00:00You know what this is? Yes, I know what this is.
00:02I was kind of just posting these guitar riff videos and then people started
00:06messaging me being like, oh, did you know that there's this movement called Hope Corps that's
00:10like really closely associated with your music, like all these posts are using your music in the
00:14background. Oh my gosh, it's him. It's you? Yeah.
00:26Hope Corps is a funny thing to me. It's just this content that's like really
00:31trying to focus on like the motivational, inspirational type of message and spread
00:36positivity through, you know, motivational speeches or like inspiring videos and things
00:42like that. It kind of blurs the line for me between like, you know, music genre and like
00:48sort of just like a like an ethos. I've had a lot of people express to me that it's interesting how
00:52many emotions I can convey without actually using words in music. And I think I've always been
00:59someone who like was always really keyed in on melodies and didn't always pay attention to words
01:03that much. And so I've always kind of been used to like extracting emotions from just the music
01:08itself. That kind of made it a good canvas for people to, you know, put quotes or speeches over.
01:12So that definitely helps. I feel like all of my like sort of I consider them peers on TikTok
01:18who are kind of, you know, creating instrumental music in similar spaces. Like it's funny because
01:22a lot of their content tends to lean more towards the sort of melancholy side of artists like
01:28Vines and One Heart are people who immediately come to mind that are kind of in the same space.
01:34The name Flawed Mangoes comes from I was previously releasing music under the name
01:40Flamingo for the longest time. I had like tons of different artist names prior to this when I was
01:45just kind of releasing music and coming up with different directions all the time. And Flamingo
01:49was one that I stuck with for a long time. And then I wanted to change my name again because I
01:53felt like I needed a new direction at one point. And I was kind of just playing around with different
01:57names. And I kind of thought of Flawed Mangoes as a joke because it's just like a play on words,
02:02you know, like sounds like Flamingo. But it ended up kind of sticking and kind of
02:06rolls off the tongue and is like ambiguous and catchy in a way that I liked.
02:11The first one I ever that ever went viral was the video where I was writing Kill Switch Lullaby.
02:23Which is just like a really simple guitar loop basically. And it was something that I just like
02:28it felt like the kind of idea that I almost like would disregard because it felt so like
02:33basic and natural to like my sensibility. It just ended up like resonating with a lot of people. And
02:40yeah, it was pretty surreal to see so many people like using the sound for their videos.
02:45When I'm working on my music, I don't really share my music around at all. I keep it all
02:49pretty much to myself. I don't know if it's because I'm sensitive and bad at taking criticism. But
02:55it's just I've been recording and releasing music alone for so long. It's just kind of my
03:00natural process. Like I kind of enjoy not having anyone but me kind of have, you know, final takes
03:07on on creative decisions and things like that. We got in touch with Kai because Phantom started
03:19putting on my songs, started putting on Swimming in particular, when they would have guests come
03:24on and they would ask the guests to do like a motivational speech basically at the end of their
03:29time. The first thing that comes off the dome motivational speech that you can just motivate
03:33anybody out there who may be watching, who may be down, the first thing that comes to your head.
03:37And he started putting that on as kind of just inspirational background music. We can work
03:41together and dare I say it, change the world. We were like, wow, wouldn't it be funny if I could
03:48get onto the stream and actually play the song live? And we reached out to them and they were
03:53they were super excited about the idea. Seeing a reaction like that from Kai, it was really weird.
04:00It's funny because I think now that I've started posting videos of myself, like that's the most
04:04sort of forward I've ever been, you know, on the Internet or on social media, like in my entire
04:09life in the last year is just putting up these videos of my face. And so it's it's kind of funny
04:15to me to think that so many people also still just know my music from hearing it in the background
04:19of different things. So having him not actually know who I was until the music started playing
04:23was it was a really fun experience. It was cool that he was genuinely so surprised.
04:31It's also so chaotic, like they were trying to pierce his kid's ear and they were like,
04:36get in there, like go motivate the kid. And I was kind of just back there, like trying to play the
04:40song. And it felt like I was like, like, am I just like overwhelming this kid right now? Like
04:45it was it was a crazy moment. My first exposure to music was doing classical piano as a child.
04:52I didn't really enjoy it. It was kind of a forced childhood activity. But, you know, it's one of
04:58those things where you're kind of you end up grateful that your parents, you know, forced you
05:02into it. Picked up guitar around middle school and started just that was when I was starting to
05:07listen to music that I actually enjoyed, too. So I was learning like all these Green Day songs on
05:12an acoustic guitar and just playing along. I was so into like just all these bands that
05:18teenagers love, you know, that are also guitar centric. I was just so willing to like put in
05:23endless hours as a as a kid after school just to learn all these songs. Towards the end of high
05:28school, I was starting to become sort of fascinated with the idea of like releasing music on the
05:35Internet. One of the communities that I first found was like the the Vaporwave community way
05:40back then, because that was just like the most accessible music community out there. And so that
05:45was my first sort of foray into producing music and making sort of electronic sounds and things
05:52like that. And then I started to really lean more heavily into producing and recording on my own
05:57once I went to college. Heyman Paula was super formative for me. I remember when he released
06:06like Lonerism and I found out it was all one guy. Crazy. I was like, wow, maybe I could do that. Like
06:12that seems easier than meeting people and recording with people. When I started sort of using social
06:19media to market myself, I was pretty much just releasing music into the void and hoping that
06:24a playlist would pick it up or that people would randomly come across me or something. Once I
06:28started getting like attention and traction, like by posting these videos on TikTok and Instagram,
06:34that's where things started to snowball to the point where I was considering, you know,
06:37maybe I could actually make music a career. I read a lot of the comments, not all of them,
06:41obviously. It's definitely that's very surreal to think that people are actually like having,
06:46you know, significant moments with my music and kind of having impact from it.
06:54The visualizers are part of a really close collaboration I have with two good friends
06:59of mine. One of them is my friend Rauf Sanyaev, who is this incredible artist who I've known since
07:06I was in elementary school. For Kill Switch Lullaby, when I needed kind of artwork to match
07:11the song that I wanted to put out, I reached out to him. He had this idea to do a bunch of watercolor
07:16paintings of my face and do like a stop motion animation with them. And that came out to be one
07:22of the coolest like visualizers I've ever done and seen. And then from there, I was like, OK,
07:27I want him to be doing paintings for all my artwork because it just feels so timeless and like
07:32special and unique. And then I reached out to this other friend of mine,
07:35Justin Kaminuma, who's just one of the best like videographers in the world. And he just puts
07:43together these incredibly special like collage style videos where he's just sourcing footage
07:51from all over the place, from like his own recordings, from his friends, from the internet,
07:55and just layering them with Rauf's paintings to create these like textures and these gradually
08:01morphing like landscapes. And it's just it's turned into just one of the most like unique
08:08sort of signature visual styles that I love being able to tap into so much. I'm looking to put out
08:14another album in this next year. I'm really excited about it because I'm going to be trying out a lot
08:18of new directions. I'm going to be doing more vocals on the album. I'm going to be doing like
08:23more full instrumentation and things. But then I'm also trying to find ways to like blend it with the
08:28old sound because I think there's more to give from that that side as well. I think the thing
08:35that I'm most proud of is having so many people reaching out to me every day that my music has
08:41had a significant impact on their life because I've felt that way, you know, about certain songs
08:47or albums or whatever. And like I'll think like, wow, like this music is truly like making me think
08:53differently and feel differently about life. And that's such like a like being able to influence
08:57somebody's life in that way. It's just such a crazy like thing to have happen. And the idea that
09:02I'm having that effect on even one person is just like really special.
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