Siryuz and Smoky on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/17/25

This episode of The DJ Sessions Presents: The Virtual Sessions features an energetic and candid conversation between host Darren (broadcasting from Seattle) and two Berlin-based artists: Sirius and Smokey. The discussion dives deep into their personal backstories, music careers, friendship, creative process, and thoughts on the music industry — with lots of humor and warmth throughout.

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🎤 Meet the Guests: Sirius & Smokey

• Smokey got his name from the movie Friday, a nickname that stuck since his teenage years.

• Sirius and Smokey have known each other for over 27 years. They originally connected through Sirius’s girlfriend, who attended Smokey’s school.

• Though both were making music separately, they recently reunited musically after a long hiatus and created a new project together.

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🧠 Backstory & Career Journey

• Sirius started as a musician at 16 and later earned an engineering diploma. He now owns a label (Sirius Music) and a publishing house (Caravan Music Publishing), which lets him retain his music rights while working with majors like Universal and Sony.

• Smokey has roots in the graffiti and hip hop scenes of Berlin and was deeply embedded in German street rap. He was part of the influential Busbox camp.

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🎶 Recent Releases

🎵 “Alles auf Rot” (“Everything on Red”)

• Their latest track symbolizes going “all in” like placing everything on red in a casino.

• It features Smokey’s 11-year-old daughter, Tamika, whose debut performance in the studio impressed both artists. Sirius described her as “a pro” and a “one-take wonder”.

🎵 “Das ist Sick” (“That is Sick”)

• Their first single together.

• Features legendary German rapper B-Tight.

• Smokey and B-Tight had previously collaborated but lost an entire album to a computer crash in the 2000s. Smokey still has a rough copy but says it’s not releasable by today’s standards.

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🎛️ Studio Talk & Tech Preferences

• Sirius uses Cubase on a PC rather than Apple/Logic, citing a past nightmare with Mac support during a crucial album release.

• His favorite hardware: an original Korg MS-20 (a gift from a friend) and an SSL Bus Compressor.

• He works fast, especially for sync licensing and production music, and often needs to produce full albums in just a few weeks.

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🤖 Hot Take: AI in Music

• Both guests acknowledge AI’s growing role but aren’t worried about it replacing real artistry.

• Sirius sees handmade music becoming a luxury product in the future.

• Smokey believes that real connection and soul can’t be replicated by AI.

• They discuss issues like AI-generated bands, copyright misuse, and the changing nature of DJ performances.

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🧡 Friendship & Family

• The duo reflects on their lifelong friendship, music journeys, and the importance of having someone who sticks by you.

• Smokey is now more focused on family life and cherishes downtime with his wife and daughter.

• Sirius mentions wild times during his youth and the transition into a more grounded lifestyle.

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🏆 Career Highlights

• Smokey’s big break: the rise of “Atzen Musik” (techno-rap fusion), international tours, platinum records, and being part of the crew that redefined German hip hop.

• Sirius’s journey: multiple roles in the industry (producer, engineer, singer), starting young, and building from Berlin’s underground scene to working with major labels.

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💬 Final Thoughts & Contact Info

• Message to DJs: Play their tracks in clubs — they’re made to move crowds!

• Where to find them:

  • Instagram:

    • @smoky46

    • @siriusmusic

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host, Darren, and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington, and coming to me halfway from around the world, we have none other in the studio in one of my favorite cities in the world, because I’ve only been there once, Berlin, Germany. We have Sirius and Smokey on the mic tonight.

How y’all doing today?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Hey, what’s up, what’s up, what’s up?

[Darran]
Good, I guess I did say, I guess I said, you’re coming in tonight, and then I said, how you doing today? It’s like seven o’clock over there, eight o’clock, isn’t it?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah.

[Darran]
Well, we need to, yeah, it’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah. 7.40. Yeah, 7.40. It’s 10.40 a.m. here, so you see me drinking Good morning, Seattle.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Good morning, Seattle, hey!

[Darran]
We’re rocking it here for the DJ Sessions. Thank you so much for being on the show today, it’s a pleasure to have you both here. See you’re chilling in the studio, got a lot to talk about and super excited about it.

I know we’re gonna get our DJ Sessions fans knowing a little bit more about Sirius Smokey and what you two are up to over there in Berlin. So first and foremost, you know, what are the stories behind your artist’s name? Because I doubt your mothers came up and said, I’m gonna name you Sirius, and I’m gonna name you Smokey, and then you two came together and collaborated and said, we should work together.

How did that all come about?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You wanna start, or you want me to start?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I can start, no problem.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Oh, okay.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Well, I didn’t pick the name. It was like, I don’t know, some in the nineties, I think it was like 99 or 98, something like that. And I was a young cat and me and my homies and everybody was watching Friday.

And yeah, and it turns out that- That you liked that name. Everybody was like, man, you smoking so much, just like that dude Smokey. From now on, your name will be Smokey.

Oh, remember that. And then I had my name though, that was Smokey. And yeah.

[Darran]
So did you actually get more serious when you teamed up with Sirius, or are you the level-headed manager of the team, or how did that come all about?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Well, funny story is we knew each other before all that music stuff started. Because his girlfriend, way, way back in the days, and we talking like 27 years or something like that.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
His girlfriend was on my high school. And one day he stood in front of the school and I was like, okay. And it was a private school.

And I was something special on, and let’s call it special on that school. It was a church, was very in front of everything. And yeah, I was like a little problem child, and I brought my problems to the school.

And when I saw him in front of the school, I was like, okay, there are two options. First option, one dude is getting into some trouble here. Second option, one girl from my school is his girlfriend.

So I went up to him asking, yo, what’s up? What you doing? I’m picking up my girl.

I was like, all right, cool, cool. And the vibe was cool from the first second on. And ever since.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
We’re still friends to this day, right? So we, you can’t hear me, right? So at one, we have a lot of private time together.

So like best friend thing, we was a lot of partying and all that stuff, right? And after that, I mean, back then I already did music. I was a musician from age of 16, I guess.

And after all this, I tried to, after this old musician stuff, I tried to learn something like something serious, right? So you know what it is, you need like, man, I’m a musician, but I need to learn something. So I have like an engineering diploma, blah, blah, blah.

In my mind, it was a good idea. It’s all right, but it’s not the best option, right? But, and the thing was like Smoke goes, did some music with other guys and I did music with my people, et cetera, et cetera.

And that’s how we, I mean, we came together like, for this project, I guess it’s like two months or something right now, so.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, we saw, we didn’t saw each other like years.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I guess like seven or seven or 10 years, something like that.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Everybody experienced their own stuff. You know, I was more with the rappers and all that and singers. And he was with them, CEOs and producers and all that, you know, and now we taken all that experience we had on our own journey and put it together.

