Today we’d like to introduce you to James Layno.
James, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 1997, I was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California to two immigrant parents coming from The Philippines. As a Filipino-American, I grew up around a lot of music, despite not having relatives that are in the music/entertainment industry. I remember in elementary school, my parents would always play 70s and 80s music in the car radio and in karaoke during family gatherings. I grew up to hearing 70s and 80s soul, funk, disco, jazz, R&B, pop rock and new wave. I have two older siblings, an older brother who is 11 years older than me and an older sister who is ten years older than me. Growing up around them, I also heard a lot of 90s and early 2000s Hip-hop and R&B.
I had two talents that my family caught on early while I was still in elementary school. I was good at drawing/art and I was good at school in terms of behaving well in class and getting high grades. I had hobbies too such as playing video games, collecting hot wheels and yugioh cards, and playing basketball (my favorite sport till this day even though I was never good enough to make a team, well except the local YMCA but that doesn’t count, you just sign up and you’re in.) I grew up as a shy kid, not wanting to be the first to start conversations in class and was really quiet. My classmates started recognizing me as the smart kid/teacher’s pet because I was doing well in my early education. My parents disciplined me that doing well in my education would be my key to success because we grew up broke and had many struggles.
In middle school, at around 11 to 13 years old, my love for drawing translated to graffiti art. My older brother was a huge gamer, and he had this game on the Playstation called “Marc Ecko’s Getting Up” which was one of the coolest games I’ve ever seen him play besides GTA. In that game, you were able to spray paint walls, compete against other artists, and do missions to not get caught by the authority. I fell in love with the art and started drawing graffiti art. I grew up with the Internet and social media, beginning with Myspace and YouTube and Facebook in middle school.
I learned a lot on YouTube, from learning how to do graffiti to learning how to make beats and rapping. I started researching Hip-Hop documentaries such as Style Wars on YouTube and watching how this whole culture started in The Bronx with graffiti, bboying, DJing and emceeing. Suggested videos led me to more old school hip-hop content from the 70s up until the 80s golden era of Eric B & Rakim and RUN DMC all the way to 90s golden era hip-hop of the East Coast vs West Coast Tupac and Dre vs Biggie and Nas. I would even watch how Boom bap producers J Dilla, 9th Wonder, DJ Premier and The Alchemist would chop samples on the MPC and add hard-hitting drums over it. I was also getting into G-funk music by Warren G and DJ Quik and Dr. Dre as well as House and Techno music by Daft Punk and Deadmau5.
It didn’t take too long to get my first copy of Fruity Loops (FL Studio) 9, a DAW (digital audio workstation) software program in which I didn’t need a $2,000 MPC to start making beats with. I learned how to make beats on FL Studio and started uploading music to my YouTube Channel, LaynoProd, and made music with my cousin Russell Dimaano aka Russell Groovy. Me and him are the same age and had a love for music and also creating music for fun.
By the end of middle school, I realized that although I was good at graffiti art, I was too much of a good kid and couldn’t risk getting caught in the streets painting and sneaking out late at night. So I transferred that artistic energy into music production and rapping. In 2011, I was a freshman in high school and uploaded my first beats and first rap tracks on YouTube (it’s still there if you dig deep but it’s horrible quality and cringy), but I left it there so you can see my progression in my art over the years (almost a decade of doing this music thing.) My cousin Russell and I were frequent collaborators along with my early high school friends who also rapped. I ended up making CD copies and passing them out in my high school (mixtape era was popular during the early 2010s) and uploading my tracks to YouTube, Soundcloud and Bandcamp.
On my 17th birthday, September 13, 2014, I released my debut instrumental EP, Mind Body Loops which featured an instrumental track/beat and fan favorite called “X2C”, a soulful boom bap beat looping for almost 5 minutes straight. I was a junior in high school at this time, and I took a speech/public speaking class where one of the assignments was to give a speech on a college we would like to go to and why. I decided that I want to pursue music in college, mainly because I wanted to be an environment where I can network with young talent and experienced industry professionals since I wanted to make a living doing music as an artist and producer and I didn’t have any family or friends at the time who worked in the industry. I also wanted to college experience and dorm and treat my room like a recording studio.
In 2015, I was accepted only in 2 out of 5 colleges I applied too (despite ranking #1 valedictorian in my high school, not cause I was “smart”, I was just consistent with good grades and took classes I knew I can handle.) The last college I heard from and got accepted in ended up being my dream school, USC (the University of Southern California) and the Thornton School of Music, Music Industry program, which was a program dedicated to the music business, exactly the resource and network I needed to get my career going. My freshman year and sophomore year consisted of mostly staying in my room and making beats and recording raps in the rehearsal studios the school provided since I was still getting used to the social college experience and was slowly breaking out of my shell. The classes I ended up loving the most were the mixing classes (mostly learned Pro Tools to record, mix and master, but was able to apply the same techniques to FL Studio and other DAWS) because I wanted to become an audio engineer in order to become a better producer and understand how to talk to engineers from all standpoints even as the recording artist/songwriter. After almost every class, I would either go to my dorm/apartment right away to adjust my mixes based off of class notes taken that day and/or stay after in the classroom studios to talk to my music industry audio engineer professors to get their advice and tips on how to make my music sound better overall. This habit led to many things such as collaborating with my college friends who were also serious about making a career in music, not only majoring in Music Industry (Music Business) but also taking a minor in Music Recording (Audio Engineering), as well as eventually getting career opportunities involved with music technology right before I graduated.
