How Umru Balances a Full-Fledged Music Career With College
Umru Rothenberg goes to City College in New York. But he’s not your average student. Instead, he balances school with a thriving music career, producing tracks for the likes of Charli XCX and DJing all over the country. To find out how he’s accomplished so much at such an early age, we hung out with Umru in SoHo, walking the streets and talking about how he holds down his schoolwork and his obligations as a professional musician.
How did you first get into music?
I’ve had music in my life for a while. My dad’s a musician and I played drums in elementary school. I think I first got into taking production seriously after discovering a lot of incredible producers on early Soundcloud—hearing Mr. Carmack, Sam Gellaitry, Cashmere Cat, the members of collectives like Courteous Family and PC Music, and attempting to emulate them.
You’re a pretty young guy, but you’ve had the chance to work with some big people and places. How did the opportunity to with Charli XCX come up? And how did you get involved with doing the music for your friend’s play at MoMA PS1? Also what’s the name of the play again?
I met Charli through her producer A. G. Cook. He sent me an email about two years ago after finding a random track of mine and we eventually met and started working together. We co-produced Charli’s track “I Got It” but I didn’t meet her until after the release. They’ve both become super close collaborators and I’ve been lucky enough to perform with them in New York, Paris, and LA. The whole team around Charli A.G.’s label, PC Music, are some of the most talented and supportive people I’ve met through music. That includes Hayden Dunham, the artist who’s play at MoMA PS1, “7 Sisters,” I helped score.
How do you manage having a legit music and Dj career with still going to college?
Nothing I’ve been doing has felt like much of a “career” until this January when I really spent almost a whole month in writing sessions and performing across New York, California, DC, and Minecraft. College hasn’t been too much of an issue so far. I’m in a music and recording program, so I think they can’t get too upset with me if I have to miss class for something music-related.
Do you prefer creating music in the studio, doing beats, production, and remixing, or DJIng out live? How are they different?
I like both! I’ve been DJing for years. I used to do a lot of middle school dances, so I definitely feel pretty comfortable and have a lot of fun DJing. Working on music is definitely much more time consuming and intense for me—I tend to focus a lot on unnecessary details, so production always eats up hours of time. I’ve been learning a lot recently by working a lot more in the room with artists and other producers where there isn’t the time to be making every sound from scratch.
What shows, festivals, or projects have you played recently? Anything else coming up?
I’m not sure when this interview is going live, but I had a show on February 18 in New York. It’s a follow-up to the LA “search party” event I organized with Dorian Electra and it’s my first time being the “headliner” at a New York show which is exciting and scary. Besides that, I have a few more US shows this spring that are yet to be announced and lots of new music coming soon!
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