Q&A: LLusion Makes A Career Out of Making Your Favorite Song Lo-Fi
TIKTOK AND MUSIC HAVE AN INDISPENSABLE RELATIONSHIP — with each other. If your latest song has a catchy, quirky, or hard-hitting 10 to 15–second snippet within it, you might have yourself a hit song through the most popular social media app of 2022. The inner workings of how this process works may be convoluted, but this also leaves a void for music that is made specifically for the platform. LLusion is maybe the most pertinent example of this. Also known as “The Remix Guy” on TikTok, the lo-fi beatmaker has found ways to entangle the viral formula without jeopardizing his zealous love for crafting soft, comforting melodies.
Beginning with YouTube videos that rightfully tickled the algorithm, such as “Roddy Ricch – The Box but it's groovy” and “Don Toliver had No Idea his song could be FUNKY” that playfully tug at the virality of those songs while adding LLusion’s own funky instrumentals.
It’s more than just “right place, right time.” LLusion found a niche and attacked it with fervent ease. By taking trending sounds and songs and adding his own touch, he’s gained over 3 million followers on TikTok, production credits for 24kGoldn and Charli XCX, a deal with Republic Records, and an insurmountable amount of people who have come across his music and found solace in the sweet sounds that come from his MPC. LLusion has come across several people’s TikTok FYP, including my own.Read below to learn about LLusion’s creative ambitions, the interpersonal elements of his social media, and how he manages to make hits without sacrificing his artistic individuality.
LUNA: When you sample, you borrow something and then make something greater of your own from that. But you do things a bit different: You take these previously existing songs and completely transfix them into something new and give it that algorithmic edge through the categorization of “but it’s lo-fi.” This kind of exploded and became its own subgenre on the internet. Over time, you grabbed the attention of the likes of Jennifer Lopez and allowed her to hear your remixes of her music. You take things a step further with your original songs such as “walk but in a garden” and “Day in Paris” but still aren’t afraid to remix songs such as “The Box” or artists such as Don Toliver. I think that’s really special. Is that balance between crafting your own original compositions and being “The Remix Guy” something that gives you a creative edge?
LLUSION: First of all, thank you for all these words. It’s funny because before TikTok I made remixes to songs that I would have just put out myself incrementally. In some ways I knew that it would make great shock value, turning an aggressive song like JASAIH’s “Break Stuff” into a lo-fi banger. By throwing over the vocals or certain stems of the original song I’m remixing, it correlates in a way that’s oddly satisfying, and it makes sense. One of my famous trends on TikTok started when my wife showed me the song “Devil in Disguise” by Elvis Presley. People were using it as an old type of song on TikTok, and she told me to turn it into a scary edit. It’s crazy to think of the trend that we both created. I did something, showed it to her, and she was like, “You need to add sound effects and stuff so people can manipulate it and interact with the camera.” Whether it’s the screams or the sword-sounds in there, we made something completely different. That isn’t something that I’d put out as an LLusion song — it’s totally for remix purposes.
LUNA: It’s clear that you have such a strong hold on what TikTok is and what makes things go off. But I also love that you’re so transparent with your TikTok, how you take people on these walkthroughts of the songs you make and how you make them. Seeing you there with the MPC and making the actual beat elevates the meaning behind having these viral songs. It adds a face to it and makes everything much more personable. Building trust in a relationship with your audience is obviously something that’s so important, but for you it seems to come naturally. How has being more open and involved with your audience on these walkthroughs and storytimes on your TikTok affected the confidence you have with your artistic career as a whole?
LLUSION: Nothing against any other artists, musicians, or creators, but when people make music too seriously, it irritates me. Music is supposed to be fun, so people who feel the need to be closed off or make something a bigger deal than it really is — I find that so lame. Showing my creative process is something I not only enjoy doing, but it takes away that seriousness and mystery of like, “How did he do this?” I’m like, “This is exactly how I did it.” It can be something as simple as bringing in two samples, like a sample on a drum loop. That’s how it can be done. There were a lot of times when I started making music, and if I was watching any videos on how a song was made and seeing that it wasn’t that complicated it gave me the confidence of thinking, “Oh, maybe I can do something like that.” I’m hoping that in my breakdown videos, someone can feel the same way. I hope it takes away some of the seriousness a bit.
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