Heard It Here First

SENZA is an up-and-coming producer who has been making serious waves as of late. The Korean-American artist is based out of San Francisco where she spends her time working, streaming on Twitch, and of course, producing infectious anthems for our own enjoyment.

She recently appeared on two streams for Electric Hawk, their In Unity compilation celebration, and then for friend and collaborator Farrah‘s All-Star stream, which featured a lineup of all female producers.

We had the opportunity to chat with SENZA prior to her Cabin Fever Festival performance. Be sure to tune in Thursday night at 8pm ET to catch sets from SENZA and loads of other talented producers like DMVU, Evalution, and tons more. We hope to see you in the chat during SENZA’s set! Enjoy the interview below, we sure did!

RSVP to Cabin Fever Festival: June 17th 8pm ET

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H: As a musician and dancer prior to being a producer, how did that influence you to start your production and DJing journey?

S: I actually learned Ableton so that I can make mixes for my dance team in college! Growing up, I didn’t really listen to much electronic music, I was more of a classical music and hip hop/RnB kind of person. If you told me 10 years ago that I would be an electronic music producer, I probably would’ve laughed at you. But once I got introduced to the scene through my friends in college, I fell in love with the dancing and the energy. Being a dancer definitely helps me with thinking about grooves and sound design in my production, and its super important to me that my tracks are fun to dance to 🙂

H: You have a Twitch channel where you have been taking others along on this journey. What’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from your community while using this format?

S: I started a Twitch channel after doing weekly production sessions with a couple of coworkers that wanted to learn music production but didn’t know where to start. I realized through those sessions, just how important community is, especially when starting out. The first couple years of making mixes and dabbling in music production was pretty lonely, I didn’t really know anyone else and I was too intimidated to seek out help from anyone. Only once I found a community, did I really thrive and gained confidence in my abilities! I wanted to provide that kind of community to anyone who was seeking it, and share the ups and downs of my production journey, especially in a world where we only really get a glimpse of everyone’s peaks and wins.

H: What are your favorite games to play on stream?

S: Valorant! I only got into it recently and I didn’t really play FPSs growing up so I’m still figuring out the mechanics, but it’s fun playing with my twitch community! I’m definitely grateful for their patience as I’m still trying to figure out the game haha

H: Who are some of your biggest musical influences?

S: This is always a really hard question, I look up to so many different artists for different aspects of their music! In terms of storytelling, I think that REZZ does an amazing job. She portrays such a strong imagery with her sound design and brand, which is something I want to strive for. In terms of sound design, I am in love with Eliminate’s creativity and uniqueness! And if I’m speaking generally, I look up to Alison Wonderland a lot – being a woman in music, there’s not too many female artists up there and she’s been absolutely crushing it and breaking down barriers. Looking outside of the electronic world, I really admire Tablo, a Korean hip hop artist from the group Epik High. He writes such powerful lyrics that evokes such strong emotions, and I always turn to his songs for comfort.

H: On your SoundCloud you have a mix series titled ‘felt cute, might delete later’ that is packed to the brim with energy and genres. With such a diverse blend of genres with equally heavy-hitting tunes, how do you curate these mixes?

S: My fcmdl mixes honestly just encapsulates whatever music I’m listening to at the moment. One of my favorite things about being a DJ is being able to share the cool songs I find while digging Soundcloud! It also came from a time when I was struggling under the weight of my own expectations of myself. I was getting frustrated with my growth in music and I took a step back to really think about why I’m doing this in the first place. Music is my playground, it’s where some of my happiest memories live, and it felt counterproductive to stress out so much about it. So I created the series to kinda fuck around and not take myself too seriously… the name being kinda a meme is just a reflection of that mentality. I thought about actually deleting it after some time, but my friends dissuaded me from it haha

H: Earlier in the year, you put out an audiovisual film with Max Yeo titled “unseen” where you got to flex different sides of your creativity. What can you tell us about what the story you were telling in the film meant to you?

S: First off, I’m so grateful to have so many artistic friends who helped bring my vision to life. Definitely one of the perks of having dancer friends, aside from having lit dance circles at events! lol