Image via James Royo
After more than a decade spent refining Grammy-nominated and platinum selling hits from behind the scenes, audio engineer James Royo is stepping into the limelight, determined to achieve the same level of acclaim as a producer and beatmaker. With an ear sharpened by years perfecting the hits of others, the South Florida native is now turning that precision inward, pouring the same obsessive care into forging his own sound.
Tucked away in the hills of Northeast Los Angeles, Royo’s home studio feels like both a refuge and a command center. In the corner, a small TV loops 90s NBA reruns casting a muted glow across an intricately aligned recording setup. When he pulls back the curtains on the front-facing window, sunlight spills onto his workstation, framing a view of the Verdugo Mountains in golden relief.
Stepping into his home, my eyes first landed on a platinum plaque for RJ’s “Hoe’s Come Easy,” an anthem that soundtracked my early high school days, even if the lifestyle it boasted felt as foreign to me then as it does now. When I asked why the plaque had pride of place, Royo responded with a grin, “RJ is the only artist that ever bought me my plaque.” It’s a symbol of mutual respect–proof that while Royo’s contributions often fade in the background for casual listeners, his ability to shape sounds is unforgettable to those who know brilliance when they hear it.
After finishing music school in Florida, Royo moved to LA in the early 2010s determined to make a name for himself in a new city. With no network to lean on and no calls coming in, he had to chase the work himself. His relentless hustle as a rush engineer at a local studio eventually led to an encounter with a then rising DJ Mustard and YG. It took time, but Royo proved he not only understood their vision, he could elevate it. His ear for shaping low-end frequencies that hit like earthquakes without muddying the mix became Mustard’s secret weapon, something he couldn’t find anywhere else.
Royo’s early work with late blog-era LA staples like YG, RJmrLA, and Ty Dolla $ign, cemented his reputation as the city’s go-to mix engineer. His contributions to YG’s 2014 debut, My Krazy Life, unlocked a new array of opportunities for the engineer beyond hip-hop. The buzz earned him a call from the legendary EDM juggernaut Major Lazer to mix the now diamond-selling record, “Lean On.” It was a seismic leap that obliterated genre boundaries. Soon, Royo was working with global hitmakers like Dua Lipa, Drake, Mariah Carey, and Kanye West.
Royo’s recent pivot to beatmaking feels like a homecoming, a return to crafting tracks alongside regional icons and emerging talent in LA’s underground. His unmistakable “Damn James!” producer tag rings out on beats that split the difference between Hit-Boy’s polished opulence and the unfiltered West Coast thump of early Mustard. From 03Greedo’s “Keep Swervin,” to Lefty Gunplay’s “Lost My Best Friend,” his 808s rattle walls like the Metro barreling through Union Station, yet they carry the refined clarity of something crafted in the pristine acoustics of the Walt Disney Hall. Meanwhile, hi-hats cut through the mix, propelling a bounce tailor made for lowriders and backyard cookouts.
While talent shifts as the local rap scene reinvents itself, Royo’s influence remains a steady pulse in LA’s ever-evolving music scene. His evolution from engineer to producer feels less like a career shift and more like a natural next chapter in a journey that’s just getting started. When we sat down last summer, we spoke about his work with Mustard, his battle with DJ Quik, being personally asked by Kanye to mix Yandhi, and his upcoming debut album Double Down. – Diego Tapia
Casual fans of music don’t really understand the importance of the engineer. It takes someone with a skilled ear and a true understanding of sonics to master this art. What drew you to this profession?
James Royo: I guess it was probably just being a fan of music at first, and then going a little deeper into it. I was fascinated with how the music sounded and how to get the type of sound that I was hearing.I was trying to chase this type of sound, especially with the low end and the bass. It was just a real challenge to get the sound that I was hearing. I started in a small studio first, but then, when I went to a big studio with the big speakers – I was addicted. It was just so interesting to me how people were achieving this sound. It was like a challenge to find that sound, and then once I kind of found it, you just keep going and find other sounds.
Is there an engineer or a certain project that you studied as you were coming up?
James Royo: I’ve listened to all the old stuff, and I love and appreciate that, but really, when I was trying to be a top tier engineer, I would really study a lot of the contemporary music coming out at the time. Whatever was popping at the time I would listen to it and find things I like about it. Early on, it was Rick Ross. I remember “BMF,” the low end on that record, there was something really sick about that I was trying to chase. Kanye dropped a bunch of shit that I liked. I really like more trap shit. I grew up listening to all types of hip-hop in South Florida. In South Florida there’s a lot of people from New York there, so I listen to a lot of underground New York rap. There was people listening to Lil Wayne and shit like that, so I had a well rounded hip-hop knowledge. The trap shit just blew my mind when 808s started taking over. I was like, oh shit, I gotta get my shit like this.
