Interview with Your Best Friend Jippy
Rappfox interviewed up-and-coming Perth producer, Your Best Friend Jippy, following the release of his mixtape, Beat Mercs. Beat Mercs is a collaborative EP with local rapper Kehali and recevied airplay on RTRFM.
For Rappfox readers who aren’t familiar with Your Best Friend Jippy, tell us a bit about yourself.
I'm 19, from Perth, Australia and I basically make a lot of instrumental sample-based music. By now, I've got a pretty huge discography of beat tapes, remixes, and other Hip Hop-centric projects.
How did you get into producing music?
I've always loved the beats behind groups like A Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul. I've been listening to groups like that since I was in primary school and my music taste just snowballed from there. When I found out the original samples for some of these classic tracks from groups like Slum Village I was instantly hooked into this beat stuff. I got my first hardware for making beats in early 2016 I believe. You can hear a lot of influence in my music from people like Madlib, Dilla, MF DOOM, Knxwledge, Tuamie, and KanKick. I've learnt a lot of different things from artists like these and tried to incorporate these learnings into my own projects. When I heard a beat tape by Tuamie called Rituals I decided to try and make a beat tape and my style has just evolved from there.
Recently you released a dope mixtape, with emcee Kehali, called Beat Mercs, how did you two link?
Me and Kehali met through mutual friends at a party a good few years ago, and later we came up with the idea to do a project with me on beats and him rhyming. He's real nice on the mic and it was just luck that we were both in Perth.
What was the inspiration behind the mixtape?
A big driving force behind the tape was just doing something original for Australian Hip Hop. We had a lot of fun with the tape and you can hear that come through in the vibe I think. Me and Kehali both felt confident we could put together a decent project and we did just that.
What was the collaboration process? Did you create the beats first & then Kehali’s rhyme come.. or?
Kehali used to come around my house and I'd have a mic setup in my room, and we'd just do it like that. I used to send him big batches of beats to his email and he'd pick the ones he liked the most, or sometimes I'd just play beats to him in person and we'd record a track right there on the spot. A lot of the time I'd play him some beats, he'd pick the ones he liked, I'd send them to his email, he'd write a verse or two, and then a week later he'd come over and record it. I love working with the dude because he works efficiently and the product always comes out nice. We also got a couple features from some dudes from America that I'd worked with previously, same deal. The project was me and Kehali working on this alone, and for the first release between us I'm really proud of it.
You mentioned Kehali is taking a break from music, what are your plans?
Me and Kehali will definitely link again in the future I'm sure, me and him have a lot of ideas to put into play. Right now I'm just maintaining, making beats every day and trying to put out projects that are different from the last. I'm digging more and more and producing more and more, the only way is up at this point. I've got a lot of ideas to execute this year. I recently linked up with another Perth-based producer called J.H and I think you'll be hearing more from me and him. We recently put out a collaborative beat tape that turned out really nice. I'm really glad some people enjoy the things I create and it makes me determined to keep on. I'm gonna continue to keep doing my own thing and creating music that I enjoy.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the questions!
Check out more of Your Best Friend Jippy's music on his Bandcamp account here or follow his Soundcloud.
For Rappfox readers who aren’t familiar with Your Best Friend Jippy, tell us a bit about yourself.
I'm 19, from Perth, Australia and I basically make a lot of instrumental sample-based music. By now, I've got a pretty huge discography of beat tapes, remixes, and other Hip Hop-centric projects.
How did you get into producing music?
I've always loved the beats behind groups like A Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul. I've been listening to groups like that since I was in primary school and my music taste just snowballed from there. When I found out the original samples for some of these classic tracks from groups like Slum Village I was instantly hooked into this beat stuff. I got my first hardware for making beats in early 2016 I believe. You can hear a lot of influence in my music from people like Madlib, Dilla, MF DOOM, Knxwledge, Tuamie, and KanKick. I've learnt a lot of different things from artists like these and tried to incorporate these learnings into my own projects. When I heard a beat tape by Tuamie called Rituals I decided to try and make a beat tape and my style has just evolved from there.
Recently you released a dope mixtape, with emcee Kehali, called Beat Mercs, how did you two link?
Me and Kehali met through mutual friends at a party a good few years ago, and later we came up with the idea to do a project with me on beats and him rhyming. He's real nice on the mic and it was just luck that we were both in Perth.
What was the inspiration behind the mixtape?
A big driving force behind the tape was just doing something original for Australian Hip Hop. We had a lot of fun with the tape and you can hear that come through in the vibe I think. Me and Kehali both felt confident we could put together a decent project and we did just that.
What was the collaboration process? Did you create the beats first & then Kehali’s rhyme come.. or?
Kehali used to come around my house and I'd have a mic setup in my room, and we'd just do it like that. I used to send him big batches of beats to his email and he'd pick the ones he liked the most, or sometimes I'd just play beats to him in person and we'd record a track right there on the spot. A lot of the time I'd play him some beats, he'd pick the ones he liked, I'd send them to his email, he'd write a verse or two, and then a week later he'd come over and record it. I love working with the dude because he works efficiently and the product always comes out nice. We also got a couple features from some dudes from America that I'd worked with previously, same deal. The project was me and Kehali working on this alone, and for the first release between us I'm really proud of it.
You mentioned Kehali is taking a break from music, what are your plans?
Me and Kehali will definitely link again in the future I'm sure, me and him have a lot of ideas to put into play. Right now I'm just maintaining, making beats every day and trying to put out projects that are different from the last. I'm digging more and more and producing more and more, the only way is up at this point. I've got a lot of ideas to execute this year. I recently linked up with another Perth-based producer called J.H and I think you'll be hearing more from me and him. We recently put out a collaborative beat tape that turned out really nice. I'm really glad some people enjoy the things I create and it makes me determined to keep on. I'm gonna continue to keep doing my own thing and creating music that I enjoy.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the questions!
Check out more of Your Best Friend Jippy's music on his Bandcamp account here or follow his Soundcloud.