ICYKOF: Oh, I’d say an artist or a visionary. I’ve always just followed my gut feeling, and I’ve always just pivoted towards what I feel like I want to achieve as an artist. Yeah. And right now, with music, I want to heal people and just be an advocate for my generation. 

I believe it’s a constant thing as you age. I started when I was in my teens – like 16, 17. So now I’m 27, going into the 30s. I’ve naturally just pivoted my interests and who I am as a person. And I believe I’m at a state where I’m in control of my time and my environment more so than I was when I was younger. So I’m able to achieve things with intention and things that are more fulfilling for me versus when I was younger – I was just doing whatever, you know, that was happening. Following trends and hypes and just being around everything. 

Now I can kind of filter through it and understand more as to what I want to do with my time.

Yeah, there’s a few tracks coming out and it’s all coming together like an EP.

It’s called “Truth Is Infront of You”. And the whole concept is just about how with all the distractions in your life, you reach a point in time where you eventually filter through it all and you understand more about what’s presented to you. 

“Designer“ is a track that’s coming out first and it’s very fun. On the surface, it’s very much about just going shopping with your friends. You know, buying these cool brands and just celebrating having a paycheck and having fun. Yeah. But the deeper meaning behind it, it is all about how commercialism just sucks you in and you kind of lose yourself within this commercialism. And it’s all about trying to find a way out of that bubble you’re in.

I was just really in my headspace after releasing the first EP. It was like this: The anxiety of releasing music’s gone. I can really express myself and be more vulnerable with music. As an artist, it’s allowed me to produce something that shows where my headspace is currently at, which was just finding the light at the end of the tunnel from that whole hyper commercialism I was in.

That whole streetwear era that became super luxury and, just getting lost in it.

And then you’re eventually chasing every drop just to be relevant or just to be a part of a circle. Then it became a thing, if you’re wearing this, now you’re part of this group. And it’s just a case of leaving that world and leaving that headspace and realizing, none of that really matters.

The only thing that matters is yourself. And you should really take time to focus on yourself.

Techno to me is just like a case of energy. Yeah. It’s just the energy I’m on – It’s the speed, it’s the culture. It takes me away from everything else.

And it allows me to just be in the moment. Just being in the moment and letting go of everything in your day-to-day life.

Whether you have like a nine-to-five job or like, stresses with family or loved ones. Techno has allowed me to just not think about any of that. Just be in the moment.

And that’s why I just fell in love with this whole genre. 

I really liked Mark Broom’s approach to Detroit techno. I went through this whole rabbit hole. And the 80s and 90s, then hard house, acid house. UK influences. I just discovered a range of artists. But I think the thing that linked everything together was just the passion to make something current. And something of their time. Like hard house was very of that time, melodic, minimal techno was of that time.

And I don’t know, I feel lockdown and all the current affairs and politics …  It’s just too much for one person to digest. So I feel like this music lets you not think about anything.

I mean, growing up, I was on Tumblr. And I remember even Instagram didn’t have the video uploading feature back then. So it was so early on. And it was like this weird platform. Back then, we were all kids looking for platforms. And we all had Twitter, which was still kind of mid. So Instagram was this cool thing where you could upload pictures of your lifestyle. So it wasn’t like Tumblr where you repost things. This was more personal. And it became this cool space where you could like search for someone you found on Tumblr that you thought was cool. And they had an Instagram. But it’s not of what they’re reposting. It’s of them. So that was so cool. And you just followed each other.

And it became this safe bubble, which later became streetwear, which then became luxury fashion. And it got exploited. We became consumers of like all these ads. It just became so much.

It’s cool seeing all these luxury brands make cool things for us, whatever. But it just became too much so fast. And you just wanted to step away from it all, you know? And that became a case with Instagram and all these platforms. So I just had to step away from that.

Yeah. It was just like, we’re just doing what we love, you know? No one could comprehend what it would become. Even my video with Drake or something, you don’t process what the outcome is or you don’t process what the reach will be.

I’ve never really processed it. It’s hard because it’s my life. It’s just my day to day. And the fashion I document, it’s just the lifestyle. That’s it really. So it’s kind of hard to reflect upon it and be like, oh, this is what’s happening. There’s no strategy around it.

