Bryce Savoy invented a new genre.
It's called Intelligent Town Music and it blends his Oakland roots with soulful funk. He introduced the music to the world via his latest project, the "Intelligent Town Music, Vol. 1" EP.
Savoy channeled his personal memories feeling the power of music while driving with friends in their scrapers and his own personal desires to share something meaningful with his audience.
He created a lane with the music itself, and Savoy is also changing the rules of the industry by releasing the project direct-to-consumer. It's not an entirely new business model for him, but instead of casting a wide net by putting "Intelligent Town Music, Vol. 1" on streaming services, he wanted to connect on a deeper level with his core fans.
The project is a revival of Savoy's #INDEPENDENCE movement, which he last pushed before COVID when he embarked on his first headlining tour. "Intelligent Town Music" is the result of connecting with producer Will Bracy and life lessons he learned from the pandemic onward.
There were 51 downloads of "Intelligent Town Music, Vol. 1" available for purchase at a price of $5.10. Yes, it's all a tribute to the 510, a city that instilled in him a deep sense of pride and ownership. The downloads sold out within a week.
The EP features up-and-coming Oakland artists, a skit from his mom and a clip of Isaiah "J.R." Rider, who put his stamp on the basketball world with his signature through-the-legs dunk called "East Bay Funk."
After the death of Savoy's father earlier this year and as he awaits the birth of his own son, the artist has a new sense of purpose and drive. Even though he said this year has been the hardest of his life, it only means his vision as a leader of the Neighborhood Diamonds movement is VVS clear.
Kick The Concrete spoke with Bryce Savoy about the inspiration for "Intelligent Town Music, Vol. 1," the importance of paying tribute to his city and reviving his #INDEPENDENCE campaign for more than himself.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kick The Concrete: Your new project is “Intelligent Town Music." What was the inspiration for the EP?
Bryce Savoy: It was a collection of songs that I started to work on during COVID, actually. I would just call it a wave of inspiration in that time frame. I was just writing songs left and right. The producer who produced all the songs on the project, Will Bracy, he’s from Oakland as well. We got connected during COVID, right around the time I had just finished tour. He started sending me a lot of beats and it was the first time I felt connected to a sound in this way. He had production that really spoke to the type of music that I always wanted to make and made in certain spurts and I just never had the production in a full expansive way to really merge all different styles that I had. So it was like man, we really got to do something together. Fast forward to now, instead of releasing it in longer form, we’re breaking it up leading up to the album. So this is just Volume 1. But that’s pretty much the genesis of how it started and ultimately is just telling the story of the genre that I’m creating, Intelligent Town Music. It really stems from my experiences growing up in Oakland and really the way that I consume music was heavily influenced by car culture and the sound systems that people had in their cars. I just felt like this is the type of music that resonates with who I am. It’s the purest most clear example of what Intelligent Town Music is.
KTC: It has the Bay Area sound for sure. And the cover art pays tribute to car culture. What are some of those specific memories you have, specific songs or specific visuals of listening to music in the car growing up?
BS: Me, I never had I would say the capital to have my own car, a scraper we would call it back in the day. I never really had the luxury of having that type of car. But I had some of my closest friends, cousins, they had those cars. So whenever we would be going to school, just out having a good time, exploring the city or just wanting to get out of the house, just hop in any of their cars and listen to music. Some of the songs that stick out to me, definitely Messy Marv “Playin' Wit My Nose,” that was a staple in the Oakland community at the time. All of the E-40, Keak da Sneak, 3X Krazy, all of the local Bay Area, Oakland artists, they all were big on production. So I saw from a young age that you really don’t know how a song feels or translates until you play it in those cars. They had four 12s, just a crazy, crazy sound system that typically wouldn’t even fit in these cars. I remember times just being in the car listening to something and the bass was hitting so hard that my heart would skip a beat and I couldn’t damn near barely breathe at times because that’s just how hard the shit was hitting. And that was a refreshing feeling to have. So I look back at some of my earliest memories with music, especially as I got older and started to hear it loud and I understood that’s why I listen to music the way I do and also create music in the way that I create is from those experiences growing up.
KTC: I agree, there’s something about bass that feels different. It’s a better experience that it’s hard to put into words.
