H31R: Finding HeadSpace

After being encouraged to enroll on a music production course at high school, New Jersey producer JWords took to composing like a duck to water, joining a local band before recording her own music and debuting with numerous explorative EPs fusing electronic and hip hop. Searching for a vocalist to complement her sound, the 27-year-old bumped into Brooklyn-born rapper maassai at a showcase event. The duo immediately clicked, leading to the creation of H31R and a continuation of JWords’ ambition to transcend well-worn hip hop tropes.

With the pandemic giving them time to focus on their newfound collaboration, H31R’s debut album ve​·​loc​·​i​·​ty arrived in 2020. Amalgamating flecks of jazz and pacey, footwork grooves, the duo had clearly forged a unique-sounding chemistry – further refined on last year’s critically acclaimed sophomore LP, HeadSpace. Gnawing at hip hop’s fickle boundaries, H31R’s mercurial beats, phlegmatic production and reflective but assertive lyrical tones creates a signature sound that isn’t quite like anyone else.

What led you to take a music production course at high school?

When I reached senior year and was deciding what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I remember my sister saying to me, oh, you should be a music engineer or something, and I thought, hell yeah, that sounds like fun. Luckily, at high school we had a music production class and I ended up taking lessons in that and in piano, which really helped me to develop my interest in music production. I did most of my studies on computers, but the school had some MIDI controllers and I learned about synthesizers through a music programme they had.

It’s interesting to read that you initially wanted to be an accountant. Does music production have a mathematical component that fulfills your desire to work with numbers?

I think it’s one of the main reasons that I make music. When I was at high school I was only really good at math and when I started using a DAW, I quickly realized there are things like bars and BPMs and you have to count in a certain way when dealing with different time signatures. If you want to create a steady beat, everything has to be on the note, so I agree that math and production go hand in hand and wanting to be an accountant served a purpose for me.

H31R has a very original sound, but everyone has their influences so what did you use as a base point from the hip hop or electronic music worlds?

I used to listen to a lot of hip hop and was always watching Rap City, looking for something that sounded new. Then when I reached high school I was getting into instrumentals and became fascinated by that. From a production viewpoint, the first thing that attracted me to the hip hop world was sampling and the way that samples are arranged. From the electronic side, I liked working with textures and thought that putting those two worlds together might be a unique and fun place to start. I was big into the Beat Scene here in New York and got a lot of inspiration from that, so at first I was making a lot of 160 BPM footwork and sample-based stuff, because at that tempo you can have lots of fast components to the songs. I’d describe myself as an electronic music producer because I use a lot of electronics to make music, but people don’t really call me a hip hop producer and I don’t mind that because I don’t want people to figure me out.

You like to be very hands-on with technology. What was your path to discovering the various production tools that you rely on today?

I played computer games as a kid so I was always pretty nerdy. After I learned music production at school, I took my skills and started playing piano in a band, and when that ended I still wanted to play music in a live setting because I love seeing people being hands-on with their instruments and performing. At first, I got a Roland SP-404 sampler and a Teenage Engineering OP-1 synth, which was so little and cute and felt like my own toy that I could play with for the rest of my life. I remember thinking, “now I am my own band” [laughs]. But I love hardware and being able to play with machines and make sounds keeps my inner child happy. 

When you met the other half of H31R, maassai, were you actively looking for a vocalist to complement the music you were making?

I met maassai in 2017, but I’d already been producing by that point and made a music video with friends rapping and singing for me. I used to say, guys, rather than just follow the traditional music industry route we should start our own thing and I should produce. They didn’t see the vision or understand me – and that’s fine, but once I met maassai at a showcase we were performing at I really loved the way she rapped and she loved my beats. From the first day we met, we knew we had to do to this.

It’s been written that the pandemic gave you time to get together and allow your working relationship to blossom?

I was playing so many live shows that I didn’t really have time to sit down and record and release my own music. The pandemic allowed me to organize myself and I dropped about six projects during that period including my first album, Self-Connection. maassai and I had already created a couple of songs, like “Toxic Behavior”, from what became our first album ve​·​loc​·​i​·​ty. Most of that record was made by maassai sending me files and beat matching and arranging them in Ableton, but with the latest album, HeadSpace, we got the opportunity to actually sit down and organize and arrange tracks together. We started making interludes, intros and outros and created this whole world for ourselves.

You were signed by Big Dada in the UK for the release of HeadSpace. How have you found the experience of being on a label?

