Hybridity in Music: An interview with Bei Ru

SOFIE ARMINE: What types of sounds did you gravitate to growing up?

BEI RU: Definitely a lot of electronic, pop stuff. It’s a combination of everything you hear, you can’t really blot anything out. There were a lot of different influences, and in my late teens I started to get into jazz. Those are probably the top three in terms of influences.

SA: What was your first music gig?

BR: I started DJing when I was pretty young. I would DJ house parties and things like that when I was 15-16. I started working my first job and I saved up money and got some turntables. So I started doing house parties at that age. I guess technically that was my first gig, I don’t remember what the first one I ever did was, but it was some house party somewhere in LA.

SA: Is that when you figured out music was what you wanted to do?

BR: No, at that point it was just something I enjoyed doing, I wasn’t getting paid much, I just really liked doing it. I think that’s when I started to get a feel for the energy you get from playing music in front of people and how it can completely change moods and the energy you get back. It was the beginning of me eventually getting into music production and where I am now. At the time it was just something I liked doing, and something I gravitated towards.

SA: You have released 3 volumes of Good Hummus in 2021 so far, what is the story behind each album?

BR: I have been making so much music especially since quarantine happened. I have always had difficulty narrowing things down to one particular genre or style and sometimes I would feel like I didn’t have the right outlet for the stuff I would make. As much as I want to be creative and do whatever I want, I can’t help but think if I put something out like house music, like the last Good Hummus, that might be kinda weird, I don’t know if that’s the right career trajectory, and if people will follow it. This way, since Good Hummus is kind of like beat tapes more than anything, it feels like less pressure and I am releasing one a month. I wanted to make a collection of different types of styles, kind of like different chapters in a book. I have got 7 more to go this year, I think I’m gonna do 10 total and I have a couple other vocal projects, EPs that I’m releasing this year. Those are a main focus for me, cause I am really trying to cultivate more of the vocal stuff.

SA: What project are you particularly proud of?

BR: The Custom Made Life album I did I have been the most proud of. I never really saw myself doing vocals and collaborating with artists doing vocals. That was something I look back on like ‘I did that’ and I was really happy with the result. It also opened up this whole new world for me that has kept me so inspired. Songwriting and singing has become such a new thing for me. I have always been into music. Making music, playing music, and producing music but this was, within that, a new door that opened up. That album most definitely is the one I am most proud of.

SA: What do you like about collaborating with other musicians?

BR: The most enjoyable thing for me, is hearing their interpretations of whatever ideas we settle on or whatever music they are doing vocals on. It kind of pushes me as well, what do they say, ‘one sword sharpens the other’ or something like that. I think mostly it’s that excitement hearing someone’s completely different take on my ideas.

SA: When you are creating music, do you keep in mind what people might hear?

BR: I have and I have dealt with the consequences. I have looked back and if it was just up to me and I had made what I wanted to on certain things I might have done them differently. It’s probably a lesson that every creative has to learn at one point. I’ve realized that when I make what I want to hear, that’s when it comes out the best. Even if it might not be as well received, I am completely fulfilled by it and it will find the right people. It’s difficult to not consider people’s responses or reactions but otherwise there is a filter going through your creative process and it’s not as pure as it should be.

SA: What are your thoughts on the impact of upbeat, dance music versus music that is deeply emotional?

BR: I remember I was talking to the artist Vahe Berberian, who has been like a mentor to me, a few years back, and he quoted something like ‘To have a revolution you have to be able to dance’ or something, I’m totally butchering it. I think it totally rings true, there is that energy you get from upbeat music that makes you want to dance. You can get energy and emotion from melancholy music as well, but there’s something about up tempo stuff, especially rhythmically, that really incites emotions and feelings, and there is a sort of transcendental thing that happens sometimes.

SA: What’s a memorable performance that you’ve had?

BR: I played at this festival in Norway, in Oslo, a couple years back and one of the shows I did was at this place that used to be a church that they use for events now. The green rooms were down at the bottom of the church where the nuns and priests stayed, that was kinda cool. I also played in Kuwait, that was the first ever electronic music festival they’ve had there. There’s a lot of strict rules there and the festival was very underground, that was a lot of fun. 

SA: Where are your parents and grandparents from?

BR: My mom and my dad were both born in Syria, my grandparents were born in Musaler, which is in modern day Turkey. It was a coastal region comprising 6 different villages, they call that whole region Musaler which means Moses Mountain. They fought off the Turkish army for 40 days, there’s a book about it, “40 Days of Musa Dagh.” They climbed to the top of the mountain with hunting rifles, since that’s all they had, and they managed to hold off the army for 40 plus days. They were eventually rescued by this French missionary boat that saw their flag. They took them all to Port Sayyid, Egypt for a few years, they were refugees there, and eventually all those people moved to Lebanon, to a plot of land called Anjar which is where my parents grew up. Those 6 villages combined all moved to that one area of Lebanon. That’s the story more or less.

SA: Are you named after Baruyr Sevag?

BR: Ya I am. My mom really liked his poetry.

SA: What is it like to be an artist and be Armenian and look at the legacy and history of Armenian artists and musicians?

BR: I guess there is a legacy attached to it. It’s not necessarily something I think about a lot, and not for any particular reason. Thinking about the big picture too much might affect your work in a way that it shouldn’t. I try not to think at all when I am creating. That’s one of my favorite things about making music, you are forced to be in the moment.

SA: Do you have a favorite Armenian artist?

BR: I remember when I was a kid, my parents took us to see the Gayane Ballet by Khachaturian, and it just blew me away. There are a lot of really amazing Armenian composers. Constantine Orbelian was a really really great composer. Raisa Mkrtchyan was an amazing singer. There’s a bunch. That’s kind of what inspired me to make “Little Armenia,” I kept finding these musicians and bands that I had never heard of. I started getting into collecting vinyl when I was in my teens. Armenian vinyl was something that my parents had collected, so I inherited that. I would find all this cool shit that no one knows about. I didn’t know about it and even my parents would be like ‘I’ve never heard this before.’ It was just so rich, all these people who had contributed to the Armenian cultural zeitgeist. That’s why in “Little Armenia,” I wanted to use these samples that no one had ever heard and it was really cool to introduce people to these types of music, people who otherwise might not get to it or know about it.