With an unorthodox style and evocative lyrics, New Jersey’s own, Hatty Maines creates music that lovers of classic and new-age rap will enjoy. He fell in love with Hip Hop culture when he signed up for breakdancing classes at 12 years old but it wasn’t until his father died that he decided he wanted to make music his life.

Also a musician, he taught himself to make music electronically as well as play Guitar, Ukulele, Piano, and a bit of Harmonica. His lyricism and bouncy flows have gotten him writeups by EARMILK and HipHopDX for his track ‘SOS’.

He’s gotten over 30,000 streams across YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music alone. His musical influences, ranging from Neutral Milk Hotel to Young Thug, have steered his songwriting down many paths over the years. He’s written hooks for artists Taylor Nixon, Quake Matthews, and more.

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Hatty Maines about the new release, challenges, technology and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

I am from New Jersey (Yerrrr!) and I make rap music. I like to think I have an experimental style, not exactly “face tat” rap but I borrow melodic elements that give a good bounce.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?

Strictly love of the culture. I’ve been ingrained with the pillars of hip hop since I was 12 years old signed up for break dancing classes. A few years later I started rapping, a few years after that I started taking it seriously. It’s been probably over 10 years now and I wouldn’t have made it this long if I didn’t love it. Being in this industry has been a long road, I’ve been screwed out of thousands and ridiculed by my peers but I keep pushing forward through all of it, not even necessarily because I’m “motivated” but because I’ve forced myself to become so disciplined that I cannot bring myself to stop. Discipline will always beat motivation.

How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

More High almost never even saw the light of day. Dee Miinor and I linked up at his apartment to make a song with my ukulele. He sampled me playing some chords and the song was written in probably less than an hour. We thought the song was fucking hilarious but didn’t think it would hit well with audiences so we shelved it. Fast forward a few weeks later we linked up with our homies at Oh Thats Filthy and Create Digital Media to play some tracks that we could hopefully sync. The room loved it so we sent it out to get it mixed properly.

Then I linked up with Will Raver and shot the video, the whole storyboard was developed by him and we had Diana Kwiatkowski and Patricia Kwiatkowski doing production design. All of us work together a lot but this was the first time we all got to work on something so fun and psychedelic.

I wasn’t really trying to accomplish anything when I was writing it, Dee and I were about to roll another and I just thought “I wanna be more high”. I actually try to question myself as little as possible when I’m writing so I do my best to NOT try and accomplish anything specific.

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

The main hazard for me was predatory actors in the industry. I’ve been taken advantage of a lot, young artists need to be wary of a lot of these “pay to play” schemes.

Another challenge I think every artist faces in the current industry is Branding. Having a cohesive brand requires so much organization and content (pictures, videos, music). Guys like me just do not have the resources labels have. I’m competing with established characters that have millions of dollars at their disposal, directors, graphic designers, stylists.

I’ve spent years building skills in graphic design and production to help vertically integrate myself and I couldn’t have done any of that without the thousands of teachers on Youtube making it possible for anybody to learn anything.

What was the last song you listened to?

quarantine freestyle – bbno$

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?

From a purely sonic perspective I suppose vinyls but I mean MP3s are just so damn useful in my everyday life. CDs are garbage. Anybody selling CDs on Hollywood Boulevard right now needs a reality check bro who the hell is still listening to CDs???

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?

Spotify. No real reason, I just dig the user interface, its clean and its what I’m used to.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

I’m on the instagram @hattymaines more than any other platform, if you want to discover more of my music definitely check out my Youtube where all my spicy videos are at.

Anything else before we sign off?

Blaze it.