In Depth: Superior

Superior is a producer from Germany who has been making waves for a while now with his psychedelic and hard hitting beats on sublime albums like Long Story Short with Eto and Baladas with Estee Nack. We caught up with Superior to talk about both of these albums, working with Estee Nack and Eto as well as hearing about how he got into hip hop, his distinctive sounding beats and what he has planned musically for the future. 

You released the stellar album Baladas with Estee Nack earlier in the year. How did you come to work together and what was it like working with him?

Yeah, it was amazing, we came together because the label that I worked with, Below System Records, they released the track with Codenine. I heard the track and I said to the label owner, there is another guy from Tragic Allies, his name is Estee Nack and he is incredible and I reached out through Codenine to get a phone number or email address and the label owner talked to him and he got the number and gave it to me and I talked to Estee Nack. He speaks Spanish, his parents are from the Dominican Republic and I speak Spanish so we talked and the rest is history! 

Did you work together in the studio or was it done remotely?

Yeah, it was remote. I'm in Germany, he’s from Lynn, Massachusetts. I sent him the beats, he picked the beats and then he sent me the files with the vocals for Mr. Rose to mix and master.

What's the feedback been like from the album?

Dope. Very, very dope. I see some posts on Instagram and there are some hip hop heads and they post like nine or ten albums of the year contenders and you see this album often. The people, they like it and Bandcamp make a best album of the month and it’s been on it. Long Story Short, the album I did with Eto was picked by Bandcamp as one of the best 10 Hip Hop albums of 2019 and Baladas was one of the best albums of the month in March 2020. 

Baladas has quite psychedelic sounding beats. Was that always your intention with the beats for this project? 

Yeah. That was the concept, more psychedelic beats for the album. 

Have you got any plans to work with Estee Nack again I’m the future? 

I have worked with him again. He features on Isegrim which I dropped last week with Morlockk Dilemma from Germany. He has done tracks with Conway from Griselda and with Ill Bill and he raps in German but works with a lot of American emcees. In my opinion he is the best MC here and the album features Estee Nack, Eto and Daniel Son. 

Going back to Eto, you worked with him on the brilliant Long Story Short album. How was the creative experience working with him on that?

Well, it was great. I have to say honestly that he put me on the map, before I started with Eto, I made an album with Verbal Kent from Ugly Heroes and before that I made an album called The Journey which had twenty emcees on it like Edo G, Blu, Reks, Termanology and Lil Fame from M.O.P but with that album, I didn’t really get any attention compared to the album I did with Eto. When I made those earlier album, I had 2500 followers on Instagram and when we finished Long Story Short, in a few days, I had more than seven thousand followers! Everyday people would write to me about working together and purchasing beats from me. That had never happened before until I worked with Eto. Working with Eto put me on the map and now people know me but before they didn’t. 

What other music have you been working on recently? 

I am working on a very, very big project. The first track will drop in October/November and maybe the album will be released end of the year, if not it will be early next year, but I can't mention who the artist is that I worked with because it's top secret. It will be a really, really big project though and the first single will drop in October/November.

Apart from that, have you got anything else in the pipeline at all? 

I will finish this big project, this is what I am doing now, finishing the album that I am hoping to release in November. I am 100% focussed on this album. The album with Morlockk Dilemma is ready to go, it’s pressed and ready to go too. 

What is the hip hop scene like in Germany at the moment?

I have to say the hip hop scene today is not like it was back in the day. Back then, every weekend there were hip hop jams with crews of B-Boys, graffiti writers. This back in the day jams. All the elements of hip hop were there. There were rap concerts and B-Boy events and today, it’s not together like it used to be. Now, all the different elements have their own parties. There’s a lot of Trap music here in Germany, on the radio and in the clubs. Trap music is everywhere. My style of music, I’m the only producer who is making this style. There are some 90's style Boom Bap producers and there are some who make lo fi beats like Kev Brown and J Dilla style beats but this style that I’m doing, I think I’m the only one here in Germany doing this stuff! 

