Interview: Ionika
Ionika, also known as Edward Cai, is a music producer, rapper, songwriter, mixing & mastering engineer, and a DJ from Watchung, New Jersey.
He began producing music in his early pre-teen years, influenced by the styles of Skrillex, Monstercat, and Dabin. But later, he transitioned to hip-hop/pop driven genres while running his own record label called Generation Wavy. He is currently working on pushing out four new singles along with his junior album by 2021.
Read below to learn a but more about Ionika, his music and what is coming up for him!
How did you know you wanted to go in the music path when you went into college? Was there anyone maybe in your family who inspired you to start?
“Ever since a young age, my parents put me on piano as an extracurricular. It honestly grew on me though, and I was creating and making things. In middle school I started getting into music production, being inspired by other artists like Avicii, lots of EDM artists. I started producing in Garage band then moved to logic, just expanding into it. I think it all started because I learned piano, so without that I don’t think I would’ve had that foundation to create music, understand structure and everything like that. So I really owe it to that”
Is there anyone in your family who is musically talented or are you the only one?
“I am the only musical person in my entire family, Nobody in my family knows anything about music or the industry. So I'm like the only kid who likes art and doing music. It took a lot of convincing and arguing to get them to accept the fact that I wanted to do this”
How did covid affect everything surrounding making this album and the process of it?
“The concept of the album came up around January of last year (2020), before COVID actually happened. The previous album I put out was really depressing and sad, more apish, getting all my negative thoughts out. What I wanted this new album to be was an uplifting, completely different concept to the last one. When COVID happened, I had to move back home, so I wasn't able to have access to the studios at Drexel, so I had to buy equipment of my own and I even made my own recording studio at my house and I recorded the whole album at home in jersey”
Who was behind you helping with it all?
“I had some friends, who are also featured on the album, supporting it. I also had some production work from a good friend from Temple. 11/14 songs though were produced by me. Mixed it, mastered it, recorded it by majority myself”
Listening to each song, I noticed, your song “Legacy” has a very deep lyrical emotion behind it.
“The song Legacy” I wanted it to be a very personal and reflective song. Because, to me I was thinking to myself, how will people remember me, why do people remember me for who I am. I wanted to give people a very visual sense of how I started it and what people thought of me in the past and how I grew from that for my future. Had a pretty rough past, being Asian and being in a very suburban environment. I was always being put down and always being made fun of. Not a lot of people supported me, but i kept pushing on and on and doing what I love and having that confidence made me who I am today. I wanted to share that on the song Legacy”
What’s something you would like to leave behind as your “legacy” ?
“I want my legacy to be that I was just some regular kid growing up and despite everyone else's opinions, I kept pushing and doing what I love to do. Despite all of these bad things that happen in peoples lives, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel and you just have to keep striving for that and keep pushing and putting effort. That’s what my mom told me growing up, ‘keep putting effort into everything you do’ People will put you down and say bad thing, you have to ignore that, you are your own self”
Now, you are a student and doing music! How is it balancing your music career and academic life?
“Its not too bad. Everything that we learn in our classes from the music industry program, we can apply those skills to the stuff we do outside of class work. Like, music software classes music marketing, recording. It all goes hand and hand when I'm coming up with release plans and marketing plans. It comes into play when I'm managing my own releases and my own artists”
Are there any other big things you are looking forward to doing this year?
“I wanted to perform a live show which I get to do on February 21st, at an Asian-American music festival. Which is two days after my album drops, so I’m really excited”
“I always want to release two more EPS, which are already in the works” (details to come)
If you could collaborate with anybody on a future album, who would you want to collaborate with dead or alive?
“If he was still alive, I would want to collaborate with XXXtentacion. He’s a creative genius, there was nobody like him and I'm one of his biggest fans. He helped me through a very tough time when I was in highschool, his music. He was the one, when I listen to his music, there's no genre to this, he does all of it. In a way he just thinks outside of the box and comes up with the most outrageous ideas and puts them into music”
What would your biggest piece of advice be for creating stuff for people wanting to dive into it?
“Good artist copy, great artists steal” Picasso. A lot of people learn to be creative by copying. That's how you develop your own original style. That's how I started. I was mimicking styles from other artists to make myself better. That's the best way to learn, work backwards and see how other things are made, it will come. It takes time but it will come.
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