Five Things with Jai Wolf

My parents told me that when I was a child they would take me to a farmers’ market where this girl would play the violin. I was apparently very excited every time she played and asked my parents to teach me, so they signed me up for lessons when I was five years old. That was my first taste of playing live instruments.

2. Inspirations

When I was in high school, I listened to a variety of music. I was really into pop-punk (Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, Green Day), hip hop (50 Cent, Kanye West, Kid Cudi), and synthpop (Owl City, Hellogoodbye). The two albums that really influence my music now are 808s & Heartbreak by Kanye West and Man On The Moon by Kid Cudi. Hearing 808s for the first time was definitely a life-changing moment – before that I was a fan of Kanye’s singles but that album made me a hardcore fan. He took such a leap to make synth-infused hip hop and the core sound was something I was really drawn towards.

3. Your Crew

I’ve been doing music full-time for the last two years, thankfully – before that, I was making music while I was in college. Throughout the years, I’ve met a lot of current ‘SoundCloud DJs’ through Facebook and Twitter. I’ve known Manila Killa since 2011 ’cause we were in a random music Facebook group together. It’s crazy to see how far we’ve grown since then – we’ve become really close and have played so many shows together this year.

4. The Music You Make And Play

My set is definitely a mix of really chill tunes and energetic bass tracks – I love weaving in and out of multiple genres (future bass, deep house, trap) to keep the crowd guessing. Currently, I’ve been dropping Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ at pretty much every show, which always gets the crowd so hyped, especially ’cause I mix it in unexpectedly.

5. Music, Right Here, Right Now

I think that the current SoundCloud climate is really saturated and filled with people who copy existing styles – there’s hundreds of Wave Racers, Cashmere Cats and Flumes out there now. And I think that’s a product of spending a lot of time in this little SoundCloud bubble. I think a lot of artists forget that there’s such a larger world of music out there. Copying ‘trendy’ sounds creates this mass of copycats – so recently, I’ve been trying to avoid my feed on SoundCloud. Recently, I’ve been really digging into band music and getting inspired by indie bands. I love Chvrches, Two Door Cinema Club, Purity Ring… anything feelsie sounding. As for my local scene, I’m from NYC and the scene here is really isolated. Everyone sort of sticks to themselves and works on their own craft. LA on the other hand is very community-oriented – this is something I discovered after spending a lot of time there. There’s a lot of growth that comes from that community. NYC is definitely a place where you work really hard on your own independently. Both cities are definitely viable ways of making it in the industry, depending on your method of preference.