Ohno? Oh Yes! Hip Hop Instrumentals & Samples From Angers

Hello! Tell us about yourself, where are you from and who is Ohno? 

Hey guys, I’m Louis, soon to be 21, currently living in Angers, France doing my studies in graphic design but I’m originally from Cholet (not too far away). Ohno is my musical alter-ego, a secret passion that caused me to start producing sounds about a year ago. Then I started meeting people in the Angers music scene, like Spectateur who pushed me to continue improving with his help, I also developed connections to the hip-hop collective Label Collection, and with Pepso Stavinsky, Remington group, Jay Bentham and another electro beat maker from Angers: Wander. 

I recently joined up with the Wanka Community, an artistic group that makes t-shirts, photography, and also video projects. Big up to all the artists there! 

I really started my music project with earnest around me when I had the occasion to give my first concert last April with the Court-Circuit #10 in Angers. I associated myself with the hip hop movement, doing sampling where I mix different genres: soul, funk, jazz, reggae, and everything else that sounds good to my ears. 

Explain to us how you approach a new song, how do you choose a track to rework? 

I work my tracks according to the samples that I find, I always have a research phase where I pass my time trying to find older tracks to rework. Sometimes I can put together an instrumental in a few days, but if you go through my catalogue you will find a lot of samples that are pre-cut waiting to be finished. Normally when I find something I like, I start to cut everything that I find interesting then I put it aside, to pick it back up later to see what I can do with it. 

Do you try to achieve a specific style, or do you just see where you end up? 

I’m really inspired by artists like Jay Dee, Madlib, and Pete Rock. It’s above all 9th Wonder that inspired me to start producing, I remember when I watched their Livestreams where we could see them working, it’s really what gave me the desire to do the same thing. For the style, what’s sure is that I have hip-hop elements, especially with the drums that I apply to my instrumentals, but in the detail, I navigate between hip-hop, soul/funk, Jazz-hop, and from time to time I sample reggae or even Asian music, I do not have true limits. 

Do you have some shows coming up? New tracks you’re going to drop? 

I have a concert on May 30th in Angers with my friends from Label Collection, we are doing a big hip-hop stage at the bar Soul City. 

I am going to release new tracks here and there until the end of June and then an EP that should come out between July and August, I’m currently working on the tracklist and the name. Then we’ll see what happens! 

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