Once you've learnt that language, you can speak it. And it will always sound like you.
I had music in my head that I wanted to get out. When you first start producing, it's frustrating, because you can hear things in your head but you don't have the skills to get them into the DAW. I went through that for years.
Then occasionally you'll be like — oh my god, I just made what I heard in my head. Crazy. It's like you've learnt a language. Wild. And once you've learnt that language, you can speak it. It will always sound like you.
I tried to make drum and bass for the first time last week. I'm not very good at it. But two of the people in the comments when I posted it on Instagram said: it still sounds like James Hype.
I speak the language. That's almost my accent in the language. That's one of the reasons it's so important people make their own music. Obviously there are artists in the world who don't make their own music — there are other people doing it behind the scenes — but they'll never have that touch on things.
So I don't try to make a genre. There's one guideline I use when I'm making music: I need to be able to play it in my DJ set. And I've been DJing for 20 years, so I have a very good idea of what I'd play.
That's pretty much the rules for me.
