Thanks for watching! Why Make Music. Coming to
you live from planet Earth. No filters. No formulas.
Just sound, soul, and story. Without further
ado, your hosts. I'm Think Tim, and this is DJ
Warm Cookies, also known. as willa may let's
talk about it 30 episodes deep and still cooking
welcome back y 'all you already know why make
music dot dot dot and i'm your girl dj warm cookies
the smooth talking soul of the spaceship flying
co -pilot with my partner and it's me think tim
same hat same beat pad same mission Build something
dope. From scratch. With nothing but a laptop.
A vibe and a dream. And this time around, we're
doing something a little special. Not just because
this is episode 30. But because it's time. Time
to reintroduce the real. Tell them again. Because
sometimes you get so deep into the making, you
forget to remind folks why you even started.
So we're taking a moment to breathe, reset, and
bring it all back to the beginning. Yes. And
truthfully, I've made some mistakes with how
I rolled this podcast out in the past. Ran a
little long, talked a little much, and post -production,
That part ain't no joke. Especially when you're
a one -man creative team. Doing the visuals,
editing, audio, music. And still found time to
take the kids to school. Hit the market, care
for grandmom upstairs, and hold it down for the
fam. That's what you call grown man hustle. Facts.
But for real, for folks just tuning in. or those
who've been rocking with us since episode one
this episode is for you it's a reintroduction
not to the idea of think tim but to the real
dude behind the beats the stories the why behind
the why make music and listen don't worry we're
keeping it lean and clean 30 minutes max a nice
tight vibe for the commute the treadmill or the
midnight grind session in your bedroom studio
And if you're watching on YouTube, go ahead,
hit that like, follow, and subscribe. We got
pop -ups and everything now trying to get grown
and professional around here. Let Em know and
shout out to all the tech making this happen
because yes, you're hearing the voice of DJ Warm
Cookies powered by AI artificial intelligence.
But the soul, oh baby, the soul is real, real.
Just like the Think Tim. vocal clone you're hearing
from. We ain't gonna break the fourth wall too
much, though. For the sake of this show, we're
two voices, two perspectives, one love for music.
And speaking of music, it's time to get into
it. Let's rewind the tape. Let's go back, back
to where it all started. Philadelphia, West Oak
Lane, Cedar Park Avenue, on the porch, boomboxes,
basslines. and aspiring imaginations. Let's reintroduce
the moment music first made sense, and I realized
I wasn't just listening, I was becoming part
of the sound. All right now, think Tim. Let's
go back before the plugins, before the podcast,
before FL Studio, Logic Pro, and Apple devices.
Where did it all begin? Back in Philly, West
Oak Lane, Row Homes, Porches. tape decks, and
more love for our block than you could fit in
a thousand Instagram reels. I spent most of my
earliest days with three wonderful women. My
great -grandmother Willa Mae, my grandmother
Emma Dolores, and my mom Donna Lynn. A daycare?
No way. I had legacy. Legacy. Say that again,
because that's the kind of foundation money can't
buy. Facts. Willa May, that's your namesake by
the way, was everything. Born on April 11th,
1911. Today would have been her 114th birthday.
She helped raise me in a home filled with music,
warmth, and a little bit of that old school toughness.
And I'm not going to lie, she had me hooked on
days of our lives. You know the soap opera with
the hourglass in the opening sequence. The kind
of woman who'd feed you grits, sang gospel. She
had me playing with toys in the church during
their off hours, and still take it to you if
you were out of line. Wherever she went, I was
right there in tow. That's love with seasoning.
You haven't lived till you had the unconditional
love of an old woman. I'm sure you could do no
wrong, and baby, I was born into it. That legacy
of the name. The first sounds I remember weren't
from records. They were from a band. My uncle
Stretch used to rehearse in my grandmother's
living room. Mandrel. War. Funkadelic. Bar K's.
The Ohio Players. The Stylistics. It was live.
Funky. Unfiltered. Drums rattling the floor.
Horns shaking the windows. Me. I was in the corner,
soaking it up. You weren't just witnessing the
groove. You were becoming part of it. Like the
music was being imprinted on your DNA. Exactly.
And then came the movies. Star Wars in 1977.
Superman in 78. Back then, you saw it once in
theaters, and that was it. No streaming, no DVDs,
no coming to cable soon. You remembered what
you could. And hope to catch it again someday.
And that music. John Williams had the kind of
scoring that could raise the hair on your arms.
