Omar Sparks
My name is Omar Sparks. I'm a hip-hop producer. Fell in love with music at the age of five. Started out rhyming at the age of 13. By the time I turned 15, I sat back and thought about how getting a rap deal was hard but I was wanted to make beats. It was a self taught thing and I just caught up with it. So I stop rhyming for a little while and just started producing tracks. I'm a sample base producer, which is the main part of my production. Most people think that sampling is cheating, but it's not. It's all about looking for new sounds. Most of your today's favorite producers do it. Producers get new sounds from vinyl records. They dig in the crates all the time. Most people don't want to buy music equipment that's loaded with sounds that has been used millions of times. People want to hear something different with a different feel to it, just like looking for new drums. Hip-hop came from the crates. Hip-hop is formed from different music elements. Jazz, Soul, Rock, Reggae, Blues, and World music. This is what hip-hop is.
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
www.myspace.com/omarsparks
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
No I'm in the studio all the time.
Your musical influences
Producers that inspire me into beatmaking are DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Kanye West, Just Blaze, The RZA, No I.D., J.Dilla (R.I.P.), Ski, Chad Wes Hamilton, Buckwild, 88 Keys, The Neptunes, Organized Noize, 9th Wonder, Khrysis, Dr. Dre, Hi-Tek, Eminem, Chucky Thompson, Swizz Beatz, Jermaine Dupri(The old Jermaine Dupri, not the new one today), Erick Sermon, The Alchemist, Salaam Remi, Bink, Timberland, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, DJ Scratch, The Bomb Squad, and Nottz.
What equipment do you use?
FL Studio, Cool Edit, Numark PT-01 Portable turntable and vinyl records. I have a dope record collection.
Anything else?
Shouts to my group, The League. They are the future of hip-hop. I wanna thank for all the legendary producers that pave me the way of seeing music and making music creatively. I wanna especially want to thank God for giving me this god giving, self taught talent. 409 is the place to be. Peace.
