Oliver Brown (junior), “Esko,” is a producer from Nashville, Tennessee, known for his work with artists such as Ken Carson, Lil Uzi Vert and Destroy Lonely. Brown said he started making music at 10 years old on GarageBand and found commercial success a few years later.
Brown said his first major industry experience came when he was 13, but unfortunately, it resulted in him getting scammed.
“I stumbled into my first placement on a Moneybag Yo mixtape,” Brown said. “I sent the beat over to a producer who said he liked it and just wanted me to send him the file so he could add a few things. A few months later, it came out, and I did not get any credit, but I did get to tell my mom, ‘Look, I am a serious musician!’”
Brown said he gained motivation from the betrayal.
“I was a cocky little dude,” Brown said. “I didn’t care that he ripped me off because I knew I was just going to do it a 100 more times. It gave me existential energy, like real motivation.”
After that, Brown said he gained interest in the group YSL and wanted to get Lil Keed on one of his beats.
“Nowadays, you just text rappers the beats, but back in the day, rappers just had an email address, and pretty much anyone could email them,” Brown said. “One time I saw that ‘beats4keed’ opened my email, and it was an unbelievable feeling.”
Brown said that in 2020, 10k.Caash put out a tweet that said, “send futsal shuffle type beats.” Brown said 10k.Caash was his first successful and genuine rapper collaborator.
“10k hit me back immediately,” Brown said. “This was new because I was used to sending beats into the void. It was exhilarating, and I realized then I could do whatever I want[ed].”
Brown said after collaborating with 10k.Caash, he turned his focus to Lil Uzi Vert, who at the time was one of the biggest rap artists in the world. Brown said his only goal at that time was to get a beat to Uzi.
“For four years, he had been my favorite artist,” Brown said. “On March 2nd, 2021, my notifications randomly started blowing up. I opened Instagram, and Uzi is there dressed in all white, dancing to my beat. I lost my mind and I started screaming.”
According to Brown, at this point, he still had not met any musical collaborators in person, but that changed when he went to a producer meet-up in Atlanta at the end of his junior year of high school. Brown is from Nashville, and his father, Steven Brown, said he trusted Brown to go to Atlanta, but asked him to bring his ACT study book.
“I was happy to say go enhance your musical skills and your network, but those tests are coming up,” S. Brown said.
Brown said he had the time of his life in Atlanta and remembers studying in the mornings.
“I was pretty sheltered and I was younger and smaller than everyone else there and I had to bring my big red ACT book. I think that made an impression on the other guys,” Brown said. “Even though every morning I would go to Starbucks to study, I had the best two weeks of my life.”
Brown said Aaron Shadrow, a producer from LA, is now one of his most frequent collaborators. Shadrow said that he became friends when Brown moved out here to LA for school and that Brown made an immediate impression on him.
“I met him in his freshman year, and I was like, ‘Who is this little boy in my apartment?’” Shadrow said. “When you meet him, you see that he is wholeheartedly dedicated to music. He is very smart and has a genuine interest in everything the world has to offer. He is a student of everything around him, which is my favorite thing about him.”
Brown said he remembers the feeling of finally landing Final Fantasy on Red and White after years of trying to land an Uzi track. Brown said his phone rang one morning at 6 a.m. and he hung up because he was so tired, but it rang again.
“I finally [woke] up, and I [saw] that everyone in my musical life is hitting me up. I was losing my mind,” Brown said. “I [didn’t] know what it would take for me to feel something like that again, maybe my kid being born. It made my brain explode, it just grips you so hard.”
Brown said he started receiving unprecedented levels of attention at school.
“Parents knew, teachers knew, girls knew, guys knew,” Brown said. “I was sitting in the library this one time, and a group of freshmen walked up to me, and this one kid asked, ‘Are you Esko?’ I was just fired up.”
Brown said his most successful song is Ken Carson’s Overseas, and while that has over 190 million streams, he is only going to keep improving.
“I feel my mindset, skills, and focus have improved so much as I have gotten older,” Brown said. “I am a psycho about it.”
Contact Bennett Michaels bmichaels@oxy.edu