A whole orchestra speaking in soundtracks. You
didn't just watch a scene, you felt it. And I
did. John Williams became a silent mentor. Me
not knowing at the time anything about composing
music. Even when I didn't know what a composer
was. I knew I wanted to be part of whatever made
that kind of magic. So between my uncle's funk
rehearsals, John Williams' film scores, and the
records spinning on the stereos back at home,
music wasn't a thing I liked. It was a language
I was learning to speak. Let's talk about that
man, your stepfather. Because you've said it
before. He wasn't just there. He was a father.
He has his ways, which you wouldn't understand
until later in life. But he was respected and
loved. He was cool and he was about the music.
Big time. Dude was smooth as ice. Bass player.
Gigging locally with his band. Knowledgeable
as hell. He could throw down on any instrument.
And when I went from lip syncing with a broom
to actually holding his bass... That's when it
got real. He taught me timing, how to play, how
to listen, the basics of theory. He planted that
seed in both me and my brother. And just like
that, the kid with the broomstick became the
man with the bass. Took time, though. I didn't
think I was special. In the 80s, everybody wanted
to be a star, rapper, singer, dancer, DJ. Or
a Jedi superhero. I was just the dude who liked
good music and could draw. I always had a notebook.
The true predecessor to the smartphone. And I
knew how to make things of my own. My imagination
was always working. And what a time it was. Porch
radios. Block parties. Rap and dance crews. Shout
out to Casanova and Sundown. Rich and Jazz. Flash.
Hans, the first person I knew with a 808 drum
machine and DJ -ed. Everybody had a cousin who
rapped, a friend who danced, or a neighbor who
DJ -ed. Exactly. It was normal. It was community.
We didn't have social media, we had sidewalks.
You'd walk past a house and hear the same LL
Cool J's I Need Love playing five doors down.
Power 99. WDAS. Lady B on the AM dial playing
hip -hop. The crazy thing is that Lady B is still
on the radio, now in 2025. The only difference
is she's on a FM station damn near every day.
Big shout -out to Lady B and Touch Tone. That
part, and don't even get me started on Saturday
mornings, when the house smelled like breakfast
in Pinesol, mixed with the sounds of earth, wind
and fire. The Commodore's Maze featuring Frankie
Beverly, Luther, Patti LaBelle, Stevie Wonder,
Anita Baker, Phyllis Hyman, or The Whispers.
The list, as always, can go on forever. That's
what shaped me, not just musically, but as a
person. The blend of funk, soul, hip -hop, pop,
and R &B, and orchestral sounds from movies.
It all came together. And somehow, without even
knowing it, I became a student of sound. So by
the time I hit my mid -teens, it wasn't a question
if I was going to make music. It was how was
I going to make music? Why make music? Dot, dot,
dot. And that how didn't come with a blueprint.
This was pre -YouTube, pre -Google, pre -anything
easy. You had a sound in your head and a cassette
deck in your hand, along with a notebook full
of poems and wannabe songs. Let me tell you,
this was the era of real struggle tech. Double
deck boom boxes, high speed dubbing. You'd record
one track on tape, then bounce it to another
tape just to stack vocals. No filters, no EQ,
no undo button, just static and hope. And yet,
you made it work. Real -to -real machines. Cassette
hiss. Noisy cables. No rule or manuals. You had
to watch and be around it. But when that groove
locked in, you felt like Quincy Jones. Your early
accomplishments stick with you. Man, I had a
Tascam 4 -track recorder shout -out to the legends
who made that machine. And a Roland U -20 synth
that felt like owning a spaceship. Drums from
a Yamaha drum machine. bass lines from my fingers
or the keyboard. You'd lay down three tracks,
bounce them to one, then lay down three more.
Rinse and repeat. By the time you were done,
you had a full track plus 40 % less audio quality.
But you didn't care because you had a vision.
Even if the mix was muddy, even if the vocals
were low, that track meant something. Exactly.
I still got tapes from the early 80s. We're talking
40 plus years old. Me on bass and my brother
on a full set of drums experimenting in our basement.
Sometimes using the Sensonic drum pads that I
borrowed from my boy Eric, Microphone Mover 101,
for, you know, forever. We ran it through these
giant sun speakers big enough to rattle the windows
off their hinges. Like I said, it was the 80s.
Neighbors didn't call the police. They would
tell us that they heard us jamming. Sometimes
they would even make requests. And the thing
was, I wasn't trying to be a star. I just liked
sound and music. It got to a point where it became
hard to listen to music without dissecting it.
