South African Producer Kyle Watson has spent years carving his own path within House Music, building an international career outside of the traditional electronic music centres, from performing at festivals like Ultra South Africa and Coachella to developing a distinctive body of studio work. With a new collaboration alongside Body Ocean and a second album in progress, we spoke to him about momentum, production, social media pressure, streaming, festivals and the growing impact of AI on artists.
Attack: You’ve been steadily building your presence in electronic music for years now. Looking back, what do you feel has defined your journey so far?
Kyle Watson: I think a journey of ebbs and flows, always characterised by a return to the sound that feels true to me. Growth too – building from South Africa was tough because artists making this sound just weren’t really gaining traction in big markets overseas.
At what point did things start to feel like they were really moving – was there a specific release, moment, or shift in mindset?
There have been a few times where it’s felt like there was a step up in momentum, but early on I’d say when I started doing tours in Brazil. I went from playing shows in my home country to stages in front of 12,000 people. Then I started getting messages from people in the US, and I realised things were picking up.
With so much accomplished, what are you trying to achieve next?
Thank you, but honestly, I haven’t accomplished what I wanted to yet – and that’s what keeps driving me. Looking back, I’ve managed to do what so many others struggle with, and that’s making a career out of music. But there are still stages I want to play, music I want to write, and syncs I want to land.
Your sound sits somewhere between deep house, tech house and techno. Where do you feel the line sits between them, and what defines your sound within that space?
I’ve never tried to fit entirely into one of those boxes, and I like to think that’s why I’ve been able to do this for as long as I have. Over the years I’ve tapped into all those genres, so if I had to distil it, I’d say my sound is a chunky, dark version of house that borrows from each of them.
One of our favourite sounds in your productions is the detuned synth at 50 seconds in “Double Dutch”. Can you spill the beans on how you made it?
I went through how I made this exact sound on my Patreon a few months back. It was made in Massive X. It’s basically a chord made up of unison voices all slightly detuned to give it the analogue feel, with a rising pitch envelope.
[quote align=right text=”I haven’t accomplished what I wanted to yet – and that’s what keeps driving me.”]
How did you first learn to produce and DJ – and if you were starting again today, what would you do differently or focus on first?
I taught myself both, with some help from my father on the production side because he came from that world. It’s way easier to start today because everything you need is available online. I’d say start with the basics of music theory and at the same time learn how to use a DAW. Then buy an online sample subscription for access to any sample you’d ever need and start writing.
There’s a noticeable level of control and precision in your arrangements. How do you know when a track is actually finished?
Pro tip: you don’t! Seriously, a track is never finished but there’s a moment where you realise any more messing around is just going to overcook it, so you have to stop. I find the best way for me to know for sure is to play it out, and if it gets the reaction I want, I know that’s all it needs.
Streaming has increased exposure but reduced income for many artists. Has it changed how you approach releases, or is it just something you’ve had to accept?
Definitely, the release rate needs to be high now to maintain momentum. The lifespan of records is so much shorter – a track drops on Friday and by the next New Music Friday it’s old news already. In my opinion, it’s devalued music a lot, but unfortunately, it’s the new normal. I think there’s more value than ever in connecting directly with your fans because the amount of noise out there is overwhelming.
Clubs are still struggling in many cities, while festivals continue to scale. Do you think the ecosystem is becoming unbalanced – and what does that mean for emerging artists?
It makes it way harder for artists coming up to grow through from small clubs to medium, large etc. That traditional route is tougher now with fewer options – now it feels like the only things breaking new artists are viral video moments. Festivals are expensive, so people skip nights out to pay for a festival ticket. Not to mention festivals rotating the same headliners every year – it does feel unbalanced and I often wonder what it takes to rebalance the scales, or if this is the way it will always be.
There’s constant pressure to stay visible on social media alongside making music. How do you navigate that, and do you think it’s distorting what success looks like?
It’s draining! Obviously, some people find it much easier, and people at the top have big teams handling it for them, so it takes the pressure off, but there wasn’t the same focus on it when I started as there is now, so it’s a tough thing for me to adjust to.
I find myself spending way too much time worrying about things like reach, algorithms, engagement, and comparing myself to others’ performance, which takes away from what really got me into this in the first place. And for sure it can distort the view of success – it’s very easy to fake stuff online.
Your latest release, “Are You The Same,” is a collaboration with Body Ocean. How do you go about collaborations, and what did both parties add to the final version?
I’m writing my second album right now, and Body Ocean were one of the first artists I reached out to since I’ve always been a huge fan of his production. This collab started with a session a while back that I wasn’t involved in. I hit Jeremy up, and he sent me some of the sketches he had lying around, and “Are You The Same” immediately caught my attention.
He sent the stems; I rewrote and replaced a bunch of the elements and built up the second drop into something more euphoric. It was already a very strong idea when he sent it to me, but I think the final version is a pretty even split of each of our sonic characters.
I’m afraid we have to ask about AI. On the back of The Atlantic’s AI checker, artists’ music is being used to train AI tech firms. This feels inherently wrong – what should the industry do to challenge this?
Oh man, I really don’t like this. I’ve checked, and about 150 of my songs are on there. I honestly don’t know how you go up against something as big as this, because the scale of what’s happening in AI is so large that it feels like a David vs Goliath situation.
In truth, I think elements of AI can help in some aspects of production, but full songs by prompts trained on others’ art is a line we should not be crossing.
Kyle Watson x Body Ocean “Are You The Same” is out July 10th. Listen on Spotify.
Find Kyle Watson on Instagram.
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