The Tin Crown, "Two-Player Combo"
The Tin Crown is a music producer and independent artist from Cleveland, Ohio. Being a lifelong music fan, he took the opportunity during the COVID lockdowns to dive deep into the music culture, meshing his love of jazz & 90s hip-hop with modern mainstream and underground artists. Some noted favorites are the early Kanye projects, Wu-Tang, Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, KawaiiSteez, The Bush-Wzrd, and MF DOOM, whose lyrics on "Fancy Clown" inspired him to take the name "The Tin Crown". Finding his passion and using this newfound quarantine free time to hone his music production and engineering skills, The Tin Crown started to develop his personal boom-bap flare.
Beginning by creating unreleased experimental tracks on Garage Band & djay, to now working with FL Studio and professional hardware, the quality of his artwork has grown alongside the improvements in his equipment. The Tin Crown now has mastered the art of being a self-produced musician.
A creative soul, The Tin Crown is constantly focusing on aspects of his music and artistic journey, with him brainstorming innovative samples and loops for his self-produced tracks, alongside the overlaying creative titles and project aesthetics. His music is a part of everything he does. Still a student in school, The Tin Crown used the opportunity of a creative history project to create a beat tape, marking the achievement of the young artist's first ever full length project.
His most recent release, "Two-Player Combo", is a collaborative project with his close friend amxtarasu, or Tommy. This debut project for amx is fully produced by The Tin Crown, taking creative liberties during this mixing process to inspire some tracks like "Street Fighter", which ultimately led to to this entire catalog of tracks being inspired by fighting games. "Street Fighter" began as a Christmas rap focused on "Reindeer and Santa", which was reworked and mixed with sound effects from the video game. Over three weeks of mixing, writing, and creating in his basement, the two have created an innovative and solid project full of amazing tracks with clear individuality.
The artist's positive attitude towards success, of "anyone can wear the crown" echoes in his personality and creations. In an exclusive interview with RSO Underground, The Tin Crown discusses his experiences reselling sneakers to save toward music gear, the inspiration behind his stage name, and more.
RSO Underground Interview with The Tin Crown
Who are you?
The Tin Crown. Producer & listener of music.
Where are you from? (How is the music scene there?)
I’m from Cleveland, OH. I haven’t met very many people in my area that make music. JBC Beats is around the same area and he’s crazy. Otherwise, a few kids at my school and my friend Tommy (amxtarasu).
Why did you get into the music/creative industry?
Well around the time of the COVID lockdowns I started to get more into music and finding the music that I like. I obviously listened to music before, just more casually. During the lockdown I took deeper dives into artists that I already liked and that’s what really helped me realize that I wanted to make music.
Who and what inspires you?
Everything! I’m always thinking of new ideas, song/album titles, lyrics, samples, the list goes on.
I’m really inspired by a lot of my favorite 90s hip-hop. Some of those early Kanye beats, Wu-Tang, DOOM, and so on. I also find a lot of inspiration in modern day artists, I love Danny Brown, JPEGMAFIA, Earl Sweatshirt, and all of Griselda.
Underground artists like KawaiiSteez and The Bush-Wzrd inspired me a lot too when I was starting out, and I’ve had the pleasure to work with them now! It’s so crazy to me. They’re so unapologetically themselves and I always strive to do the same.
I listen to a lot of music outside of hip-hop/rap though, I love a lot of jazz, specifically CASIOPEA, Charlie Parker, and Jonah Yano.
Do you have stories of your artistic journey to share?
Of course! I tried making beats on my phone with a plethora of apps like GarageBand, djay, and anything else you can imagine. I didn’t get very far and only some of the stuff I made was released, but I kept at it.
I’m a big sneaker head and one day I ended up hitting on a pair of Travis Scott Jordan 1s and sold them instantly. I bought an MPC and a Laptop and started working.
It took me a second to get the hang of all the hardware but now it’s become a second nature for me. I’ve recently started moving over to FL and I’m getting the hang of it pretty quick.
I was making all these beats and writing rhymes with my friends but I couldn’t think of a name for myself! One night I was listening to Madvillainy with my friend Will and we both were just throwing out name suggestions. Eventually the record got to Fancy Clown which was both of our favorite song on the album and I heard DOOM say “don’t make me have to pound his tin crown face in…” and right away I knew that was gonna be my name. I told Will, “how about The Tin Crown” or something like that and it clicked! So now I’m here.
What song/project are you currently promoting and what is the story behind it?
Me and amxtarasu just dropped Two-Player Combo, our collab album and his debut album. I did all the beats, amx did all the rhymes. We made the whole thing over the course of about three weeks, every weekend we’d go to my basement, make some beats, write some lyrics, record, and mix.
Tommy always joked about being on an album of mine and I always asked him “why not?” but one day I guess he just decided he would. It was around December and I was working on my Christmas EP, A Boom Bap Christmas, and he was writing on a beat I made for that, by the time he had something finished and recorded it was too late to be on the EP. He sent me this whole song all about reindeer and Santa and everything and I had to tell him that unfortunately it was too late.
After he re-recorded, I was mixing and threw some Street Fighter sound effects on the track and called it Street Fighter.
From there, we had the idea to do a whole album of fighting game themed songs, and so we did.
I wanna give a shoutout to our friends Zac and Will for being there along the whole process, lending some help in the writing department and just being supportive of our art. Shoutouts to Butter Bill and Shmo-Kii too, they killed it, I can guarantee that won’t be the last of them on The Tin Crown beats.
What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
I’m still in school! In fact my first full-length project was a beat tape I did for a history class where I used samples from the different time period we were studying and blended them with modern hip-hop.
Where can we find your music and art?
The Tin Crown on streaming, @thetincrown everywhere else. (don’t forget the ‘the’)
What is your message to the world?
Anyone can wear the crown.
Stay tuned, and dial zero, lots of good things coming this year.
Check out The Tin Crown Everywhere!