What is it about those low end sounds that fascinate you?
James Royo: Specifically, it was everything under 100hz. The way some guys would have their record with 30hz, 40hz, 50hz, really present in the mix. It created this type of rumble to the records that fascinated me, because it was something you can’t really hear on every speaker. You’re not gonna hear it on your laptop or on your phone, but then you put on certain speakers, and you’re going to hear this crazy vibration. I just thought it was fascinating. That really helped me learn about speakers. I was working on a system that I couldn’t even hear this shit, and I was like, why can’t I get my super low end sound like that? I realized, I’m not hearing it with the system I’m using. So then I learned how to adjust my system, and get subs, and use certain tools to be able to hear what a lot of people weren’t hearing in the studio back then. It’s really just the low end, because, to me, it was the hardest thing to really nail because it varies so much on different systems. Some of it you can really hear, some of it you can’t, as opposed to the mid range and upper-mid range where you can pretty much always hear that on every system. It felt like I was chasing that for a long time when I was first starting, and I feel pretty confident that I’ve pretty much got that on lock now. It feels good.
What’s the biggest change in the industry you’ve seen from the time in which you started, to now?
James Royo: The internet, obviously has been around in my entire career, but ever since the Coronavirus it’s taken a forefront to everything else. A lot of people, back when I first started, would grind out as an intern and come up the ranks and start engineering, and mixing, and then producing. Now, there’s guys that just pop up out of nowhere on YouTube, and they bypass a lot of that stuff. I think it’s cool for them, but I’m glad I was able to go through what I went through because I really got to learn on a firsthand basis. I didn’t learn from some tutorial online, or listening to somebody talking about it. I was able to be in the room with these people, see their process, and now I have that in my tool belt for things that I can use in the future.
I’m sure that makes you appreciate the process more.
James Royo: Totally. I’m so happy I went through what I did, and I really couldn’t see it any other way. It might be a little easier now with the internet, you could pop off a little more, but honestly, some of the most fun times I had was interning at the studio, going to college, and really just not knowing anything and just just going for it. There’s not much to think about. You kind of just did it.
You were born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents. Describe the influence your culture had on your upbringing and how it has shaped your musical persona.
James Royo: My dad played guitar really well. What he wanted to be was a rock star. That was his dream. He’s from an era when the studio was very expensive and it was hard to do. He had me, so he had to get serious about making money. So he started his own company and put music on the side. Luckily, he did have a successful career where I could afford to pursue music as a career, because it’s not easy. Everybody that’s doing music, they had a lot of people helping them out behind the scenes supporting them, because you’re not going to make money at first. It’s going to be hard times, so you have to have your parents or a friend to really rely on. Luckily, I had both of my parents there for me to support me. They helped me go to college for music. They helped me to live in their house while I interned in a studio. Once I kind of figured it out, I made a little money on my own so I can move out here, but they’re always supporting me from Florida all the way here. Then I got into DJing. The DJ thing, I did it as a hobby just for fun doing little house parties here and there. I never took it too seriously. Then I started going into the studio, and that’s when I really got more serious. That was more interesting to me because it was so unfamiliar. It was one thing to hear a song, but then to go behind the scenes and see how the shit was built piece by piece, it really intrigued me.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
Is there an engineer or a certain project that you studied as you were coming up?
James Royo: I’ve listened to all the old stuff, and I love and appreciate that, but really, when I was trying to be a top tier engineer, I would really study a lot of the contemporary music coming out at the time. Whatever was popping at the time I would listen to it and find things I like about it. Early on, it was Rick Ross. I remember “BMF,” the low end on that record, there was something really sick about that I was trying to chase. Kanye dropped a bunch of shit that I liked. I really like more trap shit. I grew up listening to all types of hip-hop in South Florida. In South Florida there’s a lot of people from New York there, so I listen to a lot of underground New York rap. There was people listening to Lil Wayne and shit like that, so I had a well rounded hip-hop knowledge. The trap shit just blew my mind when 808s started taking over. I was like, oh shit, I gotta get my shit like this.
What is it about those low end sounds that fascinate you?
