Evil Giane
March 7th 2024
Words Samutaro | Concept & Image Noah Riecansky | Set Assist. Harley Riecansky
EvilGiane first gained notoriety within New York’s sample drill scene in 2020, but since then he has become one of the most in-demand producers of his generation. His eclectic approach to sample selection and willingness to experiment with sound has resulted in infectious tracks of the past few years: he put Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem’s on a wavy Bon Iver sample for The Hillbillies, Destiny’s Child cut “If” became the unlikely loop for Rocky and Carti’s “Our Destiny,” while he somehow transformed The Incredible Hulk intro into an atmospheric drill beat for Earl Sweatshirt’s Making the Band (Danity Kane).
These co-signs have certainly helped spotlight the Brooklyn producer as one to watch, but anyone who’s been tapped in with him and Surf Gang will know his influence goes far deeper. The NYC-based label and collective of young artists, producers and creatives first started as a skate crew shredding through Sunset Park and linking up at LES Skatepark under the Manhattan Bridge. Although they’ve since shed many of the original members and remodelled into a music and art powerhouse, releasing everything from clothing to records with Snow Strippers, the mentality of skateboarding remains at the heart of their experimental and individual style.
With EvilGiane passing through London to promote his latest mixtape, #HEAVENSGATE VOL. 1, we caught up with the producer and Surf Gang founder to find out more about his creative process, love for sampling and ripping Lil B CD’s for his mom.
What are you doing in London right now? What brought you over here?
I'm here to fuck shit up. I got a couple of shows going.
You played the Mowalola party, right? How was that?
Oh, yeah, that was my birthday. That shit was fun. Yeah, it was a hell of a show. I was playing literally when my birthday dropped, like, right at midnight.
You’re best known as a producer but you’re pretty versatile in terms of how you present yourself. You skate, do graffiti and DJ. How do all these projects feed into your creativity?
It just kind of goes hand in hand. It's a big part of my life. It's part of everything. You know, it's like some old-school shit. Like the five elements of hip hop: MCing, DJing, Dancing, Graffiti, and knowledge. Graffiti and DJing are the two that stick to me as far as hip-hop. You know what I mean?
In your recent Rolling Stone interview, I thought it was interesting to hear you use skateboarding as a metaphor for the way that you produce music. Can you elaborate on that?
Well, yeah, because when you're skating you see everything differently. Somebody else will look at this shit as a seat. But being a skater that's a spot. That's something that you can hit. Somebody look at some shit that's like, it's a statue. And like, it's a piece of art, but then it's like, okay, as a skater you like, yeah, this is a piece of art, but I'm trying to shred it. Let me see what I can do on that art, like, and use that art to my advantage, you know?
I'm looking at it as an obstacle, but that's not what I mean. It's not like an obstacle where it's like, I have to get over it. No, it's like something like, what could I do in this situation? You know what I mean? I look at music like I’m literally skating. I'm skating the spot, n***a.
How does this impact the way you work artists in the studio? Are they comfortable with you being more experimenting like this?
It varies because there are artists that are just stuck in their ways. And then you get a select few, people like Greedo whom I just recently worked with on my mixtape And people like Slimesito. Then there are other underground artists that I work with like JDN and Harto Falion. And what they all have in common is they know it works for them. So they know how to work it. But then they're also open in an artist's sense, where it's like, okay, let's try this, let's try mix it. They'll put their take on my beat. And when they give me ideas, I put my take on their idea. You know what I mean? It's usually a straight collaboration with that type of shit.
That's why I'm trying to keep that shit going because that's what works for me. I'm not up. I'm not nothing. I'm making cool shit. Cause even if this shit doesn't hit now. 20 years later, some kids going to be on YouTube and some shit and find the song I produced. Like Greedo will probably grow up to become one of the biggest artists ever and then one day somebody will find the song that we have.
Who are some of the artists that you discovered in your formative years that have influenced you, do you think?
Definitely, it would be SpaceGhostPurp, Black Kray, Chief Keef, Young Chop, DJ Ken and Trip Dixon. I could even say, Mexico Dro. As far as rap, they are for sure up there. Because all of them just kept it regular. And 808 Mafia as well. They'll make shit that's easy for people, but do it in their way and just make it wavy. You know? And then if we're going older, it's like people like Dame Grease and Timbaland and Pharrell where they'll take their style, but somehow make it easier for regular people to palette.
