INTERVIEW | T BOOGEY DISCUSSES NEW ALBUM ‘MORE THAN A DREAM’

By Rishma • On Interviews, What is New

Intro­du­cing T Boo­gey, a music pro­du­cer who is mak­ing waves in the hip-hop scene with his unique style and beats. We speak  to T Boo­gey about t his inspir­a­tions, the jour­ney behind his latest pro­ject “More Than A Dream,” and the artists he col­lab­or­ated with. T Boo­gey also shares how his father­’s passing influ­enced his music and why he decided to pur­sue his dreams regard­less of the out­come. We’ll also learn about his cre­at­ive pro­cess, the theme of his latest album, and the story behind his pop­u­lar track, “God’s Gift.” So, let’s dive into the world of T Boogey!

Listen Here To The Album ‘More Than A Dream’

What inspired you to pur­sue a career in music pro­duc­tion and when did you real­ise you wanted to become a pro­du­cer?

My inspir­a­tions are driv­en from want­ing to cre­at­ive and innov­at­ive in the music industry. In the hip-hop scene, the music and lyr­ics are power­ful move­ments and emo­tions. A great melody can give a song light or com­ple­ment a lyr­ist. I wanted to bring my own style and not rep­lic­a­tion what has already been done before or what is cur­rent. Boo­gey Beat is its own type of beat.

Can you tell us about your jour­ney in cre­at­ing ‘More Than A Dream’ and how your father­’s passing
influ­enced your music?

Pro­du­cers are known to release an album sim­il­ar to “More than a dream” to show­case their work. While record­ing a song by Dave Ready title Deja Vu in 2020, we spoke about pos­sibly put­ting a pro­ject togeth­er. I ini­tially wasn’t ready because I was still learn­ing what my style was and what my sig­na­ture sound would be. So over 2020, I cre­ated beat after beat, seek­ing feed­back from vari­ous people. I would later find my sound, which always soun­ded dark, as Dave Ready would say. Then, those dark sounds would become cine­mat­ic, bring­ing a com­pletely new vibe to my craft. I would later meet T Don and Dope Gurl Dolly dur­ing the jour­ney in Chica­go, where we would work on our first singles togeth­er. Life’s Per­cep­tion with T Don and Adding Up with Dope Gurl Dolly. I told them about my pro­ject idea, and all three were in. I did reach out to some pre­vi­ous con­tacts I had with oth­er artists, but once they received their beat for the pro­ject, they would nev­er send their lyr­ics so I could mix it, except for Rahc Wilson that came through on two tracks. Dave, Don, Dolly, and I spent nine months (March — Novem­ber) in 2022 work­ing on the album. Most of the time was spent on me chan­ging the beats to most of the songs. The ori­gin­als sound com­pletely dif­fer­ent from what was released.

Besides my Wife, my fath­er was the biggest sup­port­er in my fam­ily. Once he got dia­gnosed with can­cer, I stepped away from music. Most of 2021 were filled with a lack of cre­ativ­ity. I just didn’t care any­more. We would talk all the time, and we would ask, when is your next son com­ing out, song? I would always respond; I’m work­ing on it. Toward the end of the year, we spent a lot of time talk­ing about going after what we wanted and not regret miss­ing out. Those con­ver­sa­tions stuck with me. After he’d passed in early 2022, I made a prom­ise to myself to go after everything I ever wanted, reflect­ing on our con­ver­sa­tions regard­less of the outcome.

How did you come up with the name ‘T Boo­gey’, and what does it rep­res­ent for you?

I didn’t come up with the name T Boo­gey, Dave Ready came up with the name. We’d games online all the time, and we would make up dumb names to call each oth­er. For a while, he called me T‑Spot. But, after I star­ted mak­ing beats, he would call me T Boo­gey, and I went with it. But, now he doesn’t call me “T Boo­gey”. It’s either “Boo­gey­montana” or just “Boog”

Can you walk us through your cre­at­ive pro­cess in pro­du­cing beats for the artists on your album?

The sounds I pro­duce and based on feel­ing. I find a nice sample that matched how I felt that day, and I would build around it. Dur­ing this pro­cess, I know I am going to change it the next day, but I build on it any­way. When mak­ing this pro­ject, I would give usu­ally give the artist cre­at­ive con­trol of the song, but I would my instru­ment, melody, and temple to guide them. In oth­er formats, I provide inform­a­tion about what I envi­sion the con­text to be. I hon­estly do not have a go-to struc­ture, it is basic­ally how I feel the day I first start on a beat, and then I fuse hip-hop into it. Some­times I feel a little coun­try, and some­times I feel a little jazzy.

