So what's good, what's good, people?
Episode two, back here with Akme Beats.
Come on.
Yes.
Episode two, episode two, right.
This is a very special episode and I think we're doing a series of special episodes
on this launch of season one.
Welcome to the Sovereign Music Podcast.
Again, Nat Cole here.
Bringing all of the music to the tech and the tech to the money to the music to the culture.
And man, what can I say about this brother right here?
You heard a little bit of his production as we came in here.
So I'm going to let him introduce himself, tell us a little bit about what he does.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you, Gold.
I appreciate so much that you called me.
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
My name is Akme Beats, AKA Akme, AKA Akme Cool Beats.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm from Italy and yeah, I've been doing music for a very long time, like kind of 15,
15 years now.
Yeah, bro.
15 years is a long time.
And that when?
Yeah, I used to, yeah, I used to start to doing beats and after doing like lyrics, rap,
rap in general.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so what, what got you started?
What was the moment that made you get into, okay, hey, I'm going to go and make a beat
or I'm going to try and rap?
Yeah, I was like, I used to get like a big crew in Italy.
Yeah.
We were young.
We used to do graffiti and rap music.
So they involved me to do like beat making because nobody did, nobody doing beat making.
So yeah, I used to start like that, you know.
People involved me on the right way of beat making, you know.
Like I say, old people show me and give me like machine, old machine for doing beats
for, you know, like.
So you were just interested in making beats and there were, let's say like older crews
or in your community?
Yeah, the older, yeah, the people older than me, like because I was like 13 or 14 and the
people like they go already 22, 25, they gave me for free like a machine, you know, like
the old one.
A guy, he has 2000, you know, working with floppy disk, you know, you know, and all these
things.
So analogic thing, you know, proper analogic one.
And we used to use Atari.
Atari ST.
Yeah, you know, the old one.
The old days, right?
It's funny because obviously, you know, the sovereign music podcast, you're here, we're
talking about like where kind of the technology meets the music and the technology and how
we how we're using the technology now.
Yeah, bro.
Like I was, we say in Italy with my friends, we say like we was on the middle of technology,
you know, I mean, like we start to do music with analogic machine and after we get like
digital.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you know, so all the time they start with the analogic and after going to the digital
stuff.
So we used to see a lot of different things, different markets and different machine and,
you know, like, yeah, yeah, technology make a progression so much.
Yeah, exactly.
So so kind of starting there again, right, with with using the analog machines or using
the older machines.
I mean, again, obviously, later on in the conversation, we'll get into speaking about
the newer forms of technology, but just taking it back to the Atari ST.
Yeah, because that's the era that I'm from as well.
The Atari ST.
Yeah, I mean, I literally said to someone yesterday, you know, we learned how to sample
on the ASR 10 and we used to sample on the floppy disk.
And then remember the day when we were speaking, you said to me, I have to mix the sample.
And I said, I haven't heard nobody say that for so many years.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like and and, you know, obviously, I'm around, you know, people all the time, right.
We are making music, but mixing the sample.
Right.
So when we are saying to somebody just I think it was yesterday when we had the ASR 10, we
used to have to put the laff, it is that 15 seconds on the floppy disk and you spread
it across the keyboard and then you would play all of the MIDI notes into the ST and
then you record it to the DAT and then you mix it and then you resample it and then you
put it back on the disk and you put it back in the ASR 10 again and then you start making
the beats, right.
You know, to the safety.
So or you'd have all of the MIDI parts there.
So you once you put it back in, then you're now ready with the sample channel, you know.
So so just take us back to to to to when you first started and the difference into, let's
say how how easy it's become to access equipment like that for you to get that.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Two thousand.
Yeah.
At that time, I used to spend like a week or one bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like a week completely, you know, even the cable, the connect the cable, you know, it
was like difficult.
Yeah.
Like you say before was before was like difficult to make music.
Now it's very simple.
Now you get like tutorial on the internet before wasn't tutorial before was like you
read the book of the machine and explain you how the machine work.
It's not like this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The style of the beats.
And going back to that as well, like reading because because as well, what I've found over
the years is there's there's guys who read the manual and there's guys who skim the manual
and then there's guys who just don't even bother with the manual.
And eventually they find their their way.
But what was it like for you?
Was you like somebody who who when you encountered this technology at the time that you were
starting to make music, did you were you like, hey, I need to read the manual or were you
like, hey, sometimes I read the manual.
Yeah, sometimes I read the manual.
Someone teach me something.
The old guy, you know, the old people.
Yeah, teach me like like the machine, how how it's working, you know, like maybe just
one time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Times.
I think so, but not so much.
So I learned from myself and read the book as well.
Yeah, try to understand more.
More.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like it wasn't wasn't like a university of music.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, she might that was like.
So did you have any musical training before that?
Was you when you were little, did you know which drums or piano or anything?
Yeah, we are.
Yeah, before you mean before you before producing music.
Yeah, you should play piano.
Okay, piano and listen a lot of music, different one.
So, yeah.
