Rising Music Star N3WPORT On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Music Industry

An Interview with Karina Michel Feld

As a part of our series about rising music stars, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing N3WPORT.

Washington, D.C.-based producer N3WPORT is a rising star in the melodic and future bass scene. Since 2017 he has gained over 85M streams, been supported by Top DJs including The Chainsmokers, Gryffin, SLANDER and Tiesto, and gained the support of industry networks including Trap Nation, NCS, Mr. Suicide Sheep, EDM. com and more.

N3WPORT first gained global attention with the release of his cover of ‘Zombie’ by the Cranberries along side Universal Music signee Besomorph. The track and it’s remixes currently have a combined 30M streams and continue to gain attention.

In 2020 alone, N3WPORT released 16 tracks including music with NCS, Lowly Palace, Mr. Suicide Sheep’s found/red records, and official remixes for Judah & The Lion, WE ARE FURY, William Black, and Outwild, and gained an impressive 23M Spotify streams in that year alone.

2021 continues to be a breakout year for N3WPORT. With 2 EPs and 4 original singles already released this year, and official remixes for Nurko and Penny & Sparrow, N3WPORT continues to deliver high quality music on a consistent basis, and plans on continuing to provide for his exponentially growing fan base.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. in a town called Sterling, VA. Sterling was a pretty big town and really helped me develop my love for music, with its community concert series, battle of the bands, and school programs designated for guitar/percussion. I grew up playing in alternative rock and heavy metal bands, as well as taking piano lessons and being a classically trained guitarist. Music surrounded my childhood and that hasn’t changed to this day. Growing up, the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be was a rockstar. I began that dream when I got my first guitar at the age of 10 and chased that dream throughout middle school, high school, and even college. I had some great opportunities with music in my early years; from opening for Mayday Parade and Forever the Sickest Kids with my high school band to Playing a solo performance in Classical Guitar at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC, and Debuting a new piece with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, as well as receiving an award at the Kennedy Centre for excellency in classical guitar. When I found producing electronic music in college, my eyes were opened to a whole new world of music and performance. From that day forward, my rock star dreams evolved into the new age of rock star: the DJ.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

My whole life I had played in various bands and did singer/songwriter stuff for a while as well. I had been introduced to electronic music through some friends and started listening to Skirllex, Zomboy, Excision, etc. My real introduction to the community of EDM was going to see Knife Party in DC back in 2012. I had never experienced live music presented like that before. The energy, the light shows, the never-ending music as DJs went from track to track for an hour straight — it was addicting, and I wanted nothing more than to create it for myself. I went home that night and bought FL Studio at 4:30 in the morning, and have been producing dance music ever since.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

A few years ago my friends and I were obsessed with the song ‘Pictures’ by Judah and the Lion & Casey Musgraves. In some of my spare time I decided to remix it and give it my own emotional and dance-oriented twist. I guess Judah has these automated messages they send to all of their Twitter followers to let them know that they just dropped an album, and when the album including ‘Pictures’ came out, I half-jokingly responded to that automated Twitter dm saying ‘Listened to it and remixed it!’. I got a DM back within 10 minutes asking me to send them what I did to it — I was shocked! I had been a fan of J&TL for years and had seen them 4 times in concert, so this was a big deal for me! Well long story short, that DM turned into me sending them the project for them to use on their tour, which lead to them playing my remix of Pictures as their live performance of that track on their Pep Talks Tour, which led to me getting back stage passes to their show in DC and kicking it with them after the show, which led to me finally officially releasing my remix as the opening track on the Pep Talks Remix EP in 2020. That was one of the first times I had realized I was more than just a kid making beats in his apartment for fun, and it’s been such a fun journey since.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the first real shows I played was at a club called Peabody’s in Virginia Beach, VA. I had been killing my set and had the crowd jumping to different remixes and mashups I had made, as well as some originals that were also getting the crowd really fired up. At one point I thought I’d try some more crowd work-esque chants and mixed in Herobust’s track ‘BRUH!’. It’s a track that repeatedly says ‘bruh’ throughout the verses and drops, and in my head I thought ‘it’ll be so easy to get the crowd chanting this and people will definitely go crazy’ — the song does go hard after all. Well — I mixed in that track, low passed it and looped it and started teaching the crowd this chant. It seemed like they were getting it and getting hyped so I brought the track back in, started jumping around warming up the intro, and then put the mic on the first victim — dead silence. Second crowd member — silence.. third, even fourth — they had no idea what I wanted them to chant. I did get one girl to just confusingly go ‘weeehww’. It was a disaster, but the show went on and we all still had a pretty good time. I definitely learned that if you’re going to put a mic in the crowd, you better be playing a song EVERYONE knows the lyrics to — and don’t teach anyone chants unless you’re like… Skrillex or Marshmello.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

I have a lot of fun music in the works, a lot of heavy hitters and stuff that will really bring energy to people’s speakers like my other stuff does. I’ve also, however, been working on some acoustic versions of songs to show people a different side of what I like to write. I love playing acoustic guitar and love creating new harmonies and melodies with the songs I’ve already released to give people (and myself) something fresh to hear. i think Acoustic versions of songs often bring out the emotions people might have missed with the more dance oriented tracks. Also live show edits — LOTS of live show edits :)

We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?

Diversity is extraordinarily important in all walks of life. Being a musician, I’m most familiar with that industry, and I think cultural diversity is what keeps the music industry alive. From a film and TV perspective, I think diversity is important for the following reasons:

1. Our film and entertainment industries should be representative of what our culture looks like. It’s important for children of different races and ethnicities to see their culture represented in the entertainment industry. I have many friends who have been so excited to show their children African American Superheroes, Female CEOs, etc. As an industry it’s imperative that we represent everyone.

