FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

How Did a Canadian EDM Group End Up Signed to Waka Flocka Flame's Label?

Neon Dreams went from playing music for turned up maritimers, to getting driven around Atlanta and visiting Waffle Houses in Bentleys.

Just five years ago, Neon Dreams, the Halifax instrumental electronic four-piece group, were skipping their high school classes to hang out and jam, and in the last two years, they’ve kepy busy playing their energetic and frentic brand of music in the local scene. On Monday January 12th, though, literal and figurative trap giant Waka Flocka Flame announced that Neon Dreams had been added to his label 36 Brickhouse. So how does Halifax, Nova Scotia (a place so disconnected from the notion of "the trap" that their closest reference to it would be Ryan Hemsworth), create producers who work so well with Waka Flocka Flame?

Advertisement

In January of 2014, after Waka’s first Halifax show, Neon Dreams’ producer and synth-sampler Corey LeRue was backstage looking for his laptop charger. Waka’s tour DJ asked if LeRue could play Waka some beats. “I said yes and I showed him and we had some tracks he got excited about, so we kept in contact,” says LeRue. A few months later, Neon Dreams met up with Waka at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, and then again in Montreal. “But things started kicking up real heavy about three months ago,” LeRue says at his downtown Halifax studio where he’s engineered for Classified, LL Cool J and Bishop Lamont. “We started doing the “50K Remix” and then that turned into original tracks.” That turned into LeRue and vocalist Frank Kadillac hitting Atlanta to work on Waka’s upcoming album, Turn Up God, which LeRue is executive producing.

“It’s definitely turn-up music,” LeRue says, “It’s kinda funny music. It sounds new, fused with hip-hop, trap, and electro. There’s lots of build-up into Waka’s parts and then right into heavy EDM. There’s some melodic stuff—there’s actually a range flowing now.” In the meantime, Neon Dreams is still working their own flavor, combining EDM with instrumentation and the drums of Adrian Morris. Their recent single, “Love Experts” just broke the Top 10 on iTunes and floats in the 40-range on the Billboard Charts.

“Our stuff is very progressive house,” says LeRue, “We try to be very fun, festival and rave party,” which seems on track with Waka’s somewhat recent embrace of EDM. “In terms of where we are on 36 Brickhouse,” says guitarist Matt Sampson, “They have 808 Mafia, and Southside and his whole crew, so Neon Dreams is like 808 but as an electronic production group.”

Advertisement

“I love Atlanta. We got picked up in a Rolls Royce when we got there,” Le Rue says of the Southern hip-hop hub. “We were treated really well. Patchwerk Studio was amazing, almost everyone has gone through there. Young Jeezy, John Mayer, Jermaine Dupri, Diddy. At one point, we had to go to Best Buy and on the way there, Waka’s like, ‘I gotta take you to this place,’ and we’re in the hood, like in Riverdale, and we go to this place called Soul Food and Waka’s like, ‘We’re gonna have to book off three hours after this ‘cause you’re gonna need to nap.’ Which we did. And oh, God, Waffle House. When I make my first three million, I’m opening a Waffle House in Nova Scotia. It’ll be a charitable act more than anything. Fuck Smitty’s. Fuck Denny’s. We need a Waffle House.”

It’s about that money, but there’s a genuine connection. “Brickhouse is all about professionalism and positivity and that’s what we’re all about. We’re learning how to establish our business and learning how intricate their business structure is. It’s crazy, it’s awesome. We’re so excited,” says LeRue, “Waka is a very smart businessman and a very cool, intelligent person.” Kadillac jumps in: “He’s super nice, too.”

Neon Dreams has so much planned over the next year, they couldn’t even tell me about it. But there’s a fortuitous synergy between what Waka wants and what Neon Dreams already has. “Waka is such a hype performer, and we like to really turn it up at our shows, so we want to match his hype level,” says LeRue, “He just goes 100 and then we get excited. We wanna do that. I think Frank should get some dreads.”

Adria Young is a writer living in Halifax - @adriayoung

This article originally appeared on Noisey Canada.