Yo.... Who IS Esgo? What does that even mean? Where did the name originate?

I remember, like I was in between names. My name was just Mikey, and then I was going by something else I can't remember. But I went to school one day.. I just moved to the Seattle area, and I was just like really sad, and I wanted to do music with a fresh slate, kinda. So I was looking all day like "I gotta find a name by today," and if I don't find a name by today, then like that means music really isn't working for me right now. I was looking all day for inspiration. I was in my health class, and there were these posters that had motivational quotes, and each letter had a different color, and I feel like, as much as I try to deny it, my favorite color is blue. So I was like, alright. bet. Imma just pick out all the blue letters. I tried with the different colors, but all the blue letters spelled out E-S-G-O, simple, kinda mysterious. The actual meaning I gave it was the separation between EGO, you take the s out. the music is separating myself from my ego, and I'm realizing to be more selfless with my art. I'm not doing it for fame or money, I'm doing it for the love of spreading it around.

Letting The Music Speak.

Yea.

I see you got the Choker poster on the wall (Peak). I always see you post about him as well.

It was super divine. It was my birthday, and I would hit my mom like, "Please buy this for me, like I need this in my life, most important album to me ever." It came with like a script that goes along with the whole album, and I read this script with my best friend Danny, super fried, we read it together listening to the album.

What's your favorite song off that Choker album? (Peak)

Tape Side B. I like the scenes of that entire album; it rubs off on me, and I feel so connected to that album. Tape Side B is so good because there are three beats in it, and each beat is different from the one that came before, but it's not cluttered. He did it not once, not twice, but three times, and he made it sound effortless... It's subtle.

Speaking on inspiration, MK.GEE is another artist I've seen a lot of uproar from recently, and you seem to be on that wave as well. Favorite Project? Inspiration?

Two Star & The Dream Police. That's the best shit ever made to be honest. I remember putting my ex onto him, and her being like lowkey dismissive about it, like this man is lowkey the future. I love his use of analog equipment, that's what I do, I don't record on computers and shit. I don't like making music on the computer. That sound is something I'm familiar with hearing, something that I'm so used to that I'm not used to in mainstream music going kinda big is crazy. I went to get a drink at this pizza place, and they were playing "Rockman," and it was making me feel comfortable.

Is it hard not to feel so influenced to the point where it feels like a blatant rip-off?

Honestly, yes. At least for me, I'm super influenced by everything all the time. Even just walking outside, a thought bubble will just appear. Instead of making a clear copy, you gotta Picasso your influences.

What's working with Marika Sage like?

It's like two little kids who met on the playground, and you're just there to make a new friend. We both turn into the kid version of ourselves, and then at the end, we transform into the adult versions of ourselves to process the art back into the world. It's incredible. It's like recess. I do the beat, she does the bars. It's easy. We never butt heads its such a co-existence with the music.

You Tweeted some shit like "Four Loko Chia Seeds" What the Fuck Is That?

Yoo, the Four Loko chia seeds. Marika and I are on our sober journey right now. And in her fridge she had this open Four Loko just there and it was there for so long and she would make this chia seed pudding, she makes really great chia seed pudding, she put it in the fridge to set and overnight the Four Loko smell infiltrated the chia seeds and it tasted like Four Loko chia seeds. Bro, I don't even think she ate it.

Esgo rambled to me about "Marassa"; A collab project between him and Marika, some voodoo New Orleans folklore, feeling connected to Marika the same way the twins are intertwined. He feels as though there is an "Oneness" with them.

Astonishing. Debut. What Went into that?

Hard to describe the Esgo listening experience, your beats are filled with layers/ glitchy/futurism amid pop and guitar riffs, it's a great fusion.

I'm super influenced by everything, and knowing that I have so many influences is so great for an artist like me. I'm just- To a lot of people, I'm a "rap producer," and having that level being put on me is crazy because all those sounds come from a genuine place of something much more. Like Matador, the sample is just one sample, but I split it so it's like the same bar over and over, but the drums over it--I'm a real life drummer, I play the drums-- It's just like grooves. I feel like the rap music in my scene is just loops, and I like the loops, but putting the lasers and the glitchiness that adds characters not only to the music but to the artist that I'm supporting so much, we're just feeling each other's magic.

