Meet YaThatIsAll

What’s your name and where are you from?

My name is YaThatIsAll (Pronounced “Ya”) I’m from the south side of Chicago, 93rd.

Why do you love what you do?

I feel like making music and expressing myself through music allows me to give people an opportunity to look into my world / into my experiences and take with them what they feel like spoke to them. Also it allows me to reflect on myself and the things around me; whether they be physical, Mental or even otherwise like on some metaphysical type deal. It brings a kind of air of appreciation over me for what exists in my world.

What makes you different?

Being a Black American that grew up in West Africa, my music reflects that in ways that quite frankly (and this is no diss to anyone) can’t be replicated by your run of the mill rap or afrobeats artist. {YaThatIsAll’s (Ya’s) style is an eclectic mix of rap and Afrobeats he calls Akata Music.} I’d describe it like this: Akata Music is more a combining of words, sounds and musical instrumentation that make up the Black American struggle and experience delivered with Influences and nuances of African Culture so as to reflect connections to that story as well.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

In 5 years I see myself putting out more and more new artists, music and media. Right now I’m working on a new age rap group called Glo2 (@shoeonmyhead x @glo.zaee), A hardcore rap group called AGC (silvercity) with @mrdaronjohnson x @theconnectperiod x @stevie_stackhouse to name a few. I’m working with a lot of producers @D100beats, @Japan_glo_beatz, @heavyLBeats and @Glokrt to name a few. I’m working in new Genres also, because to me, Afrobeats are the future right now. I literally experienced the era where legends of this current Afrobeats genre like Eedris Remedy, 2Face Idibia or D1 and Kenny Ogungbe used to drop real gems on me that I still carry with me to this day. So to those who know my work well (shout out to @saks5thdagod & @dolumite1) even those hearing of me for the first time; let it be known that the pot is definitely about to be boiling over when it comes to my brand and Afrobeats artists in particular so if you’re a songwriter in that genre get at me! Over the next 5 years I plan to put out a collection of multimedia with my production partners Afrobeat Production and WeCreate Ent that tells the story of how some the crews we as everyday people run with can come to affect pop culture on even an international scale.

What do you want to accomplish in life?

I’d like to accomplish the easier said than done feat of connecting with the people I truly do this for. I make music and put out visuals ultimately to connect with people on a deeper level. So if I can connect with even one fan, that means I made a difference to somebody.

A song can affect someone’s outlook on something they have experienced and that’s a huge reason to want to put out better and better sound art. It’d be awesome to achieve that ever so elusive goal of musical longevity. Through the engineering work I’ve done for artist like Chief Keef (I Got Cash, Almighty so, Randy Moss, + many more), Fredo Santana (Fredo Kruger mxtp, Jealous ft Kendrick Lamar, History + many more), SD (Life Of A Savage 2), GBE BloodMoney (Thought he was, Chopper talk 101 mxtp, Gangland mxtp, Kuthroat mxtp) and many other artists; I was able to add on to the culture with a kind of pseudo-raw underground sound that just so happened to be a great fit for the heavy trap / heavy drill genre of rap being pushed out. Those vocal chains in particular spawned a lot of the fans’ favorite hood classics. Till this day I still here artists using their voices or even whole adlib tracks to try and emulate things we did using some of our favorite go-to compressors & plugins but one of my own songs being remembered by fans for decades to come would be the ultimate accomplishment for sure.

What do you bring to your industry?

My style brings a kind of musical originality that comes only from really having experienced first hand certain scenarios, learned from those experiences in a way where I’m able to articulate that in a dope way. It seems like everyone is an expert on how the streets affect our lives but I’m not sure we’ve been asking ourselves the right questions.

I’m here to do something new.

To shine a light on the fact that musicians can do more than one genre / sub-genre of music and that still be on-brand. There are a lot of fans that listen to all kinds of music so an artist that can actually deliver on that I believe holds a lot of value in the eyes of music fans.

What do you want to be remembered by?

By the amount of work I put into delivering a specific message in each record to bring to light a certain story or idea as a project plays through. The fact that words I’ve spoken in my songs along with the beats, rhythms, Melodie’s and cadences all culminate to tell the listener something. I rarely use any sound or even frequency in a recording by mistake, even if it’s in the background; it’s probably intentional.