”Sitting Down with Flux Duckling” by Dan Bollinger

Sitting Down with Flux Duckling

A Conversation by Dan Bollinger

In the second installment of my quest to share the stories of musicians on campus, I caught up with Ben Wedin, a rapper who goes by the name of Flux Duckling. Ben has been a staple of Carleton’s underground rap scene for a couple years now. I sat down to talk with him about his recent mixtape, Steady Waxing.

What was the process for this mixtape like?

This was actually the second mixtape I’ve ever done. I wrote the first one when I was in Sweden two years ago. And that one was literally me just rapping into my laptop…I only gave it to a few close friends. I started this one last summer, but the writing for it started winter break two years ago. That winter break was me just writing a couple songs, the next summer was a second period of writing, and then this past winter was me finishing it up. Jon [ver Steegh] ‘14 and I recorded it, we mixed it when I got back this spring and then we put it out this summer and have gotten good responses, which is fun.

You cover a lot of different genres of rap in Steady Waxing. You’ve got the chill flow kind of thing, but also more aggressive stuff like in “Grand Thought Auto.” Did you know that method going in or did you hear the beat and think, “this is what I want to say?”

Well I think when I was planning it I was writing down all these various “chunks” of lyrics that weren’t really for any specific song, but then when I decided what actual beats I was going to use, I was going through the beats of some of my favorite producers and I was like “I wanna have a BadBadNotGood track” or “I wanna have a Nujabes track.” I definitely picked beats that were from different artists and and looked for some variation, but once I picked the song, I would listen to it and think “these are the kind of lyrics I want to put on it” or whatever.

Do you have a beat in mind when you’re writing or do you try to match it later on?

I think it’s really just a combination because a lot of times I’ll just catch - wait let me see if I have it… no I don’t have my word book but I have my journal (pulls out a small black notebook). But you can imagine like this many pages of just lyrics.

It’s like Eminem from the movie “8 Mile.”

Yeah, definitely; and so sometimes I’ll listen to a beat and I’ll freestyle over it first and some of those words will come in and I’ll be like “Oh Shit I remember writing that before!” and I’ll go back to it a little bit. But to get a starting point, it’s usually just a couple words or whatever. Once I get the first kind of rhythm, then I’ll just put the beat on and have it on repeat for like an hour and I’ll just keep on trying things and see what comes out. Then once there’s maybe a bit more, then I’ll start going back—spit the first 8 bars and see what sound should come after. Like “all right I’ve done this flow, how should I change the delivery after that?”

Which track from the mixtape are you most proud of?

I really like “Ataraxia” because as far as where my head was at, it was definitely the most indicative of enjoying change. And also I went through and that was one of the few where I did more than one take of it. I was able to double a few of the more sing-y parts, so I was happy to get a bit more production on that song. But I don’t know: with a lot of the songs I was really happy with individual chunks. I’m really happy with this one lyric or this one rhythm, but I feel like “Ataraxia” is actually a whole song.

How did you set on Steady Waxing as a name?

Well I feel that ever since I left high school, things have always been getting better (laughs). Like, high school was rough but I think that I’m always learning how to be a better person. I’m learning how to be a better rapper, I’m getting better friends. Cooler friends.

Cooler friends? (laughing)

No, no, no! Nothing against my old friends (laughs). But I think that’s kind of the idea: I’m always improving, so it’s kind of like moon phases - going from the crescent, starting to wax.

What’s your mindset going into a live show?

It’s usually very intense concentration. I don’t really like to drink or smoke before a show. Almost like I’m there to do business. It is a performance, but hopefully my lyrics are at the point where I don’t really have to think about remembering my lyrics, so I’m more focusing on dynamics and delivery. At that point I just want it to sound as good as possible while trying to interact with the crowd. It’s great just kind of moving your body around and feeling when the song or lyrics shift, and to try to get the audience to understand because I feel like a lot of times there’ll be shifts within the song but making sure you’re communicating that to the audience is a big part.

I’m hearing a lot of similar themes with your article in the last issue of NO FIDELITY about Kendrick Lamar [See “Mainstream Beats are Cool Now (AND i LOVE MYSELF)” from Volume 2, Issue 1]

Yeah, like Pete Rock and CL Smooth are obviously some of the top rappers of the 90s, but if you listen to the beat, you’d be like three minutes into the song it’s pretty much the same you know, and “you’re still kickin’ it really..cool. and you’re still gonna be the coolest guy in..school” you know? But I kind of want the songs to be progressive and that’s what I’m working on for this next album.

So you’re planning on a full album this time?

Yeah, with the last mixtape it was beats that I was grabbing from other producers, but for this one I want it to be me or my friends producing the beats, and I want to have a bit more thought into something more conceptual.

It seemed to me that Steady Waxing was already pretty conceptual. Where are you going to take it from here?

So, Steady Waxing was me kind of just writing it, just writing what I felt from the songs, and then at the end it was me just looking at it being like “Oh, these pieces all go together, this kind of makes sense” in explaining my emotional transformation over time. But this time I think I want it to be a bit more of a narrative. So, when you’re hearing a song, sometimes it’ll be in the head of the protagonist or a secondary character talking about what’s happening. In my head I want a more clear narrative fashion, and that’s kind of where the shifts come in.

So, I have to ask. You released the mixtape under the name Flux Duckling, but for as long as I’ve known you it’s been Villosophy. What’s the reason for the name change?

Villosophy was the name I used when I was hanging out in my basement in high school, kind of like freestyling to some of my friends. So once I got the point where I realized I’m being a bit more intentional, I just wanted to reevaluate or make a more emphatic stepping point. Yeah so Flux Duckling - the idea of change. Things are always in flux, the ugly duckling becomes the big impressive swan, and I knew the sounds I wanted in the name going in. I knew the “lux” sound or the “kuh” sound has a lot of stickiness to it, or like crunchiness to it. Steady Waxing can be downloaded on Flux Duckling’s SoundCloud or on DatPiff