James Royo: Specifically, it was everything under 100hz. The way some guys would have their record with 30hz, 40hz, 50hz, really present in the mix. It created this type of rumble to the records that fascinated me, because it was something you can’t really hear on every speaker. You’re not gonna hear it on your laptop or on your phone, but then you put on certain speakers, and you’re going to hear this crazy vibration. I just thought it was fascinating. That really helped me learn about speakers. I was working on a system that I couldn’t even hear this shit, and I was like, why can’t I get my super low end sound like that? I realized, I’m not hearing it with the system I’m using. So then I learned how to adjust my system, and get subs, and use certain tools to be able to hear what a lot of people weren’t hearing in the studio back then. It’s really just the low end, because, to me, it was the hardest thing to really nail because it varies so much on different systems. Some of it you can really hear, some of it you can’t, as opposed to the mid range and upper-mid range where you can pretty much always hear that on every system. It felt like I was chasing that for a long time when I was first starting, and I feel pretty confident that I’ve pretty much got that on lock now. It feels good.
What’s the biggest change in the industry you’ve seen from the time in which you started, to now?
James Royo: The internet, obviously has been around in my entire career, but ever since the Coronavirus it’s taken a forefront to everything else. A lot of people, back when I first started, would grind out as an intern and come up the ranks and start engineering, and mixing, and then producing. Now, there’s guys that just pop up out of nowhere on YouTube, and they bypass a lot of that stuff. I think it’s cool for them, but I’m glad I was able to go through what I went through because I really got to learn on a firsthand basis. I didn’t learn from some tutorial online, or listening to somebody talking about it. I was able to be in the room with these people, see their process, and now I have that in my tool belt for things that I can use in the future.
I’m sure that makes you appreciate the process more.
James Royo: Totally. I’m so happy I went through what I did, and I really couldn’t see it any other way. It might be a little easier now with the internet, you could pop off a little more, but honestly, some of the most fun times I had was interning at the studio, going to college, and really just not knowing anything and just just going for it. There’s not much to think about. You kind of just did it.
You were born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents. Describe the influence your culture had on your upbringing and how it has shaped your musical persona.
James Royo: My dad played guitar really well. What he wanted to be was a rock star. That was his dream. He’s from an era when the studio was very expensive and it was hard to do. He had me, so he had to get serious about making money. So he started his own company and put music on the side. Luckily, he did have a successful career where I could afford to pursue music as a career, because it’s not easy. Everybody that’s doing music, they had a lot of people helping them out behind the scenes supporting them, because you’re not going to make money at first. It’s going to be hard times, so you have to have your parents or a friend to really rely on. Luckily, I had both of my parents there for me to support me. They helped me go to college for music. They helped me to live in their house while I interned in a studio. Once I kind of figured it out, I made a little money on my own so I can move out here, but they’re always supporting me from Florida all the way here. Then I got into DJing. The DJ thing, I did it as a hobby just for fun doing little house parties here and there. I never took it too seriously. Then I started going into the studio, and that’s when I really got more serious. That was more interesting to me because it was so unfamiliar. It was one thing to hear a song, but then to go behind the scenes and see how the shit was built piece by piece, it really intrigued me.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
What is it about those low end sounds that fascinate you?
James Royo: Specifically, it was everything under 100hz. The way some guys would have their record with 30hz, 40hz, 50hz, really present in the mix. It created this type of rumble to the records that fascinated me, because it was something you can’t really hear on every speaker. You’re not gonna hear it on your laptop or on your phone, but then you put on certain speakers, and you’re going to hear this crazy vibration. I just thought it was fascinating. That really helped me learn about speakers. I was working on a system that I couldn’t even hear this shit, and I was like, why can’t I get my super low end sound like that? I realized, I’m not hearing it with the system I’m using. So then I learned how to adjust my system, and get subs, and use certain tools to be able to hear what a lot of people weren’t hearing in the studio back then. It’s really just the low end, because, to me, it was the hardest thing to really nail because it varies so much on different systems. Some of it you can really hear, some of it you can’t, as opposed to the mid range and upper-mid range where you can pretty much always hear that on every system. It felt like I was chasing that for a long time when I was first starting, and I feel pretty confident that I’ve pretty much got that on lock now. It feels good.
What’s the biggest change in the industry you’ve seen from the time in which you started, to now?
James Royo: The internet, obviously has been around in my entire career, but ever since the Coronavirus it’s taken a forefront to everything else. A lot of people, back when I first started, would grind out as an intern and come up the ranks and start engineering, and mixing, and then producing. Now, there’s guys that just pop up out of nowhere on YouTube, and they bypass a lot of that stuff. I think it’s cool for them, but I’m glad I was able to go through what I went through because I really got to learn on a firsthand basis. I didn’t learn from some tutorial online, or listening to somebody talking about it. I was able to be in the room with these people, see their process, and now I have that in my tool belt for things that I can use in the future.
I’m sure that makes you appreciate the process more.
James Royo: Totally. I’m so happy I went through what I did, and I really couldn’t see it any other way. It might be a little easier now with the internet, you could pop off a little more, but honestly, some of the most fun times I had was interning at the studio, going to college, and really just not knowing anything and just just going for it. There’s not much to think about. You kind of just did it.
