Who/what inspires your music?

It's a tough answer really, While I do have many musical inspirations like Madlib, Nujabes, Kanye west, Cookinsoul, Kenny beats and especially J Dilla but what really inspires my music is people like friends, family and loved ones it's the best form of inspiration for me if you take a look at all my albums and projects there about people I know.

  

How would you describe your sound?

My sound is mostly all over the place but if I had to describe it, it would be like lofi-boom-bap with a mix of jazz. I listen to a lot of different genres since I love music a lot and I find samples in weird places but it works since my samples are really the driving forces to my beats but I do use jazz techniques and rhythms for my drums. It's a “You have to experience it in order to understand it” type of deal.

  

How did you come up with your producer name - why two stage names?

DUCKS_BEATS first came from family slang. My siblings never really cussed and I guess one day we started saying “goose” as a reaction word if that makes any sense and when I first started making beats I wanted to incorporate it into my producer name and since i'm the youngest in my family I thought of a baby duck and put two and two together and that's how DUCKS_BEATS was named. The “ANGEL_DUCK!” name came from that any vocal sample in any of my beats is ANGEL_DUCK!. I wanted to have a character that would be the voice in my music and that's why my actual name is in “ANGEL_DUCK!”.

 

 

What does making music mean to you? What got you into it/keeps you continuing?

Music to me is a form of art. I can express myself through it and it shows, Ive best explained it as a form of therapy where you really get to express anything you want. It's been helpful to my life honestly. I got into beat making and producing by watching Adult Swim the music in the bumps which then got me into rappers and producers like  Madvillan, j Dilla, and Flying Lotus but I do have to give some credit to my older brother for showing and getting me into rap, he would always put on kanye west and I would always be fond of his beats and sample flips especially on albums like The life of pablo, and Graduation. Later on I got into Tyler the creator and loved him. It wasn't until after I Listened to Donuts by J Dilla where I was In love with beat production and saw how cool it was and I first messed around on my phone with bandlab until I got Koala sampler and a cheap sampler off of amazon and I've been creating since and as long new music comes out the longer I will continue beat making I love it.

     

How do you keep yourself motivated and inspired - how do you deal with creative blocks?

Sometimes I'm on a roll making two or five beats a day but when I'm in a creative stump I leave it for a bit to clear my mind and LISTEN TO MUSIC. I cannot emphasize how much listening to other types of music helps; I really love jazz and go into sub-genres like latin and Japanese jazz it's amazing or I like bollywood records the instrumentals are so creative like The title track from “Burning train’ the intro is amazing and the main chorus of song also experiments with itself. Honestly the more I listen to music the more motivated I get to create.   

 

Which songs of yours were the most fun to write & make? 

Some of my most memorable beats I've made were off my last album (Love and Loopz). The beat for “21” was really enjoyable since it was about this one couple I'm close with. They both are very enjoyable people to hangout with and from chopping the sample to getting the drums was great and the beat for “January” is really special to me. It's about my mom. She's really someone I love and care about the most to this day. It was around night time when I was Listening to “soledad y el mar '' by Natalia Lafourcade and it made me really nostalgic especially when I was little spending the day with my mom. It was fun to make.

   

What is your creative process like? Is it more organized & session based or more sporadic and fleeting? 

I'm very sporadic when it comes to beat making. I'm not a big fan of the session form since it makes the whole creative process feel like a job and I hate that. Music making should be fun. Usually my creative process is through sample digging. I listen to a good amount of music and find really nice samples to flip or I just make beats about people I know, people are really the driving force to my music.

 

What does the future hold/what are you working towards right now?

I'm always going to be making music. I love it but I do want to expand my versatility more in the future. I'm working on a new project and it's going to be a bit different from my normal style of production. It's a step out of my musical comfort zone and i'm excited for others to hear it.