On Prosperity with Betelgeize
Produced by Sergio C. Muñoz at Intelatin, LLC for ZZK Culture. Seventh in Series.
This interview was produced by Sergio C. Muñoz at Intelatin, LLC. It is distributed by ZZK Culture. Special thanks to Wil Dog of Ozomatli and to PBS Studios (KLCS) for their pilot feature on our effort for the financial wellness of musicians. AMA: sergio@zzkrecords.com
Betelgeize
Author’s Note: Soundcloud has a wonderful algorhithm that pushes really obscure border-less music to me based on my tastes. On a daily basis, I listen to music that I had no idea existed from artists that I didn’t know existed in places that are way far away from the center of my universe. Ocassionally, like I did with beatfarmer before in this series, I reach out to these artists and ask them if they would like to be a part of the series. I am pleased that Betelgeize said yes to me and engaged in a dialogue with me from his villa in Bali. Upon setting up the interview, I did not know where Betelgeize was from or anything about his identity. All I knew was that I loved his song, Jaaze.
Sergio: Please describe your childhood home?
We lived in a typical building in the city of Moscow. It had nine levels and we lived on the first floor. My parents owned the apartment. A long brick building with a children’s playground and trees. I used to play futbol out in front of the building. We had a small flat inside where I lived with my mother, father and two sisters. I was the youngest in the family. I was good in sports and the captain of my team and I was also good in school. I even received a gold medal at school for learning achievements.
Sergio: Did you feel like you had prosperity in your life as a child?
My father was a very successful specialist engineer in the USSR. This changed when we transitioned to Russia. I remember one time we had an opportunity to take me to a futbol tournament in France and I remember it being relatively affordable to travel there but I realized that it took our family a lot of effort and savings to be able to let me go. Being a specialist, my father was lecturing all over the world and during the transition, his speciality lost a lot of value in Russia and I remember realizing that he needed to be more ruthless to succeed as an entrepreneur. He was much too kind for those times. I guess I would situate us as pretty poor economically in Russia but I still remember life being relatively easy for me despite all the obstacles around me. I remember times when I spent all of my time on the streets being somewhat of a hooligan and then I joined a punk rock band.
Sergio: Your music does not sound very punk rock.
I just learned to play the bass guitar. I went to DJ school much later and in 2004, I played my first set. And producing music presented itself in my life also much later. I think around 2015. I think I was one of the first DJs in Russia to produce what is now called downtempo (we called it chillrave). I had friends - duo Geju - and we would push out our music and our parties, events. We would place our singles on Soundcloud and other platforms. We were grateful to be able to perform music and make money from doing so. Over time, we were invited to perform in the US, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Indonesia, Argentina and other countries with our music.
Now I’m focused on creating a community style label that is focused on artist growth and collaboration with visual artists as well. Also we do experimental performances tied to fairytales and other cross-genre experimental events.
There was a moment when I had one of the top selling singles on Beatport. I focused on creating a community style label that was focused on artist growth and collaboration with visual artists. Lately, I have been doing experimental performances tied to fairytales.You can see some of our events on YouTube:
Sergio: What does your home look like present-day?
I have been traveling a lot lately since the war started. In 2023, I rented eight places throughout the year. Last year, we moved to Argentina to make a baby there. So, we have been talking a lot lately about where we want to live to provide stability for our baby. We still haven’t made final decision and we are still traveling between countries. For the last two months we have been living in Bali and only recently moved into the house where we live today. Bali is beautiful, tropical and very hot. Here we live on a property that has three villas with a rooftop pool and bathroom with a huge window. Our villa has two bedrooms and beautiful garden. Life here is very different from Moscow. In Moscow, you work all day and night and in Bali, its too hot to work. The food is delicious and I have lots of great friends here. I’m also deeply inside Burning Man culture (I even represent Burning Man in Russia) so I have a big community of Burners almost everywhere. I love connecting with interesting people. Last year in Buenos-Aires, I connected with Uji from ZZK, and we created a song together that is currently unreleased.
Sergio: Do you have a philosophy relative to prosperity?
As a father and as a husband, I have to have prosperity. I run a record label, I have my own music, I produce events and all of that work creates money. I am super grateful and very happy to be able to earn money from music. I think to be able to do this is already a form of success but for sure I plan to keep growing in the next years because I believe in the power of music more and more. This is the only language that can be understood by anyone without translation. So the growth of our record label, reaching new artistic levels and producing more events - these are important targets in the nearest future. I feel that I haven’t said everything I want to say in the music world.