If anything, doing music allowed me to step back and take a rough two years off YouTube to like really find what I like in life. And now I’ve come back to the platform. It’s grown to this super cult community. It’s really cool.

Everyone was against me doing these videos because they’re very expensive. I’m shooting on 16 millimeter film. So it’s very, very expensive to put a film alone. And then you still got to color correct it. You still got to edit it. It’s very expensive. But it’s always been a case of doing something I love or don’t bother doing it at all. I mean, I’ve gone to YouTube from filmmaking when I was studying it in school as well. So I’ve always wanted to do this. And I’ve been trying to do it on my YouTube journey.

With storytelling my world, it is important for me to direct everything, so people understand. Like how Tyler the Creator directs his film and his world. You understand that that’s his world. So it’s very important to me. And there’ll definitely be a couple more music videos coming out this summer. It’s just a case of executing them. It’s always hard to find the right team perfect for each case.

Well, I think it’s old movies that I find, like Fallen Angel or any of these old Asian movies. I love the cinematography. I feel like directors in Asia just have so much freedom to explore cinematography. And that’s what brought me back to YouTube. And I started uploading these vlogs every Sunday. That’s why I really focus on sound design and color corrections. I started doing color correcting now. And I’m a bit obsessed.

But I think right now my biggest interest, my biggest inspiration is just fitness. I’m really into being outside as much as I can. Especially when I’m in the music studio all the time or in the clubs. So I started really doing road racing, like cycling and lots of running and entering competitions.

And I always meet new people doing this and they tell me about their lives. And I have an extension of somebody that’s not in my bubble or in my headspace. It’s like an outside perspective that I can talk to about my world. They give me another perspective. And these perspectives are so important.

I mean, I do want to make my own non-alcoholic alcohol. That’d be like one of my goals. I’m obsessed with Lewis Hamilton’s alcohol brand he released, which is tequila, but it’s not alcoholic tequila because he’s an athlete. And I’m just obsessed with the idea of like, you can go to the club and buy tequila, but it’s not alcoholic.

Yeah. Because I can’t be drinking, like DJing 190 days a year. That’s just so toxic.

That’s probably something in terms of business, but you know. Just building the world with everything.

I’m DJing properly in Berlin. I’m excited. Yeah. I don’t know what to expect as well, but I’m excited.

Yeah, there’s like too much happening. I’m just excited to see what like Jonathan W. Anderson does for the whole of Dior. I feel like he’s the one guy, where I want to watch his whole journey now from the very beginning onwards. And like invest in his world as well.

And I’m a massive fan of Heider Ackermann. It’s someone that’s so niche. I’m like, why not? Then Tom Ford, I am very interested.

There’s too much going on. Complete beginning of a whole new era. And we’re old enough to navigate it and understand it. But when we were kids and it was like Raf Simons and back in 2015, I was just too young. I was more of a fan and exploring fun subculture vibes. But now I can pivot and navigate side-by-side with people I like.

It’s something I’ve been doing now. I started like two weeks ago. I’m enjoying it, honestly. I use this super cool camera, that’s better than my Casey Neistat setup that I’ve been using for years. So I’m having fun with this little device, filming stuff. And I have a lot of traveling coming up, especially with DJing. So it’s gonna be nice, like touring life. Filming cool people that I like. I still find people super interesting. That’s why I started what people are wearing. So maybe there’ll be like a new version of that, but in a vlog.

I don’t know what to expect. But it’s going to be exciting. I feel like the videos are going to be like when I used to film what people were wearing at Dior shows. It was very interesting because you felt like you were me. So you felt my anxiety and still not feeling like I’m one of those big celebrities I could go up and film. There is always this invisible wall. And that’s still going to be the case with DJing and going to these clubs for the first time, showcasing my perspective of it all going into the space as like a new DJ in that professional world. I think people are going to really enjoy those videos. It’s going to be very like … I don’t know, the camera will be low. It’ll be kind of hidden. I’ll like press record when no one’s there. And then you’ll see the evolution of building confidence in a space to film.