Rapper creates his own beat

Joseph Greco raps to the crowd. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Joseph Greco raps to his own beat creating music.

The artist known as Greco explained his unique style.

“I feel in a lot of ways, I'm the first me,” he said. “I'm the first Greco. It's a pretentious answer to be creating something new. But in a way, I feel like I am. That comes with being my own producer. I would just say alternative hip hop. That's a good way to put it.”

Producing is Joseph’s preference. Performing is his passion.

“One hundred percent a passion,” he said. “One hundred percent something I love to do. I guess it roots from when I started making music in the first place. When I would make a beat or I'd make a song, I would run to my friends down the block and be like, hey, come listen to this. Sit down and just listen to this. Watching their face, watching their expressions, watching their head start to bop really fueled me even if it wasn't my best work. Even if I knew I didn't believe in it 100 percent, I knew that if I just kept making music and giving people ears or having ears to listen to it, that's always what pushed me. It's so electric and it's so fueling.”

Joseph, 21, of Utah said there’s nothing that matches the feedback from a live audience.

“Being able to feel the warmth of my music at such a loud volume, hearing what I created and seeing everybody light up is so special, so awesome,” he said. “Some of the places that I performed, you can actually feel the floor rumble. You have to be there. It's a really special feeling.”

Joseph debuted music in April.

“The last thing I've released is an album called Vagabond,” he said. “But there's some new stuff coming.”

Joseph said there’s more to being a singer than making music.

“It's tough nowadays because now in 2024 as an artist, you have to be more than just a rapper or producer,” he said. “You have to be your own manager. You have to be your own A&R (artistic and repertoire representative) and your own everything, your own marketer and content creator. Making music has been such a small part of my career. Unfortunately, just starting smaller and growing, being the person holding the megaphone, telling people about the music has taken far more time.”

Joseph said production is the more time-consuming element of the music end.

“Not a whole lot of artists can say that they — at least in the rap scene, in the hip hop scene — produce their own music,” he said. “They, for the most part, use other people's beats, which is fine. Between those two options, the production takes longer.”

Joseph, who had a packed late spring and early summer touring cities in the Western states from Seattle to San Diego, said some places are more conducive for rap.

“It depends where in California,” he said. “Because northern West Coast, not really, but if you're very, very south, obviously in the L.A./(San Francisco) Bay area, it's a great place to do anything, start any career. I used to live on the flip side of the U.S. I used to live in Florida, and that also had a really great scene, too, and that was the East Coast. You also have New York and a lot of the Mideast is oftentimes argued a better spot.  I know for sure where I'm stationed now in Utah is not a good spot to start rap, but that's exciting because if there's a hole that needs to be filled, then I'm going to do my best to show the world rap can exist in Utah as well.”

Joseph also has performed in lo Stivale, known in America as the Boot.

“I'm going to be going to Italy again in late July, early August,” he said. “It’s beautiful. It is wonderful.”

Joseph appreciates the cultural differences between the two halves of the Italian nation.

“Just the dialect difference from Southern and Northern is crazy,” he said. “I can't understand people in Napoli (Naples). It's crazy.”

Joseph said scheduling a performance in another country isn’t problematic if you have the right connections.

“It really is who you know, because there's some places I would not be able to do that,” he said. “It really is about who you know.”

As if performing and producing weren’t enough, Joseph has his own apparel label, the Greco Collective, which puts on fashion shows.  

“I do have my own fashion brand,” he said. “We did a show in Florida and we did a show in Italy, so that's exciting. We had all of our fashion models walk through Italy. There was about 20 models, and we went through Parco Sempione in Milan and a lot through the city.”

Joseph keeps his social media content lively.

“I’ve always had a great time being in front of an audience/camera and I love coming up with new ideas that people aren’t expecting,” he said. 

Joseph said it’s vital for artitsts to exhibit personality, but the extent varies.

“Look at Travis Scott,” he said. “Look at Playboi Carti. These are two perfect examples of people who show very little behind the scenes. When a glimpse of them is shown, it’s far more impactful. The importance of personality comes with what type of connection you want with your fan base. Both of those artists aren’t close to their fans but still remain popular.” 

