Music
River Tiber goes with the flow
The rising Canadian producer reveals why he’s in such high demand.
River Tiber
© Casey Lewis/Red Bull Sound Select/Content Pool
For River Tiber, aka Tommy Paxton-Beesley, 2015 has been the year of The Drake Question. In February, a sample of the vocal stem for an unreleased demo by the Toronto songwriter and beatmaker wound up on Drake’s record-breaking mixtape, If You're Reading This It's Too Late. His track was called No Talk, Drake’s No Tellin'. Ironically he's been getting asked about it ever since.
But classically-trained River Tiber – who supported Flume at a Red Bull Sound Select show earlier this month – is a man of many vibes, including work on BadBadNotGood and Ghostface Killah's Sour Soul album, and his own R'n'B and hip-hop EPs.
What impact has the Drake thing had on your year?
It's hard to quantify. Nobody's explicitly said, 'Oh, you were sampled on No Tellin', therefore I want to work with you'. But it adds to the story, and I get asked about it a lot. It's hard to come up as a new artist. You need a bit of acceptance. The way it's been framed isn't accurate – it wasn't Drake co-signing me – but ultimately it lends a positive light to my work.
When did you find out you were on the record?
Frank Dukes called me and said there was the potential. But I didn't know for sure until I downloaded the album. That was a crazy feeling for sure. I was really excited. The way that any of these records that are so massive in scale come together… there are lots of degrees of separation. I sent Dukes my works in progress, and he flipped this vocal stem around and sent it to Boi-1da, and he flipped it around even more. Eventually it ended up on Drake's record. But I'm still not really sure if he actually is aware of my music.
Drake's pal River Tiber (centre) and his crew
© Koury Angelo/Red Bull Sound Select/Content Pool
How do you feel about how your music was used?
It's awesome how the rhythm is flipped and the chords and tone are different. Flipping and mutating stuff – that's kind of the root of everything, really. As much as I've studied music theory, I'm totally not academic about music. I have no idea what chords I'm playing, it's totally intuitive. The music that we make is based on simple, fundamental ideas. Like, a lot of the trap music that's out now is using really classical chord progressions, straight up one-five cadences. It's about the way it all gets shifted and rearranged.
How's your album shaping up?
I'm getting some final mixing done. I'm antsy because I really want people to hear it right now. But I'm just figuring out what the best way to come out the gate is. I also have a whole bunch of work that I want to be putting out around the album. I've done a lot of work with KwikFiks, a house producer in Toronto, who collaborated with me on my Waves EP. And I can't wait to put out the track I did with Frank Dukes that was sampled onMac Miller's album [on the track Perfect Circle/God Speed]. I make a lot of different kinds of music. What I've got out so far is kind of the tip of the iceberg.
River Tiber is on Facebook.
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