And that age coming up as well, what was the what was like the hip hop community?
Because hip hop is obviously what you make mostly.
So what was what was the hip hop community like in Italy at that time?
Sorry, what was the hip hop community like in Italy at that time?
What was it like for for hip hop artists?
Was there lots of hip hop artists?
No, no, no.
For now.
Yeah.
What's that completely?
What's like early 2000?
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, I remember some Italian rapper was like very good doing like really good music
and from Sicily, not so much people, you know, like maybe five people in Sicily.
Like rap music, hip hop was commercial completely.
It was super, super underground.
Yeah.
So yeah.
And what was your like who was your you cannot ask this, who was your like inspiration at
that time?
Who was you listening to that made you want to make or listen to more hip hop?
Who was who was that?
Yeah.
I said that producer.
You saying American one.
Yeah, like American, American or anywhere.
Some Italian, yeah, some Italian.
And yeah, American one and some English one as well.
Yeah, yeah.
And what was the most?
Yeah, the most was like the DJ Premier.
Yeah.
Premier was the best.
Yeah, yeah.
And Pete Rock.
Yeah, Pete Rock.
We used to appreciate so much for the bass line.
Yeah, yeah.
We used to appreciate so much.
So you're definitely you'd say from that era of the Pete Rock and the Large professor
like Premier, like Showbiz and AG.
Yeah, DITC.
All of DITC really.
Yeah, the DITC
and Lord finesse as well.
Yeah.
So Lord Finesse Diamond D.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Alchemist as well.
Oh, yeah.
Come on.
Alchemist and DJ Max.
First one, I think the Dimp Max was first, first like, you know, first album I remember
was Psycho Diem and Cypress Hill, The Temple Of Boom.
Yeah, yeah.
Was the first, you know, like.
Albums that you've got.
And the buss, I remember Busta Rhymes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The coming.
The next level.
Or Instinction Level 11.
Yeah.
So the first one you're talking about.
Yeah, yeah.
This one.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's from 99.
Was like an album from 99.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Dope.
Yeah, yeah.
Especially the American.
Yeah.
Especially the American one.
But yeah, it was like people from Italy doing like very good, super good.
There was like Famous as well in Italy.
And I remember French in France.
Yeah, France is pretty big.
Germany as well.
And Greek, I remember.
Okay, wow.
Yeah, Greek, I remember.
Yeah, I didn't know that there was.
Terrorist crew.
I can imagine that there will be different people in hip hop all over the world.
Yeah, I remember the Slovenian one, I remember.
I go to the city as well now.
I go to the city as well.
Yeah, because Europe has always been a really big place for hip hop.
I think that people maybe over time have realized.
But I think the artists, the American artists have always realized that Europe is a big
place for hip hop because they've been touring in Europe for a very long time.
But I think that people often underestimate the fact that European regions and European
countries have their own hip hop scenes.
And that's got obviously, hip hop is probably the most listened to music to date, right?
So at the moment, there's definitely a global spread.
And that brings us kind of on to the next part of the conversation, which is like accessing
being able to access like the further market, right?
So we know that with the Internet and with things like YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music
and probably even let's go a little further back.
So let's go back to like Pirate Bay and Napster and, you know, LimeWire, right?
And Kazaa, right?
So people have always used the Internet to communicate more.
And I mean, from where you was in Italy with kind of a smaller rap community and trying
to get yourself and listen and being able to be a part of the wider kind of space, right?
Like, you know, the Americans obviously dominate the space.
But being part of that wider space is like, where do you feel that the Internet came in
for you?
When did you start thinking, hey, the Internet is...
Yeah, 2008, 2007, I think, when Quasimoto...
Do you remember Quasimoto?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So when Quasimodo came, yeah, my family buy a laptop and we used to get Internet.
Okay.
So before was like some of my friends that download the music for me, you know, or buy...
I used to buy music in the shop, you know.
So yeah, before...
So when I was younger, for example, when I started, there wasn't Internet.
Those are just like shop, music shop and book.
Yeah.
And after, yeah, 2005 and 2007, we used to use Internet.
Yeah, the laptop.
Yeah, even 2002.
So basically, you're saying...
What you're saying is that the adventures of Lord Quas, yeah, right?
Yeah.
That's what really put you on to...
On Internet, yeah.
Yeah, bro.
Yeah, crazy, crazy.
And then there's Doom and shit.
Yeah.
You know, like because I didn't know Madlib before.
Before Internet, I didn't know Madlib, I didn't know J Dilla, and we used to know just Premier,
and then we used to know the rest of the music, and then we used to know the rest of the music.
So when you got the laptop, how did you get introduced into that whole section of music from the laptop?
So you had the laptop, and then what site were you using?
MySpace.
So you were on MySpace and you were...
So it's funny, right, because we were here to do episode one, right, with Nat and I, right?
And what he said also is, you know, like that MySpace era was kind of like where a lot of people, you know...
It's like the granddaddy, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Where people really on a public level started to discover other musicians, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So...
