For this week’s article I’ve decided to introduce you all to an artist I was introduced to recently, Quancarlos.
Prior to this interview I had the assumption that he was a new artist but I quickly learned he’s BEEN true to this.
I had come across Quan through twitter actually, now you’re coming across him through me and I think the best advice I could give you all is invest now!
Megan: “tell me about where you’re from, your journey to music?this genre of new wave trap and how you became quancarlos?”
Quan: “Originally I’m from North London, born and raised. It’s North London to the world and back for real! My parents are Jamaican and my grandad is St Lucian but I’m not really in tune with my St Lucian heritage so for me, all I know is Jamaica and North London. One thing about me, I’m always trying to represent where I’m from.
Music has always kind of been apart of my life and upbringing, Growing up my mum would listen to a lot of Bashment and Dancehall artists – Alkaline, Vybz Kartel, Bounty Killer, Buju Banton and Popcaan so that’s what I was hearing on a day to day basis in the car.
My dad, every Sunday morning he’d be playing Reggae songs – Beres Hammond, Sanchez and Barrington Levy.
The Caribbean culture, specifically musically, was very strong in my household.
But as for me, one thing I can say is that ever since I was young, it was always Michael Jackson. He was really the guy! Then that developed into Tinie Tempah and then the American sounds – Meek Mill, Rick Ross, Young Thug, early Migos. Through school it was the drill and Afro swing era.”
“In terms of how I got into rapping… all my friends used to rap and I was like the only one out of my boys who didn’t rap.
So we had a little group called ‘LNO’ which stands for Loyalty’s Never Owed. In secondary school my guys were releasing songs in your typical UK rap genres, real rap, drill and a couple of the wavy trap songs. One day I just said “If the mandem are doing it, why not me?” and i kinda just ran with that and it got to a point where i realised i was half decent at it so I just kept writing and writing…
In our group LNO, I went by ‘LNO Quan’. I’ve always been Quan, guys have always called me Quan. As for how I became Quancarlos… in college my boy Dray introduced me to the whole opium movement. At first I wasn’t in tune with it and I wasn’t really hearing it but I found myself listening to it more and more, gradually they became apart of my rotation and suddenly I was listening to them all the time. From there I became in tune with the UK Underground, at that point it was just Lancey, Fimi and Len that I was listening to.
Those three were heavy in my rotation, I was listening to them daily and because of that I knew within myself I wasn’t the same person and artists i was when I was making drill or real rap. I didn’t feel that name represented me anymore so I was trying to find a new name and one day I was just in the crib and my sister was watching a Spanish show, you know the ones where the audio is in English but the lip syncing ain’t matching, there was a character in the show called Juan Carlos and I said to myself “that’s just my name but with a ‘J’ but it’s different so I’ll run with it”. A lot of guys thought ‘is this guy Spanish?’ or assumed I was Angolan, but nah it’s so left with and this is me.
One day the mandem were in the studio, doing what we do and I said I wanted to try something different so I searched up a Lancey Foux type beat and the beat for ‘Style Ain’t Free’ came up and the rest is history and we’re here now!”
megan: “you’ve released two singles and a feature within the last 4 months. with these two drops being so close together, can you tell me what the work load and writing process was like?”
Quan: “I don’t really look at it as a workload man. I met my manager this summer, shoutout Lennox (@lennoxforster), and from there we were going to the studio whenever we could. For me my brain is always in music mode no matter what, I could be going to the shop, someone could say something, I could see a poster or I could be listening to a podcast and if something sparks an idea it’s going straight to music mode so for me there’s no such this as a work load because I don’t see music as a chore. We go to the studio, we have fun but it’s all centred around productivity.
We always end up making a lot of songs, I end up running through about 4-5 songs in 2 hours I swear.
In terms of my writing process I don’t really have one. Ask anyone that’s been to the studio with me, we’ll bullsh*t for like half an hour, smoke but when it’s time to work it’s time to work. I don’t like listening to beats prior to going to the studio, I like to listen it in the moment because for me music is based off of emotion. ‘Feeling Today’ took me about 15 minutes to make and with ‘Style Ain’t Free’ it was a cool 20. Ask my manager, we be running through songs like THAT.
It doesn’t take long at all for me to know whether a beat is for me or not, if it’s not for me skip, if it is then load it up. From there it just clicks, I hope on the mic and just punch in. Line for line for line! Some days I might top line it and do some flows and some days I just go straight in with lyrics but all and all I don’t really have a process.”
megan: “the underground scene is constantly evolving and being reshaped, how do you plan to keep up with other current artists and any more that may appear?”
Quan: “I don’t plan to keep up with anyone. I don’t look at it in a way where I’m alike anyone or in competition with them. Truth be told I don’t really care what anyone else is doing in this scene. Obviously, you do have to be in tune with it. Things like Conglomerate happened and you’re tapped in but I don’t look it as so and so has dropped this so I need to do this, nah it’s never been that for me. It’s always how I feel, if I feel like making this type of music that’s what I’ll do and if I don’t wanna drop something I’m not doing to drop it, if wanna do it that’s exactly what I’ll do.
I don’t plan to keep up with anyone. Tell those guys keep up with me.”
megan: “who or what has been your biggest influence so far? in terms of both your music and your style.”
Quan: “Music and style wise it’s Young Thug. He’s my favourite artist of all time, he’s just so authentic to himself and everything he does musically, visually and in his style. In Halftime he says ‘Every time I dress myself it go m*****f****** viral’. Like I said I don’t want to be like anyone else in the scene, I just want to be me so he’s kind of just influenced me to be myself and be uncanny. If people don’t get it that’s fine but I’m just always gonna be me.
Style wise I’ve got to shoutout my boy Lennox. If you need to get right, look right shout Lennox. He understands what it is every time and he doesn’t miss. We’ll have a shoot and Lennox has got about 5 fits ready for you on standby. He’s really the guy.”
megan: “would you say you’ve definitely found sound? is this you and your signature flow for sure or do you think you’ll experiment with any other styles of music?”
Quan: “I don’t have a sound or a signature flow. When this tape drops you guys will know. There’s so many different vibes on there, like I’ve said, I used to rap beforehand so sometimes I just get in that mode where I wanna bar-off, sometimes I wanna sing and sometimes I wanna just do some fly sh*t. I’ve always looked at this and said I want to be an artist and not a rapper and when this tape drops it’ll speak for itself.”
megan: “have you got any advice for anyone wanting to start making music that you wish someone had given you?”
Quan: “Be authentic to yourself in everything you do. For me it helped just making what I enjoy listening to. I think the problem is a lot of people go into this and just aim to make what’s popping for the sake of it but at the end of the day authenticity always wins and is everlasting, whether or not people get it right away you’ve got to make what you enjoy and not what you think other people want to hear.”
megan: “lastly, what can we expect to see from Quancarlos in 2025?”
Quan: “Music. Just music and more music. A couple performances here and there but they’ll always be something new going on. It’s strictly just music.”
Here’s where you can keep up with Quancarlos,
Hope you enjoyed reading,
Until next time,
Megankamangawrites.
megan kamanga writes 
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