Marking the height of his EDM madness, FTampa threw himself into a whole month initiative to promote multiple club heavy singles to the awaiting masses, and also to nod respectfully to the revival of the Brazilian EDM scene.
We spoke to him about the revival of Brazil’s EDM scene, his favourite tracks of 2018 and more.
T.H.E – Hey man! Welcome to T.H.E – Music Essentials. How has 2018 been for you?
FTampa – Thanks for having me here. 2018 was an amazing year… totally different than what I’ve had in years. I took some time to enjoy family (parenting has been amazing), take care of my health and focus 100% on the studio. This allowed me to really expand my horizons as a producer.
T.H.E – You dedicated a whole month, to celebrate the resurgence of Brazil’s EDM scene, by releasing inspired singles, week after week. How did you get the idea?
FTampa – I love EDM but for more almost 2 years I have only been releasing more pop electronic songs. This is something that happened naturally since I really like producing and listening to POP. But all this time I was working on some club tracks that I didn’t really think would fit in the middle of the releases… one day talking to my manager we decided that we shouldn’t take all of this so seriously and just release the songs without worrying and Sony supported the initiative all along. This is why the whole marketing and visuals and title of the songs are all kinds of fun joke… I really wanted to send this message of “this is really me having a lot of fun doing what I love”.
T.H.E – What is it that you noticed, which was proof that Brazil’s EDM scene is on the rise? And why would you call it a resurgence?
FTampa – For a while now Brazil closed a lot of its market to Brazilian Bass and Low, styles that grew a lot in Brazil and by doing this EDM was totally swiped out from the market. In the last few months (maybe the appearance of Swedish House Mafia at Ultra triggered that.. maybe not) I’ve started noticing more demand for EDM and other styles more played outside of Brazil by people there. After that, we had KSHMR there and I played that night and all I could get was messages of finally EDM is back! Or… I’m 15 and I’ve never been to an EDM concert, it is awesome. It was amazing. More recently they had a Martin Garrix tour and I’ve heard a lot of buzz on “ Brazil is back to EDM “ once again… Not sure if it is a resurgence but for sure there is more buzz on it than 1 year ago.
T.H.E – Two tracks have quite conflicting titles – “EDM Sux” and “EDM Rox”. Why is that?
FTampa – It is a joke. Since I have been 2 years without releasing an EDM track I wanted to make a joke as if I were trying to escape from the fans who always ask me to play EDM or post things like “I want the old Ftampa” “Give me some Big Room”. So the whole joke, when we started talking about this release was about me running away from people and everyone around me asking for EDM releases… we were planning to create some fun videos on that… we actually did a few posts from old images of people with signs saying Play EDM FTampa… so EDM sux is me saying that I don’t like this so I’m running away (in a joking manner)… after the release, I realise how much I like it and I go back to the EDM with EDM rox opening ground for my next release “Shahar” with 22bullets on Dec 7th. It is a really fun thing that allowed me to release all these cool songs that I love and couldn’t see a fit on my release schedule so far.
T.H.E – Which 5 producers from this country should we keep an eye out for?
FTampa –
Lothief (Brazil)
Rrotik (Brazil)
22 Bullets (Thailand)
Is my top 3 ok? haha
T.H.E – With respect to your sound, would you say that the FTampa sound has a distinct personality now?
FTampa – For sure. The whole process of going Pop and now producing other artists really made me grow.
T.H.E – What are your favorite tracks of 2018?
FTampa –
Kanye West & Lil Pump – I love it
Tiesto, Dzeko, Preme & Post Malone – Jackie Chan
FTampa – Who We Are!