A lot of people, yeah, new artists start from MySpace, you know, they start from MySpace.
And I think...
It was the first one, no?
Yeah, it was the first one.
I think obviously now...
It was super good.
I used to love it, love it, love it.
Because you can put whatever you want there, you know.
I used to put like video games there as well.
Yeah, yeah.
People used to put all kinds of stuff on their page, right?
And the thing is, right, it's funny because you could tell everybody's age, right, by MySpace now, right?
Because there's a generation, obviously, the generation that we're seeing coming through now are not...
They're not...
They don't know anything about MySpace.
They are late Facebook people that are Instagram and everything else.
This page, this page and said page.
So, you know, like a said page.
So, yeah, so what you say is that maybe a lot more people were not on MySpace because a lot more people were not on the internet.
No, they don't know MySpace.
MySpace was like Facebook killed MySpace.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Completely.
Because Facebook is more of a...
More information, you know, more information.
MySpace was more like culture.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a good way to say it, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because MySpace is more...
Was more, hey, you can put something up, you can own your own free kind of web page, put your own stuff on there.
Yeah, whatever.
So MySpace is pretty decentralized even though it was a centralized thing.
Graphic, video games, I told you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Whatever, like animation things.
It was like super good, bro.
So even if MySpace, yeah, if MySpace...
It's funny because if MySpace wasn't a company and it was built on, let's say, some kind of decentralized technology,
if you had MySpace like that, then, you know, I think that's where we're kind of going now,
back to people building their own web pages on decentralized stuff, right?
But we'll talk about that later again, right?
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, with Facebook, Facebook kind of came in with this more connected social element.
So people were connecting with people in their schools, people were connecting with people in their families.
So it was keeping a history of your information of who you interacted with and people that you know, right?
Yeah.
Which is MySpace is much more different, but let's not get into that, right?
More artistic, I think, so MySpace.
Yeah, yeah.
Then only information.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, okay, right.
So now you've got this laptop, you started listening on MySpace.
They kill MySpace after one year, you know?
And, you know, yeah, they bring you in the other space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so we used to hate Facebook, like completely, you know?
Instagram, nobody accepted when we started, just few of one.
Yeah, this photo, photographer, for photographer, it was like just for photographer.
So when was the first time that you kind of connected then with somebody outside of the Italian kind of scene?
Because at this point, you're making beats, you've got a few people around you that you're all making beats and rappers together.
No, no, just more rapper than beat.
More rapper.
So you're making most of the beats.
Yeah, so the maker was like just me and I don't know, Seamus, Seamus, producer, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So at this time you're making...
Everyone just has two choices.
Everyone was ignorant about all, even graffiti, even breakdance, even all.
So me, I was like, I used to get knowledge of graffiti, MC, DJ and beat making.
And boom, beat making, yeah, and breaking a little bit and beat making more.
So we used to, yeah, it was few, few of one.
And so who was or when was the first person that you connected with?
Like outside of that Italian circle, who was or when was the first person that you connected with?
Outside, I mean in England.
Doesn't matter where, it could be England, it could be anywhere.
Who was the first person that said, hey, I'm going to use one of your beats from somewhere else that wasn't in the Italians?
No, I don't know.
What were you saying again?
So yeah, so the first person, so at this time you're making beats for people, for rappers in Italy.
Yeah, just for Italian people.
Just for Italian people.
Yeah, in Europe, yeah, one Dutch guy.
Okay.
Heinz A.
Okay, okay.
He was the first one that accepted my instrumental and we did like a few albums.
And was that through MySpace connection or?
Yeah, I think it's on MySpace, yeah.
I think so, MySpace, yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of people I catch on MySpace.
Yeah.
Even some Italian people that wasn't famous before and after was like, and after now is famous, you know.
I was catching them on MySpace.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure was Heinza, from Germany.
So, okay, so when it came to the time that let's say, what would you call your big break moment?
What would you call the time that you feel within yourself changed everything or was about to change everything?
Yeah, in England, I think so.
Yeah, in England, yeah.
And yeah, before was in Italy as well.
Yeah, first time was in Italy.
Yeah, like in I was in my town, city, and I used to go to the university in Palermo.
And that time, yeah, I used to get a lot of change from that.
From that time, yeah, for sure.
Like I know a lot of people, hip hop heads, like the good one, you know.
So yeah, I think so.
First time in Palermo, yeah, in Citi.
Okay.
And what do you think has kind of changed now?
Because obviously using MySpace and connecting to these people, you've kind of created a distribution channel for your music, right?
And at that time, people were still doing CDs and, you know, everything.
CDs were still very popular, right?
So where do you see kind of when did you realize that, hey, things are going to now be always kind of more online?
What's the difference between then and now?
How difficult or easy is it for you to put out music or make monetization of music from then to now?
What would you say is the difference?
So before the internet.
Yeah, so before internet, how hard or easy was it?
Before internet too.
And how now?
This is actually to monetize what you're doing.
Monetize, yeah, I think so.
It was different.
Nothing bad, nothing better.
