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Meet James Ford of Tetsujin in Long Beach

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Today we’d like to introduce you to James Ford.

James, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised in Long Beach, California. My heritage is a mix of Black, White and Japanese. My mother is a pianist and violinist while my father is a singer, guitarist and bassist. Growing up, we were all taught violin and piano classically and played in orchestras from elementary school all the way until college. We did a lot of Summers spent at Arrowbear Music Camp; where my parents actually met each other.

Although we all learned violin, I switched to viola in middle school with hopes of getting a better chance to fit in at the orchestra Long Beach Poly had, and I am happy to say I was a part of it. And amongst all that, from a young age, my brothers and I were all trained to mix live sound at our church just because we were around so much music and sound.

When I was about 12, Limewire and Frostwire were huge. My older brother had come across FL Studio at the time and I would hop on it and teach myself how to remake beats from all of my favorite artists at the time and eventually spin it out into whatever I wanted it to be. This made me realize that if I knew how to keep making instrumentals I could maybe become a producer someday; for as many people possible. The hunger to evolve more is what drove me and still does. I had such a huge knack for arranging sounds, cutting things up, reversing them, changing tempos, creating the perfect 808 bass sound, adding fx here and there.

Before I was actually trying to produce I was just sampling and remixing songs, people swore I might have been a DJ but I never had the skills or set to prove that. I started rapping at the time I started making beats and I was a little below aite at rapping before in my opinion, but it never stopped me from making more music and getting better. I learned so much about being my own artist thru producing for others and I’m grateful it shows in my work.

Fast forward to my 20’s and I became more personal about my music as an artist. I upgraded almost all my equipment and added a lot of hardware, and took everything I learned from before to start fresh on a new sound as an artist overall. In my high school days, I made songs about things I thought just sounded cool. Now I make my music a lot more personal or relatable to things I can actually talk about, and then some more of the old 1-2-1-2. I surrounded myself with a bunch of my closet friends who we call The Space Camp Collective to hone in on the ideas we have so we could do our best. And most of the folks in my little tribe are friends I’ve known longer than we’ve had that name.

Has it been a smooth road?
As much as I wish it was, it hasn’t. But that isn’t a bad thing I’m coming to realize. Certain points in my life have broke me down and built me back up and I really don’t know who I’d be had the bad things or negative things occurred. At 17, I ended a ten years cycle of prescription ADHD drugs that I was subjected to 3-times a day, with a handful of pills that could make anybody uncomfortable. Coming into college, I was dealing with a rough break up. I also had barely graduated high school so I was really discouraged about having to retake some of the same classes again. When I was 21, I found out one of my best friends from our early rap group was killed in a hit-and-run, months after it had happened. My homie Arin was a phenomenal freestyle rapper and writer. He came to Poly for maybe a year and a half as a student from Dallas.

Once we met, we’d walk from school to Lakewood to record in my house off of beats we’d find on the internet with what little time we could keep the noise going. When I graduated HS, he had already transferred back to Texas. Long Beach didn’t feel home enough for him. Figuring out all the details piece by piece made me think that I wasn’t smart enough to arrange more time for more music with him. We always talked about buying him a plane ticket to arrange a recording session like we always used to. It put me at a really low, I had never lost anybody close in my circle of friends to death. I dropped out of school because I was unsure if I could major in anything else I could possibly be good at and enjoy. Had some creative differences break a few connections with music partners.

Recently I lost my Grandma and had to bury her in Kumamoto, Japan at the family plot. I grew up an insomniac but the more things came down on me the less I enjoyed sleeping entirely. I felt like I was missing too much or simply was just frustrated. Thankfully the two best things that have ultimately helped me advance were some of my closest friends and my mic. Having a home studio setup really flipped the way I handle depression. There is something about having a place ready to record at all times that can be all the difference between drinking and smoking all your problems away. Not just the sad times but in all negativity. I’m not saying that I make negative music, but using negativity to fuel creation is not only a good release but provides an interesting take on the sound.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Tetsujin – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
Tetsujin is my true form. The most raw and the best of my creative side. Over the years I made myself a lot of rap/producer names but when I eventually set on one, it was, has been, and still is everything I strived to try to be when I first started making my own music. A brief lesson in Nihongo (Japanese Language); Tetsu means Iron and Jin means Man. Coming from a dorky background, Iron Man was always the dopest superhero ever to me. Simply for just being a man who made himself and everything around him, even his problems and solutions to his problems. In a world where I can build my own sounds, I saw a parallel it stuck with me. Currently, I’m just a Producer/Rapper, but I’m looking to do more. I still aspire to become a DJ, and it’s going to happen soon as I divide my time accordingly. I’m an experimentalist with my music, so it’s never just purely hip-hop. I love the fusions of other genres like rock, soul, r&b, electronic, jazz, funk, techno and so forth.

Right now however I notice the music scene and it’s crowded with too many artists trying to be a copy of another or the person right next to them. So in order to set myself apart I rap in Nihongo whenever I feel like the song might call for it. There are ton’s of half-black artists in the world and its so easy to be compared to Drake, Cole, Logic, or Jhené Aiko. Eventually, it always leads to a conversation about “blackness” and if you’re mixed you’ve experienced it. But I’d rather not complain about my genetics in music and just throw people off with my craft and my language. I don’t always rap in Japanese, nor do I rarely go a whole song in it, but just enough to spice up the tracks here and there. I think I sound like a babbling idiot sometimes and if you understand any Japanese you might catch some grammar errors but each time I do it, I put some more effort in the structure. I’m still learning and actually trying to become a translator at some point and even Japanese voice acting. I think as a multiracial artist I can give more multiracial people, famous and unpopular alike to have something to vibe out to that they can gravitate better towards. It feels good when you shine some light on somebody who doesn’t get enough love out there.

A majority of artists only imagine themselves with their music just on the radio or in the clubs, but I aim for more than all that. Video games, film, tv, soundtracks, Remixes, intro music to somebody’s vlog, etc. I take all these factors in when going into making anything I make. As an artist I look to release music on my own agenda, one drop might be all raps, one might be something I produced for somebody, a mass collab track, an Instrumental or even a beat-tape. Lastly, I like to treat my listeners for finding me on various mediums. Somebody might follow me on Spotify/Apple Music and learn I have more content on Soundcloud, Instagram or Youtube and that decision partially came into play when its impossible to clear copyright problems for obvious reasons when remixing or sampling other artists. But I think its a real special moment for a listener to find the exclusive stuff just for looking a little further into me.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
The things I love best about Long Beach and the greater LA area is the activity. People are out and alive all the time, hence why we have nowhere to park. We all know so many people from so many corners that it’s not too surprising to know friends have mutual friends. I love that marijuana is legalized in California in general. Call me crazy but I like our earthquakes too, (not the damage they cause) they are too exciting for me.

I dislike the amount of traffic we produce. I dislike that not everything is a 24-hour business when I’m awake and the world is asleep.

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Image Credit:
B. Blyden, B. Ford jr.

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