I’ve always been fascinated by how Hip-Hop travels and has now become this global genre that is very much the cultural zeitgeist of music today. If you don’t live in a place without internet, you know exactly what I mean. From Kendrick Lamar committing 1st degree murder of one Aubrey Graham and performing a memorial service on Juneteenth for the entire world to stream, to the most recent Tiny Desk (historically anti-rap until the past few years) performance by THE LOX, Hip-Hop is not only unavoidable today, but a form of social currency. It’s cool to listen to it and to say that you listen to it. It’s cool to know esoteric facts about the genre, its practitioners, the bodies of work.
I’m one of these people. I love Hip-Hop, I think it’s a beautiful form of poetry on the level of Shakespeare in importance and form, when done well. Taking it further, I genuinely believe the 90s to be the best decade for music. Period.
From the Golden Age of Hip-Hop and all its tributary subgenres, to the explosion of Grunge and Nirvana taking over the world, To Indie/Alternative scenes that birthed the likes of Radiohead and Sonic Youth, just to name a few biggies. We also got the prominent rise of the industrial scene and a harder rock sound blending with electronics in Nine Inch Nails (the greatest band ever), evolving from Throbbing Gristle, Skinny Puppy, Ministry and Pigface.
Add more electronics, less rock and a sprinkle of Hip-Hop influence and you get the rise of Massive Attack and Gorillaz, two very divergent paths leading to a shared destination. Less Hip-Hop and more Rock gives rise to the likes of Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and Korn, a very deep genre rabbit hole to trace lineage and influence from.
The commonality in all this and the point: as software became more ubiquitous in our everyday lives, it permeated music in very interesting and multifaceted ways. People began exploring and new genres seemed to be sprouting up like weeds. It was truly a unique time musically and its importance on our current era and musical landscape cannot be overstated.
And yet, for all my “knowledge” on this subject and time period, I can recognize my “outsidedness” here, mainly because I am 30. I was born in 1994, arguably the greatest year in Hip-Hop, maybe in all of music history. I can claim Illmatic is the greatest rap album ever, The Downward Spiral a landmark in Rock, the importance of Woodstock ‘94, blah blah blah. but does it actually mean anything if I wasn’t there to experience it? Personally, I don’t think so. I can take individual influence from these things, but for me, there are levels here. I have reverence for those that grew up during the time, that got to be of an age where the impact was very real on their lives and shaping who they would become. In meeting Derwin Dicker, AKA, Goldpanda, I found a kindred 90s head, a lover of all the movements it spawned, only he got to actually experience the unfolding of this critical time in music. In listening to his own works, I’m enthralled by trying to place all the musical influences we share and excited to discover new rabbit holes along the way.
WHERE YOU FROM?
If I had to pick one singular place for the title of ‘most influential musical country’, it would probably be England, London as the central nervous system of it all. There are tons of caveats here that I’m not going to get into, but for modern western music, in my case being from America, the UK scene probably reigns supreme. Hailing from London, Derwin’s core experiences with music are so fruitful because of the rich history to tap into. Having no formal education or upbringing in music, it was simply the fact that he grew up in this fertile scene at a burgeoning time that inspired him to get into creating. And yet, it’s funny seeing how a very American genre influenced unlike any other.
“I was just around a lot of music, obviously being from where I’m from. It was a time where Hip-Hop was coming over from America and the electronics and hardware were really interesting to me. I was exposed to music via the computer and games, maybe when I was 9? I heard De La Soul’s “Three Feet High And Rising”, which was a game changer! All the sampling and creation of the tracks was unlike anything happening over here at the time. They also had a track called “Derwin’s Revenge”, which was a huge inspiration since my name was in it! Then, I was off discovering all the Hip-Hop I could get my hands on from there.”
Discovering the samples from Hip-Hop is always a fun game to play, that’s how you broaden your musical horizons. Derwin had even greater access via his uncle, who was a sound engineer at a local recording studio. Here is where his love and interest in tech and gear was forged. An AKAI S950 here, an Atari there and he was off learning to sample. But finding records that he liked outside of his family’s collection proved an initial hurdle.
“I just listened to everything my dad and family had at the time, but at some point you want to branch off on your own. Luckily I got a job at a local record store and quickly found my niche. We used to have these distribution lists of all the releases and labels that were coming out. I naturally gravitated to the smaller labels and more obscure or unknown stuff and would order everything I could. It’s here I met some other vinyl heads who liked what I was selling and we’d go digging together in Central London. Definitely the place to be at the time.”
Digging during this time really opened the doors for Derwin sonically. He was a sponge, diving into everything from Aphex Twins to rare Brazilian Funk and Soul. Sampling was a way to create melodies out of found sounds, which was way more interesting to him vs anything with synthesizers. With thousands of loops and short tracks under his belt, Derwin decided to upload his music to a new site that just launched, called Myspace (lol). From here, a small label at the time, Ghostly, reached out to pursue working together. The stage was now set for Gold Panda to be born. As we’ve seen though, there’s a lot of history that goes into the birth of an artist.