It was just different.
Just different time.
Yeah, different time.
Different time.
Because we used to sell a lot of CDs.
We used to record in the studio.
We used to print the CDs.
And we used to sell on the party, you know, hip hop parties in Italy.
So it was good money, kind of.
Because I was really young, you know.
So 15.
Come on, man, 15.
If you sell a CD at 15, you're good, you know.
You did a really good job, you know.
Yeah, no, of course.
Of course.
I mean, again, if you're young and you've got an entrepreneurial and a growth mindset.
And people appreciated more before.
More people involved.
Yeah, more people are interested.
Because you're young.
Yeah, you're young and it's super new.
Yeah.
So there's not only a lot more hype, but people also resonate with the talent of a young person more.
Because we all see a young person.
I teach a lot of people.
I teach even old people.
That time I teach them, you know.
A lot of people I teach.
About graffiti and rap and beats.
You cannot imagine.
Yeah, trust me, man.
A lot.
Yeah, definitely.
Trust me.
Yeah.
People like never rap and they come.
They started to come to my studio.
Boom.
One year later they're doing freestyle.
They can do whatever, you know.
Trust me, man.
Crazy.
So did you ever stop doing that kind of physical monetization?
I mean, right now, let's just pick you up right now.
Because you just dropped a project the other day, which you did some vinyl for as well, didn't you?
So are you still looking at keeping both sides in what you're doing, physical and digital?
Obviously, analogic and digital.
Yeah.
That's because analogic is like the physical part.
So it can be you appreciate more your job because it's physical.
It's not just digital.
I like digital, but it's not just that.
Because one day maybe you don't have a connection for a... or wherever.
You can only listen to the music.
So vinyl for sure, 100%, you're going to listen to it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I prefer to use both of them, digital and analogic.
I don't prefer any of them.
Any of the two.
I appreciate both.
So what do you kind of think about where we are now in terms of the music industry
and how the industry, let's say, operates more on a streaming model at the moment?
So using Spotify and let's say DistroKid or Apple Music, the regular distributors, so on and so forth,
do you find that that is easier for you with...
And do you still feel that you have the same amount of control or does it still make the same amount of money?
Make you more small than big.
You know what I mean?
DistroKid makes you more small than big.
I don't know, I want to say that DistroKid is good for people that are famous already.
Just for advertising it's good.
And why do you believe that?
And now we say DistroKid and Spotify as well?
Yeah, DistroKid I mean Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, all the companies that are working with DistroKid.
I don't know, it's good service but it doesn't work for a small artist.
Even for the big one it doesn't work because you cannot catch a lot of money.
I don't know how the service works.
For example, I appreciate more WavLake, for example.
Now I appreciate more that website than Spotify.
Everyone uses Spotify so you need to be there.
You know what I mean?
It's different, you know.
I appreciate more different platforms than the famous one.
And then you mentioned obviously just that you mentioned WavLake, right?
So Web Lake obviously is more geared towards streaming really than it is towards purchasing.
Because now at the moment the kind of direct-to-consumer model at the moment is leaning more towards purchasing.
So as you said, the physicals, so people are buying the vinyls or they're buying a digital download or they're buying a cassette even, you know, people are doing as well, right?
Or a CD.
So would you say that kind of there is almost a point where we're coming to now where the older streaming platforms will,
they're going to have to start dealing better with the artists because the artists are leaving because we're seeing like, what is it, Spotify and TikTok war.
I was speaking to Nat Nye again and I was saying that Apple had just recently had this ruling in Europe where they now have to put,
you're allowed to put your website link to sell on your website on Apple Music now.
So do you think that things are coming back around to where the artists themselves,
I will get into WavLake in a second, but with the artists themselves are now taking more control, they're starting to realise that they have more control?
Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, the artists, yeah, they get more control now of the music.
I mean, yeah, independent, yeah.
Yeah, today, for example, you can be independent artists and, you know, I use wherever a service is gone for a moment.
That's it. Yeah. So you can, you're free to choose basically, which platform you do and you're free to also build your own platform as well.
Oh, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's completely free now. It's completely free, but at the same time, it's difficult to learn the technological,
because you have to learn, you know, maybe how to use it or how to build. Yeah.
You know, like if you are artists, you cannot create the platform for the artists. It's complicated.
So then would you say that there still is a barrier where you have to either collaborate with other people who have the skills set that you don't,
or then you still have to have the money? I mean, whereas before you almost always need to have the money because the people who had the skill set were not available to find, you know, or it was harder to find people to collaborate with.
Yeah. So you mean, what you mean? So I'm saying like before it was harder to find somebody who you can work together harder to actually even work together.
So before, for example, in Sicily, if you put, yeah, we used to recognize us for the clothing.
Yeah. You know, if you were like, if you were, you were, it was like hip hop for sure.
Yeah, yeah. If you were wearing certain types of...
So someone that looks hip hop, I go in there and try to talk with him and get more knowledge, you know. Yeah, of course.
Before it was, before internet was like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that. Yeah, go on, go on, go on.
