Steve Wallace

I was amazed by your breadth of work. Tell us about that process [behind Hal King], because we haven't had an artist yet that has provided music for film. So tell us about that process and how you got involved.

That particular film was a brainchild of mine that I got the idea for. I went to UNLV for undergrad and then I went to DePaul University for grad school, but in undergrad, I had a black vocal professor. I was a classical voice major and I had a black opera professor and so there were a lot of other black opera singers that gravitated towards him. His name is Alphonse Anderson. He's still there and so we would bring a lot of our black culture into operatic singing, or vice versa, and play around with it. I think most black opera singers would tell you they did the same thing.

I originally started in R&B and hip-hop gospel. Jazz and blues were around me and I had an R&B group in high school. We got offered a record deal that didn't pan out, but we were pretty good. So, anyway, I started in that realm and started in writing and production for R&B and hip-hop. But then, I accidentally fell into singing opera and wasn't planning on it at all. Even while I was at UNLV singing in the classical vocal department, I was in a hip-hop crew and we would go to clubs. I was the beatboxer and I was making beats for them. I would rhyme sometimes. So that was my life.

I was [into] both genres, but they were in different realms and the reason why [and] how King came about was [because] I wanted to find a middle ground where both could exist in the same place. Philosophically, I wanted to create something new that didn't exist. I wanted to create an opera, with all the mentality and concepts of opera that started with the Florentine camarada in the 1500s, in Italy. But just think about it, right now within today's culture and with the culture that I come from - what would that mean if it doesn't have to sound like it does? It changed over the years because spaces got larger and orchestras got larger. If we don't have that, then do they need the same opera singers? No. Now we have film and audio recordings. We have beats and drums.

The art of hip-hop and R&B is more about the sonics. When you listen to Run DMC or to the clips grinding, they were emulating a lot of what was happening in the 80s. The sounds themselves that have the texture and and the personality and become melodic because of the diaspora through the transatlantic slave trade. The musical dialogue becomes about the rhythm, so within the context and understanding of both opera and hip-hop culture from subjective points of view, I was trying to bring both of those into the same space, where I had to find what the connections were and [search for] the things that drew me to opera, because I wouldn't have naturally been drawn to it.

I started to see like oh Cavalry which reminds me of some people I know or this energy that's in this opera I like. When I first started making beats, I used to take things from classical music and use them in [context of] the beat. I've heard other producers do that – use symphonic scores – and when I was studying operas, I would hear sections that had the energy that matched a type of hip-hop beat that I wanted to make. So I started using those sounds and then crossed that energy over.

I was mentored by Just Blaze for a short while. Just Blaze produced Jay-Z , Fabulous and Usher. I used to sit in the studio with him and watch how he made beats. [I thought to myself], what if I made a Just Blaze type beat, but using [an operatic] sound? He was using soul music. Kanye… they were all using 70s Soul [in their music]. I said, what if I flip that?

I used opera and classical music and made a bunch of beats, trying to find where the middle ground is, where the energy is, and how it matches. That's where King [comes] from – all of those years of studying and figuring out what's a way to bring something original. An opera singer or a classical conductor can watch it and be like, ‘Oh wow, this is an opera’, and somebody who's more [immersed] in hip-hop and R&B [would be] like, ‘Oh, this bangs’. You know what I mean? To have both exist in the same place and in a very authentic way. I feel like it was who I was and I wanted to put everything I could into it. That's what came out.

I'm curious because our platform ArtCee encourages artists to come together and collaborate on new projects and new jobs. At that time, ArtCee didn’t exist. How did you make your project come alive through collaboration? What were the tools you used?

[In undergrad], I was singing at a talent show on campus and an indie label in Vegas heard me and signed me. A couple of guys who went to college with me were assigned to the label and helped out with management because it was their families’ [business]. I think it was the guy's aunt or something like that. [Anyways], the label fizzled.

But the guy – his name is Rick Edwards and he was like, “Man, I want to manage you. I'm from New York. Let's move. I'm moving back to get involved in the music business. Let's go.” I was like, “Sure.”

So me and him and his business partner, Danny Lazarus, packed up in a car, drove cross-country and ended up in New York. I lived at Danny's grandparents’ house for a year until they got sick of me and kicked me out, but we tried to forge our way into the music business that way.

