Hat by HORISAKI, chains by 424 INC, t-shirt by RICK OWENS and blazer by TIGER.<\/em><\/p>\nHow did it all start?<\/b><\/p>\n
I was actually forced by my old teacher to start playing the drums. In Sweden, you have to study a language, German or Spanish or whatever. I didn\u2019t study and the teacher after three or fourth months, when I was 12, was like \u201cyou\u2019re not studying, I\u2019m going to take you downstairs\u201d, and I was like \u201cwhat\u2019s downstairs?\u201d It\u2019s called \u2018music studio\u2019 in Sweden, some schools have it. It\u2019s for the students who are not capable of studying. They have to pick an instrument and play it. At this point I thought it was great, why don\u2019t they have that everywhere? Anyway, I picked drums, I was 11\/12, and from there when I was 14\/15 I started playing the piano. It was more because I wanted to produce; I wanted to learn how to play the keys and program drums on the keyboard. Then I really got into piano, I started music school. I fell in love with a girl when I was 15 and I wanted to show-off by playing all the Boyz II Men, Babyface, all the ballads.<\/p>\n
Did it work?<\/b><\/p>\n
No because I never got a chance to play them for her! She was with some other guy in the end. Damn! But it really helped, because at the time I was really getting into Google and looking up all the producers like Babyface and I\u2019m like what are they really<\/i> doing? Both from the ballads perspective, Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men, you know, that whole era that came. But at the same time my brother would force me to listen to hip-hop, because we didn\u2019t really have hip-hop around us like that. You went to your raps on MTV every Saturday from 10-2pm, and we had one small television at home and he would get up at 9:45, make his tea and grab the remote. We got into fights because of that a couple of times. Slowly but surely that love for hip-hop grew, because he would work part-time and buy every single CD that came out, East Coast hip-hop, Tupac, West Coast, Biggie, and I would hear it. But at the time, growing up in Sweden we had the euro-techno around us everywhere, which is now like EDM. So having that and playing Nirvana and Offspring, having the hip-hop from my brother, I was really influenced by different sounds. I think if you bring it to my sound today, the prototype to the sound of my album Push It<\/i> and Spring Pieces<\/i>, you can hear elements of everything. It\u2019s a mixture of drums and hard hip-hop beats mixed with electronic synths or whatever you want to call it. I\u2019m not going to categorise it, even when people ask me \u201cwhat is your sound?\u201d hopefully one day I can say \u201cthat\u2019s the Ishi sound\u201d.<\/p>\n
You take things from so many different places, is that quite a natural thing for you or is it a conscious effort?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think in the beginning, I was trying not to do anything that\u2019s normal but now it just comes from nowhere. I think I always try to experiment, so if I\u2019ve made a really hard hip-hop track, the next track is automatically like a stripped down ballad. I just try to go so far away from the first track I did, so I constantly reinvent myself all the time. I\u2019ve proven it to myself, if I make three hip-hop tracks in a row, the second and third one is never as good as the first one, so I have to go away and make something completely different and come back to the hip-hop later.<\/p>\n
Now that you\u2019ve got your method down, is there anyone that has a career that you think is incredible?<\/b><\/p>\n
There\u2019s so many that inspire me. As an artist and performer, I always think Kanye West. You know what it is? Sometimes he\u2019ll release tracks that I might not really like, but just as an artist, he always comes back. He reinvents and he just goes in his own lane and that\u2019s what I really like about him. You can really tell and feel that it\u2019s all real. Then there are vocalists. It really depends on what time of the year it is. I usually think I listen to hip-hop all the time but I don\u2019t, I\u2019ll stay updated and listen to the latest stuff. If you came to my house, you\u2019d be surprised. I listen to Norah Jones, Jamie Cullum, jazz. It\u2019s mostly that the jazz music, that\u2019s what I used to play in school and I just like those music pieces that are five to seven minutes long where you don\u2019t have a hook or a pop chorus that you have to sing along to. So when you\u2019re cleaning or washing up, you\u2019re really not thinking about anything you\u2019re just appreciating really good music and that\u2019s what I love about that kind of music. I can say that that brings me away from everything and when I\u2019m in the studio, my mind is just so fresh. When when it\u2019s time for me to create, I\u2019m not thinking about Pharrell\u2019s latest single or Beyonce\u2019s latest single, I just create from scratch. It works for me.<\/p>\n
You seemed to have worked with everyone, and quite a broad mixture of people. What do you think it is about you that makes you capable to work with so many different types of musicians?<\/b><\/p>\n
Honestly, I would say growing up in Sweden you have so many talented producers around. What\u2019s funny is Stockholm is not a big place and most of us are friends, so I was growing up with Sebastian Ingrosso who is a good friend of mine, and Axwell. No one interferes with each other’s sound. I would say friends need competition. You inspire each other, but at the same time I feel like it\u2019s every time I haven\u2019t compromised, the greatest songs come out. For example, when we did “Written in the Stars” with Tinie Tempah, no one told us \u201cmake this sound\u201d, so it’s organic like when I made Push It<\/em>, no one is in the studio telling me what to do. Eric, I found him singing at a showcase in Stockholm, and the third song we made was, “Written in the Stars”, really organic. Then Tinie came to Sweden, and he\u2019s sitting there like \u201cguys you\u2019ve got to see my new video for \u2018Pass Out\u2019\u201d, everything was so fresh. At the time, we didn\u2019t really think about that. Then when it was time for us to go back into the studio with Tinie, you could really feel with the labels involved, there were too many people involved. Too many chefs. We could kind of tell they were trying to copy the blueprint with “Written in the Stars” but we made a great song. But all of us kind of felt, and especially me, that we wanted to take it to the next level and make something even more different. Even working with all these artists, I know I work the best when I\u2019m not being told \u201cI want something like this and this\u201d. They come in and they have to have that creative freedom like I have, to make whatever. For the album, the music spectrum is really broad. The last two songs on the album are completely stripped down ballads, so I\u2019ve kept them completely as a piano, a voice and a live orchestra playing. You\u2019ve heard “Push It” \u2013 that\u2019s very programmed hip-hop but once it’s time for the album to drop you hear, \u201cthis is iSHi\u201d.<\/p>\nTalking about Tinie Tempah, what is the reason between you two that you\u2019ve been able to build up such a good relationship? I heard you were out last night?<\/b><\/p>\n
Yeah, we\u2019re so alike. We just connected straight away. When we met, he hadn\u2019t released anything. When I first worked with him, it was even before “Pass Out” in about 2009. This is the time before, even some of the songs I did on the first album with Kelly Rowland, I made that before “Pass Out”, before he got signed. So it\u2019s way back. When I met them they were a really small set up, Disturbing London, Tinie and Dumi his manager. Engaged, married, kids, we shared all these moments together, when they came to Sweden, so I think slowly but surely everyone knows each other. We are actually working for his new project and we still hang out as friends.<\/p>\n
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