31.03.2021
This week’s guest mix is by Rob D’Shawn, a DJ/Producer who will for sure be making a name for himself in the electronic music scene in the years to come.
He has held a weekly and monthly residency at Lo-Fi Bar in Ann Arbor and has played at places like The Grasshopper Underground, Casa on Brady in Milwaukee, Elektricity, and Solar Flux Rooftop.
He has also been a guest on Brent Scudder’s radio show Planet Funk on 313.fm – which is now hosted and broadcasted from Detroit Threads in Hamtramck every Thursday evening from 6pm-9pm EST.
In his interview, we talk about things like his white CDJs, his various expensive hobbies, his experience in the Toolroom Academy, steps he takes when producing a track, what he learned after holding a weekly residency, inspirational quotes, a random fact that he knows, how he envisions his project Rob D’Shawn to progress, and more.
I’m really happy with how this interview flowed, and I hope you enjoy it as well while learning a bit more about Rob as a person.
Each mix will exclusively premiere on Deep Space Radio at noon on Wednesday – and then be available on the detroit.dance SoundCloud as per usual at 3:13pm EST.
Be sure to check out his mix, on SoundCloud now.
detroit.dance: What do you do outside of music?
Rob D’Shawn: I am a master cannabis gardener.
detroit.dance: What are your hobbies?
Rob D’Shawn: I’m really into the car scene – Nissan, Honda, Toyotas, etc. I like collecting different freshwater fish, Cichlids to be more specific. I also like playing Call of Duty on my Xbox, being outside and fishing during the summer and fall – I do that a couple times a week, definitely nice to help clear my head. I also play sports – rugby. I like to be in the gym and take care of myself and stay as active as I can.
detroit.dance: Talk a little bit about your car hobby – you like to mod them, so what is your favorite part about doing that and comparatively your least favorite part?
Rob D’Shawn: I definitely would say I am all-in when it comes to modifying or changing your car. I have a Chevy motor in my Nissan. I definitely enjoy the extension of your character, you know, people see you drive your car all the time. We’re always in our car. My cars usually have some engine performance stuff done so they’re faster than normal. You know I do like random things to the exhaust, all the fun stuff on suspension, etc, etc. It’s always been a thing of mine since before I was a teenager, honestly. My least favorite thing about it is that it can be an expensive hobby for sure. You can dump a lot of money into your car, no problem, It doesn’t really take much at all. It can also be time consuming – it can take a couple of years to get certain projects done so those are the two downfalls to me. But when you’re behind the wheel of your project car on a nice summer night, and everything’s working right, and your favorite song is on…that’s one of the best feelings I think you can have.
detroit.dance: What variation of freshwater fish are Cichlids?
Rob D’Shawn: There’s thousands of different types of Cichlids, mine are South African Cichlids. There’s a specific lake that mine are all from that I’ve been collecting over the last few years, and I have a few different tanks. I like getting a fish when it’s really small and seeing them evolve and change colors. I couldn’t afford to have 150 gallon fish tanks as a kid, so now that I can it’s been a real treat to have a house that’s really peaceful. You get to sit there and watch your fish, it can get you in a Zen headspace and help with creativity.
detroit.dance: How long have you been DJing and what is your sound for those that aren’t familiar?
Rob D’Shawn: I’ve been DJing for eight years. I started with Top 40, EDM and house remixes of things. I’ve always had a passion for house, tech house, techno, jackin house, discotheque. The “Four on the floor” vibe has always had a soft spot in my heart, so over the years I shaped myself to playing more of that style. I simply started playing into my passion and what felt right to me. It has been really cool to expose people to new music…showing people that there’s other groups and styles out there than what’s on the radio here in the States.
detroit.dance: You have a pair of white CDJs – I have never seen anyone else with them. How did you get those?