And it’s working brother, it’s working though.

[Darran]
You know, it’s funny, just before this interview, I had managed to talk with my friend, best friend of, oh gosh, we go back, we went to high school together. I was 15 years old when I met, 1990, and just was on a phone call with him right before this interview. Hopefully he’s tuning in.

Alex, if you’re watching, what’s up? Promise I give him a shout out during the interview.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Shout out.

[Darran]
But no, it’s funny how you meet people. It’s funny, our story is we met each other in high school and he wanted to kick my ass because the girl he was dating at the time, I was a little smart ass when I was a kid. I mean, I got a mouth on me and I had two older brothers that could, you know, he didn’t want to mess with me and my two older brothers.

That being said, he wanted to fight me because I spoke back to his girlfriend or pissed her off or something. And it was years later, we actually started hanging out, found out, I remember going to high school with him and we got to that point where we remembered the incident when I first really met him. And it was crazy.

We went to high school together and then we became like lifelong friends. So, you know, you meet people you never know and then you see later like 35 guys. I mean, yeah, 35 years later, because I just turned 50 last year.

I turned 51, it’s almost 36 years basically of knowing this person, you know, knowing best friends. Yeah, we partied a lot. He’s an attorney now and I’m an executive producer and, you know, we both followed our passions and do what we do.

So, it’s good to see your camaraderie is still alive to this day since high school.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s lifetime friendships, right? I think that, I mean, I had so much friends, so-called friends in my life, but, you know, like after like time flies and you get rid of some of people, but some of them people still here like Smokey and I, right?

So, I think that’s pretty important for everything. Like, I mean, as older we get, you don’t have that much friends anymore, right?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So- You start to soar. Yeah, yeah.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You start to soar.

[Darran]
Exactly, exactly.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So, that’s really something special, right?

[Darran]
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I posted something on Facebook the other day that popped up. I got a little vocal a few years back in our local music scene here, kind of standing up for a certain level of ethics.

And basically because I was taking a stance on ethics and saying, y’all shouldn’t be doing this. I had people coming at me saying, you’re gonna lose a lot of friends. You’re gonna lose a lot of friends on social media.

I go, if they were my friends, I wouldn’t be losing them in the first place. And I don’t care because I don’t want those kinds of friends because the people I’m losing are the exact people I’m calling out. So, bye, where are they and where am I?

Bye-bye, have a nice day. You know, oh no, I lost 30 people out of my 4,500 people on Meta. Oh no, no.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
And most of the time, these are the people that hold you back.

[Darran]
Exactly, exactly. And it was like, yeah, I was calling out. I was like, whatever, you know.

But that being said, we can go into social politics, friendships, and probably have a whole show just about that and your career’s rising up. I wanna know more about this. Tell me more about Caravan Music Publishing.

What’s that all about?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Oh, yes, I totally forgot that I told you about my, that’s my publishing house, right? I got, I mean, like, Serious Music is more like, yeah, sorry, I totally forgot what I wrote to you in that email. I got, I got like Serious, Serious, I’m serious, ha-ha, it’s not that funny, but yeah.

I mean, Serious Music is the label and Caravan Music Publishing is the publishing house. That’s it, that’s pretty simple. So, cause I need to own my own rights, right?

So that’s about like my own copyright, my, my, my, my, all that stuff, it’s, I own this. So I mean, I’m working with all major labels. I got all them as a partner, all Universal and Sony, all that guys, right?

But I’m still doing like music for them too, but I need my own music to have it in my own publishing house, right? You say publishing house, right? Is this correct?

It’s correct, right?

[Darran]
That’s what it says on your, that’s what it says on your Instagram, man. It says Caravan Music Publishing.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, but did you say in English, I mean, like English, did you say publishing house? That’s why you need to, cause my grammar’s not that good. So that’s why I’m asking you, you know?

Oh, it just says Caravan Music Publishing.

[Darran]
Don’t blame me, man, that’s what the socials say.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
All right, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. So yeah, so that’s it. That’s the only thing about Caravan Music Publishing.

That’s it. So, cause I’ve, like I said, I want to have my own stuff on my own music.

[Darran]
So yeah, yeah, of course.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I mean, that’s how Darren said that. That’s what it says. It’s okay.

[Darran]
No, and you know, it’s, we just launched a new music section on our site. We’re super excited to start promoting and we’re basically bringing artists on that appear on the show and giving them an opportunity to list their albums, their tracks on our site, break it out, work with labels on that. We’re not making a music store.

Just want to be clear on that, cause we’re not trying to get into all that messy mess, muck, muck, muck stuff. It’s literally, we’ll list your music, put in our onsite player, and if our guests are coming to the site, they can discover new music from talent, from people that are on our show. You know, we’re also doing a syndication program too, where we’re bringing on more shows and syndicating to our platform as well on a secondary channel, cause that’ll play not only on our site, but in our virtual reality nightclubs, we can talk about later.

But yeah, no, I just was curious to hear more about that because congratulations on taking that step. Cause a lot of artists don’t know, first of all, they don’t understand copyright. They really don’t.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Oh yeah, that’s a big, big problem.

[Darran]
They understand copyright. They would understand why the license, what it means to have your music license, A, for yourself that you’re making, but B, why you’re not supposed to use copyrighted music without permissions. And that’s a big thing that people get in trouble with, you know, when streaming online or making podcasts or doing shows, they don’t get the rights to use the music.

And they’re like, well, I bought the song off of Beatport, so I pay for the song, so I should be able to use it. It’s like, no, read the terms and conditions. That is for personal use.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
But isn’t hip hop, like, you should share? You should share. And I remember, who was it?

I think DJ Premier was it or something like that. He had a skit like where he was talking about, he was getting sued again because he was using this and that or something like that. And this is hip hop.

We use and we recycle, you know? And I mean, you should feel honored when somebody is using your shit.

[Darran]
No, I would feel honored. I hear both sides of the cams, but you know what? I don’t mind somebody using my own stuff, but if somebody goes out there and makes $10 billion off of it, you’re damn right, I’m gonna be pissed that I didn’t get a cent for that.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Of course, man, of course.

[Darran]
You know, I mean, I get it. And that’s the one thing, a lot of these producers go out there, like I was talking with Cut Chemist a few years back and he keeps getting hit up by people that wanna use his music from like 20 years ago in movies and soundtracks. And he goes, I don’t own that anymore.

Sony owns that. I can’t give you clearance on my own music that I produce because they own it. If it was his own self-produced stuff or his own, if it was his own self-produced stuff, then hang on a second.