Yeah, that dude's from Iceland. Shoutout Zyber, he's from Iceland too.

I believe I found out about you through MMW or Tec

Yeah, Andrés Ian, I don't know if you know who he is, but he just put out a single super fire. Andrés and I were friends because of Matt Swain, but Andrés put MMW on that song we all have together. I love the way he raps, his energy is very different, and I love him a lot. I hit him up tryna give him beats and he sent this album of shit just demos and one of the demos was just him rapping over a loop and its called "Today". And Today, the song on Astonishing is actually a different song of his that I took and ripped the vocals and put it on my beat. I needed that one, bro. I think that's my favorite song on Astonishing. (Later said it's nicotine)

I think mine is Nicotine, but Minute Maid is cool too, I like tg.blk alot. STPH So Low too.

That song was just about to be tg.blk. Then Matt, he's the one who mixed and mastered that song, and he's like, "Steph would be such a good addition to this." I had no idea who Steph is, I'm like 'okay", and bru he killed it. I loved his verse. "I'm like Scottie Pippen, tg.blk the 23 hoe." That's one of my favorite things to ever be said on my beat, bro, that's such a good bar.

Esgo & Jaime! Talk about the collab album between y'all two. (DANCE WITH ME)

I was not expecting Jaime to be the one. I had thought about collaboration albums a lot, and I just didn't know who with first. I didn't know if it would've been with Marika or MMW, or Jaime, whoever. I didn't know who it was gonna be, and I wasn't expecting Jaime. That man definitely accelerated how I felt about music. We put a lot of effort into that.

Check out this Mike Lee Side project, which consists of some Mk.gee recordings.

My baby love when i EQ the bass - Esgo

Cloak and Dagger? How'd that come about

That's my shit. That's my shit. I wanna do more shit like that. I had put out the first just beat tape sorta thing, and it was called Everything and More, and I kinda hated it after a certain amount of time. I think I made that with no real intention. I really just compiled music together and put it out. With Cloak and Dagger, I was in this shop called Gargoyles in the U District in Seattle. I was like buying jewelry in this place like this gothic/witchcraft sorta place, and I like Apothecary's, that's something I'm used to. I was talking to this lady i was looking for a necklace and she gave me this dagger necklace and it was made out of really nice silver and she was like "oh yeah we'll get you a cloak to go on with that" and i didn't understand I didn't know what that meant and she was like you know "Cloak and Dagger" and I'm, like wtf. She was like Oh, it's just an old saying. I know that Cloak and Dagger are superheroes in Marvel, and I was like Oh, okay but she was way older, so I didn't know if she was tapped in like that. I looked it up, and the actual definition of it is so exactly how I feel about my music and how I wanna be perceived. If I were to genuinely describe my sound, it would be very cloak and dagger, it's very surprising, scary, threatening, it hides behind the lushness at times, it's quiet but you know there's something but it's not really what it is, it's an espionage, its not really there. And so I just thought about what this saying could sound like, and it just became a theme for this whole thing, just that conversation with the lady.

That was the first time I made music without a computer too I was just using my non-computer shit like how ppl made music in the 90s on the sampler off cassette tapes and shit that's why it sounds like that. I don't know if anyone noticed, but it became a part of my sound. I turn up this compressor knob on the thing to give the whole track natural compression and when the track starts you'll always hear like a very big loud explosion of sound, and that's genuinely because all the signals are being driven past their point and they're all playing at once. That kinda encapsulates who I am as a person, very open, forward, and loud, like I'm just really vocal. It became a quirk, one that I hated in the music like having that loud sharpness in the beginning of each track is really fucking annoying but overtime it shaped to be something I enjoyed, something I looked forward to. I want someone to hear a beat and then a rap around my beat and hear the smack in it be fucking annoying but you know exactly who made the beat.

That's like your signature, your producer tag.

I feel like it's kinda, cause I HATE producer tags. I don't like producer tags. I can't even take the most popular people in the world seriously with producer tags. I feel like it's really weird. But having a sound like Pharrell like a 4-count, you know Clams Casino with the choppy samples, that's kinda my thing, the explosion sound.