Rob D’Shawn: The white CDJs were truthfully bestowed on me by another DJ in the area. His name’s David Boji, I was able to get these off him for a good deal. He’s also the only other person I’ve seen with them. Honestly they really work with my whole vibe, and my logo is white and black so it fits. A lot of people ask me about them when I use them at gigs and now I feel like I can’t go back and not have white CDJs. So he kind of got me stuck on them. I’m looking at buying another pair and updating mine soon, so I’m gonna have to try to buy the white ones and it’s not gonna be fun. Again, expensive hobbies and passions in life, I’ll tell you what.
detroit.dance: What is your vision for your brand or some of your goals for this year?
Rob D’Shawn: I’ve been doing a lot of stuff through the Toolroom Records Academy for about a year now. I’ve really liked their sound and have been following the label since about 2009-2010. I’ve been in their academy learning a lot on Ableton and different ways of setting up your gear or your DAW. And that’s all within Ableton, not using other plugins or external sources. They emphasize utilizing what you have already. That’s been a big thing for me.
I’m also going to take their Mixing and Mastering course this summer. I recommend their course to anyone, especially anyone wanting to expand their knowledge with Ableton and finding out different ways to create. If anyone has questions about it, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll talk to you about it and direct you to the right people.
This year, I’d say my big goal is to release some songs. I’ve been very stagnant on that with myself and releasing music, and I think a lot of artists are sometimes because we’re hard on ourselves. But I’m hoping this year I can release a few tracks and also have a few signed tracks.
detroit.dance: In regards to producing, what are some of the steps to your process?
Rob D’Shawn: Step one is to be in a good headspace. That’s a very huge thing to even start creating anything. Mental health is huge so you want to make sure your mind is in a healthy state for creativity.
Step two is being organized. Having a sense of organization of your sounds, your samples, certain plugins you use, certain presets to things…is huge to creativity and workflow. This is also some stuff I’ve learned through Toolroom. Organization is one thing I really lacked before.
Step three would be to do things in steps. Don’t sit down and think you’re gonna write a Beatport number one record within an hour. Give yourself time and give yourself a minute to process what you’re creating. Take a break from your project and step away from it. Come back to it later. It’s not healthy to wear out your ears for seven, eight hours listening to your track for forever because eventually something’s going to be off and you won’t even notice. So give yourself time, and give yourself room to grow – always.
That’s another thing – you’re not going to do the same things that someone else does in your production journey. For example, what compressor you put on something, what plugins you put on something, the way you go about building a track…starting with the kick or the bass or the vocal and so on…everyone does everything differently, and as long as you’re creating and enjoying what you’re doing and letting your passion come out while you’re doing it – that’s all that really matters. The rest of it is irrelevant. The process is always different.
detroit.dance: How many WIPs do you have right now?
Rob D’Shawn: If I were to look at that, probably 200-300. But for ones that I’m actually putting energy into, that I really want to use to showcase my newfound knowledge and skills…my goal is to have at least six tracks come out this year.
detroit.dance: You used to have a weekly / monthly event in Ann Arbor before COVID – now that things are opening back up, would you consider doing those again?
Rob D’Shawn: I’m hoping that I can get back to doing stuff at Lo-Fi Bar again. I’ve been in an email exchange with them trying to figure out what we can and can’t do with this new environment. I’m hoping I can play some low tech, you know, chill, deep house kind of vibe for a set for a few hours to play out in public around people again. I’ve missed doing that.
detroit.dance: When you were constantly playing weekly, did you learn anything from that experience?
Rob D’Shawn: It was really cool. I’d look forward to it a lot. It was great practice, I always challenged myself to new sets. I’d never play the same set every week, I’d get new music. I would challenge myself to new mixes, transitions, and mashups. I enjoyed the atmosphere and vibe that we were creating there. I had regulars coming in every week, and there’d be people who would come in who were new faces that would become regulars all of a sudden because they liked the vibe. It was a real treat to look forward to. Not having it for a year really makes you miss that kind of thing. Even at night when you’re lugging your equipment out. You miss that stuff when you don’t have it anymore, you know.
