SARAH, THE !LLSTRUMENTALIST

VINYL: NEVER TOO MUCH BY LUTHER VANDROSS, 1981

Vibe out with Producer/Beat Maker Sarah, The !llstrumentalist born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. Sarah was named after her Great Grandmother and decided as a producer to keep her name because she wants people to know she's a female producer. When she was researching J Dilla,  Sarah found out a word called instrumentalists and really liked the word. So she made her own word. She took instrumentalists and changed it to illstrumentalist.

Sarah, The !llstrumentalist has a passion for music, instruments, vinyl, and anything that sounds really pretty.

"I really want to be able to purchase my own record store."

Read more about Sarah, The !llstrumentalist below.

Social Media: @sarah2ill

Top 5 Favorite Records:

The Jackson 5, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5 

J Dilla, Donuts

Cortex, Troupeau Bleu

TLC, Crazy Sexy Cool

A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory

Top 5 Favorite Songs:

Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai

Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1 - Kanye West

Don't Cry - J Dilla

Lightwork - J Dilla

Never Too Much - Luther Vandross

What made you start collecting records?

I've always had a thing for records. When I was younger, me and my family would travel to my Great Aunts and my Grandmas house kind of like 3 hours out in the country in North Carolina. They had this house that had like a den and the den had like this dance floor and a vinyl record player like a Juke box and a bunch of vinyl! This was kind of like my favorite time of the year, its Christmas and Thanksgiving. I would come visit them and we would always listen to these records. I was always just attracted to the way they they sound, the music, the way they look, the artwork I've just always had the thing for them.

So as time went on my relatives you know they passed away. The arrangements from Christmas change, but I've always kind of just had a thing for the records in my family. So I first started off with my grandma asked my grandma for her records. She didn't have a whole lot, but she had a box full of records that my grandfather owned and she gave them to me so that's where I first started. This kind of happen maybe three years ago so she gave me her boxes of vinyl and it was just like a really small collection just to start off the collection that I saw at my Great Aunts house I'm very interested in getting.

So I asked my Great Aunts for her collection for a long time and she was not having that. She was not trying to give me any of her records I kept bugging her for her records. So eventually I got a knock on my door and it was my grandma and my Great Aunt, Aunt Hilda and she had a bunch of Records for me and she gave me a whole lot of them so I have some boxes that she brought over. To be honest, I know they're not the records that were the original ones from when I was younger at my Great Aunt's basement. What I think is actually my Uncle Ray's, Uncle Juniors it's his records. So I still want my entire family's collection because for me it just brings back a lot of great memories nostalgia in the music from this particular time period it's just amazing. 

I guess it's mainly music from the 70's and the 80's or the 60's or the 50's I got some some classic. I did learn about J Dilla later than most people. You know as I was getting to beat making I learned about J Dilla through Kaytranada because that's his favorite producer and I was like who is this guy J Dilla. I would just find out all this amazing information about him and how he was so disciplined about listening to different records and crate digging. He would go around the world and just be so into it and that's where it kind of got me into a fascination with learning about more records and going into a record store finding record based off what it looks like and not knowing what it sounds like. It's just one of the best things that I can go through because I don't know what it sounds like. It could be trash, it could be amazing, and that's a thrill of crate digging and being a producer and trying to find loops and samples for your music.

I just love it! It's just, it's a great thing to do for me. It's just fun and then it's also I think it's just better to have and HOLD an actual tangible record like an actual cover like you see it's personality on this cover. It's the artwork and everybody you know has a unique story to tell with their music. So it's really nice actually to hold a record and see the the actual vinyl and put it on a player versus going to your phone where you have a collection of music there. No one really wants to go through a collection of songs on your phone. People would rather go through a collection of your records. So you know just to grab this James Brown record it's like, wow you know this was you know pressed in the 70s and this is an original copy.

So just to feel like something that will never happen again. Like this record is not going to be there, only a few of them period. So as time goes by, vinyl is super valuable to me because in a hundred years from now this record there's only gonna be a few and it's gonna be only a few that actually work you know what I'm saying actually play well so that's why I keep them uptight. I love them it's just my passion right now and then on top of that, vinyl is the the core of my music. I've learned that most of my production comes from samples and I need to listen to different vinyl, different sounds, different eras, different times, different music just to see what works for me so I can make something new out of it. So vinyl, it's just the core of what I do right now and I don't know where I would be if I didn't have vinyl.

Check out more of Sarah, The !llstrumentalist talking about her record collection and music taste in the video below !  Make sure to subscribe to her YouTube channel and listen to her music via SoundCloud.