Miami Beat Wave

More than ever, versatility pays. As the lines between musical styles continue to disappear, people are demanding more from what they listen to. Today a hit needs to have a little of everything in it, and in turn, hitmakers need to be capable of doing a little of everything. Versatility is one of many points that set the three-man production collective Miami Beat Wave a clear cut above their competition.

With a full 15 tracks on the new Nintendo DS exclusive game Miami Law, the new “Like Them” single and video for Grammy-nominated rapper Omniscient, production on Ghostwridah‘s upcoming album and mixing for Platinum producer Tony Galvin, Miami Beat Wave is on a roll in 2009!

One-man live band Chip Williams can single-handedly create masterful instrumental tracks complete with bass, guitar, keys, and drums. Chi-Town beatsmith St. LaRok can chop beats on drum machines with the best of them. Together with production jack-of-all-trades Brandan Toledo, they can effortlessly fuse both approaches into a hybrid sound.

Students of music – literally – since way before they first met at Orlando’s Full Sail School of Music & Media Production, they can do hard-boiled Hip Hop tracks like their work with Omniscient, balls-out rock tunes such as “Guess You Forgot” with self-described ‘urban rocker’ David Correy, and sultry R&B stompers in the vein of Florida singer Eric Stinnett’s “Whiplash” all in the same studio session.

Apart from their stellar production credits, they’ve also made their bones mixing a slew of projects from names like Gospel singer Summer Jae and soulful Hip Hop artist Angel Ocean, and have recently ventured into video game music production, contributing their trademark sound to Hudson Entertainment/Gaijinworks’ new Nintendo DS title Miami Law. They take their inspiration from yesteryear’s jewels classic and obscure alike, the cream of today’s crop, and infuse it all into their interpretation of music’s future. Miami Beat Wave is nothing less than a one-stop shop for everything current in music.

The paths that brought the MBW’s three members together illustrate the breadth of scope that this collective spans. A middle-school stint in band class led to a high school infatuation with underground hip-hop for MIA native Brandan Toledo, whose first equipment purchase, a Korg sampler, sparked a full-fledged gear addiction that continues to this day – and all the beats that come with it.

“I started making beats and creating a home studio in my room,” Brandan explains. “Soon enough rappers from around my neighborhood got word and every day I was recording someone new.” RZA, Quincy Jones, Dr. Dre, Bob Marley and The Beatles are the influences that inform the foundation of Brandan’s sound: obscure funk and soul samples reworked into a classic boom-bap Hip Hop sensibility, and augmented with synthesizers and live instruments. As the man who created – and named – the MBW, Brandan is the collective’s unofficial foreman.

Charlotte, North Carolina provided the skyline under which a then 15-year-old Chip Williams grabbed his first pair of drumsticks, which were followed shortly by a guitar, then a piano, by which time he was gigging regularly around town with various rock and reggae bands in between music theory classes. The consummate musician of the trio, his talent for arrangement and his propensity for reworking live instrumentation through drum machines echo that of his production idols Timbaland and Dr. Dre.

“Normally I make most of my beats from scratch, but on occasion I’ll chop up some samples,” Chip says. Between recording, mixing and producing tracks for Hip Hop, reggae, pop, R&B and rock artists, he is a multiple musical threat, and the melodic heart of the MBW.

Chi-town producer/songwriter St. LaRok is the wild card of the group. A true-blue teenage b-boy from the Timbs on his feet to the spraycan in his backpack, his sample-heavy sound is rooted in that of Hip Hop greats like Pete Rock, J Dilla and DJ Premier as well as soul legends such as James Brown and Curtis Mayfield, but his ace card is a flair for the unexpected that often takes him into experimental, electronic and even jazz territory.

“I bring to the table a vision of pushing the boundaries as far as what is considered pop music, while keeping the sound accessible enough to reach a vast and diverse audience, and still staying true to the essence of what good music embodies,” St. LaRok expresses.

By 2005, the company known as Miami Beat Wave was real, and so was their hustle. They all graduated from Full Sail in 2006, and began their mission to take on the world. Chip shared Brandan’s room in Miami for a year before finding his own place, at which point St. LaRok swooped in to occupy Brandan’s extra bed. “During this time we got the ball rolling, promoting with flyers/posters and getting our online game up to par,” explains Brandan.

By the time Larok had settled in, the sheer determination on the part of these three resourceful individuals had already begun to turn nothing into something. “Word started to spread, and people started talking more about our studio and beats,” Brandan continues. “This led to making relationships with more artists who were already in the industry.”

Today the Miami Beat Wave studio is more reminiscent of a laboratory, where the trio continue to perfect their unique fusion of Hip Hop and R&B, a sound that simultaneously reflects Brandan, Chip and LaRok’s different backgrounds and shared musical vision.

“Our group is very dynamic in the sense that we all come from different places and have different styles when it comes to making music,” says Brandan. “Longevity is also something that we are very aware of, because we want our music to speak forever and not just settle for fifteen minutes of fame.”

Indeed, a lasting presence in music is more of a necessity than anything for the MBW, as LaRok makes plain: “We are true musicians in the sense that we really love music, and cannot see many other options besides doing what we love to do.”

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