You were born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents. Describe the influence your culture had on your upbringing and how it has shaped your musical persona.
James Royo: My dad played guitar really well. What he wanted to be was a rock star. That was his dream. He’s from an era when the studio was very expensive and it was hard to do. He had me, so he had to get serious about making money. So he started his own company and put music on the side. Luckily, he did have a successful career where I could afford to pursue music as a career, because it’s not easy. Everybody that’s doing music, they had a lot of people helping them out behind the scenes supporting them, because you’re not going to make money at first. It’s going to be hard times, so you have to have your parents or a friend to really rely on. Luckily, I had both of my parents there for me to support me. They helped me go to college for music. They helped me to live in their house while I interned in a studio. Once I kind of figured it out, I made a little money on my own so I can move out here, but they’re always supporting me from Florida all the way here. Then I got into DJing. The DJ thing, I did it as a hobby just for fun doing little house parties here and there. I never took it too seriously. Then I started going into the studio, and that’s when I really got more serious. That was more interesting to me because it was so unfamiliar. It was one thing to hear a song, but then to go behind the scenes and see how the shit was built piece by piece, it really intrigued me.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
What’s the biggest change in the industry you’ve seen from the time in which you started, to now?
James Royo: The internet, obviously has been around in my entire career, but ever since the Coronavirus it’s taken a forefront to everything else. A lot of people, back when I first started, would grind out as an intern and come up the ranks and start engineering, and mixing, and then producing. Now, there’s guys that just pop up out of nowhere on YouTube, and they bypass a lot of that stuff. I think it’s cool for them, but I’m glad I was able to go through what I went through because I really got to learn on a firsthand basis. I didn’t learn from some tutorial online, or listening to somebody talking about it. I was able to be in the room with these people, see their process, and now I have that in my tool belt for things that I can use in the future.
I’m sure that makes you appreciate the process more.
James Royo: Totally. I’m so happy I went through what I did, and I really couldn’t see it any other way. It might be a little easier now with the internet, you could pop off a little more, but honestly, some of the most fun times I had was interning at the studio, going to college, and really just not knowing anything and just just going for it. There’s not much to think about. You kind of just did it.
You were born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents. Describe the influence your culture had on your upbringing and how it has shaped your musical persona.
James Royo: My dad played guitar really well. What he wanted to be was a rock star. That was his dream. He’s from an era when the studio was very expensive and it was hard to do. He had me, so he had to get serious about making money. So he started his own company and put music on the side. Luckily, he did have a successful career where I could afford to pursue music as a career, because it’s not easy. Everybody that’s doing music, they had a lot of people helping them out behind the scenes supporting them, because you’re not going to make money at first. It’s going to be hard times, so you have to have your parents or a friend to really rely on. Luckily, I had both of my parents there for me to support me. They helped me go to college for music. They helped me to live in their house while I interned in a studio. Once I kind of figured it out, I made a little money on my own so I can move out here, but they’re always supporting me from Florida all the way here. Then I got into DJing. The DJ thing, I did it as a hobby just for fun doing little house parties here and there. I never took it too seriously. Then I started going into the studio, and that’s when I really got more serious. That was more interesting to me because it was so unfamiliar. It was one thing to hear a song, but then to go behind the scenes and see how the shit was built piece by piece, it really intrigued me.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
I’m sure that makes you appreciate the process more.
James Royo: Totally. I’m so happy I went through what I did, and I really couldn’t see it any other way. It might be a little easier now with the internet, you could pop off a little more, but honestly, some of the most fun times I had was interning at the studio, going to college, and really just not knowing anything and just just going for it. There’s not much to think about. You kind of just did it.
You were born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents. Describe the influence your culture had on your upbringing and how it has shaped your musical persona.
James Royo: My dad played guitar really well. What he wanted to be was a rock star. That was his dream. He’s from an era when the studio was very expensive and it was hard to do. He had me, so he had to get serious about making money. So he started his own company and put music on the side. Luckily, he did have a successful career where I could afford to pursue music as a career, because it’s not easy. Everybody that’s doing music, they had a lot of people helping them out behind the scenes supporting them, because you’re not going to make money at first. It’s going to be hard times, so you have to have your parents or a friend to really rely on. Luckily, I had both of my parents there for me to support me. They helped me go to college for music. They helped me to live in their house while I interned in a studio. Once I kind of figured it out, I made a little money on my own so I can move out here, but they’re always supporting me from Florida all the way here. Then I got into DJing. The DJ thing, I did it as a hobby just for fun doing little house parties here and there. I never took it too seriously. Then I started going into the studio, and that’s when I really got more serious. That was more interesting to me because it was so unfamiliar. It was one thing to hear a song, but then to go behind the scenes and see how the shit was built piece by piece, it really intrigued me.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
You were born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents. Describe the influence your culture had on your upbringing and how it has shaped your musical persona.