[Meanwhile], I got a job working at Sony Studios. That's when I got more into music production and engineering, figuring out what that all really meant, as opposed to being a singer-songwriter and just making some beats. I was hooking up equipment and stacking things. It was back in the days before everything was digital, but [while I was there] somebody at Sony passed me a disc of this digital audio workstation (DAW) called Reason and he's like, “Hey, you can make whatever you're doing on the MPC and the Korg Triton. You can do it on this program.”

I was mentored by Just Blaze for a short while. Just Blaze produced Jay-Z , Fabulous and Usher. I used to sit in the studio with him and watch how he made beats. [I thought to myself], what if I made a Just Blaze type beat, but using [an operatic] sound? He was using soul music. Kanye… they were all using 70s Soul [in their music]. I said, what if I flip that?

I used opera and classical music and made a bunch of beats, trying to find where the middle ground is, where the energy is, and how it matches. That's where King [comes] from – all of those years of studying and figuring out what's a way to bring something original. An opera singer or a classical conductor can watch it and be like, ‘Oh wow, this is an opera’, and somebody who's more [immersed] in hip-hop and R&B [would be] like, ‘Oh, this bangs’. You know what I mean? To have both exist in the same place and in a very authentic way. I feel like it was who I was and I wanted to put everything I could into it. That's what came out.

I'm curious because our platform ArtCee encourages artists to come together and collaborate on new projects and new jobs. At that time, ArtCee didn’t exist. How did you make your project come alive through collaboration? What were the tools you used?

[In undergrad], I was singing at a talent show on campus and an indie label in Vegas heard me and signed me. A couple of guys who went to college with me were assigned to the label and helped out with management because it was their families’ [business]. I think it was the guy's aunt or something like that. [Anyways], the label fizzled.

I was like, “Oh really?” So I plugged in, I figured it out and that opened up a whole ‘nother world of making beats and production. The whole time, I was trying to put together a package to try to get a writer's deal with the record label, but as I studied more, I realized I wasn't getting any calls back for that.

I realized what [record labels will] do is give you an advance and what you should do with the advance is buy equipment [to] make money. I kept getting an ad for a Guitar Center credit card [that extends] X amount of dollars and [you can] pay it all back within a year, with no interest. I was like, “Hmm, this is my advance.”

So I took the Guitar Center credit card, gave myself an advance and I bought equipment at Guitar Center. I made beats, sold them, and [taught] voice lessons. I bought more equipment with the same card [that I paid off] because if they gave me $500 the first time, I think they gave me like $800 the second time. I paid it off in a year, 2 or 3 times, and then built up an at-home studio. I was bringing people in and producing them.

[At the same time], I got a band together, started doing gigs as a solo artist around the New York area and meeting people on the independent music scene. Because I was an artist and a producer, if I did a gig with someone and liked them, I was like, “Hey man, let's collaborate… Hey, let me produce this record… Oh hey, here are some beats – listen to this.” I started meeting a lot of people like that. I don't know if you heard the song “Be a Humanitarian”?

I did not yet, no.

You should hear it. The reason being that it has all of these local New York artists on it and they're friends – people I've collaborated with over the years as a producer and while performing gigs as an independent artist.

I started getting called to be a music director because I play keys and guitar. I understand and can write charts because I'm trained classically, so I ended up being a music director for some bands. [Because] of that, I ended up making these connections with folks. I started a production company called Neo Renaissance Productions and an artist’s collective called the Neo Renaissance movement. The meeting for the collective was every three months, instead of monthly.

That's really do-able.

Yeah, during the first couple of meetings, I spoke about what I wanted to be and started inviting industry people that I knew to come and talk to the artist. I wanted it to be this development space for new artists coming to New York. We probably went with it for about 2 or 3 years. I was trying to figure out if I could get funding and I didn't know what to do. I was trying. I admit I thought: “Should this be a non-profit? What am I going to do with this?” And because I saw no one else coming on-board to walk alongside me with it, I let it go.

But I built these relationships and a lot of those people ended up collaborating together and making other moves. I'll say 90% of the principal cast was from that [collective]. They were the people I knew from different parts of my life. One guy went to DePaul [and he] was in the opera program with me. Other people, I made beats or produced for. I was a music director for somebody else… and I was just bringing in all of these people [into] the same place to try to make something great.

