victory lap: the inspirations and achievements of Diz
tuesday, march 19th 2024 • boston, massachusetts
more portraits can be found here.
“I want people to feel like they’re seen and loved and to love the people around them and be there for them.”
Diz is a 21 year old artist from Massachusetts that currently lives in the Mission Hill area and attends the Berklee College of Music. He’s been making music for a few years now and has released a handful of albums over the years. Diz’s sound is hard to categorize but often takes influences from jazz, hip-hop, r&b and more. In his music he is able to beautifully blend saxophone and those jazz influences with his rapping and hip-hop style. He’s been playing the saxophone since he was seven years old and has always had an admiration for music, specifically jazz. His mom was the first person to truly get him into music, but while growing up the people around him really helped developed this interest. Some of his goals for after school is to find more fulfillment in life and to develop his music even more. Diz’s music can be found anywhere you stream your music (Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, etc).
On a beautiful and sunny day at the park, I had the honor to sit down with him and discuss his music, his influences and the future. Today I get to share his insight with you.
H: Where did you get your stage name from?
D: It comes from this TV show called ‘The Get Down’ which was on Netflix and sadly got canceled. It was one of my favorite shows and I was watching it when I first started making music and around the time I was trying to come up with a name. One of the characters is named Dizzy and he was really weird and wasn’t like any of the other characters in the show and I really vibed with him so I just went with that.
H: Do you think that your location and being from Massachusetts has influenced your music at all?
D: I don’t know. I feel like there’s a lot of different kinds of music here so you’re exposed to a lot of different kinds which is pretty cool. Yet at the same time there’s not really a big music culture so it feels weird making music and getting started with music. It took me a while with feel comfortable with that. I can’t really say there’s a ‘sound of Massachusetts’ because it’s kind of just a lot of everything. It’s hard to point at one thing and say that it’s influenced me because I’m from here. There’s a lot of different cultures and a lot of people from different backgrounds, like any city really. That paired with people coming in from many different places is kind of just an interesting place to grow up in terms of culture and the outlook on the world.
H: If someone was asking you what type of music you make, what would you say?
D: I guess like the genre that my music has kind of being dubbed is ‘abstract hiphop’ or like ‘jazz rap.’ I don’t know honestly. For lack of a better term I would probably just say that. It’s a little ambiguous and I don’t think that that fully represents it. I would probably say that, but hopefully the music really just speaks for itself. I think that a lot of it is just up for interpretation. I’m even still trying to figure out what type of music that I make. Like I don’t think it’s ever going to be just one thing, I think that’s kind of boring. As I get older and just see more things and become interested in other things and sounds it will change. So, yea I guess that’s my kind of roundabout answer.
H: Do you have any specific music related goals in 2024?
D: I hope that music becomes less stressful and more fun, which it has recently and I haven’t been exactly ‘taking time off’ but I’ve been taking time to just take care of myself. I think that’s really helped me make music and specifically make music that I really enjoy and make the creative process a lot more enjoyable. I don’t know, like, I want to keep experimenting with different things. I mean I don’t think that I will become completely stable financially wise any time soon, but if that were to happen in 2024 that would awesome.
H: Do you have a song that you’ve made that you’re most proud of? And then what’s your favorite song to perform live?
D: Mmmm. Song that I’m most proud of is probably the song “Thank You.” I wrote it for my mom and when I sent it to her she was crying and sent me this really sweet voice message. So I think that is probably one of my most proud and favorite songs. My favorite song to perform? Man…I mean I really like to perform “Wasted” because I can sometimes get a little mosh going and that’s fun. I really like to play “Fair Weather” just because a lot of people know it and that’s nice. I like performing “Rainwater” because I like taking a break from rapping. I don’t wanna be the ‘rapper guy,’ I want to be everything, so that’s kind of nice as well.
H: Are you working on anything right now?
D: Yea. I probably have enough songs for another record but you know I’m still working on stuff. Making new stuff and tweaking older stuff. I don’t want to rush anything. There’s always new music being made in some way.
H: Do you personally prefer doing solo/single stuff or doing collaborations? Or is it honestly just dependent?