Joseph said music is a vital part of his life.

“I can't function without music,” he said. “I'm always listening to music. If I'm not, then there's something stuck in my head. It keeps my mental health in check, because music is the rhythm of life. It helps me stay mentally sound, mentally safe. If I'm feeling down or if I'm feeling any sort of way, I can go make music or I can go listen to music.”

Joseph explained music is unlike any other art form.

“It's such a healthy outlet for creative expression because unlike other mediums of art, music is one thing that there really isn't two of the same,” he said. “There's copies and you've got your parodies and you've got your remakes. But as long as time exists and we get access to more tools and more instruments, music is this melting pot of creativity. For me, it really just means staying happy, staying productive, and being innovative and trying something new.”

Joseph said music is the easiest way for him to express himself.

“I've always been really poor with communication,” he said. “That's why I'm an artist. Because if I was great with my words, I wouldn't make music. I've gotten a lot better and I can articulate, but when I was younger, I didn't talk to my parents. I was very sheltered. I was very quiet. I was very sucked into the Internet and making music and staying in my own little world. Making music and putting it onto a canvas helped me actually be more confident in the real world and actually express how I'm feeling.”

Joseph enjoys other types of music.

“I have a huge respect for all genres,” he said. “Rap is funnily enough the genre I listen to the least. I listen to a lot of indie, I listen to a lot of female artists. I love Lana Del Rey. I love Lorde. I love Gracie Abrams. I love all the soft, poetic music as well. I love reggae. I love everything.”

Joseph explained why he prefers rap as a performer.

“For me, the style of sampling and digging up old music, quote unquote old, even if it's from the early 2000s and later, is just so fascinating,” he said. “Sampling is just so fun because I can take all these songs that I grew up with and songs that other people grew up with and give it a new meaning entirely, whether it's closer to its original product or something completely different. The reason I chose rap over everything is resampling, and production on rap has just always been so fascinating to me and so unique.”

Joseph holds other styles in high regard, though.

“I have a huge respect for people that are in other genres as well,” he said. “Music theory and playing instruments and having a band and being collaborative with multiple people is a huge talent and a huge skill set on its own. It’s something that I hope to grow into when I'm older and learn as I surround myself with better and more talented people and evolve my music for sure. But for right now, rap is just really fun to make, and it's love.”

Joseph, who schedules performances two months ahead, focuses on his music.

“I did dual enrollment when I was in high school,” he said. “I graduated early from high school, and then I did two years of community college just in music theory. I mostly did that just to network, but now I'm out of school focusing on my music full-time.”

Joseph has been making music for seven years.

“Recording, I've been doing since 2018, but in small amounts,” he said. “Back in 2018, I had a different sound and I used to go under a different alias where I just made lo-fi beats. That's when I started producing and started teaching myself. I was 14, and I was making beats on my mom's laptop. I just started really liking the beats I was making, and I was like, well, I don't want to give this to anybody else, so I need to learn how to rap or do something on this so that I can use them.”

Consequently, Joseph added vocals to his repertoire.

“I started recording for it, put out a couple albums again under that different alias,” he said. “Last October, I got the new handle Greco, and I just started working on music much more frequently. It took off and became something really, really fun. I took all those years of practice and applied it for performing. I had one or two shows the past five years. Then this last three months, we just did show, show, show, because I met a bunch of really amazing people who could help me out with booking and reaching out to different venues.”

With the surname Greco, it’s no surprise Joseph is of Italian descent.

“My grandparents are off the boat,” he said. “Mom and dad, we have dual citizenship. I love being in the U.S. and the convenience is great, but also the love, the heart, the roots of my family tree and everything in Italy is just as important.”

Joseph doesn’t fret about criticism of his music of choice from a traditional Italian mindset.  

“My parents have been so unbelievably supportive,” he said. “I'm super thankful for that. But there's definitely the flip side of the coin with my other family where they're like, you know, you have such a strong, prideful last name Greco. In my family tree at least, I'm the last Greco. It's important that in the future, I have kids and continue the family name. But as it stands, I'm the last Greco. I guess that turns some heads in the family when they're like, you rap. The people who have been really supportive, my parents specifically, they come to the shows and they see the energy and the crowds and everything. They see that I'm really passionate and happy about it.”