What I learned was, consistency is huge, and to not get down on or give up on yourself. There were certain nights that I was only playing to a few people and I still played a great set, had people come up and thank me and stuff. That was still a great feeling. I mean, every DJ – I don’t care how big they are, or how small they are, have had events like that. Those ones are really intimate and they help you grow and learn. So, it was cool to play the sets where people were having drinks and hanging out, and it was cool to play certain nights where somehow we had a packed night out with people dancing till the lights came on. It’s good to have a mixture of both learning experiences.
detroit.dance: Let’s say two years from now, what would you envision/manifest an article written about you as Rob D’Shawn to say?
Rob D’Shawn: If I were to manifest it, in two years I would be one of the main emerging house/tech house artists, playing shows around the States and/or internationally, while also dedicating my time to meeting people and inspiring them as I go.
So I would hope an article would talk about how I take the time after my shows to hang out with fans and smoke a joint, and talk about life and things of that nature. I don’t want to be a figure in music that’s unreachable or untouchable, I’d like to continue to be one with the people with my music. I want to play sets where I’m DJing in the crowd, and have the people be an integral part of what I do. So I’d hope that these articles will talk about that and how I play a lot of high energy mixes at a peak time.
detroit.dance: When you post on social media, a lot of your captions are inspirational quotes. Why did you start doing that? And what’s a quote that sticks out to you recently?
Rob D’Shawn: The reason I try to post more inspirational stuff with my pictures on Instagram, or on my stories and stuff, is that I simply want to try to inspire people to be themselves and chase after their destiny in life. I don’t believe we were put on this earth to work and die. I really want to try to inspire people to live their lives to the fullest of what the energy and soul in them feels and drives them to be. I hope that one day with my music and who I am and getting out and meeting people, I can help inspire people even more.
My favorite quote right now is “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” That’s from the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
detroit.dance: I know you like to travel, where is one place you’ve not been yet that interests you and one place that doesn’t particularly interest you, if there is one?
Rob D’Shawn: I really want to get over to the UK, specifically London. Then I want to go to Amsterdam for the music scene and obviously Amsterdam’s cannabis culture is huge. I definitely want to go to those two spots. From there, I would like to get to Ibiza, Spain, and then Thailand is another one. My mom’s from Thailand, and it’s always been a dream of ours to go there together and visit back where she’s from and stuff like that. I’ve always wanted to be able to take her to do that – hopefully in the next couple of years I can.
And somewhere I wouldn’t want to go? The world’s a beautiful place in a lot of different ways. I guess I wouldn’t want to see the huge thing of floating trash in the ocean. If I saw where that was at, that would make me really sad. It’s massive and goes so many feet below the surface. I don’t want to see that.
detroit.dance: What movie do you wish life was more like?
Rob D’Shawn: This is a hard question for my Libra indecisive mind. I don’t want to pick one of my favorite movies…I don’t want life to be like The Matrix, even though it kind of is, but, I wish I could have a Transformers car. That’d be sick.
detroit.dance: What is a random fact that you know?
Rob D’Shawn: If you have natural farm-raised chicken eggs that are from chickens that were out free-range, you can leave them out on your counter for a few months. You don’t put them in the fridge and they won’t go bad on the counter.
detroit.dance: One last thing, I’m going to send you this photo –
detroit.dance: If you were playing Deal or No Deal and it came down to the last two briefcases and you won the $5 briefcase, how would you feel?
Rob D’Shawn: *laughs* I would laugh at myself. *laughs* It just wasn’t meant to be. It would be the biggest “laugh in my own face” moment that I would have. Then I’d tell myself to figure out a way to make that money back up some way later in life. I can’t let anything keep me down.
Make sure you check out Rob D’Shawn’s Destination Detroit (DIA- Medieval Hall), and his Recipe by Request that will be posted on Friday (Fresh Fish Fry).
Keep up with Rob on his socials: