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Sunday, April 19, 2020
‘Toosie Slide’ Producer OZ Talks Working with Drake and More in Billboard Interview
OZ. (Source: Billboard)
Emerging Swiss producer OZ has made a name for himself with Travis Scott‘s “Highest In The Room” and chart-topping Drake collaboration “SICKO MODE.” With the current Billboard number-one single “Toosie Slide,” he’s continued to solidify his place in the music industry. He was recently interviewed by Billboard, where the rising star talked about working with Drake, finding inspiration as a producer, and more.
On making “Toosie Slide” in a day:
“‘Toosie Slide”‘didn’t take me very long. I made that in like… a day?, and sent it out to Drake in the middle of January… A week later, he told me he loves the beat and he told me, ‘Yo, this is magical.’ He had some ideas on it and when he sent it back, we all knew it was the single and that this was gonna be special.”
On the difference between networking then and now:
OZ was given Meek Mill‘s email almost a decade ago, and his name grew via word-of-mouth promotion. “People were talking about me in the studio. I’d have a record come out and everyone would hit me, ‘Yo, we need a pack too. We need some beats too,'” he tells Billboard. “Back then, everyone was saying that you have to live in New York or Los Angeles to make it. But now you’re one email or one text message away from a hit.”
On being inspired to experiment with different styles:
“I started making beats in 2005 or 2006… If I had just come up in the past couple years, maybe all I’d have seen and been inspired to make were trap beats. But thanks to that era, like with Pharrell too, I’ve tried my hand at rap beats, pop beats, dancehall beats, all of that.”
On looking up to Timbaland, Scott Storch, and 50 Cent:
“I was making more Caribbean type beats, and even tried more like New York, gangster type beats. Those guys were special — every beat was different.”
On building a name for himself:
“When you don’t have number ones or any name, artists aren’t gonna trust in your sound. They’ll shrug it off like, ‘Eh, I don’t think this is the one.’ But after having different number ones — ‘Highest in The Room’ is way different than ‘Toosie Slide,’ and ‘Sicko Mode’ was different too — I think they’ll believe in me more.”
Read the full interview here.
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