By Kelli Saunders
Staff Writer
Mira Costa seniors Frankie Hillebrand, Preston Thue, Rakeeb Kahn, and Nick Alonso, along with Lucas Sims and Amrit Randeniya, compiled their skills to create “SB Gang.” The group writes and produces music that is later released on SoundCloud.
Click here to listen to one of their songs
“This was something that I had always wanted to do for a while,” Hillebrand said. “I eventually started working on it and was having a lot of fun so I decided to team up with my friends and take it more seriously.”
The group focuses on hip-hop, but also aims to experiment with trap and calmer beats. They incorporate their own rhythms with original lyrics that they each write individually. They then come together to record and upload the finished songs.
“We are trying to diversify as much as possible by mixing up the sounds and not sitting with one sound in particular,” Hillebrand said. “I try to write lyrics over a beat to figure out what works best, making sure that it’s something incredible that people actually want to listen to.”
Click here to listen to one of their songs
The group tries to meet once a week to collaborate on their songs. Each member plays an important role in the production of the song, so if one is not present they are not able to finish the song, Hillebrand said. They use GarageBand and a microphone to record their songs then lay their lyrics over the base tracks.
“I try to get everyone together at least once a week or every weekend,” Hillebrand said. “It takes us a while to get stuff out because we aren’t always available for each other and other people that are part of our group have the equipment so it’s a team effort for when we can all come together and make music.”
“SB Gang” gets their inspiration from various artists, such as, Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, J Cole, Drake, and Eminem. They strive to produce meaningful lyrics that convey a powerful message, Thue said. Each member comes up with their own lyrics that they feel are important and then they put them together to create a song.
“I try to wrap about things that affect me, my friends, or my family personally or the beliefs I have as a Christian, and the ideals I believe in,” Thue said. “When I’m with my friends, or on my own, I’ll just pull out paper and write down lyrics about whatever I am thinking and it usually comes naturally.”
Hillebrand has released two songs. “What’s Cookin’ Good Lookin,” which was released a month ago, and “Summertime Fine,” which was released two weeks ago. Both of these songs were produced on Garageband by Hillebrand.
“I want to improve the production value in these tracks,” Hillebrand said. “It felt good to put the songs out there but I didn’t feel like it was as good as i wanted them to be.”
Photo Essay: Alonso, Hillebrand, Thue
In the future, the group hopes to gain more notoriety so they can profit from their songs. They are soon releasing four more songs that they hope will be more successful than their past two. They have changed the tones of their voices and their lyrics to flow better with the beats.
“My favorite thing about putting out music is seeing the final work of it, and saying that we made it,” Hillebrand said. “I haven’t put out anything yet that I am super proud of but we are continuously trying to improve so new songs will be more put together than what we have out right now.”
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