Then he can do what he wants with it. And that’d be fine. And that being said, but when you go off to labels, you give it to the publishing houses, they got it, people don’t understand, even with like master use, you know, get master use, there can be five companies that own that.

And you gotta ask each of them for permission to use it. And the way it works, this is my rough understanding that I had to explain to a lot of people years back is that if this company wants a dollar, this company wants $2, this one wants three, and this one wants four, and this one wants five, to get it with the $5 of it, you gotta pay everyone $5. And it’s like, people don’t understand that.

And they’re losing their head. And the big one that I’m looking to come out is when these performance rights, hang on, she’s right. Yeah, I got a fan texting me.

They’re like, it’s not working on your website. And I just went there and I’m like, yes, it is. I’m watching the interview.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Man, Darren.

[Darran]
I know it is, because I’m watching it on Twitch. I’m watching it on LinkedIn. I’m watching it on Facebook in two places.

I’m watching it on Instagram. I’m streaming it live right now. So I know it’s working.

Scares the shit out of me when people say that though. Because I’m like, argh.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Of course, man. Like talking the whole time for nothing?

[Darran]
I record everything anyway. So it’s all good there.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
All right.

[Darran]
No, I mean, people don’t understand licensing and what it comes down to. And the big one I’m trying to, I’ve been trying to tell people about this for years. And yes, it’s a slow mechanism to work, but you have these DJs, you have these artists and they’re performing these tracks that aren’t theirs.

And they don’t have performance licenses for this stuff.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Ah, really? Does this really happen in the US?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Oh, you shouldn’t do that in Germany.

[Darran]
No, no. Oh, you’re getting in some big trouble. It’s kind of like you’re supposed to, because you’re performing the music, you have rights to do it.

Say Twitch could have their own performance rights saying we’re protected because we have the rights if somebody performs music on our site, but that doesn’t give the artists the performance rights. As well, it has to be cleared on so many levels. This is what I learned.

This is why I love being an executive producer and not just a camera guy filming a podcast. Not that I’m knocking anyone in the industry, but really understanding the intricacies of the business of video production and which dabbles into music production as well. And I have all my licenses, everything’s squared away, but a lot of people don’t.

And then they cry, well, I’m using it. I mean, if you’re using it for educational purposes, you can get around some circles that way. But nowadays, if you put a commercial and slap a commercial on it, hey, I’m making money off your music.

It’s like somebody was using the Disney logos in their shows or something as a live streamer and Disney came in and said, nope, you can’t do that. I mean, I would do that too.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
No, I’m just selling stuff.

[Darran]
You know, that doesn’t work. But enough about, we could go a whole another show on licensing stuff. Don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
But let’s talk about your music.

[Darran]
We talked about the publishing house, your latest track you came out with. And thank you for warming me up a little bit pre-show for this. Let’s see if I can get it right.

Cause I know what it means now, although I don’t speak a word of German. So it’s, Alles auf Rot.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah.

[Darran]
Yeah, that was good. Was it good? Yeah, it was pretty good though.

Thank you.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Alles auf Rot.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Alles auf Rot, that’s cool.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yes.

[Darran]
Translate that into English for our viewers so they know what it means. And then tell us all about that track that’s coming out.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Alles auf Rot is translated everything on red. So when you like going into a casino, put everything on red. Last chance.

It has to work. No other option. It has to work.

And this is our latest track. And the sweet and cute little voice you can hear in the pre-chorus is my daughter. My 11 year old daughter, Tamika.

And I’m so proud of her. I’m so proud of her. And I love the song.

And finally, I got a song with my daughter. I was dreaming so long to this day, and finally it happened. And I love the beat.

And I love that it’s a song, even though there’s a 11 year old little girl on it, it’s not a… It’s a real song. It’s honest.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, it’s honest. It’s a really honest song. He’s really speaking about like really, it’s really kind of, I wouldn’t say like, it’s really rough, you know?

Like he’s speaking from his heart and everything. So that’s the thing. Sorry.

Thanks. Don’t interrupt yourself.

[Darran]
Are you encouraging TJ to actually be a musician, be an artist? Is she allowed to come into the studio and like kick it with you, play with the gear and all that fun stuff? Or is this just like, yeah, I was babysitting one day and thought this would be cool.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Nah, nah, nah, nah. I’m trying to, well, I opened the doors for her, you know? If she wanna walk through, she’s walking through and I try everything to make it happen, you know?

And even if it’s just a concert from an artist she loves, I know from back in the day, all right, I’ma hit them up. My daughter loves you. I need some backstage passes.

What’s up? You know? If it’s just like that, okay.

If she wanna sing, cool. I asked her, I was like, hey, I hear your voice. I think it would be cool.

She was like, oh yeah, I’m down with it.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
And she was pretty professional in the booth over there. I was like, man, okay. That was the first time she’s in the booth.

So I was like, she was like really pro, man.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I never saw that like- One take wonder.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, yeah. I was with her because we doubled as like the choir, right? And she was like, yeah, I got it.

I got it. I’m going, I understand everything. Yeah, do it.

Go for it. One more time. And I was like, man, that girl’s a pro, definitely.

Really, she needs to be a musician or something, right?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
It’s in her DNA.

[Darran]
Yeah, exactly. It’s funny. I grew up, my brothers were musicians.

I quite often bring this up in the shows of when I talk about my past history of getting into all this stuff. My brothers were musicians and my dad had bought a lot of in-house studio gear. I mean, this is back in the eighties, mid eighties.

So, I mean, I grew up with four track recorders, eight track recorders, synthesizers, rack mounts, all this stuff. And at the time I’m eight years old playing around with this gear in my brother’s bedrooms when they were out doing their teenage stuff. And I was reading these manuals that were translated from Japanese into English and they didn’t translate very well.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
A Bible, like this.

[Darran]
Black and white, no real, there was no pictures. It was all, here’s how you do it. It was all text-based writing.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Only letters, only letters.

[Darran]
Yeah, only letters. And so, here I am eight years old playing around with all this gear, which kind of got me into my technical side of things. My father always encouraged me, if the VCR needed to set it up, get Darren in the room.

If the stereo needs to set up, get Darren in the room. How do you do this technically? How do you set this up?

Did it, did it, did it. So, it was always the technological brain behind everything in the house. And so, I think that definitely led me into not having a fear of technology.

Also, we had the first video camera on the block in 1979, 1980, which had me started making short films and playing with a video camera and got me into, right out of high school, I was in a video production class in high school. The first one ever offered in the state of Washington here. And then, I walked right into a public access hip hop television show and worked on that for about eight years as a, pretty much an over-glorified production assistant.

But, for the most part, we did a lot of stuff there. And then, I got into broadcast television with Fox and NBC and then got into podcasting, video podcasting and live streaming. But, always in putting stuff together and it sometimes wows me, looking back all those years to that initial being eight years old, looking at what the other kids had.

