Producer nohidea. has only existed for half a year. Since coming to the surface last August, the lofi beatmaker has released four EPs, a plethora of singles, and now Home Movies, the first full-length album. In connection to the LP dropping today (courtesy of Ploom and Alaya), I spoke with the producer from Nowhere, Oklahoma about his craft, his process, and his words of wisdom. For anyone in the Los Angeles area, nohidea. will be performing a show on 4/20 with Tomppabeats, bsd.u, Simon Eng, weird dough, and more. I might need to fly out.
How would you describe Home Movies to a stranger on the street?
I’d tell them it’s a bunch of weird shit that I made when I was sad [laughs]. But no honestly, I don't know -
it’s a project that means a lot to me. It’s overarching narrative is one of memory - of nostalgia. The songs are reflections of my childhood. My naïveté. They were each made at very sensitive times in my life over the past six months.
The juvenile, whimsical nature of the songs themselves are all on purpose.
It deals with the idea of blissful ignorance. It’s stark overtones were meant to personify the dichotomy of losing/finding oneself.
But it’s also beautiful. It’s what my head sounded like when I was infatuated with a girl. A real knockout. The type of girl that only comes around once in a lifetime.
To me, it tells the story of being a kid again. To you, I hope it sounds worthy of your love.
How does this project compare to past material?
It’s all past material idk [laughs]. That’s a loaded question. I love all of my work - it’s all just reflections of a moment. The moment.
I’ve made a couple albums since finishing this project, and even those have showed maturity.
You've released numerous EPs in the past. Is this your first LP?
This will be my first LP, yea. It’s one of many conceptually-driven projects. They all have their own lore and stuff that I’ve written. It’s the largest body of work I’ve published to date though.
How long have you been working on Home Movies?
I honestly have worked on this since I started nohidea 6 months ago. The outro was one of the first songs I ever wrote for it. initially I had a close friend of mine involved in the project
That friend and I had a falling out, but you live and you learn.
What's the rest of the year looking like for you?
Honestly - I have lots of goodies in store. I’m starting a clothing company with my homies. Its all secret stuff for now, but in very exciting news - I released the physical version of the LP today in partnership with my friends digital pharmacy called Ploom. We released a custom-made credit card USB that we call a ‘capsule card’ that comes with an art card, your dosage of the LP itself, a healthily-sized sample pack engineered by me, and a visual tape made by my friends Mitch Muscles and Antihero.
I’ll be touring through the US for a bit. Just wanting to hit the cities where people are showing love. I’m tryna make a tape with my friend Jinsang, when I go to LA for the 4/20 show with tomppabeats, simon eng, and friends [laughs]. I guess uh I’ll be going to Europe to make some tapes with friends and stuff? And working on upping my distribution game.
I’m working with this dope rapper named looms based out of the UK, and I’m trying to go thru London to sit down with him as well as some friends of mine from Inspected Records and do some brainstorming. Idek if that’s the rest of the year really, but that’s definitely all on my list for this summer. I wanna connect with brainfeeder, and I’m so grateful to be working closely with Spotify. I think billboard was supposed to premiere the lp but idk what’s going on with that anymore. No sweat honestly - I love what you’re doing, and I’m really grateful to be able to talk with you :)
I just wanna keep trying to solidify my brand. A lot of people are scared of that shit, but honestly - treat marketing like art. That’s what it is anyways. It doesn’t have to be grotesque and fuelled by money. It could be fuelled by ideas and stuff instead - work from your heart <3
Outside of your own music, what you have been listening to lately?
I’ve definitely been listening to a lot of this dope band called From Indian Lakes. I love them so much - they blend psych rock with indie music it’s really great and really technical.
The L.A. beat scene is mental - I know half of these people aren’t actually from L.A., but guys like Medasin, and Sober Rob etc. I find myself listening to a lot. Ivy Lab is fucking next level. Same with Tsuruda, and as always, Teebs, Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, etc.
I really vibe with internet music. Half of SoundCloud has dope shit going on, and it makes me really happy.
Do you have any advice for fellow producers working on their craft?
To segue that statement into my advice for other producers/artists/people - just do what makes you happy. Don’t worry so much about what everyone else is doing ; you’re not everyone else. You’re you. Go easy on yourself, because self-love is so incredibly important. Believe in yourself, and believe in your friends. Fight for love. It’s worth it - I promise.
Work on your craft as much as you can. Really put all that you’ve got into it.
Any final closing thoughts / words of wisdom?
Words of wisdom; skip this next bit if you don’t want to be mad at me...
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a phenomenal book called Outliers and it posits a notion that ‘Mastery’ exists within a vacuum of time and effort. This very same time and effort everyone seems to be alluding at when they throw around the term ‘talented’.
What Malcolm discusses is the ’10,000 hour rule’ or that 10,000 hours spent working in a craft of any medium, will almost guarantee Mastery of that medium.
To achieve this 10,000 hours, you can apply a simple equation :
12 hours a day for 2.5 years
6 hours a day for 5 years
or 3 hours a day for 10 years
Or at least a rough relative amount, be it 6000 hours + or whatever, just work on that shit.
Steven Pressfield wrote a brilliant book based off of Chinese General Sun Tzu’s work The Art of War, that posed a narrative of contradiction to the art of war. It’s called The War of Art. Now, the reason I think Steven is brilliant is because he has achieved something that many others have tried to do, but Steven presents it in a way that is easily digestible - he personifies a persons procrastination as this thing he calls ‘The Resistance’. He says the resistance is everywhere.
Here’s how I see it - you are that resistance. At least, you can be at times. So many others out there will rail against the world for their internal struggles, because it’s easier that way. In my experience, it's easier to blame an external force for something fucking up - be it a relationship or a job, or your ambition, or the fact that you lost that ’spark’ that you once had in days past - than it is to take accountability for the fact that we just might be downright lazy. Not many people wanna dedicate 10,000 hours to a thing. 3 years is a long time for any person [laughs], and sure - it seems daunting at first - but take it day by day. It gets easier. It’s what I’m doing. It’s what countless others before me have done, and are continuing to do. Most people don’t talk about this stuff, but I think knowledge should be free, if you’re at least helping people understand and not confusing them.
But here’s the catch - it all begins with you. You gotta take that first step, and then you gotta keep moving forward, otherwise you’ll lose sight. I just didn’t wanna have to work a job anymore, so I went out of my way to make a job for myself out of doing the thing I love.
You can do anything you want - I believe in you.
Not many people might really care about what I’m doing, or see the vision that I see but that’s fine - because if you don’t believe in it, it’s not for you. It’s for me, for my family. For my friends, and for the people I look up to, to hopefully one day inspire them in some way. I just wanna make something meaningful [laughs].
I’m grateful we get to co exist. Peace.