BS: It’s just different. And it just made me feel like man, this is what music should sound like. I really studied the landscape of our music. As most people know, hyphy music, that movement in general, set our region or put a following on our region in a way that never had before. But for me and for people who know and are familiar with the region’s music, it’s that period right before. So you had like Mobb Music, but you also had soul and funk. I’m thinking about 3X Krazy, an influential group in that scene. I’m thinking of Seagram, rest in peace, he passed away some years ago, but it was more R&B-influenced and it just made you feel good, man. And I think that was the era that I resonated with most. I didn’t grow up in the area, of course, as I got older, I went back and did my research, that type of sound is the music that resonated with me more, R&B-influence, even some jazz influences and just very soulful and funky and that’s something that I wanted to replicate with my sound.
KTC: Bringing that old soul and the bass and creating something new to feel and experience!
BS: Exactly, exactly. So that was the purpose of this for sure.
KTC: How did you initially connect with Will Bracy?
BS: I connected with him, it’s crazy, I think I was working with another producer when I was still living in Oakland around 2015, his name is Wax Roof. He’s a great producer that lived in the Bay Area. I was, I believe, at his house one day. We were working on some music for my project. Will happened to be there working. He plays a lot of different instruments, he’s very musical. He was just there, he happened to be there working as well. So I met him initially there. That’s probably like four years prior to us actually ever working together.
Later, he reached out on Facebook, actually. It’s funny because I typically don’t even be on Facebook like that, but I happened to check my Facebook messages and he hit me up. He was like, ‘Bro, seeing what you’re doing with tour. I got some beats, I want you to check them out.” I was in a great creative space. This was right before COVID even started. So I was still on a high from my tour. And I’m like, "Yeah, send them over." A lot of artists can probably relate to this, but producers, you’ll get hit up by producers and it’s not music or production that really resonates with who I am as an artist. I’m the type of person, I don’t care, if you hit me up, I’ma always listen to it. I’ll give it at least one listen. And then from there, I’ll make a decision to move forward or not. He sent me a pack of beats and every beat I was listening to, I was like, "Oh man, this is it. This is the sound that I’ve been looking for. This is the sound that I couldn’t necessarily always articulate with words." I’m not a producer, but when I hear it, I’m like this is it. And that’s how I felt with his stuff. We actually, from that point on, have built a relationship from 2016 to now and it’s kinda crazy. It’s the first time we’re actually releasing anything that we worked on for the last couple of years. This is something special. This is something different that I know the world needs to hear and wants to hear.
KTC: On “East Bay Funk,” you included a clip of Isaiah Rider’s dunk contest. Why was that important to put on this project?
BS: I’m glad you caught that. That was intentional for sure. For me, if I’m going to name a project and the genre that I created “Intelligent Town Music,” I’m going to always try to put some information, drop some gems about Oakland culture, right? Everybody that knows J.R. Rider, he played in the NBA for a good period of time, but he made popular and kind of came in the dunk contest with the East Bay Funk, which a lot of people know between the legs that a lot of dunkers since then have done. But he was the one that kicked it all off, gave it a name, promoted it. He was the first to do it and I felt it was only right being from Oakland myself, to kind of give that context to people. You can listen to my music, you can always listen to it, but also try to learn in it without it being overbearing. So I wanted to put that excerpt there because the song was called “East Bay Funk,” so I was like okay, what’s the best way to tie it together other than to put that excerpt there? So shoutout to J.R. Rider, man, he’s definitely a legend in The Town and everywhere. East Bay Funk, he started it. He kicked it off.
KTC: This is your first project since “Big Bryce Son.” Was it emotional for you or how were you able to move onto the next project after something so personal?
BS: When I dropped “Big Bryce Son,” of course it was meant to capture a moment in time, a moment of grieving, mourning, loss, and the setup for what was next to come. So after that, I did that and then I wanted to make a point to promote it, market it and just a lot of different ways, tell the story as opposed to just leaving it up to the music. So I did that for about three months. Then when it was time to figure out what was the next release, I had some stuff planned. This was in the pipeline, it was somewhat finished and I said, you know what, instead of waiting and prolonging it any longer, let’s get it going. Let’s release this music that I feel so strongly about. And let’s not only release it, but find a unique way to give my supporters a direct opportunity to support it and not just rely on the past methods of streaming, which we all know what that is and what that does and it has a place.