They had toys in their bedroom. I’m playing with eight track recorders and four track recorders.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
That’s crazy, though. I remember that. You know, what you said, it was like, this remembers me of my childhood.

My parents are from the movie industry. So, I’m born in Bucharest in Romania and my dad was a cameraman, my mom was an editor. And that’s the same.

Like they say, with the only family has a camera, we had that. That was my father too, back then in Bucharest. You know, I was in the eighties and it was like dictatorship.

Remember that, love? So, he was the first with the VCR and the first with… Cause we had like my aunt used to live in West Berlin.

Right on the West side here. And she sent my father this camera and he filmed everything and do all this stuff. So, I grew up also in this.

Yeah, my father had like this… You call, I don’t know if you say this in English, camera obscura. There’s this- Camera 64.

No, no, no. I mean that like, he made like photos. He gets his own laboratory at home.

Oh, a darkroom. Ah, I say darkroom, right. Cause you say like, oh, okay.

But yeah, and he always like, always building some new stuff and try some new stuff and put some… He builds his own lights and all that stuff. I was so impressed, man.

So, it’s also in my DNA, right? So, yeah, like you said, man, this reminds me of my childhood, man. It was crazy.

[Darran]
Yeah, and nurturing children at a young age to do something like that, definitely I think gives them an advantage. Sets them up because it’s like teaching your kid how to fix a tire, you know, on a car. You don’t do that, they’re going to be stuck calling triple A, you know, when really get the jack out of the car, put it under the car.

Yeah, man. That’s so simple. Plug it up, pull it off, put the new tire on.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Get it done.

[Darran]
Do your own tires. Yeah. You can change your own windshield wipers.

You can change your own tire. Don’t, you know, or a girl, whatever you identify as, you learn how to do it on your own. You know, these are things they don’t teach in school, you know, but again, we could go off on a whole tangent about that.

We’ll get back to another. Your first single that you two produce is, Does It Sick? Yeah.

I say it right. I can say the American version, but I’m, go ahead.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Does It Sick? Yeah. Translated, That Is Sick.

[Darran]
That Is Sick. Yeah. And that was with working with rap legend, B-Tight.

Tell us about that collaboration and process and what was behind That Is Sick.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Well, B-Tight and I go way back though. We talking really way back. We had the privilege to like form the German rap.

You know, we were in Berlin. We were like three big camps and we started that street rap, but the German version, you know, everybody had.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Berlin is really special to other cities in Germany. You know, Berlin was really crazy. Like more, it was like more streets than other cities, right?

So, sorry.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So it was really like.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Really, yeah.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Really like what was NWA to the US back in the days at first, you know, where even politics were like, what the hell is going on? What are these plans? What are they planning?

You know? And that was us here in Germany. You know, we had like big cats, like Frauenart is a big name here.

Kuhl Savas is a big name here. Zito.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
That was a lot.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
A lot of cats. And they, we started this street shit, you know, and B-Tight was from the Agro Berlin camp. And I’m from the Busbox camp.

Okay. And it was like, wait, gotta lie. I think it was 2007 or something.

Yeah, 2007, 2008. Our camps, we always, we were cool always. You know, we coming from graffiti and the gang bang stuff.

And we cool since back in the days, you know? And I was the black rapper on my camp. B-Tight was the black rapper on his camp.

And we said, time to do an album, a collaboration to let everybody know. And yeah, it didn’t went that well because the album was finished. Everything was perfect.

But then the PC crashed. And yeah, and it was back in the day. So we don’t need no backup.

Backup for what? Yep. Album gone, lost.

Yeah, yeah. But- Well, wait a second.

[Darran]
Tell me somebody still has that hard drive to this day.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Huh?

[Darran]
Does somebody still have that hard drive?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Does somebody still- Yeah, I got a copy, but- Oh really, you do? Yeah, but- So you can’t use it anymore? You can’t release it though.

It’s a rough copy. And lyrically, oh no, no, not today. And today’s music, you couldn’t release it.

[Darran]
You could cancel, but he said the computer crashed.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah.

[Darran]
What happened to the stuff that was on the original hard drive?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Everything’s gone, everything. I was lucky. I was always, I’m the type of rapper, when I’m finished with a song, I need a copy.

Just for me, for home, so I can listen to it maybe twice, three times, 10 times. Maybe I find something that irritates me so I can change it. And so I got the whole album at home, but you can’t release it.

But everything else was crashed. There was even a album from a crew from us. They call it a bass crew, a legendary crew here in Berlin is MC Bastard, MC Boogie and Frauenarzt.

And that album was on a computer too.

[Darran]
Oh, really?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Gone.

[Darran]
Let’s talk after the show about that. I might have something for you. That being said, speaking of hardware and software, obviously you’re in the studio there.

Do you find that you both use more, are you hardware based or are you more software based or both? Both, definitely both. I mean, go ahead.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Excuse me.

[Darran]
Oh, good, go. Just so… What’s the main platform software that you use and that you consider your favorite software to use there?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I’m working with Cubase with Steinbeck. So that’s Steinbeck, Cubase. You hear me?

Cubase, Cubase. Yeah, I’m working with Cubase because I’m using a PC, not an Apple. I’m not the Apple friend.

So I’m not that guy. It’s because I mean, I had, like Smokey used to say, like before, at this, back in the time, there was like, we had like problems. We had an album on Apple, on a Mac.

And I mean, back then you had, do you remember you had that special, when you were like, when we are like, like kind of famous, you had a really special service from Apple. So that’s not, remember that they have like, when you had like 24 hour service, you ever heard of that? I mean, I know Apple, I used to work for Apple.

Yeah, but you had like a service, like 24 hour service when you’re famous. So then when you had a problem, I mean, just maybe just in burden, I don’t know. But, and there’s this one day they had, we had a problem with the computer, with the computer, we had that tower, right?

Like there was this big, how you call that? Remember, I can’t remember that. What color was it?

Silver. Silver? Yeah.

[Darran]
What year?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, the big, well. What year? 2000 and, why?

Something like 2007 or something like that.

[Darran]
7, 10 or something. You probably had a, oh gosh, that would have been right after, right after the Intel processors came out. Cause I have my old G5 dual tower here.

My quad G5 is kind of a memento piece. That was the first computer I got when I got out of college. And did a lot of stuff with, that was a beast.

That thing ran for years. And then they switched over to the Intel chips. And I was working for them.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Exactly, that was the problem, I guess. So anyway, so we had that problem. So I’m, I don’t know, I like to, I’m interested in a lot of things, right?

So the problem was I can’t open the computer and change something at Apple, right? So we had that, they closed the service. Like I told you, like this 24 hour service.