It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop
For Gold Panda, undoubtedly Hip-Hop and sampling are the biggest influences when it comes to making music. He still uses his MPC and similar gear to make his music today, however there might be some more electronics/synths in the mix these days. But just like every good artist, Derwin pulls from a lot of different bags.
“There’s a ton of scenes that come to mind when I think about what Gold Panda came out of and what I make period. Obviously all the Hip-Hop that was exploding when I was a kid, but there’s a couple scenes that were vital. The London scene of the 90s was huge. Jungle was king and I had a friend’s dad who just had bags of vinyl from this time. Then you add all the interesting jungle or DnB mixes of popular songs and it really exploded. London at the time was a melting pot of people from all cultures, all religions, different countries settling down.
Then there was the Bristol scene which was something we’ve never seen before. Portishead with their Trip-Hop invention, Radiohead with their Alternative/Electro Indie Rock, Massive Attack with a more Hip-Hop infused heavy Electronica. And a lot of Backpack Rap that was birthed out of the graffiti scene.
Obviously Japan and their whole scene which was literally a world away, but you could see the similar influences and ideas at play. Shing02, Nujabes, Lampeye, Origami, etc. They showed me the rules sonically.”
I find that some of my favorite artists all share a common trait: breadth. Derwin clearly has this in spades and is finding his way back to the basics for him as he goes on creating today. The staples for him of Gospel, Disco, House and Glitch continue to inspire him. But as a human being outside of music, Derwin’s ethos of ‘niche’ is more vibrant than ever. The thread of all these groups and musicians that he pulls from is their unwavering artistic vision and human connection over corporate aspirations or business. As we moved our conversation to Artificial Intelligence, this theme was readily apparent and one of extreme importance to him as the field evolves.
Artificially Intelligent
When I first started making fragments myself in Ableton, I started a series called THOUGHTS. The idea was simple: record whatever comes to mind and do it quickly. Usually these were really strange, bizarre and borderline unlistenable ambient/noise/electronic loops. I’d stumble upon something that I thought was interesting to sample and then morph it into something weird.
Since I didn’t have records or a means of sampling analog at the time, I found a splitting software called LALAL.ai, which would do this for me. It was completely digital software sampling that used AI models trained on different ‘modes’ to split incoming audio. For instance, If I sampled Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of the Moon, an iconic piece of music, I could use LALAL to split each track into its constituent parts and get audio tracks of vocals, drums, instrumentals, etc. A sampler’s dream! But very much against the old-school ‘rules’ of sampling.
Suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Derwin had been going down this rabbit hole when getting samples from his own vinyl collection!
“I stumbled across this AI splitting app that I kind of love. I feed it my samples then ask for the drums and vocals and it’s really good at it. I then use the MPC to hide artifacts or to use them in interesting ways. That’s where I see the value of AI today. It’s interesting to see how things sound like old Limewire torrents from back in the day, like degraded audio, which is kind of cool sonically.”
While embracing what some of the technological breakthroughs have to offer, Derwin finds himself still wanting the human element. There’s still a level of control he will not want to give up, no matter how good AI gets at creating.
“I love making music, the actual act of creating. I wouldn’t just want AI to do everything for me. What is more interesting to think about is how to use it as a tool or an assistant. Like can I rip stems with it or can it help me arrange drums more quickly or in unique ways that I haven’t thought about. But there’s so much more exciting stuff about being a human and creating than just letting a model do it all for you. What’s the point in that?”
Undoubtedly, AI is here to stay. I feel like I say this every profile, but I think it’s good to acknowledge and recount truths. And yet, I’m starting to really see a unifying trend when it comes to using AI in the creative process. Every artist we’ve spoken with shares Derwin’s thoughts that AI is not something to overtake human creativity or ingenuity. But finding interesting and unique ways to explore with AI and models is an extremely exciting proposition and future worth building. When I asked him what he wants to hear in this AI-infused musical future, I got a very Derwin answer:
“I want to hear something that encapsulates the notion of ‘future’ and what that would sound like in a philosophical sense. How can AI help facilitate this, this pure mathematical, resonating drone sound in a digital way? How can it pull from our deep musical history and create the sonic or audio definition of ‘future’? That’s what I want AI to do, because I can’t do that.”
Ever the philosopher, Derwin’s amalgamation of his richly expansive musical influences and exploration of AI is something to glean perspective from. It was an honor to find someone whom I share so many influences with, a privilege to hear his stories from the past, and inspiring thinking about what’s to come.
GoldPanda’s latest tracks “222 / 0.2” is out! You can support directly on Bandcamp below. A repressing of his Album Lucky Shiner is out on Ghostly as well. Follow along:
Words by w0rmw00d
Photos by Laura Lewis