Now is, now is if you are an artist, you think like I need to control more of my content, OK? My beats, my content, I need to, you know, I want to control more and learn how can be spread.
Yes, spread. So distribution and then monetization basically. OK. Yeah. So that's, that's, yeah. Yeah. So then...
We are in a struggle for monetizing the content. Yeah, it's completely, especially for a hip hop underground like us, like, you know, it's completely difficult.
In London, it's super difficult. So monetizing even on the live show or wherever is very hard, you know. Yeah, man. So try a different way.
So you just, yeah, try a different way. So you just said there about monetizing on live shows. So is that, is that also like been a part of what your monetization strategy has been? So physical, bit of digital and then live performance, which is generally the artist package.
Yeah, isn't it? Right. Because all the artists or the producers are trying to get into a place where they have those free, because those are, let's say, the free.
So when you talked about Wav Lake, right? Yeah. Yeah. What was, what was the difference that you saw in your experience with using WavLake, even though you've just really started using it, right? What is your difference that you see? Hey, Wav Lake was this is what I saw I could do in WavLake that I can't do here.
I can't do in Spotify, for example, or Apple. WavLake working really fast, I think. Working fast and yeah, it's perfect service. Kind of.
Because, you know, like maybe in the future there is like maybe a better than WavLake. But for a moment, WavLake is like faster than everyone, you know, and can give you straight away like information, more information about your content, your, you know, about the platform, how it's working.
So yeah, for example, the people can leave the comments, you know, leave the comment and for doing this one, you need to pay like some sats and they put like whatever they want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's working good. So, so, so, so what you're finding is that the way that that WavLake allows you to first of all connect very easy. So it's not hard to set up very easy. Yeah, but then it enables you to to engage or people to engage in the way that they would like to.
And then when you talk about speed, you mean from the aspect of speed for you to be able to set up and speed for you to let's say receive any kind of monetary monetizing and use as well.
I saw a lot of views there. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So people discovery because first time they've seen you before. Yeah. Yeah. Smaller, smaller base of people. Yeah. But more recognition, right? Because, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Like I did the more views and YouTube, for example, and YouTube. There is a lot of people, you know, all the world working in YouTube.
But in the end, my my video on YouTube is like 40 views, for example, in two months. And for example, in a platform like special platform for special artists or something like working like really, really good.
Yeah, yeah. Much better. You can be rich. One day you can be rich. You know, you know, you know. So again, it's all about it's all about how bright. So what you're saying is overall, you saw that people on the new monetization models and alternatives monitored the sites that are coming out that are more fairer to the artists.
The people are on there that are the fans. They appreciate the stuff more because it's almost basically like direct to consumer. But you just have a platform that is a service that helps you to get more visibility, basically, you know, or maybe in a in wavelength sense, like monetize a little bit.
But we already know that in most of these platforms in, let's say, the decentralized space in the Bitcoin space, right, we can, anyone can build anything. So you can take Wav Lake and build a new Wav Lake tomorrow, right, and make have different features or whatever.
And you can create your own, you know, something that some of the listeners to this podcast.
Yeah, service. I mean, service. Yeah, yeah. Because the other one that we talked about was a good service.
If you create a good service, it's alright for the people.
The artist is much better for the artist. They feel comfortable, more comfortable.
The other one that we talked about was the Fountain app, yeah. So Fountain was, is the podcast, the podcast 2.0 app, again, big up to Fountain. Definitely build up yourselves.
And if you're listening or watching on any Bitcoin based platform, they got to yourself as well.
So, so Fountain, I showed you about the Fountain app and the way how you can actually build that infrastructure for yourself.
So you can, you know, set up a Bitcoin node, run that and then run your own podcast application, DJ show, whatever you wanted to do on there.
And then build your own monetization infrastructure, even have other people submit, you know, like WavLake, their stuff and, you know, build your own complete infrastructure.
And that does not cost a lot at all because to set up a Bitcoin node is a few hundred quid, right? Yeah.
So it doesn't cost a lot at all for you to get now involved and then to have your own complete infrastructure.
So what you're saying is that after using Wav Lake, what you are able to understand is that if you want to build your own industry, you can just come here, put some stuff here, get people to know who you are,
and then learn more and learn how to build your own industry, your own pocket and, you know, have the full control, not only just over the music, not only just over your masters,
not only just over your contracts in or but also over the way you are paid. Right. And when you get paid as well.
So that's very important to obviously any artists, right? But why do you think that people don't take the further step of taking this into their own hands and controlling their own music? Do you think it's laziness?
Do you think people don't understand? Yeah, they don't understand. They don't want to understand. Yeah, obviously people, they're not interested in this.
It's ignorant, still ignorant. I don't know. Yeah, what do you think? Yeah, one day I can, you know, maybe I can show them something, but yeah, if they want to learn, OK, it's OK, it's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, I think the majority of the community is kind of is lazy, very lazy to understand, not to understand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just to make it clear as well to everybody watching, right. So, yeah, you've just recently actually started learning about Bitcoin and using it and just learning how it works.