They closed it to that time. And it was like, yeah, we can’t do nothing for you. So, but we was like, man, we need to release the album.

Like, and that was, I guess the hardware, something with the hardware was wrong. We need to release the album in one week. So in our music, when you, when it kind of successful, kind of, you have like contracts with contracts, the contract, if one of this, if something is happening in that chain, you’re gonna pay a lot if you can’t release the album to the date that you have, you know, they gave you, right?

So that’s a problem. So that’s why I changed. So I changed to PC because I was like, man, when something’s broken in my computer, I open it, I’m going to whatever, any kind of store, buy this and put it in that damn computer, right?

So that’s the thing. So now I’m working with, I used to work, of course, with Logic back then, right? So now, but now I’m working with Cubase.

I’m so happy though, really happy. So yeah.

[Darran]
What’s your favorite piece of hardware gear that you have in your studio? Cause I see you’re in there, have some questions about that, but what’s your favorite piece of hardware gear that you have in the studio? This is my pride and joy that I love playing with this one piece of gear.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I know, right? Yeah, I mean, I don’t have that much hard work cause it’s, you need to understand like, I’m working pretty fast. When I’m working, I do a lot of sync and, what are you, what are you doing in the back?

What, what’s going on? What? Back, come on, that’s not, I mean, it’s here, but I’m, I don’t- You got a cork, you know?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
No, it’s coming like that though. I’m like, yeah, I’m kind of scratching my, serious, I’m kind of scratching my head. I don’t know if a cork is enough though.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I mean- I mean, the cork you see in the background, did you see that? In the background?

[Darran]
Yeah, yeah.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
That’s an MS-20. And one of the first, one of the first builds, I get it like, it’s a gift from a, from a close friend. He was an engineer back then, I don’t know, but I couldn’t, something in the seventies or something.

Anyway, but like, what I tried to say before you interrupt me, brother. The thing was, I’m doing a lot of music for sync and production music. Do you know what it is?

You know what that is?

[Darran]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So when I’m producing a song, it needs to be really fast. I’m working like, I’m doing, I’m producing the album from composition to mastering and two weeks, like, you know, that’s, it needs to be pretty fast. And I love, I love that all this outboards, all this analog stuff, you know, but you know how it is.

It takes us such, such a long time to, when I need to bounce just one stem, for example, I need to bounce this on, on, on, on compressors and everything else, always, always in real time. So who, who the hell has time for that today? I don’t know.

But for, to come back to your, to a question, one of my favorites I’m working with really every time is just for the mastering part, is my bus compressor, my SSL bus compressor. So that’s what I’m working always with.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Since you’re talking hardware, I’m gonna step it out real quick.

[Darran]
No worries, you know, cause this is actually more a question probably for Sirius anyways, is that do you sometimes make music completely out of your own genre that never gets released? Or do you work on under any other pseudonyms, names that, that, you know.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Well, I got, I got like, yeah, I got like two, two or three or four aliases. I don’t know. Cause I’m a singer.

I’m a, you, I mean, I’m a producer. I’m a singer. I’m a composer.

I’m an engineer. I’m a, I have a publishing, how, how, what, what, what, et cetera, et cetera. Right.

But yeah, I got like different aliases for, to be honest, that’s the different alias for the, the different artists in my mind. Do you understand what I mean? Like, it’s like, I’m, I got like, as an artist, you got different.

I’m that guy doing rap music. I’m that guy is being a singer. I’m that guy doing like, whatever people, I don’t know what kind of bullshit, you know, like everything.

So I need, but I can’t do it on, on one name on the alias. Cause this is going to freak people out. Like what the fuck is going on?

What they doing here? Oh, sorry. I’m first.

Oh, I’m sorry. It’s all good. Okay, cool.

Thank you.

[Darran]
Not the worst thing that’s ever been said on the show. All right, cool, cool.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So that the things of, yeah. So like, like I said, I’m, I tried to do, you know how this days is that it’s hard to make some, some money in music industry. So I’m doing everything right.

And it’s still, it’s fun to do everything. Cause I love everything.

[Darran]
Really? I can relate to that. Cause people think that all I do is turn on a camera and do interviews and talk to people.

They don’t see everything that I got to do on the backend. And I enjoy doing everything. I would like to delegate more often.

And I, you know, having a PR person or a couple of virtual assistants that help with certain tasks, it definitely helps streamline and makes things move a lot faster, easier because you only got so much time in the day to do so much. But when you add just the person over here to take five or 10 tasks and five or 10 tasks, now you just find out five or more 10 tasks that you got to add to your stuff. But you know, you know, speaking of production and being a producer and all that, who is your favorite producer?

And I know this could get you in some trouble. Who is your favorite producer? And can you tell us why they are your favorite?

That’s always like, I know that’s kind of a loaded question. So I’ll just be right up front. When somebody asks me, what’s my favorite music or what’s my favorite, or I’m sorry, what’s my favorite movie or what’s my favorite episode of my series?

It’s like every single one of them. And probably my top favorite movie list is like 500 different movies that I’ve memorized. But that doesn’t answer the question.

What’s your favorite one?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
And that’s just really a hard question because there’s so much creativity on those planets, right? So, but I don’t know. I was, I’m a, let me say it like this way.

I was always a big Prince fan. Well, he was a producer too. If you look at it, you know, like really close, he was a producer.

So Prince was for me, even when I was a little boy, that was, he was the greatest for me. So I was really, really sad when he passed away. So, but he inspired me my whole life, really.

So, so that was a Prince’s on first place. Let me say, sorry, I would say like Timberland too. I love Timberlands.

Timberland and Missy’s kind of working like this. I like that. Cause in my mind, I like that freaking stuff they doing.

Like just putting like a little bit bing and bang and bang and something like that. You’re like, it’s something special they doing. It’s not just being like putting, putting a, like you got a sample and putting like drums on that sample.

That’s not really special, but they doing something with the samples and oh, wow, that was crazy though. So I would say like Prince on first, Timberland maybe on, Timberland and Missy, both of them. But I would say I prefer Missy first.

Let me rephrase that. Prince, Missy Elliott and Timberland. So that’s it.

[Darran]
So now here’s the bigger, here’s the big, big question. Talking about production and going into production. This is for both of you, but we’ll start with Sirius first.

What is your take on AI coming into the marketplace in the music world? I mean, we’ve seen this enter in through, you know, photography and art and the arms and people going, oh, you’re putting us out of a job. You know, and now you mentioned, you know, you mentioned one of your favorite producers being Timberland and Timberland just signed on the first AI artist.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, I saw this, I saw this.

