Flosstradamus is made of two guys touring the world preaching the philosophy of plurnt through the power of trap music. If you don’t know how to get plurnt in a world full of thots, just ask a chick in a mesh jersey sporting an exclamation mark inside of an equilateral triangle (the Flosstradamus logo) – she’ll tell you. It’s the reason the Flosstradamus merch shop, hdygrlz.com, is sold out of sports bras. It’s a movement against violence: peace, love, unity, respect, now twerk. It’s a way of thinking created by the Chicago-bred duo of DJs-turnt-powerhouse-production-team and adapted by super-producer Diplo and his Mad Decent crew. Josh and Curt have come a long way since the Myspace days when they DJed parties and
dropped mashups. They’re currently in Asia Pacific doing the Big Day Out circuit, so we decided to catch up with them to learn the rules of trap and grab some brochures on adapting the plurnt lifestyle.
Are you guys in separate locations?
Josh: Yeah, Curt’s in New York and I’m in Chicago.
Do you still live in Chicago?
J: I sure do.
So how do you guys work like that together?
Curt: Dropbox!
J: Yeah, Dropbox.
C: Gchat. All that.
J: Also, with our touring schedule, we’re together more than we’re even in our respective homes. So, we spend more time together than we would even if we lived in the same place.
One of you starts a song and the other one finishes it?
J: Curt always mixes and masters each song. Sometimes he starts it, and I’ll edit it. Sometimes I’ll do a demo or a track, and he mixes and masters it.
How did you meet?
C: We met in 2005. Before we met, we were both trying to do a party in Chicago at the same time, just like a little night. And one of our mutual friends told us that we both were DJing the same type of music. So we just ended up linking up, and did this party. That turned into us forming the group Flosstradamus. At first, we continued DJing as our solo entities. Then, we made a couple mashups and remixes. Fast forward to now, and we’ve got a lot of other stuff going on.
You guys have been around for a while. What’s changed in that time?
J: We’ve been producing a lot more original music. Back then we were mostly doing a lot of remixes and edits. Then we got to be a touring entity by just fuckin being a party act. So we DJed parties, and as that time sort of dwindled, we got a little bit more in the studio and tried to figure out a lot of shit. And we started this trap shit. And now that we did that, we tour a lot more.
How would you describe the trap scene?
C: It’s high-energy hip-hop. That’s what we do. We bring the energy of big-room house music or big-room tracks and take the drums and sampling – the hood aspect – from hip-hop, the trap side of hip-hop, merge it together, and get the party fuckin’ turnt up.
J: Yeah, and Curt’s a DJ and I hype the show. Our live show is definitely more like a hip-hop show. But our music is influenced by a lot of electronic shit.
Why do you think trap blew up so much?
C: I think it blew up for multiple reasons. First of all, it’s pretty close to dubstep-sounding. And here in the states, the main music on the radio is straight-up hood hip-hop like 2 Chainz, etcetera, etcetera. So, we’re making things like what’s on the radio, while the other biggest style of music here is EDM. And we just made our own brand of both of those. So, I don’t know. I think it just speaks to these kids.
J: And I feel like a lot of people like hip-hop in general. For some people who don’t like what 2 Chainz is saying or don’t like what Young Thug might be saying, but they can fuck with an instrumental. And that’s what it ends up being at the end of it. It’s a rap instrumental. We’ll see people at our shows who are just like 35, who are just beat heads or hip-hop heads, and they’ll fuck with it too. It speaks to a wide audience.
I heard you guys used to give demos to rappers more often. What made you guys start just releasing stuff without vocals?
J: Because rappers were just taking too long, man. I’m not trying to generalize, but people were just flaky. A lot of people we were working with wouldn’t hit back or they would sit on a track for like two months. And we were just trying to have the Soulja Boy or Lil B stance to it where we just put a song out as soon we finish it. And we didn’t want to sit around waiting for rappers, so we started putting everything up on SoundSloud, and it all just took off from there. But now it’s kind of come around full circle because that’s what we were planning to do initially: get in the studio with rappers. This EDM–trap shit has built our profile up enough that we can get in the studio with people. So now our new EP has rappers. We have Travis Porter on there. We got Waka Flocka on there. We got Ca$ino on there. So, we had to get our name to a certain place where people would actually get the job done.
Is the EP what’s coming up next for you guys?
J: Yeah the EP is called Plurnt Music, coming out in February.
How do you describe “plurnt” to people?
J: Plurnt is a mix between ‘P.L.U.R.’, which means: Peach, love, unity and respect, and ‘turnt’, which is what our parties are. It’s a union between EDM and hip-hop. And every time we come onstage, we’re trying to bring those two worlds together. So it’s just a word that, to us, means the unity of those worlds.
You guys did a month where you gave away an entire album for free over the course of a month. How do you feel about free music?
J: I feel like it’s essential in this day and age. And given the quantity of music that we have and that we’re making, it’s not a real big deal for us. We signed to a deal recently to Ultra records, and it took a minute to sign it because we had to go through the contracts and make sure it was still okay for us to drop free mixtapes and drop free music on the regular.
Who are some people you look up to and would possibly like to work with?
C: I look up to Yeezus, man. He’s always on some next shit, and I would definitely like to work with him.
J: The whole G.O.O.D. Music actually.
C: That’s true. Travi$ Scott.
J: Yeah, Travi$ Scott, Pusha T, all those dudes. We’ve got Been Trill on tour with us now. So we’re working with that boy Virgil [Abloh]. And he’s just putting us up on so much of the stuff that they’re doing. It’s inspiring seeing people do it on such a large level because for us doing it on an indie level, there are so many hurdles still to put out the kind of art and the kind of music that you want. So on that big of a level, I know that they have to go through so many people and all this crazy shit to get their vision out and not have it compromised, so that’s cool. Production-wise, there’s this dude Flume from Australia who’s killing it. Cashmere Cat is killing it. Mr. Carmack from Hawaii. There’s a couple new producers out.
Flosstradamus IRL tour in Australasia
January 17 – Big Day Out Festival | Auckland, NZ
January 18 – The Marquee | Brisbane, AUS
January 19 – Big Day Out Festival | Gold Coast, AUS
January 21 – Palace Theatre | Melbourne, AUS
January 24 – Big Day Out Festival | Melbourne, AUS
January 26 – Big Day Out Festival | Sydney, AUS
January 27 – Big Day Out Festival | Sydney, AUS
January 29 – Enmore Theatre w/ Major Lazer | Sydney, AUS
January 31 – Big Day Out Festival | Adelaide, AUS
February 2 – Big Day Out Festival | Perth, AUS
Tickets are available via the Big Day Out website.