 ‘More Than A Dream’ fea­tures some tal­en­ted under­ground artists, how did you go about select­ing the artists to col­lab­or­ate with?

Over the years, I have come across plenty of under­ground artists. Some with a lot of tal­ent and a fol­low­ing, some that are just start­ing off, and some that just don’t take it ser­i­ously. Dave Ready is a no-brain­er, as he has been there since day one of this music­al jour­ney. For the oth­ers, I need artists that would focus on the lyr­ics, artists that have some­thing to rap about instead of repeat­ing them­selves over and over again on a track. I needed artists that didn’t want to con­form to mod­ern sounds just to be heard. I need them to be them­selves on the tracks. I also needed artists that were will­ing to work, because I wanted the main tal­ent on my pro­ject to also be on my label.

Can you talk about the theme of the album and how you approach song­writ­ing for it?

The theme of the album is an intro to my label Wired N Enter­tain­ment, which is cur­rently three artists and myself as the pro­du­cer. It’s meant to have a cine­mat­ic open­ing with music that starts to trans­ition as you move from song to song. My idea is that it’s like a show that you are listen­ing to. As men­tioned before, I would give con­text for the artist to write about for the tracks that are being used to guide the listen­er. That approach would show­case ver­sat­il­ity in the artist’s skill set and my production.

‘God’s Gift’ has received a lot of atten­tion with over 188k streams, what was the inspir­a­tion behind this track and what do you hope listen­ers take away from it?

The beat used for “God’s Gift” was used for the pre­vi­ous release by Dave Ready and Myself called “Pain Killers”. T Don and I spoke about dif­fer­ent ways a beat can be used, as I was send­ing beats that he felt were too dark. I spoke about how his con­tent doesn’t have to be dark just because the beat is, and I use “Pain killers” as a ref­er­ence. I designed the beat to be a love song, and Dave Ready took the song in a dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tion. T Don said he could write a song to it, and I told him, if he wrote a song to it, I would release it.

I wasn’t wor­ried about the beat being used pri­or because it was all on my pro­ject. T Don stated, “I wrote god’s gift because of my wife. She’s, my inspir­a­tion. We’ve had so many ups and downs and dis­agree­ments, and at one point, I felt like she was gonna leave me, but she didn’t; she used to tell me our signs are com­pat­ible, that we belong togeth­er, and she was right she’s my true love, and that’s why I mar­ried her I don’t see me being with nobody else but her so when I heard the beat I knew then that I had to make this song about her because she’d appre­ci­ate it”

How did you start your inde­pend­ent label Wired N Enter­tain­ment and what is your vis­ion for the label?

I star­ted the label by myself with one goal. To help inde­pend­ent artist achieve their goal in the music industry. If their goal is to be known as a song­writer or cre­ate an album, I wanted to provide resources to help. The cur­rent resource is exclus­ive beats because we know those do not come cheap, pay­ing for stu­dio time, mar­ket­ing, and some man­age­ment while help­ing them build a fan­base. My vis­ion is to have a heavy focus on the busi­ness side of the music. I can see us have three more artists and two more pro­du­cers, a PR team, a mar­ket­ing team, and exten­ded resources that I am work­ing toward today.

Your album ‘More Than A Dream’ is packed with dif­fer­ent styles and genres, can you talk about the ver­sat­il­ity you bring to your pro­duc­tion and what sets you apart from oth­er pro­du­cers in the Hip Hop space?

I have a huge focus on being dif­fer­ent. While some ele­ments may sound sim­il­ar, I want to make my own impact. Sound­ing the same doesn’t make you stand out. I focus on fus­ing dif­fer­ent styles togeth­er, like cine­mat­ic and drill, that is rep­res­en­ted in my first three tracks. I look for the beats them­selves to carry their own emo­tions and not just some­thing you can nod your head to. They make you think, and that means my beats won’t be for every­one, and I’ve accep­ted that. What sets me apart is my focus on being different.

When an artist sends me a track and says, “Make a beat that sound like this,” I say no. If you con­tact me for a beat, it’s because you want a Boo­gey Beat or Boo­gey Pro­duc­tion. Do not con­tact me for a ‘Hitboy’-type beat. That’s why I choose to show ver­sat­il­ity, so they know I have a wide range of tal­ents to seek my sound.

What is next for T Boo­gey and what can fans expect from you in the near future?
Fans can expect three things from me:
• Shows with my artists.
• Three full artists’ albums all pro­duced by me for (Dave Ready, T Don & Dope Gurl Dolly)
• A fol­low up to “More Than a Dream” with a vari­ety of new artists that I am already work­ing with.

 

 

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.