[Darran]
You know, and I’m like, okay, cool. And then I just saw recently, and this is what I thought was really interesting is that YouTube came out and issued a statement saying, hey, we’re gonna crack down on AI generated content. And you gotta make sure- I saw this yesterday too.

Yeah, that was something new, right? Yep, just the other day. Just the other day it came out.

I try to stay up with current affairs on stuff. Okay. You know, but that being said, it was kind of like, well, you know, basically, how are they gonna…

That’s a whole nother episode.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Man, like I said, we can do like two episodes.

[Darran]
Yeah, we’ll be in contact. We’ll be talking with you guys for a long time. Don’t worry about that.

But you know, I mean, I see AI coming in and I use it as a tool for doing some stuff for me, for research or, you know, doing, helping me out with some tasks. And I don’t, I’m not plagiarizing anything. I’m not stealing anything from anyone else.

I’m not having it generate. The questions that I’m asking you are genuine questions. I didn’t go to AI and said, hey, write me up a list of questions for Sirius and Smoky, you know?

And even if it did, hey, just get me some questions. But there are some people that are using it to kind of cheat or like the band. You probably heard about the band in Spotify that had over 1 million followers.

And finally they came out and said, yeah, it had 1 million followers, it was doing all this stuff. And people were trying to research the band and finding out who the guys were, who, where they came from. You couldn’t find anything about them online.

They finally came forward and said, this was a 100% AI generated band. Wow. Never heard of that, man.

Yeah. And so, you know.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
How are you just kind of funny? I don’t know.

[Darran]
Are you for real though? Like, and the thing is, is I could be somebody sitting in a room, completely make up a fake band, fake artist, everything fake. And have the websites, domain names, social media, and say, here I come.

I’m coming out. And boom. And people start liking the music, but I’m some guy in a room in Brazil, pumping this out.

Nobody knows.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, but you know, Darin, you know that, that’s not new. We had that like 10 years ago before, I mean, before AI became that big. But we had that in Japan.

There was a big star, like it was an anime. An anime, anime, anime. How you call that?

Like that, you know that. Anime, anime. Anime, anime, anime, you know.

There was a girl, she had a lot of fans, but it was all, I was all like artificial created. And she was on stage on series. That was, I’m talking about like 15 years ago, 10, minimum 10 years ago.

So that’s not new now with AI. Yeah. I mean, it’s, there is gonna, I don’t think it’s gonna take over the world or something that kind.

I mean, I’m not worried about that thing. Cause I think that like, you got like trashy music today a lot. So I think from my understanding, I would say it’s gonna, handmade music is gonna be like, like some, like a luxury product.

That’s in my mind. Because I think, I don’t think that AI can’t reproduce that good to not hear that it’s an AI made thing.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
No.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Does it make sense what I said?

[Darran]
It does.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
It does.

[Darran]
Okay, cool. But as, I mean, you look at it from the progression. I remember being in seventh grade choir class and my teacher had said, he was also the band director for the school.

This is 1986, 87. And he said, I can hear, you can tell a drum machine, a synthesized drum machine from a real set of drums. He could tell that.

He has ear container that, and you could hear it back then. But nowadays set the forward clock 40 years later, 35, 40 years later, you can’t tell. I mean, everything is pretty much synthesized unless they’re in the studio with drums, playing the drums, making the beat.

You know, it could all be prefabricated and electronic. You couldn’t really, the average person could not say, oh, that’s a real snare hit. And that’s a false snare hit.

You know, that’s a real cymbal ride. And that’s a real cymbal ride. Which one is real?

And the consumers care. They want the music, the consumer level, the audio engineer, you and I were like, that’s not real. But it’s getting better.

And will AI definitely get to that level of a betterness where it is kind of like, oh, okay, cool. You know, I mean, even we do a lot of DJs. We’ve talked to a lot of electronic music producers and DJs on the show.

And there are sites out there now that say, I want to make my set sound like Martin Garrix or David Guetta. And I want you to pick out and I want it in David Guetta style for this house music or trance music event that I’m going to make my BPMs 124 or 132 and pick me out 15 songs to play in order to make my set sound like David Guetta. And it’ll go, here you go.

And all you gotta do and using the sync button nowadays, all you gotta do is put those tracks in, practice them in your studio a little bit.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Where’s the fun though? Where’s the fun?

[Darran]
Where is, where is? I’m just saying, I’ve had DJs try to come on my, this only happened once and I quickly excommunicated them from the show. He came into my show and he put on a CD and hit play on the CD and the CDJ and claimed that was like his set.

Really? And I’m like, no bro. No, my other, one of my resident DJs was over his shoulder.

Look at him and go, Darren, he never switched decks. He never crossfaded. He put a CD and just let the music play and called that a set.

And I’m like, nope, done. Your show is buried. Deleted.

You’re off the air. Get off my show. Cause that’s how DJ, I get you.

Where’s the fun? You’re right. Where’s the fun?

And the artistic creativity. And this also goes to a bigger thing that you’re seeing happen a lot more for the bigger shows and on these stage shows, the bigger events that these DJs are playing without headphones on. And they’re playing it without headphones on.

It’s like, wait a second. How are you mixing your tracks and queuing up tracks? You can do it with cue points.

You can do it. Looking at the waveforms. If you know the tracks, you know the songs.

I get it. But you’re supposed to mix it in headphones and you’re not mixing. So the audience has been, and a lot of these shows that have now coming out that these shows are pre-programmed.

They’re getting the behind the stage videos of these guys just going, pretending they’re hitting the button.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
It started with the mixers not plugged in. That’s exactly what happened.

[Darran]
Yeah, mixers not plugged in.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now we’re not even using headphones anymore.

[Darran]
Exactly. So how do I know that isn’t a fake set now? And this takes me back to a conversation I had back in 2005 when I was working for Apple.

I was working alongside a DJ there. I said, what’s to stop somebody from putting a set onto an iPod, walking up the stage, mixing in the first track of that mix that’s on the iPod, hit and play, and letting that just play to the crowd. And granted, you couldn’t make any changes to it.

You couldn’t read it. But if you had bangers in there that is gonna hype the crowd and gonna keep going and you know, you don’t really have to read the crowd. They just want good music playing for an hour.

And he goes, oh, I would know. I would know that they were faking it. I would know.

I go, how would you know? If they’re up in a booth up here and you can’t see them switching the knobs, turning the knobs, doing anything, how do you know that person just didn’t hit play? And that thought came from, I saw a set from a very well-known band here in Seattle.

They were backstage and the DJ was up backstage and he was looking like he was DJing. And yes, he could go, we can do a little scratching. But when a certain song came on, he literally picked up his iPad, hit play and let this track play.

