by combining humor, horror, and cleverness, Cam uses El Guapo III  to bring new life to the I

When I listen to a podcast, I usually want to be transported. I like my mind to wander from where I'm at (usually my office desk) to anywhere else. During Covid finding a solution to this problem became especially necessary for me. I found a brief respite when I joined the app Clubhouse. I could talk or listen in rooms about specific subjects in a low commitment way, filling a massive void that being stuck in the house alone for most of the day created. Despite the hundreds of rooms available, there was one in particular that I kept going back to, hosted by L.A. , Cam Archer , and A. DeVon Johnson .  Eventually, the Clubhouse hysteria started to fizzle out, most of us deleted the app from our phones, and (since I still work remotely) I was on the hunt to fill that void again. During this time, L.A., Cam, and Antonio decided to start their podcast  Do The Wrong Thing . During the show's episodes, the three friends hang out and offer listeners a hilarious break from the regular s

Grief, in general, is classified into five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Each step helps us learn to live with the one we lost. For San Bernardino's Sonnie Babble, his project  DV3  marks the start of his grief cycle, and his latest release,  Tower Of Babylon,  is the last step on his artistic journey to the final stage of grief, acceptance.  The first track, "My Fathers Last Message," gives listeners an intimate look into Sonnie's relationship with his father and sets an uplifting tone as it ends with a harmony of "wait until I see you once again." The project officially starts with "T.O.B Intro," where he combines passionate lyricism and a foundation of dynamic beats to recount his life journey and paint an honest portrait of his evolution as a man and artist.  In contrast to the darker parts of  DV3, Tower Of Babylon is   Sonnie living in the now, experiencing life, and appreciating every moment. Despite the proj

Jay Kasai has a lot going on, but you’d never know it. Beneath his effortless charm is a moodier seriousness that tells of a man who knows what he wants out of life and will get it. Three projects in and currently working on his fourth, Losing Time , the stakes have never felt as high as they are now. At the start of his career in 2011, Kasai took a one-man-show approach to his music. He did everything from creating beats and artwork to handling the entirety of the production: mixing, mastering, and clearing each record. When I spoke to him about his process, he described the production as the “heart” and broke down his philosophy on how music at its most basic level is a half-and-half mix of art and science. While growing as an artist, developing new techniques, and consistently releasing new music, Kasai co-founded the Inland Empire collective Over Everything (OE) and began supporting other local artists through their music journeys. In 2013, after hearing a beat from local produce