Artist Spotlight: Humble the Great

For me, music is all about the way it can make you feel. The way it can transform your mindset and surroundings, transfer you into a stratosphere far away that is full of excitement and wonderment. I am constantly searching for artists that make me feel this way, and Humble the Great is certainly one of them. 

The 21 year old singer, songwriter and producer is a rich and vibrant talent. Drenched with yearning, atmosphere and chromaticity, Humble’s neo-soul tendencies combine with salient and forward thinking production to evoke a sound that is unique and memorable. He has released two fantastically sensitive singles in the past few months; the smooth and playful ‘DON’T MAKE ME GO HOME NOW’, ensued by the recent stunning jazz-infused number ‘IRIDESCENT’. 

I sat down with the enigma himself to discuss the recent singles, his nostalgic tendencies and his hunger for experimentation.

Who have you been listening to?    

Recently i’ve been listening to a LOT of Sad Night Dynamite, their sound is so unique and fresh and considering they produce everything themselves, they’re super inspiring.   

What came first, production or writing?    

For me, writing came first. I always used to write sad love songs on my guitar since I was really young, around 12 I think. Then at the start of 2019, I started transferring my music into production, and kind of became obsessed with it since then!   

You’re obviously an artist that likes to move beyond normal generic expectations, what is it about experimentation that has drawn you in?  

I think being a producer, it allows you to completely trial and error new styles and methods of songwriting, as you’re not relying on anybody else to do that experimentation for you. Also, when I began producing, I didn’t have any lessons or read any set formulas to production so I had to really just make it up as I went along. But really I think my taste in music growing up and now has paved the way for me to try new stuff. I’m a massive fan of Gorillaz and Kendrick Lamar, who incorporate such new and varied sounds in their stuff that I really aspire to be like.   

How do you feel about the concept of genre? Do you see it as still holding relevance in the modern scope of music?    

Honestly, I think the hardest question to be asked as an artist is “what genre is your stuff?”. I think that the concept of genre can be frustrating as an artist because you end up feeling quite boxed in to a certain category, but ultimately I guess it’s the only way to roughly determine where you sit sonically in the industry. I know some people see music in colours and shapes but it’s all so subjective.     

How important is collaboration to you? Is it something you see yourself doing a lot in the coming months and years?    

I love collaborating! Being an artist and producer, I have the chance to step back and work with producers for my artist project and learn and grow from that whilst also producing entirely for somebody else’s project too. It’s impossible to learn and grow without some form of collaboration, and really there is nothing more fun that making a song with someone that you like. 

Who would you like to collaborate with?  

The list is endless!! Would love to work with Anderson .Paak, Kendrick, Mahalia too.   

I find your music really nostalgic, do you purposefully look back at sounds and narrative directions to try and embody a sound or mood?    

Thank you!  I think everything I make is shaped by, as I said before, my taste in music. I love D’Angelo, Erykah etc and I think that when I make music, whilst it’s not a conscious decision to try and embody those nostalgic sounds, perhaps it just subconsciously bleeds into the process due to my love for it. I do think that environment is really important. Personally I love working in the dark with different coloured lights to capture the mood, I've never been a fan of natural light haha.   

I really enjoyed ‘DON’T MAKE ME GO HOME NOW’, what were the ideas behind that and where did it originate sonically?    

That song started at like 4am, under my duvet with just my laptop and headphones, trying not to wake up my flatmate. I had been listening to Funkytown by Lips Inc that night and kind of used the synth line and percussion as a basis to start the song! I’ve always written really cheekily in my music, never tried to take myself too seriously and the story behind don’t make me go home now just captured how I was feeling on that night! I liked the basis of being kicked out of somebody’s house and trying to be let back in…I thought that I’d never heard a song about something like that before.

What are the themes behind ‘IRIDESCENT’?    

IRIDESCENT (contradicting my last answer haha) is the most serious and literal song I’ve ever written…I wrote it in that January lockdown phase where I think everybody was just really down and tried to transfer my feelings of the time into a heartbroken narrative. My friend LVTHER sent me the beat for this around that time and I think all music in 6/8 time signature has such a feel to it, so I instantly connected with it.   

IRIDESCENT uses a variety of genres and sounds together really effectively, how do you work on combining styles so successfully?     

All credit to LVTHER for the production on this one, he’s seriously talented! In other songs, I try to let my melodies and backing vocals maintain a consistency across my music whilst producing varied beats of different styles. I could never just become set on one genre of music to make!  

I’m a big fan of your vocal production. What prod techniques do you use and how?    

Thanks! Delay is my favourite thing! Can never have enough delay. I probably spend more time automating delay than making the actual track!! I love the Nectar 3 plug-in for vocaI compression and saturation. It was the first plug-in I ever got and I’ve never found one better that competes with it. I also love using really really short reverb on my voice to give that chorus-y effect…if you apply it to stacks it just adds so much depth and power to your backing vocals too. For IRIDESCENT, I kept it really simple, using a single vocal for the lead and Izotope’s ‘VocalSynth’ for the vocoder and on particular lines to add impact.   

What advice would you have for budding producers working on their craft?   

My main advice would be: produce every day. It can be such a tedious process, especially in the early days but as soon as you figure something out, just by trial and error that sounds actually good for the first time, you’ll never wanna stop. It’s like hitting that first runners high (not that I have ever run), you will never wanna stop once you get it right! Also, surround yourself with other producers. You’ll learn more from watching somebody in one day than a week of youtube tutorials!   

What’s next for you? Have you got any stylistic changes of direction planned?    

For now, it’s just releasing music. I’ve been working hard for the past year building a project of work and I’m slowly drip feeding it out now. Also i’m starting to make rugs haha..coming soon!   

What about release wise, can we expect a body of work before too long?  

Early next year is all I’ll say for now!!