Yuni Wa

""C World" is off CUZ's self-titled project produced by DJ Burn One & The Five Points Bakery, which is due to arrive in the next few weeks. The song itself is produced by Yuni Wa along with DJ Burn One & The Five Points Bakery." - NOISEY

LAST PLAYED ON BBC - "Can't Tell" - BBC UK

Little Rock, Arkansas producer Yuni Wa, graciously sent us their new beat album. Context 2 is just great. Wa gives a perfect description. “This album is a atmospheric electronic twist on life and how things can fall through quickly. The melodies are meant to grab you and the baselines are meant to knock. I hope you enjoy it.” Enjoy it we did, and so will you, hit play. - ELEVATOR MAG

Yuni Wa
Producer trying to make sense of a digital world.

In YouTube comments for Yuni Wa's "So 1989" (which had 998,858 views in early November), no one talks about Little Rock, or the legacy of the Stifft Station neighborhood where he lives with his grandmother in a house across from the old Woodruff Elementary School, making beats on a Dell Inspiron desktop computer. The commenters do not try to guess his real name (which is Princeton Coleman; he chose Yuni Wa because it means "universal" in Japanese in a shortened form, and "it's a cool language, literally an artform," he said). They don't call him, at 20 years old, a wunderkind. And they don't talk about how he has already put out 25 "projects" — LPs and EPs mostly, some beat tapes. Instead, they write things like, "I need a 10-hour version of this," and "I'd rather live in this video than my own life" and "I'M IN LOVE."

Yuni Wa is a sound and force from their computer. "It's very personal and impersonal at the same time," the soft-spoken Wa said of his music.

As Wa, he has jam-packed his consciousness into his music. "It's a lot of emotion," he said. "Because, I grew up in poverty and ... ." He trailed off for a moment. Then Wa began to discuss a few things vaguely, including, but not limited to, absent parents and lost siblings. "I really speak with my music," he said. "Because technology can allow for people like me ... I just think about sound. I just know sound. You know when you know what you're doing? You can't always conceptualize it in words."

Wa's songs don't have specific references to personal tragedies. Instead, he conveys his emotions through elegant electronic pulsations. His music has been called Vaporwave, though thinks he's more expansive.

Vaporwave is an attempt at nostalgic reconstruction of consumer-first music from the '80s and '90s. It's a sub-sub-sub-genre of electronic music. Imagine remixed Muzak into a slow, smooth heartfelt jam.

Unlike the classic model of local sensation, who climbs the ladder of the scene, he went global before going local.

"My relationship with Little Rock isn't too, too good," he told me. Mostly he's achieved success online. His album covers are made by a guy who lives in the Netherlands, he said. His 20,000-plus monthly Spotify listeners, 9,336 followers on SoundCloud and the 233,587 who have viewed his YouTube channel are not concentrated in Little Rock. Sometimes he even struggles to book shows. "We're still facing the local gatekeepers now," he said.

The "we" is a growing creative collective that regularly meets at Paramount Skate Shop in North Little Rock, trying to create an "in-house society of creatives," he says, so they can photograph and film and produce away from the current structures of art in Little Rock. The group includes rappers Goon Des Garcons, Solo Jaxon and Fresco Grey. Wa creates beats for them. Sort of like BROCKHAMPTON, they've revolted against joining other scenes or systems, creating their own instead. Some of them have moved to Los Angeles, and Wa said he's considering moving, too. - ARKANSAS TIMES

Yuni Wa is Princeton Coleman, Little Rock-based beat crafter and producer. After a series of strong, diverse beat tape releases, Yuni Wa released Manifesto, which we at No Smoking are happy to share with you today. It’s populated mostly by one-or-two-minute rhythmic journeys, and its strongest outside influence is probably J Dilla. Stick along for the ride and stream some tracks, you’ll definitely hear something you enjoy.
The album begins with a spoken-word intro on “PVC,” a sort of confession about being musically inspired by personal struggle (and this confession is literally drenched in reverb). I do love me tone-guiding speech samples, though. I’m a sucker for it. Yuni Wa‘s production flirts with boombap stylings, consisting mostly of simple, groovy loops and banging hooks to accompany them. “Leafs” is probably one of my favorite numbers on this album, full of drippy piano chords and prime vocal-chorus mixing. Smooth use of vocals is clearly Yuni Wa‘s strong point; “From Here” features a sultry and mysterious repeating loop of “we will never find” juxtaposed against a horn section circling in space and a really boomy drumkit. The lounge-chill aesthetics of “Want To Be” make me recall early Joey Badass mixtapes, not to mention the beat tapes of one LDSK. Actually, it seems almost like LDSK and Yuni are sampling from the same catalog. But you can be the judge of that for yourself.Reaching the half point of the album, I’d like to re-state my initial vibe – that this mixtape sounds a loooooot like certain aspects of the J Dilla catalog. And that’s a good thing, you know, I love J Dilla – as far as short track times and drum-heavy, simplistic beats go, Yuni Wa is on the same page as the late great James Dewitt Yancey. Yuni’s stylings are a little more mellow, though, and less bassy. “88 Trans AM” is easily my favorite track on this album, featuring a fat low end and a synth hook that makes me feel like I’m driving through L.A. streets in the 80s inside a sports car with some crazy lighting under the body. Or something. It’s a good visual, in any case. All in all, I’d definitely recommend Manifesto to the uninitiated beat-tape listener, and I’d note that this is a good omen for Yuni Wa‘s development as an artist too. - nosmokingmedia

Being a producer means a lot more than it used to in the past. It’s grown to be way more immersive and intricate, with the heavy hitters laying down complex soundscapes and telling stories with their shit, not just putting down foundations for rappers, but making things standout on their own. Little Rock’s Yuni Wa is a prime example of artistic evolution, with his latest project putting in a different space with every track. If feels like a classic movie marathon, captivating the listener and invoking a multitude of emotion with the instrumentation. Rather than be pigeonholed as just another rap producer, Yuni Ma made an attempting to stand on his own and grab you with his sound, and it was definitely the right decision. - Popped Cherry

Taking the modulated spacey voidsomeness of future-facing synth chords, often the base for what is referred to as "future bass", and mixing that with swaggery trap-esque beats complete with overdriven kicks, rapid-rattle hi-hats and popping tinny snares, whilst adding just a touch of stuttering glitchism, Yuni Wa has created an interesting track in 'Right From Wrong' – with its aching-sunset melodies and dynamic sway, it's a good herald for the young beatmaker's upcoming release Yuniversity, out 22nd May. - The 405

Producer Yuni Wa plays around with a small sample of Justin Timberlake's 2013 comeback single 'Suit & Tie' for 'Show You A Few Things', and while Justin's single was all about bringing back some of that old-school R&B, Yuni Wa is looking to the future with this electronic-based rework with some additional trap styled drums for good measure. Bop your head to this one. - The 405