James Royo: My dad played guitar really well. What he wanted to be was a rock star. That was his dream. He’s from an era when the studio was very expensive and it was hard to do. He had me, so he had to get serious about making money. So he started his own company and put music on the side. Luckily, he did have a successful career where I could afford to pursue music as a career, because it’s not easy. Everybody that’s doing music, they had a lot of people helping them out behind the scenes supporting them, because you’re not going to make money at first. It’s going to be hard times, so you have to have your parents or a friend to really rely on. Luckily, I had both of my parents there for me to support me. They helped me go to college for music. They helped me to live in their house while I interned in a studio. Once I kind of figured it out, I made a little money on my own so I can move out here, but they’re always supporting me from Florida all the way here. Then I got into DJing. The DJ thing, I did it as a hobby just for fun doing little house parties here and there. I never took it too seriously. Then I started going into the studio, and that’s when I really got more serious. That was more interesting to me because it was so unfamiliar. It was one thing to hear a song, but then to go behind the scenes and see how the shit was built piece by piece, it really intrigued me.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
What did the LA music scene look like when you moved out here in the early 2010s?
James Royo: When I first moved here, I moved down here with some producers from Miami. I met DJ Mustard and YG, and they were at the forefront of the LA music scene. I really connected with them on a musical and a personal level, and it just made a lot of sense. This was right before they really took off, so I really got to see how they did it, and the secrets behind the scenes of what really made it work. LA I feel, I wasn’t here before that, but there really wasn’t too much making noise since 10 years before that. This was kind of the beginning of the renaissance of LA rap music. I was just grateful to be a part of it, and they really just accepted me as a local, even though I wasn’t. It was a fun time and it was really inspiring to see songs you work on one night, you drop them the next day, and then by end of the week, every car driving by is playing the song. It’s a dope, fulfilling feeling. It’s motivating too. Sometimes you work on songs for years, and they never come out, but back then they were not only coming out, but they’re becoming big hits every single song. It was very inspiring for sure.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
How’d you manage to network and place yourself in a position to be successful in a new city?
James Royo: Working hard. Nobody here knew me, so no one would call me to work. I’d have to go find the work. I was lucky enough to get cool with a manager at a studio, and I told him that I live down the street, and any sessions that you have, whether it be Sunday night at 9, 10 pm, and you need a rush engineer last minute, I’ll be down to pull up, no questions. That actually happened, and he called me one night, and it was Mustard and YG. That’s how we got connected. From there, once you’re associated with a big name like Mustard, every day he’s having different execs come by, other producers, and artists. I was able to get my name out a little bit with that, and work with some cool people through Mustard. It really just went back to working hard and being available. Not being too good to work on a Sunday, and putting yourself out there as much as possible.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
What’s the story behind how you forged a relationship with Mustard?
James Royo: YG had a mixtape called 400 Degreez and we were working on that. I really just had a point to prove that I was really good at this shit and I knew what I was doing. Not even that I knew what I was doing, but I had this edge on me that my shit was sounding more fire than any other engineer that they’ve ever worked with. I did my best work and they recognized it and kept calling. Eventually, I kind of had to pick a side between working with YG or working with Mustard, and I kind of started with Mustard, because my boy told me if I’m going to take engineering to its highest level, I’m best off working with a producer, rather than an artist, because they have more opportunity for you than then the artists would. So I ended up linking with Mustard and he helped me mix one of the biggest songs of my career. Shit went like diamond and got millions of streams. It’s really just because I had a relationship with Mustard, and he had crazy relationships with different executives, publishers, and stuff like that. It just clicked. Right time and right place.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
They had the artist piece, YG, and they had the producer piece, Mustard. They needed an engineer to tie it all together and I delivered for them. They trusted me. It took time for them to trust me, because there was one time, the “My Hitta” YG record, I’ll never forget. I did my mix to it and it sounded good. Then YG and DJ Quik, they from the same street in Compton. They’re almost family, damn near. So YG was like, “Man, we’re gonna have DJ Quik mix the song.” He’s a legendary guy, of course. I was a little bummed out about that shit. I gave him the files and everything. He’s a little more of an old school mentality mixer, so he put a tape machine emulation on a lot of the tracks, especially the 808 and the kick, and when you do that it kind of softens up the transients a little bit. I was the total opposite, I was a straight digital, hard hitting, heavy bass as much as possible. After we got the mix back from Quik, he was like, “Damn, I’m sleeping on James. James got it.” It took time to build the relationship. I had to prove myself a little bit, and luckily, it just all worked out for me. I stuck to my guns and did what I thought was dope, and it worked out.
