Rising music producer, LLusion, grew up on a healthy diet of 90’s hip-hop. From “A Tribe Called Quest” to “WuTang Clan,” this OC-based artist gleaned from it all. It was that musical foundation that lead LLusion to start playing shows at just 17 years old and to bring a fresh perspective to the lo-fi scene in recent years.
LLusion is one of the many talented artists that TikTok gifted us with access to in a way we may not have had without the app. As his work garnered attention and followers rolled in, he earned the name “The Remix Guy” from his lo-fi remixes of popular songs. Since exploding onto the scene, he has gone on to work with such artists as Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama.
The eclectic producer released his latest single, “After The Tone” in January and to-date has grown to over a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Not to mention his 3.8 million TikTok followers, which I guess is just a few more than this country girl’s solid 2,000.
As cliche as the saying might be, the sky truly is the limit for LLusion. His sound is satiating and his creativity is fresh, which is a conclusion we don’t come to often. Finding uncommon talent is so difficult in the currently oversaturated digital music world. The internet has beautifully given us access to millions of artists hidden in all corners of the world so naturally, patterns emerge, sounds meld together and what we hear is often reminiscent of what we’ve heard many times before. So to say we’ve found something unique in LLusion is a miracle in and of itself.
Recently we were lucky enough to ask him a couple of questions to get to know the man behind the remixes…
Bridge: It’s always great to hear in the artist’s own words…how do you describe your sound?
L: “I wanna say the word, universal. I like to, for many years, even before I had any type of following, I hated to box myself in. Whether I’m known in the lo-fi community, which I wear like a badge of honor, I’m honored to be a part of them because they’re such a strong community that I’ve been listening to for many years. That’s why a lot of my remixes and trending songs on TikTok were also funky and dance remixes as well. I like to make music that pretty much anyone can listen to, any age, any demographic, anywhere around the world. It feels really good that I’m able to put my hands in multiple baskets but I try to do that respectfully and carefully because I’m not trying to appropriate any type of communities or also try to be a culture vulture when it comes to that kind of stuff. I really just care about music and I listen to all different kinds of stuff. That’s how I describe it – universal.”
Bridge: If you had to credit one thing for your love of music what would it be?
L: “Honestly, shout out to my dad. He grew me up on a lot of different types of music from 80s new wave to punk music to 90s New York sounding music like A Tribe Called Quest and stuff like that. As well as my best friend, Julie Segal, she showed me a lot of like indie stuff in the early 2010s and we grew up on that stuff together, and so she showed me a lot of stuff as well, and it wasn’t until she showed me Nujabes, a phenomenal DJ/Producer, who, unfortunately, passed away in 2010. He’s been an ginormous influence on me and kind of like opened up my whole perspective on music.”
Bridge: If you could only direct a listener to one of your songs, which would it be and why?
L: “This is going to be an easy shot but I really do care about this song. It’s my biggest song off Spotify, it’s called “walk but in a garden.” There’s something so special about that song because a lot of people don’t know that I made that song when I had a 1000 Instagram followers and like 200 subscribers. I made that before anything happened on TikTok and it kind of just happened. And I made that out of pure fun, pure passion of music. And I actually have a video on YouTube of me making it live back, it was April of 2019. It was just like no thought process of it at all, like pure fun. I went really crazy with instrumental layers, keys, and bass, and synths, and stuff. It’s funny how that song became the biggest because I actually did a lot to that and then once we had the privilege of bringing mxmtoon to do a feature on it. The first time I heard her version, it brought tears to my wife and I’s eyes, because we were like “Wow, we’ve come so far, we’re able to make such a beautiful song.” And the fact that it’s also looked at respectfully, whether it’s streaming numbers, I get DM’s saying how that song changed their life. I mean it’s crazy so I have to go to the number 1 song. Most people don’t like their number one song because it got big for some reason but that song does mean a lot to me, for sure.”
Bridge: What do you ultimately want the listener to take away from your music?
L: “This has been my goal from day one and I still say it to this day even though my outlook on my career and music has changed dramatically in the last two years. And again, I’ve been making music since I was in high school in 2013 – I hope people can hear any of my songs, any of my songs I do with features, with remixes, and I really hope that it can open up their perspective just like Nujabes and all these other musicians that I would listen to opened up my perspective. I was like, “I don’t want to just listen to music anymore, I want to contribute to this, to create music myself. I want to dive deeper into this type of genre and I think going back to how I would describe my sound as having a universal sound, I really hope that people can hear these different types of feelings and “vibe.” And I really just want them to experiment, whether it’s creatively or just experiment with listening. I really hope that people can feel some type of inspiration when they any song I’m part of.”
Bridge: Do you have a go-to song or artist you listen to when you’re going through heavy times?
L: “I like listening to music that I can’t make myself. I grew up listening to Bob Marley and reggae music, and all of the Marley siblings like Steven Marley. I have zero relation to that genre. Sometimes, I’ll make a reggae jam for fun but it’s something that’s like only for me. So, I will always go back to listening to “Waiting in Vain” by Bob Marley. I’m a huge reggae fan so I like listening to that, or Latin jazz, I love Latin jazz music. No artist in specific but that whole genre, or like Buena Vista Social Club, I listen to them. It’s super powerful listening to a genre that I know I can never get into, even by choice like I don’t want to get into that stuff cause it’s my therapy. It’s impossible for me to listen to 90% of music without being conscious of “Oh they use that,” “Oh they did that,” “Oh that’s cool, I’m going to do that.” When I listen to reggae and Bob Marley, I listen for fun and it feels good.”
Bridge: Can you tell us about some upcoming projects and what we can expect from you next?
L: “I am currently working on my first actual album. I mean, Buffet was really an EP, but this album is going to contain 99% instrumental music again with some features from producers. As like I said, it’s incredible to make these great songs with vocalists like “After the Tone” with UPSAHL you know, it feels really good to get to focus hardcore on the instrumental music itself. I know that’s what a lot of people at the end of the day like, I’m being honest with myself, it’s my decision in my choice to bring a vocalist that I think is really good to feature on a song of mine, but whether it’s not 100% my demographic or this or that I know instrumental music, excuse me will always be there. So that’s why I’m really focusing on that. So we’re hoping by summer time-ish to get some more music out there. It’s going to range anywhere from Lo Fi to Funk instrumentals. It’s going to be good, it’s gonna real good.
And, aside from music, something that I’m absolutely extremely excited to announce and finally release is my podcast with my wife called “Six Illusion.” We’re interviewing everyone from incredible artists from Freddie Dread to TikTok creators like TootieMcNootie. All these different people that we’ve become friends with, whether musicians or content creators in general. We’ll be dropping that extremely soon. We’re trying to get tons and tons of episodes set. But yeah, dropping extremely soon.”
If you haven’t already, follow LLusion on his socials below to keep up with the latest news, shows and releases.
