Leaping forward with consistency, patience and good timing
Produced By is a series dedicated to sharing the stories of hip hop producers and to spark gratitude and inspiration for creators.
The saying “strike while the iron is hot” means to take advantage of whatever opportunities arise in the moment to leap forward.
That’s the phrase 23-year-old producer Park Ave. used to describe his most recent milestone of co-producing rapper Isaiah Rashad’s “Park” (named after him) with producer D. Sanders from Isaiah’s debut studio album The Sun’s Tirade released in September.
This milestone for Park Ave. combines good timing with the virtues of consistency and patience that he’s been practicing since he started producing in 2011.
The bass-heavy, piano-laden melodic track was the second single Isaiah dropped in conjunction with the reveal of the album cover in late August.
Named after the character on Cartoon Network’s Regular Show., Park Ave. whose real name is Voshon Vernon and who often simply goes by “Park,” first started working on the original beat for the single in November 2015.
Park’s placement on The Sun’s Tirade cemented his interest in committing even more to creating music full-time.
He’s currently focused on challenging himself and establishing more of his own identity and branding as a producer.
In the past few months, he’s been consistently uploading to his SoundCloud for people to discover his music and has been gathering steam in the process–he was recently approached by one of his favorite rappers for potential production placement.
Park’s production is heavy on bass and drums yet feels light and soulful at the same time. Often chopping up samples, he says he tries to cultivate contentedness in his music to channel an upbeat yet calming sound.
There’s a longing for nostalgia in his beats through the jazzy samples he uses. Most of his track artwork consists of grainy, obscure images from various sources in the ’80s and ‘90s.
“I like it to be relaxing but upbeat. If you want to clean the house on a Sunday, just put it on. It’ll be cool,” he says.
The release of “Park” helped him leap forward and feel confident in creating and sharing on a consistent basis, but it took patience and pivoting over the years to trust the process.
Park was born in Belize and spent his youth in Brooklyn when his family moved there in 1999. He moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia late last year, which is 30 minutes outside of Atlanta.
Prior to the release of The Sun’s Tirade and settling in Stone Mountain, he spent a transformative couple of months this past April in Chattanooga, Tennessee with the collective known as TheHouse.
TheHouse originated with rappers Isaiah Rashad, Tut and Michael da Vinci in Chattanooga which has since expanded to include other producers and rappers.
Tut first discovered Park randomly on SoundCloud in 2013 and after collaborating and maintaining communication online for a few years, he invited Park out to meet him and the crew for the first time in person.
TheHouse took him under their wings for a few months where he finalized “Park,” improved his craft and built relationships with his current collaborators.
Pivoting to find himself and his sound
Pinpointing a sound that feels authentic to Park took some soul-searching.
When he was a senior in high school, Park taught himself how to create beats on FL Studio for his friends who were aspiring rappers. He has some musical background from learning to play drums in elementary school in Brooklyn. Even though his friends stopped rapping, Park continued to work on his beats, bouncing around the different production software available today before landing on Ableton Live.
He says he was always holed up in his room, creating for the sake of creating.
“It wasn’t really going anywhere, but I was just doing it to get better,” he says.
Landing a placement with NYC rapper Dyme-A-Duzin for his song “My Single” from his 2014 mixtape Hip Hope was his first milestone as a producer.
They initially got in touch in 2012 when Park reached out to him via Twitter, sent him a beat and Dyme-A-Duzin rapped on the track which ultimately made it to Hip Hope.
“After you get something going, you start to continue everything. That was the first sign of me being able to do it–if someone likes it and actually makes the song. I was like ‘Okay, I can do this,’” he says.
At the same time in 2012, Park caught the attention of independent label and collective Soulection. Some of his tracks and remixes were featured on their early radio shows–he recalls that it might be show #98; today they’re approaching #300.
With Soulection steadily gaining traction as a place for artists to break, Park felt pressured to follow their wave and replicate sounds he thought they were looking for in hopes of catching their attention again.
Feeling stuck and unhappy with what he was creating, he decided to take a break and remove himself from social media.
Before doing so, he uploaded one beat to his SoundCloud for free download so people could rap to it. He included his contact information if anyone wanted to get in touch.
Five days later, Tut randomly emailed Park with three demos attached. One of them eventually became Tut’s song, “SuperSize” from his mixtape Straight Outta Chattanooga.
To this day, Park and Tut don’t know how he stumbled upon his beat or his SoundCloud, but as the saying goes, the rest is history.
“That was the beginning of everything. I didn’t know it at the time. That’s why that beat is my favorite beat because if I didn’t make it, who knows where I would be?,” he says.
After the release of “SuperSize,” the two maintained a friendship over the years, trading beats and connecting online before Tut eventually invited Park out to Chattanooga this past April to meet him and theHouse.
Chattanooga, TN as Park’s musical incubator
Park’s time in Chattanooga with theHouse became the turning point for him to continue progressing in his career that also ultimately led him to meet Isaiah and complete “Park” that landed on The Sun’s Tirade.
Beyond growing friendships with people in TheHouse, Park improved his skills in producing, particularly from watching Tiggi (Ktoven) produce and engineer on another level Park hadn’t seen before.
In fact, before arriving in Chattanooga, Park had a supply of beats ready to share, but once he saw Tiggi work, he decided to scrap them and start anew.
“My drums got so much better. I just watched him produce the whole time I was there, and I got so much better by watching him do what he does,” he says.
His time in Chattanooga thus helped him hone in his sound that he says “felt more ‘me.’”
Patience and consistency to progress
The steps of him taking a break and challenging what feels and sounds right has helped him to not only feel more confident in himself and his musical production, but also the journey he’s been on to create music full-time.
As he currently rides his own wave in working to establish his name beyond being known as the co-producer of “Park,” he says he knows that patience and consistency are key to his progression.
Knowing yourself is important too. Park says uncertainty will inevitably come up, and it’s easy to get trapped into self-doubt when you don’t see results right away.
One of his biggest takeaways these past few years is that you have to get out of your own way and keep chipping away on the course you’re on because things will naturally start to move forward.
“Every time I make something, it’s like ‘Where’s the next one going to come from? But the next one always comes. It’s just a matter of keep doing what I’m doing and it’s going to come. That’s how everything works out.”
Follow Park Ave. on SoundCloud, Twitter, and Instagram. Hear the complete list of tracks he’s produced for and listen to interview clips with Park Ave. here.