I’ve done many collaborative singles, EPs and albums from 2014 to 2017, official releases and unofficial releases. In 2017, I dropped my second instrumental EP, Retro Groovin as well as two of my first singles (“Feel You Feel Me” and “Cheerios”) as an artist officially on Spotify, not only as a producer uploading beats. Since my earlier projects were heavily influenced by Boom bap, old school hip-hop and conscious/lyrical/backpack raps, my 2017 singles “Feel You Feel Me” and “Cheerios” was when I first started using autotune and doing this genre I called “Heartwarming Trap”. “Heartwarming Trap” was honest, autotuned lyrics over soulful melodies, warm virtual synths and heavy 808 drums and bass. This was the start of my influences from Kanye West, Travis Scott and Mike Dean in terms of music production, songwriting and rapping/singing style, and mixing/mastering techniques. 2017 was also a key year for me as a Junior at USC because it was when I finally broke out of my shell and started collaborating with my peers more instead of just making music by myself. This made key connections with artists, producers, engineers, business people, photographers, and creatives who I still work with til this day.
In 2018, I released two more singles “Valleyboy” in the Spring and “Wanna Know Slippery Slope” in the Winter. During the Fall of 2018, I started working on my album, Serve the Poor, Pray for the Rich, which ended up being two separate but related mini-albums/EPs due to scheduling and timing conflicts with creatives and collaborators on the project. These two albums were part of my Senior project and was going to be a great release story-wise because of me talking about my college experiences as well as sharing my faith growing up as a Catholic-Christian as well as sharing my perspective culturally as a Filipino-American from LA who wanted to pursue a music career as an artist, producer, audio engineer. In April 2019, I released my album PRAY FOR THE RICH first, then in December 2019 I released my album SERVE THE POOR, both projects having many collaborators involved overall with my friends who are pursuing creative careers.
In May 2019, I graduated at the USC Thornton School of Music with a Bachelor of Science (B.S. lol) in Music Industry (Music Business) and a minor in Music Recording (Audio Engineering). Thank God and my mixing class professor Brian Malouf (multiplatinum mixing engineer) who introduced me to CEO Colin McDowell of McDSP Professional Audio Plugins during one of our classes and I ended up getting a Full-time internship with McDSP in the Bay area the Fall right after I graduated from college (who knew I’d have a job right away having a music degree in college lol).
My Tech Support, Sales, Marketing, and Artist Relations internship with McDSP taught me many things, opened many doors and networking opportunities with amazing music industry professionals including audio engineers and producers. However, despite the amazing team and opportunity, I wanted to pursue a career in music more full-time in LA. So after my six months internship in the Bay area, instead of accepting the internship extension, I politely declined and moved back to LA in February 2020.
In February 2020, I released an album called VULTURE with my rap group, TriTip. In late February to early March 2020, I also took a two weeks vacation with my brother to Korea and Japan based on our love for the food, culture and recently K-pop music (Despite having criticisms of K-pop music, I ended up being like my brother and falling deeply in love with the musical genre in late 2018 and actually want to produce some K-pop records in the future with Red Velvet, Blackpink and LOONA.) This reminds me also how I disliked Trap music initially, but when my friend introduced me to Travis Scott’s music, I fell in love with the sound of autotune and 808s and distortion and the trap drum rhythms.
When I came back from vacation, the pandemic started getting worse worldwide, especially going back to LA and in America. This disrupted many plans I had in 2020 of linking up in the studios with some producers and engineer connects I made from my college, internship and social media connections. But I stayed focused on my independent music ventures: selling beats online, offering mixing and mastering services to my friends who made music as well as new connects I made on Instagram and Youtube and recently TikTok, creating video and photo content for my social media platforms, as well as collaborating on music and making my own music and releasing it. Like I told my friend in a deep phone conversation about music careers, “if I’m not creating, I’m networking, and if I’m not networking, I’m learning/watching tutorials and podcasts, and if I’m not doing that, I’m back to creating musical and visual projects, the cycle never ends and keeps me going with my career.”