I think The Neptunes and Timbaland are great examples of producers who can take a pop artist and create a track that has their distinctive sound but also appeals to the mainstream.
Pharrell is such a good producer, where he makes his own type of shit that's easier for people that are not really on the same wavelength he is to get on. And even make some super crazy shit.
Sampling is a big part of the way you produce. But you don’t just pull from tracks you might typically expect to hear in rap. Do you nerd out when digging around for music?
Well. I mean, on that shit, it's just being a skater. I listen to everything. Skateboarding opened my mind to a whole new world of music. Also growing up, my mom always just like put me on to random shit. She got me on to early R&B and early grunge. Before I was even making beats she would be blasting me Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana and stuff like that.
She grew up deep in the hood, but she's not just into rap and hip-hop. But even if it was, she would be on some underground shit. She put me onto Lil B. She had me rip CDs from DatPiff, cause she didn't know how to download it. Back then, you had to do that with Windows Vista and shit. I remember she played the first Lil B song, Birth of Rap like four times in a row. She was like, “Yo, I like this California n***a, this n***a go so hard.” And she just kept playing it over and over and over while she was making us dinner. And I was like, this is fucking crazy. Cause usually she'll play either classics or like some cool R&B shit or some swaggy shit or like Max B or Dipset and shit like that. Shit that I was more used to listening to. Basically, long story short, my mom put me on to Lil B. That was in 2008/9. I learnt about The Pack after that.
What does Surf Gang represent to you?
Surfgang is the media. It's all of us: me and a bunch of my friends. We just like creating music and doing it on some shit where it's no borders or nothing. We're trying to be on some Pangea shit. Half the people in our group don't even make music. A lot of people are visual artists or paint. It's also a graffiti crew at the same time. It's more of a family you know and it's just been growing more and more especially because the music shit's been popping off.
Traditionally people say don’t mix family and business, but you have seemed to have made it work.
Um, well that's 50/50. We're not on some shit where it's us over everyone. I don't give a fuck. The whole point of culture and art is to grow off of each other because no matter what the medium is, there’s something that can be learned from someone and then taken to a different perspective, you know. I always pay respect where it is due and I'm always down to work with people. Even if we have opposing ideas because it can be a learning experience. At the end of the day, I'm still learning this shit. I might not even fully agree with the way their shit sound, but if put I put my wavy shit on it and they put their wavy shit on it, boom we got a banger whether it's like a fucking t-shirt, a graphic, a song, a beat, you know, like, anything.
What has the experience been like working with big artists like Keem, Rocky and Carti or Isabella Love Story?
I’ve made music with Isabella because I've known her personally. But with Carti, Rocky and Keem, they all tapped in with me. I appreciate that because I feel like that's an honour. Because they're the people that are running shit. It honestly makes me feel more comfortable to make music with people who reach out to me and it's like, let's just do it. And I can get them on weird shit. The fact that I got Kendrick and Keem on a weird-ass drill beat that I would have otherwise posted on SoundCloud.
Did you already have that beat ready?
Oh yeah, Hillbillies, yeah. See, that one, how that happened was my boy, Garner, he's a surf game producer. He showed me the song and he didn't like what he did with the sample. And he was like, yo, bro, take this sample. I was like, yeah, the sample sounds hard. But I wanted to hear the song. So he showed me the song. I'll be listening to the actual song that made me become a Bon Iver fan straight off that one song. Cause I was like, yo, this song's really, really good. And I just tweaked it slightly differently from the way he used it. I was like, yo, this is amazing. And I sent it to Keem and he took it up, man. Shout out Keem. For real. Yeah, it's a crazy song. I love it.
Are there any special projects you can tell us about this year? Is there anything exciting that people can look out for from Surf Gang?
I'm trying to keep a lot of my shit low-key. I wanna keep you guys guessing. But one thing I can allude to. Evil Slime. Evil Slime is coming. It's me. Me and Slimesito. Evil Slime. That's my next tape.
