Blackout Exclusive: Interview with Belgian Producer Chillow

BlackoutHipHop had the chance to catch up with Belgian producer Chillow. At the end of last year he released the third chapter of his ‘n Chillow series, We Bring It Live with El Da Sensei from the legendary Artifacts. This is without a doubt one of the best releases in 2017, which preserves the roots of the boom bap sound with banging beats, dope samples, killing scratches and outstanding lyrical play.

Check out the full interview after a jump (continue reading) and follow Chillow at www.chillowproductions.com.

Congratulations on the recent release of the next volume of your “’n Chillow” series, Sensei ’n Chillow – “We Bring It Live”. It looks like it took some time to get this project done as the first single dropped back in 2013. Tell us more about it. How did you hook up with El Da Sensei? Where was the project recorded?

Thanks sir, well appreciated! Yeah it took some time to release that album but in fact the album was nearly done very soon after the “Jefferson ‘n Chillow” album (2nd album of the ‘n Chillow series).

Both El Da Sensei and me had a lot on our plate back then. El Da Sensei had multiple sessions and was touring a lot. In the meantime I was building a 150 m2 studio named Catharsis-productions. We agreed on releasing when the studio was done and when he got more time so we could put our focus on a quality release and show.

El Da Sensei and me connected for the first time trough MySpace in 2007-2008. I send him a beat for an EP named “Art of Raw” I was working on with my friends Eon Green, D-purpose and Dj Iron from Earquake records. I asked El Da Sensei to collab. And he responded quick. “Holy shit, fire, lets get to work” in the next following or so I already received 3 verses. Crazy shit! This collabo was the birth of the story I guess.

Not long after that when I opened up the “‘n Chillow series” I hit El Da Sensei up to tell him about the concept and idea of the series plus that I would start with Reap Raw for the first album, do a second one with my homie Jeffrey Jefferson from my own grounds and talked bout a sort of collective where we all feature on each-others albums. Also I told him it would make sense to finish with him. He was down without a doubt.

So I flew Reap over to Kortrijk, Belgium for the first album, and later on for the second and third album I flew over El Da Sensei and other features from US.

So no digital back ‘n forth internet collaboration for me, counts for everything. Plus you get to know each-other, it’s only a plus for the end result and our personal journey. In the mean time we all can consider ourselves friends and help each other out where we can. For example I mastered and shot a video for Reap, or I did art for El when he needed. Reap travelled with me to New York in return and we again had a great time. We all got each-others back.

“We Bring It Live” also features amazing lyricists like John Robinson, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Reap, M-Dot and many more. How did you select and connect to them?

It wasn’t hard to get in touch with them since we all under the same umbrella. They knew El, heard what we where doing and the whole idea of uniting and forming an army of skilled dudes was a trigger for them as it was for me and El. They are all down to earth cool and respectful dudes.

Shabaam was the only MC who later on entered the story so he didn’t come to Belgium, but when I was in New York we met and taped his verse in the “Jersey Sound Lap”. I didn’t really get the chance to know him better besides the studio, because of his tight schedule, but I’m sure we’ll get to that when I’m going back in 2019.

On top of the outstanding production and verses, the scratches add the final killing touch to the album. You, DJ Grazzhoppa & DJ Iron are all from Belgium. What’s the scene over there and how do you still manage to preserve the good ol’ boom bap sound?

We all family here, Belgium isn’t that big and I guess we just recognize each-others vibes and direction. It isn’t always easy to be innovative and simultaneously keeping the boom bap soul alive. It’s crazy how everything hangs together and how we all met and connected in Belgium. I could tell you this story as well but you might think of publishing a book then…

if some track need horns I give my homie D-purpose a call and he jumps into the studio with me, always the best times. Same thing with DJ Grazzhoppa, always down with everything we do. Just cause we are not into this for the money gain. We just have a common love to make real shit. DJ Grazzhoppa is a killer on the ones and two’s. Im pretty sure he’s from another planet.

Without friendships, good vibes and energy this whole thing wouldn’t work like it did. D-purpose, DJ Iron and me were in the same school and vibed to that boom bap since we were kids. It was also integrated into the skateboard scene and we supported each other. Before I produced, DJ Iron made me cassettes with all his new mixes so I always had the good stuff on me. Later on I couldn’t hold myself to dig deeper and produce/deejay as well.

Share us the craziest story you may think of or impressions from El Da Sensei.

We had a gig in Germany with crowd of 500 people who were just finishing watching the football game. Football means drunk as fuck. Nobody was paying attention to the gig while we performed the first song. All of a sudden El yelled at me with a mad face CHILLOW!!! STOP AND REWIND THAT… How he got all them faces focussed on him was incredible. At first I thought “Lord, he’s gonna kick everybody’s ass in here. What’s next?” Honestly that shit scared me thinking it would end up. But he got the whole crowd non stop jumping for us in 2 seconds and winked while he was doing the second song. I was shock sweating the whole set – never saw crowd control like this before.

Exciting news is that I’m moving in NY for a while to get a company running with El Da Sensei beginning 2019. Studio, recordings, merch, designs etc… We will see what that brings.

Of course we gonna work on music as well. My respect for this dude is high! How he manages to tour, take care of his family, friends, continuously dropping albums, merchandise, keeping his fans happy. In a non stop flow and consistently. Dude writes crazy fast, on point and on the spot.

What’s the next move? Is there any work in progress you’d like to share?

My next project is almost done and is a collaboration album with “Walter Ego” dropping 2019. This is a flemish MC. And to me belongs to the greatest around here. Same thing with this dude, in the meantime we became best friends and this also reflects in the quality of the music.

Also I’m working on a flemish collaboration album with a selection of great MCs from around here. This is a little harder to put your soul into cause those are one day sessions. I see this as a challenge for me. Release is not clear about this one yet.

I just started up a new international project with DJ Grazzhoppa, where we form a producer duo and where we are going to collab with……… haaaaa ya’ll see 😉