That makes you stand out! 

Yeah, I don’t know many people who make this style of music and that’s why I work with so many artists from the US because my fanbase, it's in the States 90% of my fanbase is in the States and then there are a few in the UK, a few in Germany, a few elsewhere but like 90% I would say they are in the States.

Are there any UK artists that you've worked with or would want to work with in the future?

I was working with Sonnyjim in the Verbal Kent album. You know Sonnyjim?

Yeah, he’s a great MC. 

Yeah, he’s dope. I don’t know too much about the UK scene. I will have to reach out about what’s going on over there in the UK but I do know about Sonnyjim and he’s dope. He’s a very close friend with Verbal Kent and Vic Spencer from Chicago and they make dope projects together. 

Have you got any plans in the future to do an album with different artists like you did with The Journey? 

I think I will do an album like The Journey in the future album, but it was very difficult to realize this because there were like twenty MCs and and all those twenty MCs, were different and some artists, you're waiting for files for four months, five months, six months or they don't send the files so it was not so easy to make that album. That is why I decided then to make projects with just one MC. It is easier to realize this than running beside twenty different rappers. It was a really difficult process and the sad thing is that it did not get the attention that I expected, the numbers could have been better. We did a video for the project and that was great but the numbers could have been better. 

You’ve worked with lots of rappers but which artists have you loved working with the most?

I would say I loved to work with all the artists, but I would say Eto and Estee Nack, they inspired me a lot, you know, with the lyrics and with the rhymes and, and that's why they stand out because when I hear the lyrics of the MCs and I hear the style and the atmosphere, then I know how to make the beats, you know, it was very dope to work with Verbal Kent too, he's a very professional MC and when I worked with him, it was 50% classic Boom Bap and 50% is more psychedelic. When I started to work with Eto, it was the end of me working with Boom Bap beats, there are none of those style of beats on the album with Eto. I think that changed a lot for me, when I was doing those beats I didn’t get the attention but my new stuff, it’s more grimy and psychedelic as I get a lot of attention now. That’s the big difference between back then and now. 

Who you are your biggest influences as a producer? 

I would say RZA, I love his grimy beats, the ones that are not so clear. RZA was the first one I knew who had those grimy loops and samples that were not in time sometimes but he made it work, like, it has to sound like this. It’s more dirty. He was the one who inspired me the most. 

How did you get into hip hop in the first place and how did you get into making beats?

I'm very addicted to hip hop. I started, with breakdancing. I was a B-Boy, into breakdancing and writing graffiti. After that I was deejaying and I won some DJ battles, doing backspins and scratching and then I got into producing my own stuff. I was never a really dope B-Boy or a dope graffiti artist, ok I was a good DJ I think but making beats is my thing. I think that making beats should be an element of Hip Hop. The elements obvious are breakdance, graffiti, DJing and Rapping but where are the beatmakers? The beatmakers make instrumental hip hop so why is beatmaking not an element of Hip Hop? 

What is it that makes do you look for in an artist that makes you want to walk with them and walk with your beats?

My beats have a style and I know who can fit on those beats. When I hear an emcee, I know whether they can fit on the beat or not. This is the most important thing , whether they fit on my beats and there are so many dope emcees and the most important thing is that I can imagine that they can fit on my beats and that is what I look for. When I heard Eto, I thought, okay this will be a very good project with him and that’s when we made Long Story Short. That was the confirmation that we are both a good team together. 

What have been some of the highlights of your career so far?

I would say that I’m still at the beginning. I think my highlight will be the big project that I’m working on. This will be the highlight because it’s a really big project. I would like to mention it but I can’t because they told me it’s top secret! I think this will be the highlight.

The highlight’s still to come then? 

Yeah! The highlights so far are like I said, the Long Story Short with Eto and Baladas with Estee Nack. Those two albums were the biggest successes in my career 

Words by Gavin Brown