But for me, I felt like after dropping that project, releasing it physically, but also releasing it spiritually and emotionally from myself and from my being, I was like man, I don’t really have nothing to lose at this point and I feel like what better way to honor my father but to really invest solely into myself and reintroduce the #INDEPENDENCE campaign that I’ve been working on and been pushing for four or five years now? Of course, COVID changed a lot of it and derailed it or detoured it and I learned so much in the process. But I feel like instead of trying to create something that’s new, why not just focus and really hone in on what I was already doing? So that came, the idea came to reintroduce the #INDEPENDENCE campaign and then from there, I’m like what better way to do it but to introduce in an intentional way my sound and this project and working to get to the album, which will come sometime soon. All of those things started to happen in the last couple of months, those connections started to be made and I just feel I’m somebody that when it feels right, when I get to a point where it feels right, no second guessing. Make the decision, stick with it and live by it for better or for worse. So that’s kinda how I saw it moving forward. The natural next step was to release it.
KTC: What was the process in making this a direct-to-community release? How are you excited to offer your fans that opportunity to be a part of the movement than streaming?
BS: That was both exciting and a little scary decision to make, being honest. For the last couple of years, I have used streaming because it’s very convenient, very accessible and I know for sure it’s going to be hard-pressed to even compete with that. But I also thought about what I did before. I’ve done this before. I released my project “Bryce Savoy II” the EP in honor of my uncle and I saw just the way in which people responded, it was different. In all the time I’ve been doing music, it was a different response and I think people bought into the idea of what #INDEPENDENCE represents.
I’m like man, I have a proof of concept, so that wasn’t the issue. The issue I think this whole time was trying to find technology that I felt could give what I’m trying to do in the most efficient way possible. So through research, through fact-finding, I came across a platform called Single. They’re a platform that provides the technology and the software to be able to sell music, merchandise, memberships for fanclub, all these different things directly through your Shopify or website. So shoutout to Single. I partnered with them and I’m doing it directly through my website.
I’m doing it in a space where I set a goal for 51 digital downloads priced at $5.10 apiece. If you kinda catch on it’s 510, Oakland’s area code, everything tying back to Oakland, so that’s what I’m excited to share. It’ll be a first edition. I’ll find a lot of different ways and iterations to do it. It’s not going to always be the same concept, but will be the same is giving my people a direct opportunity to support my #INDEPENDENCE and I feel like I’m finding these different, creative ways to do that. So definitely excited to kinda like just really focus on people that support me.
I think with streaming, it’s a great platform, but it’s a game to be played. And if you’re someone who’s not really worried about casting such a wide net, which I was at some point, but I realized, you know what, that might not be the route for me and I’m okay with that. I think I finally accepted that. So whether it’s 10, whether it’s 20, whether it’s 30 people, I’d rather focus on those people than trying to get people who will probably never be interested in the first place, just won’t. You got so much time in the day, I get it, I know it. And so I’m like let me just focus on those people. This is gonna be the way, the path forward that’ll lead to so many other things in this space. So I’m excited for it for sure.
KTC: There’s a lot of power in that intentionality and making those fans who are committed feel special and feel part of the community.
BS: That’s important! That’s important. We spend our time, especially on social media, we all can get caught up in comparing, we get caught up in looking at numbers and metrics and data and it tells a certain story, but it doesn’t tell the full story. I know I’ve been doing it so long, I know what’s right, I know what feels good and I’m gonna focus on that from here on out. I think that’s what my last project and furthermore my dad’s passing made me kinda realize. While I’m on this earth, why not say to myself, I have these visions, I have these ideas that I feel so strongly about and I am gonna do them. I’m gonna see them through and not let fear, not let worry, not let doubt affect it. Those things still are part of everyday experience, the human experience, but it doesn’t trump what I believe. So that’s what I kinda fell in after he passed and after I got the project, I was like this is what’s next. What better way to honor myself and my father by doing it this way. I know he would be proud of this. So that feels good to say.
My girl she’ll tell you, I was stressing out trying to figure out okay, how am I going to do this next? I don’t know at what point I was like, why don’t I reintroduce what I already was doing. I say reintroduce because there are people who have been tapped in with me for that journey and already associate me with that. However, now I can take the last four and a half years from when tour ended to now and take all of that information, all of the growth as a person, as an artist, my mentality, taking that, ushering it into where I’m at now. I feel like I know it’ll be way, way more beneficial now than even it was before. I look at it as a full circle experience. I’m very, very, just excited to see what happens.
KTC: Overall, you’ve had confidence in the music, but there is a new sense of "Get with it or don’t." What musically gave you this new confidence?
BS: That’s a great question. I think it’s all in line with what we said, this new confidence, this is what it is for better or for worse. I am somebody who loves to sing or loves to try melodies and depending on the song, if you look at a song like “Granny Said,” I feel like that’s the perfect representation of that, being able to stay in pocket, but giving something that’s melodic. So I kinda understood that even my tone or what pitch I’m in, what note, these beats, that’s what I felt. Instead of shying away from it, let me just go where I feel. Of course, I’m going to perfect it as much as I possibly can. But not being afraid I think is again, goes in line with everything I’m feeling. Just being fearless creatively, letting the chips fall where they may, but trusting in myself enough to do that.