Cause that way it hit all the certain music hits that they couldn’t play and have on the stage. So they had all the sounds that were in the original song on the album’s track, but they couldn’t bring all that in a stage presence with them. So they just played that background music that they all cued off of from off an iPod.

I go, wow, somebody could really do that in the electronic music scene as a DJ. And this guy battled me on it.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Battled me on it.

[Darran]
That can’t be done. I’d know, I’d know, I’d know. And I go, how would you know if you couldn’t see?

You’re telling me you could hear a millisecond of a song not mixing with another. And then when the sync button came out, how are you even gonna know now that it syncs? And this is getting into the DJ world, but I’m talking about AI and false productions or people half-assing it.

And what does that do to the credibility of the industry when everyone can become a musician? Same thing happened in my industry. I’ll get into you guys, let you guys talk and I can talk forever here.

When a camera got put on everyone’s phone, when YouTube came out, before YouTube, we had public access television and we had broadcast television. That was it. And public access, easy to get into, but you had to get the gear, make your shows and deliver the tapes.

Broadcast television, a little bit more hoops to jump through. But once YouTube came out, every mofo with a camera in their hand said, I got a show on YouTube. I got a show on YouTube.

I got a show. But wait, what did you have to go through to get that show on YouTube? You didn’t have any barriers.

There’s no FCC. There’s no licensing, no copyright. What are you going to do?

Now you got a show and everyone has a show. Now everyone, I got a TikTok, I got an Instagram, I’m an influencer. Not knocking that side of the business, but it’s people claiming they’re doing something when really you got people that have been doing it for 30 years.

Your parents would probably be like, what the, that’s not production. You know, Siri, that’s literally production. But wait, how many people were on your crew and how many people did you hire?

Was it a union job? What you doing, A.G.? I did everything on my own. It looks like you did everything on your own.

People don’t understand that it takes that time. Now I can’t bitch. I do a show and yes, my setup’s pretty simple.

I have one camera, I have a microphone, but I’m in my office. Yes, I do need some soundboards. Okay, I get that.

I’ll dampen my studio here in a second. But other than that, you know, it’s a lot more work than what people think to just do it. So you got musicians coming out and this is why I ask musicians their thoughts on AI is because you have musicians come out and they’ll put themselves on the same level as you or talk the talk.

You know, like I’m just as good as Sirius and Smokey. I got a radio station. I’m on Spotify.

I’m da, da, da. And they’re like, the whole thing was produced in AI off their laptops, sitting on the couch, watching the city or something. Exactly.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So, you know, that being said, I had so much in my mind to say, I don’t even know where to start. But like you said, we need a second, man. We need a second, a third show together, man.

We’ll get it. We’ll get it. We have so much to talk, man.

That’s really… By the way, thank you for having us, man. That’s really a pleasure for me.

[Darran]
No, no, no. We’re having so much fun. I got a lot more questions to ask you, but I only got an hour with you.

So we are definitely gonna schedule another show. That’s a given. That’s a definite given.

We always like to bring artists back on the show and follow up with what they’re going on. Cause there’s always something changing, just like with our website. And I’ll tell everyone about this at the end of the show and I wrap up.

There’s always something new at the DJ sessions that I’ll come up with some crazy, weird idea. And be like, I want to put that into the website. That’s new.

I don’t see anyone else with that out there. Let me do that. Cool.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
We’re down for everything. We’re down for everything.

[Darran]
We’ll do that. We’ll do that. So what would you both consider the biggest break?

We were just talking about people breaking into the industry, the ease of getting into the industry, how AI is making that a little bit more accessible for people or even technology advancing. What do you consider both? We’ll go serious first, Smokey next.

What do you consider your biggest break that launched your career?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Let’s go with serious first. Yeah, yeah. I bet that’s a pretty good question.

Or my mom, I don’t even know my… Yes, I got a stutter. You got me, man.

I just, I’m like, I like you, like, I’m… Stutter, stutter. Yeah, I can’t, I can’t.

Stutter, stutter.

[Darran]
Okay, if you gotta think serious, if you gotta think about it, if you gotta think about it, Smokey, what’s the biggest break that launched your career?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Wow. Um, yeah, I can tell you that. I think it was 2009 or 2010 when our label changed from ghetto music into Atzen Musik.

Atzen is like translated like brother, but it’s a Berlin slang word. So like nowhere else you hear the word Atzen, you only hear it in Berlin. And we were the first German rappers who mixed techno beats with rap.

And that shit went off the roof though. Um, we went on tour. We went to, I don’t know where, everywhere.

France, we were in France. We were in Turkey. We were in Austria, Switzerland.

We were touring. We were on TV, on the freakiest shows, you know? Like, like, like…

What are you saying? The DJ said we weren’t freaky enough for you? No, man.

It’s like, it’s like, um, you know, German Schlager music?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
No, I don’t. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like… It’s like a bad, bad kind of country music, but I really…

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Ah, you can’t compare it, it’s so…

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I said like a bad kind of, a bad version, a really bad version of…

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Country music is good though.

[Darran]
Wait, did I, did I hear you correctly, Smokey, did you say German country music?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Oh, it’s, you’re freezing.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Oh. You’re freezing.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You’re back.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Okay.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You’re back, there you are.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I hear you. Your question again. Did you say German country music?

Not really. Nah, nah, nah, nah.

[Darran]
It’s very terrible.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, to the Schlager music. Yeah, because we were on shows where they play only that Schlager music and we were there with our techno rap, you know, and it didn’t match, but it matched, you know, and, but, but that, that was amazing. And I had opportunity to, I had like four seasons in Spain, you know, in Mallorca, that party spot in Spain, where 24 seven party, party, drinking, drinking, throw up, hang over to the fullest.

I have four seasons over there and, and amazing. That time got me my golden platinum plaques on the wall. And it was, yeah, we, and we, we set it a trend back in that day, because when you listen to German music nowadays, you always got that little techno influence into it.

And we started this, we started this over here in Germany.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You know what the funny thing about it is, we’re talking about the same people, because we’re just one crew. We grew up together with all the same people there. So he asked me, I’m still thinking about what was the, the thing that was, that was the breakthrough for me, like, or something like that.

But it goes so fast for me. I mean, my first record deal I had, I was like 15 or 16. So I wasn’t like kind of hip hop group or something like that.

And after that, it came everything like, I had, I mean, I had, I gave me myself a break when I started studying auto engineering, right? But that was the, even at that time, I was still with this all these guys. So we had so much, it was so fast.

It was like so many events one after another, right? So that was the thing. I can’t even, I don’t even, something I can’t even remember.

You know, that was like, we was one crew, we was on tour together. That was so crazy. I mean, I remember back then when we are on tour before hip hop became that big in Germany.