It’s been a great experience. Maral, who does A&R for Big Dada, had heard our first album and actually approached me to send some beats to one of their other artists. They gave us a deal in 2021, so we started working on HeadSpace and the label has helped us to get our vision across, especially with things like the “Backwards” video, which was much more high-budget than anything we’d done before. We’re hoping to come to visit them in the UK in April and perform some shows.

HeadSpace is a significant progression from ve​·​loc​·​i​·​ty. You seem to be more attuned to using mechanical sounds and creating unique-sounding kicks and snares?

I experimented a lot when I made HeadSpace. This time, I wanted to get crazy with it and create unique sounds from the ground up rather than using too many samples. I have this modulator that spits out different percussive stuff, so I synced it up to my drum machines and synths and picked up a lot of cool skills. While the process has been challenging, it’s been worth it because HeadSpace is the first record to really reflect my personality and sound like I always wanted to.

How has you’re working process with maassai evolved?

Working together comes very naturally to us and we’re also friends, which is why we’re such a great match. Usually, I’ll make a whole bunch of beats at home, but it helps that I already know the type of beats that maassai likes to rap over. She likes beats that are dirty and have feeling, so when I’m creating those types of sounds I’ll put them in a separate folder and send them to her to pick what she wants to get on. maassai always finds the right pockets to rap on and when she sends a demo back to me it usually sounds super great. From that point, I’ll arrange the production a bit more so everything fits the vocal, but usually there’s not too much work to do because we’re pretty much aligned. 

Do you have an opinion on maassai’s lyrical content and how it fits your world view? 

HeadSpace has a theme about girls, growing pains and what it’s like to be 27-year-olds in the music scene, but we’re very similar people. We’re both Air signs and think a lot - maybe that’s why I named us ‘H31R’. We have a lot of conversations together and it’s scary sometimes how she talks about things I’m going to do or relates to experiences or emotions that I’m going through. I feel that’s why we’re able to make the music that we do. Whenever I hear maassai’s lyrics, it’s like, wow, I was just thinking that.

The production is very spacious and direct. Does that require meticulous attention to detail or is it intuitive? 

I don’t usually put too much thought into producing. I just set up my gear, start with a random percussive sound and add drums and a synth. If the production starts sounding too busy, I’ll take stuff off until it starts sounding cool and I’m ready to record. I nearly always like the original idea that I made and don’t go too crazy with audio effects. I’ll use a bit of reverb, delay, chorus or flange but it’s all very subtle and basic. When it comes to production, a lot of it’s about having fun. Making music is something I do when I’m at home and over watching TV or being on my phone. It’s the one thing that gets me out of my boredom or being in a bad mood. It’s also my only hobby - maybe I need to find a new one [laughs]. 

What technologies are you using to originate ideas? 

I love companies that make cool gear that’s easy to combine, stuff like the Korg Pocket Operator or Roland’s Compact series. I like Roland’s S-1 Tweak Synth, the Elektron Digitakt and I’ve recently been making sounds with a Korg Drumlogue drum machine. I love it when I manage to get all these tools to play together and I’ve been using my setup for so long now that I know how to get everything to sync. I used to be addicted to buying new gear, but that gets overwhelming after a while. Most of it does the same thing and I probably only use 10% per cent of what I do have anyway. 

Is there a core unit that acts as the bedrock to your creativity or can a principal sound come from anywhere? 

I stick to using core units like the Teenage Engineering OP-1 or the Digitakt and connect them up to a TE TX-6 stereo mixer, which acts as my interface to Ableton. I usually add effects while I’m using the gear and then the arrangement is mostly done in the box. Once everything’s in Ableton, I’ll start arranging and use some of its plugins to complete the song, mix and master. At first I used Logic, but Ableton just felt right because it’s super-simple to use and easy to get cool ideas down really quick and make your own little samples. I especially love the convenience of working in Ableton’s clip mode. 

The album tracks are very short and I was wondering whether that’s because you’ve latched on to how people today have short attention spans?

I didn’t really notice that the songs were as short as they are – that kind of happened naturally, but I agree that people’s attention spans are super short these days. When I started making music, I used to make three or four-minute tracks so that when DJs played them out at a club they had time to blend them in with other songs, but with HeadSpace it was mostly about doing what felt right at the time.

Has H31R overtaken your solo project for now?

I dropped the album Self-Connection last year and have a lot of solo EPs that mostly consist of dance music and weird experimental stuff, but things are going so great right now with H31R that for the first time in a long time I feel I can sit back and relax. I have some unreleased material that I’ll be releasing next year, but first I’m going to take a bit of time to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Follow H31R on Bandcamp and Instagram

Text and interview: Danny Turner

Photos courtesy of Kenyatta Meadows/Dominique Mills