INTERVIEW : YellowStraps

When life gives you lemon, you make lemonade. Many have used 2020 to reflect and explore new avenues, but few have done as brilliantly as YellowStraps, the rising R&B duo from Belgium. After their plans were cancelled, they decided to make the best out of a bad situation and they challenged themselves to create a handful of groovy tunes centered around collabs. The result is the Yellockdown Project, a powerful mixtape that easily ranks itself among our favorite R&B albums of the year. We had a chat with YellowStraps to discuss their creative process and influences.

What inspired you to create the Yellockdown Project? Can you tell us a little bit about the concept behind your new mixtape?



It is a concept that we created to get busy during the lockdown. All our shows were canceled, all the promo was canceled as well, so we had to make something. We wanted to make as much music as possible with other artists. 



There are so many great collaborations on the record. What was your process when you created these tracks with the featured artists?


The process was the same every time, we started the tracks with a drum loop and then the melody. Then we started doing back and forth between us, sending vocals, ideas, etc. 




Were there any magic moments or happy accidents during the making of the album?



I think every moment was magical, it went really well and was beyond our expectations. 



Credit: François Dubois

Are there instruments or production tools that particularly inspired you during the making of the album?

Yes, we discovered a synth in Ableton called Operator, we wanted to find a synth that sounds a bit like a Mount Kimbie, Persian Empire, James Blake kind of synth.

You can hear it in a lot of songs like Frissons, It Could Work, What You Want, Si Tu Savais. 





What were you listening to while you were making the album?

Galimatias, Tom Misch, Daniel Caesar … That kind of people inspire us all the time with their music. 


What do you like the most about the Belgian music scene?

What we like the most is that everyone is supportive with each other, no matter your musical style.

And what are you missing the most during lockdown?

We are missing the shows a lot, to share moments and emotions with people in real life.

What’s next for YellowStraps?

We are working on our next project, which will probably become our debut album.

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Cover photo: Baudouin Willemart