This episode is all about George Siahaan, an 18-year-old sophomore at Baruch College who jump-started his career by just DJ-ing for WBMB Baruch College Radio.
Script
AMBI: Music plays for 3-4 seconds then fades out, but still in the background.
INTRO: In How to Stop Time Matt Haig says, “Music doesn’t get in. Music is already in. Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn’t necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them all up. A rebirth of sorts.” This is Giselle Medina and you’re listening to Hidden Gems, a podcast where we meet upcoming artists and talk about their drive in becoming well-known.
TRACK: George Siahaan is an 18-year-old sophomore at Baruch College who jump-started his career by just DJ-ing for WBMB Baruch College Radio. When I’m about to interview George, he’s wearing a white tee with striped pants and a pink satin bandana is around his neck. It reminds me of Fred from Scooby-Doo and his ascot. He has a gold open-top single tooth cap. He tops the look with a pink Von Dutch hat and makes it a point that Kendall Jenner wore it for Drake’s Halloween party. Then we start to talk about how he became a part of WBMB.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: I saw you guys at club fair. Um, not club fair, convocation yeah.
TRACK: To be clear, when George says “you guys” it’s because we are both a part of WBMB Baruch College’s Radio Station. I’ve known George for about a year now and though shy, he does have his moments when he’s super comfortable.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: Yeah. Cause I saw all these other clubs. I’m not gonna diss other clubs, but like I saw all these other clubs, they’re all like business stuff. I’m like, I’m not trying to join like a business club, like a marketing frat or whatever. Like if you want to join a microFIT marketing frat that that’s cool. Like do you, but like for me personally, I, I’m already in a business school. I feel like that’s like educational enough and I was like, okay let’s, let’s do something where I’m interested in creatively. So I saw Encounters, I saw The Ticker and I saw the radio station and I was like, Oh these guys DJ BET.
TRACK: George is from Indonesia, he came to America five days before his orientation in late August of last year. His love for music comes from how he was raised. George and his family are from a particular culture in Indonesia called Batak.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: Like stereotypically Batak people are really good at music they can sing and stuff like that so I guess it stems from there like my mom plays piano my dad tries to play instruments my whole entire family sings – oh I like this song too –
TRACK: George and I are in the radio station and outside in the main area of WBMB one of the members, Simba is practicing one of his DJ sets.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: When I was 13 no when I was like 11 I told my parents I wanted to DJ and then they laughed at me look – laughs/chuckles – look at what happened now I’m a fucking DJ but um yea so I started music I started producing like 12ish on a shitty laptop. I’ve always had a fascination for like djing ‘cause people think it’s just pressing buttons and stuff but I always thought there was more to djing because it’s more of curating a vibe and I knew that at like 12 but my parents didn’t let me because they wanted me to be a doctor as all Asian parents do.
TRACK: Here’s a clip of George Dj-ing at Baruch College’s Club Fair this September.
AMBI: George DJing at Club Fair
TRACK: Being a DJ for WBMB has allowed George to get noticed by different people and he has been approached to DJ at multiple parties.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: Supreme Carl, See No LIfe, I’ve done some shit in Indonesia, um but mostly most of my gigs come from doing school stuff ‘cause um that’s usually a once every 2 weeks thing um but I enjoy it when people aren’t rowdy and ask for stupid music requests by the way like I really hate song requests, I think all DJs do too that’s like how you don’t snap at a waiter.
TRACK: When George does his sets it’s usually Afro House or Baile House. In all honesty, I had no idea what this was, I knew it was a genre of music and that Afro House is from Africa, Baile House is from Brazil/South American. I had to text George later that night to give me some examples. And here they are
AMBI: This is Baile: https://soundcloud.com/alexguesta/alex-guesta-kayamba-vs-magalenha-cut
AMBI: This is Afro House: https://soundcloud.com/ikonika/afro-b-x-hhb-drogba-x-reign-ikonika-blend
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: I’ll play hip hop but if I know it’s like the audience is kind of niche and they’re kind of like you know I wouldn’t say educated but they’re open to other music then I’ll play my House music because that’s what I’m most comfortable with and that’s what I enjoy doing most.
