“I just decided to go for this and see what happens.”
Cameron Braverman ’15 shares his music experience with WSS and talks about his upcoming mixtape.
WSS: So what exactly were you going for with this mixtape?
BRAVERMAN: Well, it’s called PILOT and that stands for putting intelligent lies on track. I’m not out to prove that I’m great or anything I’m just out to prove that [anyone] can put out a mixtape.
WSS: Have you ever put out a mixtape before?
BRAVERMAN: I’ve been producing electronic music for a longer period of time. I’ve been just messing around with stuff for the past couple years, and that helped me. I wasn’t just sitting down and trying to make a full production from scratch and [with] no experience.
WSS: So what’s the genre of your mixtape?
BRAVERMAN: It’s hip-hop but, I mean, once you get down to that hip-hop genre there are so many separations you can make because there are classic rappers, and older ’90s rappers, and then [there’s] the newer more angry rap style, and the newer poetic rap style. You have like GEV and Childish Gambino and those rappers who are actually thinking about their wordplay and trying to pay tribute back instead of being super angry. I’m going for more of that intelligence thing, that’s why I named it PILOT; it might not mean anything but I want to make it sound good.
WSS: What first made you want to start making music?
BRAVERMAN: It’s just an extension of other things I’ve been doing musically. I’ve played the drums, and they have always been in my life since the third grade so that’s probably where I started. And the preview track for my mixtape was just something I threw together real quick, it was all acoustic so like, drums and I played marimba behind it just for the chords. That probably is what inspired me musically but even before that … I think it was just that I listened to classical music while I was asleep when I was a baby. That was my first exposure to music I guess, if you want to go all the way back.
WSS: What types of music do you like to listen to?
BRAVERMAN: Well, I listen to [Childish Gambino] more for style, not for their lyrics or anything but just to hear how they put their words down to the beats. I wouldn’t say that my ideas are influenced by him but more of just the style of my music. I listen to a lot of weird stuff, like jazz, EDM, and trap. So I’m more of a style listener I guess, so when I’m putting words to [my music] its gonna be like ‘how can I say the most intelligent thing I can in a great style?’ That’s pretty much what the goal is.
WSS: Anything else?
BRAVERMAN: I just decided to go for this and see what happens, I thought the preview turned out pretty cool even though I’m not very good yet, but we’ll see what happens.
Want to hear a sample of Cameron’s beats? Click here!
By Nick Deerberg and Ebony McKeever