What did it mean to you to get that kind of regard from Quik?
James Royo: He was mad, he hated it. Like five years after the song came out, he goes on Twitter dissing YG talking about, ‘I need my plaque,’ and all this shit. I don’t think Quik even realizes he didn’t fucking even mix the song. He thinks he probably mixed it. So he was like upset with YG. He’s like, ‘I need royalties, I need plaques,’ and this and that. So Quik was definitely not happy about it, but at the end of the day, YG made the decision to roll with my mix, because it just sounded more modern, and it was more the sound he was going for at the time. It felt good to finally have the full trust of YG at that point. In that moment, it felt really good. It was validation. I can do this. I can hang with DJ Quik and mix with the best of them because it’s all subjective at the end of the day. There’s no right or wrong way.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
That’s how you ended up mixing the entirety of My Krazy Life?
James Royo: Exactly. That song was the main single for My Krazy Life, so once they seen that I was capable of mixing the single, and it went crazy, then they were like, ‘Okay.’ Mustard trusted me the most, to be honest, because I was there with him every day working on his beats with him, so he knew, ‘Okay, James gets it.’ So Mustard trusted me thankfully because there were still issues with My Krazy Life. There was another engineer who had notoriety at the time–and he was just beginning his career, and I don’t think he had a full grasp on how to mix the beats properly. He had the vocals on lock, but when it came to that bass, he kind of fell a little short and Mustard recognized that. He was like, “All the songs I produce, I want you mixing it.” So that’s how I was able to do that, because this mixing shit is very political, just like everything. It’s political, and who you know, and who got the name at the time. They might roll with somebody who has a bigger name, rather than give a chance to some smaller guy who actually has a better sound. That’s just how it goes.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
I remember when that album came out, I was in middle school, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. How do you reflect on having a major credit on an album that is so significant to contemporary West Coast hip-hop?
James Royo: I think it’s super dope and I’m super blessed to have been a part of it. It was super fun creating that album too, because YG just had mixtapes that were popping, and he was popping here in LA, but he never had a record to go to New York, to go to Florida. He never had those nationwide records. There was this great A&R, Sycamore–He came in, right before the album was supposed to come out–he came in with this genius plan, and this genius vision for everything, and he knew it was gonna be a classic already and it just manifested into it. Everybody was all hands on deck, and we all put forth our best work, and came out with a classic.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
In 2015, you began working with Ty Dolla $ign and mixed some records off Free TC. Since then, you’ve mixed the entirety of Campaign, Beach House 3, and even went with him to Chicago to work with Ye. What is it about Ty as an artist that draws you to style and music?
James Royo: He’s a dope artist off top. But I think also, our relationship works so good because he had a lot of respect for me, he had a lot of respect for what I did with Mustard, and he had a lot of appreciation for it. As an engineer, a lot of times, the engineer doesn’t get appreciated, and I think that takes a toll on a lot of engineers. Ty always showed me mad appreciation and love, and respected what I did. He brought me in for a reason and he saw what I did with Mustard. Ty and Mustard go back 10 years before I even met him. He understood that Mustard was lit, but when he got with me, he became the number one producer in the game. So he saw that and wanted that for himself. Me and Mustard, we have already worked maybe four years at that point, and I was just ready for something a little different.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
Ty welcomed me with open arms–and I was like, let’s rock out. Ty was very open minded with me producing for him. Tracks that he already had, I reworked them. He was very open minded to all that stuff. I felt like it was a way for me to grow into, not only mixing full projects, which I already done, but becoming a producer in my own right. It was just a good opportunity and he’s just a cool guy. We got along and he’s dope with music. It’s cool too that he does so many different genres. I was doing West Coast rap, it’s cool but I got burnt a little bit. With Ty he’ll do a dance record, he’ll do R&B, he’ll rap, he’ll do drill–he’ll basically do it. Even in his albums–he got different types of beats. It was exciting for me at the time to work on these different types of sub-genres within hip-hop. I’m still rocking with Ty to this day.
What was it like going with him to work with Ye?
