Here at pointblank, we pride ourselves on the success of our students. We’re spoilt for choice when it comes to success stories, which is why we love to highlight our students’ accomplishments. For this installment, we are shining a spotlight on the pointblank LA student Matt Mahjoub (Boolur). The Orange County native and Los Angeles-based producer, engineer, and artist developer just released his new project, “Mood”. We took some time to catch up with Matt and ask him about his latest release and his time at pointblank. Matt is currently doing our Music Production & Audio Engineering Diploma.
Matt was also just recently signed to pointblank’s record label pointblank Recordings. After achieving this huge accomplishment, Matt intends on releasing a lot more music in the near future. Here Matt is going to talk about his career in music and what he plans to do now that he has signed with pointblank Recordings. If you yourself would like to be signed to a record label, submit your music to be considered by pointblank Recordings. As a pointblank student, you get the chance to plug into the school’s connections to the music industry – including our very own record label. So, if you’re an aspiring artist looking to get your music in front of the right people and heard by the world, look no further than pointblank’s in-house imprint, pointblank Recordings (PBR).
Hey Matt, for those who aren’t familiar with you, could you give us an intro?
My name is Matt A.K.A Boolur. Boolur is an artist name. I am a producer based out of Orange County, California. I run a studio space/warehouse-like event space where multiple artists come and record. As a producer, engineer, and artist developer. I do multiple different things outside of that, that are just like my side hustles and side businesses. But for the most part, I’m just right now in a stage of just doing producer projects where I release my own songs and albums under my name and get artists to collab with each other and release under my projects and also upgrade beats in production for other people while mixing and mastering as well.
You recently released your music video for “Mood”. Can you tell me what inspired this music video and song? What kind of process went into making this music video?
There was about six, seven artists in the studio and we were creating for other purposes. And then as the night narrowed down, there were only three of us left, including my friends Pretty Pape$ & SELORM and the mood was kind of a little more of like talking about love, talking about life, talking about our previous relationships. We decided, hey, because we have an hour, let’s quickly just do something for fun. Little did we know, this song came into inception when we were just creating just to create, not really with any intention. The song came out and we were just so satisfied with it, happy with it, that we said, why not just get this out before the year ends? So this all happened within two weeks of making the song. We hired a production company to film the music video, shout out to Aww Films and their team. They helped us get this done. And yeah, within two weeks we filmed the music video, released a song and released a video.
I guess the song is talking about how romantically people can kind of get you in the mood.
How did you choose your artist name?
So it’s actually funny. When I was about, I think, 10 or 11, I went to Target with my mom, which is kind of a tradition. When we walked into Target, I’d go straight to the games, the video game aisle, where they have all of the computer games and PlayStation games. And there was this game; it was a Star Wars game. I just love Star Wars and I just picked it up off the shelf and asked if we could buy it. She, after a little bit of yes and no, got it for me. And when we got back home, I popped it into my computer and downloaded it.
I remember it said, you need a username and password. I was so young at the time, I didn’t obviously know what an email was, what a username was, so I had to ask someone to help me with this. And it was late, so she’s like, go to sleep and when you get back from school tomorrow, I’ll have it all set up for you. So I come back from school and she left a post-it note with the username “Boolur”, which in Farsi in our language means like, smooth.
And she’d always call me that as like a kid. As I got older and older, I would just use that. And then I remember one time in a game I was playing somebody called me Boolur. And when he said that I was like, huh, that kind of has like a ring to it. So I stuck with that. And when I started making music, I definitely wanted to keep it because my music is kind of smooth, has a little bit more like a smooth feel to it. So I felt like the meaning behind it worked hand in hand.
What is your favorite song that you’ve put out and why?
My favorite song that I put out probably would be I’d say… this is a tough one. I’d probably say has to be either “Lost” or “Stuck” or “Sanity”. I should probably say “Sanity” off my Lost at Sea project, it was dedicated to somebody who I was in a relationship with that died while I was in a relationship with them. And she obviously meant a lot to me, but it kind of put in perspective my stubbornness and my jealousy because obviously I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to her.
I kind of look back at the arguments that we were kind of in around that time and realized after the fact how much self-improvement I had to do. That song was kind of like my way of casting the energy out for like the last time and maturing as a person because obviously I don’t think I was ever going to be able to get the chance to tell her how I want to be better. So I kind of put it out into the universe that way. Okay, a little deeper. I’m sorry.