This Mike lee shit is just like the stepping stone. I feel like there's gonna be a bit of a hiatus from me just because, like, it needs time to formulate and do its thing for its music. For the future, I don't like talking about the future, I just let it happen. I love guitars, I love punk and rock music a lot, rap music is the best music on planet earth, but I feel like I can't express myself the way I wanna express myself what I need is an ensemble of instruments and minds to push what's already up here into bounds that people wouldn't even be able to consider. I want it to be the craziest fucking music you've ever heard in your life. I don't know if I'm just dickriding Mk.gee but Mk.gee is doing it really well because he's substantial in the way that his first two albums are really great, but his third album is just an explosion, it's not even tethered to a reality that's here. And that's exactly what I wanna do... It's unfathomable to me right now. Mike Lee is gonna be more of an idea than just me. Its just like Marika Sage can be fucking Mike lee it just depends on the music being made and the context.

What are your plans for the future?

We were both in the same space of just wanting to collaborate. We tried to portray this storyline that Jaime laid out about the mistrials of love and how it inspired us to create an energetic reconnection within ourselves and grow from that into something more inspiring. The idea of dancing was always with us from the beginning, as well as the beats being more dance-inspired.

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Get to Know Esgo: The mastermind behind some of your favorite underground sounds

The 19-year-old Seattle-based producer is trudging through murky waters of replication by learning to navigate his inspirations.

A short while ago, I sat down with the Seattle-based ESGO (over a face call) with very laggy software and no real questions, just spitballing ideas back and forth, really, and talking about our common interests. He flexed his Kapital Jacket and upped like comics on me, gatekept his recording secrets, but talked about his weird kinks. But firstly, let's give you a shitty introduction to some of his music if you're unfamiliar. Go wish him a happy birthday, he just turned 19, go bully him for being bald and not dropping 5 albums a week!

I do fuck with Daredevil the most. I have this real expensive Infinity Gauntlet comic, and I got this comic of Infinity War Avengers, and it has all of my ticket stubs from the movies inside. This one's really special. I fuck with Magneto A lot its a recent thing cause I've been playing rivals and that's my lowkey main. Magneto is the real-life Jew villain. A villainous Jewish guy. You can't villainize Jewish people like that, or else it's viewed as antisemitism. "Bro money spread," [he says as he hits a spread of a few different Punisher comics]. Punisher 2099 has been a real big one too in the future, that man is a different demon, he's gross.

How do you say dudes name? Kzoba? He's fucking good, good as fuck.

I didn't even know they had black people in Iceland!

Yeah I think, he's the only one

Bunii's a great guy, I love him, that's like top dawg lowkey, he's a great guy. I didn't know who he was and he was a big fan of the music me and tec were putting out and yea he was like a fan and i was like damn this kid is fucking crazy, Bunii is way younger [exaggeration] than me and he's so fucking wild. I remember we made "Two I's on Everything." I took that off of platforms recently, but it was a three-track EP, and bro, we both just the same ideas at that time. He has crazy bars he says the craziest shit. He sent me like what he does now with all the guitars and drums and real live-sounding, melodic-math rock shit. I'm like, bro, stop working with me and do that fully. You don't need me, you need you, bro. That's lil bro.

That beat was really fun to make because I had just found the sample and flipped it. It's so simple, like the chop is simple, but the drums are super bouncy. The horns, I feel like that same kind of cadence and sound goes right into "Matador." And bro Nicotine, I made that song happen, not gonna lie. For all the songs I did, but putting Kzoba and Bunii on the same song was a choice to be made, and I lowkey killed that choice. I had sent the beat over to Buni, and he did a demo, which is the chorus. Me Kzoba, Bunii, and I had did something before and we were like "Let's do it again but for the album lets make this hard as fuck and really real." Kzoba killed it. I remember bumping this in the car at school, I remember leaving my class to go listen to it in my homie's car.

How the fuck did you make "Nicotine"?

I noticed the Wolverine profile picture. Are you a big fan of Marvel or comics?

Bunii is superb, he destroys your beats.

That was my first full album release, you know, that like I put my heart into.