Colin Benjamin / Traffic Music

I started making music in 1992. Back then (I was twelve) I got a guitar for my birthday. I got very fast hung up on the idea of being able to play an instrument. My biggest influences at that time were Jimmie Hendrix with his virtuosity as well as Rage Against The Machine with their incredible breaks in their grooves. A bit later, in 1996, I started to learn more about making beats digitally. My first "studio" was an old Atari st1024 that was linked via midi to a korg synthesizer. When starting making beats on my computer I did not only change my approach to music, but also my musical output. Hip-Hop had been an influence since I was 14, but I never was able to integrate its influence in my songs on the guitar. But it did at the computer. So at that time my output changed to Hip-Hop were it has stayed until now, besides that I still have a strong affection for melodies. In 2004 I met EMKA Prod and Lyris, with whom I founded traffic music earlier this year. Our focus is to produce and push soul /HipHop and RnB music internationally. This aim sounds maybe a bit ambitious, but we all have very international backgrounds. I for my part have lived in Germany, in the states (Princeton and Chicago) and in Amsterdam. All together we speak 5 languages, so we figured that this makes a good start for international collabos. Our first release will be on November. Via DJ Say-G we met the New Yorker rapper Sence, with whom we made the collabo you can hear on this site. Watch for it! ;-))