I think another thing is if any other project stood out this year that I heard, it was ScHoolboy Q’s “Blue Lips.” When I heard that initially the first time, I was like what is this? I was kinda like taken aback it was all over the place in my head. That’s how I perceived it. But I started to listen to it more, I started to watch his interviews, I started to watch his visuals, I just consumed as much as I could related to the project and I related a lot to his thought process of just someone painting on a wall and then letting that dictate how you move forward instead of trying to think about formulas, trying to think about it has to be a bridge, hook, just different shit that we’ve learned that comes with being an artist. So I was like man, I resonated with that, so I just wanted to create something that feels vulnerable and that let’s me knowing okay, I’m in the right direction if I’m doing something that I’m not necessarily sure about, but the more I listen to it, I’m like yeah, this is right, this is it. So that was kind of the sentiment behind it.
Something else too that gives me confidence is I don’t know how many volumes I’ll do, but each time I do Intelligent Town Music, it’s gonna always highlight local up-and-coming Oakland independent artists. So I got Lulbearrubberband on there who has a lot of notoriety lately. He has a song called “From The Town,” which is a great Oakland anthem. I got him on there. I got my homegirl Honey Gold Jasmine, who’s from Vallejo, but spends a lot of time in Oakland as a creative. She’s done a lot of great stuff from that space. I’ve got my little cousin Lil Nani on there. It’s the first time we’ve collaborated in a while. My mom’s on there, she’s talking on there. Breedsworld, an Oakland artist, singer, rapper, does it all. Champ Green doing the intro on “East Bay Funk.” He’s an artist I look at like a poet in general. And yeah, that’s the goal to highlight not only myself, but every time I make a body of work, it’s to bring up and work with other artists who are up-and-coming and represent the same type of stuff that I stand for. So that’s always going to be the case in everything that I do, especially with this. Even from the mixing, the mastering, the artwork, I try my best to keep it in house. People from The Town or from close proximity to Oakland. That was important to me to kinda just bringing it all home and tie it all together.
KTC: Is there anything else you'd like to share or discuss?
BS: One of the things that I wanted to say is another part of this, I look at it as a restructuring of my artistry, a revamping, a reimagining. Another part of that is fatherhood. Knowing that fatherhood is close, it’s coming, it’ll be here before we know it. Wanting to put not only myself, but my family in a position to be like hey, if this is something that I consider important, I take seriously, which I do, let me try to figure out ways in which I can really track it and measure it. Everything isn’t about money. If I was doing it for money, of course I would have been quit, to be honest. But it’s like I wanna just get everything as streamlined as possible so when my son is here, I can show him this and give him something as a legacy to say hey, this is something that your father is doing and consistently has been doing.
It’s something that I can just share with him in the same way my father shared his love for music and hip-hop with me, that’s what I want to do for him. That was a decision, too, in all of this. Thinking ahead. Let me think ahead. I’m thinking differently, obviously, because I am different. So it’s like let me figure out different ways in which I can expand this idea, this thought further than just for a particular release, but moving forward. But yeah, essentially the project is an introduction I would say to who Bryce is, where he comes from. I feel like this year has been one of the most challenging and full of pressure or pressured years of my life and whenever I feel pressure, I tap back into what I know and where I come from and what I come from. This is my statement. It’s an ongoing statement, but the first statement of what’s to come.
KTC: And pressure makes diamonds! I know it's uncomfortable and hard in the moment, but you've already done such a great job with the Neighborhood Diamonds movement.
BS: It's funny you said that because I was thinking about that the other day. I'm like, damn, sometimes I wish I didn't say that because in life, I can't run from anything. I have to persevere and really handle pressure in a way that it should be handled in my opinion. So you're right. I made it a part of my brand, but it really is my life. It's always going to be a continuing story of perseverance whatever way it comes. It will always be a story of perseverance that's what I'm learning now. That's what I'm looking to leave behind. Everybody has their own story, but my story is one of perseverance and rising above circumstances and challenges and obstacles and being able to really shine my light for the entire world to see while I'm here on this earth. And obviously, once I'm no longer here, being able to have those gems be a part of society for eternity.
"Intelligent Town Music, Vol. 1" is now available to stream worldwide.
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