My stepfather had instruments everywhere. My
younger brother was a beast on drums at a young
age. So we weren't some professional band, but
we were tight. We clicked. I wasn't trying to
impress anybody. I was just trying to express
something. And there's a difference. One is for
applause. The other, that's for the soul. So
when people ask me, where'd you learn to produce?
I tell them, I didn't. I grew into it. From lip
-syncing Prince and Morris Day to writing poems
to recording beats and ideas from conversations
that transformed into lyrics for songs. It all
just kind of stacked over the years. Stacks on
stacks on stacks. And ain't that production in
a nutshell? Stacked moments. Layered history.
A beat is just a life. Chopped, looped, and arranged
with care. Why make music? That's real. I remember
riding SEPTA with my Walkman, headphones on,
making eye contact, then asking strangers on
the bus if they liked music. I'd let them listen
to my tapes, no shame. No social proof, no streaming
link. Just press play and tell me what you think.
My only satisfaction was knowing that when I
saw that stranger again. They knew that I was
listening to the music that I made. That look
they would give me was like I had unraveled the
mysteries of the universe. Hand to hand, communing
with the humans, analog passion in a digital
world. Eventually, I started acquiring enough
gear to have a functional small home studio.
Not full -blown setups, just enough to make something
real. The whole... I'll put an ad in the trading
times and meet people who like the same music
method. That was real. But Rick. Rick lived three
houses down. Eric, 17 houses up. That was my
neighborhood crew, along with our friend Jamal,
who sadly passed away in a car accident after
high school. We all had big ears for music and
even bigger dreams. To be young again. Never
would I want, actually want to be young again.
But it's good to reminisce. Music isn't just
a sound. It's a thread through your whole story.
People, places, tape decks, borrowed gear, porch
radios, grainy flicks, all part of the same mixtape.
That's it. You don't just wake up one day and
say, I'm a producer. You become it, over time,
with every mixtape. Every missed cue. Every bounce
down that cost you audio quality, but gave you
another track to build on. That's the life. Now,
we talked about your come up, the grind, the
gear, the neighborhood. But let's zoom out for
a second. You weren't just playing with sound.
You were listening. You were a student of the
liner notes. Absolutely. Back in the day, the
back of an album cover was the internet. If you
wanted to know who played what, who wrote the
lyrics, who produced the magic you had to read,
I used to flip through vinyl sleeves like they
were sacred scrolls. And one name kept popping
up, right? Prince. The moment I realized one
dude could do it all, write, produce, arrange,
perform, I was floored. That first single, Soft
and Wet, off the For You album, that was my intro.
And when I found out he did it all himself, man,
that lit the match. It was Rick. He helped me
discover Prince. Rick was older and always had
conversation for the females. He was the face
-to -face mentor, even if mentoring meant don't
do what I just did. Many a lesson was learned
that way. He helped me peel back the layers that
made Prince such an icon. Eric and I saw our
first Prince concert with Rick. It was the Love
Sexy Tour. It was amazing. And it burned slow
and steady. Because your influences weren't just
flashy pop stars. They were architects, creators,
composers. Prince, Quincy Jones, George Clinton,
Miles Davis, Rod Temperton, John Williams, Rick
Rubin, Herbie Hancock, Sly Stone. Herbie Lovebug
Azel. Teddy Riley. Steely Dan. Joni Mitchell.
Aerosmith. Bob Dylan. The Average White Band.
Brothers Johnson. The Ohio Players. Even Phil
Collins. David Bowie. Damn there's music. So
much good music. It was a mosaic. Different genres.
Different flavors. I never stuck to one lane.
I could appreciate the smooth jazz of Kenny G.
and the funk of cameo in the same breath and
that's the mark of a real producer someone who
doesn't just chase a sound they chase a feeling
whether it's steely dan's polish sound or assault
and pepper's playful tongue -in -cheek lyrics
over bouncy tracks i mean i was dissecting quincy's
work on off the wall and thriller before i even
fully understood what a producer was later on
i'd hear those rod temperton demos his voice
was Let's say, rough. But his ideas? Next level.
That taught me something real. Sometimes you're
not the one to perform the song. You're the one
who shapes it. That's the magic behind the curtain.
And Prince. He was the curtain. He was the stage.
The band. The light show. I didn't know Prince.