James Royo: That was crazy. I’m not gonna lie. It was a very inspiring time. When I went with Ty to work with Ye, you got a little more insight into his world and how he works. It’s very inspiring to see someone that basically does what you do, but has taken it to such a high level. You can’t get no higher than that as far as just what he’s doing and the type of moves he’s making. So to see that, and to see the paparazzi. I never seen paparazzi with none of the artists I work with–but Ye is just different. I remember I shook his hand, I was like, I’ll see you tomorrow, cause we had been with him for a couple of days already. He was like, “Where are you going?” I was like, I’m going back to the hotel. He’s like, “I want you to mix my album.” I’m like, what? Fuck, say less. So I get on the phone and I called my assistant–I get him a plane ticket and fly him out to Chicago. We went in, did as much as we could, and of course, the album got scrapped.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
That was Yandhi, which turned into Jesus Is King. None of the other songs I worked on, even made it on there. But whatever, it was still so much fun. “Sky” was a crazy situation. The night before we were in LA, Ty had a guitar player come by who just played some loops. We get to Chicago the next day, we played the loops, Ye starts freestyling on the loops–At the time, he had his kid around him with an iPhone recording 24/7. He never put the shit down. I’m like, yo, let me get your footage. He gave me the footage and I looped that shit up and made a beat out of that, and then they did a song on top of it. I was like, this is fire. Not many people are doing that; taking a loop, playing it through the speakers, having the people in the room record their melodies, and then capturing it on an iPhone, and then reloading that back into Pro Tools, and then doing a song on top of that. That was just awesome, I ain’t gon lie.
Outside of hip-hop, you’ve also worked with top-charting artists like Mariah Carey, DJ Snake, and Dua Lipa, just to name a few. When did you cross genres and how were you able to do so successfully?
James Royo: I’ve always listened to a lot of different music. I think what they’re doing is really creative and really inspiring, so I want to be a part of that shit too. It was not really something to think about, it was just a no brainer. A lot of those records, I didn’t know the people, it was just opportunities presented to me, and I didn’t turn it down at all. I just enjoy it all man, from working with rappers, to the fucking crazy street shit, to working with Dua Lipa, or Britney Spears. I like it all. I try to find what’s really dope about everybody and bring that out as much as I can, and highlight that in their music.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
How would you compare working on a hip-hop record to working on a pop record?
James Royo: It’s very different. It’s literally night and day, working with a pop artist versus working with a rapper. There are certain things that rappers are going to hyper focus on, and the pop artist is gonna hyper focus on other shit and ignore whatever the rapper is doing. That’s what makes people different. It’s just about understanding what type of music you’re doing, because every genre has unsaid rules. Pop not gonna have this huge sounding 808. It just doesn’t make sense. You got to kind of respect the guidelines a little. Obviously, they always say you can break the rules, but if you break the rules too much, the artist is not going to understand. If you’re an artist, and you want to break the rules, that’s cool. But as an engineer, and producer, if you break too many rules, they might not get it, especially if you don’t have a relationship with somebody.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
That’s why I like building these relationships, because you could break the rules more. A lot of these artists, rappers and stuff, they get caught. They get a little success doing one thing, and they want to just keep doing that. As soon as you start doing something a little different, they don’t get it. So you gotta respect that and understand that it’s part of the game and, if you want to be successful with the person, you stay within their parameters, whatever that may be.
What inspired you to make the transition from engineer to producer?
James Royo: I started as a beat maker. Then opportunities presented themselves where I could live in LA and work with these high end guys, as an engineer, so I did that. After a while, you kind of want to just build more of an identity as yourself. You want to have your own taste and you might not want to do a song that you don’t like. As a producer, you’re making all beats that you like, so you’re going to work on a song you like. I feel like I have many things to offer as a producer to the music industry. For me, it takes time to find that. Working with Mustard and Ty, and seeing what they do and what they like, and reflecting on myself and asking myself what I like. Finding that is just a journey, and it’s a fun journey. I wasn’t born with a guitar in my hand, so it’s always a challenge.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
Sometimes it takes me five minutes to make a great melody and a great beat. Sometimes it takes me two hours. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something about my mood or my mind frame, and where I’m at. Sometimes it comes really easy. Sometimes it’s a challenge, and honestly, they’re both really rewarding, because I’ve done really cool shit after challenging myself for an hour trying to find something dope. It’s just as rewarding as the first note I push on a keyboard when it’s fire. I feel like, as a person doing music every day, eventually, I feel like becoming the artist. You just get to a point where you just want your taste, and your say so to be the final say. So many times as an engineer or a co-producer, your ideas get shot down. Whereas, if you’re the fucking primary artist, you have the last word, so it’s kind of refreshing.
How do you feel you’ve benefited creatively since starting to produce?
James Royo: It’s nice because some days I might not want to create a beat, I might feel a little burnt out or something. So I’ll mix one of my songs instead or work on something else. It just opens up more ways to express yourself creatively, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m just on a path where I don’t want to be boxed in too much. I’m doing this West Coast album, which is cool, because I love the West Coast, but I could do fucking trap beats too. I can do fucking dance shit too. I can do whatever I like. It’s a little more rewarding as a producer. You come up with this idea from scratch, and to see it kind of snowball into a demo, and then the demo into a fucking song, and then the song gets a crazy feature on it, and then next thing you know it’s a single for someone album, and then it comes out and it has a video. It’s so cool because it starts out of nothing. It’s such a different way–Engineers are finishing the idea, producers are starting the idea.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
You mentioned before you’ve been working on your first official album. What details can you give me about this upcoming project and how it came to be?
