If you haven’t heard of Ambi Lyrics, now is the time to correct your grave mistake. One of Chicago’s (by way of St. Louis) favorite DJ-producers, Ambi surrounds herself, and has worked with, many of the city’s top burgeoning talents. Today, she’s stepping into the limelight with the release of Study Hall, her brand new project featuring guest appearances by some of those aforementioned friends. I sat down with her to get her thoughts on the project, being a woman in a male-dominated industry, working with her friends, and more. Check out the project below and get a peek into the mind of Ambi.
FSD: What is Study Hall?
Ambi: Study Hall is my project that I’ve been working on for the past 2 1/2 years. Where basically I spent a lot of time honing in on my craft and studying a lot from the artists and engineers in my corner. Book from THEMpeople gave me this engineering book and I would take notes during my sessions with him during my first project, Your Music. And beyond that L10 also taught me a lot just by me asking questions about the things I didn’t understand and taking notes on what I wanted to improve on to help mold me into a better producer/engineer.
https://soundcloud.com/ambil/sets/study-hall
FSD: How did the features for this project come about?
Ambi: Life really. Going through the motions of creating and knowing what I wanted the records to say and who could actually get those points across. Once I figured that out I basically reached out set up the sessions and got it done.
FSD: When did work start on the project?
Ambi: The first song I recorded on this project was “Hakuna Matata” ft. Via Rosa & Joseph Chilliams. Via was cooking at the time when we lived together. I was making a beat (cooking) and she goes “woah wtf is this? Cuz it sounds like mine” I laughed and was like “bet let’s work on it”. She recorded her hook and verse and I was like “damn this is amazing”. And I had been talking to Joseph for some time about him wanting to do a song with Via and they both mutually love each other’s work so in my mind I’m like, “I gotta make this happen”. Contacted Joseph and sent him the song with Via vocals on it and he was like, “bet let’s link.” And the crazy thing is the same night that Joseph recorded his first song with Via was unfortunately the same night he was mugged and his eye got messed up. He tells me that I should share this story because it’s true and a part of my creative process but after that, man, I was terrified for my friends leaving sessions at my crib. Even tho it didn’t happen on my side of town I was traumatized. But yea that’s the first song lol.