We recently connected with Joe Tyse and have shared our conversation below.

Joe, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Started off as a DJ and felt that I wasn’t fulfilling the creative “itch”.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I fell in love with Hip Hop culture at 10 year (that’s a coincidental Common reference). I knew it was a permanent part of my life IMMEDIATELY upon hearing D Nice’s ‘My Name Is D Nice’ for the very first time. It opened up my world to something completely new and refreshing. It spoke to me and I was all ears.

Around the age of 16 I felt like I REALLY wanted to DJ. I adopted the name “DJ Omega Red” and I was actually the DJ of my high school group ‘Temple Of Theives’ or “TOT” for short. I loved doing it. I used to watch all the DMC battles, Invisible Scratch Pickles, and X-Ecutioners DVD’s like crazy, just trying to improve my skills as a turntablist. I wasn’t like a “grandmaster” or anything, but I could hold down some cuts, a couple juggle routines, and I could rock a party. I found myself not fulfilled though.

At 17 a couple of things happened that made me change my perspective on being involved with music. First let me say that Busta Rhymes is, and always be my favorite emcee. His first 2 albums were HEAVILY influential to me. Primarily because of DJ Scratch’s production. His beats were some of the hardest shit I’d ever heard. Knowing he was DJ, that showed me that I just didn’t have to stay behind the decks. I wanted to control the music, but was very intrigued about MAKING the music. I bought a Roland MS-1, with 9 seconds of sample time, and no way to save my beats, and went to work. I was GOOD good at it. I didn’t have a manual so I just had to push buttons and go for it. My dad had some records so I sampled them and made all kind of stuff. I’ve always had an ear for samples. They have to “make sense” to me in order to use them and I’m the same way to this day.

Also at 17, I heard DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing….’ album and it changed my life. I didn’t know you could make beats and be an artist at the same time. I was blown away by that concept. I focused more on beat making and honed my skills. I dropped the “DJ” from my name and I stopped spinning, though I can still get down, because I wanted to be the best beat maker I could be.

Here I am 43 and still going strong with beats. I created my first instrumental album ‘The Space Between in 2014. I’ve done a few projects with my mentor Jelani Lateef f.k.a J Fury, and my brother’s Highest Low for their second full length album ‘Underdogs’. That was the first album that was produced entirely by me. That was a first for me and I was very proud of what we created. I continued to work on a few projects here and there. But I really wasn’t putting myself in the best position to succeed. Honestly, I was anxious. Really exposing myself made me a little scared so I didn’t challenge myself as much as I should’ve.

In 2020, COVID happened and shut the world down. I noticed how creative and successful the at home.dj sets that Jazzy Jeff and D Nice were doing and I wanted to be creative in some way during the pandemic. I had over 1K beats that I was just sitting on that the world had not heard yet. Once Illinois got shut down, I figured I’d post 1 beat a day on my IG page for the length of the lockdown, and I did. For 69 days straight, everyday, I posted a beat. I noticed by day 23 or so that I was on to something. I started getting organic interactions and gained new followers daily. During that time I was contacting by 1773 to produce an album for them. After that, it’s been foot on the gas.

In the last 3 years, I’ve produced 5 albums with 1773 (As Above, Arrival Gate, Growth Chart Remix album, Arrival Gate Remix album, and the latest album LuvBug vol 2). I’ve produced an EP for one of the members of 1773, Jay Nagoma’s ‘The Makings Of’. I have 2 albums with one of my old group members Murkery aka Mr. Makhulu (Red Murkery, Mapogo), I executive produced and had a couple tracks on Cruz from Highest Low’s solo album ’94 Tape’ plus some other singles and remixes for him. I’ve also had the opportunity to create 3 volumes of what I called A.R.T Project instrumentals albums. I plan on making 7 of those in total.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started to investigate how the hell hashtags worked. I didn’t shit about them and I thought they were just something “cool” people used or said. I didn’t know they acutely served a purpose.

Knowing how to use them and posting constantly was key for me. I never paid for followers or spins or anything like that. I think I just came up with the idea to post daily through the the early stages of the pandemic. There was no point of me having all this music if nobody could hear it. I took the “die empty” approach I heard from Jazzy Jeff. No point in making something for people to hear, if you don’t allow people to hear it.

I never stopped posting either. I just don’t post daily because of time and family, however I still post at least 3-5x a week very rarely duplicating. That’s one of the luxuries of hoarding beats for 20+ years I guess lol.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I LOVE the criticism, good or bad. It let’s me know that people are taking the time to listen and I think that’s what all “creatives” want, just an audience.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: joe.tyse.beats

Image Credits
All photos by me.