Joseph also is passionate about his roots, leading to trips and shows.

“I love to go to Italy,” he said. “It's my vacation. I try to go every year right in the summer. For the past three years, I've been going to Italy and meeting people. Last year, I did a collaboration with Garms 1 of 1, which is a renewable fashion brand where they recycle clothes. I really believe in their mission. We did a collaborative project called Pangaea. It was about bringing the Earth together, bringing the world together. Going to Italy the past couple years really helped find people that wanted to model.”

Tired of the cost of clothes, Joseph did something about it.

“I was frustrated at prices of clothing,” he said. “In 2022 when I started it, I had expensive taste. When I found out the quality of the fabrics and how the everything was made, it really frustrated me because I knew that I could be getting the same level of quality. And quality is very important to me. That was my main thing with the brand was I wanted quality garments for affordable price.”

Joseph drew upon his skill set to create his own brand.

“I've always been multifaceted in graphic design and computer animation, video editing, just a bunch of little hobbies that followed with being a musician,” he said. “I used those skill sets to build the brand and design clothes. The sole purpose was the price of clothes because I knew that it wasn't worth that much. I knew a hoodie couldn't possibly cost $120 to fabricate. When I found out how the process was made, I not only was more appreciative of the clothes I wore, but I also found a passion for actually designing the clothes and making them.”

Joseph recalled the first musician to leave an impact on his young mind.

“It was Lil Wayne,” he said. “I was maybe 5 or 6 years old. I was very young, should not have been listening to Lil Wayne. My brother, he pulls me aside and he's like, Joe, I want you to practice this song, and I want you to try and rap it. At the time, we were having fun, but it was just so memorable. We would learn all different types of Lil Wayne songs. That had some sort of impact now and in the future with how I make music.”

Joseph didn’t start out wanting to be a rapper.

“I always thought I would just be a producer,” he said. “A lot of rappers who produce their stories, they all thought they were just gonna be a producer, and they suddenly just start rapping their music. There really wasn't a moment of time where I was like, oh, now I'm just a rapper. I feel like I balance both really well. For every one song that's on my catalog, there's 100 in the vault that I've just produced and are just instrumental beats and stuff. I really love to produce music, whether it gets put out or not. The process is really therapeutic for me.”

But Joseph knew he wanted to be a producer since the onset of his musical aspirations.

“I knew I wanted to be a producer in 2014,” he said. “I used to watch a lot of YouTube, and I used to listen to a lot of mixes back in the day. I was really big into trap in EDM (electronic dance music) when I was younger, before I even started producing. There are these EDM trap producers that I looked up to. One of them being San Holo was a big influence for my early production style. I remember I wanted to start making synthetic electronic music.”

What started out as a periodic occurrence increased in frequency for Joseph over time.

“In 2014, I made maybe three beats, and those were all on my mom's laptop,” he said. “Fast forward a couple more years just making a beat there, beat here. And then in 2018, just being like, hey, mom, can I borrow your laptop every day? Started making music, and then I transitioned to lo-fi and then now just blending everything that I've been influenced by the past eight years into my production style now.”

Joseph rather have his creative innovations last the test of time than his name.

“One of my biggest goals is to be so impactful that I'm forgotten,” he said. “If I can be so innovative in a sound or in a way where people can't remember who it was. Think about the sidewalk. Think about the stoplight. Who designed these things? Nobody knows, but they're so integral to our everyday life. There's ego in memory. I don't really care so much about what happens to me now as long as I can innovate.”

Joseph tends to his voice when needed.

“Just the classics,” he said. “Hot tea and honey.”

Joseph stays motivated by seeking inspiration.

