The Future of Mixed Music: an Interview with Gab The Sandbox

Interviewed by Nia Hardaway

GabTheSandbox, also known as Gab, is a mixed musician, producer, and fashion designer. With a black mother, and white father, Gab shares his experience growing up in Germany and New York City. He also shares amazing words on his latest single “Cash On A Wednesday,” which touches further on his experience being mixed. 

How did you start writing and producing your music? Did you know you would be doing it throughout your life?

I was part of this spoken word club and that's what really made me start like writing, for real, because the teacher that I had, he was a poet and a dancer and the way he expressed himself made me want to really express myself and put myself out there too. So that's when I started focusing on spoken word and poetry.

I think that experience really helped me break myself out of my shell and see that expressing myself is OK. No matter whoever the audience is, even if there isn’t an audience, you know, expressing myself, as long as I'm expressing myself, that's the best thing you could do, you know.

How would you describe your relationship with your mixed identity? Do you relate your experiences into your music? 

So I've been mixed all my life. My thing was, because I grew up in Germany and moved to America, when I was a kid, I got to see a lot of different perspectives growing up. Not only me being mixed, having a white father and a black mother, already gave me a lot of perspective on life, but also me living in Europe and then in America and seeing the different walks of life gave me a more open minded perspective towards life. When I was growing up, every school that I would go to, I was either really the only black kid or the only white kid or like the blackest kid or like the whitest kid. I took those experiences and I took them as learning experiences. Now, when I found people like Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, they gave me a means of “yo, you belong here,” you know, and it doesn't matter if you're black, white, gay, straight, whatever the fuck you are, you know. So me naturally being an artist growing up all my life and then seeing these guys, they had just like inspired me so heavily to a point where I was just able to and wanted to freely express myself the way that they had. 

How did your latest single ‘Cash On A Wednesday’ come to be?

It started off with a beat I made in my living room. At the time I was living in Brooklyn with some roommates, and I took that beat, exported it and I put it on my phone and like a week later I was headed to this job interview for Amazon. It was actually on a Wednesday. I was already an hour and a half to Staten Island, from Brooklyn, and I look at my bag and I go “Holy fuck, I forgot my passport and my social,” the only two things that I needed to bring. I had this experience from Amazon and going there, not getting the job, I was like, damn, I need the bag man.

As far as the lyrics go, I really took those life experiences into account and I really wanted to touch upon the fetishization of black hair. Specifically, growing up, especially in Germany, where black people and black exposure with hair, I wouldn't say it's nonexistent, but it's very slight. Like, I lived in a village with maybe three black people straight up.

I feel like, not only would it be nice to be paid for these things, but if anything, I feel like we deserve it, you know, and that's I think overall is what cash on Wednesday is about, like, fuck these ignorant people, let's get our reparations. 

What is your message and advice to younger creators and musicians? 

I think this is a message that should be broadcasted towards all walks of life, not only mixed people: Be yourself and don't let nobody stop you. 

So, I think that for all artists and even non-artists, whoever you may be or aspire to be, when you just be yourself and you do something that inspires other people, thats amazing. It's a beautiful human interaction and I think it's one of the greatest joys: being able to do something because you genuinely want to do it to the extent that it inspires other people to follow their dream, based off that.

Final Words?

I put out music for myself and for the love of music, you know. And so when I do put out the music and other people like it, it makes me sit back and think “yeah, this is kind of crazy because when you first start making music, you don't really think other people are going to identify with it or have respect for it.

Gab gives a huge thanks to his parents, his wonderful girlfriend, his friends and family, and last but not least, all of his supporters.