We detained Runnit to chat about Partica Artist Group and inspirations behind his fresh trap style
Shanghai Doom and Runnit's new collab Outsiders just took us to the edge of trap music— they teamed up on a wooky creation that transported our minds deep in a festival crowd again one day.
Shanghai Doom had a large 2020, dropping several tracks from Coconuts on Bassrush’s Prophecy Vol. 1 to the Soul Stone EP with Esseks on Wakaan. They also jumped into 2021 with a hot start after publishing the Collision EP on Protohype’s label Underdog Records, which featured collaborations with Smoakland, Toadface, Protohype and XTALS.
As for Runnit, who recently released his debut EP The Code Of Conduct, he has been making a name for himself in the scene. Of particular note, he and TVBOO have two collabs — One on Wakaan — Swervin — and the other on Quality Goods Records titled Clear.
We had the chance to sit down with Nick Noel, also known as Runnit, To talk about co-founding Partica Artist Group, working with Insomniac's Bassrush and a couple other inside details.
Runnit said he'd been a fan of Shanghai Doom's music for a while and had been in casual conversations with them before the collab even started. He shared the original demo idea and after sharing it, they jumped right in and finalized the bop.
He said working with Bassrush was a great experience, and that they came through with on-point cover art that matched the song perfectly.
"Surprisingly, a lot of the work was done on Shanghai Doom's side, combined with my manager Tommy helping coordinate the rollout with Bassrush," Runnit said. "They came through with really dope cover art too and worked with us to make it fit the song so I appreciate Bassrush a ton."
Runnit's inspiration stems from glitch/neuro hop like Koan Sound and Culprate, in addition to early experimental trap from labels like Daruma. His newer inspirations are from the Partica Artist Group gang: Kizer, Snxxz3, Hollimon, etc. who are putting out, along with his friends from dumb collective and SUBU.
Runnit his a co-founder of Partica Artist Group, a collective and record label that cultivates electronic, hip hop and experimental sounds. He said the initial idea with that was to highlight artists who weren't getting recognition for creative experimental trap sounds.
"We started the project posting weekly wrap-up playlists of the tracks we liked from artists under a couple thousand followers that needed more spotlight on them" Runnit said.
"I think we'll continue to help shine lights on whoever is grinding and expressing themselves in new and interesting ways."
He said Partica plans to drop artist packs on its website in order to help their team monetize themselves, and they plan to hold more frequent Discord-based beat challenges for the community to learn and grow.
He said working with Subsidia at first was a bit crazy, just because he was on vacation when he got the word that Excision had accepted his tracks.
"I had to do all the mastering on my laptop in North Carolina far away from my studio setup," Runnit said. "They had us keep the releases quiet, which worked out well for them to coordinate so many releases at one time. Looking back, it made sense because its hard to trust 50+ people to keep a secret, we had no idea until a couple weeks before about who was even on the comp."
We were also curious what inspires the super unique and fresh trap style he and Gurf bring to the scene. Runnit explained that over years of listening to EDM, they developed a linking to more complex rhythms over riddim or deep house.
"Not to say there arent bops in both those genres, but we love a good, sassy syncopation in a lead or drum pattern," he said. "The other thing I've really found love for is the practice of trying to break plugins, or break your DAW. That just means pushing your tools within your music production software to the limit, or deliberately using it the wrong way to create interesting sounds."
That motto inspires us and is an exciting model for the future of these experimental sounds.
"Real producers know the best music comes from breaking away from the norm, so we try to support music that pushes that ideology as well," he said.
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