tRident

Photo Credit: Freddi Losel-Ingham

tRident’s LoFi/hip hop songs are what everyone needs on a summer night. The North London artist’s smooth rap flow accompanies subdued and chill beats. He only began releasing music professionally this year, with his debut single “Persian Rugs”. The single gained noticeable traction with over 13K listens on Spotify. He followed up with a second single, “Solo Tu”, which has 36K streams on the platform. Over this time, tRident has amassed a following of 12K monthly listeners. After being featured on Spotify’s Fresh Finds: Hip Hop playlist, things only appear to be looking up for the new artist. And, with new music on the way, we can’t wait to see what he has prepared for his fans. We recently spoke with tRident about how he chose his name, his music idols, and more! 

How did you start making music?

I’ve always had a passion for music and it's been something that has been very important for me all my life. It all started I would say when I was younger listening to my parents music, their music taste has heavily influenced my preferences still to this day. One of my favourite bands was Iron Maiden, for some reason I loved heavy rock music as a little kid but regardless I changed it up a bit and started playing the violin when I was about 6 or 7. Since then I’ve taken up a few more instruments including drums and piano but my favourite definitely being guitar. When I was 14 a few friends of mine were into rapping and would all write their own stuff and had been for a while but I never felt I could actually do it so I never attempted. That was until one day I was smoking with a friend of mine and just started trying to freestyle and it actually seemed to come out alright and since then it’s just been a constant routine of writing shit regularly. 

Favorite thing to do when you aren’t making music?

I’ve got quite a few other hobbies just to keep me busy whenever I’m not working or doing music. At the moment I’m studying Graphic Design and I love just messing about with photoshop and illustrator to make weird and funny shit, even though I’m studying it I’m lucky because for me it’s more of just an entertainment thing. I also love my playstation, I’ve been replaying the Batman Arkham games which are definitely my favourite and I just finished the Wolf Among Us which was really good. Poetry is definitely a big passion of mine aswell and I would love to one day write a book full of poems for people to read.

Who are some of your music idols?

I’ve got a weird mix of music idols just because of the music I’ve grown up listening to but in terms of my rap style I would definitely have to say Mac Miller. His versatility which he shows in all of his different albums and different moods is something I would like to do, I don’t like the idea of being pinned down by one single genre. Another artist is definitely Bakar, he’s from quite close to where I live and I love how different his sound is and how he can’t be put into a category. I would love to make music similar to his but make it my own, I think that’s the best thing about music is that you can get so much inspiration from people but then manage to make it completely original to you which I think is important.

Describe your style in 3 words.

I’m not really sure what I would say my style is but based off of what other people say about my music it’s mostly quite relaxed so it would probably have to be ‘smooth casual rap’. But it’s difficult because who knows I might release a song that’s gonna be a completely different style so it’s difficult to tie it down to that.

Take us through your process in writing the lyrics for “Solo Tu”.

For “Solo Tu” I found the beat on holiday whilst I was in Budapest and that same day I sat down and wrote a little bit of the lyrics there. The weather kind of influenced the mood of the whole song and I definitely was trying to just match the vibe of the King Krule sample with my lyrics so it all gelled. I think I finished off the rest of the Italian bit back at home and I was just trying to add something a bit original so I thought why not show people listening to my Italian side which can sometimes be left out by bilingual artists which is definitely a shame.

Most artists have a dream venue. Where's yours?

I’ve never really thought about a dream venue before or really any venue but if it had to be any it would probably be the O2 Academy in Brixton because I had one of the best nights of my life seeing Tyler the Creator live there.

Any future plans for fans to get excited about?

I haven’t been as busy as I’d like to have been in terms of music over this lockdown but I’m hoping to be releasing some new singles soon. A big goal of mine is releasing an EP so that’s definitely what most of my attention is gonna be directed towards. I’ve got a groovy idea for a themed EP so any producers or anyone else trying to get involved I would absolutely love to talk to you and see what you’re on doing. Hit me up at: ginganghoul@gmail.com