2. It’s important for our culture to be inclusive of all people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Film & TV is a huge way we represent what we accept as a society. Our entertainment industry should reflect that we accept and love all people.

3. As I stated earlier, the entertainment industry TREMENDOUSLY BENEFITS from including other cultures. Breaking out of the shell of American or European culture can be SERIOUSLY impactful — look at Black Panther, Moana, or Schitt’s Creek. The way these shows incorporated racially, ethnically and sexually diverse casts and crews created movies and shows far better than if they would’ve stuck to the scripts of 20–30 years ago.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1. Be patient. Growing as an artist takes time and rushing into things only makes you want to keep rushing. You don’t start at a company and instantly think “Ok in 6 months I want to be the CEO” — it’s the same with music. Work hard, have fun, and enjoy the season you’re in!

2. Making connections is the wrong mindset; forming relationships is the right one. The word ‘connections’ implies you’re trying to get something out of someone. Instead form relationships with people — learn who they are, what they like, what they’re about. People are so much more than their job title or their connections or their status in life. This tip may not even help you excel in music, but it will certainly help you excel in leaving an impact on the people you meet; in my opinion that’s far more important than how many ears my music reaches.

3. Know who you are and then be yourself. It’s so easy to try and look like another artist’s Instagram or mimic another artist’s sound or even trying to just fit in to what you think you need to fit into. Instead, figure out what your music or art or whatever it is truly IS to you, and lean into what makes you different from the others. After that, just be yourself! Take the pressure off of trying to fit in. Instead, create your own space where others who haven’t belonged yet can find a home in that space too. THAT’S how you create influence!

4. More OTT — there’s a little joke for my fellow producers. If you get it, you know how true that statement is (lol.) If you don’t get it, I just did the equivalent of telling the directors of Harry Potter 4–7 MORE blue tint in post production or telling Robert Dinero MORE squinting.

5. Your happiness shouldn’t be tied to your success or failure. There was a time where if my music was doing well/if I was making good progress, etc. — I’d get super pumped and be motivated to keep going. However, if I had a bad few weeks with streaming or wasn’t really getting any new support/leads or anything like that, I’d feel like ‘What’s this all for then?’. It’s so important to understand that this life is about so much more than any career or one passion or success or failure. Life is complex, and finding what truly gives you life is important! For me, what gives me life and joy is God, my family, my friends, my music, and so much more.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Make the music you like and make it often! It’s really easy to either get burnt out trying to fit a sound or style, or by comparing yourself to others around you and saying ‘why am I not succeeding like they are’. Those are definitely 2 major ways artists burn out. The best things to do are to step outside your comfort zone every once in a while, celebrate those around you who are succeeding, and be grateful to those who support you and listen to your music! Keeping a positive mindset and being grateful for the success you see helps to make music and the career that surrounds it fun instead of stressful!

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

That’s a very thought provoking question… Something I am quite passionate about and recognize as something that needs to be addressed as a society is the rewiring of men and masculinity. The ideas of men having to be hardened, unemotional, or doing everything by themselves leads down a lonely and potentially very dangerous road. I would love to be behind a movement that teaches men how to be vulnerable, in touch with their emotions, and overall healed from the toxic ways we were taught to act and react in many scenarios. Obviously, I believe all people deserve this type of healing and therapy. My focus on the healing of men stems from the fact that I am one, and the fact that I’ve known many men in my life who have benefited from this type of therapy and restoration, or seriously could! Everyone deserves therapy and healing. Everyone has wounds and is broken. Normalizing this, especially among men who often think it’s ‘un-manly’ to think this way, is so important and would certainly lead to a better world.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Actually, I’d love to thank my mom, as she’s been super influential in my music career. When I was doing singer/songwriter stuff and goofing around in high school, she would always tell me ‘if you want to go for it, then really go for it. Do it and do it big’. It took me a few years to find my sound and my love for music production, but once I felt confident in the music i was making; once I started really going for it, there wasn’t a more supportive and inspirational person! I remember when I was in high school, I was sitting in my kitchen debating whether or not I wanted to go to college or travel and play my music. She sat me down and told me “regardless of what you do, we’ll always support you”. That knowledge gave me the confidence I eventually needed to pursue music fully. While I ended up going to college, the confidence and support she had for me in my music making journey is what kept me going some days. Today, I’m grateful to have tons of fans who support me in kind with how my mom did before I even started the N3WPORT Project. While I’m grateful (and always will be) to every fan, I’m especially grateful for my first fan :)

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Proverbs 3:5–6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

To me my faith is extremely important. Knowing that there’s a God who created me and desires to lead me down a path He designed me for takes the pressure off me. All I need to do is trust in Him, and He will make my path straight. Whether it’s my music career, my personal life, or anything else this crazy world throws at me, I have a confidence that’s rooted in something deeper than myself.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Wow only one person?! So hard to chose, but I’d have to say Will Ferrel. I’ve been such a huge fan of his since I was a kid — every movie he’s in is a masterpiece and his days on SNL were some of my favorites to go back and watch. I feel like we’d get along pretty well, I think we have similar senses of humor. And if not, he could just roast me and I’d still have a great time. He’s a wild card — I think it’d be really fun!

How can our readers follow you online?

All my social links are right below!

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Thank you so so much! This was a very cool interview and glad we got to really dive deep! Looking forward to the future and what’s to come :)

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