I mean, the major labels, they have signed, you know how major labels work. When they see something making kind of money, they try to sign everybody, even the shittiest person on fucking planet. So excuse me, my language.

But you know, so that was the thing. So that was the point we talked about earlier. So Berlin was really too rough for the rest of Germany.

We were like, yeah, we’re gonna fuck this shit up. What the fuck you want? So that kind of people.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You don’t give me that contract I want, I’ma make you. I’ma make you give me that contract.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
And the mazes were really scared of us, man. We don’t want to work there. They had people from Hamburg.

They had people from where? Where was it?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
And Stuttgart, they don’t have nothing in common with hip hop, okay?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
But I don’t want to just- But now it’s changed. You can’t say that.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, yeah, now it’s changed, of course.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
There was that peaceful rap, you know, that peaceful, you know, backpacking rap, you know.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
That was childish kind of rapping.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Sitting on a campus, drinking orange juice. And…

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So, let me say, so that time when everything, nobody, not even one major was interested in Berlin and Berlin rappers, right? So we was like, man, come on, fuck it. We gonna do our own thing, right?

So, whole Germany was crazy. When we, we didn’t realize that in Berlin, the Berlin’s way is like New York and L.A. We’re, everybody’s way too cool for themselves, you know, like that kind of people in Berlin, right? And we had like concerts and stuff, but we didn’t realize how famous we were back then.

So we go to like, I don’t know, like other cities outside Berlin, they were like, everybody like, yeah, can I have a, like, like, like, like, like how you say, like autograph? Autograph. Autograph, man.

Autographs and stuff, and they took pictures with it. I was like, man, nobody ever took picture with me, man. I was, and plus we always were drunk as fuck back then on stage.

And we had everything. That, you know, like, you need to understand when this major, major label rappers back then, they sold just like 500, how you say, like units, exactly. Like 500 units.

We sell like 5,000 and that’s always on concert and out with like, like, like. Out of the trunk. Out of the trunk, exactly like that.

And they, the majors was like, wait, we need to get in that thing. And we were like, no, man, you can’t get in there. So it came really, came really, really late that a major had access to our words.

So, but it start, all this, all this, I would say every, all this rap you heard now and all this hip hop you hear in Germany right now, it’s all started in Berlin. They don’t have, nobody was like, did that like, that thing we did that way. So then we was like, we were really rough.

We say like, I’m gonna, you know, like that kind of own curse in there. We’re like, that was Berlin, you know. It was really, really criminal stuff going on over here.

So we rappin’ about what we saw, what we did, right? So yeah, so after that, now when you hear like, like I said, when you hear it now, hip hop these days, it’s all like a copy, like it’s like AI doing, you know, like that kind of, and all the other rappers doing that. I don’t wanna diss anybody because I mean, I’m cool with everybody.

So, but that’s the truth, right? So you wanna say something to that? Because that’s, I think I said everything, right?

So it’s done, let’s close the case.

[Darran]
You know, you know what, we’ll wrap it up here really quickly here. What are the things that you prefer doing after all of that? And we got so much more to talk about.

Like I said, I’m gonna be bringing it back on the show here in the near future, maybe once a month, maybe we’ll do some really cool collabs together. It sounds like you guys are some great guests, definitely great guests to have on the series. Thank you.

And we’ll go with Smokey first and Sirius next. What do you prefer doing when you’re taking a break from music? When you’re taking a break from all this, what’s your go-to, what’s an activity, something you enjoy doing outside of this music business stuff?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Nothing.

[Darran]
Nothing? That was a quick question.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
I enjoy doing nothing, really nothing. Just on the couch, smoke me a blunt, watch a movie, got my wife next to me, my daughter jumping around somewhere, you know, that’s it. That’s my chill spot.

That’s what I need to come down, you know, just get rid of everything that bothers me. I just need my wife and my daughter though. That’s it.

Nice. I’m a family dude. Had enough back in the days, you know, I had everything and now I need less.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
That’s true though, that’s true. I mean, like back then, like 90s and beginning of the 2000s, that was crazy artist life though. You had like, man, I remember some stuff, but I can’t tell that on that show.

So, you know what I mean? Like that was back then, like you were, you did really good music. You had the chance to be- Young and reckless.

Young and reckless. Exactly. But that’s the thing.

I mean, like that was really a wildlife, you know, like you get paid for being that child. You are in your mind, right?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
So- And you’re coming from having almost nothing to, there you go. You got, here you go. 2K, 3K for a show, you know, have fun.

What? Okay, so I got four or five shows per week. All right, let’s go shopping.

[Darran]
Yeah, bling, bling it up.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
There you go, man.

[Darran]
Well, hey, we’re going to wrap it up here. Is there anything else you want to let our DJ sessions fans know about before we let you get going?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Keep your ears open. Keep your ears open for a lot of stuff that’s coming from Smokey and Sirius and be sure it’s going to be great. And, and play it in the club.

If you’re a DJ, you’re feeling it, play it in the club though.

[Darran]
Awesome. Sirius, anything you want to let anyone know about before we let you get going?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
No, not really. He already said everything. He said everything you need to know about that, man.

[Darran]
There you go. Where are the best places for people to find out more information about you guys?

[Siryuz & Smoky]
You want to start? Yeah, best is check out Instagram, check out Smokey46, S-M-O-K-Y-46.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Well, and then Sirius Music also on Instagram. Yeah, so that’s down there, right? Yeah, that’s it.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Yeah, I see it, I see it. And over Instagram, you can get all the links to all the other channels, like Facebook. Like, I wish MySpace was still on, but no, not MySpace.

[Darran]
Well, guys, thank you very much for coming on the DJ sessions today. Like I said, we’re going to be definitely following up with you, got a lot more to talk to you about.

[Siryuz & Smoky]
Thanks for having us, really appreciate it.

[Darran]
You’re very welcome. We’re looking forward to having you on the series again in the future, and congratulations on your success and everything so far. Thank you, thank you, thanks a lot.

You’re welcome. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com, find us on Metta, find us on the socials, Instagram, TikTok, we’re out there, but everything and more is at thedjsessions.com. All our socials are right there at the top.

2,600 past, actually 2,700 past interviews, exclusive mixes, and more. We’ve got our store, you can buy some stuff, donate, get some cool gear. We have our new music section coming out.

You can find out about our VR nightclub. We have over 700 news stories that get published a month. To the website, thedjsessions.com, check out the QR code right there, or just type in the domain name. We have a mobile app as well, if you can get us on the go and all that fun stuff, but all of that and more at thedjsessions.com. I’m your host, Darren, coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington with Sirius and Smokey, coming in from Berlin for the DJ Sessions, and remember, on the DJ Sessions, the music never stops. Whoop!