And in that first, let's say, few days or first times that you started watching stuff and learning, because you told me also that you had some friends who were into Bitcoin some time ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell that story. Tell the story about how you got, you first heard about Bitcoin and why now you've kind of come back around to, hey, this could actually be useful, because that was good that we had that conversation, you know, before.
Because I'm like an art worker, graphic designer. I used to study in the University of Art. So, you know, it was like, yeah, some of my friends, first time he told me like, yeah, put some money on Bitcoin is good, you know, gonna grow.
But he didn't told me nothing, just this. So I told him, I don't know, like, sure. I wasn't sure. And after my brothers told me like, no, don't use, don't use, you know, like, but, you know, like I used to studying so like a graph, graphic, I did graphic.
And yeah, I saw some website that you can sell your graphic, your web, your designer for, you know, for NFTs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, NFTs and after Ethereum, you know, like with Ethereum, you can sell all Bitcoin, you can sell your art.
So it was interesting for me, you know, that time was interesting. Like, finally, I can do some money on the internet.
Because, you know, like in internet, you just like order a CD or the vinyl, you order some, you know, physical thing. But before wasn't like that before, you know, before was like a service that you can spend digital currency.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so so we are saying is, in essence, we didn't have the usability of money prior to that time, as well as we do now with things like Bitcoin, or Bitcoin itself, we don't have, we didn't have that before before we had yes, we had electronic cash like these are debit card, whatever.
But, but you know, there was always some difficulty prior to that for you to either receive money, or for people to even want to pay money.
Yeah, super difficult, you to wait a long time for, for, you know, receiving Bitcoin or open maybe a wallet, I don't know, something, you know, that was slow. Even four years ago, like five years ago, was like slow, still was, you know, was still slow, some service.
So yeah, now it's completely fast. Now it's very good.
And the funny thing about that right is obviously there's been a lot of things here happening, obviously in Bitcoin recently that's slowed things down. And, you know, made things kind of.
But those things are also good because, you know, you know, as we've seen, you know, with the Ghostface Killah drop and stuff, people are, the Ordinals thing is bringing more people back to, hey, we should kind of, you know, do stuff with Bitcoin.
So even though we have a bit of slow period, as you said, you know, like, I think when you're talking about, you know, five, six years ago, that probably would have been around the same time that, you know, like we had, you know, this, this argument with the block wars and where Capra was, was, was put into Bitcoin and, you know, had the block size war.
So you're right. It's a similar time period now where things have got blocked up and congested again kind of. And then, you know, but it's all for another cause of building something else on Bitcoin.
And now we're seeing it start to ease up again. So more people are now starting to realize because more people are using it and now people are using it for art, you know, so people.
So, yeah, so definitely.
Yeah, it's very good.
So listen, yeah, as well, right before we move on to another piece here, like you guys might have noticed here that we had, we had like, tell us about the equipment that you're using right now because you're, you swear by this box, don't you?
Right. Yeah. And, and I've seen a lot of guys using this. You know, you should already know who it is, right? But, but just introduce what you've got here. Yeah. What you brought along with you. And is this what you use mostly to make your music these days?
Yeah, definitely.
Much smaller than an S2000.
Yeah.
No, no, no, I don't think so. Because this one is very easy to use. That one was hard, you know, was very hard.
Yeah. I spent a lot of time.
Zip drive, zip drive.
It's working like similar. So yeah, it's like I used to learn proper good, you know, from that old machine.
Now I can do easy here, you know, I can do very easy. I used to just learn one week this machine and after I can do whatever I want.
So before we get into it, yeah, real quickly. What, what, what, who have you worked with? Who would you like to like shout out that you've worked with or that was really, really memorable to work with that really put you on, you know, like artists that you've worked with?
And who, who maybe would you like to work with?
You mean my career, music career? In terms of yeah, beat making or? Beat making or? Or as a producer. Or a rapper. As a producer, more as a beat maker. Because that's your focus right now.
Ah yeah, yeah. What do you mean, Italian or?
Anywhere, anywhere. So just shout out, let us know some of the people you've worked with. Like famous one or?
Famous, not famous, it doesn't. What ones are really memorable? In UK I want to shout out like Lewis Parker. You know, Lewis Parker, very good beat maker. Legend, legend.
And yeah, American one, I think so...Madlib, J Dilla, Pete Rock, Premier and Alchemist. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, in Italy we go a lot of, you know, very good ones.
There is like the last one was Ice One. I meet Ice One. DJ Ice One from Rome. Yeah, he's good man, he's very good producer as well. Next one, I remember the next one in Turin, very super dope producer.
And Stokka from Palermo, yeah, Drass. They teach me something, you know. So yeah, very good producer. They was like really good producer.
And what about artists? Artists were around the world.
Anyone you've worked with? Jamba, Jamba. My friend Jamba, rest in peace, you know, because he's not anymore here. He was like super good rapper from Italy. Yeah, yeah.
