Pure Sky feat. Woesum (@woesum) — The Swedish artist/producer whose contributions to the underground rap landscape cannot be understated. From behind his shadowy online presence, Woesum has helped pioneer the integration of trance and eurodance with music’s new waves, collaborating with Bladee, Yung Lean, Oklou, evilgiane, the list goes on. Four years after dropping his breakout album “Blue Summer,” Woesum is out with “Protected,” an electronically-enlightened EP that we can’t get enough of. With a Europe/Asia tour on deck, we connected with Woesum to try to get a peek behind the curtain. Read on for our Q&A and click here to listen to a playlist curated by Woesum.
What should people do while listening to this playlist?
They should hear me out haha
Congratulations on putting out the new EP, it’s a really amazing project. How does it feel to have it out in the world now?
Thank you! It feels great, been wanting to get it out for a really long time. Really happy with how the release went and how the reception has been so far.
You’ve had a crazy constellation of collaborators over the past decade, from Sad Boys to Oklou to evilgiane. Do you remember the first time you worked with someone who you felt you were truly locked in with artistically?
Tough question there’s def been a couple. I think just when it comes to production it has been Yung Sherman and Stacey for sure. However when me and yayoyanoh started working it was def something really special and we were able to make some really beautiful and unique music.
Growing up in Sweden through the mid aughts, what was your music discovery process like online?
Online it was very shaped by my older sisters limewire downloads haha, got put on so much different music because of the music she downloaded at the time especially all the electronic music and euro trance stuff. The chat room or whatever u would call it playahead that used to be a big thing in Sweden when I was young, before Facebook fully took over.
You were able to have music on your personal page and def found a lot of weird edits and songs that way that for sure had a big impact on me. There was also a YouTube video of basshunter making a song from scratch ( think it’s still up there) that was mind blowing to me as a 12 year old and was what got me wanting to make music on a daw for the first time.
How would you describe the relationship between your new EP “Protected” and “Blue Summer”?
Both projects to me are very much a nod to important music to me that’s been crucial to shaping me as a musician. Blue summer was me wanting to put my own spin on all the different mixtapes that I got from datpiff as a teenager and adult and I used to be obsessed with how chaotic and rough sounding a lot of those tapes were and i loved all the stuff all the djs like dj scream, burn one, swamp Izzo dj drama etc was doing on the songs and wanted to reflect that same feeling on Blue summer. Protected to me is quite similar in terms of wanting to put my spin on the music that was a big part of me around the same time. In my opinion you can hear both influences on both projects, there’s def heavy rap influence on protected same way as there’s heavy trance/eurodance influences on some of the songs on Blue Summer.
When you start working on a remix, what are you setting out to achieve?
Mainly making the song something it wasn’t before.
We read that you have some cool A/V stuff brewing for your upcoming tour in Europe and Asia. What can you tell us about what you have planned?
Can’t tell too much at this point, just that it is something that I’ve never done before and am very excited about. It’ll be easier to understand the vision when u come to the shows.
The “Protected” EP feels like an actualization of your vision for where trance/electronic dance music should be going. What impact do you hope your work can have on how people interact with the genre?
I think talking about impact regarding my own music feels pretty strange, as it’s something completely out of your control what your music does and resonates with for people listening to it. I’m very happy with how it turned out and that’s the only thing I can really go on. Worrying too much about impact or legacy is just setting yourself up for failure and disappointment in my opinion.
One prediction for the next five years:
I think music will continue to get even more interesting with a lot of new scenes popping up in all parts of the world for sure. I think the intense uncertainty of the current social climate will have a big impact on music for sure as it always has over time. I just hope that there will be some more safety/security both financially and socially than it has been. I hate to see great artists having to give up music and arts in general for the reasons I mentioned.
→ Find Woesum on Instagram, Spotify, and YouTube.
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