James Royo: This project is called Double Down. It’s basically about doubling down on yourself and putting it all on the line for yourself. This is about going hard for yourself. Really the way it came about, it happened very fast and it happened very recently. I met Neil Suva, and he was really inspiring. He’s like, “Why don’t you put out your own stuff?” I’m like, what? Like, DJ Khaled? I didn’t really get it. Neil was able to get my song on one of Lefty Gunplay’s songs. I saw the numbers on my name jump up 10,000 to 20,000 monthly listeners. I’m like this is sick, you know? And then Neil was just like, “Play some West Coast shit. Let’s do a West Coast album.” It just happened very naturally and organically. It’s not something I like, I’m going to do an album, let me call on my friends to jump on it. Nah, I had these songs done and they were fire–but maybe for the artists at the time, it didn’t fit into the aesthetic they were going for. I wasn’t trying to reach out to an artist that I didn’t know, personally, so that’s why I feel like it was a more genuine thing. Maybe Khaled does have relationships with all these people, but I didn’t want to just try to get a song with whoever.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
I would not have seen this happening a year ago, or even six months ago, you know. The last thing I was thinking was I’m gonna put out an album, especially a West Coast album. I’ve thought of putting out albums– but it just didn’t feel as good as this. This feels like how it’s supposed to. A lot of music shit is timing, and the timing right now for this makes sense. I showed it to Ty, and by the third song he was like, let’s put this shit out through my company. That would be fire, so hopefully that goes down. We’re still in the talks of that, but just to know that he’s willing to put something of mine, as an artist, out through his company, it makes me feel very reassured, and it makes me feel very confident that someone of his stature will get behind me and push push my product.
Who is on the project?
James Royo: We got all the West Coast legends along with the youngsters. 03 Greedo, Ty Dolla Sign, Lefty Gunplay, RJ, Kalan.FrFr, Serio2x, TopRankGang, Jay 305, along with Lil Vada and DonnySolo. All these guys either pulled up to my house and recorded the songs, or they record on their own, but they’ve recorded here many times before. So there’s a relationship with everybody and it feels good like that to me.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
Your production and the artists you’ve chosen to collaborate with are a reflection of the new West Coast sound coming out of Southern California. As someone not originally from Los Angeles, how have you embraced local culture?
James Royo: I’m the type of guy that likes doing the local stuff. If I go to New York, I want to go hang out in Brooklyn. I’m not trying to like go to the Statue of Liberty. Same thing in LA– I don’t want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There’s a shit ton of people who move here to work on music, but not that many people actually take the time to check out the local music scene here. They kind of ignore it. Luckily, I was able to meet a lot of locals here and they embraced me, and they showed me their culture and their music. I felt like I was from here in the first couple years I was here, and now I’ve been here over 10 years–One thing about LA that was cool is that they retain their identity and the sound of their music. It might not get accepted in New York or Miami, but that’s okay, because I don’t think it even should be. LA accepts it and I think they should just keep riding with that shit and just go as hard as they can.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
You recently started your own label, Orange Coyote Records. What is it you see for the label artistically and as a brand?
James Royo: The number one thing is great songwriting. Any artist, to me, the number one thing is you have to be a great songwriter. Being a great songwriter doesn’t mean you have to write pop hits, it means whatever type of music you’re doing, it has to really move you in a certain way. If I’m just starting an indie label, and I’m trying to build artists up, I’m picking the guys who are great songwriters.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
In your career you’ve transformed yourself from engineer, to producer, to label boss, to now putting out your debut release as a main artist. What drives you to get out of your comfort zone and tackle these different roles?
James Royo: I don’t know if it’s the desire to be recognized, or to be appreciated, but I just get a thrill off of someone thinking I’m dope. I just love being able to do all the things that are involved in creating a record, and being really good at it. It just makes me feel good at the end of the day. It sounds narcissistic, or whatever, but I fucking love making a great record and having my hand in it. It feels good when people recognize you for that. I just want to be top tier all the time.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.
What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned in your career?
James Royo: Keeping it simple is probably the most impactful thing. That can be applied across the board to almost anything, whether it be producing music, mixing music, putting out your own album, developing relationships. If you just keep it simple with all that stuff, it just makes it easier, because it’s already so complicated. So you might as well keep it simple.