By Stephanie Amy Collazo
Photo Credit: Josiah Van Dien
The man who claims he “ruined dubstep,” 24-year-old producer/songwriter/DJ Borgore, is back with his fifth EP titled Flex. Having worked on original tracks as well as remixing artists that span from M.I.A, Rusko and Britney Spears to LMFAO and Passion Pit, it’s safe to say the man knows what he’s doing when it comes to music. His track “Kiss My Lips,” featuring dance music siren Dev, has already gained praise on the dance floor. While touring in Poland fueled by Red Bull and the excitement over a new as yet untitled EP set to follow the release of Flex, Borgore took some time to talk to YRB about his background in jazz, his writing process and his future career in politics.
YRB: You are a formally trained jazz musician. How do you use that experience in your music now?
Borgore: I have a couple of tunes that I did that are jazz standards like “Cry Me A River,” [and] from my angle I added a rap in the middle that doesn’t exist in the original tune, obviously. And I did “My Favorite Things” with the lyrics that I wrote for my sister. Then I did “Afro Blue,” which is John Coltrane’s tune. I was working on a couple new ones; I just sent some of those home. I’ve lost touch with whoever used to be my jazz friends, so I don’t have anyone to sing for me right now [laughs]. I think that jazz music is the base for all pop or modern music. It’s the best base for any sort of music, so I think my music is more melodic, more sophisticated just because I have this history because I am actually a musician rather than someone who just picked up a laptop.
YRB: Why did you venture into electronic music?
Borgore: I had a long history of being in bands and working with people and I had big dreams. I’m from Israel and I’m not famous in any way in Israel, but I want to be the best there is in what I do. When I was doing metal I was practicing 12, 14, 16 hours a day on the drums, writing songs for my band, being fully committed, and the rest of the band members liked it, yeah, and they are good friends, but they didn’t have my dreams, so they were busy doing whatever normal kids our age were doing and didn’t go where I went, so I decided to do music by myself. I started experimenting with trance and hip-hop and whatever a kid in Israel could be exposed to. Then around 2006, dubstep got huge in Isreal, which is very early; this is where I got in and thought, this is the music of my life – I love it so bad I’m going to do this.
YRB: What made you want to start your own record label?
Borgore: Basically, starting my own record label is for me to push friends and people that I really believe in their music. I want to have my own people, my own crew, plus I don’t want to be worried about where I’m going to release my next record. I don’t want to send my jam to a record label and they’ll be like, ‘This is cool, this is not cool, I think you should do this, I think you should to that.’ I just want to make a tune without thinking; I just want to do whatever I feel and have a way to distribute it. I want to give the same platform to other people. You should listen to the records coming out on my label. They are very versatile; there is not one sound. Every guy on our label is quite different.