TRACK: As I kinda mentioned before, George does rap. I asked him what his process in making a song and he said that he wasn’t the best person to ask.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: I’ve always loved music, I always told myself I wanted to rapper ok so I wanted to be a rapper at the beginning because when I was in Indonesia there was a bunch of these Indonesian people making hip hop songs but their English was trash right
TRACK: (fade out) I asked him what his process in making a song and he said that he wasn’t the best person to ask and I guess this is why.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: like super bad like fresh off the boat bad I’m serious bro and I was like “and these guys are getting like 30 million views, they’re getting TV-like like performances and stuff like bro I can do this right?” So then I wanted to make a diss track on them but I didn’t thank God but I just started writing this one song it’s called Narauto uh the hook the hook is is like pretty like ok so the song is about my depression and how much I wanna kill my self but people didn’t get that it was awful double entendres but I feel like if I tell people that, they’ll think I’m lying but it is what it is uh so that’s kind started – what was the question again? What was the process right so um what people usually do um they’ll usually look for a free beat
TRACK: (fade out) It was moments like these I think that George would get excited about talking about his music that he’ll just continue talking. I think he’d just elaborate on things until he got to the endpoint.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: and then they’ll start writing to that that’s what I did ‘cause I didn’t think I was gonna put it on streaming services but writing it took me about I’m not gonna lie it took me 20 minutes I recorded it that night at my friend’s place and I put it on soundcloud and then within like it got like a 1000 views like really quick and I was like “oh ok BET imma put this on spotify but what I didn’t read was that if you take a beat from youtube and it says free its not free free it’s free for non profit and if I put it on spotify I can get profit right so I put it on spotify and then I got profit and then I was like “oh I can get sued for this” so I had to take it down but I’m not gonna say what I did with the money – What was the question again?
Me: What is your process?
AMBI: Music comes in again for 3-4 seconds but fades out (still in the background)
TRACK: Sometimes George would go off on tangents and at one point I had to ask him if there were certain things that he comfortable with me using because he’d talk about very serious and personal things. I think it’s because George and I are friends and he’s comfortable with me but I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t gonna be blind sighted. Here’s another example:
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: Ary said that I look sad 24/7 and I don’t know how I feel about that. Maybe I do look sad all the time, I’m sad like 22/7, not 24/7 The two hours that I get sleep. Oh no, bro. I had the weirdest dream last night. I cried afterwards. I don’t want to talk about it. And it’s too, it’s too deep. You know what? I realized I don’t like talking about my feelings and I feel like that’s why I’m making music. You can use this part, you have a question? Well, did I answer your question?
Me: Actually I have not asked a question.
George: I’ve been, I’ve just been talking for the past 15 minutes.
Me: You’ve just been rambling. Well, you’ve been going off on a tangent. I’m not going to say rambling, but you’ve been, it’s like a stream of consciousness that you’re doing, that you’ve been doing and I’ve just let you talk.
George: Thank you.
Me: You’re welcome.
AMBI: Music comes in again for 3-4 seconds but fades out (still in the background)
TRACK: Let’s get back to the music part of George. His stage is name is YG JUJU, at one point he says that his rapper persona is his polar opposite.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: Not wanting to be, but it’s more of like a no sort of want. It’s more of like, it’s just the opposite of what I actually do. It’s not what I want to be, but
Me: What, you aspire to be?
George: No, cause I don’t aspire to like the lyrics that I say. Sometimes they’re like, I shouldn’t have said that. That type of stuff like that. Like that’s, that’s overly aggressive. Yeah, but like, then again, that’s like, you know, it’s like Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, you know what I mean? Like that Sasha fierce isn’t Beyonce, but it’s in Beyonce’s body like the same thing as like a lot of the music, well, the two songs I put out, it’s all about like taking like this girl, this boyfriend, this, this dudes that girlfriend, right? Like, bro, I can’t do that. The moment I find like a girl as a boyfriend, I’m dipping, you know what I’m saying?
TRACK: George then went all philosophical on me on his two personalities.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: It’s like, it’s like in psychology you have like Id ego, super ego. I think the Id is like, like when you’re a baby, like your, your desire. Like when you’re a baby, you love your mom so much that you’d kill your dad, but you can’t obviously because you’re a baby. But like, it’s sort of like my rapper persona is like my Id. Wow. That’s crazy. Yo. That I should, wow. I gotta use that some time, bro. My rapper persona is my Id, I think it’s called the Id by the way.
AMBI: Music comes in again for 3-4 seconds but fades out (still in the background)
TRACK: I looked this up online and according to Sigmund Freud’s model of the psyche, the id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to basic urges, needs, and desires. The id is not affected by reality, logic or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind. So I’m guessing it checks out.
AMBI: Snippet of Act Out for 3-4 seconds fade out, but still in the background until the end
TRACK: YG JUJU just came out with his song Act Out – available on Spotify and Apple Music.
ACT [GEORGE SIAHAAN]: I made that, um, because I wanted to impress a girl. Uh, she had a boyfriend, so I wanted to make a song about stealing her from the boyfriend, but it was kind of like violent, not, not violent towards her. It’s just like, it’s, it’s pretty like aggressive. It’s literally about me taking like TYB, you know what I’m saying? But yeah, I just want it to get on her playlist. So what I did was I went to my friend’s house, he was making music. Um, they’re, they’re, they’re pretty popping into in Indonesia I guess. Um, uh, what was I saying? Yeah. So he was like, cause I was taking like a music hiatus. I was like, I’m done with this music stuff. Like this is going nowhere. I’m just gonna start DJing. And he was like, bro, just like produce something. So I made this beat in like five minutes and he was like, go freestyle over it. So I freestyled over it. And then I was like, “Oh, this is kind of fire actually.”
TRACK: Thanks for listening, catch another “hidden gem” in the next episode!