D: Yea it depends for sure. I can definitely work a lot just on my own. I think that’s the easiest way for me to actually get things done. If I’m working with other people I found that I don’t want someone to just send me beats or something, I don’t think that’s very fun. I think that music should be something that’s really collaborative and that we should get in the same room together and we should just fuck around and jam and stuff and see what comes out of it. That’s definitely my favorite thing to do when collaborating. Like not even having a goal in mind when it starts and just start fucking with sounds and working it out. The ‘working out’ process I really like doing on my own but just like jamming with people and coming up with ideas is what I really like to do when collaborating with other people.
H: What gets you out of artist block?
D: Oooooh. Taking a break and just doing something totally unrelated to music. I feel like a lot of people just get super bogged down by creating and feeling the need to always be creating and I 1000% have too and it’s really fucked me up. I think that’s honestly the reason why music became so stressful for me. But just in this last year I’ve been able to detach myself from it and really go enjoy my life and be okay with whatever happens to the music that I already happened. And be okay with what happens with my career. Like…I’m 21 years old, I’m so young, you know? [laughs] There’s still just so much stuff I haven’t done. I think that just being trapped in one thing can really be a hindrance creatively and just mentally. You got to go do other things that you enjoy and see the world and stuff.
H: Do you have a specific song writing process?
D: Well it used to be that I would have a whole instrumental made and I would write over that. Recently it’s been more me working in little sections. I’ll make a section of a beat and then add some ideas on top of that and then just work my way through it like that. I think working like that really makes a song sound more full and fully fleshed out. You’ll have all these different sections and it’s sequenced and it’s not just like one thing going throughout the whole thing. There’s builds and falls and a lot more different elements. And that’s mainly how I’ve been going about it recently.
H: Alright this might be kind of a tough one, but out of all of the songs in the world, if you could have wrote one personally, which would you pick?
D: Oh my god. I mean, I would have to say, one of my favorite songs…oh man…that’s so tough. “Off The Wall” by Michael Jackson, a fucking crazy song, I wish I wrote that. I wish I was Michael Jackson. That would be crazy. Uh, uh, uh…“A LoveSupreme, Pt. II - Resolution” by John Coltrane. Crazy, I fucking love that song. There’s no other song like that. “Scarred Lungs” by MIKE off of tears of joy. That shit is crazy. Like anything by Erykah Badu, maybe throw in some Aretha, you know? I don’t know, there’s so many amazing songs and if I could write them I would not be opposed [laughs].
H: If you could spend 24 hours with any three musicians, dead or alive, who would it be?
D: Oh man, these are hard questions….John Coltrane….Pharrell…ohh and Nina Simone! I feel like that would be crazy. I don’t know how the music would turn out, but I think that the vibes would just be crazy.
H: Desert Island musician. If you were to be dropped off on a desert island this second and could only listen to one artist who would you pick at this current moment?
D: Uh…I feel like I’ve said Coltrane too much but I always love Coltrane. I’ve been listening to a lot Phil Woods recently. I could definitely listen to Aretha Franklin any day. I could definitely listen to Michael Jackson any day!!
H: Wait okay so how many different instruments can you play?
D: Well I play the saxophone. I play two of the saxophones as of right now, the tenor and alto, but I feel like you can kind of just categorize that into one. It’s pretty much just the same thing. I can play the drums. I play a very low level piano but it gets me by.
H: Do you think that any other form of media that isn’t music inspires or influences your music?
D: I’m definitely very inspired by television specifically. Movies are cool and they’re a handful of movies that inspire me, but I’m just such a consumer of television that I would probably have to go with that over movies. I do think that movies can inform my life on a deeper level more than TV shows most of the time. But yea, just the rate at which I consume TV shows [laughs]. Painting. Visual arts in like the realm of painting really inspires me. And I enjoy doing them myself sometimes.
H: Is there a specific thing that people want to take away from your music, or do you want it to be more open ended, or does it depend?
D: I think that any piece of art is going to be open to a certain degree. I want people to feel like they’re seen and loved and to love the people around them and be there for them. I feel like we live in a world that’s become so individualistic and it’s kind of sad. I really love being in a community and without that I think we would all become pretty nihilistic and it’s kind of sad to see. I want people to be able to put themselves in other peoples shoes and listen to what they have going on. Really just generally being there for one another and not having such a ‘single view’ of everything. I guess that maybe a lot of times that isn’t the main topic ofmy music, but that’s definitely my ethos as a person.
