evilgiane appears in our Winter 2024 Issue with cover stars L.S. Dunes, Wisp, Fall Out Boy x WWWYF, and Chase Atlantic. Head to the AP Shop to grab a copy.
2024 wasn’t just an eventful year for evilgiane — it might have very well been his busiest one yet. The Surf Gang label founder-turned-producer cranked out two full-length albums, an EP, and 28 singles, then embarked on a fall tour that took him around the world in nearly two months. When we finally get to speak, he’s calling me from a building outside somewhere in Miami, where he’s set to play a Surf Gang + NTS show at Space Basel that night. Just like his swarming, emphatic beats, he stays active — always on the way to somewhere else, but always with his finger on the pulse of the ever-shifting global drill scene.
evilgiane, born Giane Chenheu, has been a tastemaker in the underground ever since the birth of Surf Gang in 2018. He’s helped to bolster acts such as Snow Strippers and Harto Falión but has also expanded his solo resume in recent years by producing tracks for Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, and Earl Sweatshirt. Crafting a shimmering world of noise for his tracks by borrowing from indie samples, skate clip tracks, and vibrant, synthy 808s, Chenheu is providing a backdrop to a new generation’s understanding of rap.
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All through his world tour, Chenheu felt like the genre’s figurehead for the otherwise sceneless. As a Brooklyn native, he’s used to being surrounded by a teeming music culture, and his production style is tethered to his roots as a punk show spectator and skater. “It already made me versatile, because everyone comes to the city anyways,” he says. “People in New York, we don’t always do the same shit. Besides drill, that became popular, but I think we’ve always been on fast beats and techno and sampling shit — that whole wave.” But playing in places across the world that don’t have that constant stream of new artists has made Chenheu the beacon that his showgoers are venturing out for.
“In a way, you’re the scene,” he reflects. “They’re into your music and shit. It’s got me out here signing people’s shirts and all types of shit. It makes me feel like a celebrity, for real.”
Not only is Chenheu becoming a name himself — he is getting to watch his collaborators soar to success beside him as well. “40,” his first drop of 2024, saw the producer stir up an effervescent, lurching beat while new-gens Nettspend and xaviersobased lay down breezy, back-and-forth bars. The track took off, and Chenheu’s strung-out 808s and bouncy synths became a staple within the web of fast-moving rage rap that his featured artists had started to spin. On BAD ASS F*CKING KID, the 17-year-old Nettspend’s debut mixtape, he produced “Beach leak,” giving the track a lively and pulsating dreamgaze-goes-Jersey beat that clocks in at just under two minutes. xavier and Nettspend are authoring the new rap revolution, and Chenheu is the thread that keeps it streamlining forward.
“I feel like I watched both of them grow into artists,” he says. “Just being hip to their music before they were really known, and seeing how they grow and how they work. It’s super inspiring, because they’re putting a new take on what’s been happening. They’re the new pop stars right now.”
Last January, Chenheu put out #HEAVENSGATE VOL. 1, a dynamic 23-song album featuring “40” and a number of additional collaborations with other scenemakers such as Rx Papi and Slimesito. He returned to the studio with Slimesito, releasing the EVILSLIME EP in May — where Slime’s layered and feverish flow is marvelously heightened by Chenheu’s skittish and wavy construction. Working with Slime was easy, according to Chenheu — the vibe was chill and laid-back, but Slime had a vision he was eager to execute. Chenheu was ready to help him see it through.
“He knows what the fuck he wants to do,” he laughs. “But he’s also willing to collaborate and mix styles. That’s why I really like him. He’s kind of my favorite person to work with right now.”
When deciding who to collaborate with for Surf Gang, Chenheu values two traits the most: an openness to experiment and a desire to make a track a true collaboration — not just a feature on paper. “I always gotta have some type of relationship with the person, at least meet them and see if we vibe. I think when people usually work with me, they trust my vision, but I’ll be open to trying their styles, too — putting my own flavor on it. You can’t really be controlling; it’s supposed to be a collaboration. I want it to be our project.”
While Chenheu has been branching out to find new musical relationships, there was one new collaborator from this year who’s been right by his side this whole time — his younger brother, Jaden. They’ve been making music together for a while — and he even spun a special guest performance at the NTS show that happened the night after we spoke. For Chenheu, working with his brother comes easy as well, but of course — being siblings can sometimes block up the flow.
“Since we’re brothers, we get hard-headed with each other and sometimes clash, but usually it’s easygoing,” he says. “He already has his own vision, so it’s a challenge sometimes. I gotta make a beat that he’s gonna want to drop on.”
Another artist Chenheu has been experimenting with is the Spanish rapper Rojuu, who he started to work on a tape with this year. Watching how his dedicated fanbase in Latin America started to latch onto his work by default. It taught him that a collaboration between two artists means much more than adding another track to his discography — it’s a sharing of resources, a meshing of sound, a crossing over of worlds.
“The [fans] fuck with me, just on the strength of him,” he says. “I need to take a page out of his book, for real — just moving around like he is and the way he just conducts himself: just mad chill. This is the start of a good artist-to-artist collaboration and relationship.”
With several avenues and opportunities always open to him and at the ready, Chenheu is always eager to tackle a new project — even if that means letting unfinished ones simmer on the back burner. “I always get lost in the sauce,” he admits. “It’s some ADHD shit where I’ll start something, and I’m on to the next. I’ll come back to shit or finish it in one go — it really just depends. It also helps having friends and a team to help me organize so I don’t get too far out and stuff just gets lost in the ether.”
Even though he’s exhausted from 2024, Chenheu wants to keep on going. Extensive touring means less time in the studio working on music, and he cannot wait to lock back in. He has an ambient project that he wants to put out — a slight detour from pure hip-hop, something more in line with the slow-burning, ethereal track “INSTANT DEATH” he put out with Nourished by Time and Goner this year. Plus, there’s almost always a tape to drop, a collab to finish, and a connection to make — whatever will further foster the community he’s worked tirelessly to build.
“I just want to make music that makes people feel,” he says. “Or at least, if the fans don’t feel it, the person I’m making it with feels it. At the end of the day, I’m here to entertain everyone, to make sure everyone has a good time.”