Matt Barty, Big Aspano and they from Sicily. And after, you know, like the most famous one was like Neffa, Kaos, Sangue Misso, Deada, DJ Graff, Italian one.
And yeah, American one, like Griselda now. Before it was like Kool G Rap and, you know, Non Phixion. Yeah, you know, people like that, people like that.
Yeah, that's it, man. It's like a Spanish rapper and producer that they, you know, they show me something, how they work. They're really good.
What is the name? I don't remember the name. Yeah, Jäger Boi from Spain. Jäger Boi, shout out. Jäger Boi, man.
All right. So before we quickly, we're going to, so, so guys, we're going to quickly just go into some live beat making from Akme here.
But before we jump into that Akme, just quickly, what is the name of your latest project and where can people find it?
Yeah, it's a double capital A. The name is, yeah, it's EP with the air creeps. You can find it like in Bandcamp, Akmebeats.bandcamp.com.
Yeah, you can find that and every platform now is Spotify, whatever.
Okay. All right, guys, I'm going to have to take you away to some of this.
Cheese. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's go.
Apologies for the short interruption, but we just like to take this moment to say a sincere thanks and appreciation for you tuning in and listening to the Sovereign Music podcast.
Please remember to like, share, comment and such to get the message out there. Own your mastery.
Due to unforeseen technical issues, we were unable to get audio of Akme producing and playing some of his beats.
But if you head over to the Coinscrum YouTube channel, you'll be able to find the Sovereign Music podcast playlist where you can watch the full video
and watch to the end where we catch up with Akme at his studio. Now back to the podcast. Thank you very much.
Sounding, sounding, sounding tough, tough, tough, tough. So what I'm saying is, yeah, like in this time now that you was, as I said, like, you know, been making music in recent years,
you've been, as you said, looking at doing more collaboration with artists, as many collaboration as possible and putting out as much stuff as possible.
So how do you think it's like changing for how do you think it's changing for the artists on an international scale?
So with all of the different people from all of the different regions across the world, do you think that it is now going to become a lot more widespread that artists are going to take control?
As we said earlier, that artists want to take control and that platforms are kind of making it easier.
But do you think that people, artists are going to take control and then do you think that people will kind of get back to that mindset of paying for music?
Yeah.
Like paying for good music?
What do you mean?
So what I'm saying is, do you think with all the technology and the reach nowadays people are going to get back?
People are more, now the people get the service for pay the artists directly.
Yeah. Yeah. So do you think, what I'm saying is, right.
So do you think that's going to get more now because more and more artists are starting to realise that they can.
So people are going to, do you think people will be forced to have to pay?
Like Facebook, my space, before it was my space after Facebook, kind of, you know, the same thing.
But yeah, the people need to understand that they can take the control of the money, of the.
But not only that, I'm talking from a fan's perspective though, from a fan's perspective.
Yeah.
Do you think that if musicians do this that fans might say.
If you are really fans, you get like a lot of different way now for spend, give the money at your favourite parts.
There is many ways, you know, there is like a ticket for a live concert, there is digital tickets, you know.
So digital service, there is like a WavLake service that you can put a comment, you can pay whatever you want.
You know.
So it's just.
So really what you're saying is.
The problem is not the fan.
The problem.
I think so.
Yeah. So you reckon the fans are going to support it.
The people, they create the service.
Yeah. And the musicians are not using.
So what you're saying is the musicians are not using all of the tools at their own disposal to get their music out there.
What they're doing is they're relying on Spotify, Apple Music, so on and so forth.
But they can have another option if they want to.
And they should do because the fans should then.
The fans would then respect that basically in the long term.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, because they get the opportunity of give your favorite artists give some sex or Bitcoin or whatever.
So. So. So again.
Yeah. Start from the artists for sure.
But the fan follow the artist.
So if the artist say like it's better now use Bitcoin.
The fan going to use Bitcoin.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Boom. So. So before we wrap up.
Yeah. If you follow.
If you follow. So you said it at the right time.
If you follow. Right.
So I'm saying is let the people know where they can follow you and find you.
And yeah, like, hey, if you're listening to this,
sovereign music podcast on any of the podcasts and two point old platforms,
Akme is got albums upon albums and he's still putting more stuff up that is available on Wav Lake.
So make sure or wave Lake. I know as you said,
but make sure that you go there and you support what he's doing.
Definitely. 100 percent.
Wav Lake and camp and after Spotify, the other service, you know, audio.
Well, it's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Whatever service you need, we get, you know, we already get.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
All right. So. So listen, people, we're going to fade you out with like a little bit more music from Akme.
And we will see you on the next episode of the sovereign music podcast.
We are out soon.
Yo, yo, so so back here with Akme Beats, the house.
Yeah, we had that trouble with the, you know, thanks for watching to the end.
If you're seeing this festival because we had that trouble with the audio from the last session.
So we couldn't get this whole piece of, you know,
Akme showcases all of the material that he's made and and what he's doing.
So before we'll just give you a lot that little flavor.
I came to link Akme here in a secret location in his work place of work.
