What first drew you into hip-hop?

Thad talks about this in our song “Long Time” off of our EP that we put out this summer. Personally, I (Thad) was drawn to Hip Hop at a young age. My dad had the Willennium on cassette and we would listen to that constantly. That sort of opened the doors to hip hop for me because after that I constantly wanted more. My cousin would always have the newest Music. I would go over to his house and listen to Nelly and Eminem for hours while we played video games or jumped on the trampoline. There is something about hip hop that gets your blood flowing. When I started getting into writing and producing music, hip hop was honestly the most economical route for us to take. We are both musicians, again we reference our emotion in “Long Time”, and sometimes we feel like we are cheating because we don’t always get to utilize playing those instruments live on a record (drums, guitar, piano, etc.).  We do try to implement as many real instruments as we can. Sometimes you can lose a lot of emotion when you play from a computer rather than the real thing. We try to keep that in mind during our production process.

I (Jonah) first got into hip-hop in late elementary school. My friend used to carpool with me and we would sit in the back sharing headphones, listening to lil wayne, eminem, dr. dre, and other legendary rappers. Later in high school I started playing guitar and Thad and I started creating music together. We moved into the same room to create an open room for our “studio”. We have now grown to new levels with more professional equipment and a new studio, but it has always been really fun creating music together.

You are among the few brother duos in the hip-hop industry, care to share more about your creative processes and how you collab?

From the beginning, we made a clear cut split with how we handle Valid Point. Jonah handles the business side of the music. He manages all of our accounts, promotions, distributions, and artwork, as well as, help write lyrics. Thad handles the music. He produces the music, writes, records, mixes and masters.

As far as our process, we meet once a week physically and spend about 8-12 hours in our studio. We usually write together during those days. If we hit writer’s block, then we may talk about a vibe we want to attack and Thad will try and find it in a beat. We also have a Dropbox folder updated constantly with lyrics and beats to keep the juices flowing.

Your latest song “Don’t waste my time” features a great production and your touching vocals. Did you produce the track yourselves?

We produce, record, mix, and master everything in house.  Currently, everything has been done with Logic Pro and we use Ozone 7 for our mastering process.

That was easily the best writing process we have ever had. The beat was actually one we sat on for about 3 years and just couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Honestly, I think it was two projects that we decided to morph into one. Anyway, we basically played the beat for about two hours. Thad would mumble a flow and Jonah came up with the majority of lyrics. He comes up with some of the best lines we have ever recorded. My favorite stanza from that song has to be

“I turn my 10 grand into 30 guess it’s trending boy
I got my money in the bag I don’t spend it boy
And I know you want some but you know That I’m not lending boy
And if you come up on my brothers Run my boy”

It was the perfect mix of our lyrics.

“Don’t waste my time” has an old school vibe to it, and it reminds us of some of the productions by legendary artists such as dr.dre and eminem. Can you tell us more about your idols? Who are your role models?

Dr. Dre is way up there on the list, especially as far as producers go. He is a genius. I have a lot of respect for him for sitting on “Detox” as long as he has. True artistry is standing behind your product, and it’s awesome to see him not release something he doesn’t fully believe in.

As far as other producers, Metro Boomin is in heavy rotation on my iPhone right now. I have a lot of love for Nate Fox too. He produces a lot of Chance the Rapper’s music. He’s currently my favorite rapper. I think “AcidRap” is one of the greatest collections of music of all time. Front to back, it’s a great mixtape.  It is amazing he has never sold a song. I have a lot of respect for artists that step out of line.

Other than that, we both have a pretty wide spectrum for music. We like anything from Pierce the Veil to Rae Sremmurd. I think it’s good to always listen to different types of music. It always gives us a ton of ideas. I had a buddy in high school who told me “how can music continue to progress, because I feel like everything has been done”. I keep that in mind with everything we do. He was crazy for saying that, but it’s too easy to keep putting out music that sounds the same. We stay away from formulas and just put out what we think is cool or touching. Sometimes we call a friend to send us some guitar or piano. Honestly, those have been some of the best songs we have done “Wrong” is a testament to that. It’s nice to have different musicians send you things. Sometimes you can fall into a rut

How would you summarize 2017?

2017 was a startup for us and we are excited to keep growing. This year has been full of ideas from how we should brand ourselves, what our tone is, and how we should stay progressive. There is always something to learn and we have learned a lot throughout 2017. We learned how to mix better, how to master professionally, promotional plans, and social connections are key. Like we said, this is just the startup, a beginning, and we cannot wait to keep doing our best and keep growing.

You have recently started your “songamonth” initiative do you plan to keep releasing a song every month going into 2018?

This is something we have actually been discussing. We are thinking of ending the “songamonth” series in late summer of 2018 and starting something new but we haven’t decided yet. “Songamonth” has been a good way to create a base for us and we have truly enjoyed it, it will be sad to let it go.

What are your goals for 2018? Any upcoming projects we can get excited about?

Our goal for 2018 is simple; impact as many people as we can with our music. We want people to hear our music and enjoy it, whether that be by making them happy, sad, reminiscent, pumped, or even angry. We are also looking at doing shows in 2018. We would love to do some shows in our hometown of Raleigh, NC as well as Charlotte, wilmington, and maybe even the OBX. This is a whole new project that we are doing our best to learn about and has us feeling very excited.

Connect With Valid Point:

•  Twitter
•  ReverbNation
•  Soundcloud

The post Exclusive Interview With Valid Point: Meet Thad & Jonah appeared first on HBT MAG.