mateen rahmani

What did Norco Music mean to you?

For me, Norco Music was an opportunity to collaborate, learn, explore various styles of music and to interact with a variety of artists. 

Favorite memory from your time there?

One of my favorite memories was DJing at Elevate, Norco College’s rave. That was my very first time ever performing live and it gave me the confidence I needed to continue playing shows. 

What are you doing now?

Right now, my goal is to remix my entire album, Eventide, and re-release each song as a single under my new artist project, Mat Nee (5 out of 8 songs done so far!)

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced?

One of the biggest challenges so far includes working on the Norco Music albums as a studio engineer. Whenever the school year was coming to an end, Brady and I would end up spend hours in the studio on the finest of details of each song. As challenging as it was, mixing and mastering those albums significantly impacted my attention to detail with music in a positive way.

Was there a moment you knew you were on the right path?

Once my very first MIS-1 project was completed and I could play the song from my cell phone, I knew this was the career path that I wanted to pursue. Seeing a tangible result for the first time was such an incredible feeling. Collaboration, creativity and the feeling of working in a state of flow was addicting. 

What project are you most proud of?

Putting out my first album, Eventide. The whole process for me was meant to be a learning experience, but I never expected it to be as positive and powerful as it ended up being. I could feel this deep sense of purpose while working on it and it’s one of the few times where the journey itself, felt like it was the destination!

How do you stay inspired?

I always find that going to live shows and discovering new music provides me with the most inspiration. 

What advice would you give current Norco Music students?

If you’re a Norco Music student, the best thing you can do would be to invest as much time as you can into the program. I was lucky enough to be involved with several projects and processes behind the scenes that significantly impacted me as a musician and artist. The more you immerse yourself in the program, the more opportunities you have to build skills and create experiences that you can use as building blocks for your career!