Multi-talented brand “TwiinTowers” also “Tairiq and Garfield”. Twin brothers with a passion for music production, modeling, and playing sets.

twiins808@gmail.com

The twins got into music early, due in large part to their family: their father is Garfield Bright, a founding member of ’90s R&B group Shai (of ‘If I Ever Fall In Love’ fame) and their mother Tina Bright was the “Good” in Marla Mar & The Good ‘N’ Plenty Cru, a female rap trio that signed with Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records just weeks before his death.

The pair moved around a lot as children, and they chart their musical development through the people with whom they have lived and listened, from Zulu Nation and Native Tongues hip-hop with their mother’s friend Lisa (the ex-wife of the Pharcyde’s Romye Robinson), to Cash Money and Atlanta trap with their brother, to Portishead and trip-hop with their mother, to John Coltrane and Joshua Redman with their father.

Their parents’ profession also gave them early insight into the music industry. “At an early age, we’d always be at [our father’s] studio sessions, experiencing the lights, the SSL, him being in the booth,” recalls Garfield. “The whole group coming over, talking about the album, we were always involved in it. They probably thought we were too young to take it all in.” His brother finishes the thought: “We took everything in.”

From their mother came stories of life in L.A.’s rap world, of parties with Eazy E and Dr. Dre, and lessons about the music business. “Eazy E was a mastermind. A lot of people don’t understand, he wasn’t just a G,” explains Garfield. “He wasn’t a gangsta; he didn’t even like to rap. He told me, ‘honestly, I’m not even a rapper, I wanted to rap to see if I could do it.’”

“We’d always be at his studio sessions, experiencing the lights, the SSL, him being in the booth…”
Garfield Bright

The twins had that impulse, as well. Armed with what Tairiq describes as a “a Best Buy, consumer grade Yamaha keyboard,” a copy of Reason procured by their father and plenty of musical history and insights, the self-described “Dilla-heads” started making beats. “We kinda formulated our own sound. As soon as we got a computer with Internet, we would just look up random shit,” says Tairiq, explaining how seeing Aphex Twin and Chris Cunningham collaboration Rubber Johnny on eBaumsWorld turned into Web 1.0 rabbitholing that led the pair to “weird archives” of experimental music.

Childhood Swing is a time capsule of their teenaged experiments, its title heavy with both literal and figurative significance. “The title explains everything,” says Garfield, pointing to the literal. “We used to go over to our uncle and auntie’s house a lot as kids, and there was this swing on a tree that we’d swing crazy distances on.” Tairiq covers the figurative: “But it’s also a double entendre: the swing, the bounce of the music… As a child, taking in and grafting all these sounds.” The music on Childhood Swing is from when they were 16 or 17-years-old (they’re only 20 now); they’ve already turned high school plans into reality.

It was during high school that Tairiq and Garfield would meet Napolian (born Ian Evans). Around that time, Evans had stopped listening to hip-hop, after having it be his only musical diet since childhood. “I got into electronic music heavily,” he says, pointing to the French house that was popular at the time. “Electronic music made me want to make music.”

The three eventually started crafting beats together. “At that point I wasn’t that good at it,” he admits. “[Tairiq and Garfield] had been doing it since they were nine-year-olds.” But while the twins had a higher musical skill set, Evans brought knowledge of different musical programs in what he describes as “a mutual learning experience.” They soon decided to try to place their instrumentals with artists, and The Renaissance was born.

Their first success on that front came with Kelela’s ‘Guns & Synths’, the lead track on 2013’s Cut 4 Me. Evans originally released the track on an EP of the same name in 2011, and Kelela asked if she could use the beat for her debut mixtape. “She believed in me and she sought me out,” Napolian remembers. “I said, ‘Kelela, I don’t know… I’m trying to find my sound, I’m not ready for a vocalist,’ but then I just gave it to her,” letting Bok Bok alter it for the final release.

While the track was not originally made with Kelela in mind, ‘Guns & Synths’ demonstrates the Renaissance process with regards to working with vocalists. “I look for that special something that we can bring out, whether in the music or in the artist,” says Evans. “I leave a space open for an artist… Maybe that means there aren’t that many screaming leads on the beat, or I need to reduce this beat to a couple sounds. I just make conscious decisions and keep it simple.”