In May 2020, I started getting more involved with the Producergrind YouTube channel, tuning into their morning shows, bringing on amazing guests to interview on the show, engaging with the producers in the chatrooms, collaborating with the producers on new music, and participating in beat battles. This organically led me to an opportunity with Producergrind in June 2020 and I’m interning until this day as their official Booking Manager part-time as well as continuing to do things for my own music career. I am working on releasing more singles this second half of 2020. In June 2020, I released “DRIVINGMENUTS” featuring my cousin Russell Groovy, a fun song about quarantine and the madness this virus brought to me and many people I know. In August 2020, I plan to release a 2nd single and hopefully three more after that making a total of 5 singles this year as the artist LaynoProd. I am also in the works on constantly collabing with my rap group TriTip, projects with my cousin Russell Groovy, and projects with my friends from college and also new talent I connected with via Instagram and YouTube. I also picked up the recent hobby of film photography back in Fall 2020 and looking forward to shooting more photos with others in the future.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It was definitely a rough road growing up. The reason why I say I’m from the San Fernando Valley and not currently where I’m at (Northridge) is because my family has moved around several areas of the San Fernando Valley more than ten times of me growing up (that’s like once every 1 or 2 years) due to financial struggles with making rent and also having bad spending habits and remaining broke. I didn’t have the best material things growing up in terms of what all the “cool kids” had in my schools, especially USC LOL (university of spoiled children). Although I am thankful for both my parents raising me well and loving me and working hard to put food on my plate, a roof over my head and a great education. I can’t complain because I also thank God for all of His provisions and the internet for teaching me so much (I think I learned 80% of what I know now in my career on “Youtube University” than my actual music industry classes at USC.)
Growing up in a lower-middle income household, I had to work extra hard which definitely made me a better person in the long run because I didn’t have as much resources as my peers, but as a wise producer online told me “don’t worry about not having resources, instead be RESOURCEFUL”, so I tried and learned every valuable skill and asset I have till this day. People wonder how I got into USC despite being tuition too expensive, mainly due to a lot of financial aid I received, shoutout FAFSA, and I also had to take out a few student loans which I will pay off soon when my music career takes off. Going to USC was a good investment and thank God my parents ended up supporting and believing in me because USC’s network opened up so many doors for my career. I also forgot to mention that my first year at USC was extremely difficult in terms of finances, but shoutout and thank you to all my friends at USC early on who donated huge amounts to my GoFundMe campaign to raise money for my tuition both Freshman Fall and Spring semesters at USC so I was able to continue taking classes and dorming onwards Sophomore, Junior and Senior year.
Lastly, the challenges in my formal work career definitely shaped me to become the valuable worker, team player and entrepreneur that I am today. From my first part-time jobs as doing work-study at the USC Bookstore, USC Housing, USC Trojan Events, to working as an Audio Assistant AND Live Music Production Assistant at the USC Thornton School of Music to getting my first part-time internship with my professor Richard “Wolfie” Wolf at his company The Producers Lab as an audio engineer learning more about the music sync licensing industry to getting my full-time internship with McDSP in the Bay and recently part-time internship with Producergrind (company is based in Atlanta) working remotely during the whole pandemic. The power of the internet is crazy and thank God for guiding me this entire journey. My musical journey had many twists and turns, but I know it’s all leading to something greater I couldn’t even imagine, I just have to continue building a strong foundation as well as take more risks in my career because I never know what opportunity will lead me to where.
Please tell us about LaynoProd.
My business as LaynoProd is known for hip-hop art and music as the center of the LaynoProd brand. I specialize and am known for hip-hop music production, writing/recording hip-hop music such as rapping bars & singing in autotune, audio engineering (and being involved in teaching technical skills with my experiences working at an audio plugin company and being mentored by Grammy-winning and multi-platinum producers and engineers),
I’m also known for my film photography portfolio as @LaynoFilm, my LaynoProd podcasts, my interest and involvement with the K-pop music industry and culture, my love for movies, basketball, videogames, cars and recently my merch turned streetwear fashion of James Layno Streetwear @laynostyle (influenced by the Hip-Hop and LA streetwear culture as well as Korean and Japanese streetwear fashion). My Layno Flag logo (characterized by the red, yellow and blue is not a mistaken Romanian or Chad country flag, but a subtle representation of my Filipino culture, The Philippines flag has the same colors) represents my brand mission statement: Individual expression, cultural bridge-building, and simplicity in my art.
What sets me apart from others is that I am best at being myself. My interests and involvement are genuine and authentic and not misleading someone or something trying to become something they are not, and I’m not afraid to try things and fail because I’m a student to life and learn everyday and consistently create and improve.
I’m most proud of my consistency in my art. My friends, family and peers are proud of how far I’ve come, even though this is barely the beginning as a 22-year-old (23 in September), and how consistent I am in my career goals and passions. I never gave up. I fail many times, get back up and stand stronger than ever.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
One of the things I wish I would’ve done more was to network and collaborated more with my peers in my first two years at USC / college. I think my career would have played out interesting in terms of more opportunities earlier on, but I’m definitely thankful of what I was able to accomplish up until this point and where I’m going.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jameslayno.com/music
- Phone: 8183975526
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laynoprod/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaynoProd/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LaynoProd
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/user/LaynoProd
Image Credit:
James Layno Photography @laynofilm on Instagram for most of them, and the black & white photo is @portrapaolo photography on Instagram
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