Yeah. You know, where the vibes come from.
So so yeah, but Akme, how you been, man? You're even good. Yeah. Yeah, we're good.
No. Yeah. She mean, you know, in the studio here, make beats.
You know. Yeah. Like I always like every day. Yeah.
You like to create something. That's it. Sure. That is it.
So again, just as a special bit of bonus, because we didn't get that piece,
was going to run through some Akme's, you know, joints, listen to some of that.
And, you know, then we'll get to talking about again,
some of the stuff that you've been doing because, you know, you've been doing quite a lot since,
you know, we last spoke and we recorded the actual episode.
So, yeah, bro, whenever you're ready, man, let's get into it.
Can you let the people kind of know what your your tools of the trade are?
Like, we don't want to let any secrets go. But, you know, come on.
Yeah, you can see he's like the Roland SP404, the new one.
Yeah, for a moment I can I can chill with that.
You know, I can do with this is like a modern machine.
But yeah, on the same time, it's good. You know, it's good.
It's good to learn. It's good to create. You know, bro.
So, yeah. All right. So some of that shit, man. It's cool.
All right.
So, yeah, boom, boom, ba, ba, ba, ba. So, so what do you say that like, what's your
like kind of regular workflow? Like before you had the Roland, what was you, what was
you using mostly then?
Yeah, I've been using like analogic machine like the old one, Akai S2000 and yeah, the
MPC 2500 and Roland SP 606.
Okay, okay. So what makes you, what made you switch to this, to this box that you're using
now? I mean, from my perspective, personally, I've seen that it seems like it's a lot of
fun effects in there in comparison to the MPC.
Yeah, yeah. And it's good to do DJ sets as well. You can do like a DJ set.
Oh shit.
Yeah, it's crazy. It's like DJ mode here and you can, yeah, whatever you want to, you want
to mix it, you know, you get like, I got like a lot of instrumental here that I did already.
And yeah, and I can like do like a DJ set with only this one, you know, so it's like
a new shit, you know.
So Roland, if you're listening, my boy here, you know, needs a discount on the Roland right
now. Yeah, like at me beat show. So listen, yeah, what, what, what other projects have
you got like lined up? Cause I know, you know, people who have watched the, the full interview
were already seeing that we spoke about some of the projects and some of the things he
was doing. So what have you been up to recently since then and what kind of stuff have you
got kind of coming in the next couple of weeks, months?
Yeah, we, we put already out like the hooks from hooks thrown off the, off deck with Air
klipz and SilverGray. It's already out on whatever, WavLake, Spotify, and I did some
animation for Gamma as well, special edition. And yeah, the next one should be next project.
It should be Swab and Akme. Yeah. And yeah, we, we already get like the mix and mastering.
So a couple of weeks and we get out with this album.
And just also like, just to touch on what we were talking about earlier, like when we
were in the studio before, we didn't get to showcase any art. So is there any kind of
like, do you want to show maybe one of your pieces maybe? Because we talked a little bit
about, you know, you doing art and you can see this wonderful mural that you've got in
the background. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I can show you some vinyl pieces that you've worked
on. Some vinyl arts, you know. Or yeah, I do like a graphic design. But yeah, we do
t-shirts, you know, most of the time we do like graphic for t-shirts. So yeah, I did
this one for me. Sick man. And all of this stuff you want to... Yeah, you can find like
on Bandcamp, 100% for UK and in Europe we get like one website, we use one website that
yeah, get the service for us. It's a CUC shop. Yeah. Yeah, only in Europe and Italy. And
part of the, part of what we were saying as well earlier was, you know, you kind of transitioning
like you're really kind of like, since we obviously got a last interview, you've done
a lot of digging and research and you're really like kind of ready to jump into like, you
know, doing stuff with Bitcoin and putting all of these skills to work in the Bitcoin
world. So, you know. Yeah, for sure man. This is like an opportunity for me and for everyone,
you know, to jump in a new platform and monetizing your, you know, your content. Yeah. Good to
learn and good to know. And yeah, there is a lot of good service there and especially
for the music artists. So yeah, those things though. We follow WavLake, Gamma for a moment.
I'm, you know, I'm really comfortable with that. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah,
man. All right, man. So listen, Akme, big up again for inviting us down and letting us,
you know, into a quick little sneak preview. Big up to all the people that watched the
whole entire interview because only if you watch to the end, you know, if you skipped,
you need to go back a bit, you know, like to catch some of like what Akme just answered
there as well, you know, with his kind of him learning, you know, just like, you know,
not too far back, you know, he was just thinking about doing this stuff, you know, with Bitcoin
and he's active and he's got in there and he's just started doing it. So Akme again,
man. Big up to you and yeah, man. Shout out to all the viewers. Shout out to Runt Life
family and yeah, Airklipz, Swavo, G.O.L.D, SilverGray and Cracker Jhon and many, many,
many more like Slippy Skills, Nerspaz, Yorandaj. Bang, bang. Gone people. Let's get it.
Thank you.