MAXIMA

BRIEF

MAXIMA is an ongoing vision I have built up throughout this past year, more likely than not, this blog will be updated to fit new concepts I weave into this world. However, I wouldn’t be covering the whole vision if I did not explain how it has evolved. At first, I imagined this album to feel like a high-end art heist. It’s supposed to feel fast, high-stakes, everything you get from a heist movie. While it still does have this element to it, I needed to build the project in a way where that high-level feeling of an art heist related to experiences in my life. The overarching goal of this vision is to put as many creative mediums together to paint an image of an unhinged character, someone I believe is a part of us all.

MUSIC

Maxima is my first album (project over 7 songs). Between the projects I have to my name, I can confidently say I am most proud of MAXIMA. It is a 10-song album that I have been telling my friends all about since the day I thought of the name earlier this year at college. MAXIMA is the continuation of Harvard Dropout, narratively. In my vision, Harvard Dropout is what comes before MAXIMA, and the dropout itself is what turns a person into the state of MAXIMA. To me it is a state of mind, It is a feeling of adrenaline, toxicity, ego, and lust when it comes to the world. Someone would be lying if they said they never felt their intrusive thoughts, the ones that despise the people who have done you wrong, the ones that promote egotistic behaviors. Although the vulgarness of the project is not quite how I represent myself in real life, as an artist, I felt it true to tell about thoughts I did have at times in my life. This album is unhinged, its real, and whether people like it or not, all they can do is listen.

TRACKLIST

1. meaning
2. ace of spades (feat. Baby Swerve)
3. alone (feat. Jdot Tee)
4. throw (feat. Jdot Tee)
5. my style
6. handle it all
7. out of love
8. fashion week
9. 10 and 2
10. maxima

For the album, I treated the tracklist as a cinematic. Each track goes into the next one to create a feeling of progression, each song gets darker and darker. The only exception to this is the intro and outro, the intro track, meaning is supposed to be “the end”. It is the darkest point in the whole record and the parallel to this is, if you’ve ever seen a movie that starts with the end, this is that. That said, ace of spades is the real “intro” track, and each song progresses darker until the final track, maxima. This outro track is made to reflect the past 9 songs, almost as if I am outside of this world of MAXIMA and now reflecting on it.

The first 2,3,4 have features and those are the only features on the record. Stacking 3 feature artists on the top of the album also plays into the progression factor I mentioned earlier. As the album goes on, I am left more alone, and more aggressive. This is completely established on the track “10 and 2” where the whole take on the track is from the steering wheel grip, 10 and 2. The idea was to capitalize on the nighttime highway, fast feeling the album delivers on.

COVER ART AND INSPIRATION

In earlier iterations of MAXIMA cover art, I aimed to capture the luxury feeling of a high-end art museum. I considered that although I wanted this world to be dark, the fine elements within the vision could add a pop of color to the palette. Initially, I used AI imagery to configure an image, then I went back, and changed colors and such. I looked to source prompt information by collecting thought-provoking images I had liked online.

While it was the original vision to go in this direction for the cover art. I found it to be very critical to show the rawness of the album. I wanted the cover art to feel like a very achievable shot. Not too much editing, not too much going on, but letting the editing, fashion, and candidness shine more. After I decided on this approach, I knew I wanted to be the main part of my album cover, so it was about curating the right outfits and picking accurate props to bring about the message I wanted to deliver. Below are some cover art I considered.

Shot by my friend Graham, and edited/composed by me, this shot needed to be the official cover. MAXIMA is a state of mind, and this photo is a thousand words. Hopeless romantic, materialistic, flashy, and luxury are words that come to mind when looking at this photo. I like what Graham and I were able to come up with here mostly because of how well we captured a lot of different elements of the album. Its dark, the most obvious, but this album also has a lot of romantic tropes. The rose does a great job of aiding that, and the umbrella, it just goes more to add that late night appeal.

THE PROCESS

The process of creating this album started back in December 2023. While at college, I would join video calls on Discord with my best friend and producer Reif. All we would do was make beats, and I would keep writing, I was writing a LOT.

When we finally got to recording in March, it was spring break, and we had 8 days to do as much as we could and then it was another 2 months of no recording. I decided to use those 8 days to perfect one single song, called Thieves. There were 5 total versions of the song. This would also be the last song I record in a bedroom. Since that is the case, that song will not release on platforms. But I will put it down below as an exclusive to this site. The entirety of MAXIMA was recorded at 43 Studios in Oswego, Illinois.

THIEVES.MP3

Reif and I would spend hours in the studio, sessions would turn into all-nighters, constantly trying to mold our strengths together to make a desirable result. It got to a point where our workflow got so efficient that songs would get done every time I had a session at the studio, or at least the first version of them. Below are some BTS.

Another approach that we took was creating beats from vocals. Although this was not the case for every song, In some cases, I would have lyrics thought of before making the beat. This also allowed us to add elements to the new beats that would accentuate the vocals already there.

IMPACT

As I mentioned, this blog will inevitably be updated. MAXIMA is an ongoing vision, something I want to refine. But again, my goal stays the same. This project is meant to really share a perspective of one specific character we’ve all seen, through a variety of creative mediums; music, fashion, short films, and more.