Stone Deluxe is an up and coming rapper in the Boston area who has been making a name for himself. He started releasing music back in 2017, with his first single “Swim City”. Since then, he has released two full length albums Half Metal Kaiba in 2023 and Stonemason in 2021. Stone has also been consistently releasing music with many EPs and singles available to stream as well.
Originally from California, Stone Deluxe began making music when he was in high school. He began to make a name for himself as a part of a rap collective in CA. Stone currently lives in Boston where he is going to school for video game designing. He has big plans for combining his passion for music and his studies of gaming.
RMR was lucky enough to be able to sit down with Stone Deluxe and talk to him about the Boston Local Scene, his most recent album, what he has coming up and more. You can watch the full video here or scroll down for a written version of some of the highlights of our conversation!
How did you get into making music?
I started making music in my freshman year of high school. I was listening to a lot of rap in middle school and I was the kind of person who was like, ‘I love this so much, I want to try my own hand at it’. But at the beginning of high school my music wasn’t great, it took me a lot of time to figure out what I was doing. I was originally just making remixes of rap songs that I liked. I was using a laptop, a USB mic and Audacity, until I worked up to getting an interface, Ableton and an actual microphone.
So far the song of yours that has the most streams is “Corrour Station” which was released a few years ago at this point! Tell us about the song and how that came to be.
It’s a good song, I really like that song, it’s kind of sad. It’s part of a two track EP based off of the movie ‘Trainspotting’. Corrour Station is a train station in the movie, from the scene where they all go to the mountains. The two songs off that EP were named after locations in the movie. The other song ‘Volcano’ is named after where the main character meets his love interest. But, ‘Corrour Station’ is a sad song based off what I was feeling at the time.
What is your writing process like?
The writing process definitely takes me a lot less time than it used to. At first the lyrics took me a lot of time to write, I would rewrite them a lot of times. It’s always been a bit of a challenge to get the words down, as opposed to making a beat where I can express myself with sounds.
Tell us about your most recent record Half Metal Kaliba. How did you come up with the title? Is there any specific meaning?
It’s a remastered collection of songs that I made in high school actually, none of those vocals are new. All of those songs came out in my high school years and they were produced by a few different people from a collective I was working with. Overtime, that collective and I ended up falling out and they ended up copyright striking all of those songs. It wasn’t just those songs, it was around 50 songs and my whole SoundCloud profile.
Since that happened I’ve been trying to put new beats behind and get new mixes, so I can put them back up. This way the people who liked them can still listen to them officially. These were eight of my favorite songs from that time period with some new instrumentals to bring some new life back into them. It was really fun. The only song that I made the beat for personally was ‘fly like doves,’ the rest of them were made by different people.
What are you up to today?
Right now I’m working on a few singles with some friends. I really like working on individual songs rather than projects. I also have two videos on the way for ‘silly rabbit,’ and ‘andromeda,’ those are directed by Crowbar Owen, based out of Chicago.
Let’s talk about the Boston Local Scene. Who are some of your favorite Boston local artists?
I love the boys I went to high school with, a lot of my friends are in bands. Especially Eli Torg and Ben Dailor, they are great. In terms of hip hop, I know a lot of people who are in bands, but a lot less who rap and produce. There’s one guy I like who makes some cool stuff named KIDRYU. Also, my friend Zander who goes by Jenkins on SoundCloud, he makes some cool beats. I really want to find some more hip hop artists in the area and get some work in.
What are some of your favorite venues in Boston?
I’ve been to the Brighton Music Hall a couple of times, it’s always really cool. It’s most active in basements around here. People with houses that have cool basement setups for shows have the Boston local scene in a headlock.
Thank you so much Stone, where can we find you on social media and stream your music?
Everything is under Stone Deluxe. Just look up my name and you should be able to find me!
