The Making of "Ghost Town"

What made you start writing songs in the first place?

My parents have always been big on music; they grew up in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s, where hip-hop was starting to get big. I had a lot of influence from them listening to music growing up. When I came to Exeter, Sumit [Chandra], Aaron [Baez] and Adar [Tulloch], who graduated in the class of ’19, were uppers. They would go to the studio and make songs, and I really enjoyed going with them. From there, I grew more and more into music producing. I’m also really into poetry and English, so it was nice to combine my passions into one.

What was your main inspiration for this song?

Ghost Town is about New York, which is where I’m from, and Exeter. I speak about growing up and finding myself in these different things as well as the lyrics. 

You’ve been producing songs with [upper Hojun Choi] (Hoj) for a while now; how did you guys start? 

I think my favorite part about making music is doing it with Hoj. He’s one of my best friends, so it’s definitely more organic and fun for us. We hang out and go to his room where he has two crazy speakers, and we hook it up to his computer where he has FL Studio, which is an app that all the hip-hop producers use, and [we] play around with different sounds.

In what ways is this song different from the others that you’ve produced? 

This one is actually different from the songs that I released last year. Those songs were more fun songs that you’d put into your playlist and bump to, but this one is more poetic, and I talk about life more deeply. I guess in that sense, it means more to me because it’s more personal.

What are your hopes and dreams in terms of music producing for the future?

Hoj and I live by the rule that if we ever stop having fun doing it, we’ll stop making music. I think a lot of people want to produce music to be rappers or do it for clout, but we really just want to have fun. I definitely want to see how far I can take it, and see where things can go, grow and make connections.

How did you guys start on this song?

We had planned to make another song that was like the ones we’d made before, ones that were more upbeat. Hoj was actually on an airplane when he started playing around with different samples and sent it to me as soon as he landed. I did something different to what I usually do, which was going to a microphone that I have in my room and recording a bunch of nonsense and writing the song based on the flow that I’ve just recorded … For this one, I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote the song out. 

What does this song mean to you?

It means a lot to me. Starting off a new year was a big thing for me, and I was trying to find what I truly wanted to rap about. Going forward, I just went to the studio and recorded three songs. I think Ghost Town was a really good place to start in terms of giving people a look into my life. 

Interview with upper Hojun Choi

How did you begin producing music and making tracks?

I was in eighth grade when I first started messing around with music. I got this software from a friend and played around with it. In ninth grade, I became really into it—I started using FL Studios to make beats.

In the making of this song, you made a track on an airplane; how did you come up with it?

In Ghost Town, I found a cool sample and pitched it around, chopped it up and then, I added different effects, drums and a bass.

What were some interesting techniques that you used?

I got the audio file of the song and put a plug-in effect that gave the audio a crackling vinyl effect, which gave it an old feel. I also added swing on the drum, so it doesn’t feel super mechanical; this humanized it a little bit. This was what gave the drums a really wavy and groovy kind of feel.

What’s your favorite thing about this song?

I love how organic this song was; it wasn’t really like Osiris and I talked and said we needed to make a song. I actually … named the beat Ghost Town before Osiris even made the song. As soon as I landed, I sent it to Osiris; he liked the idea of Ghost Town and built a song around it.