It's a surreal feeling being associated with such dope cats. I barely listen to beatmakers outside of them. I feel like HW&W and Soulection alone bring the dopest shit consistently to the table without fail. TL: Oh hell yeah, it really seems to be its own sort of a lifestyle and culture.
You've managed to carve out a special place in this world. As a fan of this music, it's dope to watch how you all seem to really look out for each other. And Joe Kay (of Soulection) did the same back in the day, that's when I really started getting serious. He's helped me out way more than I'd ever expect anyone to. But yeah, Bahwee is like my dad in this music shit, he's always on me teaching me and helping me. I saw all the dudes I looked up to on there and was stunned, to be honest. Being on that compilation was fucking tight though. I was lowkey on Soulection, only because I didn't really fit their sound, which was both good and bad, but it worked out in the end. TL: I was actually on Soulection back in about January of 2011 and then Bahwee and I talked about the compilation, so he sort of scooped me up and bred me and taught me everything. Were they one of the first labels to reach out to you? You were on their first compilation back in 2012 and they subsequently released Ridin' Round earlier this year. So, as far as your work as Tek.lun goes, talk to me a little bit about how you hooked up with HW&W. TL: Yeah, at the time I was like, "These are all wack as fuck," which they were, but still it would've been cool to have kept the first rap I ever wrote. But stupid me, when I graduated and went off to college, I threw them all away. And I never knew why, I didn't think to take it seriously, but I had like 13-14 rhyme books filled before I even reached high school. TL: Yup, I used to come home and write to 9th Wonder beats I got from Limewire back in the 7th grade like literally every day. KH: Oh word? As in you were writing rhymes and all that?
I just wanna come out the cut one day like "BY THE WAY I RAP". A lot of people aren't hip to Varth, which is tight as fuck to me. And that's awesome, it's just that people discovered my beats first. I was actually first put on to you as Varth Dader before I even knew you made beats. KH: Well, you've definitely achieved your goal as far as being the most diverse dude ever. So me trying to make jazz, then a trap beat, then a hip hop beat all in one sitting helped me to merge different elements from different styles of music together, and I slowly started getting comfortable with how music gets put together acoustically. My goal has always been to be the most diverse dude ever, and because I listen to a lot of shit, I have a lot of shit I want to emulate. TL: I think it came from me just trying to sound like everything I listened to. I didn't really start liking my own stuff until 2011. At that point though, I still wasn't as good as them, but I got more comfortable and started looking at it as competition. That's where I met all of my good homies like Munoz, Kaelin Ellis, Kaytranada and Lakim.
TL: It wasn't until 2010 that I started putting my beats on youtube. KH: How long after that did you start putting your music online? I heard "Lovin' It" first though, and the day I heard it was the day I went in and downloaded FL Studio. "Lovin' It" by Little Brother, "The Official" by Jaylib, and "Massage Situation" by FlyLo. I've always been into art and drawing and shit, but it was three songs that made me wanna make beats. KH: What got you started making beats? Were you into music before that?
TL: Hmmm, I moved to Hanover in 2005, started making beats my freshman year, so around 2007. Didn't start making beats until I moved to the suburbs though. Kate Horton: So, let's start with a little background. I recently had the good fortune to chat with Williams ahead of his San Francisco debut this Thursday and learned everything I could about what else besides brownies makes TEK tick. With nine releases already under his belt as producer TEK.LUN, including a 10-track beat tape released by leading Los Angeles label HW&W Recordings, a killer debut as his rapping alter ego Varth Dader, not to mention his bountiful work as part of the hip hop fueled collective Nasa8, 7-11 must have a hard time keeping those brownies in stock. I go there every day." Well, there must be something in those brownies because at just twenty years old, Williams has proven himself to be a master of his craft. When I asked Maryland beatmaker extraordinaire Rashad Williams, aka TEK.LUN, aka Varth Dader, aka your new favorite DJ, what his favorite snack was, he replied, after much deliberation, "Probably the brownies from 7-11.
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