Wow. At the time when you looked up ArtCee, did you see a need for something like this? Did you see it fill a void or did you still have more questions about it?

No, I don’t have any more questions about it. I mean, it was really kind of a thing. Rod directed me in a La Traviata I did, in 2013. And then we sang together in a Strauss opera [called] Ariadne. I sang the tenor role in that too, so we reconnected, and then randomly he was like, “Hey man, check out this thing that my sister's doing.” I was like, “Yeah cool, tell him to hit me up. I'm down.” This sounds like a cool thing. I don't know everything about it, but you know.

Okay, what I do is I help to bridge the gap between featured guests on our platform and help them to become users of the platform. I mainly do the interview portion and help make the process easy for each guest because all of our guests are so busy in the industry. We don't want it to be a hindrance to become a part of Artcee, so we want to be here to showcase you, to spotlight you, and to use you as an inspiration for a lot of our emerging artists because, myself included, we look to you to really show us because you've already done it - like this King project.

I was so amazed. [Growing up], I remember watching Carmen. Beyoncé did Carmen on MTV, right? That was very mainstream. I don't know what your thoughts are on that project, but it was cool to have a little bit of an opera flair on my TV screen. I’d like to know, what words do you have for emerging artists like myself? I'm curious because you've been in the game for so long, doing your thing, and I love that. You created your own work and you found a niche for it. I'm highly inspired by that. What sort of advice do you have for emerging artists like myself?

I think the key is determination and always being willing to fine-tune and develop yourself. I think that's key because things are always changing. You're always changing. The world's always changing.

Being able to maintain a sense of flexibility [is important]. I think the artists that have survived the times know how to be flexible. You’re an artist first and then [finding] that balance of having that determined kind of stubbornness, but not so stubborn that you can't move. So there is a balance of determined stubbornness and flexibility. The greatest artists become who they are because they were so stubborn in their vision, but in order to move and grow and adapt, they have to be flexible. The key to that is being clear and stubborn about the vision, but not the execution of the vision.

I love that, because the execution can happen in so many different ways once you meet all different collaborators. I'm learning that, being new to music.

I am learning with the producers that I'm meeting. A lot of the young producers I'm talking to [are] not even in college yet. They're just out of high school, wanting to make their way. They have their own DAWs. It's amazing how important it is to be flexible because the execution can happen in so many different ways. I'm learning you gotta dig deep, you gotta dig deep down, and really know what the real vision is. Because as soon as you can say what the vision is with a word, then you have it [figured out].

So you're saying, if I am clear about a vision and I can describe it in one word, then I have it.

Use energy and vision. Vision needs to be here. This is vision, right? It's calling and purpose. There's a purpose for humanity and a specific calling for individuals. That's something that you feel in your, whatever you want to call… I don't know what belief system you are in, but you feel it in your being.

[That being said], I am meant to be this. You can't put in a word but, you know it, you know it, and you feel it, and as soon as you try to put a word on it, it's like trying to give God a term or name – you limit and box the creative forces of the universe by giving it terminology.

It's the same thing – that very essence of that creative source lives in all of us, so as soon as you're trying to box it in and label it, then you lose its essence, because it's meant not to be boxed in my mind. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does make sense.

I'm not just an artist. I realized that I'm not – I can't label myself as an artist. I'm meant to do something… but I'm not just an artist, I'm not just a musician. I think that's what I said to myself. [There’s always] something more.

If my passion led me to do visual arts, then I would be doing that, but I'll be trying to do the same thing through visual art. If I was going to be a filmmaker (which I am now), but you know… it could be a variety of different things. Whatever it is – a construction worker, I don't know. I would still be trying to do [my best]. It's like the Dr. King quote.

Which one?

I don't want to misquote it. I'm paraphrasing. It's something like, if you've been called to sing like Leontyne Price, do it to the glory of God. If you've been called to sweep streets, do it to the glory of God.

You know what I mean? So it doesn't matter what it is that you have – whatever's in front of you, you do it with that purpose-driven mentality.

Interviewed by: Christopher Aguilar, chris@artcee.co

Steve Wallace

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