“I'm always grabbing creative energy from the world,” he said. “Just walking out in the park and looking up at the mountains, I just imagine my hand grabbing out and grabbing that mountain and putting it in a pocket. It's like I'm gonna go use that energy for later. I try and surround myself with as much energy, creative energy, whether it's intentional or not, things that bring nostalgia, things that evoke any emotion. I'm always trying to surround myself with creative energy, and I think that's one of the most interesting things about being a producer.”

Joseph stressed the spontaneous process for inspiration.

“I'm slowly starting to learn is there really isn't a textbook way to be an artist,” he said. “It's never a methodically planned out thing. It always has been and always will be for me something that happens then and there and something that is just an idea that's like, let's do it. Let's try that right now. That's provided from the creative energies that I've grabbed. For me, it's always been so out of the blue, sporadic and never planned out, but always ends up working out because I'm persistent enough in surrounding myself with the right type of energy and be having an open heart and letting everything come in and fill it. So I can use that for art.”

After growing up in the Sunshine State, Joseph saw different parts of the country.

“I grew up in Florida from when I was a baby till around 9,” he said. “My parents wanted to do a road trip around the United States. We sold everything in our house. We sold our house, we sold a lot of our stuff, put the rest in storage, we bought a really nice camper, and we went around the United States for about four years. I was homeschooled during that time. That's really when a lot of these creative, different outlets blossomed and I got to really explore what I wanted to be. Going around the United States also has a huge impact on my sound and the way I act and my personality and everything.”

All that was missing for Joseph was Tod Stiles’ Corvette from the television show Route 66 about two young guys traveling the country.

“Being able to surround myself with so many different cultures and being able to break out of a bubble and see how the rest of the U.S. operates and runs is so healthy and so refreshing,” he said. “When I finally decided to settle down here in Utah, I now know what's waiting for me in other parts of the world. I know to not take things for granted. We even lived in Colorado for twoish years and Portland, Oregon, for a year.”

Joseph dispensed advice for anyone wanting to start a clothing line.

“You need to make sure you prioritize quality,” he said. “And not just quality of your designs, but the quality of your fabrics and the quality of your customer service, the quality of your brand, the heart and the passion of your brand image and making sure that you really are for something. I see so many uninspired copy-and-paste streetwear, fashion brands that overcharge and under deliver. Those brands, they all crash and burn eventually.”

Joseph added it takes time to establish a new brand.

“If you're in my position where you're trying to start a clothing brand, slow and steady really wins the race,” he said. “Don't rush in and try and find Chinese manufacturing for clothing and buy in bulk and try and sell this large volume when you don't know if people are going to like your designs and like the quality and the image that you stand for. Starting slowly, believing in your brand image and having good quality is so important.”

Joseph said a producer needs to know music.

“Listen to music constantly and start asking questions, because being curious is so vital to being creative,” he said. “Curiosity and creativity go hand-in-hand. Questioning why something was done the way it is can make you a better producer. Listen to music. Listen to your own music religiously. Listen to it, start to hate it, start to get really frustrated with your sound and then be like, how can I do this better tomorrow? As long as you're putting out what you're creating, whether it's on Soundcloud or it's all the way out to DSPs (digital service providers), just keep putting out because you never know who's listening and who actually really likes it.”

Joseph advised aspiring musicians to understand their motivations to make music.

“Be honest with yourself,” he said. “Why are you doing it? I know for me, the reason I'm doing it is so that I can share my production to as many ears as possible and have the energy of the crowd and the wholesome messages from fans. That in itself is the whole reason, and it's so special. I don't do it for money. If you're becoming an artist or rapper for money or for women or whatever it is, it's the right genre to do so, but it's not the happiest and it's not going to yield immediate results.”

Joseph said rap in particular needs to be a passion for a performer.

“As long as you're not doing it born out of insecurity or anything like that, as long as you're doing it for just the love of it,” he said. “Because hip hop is its own art form. If you treat it like that, you respect it and you learn about it and you stay in the community, then you have everything going for you. Just be honest with yourself is my advice and understand why you're doing it and make sure you're doing it for healthy reasons.”

Joseph’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grecotheartist/

Joseph’s music: https://linktr.ee/mousetale

Joseph’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/NauticalOfficial

Greco Collective Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grecollective/