By no means. Metaphysically, I felt his creative
vibe. Note though, I always live by the thought
that you really don't want to meet the person
you admire. I still believe that to this day.
He mentored a generation of self -taught creators
like me. He made it tangible that one person
could write, produce, perform, and own their
sound. And then came your reality check. You
weren't trying to be famous. You were trying
to make honest music. In between real life responsibilities.
Exactly. I'm not in competition with the mainstream.
I'm just part of the stream. And my music's not
made from pressure. It's made from presence.
Ain't nobody begging for attention over here.
If I wasn't making beats, I'd probably just be
napping. I'm long overdue, in case you didn't
know. Creativity and an unhealthy sleeping habits
go hand in hand. That's balance, baby. You wake
up, take care of your people, pour some soul
into a beat, cook up a podcast, love on your
wife, and play a little NBA 2K with Eric. Not
necessarily in that order, but yes. Simple life.
Full heart. And even though I'm not pressed about
fame, I'm still reaching. Still submitting tracks
for sync placements, TV, film, commercials. Still
building. Still learning. Still betting on myself.
And that's the energy right there. Because this
isn't a phase. This is a legacy. You've got 156
tracks streaming. Six albums out there on every
major platform. That's not a hobby. That's a
catalogue. I just want people to use the music
however they need. Clean your kitchen to it.
Jog to it. Meditate. Hell, write your own lyrics
to it, if that's your thing. And let's not forget,
you got that Think Tim avatar ready now. Yeah.
And this, this podcast, it's the first time the
Think Tim voice clone joins the stage. Why make
music? Dot, dot, dot. We're doing something different.
Not just me. Not just you. But both of us. Two
voices, two angles, one shared mind state. And
we're only just getting started. Because when
you know who you are... Why make music? You never
really need to explain it. You just need to play
it. And just like that, we've come full circle.
30 episodes deep. Still grounded. Still growing.
Still giving love to the sound. And if you made
it this far, first off, thank you. Not just for
listening, but for hearing. Let's not play humble
here. This man got six albums out. 26 tracks
apiece. That's 156 original instrumentals. Soulful,
cinematic, experimental, groovy, chill, bold.
All streaming right now, wherever you listen
to music. Why make music? Dot, dot, dot. No filler.
All flavor. This music wasn't built to go viral.
It was built to last. To live in your headphones,
in your playlists, in your memories. And let's
be clear, this ain't just bedroom beats. This
is syncretic placement -worthy music. TV shows,
documentaries, commercials. Indie films. Music
supervisors. Don't be shy now. Why make music?
Let's hear it for the creator. Think Tim. I'm
out here. Consistent. Organized. Clearable. Metadata
on point. BPM label. Fully tagged. Fully original.
No sample. All work registered with BMI. All
I need is the right ear to hear it. And in the
meantime... We're going to keep cooking, keep
podcasting, keep spinning this energy into the
world. Matter of fact, I'm thinking the next
move is to get DJ Warm Cookies a motion avatar.
I want to see you at the turntables. You already
know. I stay ready. Just say the word and I'll
be there. Heels or a fresh pair of Kirbys. Whatever,
whenever. For now, we'll just keep it soulful.
Two voices. One mission. To remind the world
that music is medicine and that everyday creators
matter. So wherever you are, driving, cleaning,
meditating, working out, or working on your own
art, we see you. We feel you. We are you. And
that's what makes this special. This isn't just
a podcast. It's a movement. It's a reminder to
slow down, plug in, and create anyway. We're
your hosts, DJ Warm Cookies, a .k .a. Willa May.
And Think Tim, the humble home studio hustler,
hang with you humans on this earth. And this
is Why Make Music. Before we dip, make sure you
follow the movement. YouTube at thinktim -if
-nothing -else. Instagram, at Think Tim, WDM
Nation. At DJWARMCOOKIES. At Why Make Music.
Facebook, Think Tim. Website, www .thinktim .com.
Merch and apparel, tpublic .com slash thinktim
and thinktim, t -h -r -e -a -d -l -e -s -s dot
com. Stream the full discography on Spotify,
Apple Music, SoundCloud, and everywhere good
music lives. And hey, if you're vibing with the
story, the sound, the journey, share it with
somebody. Word of mouth is still undefeated.
We aren't asking for a handout, just an ear.
So keep your hearts open, your loops clean, and
your reverb just a little bit wet. And remember,
don't just scroll. Create something. Peace and
be wild.