Thorotracks

Where are you from and what's it like there?

Jay- I'm from Lefrak City, Queens. It was crazy over there in the mid 1980's through the 1990's but it was cool.
Watching Akinyele and Noreaga blow up from my hood gave me motivation to make music.

Explain the music that you make. Describe your style and tell us what makes you different from other producers out there?

Jay- We make hard Hip-Hop all day. Thats what we grew up on and thats what we continue to create.

What would you say has been your biggest achievement in Hip-Hop so far?

Sam- We really don’t look at one thing as bigger than the other. To us each time an artist we grew up listening to is feeling our music that’s dope. Having worked alongside names like DJ Premier, Large Pro, Pete Rock, Ayatollah, Havoc & a bunch of others on albums is an honor to us.

What studio do you record in and does anyone help you to get your music made?

Jay- We usually make the beats at Sam's home studio and record vocals at a bigger studio called Suffolk Recording Studios where Sam engineers at. Some of our peoples play instruments and jump on joints for us.

Tell us about the new release. Anyone supporting it?

Sam- We have our new release out called “ Thorotracks The Saga Continues ” with features by Killah Priest, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Blaq Poet, NYG’Z, Skyzoo, Chaundon, Canibus, Mic Geronimo & Many more. Its available on itunes, amazon, rhapsody, emusic, lala and a bunch of other sites. We put this out completely by ourselves so yeaWe appreciate any support. Also we are in a new group called “ The Closers “ alongside Shabaam Sahdeeq & Redeye. Our debut street mixtape called “ The Bullpen Sessionz will be out real soon so look out for that its real hard ny hiphop.

Any plans to do any tracks with 'big name' rappers or collaborate with any other producers?

We have lots of plans to work with all kinds of rappers and a few already done just waiting to be released. We try to stay working. Also in the near future we will be doing a collab cd with an up and coming producer by the name of Nickelplated. Hes family check him out def got that fire.

What are your views on mixtapes?

Jay- I love mixtapes, without mixtapes Hip-Hop possibly would not be the music it is today. A lot of artist that people listen to today came from the mixtape grind.

What equipment do you use in your studio?

Sam- We have a bunch of stuff to name a few: mpc 2000, mpc 200xl, triton extreme, motif, roland, a few emu sound modules, 4 1200’s, pioneer cdj, serato, protools and records for days.

With Hip-Hop music a lot of it they say is down to the mixdown. How do you go about mixing down a track?

Sam- Its really in the feeling and the type of song you are working on. I never went to school for engineering just learned on my own and to me its more about your ears than what any book can tell you. It don’t matter what equipment you use if you can make a record sound good.

Do you play your own music or do you take samples? If you do sample what kind of music do you look for?

Jay- We use the keyboards and create our own patterns and we sample a lot of different music. I'm not gonna tell you what we sample from, can't give away all the secrets!

What was the last album you brought?

Jay- Snoop Dogg-Malice N' Wonderland

In your honest opinion who are the greatest five MC's of all time and why?

Jay- Rakim- Lyrically, he fathered all MC's, Kool G. Rap-He spit gangster raps and was lyrical at the same time. Slick Rick-The best storyteller ever in Hip-Hop. Nas- lyrically insane. Biggie Smalls- flow is crazy.

Who distributes for your music?

Sam- Our first record was distributed thru orchard music and the latest one we dropped we did it indi thru tunecore. Both are very good companys. Look out for our Debut album this year which will be distributed worldwide as well.

Out of all the gripes of being independent what do you think is the hardest obstacles to overcome?

Sam- Main thing is probably the machine being behind you always gives you that push. People just look at artists different when they have that label behind them if it’s a good one.

On the flipside of the coin, do you have any tips for someone just coming in the game?

Jay- Don't get discouraged, stay positive, be consistent and get on your grind to get your music heard.

Have you featured on any DVD's or made any music videos?

Yes while we were working on Royal Flush’s last project we did a whole bunch of dvds with him so theres stuff all over the place like that. As for videos The song Rise Up we produced for Shabaam Sahdeeq has a dope music video and recently we did a video for a song called Closing the Game for our new group The Closers. You can check it out on http://www.youtube.com/user/closerstv

With My Space being so popular do you think its still worth having a website?

I think its worth it, both options are good. Why limit yourself from having a Myspace page or a website when you can have both. Heres is the link to our site you can check us on. www.thorotracks.com