Sarcastic Sounds is in his own lane, providing his own unique blend of lo-fi, hip-hop, alternative, and pop. Hailing from Toronto, the producer has cemented his name as a staple in the low-fi music scene, best known for hit singles such as “I Don’t Sleep” and “it’s OK to Cry.” His records are not only relatable but provide healing power to all those who hear it.
Getting his start as a young producer and competing in Battle of the Beat Makers, Sarcastic Sounds would go on to land producer credit on “Mahogany,” off Lil Wayne’s Funeral album.
Beyond that, he’s remixed and collaborated with everyone from Powfu to Alec Benjamin to StaySolidRocky. Now at only 20 years old, he returns to unleash his newest song titled “change ur mind,” tapping Claire Rosinkranz and fellow Columbia label-mate Clinton Kane.
AllHipHop: How was it growing up in Toronto?
Sarcastic Sounds: It was good, I grew up in North Toronto. Grew up in a pretty musical household, my dad plays piano and my brother plays bass. Lived here my whole life.
AllHipHop: Biggest influences growing up?
Sarcastic Sounds: Definitely my biggest influence was Kanye in terms of production and sampling. Not necessarily musically but in terms of inspiration, definitely Drake because he’s from Toronto and obviously one of the biggest artists in the world. But yeah, mostly hip hop people.
AllHipHop: What do you like about Kanye?
Sarcastic Sounds: I liked how soulful all his beats were, Kanye and Just Blaze as well. The really soulful sped-up samples from the early 2000’s. I heard “Through The Wire,” the first time I’m like “oh this is what Kanye does or you should do.” Something about that really spoke to me, I wanted to incorporate that into my beats.
AllHipHop: When did you fall in love with lo-fi?
Sarcastic Sounds: I can pinpoint the exact time I started making lo-fi. In June of 2017, I knew about lo-fi a little bit, but always thought it was kinda s#####. I always thought it was boring. I heard this song “Wake Up” by Moow, a lo-fi producer who no longer mixes anything. I heard this song get used in an edit of Spongebob Squarepants. Someone made a sad edit of a Spongebob episode and used that song, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Right after that, I said “I need to make music like this.” What I liked specifically was that it was this really melancholy, vocal-based lo-fi as opposed to the jazzy lo-fi, which really spoke to me a lot more. That’s when I fell in love with it.
AllHipHop: How did you learn to produce?
Sarcastic Sounds: I started producing when he was 12 or 13 years old, I’m 20 now. Early 2013, a friend of mine showed me FL Studio on mobile, which at the time was the iPod touch version of FL Studio and is what I use now. He showed me that and I bought it, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Did that for a year, then got a laptop with the proper version. I’ve been making beats ever since.
AllHipHop: What was the inspiration behind your name?
Sarcastic Sounds: I used to go by the name Sarcastic A######, I thought it was funny when I was 15. I started selling beats and once I started getting a little tiny bit of traction I was like, “wait this is a horrible name. I can’t use this.” I switched to Sarcastic Sounds to make it less ridiculous. I stuck with it, even though it’s not the greatest name in the world. Doesn’t fit the type of music I do, but too late now. [laughs]
AllHipHop: Talk about your new single “change ur mind,” featuring Clinton Kane & Claire Rosinkranz.
Sarcastic Sounds: I started the song as a demo on my Voice Notes on my phone about a year and a half ago. I was in New York last year with some music friends in February or March. I recorded all of my part and made the beat while I was there. I didn’t think it was that great and sat on it for a while. My manager told me that Claire’s team hit them, I thought that one fit her well so I sent it over. She cut it and sent it back a week later. We thought it was really good, which made them consider turning this into an actual song. After she did her first verse, Columbia hooked me up with Clinton for him to do his part and make it a complete song. (This song was all done remotely).
AllHipHop: What do you want fans to get from this record?
Sarcastic Sounds: I hope people like it and think it’s catchy. A nice cool lo-fi, pop record, there’s no deeper meaning or anything. I hope people stream it a lot and it gets stuck in your head.
AllHipHop: How was it shooting the video?
Sarcastic Sounds: It’s awesome, it turned out really well. We just shot an acoustic video for it, that should come out soon. The visual that’s out now was filmed separately, a director/editor pieced it all together. I went around Toronto with one of my friends, shooting random stuff outside. That was a lot of fun. We also decorated a pair of Converse for it with the title of the song, which was a lot of fun as well.
AllHipHop: Talk about your latest collaboration, “fools (can’t help falling in love)” with Foster and Sody, it has over 13 million combined streams!
Sarcastic Sounds: That’s a funny one, it’s completely blown our expectations out of the water. That’s actually a really really old song. I made the beat 3.5 years ago when I was still in high school. I put it out and it did its thing, then Foster reached out to me through email in Spring of 2018, asking to use the beat. I said “yeah sure, do it.” He put it up on SoundCloud for a year and it did okay. Some random YouTube channel posted it and it got a million views, that was in the fall of 2019. Finally a label signed it, they put it out 2 months ago and it went crazy! It’s cool, there’s almost 4 steps along the way for the song to get to where it is.
AllHipHop: 3 things you need in the studio?
Sarcastic Sounds: I do everything from home, I always say my laptop and maybe a mic. Coffee, that’s about it. Pretty basic setup, total DIY.
AllHipHop: Where do you record at?
Sarcastic Sounds: I live at home and record in my room for the most part. Right now, I’m living in an apartment for 2 weeks. I just got back from the United States and you need to quarantine for 2 weeks in Canada when you get back.
AllHipHop: What is it you want fans to get from your story?
Sarcastic Sounds: I don’t really care if you care about my story, I just hope you like the music.
AllHipHop: What would you be doing if you weren’t doing music?
Sarcastic Sounds: I’d definitely still be in school. I did a year of university and majored in Business, I ended up leaving because music became a full-time job at that point. I’d still be in school and not enjoying it very much.
AllHipHop: Being only 20, what do you like to do for fun?
Sarcastic Sounds: I don’t do anything, I literally make music all day. Especially during Covid, I make music all day and walk to get coffee occasionally. That’s it. I spend a lot of time on TikTok as well, too much time.
AllHipHop: Dream collab?
Sarcastic Sounds: I’d like to produce a song for Drake, that’d be a very cool full circle moment for me. Collabs for my own music as Sarcastic Sounds, I’d like to work with either Bon Iver or Chance the Rapper on one of my songs.
AllHipHop: How did you end up getting signed?
Sarcastic Sounds: I got signed because of the work I’d done with Powfu, you know that song “Death Bed.” We’d done some work together, we had this one song they were putting as the single after “Death Bed” came out. He’s on Columbia, his A&R heard it and really liked it. He reached out. I was going to sign a deal somewhere else, but we ended up signing with Columbia because it’s a much better fit.
AllHipHop: Anything fans may not know about you?
Sarcastic Sounds: I really honestly have the most boring life ever, I literally just make music. That’s it, there’s not much to know about me.
AllHipHop: What are you most excited for in the new year?
Sarcastic Sounds: I’m excited to put out more music, hopefully have things go back to normal at some point so I can start traveling and working with people more. More records, and some dope collabs!