Do you usually collaborate with other artists? How do you choose which artists to collaborate with?
Yeah, so for me, I’m not really a beat maker. I don’t consider myself somebody who just sits in the studio and just makes beats. Usually 90% of my songs that come that come about are because I’m an artist. With me in the studio, we kind of tailor it to their situation. So I have like a network of probably about 20 artists that I work with throughout the year, all from different purposes, whether it’s studio time or me asking them to come in.
And all of my songs are pretty much just collaborations, whether they’re releasing it for their projects or releasing it for mine. Because I take pride in putting together kind of like my own albums and my own project. So most of my collaborations have the intention of making sure that there’s some cooperation going on within me and the artists, whether it fits for my project or nearest.
How did you discover pointblank?
Social media. It was my chance of tying in everything that I do because right now I feel like I was pretty confident about everything other than mixing and mastering because I would outsource that. So I produce, do all of the above. But then when it got down to that, that was the one thing I would outsource. So when I saw the ad that said something about mixing or like something about engineering, I said, you know what? If I can find a way to learn even the basics of mixing and mastering, it kind of bring all my skill sets full circle because then I can literally do everything.
From your experience studying here, what’s something you’d tell someone just about to embark on their journey at pointblank?
When you’re in these classes to not look at your teachers as somebody who necessarily is there to teach you but the fact that they themselves have been through so much that it’s so valuable that somebody’s going to sit there with you every single day and just have a direction and help you learn from them. Because just being in the real world and being in studio sessions, yes, there’s people who are helpful, but nobody really does it with intention or with an actual set of guidelines and a timeline to follow and having them with all their experiences, all the things that they’ve gone through.
Also look at the syllabus and look at the content that we learn about and agree with. It says a lot about them as well and the school. So I would say just make sure when you’re in these classes to take this as a very valuable thing. Your teachers will show up every single day and teach you.
Are there any things that really stand out from studying at pointblank? Which courses are you currently taking?
I think the things that stand out is really the timeline. Obviously I came into this with a little bit of knowledge, so my first semester here was a little bit of repetition, which even in that I learned a lot of just knit picky stuff that I never would have thought about. So I like the way that, especially for my audio engineering program, they took me from start to finish really well. I appreciate that, for sure. So right now, considering it’s my last semester here, and we’re getting into the final touches, like mastering, advanced recording and mixing and advanced composition, it’s really nice because it’s tied everything together now and kind of putting a bow on it before my semester ends.
What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve faced while writing or creating music? Did the skills that you attained studying at pointblank help overcome these challenges?
Yeah, I think the main challenges, I think anybody who’s kind of a little bit insecure when it comes to making music would agree with, is the fact that there’s so much to learn when it comes to different instruments, composition as a whole and like being original because with this day and age, there’s samples, there’s loops, there’s stuff that you can grab. But I think there’s no better satisfaction than you with your own hands making something from scratch.
So definitely pointblank again, from learning from my instructors how they come up with their ideas. You know my composition teacher Jaron Lopez has really helped me grow as a musician. Like just seeing me evolve in a space where I’m a little bit more confident to compose for myself and be able to evolve those skills because obviously I didn’t know any instruments. I still don’t. But for the most part, it’s just a process of learning and just having good taste in music. With all the stuff that I learned here that I kind of feel like was the best. The best part about it.
What’s in the pipeline? Are there any other interesting projects (personal or professional) you’re working on that you can tell us about?
Yes, in just 2022 I think I stocked up like 120 new songs completed. Just waiting on, you know a home to find. But I do have a project coming up that I haven’t announced yet. It’s called Texting When You Get Home. It’s coming out hopefully sometime in the middle of this year. And yeah, that’s for the next release – big release I have, other than any singles and stuff that I released in the meantime. But that project again, has a lot of meaning and sentiment behind it, and that’s something I want people to look forward to for sure. Thank you to pointblank for giving me this opportunity and letting me talk about my music and goals as a musician.
You were just signed to pointblank’s record label pointblank Recordings. How does it feel to have achieved such a high accomplishment? What are your plans now that you are signed to the label?
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